by Whitley Cox
“Ooh,” her sister cooed. “Did you try out that new spiralizer I bought?”
Isobel nodded. “Works slick. I’m trying to decide what to spiralize next. Sweet potato? Cucumbers?”
“Cucumbers could be good for a salad,” Tori offered.
They sat across from each other at the small bistro table in their shared apartment. It was a rare occasion that they ate together, as Isobel was normally working and Tori was either working or off with her sexy new boyfriend, Dr. Mark.
“How’s the new commission coming?” Tori asked, diving into her zucchini noodles.
Isobel nodded, taking a sip of her wine. “Going great. Paige is a peach. So easy to work with. She’s liked all my mock-ups so far. Thanks again for singing my praises.”
Tori winked. “I’ve got your back, Jack.”
Isobel was about to delve further into an explanation about her new graphic design commission, designing the new logo and signage for The Lilac and Lavender Bistro, when Tori’s phone started to ring.
Her sister squinted her bright blue eyes at the caller ID. “Liam?”
Isobel had only met Liam once. He was one of The Single Dads of Seattle that Mark played poker with on Saturdays. The guy seemed nice enough. A lawyer with a potty mouth was how she’d best describe him, which only made her think he was probably a shark in the courtroom and a tiger in the sack. Most men who were professional by day were dirty at night.
“Answer it,” Isobel said, nodding at her sister’s phone.
Tori twisted her lips. “I’m sure it’s nothing. I can call him back after dinner.”
Isobel rolled her eyes. “Answer it.”
Tori huffed out a breath. “Fine.” She punched the on button. “Hey Liam, what’s up?”
Isobel twirled her zucchini noodles around on her fork, speared a prawn and popped the whole thing into her mouth, watching as her sister’s facial expressions changed from sad to curious to understanding to excited. What could Liam possibly be telling her?
“Okay, here she is,” Tori said, thrusting her arm over the table and handing the phone to Isobel. “He wants to talk to you.”
“To me?” She pointed at herself in the chest for some stupid reason.
“Is there another Isobel Priscilla Jones in the house I don’t know about?” her sister asked with a smirk.
“How does he know my whole name?”
“Just take the damn thing,” Tori said. “I’m hungry.”
Frowning in confusion, Isobel took the phone from her goofy big sister and put it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Hi, Isobel. It’s Liam Dixon. We met at one of Mark and Tori’s barbecues a while back.”
“That’s right. How are you?”
Was he calling to ask her out?
Liam was good-looking. She just wasn’t sure he was her type. He was also like forty or something. Was that too old? She hadn’t dated an older guy in a while. Last time had been when she was twenty and the guy was thirty. And even then they struggled to find something in common besides how much they both liked having sex while watching The Office on Netflix.
But maybe that had just been him.
He’d been weird.
Sexy but weird.
Crap, she was getting off track. Had Liam replied? She’d stopped listening and was now thinking about Devon and his rippling six pack, his long tongue, his thick …
“Isobel, you still there?”
Whoops.
“Yep, still here. Sorry, Liam. It’s been a long day. Had a mini power nap there.”
His chuckle was forced. “Sorry I’m not more exciting for you. So, what do you think? Are you interested in the job?”
Job?
She looked across the table to her sister, who was rolling her eyes and mouthing the words “nanny job.”
Oh!
“A nanny job for your son?” If she remembered correctly, Liam’s son was named Jordan, and he was a sweet little boy, albeit a touch wild. But what little boy wasn’t at the age of five?
“Uh, no,” he said slowly. “It’s for a friend of mine. Mark mentioned that you’re a nanny and looking for a new family.” He cleared his throat. The next words he spoke were filled with pain. “He just lost his sister in that mass shooting at the Emerald City Mall.”
“Oh no!” She clapped her hand over her mouth. She’d read about that. Twelve dead, fifteen more injured. A SWAT team sniper had taken out the lone gunman, but only after he’d terrorized hundreds of people for a solid ten minutes.
