Page 15 of Love In The Spotlight

Penelope came into the bathroom, he undressed her and put her in the tub, she picked the sponge animal she wanted and their nighttime routine started.

Farm animal noises, body and hair washed, then dried off, jammies on with a pull-up.

His daughter was potty trained nice and early, but they had accidents at night and nap time so no reason to take chances.

Once Penelope was in bed with her favorite unicorn, bear, and lamb, he read her a story until her eyes shut, kissed her on the forehead, and shut the light.

“Love you, baby girl,” he whispered, then shut her door quietly, leaving it open a crack, and went downstairs.

“Is she asleep?” Janelle asked.

He found the nanny in the kitchen making herself a cup of tea.

He decided to get one too. They often shared a cup of herbal tea at night when Penelope was in bed.

“She is,” he said. “I should be home late tomorrow. Not sure the time yet.”

“No worries,” Janelle said. “It’s not like I’ve got far to go or even anyone to spend the time with.”

Janelle had been divorced for years and had one child who lived in Alaska and worked on some crabbing boat or something. Nothing he could imagine doing, but to each their own.

When Janelle retired from teaching because the budget cuts were making it too hard for her to give the kids what they needed, he’d scooped her up at just fifty-five years old and offered her not only double her teaching salary but also a free place to live.

She’d told him it was a dream come true.

He said he needed a firm commitment she’d be there to help raise his daughter and knew it came at a price. Her age made it the perfect mix of experience and youth in his eyes.

Because Janelle said it was more than she would have considered asking for, he knew right away, she was the one.

“Sorry about the holiday,” he said.

“Again,” Janelle said, “I’d be home alone anyway. This way, I can cook a turkey breast and all the fixings for Penelope and me. We can have a little Thanksgiving celebration and make paper hand turkeys while we watch you on TV.”

His daughter was getting a damn good education from Janelle in the process and he couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

Janelle was even the one who alerted him to some problems, and he still carried the guilt around for not seeing it himself.

“Will there be enough leftovers?” he asked.

“Always,” Janelle said. He did like that he didn’t have to do a ton of cooking. Janelle always made enough for leftovers when she was here at dinnertime.

“I guess I’ll take my tea and go read up on my notes to get ready for tomorrow,” he said.

“I’m going to watch some TV and then retire to bed,” Janelle said.

There was a loft with a TV on the second floor that Janelle used at night so she was close to Penelope. He had it stocked with food and drink so that his nanny didn’t have to come downstairs if she didn’t want to.

“Night,” he said.

He retired to his suite on the first floor and pulled up his laptop to get to work.

Before he did, he decided to check his email. He’d been ignoring his phone most of the day since he wanted to spend the time with his daughter before he left.

Didn’t mean he shut his phone off, but if the text or email didn’t need his immediate attention he let it go.

The email from Laken Carlisle caught his eye and he read it right away. She was asking if they could meet next week to get some things squared away. He already knew the plant that West had secured was getting set up and cleared for production to start. But they needed to hire some people to get that started and he was sure that was what Laken wanted to talk about.

He replied that he had a pretty open schedule Monday through Thursday and to let him know what worked for her.

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