Page 7 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House
He blew out a frustrated sigh as he drove down Main Street, passing all the charming little stores. Gladys was right. The diner needed a new image if it was going to keep up with this picturesque town.
He pulled down the tree-lined side street where he’d rented the cottage. Never once had he wanted to live on a street like this. Never once had he pictured driving home to his green lawn and picket fence. To his family.
This was nice for some people. But not for Archer.
He was meant to be a chef. To be cooking gourmet food for people who would appreciate it. Not flipping pancakes in small-town America.
Ugh. He rested his head on the steering wheel in the driveway. He just needed a minute before he walked into this life that wasn’t his. In this house that was not home. To this child who was a stranger.
He groaned.
He was the adult.
He had to do right by Olive.
Eventually, she would start talking to him, right?
Right. Of course, she would. It hadn’t even been a week since she moved in. She just needed more time to adjust. And so did he. Archer unfolded himself from the driver’s seat and cut across the front lawn to the door. He had the insane urge to knock on this door that didn’t feel like his. But it was his, at least for the moment, so he went in.
‘Mr. Baer, you’re home.’ Kimmy, the current babysitter, jumped up from her spot on the floor where she’d been playing Candy Land with Olive. ‘See ya, kid.’ She ruffled Olive’s hair before grabbing her purse and meeting Archer by the door.
‘Thanks, Kimmy.’
‘No problem. You can Venmo me.’
‘Right, sure.’
‘Do you need me tomorrow? Because I have drama-club practice. I got the lead inThe Dukeand I. Can you believe it?!’
What Archer couldn’t believe was how a high school could perform aBridgertonnovel, but that didn’t really matter.
‘I’m in the process of hiring a nanny, so we won’t be needing you as much.’
‘Okay, great. See you around, Olive.’
The girl just watched Kimmy leave, her large brown eyes tracking the young woman’s departure. When he’d first seen Olive, her resemblance to Cate had startled Archer. She was like a miniature version of the woman he’d once known, half a decade ago. Dark hair that framed her round face and fell just below her chin with bangs sweeping across her forehead, big eyes that seemed to take him in and immediately found him lacking. Although that part was unique to Olive. Cate had seemed to like him just fine.
‘So…’ Archer stepped farther into the small living room. ‘Would you like me to play with you? Uh … Candy Land, I mean.’ He gestured feebly toward the board.
Olive blinked.
‘Or we could do something else. I could … uh … put on a movie or something? Or we could color.’ Color? Archer hadn’t even held a crayon since he was eight. But at this point he would do literally anything rather than just stare at each other. Ever since that first disastrous meeting, he got the impression Olive was tolerating his presence, that she wasn’t at all convinced in his ability to do this. So that made two of them.
Olive shook her head, crawling up onto the couch. She pulled her ratty old blanket around her. Her grandmother had explained that it was her blankie from when she was a baby and under no circumstances should he try to put it away or wash it, and if it was ever lost, neither he nor Olive would sleep again. So, no pressure there.
Olive hugged her stuffed wombat and grabbed the remote, flipping on her favorite thing to watch, baking competitions.
A small flicker of something lit in Archer’s chest.
Maybe she was his after all.
A knock at the door gave him something to do besides stare at Olive. He went to answer it, thinking maybe Kimmy forgot something, but it wasn’t Kimmy. He should have known better.
‘Hello, Archer!’ Nancy, her wife Linda, and the custody lawyer, Kaori, stood on his doorstep. The first time this happened, he had been alarmed that he was already in some kind of trouble, but this was the third time in four days that the three women had shown up. And on the one day they hadn’t made it, Estelle, whom he’d met briefly at the café, and Gladys had just ‘dropped by because they were in the neighborhood’.
Archer had learned that Nancy was a retired kindergarten teacher who apparently saw the wellbeing of every child in the town, including all her former students, as her own personal business. Linda mostly seemed to be along for the ride and to point out how little progress he’d made. Throw the woman responsible for his custody case into the mix, and they made quite the welcoming committee.
This time Nancy was carrying a casserole dish of epic proportions. How many people did she think he needed to feed?
