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They spoiled Hazel like crazy and showered her with love and affection, but I got regular lectures on the things I could be doing differently or better as a parent. Most days I was pretty good at letting it roll off my back. However, on days like this, when I was all up in my feelings, it was harder to shake off the feeling of being inadequate.
“All right,” I groaned, “let’s get this over with.”
I opened the door and stepped inside. I loved that my parents still lived in the same house Owen and I had grown up in. It was full of great memories I would cherish for the rest of my life. Coming here was like stepping back into my childhood, the smells and sounds bringing it all rushing back. If they ever decided to move, I would be heartbroken, so I prayed they never got a wild hair to retire down in Florida or something.
“I’m here,” I called out as Owen shut the front door behind us.
The first sound I heard was my daughter’s excited shout of, “Mommy!” followed quickly by the sound of her feet running through the house.
I loved that she still got so excited to see me, like we’d been apart for days instead of hours. I knew it was only a matter of time before that stopped, and I was dreading that day the older my sweet girl got. I lived for moments like this, when she’d come barreling through the house and slam into me with enough force to rock me back on my heel. I’d been braced for impact, so after a laugh, I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed.
“Hey there, Hazelnut. Did you have fun with Gram and Pop-Pop?”
“Uh-huh.” She looked up at me with those big eyes of hers as I dragged my fingers through her long, silky hair. It was funny, really. She and I shared features, such as our slightly upturned nose and perfect cupid’s bow lips, but if you put her and my brother side by side, you’d think he was her parent, not me. She got her height from him and was going to top me in no time. Even though both our eyes were green, mine had more brown to them than hers. She and Owen shared the same shade of green, the color of the purest emerald. My eyes leaned closer to hazel while hers were deep gemstones. They even shared the same hair color; a rich, dark brown that had undertones of russet when the sun hit it, while mine was so dark it was nearly black.
I actually loved how much she took after my brother, because in my daughter’s eyes, Uncle Owen basically walked on water. And the feeling wasverymutual. My big, brawny, tattooed brother was wrapped around my little girl’s finger, to the point he regularly let her paint his nails and cover his face in makeup if that was what she wanted to do with her time.
A small, secret part of me I kept buried down deep had worried how my little girl would handle not being the center of Owen’s world when he met his girlfriend, Asher, but it had turned out for the best. Asher was wonderful and had easily stepped into the role of aunt without missing a beat. Now, when she had sleepovers at Owen’s, instead of being spoiled by only him, she was spoiled by them both.
“You do your homework?”
She nodded. “Yep. I had spelling words, and for every one I got right, Pop-Pop gave me a piece of candy.”
I let out a low chuckle and shook my head. Of course he did, because he just couldn’t say no to his precious granddaughter. “Okay, sweetheart. Grab your stuff. It’s late, so we need to get going.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
She skipped back toward the kitchen at the back of the house, passing Asher and my folks as they met me at the front door.
Asher came right to me, wrapping me in a tight hug. “Hey, babe. Good to see you.”
“You too,” I told her before Owen confiscated his woman by looping his arm around her waist and yanking her into his side. If Asher was within reach, it never failed that he would be touching her in some way.
My father quickly took her place, leaning down to place a kiss on my cheek before making room for Mom to come in and pull me into a hug.
“You missed dinner. No worries, though. I packed you some to go.” That was my mother’s love language, keeping her family fed, and I’d never complain, especially since she was the best cook I knew. Taking me by the arms, she pushed me back so she could study my face, her brows pinching together. “And you look too tired. You aren’t taking care of yourself, sweetheart.”
I could have been in perfect health, but it wouldn’t have mattered to Gloria Shields. No one could take care of her babies as well as she could.
I gave her a smile that I was sure looked just as tired as I did. “I know. I’m sorry about dinner. Things at the restaurant were crazy. We were short-staffed, so I had to pick up the slack. It’s been a long day.”
“You need to make more time for your family, honey. When your dad and I were running the place, we always made sure to keep a good balance between work and our personal lives. How will you meet a man if you’re working all the time?”
I gritted my teeth to keep from snapping. This lecture was a particular favorite of hers lately. I didn’t bother informing her I wasn’t in the market for a man or that it was easier for her and Dad to have a better work-life balance because they were a team. I was just one person, doing the job that had been done by two people for decades. It would have fallen on deaf ears, and I really wasn’t in the mood to start a fight.
“Maybe, if you had a better handle on your employees, they wouldn’t take advantage of your kind heart and you wouldn’t have to do their jobs for them,” Dad threw in.
“That’s not really fair, Dad,” Owen said, jumping to my defense as I bit down on the side of my cheek until I tasted blood.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not trying to be ugly. All I’m saying is, you’re too nice, honey bear. You need a firmer hand.”
“My handle on my employees is just fine,” I managed to get out without yelling. “They respect me because I show them the same in return.”
“Well, they can’t respect you too much if they’re walking all over you.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and pulled in a huge breath, holding it in my lungs as I silently counted to ten in my head. Only once I felt in better control of the anger bubbling in my veins did I reply. “They don’t walk all over me. I only haveoneproblem employee, and it’s the oneyouhired as a favor to your friend.”
Dad’s eyes widened. “Kadence? Oh, sweetheart, that can’t be right. She’s such a nice girl.”
