LITMIR.BIZ

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dressed as she was in a pair of tight black leggings and an oversize tan sweater. She wasn’t wearing any shoes. “Hey!” he yelled when she didn’t respond.

      She turned abruptly at that, almost losing her footing on the ladder. “Whoa,” she said, steadying herself. “Huh?”

      “I said, what are you doing? Other than making a ton of noise.” Logan studied the rickety ladder. Rusty and unstable, missing a rung in the center, the thing was a hazard.

      “Hanging a sign,” she answered, without looking at him.

      “At this hour?”

      “You’re staying next door, right?” She paused, holding the sign against the house with one arm and gripping the roof for stability as she turned slightly to face him. Her long dark hair blew across her eyes, and she tucked it behind an ear.

      “Yeah,” he grumbled.

      “Well, I have an agreement with the owners that I won’t make any noise until after eight. It’s almost nine and I’m almost done.” She waved a hand, dismissing him.

      “It’s upside down.”

      “Seriously?” The woman sighed as she leaned back on the ladder to study her handy work. The ladder pulled away from the awning and she quickly leaned forward again. “Shoot.” Turning the hammer around, she removed the last nail she’d driven in.

      Logan scanned the sign, reading the upside-down words. “You’re operating a day care next door to a bed-and-breakfast?” he asked through narrowed eyes. Just his luck. Not exactly ideal town planning in his opinion.

      “Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”

      “I just think the bed-and-breakfast might lose business....” He paused, his hands on his hips. “Although I guess what’s the difference when there’s already ten kids living in the house?”

      This was no longer the place he remembered and definitely not the place for him to write. He’d get nothing done with children around, reminding him of how much he missed Amelia. Working from his home office, he’d been her primary caregiver—getting her ready for school in the morning, seeing her off to the bus and being there for after-school snacks while she did her homework before dinner. He loved every minute of being a father.

      He needed to check out of here right away. Returning to his apartment, seeing Amelia’s toys and her empty bedroom wouldn’t be much better, but he couldn’t stay.

      “At the B-and-B? There are five children.” The woman stretched to remove the nails on the other end of the sign. One foot left the ladder completely and Logan had to look away.

      “There shouldn’t be any. It’s a business,” he muttered, jamming his hands into his pockets and hunching deeper into his sweater. He shuffled his feet in the crunchy yellow and orange leaves on the sidewalk in front of her small bungalow.

      “It’s also a home.” She flipped the sign around and lost her footing again on the ladder. She clutched the roof, struggling to regain her balance and reposition her stocking feet.

      Stocking feet on an already unstable ladder? “Okay, that’s it. Get down.” Logan opened the gate of the white picket fence and moved toward her, motioning for her to descend the ladder.

      “What?”

      “Get...down!” he growled. “Give me the sign.”

      She hesitated.

      He rattled the ladder.

      “Fine, stop.” She climbed down, stretching to reach the next rung below the missing one, then hesitated before handing over the sign. “You’re not going to break it, are you?”

      Logan grabbed the sign. The faster he could get this hung, the faster he could get back to work. Or at least back to staring at a blank page. Frowning, he climbed the wobbly ladder. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

      “No one asked you.” The woman folded her arms across her chest.

      So much for gratitude, Logan thought as he paused halfway up the ladder. “Hey, is there supposed to be smoke inside your house?” Bending to peer through the window in the front of the house, he could see thick, dark clouds spiraling out of the oven toward the ceiling and, a second later, the smoke detector screeched.

      “Smoke? No...” Her eyes widened. “My cookies.” She lunged toward the door, threw it open and raced inside, oblivious that she’d just hit the ladder.

      Oh no. Logan’s arms flailed as the ladder fell away from the house, taking him with it, and crashed down on top of him on the cold ground. His arm hit the side of a rock-walled flower bed, and he cringed as pain seared his right wrist. His cheeks flamed hot, as he pushed the ladder off and sat up, rubbing the throbbing wrist. Damn it.

      The woman came back outside, a frown wrinkling her forehead. “Well, the cookies are ruined,” she said, tossing her hands up in the air and then shooting him a quizzical look as she took in the picture before her. “Did you fall?” She rushed to pick up the sign.

      “No. You knocked me off.”

      Her mouth dropped open.

      Logan grimaced as he tried to move his right hand. This was just great. The quickly swelling wrist ached with the slightest movement.

      She knelt on the ground next to him. “Let me see your hand,” she said, reaching for it.

      At her touch he yanked his arm away. “Ow!”

      “Ow? I hardly touched you.”

      “Well, don’t.” Logan levered himself up with his good hand and stood. He wanted to get as far away from her as possible.

      When she scrambled to her feet, her eyes came level to his chest. “Fine.” She took a step back and shoved several stray strands of hair away from her face to study his injury. “But you should get it looked at. It could be broken.”

      Broken? He groaned. A deep purple bruise had already begun to spread across his hand. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

      “I really don’t think so. There’s a medical clinic in town.... I have the children arriving soon, but if you want to wait until they all get here, I could drive you in the day-care van?”

      That was a guilt offer if he’d ever heard one. Without even considering it, he shook his head. The medical clinic wasn’t that far—he’d walk.

      The woman pointed to the left. “Six blocks that way, take a right onto Main Street—”

      “I know where it is.”

      “Oh...okay. You sure you don’t want a ride? It’s no trouble.”

      She was not a good liar.

      “I’m sure.”

      She bent to get her sign. “Okay.” Then picking up the ladder, she set it against the house.

      “What are you doing?” Logan held his sore wrist with one hand.

      “Hanging my sign,” she said, stepping onto the first rung.

      “Are you crazy? That ladder is a million years old.”

      A dark red minivan pulled up in front of the house, and she stepped down and waved, smiling warmly. The effect transformed her face as her dark eyes lit up and her features softened.

      Logan’s eyes followed hers to see two children climb out of the back of the van.

      “Okay,” he muttered, “well, thanks for the injury.”

      Holding up his purple, swollen hand, he went through the gate past the children and then the bed-and-breakfast, heading in the direction of the clinic.

      * * *

      “I DIDN’T REALIZE I was making so much noise over there with that sign, but he was pretty irate.”

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