Behind Kinsley, Cait gave Marty a flat stare. “Oh, good. I can give you that World’s Bestest Dad coffee mug I bought for you fifteen years ago.”
Sunny didn’t know if it’d been that long since Marty had been here, and he didn’t react to his daughter’s ire. He simply smiled.
“Cait, darlin’,” Marty greeted, but he didn’t make a move to give her a hug when Cait walked past Kinsley and Lenore and went into the house. Marty had probably backed off because it seemed as if Cait had sprouted invisible porcupine quills. She looked as bristly as Shaw.
But the World’s Bestest Dad ire award belonged to Lenore.
“Oh, good,” Lenore said in a voice that mimicked Cait’s tone. “I can make the whole wheat prune surprise recipe I’ve been saving just for you.” Lenore came closer, too, following in Cait’s steps, but she stopped in the doorway and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I hope it gives you the runs you deserve. You should have done better by this girl, Marty.”
Marty did hug her despite the fact that Lenore’s body went as stiff as her upper lip had gone. Marty chuckled as if that were a fine joke and not the threat Sunny believed it to be. If Lenore could somehow get that colon-blowing food combination into Marty, she’d do it, and that’s probably why Lenore made a beeline for the kitchen.
Only then did Marty finally turn his attention to Kinsley.
The girl was eyeing Marty not with venom or intentions of giving him any World’s Bestest Dad treatment. She had her teeth clamped over her bottom lip and suddenly looked very, very young. Very, very emotional, too. Her eyes were shining, and even though she was blinking hard, Sunny thought the tears might win.
“You came.” Kinsley’s voice was small.
“I did. Wanted to meet my girl. Hey there, darlin’.”
Marty flashed a smile that Sunny was certain had worked on most people he wanted to charm, and she was surprised when it seemed to work on Kinsley, too. When Marty went to her and hugged her, Kinsley practically melted into his arms.
Part of Sunny melted, too, and not in a good way. Marty didn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body, but he was filled with plenty of irresponsible bones. Or at least he had been. Maybe he’d turned over a new leaf. She hoped that was true for Kinsley’s sake.
“Dad,” Kinsley muttered while she continued to hug him.
“You’re as pretty as a picture,” Marty muttered right back to her. He kissed the top of her head and pulled away, but kept his arm looped around her waist. “Now, darlin’, let’s go inside and get some things worked out with the social worker.”
Sunny didn’t know who was more surprised that Marty knew about CPS being there, but she thought Cait won that award. Of course, her surprise was still mixed with a boatload of skepticism.
“Did you ask her to come here?” Cait said to Marty. She hiked a thumb at Ms. Marbury, who was now standing and eyeing all of them.
“No, but I knew she was coming. Aurora got in touch with me and told me there’d been a complaint. Against Shaw,” he added, sparing his son a glance that seemed to imply that he knew such a complaint would be bogus.
“My mom?” Kinsley asked. “She knew how to get in touch with you?”
“No. She found me by reaching out to some of our old friends. I was having a chat with Aurora in San Antonio when she got word from CPS that they were on their way here. They called her to let her know. I figured I’d better come to Lone Star Ridge to meet you and sort things out.”
Sunny figured that Marty must have done some BS-ing to talk his way into so many women’s beds, but that didn’t seem like BS to her. And it had to be a good sign that Aurora was now willing to talk to Marty about Kinsley.
“Am I to understand that you expect me to believe you’re Kinsley Rubio’s father?” Ms. Marbury asked. “You’re that singer, Marty Jameson.”
“I’m both that singer and her father,” Marty insisted, not with the evil eye and sour-lemon mouth that the social worker was giving him. Someone who didn’t know Marty might have thought he was turning on the charm with his solar-flare smile, but Marty didn’t have to turn it on. He lived in the charm zone.
“See the resemblance?” Marty asked the woman.
