Give & Take (Redbeard Cove #2)

6. Lana

Chapter 6

Lana

F ifteen minutes later, I’m pacing the living room while Raphael sits on one of the two armchairs across from me.

As much as I’ve tried to make this the toughest interview I’ve ever given, Raphael has done his worst.

And his worst is…incredible. He nailed every question I threw at him.

“What happens if I’m late getting home from work?” I’d asked.

“We make a game out of getting dinner prepped. But we get to go rogue. Off-menu.”

“How do you handle a bad attitude from a certain eight-year-old when she doesn’t get her way?” I gave a pointed glance to Nova, who I’d stopped bothering to make go upstairs after the first interview, just so I could have a witness to the insanity. Her eyes were on her clipboard, but I didn’t miss the little smirk as it flashed across her face. That girl.

“The same way I’d treat anyone having a bad day,” Raphael said. “I set limits, so everyone is respected, but I’m there for the feelings when those limits are hit.” He hesitated. “Of course if it was one of my little brothers, sometimes a little wrestling was called for. You know, to take his mind off his shit day.”

He glanced at Nova, who was taking notes like a perfect little assistant. “I mean crap day.”

“I already wrote that down,” Nova said. “Also, you get minus one for swearing.”

He has his CPR certification. His Bronze Medallion in lifeguarding. He’s licensed to drive a car, but also trucks with airbrakes, motorcycles, and has some certification called “Small Vessel Operator Proficiency.”

At my astonished look after he’s rattled these off, he grins. Rakishly. “That’s boats, Ms. Bloor.”

The smile plus my last name makes me feel simultaneously like a blushing schoolgirl and a pervy schoolmarm.

I’d cleared my throat, completely out of questions.

Now, I stop pacing next to Nova. I can see all she’s written on the evaluation form she made is “ RAFIELLE”. Three times, with several underlines under each. She circles his name again several times, her eyes on me.

I press her clipboard up against her. “I’ll be doing police record checks on every shortlisted candidate.”

Raphael nods. “I’d expect nothing less.”

“Comprehensive ones. Where they check local and national records. And charges, not just convictions. I have connections.” I can’t actually get that information anymore since I left my law practice and let my bar membership lapse, but he doesn’t need to know that.

Raphael pulls at his collar, hesitating. “Okay well, in that case I do need to inform you I was arrested once.”

He gives an apologetic look to Nova, who looks crestfallen. I almost feel bad.

Except I don’t because I’m delighted I have an excuse to say no to him. I’m saying no regardless, but this will help. “Oh, really?” I practically crow as I resume my pacing, this time with a little skip in my step.

“Yeah,” Raphael says. “There was this one time I uh… streaked across the field at a football game.”

I stop my pacing. “You what?”

“What’s streaked?” Nova asks.

“It’s where you—” Raphael begins, but I interrupt.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does kind of, to the story but—” He drops it when I glare. “I was eighteen. It was a dare. But I made it a bet. Told my friend I’d do it if he could come up with five grand for our other friend. His dad had testicular cancer and needed money for the treatment.”

I close my eyes. Of course this guy can turn an arrest into a hero story.

“Testik…la-lar?” Nova asks.

“It’s a gland,” I snap.

“We raised the money in fifteen minutes,” Raphael says, without an ounce of boastfulness. If anything, he just looks happy at the memory. “They made an announcement over the PA. I was in the news, you can look it up. I was never charged. ”

“So streaked is showing your glands?” Nova asks. Her pen is poised over her paper.

“No,” Raphael says, “Streaked is when you…run across the field in a football game or something public like that with no clo?—”

“You’re not supposed to do it,” I say tersely. I widen my eyes to show him to zip it.

“Right,” says Raph. “Don’t do that.”

Nova scrunches her brows. She’s too smart to be fooled, but I move on. I’ll explain it later, without an audience.

“Okay,” I say, considering this new information. Irritated now that my gotcha is a got-me. “Well, that’s—” what, noble? Stupid? “That’s all we need to know, I think. We’d like to thank you for your time.”

Raphael stands up. “Did I tell you about what a good cook I am? Or how I can teach the girls all about impediments to feminism in early 20 th century literature?”

“No,” Nova says, “you didn’t.” She turns to me. “You’ll notice he also didn’t say anything about excessive boogers.”

Raphael grimaces.

I get the strong sense I’m missing something. Like I’m the last one in on a joke. “Wait a minute.” I snap my gaze to my daughter. “Do you mean the glandular problem the last interviewee mentioned?”

She nods innocently, but I can see the look of awareness creeping over her.

Raphael’s looking everywhere but at me for the first time during this whole sham of an interview.

Everything begins to fall into place. I cross my arms. “ Funny, Nova. Raphael also didn’t mention anything about your non-existent pet cockroach collection like the first woman.” I look pointedly at Raphael. “Or how it didn’t bother you that I have a giant Beanie Baby collection in my bedroom!”

Raphael knows the gig is up. He pinches his lips together, looking sheepish. Nova, meanwhile is sputtering. “That’s so weird!” she says. “Isn’t that weird, Raph?”

