And what little he knew about how she’d come to move here, at this time of the year, with literally nothing to help her survive the winter, was enough to piss him off every time he thought about it.
“Is that Maggie Malone’s niece?” Miss Brown asked.
Brock’s pulse jumped. He glanced through the window behind his father just in time to see Stace wheeling her baby stroller out of her driveway and back down the road toward town. The thought she might be taking a walk around the block was discarded as quickly as it appeared in his head. It was too cold, too wet with the scent of fresh snow too heavy in the air for anyone to want to walk their baby outside.
No, judging by the direction she was headed, Stace was walking back to town. Probably to get the power turned back on, since every light in the cabin was still off. No steam rose from the chimney, meaning the furnace probably wasn’t turned on yet, either.
“She’s not walking to town, is she?” Brown noticed, startled. “In this weather?”
Of course she was. She didn’t have a car.
“Excuse me.” Setting her interview aside, he got up from the table, heading for the porch. He called after her, but she didn’t stop. She might not have heard him, but something in his gut said she had. He knew how easily a voice carried in the quiet of these old woods. He also knew how well his voice in particular carried, especially when he put his lungs into it, like he had just now.
She’d deliberately ignored him.
I can do it myself, came her stubborn voice in the back of his head.
His palm itched.
He looked at the sky, as if every breath of the coming snow had a set timetable written in the overcast gray above him. Therewasn’t, but he didn’t for a second think she’d be home again before it started snowing.
“I’m very sorry,” he said when he came back inside. “Miss Brown, can we finish this interview over the phone later tonight, or reschedule it...”
“I’ve got it,” Pops spoke up, before the woman could do more than open her mouth to reply. “She’s supposed to be my companion anyway, right?”
Like his dad hadn’t spent all the days since Brock had decided hiring help was necessary trying to talk him out of it.
Brock frowned at him, but Pops waved his hand. Half a shooing motion, and half ‘oh, leave me alone’.
“Someone’s gonna get hired,” the old man wheezed at him. “I know it. You’ve insisted on it. She needs help,” he said pointing over his shoulder. “So, go. Help her. You’d help the world if given half the chance, you’ve always been like that. Besides, if it’s Miss Brown you’re thinkin’ of bringing into our little family, then it’s only right she and I get to know one another. We’re the ones that have to work with one another.”
Studying his father with suspicious eyes, Brock glanced once to Miss Brown, who sat so unprepared for the kind of man he knew his father could be, nodding.
“That sounds like a good plan to me,” she said with an unsuspecting smile. “He’s right, too. If we’re going to work together, then what’s the harm in seeing how well we get together?”
Brock glanced out the window again, watching as Stace’s distant figure reached the stop sign at the corner of the road, looked right and left before crossing the street and continuing on towards town. He did not want to leave his father to run the interviews alone. He didn’t care what the man said. Pops had never been the sort to ask for help, much less gracefully accept that he was going to need it from now until the rest of his life.
“You be nice,” he told his dad, adding a stern ‘behave yourself’ point of his finger for emphasis he had no doubt would be ignored the moment he walked out of the house. Nodding to Miss Brown—they had other interviewees, thank God—Brock jumped up to grab his coat, wallet and keys, and then he was out of the house, jogging down the wet steps to his black jeep.
He caught up to her before she’d gone more than 100 yards from the corner. In another half of a mile, the dirty road became nothing but a muddy bog for about fifty feet. People who didn’t know to expect it often got stuck. Those who knew where it was safe to aim the tires, drove partway off the road to let the grass strengthen their traction. To his knowledge, no one had ever gone through it wheeling a baby stroller; if he could help it, today was not going to be the day he discovered differently.
He slowed down as he pulled up alongside her. He wasn’t particularly surprised when she only glanced at him once and then refused to look at him again.
“Need a lift?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied, her tone cheerful although her expression wasn’t.
No means no, right? Society was going overboard these days trying to drum that into the heads of men who couldn’t take a hint. But really, did no really mean no when it involved babies, inclement weather, an impending snow fall that wasn’t supposed to turn into a storm but definitely wouldn’t be pleasant to walk three miles in?
He wasn’t her Daddy...
Clearing his throat, Brock tried again anyway. “I can have you there and back again, with all your errands run, before you can walk there on your own.”
“I’m fine,” she said again, a tick of stubbornness tugging the flat line of her mouth into a frown. “Really. I’m okay.”
“I don’t feel comfortable...” he said, trying a different direction.
“I don’t get into cars with strangers,” she said.
