by Emilia Finn
“I don’t have to prove a damn thing to you, because I’m not asking for permission.” I lift to my knees, jam one into his ribs just to add insult to injury, then I drop down again and restart with my arms.
“Iowa!” Evie sprints into the training room Bry and I have exclusively to ourselves, but I ignore her, bring a fist under Bry’s guard, and snap his mouth shut. “Time! Iowa!”
“Hang on a sec—”
“Iowa!” Mac booms when he joins Evie at the doorway. His tone is different. His panic, his demand, it brings me to an instant stop. My heart skips, then it restarts and thrums a million beats a minute. “It’s Brooke.”
I throw myself off Bry and dive toward my ringing phone. I fucking knew I should answer. I knew, but I was caught up in a pissing match with Bry. I ignored my instincts. Ignored what I knew, and now everything is going to hell.
I slam my finger against the green icon, and bring the phone to my ear. “Brooke!”
“Come home, Miles.” Her voice shakes. It trembles and breaks as sounds of twigs breaking, wind whistling through trees, slides through the call. “I need you to come home right now.”
I jump to my feet and slam the octagon door open. “Alyssa? Is she on the way to the hospital?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.”
I hear the sounds of a gate. Then running.
“Jesus, Brooke!” I race through the gym and burst into the daylight, only to spin again with a roar when I check my pockets for keys – I have no fucking pockets! “Tell me, Brooke!”
“Over here.” Bry grabs my arm and tears me toward his car. He opens the door, shoves me in, then races around to his side.
“Tell me, Brooke. I’m begging you to tell me.”
“Lorna’s here.” She whispers the words. “And Karla too.”
“What?!”
Bry’s eyes snap to me at my shout. “She safe?”
I nod and point toward the road. “Karla? The woman who I literally haven’t seen in six years? Her?”
“Yeah, she’s here with her mom and some city lawyer. Miles, they’re talking about custody agreements and stuff. Upstairs, baby. Come on.” Brooke closes a sliding door, tosses something down so it makes a deep thump. Then Lyss tosses her schoolbag down. She does it every single day, so I know the very sound it makes when it hits the tile. “Miles, they’re talking about custody, joint custody, something about you not having permission to take her out of state.”
“Permission?” I shout. “From who? I’m her fucking father. Who do I need permission from?”
“Karla, I guess. I don’t know!” she cries. “Come home. But come through the forest. They’re at the gate, and I don’t wanna open the gates for them.”
I look to Bry. “She wants us to come in through the back.”
He nods. That’s all the information he needs.
“Miles?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have a lawyer?”
“No! I don’t need a lawyer. Brooke, they’re wrong. I don’t need permission to take my daughter somewhere. She’s fucking mine!” I roar. “Is she there?”
“Karla? Yeah, she’s outs–”
“No! Alyssa. Put her on the phone.”
“Miles–”
“Put my daughter on the fucking phone, Brooklyn!”
“Iowa,” Bry growls. “You’re tiptoeing that fuckin’ line. Watch yourself.”
“Fuck yourself,” I sneer. “Put my daughter on the phone, Brooke. Now.”
“Fine. Here. Come into the room, Lyss. Here, talk to your dad.”
“Daddy?”
“Lyss!” Tears race to my eyes as Bry bypasses the corner we would normally take to head home, and instead circles around. It feels like the longest way, like wasted time. “Are you okay, baby? Are you alright?”
“Why’s everyone mad, Daddy? Did you know Grandma is outside? Miss Brooke didn’t let me play with her.”
“I’m sorry,” Brooke chants. “I’m sorry, baby. You can play with Grandma just as soon as Daddy says it’s okay.”
“Baby?” I ask. “Where are you?”
“I’m at home. We’re playing hide-and-seek with Twain.”
“Good! Perfect. Awesome game, baby. You hide with Twain, okay? And you don’t come down until Daddy gets you.” I look to Bry. “Or Uncle Bry. You’re allowed to go with Uncle Bry, okay?”
