Garnet Flats (The Edens)

Foster strode into the kitchen, his dark hair disheveled and sticking up at odd angles from how many times he’d dragged his hands through it in the past few hours.

“She asleep?” I handed him a glass of wine.

“Yeah.” He took a drink and leaned against the counter. “What a cluster.”

I nodded my agreement and sipped from my own glass.

The afternoon and evening had been chaos. We’d taken every towel he had at the gym and built a blockade to stop the water from leaving the locker rooms. Then he’d raced into town to pick up Kadence while I’d stayed at the gym, calling both plumbers in town—both of whom were on other jobs. Thankfully, one of them had agreed to leave the new build he was working on and come over.

By the time the plumber had arrived, Foster had returned with Kadence. She and I had packed as much of her stuff into the back of my Jeep as possible, then tossed all of Foster’s clothes into suitcases.

After they’d shut the water off to the gym, Foster had emptied the pantry and fridge into a cooler, then we’d set off for my house, stopping to grab burgers on the way home.

“That place is falling apart,” he said. “We’re jumping from one disaster to the next. If it was just me, I’d deal. But with Kaddie here now, it’s not fair to her.”

“You can stay here.”

He sighed. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. But I don’t want Kaddie to feel like a guest. She needs a home. She needs her own room where she can make a mess and leave the bed unmade and just be seven. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you letting us crash. But . . .”

“It’s not home.” But it could be, right? All I had to do was hand him a key.

He’d accepted any invitation I’d extended. Given the way he’d held me earlier, kissed me, Foster had missed me this past week as much as I’d missed him.

Except I didn’t offer to let them move in. Something was holding me back. The same something that had kept me from telling Foster I loved him.

“Why did you buy the gym and not a house?” I asked.

“A lot of reasons.” He blew out a long breath. “I thought it would work temporarily. We could stay there for six months, maybe a year. I honestly didn’t think it would be so bad. The photos the realtor showed me were, uh, misleading.”

“Ah.” Without asking, I knew which realtor he was talking about. Definitely not one I’d recommend. “Maybe if the furnace and the water and everything was working, it would work. You’ve done a nice job cleaning it up.”

“Still should have bought a house. But I was waiting, I guess. I wanted to get here and just . . . I wanted to get here.”

“You wanted to see how it went with me.”

His eyes softened. “Yeah.”

“You said you weren’t going to leave. No matter what I said.”

“Which is true after I saw you that first night. But I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect before I got to Quincy. Christ, I’ve never been so nervous driving into a town. The whole trip from Vegas I was a wreck. Judging from what I could find online, I knew you weren’t married. It didn’t look like you had a boyfriend, but I wasn’t sure.”

“What if I had?”

“Then he would have had competition.”

The corner of my mouth turned up. “So you bought the gym instead of a house.”

“Seemed like a smart move. One property that I could offload if needed. But I should have started shopping for a permanent place before Kaddie got here. That was my mistake. I thought it would be good enough, but she deserves better.”

“It’s not that bad, Foster. It just needs some upgrades.”

He took a long gulp of his wine, then rubbed a hand over his beard. “She was so happy when I picked her up from school today. The whole trip to the gym, she just talked and talked about these two friends she made. Even knowing I was going back to clean up a mess, I didn’t say a word about the water until we were parked outside. I didn’t want that smile to dull. It’s been hard to coax them out of her lately.”

“Because of the move? Or the divorce?”

“Both. The moment Arlo died, Vivi and I knew change was coming. Finally. We could live our own lives. Maybe it was a mistake, but we thought it would be better to accelerate as much of it as possible for Kadence.”

“Rip the bandage off.”

“Just get to the other side.” His eyes softened. “Get to the good stuff.”

Me. I was the good stuff.

“Vivienne needed to stay in Vegas.”

“To sell your house and Angel’s.” It dawned on me that he’d also mentioned she’d been planning a wedding. I’d assumed it was for a client or something. But no. She was planning her own wedding.

