On the Fly

by Catherine Gayle

  The boy’s sister followed right behind him with a bowl of fruit salad. She wasn’t smiling, and when she saw me she looked flat-out alarmed. “Mommy?” she said warily, looking back into the open doorway.

  Shit. I didn’t want to scare the kid.

  “I’m on my way. Y’all go on,” Rachel called from inside somewhere. “Let’s surprise Mr. Jamie.”

  Hearing her voice again, that sexy accent, shouldn’t have affected me like it did. Despite that, hearing Babs called “Mr. Jamie” had me laughing out loud. The fact that she was going to feed him again made me want to kiss her. Damn it, I had to stop thinking about kissing her. At least while her kids were around. Still, I guess Rachel had taken to heart what I’d said about him potentially burning the building down.

  The little boy didn’t seem fazed by my presence in the least. He waltzed right over to stand in front of my door, but he didn’t have a hand free to knock. “Hey, Mister,” he said, cocking his head way back. “Can you knock for me? Please?”

  “Don’t talk to strangers, Tuck,” the little girl said, retreating toward her own door. I’d known both kids had Rachel’s hair, but this was the first time I’d really gotten a good look at their faces. They both had those same fairy-dust freckles across their cheeks and noses, and the girl had the same green eyes.

  “He’s not a stranger. Mommy talked to him the day we getted ice cream.” He craned his neck back so far I thought his head might fall off and roll across the hallway like a bowling ball. “So will you knock?”

  “I’ll do even better than that,” I said. I pulled out my key and stuck it in the lock. “I’ll just open it and let you in.”

  Before I could turn the key, all hell broke loose.

  “Maddie! The cat!” Rachel shrieked from inside her apartment, just as an orange ball of fluff streaked out into the hall.

  The girl dropped her bowl at the sound of her mother’s voice. It shattered, sending bits of fruit and shards of glass flying.

  She started to take a step backward, but she was wearing socks without shoes.

  “Don’t move!” I shouted at her. I probably shouted too loud. I wasn’t really used to being around kids—not since I was a kid myself, and I was thirty now.

  Tuck started crying and pulled his plate in toward his chest. “Pumpkin,” he sobbed, but I had no idea what he was talking about. The plate tipped up, and pancakes and sausage links all mashed against him before they, too, fell to the floor.

  At least he held onto the plate. He was barefoot, too. I really didn’t need both of them surrounded by broken glass.

  The door to my apartment flew open just as Rachel made it to her doorway holding a tray of glasses filled with orange juice. Babs looked at me, then at the crying boy, then across to where Rachel and Maddie were still standing in their doorway.

  “Sheesh, what’d you do, Soupy?”

  All I’d done was come home. Now wasn’t time to argue my innocence, though. I had to sort out what needed to be done first because everyone was just standing around crying and no one was taking control of the situation.

  “Go get a broom and dustpan so we can clean this up,” I grumbled at him.

  “I can do that,” Rachel said. But she didn’t have any shoes on, either. Hell, now that I looked around, no one had shoes on but me.

  “No, go set your tray down and put some shoes on.”

  “Mommy,” Tuck sobbed, “Pumpkin runned away.”

  Fuck, Pumpkin must be the cat. I’d already forgotten about the cat.

  I must have looked as lost as I felt. Babs picked up the little boy and tossed him over his shoulder. “Come on, Ginger Ninja. You and me need to go rescue Pumpkin.” Then he took off in the direction the cat had gone. By the time they rounded the corner, the boy’s cries had turned to giggles.

  Rachel had gone back inside, hopefully to get her shoes on.

  I looked back at Maddie, who hadn’t moved a muscle since I’d shouted at her. A line of red was streaming down her right leg, starting just below her knee and ending as it met her sock, which had a growing red spot.

  “Looks like you’ve got a cut,” I said. I tried to keep my voice calm and smooth. The last thing I needed was to scare the little girl again. She seemed kind of skittish and wary, in a way that made me think of Dana. At least of how Dana was until last spring.

  Maddie nodded, her eyes wide, but she didn’t say anything.

  I took a few steps closer, closing the distance between us a little at a time. “Does it hurt?”

