Ricky had always taken after Patrick and had grown to be the spitting image of him with his huge hazel eyes and light brown hair. Every day he looked more and more like his dad. Luckily, he had his dad’s temperament as well. He was calm, hardworking, always ready to help if anyone needed him, and a frequent flyer on the honor roll.
In a strange, and in her opinion cruel, twist of fate, KJ had taken after his namesake as well. From his dark hair and green eyes to his rebellious attitude; his affinity for all things sports-related and total lack of interest in school.
The two of them reminded Ali so much of her brother and Kade at their age. Tears started to threaten her eyes again, but she sniffed them back.
“Hey, Ricky!” she greeted him sounding as chipper and upbeat as she could.
“Hey,” he answered, his focus still on his book.
She grabbed a pair of KJ’s shoes that had been left in the middle of the kitchen floor. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d asked him to clean up after himself, especially his shoes since his size thirteens were a serious tripping hazard, but it was like talking to a brick wall. She set them in a cubby off of the mudroom and saw Ricky’s science project sitting on the folding card table.
“Wow, this looks great!” she exclaimed.
Ricky had been working so hard on his project for weeks. He’d hypothesized the best designs for skyscrapers, drawn up blueprints, and then built mini-models out of Legos.
“Thanks.”
His monotone response didn’t surprise her. He didn’t get happy…or upset about much of anything.
She ruffled his hair as she passed by him on her way to start dinner. “How does Hamburger Helper sound?”
“Fine,” his answer was flat and automatic.
She was pretty sure she could’ve asked how cauliflower and cabbage sounded and his answer would’ve been the same.
It might seem in a side-by-side comparison that Ricky sitting in the well-lit kitchen, reading a book and being polite was more well-adjusted than KJ holed up in a dark, dingy, room staring at a screen, and being disrespectful, but out of the two boys she wasn’t sure which one worried her most.
At least KJ expressed himself, even if it wasn’t in a healthy or productive way. Ricky held everything in. He was quiet, did his homework, helped her at the rental shop, and always did his chores without being asked.
For the first few months after Patrick died, she was so grief-stricken and Ricky’s easy demeanor was a blessing compared to his brother’s. She never had to worry about him getting in a fight, flunking a class, or being detained for destruction of property. But lately she’d grown more concerned. Both boys were in therapy, but she wasn’t sure it was helping. Or maybe she wasn’t doing enough. Maybe she was failing them both.
Her mind was consumed with doubt as she bent down and retrieved her six-quart pot and set it in the sink and turned on the water. As she watched the water rise an all too familiar guilt rose up like bile in her throat. What if everything she was doing was wrong?
That was the biggest difference between being and aunt and a parent. It wasn’t that her life no longer belonged to herself, or that she had to budget in a way she’d never dreamed of, or that there never seemed to be enough hours in the day. It was the constant second-guessing. The constant worry and anxiety. The constant doubt about whether or not the decisions she was making were the right ones. The constant fear that she was dropping the ball and doing irreparable damage.
No. No time for that. She blinked back tears as she pushed those thoughts from her mind and went into survival auto-pilot, a mode she’d lived in for the past year and a half.
She set the pot on the stove and turned the knob igniting the burner. Then she moved to the laundry room and pulled the clothes out of the dryer before replacing them with the wet clothes on deck in the washing machine. She carefully synchronized slamming the door and pressing the on button at the same time. It was the only way to start the damn thing. It had to be jarred at the exact same second that she pushed the button. She’d figured out the trick after the first time it hadn’t roared to life and out of sheer frustration she’d began kicking it and slamming her hand against the button. It had started running and since then it was the only way to get the thing to work.
Resting the basket of laundry now heaping with freshly laundered garments on her hip, she headed out of the room and caught her reflection in the mirror across the hall and stopped up short. She looked haggard.
Her long honey blonde hair was pulled up in a messy bun, emphasis on the messy, there were dark circles beneath her eyes and her cheeks were hollowed out. Her clothes were hanging on her frame that was fifteen pounds lighter than it had been before her brother passed. Between taking care of the boys and running Whisper Lake Rentals and trying to keep up with the cleaning and repairs on this nearly one-hundred-year-old house, she never had time to take care of herself.
She let out a harsh puff of breath and revoked her one-way pass to Pity Town. She didn’t have time to visit there. Tonight, when she lay her head on the pillow, that’s when she’d let herself go and hit up all her favorite places: The Why Me Store. This Can’t Be My Life Shop. Feeling Sorry For Yourself Boutique. She was a regular customer at all three emotional destinations. But she only visited after the boys were in bed. When her responsibilities were taken care of for the day.
With renewed determination to pull herself together, she hummed as she headed up the stairs to fold and disperse the clean clothes. Sometimes it fooled her mind into thinking she was happy. If she sang or if she hummed, her mood instantly lifted no matter how much her life was imploding around her.
She hadn’t made it to the third step or finished the chorus of Bruno Mars’ “Finesse” when she heard a loud knock at the door. The unexpected sound caused her to jump and the basket fell from her hands in a start and the freshly cleaned clothes scattered on the steps that hadn’t been vacuumed in…she didn’t remember how long.
Staring down at the T-shirts, socks, and boxer briefs she made an executive decision. The thought of doing another load of laundry today was just too much to bear. So, enacting the five-second rule she quickly scooped up the T-shirts, socks, and boxer briefs.
The open-up-it’s-the-police knock came again and she set the white plastic basket on the landing as she turned toward the front door. Her stomach churned in dread. The last three unexpected visitors had all come to tell her of some trouble KJ had been involved in.
“What now?” Her shoulders dropped as she walked to the door, feeling much like she was walking the plank.
Patrick still had some good friends in this town, namely Deputy Sheriff Ethan Steele, who tried his best to keep KJ out of serious trouble. But the boy was blowing through his Get Out of Jail Free cards, and she knew that it was just a matter of time before her nephew did something that even Ethan couldn’t help him out of.
Knowing that she couldn’t face the bearer of bad news with a defeated attitude, she closed her eyes and took a deep, fortifying breath as she turned the knob and opened the door. She was glad she had, because when she opened the door, all of the oxygen in her lungs was sucked out.
She blinked twice in shock, not believing what she was seeing. On her porch stood the only man—other than her brother—that she’d ever depended on. The only man she’d ever loved and the one and only man to ever break her heart. The man whose name she hadn’t even been able to utter for the past eighteen months. The man who shared legal custody of her nephews but had disappeared off the face of the earth and left her to pick up all the pieces. The man who also happened to be the sexiest, hottest, most infuriatingly charming man she’d ever known.