Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Mara
I feel a little evil after unleashing my daughter on Alec, but honestly, someone had to do it.
The man clearly needs contact with reality—and with actual people.
There’s this air around him, as if he’s spent years barricaded behind his own rules, convinced he’s a fragile snowflake who shouldn’t mingle with ordinary mortals.
Maybe that’s what my aunt meant when she insisted he needed help. Or guidance. Or maybe an intervention. I can’t remember the exact phrase anymore. Either way, I’m here to deliver whatever he needs in generous, inconvenient portions of joy . . . the very thing he seems wildly allergic to.
“Time for homework,” I tell Mila.
She raises an eyebrow like she’s thirty, not eight. “Shouldn’t I be going to school like a normal child?”
“It’s March,” I remind her. “School ends in a couple of months. You should be done with fifth grade by June. Let’s finish the curriculum, and then I’ll figure out where you can go next year.”
Which is going to be difficult because I doubt they’ll admit a nine-year-old into sixth grade.
Actually, I don’t want to send my child to junior high when she’s not ready for it.
Now I regret not giving her summer breaks and vacation like a regular child.
But what else was there to do? It’s not like I could send her to a summer camp with children her age while we were jumping from one place to another.
Ugh, I hate regretting decisions. Not that I’m regretting them. I just have to know how we’re going to handle this whole going-to-school subject.
“But I really want to go to school.” Mila presses her lips into a dramatic pout, as if I’ve personally taken a holiday away from her.
“You think waking up early and getting dressed for school is fun?” I ask.
“It—”
Before she can argue, there’s a knock on the door.
When I open it, Alec stands there with his arms crossed as if someone had offended him in a dream and he’s still carrying the grievance.
But that’s not what grabs my attention. He’s no longer holding the mug I gave him. Where is it?
Focus on the rest, Mara, I remind myself because there’s a more pressing issue. There are boxes. Everywhere. A tower of them around his feet. And two men behind him unloading even more from the elevator.
So it’s not him moving out because we created mayhem during breakfast.
“What is that?” I ask.
“You tell me . . .” He narrows his eyes at me. “Is it Mara O’Shea or Lafferty?”
The way he asks it, you’d think I lied to him about a criminal record. Or orchestrated this entire hallway explosion myself by pretending I’m someone else. He looks genuinely bothered, which shouldn’t surprise me anymore. The man is easily irritated—by mornings, by life, by my general existence.
“My last name is complicated,” I admit. “But that’s not the issue. Why am I involved in your boxer-y mess?”
He points straight at me. “They’re delivering your belongings.”
“You must be mistaken.” I shake my head. “Those old boxes aren’t mine. My things are in plastic containers that should be perfectly preserved until I’m ready for them.”
“We have stuff in plastic containers?” Mila asks, already inching toward the hall. “Where? Can I see them?”
I groan. This is not what I need right now.
Alec lets out something dangerously close to a laugh—quick, quiet, but enough for my pulse to trip like a rookie on pointe shoes.
And of course that sends a ridiculous little warmth through me, which I immediately reject, because no.
Absolutely not. I am not reacting to a man who is one sarcastic comment away from igniting himself on pure attitude.
And yet my treacherous brain still registers the rough edge of his laugh, the curve of his mouth, the way he looks good even in mild irritation—broad shoulders under a plain sweater, jawline that should come with a warning label—no, absolutely not.
We are not doing this. I refuse to develop crush-like symptoms over a man who thinks questions are useless and that we’re too noisy.
I tear my eyes off him before anyone—notably him—can notice whatever just tried to spark inside me.
Then, when I’m ready, I glare at him, mostly to reset my brain and stop the spiraling. I do not like this tall, broody, aggravatingly handsome hurricane of a man. The height, the shoulders, the voice that drops just a little too low when he mutters—it’s all irrelevant. Completely irrelevant.
He clears his throat like he wasn’t about to cackle.
Back to the crisis at hand.
“Why are you bringing those boxes here?” I ask, stepping between Mila and the hallway as if I can physically block her curiosity.
