Chapter Fourteen
Gray
“She did… what?”
The admission nearly made me miss driving the nail into the oak paneling. It’d been the final nail, the oak panels lining throughout Josephine’s house. The others had been shotty, worn down and the revision went well with the new flooring I’d installed last week in the living room, the fresh floral wallpaper I put in even more. I pretty much had the whole crew in there to work quickly since that’s the room Laura tended to spend the most time.
Getting down from the ladder, I found Alicia in complete seriousness by what she’d told me and the realization of that had me squeezing the base of my hammer to painful proportions. Jolene had no right.
But she’d done it anyway.
My anger was a cloud in the moment and something I couldn’t easily will myself out of. What Jolene Berry had done was a complete violation of my daughter’s and my privacy and had I known about it Laura would have never been working with her in the first place. I only went to her because Jo recommended her, and now, I was kicking myself because of the fact.
I actually had to put my hand on the wall to calm myself down, lost in my head and what this invasion could mean for me and my family, but something in the end, brought me out of it, an array of roses before the light touch on my shoulder.
Alicia in all her loveliness stood before me, a lacy garment covering her bare shoulders as she’d wore a tank top today. It must have been too breezy for her liking and the rich caramel color of it brought out the deepness of her amber eyes and smooth, honeyed skin.
Her hand came down my shoulder and to my arm, which currently shook. I hadn’t kissed her again since last night but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to.
“She played with another child,” she said repeating her words of only moments before. The difference was this time I didn’t fall into a haze, something in her eyes having to do with that I believed. I was focused on them and I was able to see.
She had me sit, possibly knowing how this information was affecting me. During her story, she sat on a folding chair while talking to me. She had me take that, standing next to me.
“At least, beside another child,” she went on, her lips lifting a little in the most beautiful way. Tucking a piece of her flowing hair behind her ear, she squatted next to me, holding her legs.
“They were together in the sandbox,” she said. “At Jolene’s house one day when Laura was there for schooling. Don’t be mad, Gray. It sounded like the arrival of the other little girl was a surprise.”
So she said, the girl Jolene’s niece. Alicia said it’d been an impromptu visit and something Jolene hurried up quickly after explaining the situation to her sister who’d suddenly dropped in on her. They went to leave and that’s when they found the girls. They’d found them out back.
They’d found them playing in the sandbox.
But this had to be a lie, not making sense. My daughter didn’t play, and never, absolutely never, with others.
You’d never given her the option.
I ran my fingers over my beard, squeezing my mouth as I found Alicia again.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” I asked her, but really, I was asking no one and not expecting an answer.
One seemed to come as Alicia looked at me, her head tilted as she studied my face.
“She probably didn’t want you to get mad,” she said, then stood, hugging herself and as she did I chose to follow her.
She took in all the revisions I made on the outside, the home really coming full circle with its new roof and siding. We still had a lot to do, but we were getting there. We were.
“It’s wonderful, Gray,” Alicia said, but almost sounded sad about that for some reason, which wouldn’t make sense. Her aunt’s home gaining closer to completion would make her happy. It had to have as it’d allow her to move on to the next step.
I came up behind her, unable to help indulging in her smell or the way the little hairs that escaped at the back of her bun brushed the nape of her neck. She had this way that always got to me, which made working hard. I think that was why I’d really been cross with her the day she first played for my daughter, not because she was distracting my workers.
But because she’d been distracting me.
I closed my eyes, a change in the air causing me to look at her when she turned around. I wanted to touch her, but it seemed she wanted something else.
“I think she should go to school,” she said to me, another part of the story I’d heard. She said Jolene had led into that, which was how I found out about the woman’s niece and her sister coming over.
I honestly understood the logic, both of them seeing something that led them to believe Laura would be okay at a school. Things weren’t that simple though. Nothing ever was when it came to my daughter.
I lowered my head, my fist touching the wall.
“That’s not an option, Alicia,” I said, looking at her, but constantly finding her eyes had me wanting to tell a story I never could, I let them go. Her enrapture of me was how she’d found out things about my life and Laura’s she never should have in the first place. I seemed to want to tell all around her.
And that was dangerous to me.
Her hands coming around my arms were even more dangerous and soon I couldn’t escape those eyes.
“Look at her, Grayden,” she whispered and I didn’t want to look. Mostly because I knew what I’d see. I heard the ball before I even saw it, but actually seeing it, well, that made it real.
My daughter played, kicking a shiny pink ball I hadn’t seen in months. I had no idea when she joined us outside, but she had. She was here and she was playing.
A veil of her hair cloaked her face, and kicking the ball away, she looked up at us both, a look I’d seen before. It was a look of approval. She wanted permission.
I gave it to her, nodding, but I watched her as she scampered away, making sure she wouldn’t go far. I always did, the tether never allowed to go taut. It’d been my way of protecting her, but as she moved, as she played I wondered if I really had been—protecting her.
“Don’t you think she deserves to be able to play with others?” Alicia asked, the joy in her eyes brighter than any smile she could make. That came next, direct in my direction. I was lost in it, her hand coming to my cheek. Her smile widened. “Or at least the opportunity? If it doesn’t work out and she doesn’t like it, you could always take her out again.”
“You don’t understand,” I told her and I knew in my mind I wouldn’t let her. I’d been keeping her at an arm’s length as I’d done everyone I had come across in the last three years, even Jo. It hadn’t been easy before but never as hard as this.
As hard as it was with her.
Looking into Alicia’s eyes, I could tell she didn’t understand and, really, she never would because I couldn’t let her in. I just couldn’t.
I enjoyed her hands on me so much that I couldn’t push her away though, the softness of her fingers heaven amongst the weathered state of my neck from so many days outside.
I let her smooth her hands down my jaw, cupping my face and there was no getting away from her. There was no escape.
“I know you have a reason for everything you do when it comes to your child,” she said. “I can imagine every parent does.”
If only it were that simple. I wished it was. Laura and I came with so much baggage here, and because we had, it was easy. Hiding was easy. Her being withdrawn only cemented the fact that we had to stay away. We made no connections. We held no relationships. It’d been Jo to change everything and her niece to do one further and change us.
She had changed us no matter how much I didn’t want to admit it. She changed me and I brought my arms around her, no longer fighting it.
We stared at my daughter, the little wonder never going far. I think we both could have stared at her forever.
“She seems happy, Gray,” she said, tilting her head. “She is happy I think.”
I believed she was right, but I supposed the only one who could really confirm that was my kid, but of course, she couldn’t. Maybe one day she could though.
Maybe just maybe if I let her.