by Natalie Ann
She knocked on her boss’s door and waited to be asked to enter. Miss Grundy looked up and sighed as if she were dreading the scene to come. Then she shocked Elli with her next words. “I’m sorry, Elli, for bursting in on you earlier. I should have asked you to come out of your office rather than carrying on so dreadfully in front of the client. It was unforgivable.”
Shocked to the extreme, Elli stuttered, “I-I deserved your censure, Miss Grundy. I behaved shockingly and have no excuse.”
“But you do. You see, it’s been so many years since I allowed myself the freedom to let my personal feelings enter into hard decisions, I’d forgotten how some cases can rip your heart out. I grew a hard shell to protect myself. Most of us working here have done so, otherwise, we couldn’t go on, couldn’t sleep at night.”
“I tried doing that, too. I told myself so many stories about needing our work to benefit everyone and not just the few, and how continuous problems had forced the rules to be put in place as a protection for the majority.”
“Except, it didn’t work, did it? You couldn’t bring yourself to believe in the truth there.”
“No, I couldn’t. Not when I put faces to the names. In the books, the rules seemed logical… the guidelines sensible. But looking into the eyes of some kids or parents we turned our backs on, because of budget restrictions or abiding by procedures, made me feel insensitive and disgusted with myself and the system. The saddest cases have started showing up in my nightmares.”
“I was afraid of that. I knew you were being haunted and did nothing. When I told you to leave, it was insensitive. You do not have to go. We can find a place for you in the system, Elli. With your credentials, it would be a shame to lose you. We need people like you to remind us that we’re dealing with human beings and not numbers.”
Dumbfounded, Elli held up her hands to stop her boss from continuing. “It’s too late.” Elli’s regret only lasted until she remembered Caro. The green eyes begging Elli to take care of her. This was one child that she, Elli Storm, could help. Actually make a difference in the child’s life. To prevent the uncle from ruining her with his indifference to her daily needs. Try to encourage her to loosen the dam inside, to allow her voice to be heard and words to be spoken.
Now, driving to their place, Elli made a call on her car phone that would get her to the office of one of the people in the system who cared about each youngster as much as she did, Amanda Bell. Mandy was also a Child Psychologist. The difference between them was that she’d used her degree since they both passed their exams and built up a lucrative business, including many pro bono cases.
“Hey, Elli. About time you called. I’ve been waiting to hear about your new job. How’s it going?”
“Well, considering I got fired, I guess you could say it bombed.”
“What? You. Got fired? Don’t tell me – Miss Grundy. She’s a war machine, that old stick-in-the-mud.”
Uncomfortable with the analogy after her talk with the woman the night before and finding a beating heart under her armor, she cut her friend off before she continued her tirade. “No, it wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be. Grundy reversed the firing, and we parted friends.”
“Fine. You always did have a soft spot for the underdog. I’ll back off. Let’s go to dinner tonight and you can tell me all about it. I need to get away from this place, talk with a friend… relax for a couple of hours.”
“You sound beat up. You okay?”
“Just busy. Hey, now that you’re free, I can offer you a job, the one you’ve turned down numerous times. First to be a toy store entrepreneur and then to get your heart broken in the system.”
“Sounds great. I’m free for dinner but not for accepting the job. Let’s meet at the same old place, and I’ll explain in person.”
“Seriously, you’re breaking my heart.”
“I’m sorry, Mandy. I do have a good reason. Right now, I’m on my way to a new position, one I can’t wait to discuss with you. Seems… I need to pick your brain about the little girl who I’ll be a nanny for.”
“Hmm, sounds interesting. You tell me about your kid, and I’ll tell you about the man I met that I’m going to marry.”
“What! You’re engaged? That’s fantastic.”
“Hold it, we’re not engaged. I just met the man, but he’s a looker with the biggest bedroom eyes you’ve ever seen. If I have my way, we’ll go straight from there to the church.”
