Into the Storm (Signal Bend #3)(8)
Her eyes grew huge when she craned her neck up at him, and she screamed, “DADDY!” and threw herself at him, clutching her arms around his hips.
Fighting back tears, he bent down and hooked his hands under her arms, hoisting her up. “Hey, baby flower. Wow! You’re gettin’ big!”
“Yeah! I’m second-tallest in my class. Aston Whitson is taller but he’s a boy so that’s okay. No girls are taller than me in fourth grade or even fifth grade!”
“You started school already, huh?” He could see Rosie standing back from the door, watching, looking serious and anxious. He winked at her. Holly was coming up from a hallway, dressed in a waitress uniform, and looking fit to do murder.
Unaware of the potential drama behind her, Iris answered his question. “Yeah—last week. I go to St.
Sebastian’s. Rose doesn’t, though. She goes to Jackson Middle School. She gets to wear fun clothes but I don’t. I have to wear this ugly skirt every single day. I have two the exact same. And plain white sneakers.
It’s not fair. Tell Momma it’s not fair. Are you staying with us now?”
“Iris. Come here. Now.” Holly was holding the door open about halfway.
“No, Momma. Daddy came home. He’s going to take me to school.” She turned to Show. He tried to put her back on her feet, but she grabbed his shirt in her fists. “Right? You can take me to school because you’re here and I can show you the picture I made the other day. We had to draw our family and I drew you even though you stayed away so long. I drew Daisy, too. I know she’s with Jesus in Heaven, but she’s still here, too. Momma says Daisy left a little piece of her with us in our hearts.”
Christ. Show’s eyes filled and he blinked the tears away. “Your mom’s right, flower. Daisy’s right here with us all the time.” He kissed her cheek and set her down. “I’m gonna need to talk to your mom. You got more to do to get ready for school?”
“Yes, she does. She has to brush her teeth and make her bed. Go now, Iris. Right now.” Iris looked back and forth between her parents, conflicted, and then ducked under Holly’s arm and trotted back into the apartment. She stopped at the head of the hallway and called back, “Don’t leave, Daddy.”
This was a mistake. A terrible damn mistake. He should have shipped the shit Holly wanted, as she’d asked him to. But he was here, he was committed to this. He looked past his ex-wife, staring knives at him, and smiled at his middle, now oldest, daughter. She, too, had grown several inches. And she was getting breasts. “Rosie. Miss you, girl.” Rose’s sweet, lovely face crumpled into tears, and she spun to run down the hall. Show noticed that her left arm was in a full cast.
He turned his eyes down to Holly. She’d gained more weight since she’d left him, moving from curvy to heavy. She’d never been skinny. When they met, she’d been voluptuous. Show liked a curvy woman, a woman with something soft to get hold of. At that thought, an image of the manager of the B&B back home, Shannon, wearing that tight black skirt and that green shirt slinked through his head. Surprised, he shook it away. “What happened to Rosie’s arm?”
“Rose. Her name is Rose. I’ve always hated that you called her that silly name. And you don’t get to ask any questions. What in the name of all that is holy are you doing here?” By the last few words, she’d begun to shout; now, she stepped into the breezeway and closed the door.
“I brought the stuff you wanted. From the house. I have it all.” He knew that wouldn’t satisfy her, and he knew he needed to take the opportunity he had here to say some things and reset some expectations. But he was wired and exhausted, and he was feeling all but destroyed by seeing his girls again. “What happened to Rosie’s arm?” He’d always called her Rosie. He wasn’t going to stop now, not unless she herself said she didn’t like it.
“You were supposed to send it, not bring it. I don’t want you here.” She crossed her arms over her ample bosom.
He didn’t know why, but it was crossing her arms that did it. In the tumult of his head, anger shouldered to the fore. Show grabbed Holly’s arms and pushed her back against the door. “I am sick to f*ck of hearing what you do and don’t want. I’ve given you every damn thing you wanted, and I am sick to f*ck of it.” Her eyes were wide and scared, but Show didn’t back off. “What the f*ck happened to Rosie’s arm?”
Holly blinked a few times, and then her expression hardened back to anger. But she answered him. “She fell off a friend’s horse. She’s got another two weeks in the cast.”
Show released her, and she rubbed her arms where he’d held her. “Why did you come?”
“I want to see the girls. Spend some time with them.”
She was shaking her head before the first sentence was out of his mouth. “No. You signed the papers.
No custody, and no visitation. Seeing the girls is visitation. You are out of their lives.”
“No. They don’t want that any more than I do. You saw it yourself.”
“You signed the papers.”
“Fuck the papers, Holly. I want this. You know what I can do to get it. Do you want that?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“All I have to do is tell the club how you got me to sign those papers. How you threatened me—and the whole club. And then this fight is over. You know that. I don’t want to do that. I don’t even want new papers. What I want is to see the girls sometime. When they want to see me. That’s all.”