“Like can I take him fishing with my grandpa? Swimming at the swimming hole? Is he lactose intolerant or anything?” She put a hand to her hip and held the list out toward me. “This just says what he likes to eat and has all of your emergency contact info and insurance details.”
“Yeah, you can take him fishing with your grandpa, but he doesn’t like to touch the worms. Can I assume you have a clean driving record?”
“You bet. Except for that one time I hotwired a car and crashed it into the country club swimming pool.” She arched her brows and waited for my reaction.
My chest squeezed tight. “Are you kidding me?”
“Yes, Holt. I’m kidding you. We’ll be fine. I’ve been background checked, fingerprinted, and even had extensive psychological evaluations to be able to work with kids in the program I ran. I can promise you, Lane will be safe with me.” She put her hand on my arm like she wanted to offer reassurance, but all that did was send a jolt of hot awareness through my nervous system.
I couldn’t let this woman get to me. She appeared to be qualified to work with my kid and keep an eye on him this summer, and that’s all I needed from her. But as I swept my gaze over her bright blue eyes, flushed cheeks, and full lips, it wasn’t all I wanted.
“I’m going to head back to my bedroom to answer some emails and do a little work while the two of you get to know each other. Holler if you need me.” I left her next to the counter and headed back to Lane who had already spread dozens of dinosaurs out on the table. “Hey, bud. I’ll be in my room working if you need me. Why don’t you finish your breakfast before you get too involved in setting up a dino world?”
He turned into me and wrapped his thin arms around my waist. “Okay, Dad.”
My heart melted. He was my “why,” the reason behind everything I did. I still didn’t understand how his mother could walk away from him and miss out on moments like this.
I kissed the top of his head and caught Calla watching us from the doorway. For better or worse, she was on the inside now. As much as I didn’t like that, I didn’t have a choice. Not if I wanted to try to keep the precarious balance between doing a good job at work and giving Lane what he needed at home.
Before I headed down the hall, I slid his cereal bowl back in front of him, hoping he’d finish his breakfast before he got too consumed by his new dinos. I wasn’t as interested in checking my email as I was in eavesdropping on what was going on in the other room, but I did have some work to do.
I left the door open so I could hear better and fired up my laptop. Since Lane had stopped going to camp and I had no one to watch him during the day, I’d switched from field crew to monitoring the radio and working dispatch. I hated sitting at the desk in my bedroom while other guys were out on the trails or pulling a shift in the tower. Yeah, I was lucky I had the flexibility, but it wasn’t what I wanted. If things worked out well with Calla, I might be able to start taking on some field shifts again.
Best not to get my hopes up and get ahead of myself though. I logged in to see what had happened overnight. Hard Timber didn’t see a lot of action. The trouble we faced was usually caused by a camper who hadn’t properly put out a fire or one of the massive storms that rolled in over the mountains.
Looked like it had been a quiet night. I pulled one side of my headphones away from my ear and strained to listen to what was going on in the other room.
It was quiet. Too damn quiet. I didn’t want to be the kind of dad that hovered, but I had a right to know what was going on with my kid. Grabbing my coffee so I could make the excuse that I needed a refill, I got up and headed back to the kitchen. Lane’s cereal bowl had been washed and stacked in the strainer. There was no sign of the dinosaurs, no sign of Calla, and no sign of my kid.
Panic wrapped around my lungs and tightened like a vise. I checked out front. Calla’s car still sat in the dirt drive, so they hadn’t gone anywhere. Hell, it wasn’t even eight o’clock in the morning so there wasn’t really anywhere they could go this early.
The hinges on the back door screeched as I pulled it open. Calla sat in one of the wicker chairs on the porch with Lane’s pet rabbit in her lap. Lane was on his knees next to her. Both of them looked up, startled.
“There you are.” I let out a soft laugh and tried to downplay the fear I’d felt when I couldn’t find them.
“I wanted Calla to meet Jack the Rabbit.” Lane looked up at me and smiled. “She said she had a pet rabbit when she was a kid too.”
I should have strangled Nellie when she brought over the damn rabbit a few months ago. But Lane had immediately fallen in love, so we’d compromised. Jack lived in a hutch outside and was only allowed to come in when one of us was watching him. I’d learned the hard way that rabbits liked to chew on everything, including laptop power cords, which was why he’d been relegated to outdoor accommodations.
Calla ran her hand over Jack the Rabbit’s back. “My pet rabbit wasn’t nearly as nice as Jack.”
“Jack the Rabbit is his full name,” Lane said.
“I see. My rabbit’s name was Rabbit. Not very original, but I thought it was perfect at the time.” Calla continued to run her hand over Jack the Rabbit’s back.
Now that I'd found the two of them, I could relax a little.
“I was thinking we could head into town and go to the library this morning. I saw some books on dinosaurs when I was there the other day that Lane might want to check out.” Calla looked up at me. “Would that be okay?”
I doubted that there were very many books at the library about dinosaurs that Lane hadn't already read. But if they wanted to get out of the house, it would be nice to have a little bit of quiet time.
“Sure, that sounds good. I can meet you in town for lunch at the cafe if you want.”
“I get to have chicken tenders two days in a row?” Lane asked.
I ruffled his hair. “Maybe you could try something else today.”
He frowned but gave me a slight nod.
