These tiny pink flowers with a row of three deep pockets in the front.
“How was work?” She arched a knowing brow.
I leaned against the counter. “Busy.”
That brow lifted. “And?”
“And what?”
“How was the eye candy?”
“Mimi,” I chastised, giving her a stern look.
“You means all the really awesome motorcycles and cars?” Juni screeched. “Did you see ’em, Mimi? Gage said his uncle is gonna make him one for when he’s sixteen, and he’s gonna give me a ride, I can’t even wait, we only gots ten years for that, but that’s where my mommy works at the coolest place ever in ever and her boss is a motorcycle man.”
Juni started galloping around the kitchen like she was riding a horse though she made revving noises in her throat and held back the throttle on her imaginary handlebars.
Just awesome.
Mimi laughed, pure affection. “Wow, that is something. Just ten years.”
Her gaze narrowed when she returned it to me while she dipped a spoon into the pot and took a sip of the broth the pork was simmering in. “Though I was getting the idea that your mommy’s boss might be the coolest ever in ever.”
“Mimi,” I chastised again, though this time it was a whisper, and that heat was lighting up my cheeks again.
Damn it.
“You think I don’t notice you waltzing in here night after night with that look on your face? With that light in your eyes? You’re different.”
A frown pinched my brow as Juni galloped into the other room, and Mimi took the opportunity to edge around the counter to where I stood. Reaching out, she rubbed the pad of her thumb between my eyes before she let her hand slide down to cup my cheek. “That light went dim four years ago, Salem. Wasn’t sure I was ever goin’ to get to see it again.”
Grief billowed through my being.
“I’m not sure I can ever get that piece of myself back.” The confession left me on a breath.
“No, sweet child, that part is gone, and that missing piece is going to ache forever. But sometimes someone comes along who can hold that piece with you.”
Agony wept in my spirit while my heart panged in my chest.
A tear slipped free.
Mimi wiped it away. “When I lost your momma, I thought I would die, Salem. I thought I would curl up in bed and close my eyes and I’d somehow float away to where she was.”
Emotion clogged my throat.
Devastating.
Too much.
My eyes closed against the onslaught, and Mimi pressed her hand tighter to my face in a loving embrace. “But then these two little angels showed up at my door, lost and without their momma…scared and broken…and that part of me that wanted to float away got tethered to that new home. The home I built with you and your brother.”
“But you never stopped missing her?” The question croaked from my throat.
“Of course not, and I wouldn’t want to. But you and your brother? You held that piece with me. Reshaped it. Reformed it.”
“I’m not looking for someone to fix me.”
“No, Salem, but do you think I don’t know your heart is aching for its home, too? For a tether? For someone to come alongside you and hold that vacant place? One who understands you? Someone who can support you in the times when you feel too weak to carry the burden yourself?”
Jud’s pained confession burned through my mind.
Gutting.
Whispering.
Begging.
“She took our one-year-old daughter with her, Salem, and I never saw her again.”
And I knew there was a part of him that needed to be held, too.
Loved.
Old misery moaned. I knew better than letting the thought infiltrate my mind. Knew better than to trust.
I lifted my quivering chin, the words hard with the hate that had petrified in my bones. “It’s funny how I thought Carlo would be that person for me. That he’d love and cherish and be the one to carry me through all of life’s tragedies and stand with me in its victories, and he’s the one who destroyed me.”
Mimi’s expression dimmed with sympathy edged with the old, old anger that had broken her heart. “Did you really believe that? That he would love and cherish you?”
My guts clutched with her truth.
“He was a wicked boy who grew into a wicked man,” she continued. “He manipulated you. Lied to you. Made you believe he was someone he was not.”
“And I fell for it.”
“You were sixteen, Salem. He was older. Powerful and charming and he had his sights on you. I never liked the boy, but none of us could have imagined how deep his evils went.”
“I was a fool.”
Her head shook. “No, sweet child, not a fool. Just a young girl who believed in the best of people. Believed they could be better. Believed through love, they could be redeemed and restored.”
More tears fell, and I gulped. “Can they be?”
A soft smile tipped at the edge of her aged, wrinkled mouth. “Some choose light in this life, Salem, others choose darkness. And some? Some get lost along the way, but inside of them, they burn with the fire of goodness.”
“How will I know?”
“I think you already do. Right here, you already know it. Deep down.”
She tapped the tip of her index finger against the riot in my heart.
She was right.
I did.
Even though I’d been so young then, there was a piece of me that had known, that had hesitated, my conscience whispering Carlo was wicked and wrong. Just like it was whispering now that Jud was right.
Then she stepped back around to the stove and sent me a wink. “Just make sure whenever you know it, whoever it is makes your knees knock, too.”
“Mimi.” I wheezed a breath, laughing low and shaking my head as I edged deeper into the kitchen to help her with dinner.
“What?” She knocked her shoulder into my arm. “Heck, girl, I’m pretty sure this looker makes you shake all over the place. Hopefully in the good bits.”
I choked out a laugh while my entire being went down in flames.
Memories of the man between my thighs.
That mouth and those hands.
What he’d done to me.
“Mmhmm…that’s what I thought.”
“You thought what?” I defended with a smile.
She sent me the most innocent shrug. “That you’d be famished for your most favorite meal.”
A giggle slipped free.
Warmth and welcome.
Home.
And I had no idea how to stop the hope of it from taking root inside me.
“Boo!”
Gasping, I whirled around with my hand pressed to my chest like it could stop my heart from jumping free of my ribs.
Tessa cracked up.
She was bent in two, slapping her knee from where she stood behind me on the front lawn of our house.
I’d been watching Juniper do somersaults on the lawn, and I hadn’t even noticed she was there.
Complacent.
Reckless.
I blew out a frustrated sigh directed wholly at myself.
“Oh my god, you just jumped like…ten feet in the air. You should have seen it.”
She kept trying to catch her breath, like it had been her that’d gotten the crap scared out of her and not me.
Juni cracked up, too. “She jumped all the way to the sky, right, Miss Tessa?” Juni turned her sweet eyes on me. “I saw Ms. Tessa comin’ the whole time, Mommy, because we gots you a very good surprise that you are gonna love with all your whole heart!”