Piper tucked her hair behind her ear. “Now I have all these dumb slogans about being sexy running through my head.”
“Like what? Selfish is the new sexy?”
“Sexy is saving a whale.”
Now he really laughed. That was an awful slogan. He wouldn’t have thought of Piper as being funny, necessarily, but she had a dry wit that entertained him. “That it is. Come on, you whale saver, let’s go to bed.” Before he kissed her and never wanted to stop.
At the top of the stairs, Brady stood in front of Shelby and Boston’s room and tried to resist those big brown eyes staring at him. Piper had her hand on the knob but she didn’t go in the bedroom, and it wasn’t fair that he had to be a better man and walk away. It just seriously wasn’t fair and he sucked at it.
But he forced himself to brush a kiss across her forehead and murmur, “Good night.”
Then he walked across the hall, closed the door behind him, and locked it for his own protection.
What the hell was he doing?
He was starting to really like Piper Tucker—that was what.
Flopping down on Zach’s twin bed, he tried to remember all the reasons why he couldn’t date Piper.
The only one that even came to mind was her father’s fist, and Brady was starting to think he’d risk a black eye for the chance to explore what there might be between them.
Brady groaned into his pillow. Nothing. That was what there was. He was going back to Chicago and she would marry a nice boy who farmed a neighboring plot of land.
That was reality.
The truth stank and so did Zach’s sheets.
* * *
HER STEPFATHER, MARK, HAD HER BY THE ARM AND was shoving her into the closet. Stay in there until I get back, he said, his eyes bloodshot, his words slurred. Piper fought the panic as the door slammed shut, leaving her in darkness. It was okay. She’d be fine. Anita would keep her company, and once Mark the Butthead left, she could open the door a little. He was too drunk to remember to lock it. She wouldn’t leave the closet, because he could come home at any time, and then she would get caught, and then he would hit her in the face, hard, the way he had when he’d knocked her baby tooth out and the Tooth Fairy never came. When her mom was still alive, the Tooth Fairy came. But now no one seemed to remember that Piper was here. Just Anita.
And sometimes the man in the flannel shirt who sat under the tree outside their trailer. He smiled at her and she knew he was what her mom called ‘good people.’ But he couldn’t help her because he was dead. He still had the rope around his neck.
He had never been in the trailer before, but today he was in front of the closet when she cracked it open and peered out. She gasped and fell back on her bottom but he just stood there, smiling until he turned into a woman, with a funny dress on and her hair wound on her head like the women who passed out church flyers, the ones her mom called ‘those goddamn Christians.’
Who are you? Piper asked her.
It scared her that the man was gone. Did all men leave? That’s what Mama always said. They loved you and they left you. Sometimes Piper wanted Mark to leave, but if he left, then she’d really be all alone with this lady who was frowning at her, her mouth moving like the fish down at the pet store. Her hands came out, bony and white, with torn and bloody fingernails, and reached for Piper’s neck. She swallowed a scream and tried to slam the door but it wouldn’t close and the fingers came closer and closer . . .
Piper sat up straight in bed, her heart racing. “Oh, my God,” she whispered out loud, sucking in air.
Rachel was standing at the foot of her bed again, and Piper wondered if that was why she had seen her in her dream, reaching for her. Curling her fingers around the sheet, she used her other hand to brush her hair back. She was covered in sweat, the fear still crawling over her skin like an army of ants. Why the hell had she dreamed about Mark? It had been years since he had invaded her nightmares.
Pushing back the sheet, she stood up on shaky legs, wondering what time it was. She’d been up late, wide-awake while Rachel had stared at her again and Piper had wished that Brady were in bed with her. She hadn’t fallen asleep until probably three in the morning. Normally she loved to stay at Shelby and Boston’s, but she was going to be happy to go home to the farm where there was no Rachel. Glancing at her phone, she saw it was after nine. The girls usually were up and running by seven.
Unnerved that no one had woken her up, she skirted Rachel without comment, yanked open the bedroom door, and rushed into the hallway in her pj’s. The smell of coffee brought her up short. She turned around and looked at the spirit, like she had any answers. Aware that she probably looked like complete ass, Piper jogged down the steps, worry clawing at her insides. The girls were her responsibility and she couldn’t believe she’d slept so late. The fear from her dream still clinging to her, she burst into the kitchen and came to a dead stop, stunned at what she saw.
Brady was in jeans and no shirt, flipping pancakes on the skillet. Coffee was brewing. The girls were standing on chairs on either side of him, hanging on to his every word and action. The smell of bacon sizzling on the stove mingled with the coffee, and it was a warm, cozy smell. The smell of family and lazy Sundays.
“Alright, now drop those chocolate chips there and it makes a pair of eyes for our teddy bear pancakes.”
Piper was speechless. Brady was making teddy bear pancakes for the girls. She’d swear she had never been so turned on by a man as she was right then, seeing his bare back and his tight butt, his voice sleepy, his words so cute and domestic.
“Sorry I slept so late,” she said, her heart rate finally starting to slow down now that she saw the girls were okay and now that the dream was receding.
Brady turned and smiled. “Looks like the lazy bum is up. Want some coffee?”
“Piper!” Lilly shrieked and almost fell off her chair when she turned to wave. “We’re making pancakes. And look—I’m taller than Brady.” She did a cheerleading routine that involved a heart-stopping leg kick. Heart stopping for Piper, anyway, when she pictured all the broken bones that might result from that chair flipping out from under her. Lilly didn’t seem concerned.
“Keep the cheers on the floor, okay?” Brady told her, expertly flipping a pancake. “No one wants to spend Sunday in the ER.”
Piper came over to the counter and gave Emily a hug as she peered around her at the pancake cooking on the griddle. Emily had carefully dropped her chips in. Lilly’s were crooked. But overall, they were quite adorable. “I’m impressed,” she told Brady. “You have hidden skills.”