“I can see what you’re saying,” I agree timidly. “But… Sophia?”

“Well, let me tell you a story,” she begins wistfully.

She sits up straighter, rearranging her features into a new expression, sighing charmingly. It sounds like she’s reciting a part in a play.

“I grew up on a farm,” she explains, her voice somehow disconnected from the expression on her face. “We raised goats and pigs, chickens. Breeding animals tells you a little bit about people, if you’re paying attention. Like, chickens are terrible mothers. The chick that pops out of an egg doesn’t even make sense to the chicken. A hen has almost no idea what to do with the chick. Do you know what I’m saying?”

I don’t even answer her. Did she just call herself a chicken?

“But cows are different. Calves will stick by their mother as long as you let them. And pigs and goats are practically people. Some people think pigs are, but I think it’s goats. There’s a reason people use the word nanny for an old lady goat. Did you ever think about that? How you’re a nanny now?”

Okay, and I’m a goat? I wonder. We have definitely entered choppy waters here.

“Anyhow,” she continues with a heavy sigh, “I thought I was a nanny, but I’m a chicken. It’s a joke. You can laugh.”

She looks up at me again, shaking her head slightly. I’m not sure that I believe she’s all chicken.

“The brothers are here,” I tell her. “We’re leaving in the morning. Why don’t you come and have dinner or something?”

“They have been more than fair to me,” she continues like she didn’t hear me. “I feel like you should know that. And I’m really happy to meet you, because I can see that Sophia is in really good hands. There’s just something about you… you’re a natural. What’s your name?”

“Bunny,” I smile.

She smiles back at me, and it’s dazzling, like she popped out of the pages of a magazine. Her teeth are so perfect they look like they’re made out of porcelain. Actually, I’ve heard people really do that.

“So you haven’t been mistreated? But don’t you miss her?”

My voice cracks at the end, and I’m not sure why. Sitting here, I don’t know who I’m supposed to sympathize with. The moment I saw her, my allegiance flew to her, but now… I don’t know? She would just give Sophia up? And mean it? Forever?

“Who do you think she looks like?” Nina muses. “I kind of think Spencer, mostly, with a little bit of Brock. Maybe she’ll have light brown hair, that would be perfect. Right in the middle. And I hope she keeps these blue eyes. They’re gorgeous.”

Sophia arches her back, making an irritated grunt. She kicks Nina right in the abdomen and Nina takes both her feet in one hand to protect herself. I watch the gesture closely, on alert for any inappropriate action. Even though I know that’s ridiculous, since Nina is her real mother.

“Is she okay? Is she hungry?” Nina asks.

“I bet she is hungry,” I answer, irritated that I know this and she doesn’t. “We should get back. The driver is waiting for us around the corner.”

Nina picks Sophia up, looking her in the eyes one last time, then kissing her on the forehead. She hands her back to me and brushes her fingertips together as if to clean them. As if Sophia were dusty or something.

Fumbling with the straps, I get the baby all buckled in and down the last of the coffee without looking back at this woman. I don’t understand her. She doesn’t make sense, like a comic book character with no allegiances. Like, I don’t know she’s a good guy or a bad guy.

“Think about dinner,” I suggest again, hopefully. “Tonight? Seven o’clock? I mean, if everyone is on good terms, maybe this could be something new for us. Maybe we could all be… you know…” My voice trails off. She shakes her head and shrugs.

“I really can’t,” she sighs. “I’m a chicken.”

Chapter 14

Spencer

It is with great pleasure that I finally finish the edits on the employment contract. It’s a complicated thing, coming in at around two hundred pages. After Nina, it was obvious that the original contract wasn’t exactly watertight. Royce made no bones about pointing some of those vagaries out to me.

But, technically, I wasn’t wrong. I just didn’t expect her to… you know. Run off.

This new contract has lots of new safeguards in it, for both of us. Some of this I did not run past Sully or Royce. They’re just going to have to live with it, if we ever need to access the provisions for Bunny’s postnatal depression. I’m not sure how I would even outline that with Sully, so I simply had to come up with something on my own.

Though she would never admit it, I wonder how much of Nina’s flaming exit had to do with depression. It was so sudden. It almost didn’t seem real.

As the last pages are coming out of the printer, I hear the car in the drive. My chest gets tight again, knowing that they’re home. I wonder if this is going to be the new normal for me: excitement whenever I know they’re near. My girls.

Tags: Jess Bentley Romance
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