Page 33 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

He shook his head. ‘Nah. Just for a bit longer.’

Iris stood looking down at him for another moment, at the worry still etched onto his face, at the exhaustion in his eyes and she wanted to help. To do something to make that smile come back.

But, like she told him, she was in way over her head. Unqualified to be a nanny. Unqualified to be anything other than an employee to this man.

So she gave him a small nod and went to bed.

It took a long time to fall asleep, wondering if he was still out there keeping watch.

ChapterFourteen

‘Hey, Arch! How are things going?’

‘Hey, Dad.’ His father’s face filled the screen, the big smile on his face almost able to cheer Archer up. He wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but at some point his dad had become his best friend. That fact alone said a lot about what Archer had been focused on for the last decade. His dad was the last man standing in the friend department, and that was probably only because he was legally obligated to care about Archer’s problems.

And today felt like a day he needed his dad’s no-nonsense approach to life, to put those problems into perspective.

Archer was sitting out behind the diner on an ancient bench he imagined had been used for smoke breaks throughout the last century. The sun was shining and the air was still chilly, but Archer had needed a break. And a cigarette. Unfortunately, he wasn’t allowed one of those anymore, so he had to settle for the fresh air.

He’d given up on the classic pancake recipe for the moment. Instead, he’d put a lemon poppy-seed pancake topped with creme fraiche on the menu today, and he nearly had an early-morning riot on his hands.

Eventually, he’d managed to convince a few patrons to try them, and Tim and Tammy had even cleared their plates. He was trying to take that as a win, but after his long night of sleeping propped up in the hallway, he had a headache and desperately needed a nap.

‘You look like hell.’

‘Thanks, Dad. That’s nice of you to say.’

His father chuckled. ‘How are things going with Olive?’

They hadn’t wanted to overwhelm Olive all at once with a bunch of new family members, so his father hadn’t met her yet, even over the phone, but Archer had been updating him nearly every day.

‘She was sleepwalking last night.’

‘Sleepwalking? Wow, that’s a new one.’

Archer ran a hand down his face. His stubble was nearly a beard now and he really needed to shave. And probably get a haircut. But grooming himself really hadn’t seemed important today when he’d been terrified all night that his daughter was going to sleepwalk into the street.

‘Yeah. I put childproof locks on the door already, but it still freaked me out. I slept in the hallway,’ he admitted with a wince.

‘The hallway? You sound like me when you were a baby.’ His dad had that fond smile on his face that people always got when they reminisced about their children, even as they told the most heinous stories of sleepless nights and diaper blowouts, like it had all been as magical as it was horrendous. The smile had never made sense to Archer before, but now he could almost imagine telling this sleepwalking story someday with that smile. But not today. Today, he just felt miserable and exhausted about it.

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. I was so worried about you when we brought you home. You were so small! And I was responsible for you. It felt very heavy.’

Heavy. Exactly. Everything had felt heavy since he found out about Olive, suddenly his life had this weight when before he’d moved through the world unencumbered. He wasn’t sure he could carry it all.

A flash of Iris, her smile in the dark, her foot resting against his, appeared in his mind. She’d made everything feel lighter. Just for a moment.

But helping to carry his burdens was way above Iris’s paygrade.

‘So how did you manage it?’ he asked.

His father’s smile grew. ‘I’m not sure I did.’ He chuckled. ‘I still worry about you all the time.’

‘You don’t have to worry about me, Dad.’

He scoffed. ‘Oh, okay. I’ll just stop now after all this time.’