Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bliss sat in the middle of the road, staring at her shredded tire and trying not to lose every stinking ounce of her holiday spirit.
Which, if she were being honest with herself, was hanging on by a thread thinner than the ribbon on a candy cane.
She’d always heard bad things came in threes.
Somehow, her luck had missed the memo. Her luck had decided to upgrade to a bulk discount plan.
So much for getting to Winnie’s to pick up her girls on time for once.
Glancing at the phone in her hand, she resisted the urge to throw it as far as she could. She would have done it if it weren’t her one remaining source of sanity. It was also the only device that might eventually connect her to the outside world before frostbite set in. So there was that.
Mary Poppins whispered in her right ear. Just wait for your spoonful of sugar to help this medicine go down.
Bliss straightened her back. Mary Poppins was right.
Mary Poppins was always right. That’s why she sat on Bliss’s right shoulder.
Not the life-sized Mary Poppins, of course.
Bliss had a miniature Mary Poppins sitting on her shoulder, encouraging her to make wise choices.
And she managed to do it with an impossibly calm expression that said everything would be fine if Bliss would simply behave like a sensible human being.
Miranda Lambert chirped in Bliss’s left ear. Well, you know what I say, soak that tire in kerosene, light it up, and watch it burn.
Most people had good angels and bad angels sitting on their shoulders.
Bliss was no different. It was just that her shoulder angels were Mary Poppins and Miranda Lambert.
They gave her advice all the time, mostly in song lyrics.
This time, she’d better go with Mary’s advice.
Miranda’s solutions were always satisfying, but they generally came with legal consequences.
She glanced down at Tipper, Tipsy for short, her lynx stuffie. Winnie had given Tipsy to her before she escaped from the Society when Bliss was fifteen. It had been Bliss’s only connection to her sister, and she’d kept her all this time.
Tipsy had survived eleven years of tears, secrets, and long nights. Her fur was worn soft from being loved too hard. Right now, Tipsy entertained Sadie and Sophie while she took care of her Nori.
Her girls filled her life with love, joy, and responsibility. And fear. Lots of fear.
Fear that she hadn’t done the right thing, not telling Connor about his daughter. Fear that she wouldn’t be able to do this on her own. Fear that one wrong decision would shatter the fragile, beautiful life she was building for them.
Tipsy’s bright golden eyes reminded her of Connor. How could she miss him so much? She’d only been with him a day and a half, but that day and a half had changed everything. She only allowed herself to use Connor’s name once a day, and today she’d already used it twice.
With a sigh, she focused on the problem at hand.
It couldn’t be that hard, right? She should just pull everything out of the trunk and change the stupid tire.
Or… she could stand by the road with her thumb out, hoping someone would have pity on her and take her to Winnie’s house.
Given her luck today, she’d probably end up hitching a ride with a traveling accordion salesman.
Pish-posh. Mary Poppins tapped her buttoned shoe on Bliss’s shoulder. Once begun is half done.
Sometimes, Mary Poppins got on Bliss’s very last nerve.
Hugging Tipsy closer to her chest, she stared at the flat tire. The rim almost touching the ground didn’t strike her as being a good thing. “I’ve never actually changed a tire before, Tipsy. Have you?”
Tipsy had never changed a tire, either. They’d have to figure it out together.
In a few minutes. Right now, she was going to sit here and imagine following Miranda’s advice and dousing her avocado-green rust-bucket of a car in kerosene and setting it aflame.
At least she’d be warm then. And possibly arrested.
She’d left the house this morning without her coat.
Again. The pretty teal sweater with the giant appliqued moose she’d worn to work didn’t deserve to be covered up.
It should have been fine since her job was inside.
All she had to do was walk into Bundles of Joy, where she worked, and then back out to her car at five.
It was a perfectly reasonable plan that the universe had clearly taken personal offense to.
Bad things were supposed to come in threes, right?
Well, she must have won the gold prize today because this day had given her way more than three bad things.
First, Ivy had kept her after work to talk to her in private.
Bliss had felt just like she did when she used to get called into Father Cassian’s office at the compound.
That same sinking feeling in her stomach, like whatever the trouble was, it had her name written all over it.
She held Tipsy up to her face. “We don’t like being nervous, do we? No.”
That was the nice thing about asking Tipsy a question. She always had the right answer. Not with actual words, of course. She’d communicate with those golden eyes, like Connor had.
Thankfully, Winnie was able to come and get the girls. It was hard to focus on what people were saying when the babies were around. She didn’t mind since it was hard for the other people to focus, too.
Everyone loved her girls. Sadie and Sophie were dimpled bundles of babbling, trying-to-walk joy.
And Nori was taking in everything around her in that quiet, thoughtful way she had.
Just like her father. She never cried, just watched life go on around her as if she already understood the world better than anyone else. Especially Bliss.
It turned out Ivy wanted to know about how things were going at home.
It was sweet, although it wasn’t anything they couldn’t have talked about over lunch.
She’d asked about how Bliss was coping with raising three babies alone, and if they were getting enough to eat.
She’d even asked how often Bliss changed their diapers.
When Bliss asked why she wanted to know, Ivy gave a funny look and said she wanted to make sure Bliss and the girls were doing okay.
See, sweet. But it put her trying to get out of town at the busiest part of the day.
Running over the million-and-one happy tourists clogging up the streets with their happy vacationing wouldn’t help.
Seeing all the Littles and their Daddies playing in the snow forts and having snowball fights in the town square just made her stroll down What Could Have Been Lane. Connor probably built great snow forts.
Darn it! That was two nickels. She was running out of nickels to put in the swear jar. Not that his name was exactly a swear word. But it made her heart hurt. She gave herself a consequence every time she went over the limit of saying Connor’s name.
