“Man, you have it made.” Amy leans forward, wrapping her hands around her ceramic latte cup.

“You don’t have it so bad either,” I point out.

Her nose wrinkles. “You mean with school? You must be kidding.”

I shrug a shoulder. “You’re learning.”

She sighs. “And getting my ass kicked in the process. I have two papers to write by Monday. Talk about crazy.”

I blow on my coffee, watching the steam curl away and dissipate. “It can’t be any worse than boot camp.”

“True.” She barks out a laugh. “Anything is better than boot camp.”

I smile, enjoying the moment. Around us, the coffee shop bubbles with the excitement that comes with the holidays. Christmas is still weeks away, but the approaching festivities can be felt in the air. People laugh with friends and hug each other while standing in line. The whole world seems full of love.

“What are you smiling about?” Amy asks.

“It’s almost the holidays.”

She squints her eyes in suspicion. “You sure you weren’t thinking about your hot boss?”

“No,” I say, way too fast.

Amy has looked Benjamin’s picture up online, and she knows everything about our situation.

“It’s probably good he’s your boss and you can’t get with him,” she muses. “You know, he likely ran all those other nannies off, right? He couldn’t keep his hands off of them.”

“I know. And I don’t really care.”

Again, Amy looks at me like she doesn’t believe me. “Yeah, okay.”

“No, really. I get how it must be, being this big CEO and dating. Plus, he’s a single parent…” I trail off, thinking about the photo Mia showed me next to her bed. It’s of her and her mother, taken when Mia was a baby. According to Mia, she died about four years ago. Beyond that, I don’t know anything.

I suppose I could find out online, seeing as Benjamin is famous, but the thought of creeping on his personal life like that makes my skin crawl. He’s a real person that I work for, not some random celebrity.

“You’re really forgiving,” Amy comments.

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“All I’m trying to say is, you’re not usually this way.”

I can read between the lines.

“Nothing is going to happen between the two of us.”

“And what if it does?”

I purse my lips, unwilling to lie to myself. I know how easily two people can give in to attraction and do things they hadn’t planned on. If my intuition about Benjamin is correct, he’s just as drawn to me as I am to him.

“We both have reasons for not getting involved,” I point out.

“But if something does happen?”

I look into my coffee, thinking about that. “Then we’ll figure it out then,” I simply say.

Amy takes a sip of her latte, watching me over the rim of the cup.

“Don’t give me a hard time about this. You’re the one who wants me to find a man.”

She sighs, putting her cup down so she can touch my arm. “I want you to find an available man, not one who’s no good for you. There’s a difference.”

“Okay, full disclosure? Yes, I would like to find a guy—”

“I knew it.”

“But I’m not blind. I know that Benjamin and I wouldn’t work out.”

“What about something casual?”

I run my teeth over my bottom lip. “That wouldn’t be a good idea. For Mia’s sake.”

“How many nannies has she gone through?”

“Three. That I know of. There might be more.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “And she’s so sweet, so smart.”

My heart warms as I think of Mia. We’ve had a great first week together. Dropping her off at school in the mornings always bums me out. With her there, that means I have seven full hours each day to do nothing with.

To fill my time, I’ve been taking a lot of classes at the gym. Every instructor from yoga to kickboxing to water aerobics knows me by name, now. A couple of days, I’ve gone to the indoor shooting range downtown. Other than that, there’s nothing to do. All those hours spent alone feel…barren.

“Let’s go out tonight,” Amy suggests.

“What about your papers?”

“It’s Friday.”

“That doesn’t answer my question at all.”

She pouts. “Yeah, I know. But wouldn’t it be fun to go out and meet some people?”

She means guys.

The thought of navigating dark clubs and bars while intoxicated men hang all over me in an attempt to figure out whether or not I’ll go home with them doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest.

“I’ll think about it,” I say. “Right now, I have to go pick Mia up.”

“See you at home.”

“See you.”

Grabbing the neon pink backpack I keep my gym clothes in, I head out to the street. Mia’s elementary school is less than half a mile away. Driving there is quick.

It’s sitting in the car line that’s not.

Ten minutes later, engine idling, I flip through radio stations as I wait for the next batch of cars to load kids and pile out. The conversation with Amy runs through my head.

Benjamin and I have had some…moments. That can’t be denied.

But if I want romance, I’m going to have to look elsewhere. It doesn’t matter how attracted to him I am. This job is amazing, and I already care about Mia. I can’t screw things up.

Sighing, I look up and gaze out across the street, to the park across from the school. Most of the cars in the area are in the pickup line or parked in the lot, but there’s one exception. Right across the street, a black car sits, its window rolled down halfway.

As I watch, the sketchy-looking man behind the wheel sweeps his gaze over the pickup line and says something into a phone.

What is he doing over there? Why isn’t he in the pickup line?

My heart rate increases. Something’s not right.

The car line moves forward, and I park along the sidewalk in front of the school. No, a guy watching a school and not picking any kids up is definitely not normal. Maybe I should say something to the staff.

I’m at the right angle now where I can see the license plate. “B…E…A…” I whisper under my breath, committing the sequence to memory.

Suddenly, the back door opens, making me jump.

“Hi, Jayne,” Mia sings out, dropping her backpack next to mine and plopping into her seat.

“Hey. How was school?”

The words have barely left my lips before I’m turning to look back out the windshield.

The black car is gone.

My jaw sets tight and my stomach twists. It doesn’t matter that the man left. The fact that he was in front of the school at all is disconcerting.

But at least I got the license plate number.

Mia is chattering away, telling me all about her music class today.

“Uh-huh,” I murmur, unable to focus on her story. “That sounds fun. Buckle up.”

Maybe it’s my years in the army. Maybe I’m just an anxious person. I don’t know. All I know for sure is that the man across the street made the hair on my arms stand straight up, and that’s never a good sign.