Irresistible: A Small Town Single Dad Romance (Cloverleigh Farms Series Book 1)
Irresistible: Chapter 21

That night when I got home, we ordered pizza and Frannie stayed to watch a movie with us. We sat next to each other on the couch and copped a few PG-13 feels beneath the blanket, but that was about it. I couldn’t even kiss her goodbye because I felt like the kids were watching us so closely. Maybe it was in my head, but Millie especially seemed to be looking at us a lot that night.

On Saturday, I didn’t see her at all, and I hardly heard from her—just a short text in the morning saying they were swamped at the inn and wishing me a good day, accompanied by a little red heart. And it was a pretty good day—I got Millie to ballet on time for once, grocery shopped, cleaned the house, caught up on some work, and washed everyone’s sheets and towels. But I thought of her non-stop, and I realized as the day went on how much I missed her. Like physically missed her. I had Monday off, and knowing that I wouldn’t see her until Tuesday put a dull ache in my chest.

That night, I took the kids out for dinner. We had just been seated at the table when Felicity said out of nowhere, “I miss Frannie.”

“Me too,” said Winnie. “I wish she was here.”

“Can we call her, Dad?” Millie asked.

I cleared my throat. “No, she’s working tonight. We’ll see her next week.”

“Maybe she could come over tomorrow and do braids again,” Winnie said.

“And help me with my shirts,” added Millie, reaching into her coat pocket for her phone. “I’ll text her.”

“No, don’t do that.” I put a hand on Millie’s arm to stop her, as if I wasn’t dying to see Frannie myself. “Let’s let her have the weekend to herself, okay? She’s probably tired of us.”

I didn’t really think she was, but even if she wasn’t busy tomorrow, it was getting too hard to keep our feelings a secret from the girls when we were together. I couldn’t fucking keep my hands to myself. And I just wasn’t ready to tell them yet—it was too soon. Plus, it was making me kind of uneasy that I missed her this way. I didn’t want to miss her. The whole point of this thing was to have some fun, to feel like my old self again, at least for a little while. Right?

But later, as I lay in bed that night, I couldn’t resist calling her. She didn’t answer, and I didn’t leave a message.

A few minutes later, she called me back. “Hi. Sorry I missed you. Chloe needed help tonight, so I’m pouring wine at this stupid corporate thing in the tasting room.”

“Guess that means you’re not going to talk dirty to me.”

She laughed. “Probably not. Might be awkward. How was your day?”

“Good. Nothing too exciting.” I filled her in on the details. “The girls missed you at dinner. They wanted to call you.”

“Awww. I’m sorry. This weekend is crazy here.”

“I know. I told them you had to work.” I hesitated, torn between admitting I missed her too and not wanting to say the words out loud, as if leaving them unsaid would make them less true. “I should let you go.”

“Okay. Give me a call tomorrow if you can?”

“I will,” I said.

But I didn’t.

My mother called on Sunday night. Felicity answered the kitchen phone, and from where I was standing at the dining room table folding laundry, I heard her excitedly retelling the story of Winnie’s tumble down Aunt Jodie’s basement stairs last weekend. This infuriated Winnie, who could hear her sister from where she sat at the counter having a snack.

Eventually, each granddaughter took her turn talking to Grandma, and I managed to finish folding their laundry, put it away upstairs, and get the dishwasher started. Millie was the last to chat, and I heard her telling my mom about the fashion show.

“Yeah, it’s supposed to be mother-daughter, but they said Daddy can participate.” Then she laughed. “We have to make our own outfits. Frannie is helping me.”

Inwardly groaning at the thought of having to wear that fucking glittery T-shirt in public, I wiped off the counters and swept the kitchen floor.

“Okay. I love you too. Bye.” Millie handed the phone to me. “Can I have a little screen time?” she asked.

“Shower first.”

She nodded. “Got it.”

I tugged one of her braids and put the phone to my ear. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetie. How are you?”

“Good. Busy. You?”

“Great. We’re excited for our visit.”

“We are too.” It wasn’t a total lie, although my mother could be a bit overbearing at times. And there was no situation where she didn’t feel compelled to voice her opinion. I leaned back against the counter. “You arrive tomorrow?”

“Yes. We’ll stay at Jodie’s for two nights, then we’ll drive down to you for three. Does that still work?”

“Yeah, that’s perfect. The wedding isn’t until Saturday, but I have the rehearsal Friday, and I’m supposed to spend some time with Woods on Thursday night.”

“And who’s the bride? Do I know her?”

“She’s Ruth Gardner’s granddaughter. Lives in Detroit.”

