“Okay. What are you doing the rest of today?”
“Not much. I have some errands to run, but other than that, just painting my nails and stalking the nice people next door.” Unable to resist another peek, I went over to my bedroom window and looked out again—the two little girls I’d seen were running up and down the truck ramp. “Maybe I’ll pick something up at Plum & Honey while I’m downtown and take it over there. I bet those kids would like my mom’s cupcakes.”
“Good idea.”
“What about you?”
“We started the harvest this morning, but I had to come in and clean up because Mia asked if I could handle a meeting with a prospective wedding couple this afternoon—which I really don’t want to do because that is not my job.”
I smiled. Ellie always referred to her mother by her first name, and it drove her crazy. “But that’s so fun, getting to make someone’s wishes come true. Making their dream a reality.”
“It’s not my idea of fun. Brides are insane. Even perfectly normal women lose their minds once that ring is on their finger. I’m never getting married.”
“You just like butting heads with your mother.”
“I can’t help it. She keeps asking me what my life plan is.”
I sighed. “Your mom always did love a plan.”
“And I keep telling her, my plan is for them to fire the perfectly great head winemaker they’ve had at Abelard for fifteen years and promote me, because I’m twenty-two and I know everything.”
“Solid strategy.”
“Actually, I think she’s just wondering when I’ll stop taking up one of their guest rooms and move out. I keep telling them if they want me to be able to afford rent somewhere they should pay me more.”
Ellie had recently moved back home after spending practically our entire senior year in the south of France, doing an internship at a vineyard her dad’s family owned. She spoke fluent French, because her dad had been born there and he spoke nothing but French to her and her brothers growing up. Now she lived and worked at Abelard Vineyards, her parents’ winery, which was on Old Mission Peninsula, only about twenty minutes away.
“Ell, you can totally afford a place around here,” I told her. “It just won’t be as fancy as those guest rooms at Abelard.”
“Listen, as I’ve explained to Mia and Lucas, I need to be able to live in the lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed. It’s their fault for accustoming me to it, right?”
I laughed. “I’m not sure that’s how it works.” Downstairs, I heard someone knocking on my front door. “Hey, I have to go. Someone’s at my door.”
“Okay. See you tonight.”
Three
Winnie
Ending the call, I hurried down the steps, wondering if it was one of my new neighbors. A mirror hung on the wall near the front door, and I glanced at it.
My dirty blond hair, which I had not brushed yet today, was pulled back in a haphazard ponytail. I wore no makeup, and while I’d changed out of my pajamas earlier, the outfit I wore—ripped denim shorts and a cropped white top—wasn’t what I’d have chosen to make a good first impression. The bottoms of the shorts were all shredded and the shirt had a coffee stain on the front. I was barefoot too.
Whoever it was knocked again.
Oh, well—I tightened my ponytail and opened the door. Then I smiled, because through the screen, I saw the two little girls from earlier standing side by side on my porch.
“Well, hi there,” I said, opening the screen door.
“Hi,” said the taller one. She had dark hair pulled back into two pigtails—one was considerably higher than the other one—and beautiful brown eyes. It was sweet the way she held her little sister’s hand. “We live next door now, and we wondered if you had any Hello Kitty Band-Aids.”
“I have a strawberry.” The younger one—whose frizzy blond curls framed a round Kewpie doll face—popped up one knee. “See?”
Leaning over, I examined the red mark. “Oh, no! How did you get that?”
“I was running in the parking lot,” she said, like she was ashamed. “And then my dad gave me a Band-Aid, but I lost it.”
“It wasn’t a Hello Kitty one,” the dark-haired sister clarified. “It was plain brown.”
“Well, I’m not sure I have any Hello Kitty bandages, but I’m sure I can find something.” I glanced behind them, but I didn’t see any adults, and the truck had been moved to the far side of the lot. “Is it okay for you to come in?”
The girls looked at each other. “I think so,” ventured the older one cautiously.
“Where are your parents?”
