Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,162

though, these rascals melt my heart and though it’s insanity, I wouldn’t trade motherhood for the world.

Matthew comes racing down the stairs, nearly tripping over the five pairs of shoes left scattered under the banister, but at least he’s dressed.

“Okay, eat breakfast while Mommy gets dressed. Trav, if Ames needs help cutting his waffle, do it, please? And no milk, Matty, you know you’re not supposed to. There is almond milk in the fridge if you want some.”

My middle boy liked the taste of regular cow’s milk but was horribly lactose intolerant. I didn’t need a poop explosion calling me out of work, and he didn’t need the embarrassment in front of his second grade class.

“I love you, Mama.” Ames gives me his toothy grin, chocolate chip waffles already staining his baby teeth.

Rolling my eyes but melting into the swoon my last baby always manages to produce, I sprint up the stairs two at a time to throw on my work clothes. Not that I had to don heels and a dress, as the high school nurse my attire was pretty relaxed. But I did have to put on a bra and pick a shirt that the teenage boys couldn’t completely look down. I’m convinced those menaces came into my office just to try to check out my cleavage.

Not that I blame them that much, I have great boobs. Just not for eyes that young.

That makes my entire stomach flip, thinking about the last set of too-young eyes to glance at my bare breasts. Aquamarine pools, and they’d done that cocky, charming thing their owner seemed to have a patent on.

Forrest Nash. That arrogant bastard.

Just thinking about him, and the things he had done to my body, made my blood boil. He was a pompous jerk who made me simultaneously feel like a cougar, something I despised, and made my vagina sing like a Greek muse from that Disney movie Hercules. It was maddening that someone I disliked so much knew how to play my tune so well.

The fleeting emotion of anger subsides, followed by an enormous dollop of grief. This is how it always went when I thought about the most boastful of the two youngest Nash brothers. My mind spiraled into a hellish hole of longing lust, annoyance at that desire, and then crushing grief that I’d betrayed my husband.

But, that wasn’t true. I hadn’t cheated on Travis. Because … he was dead.

Had been for almost three years now. A casualty of war, the army had told me when they came to my door in their damn car in those damn uniforms. Said he’d made a sacrifice for the greater good. Now, years later, I don’t see it that way. I loved that man so damn much; it kills me every day that he isn’t here to watch his boys grow up. Ames doesn’t even remember him, a fact that makes me have to bite my tongue so harshly to keep from crying every time my little boy cocks his head at a picture of his father.

“Mommy!” Someone hollers up the stairs. “We’re going to be late!”

Shit. In my maelstrom of self-pity, I hadn’t even picked out a pair of pants. Grabbing the first thing my hands land on, I pull out a pair of trusty black jeggings that both slimmed me but appeared professional. And they skirted on the verge of yoga pants, which was just an added bonus.

I fluff my hair, give my minimal makeup a once-over in the mirror, and decide I look just good enough to be acceptable in public. As a mom of a three, I deserved a golf handicap on my overall appearance.

“All right, everyone in the car. No touching, no fighting, and maybe we’ll get Chick-fil-A for dinner.”

A round of yay and okay, Mom resounds from the back of my Toyota Highlander, and I pray as I drive the route to Ames’ pre-school that this day would work itself out better than the morning had.

After dropping my youngest off at daycare, and the two older boys at the elementary school, I head for Fawn Hill High school.

Parking in my regular spot reserved for the school nurse, I grab the cognac leather tote I bring with me everywhere and sling it over my shoulder. The day is breezy and warm for mid-March, and I have a feeling I’ll have a bunch of spring allergy cases on my cots today.

As the only nurse at the high school, of about four hundred students, total,