On Saturday morning, Rob opened his front door and ushered Hugo into the house after their walk. The dog was definitely going through an anxious phase, as Mia had said. He hadn’t destroyed any of Rob’s things when he was at work, but on Friday Rob had come home to a stuffed toy that Hugo had played with peacefully for over six months, now pulled to pieces, stuffing and scraps of fabric strewn across the living room.
“I think you’re going to spend at least part of the day outside, boy.” It wasn’t due to be a very hot day and the side of the house would provide shade if needed. Rob took the dog to the fenced yard, making sure there was a bowl of water and a few toys for him to play with.
Hugo was romping around with his half-inflated ball when Rob double-checked the latch on the gate and took himself over to Kari’s. Eight o’clock on the dot. The door opened just as he remembered Mia’s text.
I like her. You should date her.
Something must have shown on his face because Kari gave him a funny look. “What’s up?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just my daughter being little miss busybody.” He stepped into the house and followed her to the kitchen. He inhaled deeply, a savory, spicy aroma turning up the corners of his mouth. “Sausage?”
“Yeah. From the Dutch market.” Kari picked up a spatula and turned the sausage patties in a pan. They were practically the size of hamburgers. “How do you like your eggs?”
Rob’s stomach rumbled and he patted it as if to soothe a slavering beast. Which he guessed it was. “Over medium. Yum.”
“Grab yourself a cup of coffee and have a seat. It’ll all be ready soon.” She cracked eggs into another pan and Rob did as he was told, appreciating the way she tidied up after herself as she went, never pausing, never not doing something. Efficient, her lovely long fingers handling tasks with liquid grace. Within minutes, he had a loaded plate in front of him.
“I could get all too used to this,” he said. Kari’s eyes locked with his for a moment and the coffee cup she was lifting to her mouth paused for the barest second before he went on, talking a little too quickly. “Getting fed like this, I mean.”
“Ah.” She nodded and sipped, her face remaining neutral.
Crap. He’d just stepped in it, he was pretty sure.
“Do you know what color you’d like in your bedroom?” Crap again. He’d meant to turn the conversation to more neutral territory. But…bedroom. There it was. And yes, right on cue, Kari’s cheeks were turning pink.
“I found a really soft green. Something peaceful. My bedroom furniture is white, so…it seems like it would be a good contrast.” She dug in her pocket, pulling out a paint chip. “This.”
“Nice. Is there a lot of furniture?”
She shook her head. “No, just the bed and a chest of drawers. Two nightstands. I already took out the lamps and the few knickknacks I keep in there.”
That was just like what he had already observed of her. She thought ahead, was tidy and methodical. And her possessions were minimal, apparently.
“I’m guessing you’ve been something of a rolling stone in your life.”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t gathered any moss. No mess. Nothing extraneous.” He waved at the neat kitchen. Barring a couple of things she had needed to make breakfast and a toaster, the counters were empty. None of the usual plethora of mixers, bowl sets, and other kitchen miscellany that so frequently never found a home inside overcrowded cupboards. The other rooms he had been in were similarly free of clutter. Whereas his house…he almost cringed at the difference, remembering the swamp of catalogs and other paperwork she had purged for him.
As if she could read his mind, her eyes narrowed and she said, “You’re not hoarding lingerie catalogs again, are you?”
He waved a hand. “No. I’ve been sorting my mail over the recycle bin just like you said I should.”
Her face relaxed and she winked at him before returning her attention to her breakfast. The wink disconcerted him far more than it should.
I like her.
You should date her.
Damn his adorable, meddlesome, maddening, good-hearted daughter anyway.
If he had met Kari even ten years ago when he still had hope that he could have a functional romantic relationship with a woman, he would have leaped at her, a bouquet in one fist and his heart in the other, both on offer.
But those days were over.
Rob seemed unusually quiet this morning. Quiet and no-nonsense. Kari found she missed the awkward babbling, the unselfconscious dad-jokey Rob of last weekend. They finished their breakfast in silence and Rob helped her with the washing up before they got into Kari’s car and made for the home center. This time, Rob didn’t fill her cart with as many items as before and she didn’t feel so at sea with the things he did tell her to buy. She snagged a couple of free paint stirrers without prompting, causing his eyebrows to lift and his lips to curve in a smile. His approval to her tiny demonstration of having learned something from their last trip shot warmth through her chest and her heart seemed to trip over itself.
Loading the bags of supplies into the trunk of her car, she said, “Everything okay?”
“Sure, why do you ask?”
“You’re…quiet.”
