Page 117 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
“Now listen up, Freckles,” he said, picking me up and planting my butt on the kitchen counter.
I opened my mouth to tell him to eff off but before I could get the words out, he clamped one of his big hands on top of my mouth.
I couldn’t believe that Jess had just put his hand on my mouth to keep me from talking. My eyes got so big I worried they were going to pop out.
“I told you at Christmas to get used to me spoiling my girls. That was the same day you told me this was my home. So putting on an addition with money from my previous home is spending it on something I want. I’m spending it on my house,” he said. “So like I said in the laundry room, you didn’t hear me. Are you with me now?”
I couldn’t respond because his big mitt was still covering my mouth. So I narrowed my eyes and gave him my strongest glare.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “Now about this cooking thing.”
“Hey! What are you guys doing? Why do you have your hand on Mommy’s mouth, Jess?” Rowen interrupted us.
“Well, little bit, I needed to make a point to your mother. Thought I’d have a better chance if she wasn’t talking back. But putting your hand on another person’s mouth is something you can only do if you’re a police officer. So don’t do it at school or I’ll have to arrest you,” he lied.
I rolled my eyes.
“Oh. Okay, Jess. I won’t do it.”
“Now I got a question for you,” he said to her. “What did you think of that dinner I cooked for you and your mom a while back?”
“Blech. It was gross. Really yucky. But Mommy bought me that new Tinker Bell movie because I ate three bites of everything.”
Traitor.
“Huh. I see.”
At this point I was over having his hand covering my mouth, so I did the only thing I could think of that might make him remove it. I stuck my tongue out and licked his palm.
He jerked his hand back quickly, surprised by my tactic.
“Ha!” I shouted victoriously, raising both arms in the air.
He wiped his palm while his shoulders started to shake.
He’d made his point, though the method in which he’d gone about making it wasn’t the best. But this was our house now. So if he wanted to build an addition for potential new family members, so be it.
“I give up, Sheriff. My only request is that if you have to cut the office down to make a hallway, leave enough room for my chair in front of the fireplace,” I said.
“Glad we got that sorted,” he said, grinning.
“Me too. Now if you’ll let me down, I’ll go back to the laundry. Since I’m no longer mad at you, I don’t need to bake five dozen cookies.”
“How about you let me piss you off again but just enough you feel the need to make one dozen? Chocolate chip?” he asked.
I gave him one last eye roll, and then I pushed him away so I could hop off the counter.
And then I made him a batch of chocolate chip cookies.
I was standing at the kitchen sink, cleaning up the dinner dishes, when I saw a flash of light outside beyond the backyard and into the trees.
For a minute, I thought the light must have been a reflection in the kitchen window. But then I saw it again.
Just a quick flash way back in the woods, like someone was walking along out there with a flashlight to guide their way.
But that was crazy. Who would be walking in the forest at night in the dead of winter? It was only twenty degrees outside. I must have imagined it. So I stood there at the window for five minutes and waited for the light to flash again.
It didn’t. There was nothing out there. No lights. No people in my trees. Nothing.
