by Meg Ripley
“Unbelievable.” Jackson stared after her, completely dumbstruck. How could this have happened? More importantly, how had he never seen it coming? It didn’t even bother him so much that she was leaving; admittedly, the two of them had never been a very good match. Jackson had just happened to meet Crystal when she was going through her worldly phase, but obviously that hadn’t lasted. The biggest problems right now were still sitting on the couch, pouting. “You two. Get to bed.”
“No. I want to play!” Jessica gave her father the same angry look she had been directing at her older brother only a minute ago.
He thought of himself as a fairly indulgent parent, but this had gone too far. “I’m your father, and I’m telling you that you’re going to bed,” he said as patiently as he could. “Get changed and brush your teeth, and I’ll be up to tuck you in.”
“You can’t make me!” Jonathan yelled. He stood up on the couch and spread out his arms, letting his wings emerge with them. They unfurled quickly for a boy of only ten, but he couldn’t control them very well. He hit the table lamp and knocked it to the floor.
“Now!” Jackson roared. “Let’s go!” He took them each by an arm and marched them to the stairs. A foul odor made him turn his head. “Jonathan, is that you? When was the last time you took a shower?”
The boy shrugged.
“Well, you’re taking one right now. It’s already late enough that a few extra minutes won’t make a difference.” He took him to the bathroom door. “And use soap! Come on, young lady.”
But when they reached Jessica’s room, she sat on her bed, curled into a ball, and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I can’t go to bed! I don’t have any clean nightgowns!”
This declaration didn’t surprise him. Crystal didn’t exactly keep up with the household duties, even though she hadn’t held a job for a single day in her life. But when he opened Jessica’s dresser drawer, he found it full of little pink nightgowns. “Yes, you do. Here.” He tried to hand her one, but she batted it out of his hands.
“No, that’s not it! I need the one with Strawberry Shortcake on it!”
Jackson unfolded the garment, revealing the Cabbage Patch Kids. “But you like these dolls. You even have one on your bed. Just wear it for one night, and then I’ll make sure the Strawberry Shortcake one is clean for tomorrow.”
Jessica glared at him dubiously but finally nodded. When he had her changed and ready, he pulled the covers up under her chin. Her little arms wrapped around his neck, and Jackson suddenly realized just how many goodnight hugs he had missed out on because of his career. Had Crystal been doing any of this? He had just taken it for granted that she was, but the force with which his little girl held onto him told him otherwise.
“Are you going to take care of us, Daddy? Is Mommy really leaving?”
Her whispered words broke his heart. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he couldn’t find it in himself to tell her the truth. “I’ve got a lot of grown-up stuff I have to figure out, sweetie,” he told her, gently rubbing her back in circles. “But I promise that I’ll make sure you’re taken care of, one way or another. Now, you get to sleep. Love you; I’ll see you in the morning.”
He headed down the hallway. Jonathan had finished his shower, but his bowl-cut hair was dripping down his neck and into his shirt. Jackson grabbed a towel and dried him off the rest of the way, feeling guilty for having yelled at them earlier. “Did you brush your teeth?” he asked quietly.
“What do you care?” Jonathan snapped.
His first instinct was to snap back, but Jackson knew that wasn’t going to help. “It’s been a long night, and we’re all a little tired. Let’s go to bed and talk about it in the morning.” He headed downstairs a few minutes later, quickly skipping past his own bedroom door, where he overheard Crystal muttering to herself about which sandals to take. He shut the door of his den behind him and sat down heavily on the leather couch, wondering just how the hell he was going to handle all this.
Chapter Two
Cathy Brennan looked up as the bell over the door rang, indicating a late customer. It was getting close to closing time, but that never seemed to deter anyone. She could only hope that whoever it was wouldn’t try on twenty different items and leave them all over the floor of the dressing room. “Can I help you?” she asked as she came out from behind the counter.
Two young girls stood near the entryway, probably no older than sixteen, and sneered at the clothes on the racks. “Don’t you have anything more fashionable?” one of them asked, picking up the sleeve of a dress and letting it drop as though it were filthy. “These are such old lady clothes.”
As much as Cathy wanted to defend the items she sold, she knew she couldn’t. Their tiny little town in Ireland never had much to offer compared to the big stores in Dublin. The clothes the girls were already wearing suggested they had been shopping in the big city already, and they should have known better than to think they would find the same items around the corner from their homes. “I do have some nice jeans that just came in.” She led them to a shelf in the back.
“Those aren’t name-brand,” the second girl instantly pointed out as soon as she saw them. “No, thanks.” The girls turned and left immediately, laughing and talking as they went. No doubt, they would go out into the world and tell all their friends just what a horrible place The Rack was, and business would be even slower than usual. Cathy would be lucky if she got to keep her job for another few months before the owner wouldn’t be able to afford her anymore.
She reconciled the register, turned off the lights, and locked the door behind her before making the short drive to her mother’s house. There was far more activity going on there than at The Rack.
