Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Luke
His six-year-old had more clarity than he did.
“Heaven?” Kylie choked out, genuine shock filling her face in a way that broke something in him, sinking him even deeper into grief. When people learned about Amber’s death, it always made him relive it a little.
Assuming Kylie already knew about it was a form of denial.
Looking to Luke for confirmation, Kylie caught his gaze, tears forming in her beautiful green eyes.
He nodded. Once.
“Oh, dear God, Luke.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “I had no idea.”
“I’m figuring that out just now.” Regret flooded his veins. So caught up in the mess with his babysitter, who was quitting with no notice, he hadn’t thought about how to bring Kylie up to speed on his life.
Then again, why would he?
She was a blip from his past, intersecting with his present for a fleetingly weird moment.
“Amber… how?”
“Car accident. I really thought you knew.”
“No.”
A million questions flew through him. Why had Kylie disappeared on social media? Why had her letters stopped coming? No emails, nothing back after she’d moved. It was like she cut Luview, Maine, out of her life forever when she left, and now suddenly she was back?
Stuck in a donation box at Deke’s?
And now in his home, absorbing the truth.
She walked up to him, close, and whispered, “I feel so insensitive. I kept asking Harriet about her mom.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.” She gripped his bare forearm with an intensity that was half apologetic, half determined, and one hundred percent Kylie. “It’s not. I should have been more delicate.”
“Can’t beat yourself up for what you don’t know.”
Kylie swallowed hard.
But she would. He could tell. It was Harriet’s tender feelings that Kylie was upset about, more than what she “should” have done, and that made Luke connect with her all the more.
Kylie leaned closer. “Then if that wasn’t a fight with Amber, who the heck was that on the phone?”
“The nanny. Nicole. She just quit.” Their whispered, confidential conversation gave him a thrill he wasn’t expecting, the closeness intoxicating.
“Quit?”
“Yep. Na?ve, nineteen-year-old kid who thinks she’ll be an actress someday. Said she’s on the road with this guy already, headed to Boston. And I have to be at work in–” he looked at the wall clock, “–twenty-two minutes.”
Pressed shirt required.
Ironing was the only thing he could do, but his finger still hurt from the burn. Ignoring the pain, he began pressing the shirt again.
“Oh, dear.”
“Right. My mom and dad are in Germany visiting Dennis, my sister’s working at the hospital, Kell’s in Los Angeles, and Jester isn’t exactly a licensed day care provider.”
As if on cue, Jester whined from the other side of the back door, nose pressed against the glass. Harriet got up and let him in while Luke finished ironing, then commanded, “Jester, SIT.”
The dog did.
“Thank you. Didn’t need his nose in my crotch again,” Kylie joked.
“Sorry about that. He knows better.” So do I, he thought, blinking hard at the intrusion.
What the heck was wrong with him?
“He’s a dog. It’s how they are.” She looked around the house, taking it all in, measuring something he couldn’t figure out. Shrugging into his now-unwrinkled uniform shirt, he buttoned up and began to undo his pants button to tuck in.
Hold up there, bud. No need for an audience.
Instead, he walked into the bedroom and straightened himself up, including straightening something that was making his pants a tighter fit. His body was responding to Kylie in ways he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time.
And it felt good.
Would feel much better if he didn’t have a busy work day, a meeting with a grumpy boss, a six-year-old who needed to be watched, and twenty minutes to find a solution.
By the time he walked back into the living room, Kylie was petting a very happy Jester, Harriet was munching on a small plate of cheese and apple slices, and the first girl he’d ever kissed gave him an evaluative look that made him do a double take.
“I’ll stay with her,” Kylie chirped. Yeah, chirped. She sounded like a freaking bluebird of happiness.
He stared at her. “You’ll what?”
“I’ll stay with her.”
“No. Thanks, but no way. You’re a stranger.”
“I’m Red Cross certified in CPR and first aid. I have a master’s degree in education and am a licensed teacher. And I’m not a stranger.” A blush formed on the tips of her ears as she looked up at him in a way that made Luke remember the past, a pier, a pretty girl, and a perfect moon.
He recalled that blushing-ear quirk from years ago. Kylie hadn’t changed one bit. The taste of her cinnamon gum from that kiss on the pier at camp made his mouth water.
“No. You’re not a stranger. But…Harriet doesn’t know you. And you’re not exactly trustworthy.”
“Excuse me?”
“You got stuck in a charity donation box on Thanksgiving night, Kylie. I have a right to question the executive functioning skills of someone who does that.”
“It was an accident! And you’ve got it all backwards, Luke. The fact that you found me in that donation box is a testament to my resourcefulness! Not a reason to question my abilities.”
His phone beeped with a reminder that he had to leave right now for work, to make it to the meeting with the chief on time.
“How so?” Crossing his arms over his chest, his forearm scraped against the bottom of his badge.
This felt exactly like those moments when people tried to talk themselves out of speeding tickets.
After being caught doing 92 in a 55 zone.
“I could have frozen to death. I found the safest way to stay warm and went for it.”
