by Liz Isaacson
Celia hadn’t been back since making all the holiday food, but Eli could pour a bowl of cereal for his son.
“No.” Stockton yawned as he climbed up on the barstool. “Dad, Bailey says Meg’s gonna be my mom. Is that true?”
Eli choked on the mouthful of coffee he’d just taken, the hot liquid leaking out of the corner of his mouth. He hurried to the sink and grabbed a towel, buying himself a few seconds to think of an answer.
When he faced his son again, Stockton just looked at him with mild puzzlement in his gaze.
“Why does Bailey think that?”
“She said you and Meg are dating. Like how her mom and Uncle Graham did before they got married.”
Eli blinked, unsure of when seven-year-olds knew about dating and marriage, though he supposed Bailey was unique in that regard. She had lived through her mom dating and getting remarried.
“I don’t know, bud,” Graham said slowly. “Meg and I…well, me and Meg….” He let his voice trail off, desperately wishing she were there. She’d know exactly what to say to him, how to reassure him, and how to classify their relationship.
“We like each other, right?” Eli tried again. “So I guess that’s what people do when they’re dating. They decide how much they like each other, and if it’s a lot—like they fall in love—they get married.”
“But you already like Meg a lot,” Stockton said. “She’s been livin’ with us for a long time.” His face scrunched up. “Right?”
“It’s her job to live with us,” Eli said carefully. “I pay her to take care of you, Stocky. She’s your nanny.”
Stockton cocked his head to the side. “I like her a lot.”
“She loves you.”
“I love her, too.”
Eli wished his feelings were as simple as six-year-old emotions. “I like her a lot too, bud. We’re…seeing how much we like each other. It’s not a fast process.” He got down a bowl and pulled out a box of the sugary flakes his son liked. “So it’s not like we’ll be getting married anytime soon or anything.” He cut a look at Stockton. “Okay?”
“But if you do get married, will she be my mom?”
Eli poured milk on the cereal and sat beside his son at the bar, a spoon extended to him. “She’s not your mom, Stockton. But…she loves you and she takes care of you, and if we decide to get married, she’d be your step-mom. Like Uncle Graham is Bailey’s step-dad. He’s not her real dad.”
Stockton took an overly large bite of his cereal, the question and answer session apparently over.
“But I love her like she’s my daughter.”
Eli startled at the introduction of Graham’s voice to this conversation. “When did you get here?”
“Just now.” He flashed a dark look at Eli and sat on the other side of Stockton. “I might not be Bailey’s biological father, but I’m her real dad.” He glared at Eli over the boy’s head and said, “It’s cereal for breakfast?” He stood and went into the kitchen. “I know where Celia hides the good stuff.” He reached up to a cabinet above the stove and pulled down a box of cereal that was basically miniature chocolate chip cookies.
“Hey!” Graham pushed his sugary cereal away. “I want that too.”
“Thanks, Uncle Graham,” Eli said, his brother’s words rolling around inside his mind. So maybe Eli had misspoken. He honestly had no idea how to navigate his relationship with Meg when it came to Stockton.
He did not want cookies for breakfast, so he kept sipping his coffee while Graham told Stockton about a new stray cat Bailey had found last night.
“Can I come see it?” Stockton abandoned another bowl of cereal, and Eli thought it was a darn good thing they weren’t hurting for money.
“I thought I was taking you down to the ranch today.” Graham straightened his cowboy hat and looked at Eli. “Aren’t you takin’ Meg’s mother home?”
“We were,” Eli started, only to be interrupted by Meg.
“We still are.”
He turned to find her standing in the doorway, her eyes flashing dangerously and glassy with tears at the same time. “Eli, will you please come help with the luggage?” She spoke in an even voice, but she spun on her heel and marched away before he could answer.
“Yep, let’s go, bud.” Graham herded Stockton toward the mudroom to get his coat and boots and gloves. He paused beside Eli. “Mom’s coming to get him tonight. Good luck with everything.” He clapped Eli on the shoulder and went to help Stockton.
