Page 20 of Hideaway Whirlwind (Big Boys of Berenson Trucking #4)

“In the shower where I need you both to be,” he says, finally setting me down in his en suite. “She didn’t want to stay in the tub, but she doesn’t seem to mind the stall.”

I nod, my muscles rigid and jerking uncontrollably as he helps to strip off my filthy clothes, mud and slush cascading to the floor when I shake out my hair.

Before I take off my shirt, I give Elliott one look.

His shoulders droop, and he shuffles out of the bathroom, leaving the door open a crack behind him.

The mother dog startles when I turn on the water, raising her big blocky head off the tile floor, but I shield her from the cold stream with my own body until it warms, then slide down the wall with Elliott’s shampoo, cleaning her first. Beneath the muck is a frayed, hot pink collar, the attached D-ring split just wide enough that her name tag must have fallen off.

“Where are your people?” I ask, hardly able to breathe as my torn skin and cracked fingernails—several of which are missing altogether—sting unbearably when my feeling returns.

She scoots closer and licks the running water from my elbow as I wash myself, then rests her head across my thighs with a long snuff of her snout.

How long has she been living in the wild?

When did she last have fresh, running water to drink?

I curl my body over her, letting the tears I didn’t know I had within me drip down and off my nose as I stroke the large patch of white fur over what should be a powerful, barrel chest.

“Birdie?”

I snap my head up to find Elliott opening the glass shower door and dropping to his knees, his sweatpants immediately soaking up the filthy water from the floor.

“She did so good, didn’t she?” I ask through a hard lump in my throat. “She kept her babies safe and warm and alive during the storm. She did so good, so good,” I bawl. “She’s such a good mom. ”

“Yes, you are,” he says, reaching across to caress my cheek.

“I’m not talking about me!”

Elliott ignores my outburst and manages to fit his body into the corner where he can put an arm over my shoulders, pulling me against his side.

He tips my chin up, pushing my wet, tangled bird’s nest of hair behind my ear, forcing me to look at him.

“You kept your babies safe and warm and alive in impossible situations. You are a good mama.”

I shake my head, jerking away.

“You are,” he insists, picking up my left hand and delicately kissing the back and front of it, blood still running off the tips of my fingers in thin rivers.

“No,” I croak, pinching my eyes shut so I don’t have to look at the earnestness on his face. “I didn’t—I’m not…”

“Yes, you are, Birdie.” He scoots closer, ignoring the water that pours over his head. “You are a good mama.”

“No,” I mouth as I stroke the dog’s silky, floppy ears.

Elliott sits quietly beside me, intermittently kissing my temple or simply resting his hand over mine on the dog.

When the hot water finally starts to cool, he stands and steps out of his wet sweatpants, and I get my first good look at the tattoos on his legs.

In a line down from his left hip to his knee, he has MEREDITH tattooed in big, traditional lettering, the upper half of each letter left with negative space and the bottom half shaded in.

I want to ask who Meredith is, an uncomfortable tendril of something ugly snaking its way into my thoughts, but I don’t have the courage.

He gathers three large, dark green towels from the tall cabinet to the right of the sink, draping one towel over the dog and another around my shoulders after cutting off the water. Wrapping the third towel around his waist, he leaves the bathroom and returns a few minutes later.

“I left clothes for you on the bed,” he says, reaching for my hand to help me up so I don’t slip. “I’ll get her dried off while you get dressed.”

Quickly pulling my towel around my front, unsure how much Elliott has seen with the dog’s head in the way and my body curled, I dress in the flannel and sweatpants he left for me, having to roll down the waistband and roll up the cuffs repeatedly so the pants will fit.

I lay back on his bed, exhausted, my legs dangling over the side, while I take deep breaths, not wanting to face the kids yet with my eyes puffy and probably bloodshot from crying so hard. I have no idea where that came from.

I blink my eyes open several times when Elliott, fully dressed, dabs at the cuts on my hands with cotton swabs. “Did I fall asleep?”

He nods and helps me sit up, passing me an open can of ginger ale from the nightstand before he returns to disinfecting and patching my wounds.

“The kids?” I ask, giving him the half-drained can to set aside.

“The happiest kids you ever did see,” he says, kneeling before me. “Thinking up names for the puppies.”

My stomach rumbles just as he finishes sticking the last bandage on my left pinky.

Elliott rubs his hands up and down my thighs, his head tipped forward to shield his eyes beneath his brows.

What seems an eternity later, he turns his cheek and gingerly lays his head on my lap, wrapping his arms around my legs.

If I had any hope of my eyes returning to normal so I don’t upset the kids or cause them any worry, it’s lost when new tears well up as Elliott takes his comfort from me while I rub his back and stroke the hair off his forehead. “You’re a good man, Elliott Berenson.”

He doesn’t respond other than a fractional shake of his head and the tightening of his arms. We stay like that, silence stretching on and on, until we’re forced to pull apart when Dustin knocks, asking what’s for lunch through the door.

Elliott swipes both hands down his face and beard when he stands, sniffing and turning toward the door.

At the last second, he darts back around.

Bending low, he cradles my face and places a kiss square on my lips before I can turn my cheek.

And then he’s gone just as fast, his voice and my son’s fading down the hallway.

Elliott

The dog, which the kids have decided to temporarily name Storm until we find her family, is cuddled up with her two precious puppies, twins in color if not size, in my second spare room on a nest the kids made of my extra towels and pillows.

