Читать книгу The Dad Next Door - Stephanie Dees - Страница 13

Chapter Four

Joe pulled his old Ford truck to a stop by Claire’s back door. He checked the readout on his phone. No messages. He should be grateful just to be alive, and he was, but the lack of action unsettled him. In Florida, he’d been on a busy, well-funded, multicounty crisis response team.

In Red Hill Springs, he wasn’t a peacekeeper. He wasn’t a great dad. He tried to work out, but if he was honest with himself, while he was making progress, he wasn’t strong enough on his right side yet to push it.

When he thought about it too much, the fear crept in. Fear that his injury wouldn’t heal enough for him to reach the standards of the crisis response team. But deeper, the fear that without the CRT, there wasn’t anything to him. He wasn’t a cop. He wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t anyone’s hero.

And yeah, he realized a shrink would have a field day digging into why he felt like he needed to be a hero to be okay.

He stepped out of the truck just in time to see Claire toss another avocado-green cabinet door on the pile by the back steps. She smiled at him as she brushed her hands together. Dust flew up from her work gloves and she laughed.

Tucking the bags under his elbow, he walked toward her, feeling conspicuously clean, although he had a premonition that wouldn’t last long. “Hey, looks like you’ve gotten a lot accomplished. How long have you been at it?”

She rubbed sweaty curls away from her face with her forearm and then made a face as she realized it was as dirty as her gloves. “Fed the animals at dawn and then started in the kitchen in between making calls to various contractors.”

A saw buzzed, voices raised over them. “Power company?”

“Yes, and an electrician on the inside of the house to hopefully fix anything that might come up with the wiring. The crew leader didn’t seem very hopeful that it would be back on today, but still. Where there was only a tiny ember of hope, there’s a small flame now. So we’re on the right track. Maybe.”

He followed her into the kitchen, where she’d already removed most of the cabinet doors. The table was covered with a tarp and crammed full of jellies, jams and baked goods from what had to have been a near constant stream of visitors.

Joe grinned. He’d definitely called that one. “I came to do a little work, but in the spirit of neighborliness, I brought you something, too.”

He dangled a pale pink paper bag from his fingertips.

She narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t bake something?”

“Nah. I figured you’d need real food by now.”

Joe watched as she pulled out an overstuffed chicken salad sandwich on his sister’s homemade bread. She shot him a look and took a huge bite, mumbling as her eyes closed in bliss.

“Mmm, that is so good. If I had coffee, I would be...” Her voice trailed off as he reached into the other bag and pulled out a paper to-go cup. “Wow. You might be my favorite person. Did you get this here?”

“Yep. At the bakery in town. My sister Jules’s place.” He dropped a larger brown paper bag onto a stray chair. “Not as good as Jules’s chicken salad, but what’s in this bag is also for you. New locks.”

“That’s so nice.” She finished the sandwich and rubbed the crumbs off her mouth with the back of her hand, leaving a smudge of dust behind. He laughed but didn’t bother telling her. He had a feeling she wouldn’t care. It seemed to him that whatever this woman did, she took in huge gulps, inhaling every bit and breathing out joy, even though he knew she had to be worried about the future here.

He wanted to step closer, let some of that joy seep into him. God knew he needed it. Instead, he turned toward the door. “The locks were my mom’s idea. She’s very worried about you. You have a Phillips-head screwdriver?”

She reached behind her back, pulled the one she’d been using out of her back pocket and handed it to him. “I have a drill, but it’s not charged yet. Tough without electricity.”

“That’s true. This’ll do fine.” He popped the deadbolt out of the back door and rekeyed it, the whole thing accomplished in about four minutes.

“Nice. Are you looking for work as a handyman?”

He looked up, the smile fading a bit. “No, I’m afraid my skills with a lock come from my checkered past. After Dad caught me stealing tools from his garage, he made me change the locks on every person’s house that I ever burgled. Even though, for the most part, I only went in unlocked doors.”

“I didn’t know you had a felonious past.” Claire picked up the tools and followed him to the side door.

“Mercifully, it was short-lived and mainly driven by hunger. Frank and Bertie took me in. They started feeding me and, somehow along the way, managed to give me a sense of right and wrong.”

“Frank is your dad? Bertie’s husband?”

“Yes, he passed away not that long ago. It was sudden.” He gathered up the stuff and walked through the house to the front door and began the same process.