Eli left his coffee mug beside the two half-eaten bowls of cereal, his main focus already back on Meg. Annoyance soared through him as he rounded the corner and entered the bedroom where her mother had stayed to find Meg folding the clothes and packing them.
“You’re ready to head back, huh?” He leaned in the doorway and tried not to shoot lasers at Janice.
“Yes, yes,” she said, patting her half-flat hair. “I have a hair appointment tomorrow, and Carrie’s bringing pizza for Roland’s birthday.”
Eli had no idea who Roland was, but Carrie was Meg’s sister. So he just nodded like her reasons for needing to get home were completely valid.
“Hair appointments can be rescheduled,” Meg said, not bothering to hide her frustration or keep her voice down. “And you can order pizza twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But whatever.” She practically threw a shirt into the suitcase, where all the careful folding she’d done sort of got blown up.
“I don’t like it all that much here,” Janice said without any tact at all. “It’s too close to Yellowstone. You know that place is going to blow up any day now, right?” She looked at Eli and then Meg, but Eli had no idea what to say. “This place will be wiped right off the map.”
Meg zipped the bag shut and indicated it. “I’ll go throw a few things in a bag, and we can go.” She marched out of the room, and Eli was left with Janice, a lot of choice words flowing through his mind.
“Do you love your daughter?” he asked, pure curiosity in his voice.
Her mother looked at him with those same sharp eyes that had kept her undefeated in cribbage. “Of course I do.”
“Maybe start treating her a little nicer, then.” Eli picked up the suitcase and turned to leave. “We went way out of our way to get you here and she just wanted you to stay for a few extra days.” The woman hadn’t even been in town for forty-eight hours yet. “And you just put a hair appointment above her.”
He looked back at her, and he was quite certain not many people had spoken to her the way he just had. “Just something to think about.” He set her suitcase outside his bedroom and hurried inside to pack his own bag, the excitement of another road trip with Meg building inside him.
Chapter Twelve
Tension filled the drive back to Boulder, no matter that Eli kept the cab filled with easy chatter and loads of country music. Meg couldn’t force herself to participate, and the high of the eight-hour drive was when her mother fell asleep just past Cheyenne.
Eli fell silent then too, his right hand draped lazily over the steering wheel and his gaze steadfastly on the highway in front of him. Which, honestly, was fine with Meg. Her emotions zoomed just below the surface of her skin, and she didn’t trust herself to keep them in check.
Her mom woke before they pulled into her driveway, which was completely shoveled and salted. Meg got out of the truck and stared at the cleared cement. “What happened here?”
Eli joined her near the front of the truck. “I paid for snow removal.” He moved around her and helped her mom from the truck. His kindness knew no limits, and tears pricked Meg’s eyes.
“Mom, Eli got you a snow removal service,” she said brightly, as if she were talking to one of the children she nannied. “Isn’t that great?”
Her mom looked at the ground as if just now noticing the three feet of snow wasn’t there. “Thank you, Eli,” she said tightly. She pressed her lips into a tight line and went with him toward the front door and up the steps. He’d somehow retrieved her bag when Meg wa
sn’t looking, and she brought up the rear like a kicked puppy.
Eli opened the door and held it for her mom and her. He leaned in closer as she passed, a small, silent gesture that set Meg’s heart to racing. “I got a maid service too,” he said. “Looks like they’ve been here. They should come once a week.”
“A maid service?” Her mom’s voice pitched up on the last word. “They better not take anything.”
Meg suppressed the snort that sprang to the back of her throat. As if her mother had anything worth taking. “I’m sure they won’t, Mom.”
“This is the best service in Boulder,” he said. “I did my research.” He set her bag at the mouth of the hall and glanced around.
Meg couldn’t believe how clean the house was. The floors were actually gleaming, and she basked in what Eli’s money could buy.