I turn my back to them, walking over to the wall and placing my hand on the fireplace mantle.

“Shoot,” Nova whispers. “She’s really mad.”

I am mad. But I’m also trying very hard not to laugh thinking of that woman’s absolute sincerity mixed with fear when she talked about the Beanie Babies. But I am mad!

“Both of you should be ashamed of yourself!” I say, schooling my expression before turning around again. “Sabotaging perfectly good interviews!”

Guilt covers Nova’s face. “Mom, come on! None of them would have been as good as Raphael.”

“You,” I say, “are staying in your room for the rest of the interviews.”

“There are more?” Raphael asks, looking truly concerned for the first time since he swaggered in here.

“Yes, there are more. And you. You’re leaving, and you’re not coming anywhere near any of the other applicants. I have a ring camera.”

Raphael runs a hand through his hair. My eyes, those traitorous orbs, go to the flexing cords in his forearm. To the leather bracelet on his wrist and ring on his thumb—both flashy things I remind myself again I shouldn’t like. When he drops his arm, his thick dark hair is mussed in a way that makes me sure it looks like that when he wakes up.

Or comes up for air from under the sheets.

What. The. Hell .

I can’t find the jewelry sexy. I can’t find the forearms sexy. I can’t find this…barely a man sexy! He’s childish. He conspired with my kid to try to get hired to look after my kids for a whole summer.

Hell, he was a child, back when I was practicing law.

I feel suddenly like a dirty old woman. “Please, just?—”

“It was my idea,” Raphael says. His voice is serious, just like his expression.

“No it wa—” Nova starts, but he interrupts.

“It was definitely me.” He throws a no-arguments glance Nova’s way that has her mouth snapping shut.

I can barely ever make that happen.

“I’m the responsible adult,” Raphael continues. “It’s on me.” He presses his hand to his heart, like he’s making an oath. His tanned fingers spread wide across his chest. They’re so big, his fingers so long. “But both of us shouldn’t have done that. Right, Nova?”

My daughter huffs a breath, glaring at him like he’s some kind of traitor. “Fine. I guess.”

Raphael raises an eyebrow.

Her shoulders slump. She looks at Raphael sincerely. “Yes. You’re right.” To me, she says, “Sorry, Mom.”

I’m so stunned by how he’s managed to do that it makes my head spin. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “The apology is…a good first step. Now go upstairs,” I tell her.

“But I said sorry!”

I give her a mom look and point my finger to the stairs.

Nova’s lips pinch together in anger. She thrusts her clipboard at me. When I take it, she stomps across the living room. Then she stomps extra hard up the stairs.

I wait for her to fully round the corner. Her door slams.

When I turn back, of course Raphael’s still standing in my living room.

“So? What about you?” I ask. “Are you going to apologize too?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Because I’m not sorry your daughter’s a genius. She figured out the one way most likely to get you to see me. I guess I am sorry for messing with those other nannies but…they kind of proved the point that they don’t know how to deal with…spirited kids. Not the way I do. Right?”

I despise how he’s right. Still, I hold the clipboard in front of me like a shield. “It wasn’t fair.”

Now I sound like the child.

Raphael nods. Then he slips his hands into his pockets. The gesture makes him look chagrinned. “I don’t think I mentioned that my littlest brother totaled our dad’s car at six years old,” he says.

I can’t help it. I gape.

“He was fine. It’s a long story involving a pulled e-brake on a parked car. On a hill. But compared to those four, your girls are angels. ”

His mouth curls up and I have to look away.

I open my mouth to tell him goodbye, but he takes a step forward, bringing my eyes involuntarily back to him, though I focus on his chest in front of me. That leaf pendant.

“I’m going to go now, I promise. But Lana, if I somehow haven’t fucked this up absolutely, and you hire me, I promise you your kids won’t have a boring summer. We’ll read, we’ll play games, we’ll run around outside. We’ll start a band if that’s what they’re into. It’ll be the… summer of fun. I think you all could use a little fun around here, right?”

When I finally meet his eyes again I swear I feel like warm caramel is rolling over me. I feel suddenly way too hot.

“Anyway. Thanks for the chance,” Raphael says. Then he turns around and heads for the door.

I grip Nova’s clipboard so hard I know it’s etching into my palms. Why is he so goddamned confident? “Make sure it latches,” I say primly, just because I’ve been standing here mute and need to get some kind of word in.

“See you soon, Lana.”

I wait for the door to click shut. I pause for a moment. Then I pull out my phone, tapping on my outdoor camera app.

I hold my breath. I have no idea what he’s going to do, but I know—I know he’s not just going to walk out of here like a normal person.

And yet Raphael has his hands in his pockets as he jogs down the steps. Is he…whistling? I don’t have the sound on.

To my utter shock, I feel the lightest brush of disappointment when it looks like he is in fact going to disappear out on the sidewalk.

But just as he’s reaching the end of the walkway, he looks over his shoulder. His lips curl up in a grin. And then, of all things, he winks.