Sitting next to him, I rub his little back. “Carson, your daddy is in heaven, baby. With the angels.”
Carson’s big brown eyes stare at me as he thinks through the information I just gave him. Then he turns back to the book. “No. Unca Heat my daddy.”
I laugh. I laugh at his innocence. I laugh at his easy reasoning. I laugh because Heath would get a kick out of it. But once I’m done laughing, I know I have to make sure he understands the truth.
Sitting down on the couch, I rub his little leg. “Baby, Uncle Heath isn’t your daddy. He’s your uncle. And he loves you so much and loves playing with you and swimming and mowing the lawn.”
“I go swimming, mama.”
I should have expected him to latch onto his favorite activity. Maybe distraction is the best thing right now until I figure out more answers. Unfortunately, I have more bad news. “That sounds fun, but Uncle Heath isn’t at home, baby, remember? He’s playing football.”
In true toddler fashion, Carson throws himself backward, his arms over his head, his bottom half hanging off the couch. And then he begins screaming. “No! I swimming! I go swimming!”
“Carson,” I say calmly, having learned that when I raise my voice, he only gets louder. “How about we Skype Uncle Heath and he can show you where he is.”
I have no idea what Heath’s schedule is like right now but I have no doubt he’ll answer if he can. Skyping with Carson was a regular thing before we moved and they had the most fun making faces at each other through the camera. I’m sure nothing has changed.
“No, I swimming!”
“I know,” Nicole announces out of nowhere. “Let’s go swimming.” Carson immediately stops screaming, probably trying to decide if she’s yanking his chain.
He narrows his eyes in question. “I swimming?”
She smiles and claps her hands together. “Yes. Let’s go swimming… in the bathtub.”
Carson slithers the rest of the way off the couch and begins jumping up and down. “I go swimming, NicNic.”
I drop my chin to my chest. That was too easy. I really should have thought of that one before.
Nicole laughs and pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take him.”
I nod gratefully and watch as they bound down the small hallway. It was a pretty ingenious idea. If only she could figure out the answers to those harder questions, I’d be set.
FIFTEEN
Paul
The day I’ve been planning is finally here—Demo Day.
I am equal parts excited and dreading all this work. I’ve got sledgehammers, paint, and a rental dumpster outside to clear out all the trash. I also have a lot of various tools we may need, depending on what we find. That part is where the dread comes in. While the inspection before the sale went off without a hitch, you never know what will pop up when things start being dismantled. I’ve already spent a pretty penny on supplies. Fingers crossed we don’t run into any major problems that require professionals.
“I’m here!”
Kiersten races through the door, out of breath from what I presume was a run across the parking lot. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear my alarm go off. It wasn’t until Carson jumped on me that I woke up.”
“Did you leave him at home or something?”
She laughs lightly. “My sister is in town so she’s keeping him for the day. Which makes me feel even worse about being late. I have no excuses except my body clock is all mixed up right now. I guess switching over to working nights was easier than I thought it would be.”
“Don’t worry about the time,” I say trying not to notice the white tank top she’s wearing that pulls a little too tight across her chest. It’s distracting me already and she just got here. “Coffee is fresh. We’re just waiting for the muscle to arrive so we can get started.”
She takes a deep breath and puts her hand on my arm. Like every time she touches me, it feels like a lightning current runs through my body at the contact. “Thank you. I didn’t have time to grab any on my way out. I’ll be right back.”
She heads to the office to drop off her things, just in time for Heath to approach. I didn’t even know he was here yet. Shows how much I notice things around me when Kiersten is around.
Standing next to me, facing the same direction I am, he crosses his arms, and lets out a “Hmmph.”
I don’t bother looking at him. I know what that sound means and I can see his smirk out of the corner of my eye. “You can keep your commentary to yourself.”
“I didn’t say anything about your crush on my friend.”
“You didn’t have to. Besides, we have bigger issues today. Like dismantling that stage.”
Now he looks at me. Only this time it’s with dismay. “What? I’m here for the demo, man. Where’s my sledgehammer?”
“We’ll get to it, I promise. But I kind of need to see what we’re dealing with under there first. If we find any extra issues, I need to know quickly.”
“Yeah, I hear ya.” Blowing out a breath, he moves his head side to side, cracking his neck. “Okay. Let’s do it.” Grabbing a drill, Heath takes off to start figuring out how to take the stage apart.
In less than half an hour, close to a dozen people are here and everyone has had a shot or two of caffeine. Things are rolling and there’s no going back now.
Kiersten and Annika are moving out the old furniture and decide to post it for sale on some social media site. I appreciate their ingenuity since I was just going to throw it in the dumpster. Bringing in some cash for it is a better idea. It won’t be much, but it’ll at least pay to feed all these people.
Lauren, who apparently needs to work out some rage over a disagreement with her boss or something, convinced Jaxon to show her how to use a sledgehammer and is now having way too much fun tearing down the weird railing. Every once in a while, I have to duck when debris comes flying. Like I said—way too much fun.
And the three football players are taking advantage of their upper body strength to pull panels apart and set them aside. From their grunts, I assume it’s heavier than it looks.
Satisfied we’re well on our way to getting things done, I grab a can of black paint and begin prepping to update the bar area a bit.
“Hey, boss. I’m here. Whatcha need me to do?” an unexpected straggler says.
Surprised, I greet Tammy with a hug. “What are you doing here? I told you not to worry about helping out today. It’s your day off with the hubs.”
“He picked up an extra shift so I didn’t have nothing better to do. Besides,” she smacks me on the chest lightly with a scowl. “I may be old enough to be your mama, but I’m not dead. I know there’s something I can do around here to help.”
I snicker. This is why Tammy has been an employee here for years. She’s a hard worker no matter what the task. Still, we’ve got professional athletes that can do the heavy lifting. No reason for her to throw her back out. Besides, I can’t afford a ding on workman’s comp.
“If you can help me prep to paint the front of the bar, that would be great. Then it’s probably cleaning the floors where the stage used to be.”