“And after he died, you came home?” She took the bolt and held it as he rekeyed the back door lock.

He screwed the brass plate into place on the edge of the door. “No, it wasn’t quite that simple. Let’s go do the ones in the ballroom, and then you should be good to go.”

“So you got shot...” She was being curious, nosy really, but for whatever reason, he didn’t mind.

“I got shot. I knew I would be off the team for a good six months at least and figured Mom could use the company.” He worked the screws into place.

“Did you ever think about applying for the job of chief after your dad died and staying on permanently?”

He looked up at her, surprised. “No, that’s funny. Pretty sure most of the town is still convinced that I’m a bad influence because I was a delinquent as a child.”

“You were a child.” Her voice rose, full of indignation on his behalf.

“Yes. Well.” He sat back on his heels. “This thing with Amelia showing up out of the blue... I would never regret knowing her, but it definitely has reinforced people’s ideas about my character.”

“From what I hear, everyone thinks you’re doing a great job with her. My source is Lanna at the Hilltop, but I’m pretty sure she knows everything about everyone in town.”

He chuckled, picked up his tools and tested the lock. “She does. Okay, all done. Later we’ll come back to these French doors and add a more defensive lock, but these’ll do for now.”

She started toward the door at the same time he stood and slammed right into him. His arms closed around her. His heart ka-blamming in his chest, he looked into her eyes. Mistake.

His breath caught. Her eyes were wide and innocent and pure blue like the sky. And he wanted more. More closeness. More connection. More Claire.

She stepped carefully back, forcing a laugh. “Wow. I’m off my game today.”

Joe took the thoughts of her that had invaded his mind and mentally shoved them away. Snagging the sunglasses he always wore out of his shirt pocket, he slid them on as they walked into the kitchen. He laughed and, even to him, it sounded forced. “You have game?”

She responded with a delighted laugh and he nudged her shoulder and carefully changed the subject. “Just kidding. So now that you have the cabinet doors off, what’s next?”

“I’m going with mostly open cabinets on the top, closed on the bottom. I’d love marble countertops in this kitchen, but that’s not in the budget, so I’m going to put stainless steel on the island that’s not built yet and concrete on the rest.” She looked around, already seeing the finished product in her mind. “I want a huge island with a half dozen chairs—those metal ones painted all different colors—so the kids can sit there and do their homework or help with cooking. And a comfy couch and some chairs down there at the end by the fire.”

“That sounds great.” And it did. He could picture it in his mind. She was creating a home.

“I got a recommendation for a painter from the hardware store. He and his wife are coming to get started on the kitchen tomorrow, so I need to finish the demo today. You?”

A car pulled into the driveway. Through the hazy window, Joe saw Amelia bound out before his mom even got the car stopped good. “Joe?”

He grinned. “Headed to the cabin. I got some mousetraps at the store when I got your new locks. Maybe shouldn’t mention that to Amelia, though. I’m afraid we’d end up with them as pets.” He swung open the back door and stepped into the sunshine. “Over here, Amelia. See ya later, Claire.”

Claire watched as he walked around the pond to the cabin she’d “rented” to him, his daughter bouncing happily beside him, and reminded herself. He was her tenant. A cop who had his own set of problems to deal with and she definitely didn’t need more problems.

He wasn’t even that attractive.

Yeah, whatever. Keep telling yourself that, honey. She eyed the plate of brownies that Mrs. Evelyn had brought. She wanted one, but she’d already had one and brownies were a treat, not a staple.

And that was how she needed to think of Joe. A sweet treat. Chocolate-covered? Definitely. But not the kind of thing she needed to make a part of her everyday diet.

A buzzing sound split the quiet and the lights flickered on. Her own whoop was nearly drowned out by the cheer from the guys working on her lines.

Things were looking up. She laughed and gave a thumbs-up to the guys working outside. She opened the door and hollered to them, “Make sure to stop by the kitchen and get some brownies and cookies before you go.”

Another car turned into her lane and pulled to a stop behind Joe’s truck. She sighed. At this rate she was never going to get the kitchen demo’d for the painters tomorrow and she couldn’t afford to pay them to do the prep for her.

She walked out to meet her visitor, surprised to see a squad car in her driveway.

The driver, a man around sixty, stepped onto her driveway and hitched up his pants.

“Hi, there. I’m Claire Conley.”

