Carly clapped her hands together and bounced in her seat. “Atta boy, Zach.”
“But what if I can’t?” Jessie asked. The fear she’d been holding down like a balloon under water burst through the surface. “What if he puts in all of this effort and time and I still can’t? What if I fail?”
Chapter 16
“And what if you don’t?” Zach asked.
Jessie’s head whipped around at the kitchen behind her, where he stood with his arms folded over his chest, looking as handsome as any man she had ever seen.
“And that’s our cue to leave.” Jillian popped up from her seat and led the way to the kitchen. The rest of the girls followed.
One by one they paused by Zach, offering him bits of wisdom.
“Lube is your friend,” Jillian said.
“The brain is the biggest erogenous zone,” Emma offered.
“Dirty talk is hot,” Mac said.
Emma spun around and stared at her. “Really? With my baby brother?”
Mac laughed and pushed her forward.
“Don’t hold our heads, we hate that,” Carly said.
Zach looked outraged. “As if I’d do that.”
“A little extra time spent on oral is never a bad thing,” Gina said. She patted his cheek as she walked by. “Have fun, kids.”
In moments, the women grabbed their things and disappeared out the door.
Zach turned back to Jessie and gave her a rueful smile. “I’m not sure how to feel about that.”
“Horrified works,” she said. “I am so sorry. I’m not sure how they got all of that out of me. Let’s blame the mimosas.”
“Not your fault. That crew is relentless and very sneaky. If they hadn’t gotten it out of you, they would have gotten it out of me,” Zach said. He glanced around the kitchen. “Where are the girls?”
“Reacquainting themselves with the toys in their room,” Jessie said.
“So, we’re alone?” Zach asked.
His brown eyes scorched and Jessie felt her body start to hum. This was not good. If he kept looking at her like that she’d let him have her here on the kitchen counter. She reached beside her and held up a plate with the stack of waffles she’d put aside for him.
“Waffle?” she asked. She shoved the plate into his chest and he caught it in his hands with a laugh.
“I’ll take that as a waffle brush-off,” he said.
His eyes crinkled in the corners when he laughed. He didn’t have any wrinkles yet, but she knew that when he aged Zach was going to have deep laugh lines. She’d never known anyone who enjoyed life as much as he did. It lifted her spirits just to be around him.
“Not a brush-off,” she said. “I need to shower.”
“I could help with that,” he offered.
Jessie felt her face get hot with embarrassment. “Thanks, but I’ve got it.” Then she tipped her head to the side and considered him. “But if we’re going to keep working toward our goal, you might want to fortify.”
She strode out of the kitchen with her head high, giving him a firm slap on the ass as she passed him. He jumped under her hand and she heard him laughing, even as he called after her, “Wicked woman!”
Jessie grinned as she climbed the stairs. Oh, she liked playing with Zach, yes, she did.
• • •
After days without electricity, it felt like a luxury to shower with the lights on instead of by candlelight and to use her blow dryer on her hair. Jessie even went so far as to use a little makeup just to make herself feel more put together.
When she arrived back downstairs, the dishes had been done, the bedding the girls had used to sleep on had been folded, and the toys the girls had brought downstairs had been brought back to their room, all without Jessie having to ask, plead, beg, or bribe. In other words, a miracle had obviously taken place while she did her hair.
Even better, the girls were fully occupied in the living room with Zach. They were singing and dancing while he was playing his ukulele and the three of them looked to be having the time of their lives.
“You can’t come in here,” Maddie said.
“Why not?” Jessie asked.
“We’re working on something,” Gracie said.
Zach shrugged and then said, “Give us one hour.”
“All right,” Jessie said. She wasn’t sure how she felt about being tossed out of her own living room but the girls looked so excited, and she really needed to catch up on the laundry.
She went back upstairs, thinking how lovely it was to have someone else entertain the girls. She figured she could use the time to call in to work and see if Gavin planned to open the clinic tomorrow. She imagined he would since the latest local reports said the power would be back to everyone by the end of the day and that all of the roads in town had been deemed passable. She tried not to feel bad that her time with Zach as a live-in whatever-he-was was over. She failed.
• • •
An hour later on the dot, she reappeared in the living room.
“Okay,” she said. “Show me this something you’ve been working on.”
Zach and Gracie were sitting side by side on the hearth; each of them had a ukulele in hand. Zach was very patiently showing Gracie where to put her fingers to make chords and then how to strum the chords. She had her tongue pressed up against her lip as she concentrated.
“Momma, Gracie and I are going to be in the school talent show and Zach, too,” Maddie announced.
“Huh?”
“The talent show,” Maddie said. She looked at Jessie as if she should know what she was talking about.
Jessie vaguely remembered a flyer coming home for a show at the girls’ elementary school but if she remembered right it was a father-daughter talent show. She felt the first tingles of alarm ripple in her belly, sort of like an early warning system for out-and-out panic.
“Oh, honey, that’s a father-daughter talent show,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to be your dad,” Maddie said. “Sadie Tyson asked Mrs. Townsend if her uncle could fill in for her dad, since he’s a soldier, and Mrs. Townsend said yes.”
