Page 21 of Make You Mine

“This whole nanny thing—I never agreed it’d be permanent, Declan. It was nice having the help while I was working on this manuscript, but I’m finishing it up soon. I’ll be done by summer and Willow will be home. The book will be going through the editing rounds. I’ll have more bandwidth.”

“How about this? We’ll talk about it more after Scotland, yeah?”

We hang up with the usual I-love-yous, promising to see each other in a few hours for dinner.

I stretch my neck, then push my chair back with a quiet sigh. Just a couple more weeks and I can finally breathe again. The manuscript will be sent off and it’ll finally be off my plate. At least for the time being.

I lean toward the window again.

The garden’s empty.

No Chelsea. No Willow. No little yellow dress streaking through the hydrangeas or muddy rain boots by the hedge.

Weird.

I didn’t hear the door shut, and it’s not as if this house is soundproof. My stomach tenses, but before I can move, there’s a tap at the door.

It’s already ajar, so the sound makes me jump.

Chelsea stands in the doorway with a tray in her hands.

“I fixed you lunch,” she says with an almost saccharine smile. “Figured you’d be hungry.”

Her tone is bright and cheerful, but there’s something disarming about the way she’s appeared so suddenly that’s thrown me off. I hadn’t heard her come inside. I hadn’t even realized the garden door opened. I blink at her for a second too long.

“Oh… uh… thanks.” I force a smile, even as shock pricks the hairs on the back of my neck. “That’s very… thoughtful of you.”

She steps in and places the tray on my desk. It’s a sandwich cut without the crusts like I prefer, chips, even a slice of fruit on the side.

“I told Willow to change out of her play clothes,” she murmurs, brushing invisible lint off her cardigan sleeve. “She got a bit muddy.”

“Okay. Thanks,” I repeat. I pick up a potato chip and bite into it more out of distraction than anything else. She’s lingering in the room like she’s waiting for something.

I don’t ask if she heard my call with Declan. I already know there’s a good chance she might’ve caught traces of it.

If she didn’t, it’s the residual tension the family trip to Scotland that’s leftover.

She proves this to be the case only a second later by making conversation about it.

“How’s packing coming along?” she asks. “It’s all Willow’s gone on about today, bless her. She’s so excited.”

“You mean for Scotland? We haven’t even started. It’s still on our to-do list.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. I’m always happy to lighten your load.”

She’s about to turn away when I think of a question to ask. “Hey, Chelsea. Whatever happened to your crush? Did anything ever come of it?”

“Oh. Him. Erm, it was just wishful thinking,” she says, tucking hair behind her ear. Her cheeks tint a rosy pink. “I told you I’m more of a loner than anything. Part of why I don’t mind being here so much.”

“What about your family? You don’t talk about them often.”

She goes rigid, shifting weight from one foot to the other. “I told you my family is small. It was just me and my sister growing up. She and my folks live hours away.”

“You should visit. It would be good for you. Something other than work, you know?”

The suggestion seems to agitate her. Her jaw tics as she gives a stiff nod and then about faces and scurries out of the room.

It’s the last I hear from her for the rest of the afternoon. For the rest of her shift she tends to the garden and other chores around the house. But I get the sense bringing up her family caught her more off guard than she’d like to admit.

It seems Chelsea Hughes, for whatever reason, doesn’t like the topic. She doesn’t like it at all.

At dinner that night, Willow has Declan and me cracking up over how excited she is about Scotland.

“Is it true the men wear skirts?” she asks innocently, gripping a forkful of mashed potatoes between her little fingers. “Daddy, are you gonna wear one too?”

Declan almost chokes on his bite of meatloaf, pounding a fist to his chest. “If your mum lets me. But don’t hold your breath, Widget.”

His emerald eyes gleam sneaking a playful look across the table at me. I can’t help smirking back at him as I sip from my low-sugar cranberry juice. Willow misses the flirtation taking place, obliviously moving onto the next topic on her inquisitive mind.

“When we get there, can I ride a unicorn? Pretty please!”

That gets us laughing all over again, but she’s definitely serious. It’s even funnier considering unicorns are the national animal of Scotland, and Willow clearly knows this at age five.

“My baby is so smart,” I say, reaching over and affectionately stroking her chin. “Tell you what. You absolutely can ride a unicorn if we see one while we’re there.”

I wink at Declan as Willow claps her hands together and celebrates it as a small victory.

“Wait ’til I tell Chels!” she squeals, her fork clattering against her plate. “She’s gonna be so excited! I wish she were coming.”

