She made a show of appearing relieved. “I was worried there for a second. Ghosts are pretty scary. But you two are a couple of cuties.” The girls giggled at the compliment. “I’m Tess. This is my barn.”
“I’m Jenny,” the girl on the left said. “And my sister is Jane. Your barn is our fort.”
They stood as a united front, way too brave when they should have been wary. Tess was a stranger after all. “You know this barn isn’t very sturdy. It’s not a good idea to play here. It could collapse and you’d be hurt. I don’t think your mom and dad would be very happy about that.”
“Mama’s dead,” Jane said quietly. She had a tiny birthmark on her temple that Jenny didn’t. Tess’s heart sank at her words. No wonder she hadn’t seen their mother around.
“I’m sorry, honey. That’s very sad. But I bet your dad would be sad if you got hurt.”
Jenny snorted. Her indignation was entirely too cute, and Tess fought to hide a grin. “Daddy doesn’t care. He’s cranky and needs about fifty naps. We’re running away to someplace that we can have fun. He won’t let us do anything and we only got to play in the hot tub once!”
Jenny was definitely the feistier of the two.
“Let’s go get some cookies first,” Tess suggested. The longer they stayed in the rickety barn the more nervous she got. Maybe before she tackled issues like painting, she needed to address whether or not the barn needed to be torn down. “We’ll talk about running away after that.”
The girls grumped but they weren’t about to turn down sweets. Tess helped them down the ladder and together they headed back to the house. She set them up on the front porch, within full view of their own house with a big plate of chocolate chip cookies and a couple of glasses of milk.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. “Can I trust you two not to hitch a ride out of town while I’m gone?”
The girls giggled but the mischievous glances they exchanged didn’t exactly fill Tess with confidence. She hoofed it across the back lawn and hopped over the fence that divided her property from the neighboring house. The patio alone looked as though it had come right out of Better Homes and Gardens. She could only imagine what the interior looked like. Tess tried to control the annoyance that rose up her throat in a hot wave and brought her fist to the sliding patio door. Whoever this guy was, he was about to get a piece of her mind.
* * *
“Jane! Jenny!” Carter called as he came down the stairs. Quiet was never a good sign when you were the father of twins, and Carter knew from his own experience growing up that the level of quiet was directly proportionate to the amount of trouble being caused.
Agitation and disappointment churned in his gut. Coming out to the cabin had been a bad idea. So far he’d managed to be nothing but a cranky bastard. No wonder the girls were sick of him and stirring up trouble at every opportunity. They were bored. He was no fun. He should have taken them to Disneyland. Someplace where the sensory overload would have kept them too busy for mischief. Most of the time they were little angels, but there were rare moments where they were a terrible twosome. Steph had always known how to handle that excess of energy. Aside from taking them outside and tossing a football around, Carter had no damned idea what he was doing.
Six weeks. Lord, what had he been thinking? They’d barely been there seven days and already they were all climbing the walls. Carter was beginning to think he should have taken Travis’s advice and hired a nanny. He’d promised Steph, though. She hadn’t wanted anyone to raise their girls but loving parents. I want you to find someone, Carter. Promise me that you’ll keep yourself open to love. Just the memory of his wife saying those words gutted him.
A round of hard slaps against the patio door caught Carter’s attention. He changed course and headed for the kitchen. Maybe the girls had accidentally locked themselves outside. In which case, they were in big trouble. The lake wasn’t far from the back lawn and even though they’d had swimming lessons, they knew better than to go outside without an adult. Carter’s pulse leaped and he jogged the rest of the way through the house.
What he saw at the back patio didn’t help to calm him. Not the girls.
Damn it. He recognized his neighbor by the bright locks of her reddish-gold hair. He didn’t have time for some curious, neighborly visit. Jane and Jenny could be anywhere. His gaze darted toward the lake once again. Carter’s heart beat double-time with worry for the girls, as he threw open the patio door.
“Look, whatever you want, I don’t have time for—”
“Your daughters were in my barn. They have an impressive fort built in the loft and I’m not sure the building is structurally sound. You might want to keep a better eye on them or they’re going to get hurt. And you also might want to know that they were planning to run away. Having heard your grumpy shouts for the past week, I’m inclined to agree with your kids that getting away was the best course of action.”
Indignation burned like a cinder in Carter’s throat. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recall asking you for parenting advice.” He’d planned to be more polite, but her brisk interruption and chiding were the straws that broke his back. He focused his attention from the straight, shining sheets of her hair that had been pulled back in a ponytail and left to cascade over one shoulder and the peachy blush of her skin. Her full and lusciously dark pink lips drew into a pucker and Carter’s stomach responded as it pulled into a tight knot at the center of his gut. She was shorter than him by a good half a foot, and compared to his bulk, her frame seemed slight despite her lush curves. His size didn’t intimate her though. Carter’s feisty neighbor took a step in, her toes nearly touching his, and her blue eyes sparked with fire.
“Oh believe me, buddy. If I’m giving advice of any kind, you’ll know it. This is a warning. Our houses aren’t exactly miles apart, know what I mean? I’ve spent more time listening to you shout and gripe than I have my own parents in the eighteen years I lived under their roof. And let me tell you, ages fifteen to eighteen were no freaking picnic for any of us. I came over because I don’t want your girls to get hurt. My barn is old and it looks like they’ve been squatting there for a while. They’re at my house right now, but they seemed hell-bent on running away. I’m no expert, but it might be a good idea to not be such a cranky pain in the ass all the time and maybe keep an eye on them once in a while.”
Annoyance crept up hot on Carter’s neck. He tried to massage the heat away with his palm, but it didn’t seem to help. His neighbor’s glance flitted momentarily to the action and a pleasant zing of sensation raced through Carter’s veins. The heat quickly became a tingle that crawled along his flesh. Not an altogether unpleasant sensation.
“You’re my neighbor. That’s all. How I treat my girls is none of your business.”
Her eyes glittered as her lids narrowed into slits. “It’s my business when they’re on my property.”
True, but he wasn’t about to give her any concessions. “Don’t worry. They won’t step foot on your property ever again.”
What’s her name? The thought came out of nowhere. The way she wanted to continue to argue with him sparked Carter’s competitive nature. He never backed down from a fight. Ever. A trait he’d inherited from his mother and shared with all of his brothers. The angrier her expression became, the more he wanted to push her buttons. If anything, to get a reaction out of her.
“That’s not the point.”
Sort of seemed like the point to him. “Then what is?”
“I don’t care that they were on my property.” The pink blush of her cheeks deepened with her annoyance. He’d never seen a woman with such a pale rose petal complexion. “Okay, so I do care, but only because the barn might not be the safest place to play. The point,” she stressed before taking a deep breath, “is that they were talking about running away. They might have been three or four miles down the road before you noticed they were gone. And they told me they were running away because you’ve been so cross with them lately.”