16. Jonah
Jonah came up out of sleep slowly, with the disoriented bliss of what felt like his first deep sleep in five months. For a moment, he had no idea where he was, what time of day it was, or who had his child.
He blinked, his gaze landing on a ballet slipper and a trophy, answering question one. Soft light slipped through the blinds, the sun at about four o’clock in the afternoon. He inched up and looked at the playpen, where Atlas was on his back, asleep.
He could hear, very faintly, a bird outside and the sound of a generator he’d gone to war with around eleven that morning—and won. Closer, on the bed, he could hear Pepper breathing in the soft rhythm of restorative sleep.
Her tiny dancer’s body was tucked along his side with her head on his chest, his arm under her shoulders, her hand a warm weight just over his ribs.
For about thirty seconds, Jonah did not think about anything except that this was the most genuinely peaceful he had felt in a long time.
Despite the long, noisy, sometimes terrifying, and frequently delightful night and day they’d just endured, he felt so darn good. Like…unstoppable and in control and hopeful and happy and…
He slid a glance to his right and looked at the sweep of her lashes over her cheeks, the dusting of freckles, the bow of her lips, and that unfairly cute little cleft in her chin.
He felt himself falling so hard he could hear the wind whistle past his ears as he dropped into the unexpected depths of…love.
Could this be love? Okay, not today, but…soon?
She had some inexplicable thing, though. A reason, a secret.
After the door broke and they realized the house did have some vulnerabilities—though no other opening was breached and the roof held—they never did get back to that serious conversation and whatever big reveal Pepper wanted to share.
They’d been on high alert after that, and he’d walked the house and checked every door and window four times an hour as time and Norman blew by.
Atlas had been wretched most of the night and they took turns calming and feeding and changing him.
They’d crashed for a few hours this morning, but the AC was off and it got too hot for all of them, so he’d tackled the generator.
They had power cords charging, cool air, and the fridge was running.
So when she woke up, they’d—
A door slammed and both dogs jumped up and took off.
For a moment, he didn’t move, listening to the unmistakable thunk of a man coming home—keys, boots on the entry tile, and dogs’ nails clicking hurriedly on the wood.
“Hey, garc?on.” That was a low, fond, tired—and sickeningly familiar—voice. “Yeah, yeah, I’m home. Long night? Any damage? Yard’s a mess. Whose pitiful car is that? And why is my recliner in the kitchen?”
Biting back a curse, Jonah sat up, and poor Pepper slid off his chest.
“Hey!”
“Your dad’s home.”
Her face registered this news in stages that went from “not a chance” to “oh no, no, no!”
She blinked at Jonah, then, with mounting horror, looked around the room at the bed they were on, the position they were in, fully clothed but unmistakably sleeping—just sleeping!—together, the baby in the corner, the disarray of…a lost afternoon.
“Dad,” she breathed.
“Peppie? You around, honey?”
It occurred to Jonah that he’d never heard so much affection and love in the man’s voice, but he didn’t have time to think about it as they scrambled to get…nowhere.
Jonah’s foot folded under him, and he caught himself on the dresser, and Pepper made it upright by ballet-grade willpower alone.
They both froze in a perfectly innocent posture in the middle of the room, two feet apart, hands at sides, breathing audibly, the very moment Marcel appeared in the doorway.
He took it all in without comment. His daughter, flushed, hair on one side flattened to her cheek. Jonah, in yesterday’s shirt, half a foot from the bed they had clearly both been on. Not in, but how would he know that?
Atlas in the playpen, the dogs at Marcel’s heels, the empty water glass on the nightstand, the rumpled quilt—it all looked…incriminating. Marcel’s expression did not move.
“Dad,” Pepper said. “It isn’t—”
“Get up and out,” he said simply.
“We are up,” she said. “It was a long—”
“Lawson. Out, please. The kitchen.” He said it quietly. He moved aside, deliberately, in the doorway. “I would like privacy with my daughter.”
Jonah followed the order, stepping into the hall with as much dignity as he could muster which, to be real, wasn’t a ton right then.
In the kitchen, he stood in shock for a few seconds, then scrambled to imagine how to be useful. Should he make coffee? No power to that appliance. Move the recliner back? Check the generator? Run to his car?
While that last one seemed the most appealing, his bag—and his baby—were in Pepper’s room.
