Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Henry
For the first eleven hours of having a house guest, I convince myself it’s going to be just fine.
Summer’s a bit of a mouse. How much of an inconvenience could she be while trying to be absolutely still in my space?
I let her get settled in my room while I go back downstairs and work for the afternoon.
When I return, she’s asleep on the bed. On top of the blankets, shoes off and neatly stacked against the wall.
I pull a light blanket over her, and she murmurs thanks in her sleep.
A sweet little mouse. A polite little girl in a grown-up body.
I’m still shook at the idea of my high school crush having a daughter who is now older than Jennifer was when I saw her last. Yes, we’ve kept in touch, but I don’t do social media.
We exchange emails and the odd letter, and she’s mentioned Summer in passing, but always in the royal we.
As if Summer was a part of her. Which she was.
And now here she is, in my bed, while I cook her dinner.
I don’t know what she likes, so I make a simple tomato pasta, some sausages on the side, and a green salad.
When she wakes up and comes out of my room, hair all mussed up and cheeks flushed from sleep, she gives me a shy smile. “Something smells good.”
I tell her what I’m cooking, and she rubs her tummy.
How did someone this innocent and adorable come out of L.A. and the sometimes wild life Jennifer lived in the music scene? “So your mom is working on a cruise ship, huh?”
“Yeah.” She glances at her phone. “I sent her an email letting her know you didn’t know I was coming, but it’s worked out. It’s a very. . . Mom thing to do. She’s flighty. But she means well.”
“I get it. It’s fine.” And it is, but I still don’t understand exactly how this all came to be.
Summer frowns at me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I jerk my attention back to the food, setting it up so she can serve herself. I don’t entertain often, and never someone so young—or direct. “Uh. . .” I wince. “How was I looking at you?”
“Like I’m a puzzle you’re trying to solve.”
Fuck me. I laugh a little. “I guess because you are a puzzle I’m trying to figure out. Sorry if it was that obvious. You’re just. . . not what I expected.”
“Nothing like my mom?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s by design.” She moves closer, and I hand her a plate.
“What do you mean?”
“Some people would say my mom sheltered me, but that’s not exactly it. She told me what life was like. And she tried to protect me from it as much as possible, precisely because she. . .” Summer sighs. “She struggles sometimes. Which I think you know about.”
“Yep, I think I do.” We plate up our dinner, then I gesture to the stools at the island or over to the couch. “Those are our options for dinner. Pick your seating choice.”
She pulls up a stool at the island and digs in.
The sounds she makes as she eats—happy little hums and the occasional groan of delight—are.
. . well, they could be filthy, coming out of another mouth, but I won’t think of them like that.
If things had gone differently, I could have been her father.
Even though I’m not, I’m old enough to be.
So her little sounds are not filthy. They’re fun.
She’s fun, and by the time dinner is over, we’re both laughing as we compare stories about her mom.
After we wash up and put the leftovers away, I lean against the counter and try to make myself look as relaxed and easygoing as a six-foot-four burly fucker can look.
“Listen, Summer. . . It really is fine that you’re here.
I know how hard it was for your mom to raise you all by herself, and if I can help out for the summer, I’m happy to be of service to her. And you.”
Her face lights up. “Thank you. And I, in turn, will be helpful to you. I promise.”
It’s a bit strange hearing someone else get settled for the night in my apartment that has been my solitary space for so long.
Summer takes the washroom first, and once she’s done brushing her teeth, she gives me a sparkling good night and retreats to my bedroom, closing the door between us.
Earlier today, I moved some of my clothes to the closet in the hallway. I retrieve a pair of sleep pants I bought a few winters ago when it was extra cold and change in the bathroom.
Then I make myself a bed on the couch, turn out the lights in the rest of the apartment, and grab my tablet.
But sleep proves elusive. Even as I flip through news stories and webcomics, my thoughts race with how to make this work.
To the best of my knowledge, there aren’t any vacant apartments above the other stores on Main Street.
I’ll look into that as a backup option just in case the next eight weeks get to be too much.
A dark, troubling thought threatens to form itself around what too much might be. I push it away.
This is going to be just fine.
She’s a sweet girl.
