Page 34 of Hideaway Whirlwind
“Oh.” Birdie’s lips are pressed thin, staring toward the kids, but not quite.
“So the roads are too risky for your wife and kids but not mine?” I challenge, dropping my voice to a deadly volume and puffing my chest out. I may be twenty years older than Davis, but I’ve got three inches and at least fifty pounds of muscle on him. I could flip him as easily as I do the tractor tire.
Davis’s voice goes up comically when he shifts back on his brown cowboy boots with a brow cocked and repeats, “Yours?”
Panic that I’ve revealed too much has my heart beating triple time when I see Birdie’s mouth hang open while she blinks up at me. There’s no walking it back, so I simply don’t respond.
“Papa?” Sydney asks, drawing our attention to her sliding off the couch in one of my black, long-sleeved T-shirts since her pajamas need washing. “Who’s he?” She hides half behind me, and I drop my arms so I can hold her hand, so tiny in mine.
“Papa?” Davis’s voice goes up even higher. “Oh, Freddy and Pete are gonna have a field day with this.”
“Davis,” I bark when Dustin jumps off the couch to stand on my other side, widening his stance to mimic mine. “You like your job, don’t you?”
“Shit.” He scuffs the toe of his boot along the floor at my implied threat.
A handful of people know that I bought into Berenson Trucking after years of resistance when Russell remarried so he could spend more time at home, which is partly why I’ve decided to semi-retire. While I can afford to fully retire and then some, I’m not the type who can do nothing all day but stare at the wall, so I’ll be working part-time at the warehouse. Though I won’t be Davis’s direct boss per se—that would still be my brother—I do have the power to send him packing if I so choose. Not that I would do that to him, which is why he eventually smirks.
Birdie crouches before Sydney. “This is Davis. I told you about him, right? We’re going to live with him and his family until we can get an apartment.”
“Papa, too?” Sydney tugs her hand out of mine to loop her arm around my knee.
“Well…no.” Birdie chews her bottom lip like she probably wants to chew her fingernails, though she’s still sporting a fair number of bandages. “Pa—Elliott lives here.”
Sydney turns away from her mama, looping both arms around my leg, pressing her face into my jeans.
“Sydney, baby…”
“No!” Sydney runs around my other side.
“What about Storm and the puppies?” Dustin asks, his shoulders falling.
Birdie sputters at first. “They’ll have to stay here with Elliott.”
Dustin’s face breaks, and great big tears well in his eyes. “I wanna stay here!”
“Oh crap, what do I do?” Birdie asks herself, dragging her palms down her cheeks when Dustin runs to hide behind Storm.
Sensing my opening, I nod to the front door. “Get home safe, Davis.”
Davis’s lips part, and Birdie stands. “Wait, no,” she says.
I square my jaw as I look pointedly at Davis. “I said, get home safe.”
“Right.” Davis folds his ball cap between his hands before slapping it open and pulling it down over his hair. “How ‘bout I come by tomorrow morning, then?” he asks Birdie, who has stepped in front of me, trying to cajole Sydney out of hiding.
“Ok, yes, that would…that would be great. Thank you,” Birdie says over her shoulder.
I narrow my eyes when I open the door for Davis, then follow him outside to his truck, which is like a third child to him. “I’ll blow your tires out before you make it five feet onto my property with the intention of taking Birdie and the kids again.”
“Birdie?” Davis chuckles and tries to clap me on the shoulder. “Goldie will blow out your knees if you do.” I wouldn’t put it past her, given she’s as good with her pistol as I am with my shotgun, and she isn’t afraid to use it. “And then she’ll take Teagan and the kids, anyway, if that’s what Teagan wants. You know it.”
I grind my teeth down to the nubs, and Davis hops in his truck with a laugh, tipping the brim of his cap. “See you tomorrow.”
* **
I don’t wait for Birdie in my room as usual. No, I stalk her throughout the rest of the evening, on her heels everywhere she goes, petrified at the thought that by tomorrow night, she and the kids will be gone. I don’t even leave her alone to finish putting them to bed, hunching in the darkest corner of the room while she lies down with them until they’re asleep. The moment she peels back the comforters to slip out of bed, I’m there, lifting her into my arms before her feet can touch the floor, carrying her into my bedroom.
“Don’t go, Birdie,” I say, laying her down and undressing her from head to toe. “Don’t leave me.”
