LITMIR.BIZ

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sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

      “But I thought he had girlfriends. I mean, doesn’t he go out on dates sometimes?”

      Now it was Jessica’s turn to roll her eyes. “Sure, but not with mothers. They’re pretty and all, but they just pat me on the head and try to get away as fast as they can.” She curled her lip at the memories. “That Brandee woman is the worst.”

      “You mean Brandee Haycox, the banker’s daughter?”

      Jessica blinked. “I don’t know. I just know she doesn’t like kids much and she hates dogs. When she saw Fluffy the first time, she screamed.”

      “Honey, Fluffy is a ninety-pound Siberian Husky with silver eyes and fangs like a wolf.”

      She thrust out her bottom lip stubbornly. “That Brandee woman doesn’t like dogs! What kind of person doesn’t like dogs?”

      “You got me there.” He cocked his head and he was no longer smiling. “You don’t think...you don’t think your father’s planning to marry her?”

      Hot tears sprang to Jessica’s eyes. “I hope not, but he’s gotta marry someone. I need a mother! I need someone who knows how to comb my hair without pulling it out by the roots.” With one hand she flipped up her long straight hair—straight except for the tangles. “And I want to learn how to cook, and I need someone to sew on my buttons and stuff. Daddy’s no good at girl things, Grandpa.”

      “Never was,” he admitted.

      “So I just have to do something.” Looking around, she spied the big metal stapler on his desk. Grabbing it, she raised it high above the plaster pig, ready to shatter it to smithereens so she could offer him every single cent.

      “Hold on!” Grandpa caught her hand in midair.

      She frowned. “Don’t you want to know how much money I have? Maybe I don’t have enough.”

      “You’ve got plenty.” He slipped the stapler from her hand. “I’ll trust you for it.”

      That had been a big worry. She slumped with relief.

      He cupped her chin and raised it so he could look into her eyes. “This is really important to you, isn’t it, little one?”

      She sighed. “It is, Grandpa. I’m growing up. I’m almost ten—”

      “Barely nine.”

      “—and I’m gonna be a teenager soon. Somebody’s gotta show me girl stuff or I might goof up.”

      For a long time, Grandpa sat there with a thoughtful and kind of sad look on his face. Then he suddenly sat up straighter. “Okay, we’ll do it,” he announced.

      She threw herself into his arms, so filled with relief that she could barely talk beyond murmuring over and over again, “Oh, thank you, thank you!”

      “Here’s how we’ll work it. We’ll run the ad blind—”

      “Ads can’t see!”

      He laughed. “Blind means we won’t say whose ad it is. We’ll direct replies to the Review at Box 100.”

      “Okay.” She didn’t understand exactly what the point was but she didn’t much care as long as he would run her ad.

      “Then when we get in all the replies—if there are any—we’ll tell your daddy what we’ve done.”

      “Let’s pray,” Jessica suggested, under no illusions that her father would be pleased. But as he was always saying to her, she was doing this for his own good whether he realized it or not.

      “You got it.” Grandpa grimaced. “I don’t expect that grandson of mine will be any too happy but by then it’ll be too late.”

      They exchanged conspiratorial glances. Then he said more cheerfully, “Anyway, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” His big grin flashed again. “You see, Sugar, you’re not the only one who’d like to see him settle down with a nice girl.”

      “Who likes kids and dogs,” she reminded him, because that was the most important part.

      “Absolutely.” He stood up. “Take your pig and run along now. I’ll see that the ad gets into today’s paper.”

      “Thanks, Grandpa.” She hugged him. “But I want you to keep the pig. Daddy says only deadbeats don’t pay their bills.”

      “Well...I can wait for payment until we see if our scheme works out, I suppose. I’ll keep the pig until then.”

      “Thank you, grandpa. I love you.”

      “I love you, too, Sugar.” He cleared his throat. “So where’s your daddy today?”

      “He’s working on Mrs. Gilliam’s house.”

      “Still?”

      “I don’t think he’ll ever get it right,” she said seriously, repeating something she’d heard at home.

      “Probably not,” Grandpa agreed. “Poor Laura. So that’s why she said she’d be coming in late today.”

      Matt Reynolds shoved his cap back on his head, planted fists on hips and glared at Laura Gilliam. The life-styles editor of the Rawhide Review had to be the pickiest customer he’d encountered since he started the Reynolds Construction Company years ago.

      She stared right back at him with an exasperated expression on her face—admittedly a very pretty face but stubborn. Really really stubborn.

      He spoke past gritted teeth. “You realize that if you keep changing the specifications on us, we’ll never get your family room finished.”

      Slender brows rose above velvety brown eyes. Her lips were the pink of roses, although set in a straight and forbidding line at the moment. “Don’t patronize me, Matthew Reynolds,” she said. “This is the only family room I’ll ever be adding to this house and I want it to be right.”

      “Right.” She wouldn’t know right if it walked up and kicked her in the shin. What difference was it going to make when she used it, if the bar was six inches to the right or left? But to put it where she wanted it was going to mean changing the door and that meant the windows would have to be adjusted and the refrigerator shifted—hell.

      “I knew you’d understand,” she said sweetly.

      “Who understands? But if that’s what you want—”

      “It is,” she said quickly. “Thank you very much for your...patience?” Her expression said something else entirely, something along the lines of you’re not going to bully me, you big oaf. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get in to work.”

      “Sure. Don’t let me keep you.”

      She turned and he found himself admiring the curve of her hips beneath the denim skirt, the slender legs, the bounce of blond hair. When she’d first moved to town three years ago to take the job at the Review, he’d thought that maybe they might...

      But he’d been badly mistaken. Laura Gilliam might look good but she was stand-offish and guarded her privacy too fiercely. So far as Matt knew, she rarely dated, although she was much admired by the half of the population which was male.

      Helluva waste.

      She disappeared through the door which temporarily connected the new construction with the rest of the house. He heard her call out, “Abby, I’m going back to work now.”

      Matt knew that “Abby” was Abby Royce, recent high school graduate who was baby-sitting Laura’s six-year-old son, Zach, for the summer. He heard a further mumble of voices and then the slam of the front door, followed by the sound of her car engine.

      Zach came skipping around the side of the already-framed room addition. “Hi, Mr. Reynolds,” he called

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