Stirring Up Trouble (15 page)

“And you can trust me one hundred percent on that.”

 

 

Gavin knew he should make his feet move, that in spite of how much she probably hated him right now, he should go check on Bree, or do
something
. But he couldn’t remove himself from his spot in the living room.

No way had he pushed Bree away. If anything, it had been the other way around. And anyway, it was his job as her guardian to consider her well-being. She couldn’t just throw on makeup and get her hair colored on a whim, no matter how subtle and natural-looking the result might be. She was thirteen, for Chrissake!

Despair welled up inside him like a cut in need of attention, stinging mercilessly as it rushed to the surface. With the singular exception of asking Sloane to continue as her sitter, every time he tried to do his best for Bree, they ended up further and further apart. No, she didn’t make things particularly easy all the time, but she wasn’t a bad kid, either. Was he honestly that terrible a parent, just because he worried about what would happen if she grew up too fast?

Was he keeping her from growing up at all?

“Okay, Mom, help me out here.” Gavin’s whisper rasped through the postmidnight silence in the cottage, tugging its way from his lungs. “I want to do what’s right for Bree, but I don’t know what that is.”

God, this was crazy. After a few minutes of forcing his breath to shift from shaky to smooth, he scrubbed a hand over his face and ushered his thoughts into rational order. The odd recollection of old memories that he’d shuffled through in the driveway, the bittersweet pang of coming home to happy, feminine voices—he cataloged each of these things in his brain, turning them over and over like waves on a shoreline.

The note in Bree’s voice just before he’d opened his eyes flickered back to his memory, winding through the corners of his brain until the emotion behind her familiar cadence plowed the breath from his chest.

Hope. Oh, God, Sloane was right. It had been hope, and even though he’d never hurt Bree on purpose, he’d pulled that hope out from under her all the same.

Gavin’s purposeful stride had him halfway down the hall before his brain registered the movement, but it didn’t matter. All the forethought in the world wasn’t going to make what he had to say any easier, and even the most eloquent speech could be shot down by a righteously indignant thirteen-year-old.

He really was a terrible parent. How could he have missed this?

“Bree?” He knocked in an awkward thump. “Hey, are you awake? It’s important.”

After an excruciating minute that felt ten times as long, she mumbled, “It’s open, but I’m not coming out.”

Undaunted, Gavin turned the knob. Bree had scrubbed her face and put on her pajamas, and she kept the book on her propped-up knees open, as if to highlight the idea that she felt intruded upon. The sparse light cast down from the bedside lamp kept her expression in the shadows, and he noticed with a sharp pang that Bree had tried to pull her hair back into a ponytail, only now it was too short to cooperate. Tawny wisps framed the angles of her cheekbones, and she swiped at them in vain.

“Hey. I was hoping maybe we could, um, talk a little.” He shuddered inwardly. Eloquent he was not.

“You’re mad, I’m grounded. What is there to talk about?”

“You’re not grounded. And while I’m not thrilled, I might’ve . . . jumped the gun on the mad thing.”

Bree’s head snapped up, and another chunk of hair feathered from her sad excuse for a ponytail. “What?”

“Got your attention with that one, huh?” He shoved his hands in his pockets. Damn, he hadn’t felt this inundated with guilt since he’d missed her solo in the fourth grade choral concert because he’d had to cover a busy holiday shift at the last minute.

“No.” She turned toward him, so slightly that it was barely perceptible. “Okay, maybe.”

It was as much of an invitation to start talking as Gavin was going to get, so he took it. “Look, before I say anything else, you need to know that first and foremost it’s my job to make sure you’re taken care of. Sometimes that means I need to make decisions that aren’t popular with you. I’m not going to apologize for wanting to make sure you’re safe and okay.”

Bree grimaced and wrapped her arms around herself, but he held up a hand. “But I am going to apologize for yelling at you. I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m sorry.”

She examined him with a wary flick of her eyes. “It’s no big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal,” Gavin argued, earning a startled glance that held his rather than dropping like the first. “Yes, I was mad, but yelling at each other doesn’t solve anything. And even though I didn’t intend to, I hurt your feelings, which isn’t okay. It’s just . . .” His throat tightened, but he forced his words to persevere. “There’s kind of a steep learning curve to this parenting thing, and I’m not always very good at it.”

