Page 24 of Made for Mayhem

She took a bite of the pancake, and I finally let my shoulders drop.

The next few days would be full of court hearings, caseworkers, and a dozen things I couldn’t control, but right now, in this minute, she was eating. Breathing. Looking a little like the little girl who’d stolen my whole heart.

“Attagirl,” I said. “Uno’s waiting.”

She shoveled another bite into her mouth, then hopped off the stool, Rowdy close behind. The fact that my dog had decided it was time to never leave her side gave me hope that somebody in this house knew what they were doing. It just wasn’t me.

I rinsed her plate, letting the warm water run longer than necessary, listening to her little footsteps thump down the hall. “Put your rain boots on and let’s go,” I called.

“Okay!” she shouted back, voice lighter already.

I’d spent the past few weeks reading everything I could find about children and grief—stacked books on my nightstand, dog-eared pages about honesty, stability, and routine. I’d even called my therapist for a last-minute session, wanting to make sure I was ready for this.

Ready.

What a joke.

Playing hockey was all about the pressure to perform, to defend my teammates. My family life wasn’t that different—eldest child to two parents who weren’t that interested in being parents meant I’d spent my whole life trying to be good enough to make them notice me, then making sure my sister never felt the same way I did. At least I knew what I didn’t want to be as a dad, so that had given me a false sense of security.

Turned out being a parent—even a temporary foster parent—was fucking hard.

I wiped my hands on a dish towel and followed her.

“All set?” I asked as I turned the corner into the foyer. The old hand-scraped floorboards creaked under my feet, worn smooth by decades of boots and dogs.

Junie zipped her pajamas to her chin and tugged on her boots, hood with little cat ears half-swallowing her hair. “Ready.”

I opened the door, and the crisp air swept in, smelling of dew and pine. “Then let’s go see the boss.”

She took off the second I stepped aside, Rowdy bounding after her, the screen door banging shut behind them. The yard was still slick with morning dew, each blade of grass catching the early light like glass. The chickens erupted in a flurry of feathers and indignant clucks as Junie ran through them, arms flung wide, laughter spilling into the cool air.

Cooper Ridge had been in my family for generations, leaving the Hudson legacy on the little town of Linwood. These lands used to be a fully operational cattle farm with land stretching up into the Gore Range, but that went by the wayside when my grandfather opened the hardware store in town. My parents had spent their years here growing the business in every way they could, letting the barn and all its glory days disappear.

I hadn’t intended to bring this all back to life after I retired, but then Rowdy was dropped in my lap, a rescue puppy in need of a home. Then came the misfit crew of animals that occupied the barn now, one after the next, almost always at the begging and pleading of the little girl running through the yard.

The sun was just cresting the ridge as I stood on the front porch, the scent of damp earth mixing with wildflowers and cut hay. The fields beyond the barn shimmered green, still heavy with shadow, and my newest rescue, Uno, grazed lazily by the fence line.

Junie crouched low in the grass, whispering to my newest hen. “Come here, Chickira. Don’t let that big bad rooster push you around.”

“Oh, it’s Chickira now?” I asked, biting back a smile.

“I know you said we should name her Henrietta, but that’s very unoriginal,” Junie said matter-of-factly. “Did you know it’s the most common chicken name in America?”

“I did not know that.”

“There are fifty-two thousand chickens named Henrietta,” she added with the deadpan expression to tell me exactly how she felt about this. “Google says so. So I went looking for other pop culture names for her that fit the theme you have going here.”

I brushed a hand across my mustache, hiding my grin. “I like it. Chickira it is.”

She shrugged, not looking away from the hen now eating corn from her open palm. “I think we should start keeping a list of names for new animals we could get, now that I’m living with you.”

The unspoken reasoning behind her words hit like a stick to the ribs, my heart hurting for her. Did I want more animals to take care of? Fuck no. But I would do anything to make this little girl smile, no matter how long she got to live with me. “That sounds like a great idea.”

Rowdy barked once, agreeing with me.

Junie slipped her hand into mine as we started down the dirt path toward the barn, her fingers small and warm against my calloused palm. “So,” I said, “what’s on the agenda today? Chickens? Uno? Hockey replays?”

“Uno first.”