Special Forces Father. Victoria Pade
inside of your cheek with a cotton swab.”
“But why?” Evie persisted.
“It’s a test. Remember last time you guys had sore throats? The nurse used a cotton swab to get some stuff from back there and sent it to be tested to see if you had strep—”
“I didn’t like that,” Evie said.
“Me either,” Grady chimed in.
“I know, but this will be easier than that. Here, let me show you.” She took three cotton swabs from the medicine cabinet, demonstrated what would be done on herself first and then persuaded them to let her do it to them.
“See? This one is no big deal. But then they can send the swab to a laboratory to test it and tell all kinds of things about you.”
“Like what?” Grady asked suspiciously.
“It could tell that Evie is a girl and you’re a boy. It could tell the color of your hair and eyes—”
“I can tell you that,” Evie reasoned.
This wasn’t easy to explain to inquisitive four-year-olds.
“It can also tell you stuff that you can’t see—what’s inside of you that makes you you and who your family is. Like if I had the test, it could tell me that my grandmother was my grandmother.”
“So it’s gonna tell us if we have a grandmother?” asked Grady.
“Well, no, we already know your grandparents are all in heaven, too, but it might tell us if you have any other family you don’t know about.”
“You think we do?” Evie asked.
“Maybe,” Dani said. “And that would be kind of nice to know, wouldn’t it? That there might be someone else in the world who would love to know you guys are their family?” And she hoped that would somehow prove true—that if Liam Madison was their biological father, he’d eventually make his way through what had seemed like shock last night and embrace the news and the kids and become a loving, caring parent to them.
“I s’pose it would be nice,” Grady agreed marginally.
“Then would we hafta leave the glass house to live with them?” Evie asked.
They’d referred to this place as the glass house since moving six months ago from what they’d called the brown house—the house they’d lived in while this place was being built.
“I don’t know,” Dani answered honestly.
She didn’t want to go beyond that so she changed the subject.
“Okay, how about if you guys do some of the new puzzles while we wait for Liam?”
It felt a little odd saying Liam Madison’s name with such familiarity but it was for the sake of the kids. She wanted to give the impression that he really was a friend to them.
Dani sent them into the common area just outside their bedrooms. Once she knew they weren’t going to fight she went into the room she was using and checked her own appearance.
She’d gone to a few extra lengths today to make up for the way she’d looked the night before. She wore a pair of her good jeans and a blue T-shirt over a tank top edged with a row of lace that showed above the T-shirt’s square-cut neckline.
She’d also gotten up early so she could pay special attention to her hair. Rather than a quick blow-dry, she’d let it air-dry so she could scrunch it and bring out the natural waves. Then, instead of keeping it contained in some fashion the way she ordinarily did for working with kids, she let it fall free to the middle of her back—what Grady had deemed real princess hair when he and Evie had seen it this morning.
She’d also applied a pale eye shadow to accentuate her eyes and a little mascara to go along with her blush and lip gloss.
But even though it was all what she might have done for a casual, daytime date, that wasn’t the reason she’d put in the time and effort, she told herself as she checked to make sure the hours that had passed since then hadn’t left her in need of touch-ups. She just wanted to improve upon the bad impression she was afraid she might have made on Liam Madison with her hairstyle by Evie the previous evening.
As nanny—and now as guardian—she had to play two roles. To the kids, she had to be a disciplinarian in a warm, caring manner so that her young charges could be at ease with her. But to the adults in their lives, she had to present a more professional image. A more professional image that she might not have presented to Liam Madison the night before.
So today she wanted to compensate. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Liam Madison was a fantastic-looking man.
So fantastic-looking that the image of him had stuck with her, even as she’d tried to fall asleep last night. And it had still been with her the minute she woke up this morning and the whole way through her shower and all that extra primping.
But picturing him in her head merely came along with thinking about him actually doing what Audrey had wanted him to do—coming to the kids’ rescue. It wasn’t about anything personal between the two of them. And there wouldn’t be. They had one thing and one thing only bringing them together: the current care and future well-being of Evie and Grady. And once what would happen to them was established, Dani would move on.
It came with the territory of being a nanny.
Yes, she did get a little attached. It had happened with kids she’d nannied for much shorter lengths of time before Evie and Grady. It was especially true of these twins because she’d been with them for a little over three years now. And they were great, smart, adorable, funny kids who she’d needed to provide for more than she had others whose parents were more involved than Audrey and Owen had been.
Add to that that she’d gone through weighty loss with them—both the loss they’d suffered and a particularly difficult loss she’d suffered herself at almost the same time—and now she was their stand-in parent, so a bond had definitely formed.
But still, her attachment to them had to have a limit because it all came with the knowledge that Evie and Grady were not her kids. That she would have to move on and leave them behind. It was something she never lost sight of. And since her sole connection with Liam Madison was through the kids, she’d be moving on and leaving him behind, too.
So the fact that he was great-looking was insignificant and the fact that she couldn’t stop carrying around the image of his great looks in her mind was also unimportant and meaningless.
Besides, she reasoned with herself as she turned upside down to brush her hair from underneath to add some fullness, even if they’d met at a party, locked eyes across a crowded room and been drawn together last night, nothing would have come of it. Too much had happened recently that had left her in no position for anything.
She’d ended her engagement to Garrett after too long indulging his need for control and living under his thumb.
She’d lost the grandmother who had raised her, the grandmother she’d loved dearly.
And then Audrey and Owen had died.
Now she had to make sure that Evie and Grady would be okay.
Plus her grandmother had left her with the biggest decision she’d ever faced—a decision that could not only affect everything for her from now on, but that could also affect numerous people and their jobs.
And if all that wasn’t enough—which it was—Liam Madison was in the military.
She knew only too well what that could mean because her own father had served. And suffered for it.
So no matter how fabulously handsome the guy was, she had a laundry list of things that all added up to one really big no when it came to Liam Madison, and made those good looks and the fact that she couldn’t stop carrying the image of him around in her head totally and completely irrelevant.