While she sorted through her usual bog of emotions—heavy and messy and capable of preserving dead things for far too long—Ruth and Evan stared at her expectantly in that way couples had, like they were the same person in two different bodies.
She huffed again—Hannah was fond of a good huff—and said, “I suppose it would be acceptable. Theoretically. If it paid well. Perhaps.”
Evan grinned as if she’d just given enthusiastic consent. “Great! I’ll pass on your number.”
3
Hi Nate,
Not sure if you saw the emails I sent on Sunday, but I’m getting kind of nervous about this exhibition. Because everything’s shit. I have produced a pile of shit. Are you out of office right now by the way????
Regards, John
John,
You said your last collection was shit and it sold for fifty grand. Relax.
Nate.
“You call her yet?”
Nate gave a deep, deep sigh. So deep, it felt like it had come from his spine instead of his chest. And yet, it still was not enough to express how irritated he was by his little brother.
“No, Zach. I did not call Hannah in the thirty minutes since you arrived and gave me her number.”
Zach leant against the breakfast island and grinned, early morning sun gleaming off his jet-black hair. “It’s been more like an hour, mate.”
“An hour I spent unpacking while you hung around looking pretty.” Nate glared at his brother over the cardboard box of saucepans in his arms. “Feel free to help at any time, by the way.”
Zach’s grin widened. “I’m watching the kids.”
Beside him, Beth perched on a stool while Josh stood beneath her. She was merrily slathering his hair with butter.
Nate ground his teeth, closed his eyes, and took another calming breath. It didn’t work.
Maybe he should call Hannah. Right now. And hire her on the spot, regardless of references or experience, because after a week without the support network he’d built up in London, he was at the end of his fucking tether.
Aaaand his daughter was still dressing his son like a Sunday roast. He should probably focus on that, shouldn’t he?
From the corner of the room, Ma looked up from her magazine and chuckled. “Are you alright, Nathaniel? You’re looking a bit red, darling.” She was wrapped in blankets, lounging on soft chair he’d carried in from the dining room. Her narrow cheeks plumped up a little as she smiled, and the sight was precious enough to drag him out of his growing temper.
“You understand why, though,” he said. “I mean, you’re seeing this, right? You are witnessing my devil children. Correct?”
Shirley rolled her eyes. “Trust me, darling, you were far worse.”
“I don’t see how I could possibly—Beth! Please stop that.”
Beth paused, one hand filled by a rapidly-melting ball of butter. A butterball. Fan-fucking-tastic. She had the look of a child with far too much freedom and no lack of imagination. Beneath her, Josh had the look of a boy led astray by hero-worship, one who’d go along with anything his older sister claimed was cool.
Beth raised the butterball over her brother’s head with clearly threatening intent, and Nate gritted his teeth, pulling out his firmest Dad Voice. “I swear to God, kiddo, me and you are gonna fall out. No—put the butter dish down. It’s too heavy. Bethany—”
Sometimes, reality turned into a series of photographs. Not living, breathing, moving life, but snapshots flashing and frozen, too fast to process, already set in stone. This was one of those times. It felt like everything was moving through treacle, while Nate’s muscles were trapped by half-set concrete. He watched as the butter dish Beth had just picked up slid from her slippery fingers. Directly over little Josh’s head.
Fuck.
Nate dumped the box of saucepans, barely hearing its ominous clatter, and did his best to vault the mammoth kitchen island. He was too slow. Way too slow. His little boy was about to be whacked on the head with a ceramic butter dish. He’d have to pack his buttery kids and his sick mother into the car and drive through a city he hadn’t visited in over a decade to take Josh to the hospital.
Or rather, that’s what would’ve happened—if Zach hadn’t casually reached over and plucked the falling dish out of the air a moment before it smacked Josh on the head.
For about half a second, Nate was full of relief. Then he realised that he was still flying over the kitchen island, that he had way too much momentum, and that disaster was imminent. A moment later, he hit the tiled floor with a bruising thud.
