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Daddy Next Door (Love Inspired)

By Carol Voss

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CHAPTER ONE

"Is everything gonna be okay, Mommy?"
Alyssa Douglas glanced from waves crashing against the shore in a rhythmic whoosh to the darkening sky to the tiny, worn cottage that was once the yellow of daffodils. Lump in her throat, she offered a smile to her worried four-year-old clutching his Braveman action figure in his little fist. "Everything will be great, Joey. We'll have a new life and so much fun you won't know what to do. I promise."
A promise she'd do everything in her power to live up to.
Joey pushed his glasses up on his nose, his squint telling her he was still worried.
It would take time, but she hoped with all her heart that their move to Rainbow Lake would help him grow into the happy four-year-old he could be.
She dragged her baby's car seat from her Escalade and tucked Robbie's blankets to shield his face from the cold wind. Grasping the carrier in one hand, she headed for the cottage, the roar of the lake filling the deepening dusk.
She hardly recognized the lake as the same one she'd befriended as a child. No doubt, it liked summers better than Novembers, too. Her fingers clumsy with anticipation, she unlocked the door and walked inside, a heavy pine scent hitting her.
Joey wrinkled his nose. "It smells funny."
"It's cleaning solution. The man who takes care of the cottage must have used it after I let him know we were coming." The living room wasn't as big as she remembered. The furniture looked more worn, the rugs older, more faded and the walls needed fresh paint.
But with the faded slipcover on the sofa reminding her Gram had let her help sew it, the same confidence settled over her that always had when she'd stayed here during summers as a child. Gram's cottage was exactly where she needed to be. On her own. Away from the generous people who'd made her and her boys their "project" this past year.
Not that she hadn't needed their help. She didn't know how she would have survived without it. And she'd always be grateful.
But she didn't need it anymore. Now, she needed to get back on her feet and learn to stand on her own without everybody, especially her parents, rushing in to help her at every turn.
She wished Gram were still here.
She blinked away the sting of tears and shut the door against the wind, effectively muffling the lake's fury. She only hoped Gram's determined, positive vibes still lived within these walls. She needed that energy and strength to get established and find a job and child care before her parents came for Christmas. She didn't know any other way to convince them to stop worrying about her and the boys.
She set her sleeping baby's car seat in the once-plush green velvet chair--the chair she'd curled up in as a kid to paint or read or daydream. Gram had encouraged daydreaming, a secret Alyssa had kept from her parents. She smiled through her tears.
Robbie didn't stir. He'd been sleeping since she'd pulled off the road and nursed him, and she needed him to keep napping until she could get Joey settled. Shivering, she tucked the blankets more snugly around her baby. Winter in the drafty cottage in northern Wisconsin was going to be a whole different thing than it had been in the comfortable colonial they'd left behind in Madison.
"Joey, come help me build a fire, okay?" She perched on the hearth and began to lay wood in the fieldstone fireplace, Gram's lessons on fire building sifting through her mind. "You can hand me the small pieces."

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