Page 3 of Temptress

The red living room walls reminded me of the elevator scene inThe Shining. The dining room was orange—and not like the pale color of sherbet either, but bright, eye-searing, stab-you-in-the-temple orange. The kitchen was a neon yellow that reminded me of puke. And those were the common areas. The bedrooms were worse. I didn’t want to know the number of peacocks that had to have been plucked to make the teal color of the master bedroom. The room I’d designated as my daughter’s—simply because it was the farthest from mine, and I knew that would make the emo-pod creature that had eaten my lovely, sweet daughter happy—was the least offensive room in the house in a deep forest green. My soon-to-be-study was fucking fuchsia, for Christ’s sake, and the last bedroom was royal blue.

It was a goddamn nightmare, something you’d expect to see in a Candy Land fever dream, and it was going to take me forever to prime and paint it all.

I was sure there were better houses out there, in fact, I was damn near certain of it. But after too many months in a cramped apartment, I’d wanted the square footage, and this was the only place that provided that while being close enough to my new job and in the school district Kim and I had agreed on for Darcy. Plus, research had shown that the neighborhood was quiet, safe, and family friendly. Otherwise known as boring, which was perfect.

I was due to have a little more boring in my life, what with my daughter officially full of raging teen hormones and attitude that had her going from sweet and affectionate to the goddamn Hulk in two point five seconds.

The sound of angry teen girl feet stomping down the stairs caught my attention, and I looked up just as Darcy turned on the landing and stopped to glare down at me.

“So? What do you think, baby girl?” I asked, damn well knowing the answer already.

“It’sterrible!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms wide before letting them fall and slap against her sides. “I mean, it looks like we just moved into some kind of demented carnival fun house or something,” she crowed, throwing a hand out toward the wall. “I can’t believe you made me move here. It sucks! I miss my friends!”

With that declaration, she turned on her heel and stomped back up the way she’d just come down. A second later her bedroom door slammed shut.

I tried to do what my ex-wife Kim had suggested, inhaling deeply and counting to ten before letting the breath out in the hopes of keeping calm. If there was anyone on the planet who knew what I was going through, it was Darcy’s mom. Only, she’d had to deal with it for so much longer, and now that I knew what she’d suffered through all those years, I was honestly considering putting the woman up for sainthood.

My cellphone rang, and I let my breath out on a huff, feeling anything but calm as I pulled the phone from my back pocket.

As if my thoughts of her had conjured her up, Kim’s name flashed across the screen. Dodging boxes and avoiding the moving team still unloading my and Darcy’s lives into our new home, I swiped to answer the call and brought the phone to my ear.

“It’s so bizarre you’re calling right now.” I grabbed the handle on the back door and twisted it open, stepping out onto the back porch for a little privacy. “I was just about to call you. Remind me, what do I do if Darcy accidentally gives herself alcohol poisoning? Do I pump her stomach here, or do they handle that at the hospital?”

“Very funny, asshole.”

I chuckled at her put-out tone. “That’s what you get for being a transatlantic helicopter parent.”

Kim huffed indignantly, and I could picture her rolling her eyes. “I’m not that bad.” A crack of laughter burst past my lips, followed by her heavy gust of breath. “Fine, maybe I am that bad. But can you blame me?” Her tone changed, sadness infusing her words. “I’ve never been away from her for any amount of time. I just... I miss her.”

I felt a squeeze in my chest. “I know, sweetheart.”

The two of us might not have worked as husband and wife any longer, but we’d both agreed that was no reason for there to be animosity between us. We weren’t in love with each other anymore, but that didn’t mean love wasn’t there. It just lacked the romance required to make a marriage work. We still cared about each other, and we were determined to make this co-parenting gig our bitch. The truth was, we were better off as friends, anyway, and as friends, we’d been able to develop a new level of respect for one another.

I’d met Kim right before going into the Army. I’d come back from my first tour and proposed right then and there. I’d gotten her pregnant between deployments. Then I became a Ranger, and because of my job, I’d missed nearly every major milestone in our marriage and my daughter’s life. I’d been on an op in the middle of the fucking desert when Darcy was born. Crouched on a rooftop in Kandahar in the dark of night, watching my target through night-vision binoculars on my wedding anniversary. There were recitals and plays and sicknesses I’d missed, time I was never going to be able to get back.

I could admit I wasn’t the best husband or father. I’d made service to my country a priority above all else, including my family, yet, every time I came home, they’d both greeted me with open arms. My absence hadn’t been the cause of the divorce, in fact, it was the opposite.

After an explosion embedded a piece of shrapnel in my back too close to my spine for the doctors to risk going in to pull it out, I’d been informed I was no longer fit for duty. It was ironic, really. The docs left it in to keep me safe, and the Army didn’t want me anymore because it was in there.

It was after I’d been home for a year, struggling to re-acclimate myself to civilian life after thinking the service was it for me, that Kim realized she’d liked it better when I was gone than when I was home. Our marriage had worked for so many yearsbecauseI was never around. The sad fact was, once I got home, it became obvious that neither one of us knew the other at all.

The whole process of separating our lives from one another had been civil. I gave her the house since it had been her and Darcy’s home more than it was ever mine, moving myself into a shitty two-bedroom apartment until I could find something more permanent. I’d gotten a call from a former Ranger buddy of mine, a guy by the name of Marco Castillo. He’d gotten out earlier than I had, but we’d stayed in touch. He knew all about the struggle of trying to live the civilian life after serving for so long, so when he heard about a job that matched my skill set better than the miserable nine-to-five I’d been trapped in for a year and a half, he'd put in a call.

I’d talked it over with Kim since the new gig would take me an hour or so outside the city we’d been living in, but she knew how much I hated the place I’d been working, so she pushed for me to take it, to do something that made me happy. It was what she’d always done.

However, after I accepted the position, she had been offered a promotion to her dream job. The problem was, it required she be out of the country for a year, setting up a branch of the company in London. She’d dreamed her whole life of traveling but had given that up so she could carry all the weight on the home front while I spent most of my time overseas, living my own dream.

It was her turn now, we both knew that.

That was why this goddamn eyesore of a house had been an impulse purchase. In order for Kim to travel to London, we’d agreed that Darcy would live with me. That meant I needed somewhere permanent for us to live so she’d feel settled. And that needed to happen before the start of the new school year.

Needless to say, none of these decisions had made my daughter happy.

“I don’t think it comes as much of a surprise that I was a pretty shitty husband, doll face.”

Kim snorted through the line. “You weren’t that bad,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

“You’re being kind. Anyway, you spent so many years letting me pursue what made me whole. Now’s your time, Kim. Do this for you, yeah? Christ knows you’ve earned this.”

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