After an interminable silence that scraped at his ears, she said, “You’re okay.”

He fought off the urge to heave an obvious sigh of relief. “So do you think maybe the next time you need something, you could try asking your
okay
brother? If I’d known you needed school clothes, I’d have taken you to get them. It’s part of taking care of you, Bree.”

“Yeah, but some stuff is embarrassing. Like . . .” She dropped her eyes and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like
buying bras,
and his knees became momentarily undependable.

“Um, well, yeah.” Christ, he was wholly unequipped for this. But it was more headway than he’d made in the ten months since their mom had died, and he refused to abandon the conversation, even in the face of unmentionables on his sister. “Maybe we can let the saleslady at the store help you with that. But at least I could take you to the mall. And take care of the other things.”

“You never would’ve let me get my hair cut off.” Bree made a face, and her arms migrated from around her rib cage to cradle her hips as she shifted against her pillows to look at him fully. A quick slice of worry cut through him at the streak of pain on her freshly scrubbed features, but then it was gone.

“I wouldn’t have let you get it colored, no. But we could’ve talked about the haircut.” A wave of fresh guilt splashed through him, prompting him to boldly sit next to her on the edge of her bed. “I was a little busy being thickheaded before, so I didn’t say this, but you really do look pretty.”

Bree’s face flushed all the way to her ears, but the smile tugging at her mouth gave her away. “You’re such a dork.”

“Thank you. But I’m being serious.” He gestured to the back of her desk chair, where the sweater she’d been wearing earlier was neatly draped. Although he hated to admit it, there was nothing provocative about the stylish garment, and the deep blue color had looked becoming on her.

The image of her wearing it, looking like the grown-up version of herself, flashed through his mind with a tug to his gut. “That sweater looks nice on you.”

“Oh. Well, Sloane picked it out. I liked a different one, but she said this was more appropriate preteen couture, whatever that means.”

Dread descended, low and horrible in Gavin’s belly.

What it meant was that he wasn’t done on the apology front just yet.

Okay, so Sloane should’ve come to him rather than taking Bree on an impulsive trip to the mall, but still. Bree clearly felt a connection with Sloane, and while he wasn’t sure how he felt about that, it didn’t change the fact that Sloane didn’t blow off his sister. She’d taken care of Bree in her own, well-intentioned way. And wasn’t that all he’d been trying to do himself?

Shit. Why did all of this parenting stuff only make sense after the fact?

Gavin cleared his throat. “Well, it’s nice. You probably need more than one of them, though. Maybe next week I can take you back on my afternoon off. You know . . . if you feel like it.”

“Maybe.” But her word held no indecision, and her smile, albeit slight, stayed in place. But then she coasted a hand over her stomach, and the pained expression from a few minutes ago returned and lingered.

“Are you okay? When was the last time you ate?”

“We had Pad Thai for dinner at that place in the mall,” Bree said. “Probably not the best idea.”

It was Gavin’s turn to grimace, and he held nothing back. “Ugh. No wonder you’ve got an upset stomach. You want a cup of chamomile? I can go put some water on real quick.”

“Yeah, okay.” She swung her feet over the edge of her bed and followed him toward the door, but after a few steps, she stopped short. Her face bent into another painful frown, followed quickly by a look of shock so disconcerting that his pulse clattered through his veins.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, cursing the very nature of fast-food Pad Thai. “Do you feel sick?”

“No.” But then her eyes widened with something he couldn’t place. Without elaborating, she turned and darted across the hall, slamming the bathroom door behind her.

“Bree! Open the door. If you’re sick, I can help you.” Oh, God. If something was really wrong with her, he’d never forgive himself for all the stupid head-butting they’d been doing lately. “Bree, I mean it!”

“It’s not the Thai food,” came the muffled cry from behind the door. “I’m not sick, but you can’t help with this. Just . . . I’m sorry. Could you please go away?”

If he lived to be a hundred and fifty, he would
never
make sense of these ridiculous hormones. Hadn’t they just made a truce?

Gavin tried as hard as he could not to just whip the door open anyway, digging his fingers into his palms instead. “Remember what I just said about taking care of you? I really can’t go away until I know you’re all right.”

