"Why do you look like that?" Will asked from the backseat.
Her cheeks heated, and the grin that couldn't stop fell into hiding. "Like what? I don't look like anything." But yes she did. Had she been flirting with Noah Coleman? Oh, that was such a bad idea.
"Like your smile makes you smile."
Out of the mouths of babes. "Maybe it did, hon. I'm not sure."
Her text message pinged, and before she put her car into reverse, she checked it.
NOAH: Just wondering. Did Bella say …
NOAH: Drive careful, Mrs. Shaw?
NOAH: Or
NOAH: Drive careful, Ms. Shaw?
The smile that made her smile came back in full force, and Teagan glanced toward the front porch. Noah waited, watching.
Her stomach somersaulted a hundred times before she remembered to take the next breath. She tapped out "Miss."
He lifted his chin then focused on his phone, typing for a heart-stealing second before he waved good night and called Bella in. The front door shut behind them, and Teagan slipped the Subaru into reverse. Her cell phone pinged.
She drew a quick breath, daring to look.
NOAH: Good to know. Drive safely, Miss Shaw.
CHAPTER THREE
Bailey's casserole was in the oven, and Bella was at the table with her water bottle from school. Smooth sailing. Noah snapped a hand towel at her chair, and Bella laughed, trying to catch it. "All right, ladybug."
"What do we do now?"
He ran through his mental list of action items. "What do you say we clean out your backpack and pick clothes for tomorrow?"
"Now?"
When else would they do it? He had to feed her. Make sure she showered. According to every parenting blog on the internet, the key to a happy life was planning clothing the night before school. Noah had zero intention of questioning professional mothers. "That's affirmative, kid."
Bella saluted then searched over his shoulder.
"What?"
Her brown hair tipped over her face. "Is that all we're going to have for dinner?"
"Phshh. Of course not." Except, yeah. That had been his idea after the initial pizza plan got shot down. He replaced pizza with the casserole, and what else was he supposed to serve with pizza? She was short a few years for a six-pack, so this was the plan-casserole. "I was going to make … " He'd hit the grocery store but didn't have a plan. He pulled open the freezer and scowled at his options, including what his mom and aunt left. Nothing looked good as he removed the green beans to see what might be behind them. Were pizza rolls too much to ask?
"Ohh, those! Yes!" Bella bounced in her seat. "Please. With butter and salt. Please."
"The green beans?" he asked and stared at the bag in his hand like it sprouted alien arms.
"Yes!"
Okay. That was easy. Not pizza-rolls easy, but he could heat veggies. "Sure thing." He shut the freezer and twisted to the cabinet for a container. "You know, I didn't eat anything green until I was in high school. And only because coach made me."
Not finding the plasticware, he dumped the green beans into a glass bowl and perused the directions. How long was he supposed to nuke these things?
Noah pivoted and turned in the other direction, but he came up short. He put down the bag and glass bowl and double-checked the counter. What the … "Hey, ladybug?"
She tried to snap his towel, but it fell to the floor. "Yes?"
He scooped up the towel and tossed it over his shoulder. "Where's your microwave, hon?"
"We don't have one."
Noah had expected a hundred responses that revolved around her pointing out the obvious. That wasn't one of them. "Did … your grandma break it?"
"Nope. We don't have one."
"You don't have one," he repeated. "At all?"
"Never ever," Bella added. "People rush too much."
He cocked his head. "They do, huh?"
"And are they really healthy?" Bella mocked his tilted look.
Noah made a mental note not to say anything he didn't want her to repeat. "Most people would say they're fine."
Bella shrugged, clearly having no idea what she was talking about.
"Okay, no microwave." He stared at the green beans, wishing like hell he could rib Lainey over her lack of a perfectly safe microwave.
Damn the irony. Cancer had taken her life before she hit her thirty-fifth birthday, and she'd done nothing but eat blueberries and avoid microwaves. Noah pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Are you feeling okay, Uncle Noah?"
