Next Door Daddy

by Debra Clopton

  He heard the disgust in her voice and he wasn’t sure if it was from the valve breaking or that she’d panicked.

  He shot Taco a longing glance, only fifteen feet away…All Nate had to do was walk away. “Don’t beat yourself up over it,” he said instead. “Let me take a look at it now that the water’s off.”

  “No. I’ve already put you through so much. I can handle it from here.”

  He’d have to see that to believe it. “I’m happy to do it, ma’am,” he said. Resigned to it might be a better word. He’d expected to come over to make his welcome known and head out. But he couldn’t very well leave her stranded like this. What if it were Kayla needing a helping hand—not that she ever would have, she’d been an amazing woman. Still, that sealed his fate. “I’m Nate Talbert. Your neighbor,” he offered, feeling off-kilter. He jerked his head toward the direction of his house, though it was well hidden behind a stand of oak and pine.

  “You’re our neighbor!” the kid exclaimed jumping around him. “And that’s your horse! Woo-hoo!”

  Nate looked from the freckled-faced kid to the mother. They had matching green eyes.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “I’m Pollyanna McDonald and this is my son, Gilly.”

  “Aw, Mom, it’s Gil.”

  “Excuse me, my bad,” she said, rubbing his wet hair. “This is Gil.”

  Gil looked serious again. “No man of the house is s’posed to be called Gilly. That sounds like a baby.”

  Nate caught a shadow in Pollyanna’s eyes. The woman was plain, but she had some expressive eyes. “You are exactly right,” she said. “You are growing up on me.”

  Nate was distracted, and glad of it, as the dog bumped into him and tried to sniff at his jeans. The cone hindered him from getting his bulb of a nose as close as he wanted. Unable to understand it wasn’t going to work, the animal kept trying, repeatedly bumping one side of the cone then the other against Nate’s calf. That made the kid laugh and the mother grow flustered.

  “Gil, take Bogie around front to play,” she said. As if one too many things were out of her control, she snatched up her long, dripping hair and twisted it nervously. Water poured to the ground.

  “But, Mom—”

  “No buts. Mr. Talbert doesn’t need to be harassed while he’s trying to help.”

  The kid looked like he was going to protest again, then thought better of it and reached for the dog. “Can I come watch you fix the pipe in a few minutes?” he called, using his knee to hoist the dog securely into his arms as he lumbered under his load toward the house.

  Nate couldn’t very well say no, so he gave a curt nod, which made the boy light up. “Awesome,” he yelped just as the dog hit him in the chin with its cone. “Hold on, Bogie,” he urged gently, then, shifting his heavy load, he disappeared around the corner of the house.

  “You may rue the day we moved in next door,” Pollyanna McDonald said, slinging her hair over her shoulder and planting her hands on her hips. Her tools jingled.

  Looking at her, Nate wasn’t sure how to react, so he didn’t. “I’ll take that look now,” was all he said, and strode toward the porch. He was soaked from his knees to his Stetson, but that didn’t even compare to the condition of his neighbor. He didn’t know how long she’d stood in the spray before he’d arrived, but obviously it had been longer than needed. Even above the jangle of her tools he could hear her shoes and jeans squelching as she trailed behind him.

  He felt bad for her, losing her husband and all, but frankly, he wasn’t too keen on the idea of a neighbor who didn’t even know, so to speak, “how to get out of the rain.” It didn’t bode well. Not at all.

  So that was her new neighbor. Not much of a talker, Polly thought as she watched him stride into her house. Of course, what man would be under the circumstances? She’d yanked the poor guy right into the water—probably ruined his hat. She couldn’t be any more mortified. Needing his help was bad enough. That she’d forced him to take a swim was just too much to think about.

  She’d really made a mess of things. How could she not have known how to shut the water off? She hadn’t even thought to ask the real-estate agent where it was. She’d never needed to turn the main line of water off in her entire life. Still, any ninny should have known how to find a lever and yank!

