Page 49 of Treat Her Right

“I was making my coffee when I saw you climb the damn ladder. Before I could get dressed and tell you how stupid you were being, you fell.”

Her mother asked, “You were making coffee naked?”

Without looking at her, Zack said, “No, in my underwear.”

A wave of heat washed over Wynn. Her parents began staring even harder.

Wynn cleared her throat. “My father startled me.”

“Well!” Artemus took immediate exception to that accusation. “If your hair wasn’t in your eyes, maybe you would have seen me coming and you wouldn’t havebeenstartled!”

Zack turned to him to say something, and went mute. Her father was in top form today. He wore a red silk shirt, open at the collar to show a profuse amount of curly chest hair. He had two rings on his fingers, a gold chain around his neck and the big diamond earring he almost never removed. His pressed dark-blue designer jeans were so tight they fit like his skin, and his low boots were polished to a shine. His golden brown hair, so unlike Wynn’s, was parted in the middle and hung nearly to his shoulders.

At Zack’s scrutiny, he tossed his head and huffed.

Zack snapped his mouth shut and turned back to Wynn without uttering a word. “Where are you hurt?”

“Nowhere. I’m okay.” But when she started to sit up, she winced and Zack caught her shoulders.

“No, let me check you.”

“Daddy?”

Dani stood there, still in her nightgown and holding a fuzzy yellow blanket. Wynn smiled at her. “I’m okay munchkin.”

“You’re in the bushes.”

“Luckily they broke my fall.”

Dani smiled. “I saw you on the roof. I wanna get on the roof, too.”

Zack turned so quickly everyone jumped. “Dani, if I catch you even thinking such a thing you’ll be grounded in your room for a month!”

“Wynn did it.”

Zack ground his teeth together. When he turned to Wynn, his expression was no longer so concerned. Now he looked furious. “Wynn will tell you what a dumb stunt that was, won’t you, Wynn?”

Everyone stared at her. Her parents looked particularly interested in seeing her response, and she knew it was because they expected her to chew Zack up and spit him out in little bits. Never, ever, did she let anyone speak to her as he did.

But there was Dani, watching and waiting, and the thought of the child trying to get on a roof made her skin crawl. “I should have waited until there was someone to hold the ladder steady for me, Dani. Sometimes I do things without really thinking about them. It’s a bad habit.”

Her mother gasped and her father pretended to stagger. After a long second, Zack gave her a thankful nod.

Relieved, Wynn said, “Mom, Dad, this is my neighbor Zack Grange and his daughter Dani. Zack is a paramedic.”

“Well, that explains everything,” her father said with facetious humor.

Wynn winced again as Zack pressed his fingertips over her side. She said quickly, “Zack, my mother Chastity and my father Artemus.”

Dani said, “I like Wynn lots.”

“We’re rather fond of her, too,” Artemus said, and he patted Dani’s head, then frowned at her hair.

Zack paid no attention to the introductions. “Let me get your shirt up and see what you’ve done.”

Chastity laughed.

“No, Zack, really I’m fine, I just… Zack stop it…”

---