Chapter 27
Hunter
W here does the scary witch go?” Devyn shouts down to Ellie from the gallery overlooking the living room. Strands of blonde hair fall across the witch doll as she hangs her head over the railing, holding it in front of her face like a mask.
“Boo!”
A joyous scream followed by a loud set of giggles fill the house, and I haven’t been able to put my finger on what it is about that sound that makes everything in the whole world feel right. But it damn sure does.
It feels better than right.
Not just Devyn being here in my space but being part of my family. And it’s the way she is with Ellie.
They’re inseparable.
In a few short weeks, she’s taught her to make pancakes from scratch, albeit they weren’t the best tastin’ things I’ve ever had grace my palate, but the two flour covered chefs who made ‘em were the cutest pair I ever saw.
Then there was the movie night I wandered in on yesterday when the sun went down. I was greeted with handmade paper tickets and a bowl of popcorn at the door, and it didn’t stop there. They even made little macaroons and had a blanket pallet ready to go on the living room floor.
And each night, they spend time in our old shed, underneath a setting sun, making magic with nothing but a pair of smiles and a room of sunflowers.
This girl.
My girls.
My eyes gather up a shine that I tell them must be the onions I’m chopping for the pot roast, but I know good and well it’s not.
I think it’s pride. Maybe relief. That such different parts of my life could come together so seamlessly.
“Hey, Dev!” Ellie shouts, running up the stairs two at a time with a tub of Halloween decorations. I smile at her use of the nickname and walk to the pantry for the potatoes.
Ellie’s voice travels my way, telling Devyn about the various Nightmare Before Christmas figurines we’ve collected over the years, so I wash up and join them upstairs while the meat thaws in the microwave, not willing to miss out on this time with…family.
“This one is my favorite.” Ellie shows off her Zero, the ghost-dog ornament meant to hang from the Halloween tree.
“I’ve never heard of a Halloween tree.” Devyn shoots a smile my way.
“We started it when Ellie was two. The first time she met her mother.” It’s sad, but I smile, unable to do anything but that when I look at the growing nine-year-old before me and still see the roundness in her cheeks that was there in the baby I swore to protect when my brother failed her all those years ago. She’s growing up so damn fast. “Ellie wasn’t even old enough to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas that year, but she saw that dog at the pharmacy after a very long day, and trying to pry it from her tiny little hands was never an option. So, Zero came home with us.”
Ellie runs to my side and squeezes me in a big hug, turning to Devyn and handing her another spooky ornament to hang on the tree. “Want to add one?”
“I’d love to.” Dev wipes her eyes. I nod to the tree when she looks my way.
“Go ahead, babygirl,” I say before it can register. Up until now, we told Ellie the marriage was a silly, fake game for our work, like an acting gig, and that we’re just old friends. She’s been staying in the guest room. I mean, it’s not a lie. But I haven’t told Ellie how I feel about Devyn. Or about our past.
“Babygirl?” Ellie whispers, one eyebrow raised.
She giggles when my eyes go wide, and I sputter to respond.
So much for the innocence of youth.
“Don’t try to hide it, Papa. I think she likes you, too.”
She throws me one of my own damn winks, dropping bombs and skipping off to Devyn.
Kid is way too smart for her own good.
“What’s this?” Devyn’s voice is a marvel of questions. Ones she already knows the answer to.
I don’t even have to ask what she’s found.
I know.
“Oh.” Ellie’s brows pinch, shooting me a suspicious glare. “That one always goes up front and center.” Papa’s…friend made it for him when they were kids.” She pauses, eyes widening as she puts the pieces of my stories together in her nosy little brain, and then she cocks her head at me and the corner of her mouth curves up.
This little shit.
“He doesn’t get to see that friend anymore, and it makes him, like, really-really-really sad, so he puts this up every year. You know why?” She throws a sly look at me over her shoulder.
“Why?” Devyn grins.
“So maybe his friend will know it’s there somehow and know he hasn’t forgotten. Right, Papa?”
She pins me with her stare, hope shimmering over smiling eyes as she re-examines Devyn and me.
Unable to control my own eyes any more than I can the beat of my heart, they meet Dev’s, the green portals to her soul shining like emeralds, curious and beautiful.
A treasure.
Because that’s what she is to me. She’s a gift, meant to bring this family together, and that’s clear to me in this moment, even if she does look at me with mistrust somewhere deep within.
She holds up the little crocheted pumpkin she made me in Miss Henley’s middle school home economics class. The one I pretended to shove in my backpack and forget about, because you don’t acknowledge crushes from your best friend’s middle school sister in the ninth grade. You just don’t.
But I kept it in my nightstand.
I never told Devyn about the pumpkin before our breakup.
This is likely the first time she’s seen it in the twentysomething years since she made it. As a little girl.
And here my own little girl is, spilling some of my deepest secrets to her, saying words I’ve wondered how to say for a decade in a short, simple breath.
Smelling her orange scented perfume in my bathroom, hearing her laugh fill my home, seeing her traipse around in nothing but spandex shorts and an oversized T-shirt.
My T-shirt.
I’ve got it bad for this woman. But I’ve respected her wishes. I haven’t touched her since she stated her boundaries. If she wants to take things slow, I will be the slowest of the slow. I will be a sloth.
And yeah, it might kill me bit by bit to watch her sway that round little ass around my farm in dirtied-up Daisy Dukes and not smack it a time or two, but I’ll do it. Even if I am pretty sure she shakes it around more than normal when she sees me, just to call me on my bluff.
But I’ll do anything to earn her trust and keep her. Even if it does mean being hands-off.
A nagging feeling in my gut reminds me that her days of trusting me are over if I don’t tell her about Lemon’s marriage stuff soon, but I plan to. It’s just not the right time yet. I can’t scare her off or have her thinking I’ve been with her for any reason other than because I love her.
Because I love her.
Yes, it might benefit the custody, but that isn’t why I sought her out. She’s gotta see that.
I’ll get her to see.
Because what I want more than her body, more than marriage, more than some stupid fuckin’ job…is her heart.
She breaks our stare and walks to the tree, hanging the pumpkin in the very center where Ellie shows her, then turns to me, a smile curving her lips.
“She hasn’t forgotten.”