The Single Dad Next Door

Yet here he stood on her property—now his property.

“Dad! This place is so cool.” Skylar, his oldest, rushed past him and yanked open the door. Her light red, crooked pigtails bobbed as she darted inside. She peeked her head back out the door again. “Do you think the Seven Dwarves lived here? It looks like their home, doesn’t it? Like the pictures in my book. Don’t you think so, Ruthy?” Skylar grabbed hold of her younger sister’s chubby hand and gently led her inside.

Kellen took a deep breath. He could make the tiny cottage work. For them. He’d have to. For the good of his girls he’d do anything. After everything, they deserved a safe life—and more. He’d moved here for them. Left a high-paying job managing the elite Casa Bonita Restaurant in Los Angles for them.

No. That wasn’t true, either.

He needed the move—the change of pace and the time together that life in a small town would afford—just as much as they did.

Maybe more.

If he squinted and didn’t pay attention to the cracked drainpipes, the paint-chipped shutters, the overgrown trees with branches pressing against the home and the sixty-some-year-old original windows—sure, the place looked like a hidden fairy-tale house. The kind a secret princess might visit or run away to for safety. No wonder his daughters both stared at it in gap-mouthed wonder when he’d pulled up the drive. At ages five and three, they would see the cottage as a playhouse come to life.

The charm he’d imagined only a moment ago faded away upon entering.

His family couldn’t live here. Not in its current condition. Doilies covered every inch of the front room. It smelled like mothballs and as if someone had spilled tea on the carpet countless times. A mauve color covered what he could see of the walls, but he couldn’t see much of them for the amount of old belongings stacked so high. The kitchen was mustard yellow. Everywhere. Mustard-yellow appliances, counters, linoleum floor and painted walls. He tried to turn on the oven. It clicked, but the burner wouldn’t start.

So it doesn’t work, probably like 90 percent of everything in the house. Excellent.

He yanked at his hair.

Maybe the will hadn’t been a way of God providing. What if it had been a test? What if he’d failed?

Kellen clenched his teeth. What made his aunt think the place would be a good home for a young family of three? It would take him a weekend just to childproof the place, let alone bring it up to code. Electricians and plumbers cost money. Ida had left him her savings—and there was a lot there. But without knowing what type of revenue the West Oaks Inn brought, he didn’t want to start dipping into funds he might need to live on at some point.

“You have to lean your weight into the knob to get it to start.”

The voice came from the doorway of the kitchen. He turned around and raised his eyebrows to the owner of it.

A woman with vivid, pale blue eyes stood there. Her eyes were the exact shade of the snow-fed streams high up in the Rockies where his parents used to take the family hiking every summer. A clear, pure color. She wore little or no makeup, something he could unfortunately spot after being around women in LA who painted beauty products all over their faces. Her skin had a healthy glow without the stuff. She looked—dare he say?—real. Her hair, on the other hand... She could have a lifelong career as the stand-in for the person who played Mufasa in The Lion King musical.

Kellen cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

“To start the oven.” She sidestepped him and leaned her hip against the oven while she twisted the knob. The burner ignited. “You just have to lean into it at the right angle. You’ll get used to it.”

He shook his head. “I won’t have to.”

“Oh.” She laced her fingers together. “So you’re not staying long term? I was hoping to meet my new neighbor.”

“I’m kind of stuck here.” He glanced out the window over the sink, which looked out onto the overgrown weed forest of a backyard. “Well—this is home for us, for now. If you catch my drift. And my first order of business will be tossing this oven—along with the rest of these old appliances.” He ran his finger over the dust on the countertop. The whole room needed to be gutted.

She crossed her arms. “I take it you don’t want to be here, then?”

Kellen scrubbed his hand down his face. “I’m here. That’s what matters.”

“That oven matters, too. To Ida.”

He clicked the burner back off. “Ida’s dead. I’m pulling this out tonight and putting it on the curb. So, no offense, but I won’t ever need to learn how to lean just right.”

She gasped. “You can’t get rid of that oven.” The woman touched the fridge as if feeling for a heartbeat. “Henry bought all these matching appliances for Ida to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary. Ida cherished them and has taken the best care of them over the years. They were a gift of love.”