“My friend, you’re crazy. Man crazy. One day, someone’s going to call your bluff and you’ll find yourself hitched with three kids and a baby in diapers.”
“Fun-ny – not! This is the one, Elli. I could feel the zing from across the desk.”
“Seriously, a client?” Eli began to laugh. “Okay, it’s a deal. You can wax poetic about Mr. Perfect, and I can pick your brain for opinions about this new challenge.”
Listening to her friend laughing, she hit the end button on the dashboard entertainment system and pulled into the parking lot of the apartment where Beau Williams and Caro lived.
She’d have thought that failing at her previous job and being asked to leave would have destroyed her completely, kept her disturbed and awake. That her confidence and self-esteem would have been shredded. Thankfully, it didn’t work out that way.
After her talk with Miss Grundy, where they agreed to change her termination slip to her quitting the job, there were no dark clouds threatening her world. She felt better today than she had in months.
Knocking at the door, she waited to see what was in store for her, excited to start her new chapter with the adorable Caro.
Chapter Seven
“Thank God you’re here. We’re having a rotten day.”
She picked up on the man’s frustration in an instant. His hair stood on end, his shirt was tucked in front and hung loose in the back, and he only wore one slipper. “What’s happening, Mr. Williams?”
“Will you stop with the mister stuff and call me Beau?”
“Fine. I’m Elli. Now, what’s the problem?”
His voice rose, and he yelled the next sentence toward a closed door further down the hall. “Caro won’t come out of the bathroom.”
“So just go in.”
“Silly me, why didn’t I think of that?” Beau glared and added, “I would if she hadn’t locked the door.”
Faced with her first crisis, Elli’s heart dropped. It suddenly dawned on her that she had no actual child rearing experience. What the hell was she thinking? Caught up in the moment yesterday, riding on fluffy clouds of self-importance and being needed, not once did she think it through.
“How long has she been in there?”
“Hell if I know. I went to bring her from her room at the usual time and couldn’t find her. She does that – hides away when she wants to scare the sh-poop out of me. It took a while before I figured out that she must be in here. The door couldn’t lock itself.”
“So, what do you want me to do?”
“Get her to come out.”
“Can she open the door?”
“You mean she might not know how to unlock it? I never thought of that.”
He raced back to the door in question and leaned over, showing off another of his sexy attributes that would catch any woman’s attention. “Caro, baby, can you unlock the door?”
Silence greeted him.
“Why are you standing there staring at my butt instead of helping me?”
“I was not staring at your butt you conceited idiot. I was just thinking of how we can get her to let us know if she can’t open the door. Obviously, you’ve forgotten she doesn’t talk.”
“Damn! You’re right. Sorry. What do you suggest?”
Elli leaned in close to the door beside Beau and spoke softly. “Hi honey, it’s Elli. Miss Storm from yesterday. I came to spend the day with you, and I’ve planned lots of fun things for us to do. Can you undo the lock? If not, bang on the door so we know you’re stuck in there.”
Elli turned to
see how Beau was taking her suggestion and breathed easy after she saw him nodding in agreement. Staring into each other’s eyes, they waited for a knock on the door.
Silence.
Hmm. Elli didn’t know if it meant that Caro hadn’t understood the directions or that she could open the door but for a reason of her own, refused to do so.
Still nothing. She could feel Beau’s growing exasperation. She whispered so Caro wouldn’t hear her. “Don’t let her see you’re angry. It’ll scare her.”
“Angry? I’m not angry, I’m scared. It just dawned on me that I never child-proofed anywhere in the apartment and especially in the bathroom. There’s old medications in there that would seriously hurt her if she decided they were candy and wanted to taste them. We need to get her out of there.”
Elli caught his fear and began worrying now too. “Caro, if you can open the door, but don’t want to, bang on it for us. We need to know you’re not hurt.”
They waited, holding their breath. When the small tapping noise came, both released impatience in different ways. He cussed softly and sat back on the floor. She turned to grin at him with her thumb up. “She’s fine. Now we need her to let us in.”
