Annie gave her head a small shake. “Just making sure,” she said as the girls walked into the kitchen.
“Good luck on your job,” Kristen said, hugging Annie around the waist.
“I don’t have it yet, sweetie, but I’m going to give it a shot.”
“We still get to go to riding lessons, right?” Katie piped up. “If you get the job.”
“I’m going to take you to lessons,” Grady said.
Before the girls could respond, Annie said, “He’ll take you to lessons if you behave while I’m gone. If you don’t...” She held up a finger in a warning gesture, and both girls nodded solemnly.
Somewhere along the line Annie had shifted from easygoing sister to strict mom.
“You’re going to be late,” Grady said.
“Yeah. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” Grady said. He’d told himself a couple of times that morning that they wouldn’t have called her in for an interview if she wasn’t a serious candidate. He didn’t trust Lex, but he did trust Danielle, and the fact that she’d arranged for the interview after they talked made him feel hopeful for his sister’s chances. Heaven knew she was due for a break.
“Do we get to help you build the garage?” Kristen asked as soon as the door shut behind her mother.
“Please?” Katie asked. “We like to hammer.”
“Yeah,” Grady said. In fact, that sounded like a fine idea. They could hammer nails into a board and he could get some work done on the frame. He found two lightweight tack hammers in the tool box and two sturdy boards. After partially hammering ten nails into each board, he cautioned the girls to grip the hammer with both hands and to never hold the nails with their fingers. He also told them to tap, not wallop.
Maybe he’d given a few too many strict instructions because after ten minutes, the girls became bored with mindless hammering and wanted another job. It didn’t take long for him to realize that he wasn’t going to get a lot done while they were there helping him.
“What else can you guys do while I work?” he asked. An idea struck him. “Hey, shouldn’t you be reading books for that library award thing your mom told me about?” After the twins had gone to bed the previous evening, Annie had explained to Grady that her girls were dead set on winning the local library’s Dedicated Reader Awards. It was a big deal in town, and part of Grady’s duties would be to sign off on their reading sheets and take them to the library when they ran low on books.
“We finished our books last night,” Kristen said. “Mom’s picking up more today.”
“Um...” Katie frowned a little. “We could clean our rooms.”
Grady lifted a skeptical eyebrow. No kids he knew of volunteered to clean their rooms. “What’s the catch?”
“It’s almost time for allowance and if our rooms aren’t clean, we don’t get allowance.”
Annie really had become a hard-ass. But she always had been a neat freak, so Grady understood the clean-rooms-linked-to-allowance thing.
“Cool.” They’d clean their rooms, get their allowance and he’d get some framing done. Win-win. “If you’re done by lunch and do a good job, I’ll add extra money to your allowance.”
The girls exchanged excited glances, then started running toward the house, laughing as they went.
Feeling rather smug, Grady went back to framing. He figured it was almost two hours until lunch. The girls would probably start cleaning their rooms, then segue into a session of cartoon streaming as they’d done the previous evening while he and Annie discussed futures—hers and his. His sister was struggling, but she wasn’t giving up. He was somehow going to help her without making her feel beholden. Neat trick, that, but he’d figure it out. In the meantime, he would rebuild the garage, patch the barn and reinforce the cellar stairs. He owned half the property, and it was only right that he help with the upkeep, despite Annie pointing out that he didn’t live there so he didn’t reap any benefits. He was reaping them now.
Grady lost himself in the building process as the sun climbed in the sky. He glanced at his watch and realized almost two hours had passed since the girls went inside. He was hungry and thirsty, and he imagined the girls were probably also in need of lunch.
He pulled his ball cap off as he approached the house and slapped it on his thigh. Annie had made sun tea the day before, and he needed about a gallon of it right now. He pushed open the back door into the kitchen and then stopped dead in his tracks as his boots hit a puddle and two pairs of startled green eyes connected with his.
“What the—” He barely cut off the curse. Swallowing hard, he stepped over the wide puddle of tea and broken glass. “Hey! Don’t touch the glass,” he yelled as Katie started picking up the pieces with her bare hands. She instantly dropped the shards and stepped back, putting her hands behind her. Grady walked through the mess and took her hands in his, examining them closely. Other than being sticky from something chocolaty, they seemed fine.
“All right,” he said once he was satisfied he wouldn’t be rendering first aid. “How did this hap...” The word trailed off as he suddenly became aware of the condition of the rest of the kitchen, which had been close to spotless when Annie had left. Egad. Where had all that chocolate come from?
He shifted his gaze back to his nieces, unable to find words. They seemed similarly afflicted until Kristen blinked at him, all wide green eyes and stricken expression. “We wanted to surprise you with a cake.”
Indeed, there were signs of cake making in the form of chocolate batter pretty much everywhere, including the front of the fridge, the cabinets and the floor. No fewer than five bowls were stacked in the sink, along with a gooey eggbeater lying on the counter. Grady picked it up gingerly and set it in the bowls.
“We aren’t allowed to use the mixer,” Katie explained, casually wiping her gooey hands down the sides of her pink jeans.
Grady could only imagine the havoc they could have created with an electric mixer tossing batter around the room. “I see.” He rubbed his jaw as he took in the carnage. If he was quick, there was an off chance they could get the mess cleaned up before Annie got home.
“Here’s the deal, guys. I want you to stay out of here until I get the floor cleaned up, then—”
The sound of a car interrupted his words.
“Mom,” the girls said simultaneously in a hushed tone.
“Sounds like it,” he agreed, heading for the door and shooting a look out the window. It was indeed Annie who’d pulled into the drive. He turned back to the two wide-eyed girls. “Why don’t you two wait in the living room?”
They turned without argument and walked side by side down the hall. Katie had a perfect chocolate handprint on her backside. They’d just disappeared into the living room when he heard Kristen say in a low voice, “She’s going to be mad.”
No doubt.
Grady pulled open the door to take the heat.
Annie practically danced up the sidewalk. “I got the job!”
“Congratulations,” Grady said, forcing a quick smile. He