One Week Nanny
Page 7
I knew she’d been burned by her ex. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to be cautious, especially knowing about my past with women, but I was going to find a way to make her see how serious I was about her. How real my feelings had become.
They drank lemonade while I worked the grill, and Keona kept asking us to time her quick sprints across the pool.
“Why don’t you want to join her?” I asked Keke while Keona was swimming to the far end.
“And risk getting my hair wet? Do you have any idea how much time and money it would take to fix that?”
I shrugged. I didn’t, but I’d take her word for it. “Guess that means shower sex is out of the question?” I asked under my breath.
She started to reply, but her nose wrinkled, and she looked over to Addie. “Uh-oh. Someone needs a diaper change, don’t they?”
“Does she? Shit. Can you keep an eye on this?”
She waved me off. “You stay there. I’ll take her. I’d burn them.”
“There’s a changing room through those doors over there.”
She nodded and scooped Addie out of her chair, picking up the diaper bag before she stood up. “We’ll be right back.”
“Don’t be too long. I might miss you too much,” I said, not even ashamed of how easily this cheesy corny shit came to me when I was around her.
Keona’s spidey senses must’ve told her her mom wasn’t around to supervise. She popped out of the pool and called over to me. “Hey Matt! Watch how big this splash is!”
She hovered by the deep end of the pool, bent her knees, and launched into a cannonball dive.
In an instant, my smile dropped. I saw it happening in slow-motion. She slipped when she took off and she wasn’t going to clear the ledge. She hit the side of the pool at an awkward angle and sank like a rock.
“Keona!” I shouted, flinging my tongs and diving into the pool after her without a second thought.
Underwater, her eyes were wide and scared, but I wrapped my arm around her waist and hauled her up to the surface, towing her to the ledge before I lifted her out and climbed out with her.
I didn’t have to look long to see what had happened, her forearm had an extra bend in it where there shouldn’t be one. It had to be broken.
She was still in shock, but then she saw where I was looking and the pain hit her all at once, her screams scaring away the gulls roosted on the top of the building.
“Shh, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” I promised her, snatching up a towel to wrap around her shoulders.
“What’s going on? What happened?” Keke asked, running out of the changing room with a diaperless Addie.
“She slipped,” I explained quickly, taking Addie so Keke could focus on Keona. “We need to get her to urgent care, it might be broken.”
“Broken?” Keona wailed louder, which started to set Addie off too. She didn’t know what was going on, but she could tell everyone was upset.
“Okay, it’s going to be all right pumpkin. Let Mommy see.”
Keona was still cradling her injured arm under the towel and when Keke pulled it back, she frowned at her daughter’s swollen, crooked arm.
“Yep, we’re going to the hospital,” she said, helping Keona up with her good arm.
“We’re coming too,” I said without hesitation.
Keke looked me up and down, frowning. “Why are you all wet?”
Keona sniffled. “Matt saved me.”
I shrugged. “I just saw her hit the ledge and I didn’t know if it was her arm or her head or what…”
She was giving me a look I didn’t quite understand, but there was no time for wondering about it.
“Come on, let’s go. It’ll be faster to drive ourselves than wait for an ambulance. I have spare diapers for Addie in the car.”
Keke didn’t argue with me. She let me whisk them all away to the elevator while she held Keona and reassured her over and over.
It wasn’t far to the nearest urgent care, but it felt like a million years knowing Keona was in pain and there was nothing I could do to make it better.
While Keona was getting x-rayed, Keke and I had a moment alone together.
“So you just jumped in after her?” she asked.
“What else could I do?”
She shook her head, fighting back a smile.
“It’s just… Thank you,” she said.
I was holding Addie with one arm, but with my free hand, I reached for hers.
“I know you don’t think I mean it, but I wanna be here for you. For both of you, the way you have been for me. That little girl in there has captured my heart just as much as her beautiful momma. I always joked that one girl was never enough to satisfy me, but now I think I’ve found the only three I’ll ever need again.”
Keke searched my eyes, still too uncertain to let her smile come out. “You really mean all this sappy shit, don’t you?”
“I really do. Feelings like this are new to me, but I’ve never been one to drag my feet or overanalyze. I wanna do this thing. With you. I wanna see what it could be. What we could be. All of us together. Is that something you think you could want too?”
Her smile started to slip out now, my heart in my throat.
“Yeah, I think it might be,” she agreed, leaning in to kiss me.
“Ugh… Gross,” Keona said, just exiting the x-ray room with a nurse. She made a face at us for about two seconds before she seemed to get over it. “Mom, they said I get to pick the color of my cast! Isn’t that cool?”
“Very cool,” Keke laughed, squeezing my hand, making my heart swell.
It wasn’t how I planned for the day to go, but I had to admit it had a pretty happy ending. And this was just the beginning.
Thanks for reading One Week Nanny! If you want to read about Matt’s brother, Ryan, check out Back To Love
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I’m working on the next book. For updates and more information you can visit my website: shayviolet.com
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For a full list of all my books at Amazon go to amazon.com/author/shayviolet
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Want to learn more about Shay and her books? Visit her website!
shayviolet.com
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For a complete list of Shay’s books on Amazon, visit: amazon.com/author/shayviolet
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