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She felt almost bad for ordering him around. He had volunteered to protect Rory, after all. It wasn't like she was paying him. Yet.
Tacey waved at the basket of muffins. "I brought you breakfast. For both of you. If you need more, just sing out, and I'll bring up more from the kitchen."
Rory looked up from her colouring. "I can come and get them, Mummy. Sunlight doesn't hurt me."
Tacey wasn't sure whether to be proud of her daughter, or worried, or both. Her kindness to a monster like Wystan was remarkable, but it was also likely to lead to people taking advantage of her. Tacey sighed. "No, sweetheart. You stay upstairs with the blinds down so Wystan can protect you, okay? If you need anything, let me know and I can bring it up."
She expected Rory to argue.
But Rory just nodded. "He's protecting me from the bad monsters, isn't he, Mummy?"
Tacey swallowed. That she trusted Wystan, an actual monster, with her daughter more than she trusted the girl's own father...but no matter what the courts said, Matt had tried to kill them both. That made him a monster more monstrous than Wystan had been only a few minutes ago.
A monster she needed to find a better way to vanquish than giving her daughter a gargoyle bodyguard.
Tacey sighed. She'd deal with that issue after she'd opened the café and dealt with the morning breakfast rush. First, she had to fire up the espresso machine and placate all the caffeine addicts already queueing up outside the door.
NINETEEN
"Wow, it looks just like an angel," the girl breathed as Tacey set her coffee down.
The guy sitting across from her peered at his cup. "Mine looks more like the Moth Man. If I take a video of it with my phone, do I still get free coffee for a year?"
Tacey laughed. "Sorry, no. That offer only applies if you capture video of the real Moth Man, not just his likeness in your latte."
The guy turned to the girl. "Want to come back after the exam, and see if we can spot him?"
She pouted. "We'll see. I'd rather go to a bar than drink coffee after this one. Family law is the worst. I'd rather spend my whole life drawing up real estate contracts than try to come up with another case for sole custody. I swear, it's like when parents get divorced, they forget their kids are people, too, instead of possessions they can use for cheap point scoring over their former partner."
"It's not all bad. I mean, what if the reason one parent wants sole custody is because the other one's an abusive piece of shit? If you won a case like that, you and the parent with sole custody would be saving the kid from a horrible childhood."
"Yeah, but then you have to hear about the abuse that's already happened and I just...can't..." The girl's eyes filled with tears. "It's all horrible."
"Well, we know neither of us is going into family law, but we still need to pass this exam, so drink up and let's get some last minute cramming done before we have to head back."
The girl nodded and Tacey headed back to the counter.
That was the answer, then. If she wanted to keep Rory safe from Matt, she'd need to take him to court, and fight him where it mattered. But to do that, she'd need the best family lawyer in Perth. That wouldn't come cheap.
She swallowed. She had her savings for a house deposit, and she had the café. There was no point buying a house for her and Rory to live in if Matt got custody of her. Better to live with Rory in Bell House for the next ten years than hand her over to him. Shit, she'd sell the café, too, if it meant she could keep Rory safe.
"Good morning, Tacey. Has it been busy today?"
Tacey looked up. Was it almost lunchtime already? Wow, yeah. And Rochelle looked...positively glowing. Almost a different person to the nervous shadow who'd begged to stay in the studio upstairs only a few weeks ago. Ditching that arsehole boyfriend and hooking up with their artist in residence had definitely helped, too, but it was more like she'd stopped allowing that vampire to suck the life out of her and let Ben breathe life into her instead.
The world would be a better place with more Bens in it. Or even just one more in her life...
Tacey sighed. "Yeah, it's been flat out. I haven't even finished making all the paninis for today. Could you take over the counter while I take care of them?"
Rochelle squinted at the sandwich cabinet. "What are we missing? Everything looks like it's here."
"All the regular items, yeah, but I had this crazy idea last week to do a Christmas in July thing during the school holidays. The gingerbread muffins are all gone, but the cookies haven't been as popular. I figured I'd try the cranberry eggnog muffins tomorrow, but I wanted to have the turkey paninis for today's lunch, only the turkey was too hot when I took it out of the oven, so I was waiting for it to be cool enough to touch before I made them up."
Now I had her interest. "What else are you putting in them?"
"Well, there's honey roasted pumpkin and baby spinach leaves. I was thinking of adding some feta, but I thought...at Christmas, you'd more likely to have a cheeseboard with brie or smoked cheese or something, wouldn't you?"
Rochelle nodded slowly. "Oh, yeah, it would be amazing with a bit of brie. Maybe with sweet chili sauce, too?"
