Chapter 6
SIX
I feel like all of my problems would be solved if I had a dragon.
—Magnolia to Beau
BEAU
“Magnolia?” I repeated for the second time.
She focused those beautiful brown eyes on me, and as always, I was hit with a wave of need.
For eight months, I’d been fighting this pull.
For eight months, I’d been wondering just how long I was expected to go until I just snapped.
I knew she felt it, too.
The way our eyes would lock over the space that separated us. The way she would relax when I walked into a room. The way she would smile at me when she saw me with Iris. The way she would stay close, without appearing to do so.
There were a thousand different instances that I could name off the top of my head from these last eight months that said she felt the same way, but none of them mattered.
At least not yet.
Maybe after we were both settled. Maybe after she was retired. Maybe after I was officially done with the Cowgirls. Maybe when life wasn’t so complicated.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
“Sorry,” she winced. “Wool gathering.”
I grinned.
Iris turned away from the television and started signing.
“Wool gathering comes from the sixteenth century when rural farmers used to wander fields looking for wool that was caught on the briars. It was a mindless activity that left a lot of room for reflection,” she signed.
I grinned and looked to Magnolia. “We actually just watched that on yesterday’s documentary about sheep.”
Iris turned back to the whales on the screen while Magnolia and I looked at her like she was the next Einstein.
“When I registered her for pre-K,” she said. “I thought for sure that they were going to call me and tell me that she was too advanced for that age group. But they haven’t called me yet.”
I chuckled. “I’d look for that in first grade. Pre-K and kindergarten are an adjustment period.”
She lightly smacked herself on the forehead. “I should’ve asked the actual teacher in the room.”
I grinned, but that grin quickly faded as I thought about my students.
I missed teaching.
I’d found my passion in life, guiding the young adults into their new realities.
That’d been what I’d done for the Marines, too. Guiding them and helping them find their path.
Recruitment was literally everyone’s worst nightmare.
But not mine.
I loved it.
When I’d retired, I’d thought nothing could top it.
Then I’d started teaching high school seniors how to survive.
It was a brand-new course offered by the school. We learned about balancing checkbooks, 401Ks, different types of jobs out there.
It was literally my dream come true job.
That was why I’d hated leaving it.
Why I’d be going back in January.
Not that my dad, mom, sister, and brother knew that.
But that decision had a lot to do with a certain someone, too.
With Magnolia no longer here, I couldn’t pretend.
Did I want the best for the organization? Hell yes.
But I didn’t want it to be the rest of my life.
Plus, let’s be honest, they could survive without me.
As long as my sister didn’t get her claws into it, this organization would thrive, regardless of whether we won these last two games or not.
“Done!”
We both jumped at Iris’s clear, melodic voice.
She spoke.
Quite a bit as long as she wasn’t addressing someone directly.
But it was still a stunning feeling to hear her speak to you directly.
“You ready to go, Worm?”
“Yes,” she answered instead of signing.
Magnolia and my eyes met over the top of Iris’s as she stood and started walking to her things.
Her backpack and coat had been brought to my office after I’d helped her and another one of the little girls off the bus around mid-afternoon. As part of the compensation for the Cowgirls, we had a car service that would run and do pick-up and bring the kids to the stadium.
Usually, the daycare worker would get them off, but I’d already been in the parking lot when the bus had arrived early.
I’d gotten them off and grabbed both of their backpacks and lunch boxes.
The other little girl’s father picked her up before I’d even gotten them inside, leaving me alone with Iris. When I’d dropped her off in the daycare, I’d kept her stuff with me, knowing where she’d end up at the end of the day.
“What are y’all having for dinner tonight?” I asked.
Magnolia and Iris had a full-on four-course meal on the last day of the week that they didn’t have a game that Iris told me all about on Mondays.
She started signing away, and I watched her rapid hand movements with a small smile on my face.
“What did she say?” Magnolia asked.
“Something about chicken stuffed with ham and breaded,” I answered.
She shook her head. “I thought we were doing million-dollar spaghetti and bread.”
“Looks like you have a change of heart on your hands,” I teased as I too got up to gather my stuff.
Tonight, I was going home to my empty house with my sad, never-cooked-in-the-kitchen, and heating up a microwave dinner.
Maybe I’d make some ramen…
I walked out with them, wondering how someone could ever say, “I don’t want this.”
At forty-two years old as of last week, Magnolia and Iris were exactly what I wanted out of life.
We spilled out into the parking lot and my heart sank.
Not because I didn’t want them to go—because that was obviously the case.
