“Smells like one of Mad Dog’s diapers,” Millie said, wrinkling her nose.
Sure enough, the trash hadn’t been taken out. Brooke handled that pronto and then gathered everyone in the kitchen.
“I’m hungry,” Princess Millie announced.
“Me, too,” Mason said.
“You only said that because I said it,” Millie said. “You’re a copycat.”
“But I am hungry,” Mason said.
Maddox barked, whether to say he was hungry or in agreement that Mason was a copycat, Brooke had no idea. She went through the kitchen and knew she’d have to go to the store first thing in the morning. If she’d been home, she’d just order groceries online and have them delivered same day. But when she brought up a food delivery app, she discovered Wildstone hadn’t joined the digital age. There was no same-day delivery. There was no delivery service at all. In the freezer, she found some gluten-free, dairy-free mac and cheese that sounded . . . not promising. But there were also chicken hot dogs. So she panfried those, nuked the mac and cheese, chopped up some broccoli, and tossed it all together.
“Momma says the mac and cheese is for emergencies only,” Millie said. “Our plates are supposed to have at least three colors. Mostly we have to eat stuff that comes from the ground.”
“Tonight’s orange and brown!” Mason said cheerfully, and licked his plate clean.
“And green,” Brooke said. “That’s three.”
Millie held up her hands and walked to the sink to wash them for the hundredth time that day. She carefully dried off, then stared at them. “My skin’s ir-cated.”
“Irritated. And maybe you could try and skip a few washings.”
“Can’t.”
Brooke nodded. She got it. She pulled a hand lotion from her backpack and set it on the counter. “Use this after you wash. It’ll help.”
She then unpacked the kids and ran laundry with everyone underfoot, making her realize she hadn’t had a second alone to herself, not even to pee. Apparently privacy went the way of the dodo bird when you were a mom. She texted Mindy to check in and then ignored her sister’s million subsequent texts attempting to micromanage from LA.
She was really starting to understand Linc’s single-check-intext-a-day rule.
At some point, Maddox had stripped and was running around with his biscuits hanging out. Mason was trying on Millie’s clean clothes, and since this didn’t seem to upset Millie in the least, Brooke let him be. When she got down to the socks in the clean laundry basket, she whistled for everyone to gather round. “We’re going to play the sock game. Whoever matches the most pairs wins and gets to pick tonight’s movie.”
“Don’t let Millie win,” Mason whined, wearing a sunshine-yellow sundress and black tube socks. “She’ll pick a princess movie!”
“The princess movies are all broken,” Brooke said, and was surprised when everyone accepted this as gospel. Hey, she thought, maybe this isn’t so hard . . .
BUT BY BEDTIME, Brooke was stick-a-fork-in-her done. She got the kids into their beds and watched Maddox fall asleep on his back, arms and legs flung out, blissfully peaceful.
“Don’t grow up,” she whispered, and stroked his hair from his face. “It’s a trap.”
She wandered the house. Her childhood bedroom was now Millie’s. The master bedroom suite was available, but that didn’t feel right. So instead of going to sleep, she got herself a big, fat bowl of the ice cream she’d found in the freezer and stepped out onto the back porch.
The silence was the first thing to strike her. She’d forgotten the quiet of Wildstone. No highway noise, no trucks, no temper-driven honking from drivers stuck in traffic, no city lights . . . nothing but the sound of the night breeze in the oak trees, the singing crickets, the faraway sound of a coyote howl, and . . . a meow.
She straightened and strained to hear it again. When it came, she left the porch and followed the sound across the yard, passing the homemade Slip ’N Slide, to the house next door. For her entire childhood, the neighboring property had belonged to a wonderful woman she’d known only as Ann, who’d been a foster parent to so many kids over the years that Brooke had lost count.
She ended up on Ann’s back deck, where she was pretty sure the soft, hungry, sad-sounding meow had come from. “Hello?” she called softly. “Are you hurt?”
“Meow.” The cat that came out from beneath the porch was black as night, except for four white paws, and massive. With a welcoming chirp, she trotted toward Brooke, belly swinging to and fro with every step.
“Aw.” She bent down as the cat wrapped around her ankles. “Are you scared? Have you been abandoned? Are you hungry?”
“No, yes, and yes,” came an almost unbearably familiar male voice.
Garrett Montgomery rose out of a porch chair she hadn’t even noticed and gestured to a small wooden sign that read:
THE CATS HAVE BEEN FED, DO NOT LISTEN TO THEIR BULLSHIT.
Brooke had stilled at the sound of Garrett’s voice, but now she choked out a laugh. “Yours?” she asked, nodding to the cat.
He gave a single, barely there nod.
She had so many questions. How had he been, what was he doing here in this house he’d grown up in, did he hate her . . . In the end, she asked the only question she could. “What’s her name?” she managed.
“Princess Jasmine. She was abandoned a few years ago by a neighbor who moved on without her. Not that he deserved her, anyway. And yes, she thinks she’s hungry. She’s always hungry. I can’t quite convince her she needs a diet.”
Brooke was having a hard time getting air into her lungs. Not in the same way as she did in her nightmares; nothing as simple as that. This felt like a ball of nostalgia, yearning, and need all mixed together and stuck dead center in her throat. Garrett had been one of Ann’s foster kids. He’d also been Brooke’s first crush. Her first heartbreak. Her first everything.
And they hadn’t spoken in . . . well, years.
All her doing.
The air crackled with awkwardness and regrets. So much regret. And while she was shocked to the core to see him, she could tell he wasn’t surprised in the least to see her. She let out a shaky breath and met his gaze for the first time in seven years. His eyes were amused but distant—which she 100 percent deserved. “You adopted her,” she guessed. “And let Millie name her.”
“Actually, she adopted me, and yes.”
The ball of emotion in her throat swelled. It might’ve been seven years, but she knew this man, knew that he knew a little something about abandonment and had lived his life accordingly. “Sucker,” she said lightly, and scooped up the cat, who lifted her face to rub against Brooke’s. “You’d adopt a coyote if it came knocking at your door in need.”
He lifted a shoulder in a guilty-as-charged gesture.
They stared at each other some more, and something heavy slid through her. More regret, and the sense of a future lost. Swallowing hard, she handed him his cat. “How’ve you been?”
He gave one short, mirthless laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
Yeah, he was right. Turned out you really couldn’t go home again. She’d actually thought she could. She’d told herself he deserved the closure, and if he hated her, she’d just have to take it. And in the meantime, she’d get to know her niece and nephews before heading back to LA. But she’d been stupid to think she could handle any of it. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.