Chapter 15
Sutton
Me:
You need to eat something. Your blood sugar is low.
Alice Thompson – Nanny:
I’ve got it. I’m almost home
Me:
You did not just admit to texting and driving
Alice Thompson – Nanny:
You’re right. I didn’t
Stubble pricks my palm where I rub it across my cheek. I stare at the blinking blue cursor.
Me:
What’s your ETA
Alice Thompson — Nanny:
Five minutes
Five minutes. Which means she probably hasn’t left the school yet.
I pummel the urge to jump in my truck and head over there to make sure everything’s okay. If she’s feeling too low to drive, she might be waiting it out. Or asking someone to bring her some sugar.
That can’t be right. If she needed something that badly, she knows I’m right here.
She said she’d call if there was a problem.
The thought propels me off the couch and into my kitchen.
Sitting idly isn’t helping this restlessness.
I fling open the snack cabinet and peruse the options.
What is it I’ve seen her take when her sugar is low?
After retrieving an assortment of snacks, I dump them onto the kitchen table just as the door groans open.
If it weren’t for the poofy skirt around her hips, I wouldn’t be able to tell who’s entering my house. Ms. Thompson carries Nellie over her shoulder as if she weighs nothing more than a toddler. My daughter’s arms hang limp at her sides, swaying with every step.
My stomach drops to my toes.
“What’s wrong?” I bark, crossing the room in two strides.
“Shh. She fell asleep in the car.” At Ms. Thompson’s admonishing whisper, my heart slows. She pushes Nellie’s hair out of the way so she can see me. Her eyes warn of serious retribution if I awaken her charge.
“You shouldn’t be carrying her. I’d have come out to get her.”
“This was faster.”
I peel my sleeping girl from her nanny and tuck her head onto my own shoulder. The warm weight of her settles me the rest of the way. Without another word, I descend the stairs to her bedroom, change her into fresh pajamas, and cover her with her blanket all without waking her.
For a moment, I take in her stillness. The peace on her sleeping face.
The pink juice mustache and red mouth. The matted, tangled curls.
This night could have ended a hundred different ways, not all of them good.
I knew that when I let them go. I also feel it in my gut that there’s only one person to thank for taking care of my little girl.
Leaving the hall light on in case she wakes, I jog up the steps two at a time. The kitchen is empty, and the snacks on the table are untouched.
A nervous jolt tightens my gut.
I sweep them all in my arms and begin a search.
“Ms. Thompson?”
“I’m in here,” she calls back quietly from the living room.
As I round the corner, her head pops up from the couch, easing some of my increasing tension.
“These fucking shoes are killing me.” How she can see beyond the mass of tulle is beyond me. The dress seems to swallow her whole. She lifts one knee to her chest and fiddles with the dainty straps. “The buckles are so damn tiny.”
Depositing my armful of loot on the coffee table, I sit beside it. The wood creaks ominously beneath my ass.
“Did you eat anything on the way?”
“Not yet.”
I pull out my phone and open the CGM app. “You’re at 71.”
“I’ve got it. I had some juice before we left.”
Worry pulls the corners of my lips down. I glance at the numbers again. “You’re trending down.”
“Fuck!” She capitulates to the tiny straps.
I brush her hands away. “Your fingers are shaking. Let me help.”
She leans up on her elbows and sends me a glare, presumably at my demanding tone. “Can you grab my glucometer from the car?”
The question barely leaves her mouth before I’m out the door to retrieve her supplies. I wait patiently while she verifies her blood sugar.
She grimaces. “It’s 62.”
Finding her ankle buried in the mountain of lace, I encircle it and tug, bringing her foot to my thigh. Her skin is soft and warm beneath my fingertips. I have to fight to keep my palm still and not trace up the back of her calf. “Pick a snack.”
“Can you hand me the juice box and a pack of fruit snacks?”
“Anything else?” I ask as I hand them over, eyeing her as if she’s about to give me a real emergency to deal with.
“Not yet.” She unwraps the straw and stabs it into the metallic circle. In five seconds, she sucks the entire juice box flat, then tosses the empty packaging onto the table. “You’re staring.”
Her voice brings me back to my body, reminding me I’m still clutching her foot, and her heel is still on.
I quickly unhook the buckle and peel the shoe off.
It’s been so long since I’ve been with a woman that the simple act of removing her shoes affects me in ways I’d rather not think about. “Sorry.”
“Like my party trick, Officer Sunny?”
