Temporary Dad

“But Jed—” Annie crossed the small space cluttered with stuffed animals to touch his arm “—she’s not a kid anymore. She’s a grown woman with a family of her own. If your assumptions are true—that she ran off to figure out her life—maybe what she doesn’t need is her big brother charging in for a needless rescue. Maybe she needs time to get her head on straight. I mean, that’s essentially why I moved here. I miss my grandmother something fierce, but it was time for me to grow up. To face a few issues on my own. I’m betting Patti feels the same.”

Annie looked down to see that she was still touching him, and she marveled not only at his physical strength—tightly corded and radiating heat beneath her fingers—but at his sheer mental will.

“Look,” he said, “I realize that I probably seem a little psycho right about now.”

“A little,” Annie said with a smile.

He didn’t return her smile.

Instead, he dropped the baby bag and sat hard on the bottom step. He cupped his forehead. “There are some things about me. My past. Patti’s. There’s no time to rehash it all now. You just need to know that I have to get up there. See for myself that she’s all right.”

“Okay.” Her tone softer, Annie nudged him aside to sit next to him.

Big mistake.

The entire right half of her body hummed. All the way from her shoulder to her thigh to her bare ankle that almost touched Jed’s bare calf. The ankle felt a twitchy, electrical buzz of attraction that she—and her ankle—had never come close to feeling before.

This was wrong.

Here she was, trying to comfort her distraught neighbor and all she could think of was what it might feel like to graze her smooth-shaven legs against the coarse hairs on his.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

“Um—” She swallowed hard. “Where was I?”

“How should I know?”

“Right. That’s it.” Before plopping down beside him, she’d been about to explain how he could find out his sister was safe without driving hundreds of miles. “There’s a very simple way you can not only reassure yourself that Patti’s okay, but skip a lo-o-ong road trip with three babies. All you need to do is—”

“I know—call. But the cabin doesn’t have a phone, and I already tried her cell. Big surprise, it’s not working. Which leaves me calling my friend Ditch, who’s the local sheriff.”

“Ditch?” She raised her eyebrows.

“It’s a long story. Anyway, I tried calling Ditch both at home and at work, and got nothing but answering machines. I left messages for him to call me back ASAP. The town has a hardware store, gas station and a grocery, so I called those, too. Nobody’s seen her, but that doesn’t mean she’s not there. I have to talk to her and see for myself that she’s okay.”

“I’ll tell you who’s not gonna be okay after being cooped up with three screaming babies all the way to Colorado.”

Jed shook his head. “Babies supposedly like cars, don’t they? I mean, I took ’em to the zoo yesterday—or was that the day before?” He rubbed his forehead. “See how messed up Patti’s got me? I don’t even know what day it is.”

“All the more reason for you to go upstairs and take a nap. You’re in no condition to make that drive. You’ve been up for days. Now, if you could fly or take a train or if someone else could help you, then—”

“That’s it!” he said, turning around on the steps to face her.

Annie crinkled her nose. “What?”

“Someone to help. And I know just the person.”

Though Jed looked straight at her, Annie glanced over his shoulder at the pasta-colored wall. A nice sage-green would be a vast improvement.

She gasped when he put his fingers beneath her chin, dragging her gaze right back to him. “You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“Um…” She licked her lips. Maybe that wall could be painted celadon. Or pumpkin. Any color that took her mind off Jed’s arresting eyes. “If that special someone is me,” she said, “I have a very full schedule. I start my new job a week from Monday. So, this week, I have tons of painting to do, ceiling scraping and—”

“I’ll pay you,” he interrupted. “Name your price. As long as I have that amount in savings, it’s yours.”

She stared down at her lap where she clutched her knees with a white-knuckled grip. “This isn’t about money, Jed.”

It was about this crazy yearning she had at the thought of sitting beside him in the intimate confines of a car for the next few days. It was about falling for him—from his laugh to his smile to the fact that he honestly believed four diapers and a few cans of formula were going to get him and three babies all the way to Colorado.

He hadn’t even packed a can opener!

