Chapter 22
Greyson has removed James from the group chat.
Me: I need some advice, but I swear to god if you fuck with me, I’ll make your life hell.
Reid: Good morning to you too, Grey.
Connor: Coming in hot first thing in the morning, damn.
Me: Never mind.
Connor: Why’d you remove James from the thread?
Me: Because he’s a worse gossip than any of the women.
Reid: Fact.
Connor: Come on Grey, you can talk to us.
Me: How did you know you were falling in love?
Reid: Wasn’t expecting that.
Connor: Is this a hypothetical or are you catching feelings for Mia?
Reid: I’m not trying to gossip like James, but I’ve overheard the girls, and I don’t think it’s hypothetical.
Me: …
Connor: Definitely not hypothetical.
Connor: I fell for Delilah over like fifteen years, so I can’t pinpoint the moment I knew. But I can tell you what being in love feels like, at least for me.
Me: Yea, okay.
Connor: It’s when they’re the first person you think about when you wake up.
The person you want to tell when you have good news or bad news.
When you think about your day, or any day in the future, they’re there.
When your primary purpose becomes making them happy and keeping them safe.
You can be your full self, the version you’re supposed to be.
But you always want to be better for them.
It’s a cliché for a reason, but being in love is when you can’t live without them.
Me: Reid?
Reid: Hayes is dead on. Falling in love with Isabelle was fucking torture at the time.
My chest hurt when I was with her and hurt even worse when I was away from her.
She consumed my every waking thought, and most of my sleep.
My mouth was shredded from biting my tongue not to say something stupid, or my inner cheek when I had to refrain from touching her.
Now, she feels like home. Isabelle’s my comfort, my joy, my purpose.
Connor: Everything Reid said, 100%.
Greyson: …
Greyson: Fuck.
Cecelia’s invited the girls to bake cookies and have a slumber part. If that’s okay, I was planning on making chicken parmesan and using the last jar of peaches for cobbler. Singles Inferno marathon?
xo
Mia’s note burns a hole in my pocket. We’ve had lunch together nearly every day since the first of the year. But today, she had plans at the ranch and I was on my own to microwave the delicious leftovers she prepped for me.
I scarfed it down, burnt the roof of my mouth even, because the loneliness was closing in on me. I reopened the store after twenty minutes instead of my normal hour break.
I’m a straightforward, confident man. But around this young woman, I’m a bumbling idiot. Each day she’s home, plating lunch for the two of us, I thank past-Greyson for having the balls to question her about the lunchtime absences.
I’m thirty fucking seven, pining after my twenty-five-year-old nanny—who’s navigating life as a single parent, and healing from god knows how much trauma from the man she’s still married to. What have I gotten myself into?
Why don’t hearts listen to logic and reason? It’s bullshit if you ask me. My world’s precariously tilted on its axis by a woman far too good for me, and the organ in my chest won’t let me level out.
I press my fingers painfully into my thigh to alleviate the heat generated by Mia’s note. A night alone is a miracle for a single parent, let alone for two living under one roof.
I involuntarily crack my neck at the intrusive thought of licking Mia’s peach cobbler from the hollow of her throat.
I’ve been procrastinating like a moron. What kind of man delays time alone with a beautiful woman? The kind who’s never had feelings for a woman in his life and is terrified of fucking it up.
I close down the store, and as slowly as I trudge, you’d think I was walking to my death. Each stair my boot hits, my heart pounds harder. I’m going to have a heart attack before I get in the door, and I’ll miss having Mia’s chicken parmesan and peach cobbler as my dying meal.
Pulling my balls from wherever they’ve been hiding, I enter my own goddamn house, pretending I’m not a nervous wreck.
“Perfect timing,” Mia chirps from the kitchen.
Her golden waves are braided down her back, pieces amiss from how hard I know she’s been working on dinner.
A white, oversized crop top hangs off one shoulder, light purple yoga pants covering her legs, and white tube socks pulled up haphazardly.
She’s stunning.
“The cobbler’s setting up nicely and I just pulled the chicken parmesan from the broiler. I know you like the cheese extra bubbly.”
That. Things like that right there are why this woman is extraordinary.
A gulp bulges my throat because I’m socially inept and can’t respond appropriately. Instead, I dance around her in the kitchen to set the table. Mia likes to have all the serving dishes in the center of the table family-style, so I lay out hot pads for her.