But because my sister and father were standing beside my car, obviously waiting on me.
Magnolia, sensing the tension in me now, looked up and around, stopping when she spotted the two figures at the back of the lot.
“Your family?” she asked, squinting.
“My dad and sister,” I confirmed.
I’d started parking in the back of the lot after I realized how unsafe it was for women to be parking in the back where my sister had wanted them to park.
“Sorry your night just went to shit.” She wrinkled her nose. “Have a good one, Beau.”
It was nice that she was able to kind of sort of keep an open mind.
I’d run into my sister four times this season, and each of them was with my dad in tow at a game.
She’d been rude, argumentative, and vulgar as she acted like she still owned the place. After the first time at a game, I’d told my dad that I was out if he pulled that shit again. The old team was well acquainted with my sister, and they’d played awfully the rest of the game.
After walking Iris and Magnolia to Magnolia’s car, I walked to my truck.
The air tasted like snow, and I had no doubt in my mind that we’d get a light dusting at some point in the near future.
“What are y’all doing here?” I asked the moment I joined them.
And how can I get you to leave?
Dad looked sheepish, but Seraphina looked smug. “We’re here to discuss me taking over the Cowgirls again.”
The smugness in her tone made me want to punch her.
And seeing as my family had raised me to never hurt girls, that was saying something.
She may be my sister, but she was my least favorite person in the world.
“I haven’t lost yet,” I pointed out.
“No, but you will,” she replied smugly, as if she knew something I didn’t.
My eyes narrowed. “Let me guess, you paid off a ref to throw that game.”
Dad shifted on his feet.
He’d never been able to see the worst in his daughter like the rest of us had.
Lysander and me? We could see the evil from the moment she was old enough to take care of herself.
My dad, however, always saw her as his little girl.
My mom was ambivalent to the issue until Sonja died, then she’d become solely on our side.
That was the reason for Mom and Dad’s divorce five years ago. My dad’s inability to see his daughter as anything but perfect, despite having killed his other daughter.
But that was an accident!
I couldn’t tell you how many times that particular phrase had come out of my dad’s mouth.
“Of course I didn’t.” Seraphina placed her hand over her heart, playing the affronted heiress.
I’d had my suspicions, but those suspicions were now confirmed as I looked at the gleam in her eyes.
“We’re here just as a pep talk,” Dad signed. “We’re not here to start anything. We both believe that you can pull this off.”
Yeah fucking right.
Seraphina was here to throw me off my game.
Plus, she felt like she was about to lose, so she had to play her games.
“I don’t need your pep talks,” I said as my eyes narrowed on Seraphina. “I’m having that ref investigated. If you slipped up and paid him a large lump sum to get him to throw that game, then I’m going to find it.”
Something flickered in her eyes, too fast to read.
“Do you hate me that much that you feel like I’d do something as dumb as pay off a ref?” She snorted. “As if, Beaufort.”
Fucking bitch.
Of course I thought she was dumb enough. She was also dumb enough that she thought she’d get away with it.
She wouldn’t.
I already had a buddy who was a savant with computers and technology in general, working on it.
My sister had slipped up this time, and I’d have concrete proof by morning that I planned on sharing with the head ref of the league.
I guessed I would share it with my father, too.
But he’d probably think it was an accident.
His inability to see my older sister as doing anything wrong was a serious hang-up for him.
“So what was the point of this meeting?” I asked, signing for my dad’s benefit since he was looking between my sister and me.
My sister who’d never learned sign language despite having a father and a brother who were both deaf.
That should’ve been my dad’s first clue.
Her refusal to make accommodations for her family.
Hell, sometimes I think she actively forgot the sign language she was taught as a child just so she could make life harder for us.
Dad looked sheepish. “We seriously just wanted to give you a pep talk.”
My sister winced at my dad’s voice.
She always did.
She was so embarrassed by him that she couldn’t hide it.
She was such a creep.
“Well, on that note…” I said as I unlocked my truck. “Y’all have a good one.”
My sister didn’t stop her lean against my car.
My dad moved to his vehicle, but my sister stayed right where she was, entire body leaning against the door. Hell, she was probably scratching the paint with her ugly rhinestone belt.
I started it up and she still didn’t move.
I didn’t give it much thought beyond that point. I put it in drive and pulled away, getting a shot of satisfaction when I saw her stumble away.
She obviously didn’t think I would leave without making sure she was off the car.
She was delusional.
I’d run her over with it if I knew there was a way I could stay out of prison.