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He glanced at his phone again. Nothing from Charity. Damn. The last thing he wanted to do was take the kids with him. He’d had to do that a few times with client appointments and the results had been...disastrous to say the least. He was still paying for the marker decorations that Henry had drawn on a custom-made leather sofa in one client’s office. It was almost impossible to carry on a conversation of any kind of substance with the kids in the room. And for him to show up at an interview with them...
He might as well kiss the job goodbye. “You know, maybe we should reschedule. This is a crazy busy morning for me. If you could come back—”
“No!” Libby’s shriek cut through the air like a knife. “No!”
Sam bolted out of the chair and charged down the hall, his heart a tight ball in his throat. He never should have left the kids alone in the living room. This was how awful things happened, and if there was one thing that would break Sam, it would be one of his kids getting hurt. Or worse. Please be okay, please be okay.
It was probably only ten yards from the dining room to the living room, but to Sam, it felt like ten thousand. “Libby? You okay?”
“Henry took my bear when I was playing with it! He’s hurting him! Tell him to stop!”
It took Sam a second to process the fact that Libby and Henry were both fine. Just engaged in a tug-of-war over a stuffed bear. Libby’s voice was at decibels usually reserved for rock concerts, the sound nearly outpaced by Henry’s screams. No words, just the frustrated screams that Sam had heard too much of in the last year and a half.
“Henry, give Libby back her bear.”
But Henry didn’t listen. Instead, he tugged harder, at the same time that Libby tugged in the opposite direction. There was a horrible tearing sound, and then an explosion of fiberfill in the air. The kids tumbled onto the carpet, each holding half a bear, like some kind of biblical division of property.
The sobs multiplied in volume. Libby was screaming at Henry and Henry was screaming back, and Sam just wanted to quit. Quit being a terrible father. Quit being the chief everything when he didn’t know what the hell he was doing. Just run away somewhere that was quiet and peaceful and clean.
His wife would have known what to do. Wendy had had a way with the kids, a calming presence that seemed to bring everyone back to earth in seconds. God, he missed her, and how she could handle all these things that he sucked at. Wendy would have known whose bear that was, but Sam—Sam couldn’t even remember buying the bear.
“No!” Libby screamed again. “Look what you did, Henry! You ruined him!”
While Sam stood there, at a loss, with two kids in the throes of tantrums, Bandit ran into the fray and grabbed a chunk of bear, then darted into the corner like he’d scored a new chew toy. And Libby started to sob.
Great, just great. Now how was he supposed to fix this?
He stayed immobile, frozen with indecision, afraid of doing the wrong thing, making it worse. Katie brushed past him. “Don’t cry, Libby. I can sew this,” she said, bending down in the space between the kids. “Fix him up as good as new.”
Libby swiped at her nose with the back of her arm. “You can?”
Katie nodded while she gathered up the fiberfill and began stuffing it into the bear’s belly. Henry quieted, too, and just watched, eyes wide. “I learned how to sew when I was your age. If you want, I can teach you how.”
“He doesn’t know how to sew,” Libby said, jabbing another thumb in her father’s direction.
Katie shot Sam a grin. “Some daddies don’t and some mommies don’t. But if I teach you, then you’ll know and next time you can fix—” she tapped the bear’s decapitated head, then turned to Henry “—what’s his name?”
Henry just stared at her. His fist clenched around the puff of stuffing.
“A bear’s gotta have a name.” Katie smiled at Henry, then inched closer. Sam started to go in there, to stop her, to tell her Henry was just going to run from her, but Katie kept talking, her voice calm and soft. Mesmerizing. “When I was a little girl, I had a bear like this one. I used to get scared a lot when it was dark, and my big brother, Colton, would find my bear and bring it to me. He would tuck me in and tell me stories until I stopped being scared and I fell asleep. I shared my bear with my brother sometimes, too, and Colton even gave Willard his own nicknames. My bear was my bestest friend when I was little, and I bet this guy is your friend, huh?”
Henry nodded.
“My bear’s name was Willard, but my brother nicknamed him Patch, because he was fixed so many times he had a patch over his belly. He wasn’t near as nice as your bear. So,” Katie said, giving the bodyless bear a little tap on the nose, “what’s his name? I gotta know his name so I can fix him, and tell him it’s all going to be okay.”
Henry shifted from foot to foot. Even though Libby knew the answer, she stood silently behind Katie, staring, waiting, just like Sam was. Katie just gave Henry a patient smile.
Then, very slowly, Henry held out his hand and uncurled his tight fist. A pouf of fiberfill sprang up like a daisy in his palm. “Henry help fix George?”
