“I’ll take cleaning up,” Nat said, “if it means I get to be here with you.”
Thea smiled as she passed him with an armful of dirty dishes.
“Yes, but will you still like it when it’s time to wash dishes?”she asked, raising an eyebrow.
Nathaniel grimaced, his nose wrinkling in distaste.He didn’t enjoy washing dishes.If only he could blame his distaste for it on being a cat—but that had long been something he just disliked.
“If only your mother was here to do this for us,” he teased, but then his smile faded.“I’m sorry.I shouldn’t have said that.”
Thea shook her head.“I have to remember the good times.If I forget all of them, what will their legacy be?It has to live on in me, and if that means remembering both the good times and the sad, then I will continue to remember them.”
“She always was best among us at washing dishes,” Nat said, watching Thea as he swept.
“Yes, she was,” Thea agreed fondly.“She knew the rest of us hated it.”
“I think she just liked being able to flick water at your father.”Nat grinned.His memories of the burly Mr.Greene dodging water droplets flying his way from his wife’s fingertips was something he would never forget.
“She did enjoy that,” Thea said, laughing as she reached into the bowl of water and flicked water toward Nathaniel.
Fortunately, he was too far away for it to reach him.“You are just as much trouble as your mother was,” he said.
“I did get it from somewhere,” Thea said archly.“And I certainly didn’t get it from my father.”
“It’s a good thing I didn’t get much from my father, either,” Nathaniel muttered as he walked past her, his conversation with Roan at the river coming back to mind.He’d known that his father was not the best of men, but hearing Roan admit that he had purposely kept him as far away from Nat and their mother as he could had been a startling revelation.
Thea paused, turning to look at him.Her gaze pierced right through him as she asked, her voice soft, “What does that mean?”
Because of course, she could hear the tension underneath his words.
“Roan found me at the river today,” Nat said as he walked back to the kitchen to put the broom away.“He said that he bore the brunt of my father’s fits to protect me and Mother.I remember some things…moments when he was home that I wish I could forget.And I can see why it would make Roan the person he became—to have spent all his time in our father’s company.”
“Abigail seems like she’s a good influence on him,” Thea said, still looking at him with those eyes that saw too much.
“I hope she is,” Nat admitted, grabbing a towel and slinging it over his shoulder as he made his way to stand next to Thea, ready to start helping with the dishes.Ready to change the subject.“I hope she’ll influence him for the better.I know firsthand how much a woman can change you,” he teased, flicking the towel at Thea.
“I haven’t changed you that much,” Thea protested.
“You turned me from a flirt who couldn’t stop talking to any woman I met to a man who only has eyes for you.I think that counts as being changed.”
Thea smiled in the way she did when a compliment truly made her happy.
He wished he could bottle up this moment and save it forever.
There was nothing in the world better than making Thea smile.
“You changed me, too,” she admitted.“I started actually looking on the bright side, occasionally.And we can’t forget the fact that I...I have been known to be more chipper now than when we first met.”
“You?Chipper?”he asked with a gasp as he took a wet bowl from her hands and began to dry it.
“Don’t make me say it again,” Thea said, wrinkling her nose in distaste.“I don’t like it, either.”
Nathaniel bumped her hip with his.“Chipper isn’t bad, you know.”
“Says you,” she muttered, flicking water at him once again.
“You better not do that again,” he warned, putting the towel down.
“Oh, really?”she asked, her eyes lighting up at the challenge.“What are you going to do about it?”
