Page 8 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
I pull myself out of the various permutations of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. “Yes? What is it?”
“Would you be interested in a job?”
“Depends. What is it?”
“Charles Emory just sent me a text asking if I knew anyone who was young, well-educated, and a good example for a child. He needs someone to look after his kid.”
Hell would freeze over first. I love Cece, but that isn’t enough to make me want to be around Charles Emory. “No, and quit reading texts while you’re driving,” I say. And go back to reading.
“Why not?” he persists. “You already know the little girl. It will be live-in. I got no place to put you up, really, except for the sharecropper’s cottage since we turned your room into an office. And that’s already promised. The Graysons will be here in a couple of weeks.”
The Graysons were a family of six that somehow managed to cram themselves into a neck-over camper pulled by a beat-up F-150. They came every summer to work in the fields and to help out with the kitchen garden.
They were paid a share of the garden produce as well as a small salary, and the opportunity to live rent-free in a real house. With James and I both working full-time, and me going to school, it was the only way we could make the old Bailey farm pay for itself.
I couldn’t put them out of their expected home. But I wouldn’t be a live-in nanny for Charles Emory. No way.
“I’ll find something or pitch a tent,” I say. “Unless the college refunds my dorm fees, I won’t have any money for rent. And I for damned sure won’t have money to commute six hours one way. Maybe I should take up share-cropping.”
“So why can’t you work for Mr. Emory?” James wheedles. His voice is set to the placating edge that always made me want to tell on him. Only we are both adults now, and I absolutely would not bother Mom and Dad with my troubles.
Dad was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and Mom had her hands full with him. That’s why they’d moved into the assisted living senior village. Mom had put her foot down after Dad wandered off, leaving the tractor running with the disk attached.
“Jamie,” I said, exasperation driving me to using the childhood name he hated, “Did you miss out on how he was making her stand in a rain puddle until I picked her up? Or how he called her his little soldier? Or the way he spoke to her when she cried for her mother? That asshole has not improved one bit since he made the snide remarks about Greg. I’m not going to sign up for regimented home childcare. No.”
James sighs. A sound that conveyed all sorts of brotherly exasperation. “Katie . . .”
“James, if you want any other reasons, I am THAT close,” Ihold my thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart, “to having my Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Psychology. I know what 24/7 childcare would do to my study time.”
“So what do you plan to live on?” James asks, as he pulls in the drive at the farm. “Student loans? Last time I checked, you have to be employed with decent credit references or you need a co-signer. I’m not co-signing for a loan.”
That was just mean. I’d helped pay his tuition when he was doing his doctoral work. He owes me. I growl at him and try to fling open the passenger door. It doesn’t fling. It opens gently and steadily.
James obligingly pops the trunk, and I start unloading my stuff. I’m so mad at him I don’t bother hauling it down to the cottage or up to my room. I take everything in and dump it in the living room.
James follows me. “What the fuck, Kate. Are you trying to make a mess out of my house?”
“It used to be my house, too!” I snarl at him. “I had a room upstairs. And if Mom could hear you using that kind of language to me, it just might be mine again.”
“Katie! You agreed . . .”
I don’t even bother to answer. I pull my satchel with my books out of the mess, pick up my laptop off the couch, and hike toward the door.
“Where are you going?” James yells at me.
“To the tool shed. There’s a plugin and a wi-fi booster. I’ve got homework to do.”
The toolshed used to double as the farm office until I had moved into the dorm. There is still a bed and dresser in the room James was turning into an office, but I knew I wouldn’t get any work done with him breathing down my neck.
I log onto the farm Internet service, then into my student portal.
I had just started the weekly quiz for small business management when my phone chirps. I glance at it. It’s Grace.
Grace:Did you get home alright?
Me:Yeah. I dumped my stuff at home, and I’m using the old tool shed office.
Grace:You could come over here.
