Single Dad's Surprise (Wilder Brothers #1)

by Lisa Levine

I stayed with Annika in her bedroom that night and held her as she slept in my arms. I fell asleep for a little while, too, but not that long because I was too enthralled and ecstatic to sleep. My brain simply wouldn’t turn off. In the early morning, before Poppy woke up, I slid out from beneath Annika and made my way down the stairs to the kitchen. I brewed coffee and made breakfast and then decided that I would work at home this weekend so that I could spend time with Poppy and Annika.

  “You’re up early,” Annika smiled as she walked into the kitchen and headed for a cup of coffee.

  As soon as she got close enough to me, I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled, making her fall softly against my chest. She smiled at first but then looked worried.

  “What about Poppy?” she asked.

  I hadn’t thought about that yet. As we heard Poppy’s feet hop down the staircase, I let go of Annika. I didn’t want to, but I also didn’t want to deal with the explanation that would need to follow shortly after Poppy saw my arms around her nanny.

  “Hi!” Poppy said as she bounced into the kitchen and plopped down at the table.

  I scooped her up some breakfast and set a plate in front of her.

  “Can I have hot cocoa today?” she asked.

  She looked at Annika when she asked the question, and then Annika looked at me to see if it was okay, but something in the way we were looking at each other tipped Poppy off as being odd. “What’s up with you guys this morning? You’re acting weird.”

  “Sorry,” Annika said. “Just not awake yet.”

  “Which movie did you two girls end up watching together last night?” I asked as I tried to change the subject.

  “Dad, you were there, remember?” She shook her head and motioned for Annika to come closer to her so that she could whisper in her ear. “Did you tell him about what happened at school?”

  Annika shook her head.

  “Then why is he acting all weird?” Poppy asked.

  Annika shrugged and went to go make her hot cocoa.

  “So, what are we going to do today?” Poppy asked as she poked a strawberry with her fork.

  “You know you can pick those up with your hands, right?” I asked.

  Annika and Poppy both burst into laughter, and I felt like I was completely left out of whatever inside joke they were sharing. I looked at Annika for some clue about what was going on, but she made a little motion that looked like she was locking her lips with a key and then sticking the key inside her front pocket. Poppy beamed at the fact that they were secret-keepers together.

  “You know,” I said as I leaned next to Annika, pretending to check on the hot cocoa. “I have no problem reaching right into your pocket to pull out that key.”

  I heard her take a small gasp in, and then I turned to walk away before things got too heated up in the kitchen.

  “In answer to your question, sweetheart,” I said to Poppy. “We are going to play today.”

  “All of us?”

  She looked completely stunned as she looked between both me and Annika.

  “Yep. If that’s okay with you?”

  “Yay!” she shouted. “Can we have a picnic too? Please? I really, really want to have a picnic, and so does Bear.”

  “Well, if Bear wants a picnic, then we have to have one, right?” Annika said as she looked at me with the best set of adult puppy-dog eyes I had ever seen.

  “Of course,” I gave in.

  “Double yay!” Poppy squealed.

  “I have just a little bit of work that I need to get done before we start the day, okay? I’m going to take my coffee into the home office with me and knock it out real fast, and then I’ll be ready.”

  “Okay, Dad,” she smiled as Annika came to sit down beside her while she finished her breakfast.

  I gave Poppy a kiss on the top of the head and noticed my hand lingering at, but not touching, the side of Annika’s waist. Then I headed to my office to finish up some work so we could get started on a long-awaited and much needed day of fun.

  After I walked out of the kitchen, I heard the two girls start to talk and laugh. I shook my head in sheer amazement at the sound of it seemingly becoming normal now. I would never have thought it was possible that the two of them would become friends, especially not in such a short time. Whatever had happened at school must have really bonded the two of them, and I was very glad about it. I still hadn’t heard from Maleah, which was a good sign that hopefully, she hadn’t heard the school’s voicemail at all. I was almost to my office down the hall when I heard the sound of singing, good singing.

  The voice was astounding, beautifully strong and breathtakingly melodic. I turned and walked back toward the kitchen slowly. This was the kind of sound that I handpicked out of auditions or YouTube streams that were sent to me. It was the kind of voice that I found and signed before any other record label had a chance to snatch them up. This was the sound of a star in the industry. I stood outside the doorway to the kitchen and listened as the singing coated my eardrums and resonated within me. If I had been anywhere and in any crowd, and I had heard that voice, I would have immediately searched out who it was and gone straight up to them to offer them a contract—no hesitation whatsoever when it was talent of this magnitude.

  But in this case, I didn’t even need to search it out because it was coming right from my own kitchen.

  It was Annika.

  Chapter Eleven (Annika)

  “I thought you went to your office,” I said when Jake startled me as he popped his head back inside of the kitchen.

  “I did, well at least I was on my way there, but then I heard you singing.”

