Dreaming of His Snowed In Kiss - Jessie Gussman Page 0,24

back and forth. “Of course, they’re not for you. That was really stupid of me. Sometimes, I just do stupid things. Sorry.”

“Hey, lady. Look!” Garrett said, and he swung both ends of the towel wide open, exposing the lady’s delicate sensibilities to naked little boy parts and upsetting her to the point that she took two quick steps backward, slipping off the porch and stumbling down the first step. A quick grab on the porch post kept her from falling backward down the stairs.

“Hey, careful.”

“Oh, yes. I’m sorry. I will be more careful. So sorry about that. Really. I’m sorry.”

“You can quit apologizing.” West tried to temper the impatience in his tone. Man, he wished Poppy, with her sensible help and scoop of sunshine and get-it-done attitude, were here.

“Let me get my wallet.” He didn’t want her to leave and forget about the pull-ups.

He reached in his back pocket where he always kept his wallet, then he remembered he hadn’t stuck it in this morning because it wasn’t sitting on his dresser where it usually was. But the baby had been crying, and he hadn’t thought too much more about it because then he’d had kids starving for breakfast, which he’d tried to make while feeding the baby, and then there’d been the spilled cereal, which of course had just had milk poured on it, and Trevor was crying because the cold milk landed on him, and Warren was crying because it’d been the last of the box of his favorite cereal, and West had wished he just made eggs because they seemed less controversial, but it was too late, and he wasn’t sure whether it was safe to be cooking over the stove while feeding a baby anyway, and then the pooped underwear happened, and he hadn’t even given his wallet another thought.

What kind of man didn’t think about his wallet?

But now it came back to him. Poppy had his wallet.

Now what? He couldn’t send this girl to the store to buy pull-ups for him without paying her.

But he had to do something to get her to go somewhere else, or he might end up stuck in the house with her all day. It was one thing to be stuck with Poppy, whom he could tease and pick on and who would take it without crying, and give it back to him, and make him wish that he could laugh...that was fine.

He didn’t want to have to walk around on eggshells all day worried that he was going to offend this one. He might as well admit from the beginning that he was going to offend her.

And she was a nice girl. She didn’t deserve to have to spend the day with him. It probably wasn’t high on her list of things she wanted to do either.

“I’m sorry. Someone else has my wallet, and I just remembered.” He would have thought Poppy would have made sure he got it back.

“I don’t know if that’s what this is, but Poppy seemed to be very insistent that I not allow anything to happen to it and hand it directly to you.” The girl picked up the manila envelope that was lying on top of the big garbage bag that sat beside her. She handed it over.

Trevor clung to his neck as he opened the manila envelope. It felt thick enough and small enough that it could be his wallet sitting down there in the bottom of it.

There was a note, and he pulled that out first.

West, I was going to make this ransom note, just to see if I could exhort money out of you for all the times you called me Pollyanna. However, you lucked out, because I’ve taken pity on you. You have your hands full with the kids and with Minnie.

I’m sure you’re worried about your wallet, however.

If getting it back makes you smile, be very careful, because I’m pretty sure we both know if you smile, a trapdoor opens up underneath your feet and you fall to China. Remember they’re communist. And you probably wouldn’t do very well in their system. Don’t let those lips turn up.

Ever smiling (and always your opposite),

Poppy (Pollyanna to the dark people of this world)

West snorted. The corners of his lips trembled.

The little brat. Of course, she couldn’t just give him his wallet back. She had to have some snide comments to go along with it.

He couldn’t believe she wrote that kind of note though. Surely, she realized she didn’t mention unicorns