Chapter Eight
JAKE
N ora was going to be the death of me. That girl. When I went up to put the girls to bed, I asked her what she couldn’t tell me in front of Natalia earlier.
“I don’t want anyone to know I have a nanny,” she admitted.
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
“Are you embarrassed about it?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“You don’t have to talk about it with kids at school if you don’t want to, but if someone asks, you should be honest. There’s nothing wrong with having a nanny, Nora. Lots of kids do.”
“Nobody I know. All the kids in my class have moms or dads drop them off. They’re normal. ”
I sat beside her on the bed and looked her in the eye. “Hey, just because I don’t drop you off at school, that doesn’t mean you’re not normal. Everybody’s situation is different. Right now, I need someone to help me with you girls. If I could be here with you all the time, you know I would, but I can’t. And it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, Nora. What matters most is us, our family.” I gave her a hug, and she held on tight.
“Okay, Daddy,” she said.
“Normal is overrated anyway,” I said as I let go and gave her a wink.
She replied with a blank stare and an unimpressed tilt of her head. Sometimes, she seemed so much more mature than her nine years.
“I’m so proud of you for the spelling bee today,” I said as I stood. “I wish I could’ve been there to see it.”
She frowned. “I spelled shudder wrong. I spelled it with Ts. ”
“Well, that’s a tricky word,” I told her. “I shudder ”—I pretended to shudder—“when the wind bangs the shutters against the house.”
She giggled.
“Still, one word out of all those words and second place . You rock, Nora.”
She smiled, maybe for the first time all day, and I kissed her on the cheek and headed for the door.
“Dad?” she said softly.
I turned back. “Yeah, sweetie.”
“I love you.”
That called for another hug, so I strode across the room and wrapped her up in a tight embrace. “ I love you too.”
My heart swelled in my chest. Nora didn’t say those words to me as much now that she was getting older, and I was happy she’d said it first because I always told the girls I loved them. I wanted them to know without a shadow of a doubt that it was true.
Then, she said even quieter. “I miss Mom.”
I squeezed her tight and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I know, sweetie. I’m sorry things turned out this way.”
“Is she coming home for Christmas?”
“I don’t know. Your grandma hasn’t mentioned it yet. But what she did mention was you and your sisters spending the weekend with them. We’re supposed to get a bunch of snow, and she said they would take you to the sledding hill. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
Nora nodded. “Will you come with us?”
“Heck, yeah, I will.”
Another smile spread across her face. “Will you ride down the hill with me?”
“Try and stop me.” I gave her another squeeze before getting up. “Get some rest.”
I left my sweet, sad daughter and headed downstairs, stopping in the kitchen to get a bottle of water before I headed downstairs to my basement home gym. I needed to work off some frustration and excess energy.
The thought of all the pain Nora was feeling over being abandoned by her mom made me want to punch my fist through the wall. I tried to be as present and supportive to the girls as I could, but there was no replacement for a mother. I could never be that to them. I could try, but it would never be the same. I could bring in a nanny to replace the daily tasks of caring for them that their mother would’ve done, but she wasn’t their mom either .
Overcome with sadness and frustration, I stretched, then hit the weights hard before spending a while on the punching bag. I hit the bag once for every lie Kate had told me in our marriage. Then I worked my way through all the lies she’d told our girls—all the canceled plans and past disappointments, and I threw a handful of punches for the future letdowns that were sure to come, especially now that she was having a baby with her new man.
Some days, I couldn’t believe any of it had happened. I would wake up and look over at the empty spot on the other side of the bed and feel the loss all over again. I had always believed marriage required work. I knew there would be struggles along the way, but nothing that couldn’t be figured out. Kate obviously never felt the same.
She was no longer the Kate I married. Somewhere along the way, she decided she didn’t want our life. And that left me here. Alone. One half of the perfect life I’d planned—a wife and kids and a house of our own in a small town, where we’d settle down and build a life. Happy and in love. Growing old together. But now I wasn’t so sure that kind of perfection even existed. Maybe on the pages of a book or in a movie, but surely not in real life.
I slowed to stop, gave the bag one last punch, then took a few long swigs from my water bottle.
Hearing Nora talk about kids being normal made my heart hurt. What was normal anyway? What I wanted more than anything was to help her understand that it didn’t matter what others thought of her as long as she knew who she was and felt safe and secure and loved in our family. How could I help her see that every kid in her class came from a different place in life with their own set of problems at home only they knew about? Nobody’s life was perfect.
But I knew how cruel kids could be, and I hoped none of them would give her a hard time if they did find out she had a nanny. I didn’t want that to cause Nora problems at school. I hoped she would get to know Natalia and warm up to her a bit. Natalia was so great with the girls, and I knew she could be a helpful, comforting presence, if only Nora would let her.
My mind turned to Natalia as I ran on the treadmill. As if I didn’t already have enough pent-up frustration to work off.
I thought about the day we met in the baking aisle. How cute she was, willing to fight me over the can of pumpkin. I smiled, remembering how flustered she got when I tried to talk to her. I wondered what might’ve happened if she hadn’t ended up as our nanny. I probably wouldn’t have run into her again.
But she was our nanny. And I wasn’t about to become a cliché. It would be hard enough to get Nora to accept Natalia as her nanny without throwing dating into the mix.
I shook my head as I increased the speed and incline on the treadmill. I let myself think about Natalia while I ran. Just to get the attraction out of my system. Her eyes, her hair, her smile.
But after tonight, no more. Things needed to remain strictly professional.
I awoke in the night with a start. I wasn’t sure what woke me, but I climbed out of bed and headed through the house to check on everything and make sure it was all okay.
In the kitchen, I was surprised to find Natalia standing at the counter, stirring ingredients in a mixing bowl. She looked up at me and smiled as if it was totally normal that she was standing in my kitchen in the middle of the night.
I circled the counter and swallowed hard when I noticed she was wearing only a long T-shirt that hit mid-thigh with her smooth bare legs on display.
“What are you making?” My voice sounded embarrassingly shaky.
She dipped her finger into a chocolaty batter and held it toward me.
My heart skipped a beat. What did she expect me to do? Taste the batter from her finger?
Eyes the color of Lake Superior’s waters met mine with a come-hither look, and my entire body reacted. I stepped closer and took hold of her wrist, and then, against my better judgment, I did it. I put her finger between my lips and took a taste of the batter.
Her lips parted as a little sigh escaped her, and I sat straight up in bed in the darkness of my room.
My heart was racing, my forehead had a light sheen of sweat, and I could swear I tasted chocolate.
I threw myself back against my pillow with a loud groan.
So much for strictly professional.