“Thanks,” I said, reaching for a pan.
“Where’s Knox?”
Waylay’s question felt like a blade to the heart.
“He moved back to his cabin,” I said carefully.
Waylay rolled her eyes. “I know that. Why? I thought things were good with you guys? You were kissing all the time and laughing a lot.”
My instinct was to lie. To protect her. After all, she was just a kid. But I’d done so much protecting already, and it just kept blowing up in my face.
“There’s a couple of things we need to talk about,” I told her as I gathered the butter and eggs from the fridge.
“I only told Donnie Pacer that he was a dickwaffle because he pushed Chloe and told her she was a shithead loser,” Waylay said defensively. “And I didn’t use the F word because I’m not allowed to.”
I stood up with a carton of eggs in my hand and blinked. “You know what? We’ll get back to that in a minute.”
But my niece wasn’t ready to give up her defense. “Knox said it’s good to stand up for people. That it’s up to the strong ones to take care of the ones who need protecting. He said I’m one of the strong ones.”
Crap.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat and blinked back the tears that burned my eyes, threatening to ruin my mascara.
This time the grief wasn’t just for me. It was for a little girl with a hero who didn’t want either one of us.
“That’s true,” I said. “And it’s a good thing you’re one of the strong ones because I have to tell you some hard stuff.”
“Is my mom coming back?” Waylay whispered.
I didn’t know how to answer that. So I started somewhere else instead. “The cottage isn’t infested with bugs,” I blurted out. Randy the beagle jumped at my legs and peered up at me with soulful brown eyes. I leaned down to ruffle his ears.
“It isn’t?”
“No, honey. I told you that because I didn’t want you to worry. But it turns out it’s better for you to know what’s going on. Someone broke in. They made a huge mess and took some things. Chief Nash thinks they were looking for something. We don’t know what they were looking for or if they found it.”
Waylay was staring down at the counter.
“That’s why we moved in here with Liza and your grandparents.”
“What about Knox?”
I swallowed hard. “We broke up.”
The finger she was using to trace the grain in the counter stilled.
“Why’d you break up?”
Damn kids and their unanswerable questions.
“I’m not sure, honey. Sometimes people just want different things.”
“Well, what did he want? Weren’t we good enough for him?”
I covered her hand with mine and squeezed. “I think we’re more than good enough for him, and maybe that’s what scared him.”
“You should have told me.”
“I should have,” I agreed.
“I’m not some baby who’s going to freak out, you know,” she said.
“I know. Out of the two of us, I’m a much bigger baby.”
That earned me the smallest of smiles.
“Was it Mom?”
“Was what your mom?”
“Did Mom break in? She does that kind of stuff.”
This was why I didn’t have honest conversations with people. They asked questions that required even more honesty.
I blew out a breath. “I’m honestly not sure. It’s possible. Is there anything you can think of that she’d be looking for?”
She shrugged those little girl shoulders that had already carried more weight than was fair. “Dunno. Maybe something worth a lot of money.”
“Well, whether it was your mom or not, you don’t have anything to worry about. Liza’s having a security system installed today.”
She nodded, fingers back to tracing patterns on the counter.
“You wanna tell me how you’re feeling about all this?” I asked.
She leaned down to scratch Kitty on her head. “Dunno. Bad, I guess. And mad.”
“Me too,” I agreed.
“Knox left us. I thought he liked us. Really liked us.”
My heart broke all over again, and I vowed that I would make Knox Morgan pay. I went to her and wrapped an arm around her. “He did, honey. But sometimes people get scared when they start to care too much.”
She grunted. “I guess. But I can still be mad at him, right?”
I brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Yes. You can. Your feelings are real and valid. Don’t let anyone tell you you shouldn’t feel the way you feel. Okay?”