Chapter Six
Mia waited for Bailey to get out of school. She’d gotten to the parking lot early so she could get a decent parking spot and decided to wait in the car until it was almost time for the kids to be let out. She listened to music on the radio, her mind continually drifting back to her night with Austin.
Even when she wasn’t thinking about him, her body still hummed with desire. He’d lit a fire in her she hadn’t known existed. And though the next day they’d both acted like nothing happened, she knew better.
So did he.
Over the last week, his gaze tracked hers when he thought she wasn’t looking, and she was just as guilty, her gaze falling on him over Bailey’s head. If he turned around, she watched his tight, sexy ass. If he looked her way, she met his knowing stare. Sunday night, she stayed locked in her room, not even coming out for her normal cup of tea. She didn’t want to fall into a nightly routine that could be detrimental to her heart and her peace of mind. Because Austin was a man she could easily fall for.
Unwilling to think about it any longer, she climbed out of the car to wait for Bailey by the exit to the school. She smiled at a few of the friendlier moms, and soon the bell rang and the kids began to flow out, the teachers of the younger children walking them to the doors.
Mia caught sight of Bailey’s dark hair and was just about to call the girl’s name when someone did it first.
“Bailey!”
Mia spun around in time to see the child’s mother waving toward her. “No.” Mia pushed past a few parents to reach Bailey first, grasping her hand just as Kayla strode into their personal space.
“Bailey, baby, it’s Mommy!”
Mia froze, holding Bailey’s hand tight. This was what Austin feared, Bailey being confronted by her mother, and neither Mia nor Austin knew what the little girl remembered about her.
Bailey squeezed Mia’s fingers back, her little hand feeling fragile in Mia’s larger one.
“Bailey?”
“You need to leave,” Mia said to Kayla, keeping her voice level so as not to frighten Bailey even more.
Kayla looked nothing like the other moms in jeans, shirts, and jackets. Instead she wore a skimpy dress and high heels, as out of place in this environment as she was in her daughter’s life.
“I have a right to see my child.”
“Not according to the custody agreement I understand exists.”
Kayla perched her sunglasses on top of her head, her eyes not focused on Bailey but glaring at Mia. “Bailey, honey? Don’t you remember me?” She wasn’t even smart enough to drop down to Bailey’s level to try and reach her.
Bailey backed her body into Mia’s, causing Kayla to frown as her daughter clearly made her choice. A choice no child should have to make, between a caregiver and her mother.
“Kayla, go now.”
“Is there a problem?” One of the teachers strode over and asked.
“Yes,” Mia said.
“No,” Kayla replied.
Mia glanced at the older woman. “I’m allowed to pick up Bailey. She isn’t.” She gestured to Kayla, refusing to call her Bailey’s mother out loud. She didn’t deserve the acknowledgment and she refused to scare the little girl.
“I’m sorry, Ms.…?” She glanced at Kayla for an answer.
“Gibson. Kayla Gibson,” she said sullenly.
“Ms. Gibson, do I need to go to the office and check the parental forms?” Or will you leave quietly? The words were implied.
Mia, keeping her grasp on Bailey and brushing her head soothingly, held her breath.
“I’ll go.” Kayla plopped her sunglasses back down on her nose. “But this isn’t the end of things. You”—she pointed at Mia, almost poking at her with her finger—“tell my ex-husband he knows what he has to do if he wants this to end.”
She glanced at Bailey, almost as an afterthought. “I’ll see you soon,” she said, waving her fingers at her daughter… for show. There was no caring that Mia could see.
She waited until Kayla not only walked away but climbed into her car and drove off before taking Bailey and walking her to a quiet space on the grass.
Mia knelt down and glanced at the little girl, who looked up at her with big, frightened eyes. “Are you okay?” Mia asked her.
“I don’t like her,” Bailey whispered. “She yells a lot.”
Mia swallowed hard. She’d minored in psychology but nothing had prepared her for this. “You know her?” Better than saying do you remember her? Mia didn’t know if it made a difference.
“That’s Mommy,” Bailey whispered. “She hurt me.”
Oh, shit. That was the perfect answer to Austin’s custody problem and the worst answer for this happy little girl.
“Don’t worry. She won’t ever hurt you again.” Mia kissed her cheek and took her hand. “Let’s go see Daddy,” she suggested, knowing she was out of her depth.
They drove home in silence, which was unusual for Bailey on any normal day, but today wasn’t a typical day.