“You locked yourself out of your car after throwing your keys and phone in that bin. You literally had no other option. A rabid raccoon would have instinctively done the same thing.”
Her eye roll forced him to suppress a grin. “I could have walked to the nearest house.”
“That would have been a four-mile walk.”
“My point exactly! I made the most logical choice.” The grin on her face made it clear she thought she was winning this… whatever.
Whatever this conversation was.
Mentally scanning through his options, he realized the babysitter pickings really were slim.
Mom and Dad, and Kell were away.
Colleen was at work.
Kell was in L.A. with his girlfriend, Rachel, visiting her family for Thanksgiving.
Annabeth was always up for whatever Luke wanted, but he knew asking her to watch Harriet would be misinterpreted. He wasn't looking for a wife.
He just needed someone to keep his kid safe for a workday.
And Luke had already taken yesterday’s holiday off.
Today was Black Friday. That meant arrests over people fighting to get the newest television or gaming system at a discount. Cars in ditches because of tired drivers.
Disgruntled neighbors arguing over the outcome of football games or the leaves blown into their yards.
And Colleen’s hospital was about to have the Black Friday injury bump. Sleep-deprived consumers and packaged goods from overseas that used zip-ties requiring wire cutters to release products didn’t play well together.
His neighbor down the street, Mrs. Petrinelli, was good in a pinch, but she was in her 80s and couldn’t watch Harriet for the eight (fine… ten) hours he needed.
Kylie Hood was his best option.
Kylie Hood was his only option.
“I want Kylie!” Harriet piped up, using that tone Luke knew all too well.
Because she sounded just like Amber when she used it.
“See? Your child has great judgment.”
“Daddy interviews nannies before he hires them,” Harriet announced, reaching for a green glitter pen, uncapping it, and sniffing. “Don’t you need to interview Kylie?”
His phone buzzed. Another reminder. He had ten minutes to get to that meeting, and the drive was eight of those.
“One day,” he muttered.
“Ask her a question, Daddy! You asked Nicole a lot of questions.”
“Sweetie,” he said, bending down. “Nicole’s not coming back. She just quit.”
“Quit? Like, stopped?”
“Yes. Stopped being your nanny.”
“You told me quitting is bad! Like when I wanted to quit ballet.”
“It is bad.” Quitting was more nuanced than that, of course. This was the parenting a six-year-old version.
“So Nicole is bad?”
Luke was taken aback. “Well, I–”
“Go arrest her, Daddy!”
“Arrest her?”
“You arrest bad guys! If Nicole was bad, she needs to be arrested.”
Suppressing his inner groan was becoming an art form. He shuddered to imagine what arguments with Harriet would be like when she hit the teen years.
But part of him was quite proud. His kid wasn’t a doormat. And in a world where people would take advantage of each other with breathtaking, infuriating sociopathy at times, as he knew all too well from his job, he’d rather raise a headstrong daughter than one who was too “good.”
“You do have handcuffs if you need them,” Kylie pointed out, looking at his belt.
While he knew what she meant, the words out of her mouth made his blood heat up in ways that most certainly weren’t appropriate.
“Hah,” he grunted, turning away, willing his body to get itself under control.
“I mean it, Luke. This is how I make it up to you. You did me a huge favor last night. Now I can even the score.”
Of all the appeals she could make, this one would work, because she was right.
Also, it was the way things operated here in small-town Maine.
Everyone helped each other, but you also wanted to give others a chance to help.
Sometimes to save face, but mostly to balance it all out.
No one took more than they gave and felt good about it.
Not if they had a moral core.
“Fine,” he ground out. “Just for today. You deadbolt the house when you’re inside. Go anywhere you want that has sidewalks.”
“Sidewalks?”
“Sidewalks,” he said firmly. “Don’t break that rule.”
“Okay.” Questions swirled in those pretty eyes, but he didn’t have time to answer them.
“Can I drive her places?”
“Yes. There’s an extra car seat in the closet here. At least Nicole didn’t take it home with her before she bailed.”
“I know how to install them, so we’re good.”
“Just don’t lose your keys and phone while you’re out with her.”
Kylie stuck her tongue out at him. Harriet giggled and did the same.
Quickly, he scribbled the house keypad code down on a piece of paper, along with his cellphone, work number, Colleen’s number, and–
“What’s your number?” he asked, pulling out his phone.
She recited it. He texted her. It pinged.
“Good. Now we’ll never lose track of each other.”
The words were out of his mouth before he realized what he’d just said.
Kylie looked stricken.
Duty called, though, and his boss needed someone to yell at, so with a quick kiss on Harriet’s head and a hurried thank you, he was halfway out the door before Kylie rushed up to him.
“Luke!” She handed him a muffin.
“Thanks!” With a wave, he jogged to his car, climbed in, started it, and took a bite.
He groaned in sheer pleasure.
Backing out of the driveway, he wolfed the muffin down, dismayed to realize he had glitter on his thigh, streaking his red uniform pants.
Life could turn on a dime, couldn’t it? he thought to himself, marveling at the last twelve hours.
Wondering when his life had turned into a soap opera.
Minus the sex.