Hillside Acres looked more like a festive campground than a trailer park.
Kids played on a small, well-kept playground on a patch of grass that hadn’t quite submitted to the long Virginia summer. The mobile homes had picket fences and vegetable gardens. Creative color schemes and cozy patios added to the curb appeal.
And then there was Tina’s place.
It was a single-wide trailer in the back corner of the park. The beige box sloped hard to the right looking like it was missing part of its foundation on that end. Weeds that had fought their way through the gravel hit me at the knee.
The trailer across the road had a cute screened-in porch with string lights and hanging plants. Tina’s had makeshift cinder block steps leading to a rusty front door that hung slightly ajar.
Knox was glaring again. But for once, it wasn’t at me. It was at the notice posted on the door.
EVICTION.
“Stay here,” he ordered without looking at me or Waylay.
I was too tired to be annoyed as he Macho Man-stepped inside.
Waylay rolled her eyes. “She’s long gone. She busted in here before the motel.”
On reflex, I reached for her and put my hands on her shoulders. She jumped back, looking at me like I’d just tried to give her a wedgie.
Note to self: Don’t rush the physical affection.
“Uh, where have you two been staying?”
Waylay shrugged. “I stayed at my friend’s house the last two nights. Her parents don’t mind an extra kid for dinner. Dunno where she stayed.”
The only time “responsible” could be applied to Tina was when she was impersonating me over the years. Even still, I found myself horrified at my sister’s approach to parenting.
“It’s clear,” Knox called from inside.
“Told ya.” Waylay bounded up the steps, and I followed.
The trailer was worse on the inside than it was outside.
The carpet had worn through in front of the door, leaving long, gnarled strings that stretched out in all directions. A recliner faced a cheap wooden console with the dusty outline of a TV stand. A small, pink beanbag sat directly in front of it.
“She took the TV. But I grabbed the remote while she wasn’t looking,”
Waylay said proudly.
“Nice job, kid,” Knox said, giving her hair a ruffle.
Swallowing hard, I left them in the living room and poked my head into the dingy kitchen.
The contents of the cabinets had been emptied into an overflowing garbage can in the middle of the green linoleum. Boxes of cereal, cans of soup, long since defrosted pizza snacks. There wasn’t a vegetable in sight.
There was a bedroom on each end. The one with the double bed had an ashtray on either side. Instead of curtains, thin bedsheets were tacked directly to the wall to block out the sun. The closet and dresser were mostly empty.
Everything had either ended up on the floor or been hauled out the door. On instinct, I peeked under the bed and found two empty bourbon bottles.
Some things never changed.
“She’s coming back, you know,” Waylay said, poking her head inside.
“I know,” I agreed. What the girl didn’t know was that sometimes it was years between visits.
“My room’s on the other end if you wanna see it,” she said.
“I’d like that if you don’t mind.”
I closed the door on Tina’s depressing bedroom and followed my niece through the living room. Exhaustion and overwhelm made my eyeballs feel hot and dry. “Where’s Knox?” I asked.
“Talkin’ to Mr. Gibbons outside. He’s the landlord. Mom owes a shit-ton of back rent,” she said, leading the way to the flimsy fake wood door off the living room. A hand-lettered sign said “KEEP OUT” in glitter and four shades of pink marker.
I decided to save the lecture on swearing for later when I wasn’t mostly asleep on my feet.
Waylay’s room was small but tidy. There was a twin bed under a pretty pink quilt. A sagging bookshelf held a few books but was mostly dedicated to hair accessories organized in colorful bins.
Was it possible Waylay Witt was a girlie girl?
She flopped down on her bed. “So? What are we doing?”
“Well,” I said brightly. “I like your room. As for the rest of the place, I think we can make it work. A little scrubbing, some organization…” A vat of lighter fluid and a box of matches.
Knox prowled into the room like a pissed-off lion at the zoo. He took up too much space and most of the oxygen. “Get your shit, Way.”
“Uh. All of it?” she asked.
His nod was brisk. “All of it. Naomi.”
He turned and marched out of the room. I could feel the trailer shudder under his feet.
“Think that means you’re supposed to follow him,” Waylay said.
“Right. Okay. Just hang tight. I’ll be back in a second.”
I found him outside, hands on hips and staring at the gravel.
“Is there a problem?”
“You two aren’t fucking staying here.”
Suddenly too tired to function, I collapsed against the trailer’s aluminum siding. “Look, Knox. My bones are tired. I’ve been up for a million hours straight. I’m in a strange place in a stranger situation. And there’s a little girl in there who needs someone. Unfortunately for her, that someone is me. You made up for the asshole routine with the chauffeur routine. You can just stop with the macho inconvenienced thing. I didn’t ask you for help. So you’re free to go. I need to start cleaning this mess up.”
