“But Daddy, he’s never been here, and what if he gets something gross like that corned beef hash you like. That would be terrible.”
I snorted out a laugh and bent down behind the menu with her. “What’s good, Livi?”
She pointed, explained how the French toast seemed like a good idea but tasted weird, and told me which syrup to get.
Once we put the menu down, I smiled at Emery, who, after a moment, smiled back.
“April,” Lydia said, “you need to take off those sunglasses at the breakfast table.”
“No, I’m sorry, she can’t,” I chimed in protectively. “And of course, normally she’d listen and do as you told her, but we had a thing in the car, and it would be crazy embarrassing for anyone to see her looking like she got punched in the face.”
“I don’t—”
“I’m betting she looks like an MMA fighter at the moment,” Emery suggested, disarming his fiancée with a winsome smile, “so I think we should let it go, don’t you?”
All eyes turned to Lydia.
“Oh, well, yes, we—okay.”
“Perfect,” he said, smiling at her before his eyes flicked to mine.
I mouthed thank-you.
He gave me a quick nod before leaning across the table. “April honey, do you want to go home?”
“No, Dad. I’m starving like Brann,” she assured him, leaning against my arm. “But can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course, love,” he replied with such love that I wondered how anyone carried that much affection around for another person. No one had sounded like that when they spoke to me. Not ever.
“Is it okay if me and Brann call his friend who’s a doctor later on and talk to him about how Mom died?”
He wasn’t ready for that, and I felt bad he was blindsided, but I didn’t think she’d bring it up over breakfast. Though, honestly, I should have guessed, because it was on her mind, so of course she’d want to fix it as soon as possible.
He took several deep breaths and then looked at me. “We’ll discuss it when we get home, but for now let’s all just have a nice meal.”
The death glare I got told me I was a dead man.
I was starting to think the odds of me getting a handle on the whole nanny thing were probably really not all that great.
Six
Breakfast was delicious. I ate six pancakes, four eggs, and a pork chop, plus finally drank enough coffee to allow me to see straight once more. In the military you learned that no matter what else was going on, when you got the chance to eat, you ate. There was no question about that. So even though I knew the man was not pleased with me, I scarfed down my food.
Since Lydia had to go to the Glacier Park International Airport to pick up her maid of honor, who was spending lots of time with her before the wedding, she said she would call Emery later to coordinate dinner plans.
I stayed quiet, and when we got into the house, April passed me my sunglasses before I flopped down onto the couch. Emery sent Olivia to change and April to her room until he got done talking to me.
Once we were alone, once he checked to make sure there were no little people lingering in the doorway, he tore off his parka and rounded on me. I saw the clench of his jaw, the furrowed brows, and realized I was about to be fired.
“How dare you mention something like that to my daughter!” he yelled at me.
I stayed quiet.
“Before you make plans with them, offer any course of action, an alternative, a choice—anything at all—you discuss that with me first!”
“Yessir.”
“April is much too young to be—”
“Oh, no.”
“No?” he shouted back, incredulous.
He was livid, and my personal communication style was, as usual, not helping. “I mean—she’s not too young to talk about death, and I beg your pardon, but I have to wonder if you’ve looked in that sketchbook lately.”
“Of course I—”
“How long ago did you demand that she not draw in it anymore?”
“I didn’t demand any—”
“She said you did.”
He stared holes in me, and I felt like one of those dissected specimens in a museum exhibit, with the pins holding the skin open so everything inside was on display.
“You thought if she didn’t keep drawing death that she’d heal, right?”
His lips parted, but no sound came out.
“You guys saw someone—some therapist—and they said that was best.”
“Well, yes, she—yes,” he rasped.
I made a face that I was sure must have looked pained. “It’s not fixing anything for her not to be able to share how she’s feeling with you.”
“You don’t know anything about me or my daughter,” he said coolly.
It hurt to hear how angry he was and to know how fast he could turn on me, ready to expel me from his life without a moment’s thought. But I was new, so I got it. I hadn’t proven dick to him yet.