Thad laughed as he realized she was right. “I guess a commanding officer does have a few things in common with a therapist.” He nudged her with his elbow. “What’s going on, Ashanti?”
She tilted her head back and pinched her eyes shut.
“It’s Kendra, the twin you haven’t met. She’s been so sullen and moody lately—far beyond typical teenage moodiness. Kara is pulling the twin sister code of silence on me, so I can’t get anything out of her.” She released a deep sigh, running her fingers through the skinny braids she’d unbound after they left the photo shoot. “The thing is, I’m not sure Kara knows what’s going on either, and that worries me more than anything. I’ve gotten the silent treatment before—Kendra didn’t speak to me for a week after I wouldn’t allow her to go to a school dance last year—but freezing out Kara is different.”
“Do you think it’s boy trouble?”
“That would be girl trouble if you’re talking about Kendra—she came out two years ago.” She shook her head. “But it’s not that. She and her girlfriend broke up last year, but they’re still good friends. Zalia doesn’t know what’s going on with her either.”
She hunched her shoulders. “The good thing is, today Kendra told me that she’s ready to talk. Or, at least, she will be ready to talk once I get back home.”
Ashanti rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“I just… it’s so hard to figure out if I’m doing the rightthing with them. Sometimes, every decision seems like the wrong one.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there,” Thad said. “I got off on somewhat of a rocky start as a commanding officer. Von said it’s because I wanted to be more friend than CO, but that wasn’t it. Some of those kids needed a father figure and I wanted to do for them what my grandfather did for me.” He shrugged. “But, of course, some tried to take advantage of my benevolence.”
“Because teenagers will always try you,” she laughed.
Damn, but he loved her laugh. He wasn’t sure he had ever even taken note of another woman’s laugh before.
Thad glanced out at the park to make sure Duchess and Puddin’ weren’t getting into anything dangerous, then angled toward Ashanti. “What makes you think you’re messing up with your sisters?”
“I don’t know. With the daycare and now Duchess Delights, it feels as if I’m not devoting enough time to them. Yet, when I ask if they want to hang out, they say no. Especially Kendra.”
“They’re teenagers.”
“I know. I just… I wonder if they wouldn’t have been better off with my dad’s older sister.” She immediately shook her head. “That’s not true. If there is one thing Idoknow, it’s that they are better off with me than with Anita. The girls call her Atilla, as in the Hun.”
“Damn,” Thad said.
“Yes, she’sthatbad,” Ashanti said. She pulled her lip between her teeth. “It’s just… I have to look on the bright side of everything, because if I allow myself to wallow in all that bad—the shitty stuff—I’m afraid I’ll drown.”
“I’ve met your friends, Ashanti. They wouldn’t let you drown.”
He wanted to touch her so badly. To reach out and take her hand in his and bring it to his lips. And then bring his lips to hers. He wanted to kiss that sad smile from her face.
But that wasn’t what she wanted from him.
“That’s true,” she said. “Evie and Ridley are amazing.”
“And now you have thisnewfriend in your life who doesn’t mind listening to you rant about insufferable teenagers.”
She looked over at him, her eyes glinting with amusement and something else. Something more. Something that made him wonder if he was wrong about how she would react to him kissing her again.
“That’s true,” she repeated, her voice as soft as her gaze as she regarded him with an awareness Thad had never seen from her before. As if she was only now recognizing what he had been feeling since that first day he walked into her daycare.
But then she tore her gaze away from his, focusing on the stand of trees on the opposite side of the park.
“Um, I think I owe you an explanation,” she said.
He frowned. “For what?”
“For why I keep insisting that we ignore what we both know is happening between us,” she said. She glanced at him, then at the trees, and then finally back at him. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
“I can handle complicated,” Thad said.
“Even though my parents specified in their will that I be granted custody of Kendra and Kara if anything were to happen to them, Anita petitioned the court for legal custody. She said I was too young to raise them, and that my workload as afourth-year veterinary school student would be too much for me to handle.”