“Yeah.” He grunted. “She was a very dear friend of mine.” Was that a hiccup or a sob? “My best friend. And she’d just had a baby a month ago. Sophie was a month early too and is still in the NICU.”
“Oh my God.” Isobel’s eyes welled up with hot tears that stung like a bitch. “No. Liam, no. That’s terrible.”
“Dina had no partner. She went through a sperm bank, so now Dina’s brother is Sophie’s guardian. But he doesn’t have any children of his own, and he’s really taking Dina’s death hard. He might need some help for a bit.” She could tell he was struggling to get each and every word out, that it physically pained him to speak about his friend in the past tense. Isobel could feel his heartache through the phone and across the miles. Her own heart shattered at the thought of this tiny baby never getting to know her mother, all because of some psychopath with access to an automatic rifle.
Fuck, the gun laws needed to change.
“I’ll do it,” she blurted out, not even sure if she was cutting Liam off or not. Hell, she’d do it for free.
Tori’s eyes narrowed across the table at her. She mouthed, “Think this through.”
Isobel rolled her eyes. Her sister was such a worry-wart. An overthinker.
Liam let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Isobel. I don’t know how long the job will be for, or how long until Aaron finds his footing, but just know that if he can’t cover your wages, I will.”
She used her napkin to wipe up the tears streaming down her face and sniffled before answering. “We’ll figure it out, Liam. Don’t worry about that. I have other jobs too, so it’s not like I’m destitute.”
“Well, if you wouldn’t mind sending me your resume and credentials, like CPR et cetera, I’d really appreciate it. That way I can show Aaron I’m not just hiring him some random person off the street or some website. That you’re qualified and experienced. I mean, I would hire you right now without needing that shit, because Mark and Tori have vouched for you, but Aaron might need to see some qualifications.”
“No problem. I totally understand. I can do that this evening.”
“Cool. Thank you. I’ll text Tori my email address when we hang up here and you can send me your info.”
“Okay.”
He blew out a breath. “Thanks so much, Isobel. Just let me know if you need anything. Sophie is still in the NICU, but we were there to see her earlier today, and they think she’ll be ready to go home in about five days. I’ll pass along your information to Aaron, and he can let you know when you start.”
All she could do at this point was nod.
“Still there?”
“Mhmm.”
Liam’s voice was hoarse and full of emotion. “Okay, thanks, Isobel. I really appreciate it. Sophie’s going to need as many people in her family as we can manage. That little girl needs an army at her disposal. A village to raise her.”
Isobel swallowed and nodded again. “Right. Army. Village. Got it.”
“’Kay, I’ll talk to you later.” Then he hung up.
Tori passed Isobel her napkin, since Isobel’s own napkin was now soaking wet. “I had no idea Liam’s friend was a victim of the mall shooting,” Tori started. “He left abruptly Saturday night from Mitch’s photography studio opening when he got the call. That’s terrible. Poor baby.”
Isobel’s eyes teemed with tears as she hung her head and covered her face with her hands, letting the sobs take over her body and the grief for these people she didn’t even
know consume her.
A protective arm wrapped around her shoulders, and Tori’s lips landed gently on her temple. “Your empathy is your greatest strength, as well as your biggest weakness,” her sister murmured, rocking them to a gentle sway. “You sure you’re up for it?”
Isobel lifted her head from her hands, focusing her gaze on her sister. “I have to do this, Tor. That baby … ” She shuddered on an inhale. “Oh my God, that poor baby.”
Her sister squeezed her tighter. “You’re going to have your hands full with a newborn. Have you thought this through? Like really thought it through. It’s going to be a really demanding job. Newborns are tough. And a grieving brother who thought he was going to be an uncle but is now a father—you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
Isobel shook her head. “I don’t mind. I like work.”
Tori chuckled, squeezing her sister tighter. “I’ve never met a harder working person in my life, Iz.”
