by Hope Ford
She doesn’t answer me, just nods her head.
“Okay, sweetie, where’s your inhaler?” I ask her, while debating with myself if I should be calling an ambulance.
She points to the dining room table and I spot a pink backpack. I run over and grab it and run back to the little girl. I start unzipping pockets and she reaches for the one in the front and I open it, pulling out the inhaler.
Supporting the back of her head, I hold the inhaler to her mouth. “Okay, honey, inhale.”
I watch as she takes a deep breath and when I go to take the inhaler away, she holds up two fingers. I know she’s trying to tell me she needs two puffs, so I hold it to her and ask her, “Ready?” She slowly nods her head and I tell her again, “Inhale,” and she takes a deep breath while I hold it down.
When she’s done, I pull the inhaler away and set it on the coffee table. We sit there for a minute staring at each other, and only when I see that she starts to smile do I finally release the breath I’ve been holding. “Oh God, honey, you scared me,” I tell her honestly.
She nods her head. “Me too.”
She’s wiped out and she lays her head on the back of the couch. I start to get up, but she reaches out and stops me with her hand on mine. “Please, don’t leave.”
I squeeze her fingers. “I won’t.”
When she nods, I lay her hand down on her lap and stand up to my full height. Which honestly, isn’t very intimidating, but right now I feel fierce.
“Who was smoking?” I ask, looking between what I’m guessing is the babysitter and her boyfriend.
She tilts her head defiantly and shrugs her shoulders at me.
I take a step toward her. “Did you know she has asthma?”
The woman just shrugs her shoulder. “Yes, her brother mentioned it.”
I stride over to her and stand toe to toe with her. I get up on my tiptoes because she’s probably a good foot taller than me. “So let me get this straight, you knew she had asthma and you still smoked around her.”
The stupid woman doesn’t have the sense to look ashamed. “Well, yeah, I don’t see the big deal.”
Instantly, I point my finger to the door. “Get out. Get out right now before I throw you out.”
The man starts to walk out but she grabs on to his arm. “No, we aren’t going anywhere. I gotta get paid.”
“Get paid. He’s a cop, right?” I remember the landlord telling me a cop lived here. I hope I’m not wrong, but I don’t wait for an answer. “I’ll have him arrest you before I let him pay you.”
The man’s mouth drops. “You didn’t tell me he was a cop. I’m outta here.” He walks out the door and I wait for the woman to argue with me, but instead she picks up her purse, slings it over her shoulder, and walks out behind him.
I slam the door behind her, lock it and turn back to the little girl who’s staring at me wide eyed.
I go back to the couch and sit down next to her. “So, uh, do you care if I stay here with you until your family gets home?”
She nods her head at me. “Yeah, but I don’t have a family. I have my brother and he said he’d be home early.”
That’s good, I think to myself, because I don’t want to calm down before I talk to him. What kind of man leaves his sister with someone like that? I’ve got a thing or two I want to say to the jackass myself.
I lean back into the couch. “So what’s your name?”
She smiles and I can’t help but smile back at the red-haired angel staring at me. She really is a pretty girl. “Anna.”
“Well, Anna, I’m Carly. Are you feeling better?”
She nods her head and starts talking excitedly about the show that’s on television. I should get up and air the room out a little more, but Anna seems to want my full attention. So I sit here, listening to her talk about her day and already preparing myself for what I’m going to say to her brother when he gets home. Luckily, we didn’t need to call the ambulance, but it was a close call.
3
Luke
“Sorry, I’m a little later than normal,” I call out as I carry grocery bags into the kitchen. I set them down, put away a few of the items that need refrigerated, and walk back into the living room with a smile on my face.
The room is dark, the only light coming from the television.
“Who the fuck are you?” I yell, already on defense.
The woman sitting on the couch is young, probably a few years younger than me. And she has my sister’s head in her lap while she strokes her fingers through her hair.
I start walking toward them to pick up Anna, but the stranger stops me with her hand held up. She holds her finger across her mouth, shushing me.
She gently lifts Anna’s head and slides out from underneath, then lays her back down on the couch.
When she stands up and looks at me, I see the fire in her eyes. She points to the kitchen and for me to follow her.
I walk behind her and try not to get distracted by the sway of her thick hips in the tight black pants.
I no sooner walk into the kitchen than she’s already turning around, her ponytail flipping over her shoulder in the progress. “How dare you leave that little girl like that?”
Stunned, I come to a halt and can’t believe the venom in her voice. “Whoa, I have to work, lady. And where’s her babysitter? I left her here with an adult.”
She laughs. “Yeah, you should probably rephrase that. That woman – that woman – and her boyfriend were in here smoking and Anna’s asthma started acting up.”
“What!” I turn to the leave the kitchen and she grabs on to me, stopping me. We both look at where her hand is on my arm and then at each other.
She drops her hand like touching me burns her. “She’s fine now but exhausted. The babysitter – and I say that loosely – came to get me to have me call 911 – and I found her inhaler. Look, mister, I don’t know where her parents are or…”
“They’re dead. I’m her brother and now her guardian. I’m a cop… I had the babysitter checked out before I hired her. I didn’t just hire someone off the street,” I deadpan and then wonder why I’m trying to explain myself to her. I don’t owe her anything.
