Unbreak My Heart (Unbreak My Heart #1)(7)

“She was my best friend.”

“She wasn’t your wife,” he replied stubbornly.

I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to throw Gunner’s gift at his head. I wanted to tell him that I’d spent more time with Rachel in the last nine years than he had, because, while he was off playing GI Joe, I was the one who was holding her ass together.

But I didn’t do any of those things because what would it help? He had a distorted memory of both his wife and the relationship he’d had with her, and now that she was gone, it wouldn’t do anyone any good to tell him just how wrong he was.

I turned to move outside but only got a few steps.

“Party ends at three,” he called out to me.

“What?”

“Party’s over at three.”

He wasn’t looking at me, but his insinuation was clear.

I wasn’t welcome at the house after the party was over.

*



“Auntie Kate!” Gavin yelled as he slid down the small slide into their plastic pool in the backyard.

“Hi, baby!” I called back, setting the gift I was holding on the table. “Having fun?”

“Swimming!” he yelled, splashing his arms down hard into the water.

“I see that.”

“Hi, Auntie Kate,” Sage murmured, wrapping her arms around my waist.

“Sage the Rage. Looking good, toots.”

“I missed you,” she said quietly, squeezing me tighter.

“You saw me the day before yesterday, you crazy girl,” I argued, bending at the knees so I could lift her into my arms. “And your grandma came all the way from Oregon to hang with you guys.”

“I don’t want Grandma. I want you,” she replied stubbornly.

“Well, you got me.” I walked toward the bench where my aunt Ellie was sitting and plopped down next to her.

I looked around the yard and realized that there was no one else there. Keller ran out and jumped into the pool next to Gavin with a splash, but other than our family, the yard was empty. “Where’s all the other kids?”

“Shane just wanted something small,” Aunt Ellie murmured. “Gunner fell asleep about twenty minutes ago, so we’re just going to wait until he wakes up to do cake and presents.”

“What? Why is he asleep at noon? He doesn’t have an afternoon nap until two.” I scooted to the edge of my seat so I could stand up, but the weight of Sage’s suddenly sleeping form and Aunt Ellie’s hand on my arm stopped me.

“He’s okay, sis,” she assured me quietly, her eyes filled with understanding. “They had a hard day yesterday, and Shane didn’t get a single one of them to sleep before midnight. It just messed up their schedules is all.” She nodded at a sleeping Sage, and I sagged backward into the seat.

“I should have come over yesterday,” I murmured, rubbing my hand softly over Sage’s back. She was too old for me to carry around, and almost too big, but I didn’t have the heart to stop doing it. She needed me.

“You deserve a day off.”

“I don’t want any days off,” I snapped back, frustrated.

To the outside world, I was sure my relationship to the kids looked pretty odd. I wasn’t their mother. I wasn’t even legally related to them. But I’d been picking up the slack for Rachel and Shane for so long that I’d stepped in after Rachel died without thinking.

The first couple of weeks after the accident, my mom and aunt had stayed in San Diego helping Shane and me with the kids. They’d made sure everyone was fed, and someone was always with Gunner at the hospital, and a million different other things that we hadn’t had the energy to deal with. But they had lives in Oregon, and once they’d left, it had been up to us to get the kids back to some kind of normalcy.

Normal. I wasn’t even sure what that meant anymore.

Shane had been on bereavement leave for a little over a week and had used some time he’d had saved up for another week after that, but he’d had to go back to work. He didn’t have the luxury of wallowing or making sure his kids were okay before he had to start leaving the house every day, all day.

So I’d been there.

I’d sent some of my clients to other designers that I trusted and had taken over a life that wasn’t really mine. I cared for children that I loved more than myself, gave up the small semblance of a life I’d had before, and became a standin. And I didn’t regret it. Not for a second.

But it was times like yesterday—when Shane had called me to tell me that I wouldn’t be “needed” because his foster mom was in town—that I remembered how little power I had when it came to the kids.

It killed me.

“I’ll take her up to bed,” Shane said suddenly, coming up behind where we were sitting.

“She’s fine where she is,” I replied without looking at him. I could feel my chest growing tight as I imagined how yesterday must have gone. Sage couldn’t have gotten much sleep if she was tired enough to fall asleep over the giddy screams of her brothers.

“She’s getting too big for you to carry around—”

“She’s fine.”

Aunt Ellie looked between us, her brows furrowed, before standing up. “I’m going to check on Gunner.”