The Daddy Project Read online

  Martha clung to her father’s hand but Molly scampered into the room and attempted a balloon toss. The massive dog lumbered in behind her. The yellow blob of a balloon slithered to the floor so the child stomped on it instead. When it didn’t pop, she lost interest and rejoined her father and sister. The dog nudged it with its nose, picked it up and gave it a chomp. Still no pop, so the Saint dropped the slobbery mass in the middle of the sisal area rug.

  The room was furnished with comfortable-looking furniture and there was an abundance of books and newspapers, a few kids’ toys and dog toys, and sofa cushions that needed straightening.

  Kristi took her camera out of her bag and looped the strap around her neck. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to photograph each room. When I get back to my place…my office—” He didn’t need to know she did most of her work out of the back of her minivan and at one end of her kitchen table. “The photographs help me create a design plan and draw up a budget.”

  “Fine with me. Are you okay to look around on your own? I still have some work to do outside.” He pulled his gardening gloves back on.

  “You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll look through the house and we can talk when I’m done.”

  “And I will tidy up in here tonight,” he assured her again.

  The week-old remnants of the party seemed to embarrass him. Kristi didn’t see them as a problem, quite the opposite. At least there had been a party, and that was definitely to his credit. She couldn’t remember the last time Jenna’s dad had even called to wish their daughter a happy birthday. Gifts? Not even a consideration.

  “Molly. Martha. Let’s go. You can play outside while I work.”

  “Daddy, why is she taking pictures?”

  “She needs to know what the house looks like.”

  He took Molly’s hand and coaxed her out of the room along with her sister, who needed no urging at all. The dog seemed content to amble along after them.

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because why?”

  “Because she just does.”

  To say Nate McTavish was overwhelmed by single-parenthood would be the understatement of the century, but what he lacked in technique, he made up for with patience. In spades.

  As he walked away, she smiled at the green lettering on the back of his T-shirt. Go Green With Photosynthesis. At least now the equation on the front made sense, and confirmed her guess that he probably was a gardener. Her gaze dropped a little lower. There was a lot to be said for a flattering pair of jeans, but these particular jeans were simply magic. She quickly looked away. You have a job to do, and that is not it.

  Since her ex, Derek the Deadbeat, had left twelve years ago, she had been on a number of casual dates, mostly with men her family and friends had set her up with, but she had guarded against anything that would distract her from becoming a self-sufficient single mom and career woman.

  Everything about this man was distracting. The hair that could use a trim but suited him anyway, his being oblivious to the streak of dirt on his forehead, and oh…those eyes. She never felt awkward with new clients, but if she’d had to go through every room in the house with him, knowing those eyes watched every move she made, she would not have been able to focus. Especially after the moment they’d had when she tripped over the little yellow boot. And it hadn’t just been her moment. He’d felt it, too. She was sure of it.

  With him out of the room if not entirely out of her mind, she pulled open the heavy drapes and imagined the clutter away. The rich wood of the floors and beamed ceiling created a warm contrast to the polished river rock of the open-hearth fireplace. She would start staging in this room, she decided. The fireplace was the focal point of the room, and it would create the perfect jumping-off point for the casual West Coast decor she would carry throughout the house. She didn’t even need to see the other rooms to know she could make it work.

  She raised her camera, snapped a photo of the fireplace and then systematically documented the rest of the room.

  Her BlackBerry buzzed before she had a chance to move on. It was her mother. She could either take the call now or wade through a half dozen messages later on. Kristi adored her mom, but in the history of motherhood, Gwen Callahan’s persistence in checking up on her daughter was unmatched.

  “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

  “Hello, dear. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “Actually, I’m in the middle of a job.”

  “Oh. Well then, this’ll just take a minute.”

  I suppose there’s a first time for everything. “What would you like?”

  “I was just talking to my old friend, Cathie Halverson. You remember her, don’t you? They lived across the street when you were in high school, then they moved to Spokane.”

  “Ye-e-e-e-s.” Kristi already knew where this was going.

  “Her son Bernard has just moved back to Seattle. I’m sure you remember him.”

  All too well. Bernie Halverson had asked her to a school dance when she was fifteen. She went because it was the first time anyone had ever asked her out and she hadn’t had the sense to say no. The date had been a disaster. They’d had nothing to talk about, and his idea of slow-dancing was synonymous with groping. He had reeked of cheap cologne, and the next day she’d had to wash her favorite sweater three times to get the smell out of it. But the worst part had definitely been the kiss.

  “Sure,” she said. “I sort of remember him.”

  “He doesn’t know that many people in Seattle,” Gwen said. “So I was thinking we could invite him to Aunt Wanda and Uncle Ted’s Fourth of July barbecue. Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?”

