“Light housekeeping was part of the damn advertisement you put out,” Pops reminded him.
“I need someone who can help lift you off the damn floor without taking out her damn back.”
“When’s the last time I fell?” his father demanded. “Tell me. When’s the last time?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Aw,” he scoffed, slapping the air as if he could knock Brock’s reasoning aside. “I fell into my dresser. It’s not like I went all the way to the floor.”
“One fall and you could break your hip,” he argued anyway.
“I ain’t broke my hip yet,” Pops sniffed.
“It only takes one time, and if I’m gone all damn day tending cattle or taking care of...”
“Our cute young neighbor lady with the baby?” Pops slid him a side-long, knowing look.
Brock stopped, drawing another deep breath for patience. “I took her to town because she had no business walking all that way with a baby in a stroller. Pops, for crying out loud. Did you seriously think I’d make her walk all that way when I’ve got a car?”
Pops held up both hands in surrender. “That’s not what I said.”
“I don’t get it,” Brock said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t look like Maggie did anything to help set up the rental for her niece. Nothing’s on—the power, gas, or water. There’s barely wood enough to start a fire, much less to keep one going. How’s a single mother with a kid that young supposed to chop wood? That little girl doesn’t have a clue how to wield an axe, I’ll bet you a hundred bucks, she doesn’t.”
His dad took another bite and then set down his sandwich. “I’ll go cut some for her.”
“The hell you will,” Brock said, giving him a hard look. “Don’t you dare. And I mean that, dad.”
“Or what?” his father asked dryly.
“Try me,” Brock replied. It was an empty threat. Brock had no idea how to get Pops to listen once he got it in his head to do something. “You chop your leg off and I’m leaving you to bleed out in the snow.”
That was an empty threat too, and they both knew it.
Pops smirked. “Someone’s got to do the neighborly thing by her and her wood bin.”
“Yeah,” Brock agreed. “That someone is me.”
Not because he enjoyed the workout that cutting wood would provide him, but because every instinct inside him was pushing him to do it. To make sure the job was done right. To double check that she had everything she needed. To see for himself before he went to bed tonight that she was warm, fed, and as safe as she could be, sleeping in that stupid sleeping bag on the floor because she’d been robbed of every creature comfort her in-laws could get away with.
That pissed him off, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it except to do his level best to make sure she was taken care of in all the other ways that he could. The ways that mattered.
The crunch of tires easing slowly up into his driveway signaled the arrival of the next interviewee. A man this time, young, in his early twenties by the look of him as he stepped out of his car and shut the door. He paused long enough to get his backpack out of the backseat and then made his way to the house. He waved when he saw them peeking out at him.
“That’s not a girl,” Pops noticed right away. “I don’t want a guy. If I have to be picked up off the floor by someone, I want tits I can lean against.”
“You behave yourself,” Brock told him sternly, getting up to get the door. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m old,” Pops replied, but then stayed blessedly quiet, content to do nothing but listen as Brock interviewed the young man. He had a few years’ experience working in a home for the elderly. He had his own vehicle, although it was a clunker by the looks of the peeling paint on the hood and the duct tape around the front right headlight and bumper. Still, he looked plenty strong enough to make sure Pops wasn’t left lying on the floor if he lost his balance, and when Brock asked if he knew how to lift a grown man up from a downed position, the young man answered correctly and even acted out how to do it without hurting himself.
Pops shook his hand and waved goodbye as Brock walked him to the porch after the interview was done. He had good feelings about the guy, but when he turned to his dad and asked, “What do you think?”
He wasn’t entirely disappointed when Pops answered, “You already know what I think. He isn’t suitable. I told you that before he ever came inside.”
“You really don’t want me to hire him because he’s a guy?”
“I don’t care if he’s a guy or not. I care that he doesn’t have tits!”
For God’s sake.