by the tub and reached into the foaming water, his arm disappearing to the elbow in suds. “I’m shutting off the water. Then I’ll drain the tub, clean the filters, and flush the pipes. By tomorrow we’ll have the chemicals balanced and the tub back in perfect working order.”
“You sure about that?” Becca asked, her face clouded with doubt.
“Promise.” Grant had pulled on a pair of cut-off jeans, which didn’t do much to cover his magnificent body, and Jami had difficulty tearing her gaze from his expansive, perfectly muscled chest as he turned to her. “Toby would be more in the way than help with clean-up tonight. What if he signs on with Becca for KP duty to make up for this episode?” Grant gestured around the foaming patio.
“What’s KP duty?” Toby asked.
“Kitchen clean-up, picking berries, folding linens, or anything else Becca asks you to do.” Grant turned to Jami. “Well?”
“It’s up to Becca,” Jami responded, thankful to have some solution in sight.
“Sounds good to me,” Becca answered, brushing bubbles off her ankles and more relaxed.
“I agree.” Dottie smiled around at all of them. “Doris and I will be happy to mop up the patio.”
“I can do that,” Jami replied, gazing around at the dissipating bubbles, now shrinking instead of multiplying.
“No,” Grant and Becca said together.
Grant chuckled. “You put Toby to bed and get yourself dried off. He’s had a big day.”
“That’s for sure,” Becca seconded with emphasis. She waved Jami off. “Go on and get out of here. Grant has everything under control.”
Grant always has everything under control, Jami reminded herself as she led her mischievous son up to their room. Grant consistently organized everyone and everything around him, including her and Toby. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate his intervention tonight. She knew it would have been impossible for her to replace the lodge hot tub, still she refused to let anyone else take control of her life. Or her son. Or her business. Sometimes, Grant seemed to think he had the right to control all three.
After one more lecture to Toby on his behavior, she tucked him into bed with his comics, then escaped into the bathroom where she poured jasmine bath salts in the tub for a hot fragrant soak to unwind from an emotional day.
The hot tub and patio clean-up went more quickly than Grant had guessed, so he hurried upstairs to catch Jami before she went to bed. He tapped at the bedroom door, opening it when Toby called, “Come in.”
“Where’s your mom?” Grant asked, glancing around the room as he inhaled Jami’s sweet fragrance, which seemed to permeate the air.
“In the tub.” Toby kicked the covers off to expose his Batman pajamas and crawled toward the foot of the bed waving his comic book. “Can you tell me what this word is?”
“Be glad to.” Grant bent down to put his head close to the boy’s.
Toby tapped the word quasar in a dialogue balloon above a cartoon spaceman. “What’s this?”
“Quasar,” Grant replied, pronouncing it phonetically. “I think it’s a giant pulsing star—or sun.” He put his thumb in place to mark the page, then flipped through the comic book. “Can you really read this? You’re awfully young.”
“I can’t read all the words, but I can read all the pictures,” Toby answered proudly with his endearing lopsided grin.
“That’s great,” Grant said, truly impressed since one glance at the comic showed it written to a fourth or fifth grade level. “Can you read me some of it?”
“Sure.” Toby pulled Grant onto the bed beside him, then climbed onto his lap. “I always sit on Mom’s lap when we read to each other. She says kids shouldn’t depend on school for learning, we can learn lots on our own.”
“Your mother’s a very smart lady,” Grant said, wondering what that same smart lady would say when she found him in her bedroom. The child’s closeness felt warm and trusting and brought a lump to his throat. Still, he was enjoying this exchange with Toby. After all, it would help him interact with children when his brothers supplied him with nieces and nephews. And from a few hints Ty had dropped about Sierra, that might not be too far into the future.
“Yeah, my mom is smart and pretty, too,” Toby announced, flipping to the front page of his comic book. “But she won’t ever get married again, she told me.”
“Why not?” Grant didn’t like the strange sense of discouragement the child’s words evoked.
“Because me and Mom don’t need anybody