Page 37 of Nanny for the Athletes

I stared in disbelief as he backed out of the driveway, pulled out onto the main road, and drove away.

When I turned around, Claire was still standing there holding her backpack straps against her chest. She looked at me with an expression that matched Logan’s best scowl.

What the hell am I going to do?

17

Beth

Like two animals that had stumbled upon each other in the forest, Claire and I stared at each other for several seconds. I didn’t know what to say to her. Despite my babysitting experience from ages ago, I wasn’tgreatwith kids. I was a lot more comfortable with dogs.

Our standoff was interrupted by my phone chiming. It was a $500 Venmo transfer from Logan. In the transfer notes, he put a baby emoji and a prison emoji.

Five hundred bucks to babysit a kid for the day? That was an extremely good deal. That was more than my expected revenue for dog sitting today. I was still furious with Logan for dumping her on me, but that made it a lot more palatable.

“Hi, Claire. My name’s Beth.”

“I know. You already told me,” she said grumpily.

Yep, she’s Logan’s daughter all right.

“I guess I’m going to be taking care of you today. Logan said you have homework to do?”

She nodded.

“Let’s get you all set up inside. Come on.” I extended my hand for her to take, but she just stared at it. I definitely preferred dogs over children.

We went inside and I showed her to the dining room table. I had been using it as a work desk, so it was covered with stacks of invoices and documents for my business. The room was also filled with cardboard boxes of my grandma’s clothes that I needed to donate. I quickly moved some boxes out of the way, then cleared off an open space for her on the table.

“You can do your homework here. What are you working on?”

She set her backpack down and pulled out an activity book for practicing writing the alphabet. “They took away my old homework and gave me this.”

What does that mean? Maybe she switched schools or something. “Um. Okay. Are you hungry at all?”

“Logan bought me lunch on the way here.”

Interesting that she called him Logan instead of dad. “If you get hungry, there are turkey sticks and granola bars in the pantry. There’s also yogurt and string cheese in the fridge. And if you need anything, I’ll be right next door in the field, or in the big kennel building. I’ll check in on you in a little while. Sound good?”

Without answering me, she opened the book and put her head down to read.

I let out a long sigh as I returned to myactualjob. I had a long list of things to do today: clipping nails, brushing fur, poop scooping the field, and then I had four customers who had paid extra for me to bathe their dogs. And since several dogs had been dropped off this morning, I was behind schedule.

But as I started working, it was difficult to focus. I kept glancing over at my grandma’s house—myhouse, I reminded myself. There was a kid in there. Logan’s kid.

I didn’t know the hockey player very well, but it was difficult for me to imagine him being a father. She was quiet, but seemed like a precious little thing. Why hadn’t Logan made better arrangements for her? He knew he was going to be out of town last week when he booked his four dogs here. Heck, he probably knewmonthsago when his team’s schedule was announced. This shouldn’t have been a surprise.

I wondered if the mother was in the picture. She certainly wasn’t married to Logan, since he had just been in a relationship with the same woman as Braden and Christian. Maybe this was a custody thing, where the mother was supposed to have Claire this week but ended up dumping her on Logan at the last minute. That made the most sense, and would explain why he didn’t have any better options besides dropping the girl off with his dogs at my kennel.

I was still annoyed by the situation, but I had a little more sympathy when considering that there was probably a deeper reason.

“Hey, Ms. Foster!” Suzie said when she arrived to work half an hour later. “Got out of class early today. Figured you’d need help with the Sunday rush.”

“You have no idea,” I said. “There’s a task list on the clipboard in the kennel. I already finished the first two items, but everything else needs to be done.”

She flashed me a thumbs up. “I’m on it. And I promise not to let little Loki get into the pantry. Heh.”

I forced a smile; she had made that joke every day since the incident. “I’ll be right back.”

---