“But Mom!”

I crossed my arms and glared down at my daughter. “Absolutely not.”

It was Saturday evening, one day after the events from hell, and I’d just woken up. Which was totally going to mess my brain up for the week, but sleep schedules aside, my mom duties didn’t end.

“Your Aunt Kelly isn’t feeling well,” I reminded her. We’d taken that route rather than explain it was because of a security risk that we couldn’t allow Allie to go for a ride.

“Uncle Justin can—”

“Your Uncle is taking care of Abby and—”

“Allie.”

Rob’s voice warmed a trail down my spine. I glanced over my shoulder. He’d been gone when I’d woken up, but had reappeared like magic to carry me downstairs and settle me on the couch.

When I’d protested my feet were feeling better after the full day’s rest, he’d simply rolled his eyes and lifted me up into his arms.

Then he’d tucked a pillow behind my back, settled a blanket over my middle, and handed me my dose of antibiotic along with a glass of water.

“Your mother said no.” Rob crossed his arms. “So it’s no.”

I saw the explosion brewing before Rob did.

Cheeks going red, lips pressing tightly together before her chest filled with air.

“It’s not fair.”

“Sweetheart,” I said. “We’ve talked about this. Sometimes things don’t go to plan, and we have to make changes on the fly.”

I purposely used an idiom I didn’t think she’d understand, hoping the confusion and her typically incessant need for questions would diminish some of her anger.

Maybe it wouldn’t always work, but it did this time.

“Why are you talking about a fly?” Her skin was still flushed but not nearly as much as before, and instead of tears in her eyes, she had questions.

“On the fly, honey,” I said, grabbing her hand and pulling her close so I could cuddle her against my chest. Sometimes there was nothing better than the smell and feel of your kid. Soft and fragile and so, so precious.

Last night had reminded me of that. For a moment, I thought I’d never get to see her again, never get to hold her.

Even if she was going right back to driving me crazy less than twenty-four hours later.

“It means that sometimes things change without reason, and we can’t control them. It means that we can’t get upset about it.” I held her pale brown eyes with my own. “We can be disappointed, but it also means we can’t throw a temper tantrum because we understand that stuff sometimes happens.”

Her brows pulled together, and I waited as she processed my words.

“You mean like when I spilled the milk?”

My lips twitched. “Which time?”

She giggled. “When you were going to make Max’s birthday cake.”

I nodded. “Yup. Just like that. Did it bother me at all?”

Her head bobbed like a marionette. “Oh yeah.”

“But did I get mad about it? Did I yell at you?”

“No.” She frowned. “You helped me clean it up, and . . .” I watched her mind work, smiling at the little v that formed between her eyebrows as she concentrated. “We went and bought more milk.”

“Exactly.” I stroked her hair back. “There was an issue, and we made the best of it. Max got his birthday cake a little late, and you helped me make the decorations a little extra special, right?”

“Right.” Allie nodded firmly. “So Aunt Kelly and Uncle Justin can’t go with me. But I can go by myself!”

She started to push off me.

I snagged her arm and sighed.

Sometimes when you thought you had it all figured out as a parent, your kid decided to throw you a curveball.

“And she couldn’t decide if she wanted to be a land narwhal or a sea unicorn . . .” I read to Allie a few hours later.

“Look!” She pointed at the picture. “Rainbows come out of her horn.”

“That’s cool,” I said and read on about the little unicorn that couldn’t decide where she belonged, but discovered in the end that sometimes the place you end up belonging might be the place you least expect.

Damn. Sometimes kids’ books were deep.

My lips twitched, and I glanced over at Rob who was sitting on the floor next to the bed and reading emails on his cell phone.

Not that cell phone, thankfully. Though my stomach still clenched at the thought of Celeste and the case and what Rob had actually done with her in the name of “case work.”

He must have felt my gaze on him, because he put the phone down and met my eyes. His were earnest, the typically unfathomable black depths, strangely clear, and I knew it was his attempt at a truce, at putting the past behind us.

See, they seemed to be saying. I’m not a mystery. I have nothing to hide.

I wanted to believe that. For sure, I did. It would be simpler for me to shove it all away and just move forward, but I couldn’t help but feel as though something between us was irrevocably changed.

And based on the way his eyes flitted from mine, focusing on the plush area rug near Allie’s bed, he seemed to think the same.

Sighing, I closed the book and fussed with Allie’s blankets, tucking her and the ragged Mr. Tails under her arm and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Night, sweetie,” I said and carefully found my feet.

Rob stood, no doubt to continue carrying me around the house like I was his personal parcel, but I waved him away. Justin had brought me the crutches we’d forgotten at the hospital, and I could maneuver fairly easily between them and walking on my heels.

Much easier than the previous night, that was for sure.

I bent, snagged them up, and slid them under my arms. “I’m going to say goodnight to Max.”

Carefully, I maneuvered through the shared bathroom and into Max’s bedroom. He was lying on his floor, reading a graphic novel about underwear and a superhero. I rolled my eyes, wondered how many times he’d reread that one, and said, “Time for bed, little dude.”

“Aw, Mom!” he groaned.

“Nope,” I said, crutching closer. “No whining. It’s late and it’s lights out.”

He wrinkled his nose, but set the book aside and crawled into bed.

I put the crutches on the floor and perched next to him. This was usually our time for a chat about the day or whatever random topic he decided he wanted to quiz me on. I’d already discussed the three branches of government, global warming, and the qualities of diamonds versus gold—and that was just this week.

Thank God for our local library, or I would have never survived the inquiries. Me not knowing the answer to his plethora of questions made for a great excuse to visit.

But today he didn’t ask me about executive privilege or when the national parks were first established. Today, he asked me something much harder.

“Are you and Dad going to be okay?”

My throat tightened. Especially when he stared up at me, his eyes so similar to Rob’s.

He was a mini-me of my husband, a portal to the past, to how Rob and I had been twenty years earlier.

And it was that history that made the question both the easiest and the hardest of my life to answer.

I tucked the blankets up to his chin, reached to pull the bottom up, exposing his feet to the fresh air.

Another thing that was just like his dad.

I smiled down at Max, knew in my heart my words were the truth. “Yes, buddy. We’ll be okay.”