“There you are!” her mother scolded as she came through the doorway. “I thought maybe for a moment you weren’t coming.” A plump woman with fiery red hair bundled on the top of her head in a bun, Mary Campbell pulled a large roast out of the oven.
“I had a few late customers.”
Her mother’s mind was much more focused on getting the family fed than Cathy’s work troubles. “Help your sisters get the table set, would ya?”
Cathy obeyed, gently correcting the placement of the silverware that her younger siblings had already scattered on the large table. Her stomach growled, looking forward to the family dinner more than Mary herself was. Coming back home just hadn’t been the same once her father had passed away, and it was even stranger now that her mother had remarried.
Right on cue, Sean Campbell strode into the room. “There’s my beautiful family!” he boomed as he took a seat at the table. “And even Cathy! Nice to see that you made it tonight, dear.” Her stepfather gave her a meaningful look, one that told her he expected her to come by more often.
Cathy ignored him. It wasn’t any of his business. Sean had tried to step in and act as though he had always been a part of their family, but Cathy was twenty-two and well past the age of needing someone to act as her father. It hadn’t helped that he had brought his rambunctious sons into the mix, who constantly fought with each other and tracked dirt into the house. As soon as Cathy had met them, she thought they would be the wrench in her mother’s wedding plans, which were happening too fast as far as Cathy was concerned. But Mary seemed delighted to have even more mouths to feed, and so the Brennan-Campbell family had become a new household without Cathy.
Dinner was a noisy affair. Mary constantly corrected the children for chewing with their mouths open, one of the girls cried when she was told she had to finish her beans if she wanted dessert, and Sean talked loudly over the din about anything that came to mind.
“How was your day, dear?” her mother finally asked as she cut another slice of roast for one of the boys.
“It was fine,” Cathy replied. She didn’t bother elaborating about the late customers. Her mother seemed to have forgotten about her question already, anyway.
“Have you given any more thought to going to school?” This was a new
tack her mother was trying now that Cathy had moved into her own apartment and taken up the job at The Rack. Previously, Cathy had always been so busy helping her mother with her younger siblings that there hadn’t been room for either one of them to think about something like a college degree.
“I don’t know,” Cathy replied indifferently. “I’m not sure what I want to do yet.” She poked the tines of her fork into her mashed potatoes.
“Our Cathy is a dreamer, I think,” Sean volunteered with a smile. “She wants to move off to the big city and find a different life than what she’s got here in our little village.”
Focusing fiercely on a puddle of gravy, Cathy clenched her teeth. “I never said that.”
“You don’t have to! I can see it in your eyes, my girl. You want to fly, but you forget that you don’t have wings. That college degree might give you wings of a different sort.” Sean reached across the table to grab a glass of milk before his son could knock it over.
She hated that Sean insisted on using possessive terms when speaking about her. He wasn’t her dad, and he had no right. He was trying to be nice, in his own way, but it didn’t make her feel any better. “I’d really rather not talk about it.”
“I think we should.” Mary got up from the table to fetch a new fork after one of the children had dropped his. “I let you hang out with that shifter girl far too much in your life, and it’s put dreams in your head that you can’t fulfill. You’ve been moping around ever since she left for America last year. If you’re not going to get an education, then you need to find yourself a good man and settle down; maybe have a few children. That’ll perk you right up.”
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m full.” Cathy laid her fork down and stood up.
“Don’t be like that,” Sean beseeched. “We’re just trying to help.”
“I’m not being like anything.” Cathy grabbed her keys and her purse. “Thank you for dinner, but I’m exhausted.” She stormed out the door and headed home.
But her small, dark apartment didn’t do anything to make her feel better. It was crammed full of old, cast-off furniture because that was what she could afford, and the flickering light fixtures and permanently grimy windows didn’t make her feel very good about the independence she had found for herself there. Her job at The Rack paid her just enough to cover rent and utilities, and even if the store had sold the trendy clothes that everyone wanted, she wouldn’t be able to afford them. The most stylish piece of clothing in her wardrobe was a pair of Jordache jeans she had bought from a consignment shop in Dublin, and even those were starting to wear at the knees.
She headed to the bathroom to wash her face, looking at herself in the cracked mirror. Her hair was her best feature, rolling in natural waves. But her eyes were the same brown as her locks, and she worried that her brows were a bit too thin to be fashionable. Cathy had always had her share of boys back in school, but more recently, she had come to realize those were just shallow relationships that had meant nothing. If she stayed in the tiny town, she would just be another faceless person to live and die on the same street she had been born on.
The phone rang, startling her out of her morbid thoughts. She headed into the living room to answer. “Hello?”
“Cathy? Are you okay? It’s Brianna.”
“I’m fine. I’m just a little tired,” she lied. Brianna had left Ireland the previous year to work as a nanny in the States. When he’d overheard her singing a lullaby one night, her boss ended up signing her to his record label, and then they’d gotten married. They were now living happily with his little girl. Cathy was excited for her, but if she were being honest with herself, she knew she was jealous of Brianna for getting out.
