Ignite: A Grumpy Single Dad Romance

by Melanie Harlow

Hallie made a face. “That’s stupid. No one is too old to be happy.”

  “Never mind.” I tossed Hallie’s shorts and shirt at her. “Get dressed while I find the scissors. If I can’t get that gum out of Luna’s hair, I have to cut it out.”

  Luna gasped and covered her matted blond curls with her hands. “No! Last time, you made it uneven and Mom yelled at me because I’m not supposed to have gum. And you were supposed to know that.”

  “Sorry.” I held up my hands. “I’ll do better this time.”

  “You promise?” She eyed me warily, reluctant to let go of her head.

  “Yes.”

  “Make him pinkie swear,” said Hallie as she yanked up her shorts.

  I held out my pinkie, and Luna hooked her tiny finger over mine. “I swear to do a better job this time,” I told her. “Now you swear to stop trying to chew gum and eat your hair at the same time.”

  She laughed. “I promise.”

  Just after eight, I hustled the girls out the door, slightly behind schedule. As anxious as they were to move into the new place, they could dawdle like it was an Olympic sport.

  But it had taken me a solid twenty minutes of working on the gum in Luna’s hair before I gave up and cut it out, and then Hallie hadn’t been able to find her lucky penny. After turning the apartment upside down and mopping her tears—“but you gave me that lucky penny on my first day of school last year and I need it for this year too or else I won’t be okay!”—I promised her I’d come back and look for it later, but we had to get going in order to pick up the truck on time. She was still sobbing as I hurried them out to the parking lot, where Luna tripped on a loose chunk of asphalt and skinned her knee.

  Now both girls were crying.

  I carried Luna back into the apartment as she howled in pain, Hallie following close behind, the lost penny momentarily forgotten in light of the bloody knee.

  Setting Luna on the counter, I cleaned her off and dug through the box labeled BATHROOM until I found a bandage.

  “Those are plain.” Luna sniffed tearfully at my beige Band-Aid. “Mom has pink ones with Hello Kitty on them.”

  I clenched my teeth. “Do you want to go by Mom’s house to get one?”

  “Would we still have time for donuts?”

  “Probably not.”

  The girls exchanged a look. “Then I’ll have the plain,” Luna said. “But kiss it first.”

  I kissed the bandage and she giggled. “Not the Band-Aid, Daddy. My strawberry.”

  Leaning over, I kissed the red abrasion on her knee, then gently covered it with a boring beige Band-Aid. “I’ll get some better ones at the store, okay?”

  “Okay. Ask Mom where she gets the Hello Kitty ones,” she said as I lifted her down.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Twenty minutes later, we were heading for my sister’s house, eating glazed donuts and banging our heads along to some hard rock, which the girls called “Dad music.” In the rearview mirror, I looked at my daughters, and as always, I was half-stunned to see them sitting back there—was I really a father?—and fully knocked out by how much I adored them. Sometimes I thought I might be having a heart attack when I looked at them. The feeling was that powerful.

  Hallie had my dark hair and brown eyes as well as my stubborn streak and smart-ass mouth. She had Naomi’s lightly freckled nose and relentless need to ask questions. Physically, Luna was her mother through and through, from the blond curls to the dimpled smile, but she was much more easygoing, and she always laughed at my jokes.

  I turned down the music. “So how did I do this morning?” This was another game they loved—giving me a score based on how well I’d handled the morning. I’d invented it to distract them from missing their mom in the early days of the split. “Ten, right?”

  “I don’t know about ten,” Hallie said. “I think there should be a point off for cutting Luna’s hair.”

  “But that was her gum,” I argued.

  “Still. And then my lucky penny got lost.”

  “You lost the penny!”

  “And you didn’t have Hello Kitty Band-Aids,” Luna added, wiping her hands on the front of her shirt.

  “That’s three things,” Hallie said. “And ten minus three is seven.”

  “Seven out of ten?” I shook my head. “No fucking way. I need at least an eight.”

