Gage

She’s on to me. I can feel it. The thing is, I don’t know how I feel about it. It might be easier just to tell her who I am and trust she won’t tell anyone else, but I’m not great at trusting.

It took us two hours to clear the path so everyone—everyone but Clover—could hike down the mountain. Having my house back to myself is a relief. The simple, quiet organization of my life is back, and I can focus all of my attention on Adley and Clover.

Clover is standing at the sink washing a bowl Adley used for her apples earlier. She has her back to me, but she can see me in the reflection of the window in front of her. I smile and drop my gaze to my iPad trying to figure out what to make for dinner. “Hey, look, Daddy, the Wi-Fi is back on. We can watch Once Upon a Time.”

I was wondering how long it would take her to notice. “That’s great, baby. You should check in with Miss Kitty and find out what you missed before you watch any television.” Her face falls. She thought Clover would be more of a distraction, and she is. But Adley’s education is especially important to me because it’s all done virtually. I never let her miss a lesson, and I’m on her like white on rice about homework.

“Okay, but after?”

“Yes, after your homework, we can watch.”

“Yes!” she hisses and takes off to fire up the desktop computer she uses for school.

“You’re a good dad,” Clover says turning around to dry her hands.

I snort. “I don’t know about that, but thanks.”

“You are. You’re concerned about her education, you take great care of her, she’s musically talented, and you foster that. You’ve shown her an alternative lifestyle, and I have a pretty good feeling she’s a survivor.”

I know she’s referring to the wilderness when she nods her head toward the door, but Adley’s more of a survivor than even she knows.

“More than you can imagine.” She almost died along with her mother.

“What do you mean?”

“She had a rough start in life. Are you up for helping me cook dinner?” I could have used that moment to tell Clover about my past, but I’m not ready yet. I don’t want to scare her off. Telling her I’m an emotional infant who couldn’t deal with my wife’s death so I retreated into the mountains like a Neanderthal to raise my kid seems like a good way to do that.

She looks into my eyes for a moment too long, and I know she understands my tactic. I’m grateful she doesn’t point it out. “Sure, what did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking lasagna, sound good?”

“Oh my God, yes. I’m starving. I say we eat the whole pan forcing ourselves into a carb coma so that we can become one with the couch in front of the TV later.”

“I think you just read my mind.” I love the way she thinks, and her uninhibited adoration of food is sexy. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman with no appetite.

“Where do we start?”

“How are you in the kitchen?”

“I know my way around.”

“Great. I’ll get a pot to boil the pasta, and you can cook the meat.”

“Okay.” We set about making dinner, and I quickly notice something. We work well together. We anticipate one another’s movements naturally. There’s no bumping or fumbling but a natural flow of passing things to one another and stepping in when we see the need to help.

Thirty minutes later, still working side by side, I look over at her mixing a bowl of cheeses. “We work well together, don’t we?”

“Yeah, it’s weird,” she says scrunching up her pretty little nose.

“Weird?”

“You know like we’ve been cooking dinners together for twenty years or something.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

“It’s the universe speaking, or nature, or the gods. Whatever.”

“What?” I say raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“I’m not a religious person. I don’t know who made us or what caused our creation, but don’t you think sometimes it’s undeniable that something else is in control? Like when a great person comes into your life, and you think wow, how did that happen?”

I lean back against the counter and look hard at her. Yes, I know what she means because I feel the same way. I used to be part of organized religion before I got famous, Catholicism to be exact. My parents insisted we go to church every Sunday and religious education class once a week on Wednesdays. When I started the band, I quit going for obvious reasons, but I still believed what I’d been taught.

When Constance died, I hated God and everything I’d been raised to believe in. Over the last six years, though, I’ve learned I am not alone. There is no way I would have survived the emotional ruin losing my wife left me in without a higher being. And, there is no way I could have raised a baby on this mountain without that comforting knowledge.

“You think I’m a great person?”

She laughs and shoves my shoulder. “Duh, you saved my life and bought me a backpack. I’d say you rank in the top six awesome people I’ve met in my life so far.”

“Yeah? Who else is up there?”

“My Aunt Heather, my best friend, Freda, Adley, and my mom and dad.”

