Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Ellis hummed, cleaning out a space in the front room for the Christmas tree. They would put it up over the weekend. Ichabod had waited for his folks to leave after Thanksgiving, which had seemed… prudent, if anyone asked him.
That pair brought chaos with them. Decent folks. Wildly nutty.
They weren’t bad people. In fact, he would even go so far as to say they were nice, but damn. They upset Ichabod. They stressed Michael out a bit. The whole thing made the whole family off-center.
Ellis was ready to get back to things the way they had been, and to get to have sex with Ichabod, dammit. He lived for that.
He could hear Ichabod in working, not loud at all. The whir of the wheel was this fascinating hum that ran through the whole house. He was working on Christmas, apparently, and so Ellis had been forbidden from coming into the studio and peeking.
Which sucked because he would’ve totally gone to visit Ichabod, but he had plenty of stuff to do anyway. The weather had been bitter cold and sort of unseasonably snowy. Sure, it was winter, but as a rule the snow came well after Thanksgiving, and the ski resorts had opened as soon as they could.
So he went about doing what he needed to for the horses, making sure they had water and feed and giving supplemental feed to the cattle.
He loved on Rio, who was one hundred percent sure he wanted to stay in the barn.
He was feeling fat and sassy. They had managed to buy a small side-by-side for him to feed with an inexpensive trailer, and that was pretty damn cool.
An SUV trundled up the drive and a pair of ladies stepped out, going up to the front door to knock. He knew that Ichabod and Chrissy were in the studio and wouldn’t be able to hear them. So he texted from the barn.
Ellis headed in anyway, because he was curious. Ichabod opened the door to the studio, Chrissy in his arms, both of them covered in clay and grinning, hair sticking up.
Lord have mercy.
He headed for the porch, meeting them halfway. “We expecting company?”
“Nope, not as far as I know.” Ichabod shrugged, offering him a happy grin. “It’s okay,” he said. “It was about time for mud pies to stop.”
Two women piled out of the car with briefcases and wool coats and slacks. Weird. Ichabod seemed about as confused as he felt.
“Mr. Miller?”
Ichabod blinked once. “Mr. Miller-Johns, yes. Can I help you?”
“We’re with Child Protective Services. There’s been a complaint, and we would like to see if we could do a house visit.”
Ichabod’s eyebrows raised all the way up to his hairline. He handed Chrissy over to Ellis without a word and motioned him toward the door. “What do you mean, you’ve had a complaint? Who has had a complaint and why?”
“I’m afraid it’s confidential. We’d like to do a house visit and see if everything’s okay inside.” The younger of the two ladies—a pretty woman with braids and a matching hat and mitts—smiled at them as if she was humoring the lunatics.
He headed for the door with their youngest.
“Do you have a warrant?”
“Do we need one?” That was the older one, and she wasn’t bothering to be sweet as she glared over her glasses.
He could tell by the tension in Ichabod’s shoulders, shit was fixing to hit the fan.
“Legally, yes you do, and you’re both aware of that.
Also, I would like some identification before I let anyone inside my house.
I don’t let strangers inside my home willy-nilly.
So, do you have business cards? Do you have some sort of proof of who you are who you say you are?
Because I’m not letting anyone inside or to touch my baby girl or any of my other children without knowing who you are. ”
“There’s no reason to get aggressive.”
Oh, fuck a duck sideways. He stopped, caught between the urge to protect Chrissy and defend Ichabod.
Ichabod blinked again, nice and slow, and then took a deep breath. “If you intend to come into the house without a warrant, which is not your right, I would like to have an introduction. My name is Ichabod Miller-Johns, which you’re aware of. Your name is?”
The older lady lifted her chin, her eyes flashing behind her glasses. “My name is Lindsey Halloway, and I’m a social worker,” she said, handing over a business card. It did indicate she was with CPS.
The other lady seemed a little more sympathetic. “I’m Ms. Kacey, Ichabod. And we have to investigate all complaints. I’m sure you understand.”
“I do understand. I’m not an idiot.” Ichabod scowled, black eyebrows lowering.
“But you come upon me without identifying yourself, without showing me your ID, anything. It wasn’t very polite, and this is very unnerving that someone would call in and suggest that the children weren’t fine in any way. ”
Ms. Halloway looked him up and down, arching an eyebrow. “One of the things that we check on is cleanliness.”
Oh shit, Ichabod was going to lose it, Ellis could tell.
So he smiled. “It’s very cold. I need to get the little one inside.”
“And who are you?” Mrs. Halloway asked.