Literally and figuratively.
“About done?” he asked.
I was too tired to be infuriated. “Yeah. About.”
“Good. Then get your ass in the truck. You’re not staying here.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“You two aren’t staying in a motel with cardboard doors or a health violation of a trailer that’s been broken into. Besides…” He paused his tirade to rip the eviction notice off the door. “This place ain’t Tina’s anymore.
Legally you can’t crash here. Morally I can’t let you try. Got it?”
It was the longest speech he’d made in my presence, and I honestly didn’t have the energy for a reply.
But he wasn’t looking for one.
“So you’re going to get your ass in the truck.”
“And then what, Knox?” I pushed away from the trailer and threw my hands up. “What’s next? Do you know? Because I haven’t got a clue, and that scares the hell out of me.”
“I know a place you can stay. Safer than the motel. Cleaner than this fuckin’ mess.”
“Knox, I’ve got no wallet. No checkbook. No phone or laptop. As of yesterday, I’ve got no job to go back to. How am I supposed to pay for…” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. Exhaustion and despair overwhelmed me.
He swore and shoved a hand through his hair. “You’re asleep on your feet.”
“So?” I said sullenly.
He stared at me hard for a long beat. “Daisy, just get in the truck.”
“I need to help Waylay pack,” I argued. “And I need to go through the trash in there in case there’s any important paperwork. Insurance, birth certificate, school records.”
He stepped forward, and I moved back. He kept advancing on me until my back met his pickup. He opened the passenger door. “Gibbons will let you know if he finds anything important.”
“But shouldn’t I talk to him?”
“Already did. This ain’t his first rodeo, and he’s not a bad guy. He keeps important shit tenants leave behind and knows what to keep a lookout for.
He’ll call me if he finds something. Now. Get. In. The. Truck.”
I climbed up on the seat and tried to think of other things that I needed to do.
“Way,” Knox barked.
“Geez. Keep your pants on!” Waylay appeared in the doorway wearing a backpack and holding two garbage bags.
My heart shivered. Her life, all her treasured possessions, fit into two trash bags. And not even the good kind with drawstrings.
Knox took the bags from her and put them in the bed of his pickup. “Let’s go.”
IT WAS A QUIET RIDE, and apparently if I wasn’t making conversation or fighting with Knox, I didn’t have the energy to remain conscious. I woke abruptly when the truck jostled. We were on a dirt road that snaked its way through woods. The trees created a canopy above us. I had no idea if I’d just dozed off or if we’d been driving for an hour.
Remembering my predicament, I whipped around and relaxed when I saw Waylay in the back seat, sitting next to the white, fluffy mound that was my wedding dress.
Turning back to Knox, I yawned. “Great. You’re taking us out to the middle of nowhere to murder us, aren’t you?”
Waylay snickered behind me.
Knox stayed stubbornly silent as we bumped along the dirt drive.
“Whoa.” Waylay’s exclamation had me focusing on the view through the windshield.
A wide creek meandered alongside the road before curling back into the woods. Just ahead, the trees thinned, and I spotted the “whoa.” It was a large log home with a wide front porch that wrapped around one side of the first floor.
Knox continued down the drive past the house.
“Bummer,” Waylay muttered under her breath when we drove on.
Around the next bend, I spied a small cabin with dark siding tucked into a copse of trees. “That’s my place,” Knox said. “And that’s yours.”
Just beyond it was a storybook-looking cottage. Pine trees towered over it, offering shade from the summer sun. Its white board-and-batten exterior was charming. The small front porch with cheery blue planks, inviting.
I loved it.
Knox turned into the short gravel drive and turned off the engine.
“Let’s go,” he said, climbing out.
“I guess we’re here,” I whispered to Waylay.
We both exited the truck.
It was cooler here than in town. Quieter too. The rumble of motorcycles and traffic was replaced with the buzz of bees and the far-off drone of an airplane. A dog barked nearby. I could hear the creek as it burbled its way through whispering trees somewhere behind the cottage. The warm breeze carried the scent of flowers and earth and summer sunshine.
It was perfect. Too perfect for a runaway bride with no wallet.
“Uh. Knox?”
He ignored me and carried Waylay’s bags and my suitcase to the front porch.
“We’re stayin’ here?” Waylay asked as she pressed her face to the front window to peer inside.
