Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Kylie
“Is it time?” Kade shouted for the umpteenth time since we’d finished dinner.
I looked at Travis and Gage, waiting to see whose turn it was to answer.
“Ten minutes,” Gage told him.
Kade huffed and stomped out of the kitchen.
I grinned. Some things hadn’t changed. Perhaps the kid throwing the tantrum was different, but the house still carried the familiar sounds of disappointed children waiting to go to wherever they thought they needed to be.
Tonight, it was trick-or-treating with their fathers.
All the kids would’ve been out the door long before nightfall if they had a say in the matter.
And whoever thought it was a good idea to give candy to already hyped children should’ve been locked up.
But the familiar was good, I guess.
“You okay?” Travis asked from his perch on one of the barstools.
I met his gaze. “I’m good. Why?”
“You look lost in thought.”
A smile formed on my lips, something that seemed to be happening a little more with each passing day. Real smiles. Not the forced kind that fit the moment.
“Just thinkin’ about how some things never change.”
“Kids’ll be kids,” he conceded. “Doesn’t matter the generation. They still want what they want when they want it.”
I stared at Travis, grinning. “Since when did you become the philosophical one?”
His smirk was sinfully sexy, but he didn’t respond. I’d noticed he did that a lot. As though he wasn’t sure what to say to me.
Ever since my session with Dr. Briggs a week ago, I’d been paying attention to the differences between then and now.
It wasn’t an attempt to compare the two, more so to figure out how they differed and what I might need to do to help things along.
I’d noticed quite a bit—like how there were cameras throughout the house—at least downstairs—and I was sure Travis and Gage were keeping an eye on me, yet they hadn’t mentioned that Archer Halligan had come by three times since last Wednesday, including today.
On Friday, he’d even brought his partner, Atticus James, yet neither of them said anything.
I got the feeling they knew, but for whatever reason, they weren’t asking.
Then again, if those cameras had audio—and I suspected they did—then they likely heard us talking about mundane shit.
I was doing as Archer suggested and seeing if this friendship might build.
It was, and I think that had a lot to do with the fact that Archer wasn’t treating me differently, and that was because he didn’t know me from before, so he had no idea where the line between before and after even was.
And that was refreshing. Plus, he was an interesting guy who had led an interesting life.
“You want to trick or treat with us?” Gage asked, drawing my attention his way.
I got the feeling he asked to be polite.
We both knew I wouldn’t make it three houses before I would need to sit down.
Although I was physically feeling better, I was a long way from having the strength necessary to start a walking routine.
While I was getting stronger with each passing day, the process of building muscle wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
Since I got winded walking up the stairs, I figured traipsing around the neighborhood probably wasn’t a wise decision. Not this year, anyway.
“Kate and I are gonna pass out candy,” I told him. When my daughter asked if she could skip the trick-or-treating and hand out candy to the little kids with me, my heart melted. I loved having the opportunity to spend time with the kids, and loved even more when they wanted to spend time with me.
The kitchen door swung inward and Kade reappeared. “Is it time yet?”
Travis chuckled. “It’s time.”
“Yay!” He disappeared, his shout echoing through the house. “It’s time, y’all! Pop-sicle said it’s time!”
I chuckled. “They enjoy that, huh? Makin’ up names?”
“It’s been a thing,” Travis admitted.
I’d heard them call him a variety of things that had the word Pop in them over the past few weeks—Pop-tart, Popsicle, Popcorn, cake Pop, Blow Pop, Popinator, Popster.
According to Kate, it didn’t make sense for both Travis and Gage to be called Dad, so they were trying to come up with something to refer to Travis.
While she called him Daddy-O, the others rarely did.
Since Travis and his brothers referred to Curtis as Pop, the kids were running with it. They had yet to come to a decision.
“You get Avery and Maddox,” Travis told Gage. “I’ll corral Kade and Haden.”
“Deal.”
Both men flashed me a smile before heading out of the kitchen.
I remained there, silently wishing they had kissed me the way they used to whenever they left the house.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t any kissing going on.
While I had heeded Dr. Briggs’s suggestion to have the conversation with them, I hadn’t yet figured out how to do that.
Or I was being a chickenshit. I wasn’t sure which it was at the moment.
With a sigh, I stood. It took a moment to get my balance. It was getting better. There were even a few instances when I stood up and didn’t get dizzy. That was progress.
Fifteen minutes later, the house was empty except for Kate and me.
“You didn’t want to wear a costume?” I asked as we worked together to fill the giant plastic pumpkin with candy.
“Nah.”
I hesitated for a second before asking, “What did you wear last year?”
Kate peered up at me, clearly thinking back. “I was a skeleton.”
“I bet that was cool.”
“Yeah. I glowed in the dark.”
“Tell me you have pictures.” For the past three weeks, Kate had been regaling me with photos. It wasn’t the same as if I had experienced those moments for myself, but it was far more than I expected.
“Daddy-O does. He took us while Dad stayed with Haden and Maddox.” Kate wrapped her arms around the pumpkin and pulled it off the counter.
I helped her by grabbing the handle so she could release it and take over the task of lugging it to the front porch. When she had it firmly in her grasp, I grabbed my phone from the counter and followed her outside.