  To Bernie Halverson, it might. For a split second she considered telling her mother he’d been the first boy to stick his tongue in her mouth, she hadn’t liked it one bit and if he was still single after all these years it’s because he was still a letch.

  She couldn’t tell her mother that. Gwen Callahan did not like to discuss “intimacies,” as she so delicately referred to them. But then straight out of the blue, Kristi had a better idea.

  “I don’t think so, Mom. I’ve actually just met someone.” It wasn’t a lie, really. She had just met someone. Nate McTavish. So it was only the teeniest of lies. Just a fib, really. “It’s nothing serious or anything but I don’t think we should give Bernie…Bernard…the wrong idea.”

  It took her mother five full seconds to respond. “You’re seeing someone? When did this happen? Why haven’t you said anything? Has Jenna met him? Are the two of you—”

  “Mom, stop. It’s recent, very recent, and like I said, it hasn’t turned into anything serious. And no, Jenna hasn’t met him so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to her.”

  “What’s his name? What does he do?”

  “Oh. Nate. His name’s Nate and he’s a… He works in landscaping.” And in a blink the fib turned into a terrible lie that she would, without question, live to regret.

  “Well, this is certainly a surprise. Where did you meet him?”

  “Through work.” That part was true. “And I’m at work right now, Mom, so I really can’t talk.”

  “I’ll call you tonight so we can make plans. You’ll have to invite him to Wanda’s barbecue so we can all meet him. So Jenna can meet him. Or you can give me his number and I’ll invite him.”

  And there came the part where she would live to regret this…right on schedule. “No! No. Thanks, Mom. I�
��ll talk to him about it. I’m not sure if he’s free, though. I think maybe he mentioned something about having plans with his family.” Stop. Talking. The hole she was digging would soon be so deep, she’d never climb out of it. “I have to go, Mom. I’m working with a new client this afternoon. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “I’ll call you tonight,” Gwen said again.

  Kristi couldn’t tell if there was a subtle threat in her mother’s parting words, or if the guilt she was feeling had skewed her perception. Most likely a little of both.

  Over the years her mother and Aunt Wanda had tried to set her up with more eligible men than she could count. She’d managed to avoid going out with most of them, but occasionally they’d caught her off guard, like the times they had invited someone like Bernie Halverson to a family event. Not one of those men had come close to looking like Nate McTavish. Not that looks were everything, but there hadn’t been any chemistry with any of them, either. Shaking hands with Nate had left her insides bubbling like a beaker over a Bunsen burner.

  Even his T-shirt has chemistry written all over it.

  She rolled her eyes at that thought. She had no business getting all dreamy-eyed schoolgirl over her new client. She had a job to do.

  From somewhere in the house, a phone rang. She counted six rings before it stopped, unanswered.

  She quickly scrolled through her photographs of the living room. Satisfied she had everything she needed for now, she crossed the room, opened a second set of frosted glass doors and walked into the dining room. Another unused space, judging by the cool temperature and drifts of gift wrap and empty toy packaging littering the floor. There were more yellow-and-mauve streamers and dejected-looking balloons, but everything else about the dining room was neat as a pin. It was spacious, with plenty of room to maneuver around a table that would comfortably seat ten. The furniture was a little too flea-market-finds-meet-grandma’s-attic to really suit the house, but some of it was solid and in good condition. She always liked to keep her budget as low as possible, so she would make it work.

  From the moment she’d driven up, she’d loved this house, but now she felt a little sad for it, having its beautiful rooms closed up and uninhabited. This house deserved to be lived in by someone who would love it at least as much as she did.

  At the back of the dining room was a third pair of opaque glass doors, closed like the others. She pulled them open, stepped into a spacious and very messy kitchen, tripped over the dog’s water bowl and sent a small tidal wave gushing across the tile floor.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Who puts a bowl of water in front of a closed door?” Apparently a frazzled single dad did. She had no idea where to look for a mop and she couldn’t leave this huge puddle on the kitchen floor. So much for working through the house on her own. Now she had to find that distractingly sexy and very single dad and ask him for help.

  Chapter Two

  Nate herded the girls and the dog through the family room.

  “Why can’t we stay with the lady?” Molly asked.

  “Because I have work to do.”

  “We can stay with her.”

  “She has work to do, too,” he said, sliding the patio door open.

  “Taking pictures?”

  “Yes.” And he was happy to leave her on her own. It was one thing to stand with her in the living room, or almost any other room, while she made notes and took photographs. But eventually they would get to his bedroom, and the idea of going in there with her had brought on a mild state of panic.

  “She has a pretty purse,” Molly said.

  “Does she?” He shut the patio door behind them. He had only noticed her bag was huge. And stuffed full.

  “It has cupcakes on it.”

