Chapter 5

Do you ever wake up and think you’re not really in the mood for human interaction that day, or is it just me?

-Text from Winnie to Steel

Winnie

5 hours earlier

“Have fun at the mall, baby,” I said to Conleigh as I dropped her off in the front of Sears.

Conleigh grunted. “I’m going to look for a job while I’m here.”

I didn’t argue with that.

She could look all she wanted, but she needed a place she could work that she could get to without a car, and the mall wasn’t one of those places.

“I’ll see you at four, correct?”

She and a couple of friends were watching a movie, having some lunch, and then going to hang until I could make my way back around to them.

I had a million and one things to do today, and all of those things were on opposite sides of the freakin’ city.

“Yeah, Mom.”

Then Conleigh was gone, and I was left with a clearly excited Cody.

Cody, my five-year-old baby boy, was so excited to see his father that I could hardly get him to quiet down.

And I was a nervous wreck.

Cody hadn’t been away from me, except for the odd half a day with Matt’s parents, since he’d been born. Sure, he went to daycare, but daycare always meant that he spent every single night at home with me in his house.

Now, he was staying in his old room at his father’s place, and I was worried that he’d like it better there than with me.

I pulled up into our designated meeting spot and clenched my teeth when I saw Angelina’s car instead of Matt’s Ford.

Angelina got out and started to walk over to me, leaving her own kids in her car, screaming.

Her eldest sat there, too, staring at his mother’s back as she came my way.

Angelina’s eldest was her first child with a different man. He’d been the reason that Angelina and I had first become friends.

Our children were the same age. Her eldest, right along with her youngest.

When I’d moved here, she’d immediately taken me under her wing. She and her husband had made me feel so welcome, that I had no choice but to love her.

She’d introduced me to Matt, her husband’s best friend, and the rest had been history.

We’d always been a team.

And now we weren’t.

She’d stolen something from me that was unforgivable.

I rolled down my window.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Matt can’t make it. He has to work today.”

My eyelid twitched. “Then why didn’t he call and say that?”

Angelina crossed her arms over her chest and stared back at me. “Because he still wants him to come over. He’ll be home around eleven. They’ll have all morning together before we have to bring him back.”

Not likely. Cody slept until ten o’clock most days if he was allowed to. I highly doubted that Matt would wake Cody up. He never had before when he’d been living with us. He’d much rather go work out and do his own thing than have his son tagging along.

Which led me to my next decision.

“We’ll try next weekend.”

Then I rolled up my window.

Angelina looked pissed, but I ignored her.

I was not, under any circumstances, giving that woman my kid.

First of all, she didn’t take care of my children well, and never had.

She was a very lax parent and didn’t care what her kids did—whether that was allowing them to ride in a booster seat when they clearly should be in a car seat or stay up until three a.m. eating junk food instead of going to bed at a decent hour.

So, no, I sure as hell wasn’t leaving my kid with her when I hadn’t trusted her before she’d screwed me over.

Now that she had ruined my life, there was no way I was trusting her with what was left of it.

Conleigh and Cody were the only two things holding me together anymore, and lately, Conleigh was challenging that.

I ignored the woman who was now on her phone, probably calling her new husband, and instead drove away and headed for the grocery store.

Cody, not realizing that he wasn’t going to get to see his father yet, seemed happy and content in the back seat.

“Just wasted an hour of my life I’ll never get back,” I grumbled to nobody in particular.

After making a grocery run, with a still happy and behaving well Cody, I headed back to the main part of the town, only to see my freakin’ daughter in the middle of the road.

Staring at a man who was standing up against a car.

From this angle, I couldn’t see much besides my daughter’s laughing face.

Sudden and irrational anger hit me, and I pulled the car over to the side of the road and yelled at her.

“Why are you here, Conleigh Annaliese?”

Steel turned at hearing me and winced. “Picked her up.”

“And what did she do this time?”

The next fifteen minutes went about as expected.

Steel explained why he’d had to intervene when it came to my child, and I had to hold my tongue while he did. Luckily, after explaining why he had Conleigh, he’d been called over due to an altercation with the naked man and an irate man who wasn’t very happy at having that naked man press his genitals to his wife’s window.

