Page 80 of This Wild Heart

My hand stretched out behind Anya’s chair, and I fought the urge totap, tap, tapagainst her shoulder. The fact that I resisted was nothing short of a miracle. This whole shower thing was like being strapped to a runaway train, my family being the fucking train. They were acting like all of this was normal. Like we knew anything for certain, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand how they were all so fucking calm.

Unease churned restlessly under my skin, and no matter how many deep breaths I took or how much I tried to keep myself grounded in the moment, all I needed was one stiff push, and I’d end up neck-deep in a panic attack.

“Parker?” Based on the look on her face, Greer had said my name more than once.

I blinked. “Sorry. What’s up?”

She gave me a strange look. “Presents? We’re almost done.”

Anya’s elbow in my side was sharp and pointy and loaded with subtext. It was amazing how one appendage stabbing me in the side could convey so much. I removed my arm from the back of her chair and snatched her hand, weaving my fingers through hers so she couldn’t bruise my freaking kidneys.

Greer popped up with another box, handing it to her husband so he could pass it over. “Okay! This one is from Mom. I think this is the last one.”

Thank God. We’d gotten clothes and diapers and a stroller, books and bottles and a weird half-circle pillow that didn’t really make much sense to me. Too much, really. My phone was still silent of any news from Milicent, and opening all these presents, pretending I had any clarity on what would happen, made me feel like a fraud.

For all I knew, we’d come home, and the mystery girl would be waiting by the front door, ready to take him back after having a few days off. Christine was her name, based on the birth certificate. At least I knew that now.

I gave my mom a half smile. “Thanks.”

“There’s one more thing I need to add, but I’ll give it to you later. And you’ll have to be patient for the finished product,” she said, and the hopeful expectation on her face absolutely gutted me. “Olive helped me a little bit yesterday, didn’t you, pumpkin?”

Olive nodded, her eyes bright with excitement. Even before Greer married Beckett—an elaborate charade so my dad could walk one of his daughters down the aisle before he passed—I’d always had a soft spot for my teammate’s daughter. She was shy, only coming out of her shell for very few people. For some reason, I’d always been one of those people.

It was somehow easier to put on that happy mask for her.

I whistled, eyeing the box as Beckett handed it to me and Anya. “No kidding. Did you wrap this too, Olly Pop?”

She giggled under her breath, skipping over to cup her hand over my ear. “Grandma did,” she whispered loudly.

I winked. “I bet you could’ve done better.”

Her face was absolute bliss as she ran back over to my sister, scrambling up onto her lap while she watched.

“That’s nice paper,” Sheila said tellingly.

“That’s Mom’s way of saying she doesn’t want you to rip it because she can reuse it for someone’s birthday,” Poppy added.

I gave Mom a look. “Seriously? I’ll buy you ten more rolls at Christmas.”

She sniffed. “I don’t need you to buy me more when I have that. Don’t rip it.”

Anya had tugged her hand from mine so I could peel back the perfectly good wrapping paper that I’d probably be seeing at every holiday for the next four years. Underneath the crisp white and blue stripes was a normal delivery box, a little banged up on the edges and held shut with some masking tape.

Curling my hands into the seam of the box, I felt the brush of something soft, like a cotton T-shirt, and a spike of foreboding lodged itself at the base of my skull.

On the top of the pile was a faded light blue shirt with my high school mascot on the chest. Then one from college. Both with my name on the back. I must have left them at home because I hadn’t seen them in years. A football camp shirt, and another that I’d worn all through middle school, a bright yellow outline of the state of Oregon, established 1859 underneath.

“What’s all this for?” I asked.

Sheila didn’t answer right away, and I pulled the next shirt out, my heart stopping when I saw the next few neatly folded shirts.

Boom.

A dark blue shirt with a tiny hole at the neck, the Wilder Homes logo over the heart,Tim Wilderembroidered underneath. He’d worn it for years until Sheila told him it was long past time to update it.

“You don’t need your name on your shirt, Tim,” she said with utmost patience.

“Sure I do. What if I meet someone new, and they don’t know who I am?” He used to tap his chest. “Everyone wants to feel like they’re hiring a friend to build their house, not a stranger.”

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