“They’re not here,” said the little blonde.
“Oh.” Thinking it odd that their parents had just left them to their own devices in a new place—no way was the older one even ten yet—I motioned them inside. “Okay, well, why don’t you come in while you wait for them? My name is Winnie.”
“Like Winnie the Pooh?” the smaller one asked, and even though I’d hated the remark as a kid, I’d learned to embrace it as an adult. It usually brought a smile, and that was something good.
“Exactly.” I grinned as they stepped in. “And I even have a cat named Piglet.”
Their smiles widened. “I’m Hallie, and this is Luna,” said the big sister.
“Can we pet your cat?” asked Luna.
“Sure,” I said, leading the way down the hall. “She gets shy around new people, but I know where she likes to hide.”
The girls eagerly followed me into the kitchen, which opened up onto the living room. A sliding glass door led to a patio out the back. “This is just like ours,” said Hallie, looking around. “But flipped around.”
“I think all the units in this building are the same,” I told her, coaxing a trepidatious Piglet out from her hiding spot in the pantry. Immediately Hallie and Luna dropped to their knees and cooed over her, and eventually Piglet braved moving close enough for them to pet her.
“Wow, she must really like you,” I said, rifling through my shoulder bag. Somewhere in there I had a makeshift first-aid kit, and I thought I might have stuck some princess Band-Aids in there during the weeks I’d run summer camps.
“Do you have parents?” asked Luna, looking around.
I smiled as I pulled the kit from the bag and poked through it. “I do, but they don’t live here.”
“Are you married?”
“Nope. I live here alone.”
“Do you want to get married?” asked Hallie.
“Someday.”
“Does that mean you believe in happily ever after?”
I laughed. “Doesn’t everybody?”
“Not Daddy,” replied Hallie, “but I do.”
“Me too,” added Luna.
“Hey, look what I found!” I held up a pink bandage. “It’s not Hello Kitty, but it’s better than plain, right?”
Luna looked up from Piglet and smiled. “Much better. Can I have it?”
Hallie elbowed her sister.
“Please?” Luna added, scooting toward me on her bottom.
“Of course.” I dropped to my knees and carefully put the Band-Aid over the mark on her knee. “So how old are you girls?”
“Five.” Luna flexed her knee and smiled.
“Eight,” said Hallie. “I’ll be in third grade this year.”
“And I’m going to be in kindergarten!”
“That’s so exciting!” I stood up and threw away the wrapper. “You have a little brother too, right? And a new baby?”
Hallie and Luna both looked confused. “No,” Luna said. “But we’d like a baby. Or a hamster.”
“I thought I saw your mom with a little boy out front,” I said. “And an infant carseat.”
“Our mom was here?” Hallie questioned, her face scrunching up. Then something clicked. “Oh! That’s not our mom. That’s our Aunt Bree. And the boy is our cousin Peter. Same with the baby. His name is Prescott. He’s only two months old.”
“It’s Daddy’s two days right now,” said Luna.
“He gets us two days a week,” Hallie explained. “Because of the divorce.”
“Oh.” I nodded in understanding, feeling sympathy for them. My mom had taken off when I was younger than Luna. I knew what it was like to be a child of divorced parents. “So just your dad is moving in here?”
“Yes.” Hallie sighed. “And we love our dad, but he’s really grumpy right now because one of the legs on the couch broke and he can’t afford a new one, so he had to find his tools and try to fix it himself. That’s why we didn’t want to ask him for another Band-Aid.”
“He gets grumpy a lot,” Luna added. “And he snores.”
I laughed. “A lot of dads do.”
“He’s also really hairy, and he swears too much,” announced Hallie.
Her little sister confirmed this with a nod. “He says it was because he was a SEAL.”
“Not the kind at Sea World,” Hallie clarified quickly. “The kind that wears a uniform. But he is a very good swimmer.”
“Guess what?” I smiled at them. “My dad was a single dad too, and he also used to swear a lot.”
