Page 43 of Hideaway Whirlwind (Big Boys of Berenson Trucking #4)

“You can do it, Birdie,” Elliott says as we’re walking to the Bronco after the tech explained all the years of schooling and specialty exams she had to get through. It’s enough to make my head spin.

“I don’t even have my GED,” I tell him. I had studied long enough, having found a used prep-test study guide at the women’s shelter after arriving in Las Vegas, plus a few free online courses that I took at night.

But I was never able to sneak away from work, Quincy, and the kids long enough to take each of the four subtests.

I’m sure that was another one of Quincy’s designs to keep me under his thumb and reliant on him.

“Then you’ll start with that and move on from there,” Elliott says. “I know you can do it.”

“I can do it,” I say to myself as much as to him, trying to make myself believe it.

Then, with more confidence, when Elliott and I buckle the kids into their car seats, “I will do it.” I repeat it in my head the whole way home until I well and truly believe it.

I will go to school. I will take my subtests and exams. I will chase the dream I had when I was ten, and I will give my kids everything they deserve so they can go on and achieve their dreams, no matter what life throws at them.

And no one is going to stop me, or they’ll end up buried beside Priscilla, a mile and a half away from the cabin, where Elliott and I will be exchanging our vows atop a patch of grass that isn’t quite the same shade or length as the rest.

Elliott

There’s no preparing the kids for the arrival of Old Man Jones’s son, Peter, to pick up Storm. We’ve tried over the last week since Birdie’s appointment, when I got the call that he’d been able to schedule time off from work to come down to Texas.

“I’ll kill him if he tries to take her,” Dustin says, baring his teeth as he hugs Storm around the neck. She laps at his tears, his face growing wetter.

“Oh man, we need to do something about that,” Birdie whispers to me from the side of her mouth, sitting on the living room floor with him while I rock in the recliner with Kendall and Sydney, reading another one of my old comics aloud, trying to distract them from what’s to come.

With her eyes narrowed, she tips her head toward Dustin.

“He can’t keep going around, threatening to kill people. ”

“Why? Like mother and father, like son.” I grin, though it’s wiped clean off my face when Birdie scowls at me.

It’s the first time we’ve had a disagreement since they moved back home, and I have to say, I’m not too fond of us not being on the same page, especially where the kids are concerned. I’m the one who’s new to this whole parenting situation, after all, still finding my footing.

“Do you want him to end up in prison?” She raises a brow. “Because that’s how you end up in prison.”

And don’t I know it.

Storm lunges out of Dustin’s hold, her hackles raised as she howls and scrabbles at the front door, having heard the crunch of gravel beneath tires before anyone else as a silver sedan bounces precariously down our driveway, right on time, slowing when the front bumper bottoms out over the pit I still haven’t fixed.

Dustin surges to his feet, darting away quickly to escape Birdie’s reach when she tries to grab him. He balls his fists at his sides and screams, “I’ll kill—”

“Enough,” I say. Not quite a snap, but firm enough to get his attention.

I wiggle out from under Kendall and Sydney to kneel before my boy, holding his hands.

“I won’t tell you how to think or that your feelings are wrong, but you at least need to be careful about what you say and who you say it to, or else you’ll end up with a bad reputation and zero friends. ”

“That is so not the problem,” Birdie says with another scowl, dragging her hands down her face.

My boy’s shoulders sag. “But Papa, he can’t take her. He can’t.”

Though I’m of the same mind—Storm is part of our family—I tell him, “She belonged with Peter’s dad, and I know Peter must miss her terribly. He’s been looking for her ever since she went missing, so letting her go home with him is the right thing to do.”

“I don’t care,” he says with an angry pout.

Again, I agree, but since I want to be the kind of father he deserves and set a good example, I say, “I bet Storm misses him too.”

That does the trick, and Dustin falls into my arms. His tears just about undo me, and it takes every bit of my willpower to stand and command Storm to release, then swing open the front door.

Maybe ten to fifteen years younger than me, Peter isn’t exactly a small man, only a few inches and pounds smaller, wearing khakis and a puffer vest over a long-sleeved turtle neck.

Yet he quickly steps back, his eyes going to my neck before traveling up.

I’m sure my unfriendly expression isn’t helping matters.

Neither is Dustin’s, though he doesn’t yet again threaten to murder the man. That’s progress.

