Any Day Now Page 7

  Dad started to roll when the traffic began moving again, and we stayed silent for the rest of our journey to my brother’s place.

  It was only as we were pulling up in front of Sam’s house that my dad dropped a bomb.

  “That’s because I threatened action of my own,” he said. “I may not be a big-time movie star, but I fucking know people. If he ever wants to find a bodyguard again, he’ll drop it.”

  The moment we got off the bike in front of Sam’s place, I turned to my father with my hands on my hips. “You didn’t, like, threaten to kill him or anything, did you?”

  Dad’s eyes lit with fire, and his mouth turned up at the edges.

  “I’m fairly sure,” Cheyenne, my brother’s wife, said as she came toward us, “that your father probably did just about the same thing that Sam did. Just look at it this way, you don’t have to worry about that man. Ever.”

  I sighed and shook my head.

  “I don’t even know what to say.” I sighed, watching my father disappear into the house. “I was going to handle it!”

  Cheyenne threw her arm around me and pulled me into her side. “I made cookies.”

  I grimaced. “I can’t have cookies.”

  When I was seven, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Meaning, my entire life, I’ve been fighting to keep my blood sugar in check.

  Any deviation in my diet, no matter how small, could be disastrous for me.

  The other day with the donuts had been my one indulgence of the week, and I hadn’t even gotten more than a couple of bites.

  Though, I’d gotten something much sweeter…

  “What’s that smirk on your face for?” Cheyenne asked as we walked toward the front door. “And I know that you’re not allowed to have cookies. They’re special cookies. Ones with protein, fake sugar, and they taste pretty darn good if I do say so myself.”

  I grinned.

  I loved my sister-in-law.

  Though, since I was the same age as her daughters, I tended to see her more like an aunt.

  “I…” I looked to see if anybody was around me. “I met someone.”

  Her brows rose as she led me into the kitchen where there were, indeed, cookies.

  I picked one up and eyed it.

  “You met someone,” Cheyenne said casually. “Who might this someone be?”

  Before I could answer, both Dad and Sam walked into the room.

  “What’s this about meeting someone?” Sam asked, looking from me to his wife and back.

  I opened my mouth to lie, but nothing came out.

  For the first time in my life, words failed me.

  Well, words didn’t fail to come out of my mouth. Just ones that didn’t sound as if I was trying to hide something.

  “So whose dog was that in the forecourt as we drove in?” I blurted.

  When nobody answered, specifically not my brother, I chose that moment to steal a cookie and run.

  It was not a good idea to get my father and brothers interested in someone I was dating.

  They ruined every single relationship that I’d ever tried to have before I’d even had it.

  Trust me when I say, the males in my life were shit heads.

  Spotting the dog still where he’d been when we’d arrived, I took off at a slow jog in the dog’s direction, anxious to get away from my current predicament before it could come back and bite me in the ass.

  “Ohh, aren’t you just the cutest thing ever?” I cried as I dropped down, ass to calves, and reached for the cutest thing I’d ever seen on four legs. “Yes, you are. Oh my God. I just want to take you home and love you forever. I’ll bet nobody will notice that you’re gone.”

  A heartbeat passed, then a deep, very familiar, very sexy voice said, “I’d notice.”

  I closed my eyes as recognition hit.

  Then two things happened.

  One, I looked up into Adam’s eyes to see him smiling down at me.

  Two, my father and brother joined us.

  Chapter 8

  It’s time to start living. That means eating ice cream in the morning for breakfast, and cookies for lunch. You can save that salad for a rainy day.

  -Adam’s secret thoughts

  Adam

  “Mom,” I said as I pushed my mother’s hand away from the cut on my face. “It’s okay.”

  “I know it’s okay. I put the stitches in,” Mom said. “I just wanted to make sure there was no swelling.”

  My mother was a paramedic. She was also a mother. A very protective one at that.

  When one of her babies were hurt, she damn well protected them with everything she had.

  Two things that didn’t go well together when you were damn good at banging yourself up from time to time.

  Like today.

  I’d cut myself while splitting wood with my dad.

  I’d been chopping an oak log up with my ax when a piece of wood popped back and slammed into my chin.

  Now I was sporting three stitches thanks to my mom.

  “I’m okay.” I pulled away as I picked up my ax again. “Where’s Dad?”

  “He went to get a beer and speak with Sam,” Mom said. “Something about hearing an exhaust leak on Sam’s younger sister’s car.”

  I frowned and stood up straighter.

  “Sam’s sister?”

  Sam had a sister that was really young. At least, way younger than him.

  I hadn’t seen her in years, either.

  I always remembered her as weird, though.

  Always watchful, not talkative, and very, very standoffish.

  She was good friends with Sam’s youngest girl, Phoebe, though, so she’d been here a lot when we were kids.

  I wondered if she was still just as weird.

  And she never ate anything. She’d always had to have special food because she was picky.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Are you almost done with that?”

  I looked at the ever-growing pile of wood that was at my feet and shrugged.

  “I’ll finish this lot out,” I said. “Since Dad bitched out.”

