“The look.” Jake crossed his arms and made a funny face.
She tapped his forearms. “I do not look like that.”
He chuckled, uncrossing his arms and shrugging. “I don’t know. I almost had it down.”
“Nowhere in the neighborhood of the look.”
He opened the front door, and their arms brushed as he guided her out, letting his hand slide from her shoulder blade a few inches. Nothing wrong with a touch. Maybe other than the fact that it made her realize how warm his hands were—and wonder how strong they were too.
Nora drew in a quick breath as they stood on the small front porch, watching Graham and Charlotte spin and hop as if they might never run out of energy.
“Go hop in the car, baby,” she called to Graham, then she and Jake both laughed at the spectacle of them leapfrogging to her Subaru, clamoring to open the back door, and the animated discussion that ensued as Graham hooked into his booster.
Jake propped an arm against a cedar pillar, leaning to her side. He wasn’t in her space, but the area was small. Nora’s cheeks heated when she noticed how his muscles bunched with his arm overhead. They were close enough that his warm, woodsy cologne caught on the ever-present slight breeze, so subtle that she didn’t know what made her take a quick breath until her mind registered how mouthwateringly handsome he was.
“I’ll figure it out.”
She snapped out of it. “What? I’m sorry…”
He deepened his smile, and sun lines at the corner of his eyes gave him a smolder. “The look.”
She tossed her head back. “Ha!”
“What? Too much?” Jake laughed too.
Thankful he’d turned his good looks into an attractive but funny moment, she had nothing but a headshake. “Charlotte’s a doll. You’ll rarely need the look.”
“I still want all the weapons in my arsenal.” He made grabby hands. “That’s the only way this learning curve flattens.”
Balling her fists loosely, she batted away his hands, like a boxer and coach practicing. “You’ve got this, slugger.”
“Wrong sport. Rocky.”
Charlotte trotted over and jumped up on the porch. Jake tucked her to his side. They were cute and the family resemblance strong. She rocked from heel to toe, back and forth. “Drive safely, Nora.”
“I will, Charlotte. Thanks for the reminder.”
Jake blinked, dropping to stare at Charlotte.
“It’s fine that she calls me Ms. Cabot at school and Nora outside. We’ve known each other for too long.”
“Yeah.” Jake’s confusion hadn’t waned. “Thanks for the explanation.”
“Are we leaving soon?” Graham yelled from the Subaru.
“Oh, yes.” She was chatting with Jake as if they didn’t have to run to the store and knock out errands. “In a second.”
“Got any other pieces of advice to share, snuggle bug?” Jake asked Charlotte.
Then it clicked. Jake hadn’t seen Charlotte’s gifted idiosyncrasies in action. It was one thing to know she was bright. It was quite another to hear her drop very adult-like statements into a conversation. Nora winked at Jake. “I’ll text you a couple tricks. Who knows if you’ll ever need to throw a Hail Mary. What’s your number?”
“Third sport, same conversation.”
“Boxing, baseball, football.” She fished it out of her purse. “I’m raising a son. I’m not clueless—though I’m positive I’d still know that if I was raising a daughter.”
He rattled off his number while she had her cell in hand, then she hit Send. “Now you have me. Anything comes up, I’m always around.”
Jake lifted his chin. “Appreciate that.”
“And I’m off.” She waved as she headed for her car.
“Now racing too?” Jake laughed.
Nora turned but kept walking backward. “What?”
Charlotte giggled. “Off to the races!” Then she galloped into the front yard.
“That’s a stretch.” Nora pointed at him and shook her hand, then she turned and shut Graham in before opening her door to slide in the driver’s seat. Nora buckled in with a smile on her face.
“Why do you look like that?” Graham asked from the backseat.
Her cheeks heated, and the grin that couldn’t stop fell into hiding. “Like what? I don’t look like anything.” But yes she did. Had she been flirting with Jake Westbrook? Oh, that was such a bad idea.
“Like your smile makes you smile.”
