Some Bright Someday (Maple Valley #2) - Melissa Tagg Page 0,47
from day after day of work.
He relished the feeling almost as much as he savored the sounds of Violet and Cade’s delight as he gave them what had to be their twentieth ride across the lawn. Up ahead, near the broken fountain, Noah waited with what might actually be a full-fledged smile.
A miracle in and of itself.
Or maybe not, considering the way he’d loosened a little more with every day spent working outside. He seemed to be enjoying the added task of watching the kids nearly as much as Lucas.
He curved around a craggy root protruding from the grass and jostled the wheelbarrow into the stone path that wound through the garden.
“Don’t crash into Mr. Noah!” Violet’s shriek pulled a laugh from somewhere deep inside him.
Until he hit another bump, felt the wheelbarrow tilt. Yikes.
Noah rushed forward to help just as it tipped, grabbing hold of Cade before he could spill out alongside Violet. She rolled into the grass, her giggles a relief even as Lucas’s own chuckles joined her. “Thanks, Noah. That could’ve been bad.”
“Ah, you weren’t going that fast.”
Really? The cramps in his legs said otherwise.
Violet hopped up from the ground. “Again, please?”
“Oh, don’t you dare turn those doe-eyes on me, Private Vi. I told you Private Noah and I have work to finish, didn’t I?” Work in the form of continuing to dig up old flowers, plants, and hedges in the old gardens to make room for new landscaping. It felt a little more tedious compared to the past two days of labor—clearing up the debris from the old wrecked shed on Wednesday, putting a new one in place yesterday.
They had not actually built a new shed. Not after he’d gone down to the hardware store and realized how much easier it’d be to order a pre-fab structure. Still, it’d taken the better part of the day to get to the store, load it onto a trailer, and set it up in place of the old one.
“Don’t understand why I’m a private. Made it up to Sergeant E-5 in my time.” Noah swiped the back of his hand over his forehead. Didn’t matter that the temps had barely reached the high forties today. Both of their shirts were streaked with sweat—not to mention grass and dirt and grime.
Violet barely fared any better, with leaves in her hair and a green stain on her pink coat. Lucas had pulled her hood up and knotted the tie under her chin at least four times this afternoon already, but somehow it always wound up hanging behind her head.
How Cade had managed to keep his own little hat on, he really didn’t know. Noah lowered him into the Pack ’n Play Lucas had set up earlier, and Violet had apparently accepted the end to her wheelbarrow rides. She skipped to the blanket near Cade and plucked a doll from the ground.
“Good call on the wheelbarrow rides, Noah. Pretty sure we made both of their days.”
He shrugged, grabbing the hoe he’d leaned against a tree. “My dad did the same thing once. He wasn’t around a whole lot when I was a kid, but when he was, he was pretty good about, I don’t know, having fun, I guess.”
“Military guy?” A shot in the dark. There were certainly plenty of other reasons a father might not be around. Dedication to the Army just happened to be the one Lucas had firsthand experience with.
And he was right. Noah nodded.
“Mine too. Except no wheelbarrow rides. I lived with an aunt and uncle for my first ten years. Then Dad brought us to my grandparents here in Maple Valley. Spent the rest of my growing-up years on the orchard.”
“The one your sister runs now.”
His turn to nod. Wasn’t often he had a reason to talk about Dad. Wasn’t often he wanted to. But if it was something he had in common with Noah, well, he’d been searching for an in. They’d worked well together since that uncertain truce Tuesday night, but conversation had lingered at the surface.
With another glance at Violet, happily brushing her doll’s hair, he reached for the shovel he’d been using earlier to dig up dead roots. “There was this one summer when my dad came home, though. Stayed at the orchard all the way ’til about this time of year. Don’t know why but I was convinced he meant to stay that time. Kinda killed me when he left.”
It wasn’t just the leaving, though. It was the lecture the night before.