Chapter 15
“If you’re going to make a move, you need to do it. And before things get more complicated.” Wade came up beside me, a bottle of water in his hand, giving a little boy who streaked by with crayons a high five.
It was the first family night at the church, a brainchild of Phoebe, my mom, Louise, and Helen. Apparently, ladies’ night now involved more than just drinking and eating until they were all groaning and begging the sun to turn off the next morning.
It was a brilliant idea, and one met with extreme enthusiasm by the town. Tonight was the first night, and a handful of adults mingled around helping out, making sure the teenage volun-tolds were behaving.
I’d been adamant I wasn’t going to get roped into this until I overheard Phoebe on the phone to her sidekick telling her she was volunteering for the first night.
Given she’d been acting strange for the last couple of days and using my siblings as an excuse, I’d jumped on offering to pick up the bottles of water and snacks Mom said needed to be picked up from the Maple Mart.
It all came with one bonus. I could watch Phoebe, which I was doing now.
Over the last couple of weeks, it’d become my damned hobby: watching Phoebe Lebonaire. And it wasn’t exactly going unnoticed.
Groaning, I forced myself to look away from her heart-shaped ass as she bent over in a pair of jeans to lift a toddler who was holding his chubby little arms up in silent demand.
“You’re not being subtle.” Wade bumped me with his shoulder, reminding me he was there.
“Why are you here exactly?” I ripped my eyes off Phoebe, glaring at my best friend.
“Subtle about what?” Delilah came around the corner, a box of art supplies in her hand. Spying Wade, she wrinkled her nose. “Why are you here like that?”
By “like that” she meant decked out in his full officer’s uniform. “Pastor Jane decided it might be a good idea for a little police presence the first couple of nights. You know, ensure any teenagers looking to shirk their responsibility or cause mischief find more productive things to do.”
Wade then cleared his throat, sending Annie, a girl from Delilah’s class, a stern look.
Freezing, she swallowed hard under Wade’s hard stare.
She shoved her cell phone back into her pocket, deciding paying attention to the group of four-year-olds she was assigned was in her best interest. She’d no sooner sat down with her little charges than one of them shoved Play-Doh straight into her ear.
“Amateur,” Delilah whispered, earning both Wade’s and my attention.
“What’s that?” I questioned my sister.
Rolling her eyes, she snapped, “I don’t have time for this.” She stomped away, setting the box of art supplies down on a long table a little harder than necessary.
“Jesus,” Wade swore, and I agreed.
“It’s been like this more and more lately. Mom said she’s barely coming out of her room and when she does...” I waved my hand to encompass her attitude which took up more space in the church’s events room than the myriads of kids.
“And talking to her hasn’t helped.”
“No.” It was frustrating as hell. I felt helpless. I wanted to help Delilah but had no clue how.
“You know, there’s a pretty good therapist the force uses for kids. I can give you her number and you can pass it on to Aunt Cady-Jo.” Wade pulled out his phone.
“Thanks.” I’d give the information to my mom when I dropped the kids back off at home tonight.
Pocketing his phone, Wade swept the room. “At least Jesse seems to have more life in him.”
Together we watched my younger brother, who was back from college for the weekend, as he deftly changed a dirty diaper.
He was chatting away to the other adult assigned baby duty with him: Phoebe.
I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face, watching the way my brother seemed to come out of his shell.
Like my other siblings, after Harris had cheated on my mom and left her and them, he’d withdrawn into himself.
Sometimes I’d see him and he wouldn’t say a single word.
It didn’t appear he had that problem right now.
And given she was right there, I couldn’t stop myself from watching the way she responded to him, which made my heart pound.
She was so fucking pretty…
“Give it back!” a small voice cried, and I shoved away from the wall.
Rounding the corner to the hall behind us, I found two kids engaged in a war over what looked like a sock.
Kids. Separating them, I delivered them back to the teenagers in charge and gave them a little reminder about keeping an eye on the kids.
Scarlette chose that moment to whip by, demanding I get the snacks out before her charges made good on their threat to eat her.
“So, are we gonna talk about it or what?” Wade followed me as I headed for the small kitchen downstairs.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” We’d had this conversation.
“Ugh…yeah, yeah, there is.” Wade opened the fridge and pulled out water bottles, putting them into the large box I was filling with snacks.