I run my hand through my hair. I want to go in and wake up Anna to make sure she’s really all right, but I know I should let her rest. I look down into the blue eyes of the woman that possibly saved my little sister and realize that yeah, I do owe her. She’s standing up to me and I’m at least eighty pounds heavier than her and a good foot taller… all for my little sister.
“Okay, so where’s the babysitter now?” I ask her.
She actually looks sheepish when she answers me. “I kicked her and her boyfriend out and told them I’d have you arrest them. It was either that or I was going to go to jail for assault.” She crosses her arms across her ample chest. “I took the lesser of two evils.”
Carly
I don’t back down, I keep staring at him, daring him to give me crap for running his babysitter off. Surely he wouldn’t want her to still babysit, I mean, c’mon.
But he doesn’t argue with me. Instead he runs his hands through his hair, making it go every which way. But even with that, he’s still handsome. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. Anna’s brother is so handsome he almost takes my breath away.
“So… uh, I’m sorry, what’s your name?” he asks me.
“Carly,” I tell him and start to walk to the door.
“Carly.” The sound of my name on his lips has me almost running to the door. I have to get out of here before I do something stupid. “I’m Luke.”
I turn to tell him bye and he’s standing right next to me with his hand held out. Reluctantly, I put mine in his. He grabs it and holds on to it tightly. “Carly, I’m sorry for jumping on you. It sounds to me like you saved my little sister and I’m sorry for giving you shit about it.”
I shrug my shoulders at him. “Yeah, uh, no problem.”
I turn to leave, but then his words
stop me. “So, uh, you don’t happen to know any nannies or kid sitters, do you?”
I rub my hand across my face because I know I’m about to get myself into something. “No, why? Don’t you have a backup?”
He starts to shrug his shoulders and then we hear Anna’s voice and her feet as she runs across the hardwood floor toward us. “Carly, can you watch me?”
“Hey, bug. I thought you were sleeping,” Luke says as he puts his hands on her shoulders to stop her from running to me.
“I was, but then I woke up. Did you hear that Carly ran off Rachel and her boyfriend? They were smoking, Bub.”
Luke only gets to nod his head before Anna finishes her story. “Yeah, and it’s the worst attack I’ve had. I don’t know what I would have done if Carly hadn’t come over.”
Luke then looks between Anna and me. Anna reaches out and grabs my hand and I squat to my knees in front of her. “Anna, I would love to be able to hang out with you, but I’m sure your brother wants someone with a little more experience than I have.”
Luke just shakes his head. “Well, I dunno, it sort of seems you’re perfect for the job.”
I take a deep breath and look between the two of them. The same green eyes stare back at me, pleadingly.
I roll my shoulders. It’s not like I’m busy. My only thing to do this week was to come up with a plan. I left my trust fund life behind in hopes of trying to figure out who I really am. Well, surely getting a job, even a temporary one, is better than nothing. “Fine. If you want, I can watch Anna until you find another sitter.”
We agree on a time and I tell them goodnight.
“Carly?” Luke says my name and it brushes over me like a soft breeze.
I get to my door across the hall, needing to put some distance between us, and turn back to him. “Yeah?”
“Did you forget your shoes?” he asks me, looking at my feet.
I look down at my bare pink polished toes and back up again. I laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t have time to grab them earlier. They’re inside,” I say, pointing at my door. Then with a small wave, I walk into my apartment, shut the door and lean back against it.
4
Carly
My first day on the job and I am already second guessing myself. I guess I thought Anna would be in school or something like that, but no, she is on spring break. As soon as I stepped into the apartment and saw him standing at the stove in his police uniform flipping a pancake, my stomach flipped with it. He looked good last night coming in with his street clothes and backpack on. But Luke in a uniform is something else.
I set down my bag at the table and Anna looks up at it and then at me. “What is Louis Vutton?”
Instead of answering her, I exclaim, “Something smells good. What can I do to help?” I don’t want to get into the whole story of where I come from and why I’m living here. And Anna doesn’t have a clue who Louis Vuitton is, which is good, because I don’t want to explain my life, especially when I don’t really understand it. No, I’d rather keep it all under wraps for a little bit.
“Nothing. Have a seat.” He points to a chair at the table and Anna and I sit down.
He starts going over Anna’s schedule and what he’d like me to do with her. He finishes with, “It should only be a few days and then I’ll have time to start looking for another sitter. I finish an exam tonight, then I’ll be off school for a week.”
“So you go to school and work?”
He sets a plate of pancakes in the middle of the table. “Yep, I’m trying to promote to detective and it requires a degree. But I’m in my last semester so I’m almost done.”
Nodding my head, I can’t help but be a little jealous. He’s already got his life figured out and he’s going for it. He knows exactly what he wants to do. And then here I am, living off my trust fund and trying to decide what I even want to do the next day.
