Page 56 of Architect's Christmas Nanny

A moment later, she was handing the phone back to Brad. He took it, willing himself not to ask, but then he just couldn’t help it.

“Is she going to come back?” he asked hopelessly.

“I don’t know,” Josie said, sounding despondent. “She said she had to go.”

So her plane was boarding. Or maybe she just didn’t have the heart to tell his daughter no.

“Whatever she chooses is okay,” Brad told Josie, feeling strength seep back into his muscles, even as his heart mourned. He was a father. There was no space forhim to be weak when she needed him. “You and me, we’re enough, Josie. We’ve always been enough.”

Josie just sat silently in the back seat, and when he glanced in the rearview mirror he could see her expression was morose.

Maybe they hadn’t quite been enough in the past, but that was only because they didn’t have to be. Jillian was always there to take care of them and that was wonderful. They would treasure those memories.

But at the end of the day, Brad knew he was going to have to forge a new path forward for the two of them. Because it wasn’t up to him to decide whether Jillian stayed or went.

Maybe it could have been, once…

“I know you’re having a hard time making friends at school,” he told Josie. “I know a lot about this move isn’t the way you wanted it to be.”

“I’m not having a hard time making friends at school,” Josie growled.

“I… what?” He glanced in the rearview mirror to see her staring defiantly back at him.

“I’m not,” she said, shrugging.

“Then why do you come home so sad?” he asked.

She was quiet for a moment.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said, worry mounting in his chest. “But maybe you can talk to someone in the family? Maybe Grandma, or Aunt Caroline, or…”

“I was faking it,” Josie said suddenly.

“You werewhat?”he asked.

“I didn’t want Jillian to leave,” she said softly. “Or maybe I wanted us to go back with her. Anyway, I thoughtmaybe if you were worried about me, if you thought I still needed her, you would ask her to stay.”

Brad stared at the road ahead of him, speechless.

In one way, of course, he was shocked at his daughter’s deceit. He didn’t like thinking of her resorting to faking problems at school just to get the grownups in her life to do her bidding.

On the other hand, well, he was kind of impressed…

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I know I made you worry, and it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“You’re right,” he said carefully. “Playing games isn’t the right thing to do. It’s better to tell the people you love how you feel.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror again and saw her nodding, her expression contrite.

“But I guess I could have given you a better example of how to do that,” he heard himself admit. “I’m sorry, Josie. I’m going to tell Jillian how I feel the next time I get to talk to her.”

“You are?” she asked, sounding a little happier.

“Yes,” he told her. “I know you think she feels the same, but I’m not so sure. Promise you won’t get your hopes up?”

But Josie only smiled like the Cheshire Cat as the countryside out the window melted into suburbs. Before he knew it, they were passing the community college fields and pulling into the little village.

Please let her books be here,he prayed.I need to get them back for her. That much, at least, is in my hands.

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