hair of the pretty woman smiling at him over coffee every morning. Somewhere after grief and before Kayla going away he'd...
He'd fallen in love with her.
He'd fallen in love with her!
She gathered her charges around her now, a puzzled expression on her face, and herded them away while he just stood there, still as stupid as that dummy, because it had taken him so long to realize the truth.
How long had he been living with her and loving her? When had wow crept into the room with them? Not just the wow of sexual attraction, but the wow of...wow, she's it.
She's The One.
"Oh, that's just plain unfair," a new voice said.
Mick jerked out of his reverie to see freckled Patty Bright, her gaze on the turnout gear he'd brought. "What?"
"And an instant camera to take pictures of the kids wearing this stuff, too, ensuring yours will be the most popular station. I had no idea you were such a cheater, Mick."
He frowned at her. "It takes one to know one," he muttered.
Her gaze sharpened. "Excuse me?"
"Nothing." He recalled his promise to be gracious. But God, that was even more difficult now, knowing that Patty had lured away the woman he loved. Knowing he couldn't do anything about it because he had only those dirty towels, his testing daughter and his boy with the armpit farts to stack up against the call to adventure that came from the Brights. And because, bottom line, he still didn't believe that despite these feelings he had for Kayla, that he had the emotional vigor to take on the burden of her happiness on top of Jane and Lee's.
Not only must he put his children first, he couldn't, wouldn't, put Kayla last.
"Mick?" Patty came forward, concern on her face. "What's wrong?"
"Not a thing. You won." It was more growling than gracious, but hey.
"Won what?"
"The nanny, of course. My nanny." My Kayla.
"Mick," Patty said. "You're wrong. She turned our offer down."
He blinked. "She turned you down?" But last night she'd made it clear she was leaving. "Whose nanny is she going to be, then?"
"I don't know." Patty shrugged. "She said she thought it was time she made a change, but she didn't want to get so entwined again with someone else's family."
"What's she going to do, then?" he wondered aloud.
Patty shook her head. "I got the sense that she was considering leaving childcare altogether."
A thought that didn't put Mick in any better of a mood. If she wasn't seeking adventure in Europe, then why was she leaving them? Why couldn't she stay? Last night she'd told him she wanted "more" and he'd thought she'd meant the excitement of travel. The glamour of new possibilities on a new continent. But if it wasn't that...?
Screw gracious, he thought. Screw pretending he was in a better mood. He was going to get to the bottom of this.
Chapter Twelve
But Mick couldn't get the answers he wanted when he wanted them. He didn't catch sight of Kayla after his conversation with Patty at the safety fair. Then he had a meeting to get to and then he had to return to school for the kids. Once home, he remembered the nanny had her girls' night out scheduled with her crew from We Our Nanny. She'd already left for her friend Betsy's.
So he went through the father motions. Homework. A little basketball in the driveway with Lee. He started dinner and even went to work on creating a clean tower of towels by folding what he found in the dryer. Through it all he felt as if he carried a thousand-pound weight on his chest.
I might as well be a hundred and four. I feel that worn-out.
"Daddy, what's the matter?" his daughter asked him after dinner. They were in the family room. He was seated on the couch, but the kids were standing, eyeing him instead of the TV. Oh, yeah, he'd forbidden Jane to watch her shows for a few days.
He sighed. "You can turn it on, kids," he said, gesturing toward the screen. "Surely Zack and Cody or Phineas and Ferb are going about their zany business."
Neither child moved. Then Lee glanced at his sister. "Are you having a bad day, Dad?"
Mick tried to smile. "Yeah, buddy. I guess you could say so. But don't worry about it."
"I do worry about it." Lee launched himself forward, and snuggled in right next to Mick's side. "Tell me what to do. I can help."
Mick smiled again, this one more natural. He