7+Us Makes Nine: A Nanny Single Dad Romance (Baby Makes Three) Page 8

  I was gazing into the eyes of a man I felt myself falling for.

  “You’re good at planning Saturdays,” Jace said.

  “I think it turned out okay,” I said.

  “It turned out more than okay.”

  “Oh yeah? Then how did it turn out?” I asked.

  His hand brushed some dripping water off my forehead before his hand cupped my cheek.

  “It turned out perfect,” he said.

  His thumb ran along my lips. I puckered them to kiss the tip of his finger. His hand slid to the back of my head and slowly guided our faces closer and closer. His legs parted and I fell between them. I could feel his hot breath pulsing against my mouth. My body tingled and my nipples puckered, and I felt my heart thundering against my chest.

  Then, I felt my back being coated in water as a balloon burst against my body.

  “Gotcha!” Ivan exclaimed.

  I slowly turned my head around and connected my eyes with the boy. His face fell immediately and I scrambled off Jace to get to him. I took off after Ivan, listening to him scream for mercy. He laughed as I picked him up and twirled him around, then I put him on my back and ran for the tarp.

  “Hang on!” I exclaimed.

  “Miss Cathy! No!”

  I jutted my arms out and slid across the length of the tarp. And Ivan’s screams soon turned into full-bellied giggles. We tumbled off into the grass before I felt another small body collide with mine, and I looked up to see that Dmitri had slid across the tarp after us.

  “I’m coming!” Michaela yelled.

  She took off running before she belly-flopped onto the tarp. She slid and she slid, giggling and swimming around in the bubbles. Jace was the last to try it out, sliding into Michaela and pushing her to the end of the tarp.

  I laid there with the boys piling on top of me as laughter fell from my lips.

  “Can we do that again!?” Dmitri asked.

  I rose my hand to brush away some grass from his face.

  “Of course we can,” I said. “You wanna be on my back this time?”

  “Yeah!” he shouted. “I’m on Miss Cathy this time!”

  “Then my time again?” Ivan asked.

  “And me?” Michaela asked.

  “I promise you’ll all get rides,” I said as I got up.

  “No one wants to ride on my back?” Jace asked.

  “I will,” Michaela said as she lifted her arms to her father.

  “I can always count on my princess to take my side,” he said as he kissed her cheek.

  “Come on,” Dmitri said. “Let’s go!”

  And we all took off running to the other side so we could each have another turn on the tarp-turned-slip-’n-slide.

  Thirteen

  Catherine

  “Dinner?” Michaela asked.

  “It’ll be done soon, sweetheart,” I said.

  “What’s for dinner?” Ivan asked.

  “Pot roast with lots of veggies, a huge salad for me, and mashed garlic-butter potatoes.”

  “What’s for dinner, Miss Cathy!?” Dmitri asked.

  “Potatoes that are smushed and butt roast,” Ivan said.

  “Butt roast?” Jace asked. “That’s sounds yummy. Where do I sign up?”

  “Daddy!” Michaela exclaimed.

  I smiled as I pulled the pot roast out of the oven. The mashed potatoes were ready and the boys were eager to help set the table. That was their one chore during the day once they got home from school. They had to help me set the table. Then Michaela helped me clean up the dishes and put them away. I’d fill the sink up with warm soapy water and she’d have a blast tossing the dishes in and watching the suds spray everywhere.

  “When did you get in?” I asked. “I didn’t hear the door open.”

  I felt a hand grace my ass and I shot up really quickly.

  “Jace,” I said with a whisper.

  “Don’t worry. The kids are walking down the hallway now,” he said.

  “Gotta wash our hands!” Ivan exclaimed.

  “Wash, wash, wash ‘em good,” Dmitri said.

  “Hot,” Michaela said. “Cold water, pwease.”

  I placed the roast on the stove as a pair of lips came down onto my neck. My eyes fluttered closed as my hand reached back, threading through Jace’s soft hair. His nose nuzzled against my ear and sent shivers down my spine. I felt his arms quickly wrap around me and pull me close to his body. His heat was undeniable, and I found myself wanting dinner to be over already.

  “How was work?” I asked.

  “I thought about you the entire time,” Jace said.

  “Already trying to butter me up, huh?”

  “I may or may not have a nice little surprise in mind that may or may not require your permission.”

  “Oh, I like those kinds of surprises,” I said with a grin.

  “Daddy?”

  Jace and I hopped apart from one another as Michaela came running down the hallway.

  “What is it, princess?” Jace asked.

  “Eat now? I’m hungwy.”

  “Once we get the food on the table, we’ll all sit down to eat. Now, let’s help Miss Cathy with this food. Because it smells like she slaved away on it all day,” he said.

  I smiled as I handed him the pot roast and he tossed me a little wink.

  We all sat down to eat dinner together and it felt like a great family dynamic. The boys always wanted me sitting in between them, so Michaela always claimed Jace for herself. We passed around the mashed potatoes and I helped the boys with their portions. They always grabbed so much more than they could eat. Dmitri turned his nose up at the cooked onions and Ivan didn’t like how orange the carrots were, but the deal was always this: if they ate one bite of something they didn’t like, they got to pick their dessert. It was the only way I could get them to expand their horizons with food. Michaela was a very stubborn one when it came to that rule. Many nights she went without a dessert because she was so strong-willed.

