asked.
Mason chuckled. “No. Settle in and relax. Treat this place like your own.”
He stepped outside and started pulling the door shut, only to pause and ease it open a bit. He leaned across the threshold and said, “Lock the door.”
And then he was gone.
Gabriela heard his truck start in the driveway. She walked to the front window just in time to see him backing out. He caught sight of her and lifted his hand in a small wave. Smiling, she returned the gesture before he drove off.
Gabby still hadn’t quite shaken her shock from what he’d said in the grocery store. He was moving in on her hard and fast, and well…she wasn’t put off by it in the least. And it wasn’t simply because of her current situation. She would never, ever take advantage of Mason. She’d always been attracted to him, since the moment she saw him moving into this house.
There’d been many times when she’d stopped what she’d been doing—whether cleaning house, helping Ana with schoolwork, cooking, sorting through her bills—to catch a glimpse of him, usually shirtless, mowing his front lawn. To watch his muscles flex and bulge, to watch sweat drip down his skin, to stare at his jeans clinging to his shapely ass. He was a gorgeous man.
She’d just never dreamed he would want her in return, especially knowing she was a single mother—and that she therefore came as a package deal.
Though he sometimes spoke strangely, Mason was a good man, and he instilled her with…hope. Hope that she had a chance at a real relationship with a man who wanted her and her daughter. Hope that Ana could have the father she so longed for, and hope that they’d be…a family.
Jeez, we really are moving fast.
“Can I watch TV?” Ana asked.
Gabriela jumped back from the window, casting a guilty look at her daughter.
Ana grinned. “You do like him.”
“Oh, shush you, and go ahead.”
Ana laughed and plopped down on the sofa, dragging down one of the blankets folded across the back to cover herself. She turned on the TV, selected the YouTube app, and surfed through her favorite content creators.
She’d be entertained for hours watching them.
So what could Gabby do to occupy herself?
She glanced around. She…could get to know Mason a little more by exploring his home. Not that she’d was nosy or anything, but he had said to treat this place like home. Maybe she could even tidy things up a little. His house wasn’t filthy, but there was a thin layer of dust gathered on the edges of the shelves and atop the carved bear in the corner. It could be Gabriela’s way of paying him back, if only a little, for all he’d done for her and Ana.
After locking the front door, she walked into the kitchen and opened the cabinet under the sink. Sure enough, his cleaning supplies were inside, standing in a small plastic tub. It looked like he only had the basics, but that was good enough for her. She tucked the wood polish under her arm and grabbed the duster before conducting another search that resulted in her finding some rags in one of the kitchen drawers.
Armed and ready, she went to work.
Gabriela more or less blocked out the TV, letting it become background noise—though the occasional piercing scream from whatever YouTuber Ana was watching sometimes broke through. She dusted the shelves and the décor upon them, dusted the pictures on the walls, dusted around the TV and the TV itself.
Some of the things Mason owned didn’t quite seem to fit him; they were old objects, bordering on antiques. The sorts of items she’d seen time and again in rental properties in and around McCall time and time again that were meant to give the places a taste of that rustic aesthetic.
Metal cowboy boots with spurs hanging from horseshoes, generic paintings of skies, mountain meadows, snowy woods, and reflective lakes—she’d seen their like a hundred times, and a few of Mason’s things had that same feel.
But there were some items that seemed to reflect his personality. The chest-high carved bear in the living room corner, in particular, reminded her of him. Yeah, she’d seen such bears on people’s porches and front yards pretty often, but it said something to her that his was inside. It was in the heart of the home. A big, gentle looking creature that was capable of immense strength and savagery when necessary in defense of its family.
The scene from last night—Mason lifting