“Correct,” Lacey said, frowning at him. “We’ve already covered all this.”
"So then, why don't the three of us work on it together? I can do the heavy lifting, and you and Jade can take care of smaller things. Maybe get a jump on some of the decorating. I don't know,” he floundered and started again, “I know it's not the way a little girl wants to spend her time, but—"
"I think it's perfect," Lacey interrupted excitedly. He was surprised by the abrupt change in her voice, and when he looked at her, he was even more surprised by the big grin spreading across her face. That smile made her beautiful.
“You do?” he asked, shaken by her sudden transformation and by the fact that she’d actually agreed with the idea.
“I do,” she agreed. “Given our current predicament, I can’t think of anything better.”
7
"Whoa, there, little lady. Where do you think you're going with that thing?" Trevor asked tersely. A moment later, though, his serious face dissolved into a toothy grin. Seconds after that, he was laughing, and Lacey was giggling right along with him.
Jade didn't crack a smile. She simply stood there looking at the adults, a small frown on her face, fingers tightening on the hammer in her hand. "I'm watching out for stuff," she said indignantly. As she spoke, she started swinging the hammer back and forth, directly contradicting her claim that she was being safe, and glared from Lacey to Trevor, her frown deepening.
It was all Lacey could do not to break into a fresh fit of laughter. She bit the inside of her cheek, willing herself to straighten her facial expression, a trick she'd taught herself when she was little to keep from getting into trouble with her mother. It did the job as well now as it had then. By the time Jade turned her serious little face back in Lacey's direction, Lacey was as straight-faced as she was going to get.
“What’s so funny?” Jade demanded, the line between her brows deepening.
She was a serious child, sometimes painfully so. She had been with Trevor and Lacey for almost a month now, and although Lacey had hoped to see the little girl lighten up some, it hadn’t happened. It was sort of heartbreaking to see a four-year-old girl act so much like an adult. Lacey had a strong suspicion that there hadn't really been another option, from what little she knew about Jade's mother, Penny. Any mother who would leave her daughter on a porch and drive away probably wasn't winning a responsibility award anytime soon.
Still, Lacey longed to see Jade lose some of her painful seriousness. She thought it was still possible to reverse a lot of the damage done, given the right circumstances and the right amount of time. Working at the B&B seemed to be helping, too.
Lacey could almost say that the little girl was happy, despite the bizarre nature of her current arrangement. However, she also had to keep herself from thinking about the fact that she would also be abandoning the poor girl by year’s end.
“Lacey!” Jade called her back into the moment, putting one hand on her hip in the perfect image of a much older girl. “What’s funny?”
"Nothing, sweet girl," Lacey laughed, kneeling before the girl and gently removing the hammer from her grasp. "You're just sweet, that's all."
“But I can do it!” Jade insisted again, stamping her little cowgirl boot-clad foot on the hardwood floors.
"I have no doubt about that," Trevor said, sauntering closer with his hands shoved down into his pockets. "Thing is, Lacey and me were talking earlier, and she was telling me she's got some things she just doesn't know how to handle."
“Really?” Jade said skeptically, eyeing them each in turn.
“Really,” Lacey agreed quickly, lest Jade hear a pause and take it for trickery. “I’ve got all sorts of decorating decisions to make, and honestly, I think it might be too much for me to handle.”
"And I can help?" Jade asked. Lacey could tell that she was trying to hold on to her sour mood, but it was impossible for the child to hide her excitement. That touched Lacey's heart more than she could say. Warming her heart even more was the look she caught on Trevor's face when she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
"Sugar, it's more than ‘can' help her," he said, his eyes wide and his voice deadly serious. "It's need to, if you're willing. She's thinking she could use your eye for color."
Jade thought about it for a moment, more seriously than Lacey had ever seen a four-year-old think over anything. While the adults waited for her to respond, Lacey's eyes traveled to Trevor. She couldn't help herself. The little voice in the back of her head that spoke for her practical self was screaming at her to stop. He was going to feel her staring, catch her in the act. The problem was, she couldn't help herself. She was finding that to be true more and more these days.
The three had been going to the bed and breakfast together for a week now, and the changes in Jade, although slow, were readily apparent. Lacey was pleased by the progress, but not entirely surprised. At the end of the day, she believed all children simply wanted to be loved. The effect of the arrangement on Trevor was what really had her shocked.
At the start, she had been worried that he would have a hard time pretending to be interested in Jade and getting to know the child better. His impassioned speech about how unhappy he was at being Jade's guardian had hit her hard, and she still carried that feeling around inside her heart. Except—if she'd never heard him say those words, she would have thought that Trevor had always wanted kids of his own. He was warming up to Jade a little more every day, and when he looked at the little girl now, Lacey saw a light in his eyes that she'd never seen there before. It seemed to her that he'd made it a personal mission to get to his little cousin's heart. The fact that he was getting to Lacey's, too, was just an unfortunate side effect.
“You’re a silly, Trevie,” Jade answered, all of a sudden beaming from ear to ear.
“Trevie?” Trevor asked with a bark of laughter. “Well now, little lady, can’t say I’ve ever had anyone call me that before.” He reared up to his full height and rubbed his chin. “I think I like it. What do you think, Lacey? I look like a Trevie to you?”
He took his hat off and did a slow spin, balancing on the heels of his boots. Jade laughed and clapped her hands, jumping up and down as if it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. All Lacey could seem to see was the way his butt looked in his blue jeans. All of a sudden, the warm air coming from the furnace ducts was just a little too hot for comfort. She felt as if her body temperature had just shot up about a thousand degrees. She almost dropped the mug of tea she was holding, scrambled to catch it, and then dropped it anyway.
The cup was more than half empty, but what was left splattered on the newly stained wood of the floor. “Crap!” she said breathlessly, clapping both hands over her mouth as soon as the word was out of her mouth. Jade gave her a very serious, very disapproving look at hearing the bad word. When Lacey looked at Trevor, though, she saw that he was laughing again. She couldn’t recall having heard him laugh this much the entire time they had been growing up. The sound of it made her skin tingle all over.