by Aria Ford
I can’t look at her. “It’s not as bad as that.”
“Yes, it is. You get mad and say mean things to them, and they walk out. You know you do. I don’t want Kira to leave. Can’t you at least try to be a little nicer to her?”
I gnash my teeth. “Do I have to?”
“Yes, you have to. Why can’t she take me to the library? Why can’t she have her friend come to visit her? What difference does it make?”
I try to harden myself against her, but her little voice weasels into my brain. “Can’t I have some say about what goes on here? I’m supposed to be the dad here, you know.”
“You have the say about everything that goes on here,” she wails. “I never get to have friends. I never get to go anywhere. It’s not like anything can happen to me at the library, except maybe I’d get some fresh air sometimes instead of being cooped up in this house every day.”
I wilt. “Alright, honeybunch. I will do my level best to be nice to Kira. I will try to be a better dad for you. That’s all I really want.”
She humphs and turns away. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you can be nice to anybody.”
“I’m nice to you, aren’t I?”
She waves her hand. “That’s different.”
She heads back to her ant farm. I kiss her on the top of the head. “I gotta go now, baby. I’ll see you tonight, and we can plan the rest of our lives then.”
She doesn’t turn around when I let myself out of the room. I ought to get going or I’ll be late to the office, but Ivy’s words make me think twice. I pause outside Kira’s room. Maybe I can say something to her, something like what I planned to say when I first walked into the room before I made an ass of myself.
The door stands half-open, and I catch sight of Kira standing by the bed. She’s doing something down on the bedspread, but I can’t see what it is. I hesitate a moment longer. I don’t want to go in there, but something about her draws me to her.
It’s not just that she’s pretty. She’s something so much more than pretty. She’s not what you’d call the most attractive woman in the world, but something mysterious dwells deep inside her. She feels things other people don’t feel. She understands people at a level beyond the surface.
I would never try to make up with anybody else. Maybe that’s why so many nannies have come and gone. I would never admit I did anything wrong with them. I never dreamed of apologizing or explaining myself.
So why consider apologizing to Kira? Is it because she knows the truth? Did Connor telling her about Jade really make all the difference? No, it started before that. It started the first time she walked into my house. I wanted her to understand. I wanted her to know the truth, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. She was a stranger, after all, wasn’t she?
That’s the weird thing. Standing there in the hall, staring at her back, I get the sinking sensation she was never a stranger. She was always there, just out of sight.
Whatever happens, I have to talk to her. I have to try to make up with her, even if I make a mess of it. I step into the room, but she doesn’t notice me. She keeps bending over her bed.
I move up next to her, but when I see what she’s doing, my hackles rise. “What do you think you’re doing?”
She doesn’t look up. “You can see for yourself what I’m doing. I’m packing my suitcase. I made a mistake thinking I could work for you. I’m going home.”
“What about today?” I bluster. “I’ve got to go to work in ten minutes. Who’s gonna take care of Ivy today?”
“I don’t know,” she breezes. “You’re Ivy’s dad. You’re the one who makes the decisions about what she does and what she doesn’t do. She’s your responsibility, not mine.”
“Well, you can’t just walk out the door.” I hear my voice rising, but I can’t stop it. I came in here to be reasonable, to make it all right with her. Now it’s all going to pot.
She picks up a windbreaker, folds it over, and lays it in her suitcase. “I can do whatever I want. This is a free country. I’m not working for you anymore. You can get Rex to make Ivy’s ant farm. You can take Ivy to the library. You can do all that stuff by yourself, and you don’t need me or anybody else to bring you two closer.”
I can’t believe this. I was all set to take a dive, and she’s walking out. “Kira, listen to me.”
She rounds on me. Her eyes flash, and her shoulders square. She’s not my employee anymore, if she ever was. She’s something I could never understand, and she’s not the least bit afraid of me. “No, you listen to me, Isaac. I’m not a doormat. I’m a consenting adult, and I’m not putting up with your BS any longer. You’re a tyrant and a bully. I never should have stayed this long, but I wanted to help Ivy. I can see now that’s impossible with you around. She’ll keep being a lonely little girl, and that will be your responsibility, too. Now get out of here and go to your office while I pack my bag. You don’t have to worry about me finding my way home. Parker will come and pick me up.”
I blink at her. “You can’t leave.”
She says nothing else, but carries on packing her bag. This can’t be happening. She can’t be walking away from me. I’m the one who does the walking away around here.
I can’t let her walk away. I need her too much. I don’t want to say that out loud, but I have to find some way to get her to stick around. Ivy would have my head on a plate if I didn’t. “Look, Kira. I’m sorry I’m a tyrant and a bully. I’m really trying. Just stick around a little while longer. I’ll change. I promise.”
She snorts, but the wry grin on her face gives me no comfort. “You can change all you like. You can change, but I won’t be around.”
Her attitude infuriates me all over again. I never should have come in here to grovel at her feet. I wheel toward the door. “Fine. You want to leave? Go right ahead. Ivy and I don’t need you. We’ll be just fine without you. There are plenty more nannies in the world.”
