It turned out that rage—white-hot, are-you-fucking-kidding-me outrage—was the perfect fuel for Natasha to go job hunting.

She wasn’t even sure what she was raging at, or about, but she knew she was pissed. And it felt good.

Matt ghosting on her was a big part of it. She knew something had happened, and he’d apologized for snapping, although she wasn’t sure a simple sorry was enough. She didn’t need drama like that in her life, no matter how good his arms felt around her.

But the vague worry she’d been chewing on about David’s renewed involvement in Emily’s life started to coalesce and sharpen, too. So she added another item to her to-do list on the wall.

---

---

That would take a lot of money, no matter how she sliced it. But for three years, she’d been parenting solo, without any worry about custody issues. Now she had to face her growing concern that that might not always be the case.

Emily was her heart and soul. Of course she wanted her daughter to have a relationship with her father, but David had bailed when she was pregnant, and he’d established their default custody arrangement—it hadn’t been her idea for her to do this all on her own.

He didn’t get to radically change things now. Adjust, sure. But upend her daughter’s life? Nope.

Mama Bear wouldn’t let that happen.

So she needed to get a job, and she needed to get the apartments done, and being pissed off at the men in her life drove her out of the house and into action on both of those fronts.

They went to the thrift shop first, because retail therapy was always a good way to start the day. Most of the women’s clothes were the same as the last time they’d popped in, but there was a fresh supply of children’s stuff that was fun to pick through. She found a Christmas outfit for Emily to wear to David’s. She didn’t miss the irony of that being something she cared about.

But it was a really cute outfit.

Then they drove in a big loop, dropping resumes at all the bars and restaurants within twenty minutes.

Next on her to-do list was sourcing kitchenette materials.

“Let’s go to the lumber store,” she told Emily. “And we’ll pick up hot chocolate on the way.”

“Yay!” Emily cheered, waving her hands in the air.

Yes. Yay. She needed to take life lessons from her kid. Hot chocolate made everything better.

At the lumber yard, she introduced herself to the woman at the back counter, where custom orders were placed. They went over her detailed notes and she got a quote that was probably fair but just out of her budget. When she balked, the staff person gave her a heads up that they had a pre-Christmas sale starting on the weekend.

“Might want to think about stocking up then, it’s usually our best sale of the year.”

“Good to know, thanks.” Tasha scribbled a reminder to herself on the top sheet of her notebook, then shoved her clipboard back into her tote bag. “I’ll probably be back then.”

If she could afford it.

Back at home, she worked over the numbers once more.

She couldn’t really afford to hire a lawyer before she picked up another job. But she couldn’t afford to wait, either. Same with the kitchenette purchases.

At some point, she’d have to dip into her savings in a big way to get all the balls moving.

But there was no such thing as reward without risk, so the last thing she did before calling the day done was she made a short list of family lawyers to call and feel out for compatibility. If David caused her any trouble, she’d need an ally in her corner who she could trust.

The next day she got her period, which explained some of the don’t-fucking-dare attitude from the day before. Well, not being pregnant was a good thing. She would never again curse her cycle.

And then after breakfast, she got a phone call from a number she didn’t recognize. “Hello?”

“Is this Natasha Kinglsey?”

“It is.”

“This is Raj Patel from Wiarton Lumber. You dropped off your resume yesterday, and I’d like to schedule an interview for the cashier position.”

“I didn’t—” She cut herself off. Had she accidentally left a resume on the counter at the lumber store the day before? “I didn’t realize it was a cashier position,” she said somewhat clumsily. “How many hours a week is it?”

“Fifteen hours to start. Midday coverage, when we take lunch breaks and there’s a rush at noon.”

She quickly did the math. No tips and likely minimum wage meant that fifteen hours a week wasn’t that much money. On the other hand, she’d probably be able to find part-time childcare midday at a more reasonable rate than evening or weekend care, which would probably make up the difference. She swallowed hard. “Is there an employee discount?”

He chuckled. “Doing some home renovation?”

“Something like that.”

“That could be arranged. Would you be available to come in for an interview tomorrow?”