Henry’s little voice rang like a bell in the quiet of the living room. Libby turned to her father, mouth agape. Sam put a hand on his chest, sure he was hearing things.
Henry had spoken. A handful of words, but to Sam, it might as well have been the Gettysburg Address. Henry had spoken—and Sam’s heart was so full, he was sure it would burst just like the bear.
Katie nodded. “Of course Henry can help. And for the record, I think George is a terrific name for a bear.”
“T’ank you,” Henry said quietly, then he dropped the puff of stuffing into Katie’s lap.
Sam swallowed the lump in his throat. He didn’t give a damn that Katie Williams had come in here looking like she was walking into court. He didn’t give a damn that she didn’t have much, if any, experience. If she could get through to Henry, he had little doubt that she could get through to Libby, too, and restore his daughter’s love for school. Katie had brought about a miracle that no one else had. She’d shifted the tides in a family too long on a rolling ocean, and for Sam, that was résumé enough. “You’re hired.”
Chapter Three (#ue5cb3b88-5daf-51de-9b60-78b5784ddd10)
Katie wasn’t so sure she’d heard Sam right. She was hired? Just like that?
And did she even really want the job?
She’d be with these two kids for at least an hour at a time if she became Libby’s tutor. Small children with winsome faces and those little-kid voices. The very thing she had been looking forward to, before—
Could she do it? Or would it be too painful?
Katie was still kneeling on the floor between Henry and Libby, holding the tattered remains of George the teddy bear. Libby, who seemed ten times older than her age, came over and stood in front of her. She propped her fists on her tiny hips and cocked her brown curls to one side. “Are you gonna stay?” Libby’s eyes, so like her father’s, clouded. “Just ’cuz, you know, ’cuz our mommy died and...and... I really wanna fix George.”
The naked honesty and pain in Libby’s face was almost too much to bear. Katie could see the yearning for a mother, the way that loss had impacted the little girl in a thousand ways, in the empty shadows in Libby’s eyes. Katie’s heart broke for Libby, and for little Henry, standing there silently, his thumb in his mouth, just watching her. Katie had no doubt Sam loved his kids, but he was clearly overwhelmed, and these two little ones needed someone. Being a tutor wouldn’t be all that tough, she figured, and she could help people who clearly needed help.
And given the way the two kids were staring at her, with a mix of hope and wary trust in their faces, she knew they wanted that someone to be her. It felt nice to be needed, even if only for this little while. Katie knew what it was like to crave a parent who engaged. Who cared. Katie wasn’t going to be their parent, but maybe she could help fill some of the gaps.
“Okay,” Katie said to Libby. “I’ll stay. We can fix George, if you have some thread and a needle?”
Sam put out his hands. “If we do, I have no idea where.”
“No problem. I’ll pick some up this week.” She bent down to Henry’s level again. “George is gonna need some special thread to be fixed. Can you wait for me to bring that over?”
Henry gave her a reluctant nod.
Libby ran into the other room, then hurried back. She thrust a stuffed dog into Henry’s arms. “Here. You can play with Puppy until then. But don’t break him.”
Henry grinned, then clutched the stuffed animal close to his chest.
“That was very nice, Libby,” Katie said.
“Thanks.” A slow smile spread across Libby’s face, then she turned and grabbed Henry’s hand. “Come on, Henry. Let’s watch SpongeBob.” The two of them plopped on the sofa, with Libby working the remote to switch to the underwater cartoon.
Katie rose and turned toward Sam. She’d accepted a job she wasn’t sure she wanted, without knowing a single thing about the hours, the pay, anything. That was as far outside the realm of how she normally operated as she could get. “So, maybe we should discuss the details.”
He grinned. She liked his smile. It was warm, friendly, like the way brownies made you feel when you first pulled them out of the oven. He was a handsome man, six foot two, trim and muscular, with close-cropped medium brown hair and dark brown eyes. He was wearing a T-shirt that seemed molded to his chest—not that she was complaining—and a pair of jeans that hung low on his hips. His feet were bare, and there was just something about the intimacy of that that made Katie feel like she was intruding in his space. From the moment she’d seen him, standing at the door, annoyed and flustered, she’d felt this warmth in her gut that rippled through her veins.
His phone buzzed and he glanced down. “My appointment was just moved to nine thirty, which means I have time to finally have a cup of coffee. Do you want one?”
“Coffee would be great.” And maybe with a mug in her hands she’d stop staring at the hot widower’s body. She followed him out to the kitchen, which looked pretty much like the tornado from The Wizard of Oz had just blown through. Dirty dishes teetered in the sink, a stack of newspapers lay scattered across the counter, crumbs littered the floor and the space around the toaster, and there was a pile of dirty laundry bulging out from the laundry room door like an impending avalanche.