“Okay.” Her voice cracks. “Why is everybody mad, Daddy? Am I in trouble? They had cupcakes in class today, but I didn’t have one. I said no thank you, I swear.”
“I know, baby. I know. I trust you.”
“I’ll pick up my schoolbag,” she cries. “Miss Brooke told me to put it down and come upstairs, so I threw it down, but I’m sorry.”
“You’re not in trouble, babe. I swear you’re not in trouble. Daddy will be home in a second. I’m going to talk to Miss Brooke and find out what’s going on. Then we’ll get you a cupcake, okay? A yummy one that won’t make you sick.”
“Okay. Twain says hello, Daddy. He licked the phone.”
“Okay.” I swallow back the panic that threatens to choke me as Bry pulls onto a tiny dirt road that leads nowhere. He pulls in, cuts the engine, then jumps out of the car.
I push out just a second after him, keep the phone plastered to my ear, and because he runs, I follow. Through the forest, under branches, over logs and boulders. With it being so close to December now, white fog races ahead of me, and my feet sting, since they’re still bare. I’m in shorts, no shirt, no shoes, since we were sparring before the call came in.
“You still there, Daddy?”
“Uh huh. I’m running through the forest. You love when we do that, don’t you? You love when we explore.”
“Uh huh. Bet you wish Twain was running with you. He’s the funniest runner when we’re in there.”
“Yep.”
I hurdle a fallen branch, and almost kill myself when I don’t focus, and stop just a foot short of slamming my head into a branch. Bry thumps his hand to my shoulder to propel me around and then forward, and only a minute later, the estate comes into view.
“Which house?” he asks.
“Lyss? Which house are you in, baby?”
“Ours. We went into Uncle Bry’s house first, but then we walked around the back and came into ours.”
“My house,” I tell him, and all the while, I wonder why Brooke went through the trouble of a decoy home.
I follow Bry right to my fence, and lift a brow at the slats of timber he pushes aside that are barely wide enough to fit us. He crouches low, makes his way through, and says nothing when a loose screw scrapes along his adrenaline-pumped shoulder.
I follow him in, take care not to catch the screw, and when we’re in, we race right through the back door and burst into my kitchen to find Lyss’ bag in the middle of the floor.
It’s like a fallen monument. A sign of something huge and horrible happening.
“Tell Daddy not to shout,” Brooke says into the phone. “Lyss, tell Daddy not to shout. We’re upstairs.”
“Daddy, don’t shout.”
“Upstairs. We’re coming.” I take the lead and race ahead, only for Bry to follow two steps behind until finally, what feels like an eternity after this call began, we explode into my spare room, to that fucking ice cream statue staring at us, and Twain’s menacing growl forcing us to stop until he realizes we’re family.
He drops to his ass in an instant, wags his tail, and nods, like we have permission to enter.
“Lyss!” I hang up and toss my phone to the floor, only to swoop into the little huddle the girls make, and scoop Lyss into my lap. “You’re okay.” I kiss her hair. Her forehead. Her cheeks. “Baby?” I pull back and study her eyes. “You’re okay?”
She nods. “Why is everyone mad? I didn’t hurt myself.”
“Just precaution, beautiful.” Bry steps in beside me, tugging Brooke to her feet until she crashes into his chest and complains at the long line of blood dribbling along his chest.
“You cut yourself on that damn screw, didn’t you?”
“Nicked me,” he brushes it off. “They still here? We didn’t look on the way in.”
“Yeah.” She shakes her head. “I dunno. Lyss has been using my phone, so I couldn’t check.”
“Come down.” Bry pulls me to my feet while I hold Lyss to my chest, and throws an arm over Brooke’s shoulder when I completely neglect her.
I have two women in my life now, but I’ve ignored one when I should be enough to take care of them both.
“I’m sorry. Brooke?” I take her from Bry, pull her into my side, and wrap one arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I panicked, but I should be thanking you for keeping Lyss safe.”
