Until You (The Redemption, #1)(3)

It’s amazing the things kids remember when it suits their case.

I walk over, take the stack of papers from her, and playfully whack them on her head. “Someone brought her sass with her all the way from Chicago.”

“Did you think I left the best part of me behind?” She flashes a grin that tells me I’m most definitely in trouble in the coming years.

Who am I kidding? I’m already in trouble.

“Lucky me,” I tease.

“Are they from the lady who lives over there?” Paige asks, pointing in the direction of the cottage.

“I believe so,” I say.

Wasn’t this the one and only drawback to accepting Uncle Ian’s offer? That I was now a landlord to the tenant in that little cottage off to the right of the driveway? I’ve been a landlord before, and it was nothing less than a nightmare.

“Can we go say hi to her? See what she’s like and if she has kids?” Addy asks.

“No. Leave her be. If she lives out here, she probably likes her privacy. The last thing she’s expecting is you two overwhelming her. Besides . . .”

“Besides, what?”

Besides, I haven’t had a chance to run a background check on one Miss Tennyson West yet.

“Nothing. Never mind.” I smile at the girls and then look down at the notes as I flip through them.

They are complaints about her cottage.

A renter complaining? Go figure.

The water pressure isn’t consistent.

The air conditioner works intermittently.

The hot water heater seems to be on the fritz, only working sporadically.

The notes are polite at first. Then a little more forceful as I flip through them.

Some are handwritten, others typed or in black felt pen. They range from sticky notes to formal stationery. And each one is signed with the name Tenny.

They’re all legitimate complaints from a tenant. Can’t say that I wouldn’t have written similar notes if it were me.

But complaints are the last thing I want to deal with. I came here for simplicity for the girls and me. Not to have to take care of one more person, one more complication, one more headache.

And having a tenant, regardless of the fact that she likes to keep to herself, is in fact a complication.

I’m not a big fan of complications. Especially because when there is one issue, there’s usually bound to be more.

And that is what worries me.

I glance out the bay window of the kitchen nook in the direction of the cottage. It’s about one hundred yards away, and the old oak trees scattered around the property almost obscure it from my line of sight. That doesn’t mean on the way past it up to the house that I didn’t already look and assess who I’d be sharing this property with.

Colorful flowers spilled over eclectic pots on the front porch, and a pair of pink flip-flops had been placed at the top of its steps. An older but clean and clearly well-cared for Jeep was parked in the driveway. The front yard landscape was trimmed and grass neatly mowed. There was a security screen on the front door, which seems a little out of place considering the worst crime that has happened in Redemption Falls in the last year is a bunch of teens playing mailbox baseball. But then again, I plan on installing an alarm system here, so who am I to judge?

She takes care of the place. I’ll give her that.

Let’s just hope she’s more of the nice, clean, keep to herself type of neighbor than the demanding and pestering kind that these letters could depict.

“Dad? Earth to Dad?”

Paige’s waving hands in front of my face bring me back to the mirror images standing before me. Grins blanket their faces.

“Yes. What? I’m here. Just thinking.”

“Pick a number between one and three,” Addy says with a mischievous grin.

I look from one to the other. “Two.”

My girls whoop as they jump up and down and start running to the back door. “Wait. What does number two mean?”

“One was unpack. Three was eat dinner. Two was swim,” Paige yells over her shoulder.

“And you picked two,” Addy says as she shucks her shirt off so she’s in her sports bra and shorts.

Before I can respond, I hear a splash, then another, followed by sputtered laughter through the back door they left wide open.

I’ve been had. No matter what number I picked, it would have corresponded with swimming first.

I know my girls well enough.

And despite the million things I should do while they’re occupied, I move to that open door, not wanting to look at anything other than them. My smile is automatic, my heart a little more settled, seeing them acting like the kids they are after everything they’ve endured this past year.

This was the right move, Crew. The right place. The right time.

No looking back. Isn’t that what I told myself when we left the city limits of Chicago a few days ago? My new motto going forward? That I need to take things as they come, not sweat the small stuff, and don’t look back.

You’ve got to stick to it, Crew.

The laughter outside only serves to reinforce that.

“Cannonball,” Addy yells seconds before a huge splash has water flying every which way.

Now, to find the towels in this mess of boxes and then to figure out how we’re going to eat the spaghetti I bought to make for dinner when I neglected to realize that my Uncle Ian took all the pots and pans with him when he packed up and headed for Florida.