Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Elliott
“Is Emelia here?” Baylor asks the minute I park in the driveway after picking her up from school.
“Doesn’t look like it. Her car’s not here.” I glance in the rearview mirror and see she’s pouting. “Listen, kiddo, I know you’re excited that Emelia is staying with us, but it’s only temporary, okay?”
“I know.” She crosses her arms and looks out the window.
I turn off the truck, undo my seat belt, and look at her in the back seat. “And even though she’s staying with us for a bit, that doesn’t mean we can bother her all the time. If her bedroom door is closed, you’re not to go knocking on it and disturbing her, got it?” I arch an eyebrow.
“But if she’s not in her room, I can talk to her as much as I want?” Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline, excited. She thinks that she’s found a loophole.
I chuckle. “Sure.”
Baylor throws up both hands. “Yay!”
I smile at how damn cute my daughter is, get out of the truck, and go around to the passenger side to help her down.
This is uncharted territory for all of us.
A woman living with Baylor and me isn’t something I ever predicted.
And I can’t help but think I’m putting my daughter in harm’s way with how attached she’s become.
But Emelia is our tenant, and her bunkie got damaged because of my carelessness. At this point, I don’t have a choice.
When we get in the house, I cut up an apple for Baylor, and she decides to watch one of her shows while I do laundry and start dinner. Normally, she’d play in her room, so she’s not fooling me. She’s staying in the main part of the house so she can see the minute Emelia returns.
I gather up a load of laundry from mine and Emelia’s hampers, then take the basket to the laundry room.
The full basket makes a loud clap when I drop it on the tile floor and open the washing machine door.
Emelia has a load in the washer, so I move her clothes into the dryer.
It isn’t until the second handful that I realize I’m holding a pair of bright pink lace panties. A shot of lust punches me in the gut.
Emelia’s panties. In my hand. Great.
This should be good for my efforts not to be attracted to the woman who could very possibly play a role in destroying the life I want for my daughter.
I feel like a fucking pervert because with every handful of laundry I’m moving to the dryer, I can’t help but look to see if I can spot any more of her undergarments. At least I don’t search them out and study them. Or worse yet, steal a pair. That counts for something, right?
I grumble as I put the dryer on the low setting and turn it on.
After I’ve gotten mine and Baylor’s laundry in the machine, I head to the kitchen to start dinner. I’ve just finished cutting up the chicken when the front door opens and closes. Baylor shouts Emelia’s name with such happiness in her voice that it could set off alarm bells.
I don’t know what to do. When I invited Emelia to stay with us, it seemed like the right thing to do, but I didn’t think through the realities of it.
Do I go and say hello now that she’s home for the evening?
We’re not a couple. Is that a couple-y thing to do?
What would a roommate do? Probably nothing until they wound up in the same room, right?
I decide to continue making dinner until Baylor runs into the kitchen. “Daddy, Emelia is having dinner with us.”
“What?” I set the knife on the cutting board. Yet another thing I hadn’t thought of. Will I be sharing meals with this woman for the foreseeable future?
“I invited her, and she said she’d love to.” She gives me a big grin. “She said it had to be okay with you, and I told her it was. ’Cause it is, right, Daddy?”
I remind myself that I’m setting an example for my daughter about what it means to be a good neighbor and a member of a small community where we have to rely on each other when times are tough.
Surely modeling that lesson is worth the blue balls and sexual frustration I’m going to incur until that bunkie gets fixed.
“Of course it’s all right.”
“Yay!” She rushes out of the kitchen, and I’m left alone with the knowledge that denying my attraction to Emelia will be profoundly harder if I have to eat dinner with her seven days a week.
A few minutes later, when I’m finishing up with the chicken, the two of them join me.
“Hey.” It’s a simple word, but coming from Emelia’s mouth, it feels loaded.
I look over my shoulder at her. Her hair is back in a ponytail today, and she has on dark jeans and a fitted shirt.
The first image that flashes through my mind when I notice her ponytail is her on all fours in front of me, me wrapping it around my fist, pulling her head back while I sink into her.
“Don’t feel like you have to join us if you already have plans.” I’m trying to give her an out. Part of me hopes she takes it, while another part of me wants her here.
“Baylor was very persuasive. Told me that you make the best pasta dish ever and that I should ‘be honored’ to get to try it.” An amused glint shines in her hazel eyes.
“Well, now I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. It’s just chicken and pasta.”
Baylor tugs on Emelia’s wrist. “But he puts lots of garlic in it.”
Emelia smiles at my daughter, and something tugs in my stomach. “Noted.” She winks at her, then turns her attention to me. “What can I do to help?”
“You can do the salad if you want. Stuff is in the fridge.” I nod toward the fridge and go back to cutting the chicken.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Emelia take stock of everything in the fridge. The look on her face reminds me of when she was on stage at the town hall meeting, assessing what she has to work with. She seems like a woman who catalogs the world before engaging with it.
In the end, she pulls out the lettuce, a cucumber, some tomatoes, and a red onion, setting them on the counter further down from me.
“What salad dressings do you want on the table?” She walks back to the fridge.
“I’ll take whatever, but Baylor will only eat ranch.”
“Because it’s the best, Daddy,” Baylor says.
Emelia grabs the dressing out of the fridge and looks at Baylor over her shoulder. “It’s a classic.”
Baylor glows as if earning Emelia’s stamp of approval is all she ever wanted in her life.
Eventually, Baylor gets bored with watching us prepare dinner and opts to go to her room to play until it’s ready, which leaves me alone with Emelia—not great.
