Chase Our Forever (Sutten Mountain #3)

5. Dean

5

DEAN

My eyes travel over the women huddled around the table, wondering what I’m missing. By Liv’s wide eyes and her mouth slightly hanging open, I’m guessing she wasn’t prepared for Lexi and Pippa to meddle.

“Oh, I’ve never nannied before,” Liv hurriedly gets out, her words jumbling together. “I’ve worked retail and restaurants. Not kids. Not looking to be a nanny at all.”

Lexi narrows her eyes slightly while Pippa takes a deep breath.

Pippa is the one to speak up. “Well, it’s clear that where you’re lacking in the experience of being a nanny, you make up for with your natural instincts. For the last couple of hours, both Lexi and I saw how great you were with Clara.”

Liv shakes her head, her eyes finding mine. Her cheeks get more flushed by the second. “I’m sorry. I promise I didn’t put them up to this. I’m not staying in Sutten, and I don’t need a job. I’m so sorry.”

I’m quiet for a moment, trying to figure out why I feel a little let down that she isn’t staying in Sutten. I’d have to look over her resume and do a background check before I’d ever consider hiring her as a nanny, but the natural way Clara was drawn to her isn’t lost on me.

“No need to apologize. Pippa and Lexi just know how hard it’s been for me to find reliable help with Clara.”

Liv nods, her shoulders loosening just slightly with a breath of relief.

“You know, you could stay,” Pippa pushes, her focus on Liv. “You might find out you really love Sutten, and you did say you didn’t know where you’d end up.”

Clara wiggles her legs, her way of telling me she wants out of my arms. I set her softly on the ground, wondering how quickly I can get out of here so I can stop being the reason for Pippa and Lexi clearly making Liv uncomfortable.

Liv adjusts the baseball hat on her head, staring at Pippa for a few moments as she thinks over her words. “Even if I became Clara’s nanny, and it’s a big if, considering I don’t have the experience I’m sure he’s wanting for the care of his child, I don’t have a place to live here while working. And I don’t really have enough saved up to stay in a hotel.”

I can’t help but wonder why she’s in Sutten and what conversations she had with Pippa and Lexi to make them think she’d stay and take a nannying job. I don’t waste time asking. Clara’s had to deal with being juggled between one nanny and the next while I tried to find a perfect fit for our family. The last thing I want is to waste time discussing the position with someone who isn’t interested in it.

Pippa smiles wide, looking right at me with a twinkle in her eye. “That’s okay. Dean has a spare room in that big house of his for his nannies. The position is a live-in one.”

A low growl of annoyance comes from my chest in response to Pippa’s meddling.

Liv’s mouth snaps shut. She’s quiet for a moment, her eyes fixed on Pippa, and I wish Pippa hadn’t decided to get involved. It’s a very Pippa thing to do, so I can’t be surprised, but it seems this stranger has no desire to become a nanny.

“Liv, you be my nanny?” Clara pipes up, walking over to Liv and climbing into her lap as if she’s known her for months and didn’t just meet her earlier today.

Liv uneasily looks from Clara to me. She loosely puts her arms around Clara, who doesn’t seem to notice Liv’s stiffness whatsoever. “I’m not sure I’m staying here in Sutten, Clara. I don’t know if I can.”

I shift on my feet, unsure how to stop this conversation. I don’t want Clara to get her hopes up when Liv is making becoming her nanny seem like the last thing she wants to do. I wish Lexi and Pippa hadn’t gotten involved. Now I’m going to have to be the bad guy and break it to my daughter that having Liv isn’t an option.

“Would you want to?” Lexi speaks up, her tone soft as she focuses on Liv. “If you could get a job and a place to stay, would you want to stay here?”

“I don’t know,” Liv answers honestly.

Her answer is respectable. I’ve found that most people lie when under pressure. Yet, she didn’t do that, and for some reason, it makes me wish for my daughter’s sake that she had plans to stay here longer.

I can’t explain it, but I always felt like each of Clara’s previous nannies had something about them that seemed off to me. Since I could never put my finger on it, I gave them a shot, only to be proven right later on.

But I’m not getting that from Liv, at least not yet.