  But sometimes I won. And with a three-year old like her, ‘sometimes’ was enough to make the rule stick.

  “Can we watch a movie?” Dmitri asked.

  “Yeah! Ratatouille!” Ivan exclaimed.

  “Rat movie,” Michaela said with a smile.

  “Of course the kids would want to watch a movie about food after eating food,” Jace said.

  “If you guys want to stay up and watch a movie, I’m all for it,” I said. “But Michaela, you know what that means.”

  “Dishes!” she yelled.

  “That’s right. Boys, finish up your dinner. Then bring your emptied plates over to the sink so Michaela and I can wash them,” I said.

  “Can we have seconds?” Jace asked with a playful grin.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s thirds on your part, but yes,” I said.

  I set Michaela up onto the counter and plugged up the sink. I turned on the hot water and diluted it with some cold, then handed her the soap to squeeze in. She always used too much and giggled when the bubbles toppled over the sink. She’d stick her hands in and blow them around, and it would always make a bigger mess for me to clean up.

  But I didn’t mind.

  Seeing the smile on her face while doing dishes was worth it.

  One by one, the boys came and plopped their dishes into the sink. I held Michaela and let her stand on my knee so she could dunk them in the water to wash them off. Then she’d put them in the dry sink so I could load them into the dishwasher. She dunked and swirled. Squealed and giggled. The bubbles tickled her nose and a smile so big it closed her eyes would crawl across her cheeks.

  It was my favorite part of the day with her.

  “Miss Cathy?” Ivan asked.

  “Yes sweetheart?”

  “Can I have a popsicle?”

  “I want a cookie,” Dmitri asked.

  “Cake!” Michaela exclaimed.

  “Do we even have all of those desserts?” Jace asked.

  “What kind of question is that?”
I asked as I walked over to the pantry. “Of course we do!”

  Jace finished loading the dishes into the dishwasher while I got the kids set up with their desserts. I set them at the table to give us time to prepare the movie so we could all cuddle up onto the couch. They devoured their sweets and drank some milk, then Jace took them all upstairs to get their teeth brushed and get into some pajamas. He knew better. He knew they would fall asleep halfways through this movie sprawled out onto the couch. I loaded the last of the dishes and started the dishwasher, then made my way upstairs to help in any way I could.

  “Princess jammies!”

  Michaela came barreling down the hallway in a princess t-shirt and a tutu with a wand in her hand. She crashed into me and took me to the floor where she proceeded to try and tickle me. I laughed so hard I began to wheeze before I felt the boys get in on the action. Their small hands danced along my stomach and my sides, bringing tears to my eyes as my body squirmed on the floor.

  “Jace! Help! I need backup!”

  “Here I come!”

  One by one, the kids started to squeal with delight. He pulled them off me and picked them up, blowing raspberries into their stomachs. I gasped for air and got onto all fours, my head bent down so I could draw in deep breaths. I stood to my feet as the kids continued to giggle and I turned around, taking in the sight of them tackling their father against the wall.

  “Come on, Miss Cathy!” Dmitri said. “We’ve got him!”

  “Hey. I helped you. I had mercy on you. No. No. No!”

  I came at him with my fingers and started dancing them along his neck. His chest. His stomach. A smile so bright it could’ve pierced the sunlight grew along his cheeks until he slide to the floor breathless. The kids piled on top of him as I backed into the opposite wall, feeling the first beads of sweat trickling down the back of my neck.

  “Well,” Jace said, “I think we successfully worked off dinner.”

  “Movie,” Michaela asked.

  “No more tickling, then sure,” Jace said.

  “Party pooper,” I said as I stuck my tongue out.

  But he shot me a look that told me I was in my own sort of trouble that night.

  The best kind of trouble I could be in.

  We all walked downstairs and piled onto the couch. Michaela crawled into my lap and hunkered down between my legs while the boys leaned against Jace. He pressed ‘play’ on his remote and the movie struck up, and I could tell ten minutes in that the kids wouldn’t last very long. Michaela’s eyes were already beginning to drop as she leaned against me, and the grip on her wand became lax. And by the time the movie was thirty minutes in, the kids were snoring against us.

  “I figured we’d get at least halfway through,” Jace said.

  “That was before the impromptu torture session,” I said.

  “You mean the tickle fight?”

  “It might as well have been a torture session,” I said.

  “Not a fan of being tickled?”

  “I’ll tolerate it for the kids, but it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me.”

  “Duly noted,” he said.

  “So what do you want to do? Stick out the rat movie or get them to bed?”

  “Let’s give it fifteen more minutes. You know, to make sure they’re fully asleep.”

  But I knew why Jace wanted to stay. He’d never admit it, but he loved animated movies as much as his children did. Fifteen minutes turned into another ten, and ten turned into thirty, and soon we were halfway through the movie and Jace was totally engrossed. His eyes were glued to the screen and his emotions were worn on the edges of his sleeves.

  I loved watching him watch movies like this.

  It always showed a softer side to him.

