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Because I was tired of lying to him.
“I don’t want to lie to you anymore,” I admitted. “And now that I know you…I know you won’t turn me in.”
His head swiveled my way.
Just as he was about to say something, he shot off the table like he’d been released from a bow. There one second, gone the next.
My head swiveled to see the problem, and I watched my daughter heading face-first toward the ground.
It was as if she’d been diving headfirst, arms straight behind her to go faster.
Just as her beautiful face was about to hit the ground, there was Kobe, catching her by one leg and doing something so that her movement switched midair. She went careening up even higher than she fell, and then she was there in his arms.
If it was an act from a circus I’d just seen, I would’ve completely been enraptured in the beauty of the movement.
I mean, one second, she’d been falling headlong into danger, and the next, she was high up in the air. Seconds following that, she landed in Kobe’s arms as if they’d choreographed the move a hundred thousand times.
Heart pounding, I slid off the picnic table and zombie-walked toward them.
“How did you…” I couldn’t figure out what or how I’d just seen what I’d seen.
“You scared the absolute crap out of me,” Kobe whispered as he handed her to me. “Holy fuck.”
“Wow, you could’ve broken your neck, JP,” one of the boys supplied helpfully. “Even Zip uses a harness when she does dangerous stunts like that.”
JP blinked owlishly, likely just as surprised still as the rest of us.
“Are you okay, baby?” I asked, somehow resisting the urge to smother her in a hug so tight it left bruises.
“My ankle hurts,” she whispered.
I could imagine.
But as long as that was the only thing wrong, she got off lucky.
I looked over at Kobe to see that he looked somewhat horrified that he’d hurt her ankle.
“What happened?” I asked, crouching down.
JP looked over at a girl that was staring at her with anger in her eyes.
Judessa, one of the circus hand’s kids, had hated JP from the moment that we’d stepped into her world. Her mother, Caressa, wasn’t any better. She’d hated me from the moment I walked into the circus grounds, only with a lot less obviousness than Judessa.
I clenched my fists and tried to tell myself that hitting little girls wasn’t nice.
But this time…
I placed her down on her feet and said, “I think it’s time to get to the bus. What do you think?”
“The bus?” Kobe asked.
“Mommy and I are living out of an old bus.” JP perked up at that. “Do you want to come see?”
Kobe’s eyes asked me for permission before agreeing.
I nodded slowly. Because the last dang thing I wanted him to do was leave.
Not ever.
