A Kiss for a Kraken (Harmony Glen #24)

Chapter One Madelyn

“Look, Zack. See? That’s where we’re going to live, in that little gray house. We can plant flowers.”

“And ‘matos?”

“Tomatoes and basil! Mm. Spaghetti. Pizza.” Yes. It sounds like a carb fest. But it’s a healthy carb fest, I tell myself, and I smile into the rearview mirror.

Zack has put down his stack of noisy books for the first time in an hour. I’m so grateful he’s the kind of kid that will keep flipping through books indefinitely—as long as they make noise.

I bite my lip and don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I think about how my ex-mother-in-law made sure to send Zack the most obnoxiously noisy (yet educational) books known to man as a way to torture me, but they ended up being my salvation in so many ways.

“Why’d we pass it?”

Zack strains back in his car seat as we pass the little gray house that could use some TLC. It’s in a nice place—the whole town is a nice place—but it’s definitely one of the few spots someone like me could afford right now.

“Because there’s a surprise.”

Please let the lake be as beautiful and pristine as the pictures on the website, I think to myself, biting my lip. If not, I’m going to have to double back, pass the bakery, and take him inside for a cupcake or something.

“What is it?” Zack chirps, hand on the window, chubby fingers squeezing on nothing as if he can magically bring the surprise to his side.

“Oh, you’ll see soon.” We’re just a couple of blocks from the lake, but the blocks are big, and to get to the public beach, we have to drive to Lakeview Avenue.

I could have stopped and opened the garage to get out my bike with the tagalong trailer behind it, but I want to scope out the area more before I bike there with Zack behind me.

And with my luck, he’d spot some precious stuffed animal that he hasn’t seen for three weeks, waiting in one of dozens of clear plastic bags or overflowing boxes my dad and I hauled up here yesterday, and then it would be game over.

We’d have to unpack everything, or almost everything, until he was tired out.

Yes, that same persistent love of books (as long as they make noises) extends to taking out every single block until he’s seen every letter, animal, and number on the sides, taking every stuffed animal out of the basket to kiss it goodnight, eating every pea on his plate, every Happy-O in his bowl. ..

“Soon? How soon, Mama?” Zack is now craning forward, his almost-three-year-old body straining towards whatever surprises existed in this new place.

“Well, buddy, isn’t everything here a surprise?

It’s all new in Harmony Glen. New places to visit, new neighbors to meet, new.

..” I swallow as I watch a large, green-skinned being walk past, arm-in-arm with a human woman.

“New kinds of people to see,” I finish lamely, relieved when I find parking beside the public portion of the huge lake.

“Grandpa? Is he new people here?”

“No, sweetie, but he’ll visit. So will Grandma.”

“Nana, too?”

The cursed ex-mother-in-law. “Sure! Sometimes, I bet!” I say it brightly, comforting myself that it isn’t a lie if I’m just guessing.

“Daddy?” The last word is almost an afterthought, and it’s said with the same dreamy, vague-ness as someone asking if a dream is real or not.

“Daddy? Maybe, sometimes.” Or maybe not. Probably not. “Okay, lookee, cookie!” I park and hop out. “We’re going to live next to... the beach!” I fling open the door of the car and point.

“The beach!” Zack’s exhilarated squeal makes heads turn. Heads that, in some cases, are sporting long snake-like tendrils, or are attached to furry bodies.

I swallow hard. I know Harmony Glen is just one of many towns where monsters and humans are thriving, living in peace after the Great Revelation. I know I’ll get used to seeing monsters next door and in the supermarket, just like I’m now used to seeing them on the news and in commercials.

But it wasn’t like that where I grew up, or even where I lived after I got married. Heck, harmony of any kind wasn’t even something I could claim in my own home.

This place is going to be different. This place is going to work out great. Zack and I will have lots of harmony, just the two of us, with gentle bike rides to the beach. Mornings at the lake. Story hours at the library. Maybe I’ll make some mom friends.

I don’t let that rosy fantasy continue.

Mom-friends? How, when you’re a single parent now, with a useless ex who won’t be around except for the occasional guilt-induced holiday visit, and you’re working from home, trying to juggle it all while still looking for something better?

Trying to learn home maintenance and new medical transcriptionist software while keeping Zack entertained, making sure he has friends, limited screen time, and social skills.

Shit.

“Mama? Mommy?” Zack is tugging on the harness of the car seat, trying to wriggle out so he can get to the hint of blue water between the land and sky.

“Come on, big boy! I was just looking at how pretty the water is.”

“Ocean!”

“Lake, but a biiiig lake. Almost an ocean,” I say, hoping my smarty pants son won’t call me on my exaggeration.

You never know with him. I finally bend to unstrap him from his car seat, still talking cheerfully.

“The town has a park, too. A library with storytime. And we finally have a house with a yard. A place to plant flowers. Tomatoes.” I know I’m repeating myself and listing a lot of small stuff, but I’m selling it big.

I hope I’m not making it too big.

What if it’s not like people say? What if it’s not something I can manage—this whole single mom in a cute small town thing? It works great in rom-coms, but...

“We can go? Now?” Zack tugs my hand and looks enraptured by the little waves he can see.

Now. Just be in the present. Now, with your son, in this beautiful place. Look, people are smiling at him. Waving a little.

“We can go now. We can go a lot.”

“Every day?” Zack doesn’t do anything by halves, does he?

“A lot.” I stand firm on that part, but my voice holds a chuckle. Zack’s enthusiasm is catching. “Wanna run there?”

Zack looks like I handed him the moon. He hugs my leg hard, and then runs, my hand in his, my squishy mom-bod thighs with red seat lines on them from the long drive easily keeping up with him.

Zack is squealing nonstop, and his little legs falter when he pauses in his delighted running every few seconds to do a little hop or kick of pure joy.

My heart might burst, just watching him.

I wonder why in the world I ever, even for a second, let Eli make me doubt myself, doubt that parenthood was worthwhile.

“Is it the best day?” Zack suddenly demands, bright blue eyes peering up from under messy blonde curls. Sometimes he asks that, and I don’t know why. I tell him there are lots of best days.

“Well. We got to run. Take a long drive. Read a big stack of noisy books. See a new place. An almost ocean. And new sights.” I check out the lifeguard at the water’s edge, an aqua blue hunk that would make my Baywatch posters of old weep with jealousy.

You know, if it wasn’t for the mass of writhing, pointing tentacles holding him up and directing beachgoers.

My list is enough to earn Zack’s decision. “The best day, Mama! It’s the best day!”

“Okay, baby boy. Whatever you say!” I scoop him up in my arms when we hit the shore and run with him towards the water.