“And Liam assigned Holly to shadow me,” Lennon said.
“Seriously?” Mateo pushed his glasses up on his nose and cocked his head. “Did you do something to piss him off?”
Lennon threw up her hands. “How the hell should I know? I’ve barely talked to him since I got here. He’s not exactly a stimulating conversationalist, you know. All he does is grunt.”
“It’s all right.” I tried to soothe her with my voice because I sure as fuck wasn’t going to actually touch her. “Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened.” Frustration laced her voice. “I don’t know how I managed to smash an entire carton of eggs on myself. I don’t know how I fell into the water trough. I don’t know how I tripped on nothing and ended up in the wheelbarrow of horse manure. But every time, Holly was right there. And IknowI didn’t do it to myself.”
I exchanged a look with Mateo. Yeah, that was Holly, all right. No one ever saw her coming. She was like a fucking ghost assassin.
I pushed to my feet. “How about I take you upstairs so you can shower?” I ignored Mateo’s knowing smirk as I rounded the desk. “And, um…” I looked around frantically. What would make Lennon happy again?
“Ice cream.” Mateo snapped his fingers. “You want some ice cream, Lennon?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t try to handle me, Mateo. Iwillhave my revenge.” But then she cocked her head. “Skittles and Diet Coke. That’s what I want.”
“Fine,” I agreed immediately. “But we’ll have to go totown. We don’t keep Skittles on hand. No one’s ever requested them before.”
“So we’ll go to town,” she snapped, like I had put up a fight.
“I’ll drive.” I gave her a wide berth as I made for the door.
“And a hug.”
The words stopped me in my tracks. I pivoted slowly. “Give the woman a hug, Mateo.”
Mateo shook his head rapidly, his gaze pingponging between us.
“From you, Jeremiah,” Lennon clarified. Her eyes glittered with evil joy. “I want a hug from you. It’s the only thing that will make me feel better about being assaulted by one of your staff.”
“Holly didn’t touch you,” I protested.
“I know what she did, and so do you.” The only thing wider than her open arms was her shit-eating grin. “Come here, cowboy.”
With a grimace, I stepped into her embrace. Her arms banded around me and her low laugh tickled my ear. Suddenly I didn’t care that she was filthy and smelly. Lennon was in my arms. I had everything I wanted. I held her tighter and nuzzled her neck, searching for a clean spot to lay my lips.
“You’re enjoying this.” She smacked my arm with an annoyed huff. “You’re not supposed toenjoyit.”
“Interesting,” Mateo said thoughtfully behind us.
I knew I would have to explain myself sooner or later, but not yet. For now, I ignored him and dragged my girl upstairs to get clean.
“Skittles and Diet Coke, huh?”I watched her shake out a palmful, then carefully select one of each color and pop them into her mouth in one go.
“It’s my comfort meal.”
After we’d showered—separately, despite her altruistic plea to save water, because I didn’t trust myself having Lennon naked and wet within arm’s reach of me—I’d driven her to Sunday’s Sundries on Main Street. We’d taken her candy and my vanilla cone to the picnic tables out back, where Mercy River snaked through the town.
I shook my head. “Skittles and Diet Coke isn’t a meal, honey. It’s a snack.”
She was quiet for a moment as she uncapped her soda and took a sip. After wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she said, “My mom promised me my twelfth birthday would be special. We’d go out for pizza and she’d bake me a cake herself. Normally, I’d know better than to believe her. She made a lot of promises she never kept. But this time, I figuredshe’d actually follow through. Her boyfriend had dumped her two weeks before, so she was in that short window where she was done crying about it and in herI don’t need a manphase before she inevitably decided she did, in fact, need a man.” She squinted at the river. “When I came home from school, she was getting dressed to go out. Not for me.” Her tone turned sardonic. “She’d met someone. He wassosweet”—Lennon rolled her eyes—“and he wanted to take her to dinner.”
“She left you alone on your birthday?” We didn’t celebrate birthdays at the compound. There were too many kids to give anyone special attention for a day. Being an only child, that probably hit different, having your mom choose to spend time with someone else.
Lennon nodded. “She had completely forgotten about the cake, but she told me to order myself pizza for dinner. Only…” Lennon rolled her lips, then shrugged like it didn’t matter. “She hadn’t left any money. Your ice cream is melting.”
I blinked through my fury and realized a stream of melted ice cream was making its way to my hand. Feeling ridiculous, I licked it up.