  Taking a calming breath, she pushed away the negative feelings and followed Nate Talbert through the doorway into her house. Not knowing how to turn off a main water valve was a small thing and, though, for a moment she’d let it get to her, she refused to allow it to continue having an upper hand.

  The utility room was much calmer. The water had stopped, Gil and Bogie were outside, and Pepper, having had his bath, had flown into another part of the house.

  Nate removed his hat and hooked it on the end of the curtain rod vacated by Pepper. He pulled the washing machine farther out from the wall and sloshed through the two inches of water to study the situation.

  The man was a good six-three, maybe-four, and his shoulders were broad, making it tough for him to squeeze into the tight space between the wall and the washer. He was a handsome man, a little hard-looking, with a firm mouth below prominent cheekbones and a Gregory Peck nose, a nice nose.

  Not that she usually paid much attention to nice noses or how good-looking a man was. The fact that she’d noticed such a thing set her to feeling even more at odds with the entire situation. Grabbing a mop, she attacked the water that had flooded not only the utility room but a good portion of her kitchen. “I could call a plumber,” she offered, really hating that this stranger was dealing with her problem. Not to mention how foolish he must think her.

  He leaned forward, studying the pipe. “No need,” he said, his words clipped. “I’ve got the right part over at my place. I’ll just go get it and be back in a few minutes.”

  Polly clamped her mouth shut on the protest that begged to come out. He didn’t look too happy, but he had offered. “If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble,” she said instead. Why she bothered was a mystery since he was already striding out the door. He was heading down the steps before she’d set her mop to the side and followed him outside.

  In a swift, easy movement of a man used to maneuvering a barbed-wire fence, he bent and gracefully swooped through the middle strands without using his hands to hold the wire apart.

  With the same amount of ease he swung into the saddle and rode away. Polly thought of the Lone Ranger and felt like all that was missing was a “High-yo, Silver.”

  There was no wasted energy about Nate Talbert. In movements or in words.

  Actually, that suited Polly just fine. It wasn’t as if she was going to be asking the man for help on a regular basis.

  Spinning away, she hurried to clean up the watery disaster. The least she could do for him if he was going to work in there was make the utility room habitable.

  That is, if he came back.

  Given a few minutes to digest the circus he’d walked into, he might get home and decide calling a plumber wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  Thirty minutes later Nate had just started working on the broken valve when the kid tromped into the room. “Hey, Nate—”

  “That’s Mr. Talbert to you, young man,” rang out from somewhere in the other room, causing the boy’s ears to turn pink.

  “Mr. Talbert,” he started over, hopping from foot to foot. “Can I watch?”

  Nate’s first inclination was to say no. He’d already denied the mother’s offer to help and been glad when she hadn’t given him any argument about it. The last thing he needed was her hovering over him while he tried to work. It was a little too personal for his taste. But the kid. He was a different story. His earlier statement hung in the air between them. He was the man of the house.

  “That’d be fine,” Nate said tersely, immediately going back to work.

  Gil scooted right in there, plopped his elbows on the washing machine and leaned in as far as he could, watching Nate over the con
trol panel. He wasn’t terribly tall, but tall enough.

  The kid asked what everything was and why it needed to be done the way he was doing it. Nate explained on a need-to-know basis, figuring if the kid had the wherewithal to come up with the question, then he would retain the information better. Because, Nate agreed with Gil, the kid did need to know these things.

  Twenty minutes later, almost finished, Nate started tightening the new connections, when he met the kid’s longing gaze. “You want to give this a tug and finish it off? It’s your house.” The offer lit Gil’s eyes like a Roman candle. Struck by the intense will he saw in the boy’s eyes, Nate knew he couldn’t turn away from the fact that they were his neighbors and it wouldn’t hurt him to give the boy some encouragement and direction.

  “All right!” he whooped, and scrambled to squeeze between Nate and the washing machine. Grabbing hold of the wrench, he pulled, then pushed it around. Nate gave him a little help with the final tightening.