“I’m fine,” Bree choked on a sob, making his heart twist with both fear and the desire to protect her from whatever was making her voice sound so shattered.

He put a hand over the door, pressing against the cool wood as if it could give him oaklike strength. “All I want to do is help you, Bree. Please just tell me what’s wrong.”

Bree’s words were barely audible through the door, but they punched all the way through Gavin anyway.

“I don’t think you can help with this. I . . . I think I got my period.”

Chapter Fifteen

After twenty minutes of rabid tossing and turning, Sloane gave up and got out of bed. She wasn’t exactly a stranger to one o’clock in the morning, and anyway, there had to be some bad-karma rule against going to bed this full of piss and vinegar. She padded down the hall toward the hush of the kitchen, grabbing a water bottle and the growing stack of mail she’d been ignoring for the better part of two weeks.

“Electric bill . . . credit card bill . . . oh, look, I may have won a cruise. Details inside.” She tossed the sheaf of junk mail and bills back to the counter with a disgusted plop.

While Gavin hadn’t come right out and fired her, it had to be just a technicality at this point. Good money said Sloane had doomed her fallback plan for getting to Greece the minute she’d popped off at the mouth and left him standing speechless in the middle of his living room floor. While it was unlikely he’d find a replacement babysitter overnight, there was sure to be one on the near horizon, which meant her chances of getting on that plane were slim and none.

And slim was looking pretty anorexic.

But come on! She’d apologized not once but twice, only to have her decision to take Bree for a simple trip to the mall tossed back in her face like dirty laundry. It wasn’t as if she’d dragged her bar-hopping or anything. Taking Bree shopping got her what she needed while still keeping her pride intact, and the last thing Sloane had wanted to do was out the poor kid. Plus, deep down she knew that if she put a spotlight on how Bree had hidden her old, threadbare clothes from Gavin, he’d feel horrible that he hadn’t noticed, and as sappy as it was, Sloane had wanted to spare his feelings. All things considered, she’d just tried to make the best possible decision for the circumstances.

Of course she’d never admit that to the Ice King, and not just because it would betray Bree’s confidence. They might not be buddy-buddy soul mates or anything, but Sloane had been around Gavin Carmichael long enough to know what he thought of her ability to think rationally. Anything she had to say—no matter how reasonable or grounded in good intentions—would probably just make him madder. The thickheaded, chiseled-jawed, hot-melty-eyed jackass!

Although . . .

Okay, so maybe it was possible she’d gone a teensy bit over the line with the hair color. Temporary highlights definitely fell under the category of No Big Deal for a thirty-one-year-old, but Sloane hadn’t really thought of it that way in the fun of the moment. In hindsight, she should’ve known Gavin would go ballistic over it. Heck, he’d freaked out last week at the notion of Bree wearing a face full of makeup in the privacy of her own home.

Why hadn’t she remembered that until
now?

The blinking red light on Sloane’s answering machine snagged her attention, and relief cascaded through her at the distraction. She took a hearty swig from her water bottle and hit the button, determined to come away with at least a shred of something good from the last couple of hours.

“Sloane, it’s your
mama
. The one you never call.”

She let out a groan and slumped over the counter, dropping her forehead to the cool granite while she winced and listened. Would this day ever end?

“Carly’s mother came by to show me some pictures Dominic took at the wedding. You couldn’t wear a shawl over that dress? A person could see what you had for breakfast if you so much as leaned over!”

Truly, Sloane didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Anyhow, I thought you should know that Angela’s doctor finally decided to induce labor in the morning, so she’s going to the hospital at ten. I’ll call you as soon as the baby comes. Maybe you’ll come to Brooklyn for more than a day when there’s a new baby, eh? Until then, I hope you’re behaving yourself. And keep your body covered!”

A wicked image of Gavin’s hands delving beneath black silk lashed across her memory without warning, and she yelped as she slapped the machine into silence. Okay, tossing and turning aside, she absolutely needed to go to bed, if for no other reason than to put this freaking day out of its misery. She capped her water bottle, replacing it in the fridge before turning to plug her cell phone into the charger and trudge back to her rumpled bed.

It rang in her hand, scaring the crap out of her.