“Wow, I’m keeping some pretty important company in the top six. Thank you. I think you’re great, too. More than great, you’re like a breath of fresh air in our lives.”

“So, where do I rank?” She bats her eyelashes and tucks her chin down in a silly overly-flirty expression.

“Top five for sure. There’s my mother, Constance, Adley, my brother, Hank, and you. That’s it.”

“Not your father or a best friend?”

“No, my father was an abusive alcoholic bastard. He isn’t even in the top one hundred.”

“I’m sorry.” She places the pan on the stove to brown the ground beef and gives me a nervous side-glance.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Uh, yeah, just not crazy about gas stoves. Mine is electric.”

“Oh, it’s no biggie. Just turn the knob like this,” I reach across and turn the burner on high, and she jumps back grabbing my dangling shirttail. “Thanks,” I say wadding up the material and stuffing it into the top of my jeans. “And then you turn it down a little until the flame is where you want it.” I bend down to make sure the flame isn’t too high and straighten up.

Clover is standing three steps away from the stove with wide eyes and her arms wrapped tight around her torso. “Hey, are you okay. You’re shaking.” I rub my hands up and down her biceps and pull her in for a hug.

“You could have caught yourself on fire.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t. And just so you know, we have a fire extinguisher in the closet over there. God forbid we ever have an emergency.”

“Fire extinguishers don’t always work. Does Adley know about fire safety?” she says with panic in her voice.

I step back to look into her eyes. “She knows the basics. You’re not comfortable with fire, are you?”

“No, it’s not my favorite thing for sure.”

“Okay, well, how about you work on things that go in the oven, and I’ll handle the open flames, deal?” I give her a small smile, and she returns it with an even smaller one of her own and a nod.

The second I let her go, she walks to the cabinet and removes the fire extinguisher and checks the expiration date and the pin. “Convinced?”

“Yes. You should have more than one, though, in case a fire spreads. Just a thought.”

“I’ll add it to the supply list. You sure you’re okay?” Her usual mocha skin is the color of storm clouds ready to burst.

“I’m fine, safety first you know,” she says with a fake burst of positivity.

“Would you mind checking on Adley and making sure she’s not playing a video game online instead of doing her homework? I’ll finish up in here.”

“Oh, sure, of course. I don’t mind coming back to help you finish, though. I just got a little spooked,” she says with a short burst of laughter confirming my suspicion that she’s much more afraid of fire than she’s letting on.

“Nah, I got this.”

“Okay. Should I introduce myself to Miss Kitty?”

“Yes, if she’s online. She probably just left her the work to do, though. You can meet her tomorrow during her regular school hours if she’s not there.”

“Ah, okay, so it’s like a regular school day, but everyone is online at home?”

“Yep, same hours just in the living room.”

“That takes a lot of self-discipline.”

“For some maybe but not Adley. She likes school.”

“Lucky girl. I hated school. I wanted to be hiking or camping or swimming all the time.”

“Adventure education,” I say by way of explanation of her career choice.

“Adventure education,” she confirms.

Later that night after eating more lasagna than any dietitian would advise, we wallowed on the couch and watched a Once Upon a Time marathon with Adley until she fell asleep on the loveseat.

“I’ve never seen this show before,” Clover says from her end of the couch. We have been sitting on opposite ends playing footsie for hours. It’s been torture keeping my hands to myself while Adley is in the room. I didn’t hear one word of her favorite show. I was too busy thinking about all the things I want to do to Clover when I get her alone.

“Did you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s a cool twist on the traditional fairy tales. I’ll have to start from the beginning sometime, though. I was a little confused.”

“It’s a long one, hope you have a lot of time to waste.”

“It’s not wasted when it’s spent with you guys.”

“Come here,” I say under my breath, and she looks at Adley. “She’s out, nothing short of an earthquake will wake her now.”

She seems reassured when she scoots closer, and I take her around the waist and pull her back to my front. I’m hard, but I don’t press into her. I don’t want her to know how bad I want her yet.

With my arms around her, I breathe in the scent of jasmine in her hair. “You smell good. How is it that you worked twice as hard as any of the men, and you still smell like a garden?”

“Good genes, I guess. My sweat doesn’t smell bad.”

