Chapter 3 #2
Shutting off the truck, he shouldered the door open and climbed down.
What little bit of snow and ice on the blades of grass beneath his boots crunched with every step he took as he rounded to the back and swung the heavy doors open.
Glancing up the porch steps, he climbed into the back, giving her as much time as he could to get herself together before he intruded on her privacy.
Going through her things, he shoved the scattering of boxes that must have been shifting and sliding the entire time they’d been driving, from the back of the truck into neat stacks near the open door.
The longer he was back there, the more his temper hiked and spiked and bubbled up under his skin until it was all he could do to just keep quiet about it.
Apart from the crib and bulky toys, a child’s potty, and two large framed pictures, boxes were about all she had, and they were all of them small or medium-sized.
She didn’t have so much as a beanbag chair, or an area rug.
Maybe she had blankets and coats and other such wintering stuff packed in some of these medium-sized boxes, but the only thing he saw as far as bedding for Stace was an army green sleeping bag, properly rolled up, and a clear plastic storage bag with two pillows and a quilt folded up inside.
It took him ten minutes to rearrange everything up by the doors, and then only because he took his time.
She had twenty-two boxes total, four black garbage bags of clothes, linens, a clear bag with maybe more bedding in it, and a smattering of loose toys too big to fit in a closed medium box.
He had more than this when he moved back home after he finished college.
With nothing left to do, he hung out in the back of the truck, hoping she’d come out on her own, but she didn’t.
Rubbing his face, he hopped down, climbed the wooden porch steps and knocked on the door.
There was no sound from within. He waited longer than he usually would before deciding to knock again.
It was when he raised his knuckles to knock again that he heard the sniffle coming through the crack under the door.
He looked down, as if he could see her through the wood, wondering if she was sitting on the other side, practically at his feet.
He listened as a shuffle of feet and a heavy sigh sounded through the wooden door. The door knob rattled loosely when she opened up a crack and peeked out at him.
Her eyes were definitely red rimmed and watery. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at him.
She was such a tiny thing, not much bigger than her baby when compared to him. Well, that was a slight exaggeration, but still…
“If you want to open up, I’ll bring your things in,” he offered.
“I can do it myself,” she said sadly.
Propping his shoulder against the threshold, he hooked his thumbs in his back jeans pockets and promptly stuffed that errant instinct to raise an eyebrow and invoke his Daddy tone as he said, “Of course you can. But you don’t have to. In Myrtle Creek, that’s what neighbors are for.”
Her brow furrowed as she watched him, but after only a moment, she reluctantly opened the door. When she did, he got his first look inside. The house was utterly empty, apart from the curtains on the windows and two decorative logs that belonged in a gas fireplace.
“Okay,” she sighed, venturing out onto the porch.
Behind her, he spotted Lily crawling out from around the side of the kitchen cabinets before plopping back in her bottom and sucking her thumb. She’d been changed into clean clothes—green pants, red Christmas shirt, and at least two pairs of fuzzy socks on each foot.
Stace herself, though, was still in the same wet, muddy clothes from before. She’d washed her hands. They were both bright red from the chill of the water.
“I’ve backed up close enough. I’ll pass you stuff from the back of the truck—” He nipped her next protest in the bud, raising his voice to talk over her before she could do more than open her mouth. “—you can be goalie and, you know,” he nodded behind her, “keep the ball from escaping the house.”
Glancing back at her daughter, Stace’s shoulders fell, then she nodded. “Okay.”
He passed her the first box, just to make sure she did what he’d suggested and stayed on the porch. She took it all the way into the house, stacking it on the floor to the right of the door, and giving him plenty of time to climb up into the truck again.
It took less than five minutes to empty her things from the back, and only because she refused to stack on the porch as he also suggested.
She carried it all straight inside, one box or armload at a time.
The only things he didn’t let her carry in were the two heavy boxes he really hoped were dishes, otherwise she didn’t have any of those either.
Hopping down, he grabbed one to carry inside, and by the time he’d set it on the counter in the kitchen, she’d grabbed the other.
She’d muscled it to the top of the stairs before he’d ventured out to take it from her, but she sidestepped him anyway, and like a stubborn little girl in sore need of a stern word or two, she lugged it in, puffing and panting the whole way.
She only let him take it when she tried to heave it up onto the kitchen counter, but her strength wavered.
He caught it before she dropped it, and then he caught himself before he said something he had no business scolding her for.
She wasn’t his Little girl. He’d been too long without one, which was probably why each time he looked at her, something tripped his hard-core Daddy Dom trigger—a look, her tone.
Right now it was the defeated set in her shoulders as she looked around her utterly empty home.
He scratched his head. “I thought Maggie rented this out fully furnished.”
“She said the last people wrecked some things. She wasn’t going to refurnish until spring, so she could offset the cost.” As if suddenly remembering who she was talking to, she immediately tried to smile.
It was strained and just a little too thin for his taste.
“Hey, at least we’ve got a house now. That’s better off than we were an hour ago. ”
If she said so. He hunched his shoulders, suddenly feeling the cold in the air around them.
“I can get the furnace lit for you,” he offered, but she shook her head.
“I can do it.” She didn’t sound all that certain of herself.
“Are you sure? It’s no problem. I can check out your water heater too.”
“I can do it,” she said again, this time with more than a hint of stubbornness creeping into her voice, which promptly triggered the Daddy Dom part of him.
He fought the urge to fix her with a stern look and, in an even sterner voice, inform her that when it comes to appliances that can burn down a house if you don’t know what you’re doing, Daddy will always take care of it.
Except, he wasn’t her Daddy, and maybe she did know what she was doing. Just because she had one of those voices that triggered his protective inner bear, that didn’t mean he needed to react that way towards her. He definitely didn’t need to make himself out to be the town jerk.
He made himself back up a step. “I’m right next door if you need anything.”
He said nothing about the interview they had scheduled, the whole reason she had shown up at his house in the first place. She really wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he decided to hire someone to watch over his dad while he was out.
She walked him to the door, holding it for him while he crossed the threshold. “Thank you,” she said once he was outside. “For… you know… everything.”
He nodded, and then because he didn’t trust himself to open his mouth and not say some sage, wholly inappropriate Daddy-ish thing back, he waved and headed for home.
Where, hopefully, he’d be able to relax and stop thinking about her in this house, alone with her baby…
trying to fiddle her furnace and hot water heater back on.
He looked back once, this time to gauge how much chopped wood he could see stacked up on the side porch.
There wasn’t more than an evening’s worth. Maybe. If that.
You’re not her Daddy, his brain told him.
“No, I’m not,” he agreed out loud. By the looks of it, nobody was.
And that was definitely a problem.