Page 57 of Marrying the Nanny

“I need something to placate the producers. If I give them a one-hour special, it’ll buy me some time to finish my series. Em suggested it, actually, and agreed to help. I have to run it by Harpreet, too, so you don’t have to decide right now. The point is, I hear you on needing to get back to work.” He sent that comment to Logan. “Technically, I could take her once I’m home and moving into editing and production, but it’s the same story. I’d need a nanny if I wanted to get anything done. And a house,” he added drily.

“What happened to the one in LA?” Logan asked him.

“That’s a story for another time.”

Reid wasn’t really paying attention. He kept trying to solve the same conundrum Trystan had. Reid had temporarily reassigned most of his clients to colleagues, but even when he got back to the office full-time, he couldn’t bring Storm into a Calgary highrise the way he did here. He wouldn’t have Emma to take her in a pinch.

“Also, I don’t love the idea of only taking her for half a year,” Trystan said with a concerned frown in the baby’s direction. “She needs to know where she belongs and stay there, not get shuffled around.” Trystan glanced at Reid for agreement.

Logan had had the luxury of living with both his parents, but Reid and Trystan had been tugged back and forth. They both knew that even when it worked, it still meant misplaced homework and constant shifts and adapting to different household dynamics.

“You have Miriam so you can’t take her,” Logan said to Reid. “How did things go? Did you tell her about—” He nodded at Storm.

“No.” Reid shook his head, hating to use his mother as an excuse, but his two days with her had been trying. “I explained what a clusterfuck we have on our hands with the resort and why I have to live here to fix it. Logically she gets it. Emotionally…” She found it very threatening for him to be in Raven’s Cove. In her mind, Reid was being “taken” from her again. “I said the nanny is looking after the baby.”

He hadn’t even told his mother Emma’s name, which had felt disrespectful on both sides. He didn’t like downplaying Emma’s contribution. She was more than an employee. They were friends. And when his mother did find out how much Reid was doing, she would be hurt and angry that he hadn’t been open from the beginning.

“I can’t tell her what’s happening until firm decisions are made. Mom doesn’t do well when she’s presented with a bunch of potential scenarios. She spirals down all of them.” He hadn’t meant to open up this much. As a child, Glenda had pulled details out of him, but he had rarely talked to his brothers about his mom. To this day, he only shared about his mother and his relationship with her when he absolutely had to. It felt too much like exposing his throat and offering a knife.

Tonight, he pushed the rest out, maybe to justify his keeping secrets from her, so he wouldn’t feel so damned guilty about his prevarications.

“She keeps asking how long probate will take. If she knew I was helping to look after Storm, she’d have a thousand reactions and opinions. She would want to know how long I would be doing it, and I don’t have that answer. I wouldn’t have a clear head to make any decisions because I’d be filtering it through her and how it affects her. Once everything is settled, I’ll simply tell her the way it is, and we’ll work through it from there.”

Trystan and Logan both nodded. They ate in brooding silence a few minutes.

Storm lost interest in eating and tried to grab the spoon. Reid wiped her face, put her teething ring on her tray, and finished eating his cold casserole.

“Look, if we can’t get this place running like a top and priced at a profit, we’re all stuck here, losing money at our own endeavors,” Reid said. “Let’s focus on that. Once we’re going back to our own lives, we’ll have a better idea who could take her. Anything happen while I was away?” He glanced at Trystan since he’d been covering the contractors and resort business for him.

“The cooler at the general store packed it in.”

Reid swore.

“Yeah. Needs a new compressor. It’s on order. The pub gave them some room in their fridges, but in all the shifting around, someone went upstairs and discovered the pub needs a new roof.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s been leaking into the attic all winter and finally started coming through the ceiling tiles into the upstairs function room. That room needs a new carpet now.”

“Brilliant,” Reid muttered.

“I got all the paperwork refiled to operate the tour boats, though,” Trystan said.

That had been a whole roll of red tape in itself, given Tiffany had started a separate company for the tours, one with her name on the title alongside Wilf’s.

“How long will it take to process and get the licenses?”

“Government, man.”

Reid accepted that with a grunt.

“On the plus side, we take delivery of the boats in a week out of Port Hardy.”

“Excellent. Randy will be back next week so I can go with you,” Logan said.

“I was going to ask Sophie,” Trystan said in his mild way when he knew damned well he was stabbing Logan through the heart. “She hasn’t had a break in a long time.”

“You are not asking Sophie.” Logan took the bait like a hungry dog. “She has a kid. She can’t drop everything and leave town.”

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