Chapter5
Anika heardthe front door open and close again, and a tall, slender woman with pale skin and warm eyes entered the kitchen carrying canvas totes filled with groceries, one ineachhand.
“Hello,” she said, a pleasant smile on her face. Her short black hair was peppered with gray at thetemples.
“Mrs. Miller, this is Anika. She’s an interior designer. Anika, this is my housekeeper, Mrs. Miller. She’s also Brielle’s nanny. She keeps the house running in an orderly fashion and makes it all look easy.” Reed took the bags and set them onthebar.
“That’s not so hard when I have such lovely clients,” Mrs.Millersaid.
Her melodic Southern drawl had a soothing quality and inspired calm. Anika couldn’t imagine her yelling and thought she had a future in radio if she ever wanted to switchcareers.
“Miss Anika is going to make our new house look pretty,” Brielleannounced.
“Oh, wonderful. I can’t wait to see what you do with theplace.”
“Mrs. Miller hopes that it’s an improvement over what we have now,”Reedsaid.
“It takes time. Can’t rush these things, but this house is so much better than the oldapartment.”
“Oh yeah.” Reed groaned. “Nice location, beautiful interior, but terrible management. Nothing worked in the apartment. If we plugged in more than one appliance to an outlet, the breaker tripped. And the plumbing was an absolutenightmare.”
Mrs. Miller shook her head. “My goodness, how many times did the poor maintenance man have tostopin?”
“Too many. Now I know why I got such a good deal on theplace.”
“It was a blessing in disguise. The apartment was in such bad shape, it made you move quickly to buy a house, and you were fortunate to find this gem.” Mrs. Miller patted Reed’s arm in a maternal manner. “Brielle, you want to help me put away the groceries? Then we can wash thestrawberries.”
“Okay!” Brielle handed over the container to her nanny and upturned her face to Anika. “We wash the strawberries with vinegar and water so they last longer. Then I have strawberries as my snackallweek.” She seemed very excited about that, and skipped over to the refrigerator, where she and Mrs. Miller started placing items on theshelves.
“I better get going,” Anika said. “I’ll be in touch soon with some ideas for thehouse.”
“I’ll walkyouout.”
Anika didn’t want him to but couldn’t protest without drawing attention to herself. They walked in silence to her red sedan parked at the end of thedriveway.
“She loves strawberries. Mrs. Miller taught me that vinegar trick. Brielle’s grandmother in Dallas said Brielle was hooked on blueberries the same way atonetime.”
“Funny how when kids enjoy something, they focus on it so they can experience it over and over again.” Anika placed her briefcase and purse on the passenger seat and shut the car door. “Well, I’ll be intouch.”
“Before you go…I want to talk about what happened before my daughter and Mrs. Millershowedup.”
“I don’t think that’s agoodidea.”
“Why not?” A frown sat between hiseyebrows.
“Reed, I don’t know what you want me to say. Venicewaswonderful, but we were young and had a great time. That’s allitwas.”
“You’re not even curious to see if our chemistry stillexists?”
“I’m sure it does.” She knew it did, actually. At least from her point of view. “But you have a child now, and I have a career that’s very importanttome.”
“Is it because of Brielle? You don’t date menwithkids...?”
Part of why she gravitated toward older men was because she didn’t have to worry about them having little children—or wanting any. But that wasn’t the reason for her decisionaboutReed.
“My decision is based on our past experiencetogether.”
He leaned closer. “I thought we could explore being together—see if that trip was a flukeornot.”