She closed her eyes and exhaled softly. “Yes, I would.”

So that was two good things, and it wasn’t even breakfast yet.

Letting herself be pissed was paying off.

By the fourth day of no work and no Natasha, Matt was ready to sacrifice himself on the altar of emotional availability.

He told Owen as much in a text, and his boss replied with a laughing animated GIF image.

Apparently the altar of emotional availability was the diner on the edge of town. Matt found Owen in a corner booth, nursing a cup of coffee and a slice of pie.

“Did you eat already?”

Owen shook his head. “This was an appetizer. Pre-lunch sugar therapy. My ex is going south for a week over the holidays and my daughter wants to have a party at her house while she’s away. My head is going to explode because it’s not my call but it’s a really bad idea.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Well, what can you do?”

“Set up surveillance from a distance?”

Owen cracked a ghost of a smile. “Don’t think that thought hasn’t crossed my mind.”

“Parenting is complicated shit, isn’t it?”

“Hardest thing I’ve ever done. Seventeen years go by in the blink of an eye, man.”

“Seventeen?”

“Her birthday’s in January.”

Matt tried to picture Emily as a teenager. Fourteen years from now, would Natasha be worried about the same thing? Emily having parties at David’s cottage while he’s not there? “Shit. Time flies.”

“Don’t remind me. A year from now she’s going to be an adult and I am not prepared for that. Anyway, let’s order and talk about you.”

“I read the book.”

“Good.”

“I talked to Sean.”

“Even better.”

“I want to come back to work.”

Owen shoved a menu at him. “Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“What did you think of the book?”

Matt rolled his shoulders against the tension pulling across his chest and around his back. “It’s heavy. You were right. It’s me on every page. Childhood issues, messed-up relationship with my dad, medicating myself with meaningless sex for years. Years. It’s a miracle I didn’t end up using drugs or gambling, and frankly, I’m not sure I haven’t misused alcohol in the past.”

“Yeah. I know the feeling well.”

“I know I’ve got some long-term work to do on all of that. Sean and I talked about counselling. I’m not messing around here, if that’s your fear.”

Owen waved down the waiter, some new kid Matt didn’t know. “What do you want?”

“To come back to work.”

“Food, Matt. What do you want to eat?”

“Oh.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and thought about the menu he knew by heart. “Hamburger with extra pickles. Fries and coleslaw on the side.”

Owen ordered the Greek salad, then leaned back against the booth. “You’re on the schedule again starting on Monday.”

Exactly a week off. “When did you put me back on?”

“Never took you off. I just told you to take a week. You need to breathe, Matt. To process and think and react and ache.”

“Oh, I’m aching. I’ve never been more painfully aware of my own limitations. I’ve had enough of that, to be honest.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to work.”

“What?”

“You cramming your days so full of work you can’t sit in that discomfort and actually hear yourself think.”

“I took the week. I read the book.”

“There will be more books. Counselling is going to take time, too.”

“I know that.” He did. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but it couldn’t consume his every waking minute, either.

“Do you?”

“What do you want me to say? I like working.”

“You can come back, but it’s to a modified schedule. No more fill-in shifts, and honestly, I wouldn’t mind you dropping to a part-time schedule for a while.”

“I—” Shit. “Why?”

“Because I want you to be whole and healthy and doing this when you’re fifty. Because there will be more Fred Carletons, and I don’t want any of them to be your last patient.”

Matt tried to swallow and couldn’t. He grabbed his water. No, he didn’t want that, either.

“That was a rough day,” Owen said quietly.

“Yeah.”

“There will be more.”

Matt nodded.

“What will you do if Monday is one of them?”

Fuck. His eyes burned and he looked down at the chipped Formica table. “Talk about it.”

“When? On Tuesday when you’re back on the road? Wednesday when you’re at work? Thursday when you’ve been called in to cover for someone because you live around the corner?”

He saw Owen’s point. “Okay.”

“Two shifts in a row. That’s it for a while. Downtime in between. And keep talking. To me, to Sean, to your woman. To a professional as soon as humanly possible.”