Out of the mouths of babes. “Maybe it did.”
Her text message pinged, and before she put her car into reverse, she checked the phone.
JAKE: Just wondering. Did Charlotte say…
JAKE: Drive careful, Mrs. Cabot?
JAKE: Or
JAKE: Drive careful, Ms. Cabot?
The smile that made her smile came back in full force. Was he flirting with her too? Her cheeks heated, and Nora glanced toward the front porch.
Jake waited, watching.
Her stomach somersaulted a hundred times before she remembered to take the next breath. She tapped out “Miss.”
He lifted his chin then focused on his phone, typing for a heart-stealing second before he waved good night and called Charlotte in. The front door shut behind them, and Nora slipped the Subaru into reverse. Her cell phone pinged.
She drew a quick breath, daring to look.
JAKE: Good to know. Drive safely, Miss Cabot.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lucy’s casserole was in the oven, and Charlotte was at the table with her water bottle from school. Smooth sailing. Jake snapped a hand towel at her chair, and Charlotte laughed, trying to catch it. “All right, snuggle bug.”
“What do we do now?”
He ran through his mental list of action items. “What do you say we clean out your backpack and pick clothes for tomorrow?”
“Now?”
When else would they do it? He had to feed her. Make sure she showered. According to every parenting blog on the internet, the key to a happy life was planning clothing the night before school. Jake had zero intention of questioning professional mothers. “That’s affirmative, kid.”
Charlotte saluted then searched over his shoulder.
“What?”
Her brown hair tipped over her face. “Is that all we’re going to have for dinner?”
“Phshh. Of course not.” Except, yeah. That had been his idea after the initial pizza plan got shot down. He replaced pizza with the casserole, and what else was he supposed to serve with pizza? He had no clue how to pair side dishes with meals, so this was the plan—casserole. “I was going to make…” He’d hit the grocery store but didn’t have a plan. He pulled open the freezer and scowled at his options, including what his mom and aunt left. Nothing looked good as he removed the green beans to see what might be behind them. Were pizza rolls too much to ask?
“Ohh, those! Yes!” Charlotte bounced in her seat. “Please. With butter and salt. Please.”
“The green beans?” he asked and stared at the bag in his hand like it sprouted alien arms.
“Yes!”
Okay. That was easy. Not pizza-rolls easy, but he could heat veggies. “Sure thing.” He shut the freezer and twisted to the cabinet for a container. “You know, I didn’t eat anything green until I was in high school. And only because coach made me.”
Not finding the plasticware, he dumped the green beans into a glass bowl and perused the directions. How long was he supposed to nuke these things?
Jake pivoted and turned in the other direction, but he came up short. He put down the bag and glass bowl and double-checked the counter. Huh? “Hey, snuggle bug?”
She tried to snap his towel, but it fell to the floor. “Yes?”
He scooped up the towel and tossed it over his shoulder. “Where’s your microwave, hon?”
“We don’t have one.”
Jake had expected a hundred responses that revolved around her pointing out the obvious. That wasn’t one of them.
“Did… your grandma break it?”
“Nope. We don’t have one.”
“You don’t have one,” he repeated. “At all?”
“Never ever,” Charlotte added. “People rush too much.”
He cocked his head. “They do, huh?”
“And are they really healthy?” Charlotte mocked his tilted look.
Jake made a mental note not to say anything he didn’t want her to repeat. “Most people would say they’re fine.”
Charlotte shrugged, clearly having no idea what she was talking about.
“Okay, no microwave.” He stared at the green beans, wishing he could rib Ally over her lack of a perfectly safe microwave.
Oh, the irony. Cancer had taken Ally’s life before she hit her thirty-fifth birthday, and she’d done nothing but eat kale and organic fruit while avoiding microwaves. Jake pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Are you feeling okay, Uncle Jake?”
His eyelids sank shut. “Yeah, snuggle bug.”
“It’s healthy to be sad sometimes.”