Austin was waiting for them in the kitchen when they entered the house, downing a sports drink. He’d obviously just worked out and had timed his ending to see his daughter when she arrived home from school.
“Bailey Button!” he called out.
Bailey trudged inside, dumping her backpack in the hallway. She didn’t call out Daddy! the way she usually did and she didn’t jump into his arms.
“Mia?” he asked, obviously concerned.
She bit down on her lower lip. “Umm… Bailey, go get a juice box from the fridge, okay? I want to talk to your dad.”
The little girl shuffled away and Mia’s heart broke a little more.
“What happened?” Austin bit out.
“Bailey had a visitor outside school.” She quickly recounted the incident with Kayla, including Bailey’s reaction of curling into Mia and her admission that she remembered the woman as her mommy, and as someone who not only yelled a lot but who’d hurt her.
“Son of a bitch!” Austin’s hands curled into fists and Mia immediately reached out to soothe him. She grasped his tight hand and urged him to relax, rubbing her thumb over his straining knuckles. “Bailey can’t see you like this,” she whispered, reminding him that his focus needed to be on his daughter.
He met her gaze, his dark and solemn and grateful, and he nodded. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“I’ll give you time alone.” Mia reluctantly released her grasp on him and stepped aside so he could speak to his daughter.
“Mia, stay. Please. Bailey needs you.” He paused. “I need you,” he said, the words obviously not easy for him to admit out loud.
How could she say no to him? Why would she want to? He didn’t know, but being needed was her Achilles heel and being needed by Austin? She’d be there for him, for whatever he needed.
“Of course.”
He drew in a deep breath, clearly tamping down on his rage, pushing it somewhere his daughter couldn’t see or feel as he joined her at the table, where she played with her juice box straw, not drinking.
Mia lingered in the background, sticking close but not wanting to intrude.
“Hey.” He settled into the chair next to Bailey, looking at the little girl who was so obviously his whole world. “Mia told me you saw your mom today.”
Bailey swung her legs back and forth beneath her but didn’t answer.
“She said you remember her?” Austin continued, his tone gentle.
She tipped her little chin up and down. “She scares me,” she whispered.
And wasn’t that an awful thing for her to live with and think about her mother, no matter how deserving, Mia thought.
Austin smoothed a hand over the back of her head. “That’s okay, baby girl.” He pulled her into a tight embrace.
Mia admired him for how well he was handling this situation and his daughter’s pain.
Bailey, however, remained silent.
“Believe me?” he asked.
“Yes, Daddy.”
He sighed at her soft, defeated attitude.
Mia knew, for both their sakes, Bailey needed to put today’s episode out of her mind and let her father shoulder the burden, but she was too young to understand.
“So I was thinking,” Austin said. “What if you, me, and Mia went for pizza and ice cream for dinner?”
Mia’s heart beat a little faster at how easily he included her in the outing, chiding herself at the same time for thinking it meant any more than doing her job as Bailey’s nanny. Blurring the lines by sleeping with Austin was not going to be easy.
At the mention of pizza, or more likely ice cream, a little smile finally curved Bailey’s lips. “With sprinkles?” she asked.
“Lots and lots of colored sprinkles.”
Mia grinned. He obviously didn’t care how big the sugar rush or how late Bailey’s bedtime ended up being because of it. He just wanted his daughter to be happy.
And Mia fell a little harder for Austin because of it.
* * *
Tomorrow was National Chocolate Cupcake Day, so Bailey and Mia were in the kitchen baking enough cupcakes for the class, because, of course, Bailey had volunteered for cupcake duty. As Austin walked to the kitchen, he listened to his daughter’s chatter and Mia’s laughter and something inside him eased.
These last few days he’d been a ball of stress. He’d just gotten off the phone with the private investigator who was looking into his ex-wife. So far he hadn’t found any dirt on Kayla but she did have a man in her life, and Austin told the investigator to put his focus there. The good news was she hadn’t returned to cause trouble or bother Bailey. He had no doubt her first attempt outside the school was a warning to Austin because Kayla wanted cold, hard cash. He wouldn’t put it past her to try something else to upset Bailey and piss him off in her quest to get him to buy her off.
They both knew the court date loomed at the end of the year and something had to give before then. He was counting on the PI to find something incriminating on Kayla, because Austin wasn’t going to put his daughter through any more stress by being forced to relive past events. She was going through enough, courtesy of her mother.
The night after she’d seen Kayla, Bailey began having nightmares. She’d wake up crying, coming to him and disrupting his eight hours because it took her too long to fall back to sleep… in his bed.
