Chapter 7
Why don’t eggs taste like chicken?
— Atlas’s secret thoughts
ATLAS
Present day
If exhaustion was an emotion, I’d be the perfect example of it.
“ Tough night?”
I looked over at my twin.
“ Woke up to find myself by the pool,” I cringed.
OCD and sleepwalking.
“ You haven’t done that in forever,” he said, eyes wide.
“ I know,” I said. “ I think it’s being at the new place.”
“ Gonna have to install those child locks,” he said. “ That way you can’t leave.”
Didn’t I know it.
I scared the shit out of myself when I found myself coming awake with my toes curling along the edges of my pool.
“ I know,” I grumbled.
He slapped me on the back. “ I’ll grab some when I leave. Take it easy.”
I didn’t watch him go.
I was too fuckin’ tired.
“ Long night?”
I waved at the receptionist who was the first person you spoke with when you came into the building.
“ The longest,” I replied as I moved swiftly past her.
She called after me. “ You know what would fix that? Pie Hard .”
I chuckled. “ I don’t have time right now. I’m running late, or I’d totally bring you some!”
My twin brother had finally pulled his thumb out when it came to a certain bakery owner.
Now they were blissfully happy with a baby on the way.
As for the bakery owner’s prickly employee…
She was still just as fiery as the first day I’d met her.
And still giving as good as she got.
I hated that I loved sparring with her.
I hated even more that she was all I ever thought about.
“ Bro ,” I looked over to find my brother, Quaid , heading toward me.
“ What’s up?” I asked, trying to hide my exhaustion.
It wouldn’t do to let the entire family worry about my sleepwalking.
I’d get it under control.
Hopefully .
“ I have something to talk to you about,” he hedged.
My brow rose and I waited, knowing I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.
“ Sage ,” he started.
Quaid was in command of all the beat and patrol cops in the central station of DPD . He was the one who coordinated the front lines, so to speak.
He was also the officer in charge of Sage .
Sage Solomon was also the woman I’d saved from a serial killer two years ago.
My involvement in her life saving had inspired her to ‘make a difference in this hard life.’ She’d applied to become an officer at DPD the moment she was better from the kidnapping and brutality that she’d suffered at the hands of two mad men.
“ What’s up?” I asked warily.
“ She’s not doing well,” he said. “ I just don’t think she’s cut out to be a cop, bro.”
I blinked. “ What do you mean? She passed the academy with flying colors. Isn’t that something that helps weed them out if they’re not fit?”
“ You would think,” he scratched his head. “ But I have a theory about that, too.”
“ What theory?” I wondered.
“ Well ,” he looked hesitant to share it with me. “ So here’s the thing, Atlas . I know that you like the girl and all, but she seems quite manipulative. And she lies, for no fuckin’ reason. I’ve caught her in a few. In fact, she was supposed to be in a certain neighborhood yesterday during her shift, and I don’t know if she just didn’t pay attention to the department shit she had to agree to when she signed on here, but she didn’t seem to remember that I have a LoJack on all the patrol cars. I know exactly where she was or wasn’t yesterday. And , just sayin’, but this is something I can’t let go. If it were anyone else, she’d already be fired. She’s done this no less than five times in the short period she’s been here and been caught lying about it. I’ve talked to her about it. Dad’s talked to her about it. And if it happens again, I’m not going to be able to stop the inevitable.”
I scratched my head.
I had noticed that Sage was… scatterbrained.
I’d also noticed that she lied about stupid stuff. Though usually it was harmless and didn’t affect me any, so I didn’t see any reason to confront her with it.
But this…
“ I’m not going to be mad at you for protecting DPD ,” I said. “ If you feel she’s not the right fit, I’m not going to argue with you.”
Quaid let out a relieved breath, then slapped me on the shoulder. “ Thanks , bro. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”
Then he was gone, jogging across the parking lot where employees parked their cars behind gated fences to his truck.
Sage —and inevitably her sister—stayed in my head the entire shift.
By the time I finished off the last schedule for the week, I had this itch that needed scratched.
I glanced at my watch.
Ever since I’d taken over the SWAT team from Scott , I’d started to make my own hours.
And since I made my own hours, that meant I could go home and make it back to the bakery in time before it closed…
The drive took me twice as long as it usually did thanks to a wreck on I -635.
I wanted to scream by the time I got there and realized that they’d closed early due to no inventory.
I banged my fist onto the steering wheel, then spun the wheel for home.
I was in my door for all of ten minutes when it creaked open quietly, causing me to frown and come out of the kitchen.
My brows shot up to my hairline when the only thing I spotted in the living room was one very cute, very naked little girl.
“ Well , hello there, Dalia ,” I said to the toddler from hell. “ Did you escape jail?”
