Chapter 8
“Is that our newest recruit?” Derek asked as Clay ushered Payton into the fire station two days later.
“Doesn’t quite meet the height requirements yet,” Clay said, glancing down at his daughter.
She carried his San Amaro Island Fire Department hat against her chest like a teddy bear and had twisted her hair around her fingers.
“My sister’s sick. Can’t watch her today.
I’m hoping like hell your fiancée has the day off. ”
“Macey has to open the bar, actually. Works till six or seven tonight. Her last shift until after the honeymoon.”
Clay held in some choice swear words and picked up Payton. He kissed her cheek and held out his hand for her to unwind her hair and give him a high five.
“Maybe Selena’s available,” Clay said, pulling out his cell phone and scrolling through his contacts.
“Good luck with that. She’s finishing up the last mural before the festival this weekend. Evan says she’s transformed into a ranting madwoman.”
Well, wasn’t he just screwed. Before he had time to comment out loud, Derek was on his own cell phone. Payton began to squirm and Clay let her down. She pranced along behind them as they moved toward the locker room, her pink shoes clicking down the tile floor.
“Mace,” Derek said into his phone. “Got a favor to ask.” He explained Clay’s predicament and asked if she would watch Payton until she had to go to work. She apparently answered in the affirmative, and then Derek asked. “Is Andie scheduled today?”
“No.” Clay gestured to him, trying not to let Payton know how strongly he was against it.
Derek was off the phone within seconds. “She said you need to call Andie yourself.”
“I’m not calling Andie.”
“Who are you going to call? Dial-a-nanny? Andie’s fine.”
“I hardly know her. I can’t ask her to babysit for a twenty-four-hour shift.”
“If the price is right…”
“Who’s not working today? There’s got to be someone from the department who can watch my kid.”
Derek put his hands up. “Whatever. It’s none of my business but if it was my kid, I’d trust Andie.” He went into the locker room.
Clay leaned against the wall outside the room, watching his daughter meander, completely wrapped up in the photos of fire trucks and fires on the walls.
“Payton, you like Miss Andie, don’t you?” he asked, looking for any kind of hesitation from her, which would signal a big no-go to him.
“Yeah! Miss Andie is nice. I want to see the Turtle Lady with her.”
He had no idea what the Turtle Lady was, but there wasn’t anything he could remotely interpret as doubt on his daughter’s part. And, hell, he’d seen how good Andie was with Payton. That wasn’t in question.
What was in question was whether any harm would be done by letting Andie get close to his daughter. What if Lipp sent someone sniffing around?
Of course, if Morris Lipp was going to bring up Andie’s questionable past during the hearing, he likely already had all the ammo he needed.
Dammit.
They didn’t need to make it easy for him, though, by being seen together regularly, by putting themselves in the position where a witness might testify they were “close.” However, today, he didn’t have many other options.
Clay poked his head into the locker room and motioned to Derek. “What’s her number?”
“Payton, you’re playing with the big girls now,” Macey said, watching the child in her rearview mirror. “You up for a girls-only brunch?”
Andie turned sideways in Macey’s passenger seat. Payton was peering back at the fire station uncertainly, as if they were ripping her away from her daddy forever. She’d broken into tears when they left, but that hadn’t lasted long. “It’s okay, sweetie.” She reached back to pat Payton’s leg.
“What’s brunch?” Payton asked, sniffling once.
“It’s the br from breakfast and the unch from lunch. Brunch. The meal you eat in between breakfast and lunch,” Macey explained.
“Is there milkshakes?”
Andie met Macey’s gaze and they held in a laugh. “You like milkshakes?” she asked.
“Yes. I like strawberry and chocolate and banilla and marshmallow.”
“We could probably make milkshakes part of the deal,” Macey said. “Too bad Selena’s not with us. Ice cream is about fifty percent of her diet.”
“Is my daddy going to eat brunch too?”
“He has to be a firefighter today, honey,” Macey said. “Normally Aunt Bridget would come to your house to take care of you, but she’s sick. The good news is that you’ve got the two coolest girls ever to entertain you.”
She could tell Payton still wasn’t convinced, and her heart went out to her. “Later on, after Miss Macey goes to work, we can try to do your hair like a ballerina,” Andie said.
“Can we play beauty salon?”
“Sure.” Andie had never in her life played beauty salon, and spent as little time and money in them as she could, but if it helped stop those sad gazes back toward the station, she’d do her best.
Macey snickered and pursed her lips together. “Do you even have the supplies?”