His eyes sank shut. "Yeah, ladybug."
"It's healthy to be sad sometimes."
His eyes squeezed shut. "I know." Pulling in a quick breath, he turned and repeated himself, "I know."
"Teagan says so."
He ran his hand over his face. "She's right. I'm just going to … " He eyed the stove where he'd just shoved the casserole into the oven below. "Master this contraption. This is how your mom makes green beans?"
Bella giggled. "It's not a contraption. It's a stove."
"And I'm going to cook on it."
"With butter and salt."
He winked. "Got it."
After semicareful consideration, Noah dunked what looked like enough green beans, butter, and salt into a small pan. Too bad he'd torn through the stovetop directions. But how hard could it be? Heat, stir, serve.
He set the pan on the stovetop and pulled the oven open. A steamy, cheesy burst of heat rolled out. "That smells-"
"So cheesy good!"
"Agree." He flipped the hand towel over his other shoulder. "Maybe these need some water."
He threw a cup of water into the pan and snapped off the hand towel, tossing it into the drawer under the oven, then he eyed the counter. Everything seemed orderly and clean. At least his commanding officer would approve.
"Time to go do backpack and clothes."
Bella bit her lip. "Are you sure we should do that like that?"
"The clothes? Yeah."
"No, the contraption." She lowered her voice like his.
"The stove and oven will be fine."
She didn't look convinced.
"I promise."
"Oh-kay!" Then Bella skipped out of the kitchen, and Noah followed her down the hall, ready to knock more items off his to-do list like a boss.
CHAPTER FOUR
With every excited bounce from Bella down the hallway's cedar wood floors, Noah was convinced that his niece was less of a kid and more of a forty-pound lightweight. He caught up with her as she scattered the contents of her pink, green, and blue multicolored backpack on her bedroom floor and sat in the middle of an organizational nightmare.
Noah eyeballed her surroundings as if he was taking stock of a potential enemy's arsenal. Glitter hand sanitizer, a partially open lunch box, two empty snack bags, a mini hairbrush that looked as though it'd never been used. He was nearly one hundred percent certain that his mother could be blamed for the hairbrush. As if a five-year-old would be styling her hair at kindergarten-but maybe she did. He had no idea.
"Do you ever brush your hair at school?" he asked.
She glanced at the brush as though seeing it for the first time. "Nope."
"Didn't think so. Did my mom put it in there?"
"She did, but my grandma told her where my backpack was. They didn't think I could hear them."
"Thought so." He chuckled and knelt down. "Maybe next time we do this in the kitchen."
She nodded as if he'd lucked onto a fun fact, like that air was cool to breathe. "That's where we're supposed to do it."
"Oh." He clucked, picked up the hairbrush, and tapped it on her shoulder. "Next time, tell me."
Her eyebrows slid together as though something was on her mind, and Noah had no idea how to read that yet-or maybe he never would.
"You're not in trouble, Bella."
"I know."
"Then what's that look for?" he asked.
"Should I tell you when you aren't supposed to do things?"
Lifting a shoulder, he decided it couldn't hurt. Advice from Bella was just as valuable as advice from Teagan, given the current circumstance. He sniffed the air. Were his green beans burning? "It wouldn't hurt to share, but I might not always agree." That sounded like Teagan might approve.
He twisted toward the door, inhaling again. Something smelled burned, but he'd blackened green beans before. That wasn't the right scent. Leave it to an explosives expert to try to diagnose burned dinner by the smell.
Bella scooted closer to him. "I accept those terms."
Again with her adorable grown-up speak, and Noah set aside burned green beans and had to focus not to laugh. "Do you?"
She nodded earnestly. "I do."
He wasn't sure if half the guys on his team would say "I accept those terms." "We'll shake on it."
He held out his hand, more concerned about the acrid tinge to the air, when the smoke detector chirped. "Shoot, I'm burning the green beans!"