“You’re doing better in a few minutes than I did for a lot longer. What do you suggest?”
“Let me talk with her alone. Something isn’t right. Did you get angry with her for some reason yesterday after you came home?”
He looked affronted and spoke with a caustic tone. “Of course not. She’s just a baby. Why would you ask me something like that?”
“Because she’s locking herself away from you. There’s not too many reasons I can think of for her to do that. Where does she sleep?”
Beau stared at her for a few minutes as if she’d lost her mind but stood and led her to the small guest room he’d set up for Caro. The minute they entered, she smelled the odor and knew in her heart why Caro hid away.
Beau made a face and stepped over to the bed. “What’s that horrible smell?”
“Caro peed the bed. It’s probably why she locked herself in the bathroom.”
He leaned closer and lifted the blanket. Sure enough, the evidence stared him in the face. “So what? She had an accident. It happens. You figure she’s reacting because she’s scared?”
“We have no way of knowing how her mom would have handled something like this. Maybe she spanked her, and she’s scared you’ll do the same.”
“Me? I’d never spank a kid. That’s ridiculous.”
Thrilled to hear his words and seeing his affronted attitude, Elli spoke more gently. “Beau, she has no idea of how you’ll act. She needs you to show her.”
He nodded and rubbed his hair with both hands, thinking hard. She watched him come to a decision and followed him back to the bathroom door. He sat down and leaned his back against the wall and started to speak. “Caro, when I was a little boy even older than you, I used to have a bad bladder. The doctors said it would grow stronger as I got bigger, but until I was almost seven, I would wake up in the morning and find my bed wet and jammies that were smelly and soggy. My mom never scolded me, she just took me to the bathroom every night before she went to bed herself, and if I still had an accident, she would clean everything and hug me tight so I knew I wasn’t a bad boy. I just had a naughty bladder. Then, one day my mom gave me a big fancy cake and a toy I wanted but never expected to get unless maybe Santa brought it for me at Christmas. I asked her if it was my birthday, and she said no. She said it was to celebrate that I hadn’t had an accident for over a month. She figured my bladder had grown stronger like the doctor promised. I never peed the bed again.”
Beau’s wonderful gravelly voice cast a spell on Elli, and she had no doubt that Caro listened to every word. She added her own story.
“Honey, I used to get up in the night to go to the bathroom, and many times I didn’t make it in time and would have an accident in my jammies too. My mom said it had happened to her when she was little and she’d help me to wash and change. Caro, you must never, ever be scared ‘cause your bladder is still small and not yet grown strong. It takes more time for some of us. Can you come out now so Elli can help you wash and change?”
When they heard the lock click on the door, Elli smiled at Beau, and he nodded. More loudly, he added, “I’ll go make some pancakes for us. So, when you girls are ready, come into the kitchen and be prepared for a treat. I make the best pancakes you ever tasted.”
His hand signals let Elli know he worried Caro might not want him there to see her disgrace, and he’d be better off doing something else.
She nodded and felt delighted that he could be so thoughtful. Who’d have figured that the man who could yank her chain so easily might have redeeming qualities… other than his good looks and sexy ass.
Chapter Eight
When Caro didn’t open the door and come to the hallway, Elli stepped into the bathroom to see the little toddler sitting naked on the floor with her arms around her legs, a bundle of misery. Her sodden pajamas were half in and out of the toilet where she’d tried to wash them. Water had leaked everywhere, and the floor was soaked.
Her head down, she didn’t look up until Elli spoke. “Poor, Caro. You’re having a bad day, aren’t you sweetie? It’s going to be okay now. We don’t get to choose our bladders, so it isn’t our fault when we have one that takes more time to grow.”
Caro stared at Elli, her big green eyes huge and swollen from tears. Then she lifted her arms. Elli’s heart dropped into that sweet zone that made her melt on the spot. A big mass of pink hearts began floating around inside her and love for the child swelled.