While he still had his arm around Kinsley, he caught onto the sleeve of Cait’s shirt and pulled her closer. Presumably so that Ms. Marbury could realize that they did indeed look alike. And they did. Even with her eyes narrowed to skeptical slits, the woman had to see that.
“You expect me to take your word on that?” the social worker snapped. “Because I don’t. There’s been a complaint—”
“A bogus one,” Shaw said, probably wanting to use a much stronger word for the shitty thing Sunshine had done.
“What kind of complaint?” Kinsley said, and some of the “I’m hugging my dad” glow vanished when she turned frosty eyes on the woman.
Ms. Marbury didn’t flinch even though she had a roomful of Jamesons and Sunny staring her down. “There’s a question about you not being supervised properly, that you’ve been allowed to run wild and you haven’t been doing your schoolwork.”
Considering that Kinsley was still holding on to an algebra book, it seemed to confirm the bogusness of the last part of the complaint.
“Trust me, I’ve been supervised,” Kinsley snapped. “And the only time I ran wild was when a bee tried to fly in my hair. Who made those bullshit claims?”
Sunny wished the girl had held back on the profanity, but maybe Ms. Marbury wouldn’t hold that against her.
She did.
Volleying accusing glares at the Jamesons—and Sunny—the woman went closer to Kinsley and actually reached out for her. Kinsley stepped back, and Marty moved in front of her like a shield.
“The girl is coming with me,” Ms. Marbury insisted.
“No, she’s not.” That specifically came from Marty, but Cait, Shaw and even Kinsley voiced variations of it. Kinsley went for another dash of profanity. “No way in hell.”
“You don’t have to go with her, darlin’,” Marty told Kinsley as if his word were gospel. He took a folded-up piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Ms. Marbury. “Kinsley’s mother, Aurora Rubio, wrote that. It’s permission for Kinsley to spend as much time here at the ranch as she wants. She’s a Jameson, and she belongs here.”
Wow, Marty just kept ringing up the surprises today, and Cait, Kinsley and Shaw all went to the social worker so they could read, along with Ms. Marbury, what Aurora had written.
“You can see at the bottom that she had it notarized,” Marty went on. “That’s what Aurora and I were doing when she got the call about CPS coming out here. Aurora and I got together so we could do this for Kinsley, and then Aurora gave me the original papers so I could bring them here to you.”
Ms. Marbury didn’t respond. She kept reading and apparently rereading because she continued to fix her attention to the page minutes after Shaw, Cait and Kinsley had stepped to the side.
“My mom doesn’t want me,” Kinsley said.
And that broke Sunny’s heart a little. Of course, Kinsley had known that her mother had basically run out on her, but it made things harder to see it in writing.
Still, there was a silver lining here. Marty had cared enough to go to Aurora and get this kind of permission. He was finally manning up, and while he still didn’t deserve the World’s Bestest Dad award, this was a step in the right direction.
“This permission doesn’t address the complaints,” Ms. Marbury said after some snail-crawling moments.
Everyone but the social worker huffed.
“None of those accusations are true,” Sunny said. “My mother made them because she wanted to get back at Shaw.” She could see Ms. Marbury gearing up to argue so Sunny just rolled over her. “Besides, Kinsley will be here with her father, and he’ll be supervising her. That’s not only what Aurora Rubio wants, it�
�s also what everyone else wants.”
“I’m staying,” Kinsley snarled. Though Sunny wished the girl had used a more pleasant tone, it did let Ms. Marbury know she would have an uphill fight to take Kinsley. A fight the social worker would lose, thanks to Aurora giving her permission.
More seconds crawled by, and Ms. Marbury took out her phone and snapped a picture of the permission slip. “I’ll talk to my supervisor about this. And to Mrs. Rubio. If she has any doubts about her daughter being here—any doubts—” she emphasized, “then I’ll be back.”
Sunny didn’t exactly hold her breath while the woman walked out, but apparently that was what Kinsley was doing. The girl made a noisy exhale and then glanced around as if asking—what now?
Uh, what now, indeed?