“You’re kind of perfect, you know?” I feel her chuckle.

“Far from it. I have my fair share of luggage to drag around. How about you? Any deep dark secrets you want to tell me about?”

I freeze under her and consider a rude departure but think better of it. She’s going to find out anyway living here for two months. I don’t have to divulge the whole story now. I’ll start with Constance.

“My wife died giving birth to Adley. Adley wasn’t expected to live either.”

“I’m sorry, Gage. I didn’t mean to bring up such a painful memory. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, it’s all right. You’re going to be a part of our lives for a while, you should know. Constance left before the tour ended to go home to help her mother when her father was sick, and she ended up going into an early labor. I wasn’t there when she started bleeding. She’d missed several OB appointments and ultrasounds traveling with me while I worked, and she didn’t know she had a placenta previa.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s when the placenta grows over the cervix so the baby can’t be born vaginally. Usually, they plan a C-section toward the end of the pregnancy and put the mother on bed rest, but we didn’t know. She was moving things around in the nursery when she started bleeding. She called the paramedics, and by the time they got there, she had lost a lot of blood and was unconscious. They got her to the hospital and did the C-section, but they couldn’t stop the bleeding in time to save her. Adley was in bad shape and spent six weeks in the NICU.”

She turns in my lap halfway around swinging her legs over one of mine. “I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you. Did you make it in time for the surgery?”

I knew that would be her next question. I’ve only told this story a couple of times, and both times this question guts me. “No. I was out of the country working. I didn’t get back for three days. She was alone when she died, and Adley had no parents there to love her all that time.” My voice cracks, and I lean my head back on the end of the couch to stare up at the dark loft above us.

I feel her cheek against my chest, and her hands sliding around my waist. I wrap my arms around her and hold on until I have my composure back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a downer.”

She sits up and looks at me with stern eyes. “You are not being a downer, Gage Mercury. You’re sharing what I imagine is the most painful part of your life. Thank you for trusting me with that. I’m sorry it happened, but you have nothing to feel bad about. Adley turned out perfect, and I’m sure your wife knew how much you loved her.”

“I wasn’t there for them when they needed me most. I didn’t keep them safe.”

“You were working, you couldn’t help it.”

“You don’t know the whole story. I could have been there. I should have been, but I was selfish, and I made her miss important appointments that would have saved her life. Her blood is forever on my hands.”

She frowns. “Is that why you live up here? Did you seclude yourself as a punishment?”

“No. Yes, sort of. I don’t know. I just needed to get away from everyone and take care of my baby. I needed quiet and time to think.”

“Six years of thinking is a long time.”

“I have a lot to think about.” I smile trying to lighten the mood and hopefully change the subject.

“Okay. That’s enough sharing for tonight. We better put your little girl to bed and get some sleep ourselves.”

“Sleep is overrated, you know.”

“Only to those who get plenty of it.”

“I thought we could make out a little bit first.” She swats at my chest.

“Are you trying to seduce the nanny, Mr. Mercury?”

I look left and right and back at her playfully pointing at myself. “Who, me?”

“You’re the only Mr. Mercury here.”

“I’ll put Adley in bed, you wait here.”

“What for?”

“So I can put you in my bed when I’m done.”

“Oh, so you are seducing me. I see how you are. I could file a sexual harassment case against you, you know?”

“First, will you let me sexually harass you? I’d hate to be falsely accused of something like that.”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

“Good, I’ll be right back. Do. Not. Move.” I stand up with her in my arms and turn to place her in my spot on the couch.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

I scoop Adley’s limp body into my arms. She doesn’t make a sound as I knew she wouldn’t. The kid sleeps like the dead, always has. I carry her upstairs to her room and tuck her under the covers leaving the small lamp on her nightstand turned on just in case she has a bad dream. She hasn’t had one in a long time, but I’m not risking having her wake up in the dark alone and scared. She started her life that way because of me, never again.

When I return to the living room, Clover is where I left her, but she is sound asleep. I don’t have the heart to move her when she looks so peaceful. I slide in behind her on the wide couch and pull a throw blanket over us. She’s warm and soft in all the best places molded against my body. I don’t want to let her go. Not now, maybe never.