Chapter 3
“Who are you?” a pretty little girl with sun kissed brown hair pulled into two braids and wearing a backwards baseball cap demanded, as she stopped in front of him.
Reese cocked his head to the side as he looked up at the little girl staring right back at him. “Who are you?” he countered as he settled back against the old log that he’d escaped to an hour ago.
“I asked you first,” she pointed out as she crossed her arms over her chest and shot him an expectant look, clearly deciding that she wasn’t leaving him alone until she got her answers.
“So you did,” Reese murmured with a smile. “I’m Reese.”
“Are you visiting or renting?” she asked next, not wasting any time in starting her interrogation.
“Renting.”
“Which house?”
“The one right behind you,” he said, gesturing towards the large house that he was avoiding at the moment.
“For how long?”
“The summer.”
“Any kids?” she asked, producing an old baseball mitt with a baseball securely held inside it from behind her back.
“Seven.”
“Seven,” she repeated with a thoughtful nod as she glanced over her shoulder.
“And what’s your name?” he asked, curious about the little girl that was interrogating him.
“Can’t tell you that. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she said with a sniff as she returned her attention back to him.
“I see,” he murmured, not pointing out that she was currently interrogating a stranger and decided to reassure her that he wasn’t a serial killer.
He pulled out his wallet, flipped it open and held it out to her so that his badge was facing her. He didn’t say anything as she slowly reached out and took his wallet from him. He watched as she looked down at his badge and ID, to him and then back down at his ID again.
“You’re a police officer?” she asked, shooting him a questioning look as she handed his wallet back.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, returning his wallet to his back pocket.
“Are you the one that handcuffed those two men to the pole?” she asked, as she absently gestured towards the street.
“That would be me,” he said with a nod, wondering how long it would be before they managed to escape and come after him.
“You know they’re telling on you, right?” she asked, scrunching her face up in disgust as though the very act disgusted her, making him chuckle.
“I figured,” he admitted with a shrug, already knowing that Haley and Zoe would be more amused than anything to find their husbands handcuffed to a telephone pole.
“I see,” she murmured thoughtfully as she tossed the ball in the air and caught it, assessing him with a new look on her face, one that actually kind of scared him.
“Are you going to tell me your name?” he asked only to frown when she once again ignored his question and demanded, “Do you throw like a girl?”
*-*-*-*
“So, what’s the verdict?” Eric asked, as he strolled into the kitchen and leaned back against the kitchen counter as she finished dicing the last potato.
“On what?” she asked, putting the diced potato in the pot with the others.
“The kitchen,” he said, watching as she moved around the kitchen island so that she could focus the insanely expensive camera that she’d bought last year, on the bowl of potato cubes soaking in the pot and snapped a few pictures.
Shaking her head, she grabbed the pot and placed it on the stove. “I haven’t decided yet,” she admitted, as she grabbed a large mixing bowl out of the cabinet and placed it on the kitchen island.
“I think you should do it,” Eric said, walking around the kitchen island so that he could snap a few pictures of the bowl for her while she grabbed the hamburger, eggs, and ketchup from the fridge and placed it on the counter along with the large mixing bowl.
“I know,” she said, sighing heavily as she looked around the depressing area again, noting that the modern appliances that she’d added since she’d moved in didn’t match the rest of the kitchen, which created problems when she had to do her job.
“It’s a tax write off,” he reminded her as he took a few more pictures.
“I know that, too,” she said, as she grabbed some seasonings and the leftover loaf of bread that she’d made yesterday.
“Then what’s the hold up?” he asked, snapping a few more pictures before he looked over at what she was doing with interest. “What are you making?”
“Meatloaf,” she said, cracking an egg open.
“Which recipe?”
“Your favorite,” she said with a smile as she slowly added the rest of the ingredients, pausing long enough so that he could snap pictures as she worked.
