Chapter Six
Mia
I wait for Bailey to get out of school. I got to the parking lot early so I could get a decent parking spot and decide to wait in the car until it is almost time for the kids to be let out. I listen to music on the radio, my mind continually drifting back to my night with Austin.
Even when I’m not thinking about him, my body still hums with desire. He lit a fire in me I didn’t know existed. And though the next day we both acted like nothing happened, I know better.
So does he.
Over the last week, his gaze tracked me when he thought I wasn’t looking, and I am just as guilty, my gaze falling on him over Bailey’s head.
If he turns around, I watch his tight, sexy ass.
If he looks my way, I meet his knowing stare.
Sunday night, I stayed locked in my room, not even coming out for my normal cup of tea.
I didn’t want to fall into a nightly routine that could be detrimental to my heart and my peace of mind.
Because Austin is a man I could easily fall for.
Unwilling to think about it any longer, I climb out of the car to wait for Bailey by the exit to the school. I smile at a few of the friendlier moms, and soon the bell rings, and the kids begin to flow out, the teachers of the younger children walking them to the doors.
I catch sight of Bailey’s dark hair and am just about to call the girl’s name when someone does it first.
“Bailey!”
I spin around in time to see the child’s mother waving toward her.
“No.” I push past a few parents to reach Bailey first, grasping her hand just as Kayla strides into our personal space.
“Bailey, baby, it’s Mommy!”
I freeze, holding Bailey’s hand tight. This is what Austin feared, Bailey being confronted by her mother, and neither Austin nor I know what the little girl remembers about her.
Bailey squeezes my fingers back, her little hand feeling fragile in my larger one.
“Bailey?”
“You need to leave,” I say to Kayla, keeping my voice level so as not to frighten Bailey even more.
Kayla looks nothing like the other moms in jeans, shirts, and jackets. Instead she wears a skimpy dress and high heels, as out of place in this environment as she is in her daughter’s life.
“I have a right to see my child.”
“Not according to the custody agreement I understand exists.”
Kayla perches her sunglasses on top of her head, her eyes not focused on Bailey but glaring at me.
“Bailey, honey? Don’t you remember me?” She isn’t even smart enough to drop down to Bailey’s level to try and reach her.
Bailey backs her body into mine, causing Kayla to frown as her daughter clearly makes her choice. A choice no child should have to make, between a caregiver and her mother.
“Kayla, go now.”
“Is there a problem?” One of the teachers strides over and asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“No,” Kayla replies.
I glance at the older woman. “I’m allowed to pick up Bailey. She isn’t.” I gesture to Kayla, refusing to call her Bailey’s mother out loud. She doesn’t deserve the acknowledgment, and I refuse to scare the little girl.
“I’m sorry, Ms.…?” The teacher glances at Kayla for an answer.
“Gibson. Kayla Gibson,” she says sullenly.
“Ms. Gibson, do I need to go to the office and check the parental forms?” Or will you leave quietly? The words are implied.
Keeping my grasp on Bailey and brushing her head soothingly, I hold her breath.
“I’ll go.” Kayla plops her sunglasses back down on her nose. “But this isn’t the end of things. You—” She points at me, almost poking at me with her finger. “—tell my ex-husband he knows what he has to do if he wants this to end.”
She glances at Bailey, almost as an afterthought. “I’ll see you soon,” she says, waving her fingers at her daughter… for show. There is no caring that I can see.
I wait until Kayla not only walks away but climbs into her car and drives off before taking Bailey and walking her to a quiet space on the grass.
I kneel down and glance at the little girl, who looks up at me with big, frightened eyes. “Are you okay?” I ask her.
“I don’t like her,” Bailey whispers. “She yells a lot.”
I swallow hard. I minored in psychology but nothing prepared me for this.
“You know her?” Better than saying do you remember her? I don’t know if it makes a difference.
“That’s Mommy,” Bailey whispers. “She hurt me.”
Oh, shit. That is the perfect answer to Austin’s custody problem, and the worst answer for this happy little girl.
“Don’t worry. She won’t ever hurt you again.” I kiss her cheek and take her hand. “Let’s go see Daddy,” I suggest, knowing I am out of my depth.
We drive home in silence, which is unusual for Bailey on any normal day, but today isn’t a typical day.
Austin is waiting for us in the kitchen when we enter the house, downing a sports drink. He obviously just worked out and timed his ending to see his daughter when she arrived home from school.
“Bailey Button!” he calls out.