Dalia made a mad dash for me, and I picked her up, cuddling her close.
She was wet and covered in grass.
My guess? She was outside playing in the sprinkler like she liked to do at this point in the evening since it was way cooler than any other part of the day.
Dalia slapped her hands on my cheeks and smushed them together. “ Candy ?”
I grinned underneath her hands. “ Actually , I’m fresh out. I have broccoli, though.”
She scrunched up her nose to think. “ Ranch ?”
“ What do you take me as?” I asked. “ Let me grab you a shirt, then we can eat some broccoli and ranch.”
Dalia and I were the only ones who enjoyed vegetables and ranch.
Quincy and Hollis had me to thank for that.
Hell , all of the family owed me a debt of gratitude for teaching their kids to love vegetables and fruit.
I’m not saying that my brothers wouldn’t eat it, but they definitely didn’t eat it with the zeal that I did.
Overall , I ate fairly healthy.
But I did have weak spot for those scones…
“ Ew ,” Dalia said. “ No , nekkid.”
Geez , these kids and their thick Texas drawls.
“ Shirts are required to dine at my table, short stuff,” I said as I caught her a shirt off my dresser. It would be huge on her, but it’d cover all her vital bits.
“ Ugh , fine,” Dalia grumbled.
She was just like her mother.
“ Now let’s…”
When I came into the living room next, there were more wet and grassy children. But at least these kids had clothes on.
“ And surprise! Hello , children,” I said to my nieces and nephews.
Catherine and Cillian — Quinn and Shayne’s kids—as well as Tex and Addison , were standing there, dripping on my hardwood floors.
“ Hello ,” Addison smiled. “ What are you feeding us?”
My brows rose. “ Who exactly is supposed to be watching you?”
They all tracked to my kitchen, and I placed Dalia on the closest stool.
She immediately got up onto her tippy toes and leaned against the counter.
“ Well , technically we’re supposed to be getting dried off, but we saw you pull up,” Catherine said. “ We were trying to find our towels, but she ran over here like her pants were on fire.”
Catherine was the mom of the group.
I loved the sweet, mother hen look she settled on Dalia .
“ Food ,” Tex ordered.
I rolled my eyes and pulled out the broccoli I was going to cook for my dinner, placing it and a cup of ranch on the counter between the five wet bodies now filling my kitchen.
“ I was going to make steak and broccoli,” I said. “ But I suppose I can cook up some macaroni and hot dogs.”
“ I vote we go to Texas Roadhouse ,” Tex mumbled around a bite of ranch that had a tiny sliver of broccoli in the middle.
“ Oh , yeah.” Cillian crowed. “ Butter !”
I rolled my eyes. “ I …”
A frantic knock at my door, and I walked to it slowly to find just the person I wanted to see on the other side.
Though , we acted like we hated each other for propriety’s sake.
“ Do you have the kids?” Pepper asked, eyes wide.
I opened the door wide, and she deflated. “ I was supposed to be watching them. I went inside to grab towels, and then when I came back, they were all just gone.”
“ Why are you watching the kids?” I asked.
“ My car had two tires get slashed at the bakery today.” She rolled her eyes. “ Quincy and Quaid took my car to the shop to get it fixed up with the trailer. I volunteered to watch the kids. I was gone like thirty seconds!”
I gestured for her to come inside. “ You’ll find that the next Carter generation is a bit… wild.”
“ You can say that again,” she grumbled. “ Cillian belly-flopped off the four-foot section of the fort right onto the grass, and my heart nearly catapulted out of my chest.”
Catherine and Cillian were wild.
Quinn and Shayne were trying to fix that, but it was hard to break habits that had been groomed into the children for years before they’d adopted them.
Cillian and Catherine were biologically Shayne’s brother’s children. Shayne’s brother, Costas , hadn’t known anything about his kids until he’d gone to prison, and he’d begged his sister to adopt them and get them out of their poor living situation.
Quinn and Shayne had fought hard for the two kids, finding out in the process just how neglected they were.
Catherine had to grow up fast to take care of her little brother, who was only a year and a half younger than her. Cillian was just a nut case. But a loveable nut case.
“ He tried to jump off the roof last week, Quincy told me,” I said as I led her to the kitchen. “ Kids , were you supposed to be waiting on towels from Ms . Pepper ?”
“ Mayyybe ,” Catherine said sweetly.
I rolled my eyes and said, “ Then next time, you wait for her. Because you made her scared.”
“ Sorry , Ms . Pepper ,” Catherine apologized.
“ Sorry !” Tex said around another mouthful of ranch.
Addison was giving the broccoli a look of disdain. “ How about that Texas Roadhouse ?”