“Okay, but an uncle is still family,” Jessie said.
“Maggie O’Brien is performing with her mom’s boyfriend because her dad lives far away,” Gracie said. “Like our dad.”
Jessie was about to point out that Maggie’s mother’s boyfriend was still a member of their family, since they were dating, but Zach spoke before she got the chance.
“Why don’t you see our show and then let us know what you think?” Zach asked. “I brought my ukulele and everything.”
Jessie hesitated and Zach looked at the girls and whispered, “Deploy sad puppy eyes now.”
All three of them looked at her with their lower lips out and their eyes all droopy and pitiful. Jessie blew out a breath.
“Oh, all right, fine,” she said. “Show me and we’ll see.”
“Yay!” Maddie clapped her hands and jumped up and down while Gracie gave her a shy smile.
Jessie settled into the couch to watch. She didn’t know what to expect. She wasn’t musical and she’d never thought of either of her girls as being particularly musical either. From the first note, it was readily apparent that, no, her girls were not musical.
She felt the smile on her lips wobble when Maddie didn’t sing so much as screech the lyrics to “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” while Gracie furiously strummed her ukulele in an effort to keep up with the chords that were required. Jessie might have thought it was just her, but she saw Chaos bolt upstairs before they were through the first verse and Rufus lie down and put his paws over his ears. By the time they were done, having wound down to a very dramatic finish, Jessie checked her own ears to make sure blood wasn’t pouring out of them. Nope. Shocker.
The girls, of course, were beaming at
her as if they’d bust with pride. Jessie glanced between them. What to say that wouldn’t squash their enthusiasm. It was quite the parent conundrum. She looked at Zach, hoping he had a bright idea. No such luck. If anyone looked even more jazzed than the girls, it was Zach. Oh, boy.
“What did you think?” he asked. “Are they fantastic or what?”
“Or what,” Jessie said with a nod. She tried to force her lips into a smile but could only manage one side of her face and wondered if the song from Toy Story had just given her a stroke.
“Yes!” Maddie made a fist and pulled it down to her side. “Did you hear that Gracie? We’re going to get to perform in the talent show. Come on, let’s go pick out our outfits!”
Maddie grabbed her sister’s hand and dragged her to her feet. Gracie looked giddy with excitement and Jessie knew she needed to stop this madness immediately.
“Actually, I don’t know if it’s such a great idea,” Jessie said.
All three of them looked at her in shocked dismay as if they couldn’t believe what she had just said.
“Why not, Momma?” Gracie asked. “Don’t you think we’re good enough?”
“Um, well, it . . . you know . . . sounded . . .” Jessie stammered, not wanting to hurt her girls.
“Amazing, right?” Maddie asked.
“Right,” Jessie said. Looking at two sets of hopeful blue eyes, there was no way she could crush her girls’ dream even if it was going to be a mercy killing.
Gracie sagged with relief and let her sister drag her upstairs so they could raid their closet for costumes.
“Do not make a mess!” Jessie called after them.
The sound of their door slamming was their only response.
Jessie turned to Zach. He was smiling at her and she almost had the same reaction to him that she’d had to the girls in not wanting to hurt his feelings, but she shook it off.
“You have to talk them out of this,” she said. “It won’t go well and it could scar them for life.”
Zach looked at her in surprise. “What? No way, they’re going to be great. I know today was a little rough, but—”
“Little rough?” Jessie asked. “Maddie sounds as if she’s a cat and someone is pulling her tail and Gracie hit so many sour chords on her uke that I thought she was using a hammer to play it.”
“I know. It was an awesome start,” Zach said.
“Awesome?” Jessie cried. “I think we have different definitions of awesome.”
“No, we don’t. I mean did you see them?” he asked. “They were fearless, putting it out there and not giving a hoot what anyone thought. That’s art, that’s music, that’s freedom.”
“Oh, my god, you’re crazy,” she said.
He grinned at her. “Maybe. Listen, we have one week until the talent show, do you trust me to get them ready?”
Jessie felt her insides twist. She had zero capacity to trust people. She knew it was her issue, begun when she arrived as a late surprise into her parents’ lives when they clearly didn’t want children, reinforced by the people who had befriended her her entire life for her money, and then solidified by her ex when he proved to be the worst of them all, leaving her broke and heartbroken.
Zach asking her to trust him was like asking her to jump from a plane without a parachute. As if he understood how hard it was for her, Zach took her hands in his. He looked into her eyes, and said, “I promise there will be absolutely no psychological trauma involved in their being in this show.”
“Zach, we need you . . . please!” Gracie cried from the top of the stairs. “You have to tell Maddie she can’t dress like a mermaid.”
Jessie raised her eyebrows at Zach and he grinned. “See? They’re into it. It’s gonna be great.”
“All right, but if this goes badly, you’re paying for their therapy,” she said.
“Yes!” Zach made a fist and drew it down and into his hip just like Maddie had done, letting Jessie know where her daughter had picked up that mannerism. “It’s going to be amazeballs. I promise.”
He stepped around her to head up the stairs but then spun around, looped an arm around her waist, and pulled her in for one smacking kiss. “And don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten our project.”