She picked her up and cuddled her, tears stinging her own eyes when she felt Caro clinging to her neck as if she’d never let go.
Rather than dwelling on the misery of the moment, Elli spoke cheerfully, “Beau is in there making us the best pancakes we ever tasted so we’d better not keep him waiting. You know what men can get like if they don’t get their way. He’ll pout like a baby. Right?”
Caro pulled back and nodded hesitantly. When she saw the big grin on Elli’s face, she started to smile too. It was small and her eyes still held anxiety, but she appeared ready to forget the distress of the morning.
Elli went to the tub and turned on the water. All the time she carried Caro in her arms, she never stopped babbling about how nice it would feel to have a warm bath and clean herself. When she saw the obvious male soap, she pretended to be horrified. “Oh, no. Caro. You’ll have to wash your pretty girl skin with men’s soap. Yuck! Now you’ll smell like a guy.”
Caro caught on that this was more of a joke than an actual problem, and she giggled. Happy to see that her silliness was going over well, Elli pretended a horrified expression and held the toddler away so she could pretend whisper to her. “First thing we do today is go and buy you little girl’s soap, and shampoo too. What do you think?”
Caro nodded, her face lightening incredibly. When Elli started to lower her to the tub, that changed. She stiffened and held on to Elli. She gripped her neck and violently shook her head no.
Elli backed away, and she stopped. “Honey, have you ever had a bath?”
Caro looked up, her eyes full of fear again, and she shrugged.
Elli started over. “This is a bathtub, right? And we put nice warm water in there so we can sit in the water and wash ourselves. It’s really fun. Haven’t you ever done this?”
Caro shook her head.
Elli asked another question, her sudden concern for the child increasing. “Did your mommy wash you in a sink?”
Caro shook her head again.
“With a cloth? Did she wash you with a wet cloth?”
Caro nodded. But began to look worried.
“It’s fine, sweetie. Some moms wash their kids that way. But my mom always washed me in the bathtub so I could play in there. When I was little, she’d come in the tub with me.”
Caro suddenly stuck her finger toward Elli and nodded. It was if she was
saying, come with me and I’ll try it. It couldn’t be more obvious, and Elli realized she’d walked right into this tough spot because of letting her tongue loose with no connection to her brain.
The more she hesitated, the more Caro expressed her excitement and Elli felt stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. She made sure she had Caro’s signals right. “You’ll take a bath with me?”
Caro nodded excitedly. She clapped her hands adorably and Elli knew her goose was cooked. She’d raised the idea and Caro had called her on it. She couldn’t back down or the child might feel as if she wasn’t to be trusted. Or worse, that she didn’t deserve to be treated that nicely.
Pretending to be happy about the situation, Elli began to take off her jeans and her pretty, coral-flowered ruffled bouse. Caro sat on the floor and watched her, waiting.
When she got to her undies, Elli hesitated. Rather than having a soaking wet bra after her bath, she opted to remove it, but when it came to her panties, she decided she could wear her jeans next to her skin. She just felt too shy to uncover completely. Once ready, she peeked to see if Caro seemed upset by her nakedness and saw the child was now watching the water rather than her. It made her think she’d obviously been around her mother’s nakedness and it meant nothing to her.
Scooping Caro up in her arms, she gathered the soap, a soft cloth, a water glass and a few other articles that Beau had on his counter and stepped into the wonderfully warm water. She slowly lowered them until both were in the water, Caro across from her sitting between her feet.
Once she felt the water didn’t hurt her, that it was warm and not hurtful, the child seemed ridiculously happy. She reached for the cloth and soap and began to wash her body in a way that Elli knew she’d seen others do – maybe on TV.
When Elli saw the shampoo on a shelf, she coaxed Caro to turn around so her back was to her, making it easier to wash her greasy hair. Though she hesitated, Caro finally followed directions and made the chore easy. Laughing together, Elli created bubbles that crowned the small head while she massaged Caro’s skull.
