Chapter 18
Eighteen
My neighbor’s diary says that I have boundary issues.
—Coffee Cup
Odin
“Do you want to build a snowman?”
I blinked open my eyes to see bright baby blue ones right next to my face.
“Uhh.” I blinked a couple of times to clear the sleep from my eyes. “Is there enough snow to build a snowman?”
I let my hand drop and felt nothing but empty couch.
“Coco is in the sanctuary,” she said. “A baby mountain lion came in, and Grandma needed help. Grandpa is out on a call two hours away. Grandma also wants to know all about you.”
“Did your mom tell her?” I asked, insanely curious to know if she’d talked about me or not.
“No.” She smiled. “She said to mind her own business. And asked her to let her get to know you before she inserted her ‘nosy self’ into her business.”
I chuckled as I kicked the recliner down and stood up.
For sleeping in a recliner, my body was surprisingly cooperative.
My back and knees popped after I stood, though.
“You make a lot of noise when you stand,” Wendy mused. “Are your joints okay?”
I grinned. “Part of getting old, unfortunately.”
“I don’t ever want to get old then,” she said. “Now, tell me why you brought tacos and didn’t save me any.”
I chuckled. “I guess we could go out for some more. But imagine that it’d be easier to wait for lunch. I could go get some donuts…”
“I’m not super big on donuts right now,” she said. “But biscuits? Today I love biscuits.”
This kid…
“I like biscuits, too. But I have no clue how to make them.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Coco has a recipe.”
So that was how “Coco” found us, covered in flour, making a mess of her kitchen.
“Whoa.” Constance blinked as she came into the room to see the mess we’d made. “I sure hope that we get something delicious out of this mess.”
“Coco,” Wendy said. “We pulled out the cookbook. There’s no way this won’t be delicious.”
Her lips tipped up at the corners. “What’d you make?”
“Biscuits and gravy. I wanted gravy. Odin wanted biscuits and jelly. So we made it all, but we put it all separate because that would be gross if we combined it.”
She snorted out a laugh as she walked to the oven to peer inside. “Looks good. Are y’all about to broil them?”
“We are,” Wendy said. “We have thirty seconds left.”
Constance took over, finishing up on the biscuits while I tackled cleaning up.
By the time they were out and cool enough to eat, I had most of the cleaning taken care of.
“You’ll have to change your clothes for school, baby,” Constance told her daughter. “I don’t think the flour-covered overalls are going to fly.”
Wendy looked down at herself and frowned. “I think it’d probably be okay.”
She took the entire bowl of gravy and several biscuits to the table.
She shoved every biscuit she had into the bowl and shoved them down with a spoon.
I watched her for a long moment before I said, “Are you sure she’s five?”
She smiled. “She’s almost six.”
I looked over at her. “Really?”
“Yeah.” She smiled sadly. “And her dad, Mackey, was smart as hell. Genius level smart. Paired with my normal intelligence, she’s definitely had a leg up.
Her speech has always impressed everyone.
She can hold a conversation with an adult and be understood.
Paired with her smarts at school, and she’s always been one step ahead in class. ”
“How’s her math skills?” I asked. “Did they consider moving her up a grade?”
“Two.” She shrugged. “But I wouldn’t let them.
For the first year here, and her first year in school in general, I wanted her to just be normal, so to speak.
Coming into a brand-new school in a brand-new town is hard on anyone.
Let alone skipping grades and going in with second graders instead of kindergarteners. ”
“She eats like a horse,” I mused as I watched her down the entire bowl.
“And doesn’t look like it at all.” She snickered. “She’s in the tenth percentile on height and weight.”
I noticed that myself.
“Was her dad big?” I asked.
“Huge.” She shook her head. “Not that you would know it looking at her. He was six-foot-seven.”
I whistled. “Damn.”
I wanted to ask how the hell someone so big had been taken down by Errol, who was just a little over five-foot-ten, but thought better of it.
“You’re wondering how he got hurt,” she guessed.
I winced. “I was, but I have enough impulse control not to ask.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant one.
“I was there,” she explained. “We were eating out, talking about what this meant for us. What was the next step, you know? So we’re talking about where we’re going to live, because seriously we don’t want to raise this baby apart, even if we weren’t together, if that makes sense.
We’re best friends. We can kind of make it work?
Same house. Separate rooms. We have it all planned out.
Then Errol walks into this bar and he’s with his friend. He sees us and he just snaps.
