Mommy for Hire

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  The child collapsed to the floor dramatically, then brought her arms and legs in close to her torso, resting her chin on her upraised knees. “I can’t do it today,” she said, suddenly looking distressed and completely overwhelmed. “I’m too upset.”

  Alexis knelt down beside her. “About what, honey?”

  “I don’t have a dress for graduation.”

  Grady looked stunned. “I thought you were wearing your school uniforms to graduation.”

  Savannah shook her head, more distraught than ever. “No, Daddy,” she explained with exaggerated patience. “My teacher said we all have to wear party dresses.”

  Grady shrugged, clearly not getting the importance. “Well, that’s no problem. You have a half a dozen nice dresses upstairs in your closet.”

  Savannah scrambled back to her feet, full of animation once again. “It has to be brand-new, Daddy.” She spread her hands wide for emphasis, frustrated that he didn’t intuit this on his own. “Everybody is getting brand-new dresses to wear. Everybody went shopping for their very special dress with their mommy except me.” Tears filled her eyes, “And I didn’t get to because I don’t have a mommy!”

  Talk about a dagger to the heart, Alexis thought.

  Grady looked as crushed as Savannah and she felt. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” he asked hoarsely.

  Mutely Savannah lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

  “Grandma and Grandpa were here over the weekend,” Grady continued mildly. “We could have done it then.”

  She shrugged again. “I guess I forgot—till I heard everybody talking about it at school today and then I got real, real sad. So you see, I can’t do my homework if I don’t have a pretty dress to wear.”

  “Sure you can.” Alexis stepped in kindly. “And I’ll sit with you in the kitchen while you do it.”

  Savannah was not happy about the idea. “But what about shopping?” she asked anxiously.

  “We’ll go this weekend,” Grady promised.

  “ONCE AGAIN YOU CAME to my rescue,” Grady said an hour and a half later, after Savannah had been tucked in bed—at the child’s insistence, by both of them. “I can’t believe how easily you got her to complete her homework?”

  Alexis shrugged off his comment. She didn’t want to feel too comfortable here, or be this needed. It made her realize just how lonely she had been the past few years, while she was grieving the loss of her husband. She smiled at Grady, eager to get back to business. “We need to talk about where you go from here.”

  Grady walked into the kitchen. He plucked Savannah’s insulated Princess lunch bag from the drying rack on the counter. “It’s clear Savannah needs a mother more than ever, but the timing could be wrong.”

  Alexis’s heart sank. “You want to wait?”

  He got leftovers out of the fridge. “Yes.”

  Alexis could only hope this meant he was starting to come to his senses. Even though it meant they would have little or no reason to communicate with each other in the meantime. “For how long?”

  He put chicken strips and dipping sauce in the lunch bag for school the next day. “Until after she graduates in ten days.”

  Alexis lounged against the counter and accessed the calendar on her BlackBerry. “So you want to pick it up again on July first?”

  Grady added yogurt and a bag of precut apple slices. Tossed in a plastic spoon, a kid-size bottle of water and a napkin. “We’re going to Laramie to spend the holiday with family. Maybe after Independence Day.”

  Alexis tensed. “You realize finding a mother for Savannah is going to take time,” she warned. “Delaying the search won’t help matters.”

  Arms folded in front of him, he lounged against the opposite counter. “Actually, I disagree.” He shot her a significant look. “I think it will actually help in the long run.”

  “How so?”

  He quirked a brow. “You see…I have a plan. But I need your help to pull it off.”

  “GRADY MCCABE WANTS TO what?” Holly Anne said first thing the next morning, when Alexis went in to talk with her.

  “Suspend his search for a wife and have me spend more time with him and his daughter instead. On the clock.”

  Her boss never minded more billable hours on a project, as long as the client didn’t. As far as Holly Anne was concerned, that was simply money in the bank. This request, however, was unusual. “He’s paying you to spend time with them?” she repeated, stunned.

