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“You have no idea,” she said, her voice shaking. “I thought I’d been through the worst of it, and now you’re telling me you have a child. If you think you even have a sliver of understanding for how I feel, think again.” Before I could speak, she stood. “You need to leave. Right now.”
I nodded. Stood. Descended the porch stairs. Stopped to look back.
“I know it doesn’t mean much, but I’m sorry, Marnie.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t mean much.”
With a hard swallow, deep frustration, and an untenable amount of guilt, I walked away from her, just like I always did.
12
Catchin’ On Fast
PRESLEY
“Daddy!”
My heart stopped, just like it did every time Priscilla said that word. I looked up at the threshold of the shed that afternoon to find Sebastian smiling down at her as she charged him with Elvis—our crazy dog—on her heels. But behind his eyes was the same strange surprise and hope I felt on hearing that word out of our daughter’s mouth.
Our daughter.
That did it too.
He knelt and scooped her up. “Hey, Cilla. Whatcha doin’?”
“Making candles with Mommy.” She beamed up at him. “Want to make candles too?”
“I don’t know how. Will you teach me?”
She nodded emphatically before turning to me. “Look, Daddy’s here!”
“I can see that,” I said on a laugh.
Sebastian stepped into me before remembering himself. God, I wished he could have kissed me.
“Hey,” he said before standing Priscilla up on a stool across from me.
“Hey,” I echoed with a smile.
Once upon a time, this shed was used for canning, but had been abandoned for so long that we’d had a bit of work to do before I could work in here. But with a little elbow grease, we’d turned it into a virtual apothecary of goodies, from bottled scents to bundles of drying herbs and flowers to massive jars of raw honeycomb for wax lined up on the shelves. The windows weren’t big, but there were enough of them that the interior was well lit, and I’d opened them to encourage a cross breeze. Below the planked wooden floor was a storage cellar where I could cure candles and store wax without them melting in the heat. With the addition of a compact propane stove, I had everything I needed.
I would have promised my cousins my first born for all they’d done for us, but I was a little attached to Priscilla.
“So what’s all this?” he asked, looking over the ancient, counter-height table in the middle of the room which, at the moment, was covered in supplies.
Before I could answer, Priscilla straightened up and said, “These is the wicks and those is the scissors, and that is the pot with the waxes. Poppy brought us the beeswaxes, see?” She hinged and put her arms around one of the big jars, grunting with effort as she tried to pick it up.
Laughing, Sebastian intervened, sliding the jar closer so he could peer inside. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
She made a face at him. “I can carry it, Daddy.”
“I bet you can. You’re pretty strong. Show me your muscles.”
Her face screwed up in concentration as she made the international sign for guns out, flexing her skinny little arm.
Sebastian tested its density with his thumb and forefinger and whistled. “Do you work out?”
She giggled. “No, silly. I eat my broccoli.” The word sounded more like bwoc-o-wee than its accepted pronunciation. “Show me your muscle, Daddy.”
In a grand show, he slapped a cocky look on his face, hitched the sleeve of his t-shirt up, and flexed.
Priscilla’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. Her chubby little hand stretched out to touch the mountainous terrain of his bicep.
“Can you pick up a car?” she breathed.
He laughed. “I don’t think so, but I can pick you up pretty easy.” And so he did, grabbing her to lie her flat in his arms before curling her up to his face to blow an unholy zerbert on her exposed belly. A riot of growling and giggling filled the shed.
“Do Mommy!” she squealed when he set her down.
With a sly look on his face, he stalked around the table toward me.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said, edging away from him.
Priscilla laughed like a hyena. “Get her!”
He darted for me, and I took off, but not fast enough. Before I knew it, he had me in a princess hold, now blowing his unholy zerberts on my neck, which was somehow both annoying and weirdly erotic.
Really, it was entirely inappropriate and in direct violation of our admittedly vague Priscilla rules.
I wished I cared. My primary instinct was to wrap myself around him like a boa constrictor, but somehow I mastered myself well enough that when he set me down, I didn’t launch myself back at him.
“You are disruptive,” I said, pointing at him just in case my face wasn’t authoritative enough.
