I exchange looks with Weston and Calder and receive stunned silence in return. Elena notices and laughs harder.
“You think this is funny?” I ask her.
“I do. All three of you look terrified.” She takes a sip of coffee, her eyes dancing. “It’s adorable.”
After breakfast, Elena and T.J. get ready to go to the library, where they’re meeting T.J.’s friend David and his mom. T.J. waves at the three of us, calling out, “Bye, Dads!” as he heads out the door.
Elena whispers the same farewell, giving it a different overtone as she kisses each of us goodbye with smiles meant just for us.
Weston, Calder, and I stand on the porch until her car disappears down the road, then we go back inside andclean up the kitchen.
While I put things away and Weston rinses plates, Calder stares off into the distance like he’s working out a problem.
I pour myself more coffee and lean against the counter. “Well.”
Weston glances up. “That was a morning.”
“No kidding.”
Calder looks over at us both. “How much harder can a baby be than an eight-year-old?”
I stare at him for half a second, and then I laugh. I may not have been a dad before last night, but I’ve had nieces and nephews long enough to know better.
Weston groans. “That is the most uninformed thing I’ve heard all week.”
Calder frowns. “I’m serious.”
I laugh so hard, I shake. “That’s why it’s funny.”
CHAPTER 49
WESTON
I’m good at triage. Cuts and burns, and the kind of stuff you can put your hands on and work through one step at a time.
What I’m learning now, sitting cross-legged on Elena’s living room floor with T.J. Ramirez and a half-finished LEGO fire station, is that fear in a kid doesn’t work that way. Instead of bleeding where you can see it, it hides in pauses, like the way T.J. freezes when a car backfires somewhere in the distance.
In the evenings, he wants all the lights in the house on after sunset. While we build, he keeps one hand close to me, like he needs proof I’m still here.
T.J. squints at the instruction booklet. “You put one in the wrong spot.”
He’s right.Damn.“Good catch.”
The boy grins, and for a second, he looks like himself again. “You skipped a whole page.”
“I’m choosing to call that creative interpretation.”
T.J. shakes his head. “That’s not how LEGOs work.”
“Says who?”
“Says everybody. Except maybe you and Ms. Whitaker.”
I huff out a laugh and hand him the booklet. “Then I’m glad I’m working with an expert.”
Elena’s soft laugh drifts toward us from the kitchen, where she and Buck are cleaning up after dinner. Calder is outside, taking the trash cans to the curb and probably doing an unofficial neighborhood watch, even though the danger is over.
Over.I handle that thought gently, as if too much pressure might crack it. Anton Kozlov is dead, and the men he’d hired are gone. Federal debriefings are done, and Moon Ridge is safe. Elena and T.J. are safe.