  “It’s good to go,” Nate said when it wouldn’t go any farther.

  “Yep, it’s good to go,” Gil echoed, puffing his chest out and looking up at him.

  Nate had an urge to squeeze the boy’s thin shoulder. But he didn’t. Instead he gave him room to move away. “Are you going to wash the first load?”

  Gil spun around. “Me? That’s girl stuff.”

  Nate lifted a brow. “The man of the house needs to know how to wash his own clothes.” It had been a hard lesson learned. Having a doting mother and then a doting wife, he’d made a mess of things for a while.

  Gil’s forehead crinkled. “You know how to wash your own clothes?”

  “Yup.” Nate’s gaze snagged on Pollyanna’s as she came through the double doors into the utility room. She’d changed into dry clothes and towel dried her previously drenched hair. She was pretty in a soft way. “I’m all done here.” He was suddenly more than ready to get back home.

  She leaned against the door frame and watched him push the washer closer to the wall, Gil helping.

  “Mom. Nat—Mr. Talbert says I should learn to wash my own clothes.”

  Wiping his hands on a rag Pollyanna had given him earlier, Nate looked from child to mother. Dry, they really were a matched pair in more ways than their green eyes. They had the same wavy hair, like the warm color of Bogie’s cinnamon coat, and both had a dusting of freckles across their noses.

  “I think that’d be a grand idea. We can start with your jeans and all those towels you use when you take your baths. How about you run up and feed your animals right now and I’ll get your supper on the table.”

  “Sure! Hey, Mr. Talbert, you wanna stay for supper? Can he, Mom?” He was hopping from one foot to the other again and Nate got the idea that the boy was in constant motion.

  Nate shook his head, catching the flash of hesitation in Pollyanna’s eyes. “No, that’s okay.” He was as against the idea as she obviously was.

  She blushed and her good manners took over in an instant as her expression shifted into a smile. Unsure, but a smile. “Oh, please stay. After what we’ve put you through, I owe you something for all your trouble.”

  She didn’t owe him anything. “No trouble.” He was already reaching for his hat. “But I’ve got my own chores to finish up.” He saw the disappointment in the boy’s eyes and the relief in hers as he strode the short steps to the back door.

  It was one thing to help out, but the last thing he needed or they needed was to get too close.

  To his credit, the boy didn’t protest but once, and Nate couldn’t help noticing that his mother’s hand on his shoulder and a quick shake of her head halted anything else he might have said. At the door, Nate tipped his wet hat and left them there, mother and child, and at their feet, the dog. And somewhere behind them the bird singing, “Jesus loves Pepper, oh, yes, He does.”

  An odd bunch that made Nate intensely aware of all the dreams he’d laid to rest when he lost Kayla.

  Only days before he’d prayed for the Lord to send him a miracle to help him cope with the leftovers of his life…He had a bad feeling he was going to need that miracle even more now, because his neighbors were acute reminders of exactly how empty his life had become.

  Chapter Three

  The day after the washing-machine fiasco Gil woke up talking about their new neighbor. He was talking about Nate Talbert even as his ride picked him up for school and they drove away. Mule Hollow shared a school with a couple of other small communities. It was about twenty miles from town. Polly and the mother of one of the other boys had joined forces and started a carpool. As she watched the car disappear down the lane, she breathed a sigh of relief.

  She didn’t exactly know how to take her son’s sudden and immediate infatuation with the gruff cowboy.

  She didn’t have time to think about it long since a trail of cars turned in her drive almost immediately.

  In the lead was the pink 1958 Caddy that belonged to Lacy Matlock. Lacy had the top down, and she started waving the moment she spotted Polly on the porch. Polly wasn’t sure she’d ever met anyone as full of life and love of the Lord as Lacy. They were about the same age, but next to Lacy, Polly felt a bit like a tarnished penny.

