Chapter 15 Foster
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FOSTER
“Fuck, it’s cold.” Jasper rubbed his hands together, blowing on them as he bounced on his toes in the ring.
“I need to buy more space heaters.” I rubbed my temples. If only this headache would go away.
But it wouldn’t. Because the headache was directly tied to my furnace—the furnace that had quit working five days ago. I’d come home from my dinner with Talia to a freezing cold gym.
I probably should have expected it with how hard the damn thing had been running since I’d bought this place. I should have had someone inspect it earlier.
The guy who’d come to look at it Saturday had laughed, saying I was lucky it had worked this long.
There was no repairing it. If this had been Vegas, I probably would have had a new one that same day. Except this was Quincy and they’d needed to order a replacement because the two they had on hand were spoken for. My furnace wouldn’t arrive until Friday.
So for the past five days, I’d been heating the gym and apartment with electric space heaters.
“Of course this doesn’t happen in the spring or summer,” I told Jasper. “Has to happen on the coldest damn week of the year.”
The high today was forecasted to be three. Three fucking degrees above zero.
“My toes are numb,” he grumbled.
“Mine too.” Most of the heaters were in the apartment, making sure it stayed warm enough for Kadence. The ones out here were barely cutting the chill. The gym was simply too big and the temperature too low.
“I’m not cut out for Montana,” he said.
I scoffed. “I’m not sure I am either.”
This morning, I’d taken Kadence to school dressed like a marshmallow in her bibs, puffer coat, boots, hat and mittens. The snow was a novelty for her, part of the adventure. But even she’d complained about the cold, and on the ride to school this morning, she’d been sullen and quiet.
“Okay.” I rolled my shoulders and jumped up and down, gearing up for whatever else Jasper had planned for today’s training session. We’d been at it for hours, each of us pushing hard simply because if we were moving, we weren’t freezing. “What’s next?”
“I want to practice some sweeps. I’ve been studying videos from Savage’s previous fights and I noticed a pattern in his later rounds. When he gets gassed, he sinks into his heels. Might be an opportunity to sweep for a takedown.”
“All right.” I cracked my neck and got into my fighting stance, arms raised.
Jasper mirrored my position, facing off.
I stopped worrying about the cold. I stopped thinking about anything outside of this ring. I focused on my opponent, ready to jab, fake a kick by raising my knee, then sweep my lead leg against his, hoping to get him off-balance.
Except before I could move, the chime of my phone filled the air.
“Ah. Sorry.” I rushed to the side of the ring. The school’s name flashed on the screen. “Hello?”
“Is this Foster?” a woman asked.
“Yes.”
“This is Denise, the school nurse. I’ve got Kadence with me and she’s got a 100.3 fever.”
I’d started ripping off my shin pads before she’d even finished her sentence. “I’ll be right there.”
“What’s going on?” Jasper asked as I hung up, taking off the other shin pad.
“Kadence is sick. I gotta go.”
“What can I do?”
“I don’t have any kids Tylenol.” Fuck. “Or a thermometer.”
Why hadn’t I bought any medicine, just in case? I ducked between the ropes, rushing to the apartment to pull on a hoodie and a pair of sweats over my shorts. When I came out with keys, Jasper was pulling on his shoes, dressed similarly to me.
“I’ll hit the store and get supplies. Meet you back here.”
“Thanks.” I nodded and jogged for the door.
The outside air was a frigid slap to the face, the wind biting into my skin, so I quickened my steps, blasting the heat in the truck as I sped into town and whipped into the school’s parking loop.
Kadence was waiting by the front desk with the nurse when I burst through the front door.
“Hi, little bug.” I dropped to a knee and pressed one palm to her forehead while the other took the backpack off her shoulders and slung it over mine. “Not feeling good?”
She shook her head.
I glanced up to the nurse. “Do I need to check her out or anything?”
“We’ll take care of it. Feel better, Kadence.”
She forced a smile, looking like she was about to cry. Guess her mood this morning hadn’t been about the cold, but about feeling crappy.
But she’d made it nearly through the whole day. Why hadn’t she told me she wasn’t feeling well? Or made the school call me sooner?
“Let’s go home.” I picked her up, thanked the nurse, then carried my girl to the truck. When she was buckled in her seat, I pressed a kiss to her temple and hurried to the driver’s side.
“Daddy?” she asked as I pulled onto the road.
“Yeah?”
“Am I gonna miss school tomorrow?”
I glanced at her through the rearview mirror. “I don’t know. Depends on how you’re feeling. Why?”
The corners of her mouth turned down. “We were supposed to have a popcorn party.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell me you were feeling icky this morning?”