Using the chance to escape while I could, I gave Conleigh one single quelling stare, and she started marching toward my car.

After making sure she was settled, I ripped her a new one.

“Tell me why you were there,” I demanded.

“I went to the mall.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I knew that part.

“And Cohen was there with his girlfriend.”

I hadn’t seen the girlfriend in the car with Angelina when I’d gone to drop Cody off with Matt, but it didn’t surprise me that she was in there. Angelina took the kids anywhere they wanted to go, and always had.

They must’ve gone straight there after I’d left.

“And…”

“And Cohen’s girlfriend called you a whore, and I took offense to it.”

I closed my eyes.

“Conleigh,” I breathed. “With Matt being a cop, everyone knows him in the city. Since they don’t want to think that a cop is one of the bad guys, they’re going to find it easier to blame the other person, and that’s me, unfortunately.”

Conleigh didn’t say anything.

“I don’t want you to do anything stupid because of something they call me. I’m an adult, I can handle it…and so can you,” I said softly.

Conleigh’s jaw tightened and she looked away to study the very uninteresting landscape as we made our way home.

“Why do you have Cody?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Seems that Matt was working today and that Angelina was picking him up. I refused to give him to her.”

“Is that legal?”

I shrugged. “We don’t have any sort of formal visitation agreement. Hell, we don’t even have anything registered with the court, yet. He could take me to court for custody, but I don’t think he will. He’s just not interested enough.”

“I saw him out with his new family yesterday.”

I sighed.

“Yeah, I saw them come into the hospital yesterday, too,” I admitted. “He came in with the youngest because she fell off the bunk beds. Held her like he used to hold Cody. He never once asked how Cody was. Didn’t even seem to care, even when I was the tech that helped clean her up. Pissed me the hell off.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to talk about seeing patients.”

I snorted. Conleigh lecturing me on what was right and wrong was quite comical.

“I’m not,” I admitted.

“Well, it’ll be our secret then.”

Rolling my eyes, I drove my little family home, refusing to let my mind wander to the sexy older officer at the scene who was starting to take over my daily thoughts lately.

***

I had groceries in one hand—more than I’d intended on getting—and my purse in the other when my phone started to ring.

I grimaced when I saw who was calling.

If there was one person on this planet who I never wanted to talk to, it would be Matt.

Fucking jerk.

“Hello?” I answered as calmly as I could manage.

“Did you know that the chief of police took Conleigh to a scene today that was volatile?”

Volatile?

I would hardly call some man’s dick being rolled up in a car window volatile.

“I was there, yes,” I answered breathlessly. “He didn’t take her to a scene on purpose. He was bringing her home from the mall.”

At least, that was what Conleigh had told me on the way home.

I hadn’t gotten much info on it before Cody had started throwing the world’s worst temper tantrum.

He wanted his daddy.

The daddy who’d neglected to pick him up today like he’d said he would.

“Well, she saw some guy’s dick and balls,” Matt fumed.

Fumed.

What. The. Fuck?

“Matt, did you forget that you were picking Cody up today?”

“I sent Angelina.”

I knew that.

“Yes, but if you’re not going to pick him up, which is something we’ve discussed before, then I’m not giving him to Angelina. She doesn’t watch the kids well enough for me to allow her to have my child,” I said carefully, trying not to let Winnie the Shrew out to play.

“Angelina watches her kids,” he contradicted me.

“Then why did you have a child fall off the bunk beds, and your new wife say that she hadn’t been watching them?” I countered. “Which was just a few days ago.”

Matt grunted. “I was calling to talk to you about the Chief taking our girl to that scene today.”

Our girl.

Now that made me mad.

He’d never called Conleigh his. Had never even offered to adopt her or give her his name. All of which I was grateful for now, but still.

“Conleigh is sixteen, Matt. She has a good head on her shoulders, and Steel is very nice. He wouldn’t have taken her to a scene if he thought she could be hurt. Trust me.”

“I’ve heard that she’s been bad lately. In fact, Steel,” he sounded like he sneered. “Came in to tell me that I needed to keep a better eye on her because she was acting strangely.”