  She nodded again.

  “Okay. I’m gonna move you away from the glass. I’ll just pick you up—”

  I hadn’t closed the distance to her yet when Rachel darted back out into the hall and picked her daughter up, then carried her into her condo.

  She left a trail of bloody footprints in her wake.

  “Damn it,” I muttered under my breath. Rachel hadn’t put her shoes on. Now instead of just having one little girl with cuts to deal with, her mother’s feet were all torn to shreds, too. A trip to the emergency room hadn’t been in my plans for today.

  I set Maddie down on the dining room table and knelt in front of her to examine the cut. It didn’t look too bad, all things considered. Probably more scary looking than it was serious. Definitely not bad enough to call 9-1-1 or rush her off to a doctor.

  I felt Brenden coming in behind me before I heard him. My intuition was just wired that way these days. “Can you get me a washcloth from the kitchen sink?” I asked him as I gingerly felt Maddie’s cut with the tip of my finger. She sucked in a breath, but I didn’t feel anything sticking out. That was good. That meant I shouldn’t have to dig around in there with tweezers to pull out a piece of glass.

  The faucet came on for a minute, and then Brenden came up behind me. “You need to sit in a chair and let me look at your feet.”

  “Her feet are fine,” I said, exasperation edging my voice. I reached behind me and grabbed the washcloth. At least he’d thought to use warm water. I dabbed it against Maddie’s cut and then pulled it away for another look. “Maddie didn’t move, even though you shouted at her loud enough to wake the dead.”

  “He means your feet, Mommy.”

  My feet were fine. A lot more fine than he would have been if he’d dared to lay a finger on my baby girl.

  If I allowed myself to think rationally, I knew he only meant to help. I knew he wasn’t going to do anything to hurt her. But there was nothing rational left in my mind, not after what Jason had done to her. He’d stolen the part of me that could trust people with my kids as much as he’d stolen Maddie’s childhood. I couldn’t stop myself from panicking at the thought that some man I didn’t know was going to pick Maddie up. That his hands would be on her. That she didn’t know him at all, and he was going to touch her, even if he only meant to help her.

  I was still shaking, just thinking about it.

  “I’ll worry about my feet when I’m done taking care of my daughter,” I said. I wiped the cloth over the stream of blood down Maddie’s leg, but there weren’t any cuts other than that one at the top. I held the washrag in place, putting pressure on the wound. “Can you get my first aid kit? It’s in the front bathroom.”

  “I’m worried about your feet now, because it looks like a crime scene in here,” he grumbled. Then he picked me up by the waist and spun me around. He put me down in one of my dining room chairs, ignoring my huff of indignation.

  I finally let myself look at the floor. He was right. There was blood everywhere—bloody footprints traveling the path I’d taken carrying Maddie to the table and a big pool of it below me. I must have stepped in a lot of the glass to make that sort of mess, but I hadn’t felt a thing. Not really. Maybe a pinch or two, but my mind had only been on getting to my little girl and making sure she was all right.

  He took the washcloth from me and handed it to Maddie. “Can you hold that tight against your leg while I take care of your mom?”

  She nodded with big eyes.
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  “Put a lot of pressure on it, okay?”

  “Mmmhmm,” Maddie whimpered.

  His attention had already left her, though. He wasn’t looking to be sure she did it right, because he’d raised my feet and was holding them in front of his face.

  I tried to twist myself around so I could check on her, but Brenden had a firm grip on my ankles—both of them in one of his hands—and he didn’t let me move a muscle.

  “Keep it tight over the cut,” I said to her, scowling at him.

  Brenden scowled right back at me. “I already told her to do that.” He had another wet cloth in his free hand, and he dabbed it against the soles of my feet.

  I sucked in a breath at the stinging pain and tried to jerk back from him, but he kept a firm grip on me so he could keep tending my wounds. No wonder it looked like a crime scene in my dining room. I must have done a real number on my feet without knowing it.

  He grimaced, but I was pretty sure it had more to do with my struggling against him than what he saw on my feet. At least he didn’t seem squeamish. “You’ve got glass in here still. Quite a bit of it. I need tweezers to get it out.”

