She shrugged. “Dunno. She won’t say. But I bet it was something bad. ’Cause that was a real nice dress she ran out in. It would take something pretty damn bad to make me run away instead of showing it off to everyone.”
I felt the heat of Knox’s gaze on me and shriveled like a raisin. Waylon must have sensed my desperation because he lay down on my feet under the table. “How about we talk about something else. Anything else. Religion? Politics? Blood-thirsty sports rivalries?”
“Sure nice havin’ you boys at the table at the same time,” Liza said. “This mean I don’t have to do Thanksgiving in two shifts this year?”
“We’ll see,” Nash said, eyeing his brother.
I could feel the tension between them.
Not wanting to have dinner end in a wrestling match, I desperately changed the subject. “You know, I didn’t actually steal the car.”
“That’s what Knox said when Mrs. Wheelan down at the Pop ’N Stop caught him with a pocket full of candy,” Nash said.
“Not all of us were born with Dudley Do-Right shoved up our ass.”
“For God’s sake, Knox. Language.” I elbowed him in the arm and pointed at Waylay.
She flashed him a toothy grin. “I don’t mind.”
“Well, I do.”
* * *
Fireflies winkedin and out of existence in the dusk as Knox and Waylay pitched pebbles into the creek. All three dogs took turns dashing into the creek, then turning around to shake themselves dry on the bank.
Waylay’s giggle and Knox’s low murmur echoed off the water made me feel like maybe today wasn’t the worst day ever.
I had a belly full of sloppy joes and a cozy house to return to.
“Doin’ okay?” Nash came up next to me on the grass. He had a nice, calming presence. I didn’t feel the exasperation around him that I did with Knox.
“I think so.” I turned to look at him. “Thank you. For everything. It’s been a stressful day. You and Liza and I guess even your brother made it better for Waylay and me.”
“Way’s a good kid,” he said. “She’s smart. Independent. A lot of us in town know that.”
I thought about the scene in the grocery store. “I hope you’re right. And I hope I can do right by her until we get things figured out.”
“That reminds me. I brought this for you,” he said, handing over a brochure that it was too dark to read. “It’s about kinship custody arrangements.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Basically, you’re looking at an application process with a few legal hoops to jump through. If all that goes well, you’ll have six months to decide if you want to make it permanent.”
Permanent?The word sent me reeling.
I stared unseeing as Waylay and Knox took turns throwing a soggy tennis ball for the dogs.
“I asked around about Tina,” Nash continued. “Rumor has it she got herself a new man a few weeks back, and there were whispers about some big score.”
A new man and a big score were both painfully on brand for my sister. “Do you really think she might not come back?”
Nash edged into my line of sight and dipped down until I looked him in the eye. “That’s the thing, Naomi. She does come back, she’s in a lot of trouble. No court’s gonna be thrilled with the idea of letting her retain custody.”
“And if it’s not me, it’s foster care,” I said, filling in the unspoken blanks.
“That’s the long and the short of it,” he said. “I know it’s a big decision and I’m not askin’ you to make it right this second. Get to know her. Get to know the town. Think on it. I’ve got a friend who does casework. She can help you get started with the application process.”
He was asking me to put the next six months of my life on hold for a little girl I’d just met. Yep. It was safe to say my bruised and battered life plan had officially disintegrated.
I blew out a sigh and decided tomorrow was as good a day as any for panicking over the future.
“Waylay! It’s time to go,” I called.
Waylon galloped to me, ears flying. He spit the tennis ball out at my feet. “Not you, buddy,” I said, leaning down to pet him.
“Do we have to?” Waylay whined, dragging her feet as if they were encased in concrete.
I shared similar sentiments.
Knox put his hand on the top of her head and guided her in my direction. “Get used to it, kid. Sometimes we all gotta do things we don’t want to.”
BACKYARD URINATION & DEWEY DECIMAL
Naomi
Ifound the cottage’s back porch to be a lovely little spot for organizing my daily to do list by priority as I waited for the pot of coffee to brew. I’d slept. Like a coma patient. And when my eyelids popped open at 6:15 on the dot, I’d tip-toed across the hall to Waylay’s room and peeked in to make sure my niece was still there.
She was. Tucked between fresh sheets in a white four-poster bed.
I stared down at my list and tapped the end of a blue highlighter against the page. I needed to contact my parents and let them know I was alive and not having some kind of breakdown. But I wasn’t sure how much else to tell them.