“Jesus!” Sloane splayed a hand over her chest, and she sent a string of colorful invectives at her merrily chiming iPhone. “Whoever this is had better be really drunk.”

The name on the caller ID sent a streak of confusion through her, followed quickly by a bolt of pure shock.

No way. Gavin was going to fire her now? In the middle of the night?

Over the
phone?

Oh, hell, no. She wasn’t going down like this. He’d said he trusted her, for God’s sake. And like it or not, she’d made her choice with Bree’s best interests at heart!

She whipped the phone to her ear in a huff. “Look, I get that you’re mad, okay, and that I might’ve screwed up, but if you’d just
listen—
”

“Sloane—”

“Don’t interrupt! You’re so jacked up over what you think is right that you don’t—”

“Sloane—” Gavin tried again. God, he was so infuriating!

“No, let me get this out. You don’t stop to think that there might be more at play than what you think or feel. That there were
reasons
for what I did. You just—”

The dire urgency in his voice jerked her words to a graceless halt. Whoa. Had he sounded this bad the first two times he’d tried to interrupt her?

The absence of anger, of any variety of heat as he spoke her name, made the hair on the back of Sloane’s neck stand at eerie attention. “What?”

“I, um . . . I know it’s late, but I need you to come back. Tonight. Please.”

The words were simple enough to compute, but they deflected off of every part of her brain that might process them rationally, leaving her to stammer, “You . . . you what?”

“I need help with Bree.”

“From me? I mean, I think we’ve established I’m not the best person for that,” Sloane said without any trace of sarcasm.

“You’re better equipped to handle this than I am, trust me,” he said.

Wait . . . he sounded
serious
.

Sloane pressed the phone against her ear even tighter, certain she’d misunderstood. “Gavin, none of this is making sense. I know you’re mad, but—”

“Bree got her period.”

Oh,
hell
. Sloane brushed her free hand over her rumpled sleep shirt to rest over the ache suddenly spreading out from her sternum. “Has she ever had it before?”

Gavin let out a quick, cheerless laugh. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve never gotten her, you know, stuff to take care of it or anything. So no. Right?”

“Right.” Keeping some well-worn clothing from him was one thing, but there was no way Bree could hide needing feminine supplies from her brother, no matter how mortifying she’d find asking. This had to be the first time. “Where is she right now?”

Gavin paused, and even though he cleared his throat, his words still came out hoarse and strained. “She’s locked in the bathroom, crying her eyes out. I wouldn’t bother you, but she won’t let me help her, and I don’t know what else to do.”

Sloane was halfway down the hall before her reply was all the way out of her mouth.

“Tell her to hang tight. I’ll be right there.”

 

 

Sixteen minutes and a backpack full of supplies later, Sloane climbed the steps to the porch to find Gavin waiting with the door open.

“She’s still in the bathroom. I told her you were coming, but she didn’t answer me.”

Oh, Lord. Sloane had to admit it. He looked as defeated and stressed-out as he’d sounded on the phone.

“Okay. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll give it a shot.” She tipped the bag from her shoulder to take off her coat. In her haste to leave the bungalow, she’d slapped a pair of flannel lounge pants beneath her Yankees sleep shirt and called herself dressed, but if Gavin noticed her lack of proper attire, he gave no indication.

“Okay, yeah.”

Sloane flipped the backpack open, rummaging with determined fingers until she found what she was looking for. “First things first. This will help.”

Gavin passed a confused stare from the item in her hand up to her face. “Bree’s thirteen,” he reminded her with a look that suggested she’d lost her faculties. She kept the bottle of Jim Beam extended anyway, lifting a sardonic brow.

“It’s not for her, boss. Go grab a glass. You look like you could use a stiff drink.”

The weariness etched on his face slipped, but only by a tiny degree. “Oh. Right.”

Sloane propped the backpack all the way over her shoulder again. “Trust me, you got the most fun thing in the bag.” She turned toward the hallway, but Gavin stopped her with a gravelly whisper.

“She’s going to be okay, right? I mean, dealing with this with just me around.”

Sloane’s heart smacked against her rib cage, but she forced her voice into her standard glib demeanor. “She’s going to be fine.” She let a smile ghost over her lips in an effort to reassure him, hoping it would do enough to calm them both, and gave his arm a quick squeeze. “Whether or not
you
make it, well, that’s a different story.”

