Page 47 of Unwrapped By the Grumpy Mountain Man
The girls go to unpack things from our shopping trip as I clean up the dishes we offered our unexpected guest. Violet takes them and sets them to rinse in the sink before she walks into me, wrapping her arms around my neck. My arms envelope her instinctually, her comfort without words already running through my body.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I sigh. “I think it went well.”
“I think it went great,” she smiles. “Honestly, just watching the girls so at home, happy, and free. How could anyone determine they belong anywhere else but with you, here?”
“With us,” I amend, but Violet doesn’t say anything.
Her smile is soft but comes off sad, and she pretends she agrees.
“What was that?” I ask. Does she not want to be an us?
“Nothing,” she smiles brighter. She kisses my cheek quickly. “I should get started and put dinner into the InstantPot so it’s ready in time tonight.”
Not wanting to push, I squeeze her waist and let her walk off to prepare. Something’s off. Here I am dreaming of what it could look like if I asked Violet to forget our six-month agreement and make this real, permanent…but maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, confusing my read on her. I forget she’s young. Real freaking young. She has her entire life ahead of her. She didn’t plan on being a ready-made mom and wife at twenty-two.
Shit. I run my hand through my hair, looking up at the ceiling, hearing the girls chatter and music.
If Violet walks away, as we agreed, I’ll have to let her go. And I’ll learn to forget the magic I felt with her here. My girls are enough. The four of us are enough. I should start adjusting to that reality.
Two weeks,we’ve been adjusting to this new normal. Every weekend, the girls are home and we’re thrown into this bubble of Christmas, love, and constant laughter. When the girls aren’t with us, Violet and I keep playing this weird dance of being all in as husband and wife, then there are pockets of time where she pulls away. Next thing I know, reminders to create boundaries around my head and heart chime in, and we both pull away.
Nights are the hardest to resist. Both of us almost need the reassurance that what we’re feeling is real, even if it shouldn’t be. Her pleas for me to give her everything, show her with our bodies we’re good together, drives my need to prove to her we can stay good together, longer than this stupid mail-order bride arrangement that seems ridiculous now.
She calls me husband as she comes and I pant into her skin, calling her my wife. We both seem to be of two minds about all this. I don’t bring it up during the day because I want her to choose what’s best for her. I don’t want to drag her into a lifestyle of caring for everyone around her but herself. I won’t be like her father. I won’t hold her back from figuring out what she wants for her life.
Violet’s out, checking in on her mother’s house and father. I’m not fond of her needing to see him alone. I hope he heeded what I told him that day on the phone, but I also trust Violet’s capable of standing up for herself. I may not have known her before Sanford plotted against my wishes and put out that ad, but already, she’s different from when we first met. She’s bolder in asking for what she wants, and she treats this houseI painstakingly built as her own. I love watching her doing her thing, playing music, humming, and dancing while she does house chores.
I’m outside chopping extra wood for the fireplaces when Sanford’s name pops up, calling. I slam the ax into the stump and pull off a glove with my teeth.
“Hey, Sanford. How you doing?” I ask.
“Wow. A proper greeting from the grump himself?”
“I can go back to answering with, the fuck you got for me?” I deadpan.
Laughing, he says, “Nah, I like this new you. It’s almost like my genius idea worked. Being a husband has done you some good.”
“What’s going on? Why you calling?” I ask, tucking the phone between my shoulder and ear as I roll over the barrel to stack the wood on.
“I want you to trust me,” he says, suddenly serious. I drop the barrel.
“What’s happened? Are the girls okay?” I demand.
Sanford sighs heavily. “The girls are on their way to you now.”
“What?” It’s Tuesday. I just gave them back to Kristy yesterday morning. “What do you mean? What happened?” I rush inside, pulling off my work gloves and leaving them at the back porch door.
“CPS made a surprise routine check three hours ago. Kristy failed. Massively.”
My body stills as a deep chill locks my body at front door. “Are the girls okay?” I ask again, hearing the dark rasp in my own voice.
“They’re okay,” he rushes and assures me. “Listen, Hudson. They’re in the works of delivering a court-ordered approval tohand over temporarily–for now–full-time custody of the girls…to you.”
I’m conflicted. My heart is pounding in my chest with happiness cause I get the girls full-time, but fear and pain that something has happened, that they witnessed something that was serious enough to have CPS working quickly to remove them from Kristy…
“Tell me everything,” I ask him firmly.