  I heard Tuck’s giggles coming from down the hall, along with Pumpkin’s growls. Pumpkin was good about putting up a vocal argument when he wasn’t happy, but it was all talk. He’d never bitten anyone, and he only ever used his claws accidentally. He definitely wouldn’t hurt Tuck, and I was pretty sure Jamie should be fine, too. I wasn’t worried. They disappeared into the apartment across the hall—most likely to get shoes for Jamie. Probably a good plan. I tried not to worry about Tuck being alone with him, but my worry-o-meter had been going haywire for about six months now.

  Brenden’s focus remained on my feet. “Tweezers?” he urged me again.

  “In the front bathroom. Right next to the first aid kit.”

  Jamie poked his head through the open doorway, holding Tuck in one arm and a very flat-eared, perturbed-looking Pumpkin in the other as he skirted around the mess on the floor. I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding once they came into view.

  “I’ll get them,” Jamie said. “I’ll just put these two in Tuck’s room for now so they can play.”

  “I wanna help!” Tuck squealed, but it was a happy squeal. At least he was okay.

  Jamie was already carting my son and my cat down the hall. “You can help by keeping Pumpkin safe. Okay? Make sure your ninja moves are better than his so he doesn’t cut his paws on the glass.”

  Tuck started giggling again. Even after Jamie had deposited him in his room with Pumpkin and shut the door to be sure they stayed there, my son’s laughter rang through our apartment.

  A second later, Jamie came back out with tweezers and the first aid kit, tossing them over to Brenden. “You got this, Soupy? I’ll clean up.”

  My kids were the ones who’d made the mess, though, and it was my blood all over the floor. I didn’t want him cleaning up after me any more than I wanted him to feel like he had to help me unload my car or put together my furniture. And I really wanted Brenden Campbell to let go of my ankles so I could take care of my own feet. I tried to tug them free again. “You don’t have to—”

  Brenden tightened his grip on me, and his eyes flashed up to meet mine briefly. Gorgeous eyes. They were a rich, chocolate brown and had these deep-gold flecks near the pupils. Eyes I could melt into, if he wasn’t glaring at me.

  Good thing he was glaring.

  “Be still so I don’t push any of this glass in deeper.”

  I huffed so hard that my bangs flew up in the air. That would have made me laugh if I wasn’t so frustrated. But he was right—the last thing I needed was to send any of those shards deeper into my feet than they already were. It was only after he’d started to tend to my feet at all that I’d realized how badly I was hurt. Adrenaline can get you through some crazy things, especially if your kids are involved.

  After a few minutes, Jamie had cleaned up the food and glass, both in my apartment and out in the hallway, and Brenden had removed all the glass from my feet. He methodically cleaned the cuts and spread antibiotic ointment all over before wrapping gauze around them both.

  He was still wrapping me up when Jamie was ready to clean up the blood covering the floor between my doorway and my dining room table. “Where’s your mop, Rach?” Jamie asked.

  “Hall closet,” I hissed out. Even just the tiniest bit of pressure Brenden was putting on the bottoms of my feet felt excruciating. The next several days would be miserable, until they started to heal. With my luck, then they’d itch.

  Brenden finished with me and moved back over in front of Maddie. He reached for the washcloth. “Can I see?”

  Jamie took that as his cue to clean the massive pool of blood under my feet. I lifted them out of his way, and he gave me a sheepish grin. After a brief glance up at Jamie, Maddie nodded at Brenden and pulled the cloth away. Her cut had already clotted, so there was no more bleeding. But he still took the tube of ointment and squeezed out a little bit, then fished a bright pink Barbie Band-Aid out of the first aid kid, settling it into place over her cut. He didn’t touch her anywhere other than where he had to in order to tend to her wound, which helped keep me from spazzing out on him.

  “All better?” he asked her.

  She nodded again.

  “Good.” He started putting away the first aid supplies.

  I wanted him to leave, because I couldn’t decide whether to like him or run him off. He was kind of gruff, but he and Jamie had been the calm ones who had kept their cool and sorted out the chaos. But how could I know if I should trust him—either of them? Maybe they would go with a little urging, though. I could drop a few hints that my kids and I needed to get on with our day.

