“They should, but they haven’t. And I’m a hands-on guy, what can I say? Do you always wear white or tan-colored clothes?”
Her movements slowed for only a moment. “Yes. I’m a bland kind of girl. What can I say?”
“Hardly bland. More like a refreshing vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day.”
Her eyes were amused. “My, my. Poetry. What are you angling for now? Another ‘barely a week’ of child care?”
He shook out his paper and started reading again. There was another article about the accident. This time, instead of the usual focus about Elise’s family connections, the subject of the article was the other driver, who’d apparently had some pretty serious connections himself. To the kind of wealth and power that Caldwell could only dream.
“Just saying what I think. Like Regan does. Did you see this article? That Phil Candela guy was apparently some mucky-muck with Rutherford Transportation outta Kentucky. Wonder what he was doing in Fisher Falls.”
“Maybe he was on his way through to somewhere else,” she said abruptly. “What are you really doing here? Why aren’t you out conquering the world of construction?”
“Fixing the plumbing,” he assured. His coffee mug was empty again and he stood, reaching for the pot. What he was really doing was trying to follow Hayden’s suggestion that, if he wanted to win in court against Caldwell, he needed to show at least some makings of a family man.
“Want more?” He held up the pot. She shook her head, and he realized her cup was still brimming full. “Still too hot to drink?”
“Oh, I don’t drink the stuff. Tastes horrid. I just like the smell.”
“Sacrilege,” he grumbled, pouring the rest of the pot into his cup. “Heresy.”
“Good taste.” She slid two fried eggs onto a plate and handed them to him, shutting off the stove in the same motion. “Eat your eggs. I’m going to get the kids now, so if you don’t want to get in the way of flying food, you’ll eat them quickly and escape.”
He took the plate. “Darby.” She paused in the doorway, looking back at him. “About last night. In here.”
Her skin turned pink. “It was late,” she dismissed.
He hadn’t quite known what he’d been going to say. But he knew it wasn’t that. “Yeah, right,” he said blandly. “Late.”
Four hours later he was cursing the idiot who’d installed the pipes, the idiot inspector who’d approved them and the idiot corporation that owned the house and probably a dozen others just like it. He’d hunched into crawlspaces, climbed through the sloppily insulated attic, torn out a good piece of wall and dug a ditch near the foundation deep enough to swim in.
“Having fun?”
He looked up at Darby from hosing off his muddy hands. She’d brought the kids out to the backyard and they’d all been chasing a bright beach ball around the grass. In fact, Darby had several grass stains on her sundress, which wasn’t a dress at all, he’d realized. The skirt of her dress was actually shorts, as he’d seen when she’d been trying to teach Regan how to turn cartwheels.
She seemed almost driven to show the kids a fun time.
“There’s a leak that could sink a ship,” he muttered.
“No ship could sink in this much mud.” She gestured toward his jeans. Mud caked them up to the knees. “The children have been begging to play in it like their uncle Garrett has been.”
“Hell, yeah. It’ll be one big game to replace the entire section of pipe from the main to the house.”
The ball bounced their way, and Darby caught it, laughing when her bare foot slipped in the mud. She barely caught herself from falling on her rear. “You said you were a hands-on guy. If you don’t want to fix it yourself, hire someone. You run a construction company, for heaven’s sake!” She tossed the ball at him and it bounced off his chin before he dropped the hose and caught it in his muddy hands.
Actually, he owned the construction company, but he didn’t correct her. He tossed the ball back at her, and it left a muddy mark against her white outfit, right over the enticing thrust of her breasts. She stared down at herself, her expression surprised. Then her lashes lowered.
His eyes narrowed at the sly look she cast him. Suddenly she struck, reaching the hose just before he did, and turning it full on in his face.
Ignoring the streaming water, he hooked his arm around her waist and tipped her off her feet, holding her easily over the mud bath below them.
“No, no, wait,” she gasped, giggling so hard her face was red. “I’m sorry. Really. That was…was completely inappropriate of me.”
He squinted through the water she was still squirting in his face. “Inappropriate?” He finally managed to redirect the hose. Right at her. “I’ll show you inappropriate.”
She shrieked and wriggled, her hands pushing at him.
Garrett laughed. And it struck him then that it had been a long time since he’d done so. Water soaked his shirt, soaked her clothes. The children were watching them, agog. He laughed so hard his chest hurt.
He laughed so hard, his hold on Darby loosened. She twisted free, her feet tangling with his legs, and down they went.
Mud splattered.
Water gushed.
“I can’t believe you did this!” Darby tried to sit up and ended up only spreading more mud. She planted her hands on Garrett’s chest for traction.
“Me? I didn’t trip us,” he pointed out. He was sprawled on his back, half in the muddy trench, half on the grass. There were streaks of mud on his cheek. “Besides, you started it all with the bouncing ball.”
He lifted his head to look at her. “You know, I don’t think I’ve laughed in this town since I was five years old.”
Darby’s throat tightened. She realized her hands were still pressed against his chest. It might as well have been bare for all the protection his soaking-wet T-shirt provided. “I didn’t laugh a whole lot in my childhood, either,” she admitted.
“You need a bath.” Regan stood beside them, her nose wrinkled.
Darby chuckled. “You’ve certainly got that right, peaches.”
“I’m not a peach. I’m a princess.”
Garrett reached out and dashed his fingertip across her nose, leaving a streak of mud. “A princess with mud on her nose.”
Reid ran up beside his sister, sticking out his face. “Do me. Do me.”
Darby watched Regan’s expression. The little girl didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted. But when Reid giggled wildly at the dollop of mud Garrett deposited on his button nose, she finally grinned. She crouched down and gathered up a handful of the slick stuff and turned on her heel, running toward the triplets who were corralled in the playpen.
Darby groaned. “Too much of a good thing,” she decided quickly and scrambled to her feet. She caught up to Regan and redirected the girl. In minutes Regan and Reid were making mud pies, and the toddlers had escaped their own “anointing.”
She had muddy handprints all over her dress, and her legs and feet were coated. Garrett was hosing himself off again. She started across the yard toward him, stopping short when he suddenly yanked off his shirt and dropped it on the ground beside him before turning the hose over his head like a shower.
Regan tugged on her shorts, and Darby dragged her gaze from the sight of water streaming off Garrett’s broad shoulders.
“Uncle