  Alexis nodded. Her initial reaction had been much the same. “Grady thinks if I can spend more time with Savannah and him, I’ll get to know them better and will have a more accurate idea of what kind of woman they need in their lives. And he’ll be better able to assess how much of a hurry he needs to be in, when it comes to finding a mate.”

  Holly Anne continued opening up her mail. “You sure he’s not just looking for another matchmaking service on the sly? Maybe thinking of going with one of our competitors?”

  At the moment, Alexis honestly didn’t know what to think. “I offered to set him up with another matchmaker here.”

  “And?” her boss pressed, putting one letter into the In basket, another in the trash.

  “For whatever reason…Grady’s little girl has gotten rather attached to me,” Alexis stated carefully. “She’s been having a hard time. That translates into a lot of chaos in his life. Which is why he wanted a wife as soon as possible. Now that he’s met with three women, none of whom were right, he’s not so eager to continue screening candidates and introducing them to his daughter.” She exhaled. “And I can hardly blame him for that. He’s busy enough as it is, with this new project he has going downtown. To put all this additional pressure on himself—and by association, Savannah—well, it seems to be making the situation worse.”

  Holly Anne picked up the last letter in the stack. “Will you being there, billing him by the hour, help the overall situation?”

  Truth time. “It could.”

  “Will it lead to him looking again?”

  Alexis hesitated. “Maybe.” She hated to think how much she loathed the idea of seeing him with yet another marriage-hungry woman. “But I’ll be honest. I still can’t promise anything.”

  Holly Anne sat down at her desk, switched on her computer. “Why not?”

  “Because even though it’s been five years, I just don’t think he’s completely over losing his wife.” Instead, he seemed to be waiting for something awful to happen again the moment he got happy, and Alexis knew how that felt. Once life had taken a truly devastating turn, you were never without that niggling bit of fear in the back of your mind.

  It was hard, moving on.

  Her boss knew that, too.

  When she finally spoke, her tone was grave. “The other partners are excited about having someone with Grady’s stature as a client. If you don’t match him with anyone, or at least get him looking again, this will impact your chances of getting the Galveston job and the substantial pay raise that goes with it—no matter how many hours you bill.”

  Alexis nodded. “I assumed that would be the case.” How many times had she been told that, in their company, results were what mattered?

  “Don’t disappoint me, Alexis,” Holly Anne warned quietly. “We’re counting on you to make the match of the century for Grady McCabe.”

  SAVANNAH’S MATH HOMEWORK looked easy enough to Alexis, when she sat down at the kitchen table with Grady’s little girl early that evening. “Hmm…” She pretended to be perplexed as she studied the mimeographed sheet of eight problems. “I’m not really sure what we’re supposed to do here….”

  Savannah’s eyes widened, as if amazed Alexis could be so dense. Glancing back at the paper, she picked up a crayon. “It’s easy. We just count the pieces of fruit in each box.”

  Alexis pointed to a box in the middle of the page, just to shake things up. “Want to do the apples first?”

  “Okay!”

  “Do you know how to count them?”

  �
��Of course!” Savannah sighed in exasperation. “One, two, three!”

  “Now what do we do?” Alexis probed.

  “We find the number three in the box. See? Here it is. And then…” Savannah stuck her tongue between her teeth as she wielded her crayon. “We circle it, just like this!”

  “Wow. That was really good,” Alexis praised. “You want to show me how to do another one?”

  “Sure!”

  Five minutes later, they were all done. Savannah had counted objects, located the appropriate number beneath and marked it, without a single mistake. There was no doubt she was not in the least bit academically challenged by the work assigned to her. If anything, it was all too easy…and hence, boring.

  “Good job, sweetheart!” Alexis said.

  “Can I have a look?” Grady strolled in. Even in a rumpled shirt and jeans, with the shadow of beard on his face, the guy looked good. What could she say? No wonder the women who came over to meet him were instantly smitten. He would be quite a catch, if he ever deigned to let himself fall in love again, that was.

  “Okay, but then I have to put it in my backpack to take to school tomorrow,” Savannah told her father importantly.

