The Single Dad's Redemption Read Online Free PDF

see the Aspen Creek gossip mill churning if she didn’t make things perfectly clear. “Actually, he might work at my store for a couple weeks while he’s waiting for his truck. But I was just driving by and didn’t see it on any of your lifts.”
    “It’s parked out back.”
    Relief washed through her. “Thanks.”
    “I’ll get to it as soon as I can. But maybe you’ll want him to stick around longer.” Red grinned and reached over to give her a pat on the shoulder with a beefy paw. “I’ve never been one to stand in the way of true love, you know.”
    She cringed at the way he warbled out the last words.
    Red had always liked to tease her whenever she’d stopped here with Dad as a little girl. Now she wished she hadn’t come by to snoop. “Nothing of the kind,” she said firmly. “He’s just a potential employee.”
    Red gave her a knowing look as he took another bite of his sandwich. “Whatever you say, darlin’. Whatever you say.”
    That meant the diner crowd would likely be hearing another chapter of her life the next time Red stopped in for his favorite rhubarb pie.
    She was just climbing into her Honda SUV when Red came to the open door of his shop. “Your cowboy stopped by just an hour ago and fetched the rest of his camping gear from the back of his truck. If you need to find him, check out the Aspen Creek Campgrounds. But keep an eye on the weather, honey. Looks like more storms are rolling in.”
    “Thanks, Red.” Turning for Dad’s two-story brick house on Cedar, she flipped on the radio and mulled her options as she drove through town. Okay, Lord. Unless You give me a big sign, I’m going to give that cowboy another chance to say yes.
    As she pulled to a stop in front of her father’s house, her heart fell. “ Dad? What on earth...?”
    She shouldered on her Marmot rain jacket and hurried up the cement walk leading to his front porch, where Paul North sat on the porch swing in a wet short-sleeved shirt, huddled into himself and obviously chilled to the bone. “You’ll catch pneumonia out here. Why aren’t you inside?”
    He shot an irritable glance at her. “Bart.”
    “The dog ?”She glanced around the empty front yard. “Where is he?”
    He hiked a thumb toward the house. “He must’ve jumped against the door and shut it while I was getting my mail.”
    Right. She shut her eyes briefly at the thought of her elderly father walking the two blocks to the post office then losing his keys. “You went in the rain? Without a jacket?”
    “It wasn’t raining when I left,” he snapped.
    “This is important, Dad. What if I hadn’t stopped by? What if it was colder outside? You could end up in the hospital.” She fingered through her keys and unlocked the heavy oak front door. “Do you remember where we put your extra keys after the last time you got locked out?”
    “Of course I do. They’re gone.”
    She went to the farthest brick pillar supporting the porch roof, felt for the single loose brick, retrieved the slim metal box behind it and held it up for him to see. “Right in here, Dad.”
    He gave her hand a blank look then shrugged. “Then you didn’t put them back right the last time. Too far back.”
    Stifling an exasperated sigh, she held the door open for him and ushered him inside. He’d locked himself out before—without the unlikely help of his crotchety, lazy old dog—hence the keys hidden at both the front and back doors. He was just seventy-three, but now the trick was for him to remember where they were.
    One more sign that his independence was fading and her responsibility for him had to increase—despite his stubborn refusal. “You need one of those medical alert necklaces, Dad. Push a button and help is on the way.”
    He visibly shuddered. “Over my dead, cold body.”
    “Or if you’d just put your cell phone in your pocket every morning and keep it there, you could call for help if you locked yourself out or fell—”
    “I’m not an