I blinked in surprise and then smiled. “Oh, is he now?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at Daniel.
“He says you walked into a wall at work!” Layla added, her grin widening.
I blushed and shook my head. “It was a wall made of windows,” I said. “But you’re right—silly Auntie Abby wasn’t looking where she was going.”
The kids laughed harder at that. I gave Daniel a grateful look and mouthed a thank-you to him, and he nodded at me. I could tell from his quizzical look that he was wondering if I was okay, or if Matt was okay, but I didn’t want to talk about that in front of the kids, and he seemed to get that.
“You know, Zach was just telling me that he’s got a loose tooth,” he said, to change the subject.
“Yeah!” Zach exclaimed, like he couldn’t believe that he had forgotten to tell me. He opened his mouth and proudly showed me the wiggling denture.
“Oh wow, I bet the tooth fairy is going to love that one for her castle,” I told Zach.
Zach rolled his eyes and turned to Daniel. “I’m too old to believe in the tooth fairy,” he confided in a stage whisper.
“Oh really?” Daniel asked in wry amusement. He leaned in close, looking pointedly at Layla. “But just because you don’t believe in the tooth fairy, it doesn’t mean that other people don’t either, does it?”
Zach frowned like he was going to say something, but then he clearly understood what Daniel was saying. He looked chagrined. “I mean, she still comes to take my teeth every time,” he admitted. “So maybe she’s a real fairy, I don’t know. But I tried to stay awake for her last time, and I didn’t get to see her.”
“Well, that’s because she’s just so itty-bitty tiny that you couldn’t see her with your human eyes,” Daniel said. “You need a magnifying glass for that.”
“What’s a magnifying glass?” Zach asked, and I was glad to hear that the kids were totally distracted from the strange circumstances.
“It’s what Sherlock Holmes uses when he needs to see things close up,” Daniel said, miming looking through one of the instruments.
“Oh,” Zach said. He frowned but seemed to take what Daniel said at face value.
Layla finally took her fingers out of her mouth. “Are you our new uncle?” she asked.
“Layla!” I sputtered, feeling my cheeks heat with a horrible blush. I looked past the kids to see Leanne smiling sadly at us. She gave me a small shrug. I didn’t know what to say.
But again, Daniel saved the day. “Nope, I’m not your new uncle,” he said to Layla. “You would know if I was because there would have been a great big party to celebrate it.”
“Oh,” Layla said, frowning. She cocked her head to the side. “That’s sad because Aunt Abby could use a husband.”
Daniel looked like he wanted to laugh. “Oh yeah?” he asked with mock seriousness. “And what makes you say that?” He looked over at me, his eyes still serious. “Because from everything I know about your Aunt Abby, I’d say that she’s perfectly capable of living on her own. She’s smart and she’s great at business. She doesn’t need me.”
I couldn’t stop staring at him for a moment, but t
hen I became aware of the fact that Leanne, as well as the two kids, were staring at the two of us. I had to say something. I forced a grin onto my face. “Clearly I do need you since you’re the one who gave me the ride over here,” I joked.
Daniel laughed and put a hand on my knee. “It’s good to know that I’m good for something,” he said, winking at the kids even though they probably didn’t understand the joke.
He started chatting with the kids about school and their soccer camp, distracting them again, and I couldn’t help glancing over at Leanne. She raised an eyebrow at me, and I could tell from her expression that as soon as the drama with Matt was over, as soon as he was stable (because I had to believe that he would be stable again, and soon hopefully), Leanne and I were going to have a long chat about this.
I was almost worried about it. I didn’t know what she would say about my being here with him. She had to know that when she called me in the middle of our weekend trip, I would be with him. That he might show up with me. And she hadn’t told me not to bring him. I had to wonder, though, if I had done the right thing. The kids were at such an impressionable age; wasn’t it weird for me to just show up here with some guy they might never see again? Even if we were quick to tell them that Daniel was just a friend of mine.
Because not only that, but wasn’t there still the chance that some of the paparazzi would find us here? The last thing I wanted was to end up the subject of another series of tabloid speculations about how Daniel was there for me in my time of need, how he was there for my whole family. But even more than that, I didn’t want the kids to end up caught up in any sort of press.
This could backfire on all of us.
I took a deep breath, though. There was no way for the press to have found us here. There was no reason for Daniel to be here right now. And he had all but disappeared for the weekend, that’s what he had led me to believe with the penthouse that we’d been staying in. If we’d been in the clear there, then we had to assume that we were in the clear here.
And I had enough to worry about without worrying about the press finding us suddenly. What’s more, Daniel knew just how much was on my plate right now, with this. He knew, I was sure, just how worried I was. I hadn’t exactly been subtle about it.
So I had to trust him. If he thought there was any danger of him being there with us, then I had to believe he would have told me. If nothing else, he had been careful ever since we had started dating again. No, I had to trust him.
And at the same time, I found I didn’t want Daniel to be a secret in my life. Maybe things were complicated, and maybe I wasn’t sure what the long-term plan was for the two of us. But I wanted Leanne to know him, and I wanted the kids to know him. He was important to me. And not just because he was my boss.