Isobel pushed her plate away. She was no longer hungry. She hung her head and stared at the tops of her bare knees, peeking out from beneath her soft cotton gray shorts. She lifted her head. “Do you think I can help them?”
Tori smiled. “If anybody can, you can. Remember the Trammell family? They were a mess before you stepped in. You got Keegan eating vegetables, Spencer stopped hitting kids at school, and little Melinda was speaking in sentences by the time you left them. You did all of that. You not only saved that family, you saved their freaking marriage.” Her lips flattened into a thin line in thought. “Are you having second thoughts? Do you want to call Liam back and say no? I’m sure he can find a nanny for this Aaron guy somewhere else. There are websites and agencies for this kind of thing.”
Isobel shook her head. “No. I want to be there for her.”
Tori blew out a breath before leaning her head on Isobel’s shoulder. “Is being an empath exhausting? It seems like it would be exhausting. Feeling everybody’s feelings like they’re your own, having this constant need to save the world.”
Isobel knew her sister was trying to lighten the mood. Her tone held a tinge of teasing to it, but Tori wasn’t wrong. Isobel had always been a sensitive person, almost to a fault and often to her own detriment.
A bleeding heart.
A sucker for a sob story.
An-always-see-the-best-in-people-no-matter-how-many-times-they’ve-burned-her-before soft-hearted fool.
Or as her mother called her, a marshmallow but not a doormat.
Because she wasn’t a doormat, but she was a softy.
She’d nearly been abducted as a child when she believed the man at the park needed help finding his puppy. Thank God her older sister was a skeptic and an overthinker who told the man to “fuck off” or she would call the cops.
You’d think Isobel would have learned from that, but no. She never got abducted or anything, but she’d certainly been burned over the years, putting her faith and trust in people who didn’t deserve an ounce of it.
She’d also met some amazing people along the way. Helped some truly wonderful souls and in turn, they helped her. Helped her find her passion, and although she loved art and had gone to graphic design school, ultimately, her biggest passion was helping people. Particularly children. Which was why she was now a twenty-six-year-old graphic design graduate that preferred to be a nanny than get a full-time job with a design firm.
She exhaled a shaky breath. She needed to get ahold of herself. She’d felt Liam’s heartache through the phone as he told her about Sophie and Aaron, felt the physical pain talking about his dead friend and her infant daughter was putting him through. What would she do when she finally came face to face with them? When she finally saw tiny Sophie, completely innocent and desperate for her mother?
“I don’t envy you,” Tori whispered. “I admire you and am crazy proud of you, but I don’t envy you. I’ll take my overthinking, analytical, cynical brain any day of the week.”
Isobel half-choked, half-laughed. “Sometimes I wish I was like you. I’d probably have been burned a hell of a lot less if I cut my losses before they hurt me.”
Tori grabbed Isobel’s wineglass and handed it to her before getting up from where she’d been kneeling on the floor. She circled around the table to her own chair, sitting down and taking a sip of her wine. “Yeah, but we are who we are for a reason. I’m the hardened cynic who overanalyzes things, takes forever to pick a restaurant to eat at and researches even the most mundane of things to death before I do them. And you’re the free spirit who follows her heart, always sees the good in people and picks the restaurants for us by closing her eyes, spinning in a circle and pointing.”
“You’re saying we balance each other out?”
Tori nodded. “We do. You’re the yin to my yang. I’m ruled by gravity, you’re ruled by air, and together we both float just inches from earth. Without each other, you’d be off floating in the stratosphere, and I’d be unable to lift one foot in front of the other.”
New tears pricked the corners of Isobel’s eyes, but unlike earlier, these were tears of joy. How did she get so lucky to get such an amazing sister?
Tori lifted her wineglass in the air. “To balance.”
Isobel clinked Tori’s class with her own. “To balance.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Iz.” Their eyes locked, blue to blue. She could see right into her sister’s soul, past the tough exterior and down into the big, welcoming heart Isobel knew Tori hid deep inside.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you either.”