I stomp down the stairs and jump in my car, but already the questions won’t leave me alone. Now why did I have to go and say something like that? I wanted to make up with her, and now I’ve gone and spoiled it all over again.
I can’t do anything right. When I try to get close to people, I only wind up pushing them away. Of course Kira had a right to get annoyed and call me names. Of course she had a right not to trust that I would change. What reason could she have to believe me?
I shouldn’t have blown up at her. I shouldn’t have walked out on her like that, but it’s too late now. I screech out the driveway. I’m an idiot. She’s right about me. I’m a tyrant and a bully and an overbearing lout, but I don’t seem to be able to stop myself. Every time I try, I make it worse.
No! I won’t feel sorry about what I said to her. I don’t need her. I don’t need anybody except Ivy. It’s me and my little girl against the world. We can handle anything as long as we stick together. Other people come and go. We stand the test of time.
I drive down the highway toward my office, but I can’t stop seeing Kira standing by her bed with her back to me. Right at that instant, I understood her. She was one of us, one of me and Ivy’s little gang of two. Kira made it three. Don’t ask me how it happened, but it was real, even if it only lasted a few seconds—right up until I saw her packing her bags to walk out of my life the same way she came into it.
Oh, well. Easy come, easy go. She’ll go running back to dear old Parker. He’ll marry her and give her a nice home, and I’ll never see her again. That’s as it should be. We’ll both be happier apart.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kira
That bastard! How dare he come in here and get in my face? Well, I made my decision. I’m leaving, and he certainly didn’t make it any harder to go through with it. If I entertained any doubts about leaving him high and dry with a ten-year-old girl, he wiped them away with his mouth.
I finish packing my suitcase and zip it up. I stand it by the door and take one last look around the room. I only spent one night in
here. It’s a nice room with a lovely view, but it wasn’t meant to be. I can’t imagine the nice times I would have had in this room. I won’t have any nice times in this house. I would be living on a knife edge all the time if I stayed. I would always wonder when Isaac would blow up and say some other hateful thing to me.
I don’t care what Jade did to him. None of that excuses his behavior. He could at least be civil. It’s not like I ever did anything to hurt him. I never did anything to deserve him flying in my face every ten seconds.
I can’t escape the feeling I’m making a mistake, though. I ought to leave, but something draws me back. I should have more self-respect. I should stick up for myself. Parker is right about not needing this job. Heck, I’ll just go home and marry him. I love him more than anything, and I don’t want to do anything but spend the rest of my life with him.
I just don’t seem to do it, though. Every time he asks me to marry him, something always comes up to make me put it off. I get the same sense about leaving this room. When I stand in front of the windows and gaze out over the lawns and sprinklers and woods, I just don’t seem to follow through on walking out the door.
I hate Isaac for making me feel this way, but I can’t get him out of my mind. Those sharp eyes, that glaring face, and his dark hair tussled over his forehead—I can’t think of him as a devil. He’s something more like an avenging angel sent to Earth to protect Ivy from the demons chasing her.
Isaac stands between Ivy and the horrible life she would endure if Jade took her away. If Ivy can’t go to the library or spend as much time with friends as other kids do, it’s a small price to pay to keep her out of Jade’s hands.
I don’t want to admit it, but I admire Isaac. He sacrificed everything for his daughter. He deserves happiness and love and respect. It’s too bad he won’t let anybody give it to him.
I take out my phone and sit down on the bed—I can’t call it my bed anymore. It’s just a bed. It’s a stopping place on my way to becoming Mrs. Parker Lynch. I could have skipped this bed and this house and this heartache altogether and married Parker in the first place. That’s what a smart person would do.
I stare down at my phone. This is the moment of truth. I’m making the call. I’ll be out of here in a matter of minutes. Parker will declare a state of emergency. He’ll come.
I don’t make the call, though. I just sit there and stare down at the screen in my hand. What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I leave?
I don’t really want to leave. I admit that to myself. I want to make good on this job, but I can’t. That’s the plain fact. Isaac won’t let me. For some reason I can’t understand, he won’t let me leave, either. He haunts me.
While I’m sitting there liked a stunned mullet, the door creaks open one more time. I look up to find Ivy standing in front of me. She looks back and forth between my phone and my face. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
My chin falls onto my chest. “I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s complicated.”
“It’s not complicated,” she replies. “It’s my dad. You can tell me.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I wish I could stay. You make me wish I could stay.”
She takes another step toward me, but she’s not a teary-eyed kid now. She’s mature and clear. She’s the closest thing to an equal I’ve met in a long time. “Please stay. Don’t leave yet. I know he’s not very nice. I’m not blind. I can see what he does. Just please don’t leave. I need you to help me build my ant farm.”
I have to smile at her. “I know, sweetie. It’s just hard with your dad the way he is. He doesn’t make it easy.”
“How am I supposed to grow up if everybody keeps leaving all the time?” she asks.
“You are growing up, sweetie,” I tell her. “If anything, you’re growing up too fast.”