  “How about you go check on Tuck and Pumpkin and make sure you two get some clothes on?” I said to Maddie. “Then I’ll figure out what to do for breakfast.”

  Maddie nodded one more time and eased herself off the table. She headed down the hall but stopped and returned before she got to Tuck’s room. “Mr. Jamie, I’m sorry I messed up your surprise.” She didn’t quite look up at him, but that was still a huge step for her. Maddie didn’t really talk to men much. Or to any adult besides me and her counselor.

  Before I had wrapped my mind around it, she really threw me for a loop. “And thank you for taking care of me and Mommy, Mr. Soupy,” she whispered. Then she spun around again and was in Tuck’s bedroom with the door closed behind her.

  Mr. Soupy. I hadn’t missed what she’d called him, and neither had he if the tic that jumped to life in his jaw was any indication.

  Brenden came back over to me to put medical tape on my bandaged feet—a necessity to keep the gauze in place. He’d gone through probably half my first aid supplies in trying to take care of me. His eyes flicked to mine for just a second, but he didn’t say anything.

  I tried to ignore the fact that I’d have to go stock up at the pharmacy again—and I tried to ignore him, too, because I was confused about what was the best thing to do with him. Instead of thinking any more about Brenden, I smiled at Jamie. “You’re good with Tuck.”

  He blushed again, returning the mop to the closet and turning his back in what seemed to me to be an effort to hide his embarrassment. “Yeah. Well…I’ve had lots of practice. I’m the oldest of seven. All boys. The youngest is about Maddie’s age.”

  That explained a lot.

  I figured I should say something to Brenden, too, about how he’d been good with Maddie. He’d even thought to use a Barbie Band-Aid, not one of the plain, flesh-toned ones. I couldn’t seem to make myself say anything, though. I didn’t particularly want him to be good with Maddie. I wanted him to stay away from her, from both of us. Then I felt like a hypocrite, because I wasn’t having the same reactions to Jamie as I was to Brenden.

  So, I didn’t say anything at all.

  After a few moments, Brenden let out a weird grunting sound, but he finally released my feet.

 
I set them on the floor and pushed some of my weight onto them—not enough to stand up but enough to give me an idea of how it would feel. It felt like hell. I was probably lucky I didn’t need stitches. Or maybe I did need stitches. I should probably sit down and take a look at them myself, but not until I’d replenished my first aid supplies.

  I tried not to let the guys see how much pain I was in. They’d already done more than enough.

  “Thank you—both of you—so much,” I said. I just wanted them to leave so I could decide what to do about the two of them. Even more than that, I didn’t know how I felt about not knowing whether to trust them or not, and thinking along those lines only left me confused.

  “No problem, Rach,” Jamie said. He smiled at me again, making his dimples his most prominent feature. “Now, about breakfast…”

  I had my mouth open and was already shaking my head to turn down whatever he was going to offer to do because they had both already done far more than necessary, but Brenden cut me off.

  “Why don’t you go put your clothes on, too?” he said brusquely, in a way that made me wonder if he was angry, and if so, why? “We’ll all go out.”

  If the chaotic events of the morning had sorted anything out, it was that Rachel Shaw needed a keeper. She was one of those moms who couldn’t remember to take care of herself because she was too busy taking care of not only her own kids but everyone else around her. That never worked. Not really. Women like that just lost themselves, lost who they were, all in the name of taking care of the whole world. They spread themselves too thin, and they couldn’t really help anyone, not like that. Not if they didn’t take care of themselves first.

  Thank God my mom hadn’t been like that. She’d always been around to help me and Dana when we needed it, but she didn’t coddle us along. Not even when Dana was raped and retreated into her shell of self-preservation. Mom had done everything she could, but she’d recognized that only Dana could get herself back out of it, and it would have to be in her own time.

  Rachel was nothing like Mom. It was as if she wanted to put her kids in a protective bubble and keep them there. That wasn’t good for her or for them. Watching her bleed all over her dining room while she tried to clean up her daughter’s almost nonexistent cut had made it abundantly clear to me, even if it wasn’t clear to her.