Tori dug into her meal, but Isobel simply stared at her full plate. She had her sister, her parents, her health, her life. But in the blink of an eye, the speed of a bullet, someone’s world can flip upside down. Someone’s world can be destroyed.
Aaron was without his sister, and Sophie was without a mother.
Isobel’s life was full.
Aaron and Sophie’s lives were empty.
Where was the justice there?
How was that fair?
And more than anything, how could she help?
3
Aaron slammed the back door of his truck after hauling out the bucket car seat, where a tiny, sleeping Sophie lay completely unaware of the chaotic life she about to start. A life with a clueless uncle who, although he loved her more than his own life, had no idea how to raise a kid, let alone a little girl, and was ultimately going to screw her up for life and send her to therapy for years to come.
A car door on the side of the road slammed, and Aaron’s pulse quickened.
Was that the new nanny?
Liam had arranged everything. All Aaron had done was call her and have a brief five-minute conversation with her yesterday, letting her know she could start today. Hell, it was probably closer to three minutes. He was putting all his faith in Liam to not hire his niece some wingnut off the streets to take care of her. Lord knew Aaron had no clue how to pick a good nanny, the questions to ask, the credentials to look into.
Even if he did, he was in no frame of mind to be calling references and vetting potential hires. He’d hardly slept a wink in the last week. He couldn’t.
How could he sleep when Dina was gone?
When Sophie needed him.
He’d spent every minute he could with Sophie in the hospital until she was released. More than he was probably allowed, but the nurses took pity on him because they knew the situation. Thank God for Liam. Aaron wouldn’t have known how to start, explaining that his sister was dead and that she wouldn’t be back to bring Sophie any more milk. She wouldn’t be back to hold and bond with her baby. She wouldn’t be back to take her home when she was well enough to be discharged.
He fumbled for his keys in his pocket as the grief crashed hard in his chest at the thought of welcoming Sophie to her new home and not having Dina there. He found his keys, but they fell as he struggled to hold the car seat, diaper bag and a grocery bag full of formula.
“Shit!”
H
is eyes flashed down to Sophie.
Please don’t wake up. Please don’t wake up.
A hand landed on his shoulder. “I got ’em,” Liam said, releasing Aaron’s shoulder and bending down to retrieve his keys. He didn’t hand them back but instead walked toward the front door, put the right key in the lock and turned the latch, holding the door open for Aaron and Sophie.
Aaron stepped forward, but he stopped on the threshold.
Liam’s hand landed back on his shoulder. “I know, man. This wasn’t the home Sophie was supposed to be moving into. I know.”
His brow furrowed as his mouth turned grim. “I don’t have a nursery for her. I don’t have a damn thing.”
“But you have love,” came a soft, feminine voice behind them.
Aaron spun around, making sure not to swing Sophie and wake her up in the process, only to come face to face with a woman with long dark hair and bright blue eyes.
“Ah, Isobel, you made it.” Liam stuck one foot on the bottom of the door to keep it open while extending his hand toward the woman, in a plain white T-shirt and denim capris. “It’s nice to see you again.”
She took Liam’s hand with a small, demure smile. “Nice to see you again too.” Her eyes flicked up to Aaron’s, and she extended her hand toward him. He took it, and they shook briefly. “I’m Isobel, or Iz. Nice to meet you.” Her long throat jogged on a swallow as she glanced down. “I am … ” She blew out a breath. Her eyes lifted back up to Aaron’s, and he could see she was tearing up. “I am so sorry for your loss.” She shook her head, looked away and wiped beneath her eyes. “I know that you’re probably really tired of hearing people say that, and I’m sorry. I wish … ” Her jaw ticked as she clenched it hard. “I wish I could say something more comforting.”
Who was this woman? She was saying exactly the things he was feeling. He was tired of hearing that shit. He was tired of the pity eyes and the whispers behind his back. He was tired of it all. But at the same time, he wished there was something someone could say to him that would make everything right, that could help him make sense of it all, click it all into place.