  “Does it?”

  Martha pulled her thumb out of her mouth. “I yike cupcakes.”

  “I know you like cupcakes. Why don’t you two go in the playhouse and have a look at the new dress-up clothes Aunt Britt dropped off this morning.” He’d asked Britt to bring them out here because the girls’ bedroom already looked like Toys “R” Us had tangled with a tornado. “Maybe she brought you some purses.”

  His sister, a self-proclaimed clotheshorse, frequently cleared out her closet to make room for new things and bestowed the items she no longer wanted on her nieces. The girls loved it, but their bedroom, the family room and now the playhouse overflowed with toys and Britt’s cast-offs.

  “Come on, Martha. Let’s see what she brung us.” Molly snagged the dog by the collar and tugged. “You, too, Gemmy.”

  At the entrance to the playhouse, she let go of the Saint’s collar and skipped inside. Martha straggled in behind her, and Gemmy sprawled across the doorway, head resting on her paws.

  After they were settled, Nate turned his attention to the rows of potted asters in his makeshift greenhouse and tried not to think about the beautiful woman with the ginormous cupcake purse who was discovering that he was not the world’s greatest housekeeper. How had he not remembered to put a reminder about this meeting in his calendar? If he had, he would have spent last evening tidying up instead of going over the final draft of his current research paper.

  He measured the height of a plant and recorded the data in the spreadsheet on his laptop.

  Kristi Callahan was stunning in a wholesome girl-next-door sort of way, with a lively swing to her blond ponytail and an engaging flash in her gray-green eyes. More green than gray. She smelled good, too.

  His cell phone rang. After three rings, he tracked it to the end of the workbench, where it was hiding beneath a spare pair of gloves. His in-laws’ phone number was displayed on the screen. What now?

  “Hello, Alice. How are you?”

  “Nate, I was getting worried. I called the house but no one answered.”

  Nate sighed. He and the kids could have been out for the afternoon or even just at the supermarket, and he refused to check in with her every time they left the house.

  “Sorry, Alice. I didn’t hear it ringing. I’m out in the greenhouse.”

  “Where are the girls?”

  He resented the accusatory tone. Where did she think they were? “They’re in the playhouse. Gemmy and I are keeping an eye on them.”

  “That’s good. You know if you’re busy, you can drop them off here anytime. Fred and I are always happy to see them.”

  There were lots of things he’d like to say, but only one of them was polite. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “Did that person from the real estate company show up?”

  Now they were getting to the real reason for her call. At least she’d called and not shown up unannounced as she often did. He never should have told her he was going to sell the house, especially since her constant interference was one of his reasons for wanting to move. He didn’t like the idea of being too far from the university, but his next house would be a lot farther than fourteen blocks from Alice and Fred’s.

  “She’s taking a look at the house right now.”

  “And you’re out in the greenhouse?”

  “I wanted to keep Gemmy and the girls out of her way, so I brought them outside. Besides, she’s just deciding what needs to be done.” He didn’t have to be around for that.

  “You should have asked us to help instead of spending good money to have someone else do this.”

  Nate closed his eyes and, for several seconds, indulged in the idea of applying for a faculty position at another university. One on
the other side of the country. Or maybe in a different country.

  “There’s a house for sale down the street from us,” Alice said. “It would be perfect for you and the girls, and they’re having an open house on the weekend. You should come by and have a look.”

  “That sounds…interesting.” Nate picked up a garden trowel and imagined stabbing himself in the head with it. Alice had lost her only child, he reminded himself, but that didn’t make it easy for him to rationalize her interference. After Heather died, Alice had transferred all of her attention to her granddaughters. Understandable, and he appreciated everything she did for them. Mostly. But she had always made it clear that she considered him to be partly responsible for Heather’s death. He’d managed to heap a fair amount of blame on himself and he didn’t need her adding to it. She was Molly and Martha’s grandmother and he had to be civil, but no way was he buying a house within walking distance of the world’s most meddlesome mother-in-law. He set the trowel on his workbench.

  “While I have you on the phone,” Alice continued. “Remember that children’s beauty pageant we discussed?”

  His insides coiled into a knot. There had been no discussion. Only her saying he should enter the girls, and him saying no. “Yes, I remember.”

  “You might not like the idea, but you should look at their website before you make up your mind. It will be so good for them.”

  Good for them? They were four years old.

  “Especially Martha,” she said. “These sorts of things build confidence and that will help her to stop sucking her thumb.”

  “I’ve been busy, Alice.”

  “The application deadline is only a couple of weeks away.”

  He contemplated the trowel again. “Right. I’ll take a look.” Or not. There was no way his daughters would be paraded around like a pair of miniature beauty queens, not to mention having to compete with one another. No way in hell.