“No.” I looked around for the garbage bags full of their sheets and blankets. Were they still downstairs?
“But why not?” Hallie followed me out of the bedroom and down the steps. “You said the old apartment didn’t allow pets but this one does.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Winnie has a cat. Her name is Piglet. And cats are very clean, I’ve read about it.”
“I told you, Halsy pal, we can’t have a pet because I work twenty-four-hour shifts. There would be nobody here to feed it.” I spied the two bags at the foot of the staircase and handed one to her. “Take this up to your bedroom.”
“Maybe Winnie could feed it when you’re not here,” she said, lugging the bag up the steps.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want a stranger in our house.”
“She’s not a stranger. She’s a friend.”
“We don’t even know her, Hallie.” Frowning, I followed her into the bedroom and dumped out the contents of the bag onto the carpet. “She could be a lunatic. Or a serial killer.”
“But she has princess Band-Aids. And she believes in happily ever after!” shouted Luna.
“Then she’s definitely a lunatic.”
“After you know her better, can you ask her?” Hallie pleaded.
“I’m not getting a cat. There’s nothing to ask.”
“Daddy, can we paint the walls in here pink?” Luna asked, hopping onto her mattress and starting to jump.
“Not pink, purple!” Hallie began bouncing up and down on her bed too.
I held up Luna’s fitted sheet and studied it. “Should I wash this stuff first?”
“Maybe. Smell it,” Justin shrugged.
I sniffed the sheet—it smelled like maple syrup. “Guess I should. Come on, girls. I’ll teach you how to do laundry. Whoever finds the box with the detergent gets a ride in the truck.”
Squealing with excitement, they leapt off their beds and took off running, elbowing each other to get ahead as they raced down the stairs.
A few hours later, the laundry was done, clean sheets were on the beds, and the truck had been returned. I’d let the girls ride in it while Justin followed in my SUV, and they’d chirped like magpies the whole time. My head was fucking pounding.
After dropping my brother-in-law off, we returned to our new home to see the girl from next door on our front porch.
“Winnie’s knocking on our door!” Luna said excitedly from the back seat. “Hurry, Daddy!”
No sooner had I pulled into the garage than the girls unbuckled their seatbelts and bolted for the porch. It was like they’d spotted a celebrity.
I got out of the car slowly, eyeing the door that went right into the kitchen and wishing I could just slip inside without talking to anyone. But I walked around to the front door.
The girl still had those tiny shorts on, and my eyes were immediately drawn to her legs again. And since she faced away from me as she spoke to the girls, I accidentally got a good eyeful of the way the denim hugged her ass before I forced myself to look down at my feet.
Knock it off, old man. Just because you haven’t had sex in over a year doesn’t give you permission to gawk. She’s way too young for you.
“Winnie brought us cupcakes,” Luna called out as I approached, gesturing at a white bakery box in Winnie’s hands. “And she says they don’t have nuts in them!”
“They’re from my mom’s pastry shop, Plum & Honey.” Winnie smiled brightly at me as I climbed the steps, causing the tiniest catch in my chest. “One of my little sisters has nut allergies too, so she’s very careful.”
“She said there’s two in the box for each of us.” Hallie clapped her hands with excitement.
“I wasn’t sure which flavors you’d like, so I just chose some of my favorites—sugar cookie, chocolate chip pancake, maple bacon cinnamon—”
“Bacon!” Hallie and Luna looked at each other and made their that’s disgusting face, generally reserved for meals I’d botched and asked them to eat anyway.
“Bacon on a cupcake?” Hallie was incredulous. “That doesn’t sound good at all.”
Winnie laughed. “I know it probably doesn’t to a kid, but I like it.”
“You can have that one, Daddy,” Luna said benevolently.
It actually sounded fucking great to me—I’d eat bacon on anything. But I said nothing as I moved around the trio to unlock the front door.
“Will you feed our cat?” I heard Luna ask Winnie behind me.