“I’m hoping she does,” Andie said quietly, uneasy about the prospect of entertaining this child for an entire day. She’d stayed with Jonas’s daughter before for an hour or two at a time but had never pulled a three-meal shift.
“After brunch, we can stop by my place and pick up some girly hair essentials.” Macey pulled into the parking lot of a bagel shop.
“Is this the place where they have milkshakes?” Payton asked from the backseat.
“Yes, ma’am, they do.” Macey turned off the car. “They even have chocolate chip. Let’s go.”
The three of them got out, and Payton ran along the sidewalk to the door.
“I’m dying to know,” Macey said as they caught up.
Andie looked at her questioningly and held the door open.
“How in the world did Clay get you to agree to babysit for twenty-four hours?”
“What do you mean?” Andie asked innocently, turning her attention to the menu board behind the counter. Payton wandered a few feet away, checking out the pastries behind the glass counter.
Macey chuckled. “While you do have a good heart buried deep in there somewhere, twenty-four hours is a long time for someone you’ve just met. What’d he bribe you with?”
“Nothing much,” Andie said. “Just a loaner Harley while mine’s in the shop.”
Andie would never admit it to Clay, but she’d definitely gotten the better end of the deal.
Not only did she have transportation while her bike was in the hospital—or she would have as soon as Clay took her back to Bud’s for one of the bikes he rented out—but hanging out with Payton turned out to be fun.
The girl was a fan of all things girly— ballerinas, hair, butterflies, rainbows, princesses. Things that had escaped Andie completely during her childhood, as she’d been more apt to make a secret hideaway in an evergreen tree or an obstacle course in the woods behind her house.
They’d borrowed Macey’s curling iron, and Andie had turned Payton’s long waves into curls tied back in pink and purple ribbons. Cute, but definite overkill. Payton adored it. She’d been spinning and checking the mirror ever since. Life should be so simple, truly.
They’d made it through the morning just fine, even after Macey left them to open the bar.
Andie had cooked mac and cheese for lunch.
They’d spent the afternoon in the front yard, covering the driveway with sidewalk chalk art, reading the butterfly book—dozens of times—coloring a princess coloring book, and now they were inspecting wildflowers, picking them from the flower bed to study or put in their hair.
“This one’s for you,” Payton said, yanking a bright pink bloom from its stem and handing it to Andie. “It goes in your hair.”
Andie sat on a boulder in the garden while the girl secured the stem behind Andie’s ear with her clumsy little fingers.
“There,” Payton said with a nod and a shake of the flowing, unevenly hemmed princess skirt she’d insisted on wearing over her pink leotard. “You’re pretty now.”
“Why thank you, princess,” Andie said, laughing. “How about if we—”
She was interrupted by Payton’s ear-shattering scream.
“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
Payton’s eyes were squeezed shut and the scream turned to crying. Andie frantically scanned her, trying to figure out what the hell she was missing.
“Can you tell me so I can help you?” She turned the crying girl around, looking for blood, bruises—shit, she had no idea what she was looking for, but something was causing her anguish.
She picked the girl up and carried her to the steps but, looking up at all those stairs, changed her mind. She needed to understand what was wrong now. Andie sat on the second step and hugged her, tried to reassure her.
“Shh, it’s okay. Show me where it hurts, sweetie.”
Finally Payton pointed to the back of her leg, behind her knee.
Bee sting. Stings. There were two large red spots swelling up, one of them with a stinger in it.
“Aww, Payton, that hurts, doesn’t it? We’ll put some mud on them and that will help soothe the sting.
” Payton quieted a couple of notches, her cries becoming muffled and mixed with hiccups as Andie sat her on the step and got up to take some dirt from the flower bed.
She’d been stung lots when she was a kid.
When she was really young, she remembered crying to her mom, who put the innards of an unlit cigarette on the area. Mud worked nearly as well.
She glanced over at Payton as she bent to scoop up some dirt.
Something wasn’t right.
Payton had lain down across the step and Andie couldn’t put her finger on why she looked off, but she did. Then she saw the girl’s skinny forearms—there were red marks popping up all over.
Forgetting the mud, Andie ran to her. “Are you okay?”
Payton looked at her but didn’t answer. She’d stopped crying and when she inhaled, Andie heard a rasp. Oh, shit. She knew that sound. She was having a reaction.
Andie pulled out her cell phone, shaking so badly she could barely dial 911. She’d watched a woman at a campground go through this, had been sitting right next to her when her symptoms started.
Minutes later, Andie heard a siren and she rushed, blinded by tears, with Payton in her arms to meet the paramedics.