  Gravely, Grady perused the work sheet with Savannah’s name written awkwardly across the top. “That’s excellent!” he told her. “I’m very proud of you!”

  Savannah beamed. Familial warmth permeated the room. Amazed that her work there could have been completed so quickly, Alexis looked at Grady, wondering what was next.

  “Want to help Savannah and me make dinner?” he said.

  “What are we having?” Savannah asked excitedly.

  “Your favorite. Pizza. Run upstairs and change into some shorts and a T-shirt and I’ll let you pat out the dough.”

  “Okay, Daddy!” Savannah raced off, anxious to get out of her school uniform.

  Grady and Alexis exchanged glances, the air vibrating with tension.

  Once again, Alexis noted, she and Grady were alone. And having all that raw male power focused on her was unsettling, to say the least.

  ALEXIS WASN’T SURE what she had expected for the rest of the week. What she got was more of the same. She worked all day at the office, matching other couples with her usual exceptional success. Then arrived at Grady’s shortly after Savannah got home from her after-school program, at five-fifteen. Homework was done at the kitchen table, followed by dinner, which more often than not was now a group cooking project. Then there was bath, story and bedtime, and finally a casual adieu.

  Savannah was always overjoyed to see her and sad to say goodbye. Grady treated Alexis with kindness and reverence. Occasionally she found him looking at her a tad too long. But out of respect for her previously stated wishes, he always turned away.

  There were no accidental touches or near kisses. No physical contact between the two of them of any kind.

  His chivalry was driving her crazy. She wanted, she realized belatedly, to connect with him again. Even if it wasn’t what he wanted.

  And yet she knew he was right, keeping the relationship between them strictly platonic.

  When Savannah completed the school year, Alexis still had to match him with someone else. A woman who wouldn’t require love.

  Which was why, Friday evening, Alexis was thinking about making an excuse to leave early, as soon as Savannah’s homework was done. Before she was overcome with wistfulness for what could never be.

  And that was, of course, exactly when Savannah turned her hope-filled gaze upon her. “Are you coming shopping with me and Daddy tomorrow morning?” she asked. “For my graduation dress?”

  “Actually…” Grady stepped away from the fridge, where he was busy studying the contents. “I was meaning to talk to you about that.”

  “Daddy said you can come with us and help me try on the dresses!” Savannah said.

  His eyes on hers, Grady moved closer. “She wanted a woman’s point of view, and since my mom’s off on an oil rig in West Texas, and can’t be here until the day of graduation…”

  “Say yes!” Savannah grabbed on to Alexis and held on tight.

  There went her plan to have a respite from the family that was beginning to feel far too much like her own.

  “Please, please, please!” Savannah looked up, waiting.

  There was no way Alexis could deny the need shimmering in those sweet blue eyes. She caved. “Of course I’ll come,” she promised. It was little more than an errand, after all. Something she’d do for any friend with a daughter Savannah’s age. And if Grady happened to be along for the trip, so be it.

  He grinned, his smile so wide and all-encompassing it crinkled the corners of his eyes. “That’s great,” he said, looking more cheerful than he had all week. Despite her decision to keep a wall between them, Alexis found herself smiling back at him.

  “Now for the bad news.” Grady twisted his handsome face into a comical parody of apology. “I thought we still had some stuff in here to make tacos, but we don’t, so what do you ladies say about going out for dinner tonight? It is Friday, after all.”

  Savannah jumped up and down in enthusiasm. “I want to go to a restaurant!” she declared.

  “And then maybe stop by the grocery store on the way home?” Grady looked at Alexis. “That is, unless you’ve got other plans…?”

  Was he fishing to find out if she had a date? The thought that he might be sent a thrill of excitement through her. Alexis forced herself to calm down. Since their one ill-advised tryst, Grady had given her no reason to think that he wanted anything more from her than help with his daughter.

  Before she could stop herself, she smiled again, more casually this time, and said, “Nothing I’d rather do.”

