Late Nights & Love Lines (Single Dad Hotline #2)

2. Blowing up the world as we know it

ROWAN

I step onto the gravel lot as Junebug sighs a cloud of thick black smoke. The engine chokes out a spluttering garbled noise, as though it’s her last breath, and a pang in my chest has me rubbing my knuckles over my sternum.

My blood pressure spikes as I take it all in.

I kick the tires, but not out of frustration. No, what’s happening is fear—forced change tends to bring it out in me, and I’m not in the habit of lying to myself about what my gut has to tell me, but I’m not ready to lose Junebug yet either.

“You’ve got one more fix in you, Junebug, you have to. Knock on wood.” I knock against her tire twice because it’s the closest thing to me. Wood, rubber, it’s all the same.

A deep, rumbling chuckle floats through the fresh air, and I mutter a curse only loud enough for me to hear. Just my luck, I had an audience for that little outburst. Petting Junebug’s tire one more time, I give her a silent apology, then lift a shining bright smile toward the laughter.

Four men stand at the bottom of the steps, staring in my direction. I recognize Lottie’s brother, Elijah, but it’s the man standing next to him that sends goosebumps scattering across my body.

Even with the distance separating us, the intensity of his stare licks at my skin, but it’s the way he scratches behind his ear, so familiar, that has my lungs drop-kicking my ribs. It’s as though he’s reaching through space and time to hold me hostage with the determined expression that forms a little crease in the center of his forehead.

Is that…? No, Jesus, Rowan. One phone call with Pappy and the secret fantasies that got me through my scariest days keep filtering into my reality.

Good grief. Pappy would have a field day if he knew the only memory I have of the day my world collapsed that isn’t covered in thorns is of his own freaking grandson.

The wind shoves my hair in my face, obscuring my vision for a moment. When I tuck it behind my ear and peer back at the men, the one causing all the uncomfortable skin sizzling has turned away and is walking into the woods.

Well, now we know that shot of—whatever that was—was one-sided. Walk away, big guy, walk away. Instinct tells me he’s a complication I definitely don’t need in my life. Now, or ever.

Elijah says something to the other two men, so I take my time approaching them, happy it’s gravel beneath my feet so I don’t have to constantly keep an eye out for cracks—the childish superstition about breaking mother’s back always singsongs like a scary clown in the back of my mind.

The rich scent of the trees and the delicious heat of the sun remind me of the good times I had in my childhood. The weeks at summer camp before everything changed.

A shiver works down my spine, so I tilt my gaze to the treetops and decide it’s the pollen making it hard to breathe, not the memories, and march my uneasy not-at-all emotional ass right up to them.

“Right on time, Rowan,” Elijah says as I approach the office. Before I realize his intent, he pulls me into a hug. This man is way too touchy-feely for my liking—he’s a carbon copy of his freaking sister and it’s annoying. Who hugs every person they meet?

I pat his arms lightly and pull away.

“Hey, Eli. Where’s Lottie?” I ask.

He peers down at me with a frown. “Didn’t she tell you?”

Goddammit, Lottie. She may be my only friend, but she’ll do whatever it takes to get what she wants. “Tell me what?”

Elijah curses out of the side of his mouth. “Well, you know about the Camp Nanny event in a few weeks.”

“Yes, and?” I ask, squaring my shoulders to his. I’m aware that she’s throwing Camp Nanny to launch the nanny side of her business. It’s been a ton of work, and I’m proud of her. It’s why I’m here so early—to help wherever she needs me leading up to it.

“And…you agreed to come early to help her—okay, me, you’re helping me.” He backs away quickly with his hands raised.

“Helping you with what?” My jaw ticks as I clench it.

The other two men are slowly backing up too, as if they’re trying to make a sneaky escape.

“Well, this is my business partner, Beck Hayes.” The tall man in shorts stops with one foot on the porch steps and lifts a hand. “And this is Leo, he owns the camp.”

Beck radiates a leave me alone aura, but Leo seems more at ease with his yogi-surfer vibe.