  “I didn’t bitch out,” my father said as he came around the corner. “I saw Sam’s dad and sister pull in a few minutes ago while you were getting your face put back together, and thought I’d run over there and tell them what I heard last week.”

  I nodded once as I pulled back the ax and slammed it back down again.

  The shock of the ax hitting the wood reverberated up the handle and into my hands.

  My abs tightened and bunched, and a few more droplets of sweat fell off my face and onto the ground.

  “Looks like you bitched out to me,” I said, pointing to his woodpile, and then to mine. “And I had to have my face fixed. What’s your excuse?”

  My mother went to my father and wrapped her arms around his chest, pressing her face against his heart.

  I felt something warm slide through me at the sight of them.

  One day, I wanted what they had.

  One day, I hoped to have it.

  “My excuse is I’m getting old,” Dad said. “And why bother putting so much work into it when you’re young, able-bodied, and in better shape than me?”

  My mom ran her hands over my dad’s still-flat belly, slipping it underneath the fabric on one of her sweeps down.

  “You still have a six-pack, Jack,” Mom said. “And, just sayin’, but I can’t get enough of this silver.”

  She ran her free hand that wasn’t underneath his shirt along my father’s hair that was indeed going silver.

  Though, he liked to say it was going chrome.

  I guess it sounded cooler in his head or something.

  My father curled his arm around her waist and palmed her ass, giving it a very blatant squeeze as he looked down into her eyes with love shining in his.

  I curled my lip up in disgust at the two of them.

  “Can you please not grope each other when I’m around?” I pleaded.

  Dad grinned wickedly at me. “Why? Do you think if you don’t see it that it won’t still happen?”

  I gagged. “Gross.”

  “Way of life,” Dad corrected, his eyes focusing on something in the distance over my shoulder.

  I looked over my shoulder, ax on my other shoulder, and froze when I saw the familiar black curls swaying as someone ran across the parking lot of Free, a compound of sorts that was on the outskirts of Kilgore where my father started living the moment he got out of the military.

  My heart started beating in my throat when I realized who it was.

  Amelia.

  Amelia, the girl I’d been unable to stop thinking about since two days ago when I’d discovered she’d left my bed in the middle of the night.

  I watched as she ran until she got to the dog that was laying in the middle of the road—my dog.

  King.

  King was a two-year-old Corgi.

  She was sweet, fat, and lazy.

  And, apparently, she was cute enough to warrant Amelia running across the forecourt that spanned between all the houses.

  “Ohh, aren’t you just the cutest thing ever?” Amelia cried as she dropped down onto her haunches in front of my puppy and scratched King behind the ear. “Yes, you are. Oh my God. I just want to take you home and love you forever. I’ll bet nobody will notice that you’re gone.”

  I heard that as I walked up silently to where Amelia was crouched down.

  I hadn’t even realized that I’d moved.

  “I’d notice.”

  Amelia looked up just as Sam and Sam’s father, Silas, made their way over to us.

  “Amelia,” Silas said as he came to a stop beside us. “Why are you running away when I asked you about this ‘someone’ you were talking about meeting?”

  My eyes flicked from Amelia to Sam, to Silas and then back.

  She was running away when she was talking about me?

  I smothered my grin.

  Then offered my hand to Silas, followed by Sam.

  “Hey,” I rumbled. “Your girl’s trying to steal my dog.”

  Sam’s lips twitched.

  Silas rolled his eyes.

  “Did you know that when she was fifteen, Amelia tried to steal a dog from the mayor of Benton because he refused to stop leaving her in a car when he’d run into the convenience store?” Sam asked, turning slightly to Silas.

  Silas rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. She did steal it. She only put it back before the mayor got back to his car.”

  Sam and Silas chuckled, as did my dad who I hadn’t realized had followed us.

  My dad still had his arm around my mom, and he was watching the spectacle in front of him.

  My mom, on the other hand, was watching me.

  Me and Amelia.

  Fuck.

  I looked away, hoping whatever was showing on my face couldn’t be seen, and turned back to Amelia.

  She was now holding my dog and sitting in the dirt.

  Which was about the time that I saw my shirt.

  I looked at my mother and realized at the same time that she knew it, too.

  Fuck.

  “Nice shirt,” my mother said softly.

  I licked my lips and studied the sky.

  There were no clouds.

  Like none.

  The sky was so fucking blue that it was kind of hard to look at.

  “Oh,” Amelia said. “I, uh, found it.”

  Yeah, on my bedroom floor.

  Son of a bitch.

  If my mother didn’t suspect something before, she sure the hell knew something now.

  She’d bought me that shirt for my birthday when I was seventeen, and I’d worn it so much that it was worn out, had stress holes, and was to the point where it probably needed to be thrown away.

  Yet, I’d never done it because I loved it.

  And she’d stolen it, worn it here, and now my mother knew that we’d slept together.

  “Adam has a shirt like that,” Dad said. “He got it for his seventeenth birthday and hasn’t taken it off since.”

  “Adam, I don’t know if you remember Amelia or not,” Sam said as he introduced her. “But I won’t let her steal your dog. I know how much you love her.”

  Yes, King was a her.

