Get it together, Denver.
Monopoly was waiting on the coffee table. Lasagna ingredients—to include Tessa’s extra special ingredients—were all stationed in the kitchen. And he had Caroline’s favorite movie all ready to be played.
“Denver!” Caroline spotted him seconds after she flew out the door and took off in a dead sprint. Her light-blue backpack bounced from side to side. He’d found that backpack online, the one with a cartoon moose on the front.
“Hey, Caroline.” She leapt into his arms and he caught her with ease. He swung her in two and a half circles—their personal greeting—and set her down. “Did you have a good day at school today?”
“We built a castle!” Caroline rambled a hundred miles an hour about constructing a castle out of what Denver pieced together were cardboard blocks with stone patterns drawn on them. “I was the princess! Then I was the knight in shining armor.”
He reached out his hand, and Caroline took it without missing a beat of her story. But before they could take more than two steps, someone called for him.
“That’s my teacher, Mr. Andrews,” Caroline said matter-of-factly.
Denver recognized Mark. They’d gone to high school together, but hadn’t exactly been friends. Denver had never attracted the popularity that Ryder or Mark Andrews did. Instead, he was the quiet, shy type. Always scribbling some story in a notebook. Back then, he had no idea he’d ever publish a word he wrote.
Mark was athletic and outgoing. The guy every girl wanted to date.
“Hey, Mark,” said Denver, waiting for whatever it was. Surely Sophie told him she wouldn’t be here to pick up Caroline today. That he would be here instead. Even if that weren’t the case, it was a small town. Everyone knew everyone when the tourists cleared out for the season. Denver wasn’t some stranger in Caroline’s life.
“Mr. Andrews, please.” Mark nodded at Caroline.
“Right. What can I do for you, Mr. Andrews?” Denver tried to be polite, for Caroline’s sake, but agitation buzzed in his chest. The last time he came with Sophie to pick her daughter up, he suspected Mark was interested in her.
“Just wanted to make sure Caroline isn’t going off with a stranger.”
Denver huffed out a laugh of disbelief. “Caroline, am I a stranger?”
“No.” She giggled at the ridiculousness of the accusation.
“I wasn’t aware someone other than family was picking Caroline up from school, that’s all,” Mr. Andrews said, his smile dazzling as ever as he waved and smiled at passing parents. “I have to look out for my students’ best interest.”
“Oh!” Caroline exclaimed. She dropped the backpack from her shoulders, and it thunked against the sidewalk. “Mommy gave me a note. I forgot to give it to you.”
Relief washed over Denver, and tension he hadn’t realized he’d kept in his shoulders eased, despite how absurd this whole thing was. They knew each other, and anyone in town with two eyes had to know Sophie and Denver were close friends.
Mr. Andrews studied the note, as if reading the few sentences several times before finally looking up at Denver. “Caroline, next time please give me any notes from your mother first thing in the morning, okay?”
“Okay.”
“See you tomorrow morning.”
“Bye, Mr. Andrews!”
Denver reached out again for Caroline’s hand and walked her to his truck, aware that Mark watched him the entire time. Was the man waiting for him to slip up? Denver had lived in this town since childhood. He had few enemies.
“Where’s Sherlock?” Caroline asked when they reached the truck.
“He’s napping on the couch.”
Caroline giggled as he lifted her into the back seat. She made quick work of securing herself in the booster seat. “He’s not supposed to be on the couch.”
“You and I know that, but Sherlock seems to have forgotten.” Denver went around the front of his truck and hopped into the driver’s seat, eager to drive away from the teacher’s peering eyes. He wondered if Mark had plans of his own when it came to Sophie. “You ready to make lasagna?”