“Oh, do you have a cat?”
“No,” I said, giving Luna a menacing glare over my shoulder. “We don’t.”
“But we might get one in the future,” Hallie said.
Luna tried again. “Will you feed our future cat?”
That made Hallie laugh. “Future Cat sounds kind of like a cartoon or a superhero. Hey, maybe our cat will have superpowers!”
“And we can get it a little cape,” Luna said.
“There will be no cats, with or without superpowers,” I announced.
“He’s still grouchy about the couch,” Hallie said to Winnie, who tried not to laugh. “And because he has to go to a party tonight and he doesn’t like them.”
“Go on inside now, girls,” I ordered, propping the screen door open with my back. “We have to start getting cleaned up soon. I want to leave before seven.”
Luna beamed up at Winnie. “We get to go to the party too.”
“How exciting! Well, I won’t keep you—I just wanted to drop these off.” She met my eyes and handed over the box with a smile. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”
There was that hitch in my breath again, like a loose thread snagging. The girls were right—she was pretty. Her eyes were deep blue and fringed with thick black lashes, and she had dark blond hair streaked with gold. It was pulled back from her face, which was shaped like a heart. When I took the box from her, my fingers brushed the back of her hands, and I didn’t like the way it sent heat rushing up my arms. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” One more smile, and then she moved past us and bounced energetically across my driveway, which separated our front doors. Jesus, she even moved like a kid.
But I found it hard to take my eyes off her, and when she turned back to glance at me, she caught me staring.
Embarrassed, I quickly turned and went inside the house.
“Daddy, can we have a cupcake now?” Hallie asked, washing her hands at the kitchen sink.
“I guess.”
I set the box on the kitchen counter and found a knife to slice through the sticker sealing it shut. The girls opened the top, squealing like it was Christmas morning. Each of them grabbed a gigantic cupcake and started inhaling it.
“Mmmm,” said Hallie as she took a big bite of pink frosting that almost looked like it sparkled. “This tastes like cotton candy.”
Luna had dark brown frosting on the tip of her nose. “Mine is chocolate.”
“Are you going to have one, Daddy?”
I washed my hands and came over to look inside the box. There were four cupcakes left, all different, and one of them had bacon crumbled on top of caramel-colored frosting. “Maybe I will.”
The girls laughed as I took the wrapper off and opened my mouth wide enough to bite the thing in half. “Mmmm,” I moaned, and I wasn’t pretending—the thing was fucking delicious. I ate the entire cupcake standing right there at the counter. The girls couldn’t quite finish theirs and left me to clean up the mess while they went upstairs to choose party outfits.
“I’ll be up in a minute to turn the shower on,” I yelled, hunting around for a roll of paper towels. I really wished Chip’s party wasn’t tonight—I hadn’t unpacked half my shit yet. I’d be lucky to find a comb and some deodorant.
But I wanted to see my old friend, and he’d already texted me that bringing the kids was no problem at all. He said he was looking forward to meeting them, and so was Mariah, his fiancée. I’d neve
r met her, but judging by how fast Chip had proposed, I figured she must be pretty cool. Chip wasn’t the kind of guy to make a rash decision.
As I stuck the cupcake box in the fridge, my phone vibrated in my back pocket. I pulled it out.
“Speaking of rash decisions,” I muttered.
Naomi and I had been high school sweethearts who’d broken up after graduation, but we’d hooked up again a few years later when I’d been home between tours. Getting married had been an impulsive move fueled mostly by nostalgia and beer.
I debated letting her go to voicemail, but since I had the girls, I took the call. When she had them, she was pretty good about letting me call and say goodnight.
“Hello.”
“Hey. How was the move?” she asked breezily.
“Fine.”
“You’re all settled in?”
“Yep.”
“Because if there’s nowhere for them to sleep tonight, you can always bring them back here. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”
“Their beds are all put together, Naomi. They even have clean sheets on them.”
