“I don’t mind. We’re just going the extra mile for your dad.” I slip the pillowcase onto a pillow and set it on the bed, fluffing it a few times with a smile.
“Yeah, he gets funny with the strangest things. He’s such a dad,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“It’s nothing unusual. I had lice when I was young, about your age, and my father was just as creeped out.”
“What about your mom?” Avery asks, flopping down on the end of the bed.
I slip the second pillow in its case and try not to frown.
“Well, my mom died when I was three, so it was always just Dad and me.”
“Really?” Sawyer stops, leveling a skeptical gaze on me.
I can’t blame her.
She probably thinks I’m BSing just to make friends, but sadly I’m not.
Not with this.
“Yes, really. I don’t remember much about my mother, just what I’ve been told. But my dad’s a great guy. He had to travel a lot for work while I was growing up, so I had tons of nannies.”
Avery sits down on the foot of the bed. “We’ve never had a real nanny before. Only Aunt Faye, but she...she had to go take care of her friend in Colorado this summer. Her friend doesn’t have any family and she’s real sick.”
We’re all in Avery’s room. Sawyer sits down on the white chair that matches the desk near the window. “Aunt Faye said Hailey Wood’s mother, Linda, agreed to take care of us, but none of us wanted that.”
Sawyer sticks out her tongue to make a point.
I laugh.
“Oh, why’s that?” I sit down on the edge of the bed.
“She only agreed to because she wants Dad to be her boyfriend!” Sawyer throws back with disgust.
“It’s true,” Avery says with a sigh. “Hailey’s in our grade and her mama’s a lunch lady at school. She’s always like, ‘Oh, my favorite twins! I can’t believe how much you look like your daddy.’ So annoying.”
“And gross!” Sawyer chirps, making exaggerated kissy faces in the air.
Hilarious.
I remember a few women on the prowl after my dad and how cringey it could get. But I turn the subject to school, wondering what grade they’re in.
“Fifth,” Sawyer answers sharply. “One more year till middle school.”
I smile, knowing they’ll probably be a lot more concerned about their own crushes soon rather than their dad’s romantic life, but I don’t tease them.
I just let them prattle on about their teachers, Aunt Faye, the many times Linda Wood tried to hit Grady with cupid’s arrow, and little hints of their small-town lives.
A short time later, we make our way downstairs.
I’m relieved I can relate to these adorable girls, and so far they don’t hate me.
It helps that I’ve been in their shoes, raised by a single father.
Also, they’re twins, but opposites in many ways. Their personalities define them, and I really like that.
Back in the kitchen, Grady sits at the kitchen table with another man, a green-eyed hulk with tattoos and rakish sandy-brown hair. He looks like he’s only a couple inches shorter than Grady himself.
God, what’s in the air here?
Is Dallas, North Dakota, some kinda weird magnet for the hottest men on Earth?
“Howdy, ma’am. I’m guessing you’re Miss Willow...”
Faulk—which must be a single syllable nickname play on his last name, Faulkner—introduces himself and makes me feel like he’s sincerely glad to meet me. Surprising when he must know by now I’ve brought nothing but trouble to his friend’s doorstep.
I watch as the two men make small talk with the girls until they get antsy, right before Grady says they can go ride their four-wheelers while the adults talk about “boring tax crap.”
If he stumbled over our cover story earlier, he’s become a total smoothie now, and I smile.
“Don’t forget your helmets, ladies!” he belts out after them. “I’ll be watching.”
Then my eyes fall to the table in the eerie silence.
My laptop rests there with all the damning, but hidden data I hope I’ve stolen from the rescue. Faulk has some sort of small black external device hooked up to it that looks like a tiny box. There’s also a second laptop on the table, presumably his.
As soon as the girls are gone, Grady looks at me.
“He’s transferring what he can to an external drive, then we’ll get it on a secured cloud backup and hook it up to my computer,” he tells me.
“Yep, it’ll be a while before I transfer it to the other machine,” Faulk says. “Right now, we’re just aiming to get backups. Can’t let whatever’s on this thing disappear into the ether.”
Faulk rattles off a litany of techno-babble terms that are over my head, all the things involved with securing, storing, and decrypting data.
“So we won’t know what we’ve actually got for a while?” Grady asks.
“Yep, no telling till I get a good look. We could be talking hours, or days.” Faulk’s eyes gleam like emeralds as he rakes his fingers through his hair. “Soon as I’m in, you’ll be the first to know.”
Grady stands and takes my arm. I gasp and instantly feel like an idiot. His touch is always gentle, yet here I am jumping like he hit me with a cattle prod.
Seriously embarrassing.
“You need a minute?” he bites off.
“No, no, I just...you surprised me. I’m fine.” I pause for a breath. “I’m ready for this, guys. Lay it on me. The good, the bad, and the ugly.”
“And we will, just as soon as we check on the girls. They never go messing around the barn, but I want to make damn sure,” he growls. “Be back shortly.”
Faulk nods at us as Grady escorts me out the sliding glass door.
“The four-wheelers get parked in the pole shed when they’re not using them,” he says as we round the corner of the house.
The barn is to the left of the house and the pole shed, as well as a wood shed, and two other metal storage units are up ahead, directly on the other side of the driveway.
“Are they real four-wheelers?” I ask, knowing the girls are only ten.
“Yep. Both Hondas that are better for kids. They’ve been riding them for a couple years with me, and now they’re old enough to stick to the trails around my place, where I know it’s safe.”
“They’re such nice girls, very polite and—”
“Talkative,” he offers. “I’m sure they’ve told you everything about our lives.”
“Not everything,” I say. “Just enough. I know your Aunt Faye went to Colorado to take care of a sick friend and set up a woman to help you with the girls...but it sounds like all three of you said no to that idea.”
His grimace says it all and I try not to laugh.
Apparently, the girls weren’t exaggerating about how much Hailey’s mom chases him. No need to look hard to find out why.
He’s a bearded Hercules, sociable and nice, growly and guarded in a sexy way I can’t describe. But I also know that just like my dad, Grady’s daughters are his life.
Period and end of story.
If he wanted a woman, he’d have no trouble finding her and moving her in. The fact that he hasn’t means he has zero interest in romance.