Chapter 2
2
Devon
"WHERE THE FUCK is my flat iron, Olivia?" Riley stormed out of the hall bathroom all three of his girls shared right as Devon reached the top of the stairs. Her eyes went wide as she jerked to a stop. "You’re home."
"I'm home." He gave her the most disapproving face he could muster up. "And you just dropped an F-bomb."
Riley scoffed, dramatically swinging one arm in the direction of the room her younger sisters shared. "We’re in a hurry and Olivia stole my freaking flat iron. Again ." She raised her voice, as if the sister in question couldn’t hear her rant. "Like we don't have a whole regular iron she could be using instead."
Olivia appeared in her doorway, eyes rolling back into her skull, the hair tool in question clutched in one hand. "I took it for like, two seconds." She shoved the heated clamp at her older sister. "And there's no reason for me to go all the way to the basement to find the iron when I just needed to smooth out one of my hair ribbons."
Devon scrubbed one hand over his face, trying to ease away the exhaustion that plagued him. "I'll order another flat iron." He glanced into Olivia and Gwen’s room as he passed and it was his turn to widen his eyes. "Actually, I probably shouldn't, considering the fire hazard you two live in."
He loved his daughters. Loved being a dad. Wouldn't give it up for the world. But being a single parent was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life. Even more difficult than losing his wife, their mother, and the future he thought was in store.
Some days it felt like his time with Mags had been a fever dream. Like it hadn't really happened. Then one of his girls would start screaming at her sister, providing proof he and Mags really had made a family together. One that was currently fueled by tubes of black eyeliner and buckets of estrogen.
Raking a hand through his hair, he turned away from the avalanche of clothes and shoes piled up on the floor. "Can you please try to get it under control? Maybe just a path in case the place really does go up in flames and they need to come get us out?"
Olivia wrapped the ribbon of sisterly theft around her ponytail, tipping her head toward where the youngest of his daughters was stretched across her twin bed, a tablet clutched in one hand. "Gwen will have to do it. I'm already going to be late for the game since Riley isn't ready to go yet."
"Riley isn’t ready to go yet because you stole her freaking flat iron." Riley shot her sister a glare before taking the tool and plugging it in beside the bathroom vanity. "You little klepto."
Olivia shrugged, looking unbothered by her older sister’s aggravation. “Maybe if you stopped leaving your crap all over the bathroom, it wouldn’t be so easy to take.”
“Maybe if everyone started to clean up after themselves we wouldn’t be living in squalor.” Devon turned his glare onto each of the girls, rotating through them one by one. “Tomorrow we’re spending the whole day cleaning. This place is a pigsty.”
They had the decency to look moderately apologetic, eyes dropping to the floor. But the contrition only lasted ten seconds before each one blurted out an excuse for not being able to clean away their Saturday.
“I have to work.”
“I’m supposed to help make the decorations for the Homecoming dance.”
“I’m taking the practice ACT.”
Looked like he was going to be handling it on his own. Again .
"Fine." He waved one hand toward the stairs. "Go. Do your thing."
He wasn't mad as much as he was disappointed. He’d reached the point of parenthood where getting time with his kids was next to impossible—they had their own interests, their own friends, their own schedules. Cleaning the house wasn't his number one priority—obviously—he'd just been hoping th e four of them could hang out together. Maybe order some pizza. Even if they didn’t make any headway with the house, it would've been fine. Eventually the place would get cleaned.
But he would never get this time with his girls back. If there was one thing losing Maggie taught him, it was to cherish every fucking second, because you never knew when you wouldn't get another one.
The three girls swarmed him all at once, layering him in a group hug as they made apologies they probably meant alongside promises he knew they wouldn't keep. Promises they also knew he would never hold them to. Life was hard. Growing up was even harder. Especially when all you had to get you through it was a clueless father who had to Google every question they had surrounding menstruation, bras, and the best way to make glitter stick to your hair.
As quickly as they’d advanced on him, the three of them were gone, with Riley and Olivia headed out the front door and Gwen holed up in her room, consuming whatever novel she'd recently loaded onto her Kindle.
Hopefully it taught her about sex, because he really wasn't looking forward to having that conversation again.
The house was so quiet his resigned sigh seemed to echo around him as he turned and went into his bedroom, peeling away the layers of his uniform before changing into jeans and a thermal shirt. They were well into fall, and once the sun went down the air got pretty cool. He had another hour's worth of work ahead of him—all of it spent outside— and didn ’t want to freeze his ass off like he had the night before.
Pausing on his way out the door, he decided to get a head start on tomorrow’s tasks and spent a few minutes collecting his dirty laundry from the floor, stacking it into the already overflowing hamper. It was yet another chore that had gotten away from him as he tried to juggle everything that went with being a single parent to three busy kids. After using a previously worn T-shirt to half-assedly wipe away the layer of dust on his dresser, he gave up. His own bedroom was the least of his concerns when it came to getting the house together. And if he didn't get out to the barn soon, there would be hell to pay.
Making his way back downstairs, Devon kicked at the pile of shoes just inside the door, pretending it would look better if they took up less square footage of the un-swept hardwood. Ignoring the jackets and backpacks haphazardly discarded along the hall, he went to the kitchen to grab a snack on his way outside. The granola bar he found in a mostly empty box on the counter was fully shoved into his mouth by the time he pulled the back sliding door open and stepped out onto the deck he’d once imagined sitting on with Maggie, drinking coffee every morning as they grew old together.
But that was never in the cards for them, no matter how they fell.