One of the delivery guys checks his clipboard. “Daniel asked us to bring them to you. Part of Mrs. Lafferty’s estate.”
“Boxes?” I repeat, staring toward my apartment. “But . . . isn’t everything already here?”
He shrugs. “I just get paid to deliver, ma’am.”
I look past him at the stack of boxes—old cardboard, worn corners, tape that looks like it’s outlived several seasons. They should just go to donations or recycling or . . . not here. Definitely not here.
Something tightens low in my stomach. This isn’t good. I’m not sorting through my aunt’s past life.
“Neither Mr. Hanley nor Daniel mentioned boxes.”
I step closer and trail my finger over a faded handwritten label. It might be Aunt Lina’s. What in the world did she store that now I have to deal with?
Mila leans into my side. “Mom? What is it?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
And that’s what unsettles me most. This must be what Mr. Hanley meant when he said more was coming. I haven’t even officially signed anything yet—the dotted line is waiting for later—but they’re already unloading pieces of a past I haven’t processed.
Alec shifts, posture still rigid but voice lower. “You should let them inside before they block the whole hallway.”
“Fine. I’m not sure where anything will go, but . . . be my guest.”
He studies my face for a long moment—too long—and something in the way he looks at me makes my pulse jump in a way I refuse to acknowledge. It’s not swooning. Nope. Absolutely not. I’m simply reacting to the logistical stress of boxes. That’s all.
“This is making you uncomfortable,” he murmurs.
I narrow my eyes. “Are you enjoying it?”
“Surprisingly not,” he says, and the tone almost disarms me. “If you’ll allow me, I can go in first. Figure out where they can put everything. Move some furniture if needed.”
Oh, God.
Why does that land like an offer no one has ever made to me in my adult life?
Why does a man volunteering to handle boxes feel borderline intimate?
I want to tell him no. I want to tell him to mind his own business. I want to keep my stupid heart from doing a cartwheel because Alec Hovarth—resident grump, emotional hedgehog, certified avoider of all human feelings—is offering help without sounding like a burden.
But the truth is, I need him to.
I need someone to take the lead for a second because I’m suddenly aware that I still haven’t let myself grieve at all. And these boxes feel like a doorway I’m not ready to step through alone.
“If you don’t mind,” I say quietly. “Please.”
Something flickers in his eyes—warmth, maybe recognition, maybe something that should not make my knees do whatever they’re currently doing.
He looks at me like I just revealed something I didn’t mean to show, and I hate that.
I straighten my spine, trying to put invisible distance back where it belongs.
I don’t do this.
I don’t let people in.
Friendliness is one thing. Closeness . . . that’s a whole different disaster waiting to happen.
People leave.
And when they do, they take pieces of you that never grow back right.
“As long as you don’t bring me tea tomorrow morning, I’ll do it,” he says, sounding like he’s negotiating terms for his sanity—or mine.
That ridiculous warmth tries to crawl up my throat again. Absolutely not. No swooning. Swooning is banned, Mara.
“I can’t make any promises,” I warn him, lifting my chin. “Maybe I’ll hold the lavender for a day or two.”
His mouth twitches, almost a smile, and something inside me lurches so hard I have to mentally slap myself. You are not swooning over a man offering to rearrange furniture. You are not a Victorian heroine whose knees buckle over a well-timed act of competence.
Absolutely not.
“That’s all I’m asking,” he says. “Not too much joy in one cup.”
He steps inside first, guiding the movers with an ease that makes the whole hallway shift around his presence, and I stand there a second too long—caught between irritation and whatever it is that I refuse to acknowledge now and maybe ever.
I shouldn’t wonder why he’s suddenly helping. I shouldn’t let it get under my skin. What matters isn’t him.
What matters is what’s buried inside all those boxes—what my aunt left for me to face, and why she trusted me with the things she never had the courage to unpack herself. And why the thought of opening them feels like standing at the edge of something I can’t avoid anymore.