It was nice to have someone to laugh with over dinner. She might be a help in the shop, too.
You’ve never wanted help before.
Well, I didn’t have Summer sleeping in my bed, being grateful as fuck for some basic human decency before, either.
I close my eyes and set the tablet down on my chest, making my mind blank. I’m thinking about counting sheep when I hear the bedroom door creak open. I crack one eye open to make sure she’s all right.
The dimly lit hallway is in my line of sight. Summer probably doesn’t realize this as she pads across the hallway to the bathroom wearing nothing but a cropped T-shirt and a tiny scrap of white cotton, sort of passing for panties, stretched across her hips.
As she steps into the bathroom and turns on the light, the shape of her body is perfectly silhouetted for the basest part of my primal animal brain to absorb like a perverted record. Permanently seared on my retinas.
Curvy hips.
A tight waist.
A round little belly above her panties. Thick thighs that taper down to long, toned calves.
Her cropped top disguises her breasts, but my brain fills in a best guess at the perfect shape of them, too.
And just like that, my cock is thick, rising against my hand.
No.
But yes. Fuck. Yes. Carefully blanked-out thoughts roar to life in my mind, fully formed and clearly dangerous. What if being around this goddess of a young woman gets to be too much? What if Henry Wilde’s imagination gets to be too much?
What if I want too much of her flesh, her body, her sweet, virginal perfection?
“I’ll take you shopping today,” I tell Summer over breakfast. She’s wearing a sundress that falls all the way to the floor, a flowery drape of fabric that should be demure, but one strap is threatening to slide off her shoulder, and I can see the swells of the top of her breasts.
I’m not supposed to look at her breasts.
Not supposed to see that press of flesh and remember how juicy her ass looked in the hallway, all of her flesh seemingly made for sinking teeth into.
“I don’t need anything,” she says, her gaze wary.
I’m making her nervous. “You need pajamas.”
She frowns. “Why?”
Because the first thing I did this morning was to check the local rental board, and there’s no apartment I can sub-let for two months. My first plan—get her another place to stay—has already failed.
So it’s on to plan number two.
“We’re sharing this small space for the next two months, and you’ll be sharing spaces when you go to the college dorms, too. Bathrooms in hallways, that sort of thing.”
Her confused look just grows. “So?”
“You can’t walk around in. . . uh. . .” My mouth goes dry. “Maybe a bathrobe to put on if you don’t want pajamas.”
She blinks at me.
“I saw you last night. In the hall. Wearing just your panties and, uh, a shirt.”
“Oh.” Her eyes go wide. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was drifting off.” A lie.
“I like PJs.” She shrugs. “But I don’t want you to buy me anything. I’m already enough of an inconvenience.”
“How about you work for me for a few hours? Then I’m not buying you anything. I’m paying you for your time, and you can use that money instead.”
She brightens right up. “Okay.”
Before we open the shop, I show her where the broom and dustpan are and how to use the cash register. If she can sweep up and ring customers out, that would actually be a big help.
And sure enough, eight hours later, when I flip the sign in the window around to Closed, the shop is already spotless. There’s no need to spend the next hour cleaning it myself, and that right there is a gift from Summer.
I go to the till, close it out for the night, and take the cash tray upstairs.
She follows along, perching on the couch as I quickly reconcile the receipts—all correct, all monies accounted for—and put the cash in my safe. All of it except two hundred dollars, which I hand to her.
Her eyes go as wide as saucers. “I can’t take this.”
“You need some clothes. Even if we go to Walmart, you’ll need at least this much.”
“Walmart’s fine.” She gives me a small smile. “Thank you. I’ll work extra-hard for you next week.”
“I know you will.” And I do. From the moment Summer walked into my shop, there’s just been something about her that makes me trust her. She’s guileless and eager.
“Do you want to grab something to eat on the way?”
She catches her bottom lip between her teeth and worries it for a moment before replying. “I don’t want—”
“I like to go The Roadhouse a few nights a week. It’s not expensive. You’re not— Summer, your mama sent you here because she knew I could take care of you. All right? I can give you money for shopping and take you out for dinner. More than once, even. So no more protesting.”
