“Of course he is! I just wish he could see it. It would be so much better for Wendy if he could. Better for him, too, I think. Don’t you?”
“Me?” Callie gulped, actually looking around to see if there was somebody behind her that Stacy could be talking to instead.
"All I'm saying is, Finn has a talent for taking something mediocre and turning it into something amazing. It's what he did with this place, and I'd like to watch him see it through. I would love to see him settle down some, even. It would do wonders if he would find a nice girl. Remarry. He's still so young, and I know the ladies must see plenty in him. I'm sure he could be plenty successful."
It might have been her imagination, but Callie didn’t think so. It seemed to her that Stacy was giving her a rather pointed look at the mention of Finn finding another wife. Callie cleared her throat and made a business of pretending to know how to garden.
Still, she couldn’t help saying one last thing. “You know, I’m not sure that ‘successful’ is the thing for him.”
“Oh?” Stacy asked noncommittally, her attention completely focused in on Callie. Watching the older woman, Callie felt a sudden lurch in her gut. She could practically feel the love radiating off of Wendy’s grandmother, and it made Callie ache with a longing she couldn’t quite understand.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s not my place—”
“No, please, honey, go on. What did you mean by that?”
“It’s silly,” Callie answered, stumbling a little in trying to get the words just right, “but I kind of get the impression that it’s not really success he’s after, at least not completely.”
"Well, what do you think he wants, then?"
“I...I think he wants to be happy,” Callie answered, her voice barely above a whisper. Studying people, reading them, had always been a habit of hers, but she never spoke her observations out loud. Doing so now, she felt exposed, like she’d just handed over her diary to a woman she hardly knew.
“Oh, honey,” Stacy sighed unhappily, “I think you might be right. It’s a real shame, too.”
“But why? Why would it be a shame for him to want to be happy?”
“Because, dear,” Stacy answered softly, laying one soft hand on Callie’s arm, “I’m not sure he knows how to be happy anymore.”
Six
Callie assessed the lawn carefully, looking for the best spot to settle down among all the other celebrating families. Over one arm, she carried an oversized picnic basket. Thinking about the care and planning that had gone into the packing of all the goodies inside for Finn and Wendy’s special benefit, Callie smiled in anticipation.
She supposed some people might have resented having to prepare a basket for a parents’ event when she wasn’t even one of Wendy’s parents. Callie herself didn’t feel that way at all. Resentful was not in her personal vocabulary, and planning was one of the things she liked best. Something about the orderliness of the process made her feel like all was right in the world. She could always be counted on to make sure outings and special events went off without a hitch. Unfortunately, Finn was looking more and more like a hitch in the making.
“Daddy?” Wendy whined, punctuating Callie’s thoughts and jerking at Finn’s arm, “Daddy! You’re not listening to me! You’re s’posed to be watching. I’m trying to show you my dance I learned!”
“I will, baby girl, just give it a minute. I’m trying to finish this thing up.”
Finn’s answer sounded distracted. Glancing at him surreptitiously, Callie saw that he was listening intently to his cell phone, little frown lines snaking across his forehead.
For Wendy’s sake, she fought her own frown. She had known the moment she’d brought it up that the Parents in the Park wasn’t exactly up there on his list of things to do. His lukewarm response had been as obvious as if he’d tattooed “I don’t want to go” across his face. She had done the best she could not to judge him for it, although it hadn’t been easy. She had a mama bear instinct toward the kids in her class, especially when she saw something that might not be good for them or might hurt their feelings.
Listening to Stacy, though, she’d developed enough of an understanding of what Finn was going through to soften her now. Standing on the grassy field flanking the river that wound through the heart of town, her understanding was deepening into something else—a desire to change his outlook about things, at least as far as the picnic was concerned. She had a feeling that getting Finn Henry to lighten up and enjoy himself would be a process requiring baby steps.
“He’s so boring,” Wendy grumped, folding her little arms in front of her and frowning so big, she looked more like a cartoon child than a real, live little girl. “We shoulda left him at home. We can have fun by ourselves! I’m gonna hide. You chase me, okay?”
Callie winced and shot a quick, apprehensive look in Finn’s direction. Children could say some of the harshest things. She knew that from personal experience, having spent so much of her adult time working with them. Still, she could only imagine how it would sting to hear your little girl say that her evening was better off without you, especially at a parents’ event. Then again, it might be the kick in the pants he needed.
Either thankfully or regretfully, depending on how she looked at it, Finn hadn’t heard Wendy. He was still buried in his phone call.
Callie frowned at that, despite her recently acquired sympathy for his circumstances, and ran her hand over Wendy’s hair. “Come on, bug,” she crooned, “you don’t mean that. Your daddy will be lots of fun, I bet, just as soon as he gets off the phone.”
“That’s going to happen never," Wendy said with savage emphasis, looking up at her father as she spoke. Callie didn't need to be a child whisperer to understand. The little girl was trying to get some acknowledgment from her dad, any way she could. Bad attention was better than no attention, even for little girls with exceptional minds.
