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

9. What’s wrong with that woman?

9

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT WOMAN?

SEBASTIAN

“ H ow the hell has she survived thirty-plus years without killing herself?” I fumble through my house toward the kitchen in the dark because I couldn’t find the damn light switch.

“She’s independent,” Pappy responds, scaring the shit out of me. He flicks on the kitchen light, and I move toward it.

“Why are you sitting in the dark?”

He holds up a pint of ice cream, and I chuckle. I’ve never met anyone with a bigger sweet tooth than this old man.

“Alexei read to the boys, so I came for a little snack,” he says, digging into the container again. “Want some?”

I shake my head. “No, I’m grabbing some damn ice for my pain-in-the-ass nanny.”

I’d called Alexei on the way home to get some ice for her ankle, and the freaking guy showed up with brand new ice packs, from the store, that need to be frozen.

“Go easy with her, Seb.”

I huff out a breath through my nose, roll my shoulders back, then turn to face him.

“She’s not had anyone take care of her since her dad passed. She doesn’t know how to accept it, even from me. I can see that you’re feeling a certain way, but you can’t take over her world like you do with everything else.”

“I’m not feeling any certain way,” I grumble, sounding worse than a sulking teenager.

“No? Haven’t you always though? You’re the one who got her to play the piano again after her father died. And then you spent that whole summer showing her how to play guitar with the stuff you learned on the internet.”

“I wasn’t teaching her. I only learned the basics, so I gave her enough direction to get her started.”

“And when she was nine and her canoe tipped over, you were the one to fish her out.”

“She was my friend, Pappy. My friend! Would you rather I let her drown?” White stars form in my vision as the first signs of a tension headache appear.

I don’t appreciate that he’s watched us so closely. I’ve never understood why I did the things I did for Rowan. I certainly never paid close enough attention to any of my other camper friends to know when they were sad, but with her, I knew before I even saw her face. It was a feeling I’d get deep in my chest back then, and one I haven’t been able to get rid of since she crashed back into my life.

“It’s not in you to let anyone suffer, Seb, especially not your friends .” I don’t like the inflection he uses on the word friend—at all. “My point is, that thread that connects you two has always been there. Don’t run so fast that it snaps before it has a chance to braid those love lines together, is all I’m sayin’.”

Rubbing my temples, I attempt to ward off the pounding headache rolling in. “Pappy, for the last time, that’s not what’s happening here. I don’t think she even likes me as a boss, let alone a friend. She’s helping out, and she’s made it abundantly clear that she’s temporary.”

Pfft , he tuts. “She’s just never had a reason to stay.”

Arguing with him will get me nowhere.

“Why have you spent all these years filling us in on each other’s lives?” I ask while rummaging through the freezer. For some reason, his answer makes me uneasy, so focusing on why this house has everything except a damn ice maker feels safer.

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re two of the most important people in my life.”

Skeptically, I glance over my shoulder, and it makes him belly laugh.

He pulls the spoon from his mouth and taps his chin with it. “You can steamroll, and she can run, but neither of you will ever outrun your destiny. Those love lines were created long before you knew what love was.”

“Pappy.” Exasperation laces every letter. “Just because there’s a connection does not mean we’re destined to be together. I want forever, and she wants what’s next. That will never work out.”

He shrugs as if I’m the town idiot. “Unless what’s next is forever. We’ll see, Seb. We’ll see. Don’t go scaring her off. You can be rather pushy when you’re…worried.”

My nose scrunches up with the need to defend myself, but he’s right. I’m generally relaxed, but there are five people in this world who change me from relaxed to a raving nervous jackalope in the blink of an eye, and nothing has ever worried me more than Rowan Ellis.

“I’m going to sit on the porch,” Pappy calls over his shoulder.

“Sure,” I grumble, then go about twisting the old ice cube trays and tossing the ice into a zip-top bag. “What’s next for me is giving my kids stability. And there’s nothing stable about Rowan’s lifestyle. Great. Now I’m talking to myself.”

