“I’ll come up to see it as soon as I’m done, sweetpea,” he said, climbing up several rungs to reach the bottom corner of the loft. “But Daddy’s busy right now.”
“You’re always busy,” Ashley said, her small shoulders slumping and the corners of her mouth turned down into a scowl. She flopped back down on the sofa again and this time, the half-empty juice box in her hand upended, spilling deep red liquid all over the pristine beige couch.
Yep. This day was quickly becoming a disaster of epic proportions.
Tara immediately switched into recovery mode, her heart going out to little Ashley. Lord knew she’d felt lonely and like she was at the bottom of her mother’s to-do list growing up.
“Still no regrets?” Clint asked from the top of the ladder, giving her an apologetic stare. “I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”
“No, it’s fine,” Tara said, heading for the cleaning supplies in the kitchen. She’d actually picked up some stuff thinking she might need it if one of her photo shoots went wrong. “I’ve got some stain remover.”
But even as she scrubbed at the growing red stain on the cushion, she couldn’t help wondering if Clint was right and inviting them to stay here had been the wrong choice.
Clint finished snapping the last camera into its bracket, then climbed down the ladder and stepped back to survey his work. All the entrances and exits were covered now, so that part should be done. As always, having everything in place gave him a keen sense of satisfaction. Details were key in his line of work. Details saved lives. Details put criminals behind bars. Of course, the guys always teased him that his hyper-focus on details and stressing over whether everything was perfect would also probably land him in the looney bin someday, but whatever.
Clint was who he was, and he didn’t plan on changing any time soon. Then he glanced over and saw Tara cleaning up the last of the juice spill and his heart sank. She’d started cleaning it half an hour ago—for her to still be working on the stain seemed like a very bad sign. “Does it need some extra elbow grease? Here, let me help.”
“I’ve got it,” she said, waving him off. “Seriously. Please don’t worry about it.”
Except he was worried. He and his daughter were guests here and already they’d clearly thrown Tara’s world into chaos.
“Honestly, it’s no trouble,” he said, heading her direction anyway. “Please, let me—”
Unfortunately though, Tara stood at the same time that Clint started into the living room and they collided. The bottle of cleaning fluid and the rag in her hand went flying. The rag hit the hardwood floor with a wet splat while the bottle made an impressive arc through the air, cleaning fluid spraying out the top the entire time, before slamming into the brick wall and shattering. To top it all off, the thing made a perfect bullseye hit onto the keypad controlling the alarm system and those damned deafening alarms went blaring again.
While he and Tara stood there, dumbfounded, the cameras started going haywire too, whirring from one direction to the other while the emergency lights strobed on and off, nearly blinding them both.
Ashley tore downstairs holding her ears, screaming “Daddy! Daddy! Make it stop!”
Instead of running into his open arms, though, she latched onto one of his legs and one of Tara’s, hugging them both tight in her arms and preventing either of them from moving. From the way she was wailing it could have been the end of the world.
It was certainly the end of his patience, that’s for sure.
Cursing a blue streak, Clint disengaged himself from his daughter’s embrace and stalked over to punch the disarm code into the keypad, then stood there in the abrupt silence, head spinning and ears still ringing, stunned at how quickly chaos had taken over his surroundings. He was a man who lived an orderly life. He did his best to avoid messes, both physical and emotional. And in the course of one day, he’d walked right into disaster central. Good God. What the hell had he been thinking, moving in here?
“Hey,” Tara said, crouching to take a sobbing Ashley into her arms, stroking her blond hair while watching Clint over the little girl’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Your daddy has got it all taken care of now.”
But Clint didn’t have it all taken care of. In truth, he’d never felt more out of control in his life and he didn’t like it. Not at all.
7
Tara and Clint finally managed to get Ashley to sleep later that night, after reading her at least six stories and fetching her several glasses of water. Poor thing. Tara felt shaken enough after this evening herself. She couldn’t imagine how it must have felt for Ashley, especially on her first night in a new home.
She leaned over and kissed the little girl on the top of the head and made sure she was tucked in tight, then went to the door while Clint said his goodnights to his daughter. Tara did her best not to eavesdrop, but in the situation it was kind of impossible to avoid. There was only so far she could walk away and their voices carried.
“Go to sleep, honey,” Clint said, kissing his daughter’s head once more. “I’ll be just downstairs if you need me.”
“I miss my bed, Daddy,” Ashley said, her voice so small and sad, it broke Tara’s heart. “I just want to go home.”
Heart aching, she wandered into the kitchen. It was definitely way past wine o’clock. As she poured herself a glass of chardonnay, she heard Clint’s footsteps pounding down the stairs and toward the bathroom. Soon, the sound of the shower echoed and Tara went to the corner of the living room to check her emails in the little home office she had set up there.
She scrolled through messages, then popped onto social media to see how her latest posts were doing. Once the board hired a new permanent director, the plan was to transition Tara back to the social media post—so in the meantime, it was being handled by a temp. The girl was nice enough, but she just wasn’t as good at engaging people as Tara had been. So in addition to being director, Tara found herself still doing about half of her old job, too. With all that work on her plate, and so much urgency behind this legislation, it was little wonder that everything else fell by the wayside—including relationships. Who had time for that when there was a new mountain to conquer, right?
People called her a go-getter, and Tara didn’t disagree. She’d always been that way, from the time she was seven and her mother had run for mayor of their small town on a platform of small business rights. The cause had been close to Tara’s heart at the time because her favorite bookstore in town had been going out of business and that had been unacceptable to her. She’d brought it up to her mother several times and had hoped that her mother would take action to support the store—but that never happened, and the bookstore went under. Her mother won the election but taught her daughter a harsh lesson that day. Tara learned that she couldn’t count on other people to prioritize something just because it mattered to her—not even if the person was her own mother. And if she wanted to make a difference, she’d have to step up and do it herself.
It was a lesson Tara carried with her still.
She’d just finished going through all her accounts when the soft strain of instrumental, new-age music drifted from behind her. Curious, she closed her laptop and peeked over her shoulder, wine glass in hand, to see what was going on.