I was sure there was more to it than that, but I wasn’t going to get that information out of Matt.

Nor did I particularly want to talk to him.

“Well, thanks,” I said breezily. “I have to go, though.”

Matt started to say something more, but I was having none of it and hung up.

Fucker.

I picked up the groceries, held my purse in my hand and shoved my phone in my bra, then started up the steps of the house.

I used the railing as I went since I’d left the cane back in my car and breathed a sigh of relief when I made it.

However, when it came to a door, I knew it was a lost cause. There was no way that I could maneuver into that opening without holding on to the threshold.

Placing the groceries down on the stoop, I pushed open the door until I could fit through.

The first thing I noticed as I entered was the lack of yelling from Cody versus when I left.

Which made me smile.

Cody loved Conleigh.

And then I heard the low murmur of voices.

Frowning, I peeked around the corner of the entryway.

The last thing I expected when I got home was to find the sexy officer in my kitchen. Though, I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me. Not with Conleigh’s grabby hands lately.

God, the sexiest man alive was sitting at my kitchen table, and that was only because my daughter was becoming a thief!

Holy shit!

I watched as the officer’s fingers flew over the keyboard of the phone. For a sexy older man with large hands, he was surprisingly adept at texting.

I shuffled carefully, feeling good today after the latest twelve-hour shift, and came to a stop right outside the kitchen as I leaned against the door and carefully toed off my shoes.

As I did, I listened to what was going on in my kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking up on Matt.” The police chief, Steel, grinned. “I sent a text message to my son, then to Fender, to find out what they knew about Matt.”

Conleigh’s frown furrowed even deeper.

“But what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to check into him,” he repeated, not really giving her much information.

Which also meant not giving ME any more information.

“What the hell?” I murmured.

Why were they looking up Matt?

Then Conleigh started to talk again.

“I can tell you everything you want to know about the lying bi—woman.”

Steel’s lips twitched. “I’m not sure I should be having this conversation with you.”

I wasn’t either.

Then again, it wasn’t her story to tell. It was mine.

I stepped into the room and made myself known to the room’s two awake occupants. The one sleeping occupant was Cody, who was asleep in Steel’s arms—causing my heart to melt.

“Why are you looking into my ex-husband?”

Steel looked up, spotting me in the doorway, and stood.

“Mrs. Holyfield…”

I held up my hand. “You need to stop.”

Steel’s eyes narrowed.

“I didn’t mean to step on any toes…”

“Mom…”

“I have to get Cody started on his bath,” I murmured.

Conleigh beat me to it.

She walked up to Steel, taking Cody’s limp body in her arms, and then rushed out of the room before I could tell her I’d do it.

I sighed and turned back to Steel, my ex’s boss.

Some people called him Big Papa, but I wasn’t sure I could ever call him that.

It was awkward. Especially when he kept bringing my delinquent daughter back to me.

“Ma’am…” He hesitated, starting toward me.

I held up a hand.

“He cheated on me.”

He paused in the middle of my kitchen floor.

“He what?”

I nodded. “He cheated on me.”

It was obvious that he wasn’t going to back down. For some reason, this man really wanted to know why Conleigh was having trouble. And for some reason, I felt like telling him.

I didn’t have anybody to talk to anymore. I’d not only lost my husband when he’d cheated on me, but I’d lost my best friend as well. My best friend who’d cheated on her husband—her dying husband—with my husband.

“I’m sorry.”

I shrugged.

“Is it because of your legs?”

I looked down at my feet, as I eased on my fluffy blue pair of slippers which had been lying in the hallway.

“No.” I paused. “It gets worse, though.”

“I don’t see how.” He admitted as he took a seat, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

I laughed humorlessly.

“I found out that my husband was cheating on me when my child told me.”

“What?”

I nodded. “My youngest.”

His confusion was obvious, and I smiled, but it didn’t meet my eyes.

“He kept saying ‘Daddy likes her kisses’ to my best friend, Angelina. He’d pull her hand and pull her over to my ex-husband.” I cleared my throat. “They laughed it off like it wasn’t happening, but I got curious one day when I walked over to their house and found nobody home.”

