Page 21 of The Wedding Planner's Manny
This wasn't the first time he said this to me, but it still hurt.
Mostly because there was nothing I could do to change the situation or even his mind. I knew time would heal the wounds created in all of us by Laura's departure, but the scars would always be there, and I hated that. My children were too young for scars.
“Why don't we run you a bath and you can play with that new ducky we bought?” I asked Caleb, trying to distract him from thoughts of the mother who abandoned him.
“Okay.”
I exhaled and carefully set Caleb down. At least it looked like he wasn't throwing a tantrum tonight—
not that he did that often. At least not any more often than other children his age. He never had the temper or the hard head his brother had. “C'mon.” I took his hand. “Into the bathroom we go.”
“Bathroom!” Caleb cheered. He actually still liked bathing. I was going to make use of that for as long as it lasted. I wanted to make my kids happy, but the older they got, the more difficult it became to achieve. Life got hard when you stopped finding solace in chocolate chip cookies.
And that whole situation with Laura wasn't exactly making things easier. Ironically, the whole reason I'd married her at seventeen was so I could give my children something better than what I'd had growing up: a stable home life. My dad had kids from three different partners, all of whom he was constantly fighting with. I'd sworn to myself that should I ever have kids, they'd all have the same parents, living under the same roof and in harmony. And now here I was, a single dad, going through nannies and babysitters like other people went through underwear.
Maybe it was time to accept that my teenage dreams were simply that:dreams. Maybe Cynthia and Grandma were right when they said I needed to start dating again.
Or was that just me trying to justify my impossible attraction to my manny?
I thought of my grandmother again and the way she'd talked about pursuing that fire chief as if there was nothing weird about her crush. Was she just bolder than me? Was I going to be beaten by my own grandmother? If so, maybe she was right to question what sort of alpha I was.
But I was getting ahead of myself. I'd only met Rhys twice since he'd come back to Oceanport. There was no way for me to know if he was even interested in going on a totally inappropriate date with his employer.
“Daddy, I want bubbles,” Caleb said as we entered the bathroom, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“You can have all the bubbles you want.”Just so long as bubbles are enough to make you happy.
“Yay!” He let go of my hand, climbed into the bathtub and sat. I stopped him when he reached for the handle of the faucet.
“Easy, kiddo, you can't bathe in your clothes.”
“Why?”
I tapped his little nose. “Because you wouldn't get clean.”
“Oh.” Caleb made to take his sweater off and I helped him. “Cold!” he complained once his upper body was exposed.
“Well, it's almost winter, but you'll be warm in a minute.”
“Winter is stupid.”
I couldn't really fault him for thinking that way, but maybe I could still change his mind. “Winter is cold yes, but you know Christmas is in winter, right? You like Christmas, remember? Santa will come and you'll get presents!”
His face lit up. “I like Santa!”
“See? There you go.” I grinned at my son as he started rattling off a list of things he wanted Santa to bring him. It seemed for the moment I'd successfully distracted him from the fact that we had a new manny and that his motherstillwasn't coming back.
I knew that I wouldn't always be able to fall back on these tactics, and I wasn't sure how I was going to handle situations like this in the future.
All I knew was that something had to change. For me, and for the kids.
8
R H Y S
My next day of work, Ethan left the house almost as soon as I arrived. As if he couldn't get away from me fast enough. Had I embarrassed him the day before by mentioning the intensity of his scent? I sighed to myself. This was why I'd never had a boyfriend before Jeremiah. I always said the wrong things at the wrong time.
At least he wasn't firing me, though, and the boys seemed a little more open to me too. Nathan still spent the majority of his time in his room, but he came down for lunch when I made spaghetti for all of us. He even got up and fetched a wet washcloth to wipe the tomato sauce off his little brother's face when we were done eating. He was so gentle with him I had no doubt he cared for Caleb, even if he vanished back into his room the moment I carried the plates from the table.