“I’m Acting Police Chief Roy Willis. I wanted to personally welcome you to Red Hill Springs.” He looked around as he talked, his eyes lighting on the pile of discarded cabinet doors by the back steps. “You’re going to need a construction Dumpster for that debris.”

She was slightly taken aback but gave him an easy grin. Rules were rules. She wasn’t necessarily a stickler for them, but she got it. “I’ve got one coming, but I didn’t have time to wait for it. I have painters starting work in the morning.”

“Licensed and insured?”

“I’m not sure about that.” Heat was starting to creep up her neck. She didn’t know what the point of his questions was, but it wasn’t against the law to hire unlicensed painters. “I hired them on the recommendation of the local hardware store, but I’ll be sure to ask them when they arrive. It’s a big project. They will have incentive to do a decent job because if they do, they’ll have all the work they want for a while.”

He glanced at the power company workers who were packing up, then back at her, a speculative look on his face. Surely he wouldn’t have something to say about her having the power turned on.

“I have the proper permits to do the renovation on this property, Chief Willis. I had the attorney who handled the inheritance for my sister and me make sure of that.”

He smiled, and instead of being reassuring, it increased her prickly feeling of unease. Whatever his motivations were in dropping by, she wouldn’t be able to do anything if she didn’t know. “Is there something in particular I can help you with?”

“Some people in town got the impression by the way you were asking around that you might be hiring day laborers. They were rightly concerned that you might be encouraging a...certain element...to hang around our town.”

Claire wasn’t even sure what to say about that. Some people in town were worried about it? People like him, for example? Her fingers clenched into a fist and she really just wanted to punch him in the face.

She wouldn’t, of course. She had enough sense to know he was baiting her. He might be using his power to harass her—and that was exactly what she would call it—but she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of hauling her in for assaulting the police chief, acting or not.

He leaned back on his car and crossed his legs, glancing at the cabin, where Joe and Amelia were going to be living. “We’re a real friendly town, Ms. Conley, but it’s my job to make sure that our town stays safe from riffraff.”

She really hoped that the electrician working in her house was not overhearing this conversation. For his sake and the sake of the other workers, she tried to keep her voice down. “I don’t think that giving hard-working people a job is contributing to the ‘riffraff’ in this town.”

“You would think, wouldn’t you?” He smiled again, a smug, indulgent smile that said bless your heart. “Well, Ms. Conley, we have standards around here and we take those standards pretty seriously.”

He looked again toward the cabin, where Amelia and Joe had disappeared through the front door. And suddenly she was smacked with the truth. This judgmental jerk wasn’t talking about riffraff in general, he was talking about Joe!

Claire took a deep breath. Joe, Amelia and Bertie had welcomed her to town before she’d barely crossed into the city limits. There was no way she was letting this guy get away with spreading malicious lies. If he thought she would, he better think again. She didn’t care if he was the police chief, he was going to have to get off her property.

* * *

“No, no, get under it, Amelia, it’s gonna fall!”

Amelia squealed as her feet slipped out from under her on the dusty floor and the aging mattress landed on top of her.

Joe ran around the bed, jerked it off and dropped to his knees beside her. Her skinny arms were over her face and he could see her shaking. He reached out to touch her and pulled his hand back. A few days ago she wasn’t even talking to him. He wasn’t sure she would welcome his touch.

The fickle fall Alabama weather had turned cool again and she was wearing denim shorts and a sweatshirt with some furry boots that all the kids were wearing this year. She was covered in dirt. And he had no idea what to do with her. Call 911? “Amelia? You okay? Is there anything I can do?”

She threw her arms away from her face and he saw her big smile, small white teeth in an even row. The laugh spilled out as she grabbed the hand he held out to her as he tried to hide his sigh of relief that she was okay.

“Trying to get rid of me already?” She brushed the dust off her shirt, long dark hair sliding forward to cover her face.

It was a joke, but one that sent pain spearing through him. She’d been allowed to think he didn’t care for far too long. He said quietly, “I don’t want to get rid of you.”

She glanced up at him, stared into his ugly, scarred face and patted his cheek. “Thanks. I don’t want to get rid of you, either.”

He wasn’t sure if she believed him, but he was going to keep saying it until she did. “Wanna go again?”

“Yeah, but I want to keep the bed part and paint it, okay? So don’t break it.”