“It’s dusty and probably stale as hell,” Knox said as he propped open the screen door and pulled out his keys. “Hasn’t been used in a while. You’ll probably need to open the windows. Air it out.”
Why he had a key to a cottage that looked like it lived on the pages of my favorite fairy tale was on my list of questions. Just above that were questions concerning rent and security deposits.
“Knox?” I tried again.
But he’d gotten the door open, and suddenly I was standing on the wide wood plank floor of a cozy living room with a tiny stone fireplace. There was an old rolltop desk crammed into an alcove between the stairs to the second floor and the coat closet. Windows brought the outdoors inside.
“Seriously. We get to stay here?” Waylay asked, her skepticism mirroring my own.
Knox dropped our bags at the foot of the tiny staircase. “Yeah.”
She stared at him for a beat, then shrugged. “Guess I’ll go check out the upstairs.”
“Wait! Take off your shoes,” I told her, not wanting to track any dirt inside.
Waylay glanced down at her filthy sneakers. There was a hole in the toe of the left one and a pink heart charm clipped to the laces of the right. With an extravagant eye roll, she toed them off and carried them upstairs.
Knox’s mouth pulled up in the corner as we watched her go, pretending she wasn’t the least bit excited or curious.
“Damn it, Viking!” The idea of spending a few weeks in a postcard-perfect cottage far away from the mess I’d left behind was intoxicating. I could organize the hell out of the shambles of my life while I sat on the back porch and watched the creek flow by. If I could afford it.
“Now what’s your problem?” he asked, stepping into the doll-house-sized kitchen and staring out the window over the sink.
“You mean, ‘What’s wrong, Naomi?’ Well, I’ll tell you Knox. Now Waylay’s excited about this place, and I don’t even know if I can afford it.
She’s going to be disappointed on top of abandoned. What if we end up back at the motel tonight?”
“You’re not goin’ back to the motel.”
“What’s the rent?” I asked, biting my lip.
He turned away from the view and leaned against the counter, looking annoyed. “Dunno.”
“You have a key to this place and you don’t know?”
“Rent depends,” Knox said, reaching out to sweep a layer of dust off the top of the old marshmallow white fridge.
“On what?”
He shook his head. “On who.”
“Fine. Who?”
“Liza J. Your new landlord.”
My new landlord?
“And does this Liza J even know that we’re here?” I wasn’t conscious of gravitating toward him until my toes brushed the tips of his boots. Those blue-gray eyes were on me, making me feel like I was under a magnifying glass.
“If she doesn’t, she will soon. She’s rough around the edges but she’s got a soft spot,” he said, gaze boring into me. I was too tired to do anything but glare back at him.
“I picked our rooms,” Waylay shouted from upstairs, breaking our staring contest.
“We good?” he asked quietly.
“No! We’re not good. I don’t even know where we are or how to get back to town. Do you have Uber here? Are there bears?”
His lips quirked, and I felt my face flush. He was studying me in a way that people didn’t do in polite company.
“Dinner,” he said.
“Huh?” was my erudite reply. I knew he wasn’t trying to ask me out. Not after we’d spent an entire morning hating each other.
“Seven. At the big house down the road. That’s Liza J’s. She’ll want to meet you.”
“If she doesn’t know she’s my landlord, she’s certainly not expecting us for dinner,” I pointed out.
“Dinner. Seven. She’ll be expecting you by then.”
I was not comfortable with this kind of invitation. “What am I supposed to bring? Where’s the closest store? Does she like wine?” Hostess gifts were not just respectful—in this case, they would set the tone of a good first impression.
His lips quirked as if my angst amused him. “Go take a nap, Naomi. Then go to dinner at Liza J’s.” He turned and headed for the door.
“Wait!”
I hurried after him, catching him on the porch.
“What do I say to Waylay?”
I didn’t know where the question had come from or the panicky note in my voice. I wasn’t a panicker. I performed miracles under pressure.
“What do you mean what do you say?”
“What do I tell her about her mom and me and why we’re here?”
“Tell her the truth.”
“I’m not sure what that is.”
He started down the porch steps, and again, panic clawed at my throat.
The only man I knew in this town was abandoning me with a child I didn’t know, no transportation, and only the crap my sister hadn’t stolen from me.
“Knox!”
He stopped again and swore. “Christ, Naomi. Tell her her mom left her with you, and you’re looking forward to getting to know her. Don’t make it more complicated than it has to be.”
“What if she asks when Tina’s coming back? What if she doesn’t want to stay with me? Oh, God. How do I make her listen to me?”
He stepped back up onto the porch and into my space, then did something I never saw coming.
