But she’d changed plenty, and she turned away to go back to staring out the window. “Thanks for breakfast, but Mindy shouldn’t have bothered you to come check on me.”
“I didn’t come for you.”
She closed her eyes against the memories that low, husky voice of his brought up. “No?”
“I’m a general contractor, among other things. Your sister and Linc hired me to renovate this house. I’m working on the master bathroom this week. I came a little early to check on the kids. As you probably know, Linc’s out of town, and Mindy’s . . . not herself right now.”
Well, that was one way to put it. And what did he mean, “among other things”? She was startled out of her thoughts by a metallic banging.
Pushing off the counter, Garrett opened the fridge, grabbed some lettuce and a few strawberries, and vanished into the pantry. When he came back out, his hands were empty. “Ketchup,” he explained. “He bangs on the pie tin in the mornings to be fed. You won’t have to worry about feeding him again until tomorrow morning.” He turned to leave the kitchen, but then paused. “Also, Mindy seems . . . better. She said your bed’s comfortable.”
Brooke let out a rough laugh. “Well, as long as she’s comfortable.”
From upstairs came an angry bellow and then a thump. Brooke set down her food and coffee and went running. Garrett beat her to the boys’ room.
Mason and Maddox were playing dodgeball, only instead of using a ball, they were chucking other things at each other. Shoes, boots, toys . . .
The place looked like a cyclone had hit it. “What the hell?” Brooke asked.
Mason stopped in the middle of throwing a pillow at his baby brother. “That’s a bad word.”
Maddox tipped his head back and howled like a coyote.
Millie wandered in. “You’re both going to be in trouble,” she informed her brothers loftily.
“Why are you all even awake?” Brooke asked, boggled at the level of destruction.
“Cuz it’s morning,” Mason said.
Barely. “But you were both sick last night.”
“Not anymore.”
She checked them all for fever. No one had one.
“They’re resilient,” Garrett said.
Yeah, like cockroaches. She pulled out her vibrating cell phone. Mindy had resorted to texting instructions now, since “apparently you’re ignoring emails.” Brooke sighed. “I’m supposed to get you all to camp.”
“And I’m going to work,” Garrett said.
Once he was gone, Brooke looked at the kids. “Okay, this is going to be a team effort. First up, everyone brush your teeth.”
Five minutes later she went into the bathroom to see what was taking so long and found all three struggling for the power seat over the vent to keep their butts warm. She pointed at Millie first. “Go get dressed.”
“What should I wear?”
“Whatever floats your boat.” Brooke turned to Mason next. His wild-man-of-Borneo hair was doing its thing. He said, “I can do it!” and also took off. This left Maddox. His pj’s were on inside out—her bad—and he had a now familiar odor about him. Damn. “Have you ever thought about losing the diaper?”
Maddox tilted his head to the side in a classic male huh?
“If you wear real undies,” she said. “You’re no longer a baby. You’re practically a grown-up. Grown-ups get to do a lot of fun stuff that babies can’t.”
He smiled and barked, and after she changed him and set him free to find clothes, he showed up dressed in Hulk sweats. No diaper.
Progress.
Mason had pulled on Millie’s dress from the day before. Brooke looked over at Millie.
“It’s okay with me,” Millie said. “I already wore it this week.”
“Is camp going to be okay with it?” Brooke asked.
“Yes. They appreciate gender fluidity.”
Brooke blinked. “Are you going on eight, or thirty?”
Millie shrugged and slowly washed her hands. For the fourth time in the past few minutes. She carefully applied lotion afterward and then showed Brooke. Way less red today.
“Nice,” Brooke said. “Now tell me why you seem to be stalling about getting dressed.”
“Because Charlotte’s going to be at camp.”
“Okay. And . . . we don’t like her?”
“She copies me, everything I do. Riding bikes. Hopscotch. Basketball. She even pretends she has to wash her hands and count by fours. And she doesn’t do any of those things as good as I do.”
Brooke looked at her adorable, wonderfully confident but slightly too full of herself niece. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘Be the girl who fixes another girl’s crown without telling the world it was crooked’?”
“I don’t have a crown anymore. Mommy took it away because she didn’t like my bad ’tude.”
“It’s a metaphor,” Brooke said. “Which means figure of speech. It’s not a real crown. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes. I shouldn’t tell her she’s a copycat and that I don’t like her.”
“Exactly.”
Millie sighed dramatically.
“All you can do is your best,” Brooke said.
Mason had pulled a sweatshirt on over the dress and was struggling with the zipper. Kneeling before him, Brooke tried to take over, but he yelled, “I can do it!”
A theme, it seemed. She lifted her hands in surrender and he hunched over in concentration, tongue between his teeth, in a battle of wills with the zipper.
“Mas—”
“I can do it!”
Brooke backed off, but watching him was painful, especially because he hadn’t yet managed to line up the teeth on the zipper, which meant this was going to happen approximately never. “How about I just get it started, and—”
“I CAN DO IT!”
Okay, then. She called the camp. “Listen, my nephew’s going to be a few minutes late because apparently he can zip his jacket all by himself.”
Millie came back into the room wearing black tights with strawberries on them and a strawberry-red dress. She pointed to the pockets. “I’ve just got to fill my snack holes and I’ll be ready to go.”
Brooke thought this was brilliant. “Every outfit should have snack holes.”
Millie nodded sagely.
Five minutes later, they were in the kitchen working on breakfast when Garrett reappeared. He eyed Maddox, facedown on the floor crying. “Problem?” he asked over the din.
“Whyever would you think that?” Brooke asked.
This got her the slightest of lip twitches.
Mason and Millie just kept eating their granola with chopped-up bananas. After she got to the store later and bought fresh stuff, she’d be able to get more than two colors in their bowl.
Garrett glanced at the still facedown-on-the-floor Maddox. “What’s wrong with this one?”
“He’s upset that his sweatpants match his sweatshirt, even though he dressed himself.”
Garrett nodded like this made perfect sense. He crouched low, balanced on the balls of his feet, and murmured something softly for Maddox’s ear only, rubbing the toddler’s back with an easy, warm affection.