“I got the beer you like. You were almost out.” She dips into the fridge for something.
“While I was there, I grabbed some sparkling wine.” Her cheeks flush the prettiest pink, holding the bottle out like a prize.
Does she see tonight as a date?
Fuck if I won’t take her out for a real date. If that’s something she wants.
The steaming-hot dishes are on the table and Mia’s on her tip-toes trying to reach the wine glasses from the top shelf of the drinkware cabinet.
Reaching higher than her fingertips extend, her shirt rises dangerously high up her back. I’m going to hell, because instead of jumping to help her, I fold my arms across my chest and admire her ass.
Her slender waist would fit perfectly encircled by my hands.
My fingers ache to dust across the soft skin stretched over her ribs, arms extended overhead—but instead of in my kitchen, she’d be splayed beneath me, chest heaving, her wrists locked in one hand, while the other explored every dip and curve.
My feet are moving before I make a conscious decision to help her.
Her sharp intake of breath presses her back into my chest as I loom behind her. I cage her in with my arms, one braced on the counter next to her hip and one reaching to get the wine glasses. Her body presses against mine as she lowers to flat feet.
With the glasses in front of her, I slide the bottle of sparkling wine closer and open it with her wrapped in my arms. One by one, Mia holds a wine glass steady so I can fill it with the crisp bubbles.
I carry the glasses in one hand, and the bottle in the other, to the table and pull out her chair. The look of surprise on her still-flushed face slicks my gut with shame.
Not once since I’ve met her have I pulled a chair out for Mia. I open or close a car door for her on occasion. I’m a man, and I treat my woman with adoration and respect. But Mia hasn’t been my woman.
She’s been the all-too forbidden nanny haunting my dreams.
Pushing in her chair, I take a seat in the one right beside her, instead of across the table in my usual spot.
Most family meals, Mia stands to fill everyone’s plates before her own and doesn’t sit until everyone’s taken care of.
Not tonight.
I dish her up before loading my plate with cheesy goodness.
“Thank you for cooking, it looks incredible, as always,” I praise.
“You’re welcome.” She tucks a stray curl behind her ear.
“What made you want to put in all this work for me? You should’ve taken your rare child-free night for yourself.” I grin, cutting into the perfectly cooked chicken, the first bite catapulting me to hog heaven.
“What if this is exactly how I wanted to spend my rare child-free night? Having a quiet dinner with you.” Her blue eyes glint as they flash to mine, and quickly away.
“You’ll never catch me complainin’ about my favorite meal, homecooked by the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
“Oh.” Her breathy surprise rounds her plump lips into a circle I want to do despicable things to.
“Lucky for me, this is exactly how I wanted to spend my kid-less night.”
“Lucky,” she parrots, adorably flustered.
I hold up my wine glass for a toast, she raises hers to match.
“Cheers.” We clink our glasses, and the smile in her eyes lights my soul.
We eat in comfortable silence—the meal perfectly topped off with a steaming spoonful of peach cobbler.
I don’t know what I did in a past life to deserve this woman, but I’ll spend the rest of this life making sure I do.
We settle into the couch, and I’m smug she chooses to sit directly beside me.
“Am I right that Miss Harper has a very important birthday coming up?”
“She does. The big one-oh. Ten years old.” I rub at my overly long five o’clock shadow. “It’s cliché, but it feels like I held her for the first time, yesterday.”
“I know. I get super emotional around Everly’s birthday. I mean, I never show her my tears, and Carter had no patience for crying.” Her light dims, but she feigns recovery quickly.
“Do you have anything planned for her birthday?” she asks.
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but I typically hand the reins over to Liv and she makes magic.” I shrug.
“Would she be horribly offended if Everly and I planned Harper’s party this year?”
I don’t respond right away, too taken aback by her offer.
Mia’s taken Harper under her wing like a mama-bird since day one.
Liv, Izzy, and Delilah are great role models for my daughter, and Cecelia’s been the best mother-figure I could ask for.
But there’s something special that’s growing between Mia and Harper, with Everly in the middle of the love-fest.
“She can get over it. Harper would lose her mind if you and Everly planned her birthday party.”
Mia’s visibly relieved, her body settling into the comfort of an evening on the couch.
