Page 1 of That One Touch

Chapter

One

“Daddy, can you put my hair into a French braid?”

Presley Hartson looked up from his phone, where he was currently tapping out a very annoyed message to a supplier who’d promised that the marble tiles he’d ordered three months ago would be at the house he was renovating last week.

Only now were they admitting the tiles were somewhere in customs. But they didn’t know where. And he wasn’t looking forward to telling his client that.

“Come here.” He put his phone down next to him and patted the top of his thighs. Delilah, his six-year-old daughter, jumped onto his lap, holding out her brush and a thick hair band. He took the band and slid it onto his wrist, then started trying to brush her wild hair.

“Ow! That hurts.” She turned around to pout at him, and he wanted to laugh. Her expressions were the highlight of his day.

“Sorry.” He gave her a rueful look and started brushing again, this time more gently.

“You sure you want a French braid?” he asked once the tangles were all gone. “I do a mean ponytail, you know?”

“I have dance class tonight. Everybody there has braids.”

Yeah, but not everybody had a dad with fingers so calloused they could barely feel the strands of hair between them. The tips were thick thanks to years of playing the guitar and construction work, and it took him twice as long as it would anybody else to produce what was – let’s face it – a braid that was too thick on one side and veered off just a smidge to the other.

It made him feel bad that he couldn’t do this simple thing for her. She wasn’t asking for a lot.

Delilah ran off before he could warn her to curb her expectations, her tiny feet pattering in the hallway.

“It’s not good, Daddy,” she said when she came back from looking in the mirror. “It’s wonky.”

He bit down a smile. “I know. Sorry, sweetheart.”

She appeared back in the kitchen. “It’s okay. You’ll get there. Let’s just stick with a ponytail for now.”

That he could do. He undid the braid and brushed her hair again. Her hair was so thick yet so soft – she got that from her mom’s side of the family. It smelled of the strawberry shampoo his own mom had bought her.

His phone buzzed as he doubled the hairband to make sure the ponytail was secure. Delilah was clearly already bored, she was trying to pull away from him. “Just one sec,” he told her. Sure, it was off center, but at least it wouldn’t fall out.

“That’s your phone,” she said. “Who’s the message from.”

Another thing that made him smile about his daughter. She was the nosiest kid he knew. “I’ll check it later,” he told her, kissing the top of her head. “It’s time for school. Go grab your things. Your lunch bag is on the counter. We can practice your spelling list in the car.”

“Spelling schmelling.” Delilah wrinkled her nose. “Uncle Marley says that God invented spellcheck, so we didn’t have to learn to spell.”

Uncle Marley – Pres’ twin brother – had a lot to answer for. The perennial bachelor who lived life to the fullest, but also loved Presley’s kid almost as much as he did.

His whole family tried to make up for what Delilah was sure to be missing after her mom had passed. From the day she’d died, they’d formed a protective knot around him and Delilah. He liked that Marley teased his kid. She needed some lightness in her life. God knew, Pres wasn’t always able to provide it.

As Delilah grabbed her backpack and slid her feet into the black shiny Mary Janes she’d picked out at the start of the school year, Presley pulled his own boots on and finally read the message.

Yeah, his customer was pissed about the tiles being late. Not that Mrs. Clancy was happy about anything right now. They’d reached the middle of the renovations. The time when all customers seemed to lose it. Being a construction manager sometimes felt like being a psychologist. He could guarantee with a fair amount of accuracy when he’d get the nasty threats like this one.

I’m going to tell all my friends not to use you.

I’m going to call my lawyer.

If you miss the deadline we agreed to I’ll be docking your payment accordingly.

Once upon a time he’d have gotten pissed, too, and told the customer where to shove their threats. But he was older now. Wiser. And he had bigger things to worry about than whether Mrs. Clancy’s fancy ranch house reno finished a couple of weeks late.

“I can’t find my spelling list,” Delilah shouted. “Where is it?”

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