“No.” I gritted my teeth. “There isn’t.”
“So, we shouldn’t talk about the woman you’re crazy about or her son that you’re equally crazy about and who clearly adores you—crazy kid—and the fact you haven’t done the sane thing and asked her out before she settles in more and the awkward factor hits one hundred?” Wade closed the fridge door.
“First, I’m not ‘crazy about her,’ as you put it.
” I glared at him when he scoffed. “I’m not.
” I wasn’t sure exactly what I was. Obsessed?
Possessed? Consumed? There wasn’t a single word that could describe the way I felt about Phoebe or how it continued to evolve each day to the point I was now reconsidering my perspective on being a dad.
At least to one kid. “As you pointed out, she’s Mom’s friend and a client. That’s the definition of off-limits.”
“I didn’t say that. I said it was difficult.”
“Same thing.” None of what Wade said, after finding me staring at a picture of Phoebe I’d secretly taken (yes, creepy, I know) instead of watching the first hockey game of the season with our friends, equaled me making a move.
There was also one other little issue I’d been deliberately ignoring, making me think some distance was necessary.
“Is that why you’re here on a Friday night and why you’ve turned down every woman who has offered to be your stress relief for the last few weeks? Because she’s ‘off-limits’?” Wade dug in his heels, pissing me off.
Why the hell was he harping on this?
“I’m too old for a random hookup,” I repeated the excuse I gave him the last time he wanted to risk his life and piss me off. I didn’t admit that lately my dick only seemed to get up for a certain single mother. “Second, this conversation is over. Drop it.”
Wade held up his hands in surrender. “All right, man. I’ll let you keep being stupid.” I narrowed my eyes on him. “But only after I say this.”
If it shut him up… “Fine.”
“I’ve known you all my life. A blind person could see the way you two look at each other. I know you like your life tidy.” I crossed my arms looking at him unimpressed. “It’s true, brother. You hate messy. But I’ve gotten to know her. And from what I’ve seen, she’s a woman worth a little mess.”
“And if the mess includes her hiding something?” I let out the thing that had been bugging the shit out of me all day.
“What do you mean?” Wade crossed a leg over the other, leaning back against the counter.
I didn’t know why I hadn’t seen the pattern earlier.
The way she’d get mail and squirrel it away upstairs, careful to make sure no one saw it.
The secretive phone calls she had, most of them while I was taking the kids to school.
At first, I’d thought what she’d gotten, which was a large package, was from her lawyer.
The phone calls, I thought, were about her messy divorce, which was getting messier every day.
Jeremy was now going after her, claiming she was “withholding Lock.” In reality, he was violating a court order by having Layla around.
I’d heard Phoebe arguing more than once with the douchebag, telling him he could see Lock, just not with Layla present.
“So? It could still be about her divorce.” I heard the edge in Wade’s voice, though.
I’d thought that. Then, it got weird. “She got a package last week. I’d brought it in for her, but when she opened it…
” It was difficult to describe the look on her face.
“It was two books. One was one of those Cursed Bonds books Jesse is obsessed with, and the other looked like one of the romance books Mom and the aunts like to pretend they don’t read.
” And I loved to pretend she didn’t, too.
I shuddered. “There was a card with the second book, and when she read it, she went white. Her hands shook, and not the finger thing. Like earthquake tremors. When I asked her what was up, she looked terrified and picked up the books, saying she must have gotten them by mistake.”
“Maybe she did.” Wade was turning it over in his head.
“Except an hour later, I heard her upstairs on the phone to Alex, who showed up a couple hours later, practically gluing herself to Phoebe’s side.”
She also didn’t poke at me, fuck with my tools for shits and giggles, or do any of the usual pain-in-the-ass things she took pleasure in doing.
“That’s definitely odd.” Though he was referring more to Alex than Phoebe.
“Maybe. Except Phoebe got another package today and locked herself in her office all afternoon. Suddenly, she’s going to stay with Alex, leaving after she’s done here tonight instead of in the morning.
She has a court hearing on Tuesday, but until today, she was going to head to the city on Monday.
” When she’d been served with the papers from her ex, I’d had to fight the need to drive to Atlanta and pound the bastard.
The need to protect her and Lock was a living entity inside me.
“I still don’t hear anything actionable. Is it weird? Yes. But Phoebe’s skittish.”