Unbreakable Love (Kelley Family #3)

1. Gavin

ONE

GAVIN

“Josie!” I called down the stairs to my parents’ basement where my daughter had disappeared after dinner with my youngest brother Bryce. He was probably teaching her poker or pool, or self-defense using himself as the dummy.

“Yes, Daddy?”

“Time to go home!”

Her whine echoed up the stairs and I grinned, shaking my head. My daughter was eight, almost nine, although she reminded me a lot of my older sister Meredith when she hit the teenage years. The thought of Josie becoming a teenager, living her life the way I did—or her mom who I never spoke of—made me grind my teeth together.

Someday, I’d get over Monica and the gaping black hole she not only left in my heart, but the fury that still remained. Maybe.

“Need any leftovers?”

I spun to find my mom packaging up food from today’s Sunday dinner and game watching, a tradition we had where we gathered to watch my older brother Cameron play football for the Colorado Mountaineers where he was the starting quarterback.

“Please. Thanks.” I’d become a father when I was a teenager, a single father a few months after I got my driver’s license, and I’d been living on my own since I was nineteen, thanks to help from my trust fund and the work ethic instilled in all of us Kelleys. While I’d learned how to cook early on and didn’t mind it, heating up meals I already knew Josie would enjoy was easier.

It wasn’t much of a sacrifice, either. My mom was an incredible cook.

“Busy week coming up?” she asked, slapping the glass containers closed. “And what help do you need with Josie?”

“Same as last week, I think. But I should be able to pick her up earlier.”

Josie rode the after-school bus to my parents’ house where she spent the afternoon hanging out with her grandma and riding her pony and running all over the land that had been in our family for generations. Land I loved but had no interest in working full-time. The ranching bug wasn’t in my genes the way it was imprinted in our oldest brother Dalton or Bryce. But I loved my job as a general contractor, and the project we were currently working on in the town’s limits of New Haven was going smoothly so far.

“No rush. You know we don’t mind her here.”

“I know. Thanks for the food.” I leaned in and kissed my mom’s cheek as my phone vibrated in my pocket. Pulling it back, I frowned.

“School’s calling.” I glanced at my mom.

“On a Sunday?”

“Right?” I tapped the screen and then the speaker button, only to have the kitchen suddenly filled with my daughter’s principal’s voice.

“Good evening, parents. This phone call is to give those of you who have children in Mrs. Bonners’ third grade class a heads-up. Unfortunately, she has taken an emergency leave of absence and has left us to take care of a personal emergency with her family in Phoenix. We are saddened to see her leave, especially under such devastating circumstances. However, we are also calling to let you know that a new teacher has already been offered a position as her replacement. She was a candidate who applied during the summer, but we were unable to offer a position then within our school district. Miss Pesco is a vibrant, qualified teacher and we are so fortunate to have her joining us. Please join us in welcoming Miss Pesco into the New Haven Knights family this Thursday night in your child’s classroom. Further details will be forthcoming in an email. We are in the process of securing substitute teachers for the upcoming week. As always, please feel free to call me with any questions and have a wonderful rest of the weekend.”

“I’m getting a new teacher?”

I spun. Josie’s green eyes, mirror images to her mother’s, were wide and round, and her little chin wobbled. To say she took change easily or endured the loss of women in her life with grace was a lie. She hated every time she had to say goodbye to a woman in her life. Only more things to hate Monica for.

“Come here, munchkin.” I crouched down and patted my knee. She came straight to me and rested her backside on my thigh, her head on my shoulder. “It sounds like Mrs. Bonners has a sick family member she had to go help, and that’s really sad, but it’s really nice of her to do that, isn’t it?”

Josie sniffed and burrowed her forehead into my throat.

My chest squeezed. I never understood true pain until Josie’s feelings were hurt for the first time. Seeing my little girl cry? I could raze a town for the anger that pulsed through me when it happened.

Tonight was no different, but I was a pro at managing my little girl’s emotions. At least for now. Someday that would change, but for now, I was still her hero.

“I guess.”

I hugged her tight to me and rocked back and forth. “It’s okay to be sad when people you like move away and you don’t get a chance to say goodbye, but I bet we can find out where Mrs. Bonners went and you can write her a letter or send her a card letting her know how happy she made you.”

“I can?”

“Absolutely. And besides, now you get to meet a new teacher. That’s fun, right?”

Josie was silent for a beat, then two. “Maybe she won’t smell like mothballs.”

