Hard Knox - Riley Hart Page 0,3

then she threw her arms around me and held me. “You’re here. I can’t believe you’re here. Is everything okay? Good God, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Mom.” I pulled back a little, looked at her. “I’m all right. I…” Missed you…needed my mom.

“It’s okay. As long as you’re fine, it doesn’t matter why you’re here. I’m just glad you are. Oh God, I got dirt all over you.” She tried to wipe the brown from my shirt.

“I don’t care,” I told her, and pulled her into my arms again.

CHAPTER TWO

Knox

My cell rang, and I looked over at where it sat on my workbench to see my daughter’s name on the screen. Charlotte was only ten, and while that was young for a cell phone, I’d wanted her to have one so she could get in touch with me anytime she wanted. Carol, my ex-wife, had moved back to Colorado after the divorce a few years ago to be close to her family, and it was hard being so far away from my kids, only seeing them over the summer and every other major holiday. So this way, Charlotte and Logan, my son, could at least call me anytime, anywhere. Both my kids knew that no matter what, I’d always pick up.

“Hey, Charlie-girl,” I said the moment I answered. She was my fierce, bubbly, blunt little one. Charlie loved working with me, building things with me, but wanted to do so with a pretty manicure and nice hair. She was stubborn, tough as nails, and she wouldn’t let you forget it, which Carol always said was just like me.

“Hey, Daddy.”

“How are you?” I asked, and she rambled a few minutes about friends at school, gymnastics lessons, and this “super hard” math they were doing at school. It was the beginning of spring, and I couldn’t wait for summer when they’d be spending some time with me. “How are you?” she asked when she finished.

“I’m better now. I miss you.”

“I know. I miss you too. Mama and Logan are fighting again. I swear they’re always fighting.”

I frowned. Logan was twelve, and Carol had mentioned he’d been a little more difficult lately. Nothing big. He wasn’t getting into trouble or anything like that, but he had been a bit more defiant. He was talking back to his mom, not wanting to go to school, which made no sense. Logan was smart. His brain constantly amazed me. Even if he didn’t get something right away, he always caught on. He loved learning. He’d never been much into the social part of classes—friends had never come easily to him—but he was in sixth grade now, and we’d hoped middle school would be better in that respect.

“How’s your brother been with you?”

“Okay, I guess. He still calls me buttface, and I call him four eyes.”

I shook my head and smiled a little. Crazy as it sounded, I even missed hearing my kids argue. “I’ll talk to Logan. But you need to be nice to him too. It’s not okay to call him four eyes.” We spoke for a little while longer before Charlotte said one of her friends was calling. That was much more important than talking to me, so I told her I loved her and we got off the phone.

Logan and I had always been different. He was small for his age, something he hated. He had asthma, and he wasn’t into sports, or building and fixing things—none of the stuff that came naturally to me. He was quiet, artsy, liked video games, but I always made it a point to try and get into the things he was into. I tried his games, even though I wasn’t good at them. I tried reading with him, never pushed him to get involved in things I liked. I wanted him to know I loved him the way he was.

I made an attempt to get back into my carving, but I couldn’t focus on it.

Woodworking was something my dad used to do, and I followed in his footsteps. We hadn’t been what I’d call close. I’d lost my mom when I was young, so it had just been him and me, before he passed about ten years ago. We might not have spent a lot of time talking, but he taught me to work with my hands. He’d been the silent type, built construction, never found anything he couldn’t fix. Just like Carol said Charlie was like me, she used to tell me I was just like