Chapter 16
AT A QUARTER PAST six, Deacon opened the door to the sounds and scents of his life. Squeals, or were they screams, grew louder as he got to the kitchen. The sitter, Ivonne, drew her bag over her shoulder as she walked toward him. The poor girl looked exhausted. Eleven hours with two three-year-olds would do that. They were two weeks into summer break, and Ivonne was his third sitter.
“Daddy!” Margo and Maci ran to him, smacking their faces into his kneecaps.
“They’ve eaten,” Ivonne said. “But no bath.”
And from the looks of them, they needed it. He saw remnants of ketchup on both faces and what he assumed was glitter glue clumped in Margo’s hair near her ear.
He wrote Ivonne a check, said goodbye, and locked the door behind her when she left.
“Daddy! We missed you!”
“I missed you, too, Muffin. Let’s hit the tub, and you can tell me all about your day.”
Deacon answered the incoming call from his sister as he followed the girls up the stairs, gathering shoes and stuffed animals as he went. “Hey.”
“Hey. How did it go? Did she survive?”
“She was still upright. Wasn’t crying.”
Alex laughed. “Always a positive.”
“Thanks for hooking me up.”
“No problem.”
“She actually said they were good, but by the look of the house, she was lying. She did tell me up front that she wouldn’t be able to commit to anything permanent.”
“Well, at least she was honest.”
“Yeah.” But with six more weeks of summer looming, he needed to find someone who could cover at least three days a week. Four would be better. He didn’t want them in full-time daycare, and he could only enroll the girls in so many activities.
He started the water while the girls tossed in plastic toys.
“Have you thought about getting an au pair? Someone to live there?”
“For about a second. But I don’t need overnight, and I don’t think I want someone living here. I’ll figure it out.”
“I know you will. So…any word from your investigator?”
“No.” And it wasn’t looking like there would be. There just wasn’t enough to go on, and it was costing a small fortune for what was probably a waste of time. And moments like this, when he was tired at the end of the day, his girls needing the last bit of energy he had left, the doubts crept in.
If she’d felt at all the same way, wouldn’t she have reached out to him? How hard should he push this?
He brought his mind back just in time to catch Margo’s hand before she poured the entire bottle of bubble bath into the tub. “Whoa, baby. That’s enough.”
She tugged the bottle, her expression mutinous. “It’s not!”
“It is,” he said firmly.
Margo growled—actually growled—at him and walked away. What the hell?
“Have you decided to let it go?”
“Do you think I should?”
She sighed. “I don’t know, Deacon. Can I ask you something without you getting mad or offended?”
“No one ever starts off like that unless they’re about to say something offensive.”
“Well, consider this payback for all the times you asked me if that’s what I was wearing right before you got out of my car at school.”
“That was a legit question, as your style was questionable. But go ahead.”
“You need help. And that’s not a slight against your parenting or the girls. But you’re kind of buried right now, under work and the girls and no permanent sitter.”
“I don’t disagree. So?”
“So it would be a lot easier if you had someone there, someone to help.”
“I don’t want a stranger here at night.”
“I’m not talking about a stranger.”
He waited for her to get to the offensive part. Then it dawned on him. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Looking for Clare because I need a full-time sitter?”
“Are you sure you’re not? That there’s no part of you that thinks maybe you need to find her because you need her?”
Was he? He couldn’t deny he worried about his daughters growing up without a mother. But he’d dreamed of her again last night—not of a wife or a mother for the girls, but of Clare. For him it was more than a dream. For a few days, he’d known it. Lived it. He’d held her. Stroked her. Laughed with her. And he thought, even if he hadn’t known it at the time, he’d been falling for her. He still looked at the one picture he had of her every day.
“Just something to think about,” Alex said.
“Sure.”
An hour later, he had two sweet-smelling girls in matching princess pajamas. The bedtime finish line was clearly in sight. He wanted a moment of quiet and a beer.
“Daddy!” Margo yelled from the downstairs bathroom. “There’s water!”
“There’s supposed to be water when you’re brushing your teeth,” he called back.
“But, Daddy!”
“Just brush your teeth, girls. Please.”
Deacon looked around. Bits of Goldfish on the couch and a white crusty patch where milk had leaked from Margo’s cup and he’d forgotten to clean it. A smear of spaghetti sauce on the carpet from Maci’s face and a million white pieces of copy paper, each with a single mark.