I choked down a laugh and rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. My mom was there, poorly stifling her own. “I bet there’s a good chance Miss Pesco won’t smell like mothballs.”

My daughter was a riot, and I had no idea where she got her sparkling and witty personality. It certainly wasn’t from me, but it was one of my favorite things about her. She said what was on her mind, and she usually did it politely enough in front of others that I didn’t need to reprimand her for it. But God help me if someone ever tried to silence her.

“Okay.” She sniffed and stepped back, scrunching up her nose. “Sometimes if I try real hard, I can still smell it even when I’m not around Mrs. Bonners.”

My mom snorted and turned her back to us.

“Why do you think she smelled like that, Dad?”

“Remember how I showed you?” The first week of school, Josie came home telling me her teacher smelled funny and sometimes the smell tickled her nose. I’d figured it was Bonners’ perfume, but as soon as I had my first meeting with her, the smell was unmistakable. I’d gone to the hardware store, found a package, and took it home with me to ask Josie if that’s what she smelled.

“It protects her clothes?”

“That’s right. And Mrs. Bonners only wanted to look nice for you kids, right?”

At least I hoped that’s what it was because if it was her perfume, then someone really should have told her.

I gave her a little shake until she hopped off my thigh. “You have your things ready to head home?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

Her blue-painted toenails wiggled on my parents’ tile floor.

“What about your shoes?”

“Oh!” She spun, and her feet thundered through the home toward the front door. “I almost forgot!”

“Your daughter is something else, Gavin.” My mom was still laughing.

“Bet it’s nice to have a girl around again, and not all us stinky boys, huh?”

She came to me and wrapped her arms around my biceps.

“I’ll take whatever family comes my way, boys or girls, regardless of the stench.”

“Even mothballs?”

“Even mothballs.” She laughed. “Get home safe and we’ll see you tomorrow.”

My parents were amazing. Thoughtful, kind, hardworking, and there wasn’t a living thing my mom didn’t fall in love with. When I’d come to them at fifteen, scared out of my brain that I’d gotten Monica pregnant, there’d been tears and disappointment, but within twenty-four hours, they were working on a game plan for moving forward. That was it. No yelling. No punishment, just a complete redirect of my entire life.

They didn’t hesitate to jump in and support me every step of the way.

I’d be lost without them.

“Love you, Mom.”

“You too. Drive safe.”

I couldn’t say there was anything fun about becoming a father at the age of fifteen. There was definitely nothing fun about learning my high school girlfriend took off in the middle of the night to go live with a cousin’s family because she wanted nothing to do with being a mom or staying in our small town. Learning how to parent Josie with the help of my entire family was the hardest thing I was certain I’d ever have to do in my entire life. It radically altered not only the path I’d wanted for my life, but it drastically affected my ability to trust people.

Sure, we’d been young teenagers, kids ourselves, but eight years later and I was still walking around without a fully formed frontal cortex, and forced to make responsible choices every single day for the sole benefit of another tiny human, never myself.

Some days, it absolutely sucked, even with the help and support I’d always received.

Other days, Josie would say something, far beyond her tiny little years, and amaze the hell out of me. Her laugh stole the wind from my lungs and her cries were no less painful than a shot to the chest.

Some nights, as I was cleaning the house after she was snuggled in bed and I was crouched at the coffee table meticulously sweeping up glitter that had somehow found a way into my home and was currently spilled all over the table and the rug at my feet, I was damn thankful Monica took off.

She gave me a gift that I never had to worry about splitting between two homes, a child raised moving back and forth between parents, who I was now certain would someday come to despise each other, forced to put on a fake smile and pray like hell our internal anger with each other wouldn’t affect the way my daughter valued herself.

But in all of that thankfulness? In all the hard days and the most beautiful moments? Glitter was the absolute devil. There was no larger evil in my eyes.

I shoved to my feet and tossed the wet rag I’d used to wipe it all up into the trash, knowing that was useless. Once glitter arrived, it’d stay with us for the rest of eternity. Once I vacuumed, finished cleaning the kitchen, and made sure our lunches were packed and ready to go the next morning, I locked the doors, turned off the lights, and headed to bed.

Life with Josie was difficult but fulfilling.

But as I thought of the phone call and then the email from the school I read once we got home, it was obvious change was coming. It was brewing in my gut, and that gut was telling me to proceed with caution.

Something was coming that was going to rock our tiny world of two, and I only hoped it didn’t end up leveling us to the ground in its wake.