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“Day,” I hollered from the kitchen, where the screen door was open to the back porch. His head lifted from the hamster in his lap, and Jenny opened one eye to peer at me as I moved from the kitchen window and leaned on the doorframe. “What do you want to do?”
“I’m supposed to do my coursework.” He sighed before coaxing the furball he was holding back into its purse. “Mama said.”
“It’s June, kid. Don’t you get summer break?”
He shrugged, looking up at me with those clear blue eyes that were the exact shade and shape as his mother’s.
“How long will it take you?”
“Not too long,” he replied, picking at the grass.
The kid looked bored as hell, and that wouldn’t do. I glanced at the piece of paper Moira had left behind, and then strode outside, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Wanna ride a horse?”
* * *
I stretched the king-sized sheet across the space between the two couches in the living room, Day holding onto the sheet from the other side as the fabric went totally taut. Day’s eyes lit up as he held the sheet with all of his strength, watching intently as I snapped my side over the top of the couch.
“Keep holding your side,” I said gruffly as I walked over to him. His little arms were trembling with the strain of his task when I took the sheet from him and secured it onto the other couch.
Then, we stepped back and admired the biggest fort either of us had ever seen.
“That’s a big sheet,” he deadpanned.
I smiled wryly, unable to stop myself.
We’d put two dining chairs back-to-back in the center after moving the coffee table out of the way, so the inside of the fort was vaulted. Inside, the couch cushions now lined the floor, covered by a quilt, a few pillows from the guest room upstairs, and the blanket Day insisted on bringing over from the bunkhouse.
“You really want to sleep in here?” I asked, cocking my brow at the kid. “You’re not gonna get scared?”
“You said Jenny sleeps in the living room.” He shrugged, dropping to his knees and crawling into the fort, giggling as he did so. “I want to sleep in here with Jenny.”
Jenny was already sprawled out inside the fort. I was sure she was exhausted from an entire day spent with the kid, who hadn’t let her out of his sight and vice versa.
I crouched and peered into the fort, giving her a look.
“Trading me in for a newer model, Jenny?” I teased. The dog only huffed out a breath in response, closing her eyes again as Day bounced across the cushions toward the slim laptop he’d placed on one of the dining chairs.
I glanced at the watch on my wrist, noticing the time. It was ten minutes to eight, and I knew Moira would be calling any minute now to ask if Day was in bed yet.
I walked into the kitchen as Day fired up the ancient laptop I was sure was Moira’s during her undergrad days. It sounded like a freight train and got hot as hell within a few minutes of use. I cracked open a beer, glancing at paper plates piled in the trashcan from dinner a few hours earlier.
Babysitting Day had turned into a group effort by midafternoon. George and a few of the farmhands had rolled out and fired up the old charcoal grill we kept in one of the warehouses, grilling a feast of hotdogs, burgers, and the best steaks I’d ever had in my life from one of the adjacent ranches in the area.
Day ate three hotdogs and a burger, which had shocked us all, and after a day full of riding horses and doing chores with us, he seemed to loosen up a bit and shed some of his initial shyness.
He liked hanging out with the guys, and I’d noticed with a pang of regret that he probably hadn’t been around men very much at all in his life.
I was just walking back into the living room when my phone began to ring, Moira’s name flashing across the screen as I pulled it out of my pocket.
“It’s your mom,” I said to Day, who was typing furiously on the laptop beneath the tent.
“I’m almost done,” he said, his voice distorted like he had his tongue sticking out between his teeth.
I smiled to myself as I put the phone to my ear, Moira’s voice filling my head.
* * *
