“Don’t worry. She won’t ever hurt you again.” Mia kissed her cheek and took her hand. “Let’s go see Daddy,” she suggested, knowing she was out of her depth.
They drove home in silence, which was unusual for Bailey on any normal day, but today wasn’t a typical day.
Austin was waiting for them in the kitchen when they entered the house, downing a sports drink. He’d obviously just worked out and had timed his ending to see his daughter when she arrived home from school.
“Bailey Button!” he called out.
Bailey trudged inside, dumping her backpack in the hallway. She didn’t call out Daddy! the way she usually did and she didn’t jump into his arms.
“Mia?” he asked, obviously concerned.
She bit down on her lower lip. “Umm… Bailey, go get a juice box from the fridge, okay? I want to talk to your dad.”
The little girl shuffled away and Mia’s heart broke a little more.
“What happened?” Austin bit out.
“Bailey had a visitor outside school.” She quickly recounted the incident with Kayla, including Bailey’s reaction of curling into Mia and her admission that she remembered the woman as her mommy, and as someone who not only yelled a lot but who’d hurt her.
“Son of a bitch!” Austin’s hands curled into fists and Mia immediately reached out to soothe him. She grasped his tight hand and urged him to relax, rubbing her thumb over his straining knuckles. “Bailey can’t see you like this,” she whispered, reminding him that his focus needed to be on his daughter.
He met her gaze, his dark and solemn and grateful, and he nodded. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“I’ll give you time alone.” Mia reluctantly released her grasp on him and stepped aside so he could speak to his daughter.
“Mia, stay. Please. Bailey needs you.” He paused. “I need you,” he said, the words obviously not easy for him to admit out loud.
How could she say no to him? Why would she want to? He didn’t know, but being needed was her Achilles heel and being needed by Austin? She’d be there for him, for whatever he needed.
“Of course.”
He drew in a deep breath, clearly tamping down on his rage, pushing it somewhere his daughter couldn’t see or feel as he joined her at the table, where she played with her juice box straw, not drinking.
Mia lingered in the background, sticking close but not wanting to intrude.
“Hey.” He settled into the chair next to Bailey, looking at the little girl who was so obviously his whole world. “Mia told me you saw your mom today.”
Bailey swung her legs back and forth beneath her but didn’t answer.
“She said you remember her?” Austin continued, his tone gentle.
She tipped her little chin up and down. “She scares me,” she whispered.
And wasn’t that an awful thing for her to live with and think about her mother, no matter how deserving, Mia thought.
Austin smoothed a hand over the back of her head. “That’s okay, baby girl.” He pulled her into a tight embrace.
Mia admired him for how well he was handling this situation and his daughter’s pain.
Bailey, however, remained silent.
“Believe me?” he asked.
“Yes, Daddy.”
He sighed at her soft, defeated attitude.
Mia knew, for both their sakes, Bailey needed to put today’s episode out of her mind and let her father shoulder the burden, but she was too young to understand.
“So I was thinking,” Austin said. “What if you, me, and Mia went for pizza and ice cream for dinner?”
Mia’s heart beat a little faster at how easily he included her in the outing, chiding herself at the same time for thinking it meant any more than doing her job as Bailey’s nanny. Blurring the lines by sleeping with Austin was not going to be easy.
At the mention of pizza, or more likely ice cream, a little smile finally curved Bailey’s lips. “With sprinkles?” she asked.
“Lots and lots of colored sprinkles.”
Mia grinned. He obviously didn’t care how big the sugar rush or how late Bailey’s bedtime ended up being because of it. He just wanted his daughter to be happy.
And Mia fell a little harder for Austin because of it.
* * *
Tomorrow was National Chocolate Cupcake Day, so Bailey and Mia were in the kitchen baking enough cupcakes for the class, because, of course, Bailey had volunteered for cupcake duty. As Austin walked to the kitchen, he listened to his daughter’s chatter and Mia’s laughter and something inside him eased.
These last few days he’d been a ball of stress. He’d just gotten off the phone with the private investigator who was looking into his ex-wife. So far he hadn’t found any dirt on Kayla but she did have a man in her life, and Austin told the investigator to put his focus there. The good news was she hadn’t returned to cause trouble or bother Bailey. He had no doubt her first attempt outside the school was a warning to Austin because Kayla wanted cold, hard cash. He wouldn’t put it past her to try something else to upset Bailey and piss him off in her quest to get him to buy her off.