“Look at you.” She laughed. “What are you doing for dinner? Do you have a kitchen together yet?”
“Actually, we have Chip’s engagement party tonight.”
“You’re taking them to a party?” The pitch of her voice rose dramatically, as if I’d said I was taking them to a strip club. “You don’t want to do that. Why not bring them here?”
“Because it’s my time with them, Naomi. And they want to go.”
“Will they have dinner there?”
My headache returned with a vengeance, and I started hunting around a kitchen box for the ibuprofen. “I’m sure there will be food. It’s a party.”
“Make sure Luna doesn’t eat anything with nuts.”
“She won’t. They won’t be hungry for a while anyway, they just ate cupcakes.”
“Before dinner?”
“Is there something you want, Naomi?” I asked through clenched teeth. “Otherwise, I need to go up and get them in the shower. I don’t want to be late.”
“Are you okay? You sound stressed.”
“I have a fucking headache, and I can’t find the ibuprofen. Now what do you want?”
“I was going to ask to talk to them, but never mind,” she said. “I can tell you’re overwhelmed, and I know how you get when you can’t handle things.”
“I’m not overwhelmed, I have a headache!” I barked. “And I can fucking handle anything right now except you trying to barge in on my time with the girls! I’ll bring them back to you tomorrow, and don’t fucking call me before then!” I ended the call and shoved my phone into my back pocket as I stormed toward the stairs.
“Um, excuse me?”
Startled, I glanced to my left, and through the screen door, I saw Winnie on the porch.
Fuck. She’d probably just heard me yelling at Naomi. Exhaling, I moved toward the door and opened it.
“Can I help you?” I asked, more tersely than intended.
She looked a little nervous, not that I blamed her, as she held out a small pink box of Band-Aids. “I had these lying around and thought Luna might want them for her knee. Band-Aids sometimes come off in the shower, so . . .”
I reached out and took them from her, noticing she was careful not to let our fingers touch this time. “Thanks.”
“That’s it—I just wanted to—um, okay, have a good night.” She turned to leave, and I probably should have let her.
“Wait a second.”
She faced me again, her expression still wary.
“I’m sorry about that.” I gestured over my shoulder with the pink box. “My ex-wife—the girls’ mom—knows how to get a rise out of me.”
“Oh, that’s okay. It’s none of my business, and I didn’t really hear anything.” It was obvious she’d heard everything.
I nodded slowly. “Well, thanks for the Band-Aids. Luna will appreciate it.”
Her smile was back, along with that stutter in my chest. “Good. Enjoy your night.”
“You too.”
She turned around and went down the steps, cutting across the lawn to her place with that same youthful bounce in her step. Glancing down at the box, I shook my head—of course she had a whole thing of pink princess Band-Aids. I shut the door and trudged up the stairs to get the kids cleaned up.
Hallie went first, after a brief attempt to get me to let her wear socks in the shower. As usual, I refused, explaining again that the entire house had been thoroughly cleaned before we moved in, and I’d been here yesterday to make sure of it.
While she was getting dressed, I made sure Luna washed her hair and used soap, then helped her get dried off. After hanging up their towels, I double-checked that they’d chosen appropriate clothing and was just about to get in my own shower when I heard a series of high-pitched beeps.
“What’s that?” Hallie said, scrunching up her face.
Instantly on high alert, I put my hand up. “Shh.”
I heard it again, and recognized it as a smoke detector going off, but not in our house—we were hearing it through the walls. “Stay here.”
I raced out of their room and took the stairs down three at a time, jumping to the bottom with five to go. Barreling out my front door, I ran over to Winnie’s and knocked. The alarm was clearly coming from inside her unit, and when she didn’t answer the door, I made a split-second decision to bust in.
Fortunately, the door wasn’t locked.
