Page 80 of Sterling Clay

“Then we tap the backs.” He moves our hands so the backs connect.

“Then we make spirit fingers.” He holds up both his hands, palms out and wiggles his fingers.

“Let’s practice.” I’m still squatting, and my knees are killing me in this position, but I hold out my hand and slap his palm, then tap his knuckles with the back of mine, and we make spirit fingers at one another.

Dutton dissolves into laughter and then wraps his arms around my neck, hugging me hard.

No one ever warned me I’d lose my heart to a kid in a Walmart.

+ + +

After our horse ride, where Honey Rose is patient with Dutton, and he falls in love with the horse, he falls asleep in my truck on the drive home.

It’s been a great day, but the encounter earlier still riddles me with unease. Once we are home, I gingerly lift Dutton from his booster seat which Mavis put in my truck and carry him inside. He instantly wakes up but he’s groggy, so I set the television on a horse program and step into the kitchen to call my brother.

“Hey,” Stone answers on the first ring.

“Hi.” We aren’t much for formalities, so I break into my concerns immediately. “I wanted to check in with you about that guy Perry was with.” The one I’d called Stone about after the party incident.

“We haven’t found anyone yet. Perry wasn’t much help. Was probably just some guy grifting through town.”

Fucking Perry. The explanation does not put me at ease.

“What about Wesley?”

“What about him?” Stone counters.

“Any status updates on him?”

“Other than he’s still missing and there is an APB out for his arrest? That’s all we got for now.”

For half a second, earlier in the day, I thought the man standing in the Walmart aisle was Wesley. However, I don’t recall him having longer hair or such weathered skin. Although people can change, in only a year, he’d have to age ten and grow broader in shoulders and taller in height, a mere impossibility at over fifty years old. Plus, Dutton did not recognize the man.

Still, thoughts of the stranger, his rude comments, and near proximity to Dutton unsettle me. Hell, any stranger that gets too close to him is going to make me anxious. This fear makes me feel more like a parent than the twenty-something kid I once was while raising my siblings.

“You’ll keep me posted if you learn anything new, though, right?”

Stone is a quiet a second before asking, “Is there something you want to tell me?”

Of all my siblings, he’s the least likely to tease me about saving people or creatures. He knows as well as I do all we did to save our siblings, and we didn’t always do a bang-up job. However, we kept them in school and clothed and fed, and mostly out of trouble except for Sebastian and a little issue with Vale.

But parenting is more than clothes, food, and a roof over heads. We love our siblings, but they are still that, our brothers and sister.

Love like I feel for Dutton—this desire to protect him, keep him safe and whole, assure him he’s the best thing ever to exist—this feels like being a parent.

Like being a father.

“Yeah.” The slow smile on my face lifts my voice. “Mavis and Dutton are living here now. With me.”

We are an us.

Forever.

Chapter 27

[Mavis]

Within the week, I have good news. Trudy Wallace, a local real estate agent who originally sold me my house, has found a buyer. The person wishes to remain undisclosed which is their right. He or she will actually be buying the land as there is no longer a house. Trudy thinks the person is purchasing the property for an investment. He or she will build something meeting the city’s requirements for the historic boulevard of homes, possibly something modeled after the original house, then flip it for a profit.