LITMIR.BIZ

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turned to Mason. “Your mom was bloodthirsty. She used to threaten me with bodily harm if I ate the last garlic knot.”

      The pressure in her chest increased. “That was a long time ago.”

      He shrugged. “They’re as good as they used to be.”

      Mason perked up. “Brandon said we had to save the rest for you. But if you don’t want ’em...” He started to rise.

      “I do.”

      “Dang.” Her son flopped back down, a picture of total dejection.

      Brandon cut him a look. “How can you have room for more food?”

      Mason grinned, looking so much like the sweet child she loved that it choked Hannah up all over again. “I’m a growing boy. And man, you worked me hard.”

      Which reminded her... “I see my gutter is fixed and draining properly.”

      “You should have been here, Mom. Right after we finished, a big bolt of lightning lit up the sky, then it thundered so loud it sounded like a bomb went off. The ladders rattled. We barely got the tools into Brandon’s truck before the bottom fell out. We got soaked!”

      That explained the shower and clean clothes. Her son’s sullen attitude was gone. Brandon had managed a miracle. “Thank you for your work. Both of you.”

      “I put the wet towels in the washer,” Brandon added. “Added to the stuff you already had in there, it was enough to run a load. So we did.”

      “The machine’s pretty easy to work,” her son, who had never done a load of laundry in his life, volunteered. “Brandon showed me how. And he says I can help him with more stuff if you’ll give him a project list.”

      It took a moment for her brain to recover from the shock of her son being eager to do chores. “Um... I’ll work on that.”

      She didn’t want to be beholden to Brandon or have him hanging around her house or washing her clothes. Asking for help with Mason had been hard enough. And that was all she wanted from him. But how could she refuse when her son sounded so happy about being included? And then the guilt kicked in again. He needed a man’s influence. And she couldn’t give him that.

      “Did you finish your homework?”

      Mason’s crestfallen expression revealed his answer before he mumbled, “Most of it. All I have left is math.”

      “Get to it.”

      He slouched out of the room. Thunder shook the house, drowning out the sound of Mason’s heavy footsteps tromping up the stairs. The lights flickered.

      Then because she couldn’t handle more of Brandon’s silent smiles she turned to her daughter. “Belle, you need to have your bath and get ready for bed. Go on up. I’ll be there right after I see out our guest.”

      “But, Mom, can’t Occifer Brandon tuck me in?”

      “No.”

      “Sure,” he replied simultaneously.

      Hannah shook her head. She needed him gone. “You don’t have to do that. I know you need to get ready for work tomorrow.”

      “I can stick around until after you give Belle her bath. A few more minutes won’t kill me. It might even give the worst of the storm time to pass.”

      Suddenly, she felt mean for wanting to throw him out into the deluge. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

      “I have a niece and nephew, twins who just turned four. I can handle reading a bedtime story.”

      “Yippee!” Belle charged upstairs before Hannah could come up with an excuse.

      The lights blinked again and Brandon frowned. “Do you have frequent outages?”

      “Enough.”

      “Where do you keep your flashlights? I’ll get them out in case you lose power while you give the ballerina a bath.”

      “In the laundry room drawer, but I usually use the hurricane lamps on the mantel. Matches are with the flashlights. What did you find out from Mason?”

      “Very little. Gathering info is a finesse job. It’ll take time, but I’ll get to the bottom of it. Do you know the families who live on the street behind you?”

      “No. Why?”

      “Mason kept checking the woods. I’ll see what I can get on your neighbors.”

      “Why?”

      “Just a hunch.”

      “What kind of a hunch?”

      “Nothing concrete.”

      The lights went out before she could press for more. Belle cried, “Mommy!”

      Brandon pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and hit the flashlight app. Hannah had left hers in her purse on the kitchen counter.

      “Wait here. I’ll get you a light.” He left and returned a moment later with a box of matches. “Your flashlight batteries are dead. Do you have more?”

      “Mason dropped the flashlight the night he tried to sneak out. I suspect it’s the bulb.”

      After lighting the kerosene lamps, he handed her one. “Take care of Belle. You have city water and a gas water heater. She can still have her bath. I’ll check on Mason.”

      Of course Brandon knew all the details about her house. He’d been a huge part of the purchase process. If not for him, she would never have been able to convince Rick to buy the old home she’d fallen in love with the moment she’d seen it. Brandon had been the one to shadow the inspector, and when Rick had been daunted by the amount of work the house needed, Brandon had pointed out that the previous owners had already done all the expensive renovations, leaving only cosmetic projects incomplete. He’d helped Rick make and prioritize the renovation list.

      That Brandon had been such a huge part of their lives had made his failure to protect Rick even more difficult to comprehend.

      They climbed the wide stairs side by side. Wind rattled the windows and whistled under the eaves. It was comforting to have someone else here to help with the weather this nasty. And that was crazy, because she’d handled every previous outage just fine by herself. She pushed that feeling aside, and on the landing, they went in opposite directions—her to her daughter, him to her son.

      After giving Belle her bath and dressing her for bed, Hannah left the lamp on the table and headed for Mason’s room. Brandon had one hip parked on the corner of her son’s desk. Both he and Mason looked comfortable together. Even though she hadn’t made a sound Brandon looked up. “He has Rick’s head for numbers.”

      “Yes. He does. Belle has picked out her book. She’s waiting for you. I’ll take over here.”

      He rose and crossed the room. Their shoulders brushed as he passed, and static electricity zapped her, making her gasp. Brandon paused and their gazes met in the darkened room. The electricity between them had to be due to the storm. She hustled to Mason’s side and settled in to check homework, but her thoughts were anything but settled. She kept listening for sounds from Belle’s room.

      Finally, Mason closed his book. “He’s pretty cool. Brandon, I mean. I can see why Dad would have wanted to be his friend. He knows stuff.”

      She didn’t want her son comparing the men and have Rick come up short. “Yes. He does. But your daddy did, too. He was smart in a different way.”

      “If you say so.”

      “I’m going to leave the light with you. Be careful. It’s an open flame and fuel—”

      “Moooom, I know!”

      She returned to Belle’s room but paused outside the door to listen as Brandon read

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