Daddy's Little Liar - Maren Smith Page 0,8

tried to be grateful. A non-guilty person would have been. Yes, she didn’t know him, but he seemed decent, and so far, he hadn’t done anything to make a warning flag pop up. If a guy was going to molest a girl on his couch, would he really give her the sheriff’s phone number and tell her he lived just two houses down? What’s more, if she didn’t accept the couch, did she really want to sleep in a tent in the yard?

She wasn’t a camping-type girl. She wanted a bed off the ground and as far away from scorpions, ants, and snakes as she could get. She wanted heat and someplace to charge her cellphone, so she could call her friend and the HR department giving her interview and let them know what had happened. Frankly, she hadn’t eaten since that pepperoni stick at the last gas station where she’d filled up. Her stomach had a sunken, hollow feeling creeping into it.

Lasagna sounded great.

So, not only was she going to take advantage of his ‘free’ labor, she was also going to steal his food and his sofa?

“Sounds like a plan,” she said, telling herself she really, honestly was not the world’s biggest piece of shit. Surely somewhere on the planet, there had to be at least one person worse than she was. “In prison,” she muttered as she followed when he beckoned her to come with him into his office.

Eyebrows arching, he glanced back over his shoulder. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” Judging by his stare, though, he’d heard exactly what she’d said. When she offered no explanation, he dropped the door on his garage, locked it, shut off the lights, and led her through his tiny office, around his desk to another door.

Dad’s Garage was attached to ‘Daddy’s’ house. Small but clean and tidy, the door to his office emptied into his kitchen, where the 1950s theme continued without mercy. From the linoleum to cabinets to wallpaper, it was a home straight off the vintage pages of a Woman and Home magazine. Everything was teal, including the sink.

“Wow,” she said before she could catch herself.

“Yeah,” he replied in the same tone. He studied it all with her. “Unfortunately, before he died, Dad got the home registered as a historical landmark. You are standing in the very first gas station ever to be built in this state. Now, the original station was partially destroyed in the FBI shootout with the Boltreaux family in ’38, but even with the station house gone, my granddaddy continued to sell gas and fix cars until 1941 when he married my grandmother, who refused to live in a tent. So, granddaddy built this house, where she reigned as queen decorator until her death in ’88. Granddaddy never touched a thing after she passed, and neither did Dad, and now that it’s registered, I’m stuck with it.”

With a draft easing through the open office door behind them, they stood just inside the kitchen and admired the grand excess of teal.

“Would you?” Georgia finally asked. “I mean, if you could.”

“God, yes. In a heartbeat.” With a visible shake, he brought his attention back to more important things. “Here, have a seat. I’ll get you an icepack for your ankle—no more arguments. You’ve had your way all night, and now I’ll have mine. Sit.”

Georgia hurt too much to argue. She sank into a high-backed chair at the dining table while he crossed to the teal refrigerator and dug out a bag of frozen peas. He smacked it a couple times to break up the chunks and make it pliable, then wrapped it in a dishtowel and brought it back to her.

“Here we go.” Dragging an extra chair around in front of her, he patted the seat. Georgia obediently propped her injured leg onto the thin cushion, with her ankle hanging just off the other side. Fetching a pillow from the living room, he gently adjusted the chair and tucked it under her shin so her foot was supported. She tried not to make too much noise when he gently worked her shoe off, then laid the impromptu icepack over her swollen, bruised ankle.

He gave her a look. “I’d feel better about this if you’d let me call Doc Johnson.”

“It’s me or the car,” she replied. “I can’t fix both.” Yet another lie—she couldn’t afford to fix either.

He nodded once. He didn’t look happy about it, but he let it go.

“How about that lasagna?”

She needed to confess. She couldn’t keep