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“Don’t argue with me, child,” Mum said as she bustled into the kitchen. “You know full well that word is not permitted in our house. If you keep arguing, you’ll lose another half hour.”
As Skylar’s mouth opened to argue back, I reached across the table and placed my hand over it. “Enough.”
She shot daggers at me, but she shut her mouth and did as she’d been told. Snatching her assignment sheet off the
table, she shoved her chair back and grumbled, “I don’t need your help anymore,” before stomping off towards her bedroom.
I leaned back against my seat, my eyes meeting Ivy’s. She’d taken the seat next to me. “And you want kids?” I wasn’t convinced we could handle them. Hell, we could barely handle our own relationship. Adding children to that mix could end us.
A slow smile graced her face, and she leaned into me, hands curving around my neck. “I don’t just want kids, I want your kids. You’re going to make the best father.”
If we weren’t sitting in my mother’s home, I’d have pulled her onto my lap and kissed the fuck out of her. Instead, I brushed my lips across hers and said as quietly as I could, “We’re never doing a week like this again, Ivy. This radio silence almost killed me.”
She swallowed hard and nodded as her fingers splayed across the nape of my neck and threaded through my hair there. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.
I placed my hands on her legs before slowly running them up her thighs. It was a good thing she had jeans on, or I’d have seriously struggled keeping myself out of trouble. “I’m taking you home after lunch, and we’re talking this out. And we’re not doing anything besides talking until it’s sorted.”
Her brows arched. “Umm, it’s not just me who has trouble keeping their hands to themselves.”
Mum cut into our conversation when she called out from the kitchen, “Zachary, I need your help in here, please.”
I kept my gaze trained on my woman as I called back, “I’ll be there in a minute.” Then to Ivy, I said with fierce conviction, “I love you.”
With that, I stood and headed into the kitchen. The tension I’d carried with me for the last week hadn’t eased completely, but it had lifted somewhat. I didn’t feel like I was drowning in the ocean while ten fucking sharks circled me, which was how I’d felt while Ivy refused to come near me. I’d do everything in my power to ensure we never went through that again.
Mum lifted her chin up towards the top of her pantry. “Can you please get that sugar down from up there?”
“Why do you put it all the way up the top?” It beat me why women did anything half the time, but it seemed like sugar should live on a lower shelf.
Her lips flattened, and she placed her hands on her tiny hips. She may have been short and little, but Margreet King wasn’t a woman to mess with. “Don’t give me grief, Zachary. You know I don’t use sugar very often.”
“I wasn’t aware of that fact,” I muttered as I grabbed the sugar down for her.
“Thank you.” She took it from me. “I’ve spent the last three months cutting it out of our diet as much as I could. Skylar’s behaviour has improved dramatically since I did that. You should consider doing the same. The amount of sugar you and Ivy consume in soft drink is probably enough to kill you both one day.”
I rested my ass against the counter while I watched her add a small amount of sugar to the batter she had in a mixing bowl, making fuck knew what. Probably her famous shortbread biscuits. Whatever it was, it would be good. That was a guarantee whenever Mum cooked.
Crossing my arms, I said with a grin, “Well, if it’s not the smokes or any of the other sh— stuff, it’ll be the sugar that’ll get me in the end.”
She shook her head while hitting me with the frustrated look I seemed to encourage. “I love you, but boy, you test me. I don’t know why you won’t give that filthy habit up. I’ve prayed to God ever since you took it up that he’ll find a way into your heart and convince you to stop.”
Fuck, she’d been praying for a long time then. I’d started smoking when I was sixteen.
“King quit smoking?” My other sister’s voice floated into the kitchen, and a moment later, her dark eyes found mine. Settling against the counter next to me, she nudged my shoulder with hers. “I don’t suppose you have a spare fifty you could lend me.”
“Annika!” Mum looked up at her, horrified. “What do you need fifty dollars for?” She puffed out a breath in an effort to blow the stray hair that had fallen across her face. The only thing it achieved, though, was to shift the flour from her nose. The hair continued to bug her, but her hands were busy in dough.
I chuckled as I leaned across and moved the hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear. “What seventeen-year-old doesn’t need fifty bucks, Mum?”
“Your sister does not require money for anything, so don’t you be giving it to her.”
Annika scowled at our mother. “Why do you always do this to me?”
“Always do what?”
“You never let me have anything!”
Hurt flashed in Mum’s eyes as she watched her daughter. Not only had Margreet fostered us all, but she’d also adopted the three of us along with our brother, Axe. She’d gone without many things to give the four of us the kind of childhood none of us would have had otherwise. I knew from conversations I’d had with her over the past few months that Annika was pushing her harder than either Axe or I had. “It’s a girl thing,” she’d said. “We’ll get through it.” But by the expression she wore, I wondered how battered she’d be by the time they did get through it.
