“Asking to see if he had a wife,” she filled in fast.
“Who has a wife?” Nick asked, startling Emma out of her socks. The teenager smirked while Emma struggled to look at him without melting into a puddle. After a beat, Nick pointed to Skylar. “I need your help in the kitchen.”
“Of course you do.” She sighed dramatically and took a bow before rushing for the kitchen.
Nick took a long time turning to follow, keeping one eye on Emma as she breathed a sigh of relief. The matter seemed to have slipped his mind, thank goodness. Smiling at him, she followed after Skylar.
“Chop the veggies,” Nick ordered to the teenager who stuck out her tongue in disapproval.
“Can’t we get pizza?”
“No. It’s meatloaf night.” He put his verbal foot down and took up the counter beside Skylar. While she toyed with a carrot, he mashed the hamburger mixture together with his hands.
“Uh-huh.” She dropped the paring knife and turned to him. “And did you ask our guest if she’s a vegetarian or vegan?”
The back of Nick’s neck turned red and the bowl clattered. “You’re, um…” He glanced over his shoulder at her and gulped.“I think there’s some rice—”
“I’m not,” Emma interrupted, “though I could chop the veg if you’d like.”
“You don’t have—”
“Please!” Skylar said, nearly throwing the knife at her. Emma snagged it fast, slipping in beside Nick as the girl fled.
She almost made it out of the door, when Nick calmly asked, “So…whose wife?”
Skylar froze, her head cocked as if she was about to ask what. But that wouldn’t stop the line of questions, not if he kept bringing it up. Putting on a smile, Emma chirped up, “I thought that Skylar was your daughter, and she corrected me. I can’t imagine the tragedy you’ve both suffered.” The second it slipped from her, Emma winced. People didn’t like being reminded they were supposed to feel sad.
“Tragedy?”
“Oh!” Skylar laughed and waved her hands around. “My parents aren’t dead.”
They aren’t? Then why is she…?
Nick opened the fridge to grab the ketchup bottle. “To make a very long and boring story short, my brother found a job further south. But this one here didn’t want to leave her friends, and the schools are better, so… It’s not a big deal.”
He banged the bottom of the bottle, barely dislodging more than a drop onto the loaf. “If she works for me in the shop I’ll keep her fed.”
“In school, we learned that’s called indentured servitude,” Skylar said.
Nick sighed and stared at the ceiling. “Only four more years before I’m free of this curse.” He snickered at the idea and shook the ketchup bottle just for a huge glob to plop all over the loaf and counter.
“I’m not cleaning that up,” Skylar called as she vanished out of the door.
Emma picked up a kitchen rag and wet it under the faucet. As he took it with a silent thanks, he said, “I’m doing it ‘cause…I mean, what’s the alternative? That girl would run circles around my brother without even trying.”
“Well.” Nick wiped off the last of the wayward ketchup and pushed the meatloaf into the oven. “We’ve got an hour to kill. What do you want to do?”
Her cheeks turned bright pink and Emma nearly sliced off her pinkie.
CHAPTER SIX
HE DIDN’T THINK any of this through. The house was in as bad of a state as his storage room. Even worse, he couldn’t blame it all on the wrecking ball in leggings. Without the mind-numbing work of grinding, packing, and pushing buttons, he had no damn idea what to do with his hands.Why does it take an hour for meatloaf to bake?
After rinsing the carrots, she stepped up to the counter and shook her sleeves back.
“Do you need an apron?” he asked. Her sweater looked expensive…and soft.
She stared up at him, her big eyes blinking slowly as she raised a carrot. “I think I’ll be okay.”