“There are other contractors out there,” he pointed out, before licking his lips and asking, “Are you going to make fried apples?”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” she said, grabbing a pan for the meatloaf and already resigning herself to making a batch of fried apples for the man that had saved her from spending the better part of the day sitting on an old splintered bench in this sweltering heat.
“And biscuits?” he asked, sounding hopeful and making her chuckle.
“Are you going to do the dishes?” she asked, mentally adding biscuits to tonight’s menu.
“I would,” he said, sighing heavily, “I really would, but you know that you do them so much better than me.”
“Cause you throw like a girl?” she asked teasingly as she put the pan in the oven and started on the apples that she hadn’t planned on making.
“Exactly,” he said, waving it off as though that was a given. “What about the kitchen? What are we going to do?”
Toying with the apple in her hand, she slowly sighed as she glanced around the eyesore that was becoming more difficult to deal with each passing day. “I honestly don’t know. It needs to be done, but twenty thousand dollars is a bit steep.”
“It is,” he murmured in agreement, “but it needs it.”
“It does,” she agreed, rolling the apple between her hands as she thought about the cost, the time it would take to complete the renovations, and the hassle of dragging her camera, pots and pans, cooking equipment, and ingredients across town to Sara’s place so that she could use her best friend’s kitchen.
Then again, that might not be a possibility since Sara’s husband felt that she was a bad influence and usually went out of his way to provoke her into screwing with his head. She really didn’t know why he didn’t like her since she was such a joy to be around. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she’d kicked him in the junk at the eighth-grade dinner dance after he’d promised to take Sara to the dance only to end up taking another girl?
She thought that over for a minute before quickly dismissing it, because if anything, he owed her his gratitude for reminding him of his previous obligation since it had led him to realize just how special Sara was and marrying her. Maybe he was still mad at her for crashing his bachelor party? she wondered only to shrug it off as well, because she simply didn’t care.
“Why don’t we look for someone else to do the work?” Eric suggested with a pointed look at the apple for her to move her ass.
“There is no one else.”
“There has to be.”
“You would think,” she said, peeling an apple and placing it in a bowl of ice water before she grabbed another apple. “I’ve asked around, but Mr. Parker is the only contractor that has the availability.”
“Maybe we could do it ourselves,” he suggested, making her pause mid-peel, because that was actually a pretty good idea.
Well, not him, because of that whole throws like a girl thing, but she could probably do most of the work and find a handyman to do what she couldn’t. It could work, she decided as she thought of everything that she was going to have to do to get this project moving. She was going to need a hammer, she thought as she looked around, amending that decision when she took in the cabinets and countertop.
She was going to need a big hammer to tear this room apart.
Of course, that didn’t solve her other problems. She still needed to find a kitchen that she could use while she was doing renovations. Maybe she could rent the church’s kitchen? It was worth a shot, she decided, reaching for another apple when she realized that they weren’t alone anymore and that her daughter may very well end up being the death of her.
Oh, that and the man standing behind Mikey might be losing too much blood.
“I think I might have thrown the ball a little too hard,” Mikey said with a sheepish look as she glanced up at the man that Kasey belatedly realized was the same man that she’d dubbed Yummy earlier.
“I’m fine,” Reese, if she remembered correctly, said, but something, mostly all that blood running down his face, told her that he wasn’t.
“Eric, why don’t you help Mikey to her room since she’ll be staying there until she’s old enough to collect social security,” she said smoothly with a pointed look at her daughter. “Oh, and you might want to check the lock on her window.”
“I didn’t go far,” she said with that same expression that Mikey’s father used to use when he got caught pulling his IV out of his arm and sneaking out of his hospital room so that he could hit the vending machines before his next dose of chemo.
It hadn’t worked on Kasey then and it wasn’t going to work on her now.
“Go,” was all she said before cocking her brow in warning.
That’s usually all it took and this time would be no different.
“Bye! Hope you feel better, Reese!” Mikey yelled over her shoulder, and with that she was gone, leaving Kasey with several questions for the large man muttering under his breath and bleeding all over her kitchen floor.