Family.
Except Charlotte wasn’t his, and neither was Delaney. But…maybe they could be. Both of them.
Sure, Jasper had shut Noah down when he’d said he wanted to adopt her. But Jasper had proved incapable of loving his daughter.
Maybe he’d change his mind. Maybe he’d realize that the last thing Charlotte needed was for her world to be turned upside down again.
And then there was Delaney. She was off-limits, but did she have to be? If Noah weren’t her boss and she weren’t the nanny, could he pursue her? Could they date, maybe fall in love?
No. Of course not.
But…why not? Why couldn’t he be with her? She was almost thirty, not nearly as young as she looked. A decade younger than he was, but they were both adults. She loved Charlotte, and obviously, he couldn’t deny the chemistry between him and Delaney. Their kiss had proved that.
Would it be so awful if he were to pursue the nanny?
Maybe…maybe the three of them really could be a family.
They’d bought a single fried seafood platter. Even shared among the three of them, it was a lot of food. Charlotte was more interested in looking around than eating, and Delaney… Miss Wright didn’t seem to have much of an appetite.
“Can I go play now?” Charlotte asked Miss Wright.
She nodded to him. “Ask Uncle Noah. He’s in charge.”
“Please, Uncle Noah? Shanyn and Polly are playing.” Charlotte practically batted her long eyelashes at him. Were all females born with the ability to cajole men?
“Her friends are right over there.” Miss Wright indicated a group of girls on the playground.
He met Charlotte’s eyes. “I’ll let you play, but if you wander off, then you’ll have to come back here and sit until it’s time to go. Do you promise to stay where we can see you?”
She considered his question, then nodded. “I promise.”
“Okay, then. Have fun”
She bounded off her chair and ran to her friends. Shanyn grabbed her hand, and the girls ran for the slides.
“I should probably take her home soon.” Miss Wright’s focus was on Charlotte. “It’s getting late.”
“You’re off the clock. This is your town now, too, you know. You should enjoy the festival.”
Something flickered across her face, reminding him of the terror he’d seen there earlier. “What had you spooked?”
She glanced at him, then back at Charlotte. “I went for a walk, and I thought somebody might be following me, and then when I turned back…” Though she’d started strong, now her voice shook. “There was a man there, an older guy with gray hair. He told me to tell you the merger’s not going to happen, that you should give it up.”
Noah’s jaw tightened. “Frederick Hayes.”
She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t know him.”
Noah navigated his phone to the Hayes Industries website, found a photo of the man, and showed it to her.
“Yeah.” She looked up from studying it. “That’s him.”
“You should have called me immediately.”
“By the time you got there, I would have been back here. I was just a couple blocks away. I felt safe once I found you.”
Maybe Hayes was the one who’d cut the brake line on her car. Noah had run into Hayes at the restaurant that night. Maybe he’d hired someone else to do it? Maybe he’d been at the restaurant to see Noah’s reaction to her call.
That didn’t make sense, though. Noah was spinning conspiracy theories out of nothing.
