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She looped her arm around my shoulder and her already wrecked hair tumbled against my neck. “Just put me on the grass. I can walk.”
“My dad is always trying to fix something—emphasis on the try, but don’t tell him that—so who knows what’s lurking in the grass. Glass, screws, nails, rusty shards of metal.” I shuffled her closer to my chest. “Don’t worry, I pick up hay bales heavier than you.”
“Thanks, I think.” She pushed at her hair with her other hand, but she relaxed against me.
Damn, she smelled good.
I climbed the steps to the wraparound porch and set her down. The strap of her dress slipped low on her shoulder, showing off a bit of that supposedly uncomfortable undergarment.
She tried to grab both that and the tattered rip at her hip. “I feel like Cinderella after the pumpkin disappeared.”
I grinned at her. “So, I should go back and look for your shoes?”
She wiggled her toes. Under the dust and grime were bright purple polished toenails. The color surprised me. I figured she’d be some barely there pink. “No way am I letting you near my feet with the way they look right now.”
“If you ask nicely, I’ll let you use my mom’s spa shower.” I opened the door.
“Don’t even joke about that. I’m a mess.” She shoved at her hair and the clip thing finally gave up and clattered to the floor. A fat curl fell forward and just hung there suspended in front of her eyes. Whatever hairspray or shellac they used must have been industrial grade.
“A beautiful mess.”
She blinked up at me. “Hardly.”
“Go on, get inside.” I urged her forward. “You know you’re beautiful.”
“There’s no way to respond to that and not sound impolite. I’ll just beg for the shower and clothes.”
“Wouldn’t want to be impolite.”
She squinted her eyes at me and tried for stern and ended up looking more like a spitting kitten instead.
Her attention drifted to the living room. Over the years we’d renovated and made additions to the ranch style house a few times, but once me and my brothers had moved out my mother preferred to put any extra money and time into her orchids and my dad into the gardens and his trucks.
It probably seemed faded and ancient to Helena. It annoyed me that I felt any shame in the worn rug and sideboard that was loaded with mail, keys, and a basket of tools.
“Your parents have a lovely home.”
I frowned down at her. “You don’t have to say that.”
She looked around and I tried to see things from her point of view. The white sheer curtains on the front windows that fluttered in the light breeze since all the windows were open to get the cross breeze between the front and back windows in the kitchen. Oversized couches in a patchwork of different colors thanks to cushion covers and handmade afghans filled every spare corner of the room while a trio of leather recliners sat square in front of the wide screen television over the fireplace.
Me and my brothers congregated here for sports and family dinner most Sundays. It was usually a race to see who could get their butts into the other two recliners. The center one was for Dad. Even if he wasn’t in the house, we knew not to sit there.
“It looks like you can actually curl up and take a nap on any of those couches.”
“Isn’t that what a couch is for?”
“Not in my parents’ house.” Derision tinged her voice.
“You still live with them?”
“I have my own wing.”
“Wing?”
She tipped her face up to meet my gaze. “That sounds terribly pretentious, doesn’t it? I can go days without speaking to them. I just never thought about leaving.”
She looked back at the living room that had barely changed from my childhood almost wistfully which made no sense to me. I’d moved out before I turned nineteen. Not that I hadn’t crashed out on the couch more than a few times over the years, but I’d needed my own space after fighting over bathrooms with two brothers and a little sister.
