Chapter 2
TWO
austin
ONE DAY EARLIER
They say blood is thicker than water, and I’ve always believed it to be true.
Right up until this morning.
“A dig?” I stared at my sister, who’d just announced she could no longer nanny for me this summer. “Are you serious?”
“It’s a very important dig!” Mabel protested, her eyes wide and serious behind her glasses.
“What exactly are you abandoning me to dig for?” I stacked the kids’ cereal bowls and grabbed their juice cups with one hand.
“We never know—that’s what makes it exciting!” Mabel followed me from the kitchen table to the sink. “They’ve found all kinds of things at this site. Bones, stoneware, coins, other artifacts. This dig could really help us understand early life in the colonies!”
I frowned as I rinsed everything and loaded the dishwasher. “I don’t think you understand my current life as a single father with seven-year-old twins.”
“I do, Austin,” Mabel insisted. “And I’m sorry to leave you high and dry. But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I am not throwing away my—shot!” She struck a dramatic pose, trigger finger pointing at the ceiling.
“Please. No more Hamilton. That will be the one good thing about having you gone—I won’t have to listen to that soundtrack every day.” I glared at her over one shoulder. “But couldn’t you have told me about this sooner?”
“I’m sorreeeeee.” Mabel laced her fingers and rested her chin on her knuckles. “It was a last-minute offer, and I was lucky to get it. Please don’t be mad—this could help me get into a more prestigious PhD program. It’s a dream for me.”
“I’m not mad,” I muttered. In fact, I was happy she was able to chase her academic dreams all the way to the finish line.
Of the five Buckley siblings, Mabel was the brainy one—she’d worked her ass off in school, earned tons of scholarships, and she deserved every accolade she’d ever gotten.
It wasn’t her fault my life had taken a sharp turn after our uncle died, leaving our dad without a business partner, or hit a major fork in the road when I unexpectedly discovered I was going to be a father of two at age twenty-five.
“Because if you’re really mad, I can say no and stick around here this summer,” Mabel went on solemnly. “I promised I’d help you out, and you know how much I love the kids. Plus, if you keep making that face, all those lines in your forehead might stay there.”
I rolled my eyes, although I did try to relax my face a little. “I’d never make you stick around here for my sake. You need to go.”
“Thank you!” She threw her arms around me, pinning my arms to my sides and pressing her cheek against my back. “I’ll totally help you find a replacement nanny before I leave!”
“Mabel, it’s Friday. You said you had to be in Virginia on Sunday.”
“It’s Friday morning. That gives me practically two full days! I’m sure I can fit it in. You know I have a sixth sense about people.”
“And it’s June already. There are Help Wanted signs all over town.
Anyone qualified already has a summer job.
” I started the dishwasher, wiped the counter where someone had spilled milk pouring their cereal (probably Owen, since Adelaide was a neat freak like me), and checked the chore charts on the fridge to make sure the kids were keeping up with the week’s responsibilities.
Adelaide’s X’s fit perfectly inside each box—not a single one missing.
Owen’s chart had a couple blanks, and he marked each completed task with different things, sometimes a sticker, sometimes a smiley face, sometimes a funny-looking shape I knew was supposed to be a guitar, which he was saving up for.
“Not necessarily.” Mabel trailed me to the front of the house. “There must be someone still looking for work.”
“Someone with childcare experience?” I checked my watch and yelled up the stairs to the kids that they had precisely five minutes until departure.
“Definitely.”
“Who can cook?”
“For sure.”
“With their own transportation?” I checked their backpacks to make sure they had everything they needed for camp—bathing suits, towels, sunscreen, goggles, flip flops, lunches.
“Of course.”
“That the kids will like?” Owen’s towel from yesterday was still wadded up in his bag, damp and reeking of chlorine, and I yanked it out.
“I mean, not as much as they like me . . .” she joked.
“And no criminal record?”
“Now you’re just being picky.” She met my dirty look with a cheeky grin. “You know, if you’d just be honest with Dad about wanting to quit Two Buckleys and make furniture, you wouldn’t need a full-time nanny. You could work from home.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would break Dad’s heart. His father and grandfather started that business in 1945. He and his brother ran it for forty years. When Uncle Harry died—”
“I know the story,” Mabel cut in. “I know you gave up going to college for him.”