“Later on, that friend Errol was with would tell me that Errol had admitted that he’d warned Mackey to stay away from me or else.
Mackey didn’t take him seriously. I didn’t take him seriously either when he came in there pissed as hell when he saw us together.
I made a comment about him losing it, and Errol snapped.
He picked up a chair and hit Mackey with it in the back of his knees.
He kept hitting him until he wasn’t moving anymore. ”
“And where was everyone else while this was happening?” I asked. “You said you were in a bar.”
“I was,” she admitted. “In a bar that was loyal to bikers. And Errol was a biker. They just assumed that Mackey had done something to warrant the ass beating.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Were any other club members there?”
“The friend was one,” she said softly. “The one that’d come in with Errol. He watched it all happen.”
“He doesn’t deserve to wear that patch,” I said. “No wonder you hate me.”
“Hated,” she corrected. “I don’t hate you anymore.”
“That’s what she told Grandma today, too, when she pointed out that you were a biker,” Wendy said as she brought her dish to the sink and rinsed it.
I’d never seen a kid so damn capable before. And so damn smart and understanding.
She left the room before I could comment.
Silence followed her exit, and I turned to Constance and asked, “You don’t have to be nice to me if what I am bothers you. I’m a big boy. Unlike the other bikers you knew, we’re not all like that. We can participate in the life and still know right from wrong.”
She shot me a smile. “I fed Peanut.”
I winced. “Where is he?”
“I walked with him to my parents’ place. He got really excited about all the smells, and Mom needed to take her dogs on a walk anyway, so she has him.”
“Oh,” I said. “I guess I need to go fetch him then. I need to be at work.”
I looked at my watch and winced. An hour ago, I needed to be at work.
I was officially late.
“But you didn’t eat any biscuits.”
No. No, I hadn’t. But…
“You have to take Wendy to school, don’t you?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Then maybe I should take a biscuit to go.” I stepped toward the couch to retrieve my boots. “I get a lunch break today around two, if you want to meet for lunch before you get Wendy.”
When I looked back at her, her eyes were lit with happiness. “I’d love that.”
“We’re going to be late, Coco,” Wendy called. “And I’ve already been late once this week. What will the office ladies think?”
I chuckled. “Better get going, Coco. I’ll make myself a to-go biscuit and see you for lunch.”
“Wait, lunch wasn’t an option.” Wendy threw up her hands.
I stood up, gathered up my keys that I’d left on the counter last night, and headed for the door. “Point me in the direction of your mother, Coco.”
Coco shook her head and did just that.
I heard Peanut baying in excitement the moment I stepped outside.
The snow was exactly like I’d expected it.
A light dusting.
But the cold hit me in the chest as I tossed a smile over my shoulder and headed in the direction of the barks.
I found my dog along with another Border Collie right outside of a pen holding a wolf looking at the two with curiosity.
“You come to collect this sweet boy?”
I switched my attention from the young wolf to the older version of Constance. “I have. It’s time to get to work.”
“Ah,” she said. “You’re the medical examiner?”
“I am,” I confirmed.
“And a biker.”
I looked at my truck. “How do you know?”
She gestured to the cut now on my shoulders under my jacket. “I saw it on the chair when I came in.”
“Ah,” I said, focusing on her eyes. “I won’t hurt her.”
She focused on me then, her eyes intense. “She wouldn’t let you. Not anymore.”
“Good.” I held out my hand for Peanut’s leash. “Peanut, heel.”
Peanut abandoned the cool new thing and headed toward me, heeling at my side.
“It’s nice to meet you…” She left the name off.
“Odin,” I said. “And you?”
Her eyes were lit with laughter as she said, “Janet.” She tilted her head. “But you know that, don’t you?”
I did.
I knew a lot about them all.
But how did she know that?
“I have a friend,” she said. “Her name is Margery.”
Margery Windsor.
Denver’s mother. Boone’s grandmother.
The matriarch of the damn town.
No wonder she knew.
“She has a lot to share, and most of it is good.” She studied me intensely. “Though there are a few things that she wouldn’t share.”
Thank God.
“Is that so?”
“That’s so.” She stepped backward and waved. “Take care, Odin.”
“You, too, Janet.”
I watched her go.
Only when she was in the trees did I leave.
The entire drive to work I wondered what else Margery Windsor had shared. And if I had time to share my secrets with Constance before Janet did.