Bailey trudges inside, dumping her backpack in the hallway. She doesn’t call out Daddy! the way she usually does, and she doesn’t jump into his arms.
“Mia?” he asks, obviously concerned.
I bite down on my lower lip. “Umm… Bailey, go get a juice box from the fridge, okay? I want to talk to your dad.”
The little girl shuffles away, and my heart breaks a little more.
“What happened?” Austin bites out.
“Bailey had a visitor outside school.” I quickly recount the incident with Kayla, including Bailey’s reaction of curling into me and her admission that she remembers the woman as her mommy, and as someone who not only yelled a lot but who hurt her.
“Son of a bitch!” Austin’s hands curl into fists, and I immediately reach out to soothe him. I grasp his tight hand and urge him to relax, rubbing my thumb over his straining knuckles.
“Bailey can’t see you like this,” I whisper, reminding him that his focus needs to be on his daughter.
He meets my gaze, his dark and solemn and grateful, and he nods. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“I’ll give you time alone.” I reluctantly release my grasp on him and step aside so he can speak to his daughter.
“Mia, stay. Please. Bailey needs you.” He pauses. “I need you,” he says, the words obviously not easy for him to admit out loud.
How can I say no to him? Why would I want to? He doesn’t know, but being needed is my Achilles heel and being needed by Austin? I’ll be there for him, for whatever he needs.
“Of course.”
He draws in a deep breath, clearly tamping down on his rage, pushing it somewhere his daughter can’t see or feel as he joins her at the table, where she plays with her juice box straw, not drinking.
I linger in the background, sticking close but not wanting to intrude.
“Hey.” He settles into the chair next to Bailey, looking at the little girl who is so obviously his whole world. “Mia told me you saw your mom today.”
Bailey swings her legs back and forth beneath her but doesn’t answer.
“She said you remember her?” Austin continues, his tone gentle.
She tips her little chin up and down. “She scares me,” she whispers.
And isn’t that an awful thing for her to live with and think about her mother, no matter how deserving, I think.
Austin smooths a hand over the back of her head. “That’s okay, baby girl.” He pulls her into a tight embrace.
I admire him for how well he is handling this situation and his daughter’s pain.
Bailey, however, remains silent.
“Believe me?” he asks.
“Yes, Daddy.”
He sighs at her soft, defeated attitude.
I know, for both their sakes, Bailey needs to put today’s episode out of her mind and let her father shoulder the burden, but she is too young to understand.
“So I was thinking,” Austin says. “What if you, me, and Mia went for pizza and ice cream for dinner?”
My heart beats a little faster at how easily he includes me in the outing, chiding myself at the same time for thinking it means any more than doing my job as Bailey’s nanny. Blurring the lines by sleeping with Austin is not going to be easy.
At the mention of pizza, or more likely ice cream, a little smile finally curves Bailey’s lips. “With sprinkles?” she asks.
“Lots and lots of colored sprinkles.”
I grin. He obviously doesn’t care how big the sugar rush or how late Bailey’s bedtime ends up being because of it. He just wants his daughter to be happy.
And I fall a little harder for Austin because of it.
* * *
Austin
Tomorrow is National Chocolate Cupcake Day, so Bailey and Mia are in the kitchen baking enough cupcakes for the class, because, of course, Bailey volunteered for cupcake duty. As I walk to the kitchen, I listen to my daughter’s chatter and Mia’s laughter and something inside me eases.
These last few days I’ve been a ball of stress.
I just got off the phone with the private investigator who is looking into my ex-wife.
So far he hasn’t found any dirt on Kayla, but she does have a man in her life, and I tell the investigator to put his focus there.
The good news is she hasn’t returned to cause trouble or bother Bailey.
I have no doubt her first attempt outside the school was a warning to me because Kayla wants cold, hard cash.
I wouldn’t put it past her to try something else to upset Bailey and piss me off in her quest to get me to buy her off.
We both know the court date looms at the end of the year, and something has to give before then.
I am counting on the PI to find something incriminating on Kayla, because I’m not going to put my daughter through any more stress by being forced to relive past events.
She is going through enough, courtesy of her mother.
The night after she saw Kayla, Bailey began having nightmares. She woke up crying, coming to me and disrupting my eight hours because it takes her too long to fall back to sleep… in my bed.
With Bailey’s life in turmoil, Mia steps up even more. She keeps Bailey’s schedule busy with friends and special projects so she has no time to dwell on the mean lady at school, as she called Kayla one night while crying herself to sleep and breaking my heart.