Refilling the trays, I carefully set them back in the freezer, then turn off the lights and head upstairs to Rowan’s room.

When I knock, it’s Seren who calls out, “Come in.”

Opening the door, I find my little girl on Rowan’s bed scribbling in a notebook that she quickly snaps closed.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

“Yup.”

“Did you have fun with the horses today?” I’m standing in the center of the room now, so close yet so far away from my sweet little girl.

“They were pretty, and seeing them with the sunset on the ocean was so cool,” she says, lowering her chin to her chest. “But I feel really bad. Rowan was hurting but made you keep driving so I wouldn’t miss the horses.”

“She wanted you to have a good day. So did I. I haven’t seen you smile in a long time, sweet pea. It made me very happy.”

She nods with watery eyes. “It was a good day.” She twists her hands together in front of her but keeps her chin pressed into her chest. “Rowan’s not so bad.”

“No, she’s not,” I say through the thick glob of emotion sticking to my throat. “Speaking of, where the heck is she now? She was supposed to stay put while I got her ice.”

Spinning in place, I search the empty room for clues.

“I told her that, Dad. Really, I did. But she said you were not the boss of her, and she needed a shower.” Seren tries and fails to hold in her laughter.

I stare blankly at my daughter, mesmerized by the beautiful smile I’ve missed so damn much.

“I don’t hear the water running,” I say as a grin of my own creeps across my face.

“Ah, the bathroom upstairs is really cool. It has a rain shower, and you can see the ocean, so we claimed that one as the girls’ bathroom.”

“She walked up another flight of stairs to shower?”

Seren nods while biting her lip.

“With an ankle the size of a soccer ball?”

My little girl starts chewing the side of her nail. “I tried to help her, but she told me to try and hear the music because she was fine .” She accentuates the word with an eye roll.

“What’s wrong with that woman?” I say more to myself than anything.

Seren opens her mouth and closes it multiple times while I wait her out. She appears to be collecting her thoughts, and I don’t want to rush her. This is the longest conversation I’ve had with her in months.

“She doesn’t have anyone to count on, Daddy.” My gaze snaps to my little girl. Daddy is becoming a less frequent moniker, and I miss the hell out of it. “She doesn’t even have any friends other than her boss and Pappy. Like, none. It makes me…” She peers down at her notebook again. “It makes me sad for her. She must be so lonely, and it hurts to be lonely.” She won’t lift her gaze to mine, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she’s talking about herself now. “But I think she’s been lonely her whole life, and that hurts. I didn’t want to like her. But now I kind of do, and I’m sad for her.”

I didn’t think my heart could shatter any more than it already had, but my little girl just proved me wrong.

I stride to the bed, drop the ice bag on the blanket, and place my palms on either side of her. “I like her too, and I’m so glad that we’re on the same page, Seren. But…” I swallow and roughly tear my gaze away. “Rowan is only our temporary nanny. She moves around a lot and enjoys experiencing new things. She’s going to leave at the end of the month. You understand that, right?”

“I know that’s what she said.” Pouty, moody Seren is back. “But…”

“We can’t get our hopes up for something that has very clearly been explained as a termination date.”

Goddamn it. Will Seren view the loss of Rowan as another sledgehammer to her already fragile heart?

“She said she’ll write to me when she writes to Pappy.” My little girl loses the life that filled her words only moments ago faster than water escapes a broken dam.

“I’m sure she will, baby. I think Rowan is someone who keeps her promises.” Even if that promise is to run.

Seren leans back against the wall, staring straight through me.

I hold up the bag of ice, and she nods. “I’m going to go find little Miss Stubborn and make sure she puts this on her ankle.”

She graces me with a curious smile. “It’s okay if you like her too, Dad. Maybe she needs a friend like you.”

Oh, sweetheart. My biggest fear is that I’ll end up wanting to be much more than friends.

“Maybe,” I say instead.

She stands and wraps me in a hug. It hits harder than a baseball bat to the head. “I love you,” she whispers. “I’m going to bed.” I can’t speak, so I kiss the top of her head and allow my gaze to follow her as she walks down the hall to her room. As soon as her door closes, I stomp up the stairs, flittering between anger and annoyance with each step.