  “You did let us sleep in your bed,” Hallie allowed. “I guess we could give you a point for that.”

  “And we’ll give you another one for a ride in the truck!” Luna added.

  “Hmmm.” I pretended to consider their offer. “So I’d get a nine out of ten?”

  “Yes,” they answered.

  “Fine. But I’m playing Dad music the whole time.” I cranked up the volume on Aerosmith and rolled down the windows.

  Nine out of ten wasn’t perfect, but I’d fucking take it.

  Two

  Winnie

  I like a well-made man as much as the next girl, but I never truly considered myself a creeper until the day my next-door neighbor moved in.

  Around one o’clock that day—a Saturday—I was sitting on my bedroom floor painting my toes when I heard the sound of a truck with noisy brakes in the parking lot. My windows were open, and after the truck’s engine shut off, I heard two male voices.

  Intrigued, I stood up and walked on my heels over to the front window. Nudging the curtain aside, I peeked out and saw two muscular guys in jeans and T-shirts rolling up the truck door and pulling out the loading ramp.

  I recognized one of them—the tall one with the baseball cap, dark scruffy jaw, and gray T-shirt. Yesterday afternoon, I’d seen him coming out of the condo next to mine just as I was pulling into my driveway after work. The end unit had been empty for a couple months but had recently been sold—maybe he was the new owner? I’d have introduced myself right then, except that he’d seemed in a hurry, only giving me a quick nod before jumping into a dusty black, older-model SUV the next driveway over and taking off.

  But this was definitely the guy. It was hard to tell how old he was from up here—maybe late twenties or early thirties?—but he was tall, with big shoulders and biceps that bulged inside the sleeves of his shirt. He yelled something to his friend, and I noted the deep, gruff voice.

  Curious, I watched him and his buddy unload furniture off the truck. My cat, a brown and white tabby, nudged my ankle with her nose, like she wanted to see him too.

  “I don’t blame you, Piglet,” I said, bending down to scratch behind her ears. “He’s hot, even if he doesn’t look too friendly.”

  The guy never smiled. He moved quickly and purposefully, like he didn’t want to waste any time, and he didn’t interact much with his buddy. But something about his clenched jaw, broad chest, and surly demeanor intrigued me—along with the shirt he wore, which said TCFD.

  Traverse City Fire Department?

  Immediately I imagined him carrying me from the inferno formerly known as the Woodland North Townhomes, soot darkening his face, my arms looped around his sturdy neck. After gently setting me down a safe distance from the blaze, he’d rush back inside to rescue Piglet, barely making it out before our end of the building collapsed.

  I was half in love with him inside five minutes.

  “I bet he’s one of those guys with a hard shell and a soft center,” I rhapsodized to my cat. “Someone who acts tough but has a big heart beneath his armor. A beast just waiting for his beauty!”

  Piglet meowed like she agreed—or maybe it was a warning.

  Because this is the problem with me.

  I think I’m good at reading people when actually what I’m good at is wishful thinking. Letting fantastical notions about guys run away with my brain rather than seeing who they really are. It’s not because I enjoy getting my heart broken—although that’s often the result—but because I’m hopelessly romantic and I don’t know how to pace myself.

  There’s even a name for it—emophilia.

  Sounds like
a disease, right? Like something in your blood? But it’s actually a personality trait, my therapist told me, and it means you fall for people fast, easily, and often. You dish out your deepest, most vulnerable feelings for people like popcorn at the movies.

  Here’s my heart, sir. Would you like butter and salt with that?

  I’ve been this way as long as I can remember. In elementary school, my best friend Ellie might like a new boy, but I would announce I’d met the boy I was going to marry. In middle school, she’d write down the name of her crush in our secret notebook while I named all the children I was going to have with the cute kid who sat next to me in Life Skills. When we went to the bridal store to find prom dresses, I tried on at least six wedding gowns, because I was positive my boyfriend and I were going to be together forever—even though we’d only been dating a month.

  Of course, he broke up with me right before we left for college, and I spent my first month at Michigan State pining for him.