“Got it.”

Owen nodded, looking at him closely. “We all know this, but it’s hard to actually apply to ourselves, isn’t it? If we don’t take that time regularly, and especially when we’re dealing with trauma, we won’t be resilient enough to deal with the blows we cannot avoid.”

Matt frowned. “I’m figuring that out.”

“Good.”

Their food arrived, and the conversation faded. But it picked up again as their plates were cleared. They talked about Owen’s new job, and Matt realized he’d also failed as a friend. “You’ve had a lot of change over the last six months, man. I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention to that.”

Owen grinned at him. “You just did a deep dive into that book, didn’t you?”

“Fuck yeah. I’ve got a lot on the line here.” His job. Natasha. Emily. His long-term happiness and mental stability.

Natasha and Emily.

He was still piecing together everything he wanted to tell Tasha, but he was close. And at the end of lunch, Owen said something that completed that puzzle.

“Thanks for keeping me updated,” his boss said. “I appreciate your trust in me. There’s this unspoken idea in our occupation that we don’t need to talk about all this death and pain we’re exposed to, because what can we do about it? But we should talk. That’s what we can do. And I want your help in setting that standard with the others, too. We need to be more open.”

Words to live by.

After Owen headed off, Matt pulled out his phone.

He didn’t miss that she didn’t answer his question. Maybe it wasn’t okay. Maybe she wanted to give him a dressing down in person. Was that how dating went? Better to fight in person?

It would give him a chance to grovel and make up in person, too.

When he arrived, both girls came to the door, Emily in a blur of curls and squeals, Natasha looking cautious.

He stepped inside. “Hi.”

She searched his face, her gaze full of questions, but Emily bounced into his arms. There wouldn’t be any talking until she was asleep, and maybe that was okay.

“I missed you,” he told his favourite three-year-old, not that she knew why. “What have you been up to?”

“Mommy got a new job.”

“What?” He jerked his head toward Natasha.

She gave him a small smile. “Yeah. I’m the newest cashier at Wiarton Lumber. It’s not really the job I was looking for, but the people who own the store are really nice and I’ll get a discount.”

“Hey, that’s great.”

“I need to find a babysitter, though, which is kind of stressful. But it’s going to work out nicely in the new year because Em can start pre-school.”

He set Emily down and took a step closer. “That’s awesome, congratulations.” He wanted to hug her. Instead, he kept his arms at his side and felt like he’d missed an awful lot in a few days.

“I’ll tell you more after she’s in bed,” she murmured, holding his gaze.

He nodded slowly. “I can’t wait.”

“I’m not tired,” Emily announced. She wrapped herself around Matt’s leg. “Let’s play ponies.”

“Uh…” He grinned down at her. “Okay. And then bedtime.”

She led the way upstairs to her room. Natasha followed too, stopping in front of the bathroom. “It’s been a day and a half. Do you mind if I take a quick shower?”

He frowned. He’d been so focused on coming over and telling her about himself that he’d missed that she looked wrung out. “For sure. Take your time, I don’t think anyone is going to be rushed through ponies.”

And that was very true. Emily had elaborate plans for him. She carefully told him where to sit, then got out a big box filled with prancing pastel toys. “These are my new ponies,” she said proudly. “Mommy got them.”

They looked like they might be vintage, from when he and Natasha had been kids.

“This one is my favourite.” Unexpectedly, it was yellow with a teal mane.

If she was moving out of the pink phase, he’d kind of miss it a bit. He grinned. “Nice.”

“What do you want to play?”

“Whatever you want.”

She pushed a purple pony into his hand. “You’re the princess pony.”

“Okay.”

“You were a bad friend.”

“Accurate. Okay.” He cleared his throat and made the pony bob her head as he raised his voice. “I’m a selfish pony.”

“You should say sorry.”

He dropped back to his regular voice. “That’s good advice. Who am I apologizing to?”

She wiggled her yellow one at him. “The queen.”

“This is definitely accurate.” He swallowed a laugh and lifted his voice again. “I’m sorry, my friend. You are the kind, benevolent queen and I was…” Thoughtless.

