18.
LYNN
“I like your girlfriend,” Berklee said as she took the plates out of my hand.
Brinlee looked up from where she was sorting through the silverware and asked, “When is she coming back over?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You should invite her for dinner,” Berklee suggested.
If the little ones weren’t here, I’d probably be napping on the couch right now, so I hoped Farrah was taking advantage of her quiet house and doing just that. I yawned before I said, “She’s probably going to go to bed early since she’s got to work at the farmers market tomorrow.”
“We’re going, aren’t we?” Brinlee asked.
“Yes.”
The girls started cheering which brought Roarke charging into the kitchen. I was shocked to see that his face, arms, and what I could see of his legs were covered in various colors.
“Oh, shit!” I muttered as I dropped the wooden spoon I’d been using to stir the pot of noodles and hurried over to him. Right before I got to him, I realized he had an uncapped marker in each hand. “Roarke, what’s the rule about coloring on anything other than paper?” Roarke shrugged but wouldn’t meet my eyes as I picked him up and set him down on the counter. “Girls, what’s the rule about leaving markers out?”
“Crap!” Berklee muttered before she rushed from the kitchen to check out the damage her cousin had caused. Brinlee was right behind her, and when I didn’t hear them yelling, I hoped that meant he hadn’t drawn on anything but himself instead of them whispering furiously as they tried to cover up the damage.
“Buddy, you’re the reason Mama’s going to go gray before her time,” I said as I took the markers out of his hands. I didn’t even have to look closely to know that they weren’t the kid-friendly washable kind. No, they were permanent and very bold. “Your mom’s going to kill us.”
Roarke’s eyes got wide before they filled with tears. In a pleading voice, he asked, “Mama?”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I assured him with a hug. “You’re not supposed to draw on yourself, buddy.”
Roarke rested his hand on my forearm and traced one of my tattoos before he looked up and said, “I’m pretty like you!”
“You just wanted some tattoos, huh?” I asked. When he nodded eagerly, I said, “You’ve gotta wait until you’re grown to get the real thing, and you’re not supposed to draw on yourself.” I remembered what had happened the last time he got his hands on a marker, and my eyes got wide. “Did you draw on your sister?”
Roarke slowly nodded just as one of the girls let out an ear-piercing scream.
“Dammit!”
My phone rang as I hefted Roarke off the counter and set him on my hip. I put it up to my ear as Berklee skidded around the corner with a panicked look on her face.
“Hello?” I said as I rushed into the living room.
“Hi, handsome. What’cha doin?”
“I’m dealing with an artistic catastrophe. What are you doing?”
“I was wondering if you’d like to meet us somewhere for dinner.”
“Us?”
“I’m hanging out with Moe and Taylor tonight, but we’re going to bed early since we have to be up before dawn tomorrow.”
I could hear Moe muttering in the background, so I asked, “Would you like to come have tacos at my place?”
I could tell that Farrah had taken the phone away from her face to talk to her friends for a second, but then her voice came over the line and she said, “Yeah. Do you need us to bring anything?”
“Permanent marker remover and whatever you want to drink. I’ve only got Kool-Aid and iced tea.”
“Marker remover?” Farrah asked.
“Yeah.” I walked around the couch and looked down at my sweet little granddaughter who was covered in scribbles before I gasped at what I saw in her platinum curls. “Holy shit! He drew in her hair!”
“Blarke did?” Farrah asked.
“Roarke got into the Sharpies.”
“Oh, no,” Farrah whispered.
“Fuck!”
“We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
◆◆◆
FARRAH
“Turn here,” I told Taylor as she got closer to the intersection.
“In circles or . . .”
“Left! Turn left!”
“You’re the worst GPS system ever,” Taylor mumbled.
“I think we should have gone right.” I pressed against the door when Taylor slowly turned to glare at me. I said, “I’ll look up the address.” Before I had a chance to pull out my phone, we crested the top of a small hill and I yelled, “That’s it!”
“He lives in that?” Moe asked from the back seat.
“Part of it. The other part is his business. They use a portion of it to store and work on all that enormous machinery.”
“I dated a guy who lived in a barn once.”
I looked over at Taylor and grimaced before I said, “I did too.”
Taylor wrinkled her nose and asked, “Does a shed count?”
“Unfortunately,” I said sadly as she pulled up to the gate and it started sliding open. As soon as there was enough room to get through, Taylor pulled in. I directed her toward the door Lynn had pulled into last night, and she parked the car. I blurted, “Why am I nervous?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Moe answered. “Right now, the man’s got my vote, especially since he’s feeding us tacos. A girl can get spoiled when tacos are involved, and he’s hit all the high points already.”