  I wasn’t sure what possessed the kid to name the dog that, but when I’d gotten him from the military family that was unfortunately deployed overseas and couldn’t take their dog where they were going, I hadn’t had the heart to change King’s name.

  “She’s so cute!” Amelia chimed in, her face flushed slightly. “I’ve always wanted a Corgi.”

  I had, too.

  And I wasn’t really sure why.

  “I kind of remember,” I admitted to Sam. “It’s been a while.”

  That last comment was directed at Amelia.

  And it was meant in a multitude of ways.

  As in, it’d been a while since I’d seen her here. It’d been a while since I’d seen her in my bed, too.

  Amelia’s lips twitched.

  “You remember me?” she asked. “I actually kind of forgot about you. I can’t place you.”

  “Jack and Winter are my parents.” I hooked a thumb in their direction. “I’m the one that went into the Air Force at seventeen.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh!”

  The holes were lining up, and things were starting to make sense with her.

  When I’d turned seventeen, I’d begged my parents to sign the waiver allowing me to enter the military early. And they’d done so.

  Pretty much, every fucking person in my life wasn’t very happy with me going into the military so early. Especially since I had to get my GED to do it.

  And the top two non-supporters were my parents.

  But… desperate times call for desperate measures.

  Amelia turned to look at me, and I saw the moment she realized who, exactly, I was.

  “Ahh, the child disappointment.” She teased. “The one that ruined his life by joining the military early.”

  Her brother pushed her over with a not-so-gentle push of his knee to the side of her body.

  King was protected by the fall. Amelia, however, using her entire body to protect her, went sprawling onto the ground in the dirt.

  I couldn’t help it.

  I laughed.

  “On that note,” Mom said, “how about we go inside and grab a drink. Leave these two alone for a few minutes?”

  I.e., leave them alone to allow me to explain what had happened without everyone there.

  Not like they didn’t know what happened.

  The four of them left, leaving me there with Amelia still sprawled on the ground.

  “I can’t believe he just did that.” She sighed, burying her nose into my dog’s fur.

  Goddamn, I was jealous over my dog.

  What a concept.

  Looking over my shoulder, I glanced once to make sure that they’d made it inside, then looked back down at her.

  “I can’t believe that you snuck out of my room, stole my favorite shirt, and then showed up here wearing it,” I replied.

  She opened her mouth, closed it, then shrugged. “I… goodbyes are hard. And I had an exam that I forgot to take. It was due by four in the morning. No shitting. Seriously, I got home with about eighteen minutes to spare. I passed, but barely.”

  My lips twitched. “You could’ve taken it at my place. All you had to do was wake me up and tell me.”

  She blew out a breath, ruffling her hair, then sat back up.

  King went with her, loving all the attention.

  “I…” She paused. “I didn’t want you to kick me out.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” I said simply. “I wouldn’t have let you in there at all if I didn’t trust you or want you to stay.”

  She scrunched up her nose.

  I gestured toward the gazebo that was in my parents’ back yard and offered her my hand.

  She took it, keeping hold of King on the way up.

  “She’s sweet,” she said as she turned my dog over like a baby in her lap and started to scratch her belly. “I’m in love with your dog. Can I come visit with her tomorrow?”

  I grinned. “Just my dog?”

  She pursed her lips. “If I say yes?”

  “Then I’ll say no,” I taunted.

  She grinned and looked toward the back door of my parents’ place.

  “I can’t believe that we knew each other after all,” she said softly. “I’m sure you know all of my dirty little secrets now.”

  I looked at her with amusement on my face.

  “I was too busy being a bad kid on my own to worry about everyone else,” I admitted, smiling all out. “I’m sure you were great.”

  She laughed then, taking my heart rate from manageable levels to I should probably see a physician levels.

  “I did everything and anything that I could to put gray hair on my father’s and brothers’ heads,” she admitted. “Hence the job at the strip club, and the job before that. And the volunteering where I did.”

  Just as she admitted that, Sam, Silas and my parents came out the door.

  My mom had a platter of food in her hands and my dad had a couple extra bottles of beer.

  When they got close, my mom put the platter of food down onto the table in between the swings and took a seat on the one opposite of us, her eyes missing nothing about Amelia and my closeness.

  My dad handed off two of the beers, but paused when Amelia’s hands closed on one.

  “Are you old enough to drink?” he teased. “I don’t want to corrupt you.”

  “Don’t worry,” Silas said. “She’s long past being corrupted. She was an atrocious teenager.”

  “I was the perfect child,” Amelia said with a straight face.

  Sam and Silas both burst out laughing, their mirth more than obvious with their boisterous laughter.

  “You?” Silas’ laughter died down to chuckles. “Amelia Rose, you were an awful child. I swear to God, if you’d been my first child, I would’ve never had any more.”

  Sam snorted.

  “You remember that time that she snuck out when she was fifteen and got a tattoo from that tattoo shop in town? It’d just opened. Had some guy named Earthquake doing the tattoos. He didn’t know y’all yet, and so he just saw this well-developed girl, thought he was going to get some, and did her a pretty little tattoo on the small of her back.”