His eyes squeezed shut. “I know.” Pulling in a quick breath, he turned and repeated himself, “I know.”
“Nora says so.”
He ran his hand over his face. “She’s right. I’m just going to…” He eyed the stove where he’d just shoved the casserole into the oven below. “Master this contraption. This is how your mom makes green beans?”
Charlotte giggled. “It’s not a contraption. It’s a stove.”
“And I’m going to cook on it.”
“With butter and salt.”
He winked. “Got it.”
After semi-careful consideration, Jake dunked what looked like enough green beans, butter, and salt into a small pan. Too bad he’d torn through the stovetop directions. But how hard could it be? Heat, stir, serve.
He set the pan on the stovetop and pulled the oven open. A steamy, cheesy burst of heat rolled out. “That smells—”
“So cheesy good!”
“Agree.” He flipped the hand towel over his other shoulder. “Maybe these need some water.”
He threw a cup of water into the pan and snapped off the hand towel, tossing it into the drawer under the oven, then he eyed the counter. Everything seemed orderly and clean. At least his commanding officer would approve.
“Time to go do backpack and clothes.”
Charlotte bit her lip. “Are you sure we should do that like that?”
“The clothes? Yeah.”
“No, the contraption.” She lowered her voice like his.
“The stove and oven will be fine.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“I promise.”
“Oh-kay!” Then Charlotte skipped out of the kitchen, and Jake followed her down the hall, ready to knock more items off his to-do list like a boss.
CHAPTER SIX
With every excited bounce from Charlotte down the hallway’s cedar wood floors, Jake was convinced that his niece was less of a kid and more of a forty-pound lightweight. He caught up with her as she scattered the contents of her pink, green, and blue multicolored backpack on her bedroom floor and sat in the middle of an organizational nightmare.
Jake eyeballed her surroundings as if he was taking stock of a potential enemy’s arsenal. Glitter hand sanitizer, a partially open lunch box, two empty snack bags, a mini hairbrush that looked as though it’d never been used. He was nearly one hundred percent certain that his mother could be blamed for the hairbrush. As if a five-year-old would be styling her hair at kindergarten—but maybe she did. He had no idea.
“Do you ever brush your hair at school?” he asked.
She glanced at the brush as though seeing it for the first time. “Nope.”
“Didn’t think so. Did my mom put it in there?”
“She did, but my grandma told her where my backpack was. They didn’t think I could hear them.”
“Thought so.” He chuckled and knelt down. “Maybe next time we do this in the kitchen.”
She nodded as if he’d lucked onto a fun fact, like that air was cool to breathe. “That’s where we’re supposed to do it.”
“Oh.” He clucked, picked up the hairbrush, and tapped it on her shoulder. “Next time, tell me.”
Her eyebrows slid together as though something was on her mind, and Jake had no idea how to read that yet—or maybe he never would.
“You’re not in trouble, Charlotte.”
“I know.”
“Then what’s that look for?” he asked.
“Should I tell you when you aren’t supposed to do things?”
Lifting a shoulder, he decided it couldn’t hurt. Advice from Charlotte was just as valuable as advice from Nora, given the current circumstance. He sniffed the air. Were his green beans burning? “It wouldn’t hurt to share, but I might not always agree.” That sounded like Nora might approve.
He twisted toward the door, inhaling again. Something smelled burned, but he’d blackened green beans before. That wasn’t the right scent. Leave it to an explosives expert to try to diagnose burned dinner by the smell.
Charlotte scooted closer to him. “I accept those terms.”
Again with her adorable grown-up speak, and Jake set aside burned green beans and had to focus not to laugh. “Do you?”
She nodded earnestly. “I do.”
He wasn’t sure if half the guys on his team would say “I accept those terms.” “We’ll shake on it.”
He held out his hand, more concerned about the acrid tinge to the air, when the smoke detector chirped. “Ugh, I’m burning the green beans!”
“I don’t think you are,” Charlotte said, following him as they hustled from her room. “You’re not supposed to put anything but pans in the broiler.”