“Wanna watch Singles Inferno?” she asks, reaching across my body, her breasts brushing my arm as she snatches the remote.
I’ve never been able to say no to this woman and tonight won’t be when I start.
It’s a risk, but I stretch my arm over the back of the couch, and she settles right into my side just like on New Years Eve.
She queues up the show and I couldn’t tell you a single damn thing that happens on the screen over the next few hours.
I’m too busy allowing the fact that I’ve fallen in love with Mia sink deep into my bones.
“Daddy! Did you see there’s a REAL UNICORN outside. Did you see? Come see!”
Harper drags me out of the main house at Lucky Spurs Ranch with more strength than I thought her little body possessed.
Sure as shit, Reid’s Palomino mare has tinsel braided into her mane and tail, and a unicorn horn somehow attached between her ears.
Harper bounds over to the “magical” creature where Delilah hands her special treats to feed the beast.
Mia outdid herself.
When she volunteered to plan Harper’s tenth birthday party, I knew she’d do something great. She’s an amazing mom, she pays attention to people’s preferences and has a heart of gold.
But what she did is beyond compare. Then den’s decked out like a dance club, complete with a miniature disco ball, and kid bops pumping from the sound system.
She invited all Harper’s friends from school as a drop-and-go—which for any parent who’s been stuck at far too many birthday parties, is a godsend.
Little girls run amok between the dance club, the fairy garden Mia painstakingly crafted on the patio beneath strings of twinkling lights, and the kitchen packed with themed party foods.
But the cherry-on-top of the perfect ten-year-old girl birthday party, is the cake. I don’t know when she found the time, or that she possessed the skill, but Mia handmade a two-tier birthday cake, decorated to match the magical theme of the day.
“Mia’s incredible.” Liv loops her arm around my waist, pulling me in for a hug.
“She is.” I sling an arm over her shoulders and squeeze her so tight she lets me go with a playful punch in the gut.
“She loves your little girl,” Liv swoons.
“She does.” I peer out the window at my daughter’s joyfully riding a unicorn in the snow.
“You love her, don’t you.”
“I do.”
Admitting it out loud punctures the balloon of pressure that’s been suffocating me behind my ribs.
Mia’s devotion and sacrifice are unmatched. A mother who risked everything for a chance at a better life. A woman who walked through hell and rose from the ashes glowing with hope.
I’m hopelessly attracted to every shining facet of this diamond of a woman. I’ve never been in love before, but everything points to this being the real deal.
If this isn’t love, I’m terrified to know what is. Nothing could possibly be more consuming or more binding than how I feel for Mia.
“Did you have a good day, sweet pea?”
“I had the best day ever,” Harper says, droopy with sleep.
I tuck her favorite blanket around her, the same one she’s had since she was a baby—impossibly soft from being washed hundreds of times.
“You got some awesome presents.” I sweep the hair from her forehead.
“Everly gave me my favorite present.” In the chaos of paper being ripped, giftbags being thrown, and tissue paper covering the floor like snow, I can’t recall what gift she’s talking about.
“Yea? What did she give you?”
Harper’s eyes light up, threatening to derail bedtime so I smooth down her hair in a desperate attempt to keep her in sleep-mode.
“The crystal Sparkle Time unicorn I wanted!”
I looked high and low for that goddamn toy at Christmas. Over and over I was told it was sold out. Harper hasn’t mentioned wanting it since.
How in the hell did Mia get her hands on one?
Harper’s smile is serene, snuggling into her pillow.
“Daddy?”
“Yea?”
“I wish Mia was my mommy too.” Harper’s declaration cuts straight through me.
I’ll never regret being a single dad, but I can’t lie and say I don’t wish Harper had an involved mother.
“What do you mean, sweetie?”
“Mia is Everly’s mommy, and Everly loves her so much. If Mia was my mommy I would love her so much and you could be Everly’s daddy too.”
Leave it to kids to say exactly what’s on their mind. I know what I’ll be thinking about every waking moment from here forward.
“That’s a nice thought, Harp.”
Avoidance is my safest option tonight, so I kiss her forehead and wish her a good night.
Safe in the sanctuary of my bedroom, I replay Harper’s wish in my mind on repeat. The thing is…it doesn’t scare me. It emboldens me.
Because for as much as Harper wishes Mia was her mom, I need her to be my woman.
She already is. She just doesn’t know it yet.