Sunny had thought it was a good idea for the social worker to know who and what was behind the complaint against Shaw, but she wasn’t part of the family dynamics and decisions that needed to be made about Kinsley. Especially any decision that involved Marty. She couldn’t see Lenore just welcoming him back into the house, but maybe Shaw’s mother wouldn’t mind Marty staying there for a while until he worked out something more permanent with Kinsley.
“I’ll just be going,” Sunny said, picking up her purse. She wanted to kiss Shaw goodbye, but it wasn’t the time for that. Sunny had only made it two steps when Marty spoke.
“I need to head out, too,” Marty said. “Aurora wanted me to have dinner with her tonight so I have to get back to San Antonio.”
The room suddenly got quiet again. Very quiet. And it lasted until there was a loud crash. Sunny’s gaze zoomed across the room to see Lenore standing in the archway that led to the kitchen. She’d dropped a dish of...well, something. It was brown, orange and oozy.
“You’re leaving?” Lenore asked.
Kinsley asked the same question, but her voice wasn’t filled with anger like Lenore’s. Kinsley looked and sounded shocked.
“Darlin’, I’m sorry, but I can’t stay,” Marty said as if that’d been obvious right from the start. “I just wanted to come out and meet you and give Shaw that paper so CPS would get off his back. Oh, and I wanted to give you this.” Marty took something else from his pocket and handed it to Kinsley.
A check.
Sunny couldn’t see the amount, but even if it was for millions, it wouldn’t have been enough. Of course, Marty himself wasn’t enough, either.
And he never had been.
“Great to meet you, darlin’,” he told Kinsley. “I’ll try to get out this way again soon.” Marty kissed a stunned and motionless Kinsley on top of her head and looked around as if he might give Cait and Shaw a hug, too. He backed off when Shaw scorched him with another glare.
No glare for Kinsley. With her algebra book in one hand and the check in the other, she hurried past Lenore and the slimed floor, and headed toward the back of the house.
There was so much anger in Lenore, Cait and Shaw that Sunny thought it was possible their muscles had atrophied. They all stood there glaring at the butt hole of a man who’d just stepped on the heart of another one of his kids.
“I’ll go check on Kinsley,” Sunny offered. Not only did she not want to be part of what was about to happen in this room, she really did want to make sure Kinsley was okay.
But how could she be?
That “permission” basically spelled out that her mother didn’t want her, and now Marty had just spelled out the same thing.
Sunny made her way through the house, and when she spotted Kinsley running toward the barn, that’s where Sunny headed, too. When she reached the barn, she found the algebra book on the ground, right by the ladder leading to the hayloft.
“I want to be alone,” Kinsley snapped when Sunny climbed up into the hayloft and sat next to the girl.
Sunny ignored that and pulled Kinsley into her arms. And just like that, the girl broke. These weren’t angry sobs like the ones in the bathroom at Em’s. Her tears were almost silent which made them worse. Maybe Marty hadn’t just broken Kinsley’s heart. He might have broken her. If so, maybe Sunny could hold him down so that Lenore could force-feed him that prune casserole.
“He doesn’t want me,” Kinsley muttered.
Sunny wanted to say something to dispute that. She couldn’t. She didn’t know what made Marty tick, but there was a definite disconnect in any parental feelings or responsibilities.
“Maybe Marty’s just a wuss,” Sunny finally said. “Maybe he gets so overwhelmed with responsibilities that he just runs for cover. And he writes checks.”
Sunny doubted that helped, but Kinsley’s crying did ease up a bit. She fished through her purse and came up with a small package of tissue for the girl. Kinsley was mopping up her face when there were footsteps on the ladder. A moment later, Cait appeared.
“Marty deserves a kick to his nuts,” Cait declared. “Since I was perilously close to doing the kicking, I decided to come out here and cool off.” She had a huge box of Milk Duds with her and dropped them in Kinsley’s lap. Judging from the way Cait was chewing, she’d already tapped into the sugary supply.
