The plane whisking him from Arizona to New York City reached cruising altitude before Roman glanced up from the report in his lap. He had little more than eight hours to decide the best way to explain what he’d learned to his employer, along with a reasonable plan for how to go forward. And damn but this thing had more twists and turns than he or his boss, Liam Ashforth, expected.
Turning his head, he gazed out the window. All he saw was miles of empty blue sky and puffs of white clouds. The five-hour flight with nothing else to do except think was going to serve him well if he had any hope of doing what Liam expected, which was to show up prepared with a plan and be ready for pretty much anything, because that’s what his life was like now.
A slow smile crept onto his face. Ready for anything. Yep. Perfectly summed up the whirlwind that Rhiann Wilde brought to Liam Ashforth’s previously starchy, uptight world.
Liam was easy to like. They had more in common than anyone realized. Loss, regret and resolve are powerful forces. He understood what drove Liam, and in their time together the two became friends. Their relationship might look like the classic bodyguard and client arrangement, but Roman was essentially being paid an ass-load of money to be Liam’s guy friend and Jiminy Cricket with the occasional dodging-a-bullet thing thrown in for shits and grins.
And then, of course, there’s Rhiann. His smile grew bigger when he thought about the vivacious young woman who turned Liam’s life upside down without lifting a finger. Love has a way of making a man do strange things. Like trade in his tailored suit for jeans and a button down shirt—even if it was only for one day each week.
On paper, Liam and Rhiann were mismatched sentences in search of a paragraph. She smoothed his sharp edges, and he gave her someone to focus her energy on. A quick snorting chuckle rose from his chest. The two were the poster kids for couples yin and yang.
He was happy for them. Really, really happy. Being around their joy almost renewed his severely damaged faith and hope. Almost.
But none of that was about him. Not really. As Liam’s friend and an unabashed admirer of Rhiann’s, it was up to him to put as much positive energy into the ether around them as possible. They deserved a break.
“Excuse me, sir?”
His head rolled on the seat back, and he looked at the first-class attendant. She was a very neat and efficient looking woman with a happy smile. He wondered what it was like to do her job. It couldn’t be easy. Not dealing with the public when most people behaved like belligerent assholes.
“Would you like a beverage?”
“Yes, thank you,” he replied. “Coffee, black.” Offering a business-like smile, he mentally dismissed her without a second look.
This was new. Having zero interest in any of the women crossing his path. He wasn’t sure why and wasn’t planning on picking it apart…it just was.
Gathering up the papers and files on his lap, he made a neat stack and slid it into the briefcase bag on the seat next to him. Two thoughts were front and center in his mind.
First was the oddity of reverting to older forms of exchanging sensitive information. With being hacked as commonplace these days as the weather was unpredictable, there were times when not leaving a digital trail was essential. This classified situation with Liam’s sister was one.
The second was the extra seat he reserved for the single reason that he didn’t want to engage in perfunctory human-to-human contact with a stranger. Luckily, Liam didn’t give a flying fuck what was on his expense report. He was awesome that way, and truly didn’t care how much of his max-millions Roman spent, or on what. If he wanted to drop a wad of cash on lap dances and hotel room porn, Liam would just snicker and sign off.
Coffee in hand he went back to analyzing his current assignment of tracking down Liam’s half-sister. Discovering he had a younger sibling had shaken the man’s world.
He hadn’t seen Liam or Rhiann in over a month. After hanging around Pennsylvania and New York following the summer arrival of Rhiann’s newborn niece, they took off to London for a planned business trip that, Roman was thrilled to learn, included the two making their relationship official. Rhiann sent him a barrage of comical selfies from Liam’s over-the-top formal proposal. Roman especially approved of the thoughtfulness and attention to detail, things that didn’t surprise him about Liam. Not where his lady was concerned.
As he expected of his boss, the guy went right past taking it to an eleven and brought enough damn cowbell to send the dial off the charts. Knowing she was a writer at heart, he’d taken full advantage of being across the pond and found a charming bed and breakfast in the English countryside near Stratford-Upon-Avon. The fact that they weren’t in a five-star hotel was a huge concession, but because it’s Liam Ashforth after all, the man booked the entire B&B for the duration of their stay and turned it into a romantic’s fantasy nirvana.
The happy couple were arriving in New York City a few hours after him, and he honestly couldn’t wait to see them. They’d been through a lot, the three of them, not the least of which was Rhiann very nearly getting killed by Liam’s crazy ex-business partner. No joke. They were all lucky to be alive.