“They’ll take your laundry, if you’d like,” he said. “And they do almost everything.” He tapped the counter where a brochure had been left. “You can schedule them to come more often if you’d like. Get online here and choose the day you want. Everything’s in here.”
Her mom looked at the folder and then out the window, which Meg could actually see through now. The backyard was filled with snow, but it didn’t matter. Meg could see it. She turned to Eli, her own gratitude almost overflowing.
“What a great Christmas present,” she said, wanting to wrap her arms around his strong torso and smile at him until he kissed her.
“Yes, thank you.” Her mom exhaled heavily as she sank into her beloved recliner. “And thanks for having me up to your family’s lodge.”
Meg noticed that all of her mom’s thanks were going to Eli, as if Meg herself had done nothing, sacrificed nothing, endured nothing.
“Well, we can’t stay,” Eli said, finally a cool note in his voice. “My son needs us back at the lodge.”
Surprise shot through Meg. Returning to Whiskey Mountain Lodge today hadn’t been on their agenda. She met Eli’s eyes and something unsaid passed between them, exactly like that time when Meg had wanted to stop and get Stockton an ice cream cone. Eli had gone along with her then, as if that whole outing had been planned.
“Right,” Meg said. “He doesn’t like it when we’re gone.”
Meg’s mom looked back and forth between Eli and Meg. “You two talk about him like he belongs to you both.”
“He does,” Eli said, slinging his arm around Meg’s waist. “I’m dating your daughter, Janice. And she’s taken care of Stockton for four years—more than half of his life.”
Pride and satisfaction rose through Meg, though she’d always been taught to suppress such feelings of self-importance. But Eli had claimed her. Just outright tucked her into his body and called her his. And said that Stockton was hers too.
Warmth flowed through her as if someone had put a blanket fresh from the dryer over her, and she watched her mother, almost daring her to say something.
“You make a nice couple,” she finally said. “Thank you for driving me home.” She made the hardest of tasks seem like nothing, and Meg felt her good feelings seeping away.
“Well, we should go.” She stepped over to her mom and placed a kiss on her forehead. “It was good to see you, Mom. Fun playing cribbage.” She walked to the front door and opened it again, unwilling to stay in her childhood home for much longer.
When she looked back, Eli was bent over her mother as well, whispering. Neither of them smiled as he stood, and he joined her at the door with a final, “Good-bye, Janice,” before nudging Meg out the door and onto the porch.
She didn’t dare speak until they were behind the closed doors of the truck, with a few blocks of distance between them and her mom’s house.
“What was that?” she asked. “What did you say to her? And where are we staying tonight?” Because she knew Eli didn’t have the energy to drive another eight hours. Heck, she hadn’t even been behind the wheel and she didn’t have the energy to stay in this truck for much longer.
“I didn’t want you staying with her,” he said matter-of-factly, like it was his decision. “We’ll find a hotel. You want to stay here, or drive to Cheyenne?”
“Here,” Meg said wearily. “And I’d really like something with a lot of carbs to eat.”
Eli chuckled. “So the ‘I’m not hungry; let’s just grab something at the gas station’ thing was a ruse.”
“Total ruse,” she said, her stomach growling as a punctuation mark. “I didn’t want to spend much more time with her.” Her feels rose, and she twisted toward him. “I just don’t get her. We had fun playing cribbage. She seemed to have a good time with your brothers and your mom. But she can’t stay for a few more days? What’s she got here that’s so important?”
The hurt leaked into her voice, and Meg shook her head before Eli could answer. “It’s fine. Doesn’t matter. It just…sucks.”
Eli reached for her, a clear invitation for her to slide over and share his personal space, take from his comfort. So she did, cozying right up to him and laying her head against his bicep.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” He pressed his lips to her temple, and Meg closed her eyes as a measure of peace drifted through her.
“At least I have you,” she murmured. “And Stockton. I don’t need her.”
“Sure, you do,” he said. “And it’s okay to need her. You’re ten times the mother she is.” He looked at her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s kind of like how I can’t let go of Caroline.”
