Well, I was following through now.
The trouble was, I couldn’t seem to get her beautiful face out of my mind.
Chapter 3
Sadie
I got up excruciatingly early for someone who had worked until closing the night before. But I didn’t have a choice if I was going to get Parker and I settled. The boxes weren’t going to unpack themselves, and apparently in the chaos of moving yesterday, I’d forgotten a few outside at the bottom of the entrance stairs.
I threw my hair up in a messy bun, pulled down the two sections to frame my face, and threw on an old, ripped pair of jeans and a stained tee shirt. I didn’t have anyone to impress.
Thankfully, Mom had taught me to live a simple life, so packing up our apartment had been quick and I was able to fit everything but the big pieces of furniture into my rundown Honda Odyssey. Sure, Lilly had made fun of me the day I drove that red wonder off the lot, but at that time, Adam was alive and we had been talking about filling all the seats.
The minivan had been my trailer, my hotel room on long drives, and now my moving van. She had a nice resume.
Luckily, the landlord had been waiting out in the yard for me when I’d pulled up. And he was a sweetheart. He and his wife had moved to Evergreen Hollow while I was in Texas with Adam. When I asked where his wife was, he said she was out shopping with her sisters for the day, but boy would she be excited to see who had just moved in.
I had to admit, I felt so much better about my decision to move here after meeting Walt. He was sharp, and he’d joked with Parker about the latest superhero movie. Then he pulled the riding lawn mower out of the garage and mowed the neighbor’s lawn.
Yep, I’d hit the jackpot. Five hundred dollars for a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in a beautiful, established neighborhood was a steal. I hoped Walt didn’t realize what he had here. If he upped the rent, I’d have to move again.
I’d gotten lost in unpacking the van, and soon Lilly and her boyfriend, Scott, had showed up with a truckload of my big pieces of furniture. All thoughts of the landlord and my sudden change of luck went out the window as we attempted not to ding any of the walls as we brought the furniture up. After it was all in, I collapsed on the couch for a minute before ordering pizza and showering so I could get to the Bella e Buona on time.
After a long shift, I came home at midnight and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.
The early morning light was making its way over the trees as I crept down the outside steps in my sneakers. I was worried I’d rouse my landlords if I made too much noise. It was one thing to bring a kid into the apartment and raise the decibel level by ten, it was quite another to intrude on their peaceful Sunday-morning routine.
I glanced at their closed blinds and sighed. I’d once thought that Adam and I would be like that; that we’d spend his retired years in each other’s company, taking our grandkids to the movies and worrying about lawn maintenance. It was my dream, but Adam didn’t seem to agree with it. He was going to stay in the Army until they kicked him out, and even after that he’d find a way to still serve in some capacity.
A house with a white picket fence wasn’t in his future no matter how much it might be in mine. It made me wonder if we would have stayed together for the long term. I berated myself as I did each time those thoughts popped up. What kind of a widow was I?
The big garage door was down, and I made my way to the stack of boxes I’d forgotten.
I mentally ticked through my list of things to do as I gathered up the first box in my arms and made my way back into the apartment. I’d have to go to the store later today and load up on groceries for the week. We had lunches to plan for school, which started the day after tomorrow. My heart lifted at the thought, and my nerves surfaced. I’d done a year of college before Parker came along. One look at his beautiful face, and I knew I couldn’t leave him to go back.
It was just as well. With Adam deployed, sometimes for a year at a time, Parker and I had bonded in a way that gave me confidence. If I could be a good mom, I’d make a fantastic nurse. And, from what I understood, I could take a night-time shift, sleep while Parker was in school, and then still have my evenings with him. He was growing right before my eyes, and it wouldn’t be long before he’d find someone he thought was cooler to hang out with than his mom.
My stomach sunk just thinking about it. I was back in front of the boxes and picked up a few more, absently counting the stairs as I went. At least living up here would keep my butt in good shape. Who needed a fancy gym membership anyway?
When I came back down, there was a light on in the small window. It looked like one of those frosted windows they put in the bathroom to let in light but still provide privacy.
Hopefully I wasn’t the reason Walt was up. Maybe he was an early riser.
I grabbed the box with my art supplies, and a mouse darted out, running over the top of my foot. It moved so fast I didn’t have time to get out of its way. I screamed involuntarily, the sound bouncing off the garage and then back to the house. So much for a quiet morning. I threw the box down, my skin crawling at the thought that there could be more mice in there.
The house door flew open with a bang that made me jump and spin around.
I blinked a few times as my brain tried to register what was happening.
Mason McKnight ran out wearing a pair of jeans slung low on his hips and nothing else. His feet were bare, his chest was bare, and my mind was trying to figure out how Walt had morphed into Mason. Was I still dreaming?
He must have been brushing his teeth, because his toothbrush was pinched between his lips. But that didn’t stop him from running over to me. I watched as his muscles bulged and his eyes scoped the space faster than a cheetah on the prowl. He held a gun in his hand, pointing the barrel to the sky like cops did in the movies as they closed in on the bad guy.
A very strange cop with a gun and a toothbrush.
“What’s wrong?” he growled as he shifted the toothbrush to one side of his mouth.
I was too stunned to form any coherent thought. My mouth went dry as I traced over every bump and valley of his beautiful body. Some part of me knew I shouldn’t be looking, but other parts of me didn’t give a darn. I’d always had a thing for men with muscles. Call it a weakness, a fault, whatever—I turn to goo over a good pair of biceps.
And with this specimen in front of me, I was Jell-O woman.
It took a moment for my reaction to him to subside. When it did, anger boiled up inside of me. Anger at myself for carnally desiring any man who wasn’t Adam and anger at Mason for showing up bare chested and barefooted and too hot for my normally rational mind to ignore.
“What are you doing here?” I shouted. A robin flew out of the tree, trilling at me to keep it down. I glanced around at the wee morning light and lowered my voice. “Put the gun down!”
I looked at the cool steel, surprised that I wasn’t afraid or nervous around the firearm—though the sight of it subdued my anger. Adam had owned several guns. He’d never shown me how to use them. They were Adam’s prized possessions, and I knew he would want Parker to have them. But taking a class on firearm safety was way down on my priority list, so I’d rented a lockbox at the bank and stored them there.
Mason spit the toothpaste onto the asphalt and then turned to face me. It seemed as if reality was crashing down on him as well. His chest heaved as he gulped in air. There was a slightly crazed look in his eyes—one I recognized from when Adam would come home from deployment with bad memories. He’d get startled and not know where he was for a moment. I couldn’t help but wonder if my scream had done the same thing to Mason.