How would he go about telling Liam all that he’d discovered? Having the Justice Agency and particularly Cameron Justice involved in the data gathering gave him an unusually thorough picture of what was going on. Cam was a tracking savant. He could find anybody, anywhere. But the bonus of uncovering the mother’s background filled in a lot of blanks.
Roman detested Adam Ward almost as much as Liam did. It rankled the shit out of him how big a cold-blooded motherfucker the man was. He’d done Carolyn Ashforth dirty and in a particularly sleazy way. Using an employee, a secretary, as a sexual plaything and then kicking her to the curb after knocking her up was in his mind a heinous and despicable way to behave.
Learning the dick had a second bastard offspring by yet another secretary turned his stomach.
Kelly Anne James.
The attendant sauntered by and took away the empty coffee cup. She approached with an expectant look—a signal he read loud and clear. With an impatient sigh, he barely managed to be civil when she asked if he needed anything else.
Was trolling the first class cabin hoping to catch a guy a thing? He spent the fraction of a second considering the difficulty scale he’d face getting into her pants and just as quickly nixed the idea. Blowing off sexual steam with a bit of Jane Doe strangely held zero appeal. Avoiding eye contact made her dismissal easy. He was relieved when she left him alone and he could return to his thoughts.
Staring blindly out the window, he worked out a plan worthy of Liam’s consideration. It might be a bit unorthodox but so the fuck what. This whole situation was irregular and fraught with problems.
Liam would see the advantages to Roman’s plan. It kept the number of people who knew anything to a minimum and put not just eyes on the subject but feet on the ground.
He was less worried about a young twenty-something holed up in a rural community a hundred miles off anyone’s beaten path than he was about keeping the whole matter quiet. If things went as planned, he’d target Kelly Anne James, get every single scintilla of information about her that he could, and then hand it over to Liam.
He was feeling pent up and overly restless so dicking around with a twenty-three-year-old country girl one second more than was necessary just wasn’t going to happen.
Maybe when this is over, he thought, I’ll think about taking some time off. Plan an actual vacation. Someplace on the water where he could find some frickin’ Zen and reset.
Seeing the whole pack of Justice Brothers married and with growing families shook him up more than he wanted to admit. Once upon a very long time ago that had been him.
But that was then, and this is now, and in his current reality, shit like marriage, kids, and a happy home life were things meant for other guys. He’d had his shot and enjoyed the sweetness until evil swept it all away.
He was content with his predictable life where a smooth brandy, a good cigar, a stack of philosophy books and Rachmaninoff on the sound system was enough.
“You motherfucker,” she grumbled through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw. Applying all of her body weight, Kelly dug one foot into the dirt as a brace and put the other on the crooked bumper of her ancient but still road-worthy truck named Blue Bandit. A violent push-pull yank on the wrench finally got results even if she ended up losing her balance and dropping like a stone onto her ass with a thud.
Yelping because a rock digging into her butt triggered a sharp stinging pain, she rolled to her knees and struggled back on her feet.
“Kiss my bruised ass, Bandit,” she snickered in triumph with a slap on the hood of the quirky blue vehicle. Tossing the wrench into her toolbox, she flinched slightly as the loud bang of metal hitting metal rang out.
Swiping her hands down jean covered thighs, she sidled up to the open truck window, reached inside the cab and grabbed her thermos bottle for a quick slug of sweetened coffee. She hated the bitter brew and ended up dumping way too much sugar into the vile necessity. Some days it seemed that without copious quantities of caffeine, she’d be screwed. Shuddering after another healthy swallow from the thermos, she gave the metal canister’s lid a last turn and put it back on the truck’s seat.
Overhead, the sky was an ominous gray, signaling another shit-tacular weather system was moving in. She could feel the deep furrows on her forehead when a frown settled. Mother Nature was at the top of her enemies list because nothing messed with her composure more than pretty much anything that made her already hard life even more difficult.
Just past twenty-three, Kelly Anne James knew more about life’s cruel bitch side than most.
Lugging the old, rusty toolbox across the yard to the tool shed, she kicked with a rough-sounding grunt and opened the door. Her nose was instantly assailed with the musty smell of the small, cramped building.
Half the crap shoved into the shed was stuff from another era left there by her mother’s family and forgotten. Just like the twenty-five acres she called home that decades ago had been a small farm tucked away in the woods and rolling mountains of Oklahoma.