“Okay…”

I waved my hand in the air.

“My best friend and her husband, Mark, lived across the street from us. They bought their house about a year after we’d bought ours. It was the perfect set-up…until Mark was diagnosed with testicular cancer.” She scratched her head. “It had been caught too late, and it had already spread to his lymph nodes. By the time they realized there was something wrong, it was in his chest and blood.”

I swallowed through a suddenly dry throat.

“Since Mark and my ex were best friends, he was over there helping a lot. He did everything he could to help make Angelina and Mark’s last days together not such a hardship.”

“But…”

“But, while Mark lay in his bed dying, Angelina and Matt used the guest bedroom to fuck. One day, Matt was watching our kids, and he took them over there with him. Only, he didn’t secure the door well enough, because her kids and Cody saw what happened in there. Meaning my son’s ‘Daddy likes her kisses’ comment was said in more of a ‘since I’ve seen you do it before’ way and not in a ‘do it for my entertainment’ kind of way.

“The day I found out was also the day that I had a spinal stroke.” I looked away. “I was in the hospital when Matt served me with divorce papers. He also went ahead and said I could keep the kid while I was at it. Something about wanting to have a family of his own with Angelina.”

I could tell he didn’t know what to say.

Literally, he had nothin’.

“He changed his mind on Cody later, though, when Angelina said that it wasn’t nice. So now he’s attempting to see Cody. Conleigh, on the other hand, is banned from her house because she thinks my daughter will be a bad influence on her son.”

Steel blinked, his long eyelashes laying lightly against his upper cheek for a long moment before they opened again.

Why in the hell did men, who didn’t give one damn about eyelashes, always have better ones than women?

“So he’s done nothing with Conleigh since y’all have split?”

I nodded. “Right.”

“No wonder she’s acting out,” he mused. “How long were y’all together?”

“Conleigh was eight when we met. Almost ten when we married. So, seven years altogether, six of those married,” I answered, feeling a twinge deep inside my chest.

But not for my loss, for Conleigh’s.

Conleigh had been Matt’s little shadow since we’d met and then got married. Then, all of a sudden once I found out about Matt and Angelina’s betrayal, they not only dropped me but my girl as well.

I hurt for her.

“I think he’s seen her twice,” I continued. “Cody, probably about twice that. That’s actually one of the things I was supposed to do today with him. I was at the mall at our scheduled time to meet, Cody knew he was going to his dad’s…then Angelina showed up and told me that Matt was working and that she was there in his stead.”

I laughed humorlessly.

“I can see why you wouldn’t want her anywhere near your kid,” he mused.

He smoothed his hand down a wet spot on his shirt and smiled.

“Drool. He’s been doing that for a while. I’m afraid he takes after me like that.” I giggled, then sobered. “Angelina, though, isn’t the most attentive of parents. She never has been. When her husband got sick, those kids went wild because nobody was containing them any longer. At least before, when her husband wasn’t sick, he’d keep them semi under control. But then once he was not there as a stable force in their daily lives, all they had left was Angelina, and she just didn’t care enough. I think every single one of her kids has had at least three broken bones.”

His eyes widened.

“You think she’s abusive?”

I shook my head. “No. Not abusive. Inattentive—she just doesn’t watch them. She’ll leave them alone to do what they will. She’s there in body, just not in spirit, you know?”

He nodded.

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Matt’s there now,” I said, wincing. “At least he’ll help keep them in line. That was something good that came out of it I guess.”

He grunted, not agreeing with me.

I sighed and stood up. “We had it rough…have it a little rough…but I’m getting back on my feet. All the medical bills I accrued were paid for when Matt and I finalized the divorce. Now I’m just trying to recoup my half of the credit card bills. I’m hoping as time progresses that I can afford more things, and hopefully take a little bit of the strain off of Conleigh. Maybe if I can give her a few pretty things, she’ll be able to function better at school. I’m never going to bring her stepfather back…but I can make it easier on her that way.”

He didn’t say anything to that, either.

So I got up and headed to the kitchen, realizing that somewhere in that discussion Conleigh had slipped in with my groceries and left again.

