Lily's Valentine

“Don’t worry Dad,” Kim Baker said. “You just focus on getting well; I’ll finish the addition for you.”
Now she leaned back against her car, with her arms folded across her chest, looking at the half-finished addition of her father’s house, glowing in the rising Arizona sun, wondering what the hell she had been thinking. An Intensive Care Unit nurse for almost a decade, that’s where she belonged. A nurse building something? Ridiculous.
Why her dad bought this double wide house in a senior community was beyond her understanding. The noisy overhead ramp from the Broadway loop and highway I-10 to Tucson loomed only a quarter-mile away.
Her father wanted to block out the road noise by enclosing the porch to his house by himself. But, as luck would have it, he fell off the roof and was being treated for a broken shoulder and a concussion.
But, that wasn’t her problem. She’d made an overzealous commitment while visiting him at the hospital. Knowing her father’s recovery and rehab would take months, Kim blindly volunteered to finish what he’d started.
Kim wasn’t a girly-girl. Built like her dad, tall, red-headed, square shoulders and strong legs. She also inherited his stubborn streak. Sometimes it got her in trouble, like what just happened.
Lost in her thoughts she didn’t notice a truck drive by and park across the street. Not until the driver spoke.
“I heard Herman . . .”
Kim jumped with a start. “Oh! My God. Where’d you come from?”