He grinned. Full-on, panty-melting, 100-percent-wattage grinned.
I felt woozy and hot and like I didn’t know how any of my joints worked anymore.
“Wow,” I whispered.
“Wow what?” he asked.
“Uh… You smiled. And it was just seriously wow. I had no idea you could look like that. I mean, you already look like…” I waved my hand awkwardly in front of him. “You know. But then you add the smile, and you look almost human.”
His smile was gone, and the familiar annoyance was back. “Jesus, Daisy.
Get some sleep. You’re babbling like an idiot.”
I didn’t wait to watch him drive away. Instead I went back inside and closed the door. “Now what the hell am I going to do?”
SLEEP DESERTED ME ABRUPTLY, leaving behind a groggy, panicked confusion.
I was facedown on a bare mattress, a scrub brush still clutched in one hand. The room slowly came into focus as my eyes and brain returned to the land of the living.
Warner. Grr.
Tina. Ugh.
Car. Damn it.
Waylay. Holy crap.
Cottage. Adorable.
Knox. Grumpy, sexy, horrible, yet helpful.
The timeline of the last twenty-four hours intact, I pried myself off the mattress and sat up.
The room was small, but cute just like the rest of the place. Paneled walls painted a bright white, antique brass bed. There was a tall dresser opposite the bed and a skinny table painted peacock blue tucked under the window that overlooked the meandering creek.
I heard someone humming downstairs and remembered.
Waylay.
“Damn it,” I muttered, jumping off the bed. My first day on the job as a guardian, and I’d left my new charge unattended for who knew how long.
She could have been abducted by her mother or mauled by a bear while I indulged in an afternoon nap.
I sucked, I decided as I raced down the stairs.
“Geez. Don’t break your neck or anything.”
Waylay sat at the kitchen table, swinging a bare foot while she chowed down on what appeared to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with thick white bread and enough jelly to cause instant cavities.
“Coffee,” I croaked at her.
“Man, you look like a zombie.”
“Zombie needs coffee.”
“Soda in the fridge.”
Soda would have to do. I stumbled my way to the refrigerator and opened it. I was halfway through the can of Pepsi before I realized there was food inside.
“Where food from?” I rasped. I was not an easy waker from naps. In the morning, I could bound out of bed with the energy of a sugared-up kindergarten class. But Post-Nap Naomi wasn’t pretty. Or coherent.
Waylay gave me a long look. “Are you trying to ask me where the food came from?”
I held up a finger and downed the rest of the soda.
“Yeah,” I wheezed finally as the cold caffeine and sugar burned my throat. “That.” I paused to burp indelicately. “Excuse me.”
Waylay smirked. “Chief Nash had a delivery lady drop off a bag of groceries while you were drooling all over your bed.”
My eyeballs felt gritty as I blinked. The chief of police had seen to delivering food that I’d been too unconscious to provide for my niece. I was not going to get a gold star in guardianship today.
“Crap,” I muttered.
“It’s not crap,” Waylay argued around a huge bite of PB&J. “There’s some candy and some chips.”
I needed to claw my way back up the scale toward Responsible Adult and needed to do it fast.
“We need a list,” I decided, scrubbing my hands over my eyes. “We need to figure out how far we are from civilization, how to get there, what supplies we need for the next day or two.”
Coffee. I definitely needed coffee.
“It’s like half a mile to town,” Waylay said. She had a smear of jelly on her chin and, besides her “my aunt is a lunatic” expression, she looked adorably childlike. “Why are your arms and knees all scraped up?”
I glanced down at the abrasions on my skin. “I climbed out of a church basement window.”
“Cool. So, we’re going into town?”
“Yes. I just need to take a kitchen inventory,” I decided, finding my purse on the counter and digging out my trusty notebook and pen.
Coffee.
Food.
Transportation?
Job?
“We can take the bikes,” Waylay piped up.
“Bikes?” I repeated.
“Yeah. Liza J dropped them off. Said we have to come to dinner tonight too.”
“You met our landlord?” I squeaked. “Who else stopped by? The mayor?
Exactly how long have I been asleep?”
Her eyes went wide and serious. “Aunt Naomi, you’ve been asleep for two whole days.”
“What? ”
She smirked. “Just messin’ with you. You were out for an hour.”
“Hilarious. Just for that, I’m buying brussels sprouts and carrots.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”
“Serves you right, smarty pants. Now, make me a sandwich while I tackle this inventory.”
“Fine. But only if you think about brushing your hair and washing your face before we go out in public. I don’t want to be seen with Aunt Zombie.”