“Forgotten should be my middle name,” she groused faintly.
Hurrying away from the dilapidated shed, she made straight for the steps of the porch she proudly rebuilt. When the original wood rotted away, she’d made a project of tearing down the old structure and replacing it with simple planks. It might not be perfect, but it was functional and safe – good enough in her book.
The minute she stepped through the door her senses filled with the sights, scents and sounds of the little home she inherited when her mother passed. It wasn’t much, but it was hers.
As the faint sound of classical music coming from the back of the house and the familiar smell of wood smoke settled around her like a warm hug she pulled on the neck of a hoodie acquired for two dollars in a thrift store and lifted it over her head. Quickly hanging it on a stubby wooden peg, she rubbed her hands together briskly and hurried to the fireplace.
While whisking stray ash off the brick hearth, she listened for telltale sounds from the bedroom at the nearest end of the hallway. Hearing nothing, she tended to the fire, scooping paddles full of glowing red and gold embers into a pile before adding a layer of wood chunks topped with a hefty log.
It was almost lunch, time to pay attention to mundane domestic chores such as the bread dough rising in two large stoneware bowls placed in a warming niche set into the red bricks next to the chimney. Say what you will about the rigors of rural living, but she rather liked the practical little touches from another century that gave her world its quirky definition.
Snatching an apron she’d made from a remnant of sturdy fabric, Kelly tied it behind her neck and wound the long ties around her waist twice, securing them with a firm tug.
Shoving a biscuit slathered with honey and drizzled with hot sauce down her throat, she injected some speed to her chores. With luck, she just might be able to get the bread ready for the oven before Matty woke up from his mid-morning snooze.
Without thinking, the steps she’d performed twice a week since she could remember played out. Living in the middle of nowhere at the intersection of Forgotten and Ignored, luxuries like fancy grocery stores and home delivery were unheard of. On her more and more frequent trips into Fairley, a real city about sixty miles away, sometimes she’d splurge on a loaf of bread from the shiny, overstocked grocery store. The convenience was cool, but she wasn’t overly fond of the bland, tasteless product.
“I’ll make my own bread thank you very much,” she muttered into the silence, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
Cracking open the oven door she peered inside at the thermometer hanging on the middle rack. Perfect. Just as she slid the last loaf onto the rack, a small voice called out. “Kiki?”
“I’m in the kitchen, Matty,” she answered. “Making lunch. Go potty and then come here.”
“Okay.”
She smiled. Matthew James had to be the coolest almost-four-year-old on the entire planet. Not only was he self-regulating and capable, the kid had an old soul quality that meshed well with her in-the-moment, getting-shit-done approach to living.
They were an awesome team.
At the stove, she lifted the lid on a pot of meatballs in bubbling sauce, scooped out two and put them in a dish to cool. It was lunch, and her rule that milk was always on the menu for the midday meal meant she needed Matty’s favorite cup. Finding it in the rack with the other breakfast dishes she’d yet to put away, Kelly retrieved the blue plastic cup with the green dinosaur tail for the handle and placed it on the kitchen table.
Matty loved the stupid cup. They found it last year at a flea market and paid a whopping nickel to bring it home. It was the dinosaur that sealed the deal. From the time he was old enough to be interested in something, the kid was a full-on junior paleontologist.
“Is it gonna snow?” he asked after turning up two inches behind her butt. She was used to the soundless way he moved but it still startled her.
“Soon, I think. Winter is almost here.” Stooping, she kissed him on the nose. “Did you wash?”
Proudly grinning, he nodded eagerly and did a hand flip display and then cupped both hands near his nose. He made one of those noisy exaggerated kid inhales and delightfully exclaimed, “Strawberry soap, Kiki!”
Ruffling his dirty blonde hair, she snickered softly and drawled, “You’re welcome.”
Smelly soap was another of Matty’s favorite things. There was something about getting clean with a delicious smelling simple luxury that took some of the ache out of their hard-scrabble life in rural Oklahoma. Smelly soap, however, wasn’t easy to come by or cost efficient. But then a snippet of random information she picked up during a friendly chat with the woman behind the counter at her favorite thrift store changed how she approached trying to solve the problem. For a two-dollar investment, she picked up three large bottles of no-brand strawberry shampoo and one of those pump soap things that turns water and soap into foam. Matty thought they were living high on the hog now with their fancy fruit foam. The bonus was that she ended up with enough shampoo to mix up a year’s worth and still have enough left over for countless hair washes.