“That wasn’t my point. College wasn’t that big a deal to me anyway. I don’t even know what I’d have studied,” I said. Architecture, I thought. “And I never had grades like you. I probably would have flunked out.”
“Bullshit.” Mabel’s tone was fierce. “I mean, none of you guys had grades like me, but in your case, I think it was because you were always working. School wasn’t your priority.”
“Dad was raising five kids on his own,” I said. “I wanted to help out.”
“You did help out, Austin.” Mabel’s voice softened, and she reached out to squeeze my forearm. “I’m pretty sure my kindergarten friends thought you were my dad because you were always there waiting for me after school.”
I cocked one brow. “I was fifteen.”
“Exactly. That was a long time ago.” Her voice grew stronger as she lectured me. “Dad is sixty-five now, with a heart condition and bad hips. He can’t work forever. When he retires, are you going to keep his business alive just to make him happy instead of doing what you love?”
“Doing what I love wouldn’t support us,” I said, evading the question. “Not for a while, anyway. I’ve got bills to pay, and I want the kids to be able to attend summer camps and play sports. Adelaide is talking about sailing lessons. Owen wants a guitar.”
Sighing, she snatched the towel from my hands. “Here, I’ll put this in the wash. You grab a clean one.”
While she went down to the basement, I hustled upstairs and pulled a clean towel from the hall closet, double checking that it said Buckley on the tag so it wouldn’t get lost. Adelaide was just coming out of her room.
“Did you make your bed?” I asked her, although it wasn’t necessary. Adelaide always made her bed.
“Yes,” she said. “Do I have time for Aunt Mabel to braid my hair?”
“If you hurry.” I tipped up her chin and looked at her pink, freckled nose. “More sunscreen today, please. And you should probably wear a hat.”
“Okay.” She took off down the stairs and I poked my head into her room.
Bed made, light off, pajamas put away. A glance into her brother’s room revealed the opposite—comforter hanging off the bed, pajamas on the floor, drawer open, light on.
After tossing his Captain America PJ’s into the hamper—he’d spilled juice on them this morning—I shook my head, switched off the light, and went into my bedroom across the hall.
Moving fast, I yanked up the covers on the only side of the king-sized bed that got used.
I wasn’t even sure why I’d bought such a big bed when we moved into this house two years ago—I’d been sleeping alone since the twins were born.
Not that I’d been totally celibate for seven years, but I could definitely count the times I’d had sex on one hand.
And it wouldn’t even take all my fingers.
For a moment I studied my hands, wide and rough and callused, the knuckles a little swollen, my fingernails trimmed but the cuticles raggedy.
I had a cut across the back of my left hand from where I’d scraped it on a nail sticking out of an old deck board yesterday, and a blister had formed on my right thumb, thanks to a hole in my gloves.
They were a working man’s hands, and I couldn’t even remember the last time they’d moved across soft feminine skin, or slid into long silky hair, or grabbed onto a curvy pair of hips.
Was that part of my life over for good? Most days I was so busy, I didn’t even have time to miss it. But every now and then, after the lights were off and the house was dark and silent, I lay alone in my bed and wished I had someone to make a little noise with.
Not that there hadn’t been offers over the years, both overt and subtle.
But I didn’t date. For one thing, I had no time.
Aside from the week the twins spent with their mother out in California each summer, they were my responsibility twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And a good father puts his kids first.
Owen was still in the bathroom he shared with his sister, brushing his teeth. “You about ready, bud?” I asked.
“The lady said I had to brush for two full minutes,” he said.
“What lady?” Tucking the towel under my arm, I put the cap back on the toothpaste.
“The lady at the dentist.” He rinsed his toothbrush and whacked it a few times on the edge of the sink before placing it back in the holder.
“That’s the hygienist. And she also said to floss every day, but I don’t see you doing that.” I frowned at his messy brown hair. “Good thing you guys have haircuts today. Did you brush this mop yet?”
“No.”
I exhaled and grabbed the hairbrush from the top drawer, giving his thick waves a once-through. Leaning closer, I examined his head. “Is that peanut butter?”
“Maybe.” Owen was unconcerned. “I had it with my banana this morning. Aunt Mabel said I needed some protein so I could get big muscles. Is it true that peanut butter gives you muscles?”
“Sure. If you eat it, instead of smearing it in your hair.” I did the best I could to get it out, then gave up. “Come on, let’s go.”