out wherever I want them and—”
“I’ll come up to see it as soon as I’m done, sweetpea,” he said, climbing up several rungs to reach the bottom corner of the loft. “But Daddy’s busy right now.”
“You’re always busy,” Ashley said, her small shoulders slumping and the corners of her mouth turned down into a scowl. She flopped back down on the sofa again and this time, the half-empty juice box in her hand upended, spilling deep red liquid all over the pristine beige couch.
Yep. This day was quickly becoming a disaster of epic proportions.
Tara immediately switched into recovery mode, her heart going out to little Ashley. Lord knew she’d felt lonely and like she was at the bottom of her mother’s to-do list growing up.
“Still no regrets?” Clint asked from the top of the ladder, giving her an apologetic stare. “I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”
“No, it’s fine,” Tara said, heading for the cleaning supplies in the kitchen. She’d actually picked up some stuff thinking she might need it if one of her photo shoots went wrong. “I’ve got some stain remover.”
But even as she scrubbed at the growing red stain on the cushion, she couldn’t help wondering if Clint was right and inviting them to stay here had been the wrong choice.
Clint finished snapping the last camera into its bracket, then climbed down the ladder and stepped back to survey his work. All the entrances and exits were covered now, so that part should be done. As always, having everything in place gave him a keen sense of satisfaction. Details were key in his line of work. Details saved lives. Details put criminals behind bars. Of course, the guys always teased him that his hyper-focus on details and stressing over whether everything was perfect would also probably land him in the looney bin someday, but whatever.
Clint was who he was, and he didn’t plan on changing any time soon. Then he glanced over and saw Tara cleaning up the last of the juice spill and his heart sank. She’d started cleaning it half an hour ago—for her to still be working on the stain seemed like a very bad sign. “Does it need some extra elbow grease? Here, let me help.”
“I’ve got it,” she said, waving him off. “Seriously. Please don’t worry about it.”
Except he was worried. He and his daughter were guests here and already they’d clearly thrown Tara’s world into chaos.
“Honestly, it’s no trouble,” he said, heading her direction anyway. “Please, let me—”
Unfortunately though, Tara stood at the same time that Clint started into the living room and they collided. The bottle of cleaning fluid and the rag in her hand went flying. The rag hit the hardwood floor with a wet splat while the bottle made an impressive arc through the air, cleaning fluid spraying out the top the entire time, before slamming into the brick wall and shattering. To top it all off, the thing made a perfect bullseye hit onto the keypad controlling the alarm system and those damned deafening alarms went blaring again.
While he and Tara stood there, dumbfounded, the cameras started going haywire too, whirring from one direction to the other while the emergency lights strobed on and off, nearly blinding them both.
Ashley tore downstairs holding her ears, screaming “Daddy! Daddy! Make it stop!”
Instead of running into his open arms, though, she latched onto one of his legs and one of Tara’s, hugging them both tight in her arms and preventing either of them from moving. From the way she was wailing it could have been the end of the world.
It was certainly the end of his patience, that’s for sure.
Cursing a blue streak, Clint disengaged himself from his daughter’s embrace and stalked over to punch the disarm code into the keypad, then stood there in the abrupt silence, head spinning and ears still ringing, stunned at how quickly chaos had taken over his surroundings. He was a man who lived an orderly life. He did his best to avoid messes, both physical and emotional. And in the course of one day, he’d walked right into disaster central. Good God. What the hell had he been thinking, moving in here?
“Hey,” Tara said, crouching to take a sobbing Ashley into her arms, stroking her blond hair while watching Clint over the little girl’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Your daddy has got it all taken care of now.”
But Clint didn’t have it all taken care of. In truth, he’d never felt more out of control