Mad About Moon (The Whiskeys: Dark Knights at Peaceful Harbor #5)(7)
“Papa Biggs?” Kennedy asked. “Can you please be done now?”
There was a collective, stifled chuckle as Biggs grabbed his cane and limped over to the children who had the gumption to do what no adult other than Red ever would—interrupt one of Biggs’s meetings.
Kennedy and Bradley’s chins tipped up as Biggs stared down at them with serious dark eyes and said, “What’s going on? Someone out there bothering you?”
They both shook their heads.
Kennedy played with a ribbon on her dress and said, “Aunt Dixie said the only way you’d let Uncle Beah come play with us is if I could distract you. Can I?”
Everyone laughed, even Biggs.
“Yes, darlin’. I think you can.” He set that dark stare on Dixie, who blew him a kiss.
“Come on, guys.” Bear scooped up one kid under each arm against his sides, carrying them into the living room like squealing, giggling footballs.
Biggs put a hand on Jed’s shoulder and said, “You sure you’ve got this, son?”
“Absolutely, Biggs. I won’t fail you.”
If Josie was his Jojo, and he had a gut feeling she was, he wasn’t about to let the girl he’d never forgotten slip away again. He’d been warned away from her once, and the asshole who had done it better hope he wasn’t the reason she was at a shelter, or he’d have Jed to deal with.
Chapter Two
“HAIL, PLEASE KEEP your diggers out of the frosting,” Josie said the next afternoon as she stopped her son’s sneaky little fingers from dipping the bucket of his excavator into the bowl of white frosting they were using to decorate gingerbread houses.
Hail grinned sweetly up at her in the way she’d never been able to resist and drove his excavator to the other side of the table.
She dipped a spoon into the icing and handed it to him. “Spoons are fine; diggers are for dirt.”
Her words fell on deaf ears as he shoved the spoon in his mouth, turned to the little girl sitting beside him, and said, “Use my digger and you can get a spoonful, too!”
“I don’t think so,” Josie said, scooping another spoonful of frosting. “But please usually works.” She handed Emily, a little girl staying at the shelter with her mother, the spoon, and then she kissed the top of Hail’s head.
They made gingerbread houses and cookies every Christmas, but the last place she thought they’d be making them the day after Christmas was in a women’s shelter. Then again, she never thought she’d lose everything she’d known for the past decade, reconnect with her siblings, or ever see Moon again. If it was even him. She had her doubts. She’d been such a nervous wreck, there was a good chance her eyes had been playing tricks on her last night.
“I think I’ve eaten more candy today than I did on Halloween.” Tracey pushed a bowl of gumdrops toward the middle of the table.
“We can thank Josie for that.” Sunny Yeun, who helped her mother run the shelter, popped a jelly bean into her mouth. Sunny had the shiniest black hair Josie had ever seen, and she wore round glasses, like Harry Potter, which were surprisingly stylish on her.
Tracey and the three other women who were staying at the shelter said, “Thank you, Josie.”
“Oh, stop. This is fun for me,” Josie said. The kitchen smelled like spices and happiness, and the festive music made it that much sweeter. “I’d do it every day if I could.”
There was a time, shortly after she’d moved in with Brian, when she had baked nearly every day, when she’d envied gingerbread houses and their sugar-coated, frosting-laced world. She’d dreamed of a happy life within the delicious walls, where she’d wake up without a blanket of fear. A life in which her siblings were safe and her parents were so far away they could never touch any of them again. Eventually she’d learned to trust, and as time had passed, she realized her fantasies of a safe, happy life were no longer dreams, but they’d come true.
“I’ll make these every day with you!” Hail said, drawing her back to the moment.
She brushed his bangs away from his eyes and kissed his forehead, silently vowing to make next year better than this one had been. “And what would your teachers say after winter break, when you didn’t show up for school because you were too busy making gingerbread houses?”
He giggled, shrugged, and went back to decorating his house.
“That sounds like a pretty good life to me,” Tracey said as she pressed a peppermint into the frosting on the roof of her gingerbread house.
Josie got up to take a tray of gingerbread cookies from the oven. She’d had to leave a lot of her belongings behind when they’d been evicted, but she’d kept her baking supplies, most of which had been gifts from Brian’s grandmother, who had taught her to bake.
She set the tray down and began transferring the cookies to the cooling rack. “I thought you were excited about working at the Whiskey’s bar after talking to Sarah this morning?”
She had felt a sting of disappointment when Sarah had called to speak with Tracey and not to speak with her. But Sarah had asked Tracey to pass on a message that she was giving Josie space to decide when they could speak again. Josie appreciated that. She wanted to take another step toward reconciliation, but after she’d nearly lost it last night, she knew she couldn’t do it with Hail underfoot. She was hoping to try again next week, after he went back to school.