“Elijah,” I grind out. “What is the favor?”

“We have this huge deal in the works and our new partner’s family literally crashed and burned. He needs help with his kids until Lottie can set him up with a permanent nanny at the date-a-nanny event.”

“It’s a meet and greet for nannies and families, not a date-a-nanny event,” I growl.

His jackass smirk slowly morphs into a grin.

“Right. Well, we have a billion-dollar deal on the table, and if we don’t get this guy some help his business will go under, which means our business will go under, so I may have strong-armed Lottie into helping us.”

“You mean you got Lottie to trick me into helping you.”

“Semantics, babe. If Lottie knew what the hell to do with kids, I’d have gotten her to do it, but…well, you know Lottie.”

Yeah, I do. She had a million-dollar idea, but she’s also possibly the most child-phobic person I’ve ever met. She’s the brains behind The Single Dad Hotline, while people like me make it work.

“I promise, we’re planning to make this worth your while, and since that death trap you refuse to give up on shit the bed, we’ll start there.”

“Junebug is not a death trap, and now you’re just trying to change the subject. What is it you all tricked me here for?”

Leo and Beck grimace in unison.

“There are three kids…”

I narrow my eyes, and my right hand reflexively begins to twist the black tourmaline and rose quartz bracelets around my left wrist.

“It’s only for three weeks, four tops. Okay, maybe five. Definitely two weeks with just them, one week helping them navigate camp, then one week, maybe more, until hopefully their new nanny will start.” He holds up his hands with crossed fingers.

My foot starts tapping an annoyed rhythm into the dirt beneath me. Come on, black tourmaline. If your healing crystal power’s going to work, now’s the time to take the negative energy.

I peek down at my wrist. Nothing. I’m not even calmer. That’s what I get for believing in crystals.

“Please, Rowan. You’d really be helping us all out, especially our new partner’s family. They’ve had a rough go of it recently.”

I do love helping families, swooping in to support them through big changes in their lives, and then slipping out as soon as they’re back on their feet. I do anything and everything I can for them—except stay. But everything about this situation is screaming at me to run. These people are too connected, too close to my everyday life, and I go out of my way to keep clear boundaries in place at all times.

It’s why The Single Dad Hotline has been so perfect for me—very rarely do people expect me to stay, and now Lottie, my friend and boss, has even made that a rule of my employment—I’m temporary. The fill-in. The substitute. The one who moves on at the end of the week.

“Lottie has a proposition for expansion that will be very beneficial for you, and my beach house will be open to you for an entire year.” Elijah trips over himself to get the words out.

Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble planning this little scheme.

My toe stops bouncing. Lottie said that she had something huge to discuss with me, but it’s his personal concessions that make the itchy sensations in my palms evaporate as quickly as they came.

“You’ll let me have access to a beachfront property for an entire year if I nanny for your partner for three weeks? That seems excessive. What’s wrong with him? Are his kids the spawn of the devil? There’s no way you’re going to all this trouble to get me to babysit for a couple of weeks.”

“It’s important.” Elijah shrugs as though it’s no big deal, but now, up close, his stress shows in the wrinkles around his squinting eyes. I’m going to freaking cave because I understand this kind of duress. I really do get a sense of fulfillment from helping people. “Lottie said based on both of your personality tests that you’re the best fit and honestly, you’re the only one I trust.”

Damn him and his stupid trust. I may not trust others freely, but I work hard to make sure those close to me can always count on me.

“I’ll do it under one condition.”

Leo and Beck exhale a windstorm between the two of them.

“What’s that?” Elijah asks with a grin sliding back into place.

“I get the house whenever I want it this year, and you agree to host two events for The Single Dad Hotline, using your fancy-schmancy contacts at your fancy-schmancy spas for Lottie when she expands to single moms next year. The nanny program will be in full swing by then too.”

Lottie has mentioned numerous times that Elijah’s company owns the fanciest spas in the world—not that I’ve ever been—and that means the people who go to them have the kind of money that can afford Lottie’s services.