Neither Declan nor I say anything at first. We let an awkward silence settle over the dinner table as we telepathically communicate how we’ll handle the topic. It’s the kind of thing parents do when navigating a minefield of young children’s emotions.

I decide to take the lead.

“Lo, this trip is for family,” I say gently. “It’s just you, me, Emmett, and Daddy.”

“But Chels is like family, Mommy, isn’t she?”

I fall silent, meeting Declan’s gaze to silently tap him into the conversation. He takes the baton, using a different approach.

He clears his throat, resting his forearm on the table. “Listen, Widget… Chelsea’s brilliant. Top-notch, really. We all love having her around, yeah?”

She nods.

“But she’s got her own life outside ours, even if it doesn’t always seem that way. She’s got things to do, people to see, probably some terribly boring adult stuff she’d rather not drag you into. We can’t nick all her time forever, can we? That’d be a bit selfish, don’t you think?”

She squints at her plate, thinking it over like he’s just asked her to do long division. “I guess…”

“How about this,” he adds, picking up his glass of cranberry juice. “While we’re in Scotland, you can pick out a souvenir for her. Something she’d like. Some knickknack with flowers on it, maybe. Or something daft with a highland cow on it.”

Willow perks up. “I wanna get her a big stuffed unicorn!”

Declan chuckles. “Perfect. Let’s hope they’ve got just the one.”

The fire seems like it’s put out for now, but as I reach over and feed Emmett his own spoonful of mashed potatoes, I know better.

Declan voices this a couple hours later when we’re unwinding before bed.

“Widget’s gutted about Chelsea, isn’t she?” he says, sinking onto the mattress. He rubs the back of his neck. “The two are nearly best mates.”

I sigh, smoothing body butter onto my arms on my side of the bed. “Yeah, they’ve grown really close.”

“Makes it tougher if we give her the boot after Scotland, like you were saying.”

“What other choice do we have, babe?” I ask. “We can’t keep her on forever just for Willow’s sake. Eventually, we’ll need to move on.”

He nods, resigned. “True. Maybe we really do need to buy her a unicorn to soften the blow. A big fluffy one, pink sparkles, the works.”

I roll my eyes, smiling incorrigibly at him. “Do you ever quit with the sarcasm?”

“Then I wouldn’t be me, would I, love?” He crosses from his side of the bed to mine, sliding his arms around my hips to pull me close and drop a kiss on my mouth.

I hum at how warm and tender his lips feel against mine, only spurring him on to do it again.

“We’ll sort it,” he whispers reassuringly, brushing his lips to my brow next.

“But you were right. No point hurting our brains thinking about it now. We’ll leave it for after Scotland. Agreed?”

I reach up and tap his chiseled jaw. “Agreed. Now let’s get some sleep. This melatonin is about to take me out.”

Willow’s been talking nonstop since breakfast. She trails after me through the bedroom, bouncing in place like a wind-up toy as I sort through outfits and toss folded stacks into the open suitcase on the bed.

“Did you know the Loch Ness monster’s really a girl?” she announces, clutching her favorite stuffed rabbit to her chest like it’s some kind of moral support. “Chelsea said so. She said her name’s Nessie and she’s not scary, Mommy.”

“Mmm,” I murmur, rifling through Emmett’s onesies in the drawer. “Poor Nessie.”

Willow’s pink suitcase sits near the closet, still empty despite the fact that I’ve asked her— twice —to start packing it. She’s far more interested in following me around and tossing out fun facts like an overly enthusiastic tour guide.

I want to be patient. I really do . But between the half-written email to my publisher, the manuscript deadline that’s creeping up on me like a wave I can’t outrun, and the nonstop buzzing in my head from everything I still need to pack for tonight’s flight, I feel like I’m unraveling one thread at a time.

Willow hops up and down by the nightstand on my side of the bed. “What do you think Nessie eats, Mommy? Does she eat fishies? Mommy? Mommy!”

It’s as she’s jumping up and down that her elbow knocks into the ceramic vase perched on the edge of the nightstand. The one Declan’s mom gave us last Christmas.

It crashes to the floor.

The sharp crack of porcelain hitting hardwood jerks me out of my fog.

Willow freezes. The rabbit tumbles from her arms. A spate of silence fills the room… until Emmett starts crying from where he’s lying on the bed.

I snap without thinking, my temper breaking free.

“I told you to get your suitcase and start packing!” I scold. “And how many times have I told you not to jump inside the house? You broke a vase your grandmother gave us!”

Willow’s eyes flood instantly, her lip quivering. “I’m s-sorry.”

Emmett’s wails only grow louder.

“Just… go, Willow. Please.”