  We sat there with snoring kids as the movie came to a close. Jace dabbed at the corners of his eyes, trying to conceal how emotional the movie actually made him feel. I gathered Michaela up in my arms, hearing him grunt as he stood with both of the boys. We made our way upstairs and tucked them in, and none of them moved an inch. I brushed Michaela’s hair from her face and kissed her forehead, then dipped into the boy’s rooms and did the same thing.

  Even if they were asleep, I didn’t want to put them down for bed without kissing each of them.

  I wanted them to know that, even in their most vulnerable states, they’d always be treated equally with me.

  “Another Friday night down,” Jace said.

  I let out a massive yawn as I leaned against the hallway wall.

  “Yikes. Sorry,” I said.

  “Looks like someone else could use some sleep.”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. I just…”

  But another yawn peeled from between my lips and I knew it would put a damper on the plans Jace had for us tonight.

  “I’m sorry. Let me get some coffee and I’ll-”

  Before I could get the words out, however, he silenced my plea with a small kiss. His hands fell to my hips and he pressed me into the wall. I felt my body surging with electricity. But when my eyes closed to kiss him deeper, I felt sleep tugging so deeply at my core that it made my knees weak.

  “I got you. Come on,” Jace said.

  He scooped me up into his arms as if I weighed nothing and carried me down the stairs. My head fell to his shoulder, my body trying to drum up the energy for him. I wanted to feel him like I had so many other nights. I wanted to paint another room of his house with our memories. I wanted to know what kind of surprise he may or may not have had in store for me.

  But with each step he took towards my room, I felt myself sink deeper and deeper into sleep.

  I remembered my back hitting my mattress. I remembered my body being covered with the blankets of my bed. But I didn’t remember anything else. Sleep claimed me as the silence of the house soothed me to sleep, and I woke up the next morning to birds chirping and the smells of breakfast wafting up my nose.

  I loved Saturday mornings with Jace’s family.

  Fourteen

  Jace

  “Hi Mom, it’s me,” I said.

  “Jace! Honey. How are you doing? I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Mom. Things have been busy with the theater and with press conferences on Anya’s latest stunts.”

  “I’ve seen her on the news. She looks worse than she did going into rehab.”

  “That’s not why I’m calling,” I said. “I actually wanted to see if you’d want to take the kids tonight.”

  “Now you know I’m always up for seeing my grandchildren. Something going on with the theater?”

  “Actually, no,” I said.

  “Something going on with that nanny of yours?”

  “How could you possibly know about that? You’ve never even met the woman.”

  “I recognize the tone of your voice,” she said. “It’s the same tone you had when you first started talking about Anya.”

  “Mom…”

  “I’m not implying anything. All I know is that you’ve hired a new nanny who has been caught a few times by the cameras out with the kids. She’s pretty. And she seems really good with them.”

  “You’d like her. She reminds me of you.”

  “How so?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to find someone like your mother to date because you have one of those weird complexes.”

  “With all due respect, I have a fine mother. I also married someone the complete opposite of her and it tanked.”

  “Well don’t make it a complex. That could get hairy. I can babysit my grandchildren, but I’m not of the age where I could raise them.”

  “Are you insinuating that my imaginary complex would put me in a mental institution?”

  “I’m saying I’d put you there,” she said with a giggle.

  “Always a spitfire,” I said with a smile.

  “So what are the two of you getting into tonight?” she asked.

  “I thought about taking her to dinner. I brought her to the theat
er on one of our opening nights on our first date, but things didn’t quite go as planned.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, it was more ‘we need to keep this platonic for the kids’. But now, things are a little different.”

  “Sounds complicated. This is why I married your father. I no longer had to play those kinds of games once I was married.”

  “Trust me, it’s a perk to being married,” I said with a grin.

  “So dinner. Just dinner?”

  “I thought about taking her to a movie. Maybe on a walk afterwards. Or somewhere after dinner for dessert.”

  “Your mother doesn’t want to hear that kind of talk.”

  “No, Mom. Actual dessert. With chocolate syrup and cake.”

  The two of us shared a laugh as I leaned back into my chair.

  “So, will you come watch the kids?” I asked.

  “That’s never a question, honey. Of course I’ll come watch the kids. What time do you want me there?”

  “How does six sound?” I asked. “Their bedtime is usually eight, but since it’s Saturday night they can stay up a little later.”

  “So all night. Got it.”

  “Mom.”

  “What? I haven’t babysat in over two months. I’m going to spoil them while I can. I might not see them for another two years.”

  “Melodramatic much?” I asked.

  “Where do you think you got your acting chops?”

  “Not from Dad, that’s for sure. He’s a terrible liar.”

  “The worst,” she said with a giggle.

  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll see you at six.”

  “Wear clean underwear, son.”

  “Really, Mom? That’s your advice for me?” I asked.

  “And… don’t screw it up?”

  “Thanks. I’ll take it to heart,” I said flatly.

  “To this day I still don’t know how I hooked your father. I’m the worst person to ask for advice like this.”

  “Trust me, I know how you hooked him.”

  “Oh really? And how do you think I hooked him?” she asked.

  “With that winning charm of yours.”