I reach the third-floor bathroom and pause at the door. I hadn’t really thought this through.

But I’m suddenly so pissed that thinking clearly isn’t a priority any longer. How dare she get my daughter to like her. Yes, I’m aware that I’m being unreasonable, but what the fuck am I going to do when Rowan runs? It’s not as though I can force her to stay with us.

Can I?

No.

Freaking hell, she’s making me lose my damn mind and it’s only been a week.

Glancing over my shoulder, I’m relieved that the door to the bunk room is closed. I stand in the hallway and bang on the bathroom door.

“Rowan,” I bark. Generally speaking, I’m not a yeller, but damn, does it relax me right now.

No one has ever riled me up this way before, and the sad part is, I’m fairly certain she’s not even trying to do it. Lucky me.

The water turns off, and she says, “Sebastian? What is it? I’m in the shower.”

“Are you decent?”

“What?”

“Are you covered?”

“Ah, yeah?” she says like a question.

“Can I come in?”

“What?”

“Can. I. Come. In?”

“It’s your house.” I swear she growls at me.

And I’ve lost all my brain cells because I storm into the bathroom.

Rowan stands behind a curtain that isn’t see-through, but it does show the silhouette of her body.

“What the hell, Sebastian? If you storm in on all your nannies in the shower, you’re going to have a freaking lawsuit on your hands.”

“You told me I could come in, and don’t change the subject. You said that you’d wait for me, and you didn’t. You’re injured, Rowan. How can you take care of my kids if you can’t even fucking walk?”

“Yeah, well, I also have prickers stuck in my skin that hurt like a bitch, so I needed to try and open my pores.”

“You…what?”

“My back and hips are on fire with tiny pinpricks. I must have slid down, at least partially, on a pricker bush. The damn things hurt like hell.”

My gaze darts all around the room in time with my frustration. “But Kade doesn’t have a scratch on him.”

She steps up onto her tiptoes to glare at me. “No, he doesn’t. Because I take my job very seriously. Do you really think I’d let him get hurt if I could do something about it? Hand me my towel.”

Reaching over, I pull her towel down from the hook and hand it to her. “Let me get this straight. You twisted your ankle, possibly broke it?—”

“It’s not broken,” she huffs and lowers her toes so I can no longer see her eyes, but her hand slips out from the curtain, and she knocks on the cabinet two times.

“Did you knock on the cabinet for good luck about your ankle?”

“You can never be too careful. I don’t want to jinx anything.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and count to five. “Fine. You hurt your ankle, badly,” I modify. “Then you sat in the Jeep for hours—hours, Rowan! —with slivers in your skin and you never once thought to speak up?”

Her towel flops over the top of the shower rod, and I clench my jaw tightly to keep a groan from escaping.

“Hand me that towel robe thing,” she demands, pointing to the sink.

I pick it up and hand it over the curtain. If she were anyone else, I’d feel so uncomfortable I probably wouldn’t be able to form words, but with her, I have no control over myself, and the need to get everything out is stronger than my willpower. It’s a strange thing unique to this woman—the guard I protect myself with crumbles in her presence.

She rips the curtain open, and I might swallow my tongue.

She’s wearing a tiny purple towel with elastic that holds it up over her breasts like a tube dress.

“Would you have rather I let Kade take the brunt of that fall?”

“Don’t be daft.”

“Daft?” She turns her fiery gaze my way. “Since you’re the one standing in a bathroom, with your hired help, I would say you’re the one who’s daft. Are you trying to get sued for sexual harassment, Seb?”

She’s never called me Seb before. It’s…intimate.

“Because Pappy told me that you’re working your ass off on fixing a false image some asshole is painting of you. A lawsuit from whatever nanny you hire will not help your case.”

It’s interesting that she’s talking about a future nanny but says nothing about herself in this situation. But she’s right, I can’t believe I barged in on her in the shower. What in the actual fuck was I thinking?

