Frog by Mary Calmes (ebook reader android TXT) 📕

“On a trip?” Maybe I was missing something.

She shook her head.

But why would her husband go on a trip with the nanny if the kids were…? Oh. Got it. God, I really was tired if it took me that long to figure things out. “I’m sorry,” was all I could think of to say.

“Me too.”

I turned and looked at Cy, and he looked pained and mad and worried all at the same time.

“Weber.”

Looking back at her I saw how she was chewing her bottom lip.

“I would ask my parents to help me, but they live in Half Moon Bay, and Tristan has soccer and Judo and piano, and Micah has to see his therapist, and he has an art class.”

Why was she—

“And I didn’t make any arrangements for Pip because I thought I didn’t have to, but now his preschool is out for the holidays, and he still has a music class, and they all have gymnastics, and so now… now I’m screwed.”

I felt the weight of her stare.

“Unless I get some help.”

“Ma’am—”

“Lyn,” she corrected, eyes steady on me.

I shook my head.

“Weber,” she said, sucking in her breath. “I really need you.”

I studied her face and then smiled. “I’m not one to accept charity, Lyn. I thank you for your kind offer, but you don’t know me from—”

“My brother knows you,” she told me, interrupting. “And I see how you are with my boys firsthand, and I have never seen them take to anyone so fast, especially….” She opened her eyes wide before looking at Micah and then back to me. “I could drop them off every morning, and you can have my car, and I’d be here between five thirty and six every night to pick them up. I mean, starting Monday I’m in trouble. I don’t have the time to find someone I trust, and I can’t afford to not work, as I’m about to be a single mother.”

I stared at her.

“I just… need a break.” Her chin quivered. “I mean, I have the money. I could hire someone, some stranger, but these are my kids, you know? I could run to my parents or here to my brother or even to my older brother and my sister-in-law if they weren’t going out of town for the holidays”—she was rambling—“even though Rachel’s perfect and I’m not—but the fix would still end up being a stranger because they all work and my folks just live too damn far away!”

“Mom, you’re not supposed to use that word.”

“I know, Tris.” She took a breath, clearly willing herself to not break down. She closed her eyes a moment, and when she opened them, they were red but there were no tears.

Jesus, what the hell was I supposed to do?

“I don’t want to send them some place I don’t know or leave them with someone I don’t trust. Please.”

I turned to look at Cy.

“Don’t even look at me,” he grumbled. “For once you can’t accuse me of plotting. It’s not my fault that her piece of crap hus—”

“Don’t,” I cut him off, scowling. “We do not speak ill of people’s parents, ever.”

He huffed out a breath even as I felt his hand slide between my shoulder blades.

“Weber.”

I looked back at Carolyn.

“It’s only for two weeks, and then Tristan and Micah will both go back to school, and Pip’s preschool will reopen as well. I just need a temporary fix.”

“I wouldn’t feel right takin’ money from you for watchin’ your boys. It would be my pleasure to do so.”

“Yes, but it’s hard work.” She sighed. “It is. How does twenty-five hundred sound?”

“Like not enough.” Cy was indignant.

“That would be more than enough,” I told her. “And far too generous.”

“No,” she assured me. “Cy’s right. If you made twenty an hour and you have an eight hour day, then—”

“How ’bout a thousand and I won’t feel quite so crappy takin’ you up on your kind offer.”

“Oh, Weber, a thousand is—”

“I’ll do it for that and not a penny more.”

She gasped. “Really?” Suddenly she was verging on tears, but they were the good kind. “You will? You’ll watch the boys for me?”

“Yes, ma’am, it would be my pleasure.”

“Ohmygod, thank you!”

I turned to look at Cy. His fingers, which had been combing through the hair at the nape of my neck, had stilled as he held his breath. “Would that be all right if I stayed two weeks? Would you be okay with me bein’ here that long?”

He glared at me. “You have known for the past three years what I would really like, so don’t ask stupid questions like that.”

“Come here,” I said, taking his hand and walking him through the great room to the huge glass doors. They looked like giant wooden frames, and the first time I had seen them, I had been confused. But you pushed on one side, and it angled open like a giant window, nothing to slide.

He was staring up at me when I turned around to face him.

“I don’t know what you had planned, but that would put me here through Christmas, and I don’t want to cause any—”

“Just stay.” He nodded, smiling at me. “Please.”

I grabbed him and hugged him, burying my face in the side of his neck, pressing a kiss there as his hands fisted in my T-shirt.

“Okay,” he said, sucking in his breath. “Now come eat already before you pass out.”

I followed him back to the kitchen and ate standing up, the boys chattering at me as their mother looked on. Afterward, I had them help me wash the dishes, and they all formed a little assembly line. Carolyn told me I was an angel straight from heaven, and when I explained that I was actually from somewhere else, she laughed really hard.

I went into Cy’s bedroom to call Aidan’s brother in Alaska, and when he found out I wasn’t coming, I had never heard such surprise. Apparently, Aidan had spoken out of turn, and his brother had made no plans to hire me.