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“I saw.” Niall grinned at her excitement. “Well played.”
“Thoroughly defeated,” Chuck agreed, making a show of falling back in his chair as if mortally wounded. “I demand a rematch. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Winnie looked to Niall, hope written across her face.
“We’ll see,” Niall hedged, not wanting to make promises that depended on Chuck’s availability. “It’s way past getting late. Time for pajamas and teeth.”
Winnie groaned but didn’t argue as she gathered up the chess pieces. “Will you still be here when I’m done, Chuck? For a chapter?”
Chuck glanced at Niall, a question in his eyes. “If your dad doesn’t kick me out.”
“One chapter,” Niall conceded, knowing he was probably setting a precedent but unable to resist the pleading look on his daughter’s face. “Then bed.”
Winnie’s feet hammered up the stairs, and then it was just the two of them, the night before sitting in the room with them like a tipsy visitor.
“You’re terrific with her.” Niall closed his book. “She doesn’t usually warm to people so quickly.”
“I remember what it was like to feel like everyone talked down to you. On top of that, she’s a phenomenal kid.” Chuck looked up at the ceiling. “Smart. Brave. Odd. Kind. And frickin’ funny as hell. You’ve done an amazing job raising her, Niall. Can’t have been easy.”
Niall busied his hands closing the book so he wouldn’t have to answer right away. “I hope so. I’m making it up as I go,” he admitted. “Praying I don’t mess her up too badly.”
“That’s one hundred percent the definition of parenting, from what I understand. My sister says the same thing about my niece.” Chuck moved to sit beside Niall on the couch—close but not touching. “If it matters, I think you’re nailing it.”
“It matters. A lot, actually.” Niall hesitated, then asked the question that had been on his mind all day. “Chuck… what are we doing here?”
Chuck seemed to consider the question carefully. “Right now? We’re waiting for Winnie to get her teeth brushed and into PJs so I can read her some Nancy Drew. Beyond that….” He shrugged. “No idea. Well, that’s a lie. A lot of ideas. Wonderful ideas. I love being here. With both of you.”
“Winnie’s getting attached to you,” Niall murmured. “I’m getting attached to you. And that scares the hell out of me, because I’ve got no way of knowing if you’re staying or if this is just a pit stop on the way to some other cool adventure.”
“I’m attached too, you know. I meant what I said last night—forever is a lot.” Chuck’s honesty was painful and refreshing. “I guess… I’m not willing to leave anytime soon. I promise I would never just disappear without a word. I’m not doing that to you. Or to Winnie.”
Before Niall could respond, Winnie called down from upstairs. “I’m ready! Chuck, I’m expecting a great story.”
“Be right there,” Chuck called back. He turned to Niall, his expression serious. “We can talk more after she’s asleep. If you want me to stick around.”
“I want you to stick around.” Niall’s answer popped out in absolute defiance of his earlier reservations.
Chuck’s smile was worth the moment of vulnerability. “Good. Because I’m not done with you yet, Niall Ashworth. Not by a long shot.”
Niall believed him, which scared him more than doubting would have. He believed all of it, including whatever Chuck had in store once Winnie was asleep.
As Chuck headed upstairs to read Winnie more of her favorite girl detective, Niall stayed on the couch and listened to Chuck play a Nancy Drew villain in the room above him. He couldn’t decide whether to trust it.
Nine days ago he had been checking the buckets before bed. However impossible any of this became, Chuck had a side of the bed now, a mug on the hook, a kid who saved him the good cushion. He’d rebuilt their home without either of them deciding to let him.
Chapter 8
CHUCK SAT on the edge of Winnie’s bed, the Nancy Drew open on his lap, and watched as her eyes finally drifted shut. He’d read the chapter twice at her insistence, “to find the clues,” and she’d fought sleep as long as she could, but the day’s labors at long last caught up with her. All this upheaval and anticipation had to be a lot for a nine-year-old to handle.
Taking pains to stay quiet, he closed the book as he rose and set it on the shelf for tomorrow night, careful not to disturb the precariously balanced stack of other titles waiting their turn.
Her room was what he expected from Niall’s daughter—tidy but comfortable, bookshelves double-stacked, and a desk covered in drawings, craft projects, and several scribbled lists. Overhead, a galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stars spattered across her ceiling with the solar system hanging below, and photos of her and Niall decorated one whole wall—at a museum, hiking in the redwoods, eating meals, slowly growing up, in and around this old jumbled Victorian.
Conspicuously absent from the photos was Winnie’s mom. Chuck had gathered from Lydia’s and Niall’s occasional references that Elise had bailed when Winnie was around three, but the details were still hazy. Awful. He couldn’t imagine what that type of betrayal did to a kid. And by anyone’s measure, his childhood hadn’t been warm and cushy.
Had she simply walked away from her family? He knew some extramarital whatever had started the mess, some scammy dude overseas who taught woo-woo workshops to bored rich girls. Whatever the real history, Winnie seemed to have erased her. Her absence was absolute in the carefully constructed life Niall had built for himself and Winnie—a life with no room for uncertainty or risk.
Until now. Until Chuck barged in with his toolbox and his baggage and his inability to promise anything beyond handyman skills and the immediate future.