This really wasn’t his day. And it was barely 10:30.
Nate sighed, staring up at the kitchen ceiling. It was a lovely view, nice and plain and white. Until his brother ruined it by shoving his smug fucking face in the way.
“Everything okay?” Zach asked, his lips twitching.
“Go f—fork yourself,” Nate muttered, standing up. He snatched the butter dish from Zach’s hand and added, “Thanks.”
“You look tired, man.”
“I am tired.” Nate dumped the dish in the sink, then went to crouch down in front of his children, who were merrily slathering each other in butter liked nothing had happened. “Guys,” he said, spearing each of them with a look. Josh’s deep blue gaze met Nate’s without issue, open and bright. He looked just like his mother.
Whereas Beth looked just like Nate. She scowled like Nate too, her paler eyes narrowed, wild hair hanging over her face. It had been a week since they’d arrived, and he still wasn’t sure which box her hair clips were in. But then, hair didn’t really matter when both kids were, A. running around in their underwear, and, B. covered in fucking butter.
“Bethany,” Nate said firmly, “you almost hurt your brother. If that dish hit him on the head, he would’ve been really sick. You get that, right?”
Beth had inherited, amongst other things, Nate’s childhood reluctance to respond to criticism, so she didn’t answer verbally. But he didn’t need her to speak to know that she got the message. Her eyes widened and she bit her lip for a second, her gaze flitting to her beloved little brother.
“Yeah,” Nate said. “That’s why we have to do as we’re told. Because sometimes things are dangerous, and you don’t understand why, but grown-ups do. So, you listen to your grown-ups.” He grasped his buttery son under the armpits and straightened up, holding the kid at arms’ length. Josh giggled as his bare feet dangled in the air. “Now it’s time to get cleaned up, okay? You two are gonna help me unpack today.”
“Yaaaay!” Josh cheered. “Boxes boxes boxes. Can we have the boxes, Daddy?”
“Once they’re empty, they’re yours. Zach, grab Beth for me.”
Zach rolled his eyes and picked up his niece. “Keep those hands away from me, B. I’m too beautiful to be buttered.”
Beth snickered and wiped a sticky hand over her uncle’s cheek.
“Ugh! Nate, control your creatures!” But Zach was already leaving the kitchen with a grin on his face, swinging Beth through the air while she squealed.
Which left Nate with a squirming, slippery Josh. He turned to his mother. “You gonna be okay?”
She gave him a look so mocking, it almost transported him back through time. For a second, he was 16 again, and she was giving him that you-think-I-was-born-yesterday? look while he tried to pretend he was visiting London instead of outright running away.
What a cocky little fuck he’d been. Here he was, years down the line, right back in the town he hated, with too much loss behind him and more lurking ahead. His mother’s arch looks might be the same, but the rest of her was so very different. She was rail-thin instead of comfortably plump. Her curtain of black hair was gone, replaced by a bright silk headscarf. And she was shivering—shivering—in May, in the house, under three blankets.
But if he thought about that too hard, he might do something terrible. Like cry.
So Nate focused on the reassuring derision in her words as she replied. “I’m not
one of your littlies, Nathaniel,” she sniffed. “Stop checking on me.”
He winced. “I worry.”
“Yes. I noticed that when you sold everything you owned and moved back home in less than two months. Now go. Josh is dripping all over the floor.”
Oh, fuck. Nate looked down to find gleaming yellow droplets spattered over the kitchen tiles he’d just mopped.
Business as usual, then.
“So,” Zach said. “You—”
“Hold on.” Nate swung around and picked up his damp, naked son, cutting off the poor boy’s lap of triumph. “Joshua. Put your clothes on. We talked about this.”
Josh screwed up his face. “But I don’t like my pants.”
“What’s wrong with your pants?”
“Baby pants. I want my big boy pants.”