Emily held out her own, bigger pony. “Do you know what you did?”

Matt had to fight back a smile. “No, not really.”

“You should think about what you did.”

“Trust me, I am.”

“Go to your room.” Emily turned her pony around, then turned it back. He didn’t think plastic toys could look disappointed in a person, but there it was. “And pick up all your toys.”

But that wasn’t the end of it. As soon as his naughty princess pony went to her room, he was given another pony, this one who had to have a whispered conversation about how the princess was doing a very good job at cleaning her room, and maybe they should throw her a party to make her feel better once she knew what she was sorry for.

Matt liked that. More grown-ups needed to be as forgiving as the plastic ponies in a three-year-old’s bedroom.

By the time they were on their third role-play, Natasha was done in the shower. She appeared in Emily’s bedroom door, her long dark hair loose and damp around her face. She was wearing Roots sweatpants and a faded band t-shirt.

She was fucking gorgeous.

He gave her a smile, acknowledging her presence, but he didn’t stop playing right away. He liked her watching him.

“Emily,” she finally said softly. “It’s time for bed.”

“I want five stories.”

“Two.”

“Two from you, five from Matt.”

He laughed. “That’s seven.”

She frowned. “No, I said five.”

“Okay, pumpkin. Do you need to go brush your teeth?”

She scampered past her mom and he stood. Finally they were alone. “Hi.”

“You already said that when you got here.”

“I’m saying it again.”

“Hi.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. That scared him a hell of a lot more than he could properly admit. He’d hurt her through his selfishness. “Full disclosure: I’ve had a long week, but I didn’t want to tell you not to come over.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Well, someone has to read her five bedtime stories, and it’s not going to be me.”

He smiled. “Fair enough.”

By the time Emily was racing back into her room, he was sprawled in the chair beside her bed. She climbed up onto her pillow and shoved a book in his hand. “This one first. Please.”

“Tuck in, then. Head on the pillow, blanket pulled tight.” Once she was snuggled in, he angled the book so she could see the pages as he turned them, and he read it slowly, acting out each voice.

“Another,” she whispered, and he picked one from the pile.

The third story he read more softly, letting his voice drift on the same note. By the second last page, her eyelids were firmly shut, and he read the last page quiet as a church mouse.

He tugged her blanket up around her shoulders, smoothing it over her back. She was so small and soft when asleep, such a marked contrast to her fiery personality when awake. Then he pulled her door shut and crept downstairs. He found Natasha curled up on the red velvet couch. She’d found a large crate to work as a coffee table, and a bottle of wine and two glasses were sitting in front of her. “Are you driving home tonight?”

He shook his head. “Not if you don’t want me to. I’ll set my alarm and get up before Emily.”

She nodded without looking at him. “Okay.”

She didn’t look like she was in a talking mood. But if she was pouring them wine, she didn’t want to just head straight to bed, either.

He thumbed through his phone, looking for the Havana song he’d downloaded. He hit play. “I listened to this on repeat a lot this week,” he admitted as he held out his hand.

She looked at his outstretched fingers. “Why?”

“Because it made me think of you. And I like remembering the way you move. I missed you in my arms.”

She took his hand and slowly stood.

“I missed you,” he said gruffly. “So much. I have a lot to apologize for here. But first I want to dance with you. Would that be okay? And I want to hear about your week.”

She stepped into his personal space, bumping her hips against his, and he said a silent prayer of thanks. His hands felt right on her waist, her smile as they danced better than any burst of sunshine on a cloudy day.

When she pushed up onto her toes and kissed him softly, he almost started crying, which was weird and disconcerting and fucking amazing at the same time.

Instead, he kissed her back. Soft and endless, until the song started all over again, and she laughed softly. “We should dance.”

“And talk,” he reminded her. “Tell me what’s been going on. Tell me about the job.”

“That happened by accident. I left a resume on the counter when I was getting a countertop quote—I’d handed a bunch out at restaurants, and it was stuck to the bottom of my notebook—and they called me the next day.”

“Amazing.”

