“If not, I’m only next door.” He squatted down to pick up the box, and only just avoided cracking foreheads with her when she tried to grab it ahead of him. “Stace,” he said firmly, then reminded her, “Which of us do you want to carry the box, and which of us ought to carry the baby?”
She abandoned the box to gather Lily up out of her crib. The baby barely woke. Rubbing her fists across both her eyes and nose, she yawned, then dropped her head to her rattled mother’s shoulder. She didn’t move again throughout the short walk between her cabin and his. He knew, because he was walking behind Stace the whole way and his protective stare never left her back.
She climbed the porch steps into the halo of golden light pouring from his house, and for just a moment, the light set all the red highlights in her hair ablaze.
Pops popped his head into the living room window, glancing out at them, which made Stace jump. She almost backed right off the porch, and might even have fallen had Brock not braced his hand to the small of her back, steadying her.
“Whoa,” he said.
“I’m so sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” He prodded and she took another step up, but stopped again when Pops opened the front door.
“‘Bout time you came home,” his father wheezed. “Here I thought your wandering teen years were behind you. Then you go bringing home a baby.”
Climbing the steps behind her, Brock stopped with a huff.
“Look at that sleepy little face,” his father cooed, tickling in at the baby when Stace tentatively paused beside him. Glancing at him uncertainly, she turned her shoulder so Pops could better see Lily’s sleeping face. Smiling, the old man gestured her inside. “Come in, come in. Do you like pie?”
“I, um... sure,” she said, looked from him to Brock.
Closing the door behind him, he put Stace’s box down on the couch and took off his coat to hang it up on the rack behind the door. “Pops...” he said, hoping his father would heed the warning, but he’d already pulled a chair out for Stace and seated himself at the head of the table. He opened his notebook.
“What’s your favorite kind of pie?” he asked, clicking his pen to write.
“Pecan,” she said, adjusting Lily against her shoulder and removing one of the two baby quilts that she’d kept wrapped around her as they’d exchanged houses for the night. “I guess.”
“How do you feel about apple?” Pops inquired.
Rolling his eyes, Brock headed into the kitchen. “Do you want something to eat, Stace?”
“No, thank you,” she called after him.
Pausing, Brock backed up through the open doorway until he could fix a stern glare on her. “Let me rephrase that. Have you eaten tonight? Anything at all?”
Her shoulders sank. “No,” she admitted.
“I’ll make you something.” Brock headed back into the kitchen, opening up the fridge and bending down to see whathe had to work with. He should have picked up a couple of things for himself while they’d been at the store earlier. Shaking his head, he gathered a block of cheddar cheese and a partial loaf of bread and shut the fridge door again. Pausing to look in the pantry closet, he found a bottle of homemade cinnamon applesauce that old Mrs O’Leery had given him a few months back when he’d helped her mend her yard gate. That woman spent all year canning anything and everything she could get her hands on, and she was well known to using her canned goods as payment any time someone helped her. Alone now with social security as her only income, she didn’t have a lot of money, but man, could she make applesauce.
“Dad, have you eaten?” he called.
“Not yet,” came the hoarse reply, followed by Stace softly asking, “Do you like apple and caramel together in your pies? I know how to make that.”
“Ho ho!” his father exclaimed. “My favorite combination. What’s your preference on crusts?”
“With apple pie or just crust in general?”
Shaking his head, Brock cut cheese for six grilled cheese sandwiches and buttered one side of half the slices while waiting for the pan to heat up. Apparently where Stace was considered, his father had met his match when it came to pie-based conversation. He popped the top on the jar of homemade applesauce, enjoying the cinnamon-y smell. It wasn’t apple pie, but hopefully it would hit that sweet tooth the two of them were creating with all their bakery talk.
“Pops,” he called as he layered two sandwiches into the pan, buttered side down and already sizzling. “Want to help me set the table?”
“You just think about that,” Pops told her, getting up from the table. “Pastry or strudel. There are no wrong answers, now.”
“There are too,” she said as he shuffled into the kitchen. “Strudel. Every time.”
“Oh,” his father whispered with a grin as he shuffled past Brock to fetch down three plates. “She’s a keeper, boy. We have found our companion.”
“The hell we have,” Brock whispered back. “Stop. Just stop. She’s not what we’re looking for, and you know it.”
