No Ordinary Joe. Michelle Celmer

his chest, looking mildly put out.

      “I’ve been thinking about it, and if the offer is still good, I’d like to rent your apartment.”

      He nodded. “Okay.”

      “If you’d like me to sign a lease—”

      “That won’t be necessary.”

      She pulled out the cash she had left after paying for the room last night and the essentials she’d picked up at Parson’s General Store on her way in to work. “I can give you the rest after we split up the tips for the lunch shift.”

      He looked at the cash, then at her. “Is that all the money you have?”

      “It’s fine. I can live off tips until I get my first check.”

      He mumbled something under his breath, then said in a voice laced with irritation, “Keep it.”

      “But—”

      “I’m not leaving you with no cash,” he snapped. “I’ll take the rent out of your first check.”

      The guy did nice things, he just did them so… grudgingly. Which left her wondering where the understanding, semi-compassionate man from earlier that day had disappeared to. Maybe she had only been seeing what she wanted to see. “Are you sure?”

      “I’m sure.”

      “In that case, thank you.”

      Lindy stepped into Joe’s office with two stuffed black trash bags. “Hey, Reily, Zoey just dropped these by.”

      She took the bags from Lindy. They were heavy. “Is she still here?”

      “She had to get back to work. She said she’ll try to stop in later tonight. But don’t worry, I thanked her for you.”

      Reily had been hoping to meet her, and of course she wanted to thank her personally. Although odds were, in a town this size, she would run into her at some point in the next six weeks.

      When Lindy left, Joe looked from the bags to Reily, clearly curious as to what they contained.

      “They’re full of clothes,” Reily told him. “Everything I owned was stolen with my car, so Lindy’s friend Zoey dropped some hand-me-downs off for me. Would you mind if I keep these in your office until I’m off tonight? They won’t fit in my locker.”

      “I have to run home for a few minutes,” Joe said. “Why don’t you come with me and we can get you settled in. Unless you feel you need more time to train before the dinner rush.”

      “Not really.” After eight years, bartending was pretty much second nature. “I’ll go tell Lindy I’m leaving.”

      He pushed himself up from his chair and walked around the desk, nodding to the bags she was still clutching. “I’ll take those.”

      “That’s okay, I can—”

      He pinned her with a look that said it would be in her best interest not to argue. A sort of, let me be nice or else.

      Okay. She held the bags up for him to take.

      “My truck is parked out back.”

      Which she took to mean, as he headed for the back door, that he wanted her to meet him out there. Because apparently it would kill him to actually say the words.

      Shaking her head with exasperation, she hurried out to the bar and told Lindy she was leaving for a bit.

      “Things won’t pick back up until at least four-thirty, so take some time to get settled in,” Lindy told her. Then she handed her a thick fold of bills. “Lunch tips.”

      She stuffed them into the pocket of her jeans. “Thanks. This will definitely come in handy.”

      Reily went into the back, grabbed her purse and purchases from her locker and said goodbye to the day cooks, Ray and Al, as she walked through the kitchen to the back door and pushed out into the afternoon sunshine.

      Jill, one of the waitresses, stood just outside the door smoking a cigarette. She and Reily hadn’t had much time to get acquainted, but she seemed nice enough.

      “Shift over already?” she asked Reily, taking a long, deep drag and exhaling a cloud of smoke into the hot, dry air.

      “I’m taking off for a couple of hours, but I’ll be back.”

      She eyed Reily suspiciously. “Does Joe know that you’re leaving?”

      The words had barely left her mouth when Joe pulled up beside them in a newer-model, dark blue pickup.

      “He knows,” Reily told her. “See you later.”

      Jill’s openmouthed look of disbelief was the last thing she saw as she climbed in and buckled her seat belt. Though why Jill would care if Reily left with Joe, she didn’t have a clue.

      Without so much as a glance Reily’s way, Joe put the truck into gear and pulled out of the lot. He headed down Main Street into town, which was bustling with cars and people, and turned left at Third Street, taking them into a residential section. Most of the homes were older but well tended and charming, with postage-stamp lots and tidy lawns. Not unlike the neighborhood she’d lived in before her parents had died, before she’d moved into the shabby little one-bedroom trailer with her aunt. Reily hadn’t even had her own bedroom, just a corner in the living room to keep her things and a foldout sofa to sleep on.

      Joe drove two blocks down, then took a right at High Street. The lots were much larger and the houses sparser. Near the end of the block he turned into the driveway of a white-picket-fenced, craftsman-style home with deep green siding and a wide front porch flanked by white tapered pillars. It was as warm and charming as a Norman Rockwell painting, and not at all what she would have expected from a single guy.

      He pulled up the driveway and parked in front of a double-car, two-story garage. The first thing Reily noticed as she opened the door and climbed out was the purple little-girl’s bike leaning against the side of the garage. In the backyard, which had to be at least two hundred feet wide and twice that in length, she could see a swing set and a playhouse that looked like a scaled-down and simplified version of the main house. There was also a sandbox, a red Radio Flyer wagon and various other toys scattered across the lawn.

      Did Joe have kids?

      As if on cue, the side door flew open and a little girl shot out onto the driveway in a blur of fine, curly blond hair, pink shorts, white tank top and purple flip-flops. “Daddy!” she shrieked, vaulting herself into his outstretched arms. “It came out! It came out!”

      She opened her mouth wide, showing off a missing front tooth. Joe smiled at his daughter—a real, honest-to-goodness smile—and the effect was utterly devastating. He was handsome enough when he was all dark and gloomy, but when he showed some teeth? Good Lord, she practically had to fan her face.

      Lindy hadn’t mentioned Joe ever being married. Not that it mattered either way to Reily. It was just hard to imagine him ever having the kind of optimism it took to step up to the altar.

      “Did you give it to Aunt Sue to put under your pillow tonight?” Joe asked. She nodded enthusiastically, then she noticed Reily standing there watching them.

      Her brow dipped in a look that was 100 percent Joe, and she demanded, “Who are you?”

      Not shy, was she?

      “Lily Ann, where are your manners?” he scolded. “This is Miss Eckardt. She works at the bar and she’s going to stay in the garage apartment for a while.”

      “It’s nice to meet you, Lily Ann,” Reily said. “How old are you?”

      “Five,” Lily Ann said, holding up the digits of her left hand. “Your hair is pretty. I want long hair, too, but Daddy says it gets too tangly because it’s curly.”

      “And I’ve always wanted curly hair,”