“Okay, Mr. James. Grab the milk and plant your bottom on the bench while I get lunch. You want s’ghetti noodles or elbows with your meatballs?”
“S’ghetti, Kiki! And can I have bacon too?”
She cracked up laughing and slapped her hands to her waist. “Eww. Bacon spaghetti and meatballs? Yuk.”
“But I like Sam’s bacon. He says he smokes it with magic powder.”
Joining him at the table, she pushed a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs close and gestured at the napkin. “Manners, young man.”
“Aw,” he grumbled while slapping a cotton square onto his lap. “No bacon?”
“Matthew James,” she teased with laughter. “You are becoming a ravenous carnivore.”
“I know both words,” he proudly crowed. “The Megaraptor is a carnivore.”
“Was,” she reminded him. “We don’t have dinosaurs anymore.”
He shrugged off her reasoning like any kid would. “But we have books and pictures. Can I watch Jurassic World?”
“No!” she barked. “Enough with the dinosaurs. Eat your lunch, and then you can help me find a tree for Christmas.”
My god. Jurassic World? No way. She watched it one night on a shitty DVD one of the guys at Shorty’s had to hand over when she beat his stupid raggedy ass at a game of pool. The movie scared the snot from her nose and gave her nightmares.
Although… that guy, the actor, Chris what’s-his-name. He was kind of hot—if it mattered. Not that it did. She didn’t have time for messing around. Not with a wood pile that needed stacking or the small matter of the boarded up window in the mud room that absolutely had to be fixed before winter set in—the result of a tree limb crashing into the house during a violent spring storm.
Matty’s mention of their friend Sam, the butcher, reminded her of the occasional forays into town and visits to Shorty’s Bar that were requirements if she wanted to continue flying under the radar. A lesson her foolish mother never learned. Her refusal to interact with the folks spread out around their small town only made people whisper and talk more.
By the time Kelly was a young teenager, she was in charge of socially interacting with the neighbors. She made the dump runs to get rid of their trash, picked up the mail, dealt with the only local store and generally represented their notoriously private family, the product of Debbie James’ boneheaded and absolute refusal to be part of the world.
As Matty chowed down on lunch, she picked at hers and glanced around. Restless eyes spied the calendar hung by the back door.
December second. Ugh. Another year was coming to an end. A thousand details cramming into one month exploded in her head. She had orders to finish and mail to go out next week, and with some luck there’d be more interest in her work from people in the gift-giving mood.
Thank god for the satellite dish they installed with the surprise inheritance she and Matty discovered after Debbie breathed her final breath. Plugging into the outside world changed everything for them. The ironic punch to the gut she felt was because her mother’s avoidance of human contact left them cut them off from life – a situation that ended the second they learned of the financial windfall. Thanks, Mom.
Twenty-five thousand dollars might be nothing more than a drop in the ocean to people of privilege and means. But to a country girl raised on home canned food, who bought her clothes second-hand and who took the annual maximum on her hunting license, that kind of money was a life changer.
Once the window was cracked and the Internet blew a hole in their off-the-beaten-path bubble, all things became possible. The breath of fresh air gave strength to her artistic flights of fancy, and she found an instant niche with her stained glass knick-knacks, nature jewelry and the quirky watercolors she used in her brand advertising and packaging.
That’s right. K.A. James was a brand. Take that, life! She had plans. Plans for her and Matty that someday soon would mean they could leave Providence behind and strike out on their own into the big world. The world where she and Matty weren’t the illegitimate spawn of the man who destroyed their mother’s life and doomed them to an anonymous, forgotten hell. A new world where the past didn’t define the future.
But pulling off such a monumental life change was all on her. This wasn’t the time to fake-make. Nope. The coming new year held nothing but hopes and dreams. If her mother had taught her anything, it was one simple fact. Never rely on anyone else for anything. People were undependable and mercurial. Today’s friend could easily become tomorrow’s foe. If she expected to succeed, then she had to put her back into it. Everything depended on her.
An uncomfortable twinge, like a flutter, made her tummy quiver. Lately, her dreams of taking Matty and leaving had become curious and confusing. There were shadows of a person who she sometimes ran toward, and at other times ran from. It was weird and so unlike her. But one thing these dreams had in common was the feel of his hand and a deeply masculine voice saying, “Thank God I found you.”
She didn’t know what it meant, but she did know that the dream-like sensation of sliding her small hand into his changed her in some way.