I shouldered it open, relieved when I didn’t see or smell smoke right away. Winnie’s townhouse was laid out exactly like mine, and I immediately realized the detector going off was upstairs. Racing up the steps three at a time, I reached the master bedroom doorway just in time to see Winnie climbing onto a suitcase, one hand reaching toward the ceiling to disconnect the unit.
My jaw dropped.
She was totally naked and dripping wet.
One hand was clutching a small towel to her chest that didn’t fucking hide anything. Behind her, steam from her shower billowed from her bathroom, which must have been what set off the alarm—some detectors are that sensitive. Behind me, I heard clamoring on the stairs, and a second later both Hallie and Luna rushed into the bedroom.
Startled, Winnie looked over and saw us. Her eyes went wide as she screamed, lost her footing, and toppled backward off the suitcase. She landed hard on her ass, arms and legs flailing like a rag doll.
Averting my eyes, I strode over and disconnected the unit while she scrambled toward the bathroom on her hands and knees, presumably in search of a bigger towel.
But then she slammed the door . . . and didn’t come out.
The eighty-five decibel alarm had ceased, but the sirens in my head continued.
I looked at the girls. Luna had her hands over her mouth. Hallie’s eyes were wide, and she pointed to the bathroom door. “Winnie was naked,” she whispered. “We saw her bum.”
“Quiet,” I scolded angrily. “You two were supposed to stay at our house. You didn’t follow my orders.”
“But Daddy, we were scared,” Luna said. Her hair was still wet and tangled. “We came to find you.”
“We’ll talk about it later, but when I tell you to stay put, you stay put—especially in an emergency. Understand?”
They nodded.
“Now go back to our house, both of you.”
“But what about Winnie? Is she okay?”
I went over to the bathroom door and knocked, trying not to picture her naked. The shower wasn’t running anymore. “Winnie? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine!” she repeated in the same false, bright tone.
A tiny smile inched onto my lips. “Are you sure?”
“Uh huh!”
“It must have been the steam that set off your smoke detector.”
“Yes, it happens sometimes when I forget to open the windows in here.”
“It’s good that it’s sensitive, but open them now, okay? I should hook this back up.”
“I will.”
I hesitated, then spoke again. “Sorry to barge in on you like that. I’m a firefighter and a dad, so I take smoke detectors seriously. They’re kind of my thing.”
“Haha, it’s okay!” She was still trying to sound brave and cheerful, but her voice cracked, making me smile again.
Clearly, she was not going to risk looking me in the eye after I’d seen her naked, and I couldn’t really blame her. After making sure both windows in her bedroom were open, I reconnected the battery in the detector. Then I went over to the door and spoke through it once more. “I reconnected it. I’ll lock the door on my way out.”
“Thank you!”
“Okay, girls. Let’s go.” I glanced around quickly before herding the girls from her room—walls painted a soft gray, neatly made bed with a white comforter, ten thousand pillows in every shade of pink, fuzzy white rug on the wooden floor. Would have been nice if she’d landed on that rug when she hit the ground, but she’d gone down just beyond it.
As we went down the stairs, I couldn’t help chuckling as I recalled her mad dash for the bathroom on her hands and knees. I’d never seen anyone crawl that fast—not even the kindergartners during the home escape and exit drills when they came to the station for a fire-rescue visit. But I felt bad for her—she was going to have a hell of a bruise on that hip.
Shoving the memory of her bare ass from my mind, I hurried out the door, making sure it locked behind me.
“Was the noise from her smoke alarm?” Luna asked as we walked back to our place.
“Yes.”
“How come the alarm went off if there was no fire?” Hallie asked. “Was it like a drill?”
“No, it was the steam from her shower. But it’s good that the alarm went off, because that means it’s working. That reminds me—first thing tomorrow, we make our emergency plan and set a meeting spot, okay?”
“Okay.”
I opened the screen door to our place—they hadn’t even bothered to shut the big door—and shooed them inside. “We will also talk about what the consequences will be for not doing what I say.”
Ignite: A Grumpy Single Dad Romance Page 4