“Was he a SEAL?” Luna asked.
“No, but he was a Marine,” I said. “And he always told us that once you’re a Marine, you’re always a Marine, so we had to put up with his cursing.”
“Did it make your mom mad?” Hallie wondered. “Our mom gets really mad about it.”
“I don’t think she knew,” I said carefully, “but I had sisters too, and you know what we did?”
“What?” they asked.
“We had a swear jar, and every time he said a bad word, he had to put money in the jar.”
“How much money?” Hallie asked, her dark eyes wide.
I shrugged. “Depends on the swear. Most words were fifty cents.”
“Our dad says the F-word a lot,” whispered Luna, glancing at the cat like she was afraid Piglet’s ears might be offended.
“The F-word was a whole dollar,” I told them.
The sisters exchanged a delighted look.
“And then every month, my sisters and I would take turns choosing where to donate the money. When it was my turn, I always chose an animal charity.”
“Our dad says there’s a pool here,” Hallie said excitedly, off to a new subject with the speed of an eight-year-old. “Do you know where it is?”
“Yes.”
“Can you show us?”
I paused. “Yes, but I think we should wait to ask your dad for permission.”
A vigorous rapping on the aluminum frame of my screen door made us all jump and sent Piglet scurrying back into the pantry.
“I bet that’s Daddy,” Hallie said. “We didn’t tell him we were coming here. He might be mad.”
Flustered, I hurried from the kitchen toward the door, where I could see the imposing masculine silhouette of him through the screen—wide shoulders, thick arms, trim torso. Pushing open the door, I could see he was just as handsome as I’d thought.
And clearly upset.
His dark eyes were clouded with worry, his brow was furrowed, and his jaw was clenched. “Sorry to bother you, but have you seen—”
“Daddy!” Luna came running up the hall with Hallie close behind.
At the sight of his girls, the guy relaxed his shoulders and expression somewhat. “You guys cannot just run off like that. I didn’t know where you were.”
“Sorry,” Luna said contritely. “I needed a new Band-Aid.”
“And we didn’t want to ask you because you were already being a grouch about the couch,” Hallie added.
“Hey, that rhymes. Grouch and couch.” Luna smiled up at her big sister with admiration. “Daddy was a grouch about the couch.”
I smiled, but judging by his expression, their father was not amused.
“Please come in,” I said, stepping back to give him space. I held out my hand. “I’m Winnie.”
“Just like the Pooh!” Luna said.
Although I was used to the joke, I felt my cheeks grow warm.
“I’m Dex.” He didn’t exactly smile, but at least he unclenched his jaw and gave me a nod. He appeared a bit older than I’d originally guessed—he had some gray at his temples, and a few faint lines on his forehead. But when he wasn’t frowning, his dark scruff framed a beautiful mouth, with a slightly fuller lower lip.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, my pulse quickening as he shook my hand.
He gestured to the girls. “These two strays are my daughters, Hallie and Luna.”
“She knows us already, Dad,” said Hallie impatiently.
“She gave me the Band-Aid.” Luna showed off her knee. “It’s much better than yours.”
Dex rolled his eyes and looked at me again. “Sorry for the intrusion.”
“Not at all. I’m sorry about the couch, and I hope the rest of the move goes well. If you need anything, just let me know.”
“Thanks.” He looked at his kids. “Let’s go, girls.”
“Can we go swimming now, Daddy?” Hallie asked, tugging on his shirt.
“No. There’s too much to do. You can unpack while I put your beds together.” He pushed the screen door open.
“What about a ride in the truck?” Luna asked, taking his hand. “You promised.”
“We’ll see,” Dex answered, shepherding them off the porch. He glanced back at me without smiling. “Thanks again.”
“Anytime.” I shut the front door, leaned back against it, and squeezed my eyes shut.
Damn, he was handsome. My heart was still fluttering.
