Smiling at the joyous little girl, Travis grabbed one of the cat’s feet and lifted it up to Kit.“See the white all over her feet?Tell me those don’t look like boots to you.”He stood and dusted his hands off on his jeans, reaching down, he held out a hand to help her up.“Come on, Giggles.Let’s get you upstairs.”Travis lightly poked her shoulder, earning a smile from the little girl before she bounded up the steps.When he turned back to face Parker, she had a strange look on her face.“Everything okay?”
Parker nodded slowly as they walked up the steps.“I think so,” she said quietly.When they got to the landing, Travis noticed that her gaze had turned speculative.“You ever find yourself getting a glimpse into another life you could have lived had things been different?”
Thinking over her question for a minute, Travis finally shook his head.“Not really.”He unlocked the door to the apartment and pushed it open.Kit flew inside and ran around every inch of the space.Parker stepped in more cautiously, looking at everything like it might disappear at any moment.“Don’t get out often, so I don’t get glimpses into much of anything really.Life on the farm...it’s all I know, all I want to know.”He wouldn’t mind having someone special to share that farm life with, but Travis was far too particular a man for most women to want to deal with.
Parker smiled sadly.“I don’t blame you.I’ve been around plenty of places and glimpsed a lot of different ways of living.It seems like the life you have here is pretty wonderful.”She stepped further inside, her eyes widening at all the furniture that was already in place from when Felix and Autumn used to live there.It was a stroke of luck that they’d not taken anything with them really, so Parker and Kit were good to go.“This all comes with the apartment?”
Travis nodded.“Kitchen’s stocked with dishes and stuff, though we’ll have to go to the grocery store later.Get you set up with some food.Unless...you want to have meals at the big house.”The invitation had been automatic, and while Travis knew his parents would have likely extended the same offer later, he felt the need to get it out as soon as possible.“’S no trouble.”
The bubble of hope that had risen in his chest at the thought of the two of them coming to dinner every night burst the moment he saw her polite smile.“I really appreciate that, and maybe we’ll take you up on it sometimes, but we don’t want to be more of a bother than we already have been.”Travis wanted to reiterate how little trouble it would be, how much he’d already started enjoying their presence, but something in her eyes stopped him.There was a sadness there that he knew had nothing to do with him and everything to do with what she’d experienced in her young life.
“Understand.”He clapped his hands and rubbed them together.“I’ll let you get settled.Later we can do that shopping, talk more about the job.”
Parker nodded, a few of her chocolate curls bouncing along with her head.“Sounds good.”
As he turned to leave, Travis heard Kit tear back into the room, squealing happily about getting to actually have her own room for once.The sound of her happy voice lifted his spirits, but her words had him feeling awful at the same time.Even in a house filled with brothers, Travis had always been given his own space.Some of that was due to his sensory issues, but it was also because they’d always simply had enough to go around.
Thankful for the circumstances he was born into and raised in, Travis made his way down the steps and back over to the main house, pulling out his phone to text Felix, knowing at least one way he could spread the good fortune he’d lived most of his life with around just a little more.
Chapter Eight
Parker
After gathering their tent and driving the rest of their belongings over to the barn, Parker and Kit started to set up their apartment.She knew it wouldn’t take very long since they didn’t have many belongings to work with in the first place, but Parker was surprised at how quickly Kit’s room had come together.After putting some sheets delivered by Cora on the bed, tossing her baby blanket on top, and piling what few toys she had to play with onto the dresser, the smaller room was complete.Kit bounced on the bed, gigging happily as she had been doing all morning long.It was both a joy and a pain to see.Kit being safe and happy was all Parker had wanted in life, but the realization at just how infrequently she’d been able to provide that for her daughter made her once again feel like the worst mom on the planet.
“I feel like we won the lottery!”Kit exclaimed.She continued to roll around on the queen sized bed, her bare feet looking in dire need of a wash.
It was on the tip of Parker’s tongue to tell her daughter not to get used to it, but Kit knew enough about life’s hardships without the reminder from her mother.With a sigh, she gathered the best kept items of clothing from Kit’s drawers and the toiletry kit they took with them everywhere they went.“Alright, miss.Even lottery winners need to shower.”
Kit groaned as she always did at the prospect of having to clean herself, but when she saw that the shower was also a tub, she looked up at her mom with wide eyes.“Oh, can I please take a bath?It’s been forever.”
Parker wouldn’t mind a soak for herself either, the idea of warm water undoing some of the tension in her body all too tempting, but they were both way too dirty for that to happen today.“We need to wash the road off you before you get to take a bath.”She grabbed some towels from the full linen closet and set them on the counter.“If we tried that now, the minute you stepped into the water it would turn into a mud bath, and not the fun, relaxing kind.”
Kit turned up her nose at Parker.“Mud is always fun,” she protested.
Leaving her daughter to it, Parker went into her room and started to put her own clothes away, smiling when she heard her daughter singing Dolly Parton in the shower.Love is Like a Butterflywas a song Parker had sung to Kit since the day she was born.She may not be able to give her daughter an example of what love between two people should look like, but she could sing about it.The song also gave Parker hope that one day she would have a love that gave her those fluttery feelings again, only this time it would be the kind that was real and stood the test of time.