He closed his eyes and bit back a dark curse, pulling out a stool to sit at the counter. Even with the generator in the backyard, he could hear them talking.
He didn’t catch even a word, just Pepper’s voice, low and climbing. Marcel’s, quieter, deeper, immovable.
No doubt he was just finding out that Pepper worked for him, that Jonah had invited himself here for their own private hurricane party, and that they were more—although he still didn’t know how much more—than just nanny and boss.
His phone buzzed in his pocket—he’d forgotten it was there—and he pulled it out to skim through the family texts. They’d all checked in this morning on the Summer House group chat, which was usually only used for requests for someone to move a car in the driveway.
But that thread was flashing with multiple messages, especially after the news that the Summer House had fared well, with no visible damage and no flooding on the ground floor. Thank God!
A text from Tessa came in with a sad face and the words “we’re flooded in Miramar and on our way over” followed by a flurry of questions and sad faces. Jo Ellen responded and said she and Maggie were on their way back home but stuck in traffic.
He considered replying but he had no idea when he’d be back and what shape he’d be in, so he set the phone down. Dead, maybe? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
In the back of the house, the voices stopped and a minute later, Pepper came in.
Her eyes were rimmed pink, and her jaw was set like she was holding something in. She swallowed, looked at the coffee maker, then sighed, obviously remembering the electricity.
“I can hook it up to the generator,” he offered.
She just shook her head, still not able to talk. Instead, she opened the fridge and got a bottle of the water they’d wisely stocked, looking at Jonah with a question in her eyes and a bottle in her hand.
“No thanks,” he said softly, then cleared his throat. “Should I get Atlas and…” He thumbed toward the door.
“Escape?” she asked on a dry laugh. “He’ll call you a chicken.”
“Bak. Bak-bak.”
She came closer to the peninsula and stood across it from him. “He’s mad that I didn’t tell him I was working for you.”
He held back the richly deserved, “I told you so,” because he was a gentleman and crazy about her. She should have told her dad.
“Why didn’t you?” he asked instead.
She made a tiny, tired sound that was almost a laugh. “Because I wanted to be an adult. I wanted a thing he didn’t have an opinion on. I didn’t want to hear him tell me what a bad idea it was.”
“Why is it a bad idea?” he pressed.
She just shot him a totally indecipherable look and all he could guess was that it had to do with whatever she didn’t share last night.
Jonah heard the slow footsteps in the hall, the particular pause as Marcel made some private decision about how to enter his own kitchen, and then the chef came in.
“The baby’s awake,” he said simply, looking at Pepper like Atlas belonged to her. “Why don’t you take care of him while Lawson and I have a conversation?”
Oh, that’ll be fun, Jonah thought. Before he could respond, she practically flew out of the room.
“Coming, Atlas!” she called as her footsteps disappeared down the long hall.
Marcel didn’t say anything for a beat, but his gaze settled on the recliner they’d moved to get to the door and generator but had not yet returned to its normal spot.
“Sorry about your chair.”
“Pepper told me that door burst open.”
He nodded. “The lock is broken, but I managed to get it closed. It’s the only damage except for the branches.” He considered offering to help clean up the yard, but his gut told him the less he said, the better.
“She said you took care of…things.”
Jonah heard the slightest note of begrudging respect and clung to it for dear life. “I…tried to keep everyone safe, sir.”
Marcel nodded once. He put both his hands flat on the countertop, big chef’s fingers all nicked at the knuckles, and he looked at Jonah.
“I was clear about my daughter, wasn’t I? When we spoke in the coffee shop?”
Jonah looked at him, picking and choosing from several different responses, none of which seemed right. “Yes, sir.”
“Then I come home and find out that not only did you not steer clear of her, you hired her, spent the night here, and…and…”
“That’s all, sir. Nothing happened. I swear. I really like her and—”
He shut up when Marcel’s hand rose with the universal sign for stop or die.
Jonah sighed and straightened his spine, which apparently turned into cooked spaghetti around this man. And that really wasn’t a good look, so he stood a little straighter.
“Can I be honest, Chef? Nothing happened. We were exhausted. The storm took everything we had. We sat on her bed because Atlas had finally gone to sleep and there was nowhere else to sit, and we crashed, fully clothed, both of us, and that is the entire story of how you found us.”
“But you were here.”
“Because she said she’d be alone and…” Did that make Marcel look bad? “I thought it was smart to…”