“Do you think we’ll get a buncha kids this year?” she prompted, setting the pumpkin down by the steps.
“I don’t know. It’s kinda nice out here. I bet we’ll get a good turnout.” I took my seat at the top of the steps while Kate sat on the opposite side of the pumpkin.
Talking to her, it was hard to believe she was only going to be eight in just over a month.
She seemed so much older. Considering what she’d been through, I understood how she had matured too quickly.
Being the oldest of five, she likely felt it was her duty to help out with her brothers and sister, to make sure they felt safe, even though things had been topsy-turvy for a while.
The next hour and a half flew by as kids in various costumes came to the house in search of candy.
Kate knew many of them by name, as well as their parents.
She talked to almost everyone, laughing and joking.
She was like Travis in that way. Thankfully, she was so outspoken because the parents attempting to make conversation with me were awkward at best. There were a lot of “Hey, how are you doing?” spoken with a mixture of surprise and sympathy.
When I responded, “I’ve been worse,” they usually chuckled like they were choking on a Skittle. Apparently, it was too soon for jokes.
During the lulls between visitors, Kate would tell me stories about things they’d done over the past two years, filling me in on what I’d missed.
I didn’t tell her how much it pained me to hear about the picnics and barbecues they’d shared as a family.
Instead, I kept a smile firmly on my face, asked questions when I felt like I should, and enjoyed every second I got to spend with her.
“I need to go to the bathroom. Will you be okay by yourself for a minute?” I asked Kate when there was another lull.
“Yep. I’ll stay right here. Promise.”
I offered a smile. It was my attempt to hide my anxiety. I didn’t like the idea of leaving Kate out there by herself, but asking my daughter to go with me to the bathroom seemed even more awkward. Plus, the bathroom was just inside, so I wouldn’t be far.
“I’ll hurry,” I told her as I got to my feet, going slow to maintain my balance.
Luckily, it was one of those times when the vertigo didn’t affect me. I headed inside, took care of business, and washed my hands. I was gone maybe three minutes tops and was mentally patting myself on the back as I headed for the front door.
“How’d I do?” I asked. “Was I fast en—”
All the air in my lungs disappeared when I saw that the porch was empty. There were a couple of kids walking up the driveway, but my daughter was nowhere in sight.
“Kate?” I called, walking to one end of the porch.
No answer.
“Kate!” I shouted, unable to disguise the panic that was setting in. It came on quickly and painfully, stealing the air from my lungs and making my throat tight.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
The panic attack was brutal, but I managed to keep moving. I hurried to the other end of the porch, shouting for my daughter again and again.
“Did you see her?” I asked the kids, the words rasped harshly. “Did you see Kate?”
They looked at me as though I’d lost my mind.
“Trick or treat,” one of the kids said.
I ignored them, heading inside, shouting for my daughter.
Still nothing.
I clutched my throat. I can’t breathe.
“Kylie?”
Spinning around, I noticed Travis standing just inside the house, the screen door closing behind him.
“What’s wrong?” he insisted, his tone hard as he moved toward me.
“Kate’s gone. She’s … she was there. I went to the bathroom. Came back. She’s gone. Oh, God.”
Travis reached for me, pulling me in tight. “She’s on the porch.”
I shook my head. “No. I looked. She’s not.”
He leaned back and cupped my face, looking me in the eye. “Kylie, baby. It’s okay. She’s on the porch.”
I forced air through my restricted lungs, but it didn’t help. The panic held me in a tight fist, squeezing.
Travis’s hands were firm on my face, as though he was willing me to pay attention. I stared up at him, trying to get air. I nodded so he would understand that I was trying. His eyes searched my face briefly before he released my face and put his arms around me.
“Breathe,” he whispered, running a hand down my hair as I rested my cheek on his chest. “I promise. She’s on the porch. Gage is out there with all the kids. She’s not missin’. No one took her. Everything’s fine.”
I nodded, focusing on every inhale and exhale as his words sank in. I didn’t know how much time had passed before the panic released its death grip on me. When I could finally take a full breath, I relaxed against him.
“Where was she?”
“When we walked up, she was chasin’ Houdini.”
I pulled back so I could look at his face. Surely I had heard him wrong. The words didn’t even make sense.
“What?”
“Houdini. The cat.”
“You have a cat?”
“No. We don’t. She’s a stray. Gage named her Houdini because she disappears for days at a time. Every few days, she’ll come back, and Kate insists on feedin’ her.”
I drew more air in, deeper, more cleansing breaths until I felt in control again.
“She’s safe,” Travis whispered, his breath fanning my hair. “You are, too.”
I wrapped my arms around him and let his strength infuse me. I needed it. I needed him. Them. All of it.
I was home. I was safe. My children were safe.
I took another deep breath as logic and reason returned. The nightmare I’d been living in was over. The security net was back in place, and there was no reason not to trust it.
“We’re safe,” I said, willing it to be true.
“Yes, baby. We are.”
His words rang with conviction, though I was pretty sure that amplification was only in my head. But it was what I needed. Clarity. Reason. Logic.
I was safe.