Caveman (Wild Men 1)

I’ll have to leave town, after all. I’ll need to go just to find a job. Mom barely scrapes by enough for us to live on, and I can’t be a leech for a day longer.

Depressed by the lack of options, I find myself pacing from the bottom of the stairs to the sofa and back.

Mom keeps saying I should focus on my dreams for the future and not worry about money. She thinks I don’t know about the debts. That I haven’t noticed how she saves up the old bread to make French toast or to toss into the soup.

How she hasn’t brought home milk and juice in years, filling the fridge with pop and instant ice tea.

How she hasn’t bought any new clothes or shoes since I can remember, always patching the old ones up, bringing second-hand shirts for Merc from who God where and fixing some of her older pieces for Gigi and me.

Like this dress I’m wearing today.

Like the dress I wore the first time I came here.

Her job at the pizzeria isn’t paying much, and although she got promoted a couple of years ago to kitchen supervisor and got a raise, it still isn’t enough for the four of us.

Kitchen supervisor. Ha. It just means she gets to do the work of three people instead of just one for a few pennies more.

I glance up at the stairs, then return to my pacing. What’s taking him so long? Maybe he’s already changed his mind and I’m wasting my time.

r /> But a childish screech makes me stumble.

“Dad,” a girlish voice says from the top of the stairs, “is she our new nanny?”

I spin around.

God, this man’s kids are the cutest things.

He’s holding the dark-haired little boy—Cole—on one muscular arm, chasing with the other after his daughter who can’t be more than five. She’s dressed in a pink princess dress and is heading down at break-neck speed.

“Mary!” he calls out in his deep voice.

The girl giggles—and trips.

My heart gives a single, hard boom inside my chest.

Her father won’t catch her.

And she’s falling.

With a gasp, I lunge for her, jumping up two steps, catching her in mid-air just before she tumbles the rest of the way down.

Steadying myself on the narrow step, swaying with her weight, I wrap my arms securely around her, and her sweet little girl smell fills my senses. Her hair smells of flowers and her clothes of crisp, new cotton.

“Gotcha,” I whisper to her and descend the steps I’d climbed to set her safely down on the carpet. “You all right?”

She nods gravely, looking up at me with her father’s dark eyes. “I’m Mary,” she says. “Are you the nanny?”

I can’t help but smile. “I’m Octavia, but you can call me Tati.”

“Jesus,” her asshole dad mutters as he hurries down the stairs. He looks down at his daughter, jaw clenched, and I wonder if he’ll hit her. If he’s violent to them. My chest squeezes at the thought. “Mary, come here right now.”

Mary gives me a long, searching look, smiles, and reaches for her dad’s hand.

He turns his back to me, made of rigid lines and tension. Cole waves at me over his shoulder with a chubby hand. His eyes are blue like mine.

Matt heads into the living room, rounding the sofa, and I stay rooted on the spot, unsure of what I am supposed to do. He’s not going to punish Mary, right? All that anger radiating off him combined with his shaggy beard and hair and that dark gaze sure is intimidating.

But right before he sits down on the sofa, Matthew Hansen kisses his daughter’s head and says, “Girl. Get over here.”