were helping each other through roundup. Then he’d be sorting and shipping and—
“I’ll stay another week,” she said, interrupting the litany of tasks running through his mind. “But that’s it, Ryder.”
Layla grinned up at him with her six teeth and smacked his face again with her hand.
He looked back at his housekeeper. “A week.”
“That’s all the time I can give you, Ryder. I’m sorry.”
A week was better than nothing.
And it was damn sure more than Tina had given him.
“I don’t suppose you could stay and watch Layla for another few hours or so?” As his housekeeper began shaking her head no, he grabbed the refrigerator door and stuck his head inside, so he could pretend he didn’t see. “Got a friend—” big overstatement there “—who needs help towing her car back to town. Broke down up near Devil’s Crossing.” He grabbed the bottle of ketchup that Layla latched onto and stuck it back on the refrigerator shelf. She immediately reached for something else and he quickly shut the door and gave Mrs. Pyle a hopeful look. The same one he’d mastered by the time he was ten and living with Adelaide.
Instead of looking resigned and accepting, though, Mrs. Pyle was giving him an eyebrows-in-the-hairline look. “Her car? Is this female friend single?”
Warning alarms went off inside his head. “Yeah.”
She lifted Layla out of his arms. “Well, go rescue your lady friend. And give my suggestion about a wife some thought.”
He let her remark slide. “Thank you, Mrs. Pyle.”
“Not going to change my leaving in a week,” she warned as she carried the baby out of the kitchen. “And you might think about washing some of the day off yourself, as well, before you go out playing Dudley Do-Right.”
* * *
He hadn’t showered, but he had washed up and pulled on fresh clothes. And he still felt pretty stupid about it.
It wasn’t as if he wanted to impress Greer Templeton. Not with a clean shirt or anything else. And it damn sure wasn’t as if he was giving Mrs. Pyle’s suggestion any consideration.
Marrying someone just for Layla’s sake?
He pushed the idea straight out of his mind and shifted into Park at the top of the hill as he stared out at the worn-looking Victorian house.
The white paint on the fancy trim was peeling and the dove-gray paint on the siding was fading. The shingle roof needed repair, if not replacement, and the brick chimney looked as if it were related to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But the yard around the house was green and neat.
Not exactly what he would have expected of the lady lawyer. But then again, she worked for the public defender’s office, where the pay was reportedly abysmal and most of her clients were supposedly the dregs of society.
He turned off the engine and got out of the truck, walking around to the trailer he’d used to haul Greer’s little car. He checked the chains holding it in place and then headed up the front walk to the door.
The street was quiet, and his boots clumped loudly as he went up the steps and crossed the porch to knock on the door. The heavy brass door knocker was shaped like a dragonfly.
If he could ever get Adelaide to come and visit Braden, she’d love the place.
When no one came to the door, he went back down the porch steps. There was an elderly woman across the street making a production of sweeping the sidewalk, though it seemed obvious she was more interested in giving him the once-over.
He tipped the brim of his hat toward her before he started unchaining Greer’s car. “Evenin’.”
The woman clutched her broom tightly and started across the street. A little black poodle trotted after her. “That’s Greer’s car,” the woman said suspiciously.
He didn’t stop what he was doing. “Yes, ma’am.”
“What’re you doing with it?”
“Unloading it.”
She stopped several feet away, still holding the broom handle as if she was prepared to use it on him if need be. “I don’t know you.”
“No, ma’am.” He fit the wheel ramps in place and hopped up onto the trailer. “I assure you that Greer does.” He opened the car door and folded himself down inside it.
Maybe Greer—who was probably all of five two or three without those high heels she was always wearing—could fit comfortably into the car, but he couldn’t. Not for any length of time, anyway.
He started the car, backed down the ramp and turned into the driveway. Then he shut off the engine, crawled out from behind the wheel and locked it up again before sticking the key back into the magnetic box he’d found tucked inside the wheel well.
The woman was still standing in the middle of the street.
He secured the ramps back up onto the trailer and gave her another nod. “If you see her, tell her she’s got a thermostat problem.”
“Tell her yourself.” The woman pointed her broom handle at an expensive black SUV that had just crested the top of the hill. “Bet that’s her now.”
He bit back an oath. He still didn’t know what had possessed him to haul Greer’s car into town for her, particularly without her knowledge. And his chance of a clean escape had just disappeared.
The SUV pulled to a stop in front of Greer’s house. The windows were tinted, so he couldn’t see who was behind the wheel, but he definitely could see the shapely leg that emerged when the passenger-side door opened.
It belonged to Greer, looking very un-Greer-like in a flowy sort of dress patterned in vibrant swirls of color that could have rivaled one of his aunt’s paintings. Half her hair was untidily pulled up and held by a glittery pink clip.
He still knew it was her, though, and not one of her sisters. No question, considering the sharp look she gave him as she closed the SUV door and approached him. “You hauled my car here?”
“I suppose there’s no point in denying the obvious.” He watched the big SUV pull around in the cul-de-sac and head back down the hill. The identity of the driver was none of his business. He wondered, anyway. “Boyfriend?”
She frowned. “Grant. And why did you haul it?”
No wonder the SUV had turned around and left. “You’d rather have it still sitting out on the side of the highway?”
“Of course not, but—” She broke off, looking consternated, and only then seemed to notice that they had an audience. “How are you doing, Mrs. Gunderson?” She leaned down to pet the little round dog. Ryder wasn’t enough of a gentleman to look away when the stretchy, ruffled neckline of Greer’s dress revealed more than it should have.
“Just fine, dearie. Oh, Mignon, don’t jump!”
Mrs.
