When she looked up again, Trevor was looking at her thoughtfully. “What is it?” he asked brusquely. One thing she had noticed about him was that he almost never beat around the bush. She vaguely remembered being impressed by that as a little girl. Now, she only wished he’d pretend not to notice she was upset, like most normal adult acquaintances would.
“Nothing,” she answered quickly and, she hoped, with enough finality to discourage further questioning. “Besides, aren’t you the one who’s got a problem? Let’s just focus on that, shall we?”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said, voice suddenly shaky. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he spoke, making it look like his entire body was vibrating with the nervous energy he was giving off. Beneath his worn work boots, the floorboards of the porch creaked unhappily.
“Why don’t you tell me what it is, and we’ll see if we can’t handle it, whatever it is,” Lacey said in her best soothing tones, trying not to let herself shiver. Even though the temperatures were rising, she didn’t really consider the end of March to be appropriate porch weather. If that was where he was comfortable talking, though, that was where they would stay.
“Well, for starters, it’s not an ‘it.’ It’s a her, and if you’ve got a solution for this, I’ll eat my hat.”
“Um, if this is some kind of relationship problem—” Lacey started to say in disgust.
“No! Come on, are you kidding me? You think I would get this worked up over a chick? This is about my cousin, Penny.”
“Okay, what about her?” Lacey asked pointedly. She could feel herself starting to lose patience despite her best efforts. If Trevor didn’t cut to the chase, and soon, she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to keep it together. And it didn’t help matters that Penny had never been her favorite person to begin with.
"Turns out, she's got a little girl. I never knew she was pregnant, but now—she's got a little girl."
"Look, Trevor is there—?" Lacey started, the first signs of annoyance starting to show through in her voice.
"She's sitting in my living room, Lacey," he broke in, his voice strangled with panic. "Penny showed up here unannounced while I was in the barn, and next thing I know, I head back to the house, and there's this four-year-old little girl sitting on my porch with a note pinned to the front of her jacket."
“A note? What does that mean?” Lacey asked uncertainly. She wasn’t sure if it was what he was telling her or the stress in his voice, but either way, she was starting to feel some of Trevor’s fear. Things like that were contagious.
“Here, take a look at it yourself, why don’t you? Penny made it all pretty freaking clear, I’ll give her that. Guess she wanted to make sure things were understood in no uncertain terms.”
Trevor pulled a crumpled paper from the pocket of his jeans and thrust it in her direction. It was torn on the edges and sweat-stained as if he'd been running his fingers over it again and again—as if that could change what the note said.
As Lacey read, her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open. This was the kind of thing that happened in movies, not in real life. She had never even heard of something like this before, and yet, when her eyes flew back to Trevor's face, he was nodding.
"I know," he said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "What am I supposed to do with that? Wrote it on a freaking slip of Hello Kitty notepad paper. Can't take care of her own little girl, so she drops her off on my doorstep."
“But is this even legal?” Lacey asked carefully, reading through the note again. “Somebody can just give her kid away?”
“I don’t know, Lacey!” Trevor hissed, clearly wanting to yell but reining it in as he began pacing back and forth on the porch. “I don’t have the first clue about the law, okay? All I know is, my cousin, who I haven’t seen in years, just wrote a letter making me her kid’s guardian.”
“Trevor—”
“Oh, and just in case you didn’t know this already, which I’m pretty sure you do, I don’t have the first clue how to be a parent. Not the first clue!”
“Trevor,” Lacey said again, more forcefully this time. “You’re getting loud. She’s going to hear you.”
“Right,” he snapped. Then, more slowly, he added, “No, you’re right.” He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and let the breath back out. When he looked at her again, she could see that he was holding on to himself by a thin thread.
He was holding on, though. She had to hand it to him. Also, in a weird way, his crisis was helping her somewhat. It was good to have something to take her mind off her own troubles, to have something to try and do.
“Tell me what I can do for you, Trevor. How can I help?” she asked.
“Yeah, okay,” he sighed. “I’m glad you brought that up. We’ve got another little problem. Not as big as the first one.” He paused, then added, “Pretty much related to the first one, actually.”
“Tell me, Trevor,” she encouraged.
"It's Mrs. Beyers. I talked to her about Jade. That's her name—Penny's girl. I talked to Mrs. Beyers about taking on the role of nanny, on top of her other duties, and she up and quit. Said children aren't her thing and walked out. She must really hate kids, is all I've got to say."
Lacey’s heart was beating so fast and loud that she could feel it in her eardrums, threatening to drown everything else out. “What?! Mrs. Beyers quit? That’s impossible! How are we going to find somebody to replace her this quick?!” It was too much. The mess with the contractor, Jade, and now Mrs. Beyers. Lacey wasn’t a problem solver. She wasn’t the one to step up and put out these kinds of fires.
Trevor was looking at her as if she had gone and lost her mind. “Calm down, Lacey. Now you’re the one who’s yelling. It’ll just have to take a little longer, is all. Truth be told, Mrs. Beyers wasn’t working out. I was going to talk to you about replacing her, regardless.”
"And I would have said that was a bad idea!" Lacey shot back, doing her best to lower her voice and failing.
Trevor took a step forward and reached out to take her by the arms, looking into her face with an intensity that made her shudder. Part of her wanted to wrench free of his grip, but another part of her felt electrified. She hadn't expected the contact.
She’d expected her body's response to it even less.
“What is this about, Lacey? It can’t be all about Jade. Something else is going on. You want to tell me what it is?”
"I...I wasn't going to say anything," Lacey whispered, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. My would-be contractor for the B&B, he was supposed to be remodeling the place I bought, but I’m afraid he has decided to run off with all my money, instead.” She swallowed hard. “I don't know what I'm going to do."
“Shoot, Lacey—” Trevor began, his brow furrowing in concern.
When she saw that, she pulled away, wrapped her arms around herself, and hugged herself tightly. “Don’t, okay? Please don’t feel sorry for me. I wasn’t looking for sympathy. I don’t even know what made me tell you to begin with.”