  Until I fell head over heels for Andrew from Wisconsin, who was majoring in agribusiness and planned to go home and take over his family’s dairy farm. The rest of freshman year was spent rhapsodizing about our life on the farm, where I’d milk our cows every morning and then come in to whip up waffles from scratch for all the guests staying at our B & B. The fantasy was complete with a Pinterest vision board, and my farm outfits were adorable, as were each of our six farm children and two farm dogs.

  Alas, Andrew turned out to be a two-timing jerk, and my golden dreams of gingham dresses and towheaded toddlers on the prairie were crushed alongside my romantic hopes.

  But my hopes were resilient, and I’d fallen wildly in love at least three more times during college. In fact, I even got engaged during my senior year—to a graduate student in finance who was heading for a job on Wall Street.

  I glanced down at my left hand, where I’d worn a diamond ring for precisely six weeks, which was how long it took for Merrick to change his mind about taking me with him. Ellie and both my older sisters assured me I’d dodged a bullet, since they thought Merrick was possessive, demanding, and full of himself, and while I could see their side of it, I’d always found his confidence attractive.

  His cheating, however, was not, and he flat out told me he realized he wasn’t ready to have sex with only one person for the rest of his life, especially not when he was heading for New York City, and there were bound to be a lot of hot models there.

  Asshole.

  So instead of moving to the Big Apple, I’d moved back home to northern Michigan, adopted a cat, and taken a job working at Cloverleigh Farms.

  Which was great—I’d always loved Cloverleigh Farms, which was owned by the Sawyer family. I’d practically grown up there because my father was the CFO, and when I was just four, he’d married the youngest of the five Sawyer sisters—Frannie, my amazing stepmom, who’d raised me.

  The inn was beautiful, an elegant, old-fashioned estate with twenty guest rooms, a bar and restaurant, and gorgeous lobby with cathedral ceilings, a wide central staircase, and a giant fireplace that was always ablaze in the winter months, making the place feel warm and cozy.

  There was also a winery on the premises, as well as a wedding barn, all nestled among hundreds of acres of vineyards and orchards. The old red horse barn was still there too, and I recalled many a childhood summer afternoon spent playing in there with my sisters while our dad worked.

  My official title was Hospitality Specialist, which meant I did a little bit of everything. Over the summer, I’d run weeklong summer camps for kids, organized live music nights on the winery patio, assisted at wine tastings both on and offsite, and helped with weddings whenever my sister Millie needed an extra pair of hands—she was the event coordinator there. I also filled in at the front desk reception quite a bit, and a few times I even tended bar.

  My parents had helped me buy this condo, which was only about ten minutes away from the house where I’d grown up. They still lived there with my two youngest sisters—the twins, Audrey and Emmeline, who’d been born a few years after my dad had married Frannie and were now sixteen. I saw them all every Sunday for family dinner.

  I was happy here, even if I hadn’t found my true purpose yet.

  My phone buzzed on the floor where I’d been sitting, and I tore myself away from the window to answer it. Ellie calling, the screen said. I took the call and wandered back toward the window.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey. What are you up to?”

  “Painting my nails and spying on my hot neighbor.”

  She laughed. “I didn’t know you had a hot neighbor.”

  “I didn’t until today. He’s moving in right now.” I watched him carry a large cardboard box down the ramp. “At least, I think he’s hot. It’s hard to tell for sure since I’m stalking from the second-floor window.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Tall, dark, and broody.”

  “Ooh. Tell me more.”

  “He’s wearing a shirt that says TCFD. It’s very tight.”

  “A firefighter! How old, roughly?”

  “Not sure. Maybe thirties?” I watched him walk back toward the truck, pause, and lift off his cap before wiping the sweat from his forehead with his inner arm. My breath caught. “He just took his hat off.”

  “And?”

  “Hotness confirmed.”

  “Is there a wife or girlfriend?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Go introduce yourself.”

  Suddenly he glanced up in my direction, and I backed away from the screen. “Shit. He just saw me being all Gladys Kravitz at the window.”

