had to be after midnight. Ryan checked the time at the top of the electronic tablet in his hand. A whirlwind of chaos was thundering toward the master bedroom. So much for finishing up a few things before he turned out the lights himself.
“Yes, you did.” Whatever Zoe’s side of the story was, her brother didn’t believe a word of it.
Zoe reiterated her innocence. “No, I didn’t.”
“Dad!” Zach rushed toward the bed in his too-small blue T-shirt and gray flannel camo-patterned pajama pants.
Ryan briefly looked up, but kept tapping on the tablet’s touchscreen keyboard. “What’s the matter, buddy? Can’t sleep?”
“Zoe put a spider in my bed.” Zach’s dark blonde hair had been shocked into a serious case of bedhead.
Zoe ran in to defend herself. “Hey, that’s not what I said. I said, what if I did?”
“You said you’d put it in my bed.” Zach sounded close to tears, and that wasn’t going to help anyone get a good night’s sleep.
“No, I said maybe I might.” Zoe refused to give an inch. The hand on her hip seemed to match perfectly with her hot-pink-and-white polka-dot pajamas. How could pajamas enhance sass? Ryan felt a chill go through him as he once again considered the upcoming teenage years.
But more than that, Ryan wondered how this fight had even gotten started in the first place. Poppy indicated the kids had both gone to bed hours ago. “Guys, come on, come on. Come up here.”
Zach crawled up on the bed.
It reminded Ryan of when the kids were babies and they’d fall asleep on his chest. He missed those days and felt it deep in his heart. “Okay, there are absolutely no spiders—”
Zoe said, “Dad, Mrs. Brower said we all eat eight spiders in our sleep every year.”
What were they teaching in school these days?
Zach snuggled up closer, practically wrapping himself in a ball. Ryan hadn’t seen him lose it this much over a spider in months. “I don’t wanna eat a spider. I hate spiders. I don’t want to go to bed.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Zoe said. “I’m just saying what I heard. It’s a fact.”
“Thank you. Go to bed.”
Zoe sighed and rolled her eyes, clearly bothered by the fact that no one appreciated her scientific wisdom. But at least she went back to bed the first time he asked her to. Ryan decided to give thanks for small miracles.
He tucked Zach in the crook of his arm and gave his boy a kiss on the head as they both leaned back against the bank of steel-gray pillows piled high against the dark mahogany headboard. Why couldn’t anything be easy right now?
The school might be teaching Zoe some crazy things, but Ryan was the one who felt like he was failing.
Chapter Three
Poppy stopped on the Larsons’ front step to collect her thoughts.
Committed.
Committed.
Committed.
She could do this.
She needed to do this.
She needed to prove to Megan—and to herself—that she had it in her. Whatever it actually was.
Poppy turned her key in the lock and opened the door, then heard exactly what she’d expected to hear—Ryan Larson, the workaholic-in-chief, on a business call.
“Yeah, that’s the big final…” he paused briefly, listening to the other person on the line. “All right, see what you can do and get back to me. Hey, and tell Higashimoto how excited we are. I’ve gotta run. My breakfast meeting is here. Bye.”
Ryan disconnected the call, narrowly missing wiping a swipe of peanut butter on his prized smartphone.
“Breakfast meeting, huh?” At least that sounded like he had time made in his schedule for her—even if it did sound like her presence in the house was just another box to check, another cog in the wheel.
“Ah—I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” He laid his phone down on the counter, an action which shocked Poppy a bit. She didn’t think she’d seen him before without it attached to his hand.
“Temporarily for You,” she said, reminding herself almost as much as him. “Plus, I said I would.”
“Coffee?”
Japanese business transactions were completely foreign to Poppy. But this—coffee—now Ryan was speaking her language.
“Sure. Cream, two sugars.” She stepped into the kitchen and inspected his handiwork on the counter. “Hope your coffee making is better than your sandwich making—you really know how to butcher a PB&J.”
“You should see my grilled cheese.” Ryan took Poppy’s critique in stride as he poured two mugs of steaming caffeine.
“Oh, I think I peeled one of those off my shoe last night.”
Poppy picked up a knife and a slice of bread and jumped in to help finish the kids’ lunches. Even though they hated her, she couldn’t let them go to school with wonky PB&Js.
Ryan placed a mug right in front of her work zone. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” Poppy meant it. She could smell the dark roast and the anticipation of taking a sip brought some joy to the morning.
“Yeah…uh…” Ryan sat down in front of some paperwork, clearly looking for the right words. The collar of his light blue button down peeked from beneath a dark blue sweater. It had twisted slightly askew.
Poppy understood exactly how the collar felt this morning. It seemed everyone was a bit off today.
As Ryan stuttered, Poppy realized he might need the coffee even more than she did. And it had taken everything she had to get out of bed this morning and come back to face the Larson kids.
But she’d committed. Now, she was counting on the coffee to help her keep that commitment. “Rough night?” she asked.
“Uh, crowded night. Both kids ended up sleeping in my bed.”
“Impromptu slumber party—love it!”
“More like ‘Nightmare Patrol.’ Spiders.” Ryan flipped through the pages that filled the folder in front of him.
Suddenly, Poppy felt low. Coffee couldn’t fix this guilt. Would she ever be able to do and say the right thing around here? “My fault.”
Ryan casually dismissed her assessment of the situation. “No. Standard operating procedure.” He closed