She blushes. “All right. Thank you. I’ll just grab a sweater.”
She disappears into the bedroom and returns with a little white cardigan over her sundress. A purse is slung across her body. The way she clutches it, I imagine her earnings are tucked safely inside.
Something in my chest squeezes tight, and my voice is gruff when I tell her my truck is parked out back.
It’s a short drive to the edge of town, where the big box stores get a better tax rate on the other side of the freeway. The Roadhouse is just this side of the highway and a popular stop for travelers and locals alike.
The parking lot is full. Usually, I don’t care because I’ll sit at the bar, but it occurs to me that sweet little Summer might not want to rub elbows with the usual crowd here.
“If they don’t have a table for us, we can go to one of the chain restaurants on the other side of the freeway.”
She shrugs. “This is great.”
Inside, my unease grows as every male in the place seems to look our way and check out my new ward.
I scowl at the way they look at her like she’s ripe for the picking. She’s oblivious, but I’m not, and they need to know she’s off-limits. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and turn us toward the hostess stand, putting my big, burly don’t-fuck-with-me body between her and their hungry eyes.
“We need a booth,” I bark when one of the waitresses swings by.
“Hey, Henry,” she says smoothly. “We’re a bit full up at the moment.”
Behind her, I see a family pack up, clearing a table against the window. “Or that table will work.”
“Okay, okay. You’re usually a stool at the bar guy, but I guess if you have your niece with you. . .” She trails off.
“I’m not his niece,” Summer offers.
I tighten my grip on her shoulders. She’s not wrong to correct the assumption. But it’s a little early in her return to Conception Ridge to start spelling out for the world who she is and why she’s staying with me.
Luckily this waitress isn’t a nosy gossip. She just nods, then grabs two menus. “Follow me, then.”
After we’re seated, Summer glances around.
“This place is nice,” she says happily.
All I can see are the assholes at the bar who sized her up and saw fresh meat. “It can be dangerous. Don’t come here without me.”
She laughs. “Why would I want to do that?”
I grunt. Because in two months, you'll move into the dorms, and I won't be able to protect you from old men like myself. “Just remember what I said.”
“Okay. What’s good?” She opens her menu.
“Everything.”
“Even the burger with a fried egg on it?”
I shrug. “I’m not a picky eater.”
“I’m not either.” Even if she were, I don’t think she’d tell me. Summer’s so damn eager to please.
I change the subject. “You were really helpful today.”
Her eyebrows lift in surprise.
“I bet working in a barbershop isn’t exciting for a smart girl like you, thinking about college in the fall.”
“Oh no,” she hurries to correct me. “It’s fine. Good. Great, even.”
I chuckle. “It’s fine. You won’t hurt my feelings. But if there’s anything I can do to help you prepare for school. . . if there’s anything that aligns with what you’ll be studying, for example?”
“I haven’t picked an area to focus on yet. I’m taking their recommended first-year courses.” She nibbles on her lower lip. “Going to college is Mama’s idea for me. Not mine.”
I frown. “An education is a good thing.”
“It’s the big campus I’m not sure about,” she confesses. “All the people.”
“They probably have some online classes. Maybe not for next year, but once you get the basics down, you’ll be able to pick.
. .” I trail off, remembering my own years at college.
“School is what you make it. I had a small circle of friends, didn’t party too much, and at the end of it, I had the business knowledge to pick a career path. ”
“Is that when you became a barber? After college?”
I shook my head. “I sold insurance for five years and saved up money while I searched for someone to apprentice with. Built a business plan.”
She counts on her fingers. The years of college. Five years of working. “So you’ve been a barber for ten years?”
“Almost eleven.”
“That’s pretty cool.” Her eyes are warm and bright as she smiles at me. “I think I’m going to get the deluxe grilled cheese.”
All right. I guess we’re back to the question of food. “Good choice.”
The waitress appears a minute later, and I order the roast beef sandwich after Summer relays what she wants.
“What about drinks for you folks?”
I glance at Summer. “Do you want a pop?”
She shakes her head. “Do you have juice? Orange or cranberry?”
“Sure thing, sweetie. And you, Henry? A beer?”