“There’s where you’re wrong, Wendy,” Callie assured her, using her best conspiratorial stage whisper. “Even the most serious of men will get off the phone for a slice of my chocolate cake. Now, let’s pick the very best spot so we can lay everything out.” She gave Wendy a wink and a nudge with her elbow. “We’ll see how long it takes for the smell to lure him over.”
Wendy’s face broke into a sunny grin at the notion, her arms opening just as quickly as they had folded up. That was one thing Callie liked best about little kids. Their capacity for letting go of anger, for bouncing back from a rotten mood, never ceased to amaze her. People were always telling children to act like adults, always asking them when they were going to go ahead and grow up. Callie saw them entirely differently. As far as she was concerned, the best thing for the world would be for all of the adults to practice being like kids again. If they could be like Wendy, Callie thought they would all be a whole lot better off.
"Hold on, bug!" she laughed, hurrying after Wendy, the picnic basket thwacking against her thigh as she moved. "You’re moving too fast for these old bones to keep up!"
“You’re not old, Callie!” Wendy called back in a sing-song voice. “Just older than me!”
Callie's laughter rang out louder, and Wendy stopped running, hopping up and down, shifting from one foot to the other and clapping her chubby little hands. Callie took quick note of where Wendy's traveling had taken her and nodded in approval. She was waiting beside the blanket of the Waters family, a lovely young couple with twin girls a grade below Wendy. They were the perfect family to sit beside on a lovely evening, sharing a picnic that was all about strengthening the bond between children and parents. If that didn't pull Finn out of his stupid funk, she didn't know what would.
“Come on, Callie!” Wendy shouted, her little hands clutching at the collar of her top, her whole body practically vibrating with excitement and anticipation. “Pull out the cake! The magic cake!”
“First things first, sweet girl,” Callie smiled, setting down the basket. Opening the top, she pulled out the biggest blanket she�
��d been able to find in Finn’s house. “We need to claim our spot.”
“Our spot?” Wendy asked, her head cocking to one side. “What’s that mean?”
“It means that, for the next hour or two, this pretty little patch of grass belongs to you, me, and your dad. Sounds pretty great, huh?”
“Sure, guess so,” Wendy said, frowning a little before her whole face lit up again, “’specially if I get to have the cake!”
Callie threw her head back and laughed, utterly delighted by the singularity of Wendy’s mind. Beside her, Mr. Waters joined in the laughter, followed by his wife. Callie went back into the basket, rummaging around as if it were Mary Poppins’ bag instead of an ordinary wicker basket. When she pulled out the cake at long last, Wendy threw her arms up over her head, pumped her fists in the air, and crowed in delight.
“Whoa there, you guys got away from me. What’s going on over here?”
Callie looked over her shoulder to see Finn coming up behind them quickly, wearing the faintest frown. The look confused Callie momentarily until she saw his eyes light upon his daughter and understood, feeling a tickle of happiness in her stomach. Finn was obviously concerned about his daughter. When he had gotten off the phone and realized he didn’t know where Wendy was, it had worried him. Although never a fan of making a parent feel ill at ease, Callie thought the little scare might be just the thing Finn needed to prompt him to engage.
“Sorry about that,” she said with a smile as he settled down on the blanket beside her. “Didn’t mean to lose you in the crowd, but Wendy had a pretty definite idea of where she wanted to sit.”
“We staked the claim, Daddy!” Wendy shouted, her voice full of the kind of exhilaration that was sure to turn into an epic crash by night’s end.
"Did you now, sugar?" Finn asked seriously, but he tipped Callie a wink when Wendy looked away for a moment. Callie smothered a giggle with one hand and marveled at the return of the butterfly feeling in her belly. It had to be the collective excitement of the evening, surely. The fact that the feeling had intensified when Finn winked at her was a coincidence, nothing more.
“Want some cake, Pattie?” Wendy asked one of the two Waters twins excitedly.
Now that Wendy had her father’s full attention, she was paying Finn no mind. Callie had heard parents complain about that sort of thing from time to time, the flightiness of their children’s affection and its correspondence with their need. However, Callie wholeheartedly disagreed. A child who could look away from her parent with such ease was a child secure in her parent’s love. It was good to see that kind of confidence in Wendy. In it, Callie also found reassurance that railroading Finn into attending the picnic had been the right move.
“So, Callie, what else do you have in that basket there?” Finn asked, the ghost of a grin on his face. His eyes lingered on his little girl for a moment longer, and then they were on Callie, filling her with the need to fidget.
“Depends on what you’re in the mood for,” she smiled, twisting the hem of her linen top as she spoke.
“How about we start with an easy one? What do you have in the way of beverages?”
“You’ve got two roads to choose between,” she pronounced in her best pompous grown-up voice. “On the left, you’ve got your lemonade, nice little reminder of childhood. A good, solid choice.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, nodding his head and leaning in a little. “What do I have waiting for me on the right?”
“On the right, you’ve got your good old American beer. It’s—”
“Sold,” he interrupted with a grin.
“You sure you don’t want to hear my sales pitch?” she asked with a fake pout. “I can promise you, it was going to be a good one.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Callie, and I’ll keep that in mind for next time. Right now, I’d be mighty appreciative of a bottle of suds. Nothing quite like it after a long day.”
