A Ring for Rosie. Maggie Wells
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the birthday party they’d all attended at Trampland Trampoline Park. A chubby boy with perpetually rosy cheeks and hair the color and consistency of straw, Kellon had a mischievous streak James admired. The thought of the exuberant boy strapped to a gurney made his heartbeat slow to a dull thud.
“What? How?”
“He’s ’llergic,” Jeff supplied helpfully.
James stared at his boys in disbelief. Given the prevalence of peanut allergies these days, the daycare the boys attended twice a week had a strict no-peanut policy. He had to ask the question. “How? Where did he get the peanut?”
“Julie Joyce brings ’em. She says they’re her favorite, but she’ll let you have some if you let her use the blue slide first. She says the first slide is the best.” Jamie added an authoritative nod.
“Kellon was first in line, so she gave him some of her peanuts,” Jeff explained.
James set the wooden spoon aside and turned his full attention to his kids. Contraband on the playground. In preschool. The details were a bit much to wrap his head around after the day he’d had. “But doesn’t he know he’s allergic to them?”
Jamie blinked owlishly. “He di’ent eat ’em.”
His jaw dropped, but he quickly recovered. “He shoved one up his nose?”
“Right,” Jeff confirmed, seemingly pleased to discover his father wasn’t a total moron.
“Do the teachers know about Julie Joyce and her secret stash?” he asked, dividing a look between them.
“Yep.” Jamie nodded hard enough to make James’s neck hurt in sympathy. “They called her mom on her an’ everything.”
“I bet they did.”
“We were wondering if Mommy likes peanuts,” Jeff concluded. His tiny forehead puckered into a frown as a new thought occurred to him. “Or is she ’llergic like Kellon.”
James turned the stove off and wiped his hands on a paper towel. “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out real quick here.”
Oblivious to the undertone, the twins returned to their coloring as he strode from the room. He could hear water running in the shower still and shook his head. He knew the capacity of his water tank, and there was no way the water wasn’t ice-cold. Approaching the bathroom, he turned his fist on its side and pounded the door with the meat of his hand. There was no way Megan would hear a polite rap of knuckles over the din coming from within.
“Hey! You staying in there all night?”
There was no verbal reply, but within a few seconds the shower shut off and the sound of rushing water slowed to a trickle. Moving slowly, subtly, he tested the doorknob to see if the door was locked. It was. Thank God. The last thing he needed was the boys barging in on a naked lady, even if the lady in question was their mother. There were some questions he simply wasn’t ready to field.
“Megan?” he called through the hollow-paneled door. “We’re about to eat without you.”
He heard some shuffling, and what might have been snuffling, but what he didn’t hear was the metallic squeal of shower curtain rings sliding along the rail. Closing his eyes, he braced his hands on either side of the bathroom door and prayed they weren’t about to embark on a fresh round of dramatics. He’d had his fill earlier in the day.
“Meg, come on, the boys are hungry.” His attitude was a lot more controlled than he felt at the moment, but his patience was wearing thin.
Another long pause. Finally, she muttered, “Go ahead. I’m not eating.”
Exhaling his exasperation, he rattled the doorknob. “Nope. Not gonna wash. They’re asking questions. You’re the one who showed up here claiming you needed to spend more time with them, you can damn well get out here and tell them whether or not you like peanuts.”
This time, the silence stretched long enough to worry him a bit. Dropping his voice, he leaned into the doorframe. “Megan, are you okay? Do I need to come in there?”
“No.”
Her answer came fast enough. “Fine, then you get out here. I didn’t offer to let you crash here. You blackmailed your way into this.”
When she didn’t answer, he stepped back and eyeballed the door. Being the father of two fairly troublesome boys, he’d replaced all the knobs in the house with those he could pop open with a jiggle of wire coat hanger. He didn’t want to start off on iffy footing with Megan, but he would if he had to. He was about to head for the hall closet and his handy-dandy homemade slim jim lock popper when she spoke again.
“I’m scared.”
He ran a tired hand over his jaw, straightened his glasses. “Of what?”
The question came out more harshly than intended, but Jesus, who could blame him for being on edge? His baby mama had been back in town less than a week and had already stirred up a fresh batch of shit worthy of a horse pasture. His best friends thought he was nuts to take her in. Even Mike refused, and Megan was his sister. And then there was Rosie.
God, Rosie.
What the hell was he going to do about Rosie?
“What if they don’t like me?”
Megan’s voice was uncharacteristically small and carried a disturbing quaver, but he stood firm in his resolve. He was not buying one ounce of the manure she’d been shoveling since the minute she’d pushed her way into their lives with her snide, ‘Hi, honey, I’m home!’
“Too late to worry about whether they like you or not now.”
He counted down from ten in his head. By the time he hit four, the lock snicked and she twisted the knob enough to loosen the catch. But he was no fool. He’d fallen for her vulnerable artist schtick before; he wasn’t about to go there again. She wasn’t a kid bouncing from art program to art program anymore. And he wasn’t the same guy, either. He had two boys he loved more than he ever thought possible sitting in the other room. Somehow, he had to figure out how to do what was best for them.
Even if doing the best thing for them damaged everyone and everything around him.
Heaving a sigh, he stepped back from the door. “Time to eat,” he announced, interjecting a note of “this discussion is over” into his voice.
Megan’s surprised face appeared in the crack of the doorway, and James smirked. He had an official no-nonsense voice now, and he wasn’t afraid to use it. Particularly not on the woman he considered a squatter.
“I’m not messing with you, Meg. I’m not your boyfriend, and I’m certainly not your patsy,” he said quietly but firmly. “I suggest you spend your time away from the boys looking for your next victim, because the clock is ticking on this arrangement. You wanna stay in town and see the kids, good job on boxing me in, but you won’t be living here indefinitely.”
“But—”
“No buts. I owe you nothing.” He lifted a hand to stave off further protests. “You have two weeks to sort yourself out.”
“Two weeks?” she cried, incredulously.
Her blue eyes blazed as she swung the door wide. She was winding up to blast him with both barrels, but James couldn’t care less. He was more concerned about what he saw. She’d wrapped a bleach-spotted green towel around her body, thank Christ, but her hair streamed over her shoulders in waves. He should have been distracted by her lack of clothing, or those sunshine golden waves. At one time he definitely would have been. But all he could see was that her hair was dry as a bone. So was her skin and the towel she wore. But the mirror wasn’t fogged and no billows of steam rolled out of the room. In fact, her cheeks were the only part of her even slightly damp.
Once upon a time, he would have been moved by the sight, but he’d wised up a lot since then. Crossing