“Hey, Kik,” Matty mumbled through a mouthful of meatball. “Did you get Bandit started?”
She chuckled and made a face. “Darn tooting, I did!”
He clapped excitedly and wiggled in his seat. “Yay! Then can we go to Fairy? I like the library.”
“First young man, no talking with your mouth full. Remember? Talking at meals is important, but we have to mind our manners, okay?”
Matty’s eyes glinted with impish delight. He was a good kid but had his moments like any preschooler.
“And it’s Fairley. With an L. Fair…lee,” she enunciated with care.
“Fairley,” he crowed. Her little brother’s happy giggle made Kelly smile. “Let’s look for a Franklin book at the library.”
She nodded with a wink to let him know it was a good idea and thought of the wrapped Christmas present shoved in the back of her closet. Along with Internet access came the wide, wonderful world of Amazon. The mailbox at a UPS Store in the city that she used for K.A. James gave her easy access to package delivery. After scouring used book sites, she decided on a pile of hard copy story books. Matty was going to go bananas. Next to dinosaurs, his second great passion was books. The kid loved a good story. Something she knew well, since she’d been weaving fantastic bedtime tales for him since he was still in diapers. Verbal stories were fine but oh my lord. When she read to him from a book? He was mesmerized, so she made sure to get a story about a kid naming his dinosaurs.
Her thoughts drifted as Matty chattered on. Once he got started, it was hard to reel him in. But only with her. When strangers were around, he went silent. She often wondered where he picked up the odd quirk. Maybe their mother? She wasn’t what you’d consider talkative.
Not that Matty would know that about her. Or remember her very much. After all, he was a toddler when she died. And it wasn’t like Debbie had given two shits or a fart for her son. Or her daughter. No, that distinction was held by a single person. The nameless, faceless piece of dog dirt who fathered them.
“And he said that’s the bestest spot to look. We have good trees, Kik!”
What the hell was he chattering on about?
“Sam says our gran let him cut his tree from anywhere on the mountain. He says Gran was a hooter. What’s a hooter?”
Good grief. She had no idea. Sam was full of sayings and phrases that made no sense. Probably why Matty was drawn to the sweet old coot who was more grandfather than neighbor.
Before she could respond, Matty changed the subject and off he went on another tangent leaving her to return in her silent musings to the sperm donor responsible for her and Matty.
She wasn’t completely sure they shared the same DNA, but all the signs were there. Their coloring was different, but they had similar eyes, and there were other things. Clues left by their mother like a cringe-worthy breadcrumb trail that led to only one conclusion.
Twice a year, Debbie would disappear for a handful of days. Like clockwork, Sam and his wife Ginny would either flat-out babysit her or, once she was old enough, keep an eye on things while her mom did whatever the hell it was that she did.
Right about the time Kelly turned thirteen, her young teenage mind noticed a pattern. Every May and November Debbie became an anxious mess. Then she’d disappear for a few days. When she returned, there was never any explanation, but there was other stuff. Things like her mom’s new outfit and a haircut.
And cash. There was always a pile of cash after one of these disappearing acts.
Something ugly and painful swirled in her gut. Not because of the money. Who was she to judge if her mother was whoring herself out? Whatever it took to survive was sort of the family motto. What got her stomach roiling was the timing. Her birthday was in May. May eleventh to be exact. But she had not one memory of anything remotely birthday-like because Debbie was simply absent on the day.
There was no way to explain how she knew this but she was certain that the man her mother spent a lifetime trying to make love her, the man who came before everything else, controlled Debbie James. And that control had strings. Strings the cruel son-of-a-bitch pulled to separate mother and daughter on the one day they were meant to share. It was like he made Debbie choose, over and over and over between his bi-annual attention and the daughter he disavowed.
Asshole.
Bitch.
Determined to transform her birthday from a tragic slap in the face to something, anything, a bit more positive, on her nineteenth birthday she spent the day in Fairley at the old library taking her high school diploma exam. By then she was beyond sick and tired of the woods, the lack of a future and her mother’s poor pitiful unloved me bullshit. Figuring out how to grab the bull’s horn and take some control turned out to be easy. Knowledge was key. So was ability and she had a shit ton of the latter.
She remembered the day with crystal clarity. Just because her mother was content to be used for some man’s sick, twisted pleasure didn’t mean she intended to walk the same path. Confident that she’d aced the test, Kelly drove Bandit through a McDonald’s for a happy meal she’d scraped enough change together to buy. The meal was nothing short of disgusting but the symbolic act made her feel normal and was a little reminder that she wasn’t totally without means.
