* * *
Joe pulled slowly into the driveway at Red Hill Farm. Claire had texted him hours ago to let him know that Amelia was with her and could stay the night, but he hadn’t returned the text. He’d finished his appointments and driven out to the beach, planning to stay only until he found some peace. Usually, the ocean calmed him. Not today.
He got out of the truck and walked toward the back door, lifting his hand to knock. The back door opened and bright yellow light spilled out onto the porch. He lifted his head and found himself looking into Claire’s worried blue eyes. “Hi.”
She looked beautiful and perfect with a blue smudge on her face. He reached a finger out and brushed it down her cheek. “You’ve been painting.”
Her eyes widened slightly at his touch and he realized for the first time that he wasn’t the only one who felt a pull.
Deliberately, he let his hand drop and smiled, a slow, tired smile. “You still got my girl here?”
“She crashed about an hour ago, after she ate dinner and beat me to a pulp in Crazy 8’s.”
“Mind if I take a look at her?” He wanted to see her and remind himself that she was what really mattered, not him.
Claire led the way through the kitchen to the small family dining room that she’d converted into a makeshift bedroom. It was messy, a hodgepodge of clothes and tools and painting supplies. And it smelled like fresh green apples, like Claire. Not an ideal bedroom—Claire was obviously roughing it—but Amelia seemed entirely at ease, her arm thrown out in sleep. His daughter was safely tucked in bed and the knowledge that there were times when she hadn’t been nearly killed him.
“She’s been through a lot, but I think she’s going to be okay.” Claire reached out to him, but he didn’t grab hold. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he was afraid he wouldn’t want to let go. He felt adrift and Claire was strong and steady, her passion for what she was doing, solid and real. Instead, he walked through the kitchen and onto the back porch.
From the open door behind him, Claire said, “I have barbecue chips, plain chips, cheese curls and tortilla chips. A selection of candy and snack cakes as well, if you’re hungry.”
Joe winced. “She told you I said your kitchen is like a convenience store?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She walked out the door and stood beside him, looking at the stars in the sky.
“Well, do you even have a piece of fruit in there?”
She scoffed. “Of course I have fruit. There are fruit gummies on the counter, a whole box of them.”
“Fruit does not come in a box.” He shook his head, but as he looked back at the glittery sky, he realized the knot of worry he’d been carrying in his chest had started to loosen. She had a way of doing that with animals and children, and, apparently, him.
“Wait till we have things growing in our garden. You won’t be able to move in here for all the zucchini and tomatoes.” She backed down the stairs as she was talking. “I need to peek in on Tinkerbell. Tell me about your appointment while we go check on her. If you want to.”
He followed her across the yard, but talking about the doctor’s report and his team’s decision wasn’t high on his list at the moment.
Claire pushed the door to the barn open. She wasn’t even through the door all the way before she turned back, her voice an urgent whisper. “Go get Amelia! Tinkerbell’s having her baby.”
She disappeared through the door again.
Joe ran for the house and slammed open the back door. “Amelia!”
He bolted through the kitchen and into the dining room. “Amelia!”
She sat up in bed, rubbing sleep-drenched eyes. “Joe? What’s going on?”
“Claire needs you in the barn.”
“Tinkerbell?” Amelia was wearing a long lavender nightshirt that had to belong to Claire. She jumped to her feet, shoved them into the work boots she’d left by the back door and started down the steps before skidding to a halt and turning back.
“Joe, come on!” She dashed across the yard, nightshirt and hair flying behind her. By the time he picked his heart up off the floor and got to the barn, the hard part for Tinkerbell was over.
“Okay, Amelia, dry him off.” Claire grabbed a suction bulb out of her kit and quickly suctioned the baby goat’s nose and mouth.
Amelia crooned to the new baby while she rubbed it all over with a clean, dry towel. “Oh my goodness, you are so cute. Isn’t she cute, Joe?”
It was mucky and sticky and kind of gross, to be honest, but also incredibly cool. His daughter didn’t pay any attention to the mess. She concentrated on her job, and when they moved the baby for Tinkerbell to clean, Amelia sat back on her heels with a completely satisfied look on her face. “Twins!”
“What? Nice!” Joe peered around the door of the stall and realized that Tinkerbell had already delivered one baby, which was tucked into her side. As Claire placed the new baby by her head, she began patiently cleaning it, too. It was like she just knew what to do out of instinct or something.
He would give a lot to have that kind of innate instinct with Amelia. He leaned against the wooden post. “What are you going to name them?”
Claire’s twinkling eyes met Amelia’s. “Peter Pan and Wendy, of course.”
He chuckled. “Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking. So, what’s next?”
“Amelia needs to go home to bed because she has stuff to do tomorrow. I’ll stay out here with Tinkerbell for a while. There are a few more things to do before I can turn in.”
“Can I spend the night? I want to see them in the morning. Please, Claire?”
“Only if it’s okay with your dad. He’s had a long day, too.”
Truthfully, there were only a couple of hours before daylight. It wouldn’t hurt to let her stay. “Go wash up. I’ll be in soon to tuck you in.”