The two of us move around the kitchen, each doing our part to get dinner ready.
What I’m not prepared for is how natural it all feels.
She finds the cutting board without asking, and she washes and cuts up the lettuce, clearly having done this before.
And of course she has—just never in my kitchen, next to me.
But that’s the problem. It feels as though she’s done it a thousand times with me.
She finds the plates and cutlery and sets the table without asking, as if we already have our defined roles in this household.
At one point, I’m stirring the sauce while she’s cutting the tomatoes beside me, and our elbows brush.
We both still for a second, the tension thick between us, but neither of us acknowledges it.
We keep working alongside each other like a well-oiled machine that’s only just been brought into service.
It feels nice to share this with someone again. But it also feels…scary.
I talk to break the comfortable silence. “Talked to a few people today and sent some pictures of the damage to the bunkie. It might be a month before everything is fixed and you can move back in there.”
She nods, sliding cucumbers off the cutting board into the salad bowl. “Shoot, okay. I’ll see if there’s anywhere with availability outside of town then. I know the Stillwater Inn is booked up.”
“Emelia, I’m not telling you that so you’ll move out. You’re welcome to stay here the whole time…if you want to.” I meet her gaze so she knows she’s welcome.
She mixes the salad. “Are you sure you don’t mind? You seem like a guy who likes his routine, and I feel as if my presence will upend that.”
I give her a bland look. “Even still, you’re welcome to stay.
” Alarm bells ring out in my head—maybe this isn’t such a good idea—but I ignore them.
Offering to let her stay is the right thing to do.
And there’s no chance of me getting involved with Emelia, not with what she’s here to do to Echo Lake. I can be civil for a few weeks.
“All right. Thanks, Elliott. I’ll work really hard not to be messy, promise.”
I pointedly look at the mess she’s left behind just from getting the salad ready. All the cut-off bits and pieces are strewn around the cutting board on the counter. Pools of water have collected between the sink and where she chopped the lettuce. A dish towel has been thrown in the corner.
She sees what I’m looking at, and the two of us burst into laughter.
“I’ll do better. Promise.”
Shortly after, dinner is ready, so I get Baylor from her room, and the three of us sit at the table to eat.
Thankfully, Baylor fills the silence. She ping-pongs between subjects—why the sky is orange at sunset, asking whether fish have feelings, telling Emelia all about her favorite counselors at camp this summer, and wondering what lightning is and why it picked our tree to hit.
She asks Emelia if she has a dog back home, then tells her that she thinks Emelia should get one.
The wheels in my daughter’s head are turning, and when she smiles at me while Emelia engages in the dog conversation, my chest grows heavy.
Baylor wants this—a family dinner with a dad and a mother.
Emelia listens, really listens to everything Baylor says. She asks follow-up questions, is silly with her, and encourages Baylor’s imagination to run wild.
The dinner table is loud in a way that it never is, not unless my brothers stop by to share a meal. And I don’t hate it. I’m not even sure why I’m overcome with a feeling of melancholy. There’s nothing special about tonight. It’s a normal weekday dinner. We’re not celebrating anything.
Still, it’s unsettling. I’ve spent five years making a stable life for Baylor.
Making this house, our life, enough. And it was enough.
I need it to be enough, because the two of us, our lives, our home, are what I can control.
It’s how I can protect my daughter from ever feeling what I had to as a child, and then again as an adult after she was born.
It’s true, I’ve grown accustomed to our routine, but this makes me wonder if I’ve been missing something. And that is not a path I want to walk down anytime soon.
“Emelia, do you think my daddy should shave his face?” Baylor looks at her with a seriousness that belies her years.
Emelia purses her lips to hold back a laugh. She finishes chewing, then says, “I take it you don’t like your dad’s facial hair?”
Baylor’s face scrunches up, and she shakes her head. “It scratches my face when he kisses me good night. Especially his ’stache.”
“’Stache?” Emelia asks, glancing at me.
“My brother, Ansel…he’s the reason for every unusual word you hear out of Baylor.”
“He says Daddy has half a ’stache.”
Emelia studies me, and I force myself to remain still.
“Oh yeah, because the ’stache is longer than the rest of your beard?
” She turns back to Baylor, and I can finally breathe again.
“I don’t know, Baylor. I kind of like it.
I think it suits your dad.” Her gaze holds on mine for a beat longer than necessary, and there’s no way that’s my heart thumping.
“You wouldn’t say that if you had to kiss him,” Baylor grumbles. “Kiss him and you’ll see it’s itchy.”
I almost spit my drink all over the table.
Emelia’s face heats, turning a beautiful shade of pink—one I’d like to see when she’s under me. “I think I’ll just take your word for it.” She ruffles the top of Baylor’s hair, and Baylor shrugs innocently.
The rest of dinner goes by without any more inappropriate remarks from my daughter, thank God.
When Emelia excuses herself to use the bathroom, I clear the plates. I’m rinsing them in the sink when Baylor calls my name. I turn off the tap and turn to face her, leaning back against the counter.
“That was fun. Can Emelia have dinner with us every night?”
I clear my throat, then blow out a breath, needing to keep my daughter’s expectations clear.
“She can if she’s here and she wants to, but you can’t make her feel like she has to.
Emelia has her own life, kiddo. Don’t forget, she’s going to be leaving in a couple of months. She’s not sticking around.”
Baylor frowns. I hate it, but if I’m going to stop her from being heartbroken, I need her to stay unattached.
“But I don’t want her to go anywhere.”
“I know. But she is.”
She’s leaving, I say to myself. Because I need the reminder too.