Life on the mountain was about working hard and getting the most out of what you had even if that meant making do with a whole lot of nothing. So while Debbie hid away in a fantasy world, Kelly did what she always did. Stepped up and in a big way.
By the time she was old enough to count as fast as a grown-up, she’d been a regular at the farmer’s markets, church sales and seasonal fairs taking place all around Providence. If she could make it, bake it, can it, craft or draw it, she did, earning enough cash to help keep them afloat.
Confident that she’d pulled off the high school equivalency test and full of carefully thought out plans she was certain her best days were just around the bend.
Six weeks later she got her high school certificate in the mail.
Three weeks after that, Debbie announced she was pregnant, and Kelly’s bright dreams instantly dimmed.
Glancing at Matty, she felt instant soul-crushing guilt at remembering how angry and horrified she’d been before he arrived. At the time, all she knew was that her pathetic mother’s fucked up life choices once more required cleaning up.
She hadn’t known then that managing her mother’s trail of stupidity would be a life-long job. Being presented with a little brother at the same time she was leaving her teens behind ended up being a godsend.
The sound of a wood stool dragging on the floor brought her back from the musings running around in her brain. A small chuckle rolled in her throat as she watched her favorite guy clear the table and take their dishes to the sink.
They were a good team, and not just because he was incredibly self-regulating for so young a kid. Matthew James was the Yin to her Yang. Or maybe it was the other way around. She shrugged. Whatever. Specifics didn’t matter. It was the point, not the semantics.
When she was frazzled or worried, he was calm and pragmatic. And when he was upset or frightened, she rode in on her dragon-stead and slew his demons.
Getting them out of the woods in time for Matty to start school in another year was the fuel to her fire these days. Everything she did, every plan she made, all of it was with just one thing in mind. She was going to do right by the little boy and give him a real life out in the world where he’d make wishes and dreams that were actually achievable.
The woods and mountains where she grew up were where wishes and dreams went to die a slow, painful death. She didn’t want that for him.
Which is where the dirty money they inherited came into the picture. It was Sam’s wife Ginny who filled in the blanks after Debbie suddenly dropped from a stroke and died on the spot. Yes, the money was from the man her mother refused to abandon. No, Ginny didn’t know his name. All she knew was that Debbie went to great lengths to keep her whereabouts a secret and that the twice-a-year trysts took place in New Orleans. She traveled by bus under a different name and was careful not to leave clues.
The man was a wealthy businessman—which explained the money. The ultimate fuck off directed at Kelly by defiling her mother with clockwork precision on her actual birthday was all either of them needed to know when it came to judging the man’s character.
She also divulged that the man was unaware of Matty’s birth. Debbie had traveled to meet him when six months pregnant, but something had happened in his life that changed things. Ginny wasn’t sure exactly what, but she got the impression from the way Debbie fretted that the man had been brought down by someone. Someone Debbie seemed a little afraid of.
The visits ended after that and triggered her mother’s supersonic descent into poor health and becoming even more isolated if that were even possible.
When Matty was sixteen months old, Debbie James went to meet her maker. From that moment on, Kelly was the only family and caregiver for her little brother.
Matthew James. She couldn’t love him more if she tried.
“Can we go find our Christmas tree now, Kiki?”
Stooping to his level, she wrapped the man of the house in a warm hug, enjoyed the way he hugged her back and then kissed his cheek.
“Thank you for doing the dishes,” she drawled while ruffling his hair. “And yes to the tree. I think we need a little Christmas magic don’t you?”
He laughed. “Oh, Kik. You’re funny. You know if dinosaurs aren’t for real then magic isn’t either.”
Damn. He was too smart sometimes.
“Do you see real dinosaurs in here?” she asked with a tap on his head.
His answering nod and kid-snicker were so him.
“Well, I see magic in my head so…” she hesitated for emphasis, “real enough.”
He looked at her long and hard, searching her expression with his wise, old soul gaze. “I want your magic to be real.”
“And I want you to see a real dinosaur.”
They smiled at each other and broke out the fist bump, shimmy, wiggle that was their private ritual.
Christmas and New Year were careening toward them at high speed and she couldn’t be more thrilled. Certain that next year would change everything, she pushed aside the lingering heavy thoughts and concentrated on the future.
Kelly and Matty James were on a roll. Look out world, ‘cause here we fucking come.