Page 26 of Under One Roof

“It’s good.”

Clara and Marianne both wait for more.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s good. It’s fine,” Clara parrots with an eye roll. “I thought there would be more to say than that. Or, I don’t know…” She shrugs theatrically. “Maybe, thank you so much, Clara and Marianne, for finding the perfect nanny for my kids.”

I repeat her words flatly. “Thank you so much, Clara and Marianne, for finding the perfect nanny for my kids.”

“And you?” she urges, curling her hands. Clara’s a huge gossip. “Do you like her?”

I play off her question, skating my gaze out to the windows, looking toward Aster Street. “Yeah, she’s great.”

Taryn, the goddamn traitor, speaks up. “Don’t try to hide it. You brought her to my B&B and paid for her room.”

Marianne whistles quietly, playacting at wonder, but she won’t be winning any awards any time soon.

Ian wrenches his head back. “You didn’t tell me that.”

I don’t tell my siblings much of anything, particularly about my personal life. “Why would I tell you that?”

“Because you made it seem like she was just a stranger you were helping out.”

“She was a stranger I was just helping out,” I say, and Ian shakes his head at me then looks to Taryn, Clara, and Marianne, in turn.

“How many of you have rescued someone from the side of the road, paid for a hotel, and then hired them to be your nanny?” When none of them answers, my brother raises his brow to me as if it proves a point. It doesn’t prove anything besides he’s an asshole.

And, yes, I rescued Andi from the side of the road and made sure she was safe with a roof over her head before I knew anything about her, but our mother always said, “When you can be anything, be kind.”

“I was just being fucking kind,” I say, earning smirks and snickers from everyone. If they ever found out I’d paid for her car to be fixed, I’d be boxed even more into a corner.

As it is now, I don’t have much of a leg to stand on. Nothing to say in self-defense.

“We thought she’d be good for you,” Marianne tells me, and her wife winks.

“Real good for you.”

I scowl at her. “Stop trying to set people up.”

She smiles like she’s cute. “Never. It’s my life’s calling.”

“To get into everyone’s business?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest.

Clara pokes my shoulder. “I will have you know I have an intuition about these things.”

At that, Marianne rolls her eyes. “That what your horoscope told you this morning?”

“No.” Clara wraps her arm around Marianne’s waist. “But, heads up, Jupiter and Uranus will be in alignment next week. This only happens every fourteen years, so it’ll be huge.”

Marianne huffs and takes Clara’s hand. “All right, enough of cosmic energies. We have to get back.”

Clara lets herself be marched away, smiling as she tells us, “It’ll be a new cycle for creativity or rebellion!”

“Hear that?” Ian squeezes my shoulder. “It’s rebellion time for you, Cap.”

I rake a hand through my hair. “Doubt it.”

Taryn studies me with her dark eyes, the same ones we all share.

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