With Bailey’s life in turmoil, Mia stepped up even more. She kept Bailey’s schedule busy with friends and special projects so she had no time to dwell on the mean lady at school, as she’d called Kayla one night while crying herself to sleep and breaking Austin’s heart.
Mia fit into his life so seamlessly and on so many levels it scared him, and for a man who used to use a gun in his daily job, that struck him as ridiculous. But look at the situation he was in thanks to letting himself be manipulated by Bailey’s mother. Austin was finished with marriage and happily ever after and Mia still wanted those things. Hell, after the childhood she’d had, she deserved those and more.
He just couldn’t give them to her. With a little girl in his room at night and them both keeping busy during the day, he and Mia hadn’t connected again, and maybe not being able to drag her back into his bed really was for the best.
“Can I lick the bowl?” Bailey’s voice traveled to him and he forced himself to stop overthinking and step into the room.
“Hi, girls.” Austin came up to the counter. Mia was putting the cupcakes into the oven while Bailey was, as she’d requested, running her fingers through the bowl and feasting on the remaining batter.
“Daddy!”
“Those cupcakes look good,” he said as Mia slid the final tin into the oven.
She turned back to him and grinned. “It’s Bailey approved. Chocolate cupcake and confetti frosting.”
“Yum.” He actually wasn’t so sure about the confetti. He figured it was too rich for his taste.
“Taste.” Bailey held out a finger for him to lick, but it was a wet finger that had been in her mouth numerous times. “Umm, I think I’ll take a pass.”
Mia chuckled. She picked a clean part of the bowl that Bailey hadn’t yet tackled and swiped her finger into the batter. She slid it into her mouth and moaned in delight, inadvertently meeting Austin’s gaze as her lips cupped the frosting-coated finger.
His cock twitched at the sexy sound that escaped her lips, not to mention the visual of her sucking off her finger, something she’d yet to do to him. He was grateful the counter between them blocked his firm package from being noticed. Her gaze locked on his, sudden awareness in the mossy depths. He wanted nothing more than to say to hell with what was for the best and drag her off to his bedroom so she could suck on his cock the same way.
“Isn’t it good?” Bailey asked Mia.
She jerked her stare away from Austin and he swallowed a rough cough.
“I think your friends are going to love the cupcakes,” Mia said in a husky voice. “Let me set a timer.” She turned away to focus on her task but the awareness between them remained.
* * *
After dropping the cupcakes off at Bailey’s school, Mia returned home to a blue car turning into the driveway. Since it was blocking her ability to pull into the garage, she parked on the street and exited the vehicle, walking toward the car.
A man climbed out of the driver’s side and met her halfway down the drive. “Mia Atwood?” he asked.
She didn’t recognize him at all, which made her nervous, especially after what had happened at the grocery store.
“You’ve been served,” he said, handing her the manila envelope she hadn’t noticed was in his hand.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Information’s inside. Have a good day.”
“But—”
He didn’t wait for her to speak, merely returned to his car, climbed in, and turned on the ignition. She stepped aside so he could pull out of the driveway, turning her attention to the ominous-looking envelope.
Could this have to do with Austin’s custody case? She opened the folded flap and pulled out the blue-backed page, scanning the contents, a sickening feeling settling in the pit of her stomach with every word she read.
The State of New York versus Parker Alexander. Retrial for embezzlement among other crimes. She swallowed hard, nausea filling her. She didn’t understand, thought her ex-employer was in jail. She flipped the envelope in her hand and a business card fell out. A glance told her it was the same district attorney she’d dealt with during the last trial.
She headed inside, glad Austin was at his weekly meeting in the office. She didn’t need him to see her shaken up before she had all the details.
A quick call to Kate Collins, the district attorney, answered her questions and she didn’t like what she learned. Parker had been released from jail when his conviction was overturned due to a technicality the DA didn’t bother to explain and Mia really didn’t care why. The end result was the same. He was out and the state was retrying him. Because she’d moved to Connecticut and there had been no reason for her to leave a forwarding address, as the case had been concluded, it had taken Kate time to find Mia and let her know she’d be needed at another trial.
She was not happy.
She didn’t want her life, her job, or Austin and Bailey’s life disrupted by her having to go to New York to testify.
She sighed and was about to head to her room when the home telephone rang. She answered. “Rhodes residence.”
“Hello, is Mr. Rhodes home?” an efficient female voice asked.