“How about this…” I sigh as I reach into the pocket inside my suit jacket. “Clara’s with my mother tomorrow morning, and I don’t have any meetings set up. I’ll be here at Wake and Bake around nine if you want to meet me to talk more about potentially being a nanny.” I pull a business card from my wallet and set it down in front of her. “Here’s my card if you want to email any references and your resume my way.”

Liv hesitates for a moment, but she does end up taking the card from me. She sets it on the table in front of her, her eyes trained on it.

Clara climbs off Liv’s lap and runs over to me. “Did she say yes, Daddy?” she asks, pulling on my pant leg. Her attempt to whisper is terrible. There’s not a doubt in my mind that everyone heard her.

“Thank you for hanging out with us today, Clara,” Pippa interjects, changing the subject.

I give her a curt nod, silently thanking her for doing so before I had to let Clara down, since Liv hasn’t said anything.

Clara bounces on her feet, reaching for Pippa and hopping into her lap. “Thank you for the cupcakes. I play again tomorrow?”

“Cupcakes?” I ask with a small laugh.

“It really was only one and a half,” Pippa explains, giving me an apologetic smile. “She’s too cute, Dean,” she continues. “I couldn’t say no.”

Clara nods triumphantly in Pippa’s lap, a smug grin on her face. “Two cupcakes were so yummy, Daddy.”

I stifle a laugh. I’m shocked she isn’t bouncing off the walls from the excess sugar, but she looks happy, and she has me so tightly wrapped around her finger that I can’t even scold her for eating two cupcakes before supper.

“We’ve got to get going, Clara. Daddy needs to get you home and make you dinner before dance class tonight.”

“Can I wear my pretty braids to dance?” Clara asks with glee, her tiny hands clapping together.

“Of course you can,” I answer, loving the pure joy all over her face. I’ve always felt guilty taking her to dance classes when I knew all the other girls had mothers who knew how to pull their hair back into buns or give them fancy braids. Clara doesn’t have that, and it pains me that I can’t do the same for her no matter how many video tutorials on the internet I watch.

It’s in the small moments like these that I feel the void of Selena being gone the most. She was an amazing wife, but she was an even better mother, even if she didn’t get to be one for long. She would’ve loved to do Clara’s hair, and I hate that it’s something I’m not good at.

Liv’s been quiet throughout the end of our encounter. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing or why, all of a sudden, I’m wishing this stranger who Clara decided to become best friends with was a local.

I’m incredibly picky when it comes to who watches over my daughter, probably because none of them can even come close to being the mother figure Clara needs in her life. So, if Clara doesn’t love who she spends her day with, I fire them.

It’s unfortunate that the first person my daughter seems to really be excited about probably isn’t an option.

“It was nice meeting you,” I tell Liv, forcing a smile. “Thank you for helping out with my daughter. I know it probably wasn’t what you were wanting to do when you stopped in here this morning.”

She gives me a smile, showing off her dimples. “It was the perfect day. Thank you for trusting me.”

I nod, not knowing what else to say to her. She has my card and knows where I’ll be tomorrow. There’s not much else to be said.

My eyes move from Liv to Pippa and Lexi. “As always, thank you to the both of you. It means the world to me that you help with Clara without any hesitation.”

They both smile. “Anytime, Dean. She was a blast. Today, she even talked Ms. Rosemary into changing her coffee order. Ms. Rosemary’s been ordering the same thing since I started.”

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Did she now? Clara can be persuasive.”

“What’s pevasive mean?” Clara asks, completely butchering the word as she wraps her arm around my leg.

“It means you know how to sweet-talk. Now, c’mon. Let’s let these girls have some kid-free time.”

“But what does sweet-talk mean?” Clara asks, making the girls laugh. This kid is full of questions.

I run my hand over the top of her head before gently guiding her toward the front door. I want to make sure we have enough time before dance to feed her a nutritious meal since it seems like she might’ve eaten a lot of sugar with the girls. “Let’s get home,” I tell her, watching her skip in front of me to get the door.

“Bye!” Clara calls out, pressing her back to the door and holding it open as best as she can with her tiny body. “See you later,” she adds.

I press my palm into the cold glass of the door, looking over my shoulder one last time. I have no idea if I’ll see Liv again, but I can’t help acknowledging that a large part of me wishes I will.

Something about her feels right.