“It’s okay. It’s…” She brushes a hand over her face. “It’s fine. Let’s see if they’re still here. Then you need to talk to your lawyer. We need to figure this out.”
She stops as we leave the room, looks into my eyes. “You didn’t petition for full custody after Karla left?”
“No! I don’t– I didn’t know I was supposed to. Karla left. That was her saying she didn’t want us… right? Why would I need the court to draw up a piece of paper for that?”
“This is why.” Juliette Jones is a local lawyer. Wife to the chief of police. And the chief of police, Alex, is known as ‘Uncle Alex’ to most of the Kincaid children.
Juliette is bombshell blonde, wears a skirt suit a thousand times better than the one on Miranda, the woman who remains out front of the Rollers’ estate, and she doesn’t need the twist in her hair to be taken seriously. Beside her is Sam Turner, Alex’s brother and another person with a law degree and a special interest in child custody cases. Beside him, his wife, who just so happens to be a child welfare social worker who once worked in the city an hour from here.
The trio sits on a long sofa across from me, Brooke, and Lyss. Bry hasn’t left our side. And once they got word, Bobby and Kit came home, as did Evie, Ben, Mac, and Lucy. The family is circling the wagons, and like house calls by lawyers are typical, I now have a few with specialty knowledge sitting across from me.
“You’re on the birth certificate,” Juliette begins. “You’re her legal father, and have that documentation to prove it, but in situations such as yours, the moment the mother left and you knew your relationship was over, you should have petitioned the court for custody and child support.”
“I don’t want child support!” I snap. “I just want us to be left alone.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” she shoots right back. “This is what you should have done.”
“He was seventeen,” Kit steps forward, sits on the arm of the chair closest to Brooke. “He was a child himself and didn’t know better.”
Juliette is a fucking bitch. Or she’s just a no-nonsense attorney. But she fuckin’ shrugs.
“He chose to do something only adults should do. Which means he should have been prepared to accept the adult consequences.”
“I did! I’m right here. I’m raising her the best I can.”
“Yes, and you’re doing an amazing job, Mr. Walker. I assure you, though you may only be meeting me for the first time, I know who you are. This is a small town, and the Kincaids are friends of mine. I know your story, I know you’re a fighter. Most of all, I know you’re a good dad, but you still missed a step. You should have filed for custody.”
“I didn’t know.” I drop my face into my hands. “I didn’t… She was with me, and Karla left. I thought that was that… Lorna didn’t tell me.”
“Of course she didn’t.” Brooke wraps her arms around mine and leans close. “It’s okay. We’ll fix it. She can’t take Lyss.”
“Yes.” Juliette nods. “She technically can. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. One of you will race to the courthouse before the end of today, and file. But considering she brought a lawyer with her, I’ll wager she’s already done it.”
“She’s not taking my fucking daughter!”
“She’ll have filed a motion for reunification. The good news is that the courts take no pleasure in disestablishing custody. She’s yours, Miles. Alyssa knows you. She doesn’t know Karla. So they’re not going to rush into this, and they’re not going to force you to hand her over… today. But they’re not going to tell her no, either. She has rights, too, and since she never gave them up…”
“This is just…” I shake my head, a rejection of the very idea that this is happening. “It’s been six years. Almost seven.”
“She didn’t even recognize Karla,” Brooke inserts. “She saw her, and literally paid her no attention. She didn’t know. And Karla didn’t look at her, she refused to see her own daughter.”
“Brooklyn,” Kit admonishes. She stands from the arm of the couch, and comes around to face us. “I’m going to take Lyss into the kitchen for a moment.”
“No, I—”
“Just the kitchen,” she assures me. “Not outside, not upstairs. Just the kitchen, and I won’t let her out of my sight.” She looks to Brooke. “There are some things children should always be shielded from. This is one of them.”
“I’ll come with you,” Bry volunteers.
He comes around and holds out his hands, which Lyss accepts as he pulls her up to monkey-hug him. Arms, legs, she rests her face over the now cleaned and covered cut from the fence.