  “Gladys who?”

  “Gladys Kravitz! The neighbor lady from Bewitched that was always standing at her window spying on everyone.”

  “What the hell is Bewitched?”

  “It’s a classic sitcom! Comfort TV! You’ve never seen Bewitched?” To remove temptation, I went downstairs into the kitchen.

  “No, I rewatch Friends for comfort like everyone else who isn’t ninety. Listen, it’s not weird to be friendly to a new neighbor. Go say hi and welcome. Bring him a pie or something.” She laughed. “But no falling in love with him. Give it at least a week.”

  “Haha.” I opened the fridge and stared at the contents, possibly hoping to find a stray pie. But the only sweet thing in there was my half-eaten chocolate Frosty from yesterday with a plastic spoon sticking out of it, which I didn’t think would make a very nice welcome gift. “You’re just trying to sabotage me so you can win the bet.”

  “I’m going to win the bet anyway,” she said with confidence. “I can’t believe you made it in the first place.”

  Honestly, I couldn’t either. It must have been the vodka.

  Three months ago—right after my engagement imploded—Ellie and I went out for drinks, and I announced I was swearing off men.

  Ellie had laughed. “Ha! You won’t last six months.”

  “Wanna bet?” I’d challenged, tossing back the rest of my second martini and licking vodka off the last olive on the bamboo pick.

  She’d raised one eyebrow. “It’s May, Winifred. You think you can make it to November without falling in love? You?”

  “Definitely,” I’d replied, and then hiccupped.

  “I admit,” Ellie said to me now on the phone, “I didn’t think you’d even make it to the Fourth of July.”

  “See?” I gloated, although generally, I did enjoy having a significant other on national holidays. And bank holidays. And especially Hallmark holidays.

  “But fall is coming,” she said suggestively. “Cuddle weather.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” I took a quick bite of the Frosty before closing the fridge. “I am the boss of my feelings.”

  “Glad to hear it. But if you fall in love before Thanksgiving, you still owe me the thing.”

  I shuddered. I did not want to owe her the thing. “I can absolutely make it to Thanksgiving. In
fact, let’s make it Christmas.”

  “Christmas!” She burst out laughing. “Now you’re just talking crazy. You didn’t even like being single at Christmas in seventh grade.”

  “Well, this is an all-new Winifred talking. And I am perfectly capable of not falling in love—not even with my hot new firefighter neighbor.” But apparently, I wasn’t capable of minding my own business, so I decided to go check and see if the mail had come yet.

  I opened the front door, peeked into my mailbox for half a second, then looked toward the parking lot. He was standing next to the truck, looking at his phone.

  And that’s when I saw two little girls jump out of a minivan and run toward him. “Daddy!”

  I smiled triumphantly. “Guess what?” I whispered. “He’s not single, so it doesn’t matter. His wife just arrived with their two kids—actually, make it four kids.” I watched a dark-haired woman get out of the car, and retrieve a toddler and a baby in a carseat.

  “Four kids?”

  “Yep. Two girls, a boy, and a baby.” Relieved, I grabbed the mail and went back inside. “Crisis averted.”

  Ellie sighed. “Damn. I really want you to owe me the thing.”

  “Never gonna happen.” But at least now I could introduce myself and make friends with the new neighbors. As easily as I fell in love, I did not go for married men. To console myself, I took another spoonful of Frosty, then put it back in the fridge. “Are you still coming with me tonight?”

  “Yes. In fact, that’s why I called. What’s the dress code?” Ellie was my date for my cousin Chip’s engagement party.

  “I’d say cocktail casual,” I said, heading back upstairs. “I’m sure there will be people in jeans there, but also some dressed up.”

  “What are you wearing?”

  I reached my bedroom and opened my closet door. “I’m thinking dark flared jeans, halter top, heels.”

  “Which top? The stripes?” Ellie and I knew all each other’s favorite outfits.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I’ll go that direction too. What time should I pick you up?”

  “The party starts at seven,” I said. “So maybe like quarter to?”