Resting her back against a hay bale, Cait sat across from Kinsley and gave the girl’s foot a nudge with hers. “Want to stay the night at my place? We can watch movies with hot guys in them and do internet searches on how to put curses on Marty.”
“You don’t have to be nice to me,” Kinsley concluded, but she did eat a Milk Dud.
“Okay. So, you can do my laundry first and clean my house,” Cait amended. “Then, we’ll watch the movies and read about curses.”
Kinsley looked up at her. “He doesn’t want me.”
“Naw,” Cait disagreed. “He wants you. He wants all of us. He just doesn’t want to be a real honest-to-goodness father.”
Cait was right. But where did that leave Kinsley? Sunny was mulling that over when there were more footsteps. Shaw, this time, and he dropped down across from Kinsley and Sunny.
“Marty needs his balls kicked,” Shaw grumbled, helping himself to a Milk Dud.
“Told you,” Cait said as if there’d been any doubts about that. “So, what’s the plan?” she asked Shaw.
Shaw took a deep breath before he responded. “Leyton will be talking to both Marty and Aurora tonight while they’re having dinner. Leyton says he won’t let them leave until they’ve worked out some custody arrangements.”
All things considered, Sunny thought that was a good idea. Leyton could be very persuasive. If anyone could talk some sense into Marty, it would be Leyton. Or so Sunny hoped. Because Kinsley desperately needed this to be fixed.
“Okay, let’s go,” Cait said, giving Kinsley’s foot another nudge. “A sleepover at my house. Bring the Milk Duds.”
Cait’s gaze met Shaw’s for a second, and something passed between them. Some kind of unspoken conversation between siblings. Shaw gave Cait’s hand a squeeze before Kinsley and she headed back down the hayloft stairs.
“We keep ending up here,” Sunny said, thinking they could use some levity.
She hadn’t expected it to work, but Shaw managed a slight smile before he shifted positions and dropped down beside her. Sighing, cursing, he pulled her into his arms.
“Marty and his shit storms,” Shaw said. “They’re his specialty.”
No argument from her on that, and Sunny would have asked him more about this meeting with Leyton, Marty and Aurora, but her phone rang. One look at the screen, and she realized Marty wasn’t the only shit storm creator of the day.
Sunshine’s name was on the screen.
Sunny nearly hit the decline button, but then she decided it might do Shaw and her some good if they could let Sunshine know that her plan to get back at Shaw had failed.
“Put it on speaker,” Shaw said when he saw who the call was from. Obviously, he was on the same venting-and-gloating page as she was.
Well, most of that was true, but everything was far from being cleared up. Still, no reason to tell Sunshine that.
“Cat got your tongue?” Shaw asked when Sunshine didn’t say anything.
“You think you’ve won?” Sunshine finally snapped. “Well, you haven’t. Call off your lawyer, Shaw.”
“No,” he said without a second of hesitation. “I’m not going to make it easy for you to screw over Sunny by publishing her sketchbooks.”
“We’ll see about that.” Sunshine was still snapping. “There’s plenty about my daughter that you don’t know. Plenty that she doesn’t know about you.”
Sunny looked at Shaw to see if he knew what Sunshine was talking about, but he shook his head. Sunny didn’t have a clue, either.
“Call off your lawyer,” Sunshine repeated, “or Sunny will find out exactly the kind of man you really are.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SHAW WOKE UP the moment he heard his front door open. As usual, it hadn’t been locked, but he’d never had someone just walk in at—he checked the clock on the nightstand—three in the morning.
Definitely not normal visiting hours.
If it’d been one of the hands coming to inform him of an emergency, they would have knocked. So, this was family and likely a different kind of emergency. Hell. Considering that he hadn’t heard from Leyton as to how his meeting had gone with Marty and Aurora, it could be his brother delivering bad news.
Shaw gripped the covers to throw them back so he could get up, but his bedroom door opened. There was no light on in the room, and he’d pulled the curtains, but there was enough illumination coming from the light over his stove that he could see his visitor.
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