Page 22 of Keepsake

So I did just that. I avoided another confrontation and said, “Yes, it is settled.”

“Lach?Youokthere?”

His eyes, that were once focused on the passing views, faced me through the mirror. He had a pacifier, something Dash said he was only allowed on car rides since his third birthday.

Putting the car seat in my truck was an experience. The number of snacks Mamá prepared for our short ride to the city was alarming.

I was out of my depth, plain and simple. Kids had rules I didn’t understand. They had to snack all the time, and were allowed to suck on a pacifier sometimes, but not always.

My mother was suffering. As irrational as she was for not seeing they couldn’t raise children in their seventies, I knew it came from a place of hurt. She was scared of losing them.

She didn’t trust Logan as far as she could throw her. And as tiny as Logan was, Mamá was even smaller.

I understood how weird it was to give Sofia’s kids to someone else, to have them live in Chicago full time and visit on the weekends. I understood her pain, so I agreed to something… I couldn’t deliver.

I never agreed to a fight I didn’t think I could win. Even when I lost, it was by a small margin. I never entered with my fists first, head later. When I started my business, Castillo Construction, I knew I could do it.

But this time, I was getting myself involved in something I couldn’t win.

I knew nothing about kids.

And they came in different ages.

I had a toddler frowning, I had Vienna talking non-stop about something or another, and I had a sulking teenager by my side.

Funny to think I was old enough to be their parent. In my forties, I shouldn’t feel so out of place with them.

I drove on, letting them eat everything Mamá packed and fill my truck with crumbs.

That was my life now. I was supposed to drive them up and down and they were going to snack and talk and pick the music.

I glanced at my phone to check the address Logan gave us. She lived on the Gold Coast.Of course she did. She had a penthouse in one of the most expensive places in this damn country.

Even Dash knew what it meant. As soon as he noticed I added her address to the GPS, he turned the phone in his direction to check it out and whistled when he saw her zip code.

Those houses went for millions. Rubbing my face, I tried not to think about how I ended up in this mess. All I wanted was to help my parents see they couldn’t raise the kids. They didn’t have what it took anymore, health wise or financially. I could try to send them money, but Papá was never really easy to help. They would end up putting themselves into debt, trying to do the right thing.

There was also the problem with Lachlan. He was too young. He needed a lot. He was only three. A silent, kind of scary, three-year-old.

They were traumatized kids. My mom was trying to hold on to them, but Logan was their best chance.

Not me.

I was no one’s best chance.

I was fists. I was rage. I wasn’t suited for soft love.

The opposite of what I made Logan believe, I had no relationship with them. I knew I wasn’t going to be any help. I was a construction worker who wasn’t meant to live in a penthouse on the Gold Coast. And yet, that’s where I was headed.

I had a duffle with a couple of old T-shirts and stained jeans I packed before picking up the kids this morning. I wouldn’t be surprised if they refused to allow my truck to be parked on the street.

Turning the car off, I glanced at the passenger seat. Dash only pocketed his phone when he noticed we had stopped. Lowering his head so he could see the tall building through the window, he chuckled. “So, here we are.”

We both found Logan at the same time. She was standing in front of the building, the doorman just beside her. She stood eerily straight with a severe ponytail pulling her hair out of her face.

“She’s intense,” Dash commented.

I didn’t want to agree and start this off on the wrong foot with Logan, but if she wanted to hide her real self, she wasn’t doing a good job. I thought at first it was just her work clothes that made her look tense.

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