“It’s fine,” I told myself. “It’s fine that my new next door neighbor is a hot firefighter and single dad with muscles for days and dark, broody eyes. It’s fine, because I am the boss of my feelings.”
Slowly, I started walking up the stairs, skimming my palm along the banister and wondering if his abs were as hard and sculpted as his jaw. Then I snatched my fingers off the wood as if it was hot.
“I am also the boss of my hands.” I started up the steps again, imagining what it would be like to feel his scruff against my cheek, maybe bite his lower lip.
“And my teeth,” I said defiantly. “I’m definitely the boss of my teeth. I will not bite my nice new neighbor.”
But I paused when I reached the top. “Unless he asks me to.”
Four
Dex
“You two cannot just wander off that way,” I scolded as we walked back to our place. I’d only been gone for twenty minutes, tops—after parking the truck out of the way, I’d run out to the hardware store to get a metal bracket for the broken couch leg. When I got back, the girls were nowhere to be found. “You know you have to ask permission to leave the house.”
“We couldn’t find you,” Hallie said defensively as we crossed our driveway. “And Uncle Justin said it was okay to go outside as long as we didn’t go in the parking lot, which we didn’t.”
“Where’s Aunt Bree?”
“She had to take the boys home for a nap.”
“You were supposed to go with her.”
“We didn’t want to.”
“Next time, wait for me.” I opened the front door for them, and they slipped into the house. “Got it?”
“Yes, Daddy,” they said together, but I could have sworn I saw Hallie roll her eyes. For good measure, I gave one of her pigtails a tug. “You know these are crooked, right?”
“Hey! You did them!” Giggling, she scooted away from me and darted up the steps.
“I like ’em that way,” I teased, following her and tugging the second one. “Makes it easy to recognize you from behind.”
Up in the girls’ room, Justin and I put together the girls’ twin beds while they put their clothes in the dresser.
“Dad, do we have a jar?” Hallie asked, carrying her clothes in neat piles over to the drawers she’d designated as hers.
“A jar?” I tightened a bolt holding the headboard to the frame on Luna’s
bed. “What for?”
“To collect money every time you say a bad word.”
Justin laughed. “A swear jar?”
“Yes,” Hallie answered. “That’s what she called it.”
“That’s what who called it?” I asked, irritated.
“Winnie.”
“Who’s Winnie?” Justin asked.
“She’s our new friend that lives next door.” Hallie refolded a few things before placing them in a drawer.
“She gave me a Band-Aid,” said Luna, who clearly didn’t give a shit about keeping anything folded and was shoving things in drawers willy-nilly. “See?”
Justin dutifully examined the knee she displayed. “Very nice.”
“She said her dad was always saying bad words too, so she and her sisters made a swear jar.”
“Fuck that,” I said.
“The F-word is a dollar, Daddy. You might not want to say it anymore.” Hallie’s tone was solemn as she lined up her shoes in the closet exactly the way she liked them.
My brother-in-law laughed again. “That’s nice there are kids next door for you guys to play with. How old is Winnie?”
Luna giggled. “She’s not a kid.”
“She looks like one,” I muttered.
“I don’t know how old she is,” Hallie said thoughtfully. “Maybe a teenager?”
“That could be good,” Justin said, testing the stability of the frame and headboard. “You’d have a babysitter right next door.”
“I think she’s older than that, but not by much.” My knees cracked as I rose to my feet. “Okay, let’s put the mattresses on.”
“I think she’s pretty,” Luna said.
“Oh yeah?” Justin gave me a teasing glance as we hauled one twin mattress over to Hallie’s bed and tossed it on. “Is this true?”
I shrugged and turned around to grab the second one. “I only saw her for a minute.” During which I’d tried not to notice how short her shorts were or glance at the bare skin showing beneath her crop top.
“It’s true,” said Hallie with confidence. “She’s very pretty.”
“And she likes animals,” Luna said, watching us place the mattress on her bed. “Can we get a pet here, Daddy?”
Ignite: A Grumpy Single Dad Romance Page 3