“Vivi and Dex want to get married there. It’s home for her. She’s giving it up for me because I want to be here. But I think she needs time to say goodbye. And Dex has been dragging his feet.”

“He doesn’t want to move?”

“Not really.” Foster shrugged. “I don’t know the specifics. Haven’t asked. But she mentioned that it’s been a point of tension. Regardless, Vivienne wants Kadence to be close to me, and I’m not leaving. She made it clear to him that their future is in Montana. He’ll get on board.”

“She’d really sacrifice her home, her life in Vegas, just so you could come to Quincy for me?” That seemed unbelievable. Selfless. Not at all the person I’d made Vivienne out to be over these past seven years. Maybe she wasn’t the enemy after all.

“Like I told you, she has a lot of guilt about what happened. She wants me to be happy. But especially, she wants Kadence to have the best life possible. We saw this as a chance to get her out of a bad situation.”

My forehead furrowed. “What bad situation?”

Foster jerked his chin for me to follow him to the dining table. And when we were seated, he leaned back in his chair to glance down the hallway, probably to make sure his daughter wasn’t eavesdropping.

“Kaddie’s preschool also offered kindergarten. She had a lot of friends and she knew the teachers. So we kept her enrolled there last year while Vivi spent months researching schools for first grade. We applied at the best private schools in the city. We did interview after interview. And we got into our top pick. Quality teachers. Rigorous curriculum. They encouraged extracurricular activities like sports and music. It was exactly what we were looking for. Thought it would be great.”

A sense of dread crept into my bones. “It wasn’t.”

“It was a nightmare.” His jaw ticked. “The kids in Kaddie’s class were brutal. There’s no other way to describe it. These were first graders. I didn’t think we’d have to worry about bullies until middle school. High school if we were lucky. But first grade?”

“What happened?”

“We didn’t catch it soon enough. Kaddie was coming home grumpy every day. It was so unlike her. We thought it was just because of school in general. Longer hours than the preschool. More intense learning. Bigger class size. None of her friends from kindergarten were there. She was the new kid. We thought it would pass. It didn’t.”

I covered his hand with my own. “That’s a normal rationale for any parent.”

“Is it? That’s my little girl. She was miserable, and I dismissed it. I thought it was because she wasn’t getting an afternoon nap.” Foster’s voice was hoarse as he spoke, filled with regret.

“It got to the point that when I asked Kaddie if she had fun at school, she’d tell me she hated school. Every morning, it was a fight to get her ready. She’d hide under her bed in her pajamas. We assumed it was because she had to wear a uniform and hated the skirt and tights. Again, our fuckup because we should have pushed harder, earlier, to dig into what was really bothering her. We’d ask and she wouldn’t explain. When we finally found out, it was a damn mess.”

“What happened?”

“Kaddie didn’t talk about friends. She’d been going to the school for months, and she didn’t talk about friends. But she’d talk all about her teacher. She loved her teacher. And the teacher loved her. During a conference, we asked her teacher how she was doing and how she behaved. Teacher said Kadence was an angel. That she was bright, maybe a little shy, and she had this intense focus on her schoolwork. Something the teacher had never seen with a first grader before.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Kaddie focused on her schoolwork because it was her way to escape the other kids. She blocked them out by reading books in the corner alone.”

“Oh.” My heart broke.

“She came home with a Halloween party invite. Vivienne and I were overjoyed. Like, finally, she’s making friends. She’s settling into this new school. So we took her to the party. The parents were hosting it at their own house. This massive house. They’d rented inflatable jumpers. They had a pool. A clown. Food for an army. There were people everywhere, kids dressed in their costumes. I was talking to a few of the other dads, just hanging out while the kids chased each other around. Then I heard this ear-splitting scream.”

“Kaddie.”

He nodded. “I’ve never run faster in my life. I found her surrounded by a group of girls. One of them had a lock of her hair in her fist. She’d yanked out a chunk of my child’s hair.”