Argh! Three nickels.
A glance at her watch had her groaning. It might not have been those happy tourists’ fault that she was already twenty minutes late picking up her kids from Winnie’s house, but they hadn’t helped.
Winnie had said to be there by 5:30, and it was almost that now.
If changing the tire didn’t take too long—and why should it—she could still make it to Arcadian Hills before six.
Mary and Miranda both agreed, though Miranda still voted for fire.
Adjusting her speed to slightly above the speed limit, she’d cranked up her AM radio. Her voice had bounced around the little car with reckless enthusiasm as she belted out Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. Not that she had a Christmas tree.
But she would soon have a fresh one that made the whole house smell like Christmas. She couldn’t wait for scents of pine needles and cinnamon candles to fill the cabin as her three giggling babies crawled across the living room floor. That was the picture she’d been holding onto like a lifeline.
When the song had shifted to Run, Run, Rudolph, she’d danced as she drove.
Shoulders swaying, she wiggled her hips against the worn driver’s seat like she was performing for a sold-out arena instead of a rusty avocado-green sedan.
The shiny jingle bells attached to the moose antlers on her sweater had jingled away, lifting her spirits as she sang.
The cheerful sounds filled the car, which was exactly what she needed. No one could’ve blamed her if the accelerator got pushed a bit too hard.
The sky had been all purples and deep pinks in the setting sunlight, and fresh snow blanketed the ground and branches, like a Christmas postcard.
It had been way too gorgeous to stay cranky.
So, she’d cranked the music up some more and pressed the pedal down.
She would have made it to Winnie’s on time.
Five minutes early, even. The perfect amount of time to scoop up her babies and steal a hug from Winnie before the evening chaos began.
But halfway to Winnie’s house, something under her car exploded. Not popped… exploded. The steering wheel had jerked to the right so hard she’d veered into the oncoming lane. She’d seen the Grim Reaper holding out his hand to her.
Screaming, she’d gripped the wheel as hard as she could and slammed on the brakes. Her tires had locked, causing her to skid and swerve all over the road. The world outside her windshield turned into a spinning blur of snowbanks and pine trees.
Leaning forward, she’d used every ounce of strength she had to get her car under control, steering her rattling and shaking car back into her lane. Every muscle in her arms screamed as she’d fought the wheel, which had personally declared war.
By the time she’d gotten most of her car to the side of the road, her arms had been quivering like fresh-set Jello. She’d rested her forehead on the steering wheel and chanted big girls don’t cry along with Mary and Miranda, even though every shaky breath threatened to turn into a sob.
She’d reached for her phone, but remembered her battery was dead.
She’d had no way to call Winnie to let her know she was running late.
When she’d calmed down enough to think, she’d opened the door and stepped out of the car on shaking legs to assess the damage.
The cold air slapped her cheeks the second she stepped out of her car.
Why did this have to happen now?
Mary had the answer. That’s what happens when you drive around on bad tires. Sometimes Mary could be snide like that. It made Bliss want to do mean things to her with that prim little umbrella she had.
Guilt overwhelmed her. Sure, she needed new tires, but tires were freakin expensive.
The kind of expensive that made grocery budgets irrelevant.
She’d been saving up for them, but she’d only been back in Darling a couple of months.
And three babies had a way of turning every extra dollar into diapers, formula, or something sticky.
It was the realization that the girls could have been in the car when the tire blew out that had dropped her to her butt in the middle of the road. She could have killed her babies! She was the worst mother in the world. In the entire history of motherhood.
Mary Poppins tsked in Bliss’s ear. Miranda suggested a stiff drink, preferably from the bottle.
It was all she could do not to curl up in a fetal position right there on the highway. Covering her face, she rocked back and forth. The cold asphalt seeped through her jeans while the smell of burned rubber drifted around her, a stinky reminder of how close she’d come to disaster.
All right, she’d give her legs thirty seconds to stop trembling. That’s all the time she had, and then she’d stand up and tackle the car. Besides, the scent of burning rubber was hard to take.
After her allotted pit-party time ended, she glared at her tire. “I don’t suppose you’ll change yourself, will you? It’s the least you can do. No? Well, fine.”
With nothing else for it, she pushed herself to her feet, whispering an apology to Mary for being ungrateful. Miranda understood. Miranda was very supportive of creative coping strategies.
“What the hell are you doing sitting in the middle of the road during the busiest time of the day?” a dark, angry voice boomed from behind her.
Bliss shrieked and searched the ground around her for something to defend herself. Where was Excalibur when you needed it? A sword would be helpful right now. Or even a sturdy stick, she wasn’t picky.
Wait.
She knew that voice.
What was the deal? Was she on the universe’s cosmic naughty list? It was the only explanation. Of all the people who could have stopped to help, why did it have to be him?
It wasn’t like she hadn’t known they’d run into each other. Darling was a small town. But she wasn’t ready. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Had someone forgotten to tell her it was National Pick on Bliss Day? She’d have appreciated a memo. Struggling to her feet, she readied herself to face the latest crap storm in her life. Apparently, fate had decided subtlety was overrated.
He looked ready to spit fire. At her. Tall, broad, and radiating the kind of masculine fury that made sensible women run for cover. His dark coat stretched across shoulders built like a linebacker, and the winter air puffed from his mouth in sharp, angry breaths. And did he just growl?
“Trouble, you haven’t seen a crap storm yet. But you’re about to.”
Dang it! She thought she’d gotten better at keeping her private thoughts to herself.
With nothing else to do, she pasted on a bright smile, pretending she wasn’t standing beside a blown tire while facing the one man capable of wrecking her heart all over again.
“Hi, Connor,” she said in her brightest voice. “It’s been a while.”