Chapter 10
NETTIE
“All right, let’s gather around,” Nettie encouraged happily, gathering the children around her on the playground.
It was cool and breezy out, but the sun was shining down on them, taking some of the nip out of the air.
She loved days like this, where it was warm enough to be comfortable but just cool enough to require a light jacket or a sweater.
Ruddy faces, pink little noses, and the excitement and wonder of the world that seemed to wear out the children, making them take a nap, which she loved.
That blessed forty-five-minute nap was everything. It gave her time to read, time to knit on a project, time to work a crossword puzzle, or find a recipe on Pinterest. And right now, she wanted to forget everything and lose herself in a book because reality sucked.
Reality involved a nightmare she thought she once left behind. A growling, bitter, dangerously sexy man who’d tossed her fragile heart aside like it was nothing, and now she was having to face the demons of her past with what felt like a much too often occurrence.
“Hey…”
Nettie jumped nearly three feet in the air, spun around, grabbed the fence to catch herself, and felt large warm hands steadying her.
“Sheesh, are you always so freakin’ clumsy?” he muttered tightly.
“Only when an ogre sneaks up behind me,” she clapped back and looked around warily. “What are you doing here? Is Gina with you? I’m at work and…”
“Does Gina have to be with me for me to stop by?” he said caustically, glaring at her. “I’m an adult – and frankly – so are you.”
“But they are not,” she hissed, waving a hand at the children who were playing and ignoring the surprise visit from a stranger.
Yeah, they would need to talk about ‘stranger-danger’ and getting a teacher if they saw someone standing at the fence.
“This is a daycare, my work, and you don’t have a reason to be here, Tate. ”
“No – I guess I don’t,” he grumbled, frowning hotly. “I guess this was a stupid idea then.”
“What?”
Here, little fishy-fishy - open your mouth for the barbed hook…
Nettie almost winced at the voice singing the taunt at her mentally. He crooked his finger, and she just came running along like a dog with an IQ of ten… you know, the kind that would sniff his own…
“Are you even listening?” Tate snapped angrily, frowning even harder at her. “I was talking to you and…”
“Do you have to bite my head off all the time?”
“This was a mistake,” he muttered under his breath, looking away.
“Probably.”
“I swear, I don’t even know why I bother…”
“Why do you bother – because for the life of me, I don’t know why either… and what’s in the box?”
“I was trying to tell you that, and you got some weird look on your face, while staring off into space. Has anyone checked you for narcolepsy or ADHD?”
Her mouth dropped open in shock at his rude comment before she recovered. He was standing there with this mutinous glare at her that just grated her nerves. Why on earth was he so, so… annoying!
“You’re a piece of work – you know that?
” she hissed angrily, shoving a finger into his chest hotly.
“Just because you are here doesn’t mean the world suddenly begins revolving around you, Tate Cassidy.
Newsflash – it doesn’t. Thought I’d toss that out there in case there were any mistakes or you needed clarification on that hard fact. ”
“Hard fact, huh?” he scoffed, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Yes.”
“No wonder you and my sister get along – you’re both annoying,” he said mulishly – and yanked up a box, putting it over the chain-link fence without another word, walking off.
“Tate!” Nettie began, hesitating before hollering his name again as he moved to get into a big SUV with deeply tinted windows. How many vehicles did this infernal man have? Sheesh! “Tate! Come get your stuff!”
He didn’t even look back at her.
He simply raised a hand as if to signal ‘bye’ like this was any normal day in small town Suburbia – not between two people who barely acknowledged each other after a bout of hurt feelings. Well, if he thought she was going to chase after him, he was completely wrong.
She would never chase Tate Cassidy again.
“Not in this lifetime – or the next one,” she muttered hotly and grabbed a flap on the box, expecting it to be filled with… “Dogs?”
She picked up one of the gray stuffed animals – and started.
They were coyotes wearing hockey jerseys.
He brought the daycare – her – a box full of stuffed animals to hand out to the children.
She looked up from the stuffed animal in her hand, completely speechless, and stared after the dark SUV that was pulling out of the parking lot.
“Miss Nettie! Can I have a doggie?”
“I want a doggie!”
“I’ve been good…”
“No, you haven’t. You were picking your nose…”
“You shut up…”
“No, you shut up…”
“Everyone hush!” Nettie exclaimed in shock, dismay, and a massive dose of wonder at what was going through Tate’s head for him to do something like this, something so out of the ordinary.
No one asked him to, no one mentioned it, she meant nothing to him – so why in the world would he do something so… sweet.
Turning back to the children, she spoke again.
“Nobody is picking their nose. No one is telling another person to ‘shut up’, and before we hand out the doggies, we are going to count them to make sure there are enough to go around. I don’t want anyone fighting or nobody is getting a doggie – do you understand me?”
A crowd of anxious children was gathering around her, and she was starting to grow alarmed at the thought of there not being enough animals in the box.
If that were the case, there would be crocodile tears, tons of boo-hooing, nostrils full of snot bubbles, and other things that would make her shiver in disgust.
And it would be Tate’s fault.
“Let’s count them,” she began, holding them up one at a time and setting them in the grass for the children to see. They needed to draw the conclusion, work on their numbers, and she couldn’t be the ‘bad-guy’ all the time. “One. Two. Three…”
A couple of minutes later, she stood there stunned.
There were ten children in the yard with her, and eleven stuffed Coyotes.
Had he done this on purpose? Had he taken a moment to count the heads in the yard to make sure no one was without?
What kind of man did that? And if he did, had he made sure that she got to take one home with her? Was that why there was one extra?
Hesitating, she looked over her shoulder toward the road where he’d left, and wished that their conversation had gone much, much differently.