“What are the three high points?” Taylor asked as we got out.
Moe shut her door and looked over the roof at Taylor before she raised her hand. With one finger up, she said, “Feed me.” She put up a second finger and said, “Fuck me.” When she lifted a third finger, she said, “Tell me I’m pretty.”
Taylor and I were still laughing when the metal door next to the garage door opened and one of Lynn’s granddaughters motioned for us to come inside.
“Moe, Taylor, this is . . .”
I hated that I wasn’t sure, but she instantly chimed in having dealt with this problem before, apparently. “I’m Brinlee. It’s nice to meet you. Come on in.”
We trailed in behind her, and as she led us through the shop, Taylor whispered, “You should at least try to remember the kids’ names, Farrah.”
“I know their names!”
When the next door opened, Berklee appeared. She had a panicked look on her face when she said, “He got the television screen too!”
“Shit,” Brinlee hissed. She glanced over at us and cringed before she said, “Shoot!”
“And this is Berklee. Berklee, these are my friends Taylor and Moe.”
“It’s nice to meet you, but we’re having a crisis here.”
“Sounds like it,” Moe replied.
“No wonder you didn’t know which one that was,” Taylor said quietly. “Damn. They’re like clones.”
“Lynn says their looks are the only thing they have in common, but I haven’t spent enough time around them to know.”
We clearly weren’t quiet enough because the young woman in front of me said, “You can just call us B. Most people can’t tell us apart, and that’s easier than listening to them apologize for getting us confused.”
Berklee . . . Shit! Was that Brinlee? I needed to pay more attention to what they were wearing next time so I could keep track.
“Sometimes it’s kind of fun to make people feel bad, but we’ll try not to do that to you,” the other girl said.
“I don’t know which one you are, but you’re my favorite so far,” Moe said with a grin.
“That’s crazy because I’m the nice one,” the little girl replied with an answering smile.
“Why is she your favorite?” the other little girl asked quietly.
When I turned to look at her, I saw she had tears in her eyes, but before I could react, Moe put her arm over the girl’s shoulders and said, “Oh, honey, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to . . .”
The tears disappeared, and the little girl stuck her fist out. Her sister bumped it as they both giggled, and right then, I knew that Moe had found her people, as terrifying as that may be.
“Oh, God, it’s like there’s two little identical Moes,” Taylor whispered in horror.
Moe put her arm over the other girl’s shoulders and walked down the hall with them on either side, leaving me and Taylor to follow behind in shock.
“I think we’re gonna be good friends, ladies,” Moe said cheerfully.
“Oh, no,” I whispered as we followed them into the house portion of the building.
“You should warn Lynn,” Taylor whispered.
“And tell him what? I introduced your granddaughters to the Antichrist, and they hit it off?”
“That works.”
“We can hear you,” one of the girls called out in a singsong voice without even looking over her shoulder.
“If their heads start spinning, I’m out of here,” Taylor warned.
“Come on, Taylor. I’m sure it’s okay. Don’t worry.”
One of the girls looked over her shoulder and winked at Taylor before she smiled at Moe, and I felt my friend shudder. “That’s probably what Moe said to all of her victims, and now she’s got an entourage.”
“Oh, shit. What have I done?”
◆◆◆
“You’re cruel and heartless, and you’re a bad influence on these innocent girls,” Moe threatened as she glared at Taylor. Taylor just smiled back, so Moe looked at Berklee and said, “Let’s get her, B1.”
Berklee, or B1, as Moe had started calling her, referencing her newfound love for bingo, slowly turned and stared at Taylor who shrank back.
So far, this had been the most cutthroat game of dominoes I’d ever witnessed, and considering how many years I’d spent in prison, that was saying something.
Apparently, Taylor felt the same way because she said, “I don’t care who wins, I’m not giving anyone my stinger!” She looked around the table and said, “I’m not sure where that came from, but let’s rewind and forget I said anything.”
“What’s a stinger?”
“Is that a prison thing?”
“How do you get one?”
“Do you make it?”
“What does it do?”
The girls' questions were so rapid-fire that Taylor was going to get whiplash looking from one to the other. When she looked over at me as if I could rescue her, I burst out laughing.
“Let’s go lay the kids down while they work this out,” Lynn suggested as he stood up with Roarke in his arms.