He needed her, and what scared her even more was that she might very well need him. But she couldn’t need him, because just as soon as this crazy road trip was over, his need for a babysitter would vanish, and her need for companionship would be that much stronger.

Her head and heart that much more messed up.

“Annie?” he said softly. “Please?”

She used the wall for leverage to push herself up from the stairs. She had to get away from Jed, from his citrusy smell and his strength and, worse yet, his vulnerability.

Friends told her she worried way too much about other folks’ problems and not enough about her own.

Well, this was one time she needed to listen to their advice. Her friends were right. Jed and his adorable crew were trouble with a capital T.

She stood in front of the door staring at the doorknob. “I have to go.” I can’t allow myself to fall for you.

She was still too raw from Conner. And she hadn’t even begun to sort out the mess Troy had made of her soul. She was weary from missing Grams and from being all alone in this town—and practically the whole world.

Jed stood too, and then he was behind Annie, resting his strong hands on her shoulders.

“Ever since our folks died,” he said quietly, “Patti’s been my responsibility. She was a good kid—the best. She was also the worst teen. I’ve been through hell with her. The night she gave up her virginity to the first greasy-haired punk who asked, it was me she came home to. I was the one who held her while she cried. Just like when I found her underneath a highway overpass in a seedy part of downtown Tulsa. She’d run away because she’d gotten mad at me for making her wash the dishes. She was shivering, and I wrapped her in a quilt our mother had made for her fifth birthday. It matched the yellow-and-white daisies on Patti’s bedroom walls. When our house burned down, Mom had wrapped the quilt around Patti as we fled.”

His hands still on her shoulders, Jed turned Annie to face him, which only upped the stakes of the battle raging inside her. Standing behind her, he was dangerous enough. When he stood in front of her, staring at her, she found that just looking at him was emotional suicide.

She’d already been through so much.

She couldn’t open herself up to more pain.

Her move to Pecan was about healing. Making a fresh start. It was about—

Jed took her hands and gave them a gentle squeeze, flooding her with the kind of simple, wondrous, unconditional companionship she hadn’t felt in years. Except that it wasn’t unconditional; it came with strings. Strings that would vanish the instant they reunited Patti with her babies.

“I—I have to go,” Annie said, turning for the door, putting her hand on the cold brass knob.

“Howie’s her husband,” Jed said. “He should be with her right now. But I can’t find him, Annie. Until I do, I’m all she has. I have to help her. She’s all I’ve got.”

Annie swallowed hard.

How had he known?

Of all the words in the English language, those were the ones that spoke the loudest to her heart. It was exactly the way she felt about her grandmother.

“Annie, I’ll be the first to admit I’ve got a mile-long streak of pride running through me. I hate asking for help. Even worse, I hate needing help. But in this case—”

“I’ll do it.”

“You will?”

Lips pressed tight, fighting silly tears of trepidation, maybe even excitement, Annie nodded.

Jed pulled her into a hug, and the sensation was warm and comforting, like slipping into a hot bath. This sure wouldn’t make it any easier to fight her feelings for this man.

Releasing her, he clapped his hands, then rubbed them together. “Great! Let me tackle a few quick errands. I’ll beg, borrow or steal time off from work and we’ll get this show on the road. I’m assuming you’ll need to call your folks? Or your grandmother? Or—” he crossed his fingers for a negative on this one “—your boyfriend?”

Annie shook her head. “The only family I have is my grandmother, and there’s no need to worry her with a short trip like this.”

“You sure?”

She nodded. Why even broach the subject with Grams? The older, wiser woman would think she was nuts—which she probably was.

“All right then. If you wouldn’t mind hanging out here just a little while longer, we’ll be good to go. Oh—before I forget…” He took a cell phone from the coffee table and plugged it into a nearby charger. “Is your cell battery fully charged?”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

“How come?”

“I’d rather spend the fifty dollars a month on decorating supplies.”

He smiled. “I knew I liked you. Finally, a woman who actually prefers an activity to talking.”

“I didn’t say I don’t like to talk.” She winked. “I just don’t want my conversations to cost more per year than a custom-upholstered sofa and love seat.”

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