Would Clare even want to be part of this chaos that was his life? What sane person would? But he could picture her here with them. He could see her smiling softly, laughing and following Margo’s and Maci’s ping-ponging ideas since her mind worked much the same way. He could imagine sinking into the couch with Clare in the crook of his arm as they sat there with their feet up at the end of a long day, the girls upstairs asleep.
He bent to stack the scattered papers and smiled at the wild giggles coming from the bathroom. “You two better be brushing.”
“We are!” they chorused.
“But, Daddy, dere’s bubbles!” Maci squealed. “Wots of bubbles.”
Hmm… Water. Bubbles. He straightened, feeling every hour of the day in his back. He laid the papers on the kitchen counter as the girls’ laughter grew louder. He rounded the corner and… Oh, hell. The entire hallway leading to the laundry room was covered in three inches of soapy bubbles. And two little girls sat right in the middle of it.
* * *
THE SUMMER SKY WAS a staggering blue, and July in Missouri was sweltering. The sun burned straight overhead, throwing a glare over the pages of her book. Clare angled it forward so she could keep reading while her other hand spritzed her bare legs with water.
“How big are the little guys today?” Jess asked, lying beside her on a cheap pool lounger, rocking a black bikini.
“According to this, they’re about the size of a kabocha squash. Whatever that is. But their heads are about the size of lemons, and they have eyelashes.”
“That’s so crazy.”
“I know.” Clare read on about her babies’ growth rate and open eyelids.
“I told you you should have just lived with me. You could do this every day.”
“Fun.” She sighed, glancing down at her belly mountain. At seven months, she was enormous. She tugged on the tank top she wore over her two-piece suit, and it still didn’t quite reach the bottoms. She didn’t mind being pregnant, not really. Not since the nausea had ended. She was round and ripe, headed toward bursting.
“You know, some guys think pregnant women are hot.”
“Mmm.” Clare sucked up more water. “I’m not sure that’s not creepy. I mean if we were together, that’d be awesome, or sweet, but just to be attracted because a woman had babies growing inside her…”
“Well, you should have lived here anyway.”
“Right. Me and the babies up at all hours of the night while you’re trying to sleep.”
Jess looked over and cracked one eye. “They won’t be up all night, will they? I mean they’re babies. Don’t babies mostly sleep?”
“I don’t think so, not at first anyway. Connor’s coming over, by the way.”
“Why?”
“Because he said he was coming over, and I told him I was here.” She picked up her phone, reminded she needed to text her brother Jess’s apartment gate code. Her brother checked on her at least three times a week. He was already on his way over to her house, just a few blocks from Jess.
“Oh, mama. Two o’clock.” Jess pointed across the pool at a guy. “He is hot.”
Squinting, Clare looked up. Tall, red swim trunks, but… “How can you tell? I can’t even see his face from here.”
“I’ve seen him before. He lives in 4D.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Hi and bye. I’m waiting on him to make a move. We should go out later,” Jess said, propping up the back of her chair. “Get some drinks. Flirt with men.”
Clare turned the page. “I can’t drink.”
“Oh, right. Well, you can watch me. Sober driver! Whoop!” She held out a closed fist for Clare to bump. “And you can still flirt.”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel very flirty. I’m about to be a single woman with two kids.” Could she flirt with men? Not now, no. But ever? She thought of Deacon.
“Lot of hot single dads out there. Widowers. Divorced. I could probably dig up some numbers for you.”
No. She didn’t see herself going there again, wondering what they were really thinking, really hiding, behind smiling brown eyes.
“Is this all you two do all day?” Connor asked as he stepped under the shade of their umbrella. “Lay around at the pool?”
“I’m growing your nephews,” Clare said, smiling up at her brother. “I need my rest.”
Connor was tall and built, with hazel eyes and an All-American boy-next-door smile that drew girls—and women—like flies to honey. He turned his attention to Clare’s belly. “Hey, in there. Hey, little dudes. It’s summer. Come out and play with your Uncle Connor.”
“Not yet,” she said, rubbing a hand over her belly and what she thought was a tiny foot.
“How much longer?” he asked. “You’ve been pregnant forever.”
“Thank you so much. I hadn’t noticed. And I still have two more months, so thanks.”
“Jeez. I don’t know if the pregnant mountain will hold that long. And what about you?” Connor asked, eyeing Jess. “What’s your excuse?”
“I’m here for moral support.”
Connor snorted, earning a narrow-eyed glare evident even behind her sunglasses.