I gasped. “Oh my God.”

A sheen of tears filled his eyes. He turned his hand over so we were touching palm to palm. “They were laughing at her. She was crying on her knees, her hand to her hair in pain, and they were laughing at her.”

“Oh, Kadence.” I wanted to sneak into her bedroom and wrap her into a hug. “That’s why she touches the side of her head, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Every time she does it, I want to scream.”

I hadn’t seen Kaddie do it much, but every once in a while, she’d touch her hair. Like she was touching an old wound.

Sort of like how I’d touch my heart.

“After that, it all came out,” he said. “She told us how the other girls had been mean to her since the beginning of the year. They’d tease her and snicker behind her back. They told her that if she tattled on them, they’d lie and no one would believe her because she was poor and they were rich.”

My jaw dropped. “What?”

“I don’t know why they thought that. The goddamn school has a net worth requirement. Whatever. But Kaddie believed them. Maybe because I’ve never been one to flaunt my money. We lived in a nice house, but it wasn’t ostentatious. I bought a new vehicle every year but it was a GMC truck, not a Ferrari. That’s not my style. Never has been.”

No, it wasn’t. Which was part of why I admired him. Foster had become incredibly successful. He could have easily spent his fortune to make up for what he’d lacked in his childhood, but he wasn’t the type of man to squander money. Hell, the man had bought a fixer-upper gym in Quincy.

He reminded me of my parents in that way. Their wealth was immense. Mostly land and capital interests, like the hotel. But they didn’t flaunt it. And they’d taught us all to save our money.

That the good things in life don’t come with a price tag.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” He gave me a sad smile. “The school was apologetic. Maybe they thought I’d go public and rake them over the coals for allowing it to happen. They put her in a different classroom. They sent home daily reports on how she was doing. It was better. But . . .”

“Still not great.” Kaddie had probably run into those other girls in the hallways or at recess.

“It was first grade. What was going to happen when these kids moved up to high school? She’d be with the same girls for years. I just . . . I couldn’t ask her to endure it. So a new school was inevitable. Then Arlo died two weeks later and suddenly instead of that new school being in Vegas . . .”

“You looked into Quincy.”

“Everything changed. For the better.” He laced his fingers through mine. “Tally, she got in the truck today and all she talked about were her friends. How they’re all doing basketball when it starts and how Maggie asked if she could go sledding over the weekend. How Maggie’s mom was going to call me tomorrow.”

There was so much hope, such joy, in his eyes.

Never in my life had I been prouder to live in Quincy.

Sure, our town had its problems. I’d had a few run-ins with kids in school. That was inevitable. But our community was strong. And if Kadence needed a safe place, she’d find it here.

“I know the gym isn’t a forever spot. She needs a real home. So tomorrow, I’ll call a realtor—a different realtor—and start hunting. Find her a place.”

“You’re a good dad, Foster.”

He lifted a shoulder. “This year, I’ve felt like a failure more often than not. But damn, I’m trying.”

This man would put everything on the line for the people he loved.

And I was on that list.

Foster drained the rest of his wine, then set the glass aside, standing and extending a hand. “Dance with me.”

I took his hand, letting him lead me into the center of the kitchen, where he swept me into his arms. We made it a whole three turns before his bare foot stepped on mine.

“Sorry.”

I laughed. “It’s okay.”

He held me closer, swaying more than stepping. “You sure you’re okay with us staying for a bit?”

“It’s all good.”

“We could check into the hotel.”

“This is better.” I pressed my nose into his chest, drawing in his woodsy scent. “Kids need room.”

“And what do you need?”

I tilted my head back, meeting his eyes. “You.”

All I’d ever needed was him.

Foster dropped his lips to mine for a kiss. The lazy strokes of his talented tongue weakened my knees, and he swept me into his arms, cradling me against his chest as he carried me upstairs for the shower we hadn’t taken at the gym.