Callie handed Finn a long-necked bottle, considered the options herself, and decided to go for a beer herself. Normally, she wasn't much of a drinker at all, much less a beer drinker. Somehow, though, a cold bottle of beer seemed the right choice for an evening like this one.
“Daddy, look!” Wendy shouted. “Bouncy house! Can we go play in it? Please, please, please?!”
“It’s all right with me if it’s all right with you,” Mr. Waters said genially, managing to speak to Finn around his two daughters, who were jumping all over him and tugging at his face.
The seconds dragged out as Callie waited to hear the confirmation that yes, of course, Wendy could run down to the bounce house with her friends. The adults had a perfect view from where they were sitting, and the three girls were practically desperate to go and investigate. At last, she looked at Finn curiously. He was frowning at Wendy, his face oddly pale beneath his rancher's tan.
“What is it, Finn?” Callie asked quietly, placing one hand gently on his forearm. The contact got enough of his attention to get him to glance in her direction. His eyes were troubled.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "Not sure it's a good idea, is all. She could get hurt in one of those things. She could break an arm or something if some of the bigger kids decided to climb on in and start acting like fools."
"Finn, it will be all right," Callie said with a smile. "Let her do it! You only get to be this age once, after all, and at Wendy’s age, bouncy castles are practically magical."
Watching the frown lines on his brow deepen as she spoke, she was sure his answer would be no. Having been raised by overprotective parents herself, it touched her, somehow, to see him that way. A big, strong ranching man afraid to let his daughter go to the bouncy castle with her friends. The problem was, it didn't matter how closely you held on to a person. Eventually, whether he was keeping her tied to him or not, Wendy would get hurt. The difference would be that if he tried to keep her too close, by the time she really needed his help, she would resent the hell out of him.
“Finn?” she prompted again, smiling at him gently.
“Oh, all right,” he finally said, looking at Wendy instead of at Callie, “go on then. But be careful, you hear? I’m not interested in taking any trips to the emergency room tonight.”
* * *
The moment Wendy took off running with the Waters twins, Finn regretted giving permission. A feeling came over him like somebody had reached a hand into his insides and squeezed. It had been that way ever since Alexandra had died. Each time he watched that tiny frame running away from him felt like a dagger going straight through him. If he lost her, too—ever—he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it would be the end of him. That would be one storm he could not weather, not after everything he’d already been through.
"We might should have just stayed home," he muttered under his breath, cracking the knuckles of one hand while taking a swig of his beer with the other.
He wanted to kick himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth. For starters, his fears for his daughter weren't exactly something he wanted to broadcast. He didn't like feeling the way he did—weak—about letting her go off on her own. He felt Callie's eyes on him, and it was all he could do not to get up and walk away. Easier than remaining under the weight of her scrutiny.
“But why?” Callie asked, her brow furrowing.
He took a breath, preparatory to giving her some kind of answer, and let it out again in a sigh. Coming to the stupid picnic had been her idea in the first place, not his. With everything on his plate at the moment, it was about the last thing on his list of priorities. It hadn’t been hard to forget about it on his own, but Callie had gone and made that impossible. The picnic was the kind of thing the kids at school talked about, that they got excited about. He hadn’t been able to say no once the picnic was out there, on the table, and now here they were, him looking after his baby girl running away from him, trying not to spook like a flighty horse.
“Never mind,” he said, taking another sip of beer, this one so long and deep that he
brought the bottle back down empty. He stared at it woefully, then shifted over so that he could peer into her picnic basket again.
"Got any more of these things in there?" he asked, trying not to sound as morose as he felt.
“I do,” she nodded, “and I’ll even let you have one.”
“Great, give it here,” he said with an uncertain smile. He couldn’t quite figure out the look on her face, but it gave him a feeling of dread. Lucky thing the Waters were laughing with the parents sitting behind them at the moment, paying Finn and Callie no mind.
“I most certainly will,” she laughed, “just as soon as you tell me what’s going on.”
“Come on, Callie, nothing’s going on,” he sighed.
“I’m sorry, I don’t like to call someone a liar…” Callie said, making an exaggerated point of looking anywhere but at him.
“But that’s what you’re calling me?” he finished for her, grinning a little in spite of himself.
“Just think of it as one of those ‘if the shoe fits’ situations.”
"It's really no big thing, Callie," he sighed. "It's just hard for me to watch her walk away like that. I don't like her going too far on her own."
He didn't mention that he could have been using the picnic time for something else. Back home, he could be practicing his skill set, and Wendy could be practicing reading three years above her level. They both could be doing what they did best, everybody safe, sound, and accounted for.
"Well, that makes perfect sense to me," Callie said softly, much of the humor gone from her voice now, replaced by a sweet understanding that made his skin prickle. "I guess I would be too, if our situations were reversed."
“I’ve got to let go of her sooner or later, I know that…” he started to say, then stopped short. He couldn’t think how to finish the sentence.
“We won’t lose sight of her,” she said, smiling again and nudging him gently. “Not with that bright pink bow in her hair.”
The Rancher’s Unexpected Nanny Page 5