By the time she got to the end of the hallway, however, Sloane’s signature bravado had pulled a disappearing act. Pure impulse had sent her out the door of her bungalow twenty minutes ago, and it had autopiloted her back here before she could register the gravity of the task at hand. But now that she stood in Gavin’s hallway, wearing her pajamas and armed with nothing more than her waning moxie and a jumbo box of maxi pads, the idea of having The Talk with Bree was pretty freaking daunting.

Maybe she should try to coach Gavin through it instead. After all, he was Bree’s guardian, her
brother,
who had known her for all of her life. While Sloane might be better versed on the firsthand particulars, having a welcome-to-womanhood talk with a sullen, scared preteen she’d known for two weeks was way beyond her comfort zone.

A sheen of nervous perspiration formed on her temples. She really was the last person on the planet who should be offering advice, and anyway, Gavin was only relying on her because he had no one else to ask. She could talk him through the basics well enough. Honestly, setting her loose on Bree without the big-brother filter might do more harm than good.

A loud sniffle sounded from the other side of the door, and every trace of Sloane’s hesitance bit the dust.

“Bree? It’s me. Um, Sloane.” She scooped in a steadying breath that did nothing to calm her. “I brought you a couple of things. Do you want to let me in so I can give them to you?”

“O-okay.” Muffled movement sounded from behind the door, followed closely by a hard click. “It’s open.”

Sloane nudged her way past the door, whispering it closed right behind her. Bree sat on the bath mat with her back pressed against the tub and her knees under her chin, and Sloane’s heart double-knotted in her chest.

“Hey.” She placed the backpack on the floor and gestured to the unoccupied half of the navy blue bath mat. “Mind if I sit?”

Bree shrugged, but scooted over to make room. Sloane wedged herself against the bathtub, the coolness of the porcelain seeping through her thin shirt to ground her. She could do this.

She had to. Even if she had no idea
how
to.

“Listen, I’m not quite sure of the best way to have this conversation, but I’m certain you have questions that you think are embarrassing.”

Bree gave a slight nod, and it bolstered Sloane’s confidence that they were at least heading in the right direction, so she continued. “But I promise it’s all really normal, even if it’s kind of scary. Getting your period is actually your body’s way of agreeing with you when you say you’re not a kid anymore.”

Bree lifted her head. “It doesn’t feel normal.”

“It takes a little getting used to,” Sloane agreed.

“But it . . . kind of hurts. And it’s gross.”

Sloane clamped down on the urge to smack her own forehead. Of course the poor kid was probably uncomfortable. “I guess we should get you, um, situated first, and then we can talk about it. Okay?”

Sloane explained the basics of feminine hygiene and gave Bree some supplies and privacy to adjust. A few minutes later, Sloane ushered her from the hallway to her room, where two mugs of tea sat cooling on the nightstand.

“Oh, perfect,” she murmured, pulling back the covers so Bree could crawl gingerly back beneath them. An odd sensation rippled through her like a whisper, but Sloane shook it off in favor of getting Bree settled. She handed over one of the mugs and sat on the edge of the bed.

“You’ll probably feel pretty crummy for a day or so while your body gets used to things,” Sloane said, taking a sip of honeyed chamomile.

“Like right here?” Bree laid a palm below her belly button and grimaced, but Sloane simply nodded.

“Yup. Totally normal. It might move around to your back, too. Sometimes a hot bath helps.”

“I can still do that? I mean, like . . . this?” Her gaze flicked to her abdomen with disdain.

Sloane pressed a smile between her lips. “Sure. It won’t hurt you.” She unearthed a bottle of pain reliever from the depths of the backpack and put it in Bree’s free hand. “This and the tea will make you feel a little better tonight.”

Bree squinted at it with a look of confusion. “Isn’t this stuff for headaches?”

“It works on cramps too. Think of it as a multitasker.”

“Oh.” Bree paused, fiddling with the lid. “Sorry. You probably think I’m pretty dumb for not knowing that.”

“I don’t think you’re dumb at all.” A thought careened into Sloane, slicing through her in a wide path of panic, and she looked at Bree carefully. “So, um, I guess I should ask how much you already know about . . . why women’s bodies change . . .”