Page 11 of A Package Deal

Georgia left the pen after kissing Thistle’s head and telling her she’d be back soon. She skipped all the way to the porch while Em and I went a little slower. I noticed Em stayed a good three feet from me. I didn’t blame her. I stunk worse than Smelly.

“Wow, those poor jeans,” Em drawled, not looking at me.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’ve brought up my jeans multiple times now. Are you jealous of my fabulous pants?”

Em barked out a laugh. “Hell no. Those things look like they’re spun from gold. I prefer good old-fashioned cotton. I don’t like to cry when my jeans get dirty.”

“I don’t cry when my jeans get dirty, but I can concede that letting my personal shopper in the city find me clothes for a farm was not a good idea. In her defense, she was used to picking out suits and golf polos, not farm attire.”

Em snorted, and even though it wasn’t feminine in any way, I liked it. “Did she pick out your truck too?”

My jaw dropped. “Seriously? You have a problem with my truck too?”

Em shrugged. “You know what they say…”

I frowned, stopping at the bottom of the porch steps. “No, I don’t know. Who’s they? And what do they say?”

Em didn’t answer, but she did hold her hands out, two inches apart from each other. She widened them to three inches and then shook her head and went back to two inches. Then she laughed and put her hand on Georgia’s back to steer her into the house, leaving me outside to interpret her vague meaning. When it finally hit me that she was measuring my dick based off my truck choice, I was so pissed off I stuttered and started, unable to find words to explain in front of a five-year-old that her mama was most definitely wrong in that department.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered under my breath, getting my temper under control and striding into my own damn house. Okay, my mother’s, but still. To have my manhood insulted by my contractor? Ridiculous.

I changed clothes, sliding on another pair of jeans that Em would just make fun of, but they were all I had. I found them in the kitchen, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I helped, but mostly just made a mess, to which Georgia giggled and joined in on until Em gave her a stern look. Em’s phone vibrated on the counter several times. When I glanced over, her face would tighten as she ignored the incoming texts.

While Em got Georgia settled at the table with her sandwich, I found a coloring book someone had given Mom a few weeks ago with a message about how coloring could be soothing when dealing with grief. Mom hadn’t touched the thing but maybe Georgia would like it. When she was occupied with lunch and coloring, I ate my sandwich in the kitchen with Em, both of us keeping an eye on Georgia through the doorway.

“What’s with the text messages?” I asked, not wasting any time.

Em jolted, sliding the phone in her back pocket like I might just forget my question if the phone wasn’t visible. Unlucky for her, I was feeling mighty protective of a certain little girl. After that phone call the other day, I was starting to sense there was trouble in Em’s life and I didn’t like it one bit. Sure, it wasn’t any of my business, but I was about to make it my business.

“Nothing,” she snapped.

I set my empty plate down and folded my arms across my chest. “Didn’t look like nothing. Just like that phone call didn’t sound like nothing.”

Em’s face drained of color and I felt like an ass for pressing the issue.

“I have a right to know if I’ve hired someone who’s going to bring trouble to my house. My mom can’t deal with anything else right now.”

Em was already shaking her head, blonde hair pulling loose of the ponytail. “There won’t be any trouble. It’s just my ex. He has no right to me or Georgia, I swear. Doesn’t even live here.”

My temper, the one that didn’t flare hot and quickly like some, but when it did get going, it boiled for a long fucking time, began to bubble. For a man who had no right to either one of them, her ex sure did call and text a lot. And if the look on Em’s face was anything to go by, he wasn’t the sort to call with pleasantries.

Em put her plate in the sink and clapped her hands together, a fake smile on her face. “Back to work I go. You still good with Georgia?”

I nodded, jaw clenched. I’d learned to trust my gut a long time ago and mine was telling me that something wasn’t right. Not right at all. And I wasn’t going to stop ’til I got to the bottom of what was going on.

CHAPTER FIVE

Emmerleigh

By the time I called it a day, I was covered head to toe in sawdust. Pretty sure there was some inside my nasal cavities tickling my brain, even though I’d worn a respirator, earplugs, and safety goggles as I sanded the wood floors in Warrick’s mom’s house. My body ached, especially my low back, from being on my knees and bending over the sander. It was a good kind of ache though. The kind that symbolized an honest day’s work.

It was the sight of Georgia on Warrick’s shoulders as they walked back from talking to Bessie that created the ache between my ribs. Georgia had a wildflower tucked into her light hair and Warrick was mooing like a cow as he trotted back to the house with those tough-guy tattoos lining his arms. He looked absolutely ridiculous.

And somehow hotter than any man I’d ever seen.

Georgia had never interacted for any length of time with a man. Clearly Cayden had been absent as a father figure and my own father had passed long before I even entered high school. Dating had been the furthest thing from my mind as a new mom, reeling from a breakup, and trying to start her own business. I gave my everything to my precious girl and had believed it was enough. When Georgia pulled on Warrick’s ears and whooped, “Louder, Wa-wy!” a part of me wondered if maybe I’d been delusional. Maybe all those books about the importance of a father figure were right.

My spine stiffened. I forgot about the aching muscles and the sawdust infiltrating human spaces not designed for minuscule shavings of wood. My boots thudded down the porch steps to intercept them.

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