She’s already eaten every can of shredded chicken and diced sweet potatoes we have, and I know the kids were lying when they said they were full halfway through lunch and supper so that they could give her the rest of their plates.

Come bedtime, I don’t know what possesses me other than the need to torture myself when I slip into Birdie’s room and watch her and the kids sleep in their own puppy-pile together until I can’t bear the sight any longer.

I also can’t bear to be alone in my bedroom, so I head out to sit in the lone Adirondack chair facing the creek that should be finished thawing in a day or two.

The static in my head is as loud as the gas generator drumming in the background while I swipe through all the photos we took on my phone this afternoon…

then to the pictures I’d discreetly taken of Birdie in the days beforehand.

Nothing overtly sexual. My memories are enough for that. More torture.

I would give anything to experience what it’s like to have a family and cuddle them close at night.

To belong with them. To them. But I can’t change the past, and there’s not much future for me either.

If I hadn’t already known that before Birdie, I certainly know that now after Birdie, since there is no after for me.

“Sorry I took so long.”

“Fucking hell.” I suck in a strangled breath after being shocked out of my spiraling thoughts, having been taken by surprise for once by Birdie appearing out of thin air, as I’m accustomed to doing to other people.

It’s a taste of my own medicine, and I can’t say I like it all that much. I owe quite a few people an apology.

“You should go back inside. It’s too cold out here,” I tell Birdie, pocketing my phone, hoping she didn’t see what I’d been scrolling through. I loop my hands together on my lap so I won’t be tempted to pull her down on it instead.

“You should take your own advice,” she says in response.

“Yeah, in a little bit.” When she moves closer, hiking one of the throw blankets from my couch around her shoulders, I ask, “How did you know I was out here?”

She nods to the window over my shoulder. If she saw me through the window, that means she must have gone into my room .

“Were you looking for me?” I ask with warmth unfurling in my chest.

“Yeah…” she answers slowly. “I heard you come into my room.” The moonlight behind her leaves her face in shadow. “Sorry I fell asleep.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because…” she waves to my lap. “Don’t you want to have sex?”

Her frankness elicits a full-bellied laugh out of me. “Of course I do. But you need your sleep.”

Something in Birdie relaxes, and she moves closer, combing her bandaged fingers through my hair. “You need your sleep, too. I know…I know you haven’t been getting much with me and the kids here. Bet you’ll be happy once we’re out of your hair.”

“No,” I answer quickly, hating that she thinks I could ever be happy without them.

“I’ll take y’all being here over sleep any day,” I say with all honesty, tipping my head into her hand.

In fact, I prefer to stay awake so as not to miss a single moment with them, even if it would eventually do a number on my already poor mental health.

“Really?” she asks with doubt coloring her voice, her song turning melancholy. She still doesn’t get it.

When I take her by the hand, she allows me to walk her around so I can pull her down on my thigh.

“Yes, Birdie,” I say, my heart cracking open.

“Always.” I swallow hard, thinking of her in the shower with Storm, naked and vulnerable and unable to continue hiding her secret.

I had thought all that talk about not looking at or touching her lovely stomach came from a place of insecurity—something I’m quite familiar with—but I was wrong.

I’m treading into dangerous territory when I skate my hand down her short torso and kiss her cheek. “All five of you.”

She reacts as if she’s been stabbed when she jumps up, cradling her stomach.

“Birdie…” I lean forward, holding my hand out, hoping she’ll take it.

“No,” she whispers, backing away toward the creek.

“Birdie…” I slip from my chair to kneel on the hard ground. “Please, come here.”

“No,” she mouths, taking another step back when I walk forward on my knees, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself, insulating herself from me and the secret she can no longer keep.

Fearing she’ll walk straight back into the creek and fall through the ice if I keep advancing on her, I sit back on my heels, though every muscle coils, preparing to spring to her rescue if she were to get within two feet of the creek. I won’t let anything happen to her or the baby.

“Please, Birdie, please. You don’t have to hide your pregnancy from me. You don’t have to hide anything from me.”

Birdie hisses, “I’m not pregnant.”

My thoughts are all over the place. I’ve seen the evidence up close with my own two eyes.

Obsessed over and finally figured out what she meant when she mumbled “something like that” after I asked her about birth control.

Felt how firm her lower abdomen was when I’d picked her up and taken her into the shower the first time.

But instead of saying any of that, of arguing with her and driving her closer to the creek, I merely wait it out—something I’m good at.

“I’m not!” she yells.

I remain silent, still holding my hand out, letting her know she can take it at any time.

“Stop looking at me like that!”

I shake my head twice, my arm unwavering. No longer able to stay silent, I tell her calmly, “You called me ‘Papa’ in front of the kids. You stopped correcting them. That means something.” It means everything .

“No, it doesn’t!” she yells, though she looks off to the side, realizing I’m right and she hadn’t even been aware of it.

“You’re lying as much to yourself as you are to me.

” Revealing everything I’ve held back, knowing I’m crazy to hope against all odds that she wants me, truly wants me after all, I tell her, “I want you. I want the kids.” I advance and look pointedly at her stomach, which she has tightly wrapped the blanket around. “I want the little one, too.”

Her voice is shrill when she screams, “No, you don’t!” She hurries to take three steps back and slashes her hand through the air. “It’s only been nine days!”