He paused with his hand on her open trunk lid. His eyes slid sideways to meet hers, then looked straight ahead and he slammed the trunk shut. “Mia.”
They got into the car and buckled their seat belts. “You’re worried about her?”
This time, he didn’t meet her eyes. “Not as such. She’s just making me think.”
“About what?” she asked. He looked out the passenger window instead of responding. “Or shouldn’t I ask?” she added quickly. She started the car and backed out of the parking spot, her pulse hammering, feeling like she’d somehow overstepped some sort of boundary she wasn’t even aware existed. But of course he would protect his relationship with his daughter. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.”
Rob rubbed his hands on his thighs. “No. It’s fine. To be honest, my issue with Mia is that she’s pushing me about you.”
“Me?” Kari’s mind went blank and she was happy for the need to pay attention to the road and the traffic and the other drivers. Because…what?
“Yeah. You. She texted me after she met you.”
Kari forced herself to keep her eyes on the road. Hands at ten and two. “She…did?” Mia had been self-possessed and almost businesslike. What would she have been pushing Rob about?
Oh. Of course. She didn’t approve and Rob’s primary focus was his daughter. And that was absolutely the right priority for him to have. But it stung.
Kari swallowed hard. “She doesn’t like me, does she?”
“What?” Rob’s sharp tone startled her from her steady focus on the car ahead of hers. She glanced at him and then ahead and gasped, her foot slamming on the brake pedal in response to the red lights blooming in front of her. Her chest collided with the seat belt and one hand abandoned its clutch on the steering wheel to land on her sternum.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, looking from the car ahead of them to him and back again. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll survive a sudden braking with no impact,” he said dryly.
She swallowed. “Good. Okay.” Sure. All she had to do was drive home and…spend the entire day with him.
Then dinner tomorrow.
Oh, yes. This was great. His daughter disapproved of her and now he felt obligated to help her paint her bedroom.
“Please tell her we’re just friends. I’d hate for anything to be…well, more awkward than it already is.”
He paused before replying. “If that’s what you want.”
Well, there it was. She didn’t want anything more than friendship from him. It was probably for the best. It would make it easier to put an end to Mia’s well-intentioned meddling.
…So why did he feel disappointed?
His phone chimed and he dug it out of his pocket. “Mia’s on her way over to pick up Hugo.”
Kari kept her eyes on the road, showing him nothing but an inscrutable profile.
“She doesn’t dislike you, for what it’s worth. She’ll be glad you and I are becoming friends.”
Kari swallowed, her shoulders relaxing a fraction as she pulled up in front of her house. “I can bring the stuff inside if you have to get Hugo ready.”
“What, pack up his jammies and his sippy cups?” Rob remembered getting Mia ready to go to her mom’s when she was little. The memory of her solemn little face gave him a pang.
Kari shrugged, her arms loaded down with the paint can and a bag of supplies. “Never had a dog, so don’t really know what it entails.”
He grabbed the other bag and shut the trunk. “Just need to put a couple of his toys in a bag, fold his crate up. He’s got food and bowls and stuff that stay at my house. And if one of his toys ends up not going home with him, no biggie. He’ll probably be back at my place for a few days before the month is out.”
“It seems like he’s almost as much your dog as he is hers.”
“Sort of.”
“You two have a good relationship—you and Mia.”
“We do. She was a good kid. She’s turned into a good adult. I’m proud of being her dad. Liz and I weren’t a good married couple but we managed to raise a great daughter somehow.”
“That couldn’t have been easy.”
“Easier than being married and fighting all the time. Liz doesn’t like me anymore and I don’t exactly have warm and fuzzy feelings about her, but we both prioritized Mia, so it worked out.”
Kari led him to her bedroom. It was small and sunny. She had already stripped the bed, but they would have to move it into the center of the room and remove the other furniture. He told her this and she nodded, darting around him and cutting him off as he started for one of her bedside tables.
“I’ll get that,” she said.
Puzzled, he moved to the other side of the bed and lifted its mate. Kari hustled out of the room with the table, her chin tucked to her chest, cheeks flushing.
What the…? Sudden realization broke through his confusion. She must have something in the drawer of that nightstand. Something personal. Intimate, even. And why shouldn’t she?
Trouble was, it was giving him ideas. Pictures rolling through his head that had no business being there. It felt invasive and creepy.