Meg sucked in a breath, the sound sharp and painful in her ears and down her throat. Eli either noticed and didn’t know what to say next or didn’t want to acknowledge the depth of what he’d just said, or he hadn’t noticed, because he kept quiet.
He drove for another few minutes and turned into a swanky hotel in downtown Boulder. “This is where I stayed a few nights ago. It was nice enough. Okay?”
She again averted her eyes as she slid across the seat and collected her purse. She nodded instead of speaking and opened her door to get out.
Eli took care of everything, because Eli had money. And emotions of steel. And loving kindness Meg could only pray for. So she let him take care of her, getting her a room with a Jacuzzi tub and ordering her favorite pizza—supreme—from the shop down the street. He claimed to be weary to the bone and said he’d text her later and maybe they could go to a movie. Then he disappeared into the room across the hall from hers, and Meg latched her door and leaned against it.
She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. Eli had never said what he’d whispered to her mother, and Meg honestly wasn’t sure if she needed to know. What she did need to know was how Eli felt about her.
Her.
Not how he viewed her as Stockton’s caregiver. She already knew that.
As she filled the Jacuzzi with scented bubbles and relaxing, rejuvenating oils, she wondered if Eli had ever considered her for the role his wife used to play. More than a mother. More than someone who made lunches and tucked little boys into bed.
But as someone who came to his bed, and supported his dreams, and stood by his side. As she soaked and let the stress of the morning and the drive melt out of her muscles, she determined that their relationship couldn’t move forward until she talked to him about being his lover, his companion, his new wife.
She found Eli sitting on the couch in the posh lobby, his head bent toward his phone and a happy little smile on his face as his thumbs flew over the screen. Meg took a moment to memorize him like that—carefree, handsome, happy. He was probably talking to Stockton, who used Graham’s phone to communicate with Eli when he was out of town.
Or, if Meg was with Stockton, he used her phone.
Meg’s heart squeezed with love for the little boy—and his father, and she knew in that moment that she’d fallen all the way in love with Eli Whittaker. Sure, her crush had some solid legs, but watching him care for her mother and interact with her even when she was a complete monster had solidified Meg’s feelings fo
r her boss.
Oh, boy. Her boss.
What if he didn’t feel the same? What if he could never get past Caroline? Meg would lose everything—her heart, her home, the little boy she’d taken care of for so long.
Her heart pumped faster with fear now, and she tucked her hair nervously behind her ear, then flipped it back out. She didn’t like how she looked with the A-line tucked behind her ears, and she’d worked hard with the straightener to get her long, front pieces to hang right.
She approached Eli, so many conversation topics teeming on the tip of her tongue. “Hey, handsome,” she said in her best flirty voice.
He looked up from his phone, his closed-mouth smile bursting into one with teeth. He laughed and said, “Hey, yourself, pretty girl.” He leaned toward her as if kissing was absolutely normal, and Meg supposed at this point, it was.
She kissed him and said, “Are you ready? I think the movie starts in twenty minutes, and I want popcorn.”
“Yeah.” He stood and tucked his phone in his back pocket. “Just chatting with Stocky. He’s convinced Graham’s going to get him a dog for his birthday this summer.”
Meg shook her head. “I’ll start talking to him about it once the new year hits.”
“Good idea.” Eli took her hand in his and they walked toward the exit. He used his free hand to press his cowboy hat more firmly on his head, and said, “I was wondering how set on seeing this movie you are.”
She stepped outside, almost getting blown away by the wind. She cowered behind his body as she said, “I don’t care. What else did you have in mind?”
“Just dinner,” he said. “I mean, I know you had that carbo-loaded lunch a couple of hours ago, but I just want to…chill. Talk. Look at you.” He smiled down at her, and she wondered if he could fall in love with her.
Her.
Not her as Stockton’s nanny. But Meg the person. The woman who couldn’t have children. The woman who had a broken relationship with both of her parents and her sisters. The woman who put everyone above herself…..