  Grady grabbed his keys and BlackBerry while Savannah ran upstairs to change into a ruffled T-shirt, matching lavender shorts and sandals. The three of them walked outside. They were nearly to Grady’s SUV when a sleek Jaguar sedan pulled into the driveway.

  Kit Peterson was behind the wheel. She waved, turned off the engine and got out. The statuesque redhead strode toward them, her high heels clattering on the driveway.

  “Hello, Grady! Savannah. And—?” She slid her sunglasses partway down her nose and peered over the rim.

  “Alexis Graham,” Alexis reminded her, trying not to grimace.

  “Oh, right…” Kit greeted her with a dismissive nod, then turned back to Grady, an exaggerated expression of sympathy on her perfectly made up face. “I just came over to see how you all were doing!”

  Wild giggling emanated from the back of the Jaguar.

  Lisa Marie and two other little girls from Savannah’s class were clearly visible. They were pointing and ducking down in the back seat, obviously making fun.

  Alexis felt Savannah tense beside her.

  She put an arm around the child, who leaned against her with a slow exhalation. Alexis sensed her unhappiness. She knew it wasn’t her place, but oh, how she wanted to reprimand the trio responsible for Savannah’s obvious discomfort.

  “What’s going on?” Grady asked Kit.

  “Just a minute.” the woman tottered back to the sedan. “Girls!” she scolded. To no avail—the giggling died down momentarily, before starting up again. Kit leaned into the open window, treating her audience to a view of the tight white skirt encasing her slender backside, as she retrieved a ribbon-wrapped bakery box. Nose in the air, she did her beauty queen walk back, knelt and gave it to Savannah. “Here you go, darlin’. This should make you feel all better.”

  Savannah held the box, from a popular cupcake emporium, as if it were radioactive.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Grady said.

  Kit looked flummoxed. “Well, I assumed,” she said dramatically, “you would have chatted with Principal Jordan….”

  “About?” he demanded, still in the dark.

  “Oh, dear!” Kit draped a hand across her chest. “It seems I spoke too soon.”

  The lenses of the woman’s sun
glasses were opaque, so Alexis couldn’t see her eyes, but was pretty sure she knew how they’d look. Mean girl, all the way…

  Grady must have known it, too. And he was beginning to get really ticked off.

  “You know what?” Having done the damage she clearly intended to do, Kit gave an airy little wave. “I think I’m just going to go ahead and leave. I’m taking the girls to a movie tonight and I don’t want to be late. So we’ll talk later. You call me if you need to, Grady dear.” She smiled condescendingly at his daughter. “Savannah, good to see you, darlin’. And Alexis, do call me. I think I can help you out with some ideas for…” She smiled at Grady mysteriously. “Well, you know….”

  As if, Alexis thought grimly, she would ever match Grady with one of Kit’s friends!

  “Thanks for the cupcakes,” Grady stated politely, sounding anything but grateful.

  Kit Peterson drove off, the three little girls in the back of her car still giggling unkindly.

  Savannah appeared ready to cry.

  Grady glanced at his watch. “You know what, ladies? I forgot I have to make a call first. So if you want to take those cupcakes inside and put them on the counter, I’ll slip into my study and do that before we get on our way.”

  Savannah didn’t say anything. Head down, still carrying the pastry box, she headed for the front door.

  Grady traded glances with Alexis over his daughter’s head. On this, Alexis knew without saying a word, she and Grady were in perfect agreement. They both wanted to throttle their recent visitors for hurting his little girl’s feelings.

  Chapter Nine

  “Did you get hold of Principal Jordan?” Alexis asked.

  “Finally.” Grady set the tray of food on the table next to the play area in the popular fast-food restaurant. From where they were sitting, they could see Savannah, and four other children racing around the elevated tunnels, mesh-sided walkways and dual circular slides. All were well out of earshot, and clearly having a fabulous time.

  Grady handed Alexis her flame-grilled burger and onion rings, and confided, “She said she didn’t want to get into it over the phone. That we’d talk in her office Monday morning at nine o’clock.”