Page 29 of Timelessly Ours
Rory bobs her head at me. “She will.”
Part of me wants to chuckle as I imagine a more mature response from my feisty little one, saying I could pretty much guarantee you she will.
Hell, it’s what I’m afraid of. But hopefully, by the time Rory has driven the last nerve out of her, Nicole would be…better. Whatever that word means for her.
As usual, I humor my daughter by rinsing bubbles off the two mermaid dolls she has in the tub with her.
“Let’s not worry about that right now. I want to make sure you understand that Nicole isn’t just going to be here once in a while as Angel’s friend. This is going to be her job. It’s what I’ve asked her to do on a regular basis.”
“On a what?”
“Day and night,” I say as I drain the water in the tub and give her one final rinse. “So…she’ll take you to school, pick you up, help with homework, give you baths and put you to bed.”
“What about dinner time? Last year, we had dinner when it was still light outside and sometimes when it was really really dark.”
I release a breath, remembering off-schedule dinners with Rory and Angel based on practice and game schedules—sometimes skipping dinner altogether.
I wrap the large pink towel around her. “Well, that’s one of the good things about having a live-in nanny. She’ll be here to make sure you have dinner at the same time every night. And you don’t have to come to work with me all the time.”
A little more routine in her life would be good.
A flash of fear crosses her face. “How will she know what to do? What if she does everything wrong?”
“I’m going to show her the basics, but Nicole might have her own ideas. She’s a girl, so you might like them better.”
“Like what?”
After quickly towel drying her hair, I lift the wet locks over her head and tie them into a little bun. The way Angel taught me when Rory’s spirals started growing in.
“Like how to do your hair. I could never do what she did last night with the braids.”
Rory doesn’t argue. But the girl doesn’t exactly dish out compliments either. It took weeks before she admitted to liking my Mickey Mouse pancakes.
“Do I have to brush my teeth tonight?”
“You have to brush your teeth every night. And morning. I know you skip sometimes. Oh, and a word of advice; Nicole happens to be an expert at calling B.S. so don’t go lying to her that you did if you didn’t.”
My daughter rolls her eyes. “We’ll see who’s the expert around here.”
“Rory,” I warn.
My six-year-old is just about the only one who isn’t afraid of my raised voice or my tone.
Nicole isn’t either. And yet I do…intimidate her somehow. When she told me that it’s not the way I think, it took everything in me not to ask her exactly how. I don’t even think she realized she licked her lips when she said it. I had to turn away to avoid staring at them like they were a tall glass of lemonade on a hot day.
Any stray fantasies I’d had about Nicole’s full luscious lips have to stop tonight. No—last night.
Hell, she’s been off limits to me since the day I laid eyes on her.
Nicole’s beauty is no secret. But there was always so much more that struck me about her. The woman had been through utter hell—and yet lit up the room with her positive energy and strong personality. She didn’t shy away from attention or hide when people pointed and whispered to their friends. Nicole is fearless and strong. She looks everyone in the eye and connects with them individually.
But no one knows what she’s thinking. And that Mona Lisa glimmer of a grin tells me she knows more than anyone in the room. Any hope I had of one day uncovering those secrets needs to disappear.
And replaced with more realistic dreams.
Like making sure Rory never feels like she’s missing out by not having a mother. That she doesn’t get teased in school, the way Claire predicted she would.
That one day…in the far, far future, she’d know how to be one despite my stubborn desire to never remarry.