As Amelia walked slowly into the house, Joe watched Claire. She took a small mason jar full of dark liquid out of her kit, along with shiny silver scissors and some white string. She glanced up at Joe. “There’s an extra sleeping bag in the trunk of my car if you want to stretch out on a piece of floor near Amelia.”
“I’m fine right now. What are you doing?”
“Checking the umbilical cord and dipping it in iodine so they won’t get an infection. Want to help?”
He nodded, so she handed him the first little goat—brown-and-white Peter.
“Just turn him over and I’ll do the rest.”
Joe let the little goat lean back on his chest while Claire made quick work of tying off and dipping the cord, then switched and handed him Wendy. They were still kind of damp but starting to fluff up. Wendy blinked dark brown eyes at him. He held firm until she nuzzled him under the chin with her nose, and then he was a goner. He scratched under her tiny chin and whispered in her ear that she was going to love it here.
Claire encouraged each of the newborns to nurse from Tinkerbell, who obviously just wanted a nap. He could relate, but watching those fuzzy little goats so new in the world had somehow eased the pain from the day.
“I’m just going to shovel some fresh wood chips and straw in here for Tink and her babies, and then I’ll be in, if you want to go check on Amelia.”
He started to walk away but turned back to her. “Claire, thank you. I know you didn’t plan this, but it helped, so thanks for letting me be a part.”
“No problem, anytime.” She didn’t look up from what she was doing and didn’t realize that his face probably reflected what he was feeling. That she rocked his world every bit as much as Amelia’s, with her optimism and her warmth, her easy acceptance of him. And he was getting used to having her around.
Joe shook his head.
He needed to get himself together, because no matter how much he liked and admired Claire, his future was a murky blur. I
t wouldn’t be fair to her to start something when he had no idea if he would even have a job at the end of his six-month leave.
* * *
Claire shoveled a fresh load of wood chips into Tinkerbell’s stall. She could imagine how Joe felt, from firsthand experience. Horses and goats didn’t talk much, but they were warm and real and somehow they had a way of helping you narrow things down to what was really important.
Tink was tired out from her ordeal and protested when Claire moved her onto the fresh straw. Both babies had full tummies and were ready to settle down, too. Maybe they would all get a nap this morning. She laughed out loud at that thought. The goats would, for sure, but a nap for her? Not likely with the day she had ahead.
A soft breeze blew toward her across the pasture as she walked out into the yard, and she had to admit that her inheritance looked like a graceful old lady in the predawn haze. She dragged her tired body to the picnic table behind the house and sat on top of it, taking in the last few stars twinkling in the sky, remembering the promise she’d made to her mom before she died, that she wouldn’t waste a second.
Her mom was one of those people who when you met them, you didn’t have a doubt that you had just met Jesus. Claire longed for that kind of relationship with Him. She wanted to breathe in Life and breathe it out in her every action. She wanted the kids coming to this home to know Him, too.
And she wanted to be brave, like her mom had been. To not be afraid to do hard things just because they were hard. She rubbed the old scars in the crook of her arm. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to battle those feelings of inadequacy, of not being good enough.
The screen door shut behind her, and a few seconds later, Joe appeared at her side with two cups of steaming coffee. “Since you drank mine the other day at the Hilltop, I figured if I fixed yours the way I like it, you’d be okay with it.”
She took the cup and smiled. “I would drink the cold dregs of a three-day-old pot right now and be grateful for it. This is so much better.”
“You probably need sleep more than coffee.” He sat on the table beside her, their feet together on the bench.
“I do, but in a few minutes Freckles will be standing by the fence waiting for his feed and the cat will be out here on the porch meowing for her breakfast. By the time I get them fed, the workers who promised to come on a Saturday will be here. But if all goes according to plan, by the time the sun goes down, the rotten boards on the front porch will be replaced and the downstairs paint will be finished.”
Joe cupped the coffee between his two hands. “Your day makes mine look simple. I’ve got physical therapy this morning, but hopefully this afternoon I’ll be at the cabin, painting, too.”
“How’d your appointment go today?”
He shrugged, looking into his cup. “They’re not sure I’ll be able to get back to full strength. There was some nerve damage.” He cleared his throat. “They offered my stand-in a permanent position.”
“Oh, Joe, I’m sorry.” She grabbed his hand, gripped it.
He looked down at their intertwined fingers and ran his thumb over hers. “It’s... I kind of expected it, but I still have to try. You know? It’s what I do, who I am. So I have a couple of months, give or take, to get back to a hundred percent or I’m done on the team.”
“There’s more to you than you give yourself credit for, I think.” She paused. “Are you going to be okay?”
He blew out a breath, and when she glanced at him, he was staring across the pond to the cabin, where he and Amelia planned to live. “To be honest, I’m not sure. I’ve always had this reputation of calm under pressure. I mean, I got paid to handle stressful situations. To use my brain to figure out what makes people tick and talk them down. But all of this has me twisted up inside.”
“I get feeling out of control. Believe me.” The last few years had been an exercise in learning to trust that even if she didn’t understand why things were happening, God did. Helplessness, grief, loss, fear. She knew about those, too. “Whatever I can do to help, I will.”