“I can’t grow up because I’ve never been a kid. I have no one to show me how to be a kid, and I don’t have a mother to show me how to be a woman. My dad can’t teach me that, and he never has time to teach me anything else.”
I gaze into those deep eyes. She knows a lot better than most people what she’s saying. She doesn’t have an adult woman to teach her how to grow into a woman, and she doesn’t have parents to protect her childhood innocence. If only I could be those things for her, I would do it in a heartbeat.
“I can’t be the one you need,” I tell her. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Why not?” she asks. “Is it because my dad is so mean? He’s trying to make up with you. He told me he would, and I can see him trying.”
I snort. “He’s not doing a very good job.”
“I’m not doing a very good job with my ant farm, either,” she says. “I keep trying, though, and I do the best I can for a ten-year-old. Maybe when I grow up into a real scientist, I’ll do it right.”
“You are a real scientist,” I tell her, “and you are doing a good job with it. You’re doing a ten-year-old job with it.”
She cocks her head to one side. “Isn’t my dad doing a ten-year-old job of making up with you and be nice to you?”
I blink at her. I can’t believe it’s taking a ten-year-old to tell me this. Isaac isn’t doing a very good job of being nice to me and making up to me and apologizing to me for the things he said and did, but he’s doing the best he can under the circumstances.
Jade ruined his ability to relate to people. He’s operating with a limited toolkit. Considering everything, he’s doing as well with that as Ivy is doing with her ant farm. She’s learning to be a scientist, and he’s learning to be a decent human being after Jade turned him into a demon.
What does all this have to do with me? I made up my mind. They can learn together somewhere far away from me. I’ve got a life to live somewhere outside this haunted house. I’ve got a fiancé—at least, I will have one as soon as I dial his number to come and pick me up.
Ivy stands there and regards me. She can read every thought running through my head. I have no doubt of that. I look back down at my phone, and the desperate truth hits me in the face. I won’t dial that number. I should leave this house, but I won’t.
I lift my eyes to her face one more time. What is she doing to me? What is he doing to me? I don’t want to get sucked into this drama, but it looks like I already am.
She takes a piece of paper out of her pocket and holds it out to me. “Could you go over the design for my ant farm with me?”
That simple request, that heartfelt question, breaks down my reserve once and for all. I can’t say no to this girl, and she’s asking for a whole lot more than a design consultation. She’s asking me to invest, to commit to her.
She knows it, too. She knows if I put my phone away and talk to her about her design, I won’t leave. I’ll spend the day with her. We’ll walk over to Rex’s workshop and take a look at his tools. We’ll pick out the wood for the box, and we’ll draw up a list of any other materials we need. We’ll talk about science and woodwork and everything else we can think of.
I look down at the paper in her hand. That’s not an ant farm. That’s my future. She’s my future. I know that now.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Isaac
I get out of the shower and dry my hair. I get dressed in front of my mirror, but when I go see Ivy after breakfast, I’m stunned to find Kira sitting there on the floor. She and Ivy sit across from each other with a deck of cards spread out between them.
I freeze in the door. “I thought you were leaving.”
She gets to her feet. She confronts me in that direct way of hers. “Ivy asked me to stay.”
Oh. Of course. Ivy asked her to stay. She wouldn’t stay when I asked her to. Then again, maybe Ivy asked her in a way I couldn’t…or wouldn’t. Ivy needs her, and Ivy could say so. I don’t need her, and if I did, I certainly couldn’t say so. That would be ludicrous.
I nod. “Well, I’m glad you decided to stay.”
She starts. “You are?”
I keep nodding like an idiot. I don’
t know how to talk to this woman. I only know how to blow up at her. “Sure. I’m glad you and Ivy can work on her ant farm. She needs someone…I mean….”
A brilliant smile spreads across her face. Funny how I never saw her smile like that before. Of course, I never really gave her anything to smile about. I don’t see what I gave her to smile about now, but at least she’s smiling.
When she smiles like that, I would do anything to keep her smiling. If only I could think of something to say, I could make her laugh, even. What would she look like if she laughed? What would I be if I could be the one to make her smile and laugh? I wouldn’t know myself.
Instead, I frown. “What’s so funny?”
Her face glows even more. “Nothing’s funny. I’m just happy you said that.”
“What?”
“That you’re glad I’m here, and that you’re glad Ivy and I can work on her ant farm.”
I keep scowling at her, but she keeps smiling. I should be mad that she’s laughing at me, but she’s not. She understands what I’m saying, even if I don’t. “I’ve been thinking, Kira. I would like you to take Ivy out sometimes….to the library, I mean. I was an idiot for saying you couldn’t. I trust you. I know you wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and she really does want to go.”
She eases a step closer to me. Her cheeks shine, and her eyes sparkle. Is this the way she looks at the guy of hers? She kissed him, but she didn’t look like this when he put his hands on her.
To my amazement, she lays her hand on my arm. “Thank you, Isaac. That’s wonderful. I’m sure she’ll love it. She has such an inquisitive mind that craves exploring the world around her. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take her on some little nature walks—just around the estate, you understand. If you don’t feel comfortable with her going out into town, we could do a lot just around here.”
