Stephanie Dees - The Dad Next Door

“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.