“You have me over a barrel and can ask for anything you want, but you ask for something for my sister instead? You do remember that she grew up with the same silver spoon in her mouth that I did, yes?”

“I do. But she’s the one who keeps my lights on. So do we have a deal?”

He shakes his head. “Deal. Leo, the camp owner, will fill you in and give you directions to the house. Beck and I have to get cleaned up for a meeting.”

He hugs me tightly even as I press against his chest. I have a love-hate relationship with his brotherly affection, but finally, he releases me and walks away, and I shake off the heebie-jeebies.

“The Sinclairs are great,” Leo says, walking up the steps and holding the door open for me when it’s just the two of us. “But neither of them is cut out for the woods, so please tell me you’ve at least spent some time camping. Otherwise this nanny event is going to be a giant pain in my ass.”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. Lottie is a lot of things, but outdoorsy she’s not.

“What did she do, fall into poison ivy or something when she was here last week?”

As I enter the building, I find a very large sleeping black freaking cat, and a groan escapes from deep in my chest.

Leo chuckles. “No, luckily the previous owner had the poison ivy removed last summer. But, last I heard, Lottie’s struggling with the idea of sharing a communal bathroom, and it may have impacted her arrival time. That’s Lucky,” he says, pointing to the superstition of all superstitions. “You’ll see a lot of him. He splits his time between here and the house.” He shrugs as though that’s normal.

“Good grief,” I grumble. I’ll ignore this damn menace of a cat for as long as humanly possible. “Any idea when Lottie’s planning to show up?”

He walks around the counter to a numbered pegboard display of keys. “Your guess is as good as mine, but you’ll be lucky to even get her into a cabin when she does show up, so be prepared to do the heavy lifting.”

His grin tells me he’s going to love torturing her. “My fiancée told me I can’t give her too much shit, but with Lottie, I won’t have to try very hard. She hates it here. I’m not sure why she thought this was a good place for a kickoff.”

My face scrunches up, and I close my eyes. “That was my idea.” Camp was my safe space growing up, at least until they took it away from me like everything else.

His laughter is rich and fills the room. “You and I are going to get along just fine. I haven’t known the family all that long, but I know they’ll be happy to have you. They bought the property on the other side of camp. You’re welcome to bring the kids here anytime.”

Leo’s fingers trace over numbers on the board, and my gaze narrows in on the little pegs as he passes them.

He wouldn’t.

“Here it is. Twenty-two Coastal Drive. The kids seem nice too. The oldest, a girl, is…struggling, I think. She didn’t talk much when she was in here earlier.”

Teenage assholery. This should be fun.

“If you need anything, I’ll be around, getting the camp in shape. It needs a lot of work, but when I’m done, it’s going to be amazing. Anyway, the fastest route to the house is the Tabby Trail. It runs behind the activities center and drops you right at the property.” He points to the side of the building. “Go outside and take a left, you can’t miss it.”

The key scorches my palm. Freaking twenty-two. If I adopt one more superstition, I might need to seek out a support group, but the number twenty-two always, always, ends with heartache. It’s happened too often to be coincidence, and now my fight-or-flight is kicking into high gear.

Nothing good will come from this.

“Thanks,” I mutter, squeezing the key into my palm, then pushing open the screen door while trying to block out all the other times the number twenty-two has filleted me wide open.

“Nice to meet you, Rowan.”

I pause, holding the door open with my finger, and he grins.

“I’ll see you tonight. My fiancée will be here, and so will Beck’s wife, and all the camp staff. We’re having a little welcome party at the dining hall followed by a bonfire.”

Wonderful.

I nod, then let the screen door slam with a deafening crack that makes me feel marginally better. Examining my surroundings, I follow his directions to the left of the building.

I’ll give it to Leo—the trails are carefully marked, and I find the Tabby Trail easily. Birds chirp overhead and the tree leaves rustle in the breeze.