Following the path from the steps and around the treeline cutting across the main yard, he pulled out his phone, the chill of the evening even cooler than he’d expected. After firing off a quick t ext to Olivia to make sure she had a jacket, he slid open the barn’s heavy door and stepped inside. His entrance was immediately greeted with an indignant huff and a few dramatic stomps.
"You're not going to catch an attitude with me too, are you?" He moved to where Winston, the rich, chocolate brown gelding he'd owned for nearly ten years poked his head over the gate of his stall. "Looks like the girls let you in, but they didn't give you anything to eat, huh?" To be fair, he'd only asked his daughters to let the horses in, not to feed them, so maybe that was on him.
Swiping one hand along the horse’s neck, he leaned closer, lowering his voice. "Next time I'll make sure they give you a little snack too, how’s that sound?"
Normally Winston was a lover, but tonight the big horse yanked his head away and huffed out another loud breath, reiterating his position on not being fed at his normal time.
"Hold your horses." Devon gave Winston another neck pat before turning to collect pellets and hay. "I can't help it that I had to work late." Technically, he could have, but Winston didn't need to know that.
When the call came in about glass shattered across The Baking Rack’s parking lot, he'd jumped at the opportunity a little too quickly. Quick enough dispatch might get the wrong impression he wasn't in a hurry to get home to his daughters.
And that wasn’t the case.
Today , that wasn't the case. Today, he dragged his feet for a completely different reas on. A reason he didn’t have the time to waste even considering. Unfortunately, his brain hadn't really gotten the message on that. Along with other parts of him.
Devon carried his load into Winston's stall, doling out feed as he brought his problems to the only available ear he had. "I think she hates my guts, buddy."
Actually, he was pretty certain of it. Janie was not one to hide her feelings, and she made hers regarding him abundantly clear. It was as if just his offers of help and advice enraged the curly-headed spitfire, bringing out every bit of bad attitude she possessed. It should have made him avoid her like the plague. Instead it sent him seeking her out. See what might happen the next time their paths crossed.
Winston nosed him, the move less of a nuzzle and more of a not-so-subtle encouragement to get the fuck out of the way and let him at his food bowl.
"I get it. You think I'm a pain in the ass too." He backed up, slapping the horse gently on the flank as the big animal moved in to start eating. "I'm not sure when everyone got so touchy about someone trying to help."
After clearing out the small amount of mess accrued in the stall, Devon moved on to the one beside it. Winnifred, the dappled mare occupying that space, was infinitely more patient than Winston. She stayed out of his way, giving him a gentle nosing as he filled her food bucket and freshened up her little slice of Moss Creek. Once she had fresh pellets and water, he offered the sweet horse a few minutes of affection—likely the only either of them would get today—bef ore closing her in for the night, the guilt of how little time he had for the horses tugging at his gut.
He was at a point where something probably had to give, and the thing that made the most sense was to get rid of the horses. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not just because Mags had loved them so much, but because they were the only ones he had to talk to. His daughters didn't need to know about the gnawing loneliness slowly eating away at him, and hearing him wishing for someone at his side made his buddies on the force noticeably uncomfortable. They'd all known Mags and witnessed what she went through. Maybe on some level they felt like they'd be betraying her if they supported him moving on. Being with someone else. He got that.
But they didn’t know the full story. No one did.
Deep down he knew Maggie wouldn’t want him to live like this. If their roles had been reversed—if it was Mags here instead of him—he would never want her to feel the way he did now. Lonely. Isolated. Overwhelmed and under touched.
But those weren’t the emotions he really struggled with. It was the cycle of anger and guilt that was hard to handle. Thankfully, he didn’t have much time to dwell on the losses he’d faced and the complicated feelings that came with them.
That lack of time was also why any interest he might have in Janie—and her filterless reactions to everything he did—was futile. There simply wasn't enough time in the day for him to add another perso n to his life. Not when it would take away from the already limited hours he had with his girls. He was barely keeping his head above water as it was. Trying to date would send him sinking. And his daughters had already sacrificed so much. He wouldn’t take more from them.
After hauling the manure he’d collected out back and sweeping the loose straw from the main floor, he paused to give each horse a treat. “You guys have a cleaner house than I do.”
It wasn’t true, but some days—like this one—it felt that way. He managed to keep up with the dishes and the trash, but the kitchen table was always covered in a random assortment of items and a pile of junk mail. The carpets weren’t always vacuumed and the floors only got the quickest of sweeps. But there was no expired food in the fridge and the toilets got scrubbed once a week.
Would someone call CPS on him? No. But damn it would be nice to look around without seeing blatant evidence of his lacking as a parent everywhere.
He’d just made it out of the barn when a small sound slowed his steps and had him turning back. Mouth dropping open, he watched in horror as a scrawny black cat trotted up and dropped a pink, writhing kitten at his boots. She met his eyes and gave him a meow before darting off in the direction of the woods.
“No, no, no, no.” He shook his head like the little cat would listen. “You can’t bring your babies here.” He watched in panic as she ran away, leaving him to babysit.
She raced back with a second squirming, barely fuzzed kitten and set it on top of t he first. By the time she was done, he had five squalling infants on his worn steel-toes.
“Fucking hell.” Devon blew out a loud sigh. “You know a sucker when you see one, don’t you, mama?” Sucking in a lungful of the chilly evening air, he crouched down to collect the newest mouths he’d have to feed.
And probably clean up after.
“Come on. Let’s find you somewhere to sleep. ”