Ichabod jumped right in. “This is my partner, Ellis.”
“Oh well, do we have your permission to come in?”
Ichabod nodded, “Sure, I’ve got nothing to hide. These kids are fine. By the way, I’m a potter. We were in the studio—me and Chrissy—playing with clay. That’s what I do for a living.” Ichabod’s voice was cold as ice, and Ellis knew that he was going to have to work hard to fix this and quick.
He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he did know that the house was clean, the kids were safe, nobody was hitting anybody.
Hell, Zane didn’t even beat on his little brother which Ellis personally thought was sort of unnatural.
“Come on in, ladies,” Ellis said, stepping aside, Chrissy still held in his arms. “I’m gonna go wash her off. You’ll do your house visit, and then we’ll talk in the front room, right?” He stared at Ichabod, raising his eyebrow, and Ichabod thinned his lips into a tight line before he nodded.
“We surely will have a discussion once you see that there’s nothing wrong here.”
Chrissy blinked at him. “Bell, who’s them?”
“Oh, they’re here for a visit. They are going to be gone soon.”
And if they weren’t, God help them, because Ichabod was fixing to blow a gasket.
“Bell, I made puppy.”
He smiled at her and started the bathtub. “Did you make a puppy? Did Daddy put it up to dry in the rack?”
She nodded, seeming perfectly happy and relaxed.
Thank God, because he could get her in the tub in two shakes, and then get her dressed up and cuddly, ready to be adorable for the CPS people.
“Come on, baby girl, we’re gonna go have a little bit of a bath.”
Chrissy mock-frowned and took his face between her tiny hands. “Bell, I working.”
“You were working, baby girl, but now you’re going to be having lunch and maybe watching some Blue’s Clues with me.”
“Blue’s Clues!” she sang, just about cackling. “Okay. I like lunches.”
“Me too. Let’s have grilled cheeses.” The grilled cheese should be easy, harmless, and Lord, he hoped Ichabod wasn’t going to kill anybody.
She nodded. “I like grilled cheeses.”
“I like them very much.” And hopefully they would get out there and Ichabod would be okay, and—
The door opened all of a sudden, and Chrissy squealed. “Get out! I’m in da baf!”
Ellis blinked at the woman with the door open. “Pardon me? We’re in the restroom, and she’s having a bath. We’ll be out in a minute.”
Chrissy started to cry. “This my baf. No strangers! Daddy! Daddy, there’s a stranger! Stranger danger!” Now the tears had become a scream, an absolute blood-curdling furious scream. Oh yeah, this wasn’t going to go over well.
In fact, Ichabod came running. “Pardon me? Ellis, would you take Mrs. Halloway into the other room, please, while I get my daughter dressed? Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you? Talk about a violation of privacy. This poor baby was getting a bath!”
“She was alone in there with someone who was not a family member!”
Ellis took the damn woman’s arm and steered her out of the room, closing the door behind them. “That doesn’t give you the right to bust in there, ma’am. She’s a baby! She doesn’t understand about people calling CPS to make things hard for him. Because that has to be why they did it.”
An awful thought occurred to him, and he gritted his teeth. If he found out that Rick had done this, he would murder the man.
“We’re here to help.”
“That’s not helping. That’s a little girl—who is now scared—in the bathtub. That was a violation. Now please come in and have a seat. You can see that this is a decent house. I’m sure you already talked to the children’s teachers, and you know full well that they’re fine.”
“And what about you? Are you fine?” Her lips pressed together in a disapproving way.
“I’m a cowboy. I raise horses, dogs, cattle, and children. So yes—” He nodded, perfectly at ease with his own self. “I am fine.”
Miss Kacey didn’t look near as stressed-out as Mrs. Halloway. “You can tell that they’ve been doing a lot of work here in this house.” She offered him a gentle smile. “I was here for Adult Protective Services at the end of Vic’s life.”
“Oh? I know the house was in flux when they had to move, when the kids moved in. He worked hard to get all the work done on their bedrooms and the kitchen first and foremost. It’s recently pretty much done, as much as any house is done.
” He had to wonder how much concern Rick had when his former stepfather was dying. Was it as much as he had now?
“Yeah, Vic was kind of in desperate straits, but from what I understand, he went into a nursing home situation for the very few days that he had left.”
“Yeah, I hadn’t been out in a while.” Ichabod walked in with little Chrissy bundled up and clinging to him.
“I wasn’t his caretaker, and I didn’t have his power of attorney, so I didn’t have a whole lot of control over it.
My son was having some issues at school, so I was really focusing on that at the time. ”