only got sick twice! You’re the one who ordered the big soda at lunch and—”
“Kids!” Kenzie didn’t yell, but her tone spoke volumes. If Leslie ever wanted another bookstore shopping spree or Drew planned to play another video game for the remainder of his natural life, they both needed to cease and desist.
“Well.” Ann’s green eyes were wide. “That certainly does sound like an eventful trip. Leslie, do you feel up to eating? I have a roast simmering. Forrest had hoped to join us for dinner, but he’s teaching a weekly night course for the summer semester. He has a meeting in the morning, Kenzie, but he can help move big stuff in the afternoon.”
“Roast beef? I’m starved!” Drew ran on ahead, food being his number one priority in a three-way tie with video games and sports.
“My stomach’s fine now,” Leslie said, “but I’m more interested in holding Abigail than eating.”
“Maybe after dinner. She’s taking her evening nap. I don’t want to disturb her routine.”
Kenzie stumbled as she stepped up onto the front porch. Ann had managed to instill a routine in a five-month-old? Amazing. Kenzie’s recollection of the twins’ first year was blurred, but they’d practically never slept…at least, not at the same time.
Should Kenzie seek her sister’s parenting advice on how to deal with Drew’s recent moodiness? Ann was certainly a solution-finder by nature. But any conversation about Drew’s anger would inevitably lead to a discussion of Kenzie’s ex-husband, Mick Green, absentee father and Aspiring Musician. He always talked about his dream as if it deserved capital letters.
Once, Mackenzie had been his biggest fan, a dewy-eyed teenager who just knew she was marrying the next Springsteen. Mick and Mac—gag. Looking back with adult hindsight, she would call their marriage the biggest mistake she’d ever made, except for one thing…well, two actually. Whatever else he’d failed to provide, Mick had given her the twins.
Even when Drew was glowering and Leslie was tossing her cookies, Kenzie loved them fiercely. The thought steadied her. Her little family could handle this transitional period.
Yesterday’s mistakes had yielded today’s blessings…and tomorrow stretched ahead of them, full of promise.
“NEED HELP?” The man addressing Kenzie had an intriguing voice—sort of low and growly, yet not unpleasant.
His tone, though, was laced with so much skepticism, as if she were clearly beyond help, that Kenzie wondered why he’d offered. Maybe it just seemed like the thing to do since she, a torn cardboard box and all of the box’s former contents blocked his path. Her groan stemmed from equal parts embarrassment and sore muscles.
Glancing up from her sprawled position in the stairwell, she got her first good look at the potential knight in armor. Paint-stained denim and cotton, if you wanted to be literal, which she did. The new-and-improved practical Kenzie couldn’t afford flights of fancy.
Then stop staring at this guy like he’s the mystical embodiment of your fantasies.
Frankly, it had been too long since she’d had a decent fantasy, but if she had, it would look like him. Thick, dark hair, silver-gray eyes, strong jaw and broad, inviting shoulders. None of which were as relevant as her still being on her butt. She got to her feet…more or less.
As if she were having an out-of-body experience, she watched her wet sneaker slide across a piece of debris—the plaster head of a panda, she realized as she fell backward. The handsome stranger grabbed her elbow. Large hands, roughened skin. Since he was theoretically saving her from ignominious death in a dingy stairwell, she could forgive the lack of a delicate touch. The way her luck was running this morning, she would have broken her neck if he hadn’t come along.
The man shook his head. “Lady.” Was the undertone exasperation or amusement? Hard to tell from the single word.
“It’s Kenzie,” she said, grabbing the stair rail with both hands. “Kenzie Green. And thank you.”
“No problem.” He’d stepped back, either to keep from crushing her belongings under his work boots or simply to avoid her rain-soaked aura of doom.
She grimaced at the mess that covered half a dozen stairs. The coasters she was always admonishing the kids to use. Assorted books, her texts from some correspondence courses alongside Leslie’s Mary Pope Osborne stories. Two mauve lamp shades. A statuette of a now-headless panda Kenzie had once received for donating to a wildlife fund, and various other small belongings that had been packed, taped up and neatly labeled Living Room in black marker.
“Guess they don’t make cardboard boxes like they used to,” she grumbled. What was wrong with the stupid box that it couldn’t withstand being weakened with water and dropped down a few lousy steps?
Thank goodness Kenzie was such a levelheaded pragmatist. If she were given to the slightest bit of paranoia or superstition, she might see it as a bad sign that her first summer day in the sunny South was under deluge from a monsoon. She might be rethinking that rent check she’d written for a place where the elevator doors wouldn’t even open.
“Are you the handyman?” she asked suddenly, taking in the man’s clothing and an almost chemical smell she hadn’t initially noticed. A cleaner of some kind, or paint? Maybe the elevator would be fixed before Ann arrived with the kids, not that Drew couldn’t take three flights of stairs in a single breath. But he hardly needed new reasons to complain.
“The handyman?” Tall, Dark and Timely let out a bark of laughter that was gone as soon it came. In fact, all traces of amusement disappeared from his expression so quickly she wondered if she’d imagined them.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she said. “It was an educated guess—Mr. Carlyle assured me that a handyman would be taking care of the elevators today. Which would make moving in a lot easier.”
“Mr. C. is the handyman, in addition to being the property manager and the one who knocks on the doors whenever you’re late with rent.”
She stiffened. “I’m never late with rent.”
He raised an eyebrow at her hostile tone. “I meant in general.”
“Sorry. I take money seriously.”
“You and everyone else.” He grimaced absently, as if he were scowling at an unseen person. Did he owe someone money?
Oh, don’t let him be one of those charming but perpetually broke deadbeats. There were too many of those in the world already. Then again, this guy wasn’t technically all that charming. Hot, definitely, but not so much with the personality.
Imagining how Leslie would react to her mother calling a man hot, Kenzie grinned. “Well, thanks again. It was nice to almost meet you.”
The corner of his lips quirked. “I’m JT. Good luck with the rest of your move.” He started to pass, but stopped, watching as she wrestled with the lamp shades and books. With the box no longer intact, carting her belongings was problematic.
“I hate to impose,” she began, “but were you in a hurry? It’s going to take me a couple of trips to haul everything to the third floor, and if you wouldn’t mind sticking around in the meantime to make sure no one…” What,