“And it’s Saturday, moron.”
“She’s got you there,” Clare said.
“Tell your sister she shouldn’t go back to work.”
“I’ve told her,” Connor said, taking a seat on the empty lounger next to Clare. “But I’ll tell her again. Clare, you shouldn’t go back to work.”
“I don’t have the job yet. Just an interview.” But since it was at her old school and she had a good relationship with the principal, she was pretty confident. “And since neither of you are a doctor, I’m going to listen to Dr. Allen. Who, by the way, says as long as I feel good and I’m not on my feet too much, it’s fine. It’s a librarian interim. It’ll hardly be manual labor. And I need to work.”
She’d considered working during the summer at a daycare or a coffee shop. Something. But none of the directors she’d spoken to were interested in paying someone with a degree in education unless they planned to stay long term. Her doctor had nixed the coffee shop idea.
“The interim is only from the end of August to the first of October. Then I’ll be off.” But she’d have to go back, if not to teaching than to something.
The boys weren’t even born yet, and she already didn’t want to leave them. She reminded herself millions of parents did it every day. But just in the few daycare visits she’d made so far, she’d seen too many parents with strained smiles, rushing their kids in so they could make it to work or rushing from work to pick them up again.
“Or you could call the asshole,” Jess said, “and tell him to take responsibility and support you and his children. There’s no reason you should be doing this by yourself.”
“For once, I agree with Jess,” Connor said.
Clare closed her eyes. Thinking about it made her feel sick, and she’d spent enough time feeling sick for the first four months of her pregnancy. “I’ll be talking to him soon enough,” she said softly. The thought of that made her heart beat faster. What would he say? Would he even remember her? Would Deacon even want to see them? Would he want to keep her and his sons a secret from his wife? She’d almost rather the second, though that was selfish of her. Her children should have a father. Of course, donating sperm didn’t make him a father.
“It would save a lot of money if you’d move in with me,” Jess said, jumping back to her favorite topic. “Connor, tell your sister she should move in with me.”
“Right,” Connor said. “Because your life would blend perfectly with two babies.”
“Shut up, Connor. I know more about babies than you do.”
“Pfft. Yeah, right.”
“Okay, kids. Don’t make me put you in time out,” Clare said, trying to keep the peace between brother and friend. “You know I love you,” Clare said, turning to Jess. “But I’m about to be a mom. I can’t be crashing at a friend’s. Or a brother’s,” she added to Connor before he could throw in his two cents about being the uncle. “Besides, you already housed me most of last month.”
And honestly, she was happy to have her own space. A cute little single story, zero lot line. Plenty of space for her and two babies with a mailbox she could plant flowers around. And most importantly, it was affordable. The ratio of teacher’s salary to daycare for two infants was extremely depressing math. Not to mention the search and the waiting lists.
“So you’re feeling okay?” Connor asked sweetly, and she instantly loved him again.
“Yes. I could tell you all the dirty little details of pregnancy, but I think I’ll save them for when you’re really on my nerves.”
“Thanks. Have you talked to Mom lately?”
“A few days ago. She calls exactly once a week to ask me how I am. I think she tries not to think about it the other six days.”
“You’re such a scandal,” Jess said, smiling.
“I really am.” She laughed softly. Her parents had been pretty good about the whole thing, considering their traditional mindset. They had even offered to help support her, but she wouldn’t do that unless she absolutely had to. “It’s fine. It’s not like they’ve disowned me or anything. You know how they are. She still pretends you and all your friends are virgins.”
“On that note, I think I’ll get back to work,” Connor said.
“How’s it going?”
“It’s going. The bar top is supposed to be delivered this week, so I’m trying to make sure we’re ready for it to go in.”
“I still can’t believe you’re opening a bar,” Jess said.
“A brewery,” Connor corrected. “And I’d think that’d be right up your alley. Bye, Griz.”
She smiled at his nickname, a play on their father’s Clare Bear, as he kissed her cheek.
“Later, Jess.”
Jess waved her hand in the air without looking over. Clare went back to her book and the section on babies learning their father’s voice. Some mothers said their babies moved when the father spoke to their belly, a second voice they associated with love and comfort. So her babies were already missing out?
“I need ice cream,” Clare said suddenly, closing her book. She needed to think about ice cream, not Deacon.
“Okay.” Jess sat up. “You want to go to the store now? We could get stuff for dinner.”
“Nah. You stay. I’ll go. It’s too hot for me out here anyway.”