Galena, Illinois . . . ready or not, here I come!
I need a getaway.
CHAPTER TWO
BODE
PARTY DAY - SATURDAY
“Hazel Mae! If you put your pretty dress on right now, you can have two pieces of cake later.”
I’m not usually one to be okay with bribing my child with sweets, or really bribing her to do anything at all, but with the way today is going, I will do anything it takes to get her to do what I want. I need my four-year-old daughter to change out of her SpongeBob pajamas and into the sparky dress she picked to wear for her birthday party, but she is being stubborn as a mule and glaring at me like I ran her kitten over with the lawnmower.
“No!” she sasses back with a pout.
Monkey, her solid black kitten, doesn’t like her grouchiness any more than I do. He jumps out of her arms and dashes under her bed. Hazel drops to her belly and tries to slither under the bedframe to reach her usually cuddly bundle of fur, but I grab her by her ankles and pull her back out. Once she’s sprawled out at my knees, I wiggle my fingers at her and she starts to giggle.
“The tickle monster says it’s time to get dressed for your party.” I tickle her belly and her squeals of laughter fill the room.
“Daddy, nooooo,” she calls out, rolling in happiness. “I wanna wear my spongey jammies.”
“Not today, little princess.” I worm my hands around her tiny flailing arms, get ahold of her tiny waist, and stand her upright again. Her dark curly hair is sticking out all wild so I gently smooth it down as best I can, then tuck the strands behind her ears so I can see her beautiful face. “You can put your jammies back on after your bath,afteryour party is over. I promise.”
“Pinkie promise?” Hazel holds up her tiny fist, her tiniest finger pointing up.
I hook my much bigger pinkie into hers and we both lean in to kiss the thumbs of our joined fists. “Pinkie promise.”
“Fine,” she finally agrees with an overexaggerated sigh.
“You are much too young to be so dramatic.”
“Auntie Beth!” Hazel calls out . . . and I am now chopped liver.
If there is one person in this world that my daughter loves more than me, it is my younger sister Beth. Not that I can blame her much, because Beth is pretty much the best, but it still burns a little. She loves her auntie so much, the adjustment is going to be hard on Hazel once it really sinks in that Beth is moving out. We’ve been telling her the move is coming up for months, but until the last box is gone, I don’t know how much Hazel understands of what’s happening. The change is going to be hard on me too if I’m honest.
Exactly one year younger than me, to the day, Beth is pretty much my best friend. She has also been my saving grace over the last four years. Ever since Eliza, Hazel’s mother, disappeared and left us when Hazel was two months old, Beth has been here for us. She has been my backbone. Beth gave up the lease on her apartment and moved back into our family home to help me raise Hazel. Our parents offered to come back from Arizona, where they had moved only a year before, but Beth and I both told them to stay and enjoy their retirement.
Having Beth and I was a surprise for our parents. They tried to have kids for several years, but with no luck. Then as my mom likes to say, she got doubly blessed back to back. Gettingpregnant with me was a shock, followed by my sister so soon after, to say it sounds crazy is an understatement. Since they were a bit older when they had us, by the time we became adults and sufficient on our own, Randy and Margot Wright were ready for the next chapter of their own lives and moved to the land of year-round warmth and very little snow—Scottsdale, Arizona.
I have known my entire life that I wanted to take over my dad’s auto shop as soon as he was ready to sell, and that’s just what I did. I saved every penny I’d made, took out a business loan, and paid my father every dime he was owed. Wright Automotive has been my baby since I was twenty-two years old.
I wasn’t given anything. My family was not poor, but we were not rich by any means. I take extreme pride in everything that I have, and seeing my parents reap the benefits of their many years of hard work makes me even prouder to be their son.
“Let’s get you in this pretty dress, then we can party!” Beth calls out in her fun sing-song voice, waving her hands next to her head. Of course, Hazel listens right away and doesn’t give her auntie any of the sass she was dishing out at me not two minutes ago, and is twirling in purple sparkles in no time.
Ding dong!The doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it.” Beth has her hands full of Hazel’s hair, braiding small pieces of the crazy curls back out of her face, so I head for the stairs to see who is at the front door. Hazel’s birthday party doesn’t start for another hour, but we got her dressed early so we can take some pictures in the backyard before everyone arrives.
The air conditioning is blowing strong, because it is a warm summer September day and we would be sweaty messes without it, so I can’t see who is on the other side of the closed solid wood door until I pull it open.
Wow! Where did this knockout come from?
Just a couple inches short of my five foot eleven height, stands a beautiful woman with golden blonde hair that slightly waves down past her shoulders. She pushes her sunglasses up into her hair, revealing blue eyes the color of a cloudless sky. Her pink lips, the bottom one slightly plumper than the top, are begging for me to nibble and steal a kiss.
I’ve never been awestruck stupid speechless by a woman before, but I guess there is a first time for everything.
“Hi.” Shit, even her voice is sexy as hell. With a slightly lower pitch, but not deep, just that one word is soft and strong.