“Uh, Elliott?” When I grunt, he rubs his hands together, his wavy ginger hair styled neatly. “I’m Peter Jones.”

Instead of inviting him inside with words, at risk of shooting him myself if he doesn’t get off my property, I step back, holding the door open.

He almost reluctantly steps inside, greeted by Birdie with our daughters standing beside her, all their arms crossed, hips cocked, sporting the same glare. It’s adorable, and I wish I could have taken a picture before Birdie snaps out of it when Peter clears his throat nervously.

Neither he nor Storm moves toward each other. Her tail is wagging, though, and her hackles have lowered when he says, “Heya, Daisy.” Other than that, she doesn’t react to his presence, which is odd.

He notices my silent assessment. “Pops adopted her long after I moved away, so we aren’t all that familiar.”

“Right, uh, I’m Teagan. It’s nice to meet you, Peter,” Birdie says, shaking his hand.

“Likewise.” Peter gives her a winning smile. I don’t like it. “You’re Elliott’s daughter?” he asks, rocking back and forth on his nice sneakers as if he’s shy. I don’t like that either.

I hold back a huff, closing the door. “She’s my wife.” Fiancée , technically, but she might as well be. It’s a done deal, as far as I’m concerned.

Peter’s mouth gapes open in shock. “Really?” He coughs into his fist. “I meant, uh…” his clean-shaven cheeks puff up, and he blows out a breath, chuckling uneasily.

Birdie motions to the couch. “Why don’t we sit?”

When we take our seats, all of us staring silently at Peter, he unzips his vest, sweat breaking out on his shiny forehead. “Sure is warm in here.”

“It is,” I say, unbuttoning my cuffs and rolling my sleeves up so he can get a good look at the bloody, sharpened screwdriver tattooed on my right forearm and an ex-inmate’s decaying face with his lips sewn shut on my left.

Peter grows increasingly jittery, and Storm goes to sit in front of Birdie instead of him when he holds his hands out to pet her. He straightens, his eyes on Storm’s distended teats on her belly. “Did she have puppies? ”

I nod, and Dustin slips out of the room to retrieve Rain and Sky from my bedroom, where they’d been napping.

“They’re too young to be separated,” Birdie says, “so you’d have to take them, too.”

“No!” Sydney cries, turning on her mama, as does Dustin when he returns with both puppies tucked under his arms. “He can’t do that! They’re ours!”

Kendall immediately begins screaming and crying too, cycling her legs in the air until Birdie sets her down, and she toddles over to her siblings.

I curl my fists on my thighs as I stare at the man breaking my kids’ hearts.

It’s not his fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.

We’re doing the right thing by reuniting him with Storm.

And it’s only for that reason I work to keep calm and ignore the static building in my head when I say, “As you can see, we have grown quite attached to them.” I give myself points for using actual words instead of kicking his ass out.

“Yes, I see that,” Peter says, his Adam’s apple bobbing high in his throat.

I crack my neck from side to side when the kids collapse in a crying heap on the floor with Storm and the puppies. “It would be a shame, though—”

I don’t have to finish the threat that starts to come out, no matter how hard I tried to stop it, when Peter suddenly stands. “Thanks so much for finding Daisy—”

“Her name is Storm!” Sydney yells.

“And giving her a lovely home. My pops would have been happy to see she’s well-loved and taken care of.” He gives a short wave before he all but runs out of the cabin, spraying gravel and gouging out another pit when he whips his car around and speeds away .

“That went well,” Birdie says with a little giggle, circling her arms around me from behind when I close the door that Peter had left open in his hasty exit.

I turn and tip her chin up. “You’re not mad at me?”

“For being all big and bad and scaring him off so we could keep them?” She snorts. “No.” She curls her finger so I’ll bend in half, then rolls up on her tiptoes to say, “I was hoping you would do exactly that, Daddy.”

I groan. “You couldn’t have waited to say that until the kids were in bed?” I grab her hip and pull her against me.

“I mean…it is almost nap time.” She tugs on my earlobe with her teeth.

“Can’t wait, Mama.” I spin her around, using her to hide my erection. “Alright, kiddos!” I clap my hands. “Time for a nap!”

Dustin whines, “But I’m not tired.”

“The puppies can sleep on the bed with you—just this once—but only if y’all are really good and go right to sleep,” I tell them.

They cheer, gathering the puppies and rushing down the hall with Storm wagging her tail wildly.