Avoiding her eyes, I pick up her other foot. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen someone suck something so vigorously.”
“That’s a damn shame.”
Only when I drop her second shoe on my hardwood floors do I realize what I said. What it sounded like. The unintentional innuendo sends blood rushing to my cheeks and to my dick. Both unseen in the cover of darkness.
She groans and wiggles her toes against the floor. For some reason, it irritates me.
“Not like that,” I snap.
Ms. Thompson just smirks at me from her spot on the couch.
“Give me a minute to stretch my toes, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“You just spent the past eight hours with my daughter, and your blood sugar is low. You can relax for a minute. I’m not going to kick you out of my house. I’d even offer you a drink, but I’m not sure how that works out with your…” I wave my hand in a circle, gesturing to her monitor and snacks.
“I’ll go easy and stick to the apple juice. Thanks, Officer.”
I retrieve a beer from the fridge for myself and sit on the opposite end of the couch.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” I ask, popping off the top and sending a mouthful back.
“Don’t go giving yourself any more gray hairs. This is all par for the course of a diabetic.”
I watch her fiddle with her phone. She drops it into her lap and tears open the fruit snacks with her teeth.
“When did you find out you had diabetes?”
“When I was seven.”
Just about Nellie’s age. I can’t imagine finding out my daughter has a lifelong condition right now or any time in the future.
“You were so young. Did your parents help you manage?”
Ms. Thompson adjusts herself off her elbows. She scoots into the corner of the couch, and her feet disappear somewhere beneath the tulle.
“My dad left when I was five. I don’t know what happened to him.
Just up and disappeared on a random Thursday like my brother and I meant nothing.
I never saw him again.” The end of her sentences sounds tight, like her throat refuses to give up the words.
She pauses and tosses a fruit snack in her mouth.
“But my mom helped at first. She relinquished the chore around the time I hit high school. She’d still keep my supplies and snacks stocked, but it was mostly my brother who looked out for me. ”
“You must be close.”
“We were close. Not anymore.”
“How come?”
A curious reflection crosses her face. Her top teeth sink into her lower lip. Releasing it, she says, “Because he faked his death, kidnapped my best friend’s kids, and almost killed them all when he crashed the car.”
Her words evoke a powerful memory so acute I swear I can smell the smoke.
It started with a police chase and ended with a little girl with tears on her cheeks and black smudged across her face that I dragged out of the back of the burning vehicle.
Silas, climbing into the same vehicle for her one-year-old brother stuck somewhere in the back, not knowing if he’d make it out but knowing he had to try.
Puzzle pieces I didn’t know I was missing click together.
“You’re Whitney’s sister-in-law?”
“Former sister-in-law.”
Another memory floats forward. “Have we met?”
Her brows snap together. “I don’t think so.”
But I’m already nodding as the picture becomes clear. Taking another drink, I point in her direction with my beer bottle. “We did. We met the next day. I went to Jack Powell’s that morning to check in, and you were in the kitchen.”
A flush rises to her cheeks, barely discernible in the low glow of the lamp. She lifts a bare, slim shoulder in a shrug. “I told you that you could put your cuffs on me.”
I scoff. “Yeah, you also said you stay out of trouble.”
She gives a hearty laugh. “That was years ago now. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Yet here I am.”
“Here you are,” I say softly, rolling the cold bottle between my hands. “You weren’t living in Fairview Valley back then. Did you just happen to be here when everything happened?”
She plucks at a piece of lace. “I jumped on the first plane out of Phoenix when I heard what he did.”
Damn. Her loyalty leaves me momentarily stunned. “I bet she appreciated you being there.”
“It was the least I could do since it was my brother and all.”
“That’s not it.”
“It’s not?”
I search her brown eyes. “I think it’s just you. You’re good at helping people.”
“Officer Sunny, are you complimenting me?”
My expression goes flat. “Do you want me to take it back?”
Her smile grows. “No. I think I’ll keep it tucked away for the next time you’re being a jerk.”
I run a hand over my hair. “Ah, yeah. I’m sorry about that. I’ll ease up. I’m not used to…” I point at her with my index finger, then back at myself. “Letting anyone in like this.”
“I know, Sutton. I figured that out the day we met.”
“Being a single dad is hard enough. Seeing all the shit I encounter daily doesn’t exactly encourage me to open up and trust the public. I’m used to keeping my circle small.”
“I’m tough. I can handle your cantankerous moods.”
I run my palms over my face. “Jesus, when you say it like that, I sound like I’m eighty years old.”