Page 5 of My Mountain Man Grump
“I don’t expect you to forgive me, dear, but please try to understand. I’m not going to be around forever, and if Cole doesn’t find a woman while those girls are young, they’ll be teenagers before he knows it, and coping with two strong-willed teenage girls on his own will not be fun. And it’ll be too late then. No woman wants to take on two teenage girls, no way. But two little pipsqueaks aching for a mother. It’s an easy gig.” She sits back in her chair and eyes me knowingly. “For the right woman.”
Joyce obviously thinks I’m somehow qualified to be mother material. Like finding a life partner and mother of your children is something you can put in an application for.
I imagine her eyeing my boob pic critically and ticking a box on her clipboard.
Nice rack, tick.
I lean forward to accentuate the point I’m going to make. “That doesn’t give you the right to do what you did. You tricked me here under false pretenses, I could go to the police.”
Her hand goes to her necklace, and she grips it tightly. “You won’t do that, will you dear? If I’m in prison, Cole’s got no one to pick the girls up when he’s on shift.”
She looks so concerned for her family that the fight goes out of me. She may have put on a fake persona online, but in the flesh Joyce is exactly who she says she is. A woman willing to do anything for her family. And I can’t fault her for that. Even if her tactics are entirely misguided.
I sigh heavily and sit back on the couch. “No, I won’t go to the police.”
Joyce relaxes. “Thank you, dear. I’ll speak to Cole. He’ll come around…”
I hold my hand up, stopping her train of thought. “No.” She looks startled. “No more meddling. Cole doesn’t want me here, and I don’t want to be here. As soon as my car is fixed tomorrow, I’m leaving.”
She opens her mouth to say something then closes it again. “Okay.” She nods.
I relax into the cushions. I think I’ve finally gotten through to her.
“Thank you for letting me stay in your cabin. I’ll be gone tomorrow.”
She drains her coffee and gets up, suddenly sprightly and no longer the vulnerable woman of a few moments earlier. “I had some supplies brought in from the store in town, so you should have everything you need for a few days.”
“For a night,” I correct her. “I’m only staying for a night.”
“Of course.” Joyce smiles, and her eyes sparkle before she turns away. “Cole will be picking up the girls soon.”
A pang of regret goes through me that I won’t get to meet the girls. The emails were full of what they’d been up to, written from the place of a great-grandmother’s love, I know now, and not that of a father sharing his day with me.
“If you need anything, he’s up at the big cabin.”
“I won’t be going up there,” I say quickly, reinforcing to her that her matchmaking scheme is dead in the water. My intention is to get out of here without speaking to Cole again. I’m dying of embarrassment that I was catfished by his grandmother.
“Or I’m down the hill in the small cabin,” she finishes.
“Thank you.” I see her to the door, and she gives me a wave as she heads down the gnome-lined driveway.
The roar of a vehicle has me scurrying into the cabin and closing the door. Cole’s back, and he’s the last personI want to see. I just need to get through tonight, get my car fixed, and get out of here and back to the safety of home.
So much for an adventure.
4
COLE
“Can we meet the new neighbor, Daddy?” Kyra’s hopeful wide eyes peer up at me from where she’s tucked up between the sheets.
“Nope,” I say for the hundredth time. “She’s not our new neighbor. She’ll be gone tomorrow.”
I lean over and give her a kiss on the cheek. She smells like soap and crayons and I breathe deeply, savoring the little girl smell, But I linger too long and she wiggles under me and complains of my scratchy beard.
“I want to meet her.”
The girls have been fixated on the woman staying in the cabin, and I had to forbid them from going over there. She’s still a stranger, and just because Gran’s been communicating with her online doesn’t mean we know anything about Carrie.