“Anyway, I spent most of the week getting shit done. I crossed stuff off my to-do list like a boss,” she murmured as she rolled her body to the music. “But it feels like each done thing creates three more tasks to add to the list, and it’s kind of insane now. So much to do, not much time left before the holidays, and I’m not sure where to start with finding a babysitter.”

“Can I help?”

She sighed. “It’s fine. I’ll figure it out, and the Patels are flexible about when I start. If I can’t work many shifts before January when she can start preschool, it’s not the end of the world.”

“What else is on your list?”

“My sister is moving this weekend, and Em and I are both really sad about that. We’re going there tomorrow for a last dinner and playdate with her cousins.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” She twisted around as the song ended, and he turned his phone off. Wine time.

Once they were settled on the couch, she lifted her glass. “To siblings and cousins.”

“I can drink to that.” Siblings. Fucking hell, that was a segue if there ever was one. “A lot of my week has been spent untangling my thoughts about my brothers.”

Her eyebrows hit the roof. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It’s complicated. I’m not sure where to start.”

She leaned her head against the back of the couch. “I’m here to listen to any of it. All of it, if you want. Maybe just start at the beginning?”

Was it that simple? “I lost a patient at the start of the year. That’s not really the beginning, but that’s what triggered all of…whatever I’m dealing with.” He told her about Fred, and it was harder than he’d expected. He got choked up around the death, and that emotional response took him by surprise because he’d gotten through telling the same story to his brother.

He took a big slug of wine.

Natasha just looked at him.

He took another drink and thought how his chest was tight, his throat was tight, and why couldn’t he get on top of these feelings?

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she finally said. “Tell me what’s scary.”

Could she see the way that panic rose up from deep inside him? “Everything,” he said roughly. “Everything except this, everything except you. But the rest of it is kind of fucked up.”

“Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry.”

He put his wine down again and shook his head. “I don’t want sympathy, though. That’s the thing. None of this is really that big a deal.”

She leaned in and brushed her fingertips against his temple. “But in here…”

He shook his head and circled her wrist with his fingers, drawing her hand to his chest. “More like in here. Clawing fear.”

She spread her fingers wide and pressed against his body. “I know what that feels like.”

“Jesus, I'm sorry.” He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his forehead against hers. “I don’t want you to ever feel like this.”

“But I don't feel it when I'm with you,” she said. “Not even when you left the other day, and I was mad at you.”

That made him smile weakly. “You were mad?”

“I was pissed. Men are so frustrating.”

“I’m starting to see that. We’re not the best communicators.”

“Huge understatement. But I see you, you know?” She sucked in a ragged breath. “We’re both kind of wrecks. Both sorry for the other, but maybe we shouldn’t be sorry. Maybe we should—”

“Talk?”

She nodded. “And find some kind of absolution in that.”

They could be refuges in the storm for each other.

He liked that idea a lot. So he dug deeper, right into the heart of the wound he’d exposed this week. “Those nightmares that I have…I run away from them. Literally, some days. I wake up in a cold sweat and I put my shoes on and run as hard and fast as I can. But I can never run fast enough.”

“Are they about that patient?”

“Sometimes. Snippets of that. I re-live that morning a lot, the drive to his farm, the way I joked with him. I hear myself being casual about women, about dating and flirting, and it turns ghoulish. Ugly.”

“Tell me…” she said, her voice not even a whisper. A breath.

Why would she want to know any part of that? He didn’t want to know it, and he’d lived it. But she was asking. She wanted to know, and if there was anyone in the world he could trust with this secret, it was her. Even if it broke him to admit it. “I lost sight of what mattered. I missed something because I was too casual.”

“I don’t believe that’s possible.” Her words were gentle and kind and far too forgiving. “You are kind and good and giving and funny, but I don’t believe you didn’t do your job.”

“I don’t know.” His voice cracked. He couldn’t tell anyone else this. “I know that by the book I did what I needed to do for him.”

“But…?”

“But I can't shake the feeling that we could have done more. That it could have been prevented, that Sean—” Blood pounded in his ears. “I mean—”

“Oh,” Natasha whispered. Her eyes were locked on his, her breath sweet against his face.