A sudden idea occurred to me, and I turned to find Steel studying me from behind. “You want to stay for dinner?”

I licked my lips suddenly, surprised that I’d asked him that.

It had been months since Matt and I had split and about eight weeks since our divorce was finalized. A long time since I’d had anyone else to feed besides me and my two kids.

The prospect of him staying for dinner and enjoying my cooking really appealed to me in an instinctive sort of way.

I loved taking care of people. I loved when people enjoyed my food, and honestly, I never got that from my kids.

“Sure.”

I was utterly surprised to hear him say yes.

“Really?”

He nodded, then frowned. “As long as you’re not planning on making anything weird.”

I started to laugh. “Spaghetti isn’t really weird, is it?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Good,” I said as I went to the sink and washed my hands. “I just have to make the pasta.”

“Make the pasta?”

I nodded and turned my body slightly so that I could see him. “I make my own pasta. It’s cheaper in the long run if I make it in bulk. It’ll take me about an hour…that’s okay, right?”

He stood up and walked to the counter to lean his hips against it and cross his legs. “Now you have me curious. I’ve never had homemade pasta before.”

So, I spent the next hour showing him how it was done, and then another hour making the meatballs and sauce.

“This is the best spaghetti I’ve ever had in my life,” he informed me. “And I’ve eaten at Olive Garden.”

I burst out laughing.

He watched me laugh, an odd look on his face.

I smiled as I calmed down. “What?”

He shook his head. “Just haven’t seen you smile before. I like it.”

Pleasure washed over me, but before I could reply to his words, his phone rang.

He pulled it out of his pocket and cursed, ignoring the call.

Thirty seconds later, it rang again, this time he answered it.

“Yeah, son?” He paused, eyes narrowing. “I’ll call her. I told you to block her number.” He brought his hand up to his face, and I stood to clear the table.

“Conleigh?” I said. “Do you think you can put the food away while I get your brother cleaned up and in bed?”

Conleigh nodded and stood, her half-empty plate in her hands. “Save yours, too. I’ll take it to work tomorrow for lunch.”

Conleigh looked at her plate, clearly skeptical, but nodded anyway. “Okay.”

Then I went about getting Cody ready for bed and tucked in tight.

My left leg was a little weak as I made my way down the hall toward where I could hear Steel and Conleigh speaking in low tones.

“Your son is how old?”

“Thirty-four.”

My brows rose.

Steel must’ve been young like I was when he first had his son.

“How old were you when you had him?” Conleigh asked the same question that I was thinking.

“Nineteen, almost twenty,” he answered. “Still in college.”

“At least you weren’t sixteen like my mom.”

My heart hurt.

That was true.

I also agreed with her.

Sixteen had been ridiculous. I’d gotten pregnant, and my life had completely changed. My family had disowned me, and my mother and father kicked me out the moment they found out.

I moved in with my grandparents, finished out my school year, and raised a newborn all at the same time. When I was eighteen, I moved away and never looked back.

Not that I didn’t love my grandparents, but I knew just as well as they did that they didn’t really want me there.

They’d felt sorry for me and took me in because they felt obligated to.

Once I was no longer in high school, I found a job, got help from the government in the form of food stamps, housing aid and help paying for my education in the form of Pell grants.

Once I graduated, I found a full-time job, got off of food stamps and into my own place, and kept on kicking ass.

Then I met Matt, and I got complacent.

“I actually got a girl pregnant when I was sixteen,” he said. “She was fifteen. Lost the kid.”

My brows went up at that.

“What?”

Steel started to laugh at Conleigh’s surprised exclamation.

“Yep,” he confirmed. “Scared me straight…at least for two more years.”

I found myself smiling as I made my way into the kitchen where both of them were standing side-by-side at the sink. Steel had his hands wrist deep in the left half of the sink, washing the dishes, while Conleigh was on the right side, rinsing and drying them.

I felt my heart stutter in my chest at the sight.

I couldn’t remember the last time Conleigh willingly did the dishes without me nearly crying to get her to do so.

Now she was laughing with the man I was finding it harder and harder not to think about, and I was loving every second of it.

I’m so screwed.