The Birthday List(41)

I smiled up at him, conveying silent thanks. It was hard to believe that I’d had such an awful lunch with Jamie’s parents earlier. Cole had turned my whole day around by bringing me here.

Him, and doing this for Jamie.

Even though his parents were against it, today had reinforced my decision to finish the birthday list. No matter how much Debbie and Kyle objected, I was seeing this through. A year ago, nothing would have helped after such a bad encounter with Kyle and Debbie. I would have let it ruin my day, probably an entire week. But doing something fun, something for Jamie, had made it all go away.

“Aunt Poppy!” Kali screeched, waving wildly from her seat on the dinosaur train.

“Kali!” I waved back as I reached Finn’s side. My brother gave me a quick hug before I bent down to Max in his stroller. “How’s my Max?” I kissed his cheek.

“Pop, Pop.” He pointed to Kali. “Wook.”

“I see that. Isn’t it cool?”

He stared at his sister with a dazed look, probably wondering what she was doing or wishing he were old enough to follow.

I smiled and kissed him again, then stood just as Cole and Finn were shaking hands.

“I know you,” Finn said.

Cole nodded. “Cole Goodman.”

“Right.” Finn looked to me and then back to Cole, letting go of his hand. “Well, it’s nice to see you again under better circumstances.”

“Same to you. Is this your son?”

“This is Max.” I patted the stroller, then pointed to the ride. “And that’s Kali.”

“The mini-Molly?” Cole asked.

I smiled. “That’s the one.”

“What are you two doing here?” From Finn’s furrowed eyebrows, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of me and Cole, but I’d explain later.

“Well, your sister spent the better part of the afternoon dragging me along on every ride at the fair. Every. Single. One.” Cole circled his finger around, indicating each of the kiddie rides surrounding us.

“Yikes.” Finn chuckled. “How’d you even fit?”

Cole and I looked at each other, then burst out laughing. “Finn,” I held my side, “you should have seen him try and get into the little flying bumble bees. He had to beg the guy running the machine to even let him try. Then they had to balance the ride with me and a bunch of kids on the opposite arm. All of these people were standing around, glaring at Cole for being a pain. It was hilarious.”

Cole shook his head at my teasing. “I knew I should have snapped a picture of your green face when we were on The Zipper.”

“Sorry, Detective. You missed your chance, because that will never happen again.”

“You got her on The Zipper?” Finn’s eyes widened. “I’m impressed.”

Cole shrugged. “I can’t take much credit. She would have braved it with or without me.”

He had no idea how much I’d relied on him today, but I wasn’t going to debate that in front of my brother.

“So, you’re a detective now?” Finn asked Cole.

“Yeah. I got promoted about a year ago. What about you? What do you do?”

“I own a landscaping company here in town. We mostly do new construction, some mowing here and there.”

“Finn’s being modest,” I told Cole. “Alcott Landscaping is one of the biggest landscaping companies in the Gallatin Valley. And when he says new construction, he means that he designs the landscaping for some of the biggest homes in the area.”

Finn just shrugged. “It pays the bills.”

I was proud of Finn’s success, but it had come at a price. In my opinion, his dedication to his company had driven the wedge between him and Molly in the first place. He’d taken his design assistants out to dinners instead of his wife. He’d made sure everyone else’s lawn was mowed but forgotten to do his own, forcing Molly to do it herself. He’d spent late nights with his laptop instead of sleeping in bed next to her.

Alcott Landscaping had come above all others, except the kids. Finn might not have won awards as a husband, but he was a great dad. Even if their parents were divorced, Max and Kali had two parents who loved them unconditionally.

“Daddy! Aunt Poppy!” Kali screeched as the ride came to an end. She climbed out of her purple brontosaurus and came running down the platform and through the exit gate. “Did you see me? Did you see me?” She launched herself at Finn, giggling as he picked her up and threw her in the air.

“You did awesome! Was it fun?”

She nodded wildly. “Can I go again?”

“Sure. Did you want to do the dinosaur train again or try something else?” Finn smirked at Cole. “Aunt Poppy’s friend Cole said the bee ride was pretty fun.”

Kali looked at Cole but dismissed him completely, much too concerned about her fair rides than another adult in our huddle. “Hmmm.” She tapped her chin—something that was so stinking adorable I could hardly stand it. “Bees!”

“Bees!” Finn and I both cheered as Cole muttered, “Bees.”

I laughed and took the handle to Max’s stroller, leading the way to the other ride.

An hour later, Kali had been on every kiddie ride, I’d spent some quality time with my nephew, and Cole and Finn had made plans to meet up for a beer next week. My brother was man-crushing on Cole. Hard. And I couldn’t wait to razz him about it later.