Jonah’s foot folded under him, and he caught himself on the dresser, and Pepper made it upright by ballet-grade willpower alone. They both froze in a perfectly innocent posture in the middle of the room, two feet apart, hands at sides, breathing audibly, the very moment Marcel appeared in the doorway.
He took it all in without comment. His daughter, flushed, hair on one side flattened to her cheek. Jonah, in yesterday’s shirt, half a foot from the bed they had clearly both been on. Not in, but how would he know that?
Atlas in the playpen, the dogs at Marcel’s heels, the empty water glass on the nightstand, the rumpled quilt—it all looked…incriminating. Marcel’s expression did not move.
“Dad,” Pepper said. “It isn’t?—”
“Get up and out,” he said simply.
“We are up,” she said. “It was a long?—”
“Lawson. Out, please. The kitchen.” He said it quietly. He moved aside, deliberately, in the doorway. “I would like privacy with my daughter.”
Jonah followed the order, stepping into the hall with as much dignity as he could muster which, to be real, wasn’t a ton right then.
In the kitchen, he stood in shock for a few seconds, then scrambled to imagine how to be useful. Should he make coffee? No power to that appliance. Move the recliner back? Check the generator? Run to his car?
While that last one seemed the most appealing, his bag—and his baby—were in Pepper’s room.
He closed his eyes and bit back a dark curse, pulling out a stool to sit at the counter. Even with the generator in the backyard, he could hear them talking.
He didn’t catch even a word, just Pepper’s voice, low and climbing. Marcel’s, quieter, deeper, immovable.
No doubt he was just finding out that Pepper worked for him, that Jonah had invited himself here for their own private hurricane party, and that they were more—although he still didn’t know how much more—than just nanny and boss.
His phone buzzed in his pocket—he’d forgotten it was there—and he pulled it out to skim through the family texts. They’d all checked in this morning on the Summer House group chat, which was usually only used for requests for someone to move a car in the driveway.
But that thread was flashing with multiple messages, especially after the news that the Summer House had fared well, with no visible damage and no flooding on the ground floor.Thank God!
A text from Tessa came in with a sad face and the words “we’re flooded in Miramar and on our way over” followed by a flurry of questions and sad faces. Jo Ellen responded and said she and Maggie were on their way back home but stuck in traffic.
He considered replying but he had no idea when he’d be back and what shape he’d be in, so he set the phone down. Dead, maybe? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
In the back of the house, the voices stopped and a minute later, Pepper came in.
Her eyes were rimmed pink, and her jaw was set like she was holding something in. She swallowed, looked at the coffee maker, then sighed, obviously remembering the electricity.
“I can hook it up to the generator,” he offered.
She just shook her head, still not able to talk. Instead, she opened the fridge and got a bottle of the water they’d wisely stocked, looking at Jonah with a question in her eyes and a bottle in her hand.
“No thanks,” he said softly, then cleared his throat. “Should I get Atlas and…” He thumbed toward the door.
“Escape?” she asked on a dry laugh. “He’ll call you a chicken.”
“Bak. Bak-bak.”
She came closer to the peninsula and stood across it from him. “He’s mad that I didn’t tell him I was working for you.”
He held back the richly deserved, “I told you so,” because he was a gentleman and crazy about her. Sheshouldhave told her dad.
“Why didn’t you?” he asked instead.
She made a tiny, tired sound that was almost a laugh. “Because I wanted to be an adult. I wanted a thing he didn’t have an opinion on. I didn’t want to hear him tell me what a bad idea it was.”
“Why is it a bad idea?” he pressed.
She just shot him a totally indecipherable look and all he could guess was that it had to do with whatever she didn’t share last night.