“I know. And that means a lot.” He bumped shoulders with her one last time and stood up. “Amelia fell asleep facedown on the mattress still with her mucky boots on. Are you sure you don’t want me to take her back to Mom’s and bring her out later?”
Claire stood up and stretched her tired back. “Nah. Let her stay. She can sleep in and help me around here when she wakes up.”
His blue eyes narrowed. “Are you sure? I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“Pish. Didn’t you hear the part when I said I was going to put her to work? Besides, you know she would be pestering Bertie about getting back out here to see the babies. And you already said she could.”
“Yeah, I did, didn’t I? All right, then. I’ll be done around noon. I’ll bring food when I come back. Like some apples or broccoli or something.”
“Ha-ha.” She threw her wadded-up cup at him and pointed to his truck. “Leave.”
He laughed—a real, genuine laugh—and a weird warm fuzzy feeling started in her stomach. Off-limits. Off-limits. Off-limits, she silently chanted to herself, but she smiled at him as he swung into the seat of his old truck.
She watched him drive down the long driveway and wave as he pulled out onto the highway. She picked up her crumpled cup and headed inside for a fresh cup of coffee, but her thoughts were still on Joe. He related to what she was doing here in a way that most people couldn’t. He was sexy and sweet and, wow, really wounded.
And despite all the denial and lecturing herself about what was acceptable?
She was totally falling for him.
Chapter Eight
Joe hefted the last gallon of paint from the back of his truck. He’d hit the home improvement store after leaving the physical therapist and he and Amelia had been painting nonstop since midday. He glanced across the pond to Claire’s house, where he could still hear the pounding of a hammer, Claire’s porch being repaired.
“Come on, Joe. We’re burning daylight.” His daughter leaned on the column holding up the tin roof of the porch and he quickly prayed that it was strong enough to hold her up. So much of this cabin was held together on a spit and a prayer.
He swung the gallon of paint onto the porch. “Last one. This one is for the bathroom. It’s neon green.”
“Lime green.” Amelia rolled her eyes and he smothered a laugh, keeping it to himself that the green was so bright it hurt his eyes.
“Did you wash the hot pink off the brushes?” Joe had seen her at the hose with the brushes while he was getting the next gallon of paint.
Picking up a brush, she flicked water on him. “Oh, sorry. I guess it’s still wet from me washing it.”
He calmly walked to the hose and picked it up, pretending to wash his hands. Instead, he put his thumb over the spout and sprayed her.
Amelia shrieked, dancing as the cold water hit her. Ducking her head, she ran for the bucket where she’d been washing the brushes, picked it up and doused him with it, all the while squealing and laughing at the top of her lungs.
He dropped the hose and fell back on the ground, arms stretched out, belly-laughing. She splatted to the wet grass beside him.
“And here I thought I was going to be rescuing Amelia from a boring day of painting.” Claire walked toward them with a large picnic basket. “But it looks like I interrupted a water war.”
Amelia scrambled to her feet. “Joe just decided to spray me with the hose for no reason.”
He cut his eyes toward her. “Uh, no, I distinctly remember you spraying me first with that paintbrush.”
“Well, I figured y’all might be hungry, so I brought some sandwiches down.” She walked over to the steps and sat on the top one, oblivious to the water streaming down. She dug into the basket and tossed the first sandwich to Joe. “BLT.”
“You’re safe this time. I called the Hilltop and put our order in with Bertie.”
He and Amelia had been so busy he hadn’t even thought about eating, but he was starving. “In a week or so, we’ll have a kitchen and you’ll be knocking at our door.”
“I’m a fan of pretty much anything I don’t have to cook.” Claire crumpled the tinfoil from her grilled cheese into a ball, tossed it into the picnic basket and took a bite. “So, you’re probably right.”
“What are you going to feed the kids who live with you?”
“I know how to cook. I’m just not fond of it.” She considered. “Maybe I’ll make Amelia my chef.”
Amelia choked and then said, “Sorry, but I already have a job. You made me the assistant to the animals.”
“Oh, right. I guess I’ll have to come up with a different plan. Maybe one of the kids who is placed here will know how to cook.”
“Maybe you can take lessons from Bertie.”
She widened her eyes. “Or...Bertie will be my chef.”
“Might be a little hard to convince her to leave the restaurant.”
“There’s that. Guess that puts us back to one of the kids cooking. Anyway, you’re great at pointing the finger at me, but who does your cooking right now?” She tilted her head. “Methinks that might be the pot calling the kettle black, my friend.”
“Methinks?” He grinned but conceded the point graciously. “Maybe Mom will teach Amelia how to cook. Boom. Perfect solution.”
Joe hadn’t noticed Amelia getting more and more quiet during their conversation until she shot to her feet, tears pooling in her eyes.
“Hey, what’s wrong, kiddo?”
“You think you’re so smart, making all kinds of plans for me. You don’t even know if I’ll be here in six months. You don’t even know if I’ll be here next week.” She didn’t stop to let him reply, just swung around and took off around the pond toward Claire’s house.
The Dad Next Door Page 8