The little boy looked so cute in his pajamas, and so did Kaylynn, who had fallen asleep in my arms after her bath. Somehow, the faint scribbles all over her face made her even cuter, and I knew they’d fade sooner rather than later. It was the streaks in her blonde curls that Lynn was most worried about.
I’d experienced Lanna’s pregnancy mood swings firsthand and still thought it was funny how terrified Lynn was of making her upset. His sweet daughter had quite the temper when she was riled, and considering this wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened while her children were in Lynn’s care, he was anticipating a complete meltdown as soon as their mother set eyes on them.
I was surprised when Lynn walked toward the door leading out into the garage but even more surprised when he opened the door that led into a children’s playroom. There were toys everywhere along with a crib on each wall and even a bassinet and changing table set up next to a door on the other end of the long room.
“This was the original conference room for the business, but since Lanna usually brings the kids with her to work and I keep them at least one night a week, we redecorated,” Lynn explained as he laid Roarke down in the crib with bright blue bedding. I walked over to the other crib and laid Kaylynn down gently so I didn’t wake her, which was probably unnecessary since it seemed that she and her brother could sleep through anything - the fact that they’d fallen asleep during the boisterous and cutthroat domino game had proved that.
Once the little ones were settled, Lynn turned on the baby monitor and picked up the receiver to take back to the kitchen with us. Before I walked out of the room, I scanned over the kids one more time and was transported back to years ago when Colt was this small. Someday, hopefully soon, he’d find his other half and I might get the opportunity to put his children to bed like I had him.
“Those are some lucky kids,” I said quietly as Lynn pulled the door shut. “I can see how much you love them.”
“What’s not to love? They’re wild and crazy just like their mama was at their age.”
“And you keep them every Friday night?”
“I do. The girls stay at Lanna’s on Thursday nights so I can have some time to myself, and I do the same thing for Lanna and Kyle on Friday nights. We swap out at other times here and there, too, but we’ve settled into a Thursday and Friday routine.”
“It’s nice that you guys support each other like that.”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone to relieve me when the girls were young, and it was pretty stressful. I promised myself that when my girls had children of their own, I’d be there for them to make sure they didn’t get burned out. Leanne took advantage of that, and I had the girls all the time, and now, of course, I’ve got them full-time, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.” Lynn winced before he said, “Well, that’s not exactly true, but there’s no sense wishing for something that couldn’t be.”
“When is she supposed to get out?”
“She won’t even be eligible for parole until the girls are twenty-three.”
Now it was my turn to wince. “Fifteen years?”
“Minimum. That’s a hard lesson to learn and a hard situation to learn it in.”
“Yeah.” I chuckled before I said, “Been there, done that. Let’s hope it only takes her one try.”
“Yeah,” Lynn said sadly. I stepped closer to him and wrapped my arms around his waist before I laid my head on his shoulder. As he pulled me closer, I relaxed against him. “Thanks for coming to the rescue this evening, sweetheart.”
I tilted my head back so I could look at him before I said, “You didn’t need a rescue. When we got here, you had everything under control. Besides, we should be thanking you. We got tacos out of the deal, and I think Moe has two new best friends.”
“From what little I know about your friend, that’s downright terrifying.”
“We’re going to have to go as soon as they get finished with this game. All of us have to be up early to get everything in order for the farmers market.”
“And I’ve gotta get some rest because the kids are early risers who don’t give a shit that Pop is tired and his bones hurt.”
“Youth is wasted on the young.”
“So are healthy joints.”
Lynn settled his lips on mine for one of those electrifying kisses that made me forget my own name, and I wondered if Moe, Taylor, and the girls would miss us if we snuck off to his bedroom for a quickie.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you’re thinking the same thing I am,” Lynn mumbled before he started nibbling on my neck.
“How I should reorganize my closet now that the cold weather has passed?”
Lynn’s chuckle vibrated my entire body before he said, “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Would you like to show me your closet so I can give you some organizational ideas?” I asked.
“Fuck, that would be so hot.”
“But duty calls, and it’s not exactly good grandpa behavior to sneak off for a quickie.”
“Once the girls get adjusted to having you around, you can start spending the night now and then.”
“I can’t wait.”
“What are you thinking about now?” Lynn asked as he lifted his head to stare down into my face.
“I’m trying to figure out the best way to bribe them so I can get into their good graces.”
Lynn laughed before he squeezed me a little tighter. “Just be yourself, Farrah. It won’t take long for them to fall in love with you too.”