He wagged his eyebrows at her, making her blush, and then he disappeared upstairs, leaving Jessie sighing after him. A fling with Zachary Caine was proving to be a lot more than she had bargained for and she was deeply concerned that she wasn’t more concerned about it.
Chapter 17
Zach knew he had an ulterior motive for wanting to do the show with the girls. Yes, he wanted to do it for them. Judging by how attached they’d become to him, it was clear they were feeling the lack of a positive male influence in their life. Given that he had five younger sisters, he felt like this was something he could help Jessie out with; plus, those two little sprites had really wormed their way into his heart.
Every time Maddie hit him with a high five or Gracie gifted him with a shy smile, Zach felt like they were giving him so much more than he was giving them. He wanted to be worthy of their affection and so he paid attention to them, helped them out as he could, and while they rehearsed for their show, he made sure it was fun for them and not fraught with anxiety.
But he also knew that he wanted to be close to Jessie. When the power came back on and there was really no need for him to be hovering around her house, Zach and Rufus, who’d gotten rather attached to Chaos and the girls, had packed up and gone home. Except it didn’t really feel like home as much as it felt like a place where they ate and slept and kept their stuff.
Working on the show with the girls gave him an opportunity to see Jessie every day after work. He was surprised at how quickly they fell into a routine. Jessie and Zach cooked dinner together and they all ate at the table in the dining room, where they discussed the events of the day. Afterwards, Zach and the girls hid out in their room while they rehearsed for the show.
At some point in the evening, when the girls were otherwise occupied, Zach would manage to get Jessie alone and kiss her with a savage intensity that made them both breathless. With the girls underfoot, however, he didn’t dare do much more. Which was how he realized he needed to get Jessie out of the house and out with the crew at the first available opportunity.
The days following the blizzard had been a blur of activity as the residents of Bluff Point got back to normal with power restored and roads dug out and the sun, a rare visitor over the past few weeks, made its presence felt even though it didn’t bring much heat with it.
When Zach’s phone popped open with a group text, inviting everyone in the crew out for drinks at Marty’s Pub, he knew that the storm was officially over. He also knew that he wanted to see his friends but he wanted Jessie there with him, too.
The trouble was, he needed someone to watch the girls while he and Jessie went out. He needed someone who would be firm but kind with the girls, as he knew from observation that Gracie responded best to kindness. Also, they needed to like children but not be a pushover, because he suspected Maddie would test the boundaries of the limits set like all feisty children do.
In a flash the answer came to him: Mac’s two septuagenarian aunts, Sarah and Charlotte, assuming their busy social calendar wasn’t already full. One problem. He didn’t know how the aunts felt about Jessie, because while Mac had forgiven her, thanked her even, for saving her from marriage to Seth Connelly, the aunts might still hold a grudge.
Bribery would likely be needed. Zach was down with that. He texted Mac to ask where the aunts might be and what their current raison d’être was, then he skipped out of his office at the brewery to go and track them down.
Sarah and Charlotte Harris lived in the Harris family home, which was one of the oldest houses in the town of Bluff Point. Halfway down Elizabeth Street, the big old beautiful Victorian, white with a forest green tri
m and matching shingles on its mansard roof, sat as if poised for visitors at any moment.
Zach drove his truck up the gravel drive and parked in front of the house. He grabbed his bribes from the front seat and trotted up the steps onto the wide front porch.
He rapped three times on the door frame and waited. There was no answer. He glanced around the side of the house to the detached garage. Yup, through the window, he could see the aunts’ blue Dodge Challenger with the white racing stripe parked in its spot, so it stood to reason that the aunts were here, too. Yes, they drove a sports car, which was one of the many things Zach loved about them.
Zach rapped on the door again. This time he could hear someone grumbling, which meant it was most likely Aunt Sarah, since she was the sassier of the two, as she came to the door.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, keep your shirt on,” Aunt Sarah said. She pulled the wooden door open and pushed the storm door out. “Zachary Caine, it’s you! Well, in your case, don’t feel you need to keep your shirt on.”
Zach busted out a laugh as he stepped inside, leaving the day’s bitter cold behind him. “Good to see you, too, Aunt Sarah. Um, nice outfit?”
Sarah glanced down at her paint-splotched coveralls. She wagged a finger at him. “Do not mock the artist. I have a whole Grandma Moses thing happening. Come on back. Charlotte is in the studio.”
Zach fell into step behind Sarah as she led him through the house to a large back room that was presently empty of everything except two easels with canvases propped on them and a short table on which perched a mannequin, a naked male mannequin, posed to look like it was running. Zach couldn’t blame it. Playing softly in the background was John Legend’s “P.D.A. (We Just Don’t Care).”
“Who’s the stiff?” he asked.
Charlotte turned away from her canvas. She had a paintbrush clenched between her teeth, another in her right hand, and a cloth in her left.
“Zut wuh ugh ha?” she asked. Both Zach and Sarah looked at her and she took the paintbrush out of her mouth. “Sorry. Zach, it’s nice to see you. What are you doing here?”
Every Dog Has His Day Page 15