Nate sighed. “I don’t know where they are, sunshine. But if you get dressed, we can check the laundry room and find them, okay?” He put Josh down. “Does that sound good?”
“No. No pants.” Josh skipped off down the hall.
Nate ran a hand over his tired eyes and checked his watch. Only… twelve more hours until he could go to sleep. Or at least, until he could lie in bed and enjoy the silence and stillness while his mind refused to rest. Wonderful.
“So,” Zach repeated, leaning against the bedroom wall. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re kind of a mess.”
Nate shrugged. “I think we’re doing okay.”
“Mate. You’re not wearing a shirt.”
He wasn’t? Nate looked down at his own chest. Oh. Right. He wasn’t.
“Jesus,” Zach snorted. “I can’t believe you just had to check. You think tattoos count as clothes now?”
“Fuck off,” Nate muttered, hunting down the boxed-up contents of his wardrobe. The kids’ stuff was mostly unpacked, but he didn’t have time to waste on his own shit.
“You’re only wearing one sock,” Zach said.
“Now you’re just being picky.”
“I think the kids are actually trying to torment you.”
“That is correct.”
“Do you even have food in the house?” Zach demanded.
Nate sighed. “I have bread, butter, beans, and frozen nuggets. The four pillars of any child’s diet.”
Zach arched a brow.
“Oh, fuck you. I was planning on shopping today.”
Josh and Beth ran past the door, both butt-naked, screeching out a tune that Nate vaguely recognised as something from Moana.
Zach smirked, opening his mouth.
“Don’t. Don’t say a word.” Nate glared. “I have it under control.”
“You absolutely do not have it under control. You’re going to call Hannah, right? Because Evan said she has all kinds of fancy kid-related qualifications and about a thousand years’ experience. And I happen to think that she’s a really nice girl.”
Something about Zach’s tone snatched Nate’s attention. He paused in his hunt for a shirt and glared at his little brother. “You’re trying to get into her pants, aren’t you?”
“Obviously,” Zach said. “Have you seen her?”
Yes, Nate had seen her. He wouldn’t mind seeing her again, in fact. Repeatedly.
Which was a realisation so disturbing, he actually had to sit down.
After a second, he picked up his thread of conversation again. “I’m not about to hire her, let her live in my shitty new house and watch my hyperactive children, just so you can wheedle your way into her bed.”
“I don’t wheedle,” Zach snorted. “I charm. You should try it sometime. Works a lot better than pensive brooding.”
Nate stared. “How are we related?”
“I ask myself that question all the time. Will you just call her? Meet her? We’re running out of time to sort this out.”
Nate sighed. That much was true, at least. Isolated as it was, Ravenswood wasn’t exactly brimming with live-in nanny options. Especially since most people around here would rather swallow fistfuls of their own hair than work for Nate. Small towns had long memories, and he had not been the most… agreeable kid.
But apparently, Hannah was willing to give it a shot. He should be rushing to call her right now, honestly. He had no idea why he wasn’t, especially when he’d seen how good she was with kids. Christ, he’d even wished that some of his nanny options were more like her. Well, apparently, she was an option.
Why didn’t he want to call her?
The question was like smoke, hard to see and harder to grasp. Nate set it aside and focused on more important things, like Ma’s needs, Zach already being on thin ice at work, and his own excruciating anxiety about how very unprepared they all were for any emergencies.
Then he pulled out his phone and made the call.
4
Ruth: Good luck btw.
Hannah: Why are you awake before midday? Are you sleeping okay? Did you get a full eight hours?
Ruth: …
Ruth: Evan says not to answer.
Hannah stared down at the varnished tabletop of the Unicorn’s finest booth and wondered how the hell she’d ended up here.
Three hours ago, she’d been sitting in bed, staring at her blog—yes, Hannah had a blog—trying and failing to write. She’d wondered if she should Google some Oscar Wilde quotes to kickstart her creativity, because, while Oscar Wilde could be kind of a prick, he wasn’t half motivational, bless him.
