Page 23 of Made for Mayhem

The sound cracked off into silence, leaving me gasping, my phone hot against my ear. “No,” I whispered. “There’s no one. But I’m okay.”

I wiped my face on the sleeve of my shirt, shoved the phone into my pocket, and forced myself to move, already thinking through the logistics of getting out of here as fast as possible.

Pack a suitcase.

Fill the Bug with gas.

Get on the highway.

I chanted my to-do list in my head, trying to stay focused.

Sure, my world was unraveling at an alarming rate, but the Winslow girls were good at rising from the ashes. And this was not the time to fall apart.

6

Yesterday felt like a hundred years crammed into one day.

Junie napped in my lap outside her mom’s hospital room while the doctors and social workers spoke in whispers and passed me clipboard after clipboard to sign. By the time they let me take her home, Violet was gone and Junie was placed in my care.

Watching my favorite little girl cry herself to sleep on my couch at Copper Ridge nearly broke me. Sure, I’d been preparing for this exact scenario for months, but jumping through hoops to get foster certified didn’t do shit to prepare me for the fact that Junie had just lost her mom.

I carried her to bed and stood in the doorway longer than I should have, memorizing the rise and fall of her breathing, promising myself I could hold her world together.

This morning, that felt like a daunting task.

Tom Petty drifted from the ceiling speakers while I worked the griddle. Junie sat at the island in a one-piece blue pajama set covered in rainbow-colored kittens. She had her chin perched on her fist, glasses a little crooked, and her blonde hair sticking up in a dozen different directions. Rowdy lay under her feet, tail thumping in time with her breathing.

“Behold,” I said, sliding a plate in front of her. “Your favorite Mickey pancakes.”

She pushed it back toward me, not bothering to sit up straight. “They smell weird.”

I pressed a hand to my chest. “That’s the smell of culinary greatness. Disney sent me an offer letter already this morning, asking me to come work for them.”

A twitch pulled at the corner of her mouth. Not a smile yet, but the start of one.

“You gotta eat something, Junebug,” I said. “Last I checked, cowgirls loved pancakes.”

She poked one with her finger, eyes dull and tired in a way no eight-year-old’s should ever be.

“Tell you what.” I pushed the plate back toward her again. “If you help me feed Uno after breakfast, I’ll let you give him the good hay.”

Her head lifted a fraction. “The green hay?”

“The very one. Premium llama dining.”

She pushed her glasses up her nose, sitting upright. “I think he likes me better than you.”

“That’s because you have two eyes,” I said. “He respects that in a person.”

That earned a small snort.

“Okay.” She grabbed the pink fork I’d set out for her. “But you also have two eyes.”

“Mm, yes, but they’re not pretty blue like yours, are they? Mine are more like Uno’s poop brown than the brightest Colorado sky.”

She giggled for real this time, the sound small but enough to crack something loose in my chest. “Maybe like the wood chips in the chicken coop.”

“Hey, that’s an upgrade from poop. I’ll take it.”