“Wait, what time is it there? Am I calling too late? I’m sorry. I don’t always think about the time zone conversion.”
“No, it’s fine.” Cathy smiled, purposely injecting her speech with energy she didn’t feel. “How are you? How’s everything with your band?”
“Oh, it’s so great! Damien and I are doing really well, and the Mixups and I are taking a little time off before our next tour. I think the Pet Shop Boys will be on the road with us.”
A pang of jealousy tightened Cathy’s chest. After all, her best friend was living every woman’s dream. She was married to a kind, wealthy man, she was a rising star in the music world, and she became the mother of a precious little girl. It didn’t get any better than that. “That’s amazing.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t sound like yourself.”
Cathy sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m bleedin’ miserable, honestly. I hate my job. I thought I would work there for a few months while I saved up and then I could move to Dublin. But the pay is barely enough to put food in my belly, and nobody wants to wear the clothes we sell. I thought about moving back in with Mum, but I can’t stand to be at home anymore now that Sean is there all the time. He’s just moved in and has taken over. As much as I hate the quiet in my own apartment, I don’t like the chaos of their house, either.”
“You’re that unhappy?” Brianna asked gently.
There was no point in lying to her best friend. “I am. And to make it worse, my mother and Sean won’t stop harassing me about either going to school or getting married. As if a man is going to fix my problems!” She was steamed all over again just thinking about it. “I’m so fed up with my life here.”
“Good!”
Cathy held the phone away from her ear, frowning at it. “What?”
“I’m glad you’re miserable! I mean, I’m not, but—well, you’ll understand when you hear why I’ve called. Damien has a friend with two children, and he’s suddenly in need of a live-in nanny. He needs someone right away, which means he doesn’t have a lot of time to interview people and check backgrounds. I told him that I knew a woman who was excellent with children and who might be willing to come work for him if he would buy her plane ticket.”
“Me?” Cathy asked breathlessly. The dullness of her current life quickly washed away in the wake of this news. She hadn’t necessarily thought of herself as a nanny, but she had been raising her younger siblings for almost her entire life. It would be a fresh start, and she would get to see Brianna any time she wasn’t on tour. “You can’t be serious!”
“Oh, but I am! Jackson can afford to pay you very well, and you’ll be provided with room and board. It doesn’t have to be a permanent thing if you don’t want it to be, but it would really help him out.”
Cathy sat down, her free hand pressed against her chest as she tried to absorb it all. It was so much to think about, and as much as she wanted to scream her agreement into the phone, she didn’t want to make a rash decision. “Can I at least think about it? Just for a day?”
“Of course,” Brianna enthused. “It’s a big change, and nobody would expect you to drive straight to the airport. But call me as soon as you decide. Jackson is pretty desperate. And he’s a good guy.”
“I will.” As they hung up, Cathy rose slowly from the sofa, feeling dizzy from the very idea of packing up her entire life and taking off for the U.S. She went back to her bedroom to change for bed, thinking about everything she would need to do. It would be easy to get out of her lease; there never seemed to be enough housing in their little town. Her furniture could stay with the place for all she cared. She only needed to pack up her personal belongings. And of course, say goodbye to her family.
Cathy took a moment to concentrate on the pang of sadness in her heart at that thought. She hadn’t felt as though she belonged at home for the last six months, ever since Sean and his boys had moved in. She was delighted to know that her mother would be taken care of, and that she didn’t have to be alone anymore. The idea freed her in ways she never could have predicted. Still, she would miss them. Could she really just up and leave? Start a new life in a different country? Brianna had done it, but she was a shifter. As her mother and new stepfather had so kindly pointed out, Cathy didn’t have such an advantage.
But as she walked through her apartment, she noted the cracks in the walls and the stains on the ceiling. Without opening the door, she knew the fridge was nearly empty. She had done her best to decorate the place to her own taste, but her budget wouldn’t allow it. A room in some strange man’s home probably wouldn’t be decorated the way she liked it, either, but at least she wouldn’t need to worry about whether she would have a roof over her head within a month’s time.
And what if she didn’t like this Jackson who needed a nanny so desperately? Or his kids? What if she went overseas and discovered that she didn’t like the hustle and bustle of a big city? Or that life as a nanny was dull or difficult? At worst, she would have to return to Ireland. Knowing her situation couldn’t get any more desperate than it had become, she picked up the phone.
Chapter Three
Jackson paced the living room impatiently. He had plenty that he should have been doing, but he couldn’t focus on any of it. His life was about to change—hopefully for the better, in time. Crystal had no idea just how much she had shaken things up for him and the kids by leaving. Knowing she didn’t care made it even more aggravating.
“Would you sit down and relax? The girls will be back from the airport anytime. There’s nothing to worry about.” Damien sat on the couch, grinning at him.
“Easy for you to say. You haven’t been missing work almost every night for two weeks because your wife ran off and left you.” Jackson ran a hand through his dark blonde hair, suddenly irritated at the length of it, but everything irritated him lately. He’d had a short fuse with the children, and then he’d always found himself apologizing for it by the end of the night.
