Page 42 of Tangled Up in Texas

He shook his head again, his red hair a blur.

“Maybe next time we’ll get ice cream, but I was thinking that maybe...” I leaned forward, dodging the syrup spread around his plate, and offered my best conspiratorial face. “Maybe you could help me pick out a new house.”

He smacked his hands over his mouth. “Your house, Daddy?” he whispered. “We can’t go to your house.” The garage “house” where I lived was off-limits to him.

I nodded and pretended to consider the problem. “Well, that’s why we have to pick a new house. If we do,thenyou can even stay the night. Would that be cool?”

“Yes!”

“Yeah!” I offered a high-five, and he smacked my hand and left behind a film of syrup. “Aw, crap. Crud. Sorry,” I said while looking up, but he was giggling away, knowing he’d made a mess on daddy. Very funny.

I dipped my napkin in the water and wiped it off, though my hand still felt disgusting. After calling the waitress and asking for the check, I pulled out my wallet and enough cash to cover the bill and the tip.

“Here, let’s go wash our hands before we leave,” I said after handing it and the receipt back to the waitress. I helped James out of his booster seat and noted the smeared syrup stain on his bright-blue dinosaur shirt. I didn’t have a key to the house, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to go back and risk ending our fun too soon.

We made it to the bathroom, and I propped up my knee before lifting James to sit on it so he could reach the sink himself. When he bounced like I was giving him a ride, I pulled his hands forward a bit toward the sink.

“I’ll turn it on.”

“Mommy uses wipies.”

“I don’t have wipies. We’re gonna wash our hands.” I pulled his hands toward the running water, but he jerked them back again and shook his head. “Soap first!” He thrust his sticky fingers toward the soap dispenser.

“It doesn’t...” I sighed. “Okay, here.”

After I finally cleaned him up, I wiped down his shirt with a wet paper towel and fought my nerves when he started crying that his shirt was wet.

“It’ll dry in the sun,” I tried, but he wasn’t having it. He pulled his shirt away from his chest as if he hadn’t just been happily covered in syrup.

His face was red and covered with tears by the time I dragged him out the door. I tried to remember every face inside and every person who’d seen us leave in case one of them may have known Darlene. I was a little out of practice when handling tantrums, but I didn’t need anyone telling his mom what a poor job I was doing.

I strapped him into the car seat his mom left and stuffed the dinosaur toy I’d given him earlier in his lap, though he’d barely given it a thought when I first picked him up. I wished I’d rented a truck, but a car was about all they had, and I was in a rush. I drove toward the first address in my GPS, noticing once we were on the road that he quieted down shortly after I pulled out.

I glanced in my rearview to see him fiddling with the teeth poking out of the toy’s mouth. “It matches your shirt, bud,” I said, and he nodded quietly. “Do you like it?”

“His name isRawr!” James said with his best dinosaur impression.

I smiled. “Oh, yeah? And what doesRawr!like to do?”

“Eat pancakes.”

I chuckled and kept my eyes forward, happy he at least liked the toy enough to name it. When I’d picked him up, he leaped at me like a frog but didn’t stop hugging my leg even when I offered the toy. Now that his tears had calmed and we’d settled into our morning, he was playing with it like he’d had it all morning.

Missy had called about a couple of job applicants, a few jobs the inspector didn’t check, and a few shipments that didn’t come in on time in Waco. Usually, that would mean I left to take care of it, but after going through it all with Missy, she’d promised to help me prioritize. One of the others in the office would take care of it, she said.

I hoped so because I intended to stay in Dallas. It helped that the foreman who moved to Waco in the first place ran and hired most of the crews there. Despite its ridiculously small population, Waco had brought in a surprising amount of income, and now we were offering tiered residential services. I’d started with high-income residents, which meant I worked on a lot of commercial projects. That had offered good income for a while, but I should have focused on simpler things like mowing and maintenance sooner. After Roger moved to Waco, he suggested that residential services were truly where we needed to focus.

Roger was getting up there in years, and he deserved a break. I’d give him a call later to talk to him. It made sense to give him the power to manage Waco so I could focus my time more in Dallas. He would cringe at the idea of doing anything business-related, but we’d cook up an office to keep a handle on that. He just wanted to tell people what to do, sweat, groan, and work. I’d find a way to let him do both.

I needed to find men like him to manage each of my satellite cities.

“We’re here,” I said as we pulled into the driveway of a red-brick home. It had three bedrooms and an attached garage, but what I really liked was the backyard. More and more, houses were growing, and yards were shrinking, but I’d grown up with a big yard and wanted to retire with one, too.

James looked a little sleepy, but he brightened up after I unbuckled his seat belt and pulled him out onto the unmowed lawn. He kept a firm grip on his toy and met my gaze as if waiting for instruction.

“You ready?”

He nodded once, offering his hand before we walked to the door. The car parked on the side of the road told me the real estate agent was already there, but before I could knock, Shannon opened the door with a wide grin as if she were living here, greeting old friends. She shook my hand, but her gaze swept down the next instant.

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