“Garrick! Garrick! Garrick!” Shouts from a little boy jerked Garrick fully awake, and he looked up to find a six-year-old blond-headed terror of youthful energy barreling in his direction with no breaking in sight.
“Shawn!” His mother chased him from around the backyard.
A dark-haired girl followed right behind her, yelling, “Slow down, stupid!”
With just a split-second to brace for impact, Garrick caught the boy flying into his arms. Garrick moved half a dozen steps backward with momentum rather than fighting it and saved himself from falling on his ass.
The kid threw his arms around Garrick and planted a big, sticky kiss on Garrick’s cheek, all against his mother’s and sister’s warnings to stop. The boy’s open affection had thrown Garrick a bit when he’d moved in a month ago, but damn, the kid didn’t have a father and he clearly just wanted a guy in his life.
Garrick shifted Shawn in his arms, and smiled at the other two. “Hi, Grace.” He addressed the mother first and then dropped his attention down to Shawn’s sister. “How’s it going, Chloe?”
The eleven-year-old mumbled something inaudible under her breath as Grace said, “I’m sorry, Garrick. Shawnee heard your truck from the backyard and got away from me before I could grab him.”
“He’s such a doofus,” Chloe said in a snotty voice.
“No I’m not!” Shawn shot up in Garrick’s arm and reacted just the way his sister surely intended. “You’re a poopy-face and have ugly hair.”
Grace stepped in between the sightline of her children and shot each of them a narrow-eyed glare. “Both of you show me some manners right now or I will start taking away privileges.”
Chloe compressed her lips and her focus lowered to the grass. Shawn shifted in Garrick’s hold, looked at him, and declared, “You’re gonna take care of us on Saturday.”
“Shawn!” Grace’s face flooded to full-out red in two seconds flat. She looked to Garrick with a plea in her eyes. “I apologize. I told Shawn I was going to ask you if you were free, not that it was definitely happening.”
“It’s all right.” Garrick kept his voice cool and ignored the fact that Grace looked like she wished the earth would open up and swallow her whole. “What’s up?”
“I have an opportunity to show my first houses.” Grace kept the books for a local real estate firm, as well as a handful of other businesses, but Garrick knew she wanted to branch out and become a realtor herself. “Unfortunately, the client only has time free on the weekend.”
“What time?” Garrick asked as he put Shawn back on the ground.
“He says the morning but it could easily end up taking half the day.” She winced and looked at him with a squint. “I hate to even ask but I don’t have anyone else.”
“It’s done; don’t worry about it.” Garrick didn’t have to work this Saturday; he liked these kids, and he remembered how tough it was for his mother to raise two children alone. “You need to be there at nine?”
She nodded, and he said, “Then I’ll be here at eight-thirty.”
She grabbed his free hand and squeezed. “Thank you.”
Chloe pulled her stare off the ground and offered Garrick a wobbly smile. “We were just gonna go inside to make dinner.” She shuffled her ballet-flat-covered foot back and forth in the thick grass. “Do you... Would you like to eat with us?”
“Oh...” Garrick hated saying no to these kids but he could also hear his bed beckoning to him from through the walls.
“Yes, absolutely.” Grace jumped in. “The least I can do is feed you a good meal in exchange for agreeing to help me out on Saturday. You can’t really have anything decent to eat at your place.”
Garrick slid his attention to his tiny living quarters above the garage and knew that tonight he didn’t care about the microwave/convection oven combo or frozen meals in the fridge. The bed, some sleep, and the risk of letting himself fall into oblivion for just a few hours beckoned his exhausted body above all else.
He came back to the various levels of hope in the faces of the Fine family, each not saying a word while they waited for him. Garrick made himself smile. “Sure. Okay. I’m hungry. Let’s go.”
Shawn hooted and hurled himself into Garrick’s arms again. Garrick caught the kid this time without swaying, but at the same time, a shiver of cold trickled down his back and raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
Someone is watching me.
Garrick kept Shawn in his arms, but as he walked toward the house, he turned in a circle and did a subtle scan of the area. There were not a lot of places to hide in this neighborhood that wouldn’t intrude on someone else’s property, and doing that would likely get any individual trying to spy quickly caught. Garrick did a visual search of the surrounding houses in reverse anyway and still didn’t see any people or vehicles he hadn’t already cataloged as belonging on this block. All the same, his skin shivered with awareness, and he knew eyes were on him.
He reached out to Grace and put a hand on her arm, stalling her on the porch. “Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary today?” Garrick worked like hell to keep his tone merely curious. “Did anyone come to the house looking for me?”
Grace immediately shifted her attention to the road. “No, I haven’t, and no, nobody came asking about you.” She took Shawn out of Garrick’s arms and set him down by his sister. “Chloe, take your brother inside. You can help get dinner started by pulling out the big pot in the bottom cabinet. You both can get the spaghetti out of pantry and break it in half for me.” Chloe opened the door and let Shawn inside first, and Grace added, “Split the box evenly, please. I don’t want to hear any fighting.”
As soon as the kids were safely inside the
