“Thanks.” I hang up and suddenly hear a commotion coming from the kitchen.

“Mom! Hurry!”

I jump up, running for the kitchen and my phone rings again.

“Hello?”

Silence and then the call ends. This is getting incredibly annoying.

I hurry to the kitchen and then stop dead in my tracks at the scene before me.

Derek is splashing in two inches of water on my kitchen floor, getting both him and Sam wet. My dishwasher is moaning and making the craziest noise I’ve ever heard.

Why didn’t I just replace it, rather than have it repaired? It’s not like I can’t afford it. What the hell is wrong with me?

“Is that dog poop on my kitchen floor?” I yell, pointing to the pile just outside the edge of the water line.

“Sorry,” Sam says, then giggles when Derek splashes him. “He didn’t mean it.”

“Get him outside. Now.” I scrub my fingers through my scalp, and then reach for a mop and sanitary wipes to clean up the mess.

And then my phone rings. Again. I wouldn’t answer the unknown number, but it could be a guest.

“Hello.”

Now my patience is wearing very, very thin. “Hello, damn it!”

Click.

“You know what?” I rant and pace over to the fridge, open it, and set the phone inside. “I’m done with this. I need to put it out of sight out of mind for a bit. I have poop—poop, for God’s sake—to clean up, a lake to sop up, and I can’t find my goddamn iPad!”

I take care of the stinky mess made by the formerly cutest puppy ever, and get busy mopping up water, working quickly because guests should be arriving soon.

And just when I think the last of the water is gone, I hear a very familiar, horrifying crash upstairs.

“Oh, crap!” I hear Sam yell outside. Yep, he’s broken another window. “Mom, Derek threw the ball through the window!”

I bend over the countertop, bury my face in my arms, and pray for a martini and about four more of me.

This is the day from hell.

***

“I can’t believe Sam broke another window, on top of everything else,” Beau says with a chuckle, earning a glare from me. “Not that it’s funny.”

“It’s not funny,” I reply, but then can’t help but let out a tiny giggle. “Okay, it’s kind of funny now.”

“We’ll replace the dishwasher,” he says.

“Don’t tell her how to run her business,” Van says as she bustles into the kitchen with an empty plate from the wine hour in the sitting room. “She has this handled.”

“Clearly, I don’t.”

“Today was just a crappy day, sugar,” Van says and pulls me in for a big hug that feels so good. I didn’t even realize how badly I needed it until right now. “Go to bed. I’ll finish up with this. There’s only an hour left anyway. You could use the rest.”

“Are you sure?”

“Wow, she is tired if she’s barely putting up a fight,” Beau says. “Yes, go. Oh, here’s my iPad.”

I frown at it. “Just leave it on my desk. I’ll deal with it in the morning.”

Beau nods just as Sam sticks his head around the doorjamb. “Derek doesn’t want to go to sleep.”

“And here we go,” I mutter.

“I can deal with this,” Van says, but I shake my head.

“No, I’ll put them to bed, then go that way myself. Thank you for this.”

“Good night.”

“Come on.” I take Sam’s tiny hand in mine and lead him to his bedroom, where Derek is dead asleep, under the covers, with his head on Sam’s pillow. “Scared, huh?”

Sam nods solemnly.

I glance at the chair in the corner of the room that I used to rock Sam in, and rather than over think it, I lift the sleeping puppy and give him to Sam, then lift Sam and settle in the chair with my boy and his pup in my arms.

“What are we doing?” Sam whispers.

“We’re going to rock for a little while. Want me to sing?”

He yawns and nods, petting Derek, who isn’t even aware that he’s been moved. Infants and puppies sleep like the dead.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…

I begin to rock slowly and softly sing the song that my daddy sang to me when I was a little girl. I’ve sang this song for Sam since the day he was born. It soothes us both.

And for some reason, I need soothing.

It’s not because it was a craptastic day. I’ve had plenty of those.

I miss Rhys.

And he’s been gone for twelve hours.

Sam nuzzles against me and breathes deeply, falling asleep, and I just rock and hum for a long while, enjoying the way my sweet baby feels in my arms. The demon puppy is cute too, curled up on Sam’s chest, snoring softly.

This. This, right here, is the most important part of my life, and I’ll do good to remember that.

Finally, I stand and lay Sam in his bed. I leave Derek with him, resigned that I’ll lose the no puppies in beds rule.

After all, what’s the harm?

Once in my own room, I change into pajamas, brush my hair, and search for my phone on my way to the bed. God, I’m so damn tired, but I would like to hear Rhys’s voice before I fall asleep, and I haven’t spoken to him all day.

But I have no idea where I left my phone, and honestly, I’m just too tired to go hunt for it.

So I fall into bed, curl into a ball, and simply crash into sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

~Rhys~

“You’re doing great, Rhys,” Doc says as he sits at the conference table with me, Coach, and the trainers for the team. “The PT you’ve been doing is working. The muscle is healing nicely.”