He felt his face drain of colour. “That's not what I meant.”

“Are you sure?”

It took him a long time to swallow around the lump in his throat. “No.”

“Matt…”

He shook his head. He didn't want her to say it. Didn't want her to pity him.

“It's okay to cry about your brother.”

“He’s fine.”

“Now he is. He wasn’t then. You must have been terrified.”

It all slammed into him like it was brand new. He tried to clench his hands but his fingers were shaking too much.

She wrapped her hands around his and squeezed.

“I’m sorry,” he groaned.

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to burden you with all of this. I wanted to have this shit straight before I came over.”

“That’s not what I want. I want you.”

“I’m not the guy you thought you met.”

“What does that mean?”

“I want to be everything you need.”

“That's not realistic. I need to be what I need. You can be what I want.”

His heart pounded in his chest. “You deserve better than that.”

“Do I? Do any of us? Or do we deserve to know that we are enough, without another person propping us up? That was my big realization this week. That I don’t need you in my life to be happy, but I want you anyway. I want you, Matt. Hear me say that, and hear how good that is. I. Want. You. Just the way you are, right now, damaged and imperfect.”

“Why?” It wrenched out of him, because that was a complete mystery to him now. He understood why women liked the old him, the flirt, the player. He even understood why Natasha would have time and patience for him to go through a low point, because she was kind and strong and brave. But he couldn’t understand why she’d want him at his worst.

“From the moment I met you, I thought, you’re too good to be true. And then I thought maybe the problem was that you’re Jake’s brother. Except you were again too good to be true there. Like it just didn’t matter.”

“It didn’t.”

“I know that now, but before, I thought, How can I ever measure up to that? I don't want you to be perfect. Don't you see how suspicious that is to me?”

Shit. No, he hadn’t thought about it from that angle. “So…I’m not handling something well, and that’s a good thing?”

“That sounds really horrible, but yeah, kind of. I just am relieved to know that you might find as much comfort in me as I do in you. Friendship and support—”

“Not just friendship.” That distinction was so important to him now. “Right?”

“Right.” She crawled into his lap and kissed him. “Not just friendship.”

He tangled one hand in her hair and spread the other across her back. He’d hold on to her so damn tight. Forever, if she let him. “This week I’ve realized a lot of things. Had to come to terms with a lot of shit.”

“It sounds like you’ve been traumatized. That’s hard to come to terms with.”

“It’s not just trauma. It’s also…I’ve had to think hard about how I feel about you. I’ve never let anyone get close. This is different. You are different to me. I want you, too, Tasha. So damn much, and I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you all of this the other day. But I need you to know that I see you, too. I see that you’re right here, and I love how open you are with me even though a bunch of other assholes did their best to teach you men can’t be trusted.”

“You showed me otherwise.”

“And then I misstepped.”

“We do that. We’re human.”

He kissed her then, because he’d waited too long to do that. She tasted so sweet it made his knees weak. “That this has happened at the same time as I stopped coping in a bunch of other ways… I don’t know. Maybe it happened for a reason. Maybe I fell for you because I finally let my guard down.”

She gasped. “You…fell for me?”

“Too much?” he asked against her lips.

“Shut up, I’m falling for you too,” she said with a sweet, unexpected laugh.

He opened his mouth and let her take over. She stroked her tongue against his, then nipped at his lips. She kissed his face and rode his body and God, he wanted to take her right there on the couch.

Relief surged through his body, hot and fast, and it felt a lot like heady arousal. Fucking hell. Fucking yes.

She stroked her fingertips over his face, then up into his hair. “Can I take you to bed?”

He felt big and raw and broken. Unwantable. And yet this woman sat curled in his lap, gorgeous and kind, and she wanted to lead him upstairs and hold him against her body.

“Can you?” He laughed hoarsely. “I’d beg you for the honour, Natasha. Please, take me to bed.”

And never let me go, he wanted to add.

But he’d been given enough for one night. He’d ask for forever tomorrow.