“Dad? Raine?” The door to the bedroom opened slightly, and Alex’s tousled head peered in.
Raine moved faster than I think I had ever seen as she rolled off of me and grabbed for the sheet. She pulled it up to her chin, glanced at me with widened eyes, and then back at Alex in the doorway.
“What is it?” she asked him.
“I can’t sleep,” Alex said. “I heard a funny sound.”
I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing out loud.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Raine said. “You know the wind outside can make things sound funny.”
“Nothing, was it?” I snickered under my breath.
Raine elbowed me in the ribs.
“I don’t think it was the wind,” Alex said. “Can I sleep in here? I’m scared.”
Raine looked to me again, and I shrugged. Whatever the protocol was for having a kid catch you in bed was beyond me. I grinned at Raine as she bit down on her lip, trying to think of something. Finally, she did.
“Alex,” Raine said as she peered out from under the sheet, “did you remember to floss your teeth before you went to bed?”
“Um…no.”
“You go do that, and then you can come in here.”
“Awww!” Alex stomped off down the hall toward the bathroom.
“Get your shorts on!” Raine said quickly as she started scrambling around the floor, trying to find her clothes.
I tried to hold in a laugh as I retrieved my boxers and pulled them up my legs. Raine barely managed to get her clothes back on before we could hear small footsteps coming back down the hallway.
Alex crawled into the bed next to Raine but wasn’t content to stay on that side. Instead, he clambered over her and wedged himself between us before pulling the blankets up to his chin. He looked up at me and grinned before shifting his shoulders back and forth to make more room for himself, shoving me a little farther toward the edge of the bed.
He rolled to one side, facing me, and closed his eyes. He was sound asleep a moment later.
I tentatively reached over his body and placed my hand on Raine’s hip. I couldn’t bind her to myself like I usually did at night with Alex between us, but the sense of contentment I felt inside of myself told me it didn’t matter. I had both of them with me, secure and protected.
Raine reached over and placed her hand on top of my forearm, right above where Alex slept.
“You okay?” she asked quietly.
I looked from her to Alex and back to her again. Blinking a few times, that warm feeling came over me again.
“Yeah,” I said. “Better than okay, actually.”
Raine smiled, settled herself, and soon joined Alex in slumber.
I watched them both for a few minutes as I tried to work out what was going on in my head. I didn’t have any words for it, so I gave up, closed my eyes, and had the best night’s sleep of my life.
I rose early the next day and went over the travel plans Landon had left with me. In a couple of hours, we’d head to the Thompson Airport. A plane would take us over to a small airport on the edge of Hudson Bay. From there, we would head up to a remote airfield located somewhere in the Northwestern Passage. It was an area so inhospitable that it didn’t allow for any road traffic, only aircraft. The last leg of the trip would carry us to Resolute Bay by prop plane. The tournament would take place just south of the airfield there.
I was more concerned with spending as much time as possible with Raine and Alex before I left for the games than with our travel plans. However, they both seemed content to sleep in, and I couldn’t bring myself to wake them.
I drank black coffee as I sat at the small kitchen table and realized I didn’t even want a cigarette. That made me smile. I sipped up the last of the coffee, started another pot brewing, and began to make breakfast.
The smell woke Raine, and she shuffled down the hall, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Her hair was bunched up all over the place, and she tried to tame it with her fingers, but it wasn’t working well.
“Morning,” she mumbled.
“Morning,” I replied with a smile. “You’re beautiful.”
“Ha,” she said.
“You are.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
She poured herself some coffee and sat at the table to watch me flip omelets.
“Find some acceptable food?” she asked.
“Reasonably,” I said. “There isn’t much to put in the omelets except for these orange squares claiming to be cheese, but it shouldn’t be too bad. I used more whites than yolks.”
“How did you sleep?” Raine asked.
“Pretty good,” I said. I looked back over my shoulder at her. “Really good, actually.”
Raine returned the smile over the rim of her coffee mug.
A blurry-eyed Alex wandered into the kitchen and plopped down on one of the chairs. At first, he seemed a little startled at my presence but smiled a bit when I put a plate full of bacon and a cheese omelet in front of him.
“Can I have toast?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes at the only bread in the kitchen but toasted it for him anyway. He proceeded to use it to make a giant sandwich out of the eggs and bacon.
“He likes sandwiches,” Raine said with a shrug.
“Apparently.”
Raine took her plate and sat down next to him, and I sat on the opposite side. My food went a little cold as I watched him eat, seeing small traits within myself with nearly every movement he made.
It was surreal.
When he completed his breakfast and headed to the carpeted area of the living room to play with his Legos, I continued to observe him, both stunned and pleased to recognize myself in his mannerisms. I could have watched him all day, but before Raine was even done clearing away the dishes from breakfast, we were interrupted.
There was a short knock at the door, and it opened a moment later. Raine looked up, and her face darkened. I didn’t have to check—I knew it was Landon, and Raine and I both knew what that meant.
It was time for me to go.
“Hey, buddy,” I called over to Alex. “Come here a sec.”
He sighed, put down his Legos, and thumped over in his stocking feet. When he got close enough, I put my hands on his shoulders and peered into his eyes.
“I need you to do something for me, kid,” I said seriously.
“What?” he asked.
“I have to leave for a while. That means I need you to help take care of Raine while I’m gone.”
“Take care of her?” Alex asked through narrowed eyes. “I’m six!”
“Yeah, you’ve still got a bit of growing to do,” I replied with a half-smile, “but you’re the man of the house around here while I’m gone. You take care of Raine by doing what she tells you to do. You also need to watch her really closely.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes she needs a hug, and I won’t be here to give her one. I need you to do it for me.”
Alex pondered a moment.
“Do I have to kiss her?”
I snickered and rubbed the top of his head with my hand.
“No, no kissing required.”
“Good, ‘cause kissing is gross.”
“Yeah, we’ll see how you feel about that when you’re older.”
“Gross,” he repeated.
I laughed. Alex’s eyes suddenly lit up, and he ran to his room. When he came back, he held out the drawing he’d been working on the day before.
“This is for you.”
I took the paper in my hand. He had added Raine to the picture, her figure to the side of mine. Her hair was drawn all the way to her waist, and the brown dots for her eyes stared out at me.
“You should take it with you,” Alex said. “That way, you’ll remember what we look like until you come back.”
I had to swallow pretty hard to find my voice.