Her chin dropped. “It’s Maggie’s birthday today and she brought cupcakes.”
My sweet girl.
I felt awful that she was missing fun and so fucking happy that she wanted to be at school, that she was making friends. “If you miss it tomorrow, I’ll get you popcorn, okay? The most important thing is we get you feeling better.”
She slumped against the door, and by the time we made it to the gym, she was asleep.
Jasper hadn’t made it back from the store yet, so I carried Kadence inside, stripping off her coat and getting her into bed. Then I dug my phone from my pocket and called the first person who came to mind, hoping like hell she hadn’t changed her number.
“Hello?” Talia answered.
“Hey.”
“Foster?”
The surprise in her voice was another punch in the gut. “You deleted my number.”
“Oh, um . . . yeah.”
She’d erased my contact info while I’d kept hers safe and memorized her 406 number just in case. That was on me, not Talia. And at the moment, I didn’t have time to worry over past mistakes.
“Kadence is sick. She’s got a fever.”
“What temp?”
“It’s 100.3.”
“Have you given her anything?”
“Not yet.” I stalked to a window, searching down the road for Jasper’s Yukon. “Should I bring her to the hospital? I’m starting to freak out.”
“Has she never been sick before?”
“Yeah, she has. But I don’t do good with this stuff. Vivienne is the calm parent.”
There was a jingle in the background, like she’d picked up a set of keys. “I’ll be over in a minute.”
“You’re not working?”
“Not today. See you in a few.”
The air rushed out of my lungs as I ended the call. Then I paced the apartment, calling Vivienne next, and when she didn’t answer, I left a message.
Every time I passed a space heater, it was too hot. When I got close to a window or the doorway, it was too cold.
Kadence hadn’t once complained about the apartment or the gym. My girl was a trooper. But her room was small, and despite Vivienne’s efforts to hang photos and decorate, it wasn’t home. This place wasn’t a home.
“Hi.” Jasper walked into the apartment with a plastic grocery sack in one hand. I was so stuck in my head I hadn’t noticed him drive up.
“What the hell was I thinking living here?” I threw an arm in the air. “I should have a house. A real home with two bedrooms and a goddamn working furnace.”
“Maybe you should crash with me for a few days until they get the heat working.”
“I’m going to call the hotel.” The A-frame he’d rented was nice, but it was small and there wouldn’t be room for all three of us. It wasn’t much bigger than this apartment. “Thanks for offering. And for going to the store.”
“Anytime.”
I dragged a hand through my hair, my eyes cast to the bedroom. “I hate it when she’s sick. I feel helpless.”
“She’ll be fine.” Jasper put the bag on the counter just as a car door slammed. We both glanced to the window, watching as Talia hopped out of her Jeep. “Looks like you called in reinforcements.”
“Yeah.”
“Holler if you need anything.” He walked out of the apartment, his voice low as he greeted Talia.
“Hi.” She stepped across the threshold and my lungs filled with air. I could breathe again.
“Hi. Thanks for coming.”
“Sure.” She walked straight for the counter, rifling through the bag Jasper had brought. “You haven’t given her anything yet, right?”
“No, not yet.”
“Okay.” She worked efficiently, pouring some red medicine into the tiny plastic cup. Then, with the thermometer in hand, she went to the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed as she coaxed Kadence awake. “Hi, Miss Madden. Your dad says you’re not feeling so good?”
She shook her head. “Uh-uh.”
“Can you sit up for me?”
Kaddie obeyed, her eyelids droopy.
Talia took her temperature, still high, then helped Kaddie drink down the Tylenol. Then she tucked my daughter into bed before we retreated to the kitchen.
“Thank you,” I said, easing Kadence’s door closed. “Vivienne was always in charge of this sort of thing. I get a little worked up.”
“And she is . . . not here?”
“She’s back in Vegas. It’s not an ideal arrangement, but it’s only temporary. She’ll move sooner or later, but we wanted to get Kadence into school here as soon as possible.”
“Ah.” Talia nodded, pulling the sleeves of her coat over her fingers. “It’s chilly in here.”
“The furnace broke.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “It won’t be fixed until Friday. I’ve been trying to stick it out, but I’m going to call the hotel. See if they’ve got a room.” Time to tap out.
“I’m sure whatever bug she has isn’t related. She’s in a new school. New friends come with new germs.”
“But the cold can’t be helping. It’s drafty and cramped. If she’s still sick on Friday, I want her to get some rest, and if they’re putting in a new furnace, it will be loud. And to be honest, I’m sick of sleeping on the couch.”
Talia glanced at the couch and the blankets I’d folded on a seat this morning.
“Know anyone who has a place for rent?” I asked. “Or for sale?”