Shut it down. He followed her to the other bedroom, which held no furniture, only a few cardboard boxes. He set the nightstand down against the wall and followed Kari back to her bedroom to move the dresser and shift the bed. He wished the task was more mentally challenging—something to chase those images out of his head. But no. As stripped-down and uninviting as the bare mattress might be, it was still a bed. He felt a little better when they tossed a tarp over it, obscuring the shape of the furniture. Another text from Mia told him she was at his house, ready to get the dog.
“I’ll be right back,” he said after showing Kari how she should tape off the baseboards and the window and door frames. Hurrying over to his house, he found Mia sitting on the doorstep. “You could have let yourself in, kiddo.”
“I know. I was just enjoying the sunshine. It’s finally getting warm.” Mia stood and dusted off her rear. “How’s my boy doing?”
“Hugo’s fine. So’s your dad.” He winked at Mia and unlocked the house.
She rolled her eyes. “I can see you’re fine. What’cha doing over at Kari’s house?” Her voice took on a singsong quality like the k-i-s-s-i-n-g schoolyard taunt. “I hope I’m interrupting something.”
He gave her a level look. “You are. I’m helping her paint.”
Mia wrinkled her nose. “Darn. But you like her, don’t you?”
“I like her too well to screw things up. So get your button nose out of my business, cupcake.” He tapped the nose in question and Mia turned an exasperated expression his way. He saw a shadow of her mother in that look. Her features were such a blend of his family’s and Liz’s that she was usually just Mia. But occasionally, she channeled her mother completely.
“Probably better that you take it slow anyway. I know how you are.” Leave it to Mia to ignore him. He picked up Hugo’s leash and walked to the back door. The dog came bounding at Mia, crashing into her legs and rubbing his face on her jeans in long sweeps, groaning with pleasure.
Something about what Mia had said nagged at him. “Wait a minute. What do you mean you know how I am?”
She looked up from rubbing Hugo’s ears. “You’re impulsive, Dad. I’d be willing to bet that ninety-nine percent of your dating issues were you rushed in too fast.”
He snorted. He had scrupulously kept his dating life to the weeks he didn’t have Mia when she was little, and even when she was a teenager he had only introduced her to a couple of the women he had gotten more serious about. “How would you know anything about it? I just always picked women who got the wrong idea.”
Settling her hands on her hips, Mia straightened and pierced him with a look. “And how did they get that idea?”
Kari pressed the last strip of blue tape onto the window frame and opened the window. All too soon it would be air-conditioning season. Today might even be the last day she could get away with open windows.
In fact, the weather was warm enough that Kari went into the second bedroom and rummaged in her chest of drawers for an old pair of shorts. Slipping these on, she heard Rob let himself back into the house. “All set with Hugo and Mia?” she asked, stepping into the hallway.
He froze for a second when he saw her and she looked down at the shorts. “Yeah,” she said. “They’re ratty. But I won’t care if I get paint on them.”
He cleared his throat. “No formality in painting. Yeah. Got Hugo’s crate loaded into Mia’s car and the granddoggo is back with his mom. Ready to get started?”
“Sure.” She watched while Rob stirred the paint and doled some of it into two smaller pots. He handed her one of them with a brush.
“You can start to cut in around the baseboards. I’ll take the ceiling.”
“I haven’t taped that yet.”
He gave her a wink. “I don’t need it.”
“You don’t?”
“I’m that good, sweetheart.” Sweetheart? His cheekbones reddened and he coughed, moving across the room to set up a ladder. “Don’t load your brush with too much paint. At the same time, you shouldn’t be able to hear it rub against the wall too much. If you can, it’s too dry.”
“Got it.” She knelt and applied a long stripe of paint to the wall. “Will the tape really keep the paint from seeping onto the baseboard? One of the things I love about this house is how pristine the natural wood trim is.”
“That’s why we got the good tape,” he said, his brow furrowed in concentration, his arm extended to apply paint to his corner. “If you pressed it down well, you should be fine.”
“Good.” They worked in silence for a while, with the creaks of the ladder being the only sounds. Reaching the door, Kari was finally able to stand to paint around the frame and realized her knees were throbbing. “Ow.” She rubbed her bright red kneecaps. “I can see why you took the ladder job.”
Rob paused in the act of moving the ladder and winced, seeing her knees. “Maybe the shorts were a bad idea. Jeans aren’t much padding but they’re better than nothing.”
“I have a better idea.” Kari left her painting things on the floor and went to the backyard, fetching the padded kneeler she used to weed the flower beds. Bringing it inside, she waved it like a banner. “This’ll help.”
Rob nodded and returned his attention to the wall he was working on. Kari frowned, wondering what was making him so moody.