Twain has been sitting by my feet ever since we sat down, but he’s not here for me. The moment Bry carries Lyss away, he darts into the kitchen in chase. She’s his human, and he won’t leave her unguarded when he can feel anxiety in the air.
“Miles…” The other woman, Samantha – yeah, husband and wife, Sam and Samantha – sits forward and reaches across the space between us.
“What do I do?” I hate the way my voice breaks. The way tears burn the backs of my eyes. “Tell me how to fix it.”
“We’re going to counter-file,” Samantha murmurs. She’s the calm, the warm hug, where Juliette is the sword. “We’ll take care of it this afternoon, I promise.”
“I can’t…” I look at each of them in turn. “I can’t afford even one lawyer. Now I have three sitting in front of me, all on a house call. It’s already past five,” I check the clock on the wall, “it’s almost six. You guys won’t come cheap, and now you’re here after hours.”
“You don’t have to worry about paying for lawyers on this, Iowa.”
Bobby comes to sit beside me on the couch, and waits in the silence until I can gather the strength to meet his eyes. He’s Bry’s clone, but twenty-five years older, and still just as stocky as he was in all of his heyday photos.
“These people are our family,” he explains. “All three of them. And when you’re a Roller, you become family. They’re going to make sure this works out, and you won’t be left with a bill for it. I give you my word.”
“So you can pay the bill,” I choke out. “You’ll pick up the tab, and then you’ve always got that one-up. I can never repay you for that.”
Finally, I snap my eyes around to Brooke. “We could run. Let’s just—”
Sam Turner – the dude lawyer – laughs. “Don’t run, man. It never works out. Stay here, do the right thing, go through the steps. That’s the law. If you run, you’re willingly committing a crime, and then you lose her. You lose them both. You need to think things through right now, and running…” He shakes his head. “Wrong answer.”
“What’s…” I bring a shaking hand up and swipe away the tears that insist on falling. “So what do I do?”
“Business as usual,” Juliette says. “You send her to school, you pretend everything is fine. Britt’s at school. She’ll hold the fort there. But where you normally drop Lyss off at the doors, you take her all the way to her classroom. At the end of the day, you collect her from her classroom.”
She stops. Swallows. “There’s nothing stopping your ex from snatching her. And it’s not even against the law if she does. The issue then
becomes, instead of her filing against you while Lyss remains in your care, Lyss will remain in hers, and you’ll have to file to get her back.”
“How long…” My heart thumps. “How long would that take?”
She shrugs. “Months.”
“No.” I shove back and slam my head to the back of the couch. “That’s not acceptable. I will not go a single night without her. Months… that’s not going to work. No fucking way.”
“So you walk her into school. Walk her to Britt, Britt will keep her for the day, then you collect her again. Whatever you do until this is taken care of, you basically have your hands, or the hands of an ally, on her at all times. Don’t let her go. Because if they get the chance, they’ll swipe her, and then you’re the one chasing, and the only legal choice you’ll have is to wait months for a judge to give her back.”
“Have you spoken with her?” Samantha asks. “To the mother? Have you discussed what she wants?”
I shake my head. “Brooke called me, said they were here, and that they wanted to speak to me. She said the lawyer talked about custody, and now you’re here.”
“Alright… how about we invite her in?”
Her words are mild, her demeanor, her tone. And yet, she absorbs the shouted arguments without breaking a sweat.
“I know that sounds counterintuitive, but this could possibly be solved with a conversation. Bring this onto your turf, Mr. Walker. They cannot take her from your property, and I doubt there’s a single man or woman on this estate who will stand by and let her try. Either we go to court, throw our dart, and hope we hit a bullseye. Or… we simply ask her in. They can tell us what they want, we can listen.”
“And if they say they want her?” I demand.
“Well, you’ll be no worse off. We assume that’s her goal right now, but we could be wrong. Inviting her in and hearing her out shows we’re willing to be civil. We want what is best for the child.”
“The child’s name is Alyssa, and she’s mine! I am what’s best for her.”