She turns her back on me, and that’s when all the rational thoughts attempting to make an appearance evaporate into thin air. Not only are her shoulders and legs scratched all to hell, but there are tiny burrs sticking out of her skin.

I reach out and touch her shoulder because regardless of what else is going on, I will always be drawn to this woman. The second my skin touches hers—she halts. Her only movement is a sharp intake of air as though I’ve just jump-started her lungs.

Her skin is silky under my touch, and Pappy’s words about destiny and love lines become a living, breathing entity, pulsing where our skin connects.

“You’re touching me,” she whispers.

“I know asking for help is right up there with scratching out your own eyeballs, but Peach, you need help before these get infected. Is your entire back covered in burrs?”

She drops her head to her chest.

“I don’t want Seren to do it.” She sighs. “She already feels guilty enough about the horses, and I wasn’t going to take that experience away from her.”

The anger and annoyance that filled my limbs only moments ago are replaced with admiration and so much affection my knees grow weak.

“Pappy’s eyesight isn’t what it used to be, and there’s not a fucking chance in hell I’m letting Alexei touch you.” My voice carries an edge to it that sounds an awful lot like jealousy.

Her spine stiffens.

“That leaves you with a couple of choices,” I say, lowering my voice while simultaneously stepping closer. I really should remove my hand from her shoulder, but I don’t because I don’t want to, and she hasn’t asked me to, so my thumb continues to run soft circles on her skin. “We need supplies from the infirmary to get these out, so we can call Leo and see if his fiancée can meet us there.”

She shakes her head, and droplets of water cascade from her hair down her back and over my hand. “She has a new baby. I won’t bother her with something so dumb.” Her voice is barely above a whisper.

“Then your only option is to allow me to carry you to the infirmary where you can ice your ankle while you lie on your stomach, and I use tweezers and alcohol to remove all this shit. I’d do it here, but we don’t have a first aid kit, and I think some of these spots will need to be cleaned out.”

“You have three kids, Seb. You really need a first aid kit, and I can walk.” Feisty as an uncontrollable fucking fire.

“You can walk, but you won’t, and I’ll buy a first aid kit first thing in the morning. So what’s your choice, Rowan? And I’ll warn you, I’m already pissed off that you A, walked up here on that ankle and B, suffered for hours while your body was a live version of a fucking voodoo doll, so choose wisely.”

She spins and my fingers drag across her skin from her shoulder to her collarbone before I pull my hand back.

The flush that covers her body is an aphrodisiac that causes my cock to stand up and take notice.

“Let’s get one thing very clear here, Sebastian.” My name is hellfire coming from her lips. “You are not the boss of me. I mean, you are, but I have agency over my personal life, got it? I’m not a scared little girl who needs rescuing anymore. That part of our relationship is over.”

I step forward, crowding her against the sink because I love how the words our relationship fall from her pouty lips.

“This…relationship…has always been about more than that and you know it. Everyone needs someone to cover their back, and luckily, I’m the man for all things Rowan Ellis. Now grab your shit.”

Her jaw drops. “Don’t you dare.”

“Fine, we’ll come back for it.” Leaning down, I place my arms on either side of her so she knows I’m not fooling around here. She swats her hands in my direction, which makes me want to pin her to the vanity with my body.

“Rowan,” I bark. “You’re only wearing a robe. If you keep moving, it will not hold up.” I lean down so my mouth hits that sensitive spot below her ear. “Not that I’d mind that show. In fact, I’d fucking love it, but if that’s not what you want, climb on my back and let me take care of you.”

“You can’t carry me through the woods naked, Sebastian.”

My eyes flare and her hand immediately flies to her robe while she glares at me, and I take two steps back.

“Grab your towel.” She does it without any more questions and wraps it around her waist. “Good girl.” Those two words rumble through my body, but I don’t miss the reddening of her cheeks as I kneel down and wait for her to climb on either. She’s affected too, and when she squeezes her arms around my neck, I realize I might give up everything but my kids to keep this woman in our sphere.