My mother clucked her tongue. “Oh, I just love Ruthie Gardner. How is she?”

“She’s fine.”

“And what about you? The girls told me it was quite a week. Poor Winnie!”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

“They all talked a lot about Frannie.”

At the mention of her name, my stomach flipped over. “Yes. She’s been helping out a lot. She’s great with them.”

“Sounds like they adore her.”

“They do.”

“And it seems like she spends a lot of time with them.”

Was I imagining it, or was there a note of suspicion in my mother’s tone? It made me feel a little defensive. “Well, Miriam Ingersoll broke her leg a couple weeks ago, so Frannie had to fill in. They saw a little more of her than usual.”

My mother gasped. “Oh, no! Poor Miriam. Thank goodness you had extra help.” Her voice grew curious again. “I hear Frannie is doing more than just babysitting at your house.”

I almost choked. “What? Who said that?”

“Felicity said she’s been cooking dinner.”

“Oh.” I relaxed a little. “Yeah. Sometimes, if I work late.”

“That’s awfully nice of her.”

“She likes to cook for people,” I said, feeling defensive again. “And she lives alone, so she doesn’t get to do it very often.”

“How old is Frannie now? Last time I saw her, she was probably close to Millie’s age.”

“Twenty-seven.”

“And you said she lives alone?”

“Yes.” Suddenly I knew where this was going.

“Is she attractive?”

“Mom.”

“What? I’m just trying to picture her,” she said innocently.

I exhaled. Counted to three. “Yes. She’s a pretty girl.”

“Is there something going on between you two?”

“Jesus, Mom!”

“I’m only asking because I think you need to be very careful. The girls have been through so much and it could be confusing and hurtful for them to see you with another woman so soon.”

“I know.”

“I’m not saying you have to be alone for the rest of your life, but they’re just so young, and they’ve still got to be traumatized about their mom running off with another man. Deep down they’re probably afraid of losing you that way too. You want them to feel one hundred and ten percent certain they are the most important people in your life.”

“They do,” I snapped. “I don’t need to be told this.”

“And maybe it would be best not to take up with their beloved nanny,” she went on. “I mean, what happens if you two have a fight and she quits? Then the girls lose her too.”

“And it would be my fault. I get it.”

“I’m not blaming you for anything, darling. I know how hard this has been for you, and I feel awful we’re not there more often to help you out. But the extreme cold is bad for Daddy’s blood pressure.”

“We’re fine, Mom. I’m managing.”

“Of course you are. You’re a wonderful father, and I know you love those girls to pieces. But I also know you must be lonely too, and with a pretty young girl around so much, I can see how tempting it would be to … take advantage of the situation.”

“I’m not taking advantage of anything!” I yelled.

“Okay, okay. I didn’t mean to upset you, I just want to make certain the kids are protected.”

I closed my eyes, my jaw clenched hard. I knew she meant well, but I was about to lose my shit. Did she think I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation? Did she think I took this lightly? “The kids are my number one priority, Mom. They always have been. And they’ll stay that way no matter what.”

“Good. Well, I’ll see you Thursday then, dear.”

“Have a safe trip.” I hung up and stood there fuming for a moment, wishing I had a heavy punching bag in the house so I could hit something as hard as I wanted to. I wished I had a motorcycle I could take off on for days. I wished I could down half a bottle of whiskey and drown out my feelings.

But I couldn’t do any of those things, because the kids were upstairs waiting for me to put them to bed, and that’s the guy I had to be.

Every. Single. Night.

Later I was lying in bed, my mother’s words weighing heavily on me, when my phone buzzed again. It was fucking Carla. I should have ignored it, but I sort of felt like punishing myself.

“Hello?”

“Who’s Frannie?”

“What?”

“Frannie. Millie texted me all weekend about Frannie this and Frannie that. Who is she?” From the way Carla was slurring her words, I knew she’d been drinking.

“Frannie Sawyer. From Cloverleigh. She babysits for them.”

“Is she my replacement?”

“I’m hanging up, Carla. You’re drunk.”

“Are you fucking her?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“The hell it isn’t. I’m their mother. How dare you bring some little slut into the house? How old is she, twenty-two?”

“Twenty-seven,” I said before I could help it.

She squawked with laughter. “Well, I get why you’re chasing her around, but what the hell does she want with you? Does she think you have money or something?”

My jaw clenched. “She knows who I am.”

“Oh, so she’s a mind reader? Because you never told me who you were. And why does Millie think she’s so great?”

“Because she’s here,” I said angrily. “And she cares about them. She gives them love and attention, which is more than they get from you.”

“I’m their mother. They’re supposed to love me no matter what.”