  Within seconds Lacy pulled to a halt and the truck following her did, too. The three older women who climbed out of it were Mule Hollow’s very heart and soul. They’d single-handedly come up with a plan to save their town by advertising for would-be wives. The idea had picked up; women had answered the call. Day after day there was one less lonesome cowboy riding the range around town.

  When Polly had first heard about the town, she almost hadn’t believed the story. But it was true. The town once bustling with life had started dying when the oil boom busted and the families had to move off to find work. Not close enough to anything to attract new families, all that had remained were the old-timers and the cowboys. Things were changing due to the efforts of these three ladies and Lacy.

  And Polly had chosen to move here because she felt drawn to be a part of the effort. She also felt that it was a great place for a B and B. When she’d found this Victorian for sale she’d believed it was a sign that this was the place to make her dreams come true.

  Within minutes of their arrival, Polly’s kitchen was a flurry of action as they all set to help her unpack the huge amount of boxes. She had furniture that would still be delivered after she got the upstairs painted, but that was going to take her at least a couple of weeks. For now, when the kitchen was unpacked she would be box free for a little while. That was a good feeling.

  “You should take the doors off those cabinets,” Esther Mae Wilcox said a half hour later. She stood studying the cabinets, her red head tilted to the side and her index finger on her chin. “You have all this stunning glass. You shouldn’t hide it behind doors.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Polly agreed from where she stood barefoot on the counter. She loved Depression glass and had collected an overabundance of it. It was going to come in handy now that she was opening the bed-and-breakfast. “If I remove these pesky doors it’ll not only make the room look like a rainbow of color, but be convenient for me, too.”

  The room had twelve-foot ceilings. The cabinets went all the way up, which was one reason she was standing barefoot on the counter. It beat going up and down a ladder as Esther Mae handed her dish after dish.

  From all corners of the room everyone offered their agreement.

  “I just love Depression glass,” Esther Mae continued. She pulled a plate from the box and admired it before handing it up to Polly. “Although, I think the name is oddly off since there is nothing depressing about it.”

  “It was made during the Depression,” Norma Sue Jenkins said from inside the walk-in pantry where she was working. “That’s depressing enough!”

  “Well, I know that,” Esther Mae huffed. “I lived through it as a kid, too, you know. Maybe that’s why I love to look at it so much. There just isn’t anything prettier than a bunch of colored glass.
”

  “I agree,” Lacy said.

  Polly handled the dainty plate with care. “My grandmother got me started with my infatuation with it. Those green Vaseline dishes were hers. I started collecting the Depression glass because it looked similar and I loved the colors, especially the pink and blue dishes. And the lemon,” she smiled. “Who am I kidding? I love them all.”

  “Me, too.” Esther Mae chuckled. “You know, if you hold a black light to the Vaseline glass it fires because of the uranium in it.” She held the bright green candy dish to her. “That means it glows in black light,” she said for anyone who might not know what she was talking about.

  Polly took it from her when she held it up to her. “My gram, she keeps hers in a special cabinet my granddad built her. He installed black lighting, and when I was a kid she loved to turn off the lights and show me how her dishes glowed.”

  “Where do your grandparents live?” Norma Sue asked as she came out of the pantry. She was a robust woman with an infectious smile that filled out her plump face. Polly had a feeling that anything Norma Sue set out to do got done.

  “They moved to Arizona because of my granddad’s allergies. We don’t get to see them as much now and I really miss them. I almost moved out there to open my place. But I wanted to stay in Texas. Just wanted to get out of Dallas.”

  “And we are so glad you did. What about your parents?” Adela Ledbetter-Green asked, setting a blue glass on the table beside a group of matching pieces. She was a darling wisp of a woman, quieter than her two friends, and though she was a widow in her early seventies she’d recently married her longtime sweetheart. Polly thought that was both romantic and a bit sad, too, thinking about how life moves forward. Her Marc slipped into her thoughts, bringing with him that mixture of emotions. With God’s help and her determination to make Marc proud of her, she was moving forward without him beside her…but to remarry—The very idea set alarms off in her heart.