Removing my phone from my back pocket, I open the camera app and point it to the sky. The trees create a canopy that the sun shines through, so I lower myself to one knee for a better angle that captures the sky and the sign marking the trail. This will be a perfect shot for Insta.

Not that anyone follows what I post. No one cares enough, but it’s not for them. These memories are for me. Adding a few filters, I press Done and stand back up.

It takes less than a second to realize I’m not alone.

Meow .

The freaking cat. I refuse to look down because if I do and I find I have a cat tailing me, a black cat at that, I’ll have to soak myself in holy water.

Meow , Lucky says again, because I know it’s Lucky, and he’s so insistent this time that I stomp my foot. He doesn’t even scamper away. No, this asshole sits between my feet as though he has every right to smear his bad luck all over me.

“I don’t need any more bad luck, Lucky. Can’t you follow someone else home?” I growl.

Meow . The furry beast figure eights around my ankles.

Dropping down into a squat, I pet the little fucker, then try to shoo him on his way, but his beady eyes follow me as I walk along the path. He and I have unfinished business—I sense it.

Something crackles in the bushes, and Lucky, the scaredy-cat, runs off, leaving me with my whispering trees.

Closing my eyes, I tilt my face to the sky and inhale deeply. It’s been years since I’ve spent any time in the woods—not since Pappy’s camp—and those were the happiest times of my life.

I used to be able to hear music in my head out here that no one else could hear. It was magical. Now when I listen, all I hear is noise—voices, accusations, and threats have replaced the melodies in my mind. It’s cruel, really, but that’s life.

Still no music. I sigh and open my eyes, then head down the trail.

The past hijacks my mind as I walk, flooding me with memories. It feels so real that when the activities center comes into view and a sad chorus I recognize hits my ears, I nearly trip over my own feet. The melody creates a riot in my mind that seizes control of all my limbs.

This song is a piece of me that died years ago. The melody is ingrained in the fiber of my very being because I’m the one who wrote it. It’s the song that ended my life as I knew it.

Trembling, I move forward with no intention of doing so, but this song, it calls to me through the pain.

Who’s playing it? I haven’t touched this song since I was a teenager. The key is off, and she’s only repeating the chorus, then adding her own words, but that chorus? Those words were once the touchstone of my life.

I slip through the open door, shocked to find a tiny girl sitting at the piano with hunched shoulders. The sadness pours off her just as it used to me. If it weren’t for her dark hair, this little girl could be me.

I’m staring at a ghost.

My body glides through the space as though each strike of a chord is pulling me closer, and when I’m able to reach the keys, I slide into place beside her without saying a word.

The little girl stops playing but doesn’t look at me. Her anger and sadness assault me like tiny electric shocks that shoot from her arm hair and into mine.

She’s hurting. It’s there in her hunched shoulders and arms tucked tightly against her ribs.

Without permission, I place my fingers on the keys—it’s a homecoming. “You almost had it. The tempo for the chorus is a little faster. Let every keystroke invoke anger for what’s been lost.”

Closing my eyes, I play the song as it was meant to be played, and suddenly, I’m a little girl again, playing to a forest full of campers who have yet to experience the pain that’s suffocating me.

Hope is the line between happiness and me.

The instilled fears,

They still cause tears.

’Cause I must confess,

You broke me like all the rest.

Stained glass shines,

But not for me.

Now ‘they’ speak and their whispers scream,

The pointed fingers of sinner’s sins.

Because you broke me just like stained glass,

Then left before I could shine.

Hope is the line between happiness and me.

My fingers rest on the last keys, my eyes remain closed, and my heart beats angrily, each thud stabbing at an old wound.

“How—how…” the little girl to my left stutters. “I only know three lines of the chorus.”

“It’s called ‘Lullaby to Loneliness,’” I tell her.

“But how do you know it? My dad could never remember the whole thing, only a few words, but he hums the chorus when he’s lost in thought. He said a little girl…he said.”

Dread settles into my bones. Only three people paid me any attention that day, and they’re all related. It’s him .

