Page 28 of Nanny for the SEAL

Still, if I can’t tell Jasmine about this—who should know anyway since she could very well be getting her own calls soon—then who can I trust?

“Umm, I’m not sure if you heard,” my voice is octaves lower and barely above a whisper, so I force myself to toughen up and say, “Dad got out.”

A pin could drop, and you would hear it perfectly. I look down at my phone, making sure I didn’t lose the connection or have Jasmine hang up on me.

“He…he was released?” Jasmine’s light soprano voice trembles, the fear darkening it.

“Yeah.” I sigh, no longer pacing but slumping down against the wall until my ass hits the plush, carpeted floor. “He’s been…he’s been calling me. Harassing me on the phone. Has he…have you…”

“No. I haven’t heard anything.”

“Good, good. I, umm, well, you know I worry. If he finds your phone number…I don’t want him getting close to you.”

“Hey,” Jasmine soothes, and I can see the matching sympathetic grin she wears in my mind’s eyes, “I’m fine. Tom and Becky have taken great care of me. I…I love them, and the police and whoever those social workers were have done a lot to hide my location. That asshole isn’t coming to Texas.”

I swallow, closing my eyes as I let myself feel grateful that Jasmine isn’t in harm’s way. “He better not.”

There’s another brief silence, at least as far as the conversation goes. I can still hear Daisy shouting to her dolls in the background, making me smile, and it’s clear that Jasmine is in the dorm or cafeteria or something.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“In my room. I just have the door open. Here.” There’s a pause, and then I hear a chorus of female voices yelling hi before Jas gets back on the line. “Haha. They say hi, and they’re also even more of a reason for you to stop worrying. I’malwaysaround the girls. They’ve got my back.”

Smiling, I still feel a sting behind my eyes. I haven’t talked with Jasmine much since she started school, and not much before that, either.

Jas went into foster care. I didn’t. Jas went to Texas, a fact that I had to beg to learn, and I went to New York.

We’ve always been just a few notes off from singing the same melody.

And I want more for us than that.

“It’s good to hear your voice, Jas. I…miss you.”

I can’t hear anything for a moment aside from the random curses and laughter coming from Jasmine’s dorm.

“I miss you, too,” she says finally. “How’s work?”

Realization strikes, and a pang of guilt hits as I consider how I haven’t been particularly up front with Jasmine either.

“Oh, actually. I moved. I’m not in New York City anymore. I’m in Red Lodge.”

“Red Lodge? The fuck is that?”

I can’t help but laugh, and I stand up from the wall, wandering downstairs into the kitchen so that I can make Daisy’s lunch.

“It’s a mountain town in Montana.”

“Why on earth did you move to Montana?”

I hear shuffling as I reach into the cupboard and pull out a container of macaroni and cheese.

“To get away from Dad, clearly. He’s got my number. I…I worried he’d look me up or something.”

“Oh, Ivy. Seriously? That sucks. Why don’t you just call the police and tell them he’s harassing you?”

She has a fair point, and that’s still on the list, but I know that it’s going to take more than a few phone calls for the police to take this seriously.

“I plan to once I have enough evidence to put him away again. You know they won’t just come and arrest him for making a few calls.”

---