Page 49 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
“I’m Red Chief!” she shouts. “I double dog dare you to climb after me!” Where had she gotten that expression?
Then I say to James, “Even after living in the penthouse, I don’t think I realized just how much power money can have.”
“It isn’t just money,” James reproves. “It’s also Charles. When he speaks, mountains move. The rest of us would probably have had to wait a year before that thing went up. Yet six weeks after moving in, here we are with solid communication and a viable community. Small, but viable.”
“A bedroom community,” Kate says. “We have everything a housing tract needs, but people here either work for Charles, drive into surrounding towns, or they are retired.”
“Are you sorry to be working for Charles?” James asks. “Iwon’t ever forgive myself if looking after Cece makes you unhappy.”
I shake my head. Memories of playing Scrabble late into the night, losing my virginity because I didn’t want to die without knowing how… how…That… felt before I died. Sweet evenings here in our little house, sitting out on the back porch watching Cece and Gidget chasing fireflies. How can I be sorry? Then I realize that shaking my head is only shaking the phone.
“No regrets for that. But I can’t wonder what might happen when all this is over and the world goes back to normal.”
“I’d say it’s likely you will still have a job looking after Cece. They both like you, and it isn’t easy to find a nanny or a ‘household manager’ that fits into a household.”
“And I . . . am very fond of them.” For a moment I try to imagine a world without Charles, and Cece, of course. I sigh, sit down on the back steps, place one elbow on a knee and rest my forehead in my palm.
“But . . .?” James prompts.
“I’m tired,” I admit. “I’m not sure why, but keeping this place up is a lot harder than playing house in the penthouse.”
“There is yardwork,” James teases.
I deliberately make an angry face into the phone’s camera. “It’s a pocket handkerchief,” I say. “And we converted the front lawn into a decorative vegetable garden using potted plants, so yardwork is minimal. I think I’m just lonely. Charles is gone most of the day. Much as I love Cece, conversation with a four-year-old is somewhat limited.”
“She’s a very bright four-year-old who will soon be five,” James points out.
“Yes, she is,” I agree. “Sometimes, frighteningly so. We had a wonderfully intellectual discussion about lady bird beetles, good bugs and bad bugs, today. I said that ladybugs weregood bugs. She seemed to think about it for a minute, then she remarked that the aphids probably didn’t think so.”
James laughs. “Situational ethics before she’s even in kindergarten?”
“You have no idea.”
“Say, I talked a little bit with Charles. He’s worried about you. Says you’ve gotten real quiet. How would you feel about having Grace Weber come visit? It shouldn’t take much to get security clearance for her, and I think Charles might even agree to hiring her to help out around the house.”
I narrow my eyes at the phone. “Why are you suddenly being so helpful? How do you know Grace?”
“Oh, I, uh…” James fumbles, trying to find an answer.
“Do I hear an ulterior motive?”
James clears his throat. I know that throat clearing. It means I’ve caught him, now all that remains is to determine whether I need to tell on him or not.
“James! Have you been sparking my roommate?”
James blushes such a bright red I can see it on the video connection. I knew I’d hit pay dirt. “I…uh…yeah.”
I shake my finger at the phone. “And is that one reason you wanted to get me out of the house? So you wouldn’t have a chaperone?”
“Um…maaaybe.” He draws the word out, turning even redder. If this keeps up, the whole screen will turn red and the phone will catch fire.
“James!!!!” I nearly shout his name.
“Aw, Katie, don’t yell at me, please. It’s not been easy. First, Grace’s parents wouldn’t hardly let her, her sisters, or her cousins out of the house. Then, when things started to loosen up, it was green bean harvest time and then it was watermelon time, and they needed someone to take care of the farmer’s market booth . . . and . . .”
“In short,” I snigger, “As the old song goes, ‘you never seeGracie alone.’” I give the words the singsong cadence of the Irvin Aaronson classic. “There was her father, her mother …”
“All right, all right,” James concedes. “But I still need your help. If she’s visiting you, I might at least get a chance to say hello without a dozen family members breathing down my neck.”
