Chapter 3
F**king Miracle
WALKER
Iwatch from behind the glass of the office, arms folded, unable to believe my eyes.
My shy, slow-to-trust kid is doubled over laughing, glasses sliding down his nose. Jonah doesn't laugh like that. Not anymore.
Not since the divorce, not since the move, not since he started struggling in school and realized other kids noticed. I hardly remember the last time I heard him laugh the way he is right now.
No, wait, I do. He was four years old and I was throwing him over my shoulder in the backyard of our Nashville house.
Back before everything came crashing down around us.
Back when I still thought I could hold that life, that marriage, that version of our family together through sheer force of will.
That was a long time ago.
And here he is, laughing like that again. Because of Sadie.
She's got him taking turns writing and drawing on a piece of paper, pointing to the book every once in a while until Jonah sounds out a word for her. Like it's a game.
Six high-priced private tutors back in Nashville. Six. Not one of them could get him to read without a meltdown.
She's done it in twenty minutes.
It's a fucking miracle. I wish it was bestowed by literally anyone else on earth.
“Told you she was great,” says a voice from behind me.
The director of the reading program comes up to the window to stand next to me. Janice or Jane? Shit, I need to start remembering names if I’m going to be living back in Marble Falls the rest of my life.
“The kids love her,” she continues. “She’s a doll.”
I grunt. Keep watching through the glass.
That gorgeous, infuriating girl I haven’t been able to forget, no matter how much I want to, is the same woman currently coaxing my closed-off, anxious kid into reading. Like it's the easiest thing in the world. Like she was born knowing how to reach people who've pulled themselves out of reach.
People like Jonah.
People like me, apparently, since I've been standing at this window for ten minutes when I should have already walked out of here.
I came here for a potential-nanny interview with what I thought would be a nice English teacher. Ideally, someone subdued and mousy who would blend into the wallpaper. Someone I could tune out.
Lo and behold, I am presented with her.
As if this process hasn’t been enough of a fucking challenge.
The nanny search has been a nightmare from the start.
There have been the ones whose eyes immediately go wide when they realize who I am and then fumble or simper their way through the interview.
The ones who laugh too hard at everything I say and touch my arm with that look in their eyes.
The ones who mention, casually, that they have a demo they've been working on.
The ones who look at me and see Walker Rhodes, Grammy winner and Stagecoach headliner and unwilling tabloid fodder, and have no idea there's a tired man behind it who just wants someone trustworthy to pick his kid up from school.
Thirty candidates in two weeks.
One sold a photo of my guest bathroom to a gossip site the second she walked out the door. God only knows why that picture would be interesting to anybody. One cried when she started telling me how my music changed her life. One asked me to sign her tits.
Being Walker Rhodes means every person who walks through my door wants something. My son is not a stepping stone to me.
Margaret, Jonah’s former nanny, was different.
Margaret was sixty three years old, battle-hardened by life, and completely unimpressed by me, which is exactly why I trusted her with my kid.
But she went back to Europe to be with her daughter who just had a baby, and finding another Margaret feels impossible.
Now Jane is pointing me toward a redheaded spitfire who already hates me.
And I don’t trust this girl either. Not if she’s reckless with her own safety.
Granted, maybe I overreacted a little bit. I’ve been swimming in that lake by myself. I know my brothers and sister have been swimming there alone too.
I never lost my shit on them for it.
But they’re known quantities. Strong swimmers.
This girl looks so delicate, even if her personality is not. The thought of something terrible happening to her disturbs me on a primal level I can’t explain.
She might have a smart mouth, but she’s young and vibrant and has all her best days ahead of her.
In other words, all the things I’m not and don’t have.
So it makes sense I’d be concerned for her. Angry that she’d put herself at risk and throw it all away.
And this is the woman who I’m gonna let take care of my child?
“You said she's reliable?” I ask.
“Punctual, follows through on her word, CPR trained, certified lifeguard.” Jane ticks them off on her fingers. “Four families who will give her glowing references, no question.”
I scrub a hand down my face. Well, shit. So she’s a strong swimmer too. Certified lifeguard.
There goes my last legitimate objection.
I still don’t like the thought of her in that lake by herself.
The honest truth, the one I'm not real eager to look at directly, is that my resistance has nothing to do with her competence. She's clearly gifted with kids. Jonah is proof of that, laughing his head off over something she's drawn in the margin of the paper.
My resistance is the fact that she's already gotten under my skin, and she hasn't even tried. Hasn't even noticed. She just waded out of that lake and looked at me like she could see right through me, and I felt that gaze like it burned.
It was more than enough to know I'm not as numb as I thought.
I do not need that energy in my house.
I do not need those blue eyes at my breakfast table. Her light voice ringing through my hallways. The scent of her every time I walk through a room she's just left.
This is a terrible idea.
Jonah laughs again. Head thrown back, glasses slightly askew, the way he used to before everything got so heavy.
I close my eyes briefly.
Damn it.