Hey, guys, you remember your other daughter? The one who gave you migraines for twenty years before she vanished from our lives? Yeah, well, she has a daughter who has no idea you exist.
They’d disembark from their cruise ship in a hot minute and be on the first plane headed in our direction. Waylay had just been abandoned by her own mother and was now under the roof of an aunt she’d never met. Introducing grandparents into the mix might not be the best idea this soon out of the gate.
Plus, it was my parents’ first vacation together in ten years. They deserved three weeks of peace and quiet.
The choice was only partially weighted in favor of the fact that I wouldn’t have to come up with a diplomatic way to explain that they had missed out on the first eleven years of their only grandchild’s life. Yet.
I didn’t like doing things until I knew the exact right way to do them. So I would wait until I knew Waylay a little better and my parents were back from their anniversary cruise, well-rested and ready for crazy news.
Satisfied, I collected my notebook and highlighters and was just about ready to stand when I heard the distant squeak of a screen door.
Next door, Waylon trotted down the back stairs into the yard, where he promptly lifted his leg on a dead spot he clearly enjoyed using as a toilet. I smiled, and then the muscles of my face froze when another movement caught my eye.
Knox “The Viking” Morgan strolled off the deck in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. He was all man. Muscles, chest hair, tattoos. He stretched one arm lazily overhead and scratched the back of his neck, creating a picture of sleepy testosterone. It took me a full ten seconds of open-mouthed ogling to realize the man, like his dog, was peeing.
My highlighters flying made a rapid-fire racket as they hit the wooden planks beneath me. Time froze as Knox turned in my direction. He was facing me with one hand on his… Nope.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
I left my highlighters where they were and fled for the safety of the cottage, all the while congratulating myself for not trying to get a better look at Knox Jr.
“Why’s your face so red? You get sunburnt?”
I let out a shriek and crashed back against the screen door, nearly falling out onto the porch.
Waylay was standing on a chair trying to reach the Pop-Tarts I’d hidden above the fridge.
“You’re so jumpy,” she accused.
Carefully, I closed the door, leaving all thoughts of urinating men in the outside world. “Put the Pop-Tarts down. We’re having eggs for breakfast.”
“Aww. Man.”
I ignored her disdain and placed the house’s only skillet on the stove. “How do you feel about going to the library today?”
* * *
The Knockemout Public Librarywas a sanctuary of cool and quiet in the Virginia summer swelter. It was a light, bright space with white oak shelves and farm-style work tables. Pairs of overstuffed armchairs were clustered by the tall windows.
Just inside the door was a large community bulletin board. Everything from piano lessons to yard sale announcements and charity bike rides dotted the corkboard in evenly spaced increments. Beneath it sat a gray-washed table displaying several genres of books from steamy romance to autobiographies to poetry.
Glossy green plants in blue and yellow pots added life on shelves and sunny, flat surfaces. There was a colorful kids section with bright wallpaper and a rainbow of floor cushions. Quiet instrumental music murmured from hidden speakers. It felt more like a high-end spa than a public library. I approved.
Behind the long, low circulation desk was a woman who caught the eye. Tan skin. Red lipstick. Long, sleek blonde hair streaked with a warm purpley-pink. The frames of her glasses were blue and a tiny stud winked in her nose.
The only thing that screamed “librarian” about her was the large stack of hardbacks she carried.
“Hey, Way,” she called. “You got a line already upstairs.”
“Thanks, Sloane.”
“You have a line for what?” I asked.
“Nothing,” my niece mumbled.
“Tech support,” the attractive and surprisingly loud librarian announced. “We get a lot of older folks who don’t have access to their own eleven-year-olds to fix their phones and Kindles and tablets.”
I recalled Liza’s comment at dinner the night before.
Which made me recall Knox and his penis this morning.
Whoops.
“The computers are over there near the coffee bar and the restrooms, Aunt Naomi. I’ll be on the second floor if you need anything.”
“Coffee bar?” I parroted, trying not to think of my nearly naked next-door neighbor.
But my charge was already striding purposefully past the book stacks toward an open staircase in the back.
The librarian tossed me a curious look as she shelved a Stephen King novel. “You’re not Tina,” she said.
“How’d you know?”
“I’ve never seen Tina so much as drop Waylay off here, let alone willingly cross the threshold.”
“Tina’s my sister,” I explained.
“I gathered that from the whole you look almost exactly alike thing. How long have you been in town? I can’t believe there hasn’t been a trail of hot gossip blazed to my doorstep.”
“I got in yesterday.”