“You left.”

“Because you forced me to!” she shouted. “If you would have been a better husband, I wouldn’t have felt so alone! It’s your fault I had to leave.”

“Carla.”

“Just admit it—you didn’t want to marry me in the first place.”

“You’re right. I didn’t want to get married that soon. We’d only known each other for a few months. We were young. I was about to deploy for Iraq. But I did what I thought was right.”

“I never wanted to be your charity case!” she cried.

“It wasn’t like that, and you know it. I tried hard to be a good husband and father.”

“You didn’t try hard enough.”

“You wanted too much from me, Carla. No matter what I did, it was never enough.”

“I only wanted you to pay attention to me. I wanted you to love me.”

“I did, Carla.” I lowered my voice. “But you were always sulking and pouting. Punishing me for things I had no control over.”

“Like leaving us all the time?”

“I had no choice about my deployments, Carla. You know that.”

“And when you got back, you were always so happy to see the kids but not me.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Well, that’s what it felt like. You were cold and distant.”

“I needed time to readjust. Life at home was a shock to me. You never understood that. You never let me talk about it.”

“Because I wanted you to just forget it and be the husband I’d dreamed about. The husband I deserved. I’d waited and waited and waited for you, and then you came home and disappointed me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said grimly, feeling that sense of failure all over again.

“That’s why I had to spend all that money on things,” she went on. “That’s why I drank. I was trying to fill the void you left in my life.”

I took a steadying breath. “I hope you’re happier now.”

“I am!” she snapped. “And since you’re all doing so well without me, maybe I’ll never come back.”

“You do what you want, Carla. You always have.”

She hung up on me, and I tossed my phone aside. Great. Now she’d have even more reason to blame me for ruining the kids’ lives. And she’d aim at them to get back at me. She knew that was the only way to actually hurt me. Tomorrow she’d probably tell Millie that I’d forbidden her mother from coming to visit, that I didn’t want them to see her ever again, and maybe even that I was screwing the nanny. I flung my arms over my eyes.

Somehow I’d fucked that up without even trying.

What else was new?

I didn’t talk to Frannie again until Monday night. She called at about quarter to ten, as I was catching up on some work emails at the dining room table. It had been hard not to call or text her for two days, but every time I thought about doing it, I remembered what my mother had said and felt guilty.

“Hello?”

“Hey, guess what?

“What?”

“I just talked to Maxima. She said Natalie from Coffee Darling is really excited, and we set up a meeting for four o’clock tomorrow.”

“That’s great.”

“I know it’s a lot to ask, and it’s probably impossible with your schedule, so don’t feel bad if you can’t, but if there’s any way at all—”

“For fuck’s sake, Frannie. I’m getting old here.”

She giggled nervously. “Sorry. I was just wondering if maybe you’d want to go with me.”

Of course I wanted to. I wanted to do all kinds of things for her, and in a perfect world, I’d be able to. But we didn’t have perfection—not even close. And this felt like something I could manage that didn’t look overly romantic. “I’ll make it work, although I might have to meet you there. I told DeSantis I’d go look at some bottling equipment they’ve got over at Abelard Vineyards on Old Mission. But I should be done by that time.”

“Okay. Great. I’m so excited, Mack. Like really prematurely excited. But something about this just feels so right. I mean, this is so silly, but I keep thinking, what if that strap on Maxima Radley’s wedding dress hadn’t broken? What if I hadn’t been filling in at the desk that night? What if I hadn’t noticed the toilet paper stuck to her shoe?”

I smiled at her breathless enthusiasm. “So it’s fate, huh? With a little help from Charmin?”

She laughed, and the sound made my chest tighten. “Yes. Exactly. But fate isn’t enough—I still have to be the one to go after what fate puts in front of me. Know what I mean?”

“Sure.”

“And look at us. I mean, what if Mrs. Ingersoll hadn’t broken her leg? What if it hadn’t snowed so much that night? What if you could actually get a pillowcase on a pillow in less than five minutes?”

I grimaced. “That’s not fate, that’s just incompetence.”

“Either way—I was there, but you still had to go after what you wanted.” Her voice quieted. “And I’m really glad you did.”

“Me too,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie. I was glad I’d gone after her. But the more time I spent with her, the more I wanted with her. And not just sneaking-around time, either—real time, where we didn’t have to hide or rush or worry about being caught. That was impossible without telling the kids, and it was too soon to do that. I supposed I could hire another babysitter and spend time with her apart from the kids, but that would take away from time with my girls, which would make me feel selfish and guilty, and it would give their mother even more ammunition.

I couldn’t win.