Page 53

CHAPTER 52

TAKE A PENNY

CASS

I ’m unsurprised to see Patty calling after the text I sent letting her and Paul know what happened.

“Hey, Patty,” I answer, kicking off my shoes next to the door.

“Oh my God, is she okay?”

Wilder gives me a questioning look, but I nod my head. It’s fine.

“She’s fine. She was actually planning to ride her bike to your house, but Tate found her.”

“Thank God,” she breathes, her relief palpable.

“Why was she trying to get to us?” Paul says from a little farther away.

“Hey, Paul.” I hesitate for a beat. “Wilder and I got into an argument, and she overheard some of it. I…I got fired today and then Trent was here… it was just an intense afternoon, and I was very upset.”

Wilder stops dead in the kitchen.

Silence sits heavy between us.

“What was said that upset her so much?” Paul asks.

I open my mouth, but I have no idea how to start. I can’t lie, especially not with Cricket knowing the truth.

“It was a few things,” I start carefully. “We were discussing Avery—the bully—and what happened at the game?—”

“When Wilder hit that man?” Paul’s voice is quiet, edged with warning.

“Yes. And we were arguing about it because Wilder wants to do something about me getting fired for it, though there’s nothing we can do. It just got heated.”

“Am I on speaker phone?” Paul asks.

“No.”

“Did he hit you?”

Shock snaps my back straight, and I recoil from the phone for a second. “No! Oh, my God. No, nothing like that, Paul.”

Again, he says nothing. And then, “I’d like to talk to Cricket.”

“Of course,” I say too sweetly, suddenly shaken. My hands tremble as I lower the phone. “Cricket?” I call, and she pops up on the couch so I can see her. “Pops wants to talk to you.”

“Okay!” She bounds over despite her obvious exhaustion and takes the phone from me. “Hi, Pops.” Her smile fades at the same rate that her brows draw together. She glances at us. “In my room?” A pause. “Okay. Cassie can I take your phone to my room to talk to Pops?”

“You sure can.”

“Thanks!” Off she goes to her room, closing the door behind her.

Wilder and I stand dead still in the kitchen.

“He thinks you hit me.”

The shock is a lightning bolt to his spine, and I wonder if that’s what I looked like when he said it to me. “What?”

“He wants to know why she was so upset, and I guess he doesn’t believe me.” A realization slips over me. “Do you…do you think Trent ever hit Ashley? Why was that his first thought?”

Wilder takes a heavy breath and lets out an even heavier sigh. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine they’d be so dead set on bringing him around Cricket if he did. Can you?”

“Maybe they’re scared of him too.”

He doesn’t look convinced. “Paul seems more like the shotgun sort of defense than the keep your enemies close kind. I can’t imagine he’d?—”

Cricket’s door opens, and she skips back in, the phone still pressed to her ear. It’s comical, the size of it in her hand. It nearly comes to her collarbone. “Okay! Yeah, okay. Okay, love you too. Here’s Daddy.” She sticks out the phone when she reaches him. “Here you go, it’s Pops.”

“Thanks, bug.”

“You’re welcome!” she calls over her shoulder, already running toward her room.

Wilder’s face hardens the second the phone hits his ear, and I watch his body tighten second by second. “Okay, but… Yes, sir, but I… No. This is a misunderstanding. If you’d just let me explain…Paul! Can you give me a…” Wilder’s jaw sets, and he glances up at the ceiling. Then he closes his eyes through what must be a hell of a monologue. “Yes, sir.” Two firm, resigned words, and fear slinks through me. “Yes. Okay. No, we’ll bring her to you. I understand. Yessir. Mhmm. Okay. Bye.”

Wilder lays my phone on the island, his eyes cast down as he grips the edges with spread hands, his head hanging.

“What happened?” I breathe.

“Cricket told him we pretended to be married so we could keep her.”

My hand moves to my mouth.

“And he’s fucking pissed. He said they’re…that they’re going to…” his head drops a touch lower, sagging between his shoulders. “They want her for now. Maybe longer.”

I drop into a seat at the island, trembling. “No. No, they can’t take her.”

“I lied to them, took her under false pretenses, betrayed their trust. If they decide to, I…I don’t…they could…” He shakes his head, eyes pinched shut. “They want her back in their possession, right now. Until we can sort it out , he said. They wanted to come get her, but I told them I’d bring her to them.”

“No! No. We are not taking her anywhere.”

“Taking me somewhere?” Cricket says from the living room. “Where are we going?”

Wilder’s smile is watery, his face pale. “To Nana and Pops.”

Her face is all screwed up in confusion. “I have to go to school tomorrow.”

“We’re gonna take a few days off. Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

A flush blooms on her cheeks. “Is it because I ran away?”

In a heartbeat, I’m out of my seat, but I stop when Wilder kneels in front of her and cups her face.

“No…you scared us, and you can’t do that again, baby. But no. That’s not why.”

“Then why?”

His thumb shifts on her cheek. “I want to talk to you about this, but I don’t think it should be now. Can you trust me that you need to go to Nana’s for a few days? I promise we’ll talk about it soon.”

Uncertain, she says, “Promise?”

“Promise.” He offers a pinky, and she hooks it. When they kiss their thumbs, I very nearly burst into tears. “Okay, now go pack up a bag and we’ll boogie.”

“Okay.” For once, she doesn’t run.

Wilder turns his back to her and spends a second scrubbing his face with his hand.

The unfairness of it all is a physical weight on my chest. We lied, and they might try and take her for it. They might take her away because she told them the truth. She told them the truth because I yelled it at Wilder with nothing but a door between me and the little girl I want so badly to protect.

Now she might lose all this. Now we might lose her.

“This is my fault,” I whisper.

“What? No.”

I’m shaking from head to toe, my voice wavering uncontrollably. “I said… I was so upset and I said all those things, and I hurt her so badly that she ran away. She was always going to tell them. Once she heard me say it, that was it. I… Oh, God?—”

I burst into tears, and immediately, he’s got me in his arms.

“No,” he whispers into my hair, kissing my crown. “I should have found another way. Shhh, don’t cry. Please don’t cry. We’ll figure this out. They’re mad now, but they want what’s best for her. I’ll earn their trust. I’ll fix it. Let me fix it.”

“What if you can’t?”

“Then I’ll get the best fucking lawyers in Tennessee and make sure we can keep her.”

“It will put her through hell, Wilder. It will hurt her so bad. We can’t?—”

He backs up enough to bracket my face with his hands and tilt it up to his. “Let’s hope we don’t get there. Okay? Let’s start with what’s in front of us. And right now, what’s in front of us is two very angry guardians of our little girl. We’re going to take her there and try to talk to them. If that doesn’t work, we’ll leave her there until they cool off for a few days and try again. It’s gonna be okay. Okay?”

I nod in his hands, my cheeks cool and wet. “Okay.”

He kisses my forehead and whispers, “Okay.”

“Okay,” I mutter.

And then I pray to every god that is and was that we don’t lose her.