Jake froze, mentally retracing his steps, then turned to her. “What broiler?” Oh, no! He hurried back to the kitchen and held out his hand for her to stay in the hall. “Stay put for a sec.”
He reached for the hand towel on his shoulder but came up empty as he stepped to the browning green beans.
Beep.
“Stupid smoke detector,” he mumbled. Where did they keep pot holders? He flicked off the top burner, scooting the crisped green beans off as they smoked. But that wasn’t nearly enough to cause the haze in the kitchen.
Beep.
The casserole? How was he messing up a simple dinner! He pulled the oven open, and black smoke billowed out. “What in the world?”
Then flames jumped. His dish towel! “Shoot!”
Beep.
There was a fire in the oven from the dish towel he’d tossed in below. He slammed the door shut. Beep. He switched the gas off and rushed to the window to throw it open and let some of the swirling air out. Beep. “Hey, Charlotte. Go open the front door.”
He needed a cross draft to blow this place free of the stink. Beep.
“Ohhh-kay dokey.”
Her giant leaps were more for fun and less for distance, and beep, Jake tried the oven again. The fire raged inside. He needed a fire extinguisher. Beep. No, he needed the fire alarm to chill. Where was that? He looked down the hall, and there was the noisemaking culprit.
He dragged the chair to the hallway, ripped the smoke detector off the ceiling, and pulled the battery out with tactical efficiency. Good to see his skills could still be put to use.
Beep.
He glared. It still had a charge even as they remained surrounded by smoke. “Go toss it in the front yard, would ya, Bug?”
She didn’t miss a beat and skipped away, only to return with a report that it broke into two pieces on the sidewalk. Her lips rounded as though she were in trouble, but he couldn’t have planned it better if he’d tried.
“Good work. Now to fix this—”
The distant call of fire alarm sirens brought everything to a standstill. Only in Tidings would someone call the fire department when they heard a neighbor’s fire detector and saw a little smoke out a window.
“Are they comi
ng here?” Charlotte asked.
His head dropped, and slowly he nodded. “Without a doubt.”
Jake turned back to the oven, and his eyes dropped to the storage cabinet underneath. But it wasn’t a storage cabinet. He stomped to the sink and checked below it, where he found the obligatory fire extinguisher as the sirens blared closer.
“This wasn’t on any of the mommy blogs.” He pulled the broiler drawer open with his boot, and there sat the charred remains of his dish towel.
Just to be safe, he popped the pin and aimed the nozzle. There was no doubt that he’d just made the front page of the Tidings newspaper. Then after pulling the oven open, Jake needed to douse his casserole inferno and sprayed it to a wet, white, foamy crisp.
“This is exciting!” Charlotte announced, perched on top of a chair.
“Riveting.” The sizzling mess was completely extinguished in all of its rancid, acrid glory, and Jake turned as boots stomped into the kitchen.
Hello, Tidings Fire Department. They entered Ally’s house—in full gear—with the man in the lead holding the broken smoke detector.
“Jake Westbrook?” The man with his broken fire detector stopped in the hallway.
They even had him by name. Small town gossip at its best. “That’s me. Sorry about the—”
“This is yours?” The man held up the two pieces.
“Yup.” Jake crossed his arms. “I was wondering where that got to.”
“I did that!” Charlotte piped up. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, snuggle bug. Don’t worry about it.” Or the overreacting firemen in our house.
The word CHIEF was emblazoned on the man’s jacket, and he tossed it onto the counter. “Since you’re new in town—”
“Hold on a second.” He wasn’t new in town. Any embarrassment he’d had over blackening Ally’s kitchen wall and stinking the house up ceased to exist. “Let’s be clear, sir. No, I’m not new in town. I was born and raised in Tidings. My father’s father’s father was born in a cabin a few miles from here. My mother and grandmother have served on the town council. I take great pride in that. I left for a service calling, and I’m back for a calling too. Are we clear on that?”
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