Kellen had met Uncle Henry all of once. He knew Henry had been the mayor of Goose Harbor for quite some time before he died. But that was really all he knew about his father’s oldest brother. The Ashby family had never been very close. Not with the age difference between the two brothers. Henry was sixteen years older than Kellen’s dad. No wonder they hadn’t kept in touch. Kellen’s family was close with his mom’s siblings growing up. Not the Ashbys.

“Well.” He shrugged. “It’s mine to get rid of, so...”

The woman shot him a glare.

His daughters pounded into the room.

Skylar—his little motormouth—ran right up to his knees and started tugging on his hand. “Outside there’s a cat with kittens living by the bushes. Can we keep them? Please, Dad? Please?”

Kellen lightly turned both his daughters around to face the woman in the room. “These are my girls. Skylar.” He placed his hand on her head. “And Ruthy.” His quiet three-year-old buried her chin into her chest and clutched his hand.

Disregarding the kitchen floor that badly needed to be mopped, the woman lowered herself to one knee to look the girls in the eye. “It’s wonderful to meet both of you. There haven’t been children living on this block in ages. You’ll have so much fun in town.”

“I don’t think I caught your name,” he said as he lifted Ruthy into his arms. Ruthy shoved her forehead against his shoulder.

“I’m Maggie. Maggie West.” She offered her hand and he shook it with the wrong hand because his right arm held his daughter.

Ah. Now it all made sense.

This was the woman named in his aunt’s will. What had the instructions said? That Kellen owned the inn but had to provide a place for Maggie West to live and let her continue working there.

He narrowed his eyes. Did she know she was protected in the will? The lawyer said that it would be up to Kellen to decide to tell her, but Ida might have told her when she drafted her legal paperwork. Or Maggie had suggested it to her. How much sway had the woman practiced over his aging aunt? Perhaps Maggie was a freeloader. Or had played on his aunt’s emotions in order to be taken care of by a rich woman with no kids.

Women were good at hiding their motives. Experts at displaying fabricated emotions. Cynthia had taught him that lesson all too well.

Kellen would have to keep an eye on Maggie West—figure her out as best he could, since he was stuck providing for her at the moment.

All the people he’d run across in the past twelve years had been fueled by greed or want of fame. If it was fame Maggie was after... No, she didn’t look as though she knew who he was. Maggie showed no signs of knowing that he’d once been a member of the rock band Snaggletooth Lions. So that—at least—was a small blessing.

He’d endured explaining to more than enough women that he signed away the rights to his royalties when he’d broken with the band. They all left the second they discovered he wasn’t rich and had no plans to pursue fame ever again. Not that he’d been famous. Not really. The Snaggletooth Lions signed their record deal and made it big a month after he left the band. But people who looked up the Snaggletooth Lions online knew about his early involvement—that he’d written most of their songs that filled the radio air these days.

“I’m Kellen Ashby.” He let go of her hand. “Ida’s nephew.”

Maggie tilted her head. “The one who’s a dentist?”

So Ida had bragged about his brothers and not him. He worked his jaw back and forth and swallowed hard. Why leave him the house, then? Easy. She’d pitied him. Like the rest of his family.

Poor Kellen—the prodigal. Walked away from the church. Kids out of wedlock. The washed-up band member. His daughters spend most of their life in day care while he works eighty hours a week at the restaurant to pay their bills. Why couldn’t he have turned out like his brothers? Like Bill or Tim or Craig?

He shook away his mother’s words as they jumbled around in his head. “No. I’m afraid that’s one of my far more successful older brothers. I have three to brag about if you want to hear their accolades sometime.”

“I see. Maybe another time.” Maggie took a step back. “Well. It was nice meeting all of you. I better get back over to the inn. You know where I am if you need anything or have questions about the house.”

He pursed his lips. No help from the woman named in Ida’s will would be needed. “I think we can figure things out just fine on our own. But thank you for the offer.”

She nodded, once, and left. Kellen watched her pick her way across the yard and enter the back door of the huge Victorian mansion next door.