Yup, Sam was clearly stressed. A lot stressed.
“Uh, sorry, I think I have a second clean cup here.” He opened a cabinet door, another, then finally unearthed two mugs from the back of the third cabinet he looked in. Sam poured her a cup of coffee, then held it out. “I don’t have any cream, but I do have milk and sugar.”
“Black is fine. Thank you.” She sipped the coffee, a surprisingly rich and good brew, and kept her back to the counter rather than taking the only free chair at the kitchen table. The others had stacks of mail and toys piled on them, as if the rest of the house was coming for lunch.
“Uh, sorry.” Sam rushed forward and scooped a pile of things off one of the chairs. He started to put it on the table, then thought better of that and pivoted to the left, depositing the toys and books onto the floor by a drooping and browning potted plant. “It’s, uh, been hard to work and watch the kids and...well, my last nanny quit a few weeks ago and the new one isn’t as good as the other one, and...” He let out a breath. “Mostly, I’m just not good at this juggling thing.”
She laughed. “It’s fine, really. And made all that much better by a man who admits he can’t do it all.”
“I definitely can’t do it all.” Sam gestured toward the empty seat and waited for her to take it before he sat opposite her. “At work, I can juggle multiple clients and deals, but here, I’m bested regularly by a three-year-old and a third-grader.”
“You seem to be doing fine.” Okay, so maybe she was generously stretching the definition of the word fine.
He ran a hand through his hair, a move that made him seem more vulnerable somehow. “I’m not, but thanks for saying that. I really need some help, at least until Libby gets caught up. It’s a short-term job, if that’s okay. Feel free to say no. You are incredibly overqualified to teach math to a third-grader.”
She didn’t want to get into the reasons why an overqualified CPA would take on a tutoring job. “That works for me. I wasn’t really looking for anything permanent, so I’m flexible with whatever schedule you want.” It shouldn’t be too hard, right? Though the thirtyish man across from her didn’t seem to have it under control, so why would she think she could do it better?
“Aren’t you here on vacation?” Sam asked. “I’d hate to take up whatever free time you have. You said two weeks, which, if you can work with Libby regularly, should give her a good head start on getting caught up. I’ll worry about a more permanent solution once I find one.” He sighed. “Anyway, I really don’t want to monopolize your time off.”
“It’s only sort of a vacation.” How did she begin to explain the meltdown in the office, the clear signs that she needed to get away, to leave town, to start over? How once she’d arrived here and had more than five minutes of quiet, all those thoughts and memories and emotions she’d been avoiding washed over her like a tidal wave? And how the one thing she was banking on with being Sam’s tutor was that it would leave her too busy to think? “This job works perfectly with my plans.”
“Well, I am glad to hear that.” Relief washed over her at his words. He mentioned a decent hourly rate, and she agreed. His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket, then read the text on the screen. “Thank God. Charity is on her way over. Normally, I bring Henry to storytime at the community center my uncle runs, and Charity picks him up from there. But since Libby doesn’t have school today, it’s easiest if I just leave Henry here. She can watch him while you work with Libby. If it’s at all possible, do you think you could start with Libby today?”
“Today?”
“If you can’t, well, I understand, but Charity is still new and though she’s great, she gets overwhelmed when she has both kids. With you here, that should help her out. I’d take them, but I have this job interview and I can’t take the kids because I’m still paying for Henry’s ‘creativity’—” Sam rolled his eyes and made air quotes “—at the last place I interviewed at.”
She bit back a laugh. Sam was so clearly out of his depth with these kids that she couldn’t help but want to make it easier on him. Plus, if she started today, she wouldn’t have a long, endless day stretching ahead of her with nothing to fill the hours. Colton was sleeping, after getting off his shift at the fire station, and wouldn’t be available until dinnertime. “Today sounds perfect.”
“Great. Thank you.” He glanced over at the sofa. “The kids are quiet right now, so if it’s okay, I’m going to run upstairs, take a shower and get ready. Charity should be here in ten minutes, but I have to leave in...eleven. If you don’t mind waiting, I’d appreciate it. Give me five minutes. Ten, tops. Okay?”
“I think I can handle this for ten minutes.” She gave him a soft smile, and tried to pretend a part of her wasn’t thinking about the hunky man before her taking off his clothes and stepping into a shower.
When Sam went upstairs, Katie wandered into the living room. This space, too, looked like the aftermath of a tornado, complete with a second carpet of tiny little bricks. Now that it was just her and the two kids, she wasn’t quite sure what to do or how to engage them. She glanced at the television. Some cartoon sponge-shaped guy was running around in his underwear and letting out an annoying nasal laugh. “Hey, guys, what are you watching?”