As she was in the midst of pondering her mental lethargy—wondering if maybe she should take a walk to get her ideas going, or make a doctor’s appointment to discuss the ever-constant threat of falling into The Pit of Mental Despair—her phone had rung.
So now, here she was, stuffed into her best skirt like a pretty little sausage, sitting in the pub waiting for...
“Here you go.” Nate put the lemonade she’d asked for on the table, then sat down opposite her, pint in hand. He lifted the amber liquid and said, “I don’t usually drink in the day.”
She wondered why he’d bothered saying that. He was hardly the only man in the pub with a lunch larger. And the Nate Davis he’d been back in school—the one who’d given teachers heart palpitations on an hourly basis—wouldn’t have bothered to explain himself. Ever.
But then, they weren’t at school anymore. Hannah wondered when her still-pounding heart would remember that fact.
Ugh. Hearts. Who needed them, anyway?
“Shall we get down to business?” she asked briskly, batting away her own wayward thoughts.
He smiled. “You haven’t changed much, have you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re still very direct. Not big on small talk.”
She pursed her lips and glared at her lemonade as if it might make this whole conversation easier. “I don’t like to waste time. That’s all. Things are so much more efficient when everyone gets to the point, don’t you think?”
Nate stretched slightly, making those impossibly broad shoulders even broader for a moment. Then his head fell back, resting against the top of the leather seat, which put his face at an angle she could only call unfortunate. Unfortunate for her, that is. It highlighted the hard line of his jaw, the softness of that wide mouth, the icy gleam of his eyes. He was unavoidably handsome. The prick.
And, to her surprise, he appeared to be actually considering her words. Good Lord. Didn’t he know a polite turn of phrase when he heard one?
Finally, he said, “I think efficiency has its place. But personally, I like to take my time. Savour small moments. Life is easier to digest when you go slow.”
She paused for a second, unexpectedly blindsided by his response. The words hit her hard, sinking into her skin like little hooks, and she knew—the way she instinctively did sometimes—that she’d lie in bed thinking about them tonight. They’d be top on her list of daily minutiae to agonise over, to replay again and again, courtesy of her steel-trap mind. But she couldn’t quite put her finger on what made them so hypnotising.
; She took a fortifying sip of lemonade and reminded herself that navel-gazing could wait until later. Right now, she had an interview to ace. It was extremely unsettling to realise that for all her hesitation, she kind of wanted this job. God, it would be good to do something that challenged her, instead of challenging her patience and lower back, for a change. Something that actually played to her strengths.
Now she just had to get the damn job. If she could.
The suspense of not knowing how this interview would end was already killing her. She was practically sweating her knickers off. Nathaniel Davis with his cool eyes and his cooler attitude could meander all he liked, but Hannah Kabbah was anxious, impatient, slightly obsessive, and definitely in need of some efficiency.
“I’m just going to be upfront,” she said. “I know you need a live-in nanny. I, theoretically, could be a live-in nanny. But there are several pertinent facts that I should bring to your attention.”
He arched a brow. “Pertinent facts?”
Oh dear. She was doing the thing. The talk like a lawyer in a TV drama because I’m absolutely shitting myself thing. “Well, you may be aware that I have a… slightly unsavoury reputation in Ravenswood.”
Nate nodded, amusement written all over his face. “So do I. Maybe that’s why I called you.”
She glared. “That is not why you called me.”
“It’s not?”
“No. You called me because you were desperate and because your brother likes me.”
“Oh, so you know that he’s plotting to seduce you? That’s good. I was wondering how to warn you about it without sounding like something out of a bad novel.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Zach was a lovely man, but he had the biggest mouth on planet earth. Hannah ignored her burning cheeks and said sharply, “You don’t need to worry about that. Your brother’s delusions are irrelevant.”
Hold Me Close Page 38
