“And what did you paint?”
She twirled in a circle. “Skating!”
Quinn’s skating expertise was limited to hockey skates and a pond scrimmage now and again. This year Amber had wanted to learn, so for Christmas he’d bought her little white figure skates and signed her up for weekly lessons at the rink in town.
“Nice,” he commented, reaching for her backpack while she shoved her arms in her coat. “Come on, let’s go home and get some supper on.”
She was jamming her hat on her head as she peered up at him. “Can we go see Duke and Carrie? I want to show them my picture.”
“Maybe another time.” Quinn swallowed, thinking about Lacey being at the house by herself tonight. She’d looked sort of...lost, he thought. It didn’t really matter that he wasn’t overly fond of her. Losing your job was stressful, especially when you didn’t have a backup plan. She’d been making ends meet on a mediocre salary. He knew how upset he’d be if he lost his job and had Amber to support.
Maybe he was being too hard on Lacey.
“Please, Daddy? I haven’t seen Duke all week.” She pouted prettily as she took his hand and they walked to the door.
“Duke was still out in the pasture when I left. He might not even be back yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
He helped her buckle into her booster seat in the backseat of his truck and then got in and started the engine. “Hey, pumpkin? Do you remember Lacey, Duke’s sister? The one that was here for Thanksgiving and Christmas?”
He looked in the rearview mirror. Amber was nodding vigorously. “The pretty lady,” she announced. “With the long red hair. Like Ariel.”
Quinn blinked. He wasn’t sure that Lacey looked like Ariel from The Little Mermaid, but there was no question that she had gorgeous hair—when she didn’t have it all pulled off her face and shoved into a tail or bun or braid. He’d only seen it down once, but Amber had hit the nail on the head. Her hair was long and thick, a rich burnished color with just a hint of natural wave. Even disheveled in the morning, as he’d seen her on Christmas Eve, it was stunning.
“Daddy? What about her?”
He was pulled back from his musings. “Oh,” he replied, turning at a stop sign. “Just that she’s going to be staying at the big house for a while. I know I take you with me a lot, so when you’re there you’re going to have to be extra good. It’s not just you and me now.”
“But Lacey is nice. She played with me lots.”
“But she might not want to entertain you all the time, sweetheart. Do you understand?”
Amber shrugged. He could see the exaggerated movement in the rearview mirror and his heart gave a sad little thump again. The gesture was so like Marie. Amber had parts of Marie that she didn’t even realize, because her memories of her mother were already beginning to dim. They should have had Marie longer. She should have been here through all of this. They were like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. Pieces that could never be replaced.
“How about spaghetti for supper?” he asked, suggesting one of Amber’s favorites. There had to be at least one more container of frozen sauce in the freezer. It wouldn’t take long to thaw it and cook some noodles and throw some garlic bread in the oven. Cooking was something else he’d learned to do over the past year and a half.
“Spaghetti! Yum! I’ll help!”
He smiled then, pushing the maudlin thoughts aside. He might miss Marie, but he was still a lucky man. He had a job he loved, a roof over his head and a daughter he adored. They could muddle through the rest if they had each other.
Lacey, on the other hand, would be sitting at the ranch house tonight all alone. And for the first time, he truly felt sorry for her.
Lacey was up, showered, and dressed by the time Quinn arrived just before eight. She’d made a point of setting the alarm for six-thirty, though it hadn’t mattered. She’d awakened shortly after five, cold, and had thrown another quilt over top of the blankets in an effort to warm up. By six she gave up trying to go back to sleep and got up, cranked up the heat and ran a hot shower.
Now she had her laptop open, a cup of coffee beside her, and her glasses perched on her nose when she heard the truck drive in and the door slam.
There was a knock on the door.
Frowning, she got up to answer it. Maybe it wasn’t Quinn arriving for the day? When she put her eye up to the peephole, she could see his scowly face on the other side. What the heck?
She opened the door. “Quinn. Why on earth did you knock?”
He stepped inside, bringing a gust of icy air with him. “You live here now. I don’t have any desire to walk in and take you by surprise.”
Her face heated as the possibilities of “surprise” sank in. “Well.” She took a step backward as he toed off his boots. “Thanks, but this place is really more yours than mine.” She realized they needed to set some boundaries with each other and it might as well start this morning. “Tell you what. During work hours, this place is yours. You should be able to come and go as you please and not worry about knocking.”
“It’s a ranch, Lacey. Not exactly a nine-to-five job.”
Did he always have to be so contrary?
“I realize that. But you have to admit, most days you come and go at regular hours. Let’s say...between eight and six, you’ve got free run of the place and I’ll work around you. The rest of the time, it just takes a knock. Okay?”
He gave a short nod. “Okay.”
She smiled. “Good. Now, do you want some coffee? I put on a pot and I shouldn’t drink the whole thing or I’ll be bouncing off the walls by noon.”
He looked surprised that she’d asked, and his face relaxed a little. “That would be good.”
“What do you take in it?”
“Cream and sugar.”
Same as her. Go figure.
She retrieved a mug from a cupboard while he put a lunch bag in the fridge. When he turned around he noticed her laptop on the dining table. “What are you working on so early?” he asked, accepting the steaming mug from her hands. The pads of his fingers brushed against her knuckles.
She withdrew quickly, alarmed that the thoughtless touch felt so intimate. “I’m sprucing up my résumé. Then I’ll log on to the Wi-Fi and start searching the job sites and boards. I’m a CPA. Surely someone between here and Great Falls could use my considerable accounting skills.” She waggled her eyebrows, trying to keep the mood light. Maybe he could at least give her points for trying.
“I could ask around.”
Another surprise. “Why would you do that?”
He