“SpongeBob,” Libby said. “He lives in the water. With Mr. Krabs. And Patrick.”
“Sounds, uh...educational.” Whatever happened to Sesame Street? The Electric Company? Shows she remembered and understood.
A commercial came on and Libby turned toward Katie. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Uh...no.” She’d had a boyfriend. Who had dumped her the second he found out she was pregnant. She’d never in a million years thought nerdy Leonard Backstrom, another accountant at the firm, would be the one to break up first. He’d talked a lot about wanting to settle down, buying a house in an up-and-coming neighborhood, then starting joint retirement and 529 accounts. One stupid night when they both had too much to drink, and his tune had changed. He was, apparently, all talk and no real action. Last she heard, Leonard was dating Meredith the receptionist. He’d never even called Katie after she told him she was pregnant, as if he figured it was all her problem now.
After Katie had accepted that she was pregnant, she’d begun to think of a future with a child. A future of just the two of them. Those thoughts had grown into dreams, a plan—
Until she’d started cramping ten weeks later and lost everything.
So yeah, that was the complicated answer to do you have a boyfriend? Probably best to keep it to uh...no.
“My father says I can’t have a boyfriend until I’m thirty,” Libby said, and once again, Katie was struck by how mature she sounded. She sat down and Libby leaned closer. “Are you thirty?”
Katie laughed. “Almost. I’m twenty-nine.”
“My father is thirty-four.” Libby held up all her fingers, then flashed the digits three times. “That’s old.”
“You won’t think so when you’re thirty-four.” Interacting with these kids wasn’t so hard. She could do this. And she and Libby seemed to get along okay. The tutor thing should work out perfectly. In and out, an hour at a time. No biggie.
Libby considered that, then glanced over at Henry. “That’s my brother. He’s three.”
Henry sat there, a blanket curled in one hand, just watching the exchange. He was a quiet kid. Probably easy to handle, Katie was sure. “He seems very nice.”
Libby’s nose wrinkled. “He smells funny and he takes my toys and he makes a mess with his food.”
Katie laughed. “My brother was like that. But you know, he grew up to be really cool. Henry probably will, too.”
Libby’s nose wrinkled more. “My father makes me eat vegetables.”
“Vegetables are good for you,” Katie said.
“Are you gonna make me eat vegetables?”
“I don’t think that’s in my job description.”
“Good. Because I don’t wanna eat them,” Libby said.
“Libby Bear, be nice to Katie. She’s only here to help you with your schoolwork. No broccoli involved.” Sam’s voice came from behind Katie. She turned in her seat and her pulse did a little skip.
If she’d thought he looked handsome in a T-shirt and jeans, he was positively devastating in a suit and tie, with his hair still wet from the shower, smelling of fresh aftershave and soap. He was adjusting the cuffs on his white shirt, and for some reason, she thought that was one of the sexiest things she’d ever seen. Everything from the dark blue windowpane-pattern suit to the crimson tie at his neck and the black wingtip shoes gave him an air of power and manly confidence. Like a lion stepping onto the prairie and claiming his turf.
“I don’t want to do schoolwork!” Libby sat back on the couch, crossed her arms over her chest and let out a huff. “You’re mean.”
“Yup. I am.” He gave Katie a grin. “Still want the job?”
A job that came with perks like seeing Sam in a suit? Sign her up. “Yes, yes. I... I do.”
Good Lord, she was stammering. The confident partner at the accounting firm had been replaced by a hormone-crazed teenage girl. She got to her feet, smoothed her skirt and cleared her throat. “Perhaps it’s best if we went over any additional rules or expectations now.”
He didn’t say anything for a second, then he seemed to refocus, and nodded. “Yes. Yes, you’re right.”
She followed him out to the kitchen and they took the same seats as before. “So, do you have a list of things that Libby needs to work on?”
“Her teacher said she needed help with times tables and three-digit addition and subtraction problems. The whole carrying the one thing, you know? Then there are word problems, which I swear were created to stump parents.” He laughed.
“Lucy has seven cantaloupes and Dave has three apples, so what time will the train arrive at the station?” Katie asked.
“Exactly.” He crossed to a pile of papers on the back kitchen counter and riffled through it. “Her teacher sent home a list that I’ve got here somewhere. My late wife was the planner and organizer. Since she’s been gone, I’ve just kind of...held on for dear life. I’m not very good at this whole juggling act.”
“My childhood was like that. I guess it’s why I’m the opposite. I like everything to add up, and for all the columns to balance.”
