The warmth in the air seemed to disappear overnight, chilly mornings and dried leaves littering the ground ushering in fall.
Clara enjoyed it, the air puffing in front of her rosy cheeks, collecting leaves we found interesting, bundling up to stand on the beach to watch the ocean, and coming home to hot chocolate.
She noticed the change in the air, but she didn’t notice the change in the temperature of the house. As far as she was concerned, everything was great. And that’s how it would stay. She wouldn’t notice her father being a dick, nor would I let him make me feel likejust the nanny. I wanted to leave a mark on Clara’s life, to have her remember magic when she thought of me. I didn’t know whether it was selfish of me, but all I wanted to do was contribute to Clara’s childhood being a happy one.
Hence me dredging up the courage to do what I was about to do.
“Do you have a sewing machine?” I asked Beau, leaning on the doorframe to his office.
He had been sitting in front of a computer, with what looked like an Excel spreadsheet on the screen. The room itself was sparse; with a desk, computer, and files arranged so neatly that it made me want to come in and mix them all up to see Beau pop a vein.
There were some old toys piled in the corner. The weathered rocking chair with a pink wool throw draped over it was very much at odds with the cold, utilitarian feel of the room. But that was the embodiment of Beau. Cold, brash, harsh on the outside, except when Clara painted his body and soul with brightness and warmth.
Beau turned in the chair he was sitting in, but not before I saw his shoulders stiffen.
I watched him visibly take a breath. As if he had topreparehimself to face me.
LikeIwas the scary one.
A laughable concept.
And when he turned, I had my own swift intake of breath. Beau was wearing reading glasses. Slightly rounded, way more hipster than I would’ve expected from him, somehow making him look even more ruggedly handsome and sensitive at the same time.
“A sewing machine?” Beau repeated.
I nodded mutely, still trying to quell my primal reaction to Beau in glasses.
“Do I look like I do a lot of sewing?” he asked me gruffly. But not harshly. There was no softness in the way he spoke to me lately, but the outright hostility was melting away.
He wasn’t going out of his way to be around me, but when we were around one another, he seemed to almost gravitate toward me. The way he oriented his body, the way he looked at me. I knew all of this because I could barely keep my eyes off him; I noted his every inhale.
I was quietly going mad. Beau invaded my thoughts far too often. I dissected everything he said to me, every look, wondering if I was imagining the thick attraction that seemed to coat my skin when we got too close to each other.
I pointedly gave him a once-over. Jeans. Thermal that molded over his large biceps, groomed, dark brown beard with shades of silver. Silvery-blue eyes, bracketed with worry lines.
His hands were large, masculine, yet I’d watched him delicately arrange berries in the shape of a heart for his daughter’s breakfast. I’d watched those fingers make perfect braids from the fine strands of Clara’s hair.
He looked—and behaved—like a gruff alpha male who spoke in grunts and barely smiled. Not many people knew he could paint a five-year-old's nails without so much as a smudge. That I’d once caught him dancing in the living room wearing a tutu that matched his daughter’s.
“No.” I shook my head. “You do not look like you have a sewing machine.” I wondered why I’d even asked him. “Nora looks like someone who has one. I’ll ask her.”
I turned to get out of his space and away from the conversation that likely pained him, since it was extraneous to our unspoken agreement—we spoke about what pertained to Clara, and that was it.
“Why do you need a sewing machine?”
I froze in the doorway, just as I was about to make my escape. I was shocked. Was Beau willing to ask me a question, to prolong our interaction? I turned slowly. He was in his chair, wearing his default expression—empty with a side of grumpiness—and unfortunately hot as hell eyes on me.
I cleared my throat. “I’m, um, Clara’s Halloween costume.” As I said it, it only just occurred to me that I was likely overstepping my bounds by making her a Halloween costume. That was something parents did. Beau hadn’t so much asmentioned the idea of Halloween, though it didn’t surprise me. Beau was not acelebrate any holidaykind of guy. He was more like the Grinch. With a six-pack.
I shifted uncomfortably at the slight curl to Beau’s lip.
“I mean, I should have asked you first. She wants to go as Wednesday Addams, I’ll go as Morticia. It’s hard to find good costumes, and the available ones are all made from synthetic fabric, and I know you’re all natural in everything.” I was babbling, nerves taking over me.
Beau was a man of dualities. He did not look like someone who would fret about organic food, filtered water, non-toxic cleaners—which he made himself—and clothing made from natural fibers.
He was militant about it, so I’d tried my best to keep up with all the things Clara was not to be exposed to.
In his head, his daughter’s health and survival depended on it, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her.
