Page 3 of Single All the Way

“You like animals, right?” I asked.

She nodded, her eyes wide.

“And you get to share a room with Evelyn. It’ll be like a sleepover every night.”

“I wanna sleep with Mommy,” Skyler said and turned her dark-blond head away from me.

Emerson and I exchanged a look as she said, “We’ll see, baby girl.”

“Let’s get in out of the drizzle. I still need to feed the animals, and I promised my girls pancakes after that.”

Skyler flipped her head back to face me.

“Do you like pancakes?” I asked her.

She nodded. “With lots of maple syrup.”

“We’ve got lots of maple syrup.” I made a mental note that food won out over animals with this little one.

I led them to the house. Once inside, we were swarmed by all three dogs. Fortunately our two knew Emerson’s and got along with her. My two cats, Pixie and Jett, however, were untested. I was sure we’d know soon enough how that would go down, but I didn’t have time to search for the felines right now.

“Let’s go upstairs so you can see the room where you’re staying,” I said to Skyler, wanting to do something, anything, to help Emerson out.

Moving was a lot. Moving right before Thanksgiving had to be extra chaotic.

Emerson’s mother-in-law had put her in a difficult spot by moving to Las Vegas unexpectedly then selling her house, where Emerson and her kids had lived for four years, suddenly. I suspected Emerson would’ve bought it from her mother-in-law had it not been in the Heights, which translated to high dollar. I got the impression the military had taken care of Blake’s widow sufficiently but not at a level where she could afford the bougiest neighborhood in town.

Emerson claimed to be fine with it all and happy for Kizzy, who’d eloped with an old friend, but I wondered how the woman could justify displacing her son’s widow and her grandkids like this.

Our arrangement was temporary, just until the end of the year while Emerson searched for a house, so she and her kids would be somewhat unsettled for the next six weeks. That’d be a challenge for anyone, but for a single parent…

“I wanna sleep with Mommy,” Skyler said again.

Emerson closed her eyes for an almost indiscernible moment, just long enough for me to see she wasn’t as cool and unbothered as she seemed on the surface. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go check it out and unpack Waylon. He’ll want to get comfortable, won’t he?” She bent over and slid her daughter to her feet, then handed her the backpack.

Waylon? My brows went up. Was there a critter I hadn’t accounted for? I was a chronic rescuer, but even I could admit we were nearing max occupancy at the Holloway homestead.

“Her plush elephant,” Emerson explained, grinning. “He doesn’t eat much.”

I let out my breath and smiled back at her. “Plush elephants we can handle. So…laundry’s in that bathroom.” I pointed into the room off the kitchen. “Use it whenever you want.”

Emerson had been to my house before. She and her kids had lived in town since Blake’s death. We sometimes watched each other’s kids, but she hadn’t spent a lot of time here. I wanted her and Skyler and Xavier to feel completely at home. Blake and I had been friends since we were three, and it was a no-brainer for me to help Emerson out whenever she needed me—or my house.

From the kitchen, we went into the dining room to access the stairs. Skyler walked over to my bedroom doorway.

“That’s my room,” I told her. “Everyone else’s is upstairs.”

“It’s off the dining room?” Emerson asked.

“Welcome to the early 1900s,” I said. “The layout is awkward. My efforts went into building the clinic first. I was hoping to tackle house updates before now, but I haven’t had time to think about it.”

“I get that. Life is…a lot. This place has a certain charm the way it is though.”

“There’s lots of room upstairs. Come on up.”

We went upstairs, where I could hear Ruby and Xavier in her room. All three dogs followed us up and joined us on our three-minute tour.

“I’ve got you in here,” I told Emerson. I opened the door and let her precede me into the small but cozy room with a ceiling that angled in on both sides.

---