Page 1 of Falling for the Single Daddy

Chapter One

Gray

Emery and I walk down Main Street with her swinging my hand, humming a tune. Wes, my best friend and Emery’s uncle, strolls on her other side. There’s a lot of history between us, betrayals, things we rarely discuss. But on this sunny Sunday, we don’t think about them. Emery is singing in her sweet voice, my seven-year-old daughter enjoying the sights and sounds, staring wide-eyed into the bakery’s window, stopping to tilt her head down at a line of ants.

“Do you think they’re friends, Daddy?” she asks, “Or do you think they have to walk all funny like that?”

I smile down at my daughter. She’s got shoulder-length black hair with a few braids woven into it and eyes the same shade of blue as her mother’s—which hurts to think about, and that pisses me off. Nothing about my daughter should hurt to think about.

“I don’t know,” I smirk. “What’d you think, Wes?”

Wes has black hair like Emery. It runs in the family. His sister was—is—wasEmery’s mom. It isn’t easy to think of Wes’s sister as Emery’s mother because she said ‘Adios’years ago and hasn’t been seen since. Wes is tall and lean, with sharp cheekbones. Women have been known to call him a ‘pretty boy.’ “It’s mind control,” he says, smirking down at his niece.

Emery rolls her eyes. “Okay, Uncle Wes.”

“It is,” he insists. “There’s a man in a room in the city, and he controls all the ants on the East Coast.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

We round the corner. Emery breaks into a run when the diner comes into view. The Maple Diner has a classic look and serves the best pancakes in Maplebrook. Emery stops, looks twice before crossing the street, then keeps running.

“Daddy,” she yells, turning to face me. “Can I order? Please? I want to try.”

I reach into my jacket pocket and take out my wallet. “Sure, sweetness. Just stay in sight. Tell them we’ll eat out here.”

“The usual, Daddy?”

“The usual.”

She begins muttering items under her breath.

I never take my eyes off her, sitting so that I can look through the tall windows at all times and see her inside. Wes sits opposite me, drumming his fingers on the table. “Are you interviewing more nannies today?”

“Got to,” I tell him. “It’s been a nice month off, but with the plaza project coming up, I’m going to be busy. But after the last disaster, it makes me damn nervous. Emery deserves somebody who’ll foster her creativity and curiosity, not stifle it. The last nanny seemed to think Emery’s questions were her way of ‘acting up.’ She’s curious, enthusiastic. That’s a good thing.”

“Amen to that,” Wes says, nodding. “Sometimes, I think it’s a shame Sloane did what she did.” So much for not thinking or talking about the elephant in the room.

I betrayed my best friend by getting together with his sister. It was a slap in the face, and I hate myself for it. But Wes is more forgiving than most.

“Plenty of people run out on their kids.”

“Don’t do that,” Wes snaps.

“What?”

“Don’t minimize it just because she’s my big sister. It’s been almost eight years. You can’t keep living in guilt.”

I flash him a cocky smirk. “You sure about that?”

***

“I love our house, Daddy,” Emery says from the back seat as we return home.

Pride and love swell in me. Our home is a Craftsman-style manor, modernized but still honoring the town’s essence. The slate-gray clapboard and natural stone accents give it a permanent look as if it was here long before Maplebrook and will be here long after the town has gone. Emery used to joke when she was little, “House lookin’ at me, Daddy!” This was because of its oversized windows, trimmed with mahogany, that appear to be eyes from a specific view.

“Me too,” I tell her.

Each spacious room is flooded inside with light. I settle Emery in the library. She’s a precocious girl, reading as often as she can, her eyes scanning the pages so fast, sometimes I wonder how my angel can take it all in. But she can—she’ll sometimes ask me to quiz her.

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