“No, can I take a message?” Mia tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder and grabbed a piece of paper and pen.
“It’s the Lakewood Elementary school.”
“This is Mia Atwood, Bailey’s nanny. Is everything okay?”
“Oh, Ms. Atwood. I see you’re on the approved list to pick up Bailey. We seem to have an issue. There’s a woman here claiming to be Bailey’s mother and she’s insisting she see her daughter. She wants to remove her from the premises but she’s not on our list.”
“No, she isn’t. I’ll call Mr. Rhodes immediately. Please don’t let her anywhere near Bailey,” Mia said. “I’ll come by myself to pick her up when school is over.”
“The problem is, the children were in the hallway walking to the gym and Bailey saw Ms. Gibson. We took Bailey away and brought her to the nurse’s office but Ms. Gibson is still here and making a scene,” the other woman explained, sounding upset now that she’d gotten into the details.
Mia’s stomach flipped over. “I’ll call Mr. Rhodes immediately. Please don’t let her near Bailey,” she repeated urgently.
Mia hung up the phone, grabbed her cell phone in one hand and her keys in another. She set the house alarm and called Austin’s cell phone as she ran for the car, which she’d left in the street, thinking only of getting to the school and to Bailey as quickly as possible.
He picked up on the second ring. “Mia? What’s wrong?” he asked, probably because she never called him unless Bailey was sick.
“Your ex is at Bailey’s school.” She detailed the rest of the situation. “I’m heading over now.”
Austin swore. “Okay, I’ll meet you there. I’m already on my way home, so it shouldn’t take long. You know what to do. Keep her away from my baby.”
Mia swallowed hard. She knew. “You got it,” she promised as she reached her car.
The school wasn’t far from the house and Mia reached it in record time, bypassing yellow lights that turned red as she drove past.
Mia arrived at the school, stopping at the main office to sign in. She didn’t see Kayla and she didn’t ask where she was. “Where’s Bailey? Is she still at the nurse’s office?”
The gray-haired woman behind the desk in the office nodded. “I thought it would be best to put her someplace where she couldn’t see her mother since what she said seemed to upset her so much.”
Mia swallowed hard. “Where is it?”
“Down the hall to the left,” the other woman said.
Mia ran, slowing when she reached the nurse’s office, not wanting to freak Bailey out. She stepped into the room and smiled at the school nurse. “I’m here for Bailey?”
“Mia!” The little girl flew out from a side room and wrapped her arms around Mia, holding on tight.
“Hey, baby.” Mia glanced over her head to meet the nurse’s kind gaze. “Is she okay?”
“A little shaken up. She stopped crying when I gave her juice and a book to read so she’d put the incident out of her mind. I just thought it was best she went home early to her family.”
Mia stroked the child’s head. “Her father will be with her in a little while,” she assured the nurse. “Ready to go home?”
Bailey nodded against her.
“Do you need to get anything from your classroom first?”
“No.” She stepped back and glanced up at Mia. Tears stained her cheeks and Mia’s heart squeezed tight in her chest.
Unfortunately, to leave the school, they had to walk past the main office. If luck held, they wouldn’t run into Kayla. Mia led Bailey down the hall and turned toward the office. She immediately caught sight of Austin, having his say with the principal and the office staff, no doubt making it clear Kayla was not allowed anywhere near his child and only Austin, Mia, and Austin’s parents were allowed into the school or to pick up Bailey.
“Daddy!”
Austin turned and Bailey ran into his open arms. He picked her up and held her tight against him. “Do we have an understanding?” he asked Principal Shay, a middle-aged man with a good reputation among teachers and parents.
“Of course. And we have your instructions in writing. Don’t worry.”
Austin nodded. He glanced at Mia. “I’m getting a restraining order,” he muttered. “Are we ready to go?”
She nodded. “I’ll meet you and Bailey at home.”
“I want to ride with Mia.” Bailey wriggled to get down from her father’s arms.
“Honey, no. I’m sure your dad wants to talk to you.”
“It’s fine,” Austin said, an unreadable glint in his eye. But she didn’t get the sense he was unhappy about his daughter’s proclamation.
Mia made sure Bailey was buckled into her car seat and they headed home. The adrenaline of her day was beginning to wear off and she was exhausted. She hoped Bailey would be in a let’s-just-chill-and-watch-a-movie mood. All Mia wanted to do was relax.
But when they arrived at the house, the burglar alarm was going off and the police were parked out front. Obviously their day wasn’t over yet.