Page 39 of Marrying the Nanny

For a second they just stood there listening to Storm’s fussy cries grow louder.

“I keep forgetting, too,” Trystan said. “I literally picked up my phone this morning when I was in the middle of all this. I was going to call down to the office, ask what he wanted under the window.”

“Yeah, I’m reading emails from people who haven’t heard,” Reid said. “They think they’re writing to him. If I have to type ‘I’m sorry to inform you’ one more time…” He was beyond drained.

Storm’s cries grew more insistent. Logan clicked off the monitor and carried it up the stairs.

Reid waited until he was out of earshot, then asked Trystan, “How mad was she?”

“It’s been a few hours. Maybe she’s cooled off.” He didn’t sound optimistic.

Reid swore. “One piece of good news, that’s all I want. You need anything while I’m out? I’ll can go to the hardware store.”

“If you’re going that direction, get some beer.”

Of course, he was buying the beer again.

*

“I should at least phone over—”

“Nope.” Sophie cut her off and took a sip of wine, flour-caked fingers leaving powdery prints on her glass.

“Glenda,” Emma appealed, twisting in her chair.

“Sophie’s right.” She was busy sautéing ground beef with bay leaves and garlic and a hundred other secret spices she had added by memory. “Those boys are like dogs. You have to assert your dominance by acknowledging them on your own terms.”

“If they pee on the floor, rub their nose in it,” Sophie advised.

“What about Storm?”

“Her, too.” Sophie took up a circle of dough and plopped a teaspoon of mashed potato mix into it. She had made pierogies a million times and closed four pockets to Emma’s one.

Her son, Biyen, had joined them for a while and even he was better at it than Emma. “You get better by practicing,” he told her, then disappeared when the rain let up and all the cove’s children appeared outside like blossoms on cacti.

“They’re more afraid of Storm than she is of them,” Glenda assured her.

She had rice steaming here and cabbage there, pasta boiling and shells for chicken pies waiting to be filled. Glenda had taken a job cooking at the pub when she was in her early twenties and kept it for twenty years. She was handling all these pots herself and had set Emma and Sophie to work at the table, out of her way. Even with all of that going on, she had promised Art if he could scare up some halibut, she would cook it “the way she used to.”

Emma had stopped short of explaining what had sent her storming over here. It would be rude to disparage Logan to Glenda and awkward for Emma to explain. She wanted to forget it had even been said.

Sophie knew it was Logan’s day, though. She seemed eager to punish him secondhand by keeping Emma here and leaving him to his own devices.

With Glenda hovering, Emma couldn’t dig for the particulars on the dispute between Sophie and Logan. Instead, she sat quietly at her task, listening as the women caught each other up on gossip about people Emma didn’t know.

When a heavy footstep came up the stairs to the back porch, they all glanced to the door.

An abrupt knock, then the door opened and Reid said, “Soph? Art? It’s me.”

Emma’s heart took a zig and a zag for two different reasons.

“Is Storm okay?” Emma started to come out of her chair as he walked in.

“Fine.” His gaze caught at hers. “She was waking up when I left.”

“You could have called if she needed me.” She picked up her wine and took a sip, concentrating on keeping a steady hand, searching for other places to look besides at him.

“I felt like a walk. Wanted to clear my head.” He closed the door. “I thought I’d ask how many we are for dinner. I’ll order takeout from the pub.”

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