“Sebastian’s world fell apart.” Pappy’s words from our last conversation ring loudly in my ears.

There’s no way they’re here. I don’t believe in coincidence. There’s good luck and there’s bad, and it’s a toss-up which side you’ll end up on. Someone, maybe this little girl’s dad, just happened to be a random camper—the same as me. That’s the only reasonable explanation.

“I wrote this song when I was a teenager,” I finally say, dragging my gaze to hers. Our eyes meet and my stomach drops out. My soul understands the stories hiding behind her beautiful green orbs.

So, not a random stranger—I’ve never forgotten his eyes, and this little girl is the spitting image of her father.

Sweat pools in very uncomfortable places. Maybe there’s good luck, bad luck, and then Pappy.

Right. Time to get the hell out of dodge. Forget what I told Elijah, this can’t happen. I’ll never willingly put myself in the position of caring too much again, and this family, the one who once showed me kindness in the violence of my life, is the one thing left in this world that could break me.

“It’s so much better the way you sing it,” she says quietly. Too quietly, ghostly, as if the words are pulled from her soul without her permission. “I’ve been trying to figure it out on my own. My dad used to sing it to me when I was little, but he made up his own words and it changed all the time. His attempt was mid at best, so it never felt right—except the chorus.”

Well, shit. And also, what a strange choice to sing to a baby.

“What you were playing, you did that? On your own?” I scoot back a bit, trying to gauge her age. She’s probably only a few years younger than I was when I wrote it.

She nods and picks at a fingernail on her left hand.

“You did it from what? Lyrics? Can you sing them for me?” What are you doing, Rowan? It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. You need to get out of here before history wraps its grimy little paws around you and ties you to itself.

The little girl opens her mouth and sings my words with her own special twist.

“Because you broke me just like stained glass, then left before I could shine. Hope is that line between happiness and me.” She bites the corner of her lip. “Well, that’s how he always sang it, but it wasn’t right, was it?”

I’m shaking my head and completely unable to force air into my lungs, but she’s good. Really good.

“Ah, you were close.” The words are pinched. My throat aches. Maybe I’m coming down with strep throat.

“Huh,” she says with a roll of her shoulders. “He said he only heard it once, so I guess his memory isn’t complete shit.”

“You’re very talented,” I say, directing the conversation away from her father, then lifting myself off the bench.

Unease has me biting down on my bottom lip, and it’s reflected in the way this little girl curls in on herself. Again, I’m struck by how much she reminds me of myself at this age. It has to be the camp atmosphere. That’s the only similarity. I’m so on edge, I’m seeing things where they don’t belong.

She lowers her chin to avert her gaze. “So,” she says with discomfort clouding her tone. “You’re Rowan?”

The air whooshes from my lungs, and I nearly topple over. “Uh-huh.”

“Well, you don’t look like you want to see my dad any more than I do, so don’t worry. He’s in a meeting.”

How the heck do I process the relief that washes through me with that admission? I love Pappy, and Pappy loves his grandson, but it’s the kind of love that grows roots, and I know better than anyone that all roots die eventually.

“But Pappy sure does talk about you a lot. He’ll be happy to see you.”

“What?” The walls tunnel in around me.

I’d bet my last cent that Pappy is behind this. This shit doesn’t just happen, and it certainly doesn’t happen to women like me.

“Yup, he’s at the house with my brothers.” She keeps talking while sweat collects into a stream down my spine. “The house is fine, but I have to participate in some bullshit camp activities with nine other girls for an entire week.”

The adult in me screams that I should say something about her swearing, but twelve-year-old me understands. I allow my lips to tilt into a slight grin.

“I’m Seren, by the way. Thanks for sharing your song, it’s a flex for sure. But don’t worry, I’m not going to bug you. The last freaking thing I want right now is a nanny, so you’re clear.”

Nanny. Oh my God. I’m her nanny.

She slams the lid down on the piano and waltzes out of the cabin as though she didn’t just shoot my carefully formed boundaries right to hell.

Danger has never looked so innocent.