“So are you sure you don’t mind watching her until around eight o’clock tonight? If you need me to, I can get my partner’s mom to come. She watches her sometimes when I get into a bind.”
“It’s no problem, I promise,” I assure him. I have nothing else to do, but I don’t tell him that.
“Great!” He hands me his phone. “Can you put your number in?”
I take the phone from him and do my best not to touch his fingers. I type in my name and number and hand it back to him.
He looks down at it. “What’s your last name?”
“Colton,” I tell him easily and look away. I get it, he wants to know who’s watching his sister.
He kisses his sister on the head and tells us bye. Before he walks out, he asks me, “What about a car? Do you need to borrow mine today?”
I just shake my head. “Nope. I have one.” I’m hoping he doesn’t ask me, because I don’t really want to explain why I have a BMW. I know the look when people find out you have money. For some reason, I really don’t want that from him.
I watch him walk out the door and turn around to Anna. “Okay, kiddo. What do you want to do today?”
She takes a bite of her pancakes. “Can we go to the park?”
Nodding my head, I sit down with her and think about how Luke left without even eating anything.
Luke
I had to get out of there. Just the scent of her strawberry shampoo was driving me insane. She had on another pair of her tight black pants and a wide necked shirt that kept hanging off her shoulder. Her creamy skin was calling to me and before I made a fool of myself, I got out of there. Before getting into my cruiser, I look over at the assigned parking spot for her apartment. The cherry red BMW stands out like a sore thumb in the mix of all the other beat-up cars that surround it. It’s an older model, but still in good shape.
I stand at the rear of it and jot down the license plate number. I feel a little guilty, but surely she knows I’m going to check her out, at least make sure she has no warrants or something. I told her I had the last babysitter checked out, so she shouldn’t be surprised.
I sit down in my car, adjusting myself in the process. My uniform has been tight in the nether regions since she walked into the apartment this morning. It’s like she brought in the sunshine with her. And I wasn’t the only one that noticed. Even Anna, who hardly ever smiles, was particularly happy this morning. I can’t help but worry what this is going to do to her if she gets attached. With resolve in my gut, I make it top priority to start looking for another babysitter pronto.
5
Carly
“You’re home early,” I tell him as he walks in the door. Anna and I had a full day at the park and she watched TV while I cooked dinner and then we’ve been resting on the couch since then.
“Yeah, they let us go after we finished our test,” he says, laying his bag down and kissing the top of Anna’s head.
I can feel my ovaries about to explode just watching them together, so I get up and trail to the kitchen. “You must be hungry.”
He follows behind me and I take the plate out of the oven where I had it warming. I walk over to the dining room table and set it down before walking back into the kitchen to grab his salad out of the fridge. “I hope it’s okay I cooked. Anna wanted spaghetti for dinner and…”
“Oh fuck!”
“Bub, you’re not supposed to say that word,” we hear from the living room.
He apologizes to her before sitting down at the table and breathing in the fresh aroma of the garlic and sauce. “This smells good, Carly. I meant to say, I’m sorry I didn’t leave any money for you all to eat while you were out. I’ll make sure to give you some from now on.”
I shake my head at him. “No way. She wanted McDonald’s for lunch and I figured you wouldn’t want her to have all her meals out today, plus I love to cook. It’s like the one thing I’m good at.” I blush, realizing that I’m bragging. “I mean, I’ve been told I’m good, but hey, maybe I’m not.”
I turn quickly away, but as soon as I do, the sound of Luke moaning has me stopping and my body tighteni
ng. Just that sound alone makes my legs tremble and the apex of my thighs wet.
I can’t take it, I turn around and look at him and his face is full of desire when he looks at me. “Oh, don’t doubt it, honey, you’re good.”
He’s licking his lips and I know he’s talking about the food, but the way he says it has my body heating as I walk back into the kitchen to put away the clean dishes from the draining board.
I take my time, taking calming breaths so I can at least act normal when I go to leave. Only minutes go by and he comes up beside me and starts washing his plate. “Thank you for dinner. We don’t get a lot of home cooked meals and that was a good one.”
I take a few steps away. “Sure. So, uh, I’m going to go now. What time do you need me tomorrow?”
“Oh, I don’t go in until later. Can you do a night shift?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Sure, no problem.”
I start walking to the door but by the time I get there, he’s cutting me off, standing in front of the door, stopping me from going out. “Wait, uh, before I go into work, I was going to take Anna to lunch and an early movie. Will you join us?”
I reach for the door, planning to make an excuse when Anna jumps off the couch and stands next to me, bouncing from foot to foot. “Yes, please, Carly. Please go with us?”
I can’t help but laugh at her antics. Already my thoughts of Luke have done a 180 in less than 24 hours. I thought he was some irresponsible guy and come to find out after the way Anna talked today, he’s the best big brother ever. It’s obvious he loves his sister and will do anything for her.
“I’m sure you guys would rather spend time on your own,” I say, looking for a way to say no without hurting her feelings.
Luke reaches out and touches my hair, brushing it off my shoulder. “I wouldn’t have asked if we didn’t want you with us.”
