Page 27 of Unbreakable Love

“Then stop living like one.”

She had a point. I did tend to live like a nun, but we weren’t all able to be free like Maize, either. “Maize, you know?—”

“I don’t know, actually,” she snapped at me, which she rarely did, except for the verbal brawls we had about me making her go to college. “And it’s silly. I’m grown now, Pen. I’m on my own, and you don’t need to keep living like I’m the only thing you’re doing it for. Someday you’re going to have to look back and realize you never once lived for yourself, and you’ll regret it.”

“I will never regret taking care of you, and besides, I’m living for me. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Fine. So you won’t regret taking care of me, but you’ll break my heart if you end up alone. So think about me, okay?”

I shook my head. “Nice guilt trip.”

“I know.” I could see her grin through the phone, wide and open. Maize was always my exact opposite. I loved her for it, but by the time I was twelve, I was making sure she was fed, had lunch, did her homework, and walked two miles to get her clothes from clearance racks and at consignment stores so kids wouldn’t make fun of her like they did me. I envied her but wouldn’t have traded those days for a moment.

“So now that you’re officially guilt-tripped, any guys in this new town?”

Only one. The guy who’d scowled at me all through dinner. The guy who grinned at his daughter like she hung the moon, and the guy who paid for my food before I could ask for a separate check. He’d even asked for a third fork when Josie ordered the largest chocolate slice of cake I’d ever seen in my life. Gavin made my head spin. He was rude and sometimes downright mean, and then he was a gentleman. He barely spoke through dinner, seeming content to listen to Josie tell me all the stories about her life and her day like I hadn’t been a part of seven hours of it. Every time our eyes met, my pulse leapt to my throat and he’d look away like he despised the barest amount of eye contact with me.

The man was confusing.

It was too darn bad he was so freakishly attractive.

“I’m hanging up now,” I told her.

As I pulled my phone away from my ear to end the call, she shouted, “You’re going to tell me everything soon!”

As poor as I grew up, I was used to bundling up in extra blankets and sleeping in warm clothes because we couldn’t afford to keep the heat turned up very high. Once I went to college, being able to afford heat without having to sleep in flannel pajamas and four extra blankets was one of my first goals to reach.

Unfortunately, Maize’s tuition was expensive. My rent, although much less than it was in Kansas City, was still higher than I’d hoped for, and I had a car in desperate need of service—including tires—so while I had my own home, the heat was still set as low as I could possibly suffer.

It wasn’t bad when the highs were in the fifties, but I woke up tangled in a mountain of blankets, my fleece-lined pajama pants clinging to my skin, and the tip of my nose colder than ice. Shivering, I wrapped one of my thicker blankets around me and slipped my feet into my furry slippers and trudged to the coffee pot. Thankfully, I’d remembered to set it last night, so I was greeted with a freshly filled, steaming pot of coffee. My fingers were so cold my knuckles ached as I gripped the pot and poured my first cup. That done, I went to the back door and was greeted with a view so gorgeous a smile cracked my frozen cheeks.

It had definitely snowed, more than the three inches expected. From the looks of my backyard, it looked more like six, but the early morning sun was full and bright, and the snow was sparkling. As I brought my coffee mug to my lips, my body was already warming.

This was a different snow than I experienced in the city where the scrape of plows roused you from bed before the sun rose and the snow turned brown from all the dirt and salt by midmorning. This was so peaceful I had to experience it. I unlocked my sliding back door and moved the chunk of wood I kept in the tracks for extra security, and stepped out onto my small back patio to enjoy it all.

The air was fresh, my coffee hot, and even though there was a bite to the air, I already knew this snowfall would melt soon, so I took the time to enjoy the serenity of it all before I escaped back inside.

I had to get ready for work and hoped I made it in safely. I had a full day ahead of me. Not only was it Friday, I predicted I’d now have twenty third graders who only wanted to play in the snow, not work on multiplication facts. I didn’t have any more time to linger.

NINE

GAVIN

“All right, munchkin. Car’s warming up. Do you need to use the bathroom before we finish getting dressed?”

I held Josie’s snow pants in one hand, her coat in the other and shook them. Heaven help me, but I could no longer count the number of times I got her bundled up and then she had to go pee.

Josie grinned. She couldn’t wait to get out in the snow. “I’m good. I think. Oh! Maybe not!”

She took off down the hall where the slam of the bathroom door silenced her footsteps. I leaned back against the front door and bumped my head on the wall. If someone would have ever told me I’d be a girl dad to the girliest of girls—except when she was stomping through the muddy horse paddocks or helping in the barn—I would have laughed in their face. Given the fact there were five Kelley men in my family, I’d once been certain I’d only ever produce boys.

But then came Josie, all curly blond hair and blue eyes that changed every week as she aged until they finally stopped once they were the color of sage green. From the moment I held her, she held my entire heart in her tiny little fist.

I loved her without reason or limits, but some days she drove me absolute bonkers.

Finally, I got her bundled in pants, coats, gloves, and boots. She rushed out to the truck I’d cleaned off and warmed up, kicking snow into the air and charging straight into it. I moved slower, not bothering to stop her even though it meant I’d be shoveling the walkway again. Earlier, while Josie had been inside eating eggs and a bowl of oatmeal with extra helpings of brown sugar, I’d come out and shoveled the driveway.

I’d glanced in the direction of Penny’s house and debated cleaning off hers as well. It would have been the neighborly thing to do. I doubted she’d thought to buy a shovel, much less a snowblower. It would have taken me moments to take care of it for her, but then Josie had come to the door, shouting she needed her hair braided, and thoughts of helping out the pretty little teacher were put to the side.

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