Junkyard Dog(68)

“He wants to eat her,” Hayes tells the kids.

“Not cool,” Cricket mutters, crawling to the couch and talking to the pets.

They’re unimpressed with her pep talk. We finally drag Nightmare away long enough to grab the cat and stick her in the carrier. These two don't appear capable of becoming friends.

By the time we officially move into Hayes’s house just before Christmas, Dreamy uses Nightmare as a pillow. The kids get accustomed to Hayes’s house too and soon use one spare room for their beds and the second one as a playroom. We finish unpacking stuff from the rental house one week before the wedding.

The weather gives us a break, allowing the sun to break through the clouds on our winter wedding day. I wear a simple white gown, short enough that I don’t need heels. Chipper and Cricket walk me down a white tarp in our backyard to where a pastor and Hayes wait. We have white chairs set out for our few guests. Grandpa and Grandma Eddison sit in the front row with Balthazar and Lizzy Anne. Moot wears his fanciest jeans for his role as best man. Honey is decked out in a summer dress and a winter jacket as my maid of honor.

Hayes wears black slacks and shirt, looking like the devil to my angel white. In fact, we’re somewhere in between on the evil to holy scale.

I’m not the only blushing belle on my wedding day. Reunited with her old beau, Honey goes goo-goo over Moot, who stares hypnotized by her. An hour after the ceremony, I wonder if either of them remembers she’s married. Even with four loud kids running circles around them, Honey and Moot can only see each other.

Hayes watches the flirting couple and shakes his head disapprovingly. “Why can’t people make sense the way we do?”

“We’re special, boss.”

Hayes gives me a knowing smile. After all, he’s the feared Junkyard Dog, and I’m his not-so-sweet Candy Girl.





EPILOGUE - HAYES


Contrary to the rumors around town, marriage and kids don’t turn me soft. More than once, I am forced to remind everyone I control White Horse. Moot acts as my muscle while I play family man. He also puts together a team of trusted men to help him do my dirty work. Moot might not be as scary as I am, but everyone knows he's backed by my money and power.

Candy gets pregnant six months after we marry. Every day, I tell her she looks beautiful even when she gets bigger with my one boy than she did with twins.

“I’m giving birth to Sasquatch,” she complains while rubbing cocoa butter on her stretch marks. “He better be gorgeous.”

Our baby is born in the afternoon on a stormy Saturday. I stare at him in absolute awe. I mean I know what babies look like, but this is my kid, so he’s f*cking special. Candy keeps playing with his thick, dark brown hair.

“I don’t want to be mean,” Cricket says, staring at her little brother, “but he’s not cute.”

“Did he fall out of you and land on his face?” Chipper asks.

“I will cry,” Candy warns in a quiet, sing-songy voice to keep the newborn from waking. “I will cry a lot, and there will be snot, and I will use you two as giant napkins for all my boogers. Do you understand how much snot I can produce as a new mother? Gallons and gallons. Now let’s try this again. What do you think of Casper?”

The kids look at each other and then their brother. “He’s beautiful,” Chipper and Cricket say in unison, playing up the creepy twin angle.

“Better.”

“Why Casper?” Balthazar asks the next day when he visits the hospital.

“I wanted to honor you,” Candy says, grimacing from her C-section as she tries to get comfortable in bed.

“Why me?

“I figured you were trying to make a kickass statement by naming your son Anus but then chickened out and added the ‘g’ at the last minute.”

Balthazar frowns at me, but I can only roll my eyes. Candy’s reasoning for the name is bizarre, but she gave birth to my fourteen-pound son, so I’m not arguing with her.

“Get it? Anus and Ass-per?”

“You’re a strange woman,” Balthazar says and then smiles at Casper. “But you make beautiful babies.”

Candy grins until she moves again. “I forgot how much C-sections suck on the second day.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling rather useless standing there.

“For giving me everything a woman could want?” she asks, smiling brightly.

Just like that, I feel like a f*cking king.

On our first anniversary, I give her something she’s too afraid to ask for. Candy opens the gift box and finds a newspaper clipping of a woman’s grisly death. She frowns for a long time, and I wonder if I was wrong about her wanting Peat’s murderer dead.

“And I only bought you a sex toy,” she finally says.

Candy always has a way with words. She never says anything else about the dead woman, but I notice less anger in her eyes whenever she mentions her brother. After everything Candy’s given me, I’m relieved my gift brought her an ounce of peace.

Until her, I never knew I was lonely. Until her, I never figured I’d have the patience to be a father. Until her, I hated change. Until her, I never truly knew how it felt to be a man.





EPILOGUE - CANDY


Something magical happens at our wedding. Honey’s independence, with an assist from her libido, awakens. I knew she dated Moot years ago, but Hayes made their relationship sound one-sided. Apparently, my sister still holds a flame for the bad boy.