  “Oh, sorry! I’ll keep it down. Poppy and I were just goofing around. We made up a song while we were playing dolls yesterday, and it’s kind of catchy,” I laughed.

  “No, I don’t want you to stop,” Jake said. “Annika, you’re very talented. Have you ever thought about pursuing a singing career?”

  “Yeah, once,” I answered, not really wanting to discuss it. Talking about the dreams that I had left unfulfilled just made me feel sad and regret the wasted time I spent in life doing things that didn’t serve me.

  “Well, you should consider it again,” he said enthusiastically. “Like seriously consider it. You have the voice to make it big in the industry. I could help you and—”

  I interrupted him before he got any further ahead of himself. “It’s not something that I do anymore,” I said. My voice came out harsher than I had intended it to, and I didn’t mean to sound angry or upset. I could tell that I did, though, because even Poppy looked up at me as though I’d said a bad word.

  “Okay,” Jake said as he backed down from the idea. “I didn’t mean to pressure you.”

  “You didn’t.” I changed my tone immediately so that I wouldn’t accidentally ruin our nice day with my adolescent failures.

  For a minute, Jake looked at me as if he wanted to ask me what had happened to my dreams of singing, but I think he could tell it was a sensitive topic, which then seemed to point to other sensitive topics. Before we realized it, we were both standing there, staring at each other longingly until Poppy cleared her throat and snapped us out of it. I hoped that she hadn’t picked up on that. She was smiling at both of us, so even if she had noticed us staring at each other for a bit longer than we should have, she didn’t seem to be upset by it, which would have been surprising.

  Jake went back to finish his work, and I cleaned up from breakfast while Poppy helped.

  “You like my dad,” she said bluntly as only an eight-year-old could while we were drying the dishes together.

  “Your dad is a good man and a great father,” I said. “He loves you a lot.”

  “Yeah,” she said as she smirked up at me. “But you like him, I can tell.”

  I tried to divert the attention away from that subject. “Hey, what do you want to pack into the picnic basket?” I asked, hoping to change the topic.

  Poppy still stayed staring up at me as if t
o remind me that she was still here and still on that same line of thought. I looked down at her without saying anything.

  “He likes you, too,” she smiled. “I can tell.”

  We spent about an hour or so packing a delicious picnic and deciding which toys we would bring to the park with us.

  “Okay, all done,” Jake said as he came up to find us in Poppy’s bedroom just as we were picking up the last of the toys that we wanted to bring along.

  We had barely stepped outside of her bedroom when Jake’s phone rang. It was Maleah.

  “Hey,” he said as he smiled at Poppy. “Your mom is calling for you.” He handed the phone to Poppy, and she took it back in her room.

  “How did you know that Maleah wanted to talk to Poppy and not you?” I asked.

  “I didn’t,” Jake answered. “But she should want to talk to her daughter, and she doesn’t have much choice if I hand Poppy the phone to answer.”

  Smart.

  Poppy was back out and handing the returning the phone to Jake before the two of us had even made it to the stairs. I was surprised and hoped that Maleah didn’t end the call so quickly with Poppy again. She had only been on the phone for a minute or two, and she was always so desperate to hear from her mother.

  “Everything okay?” Jake asked as he took his cell back from her hand.

  “Yep!” Poppy beamed, dragging her overstuffed bag of toys behind her.

  “Everything okay with your mom?” he asked. I could tell that he was just as suspicious about why the call had ended so quickly as I was.

  “Yep,” Poppy said impatiently. “I just wanted to make it a quick call this time because I wanted to go play. Are you guys ready?”

  Wow. This was a rather incredible turnaround point for Poppy. She usually cried when she had to get off the phone with her mother. She sometimes cried for the whole night after Maleah would end the calls early. This time Poppy seemed cheerful and quick to hang up so that she could get back to what we had planned for the day. This was definitely a step in the right direction—a huge step.

  Jake put his phone back into his pocket and swung her bag of toys over his shoulder. We each grabbed one of her hands and lifted her down the steps three at a time like she was on a ride at the carnival. When we reached the bottom, she ran straight into the garage to pick a car to take to the park.

  We didn’t give the phone call with Maleah a second thought. I guess maybe we should have.

  The park was perfect. It was a beautiful day with a nice, cool breeze and a sparkling blue sky. We spread out the picnic blanket on a big patch of thick grass and laid out the basket and the boards of delicious foods we had brought to snack on. We had a whole different blanket for playing on. Poppy dumped all of the toys out of her bag. It was a random assortment of dolls and little plastic animals and action figures, which looked like they had been beautified by Poppy’s creativity. All three of us rested on our stomachs to play as Poppy divvied out the toys and decided who should pretend to be who. We played and snacked and laughed until our stomachs and chests hurt from laughing so hard.

  Then the phone rang again, and it was Maleah. She never called twice in one day. Jake handed the phone over to Poppy, who answered it with an annoyed sounding, “Hey, Mom.” It sounded like she was listening for a minute and not saying anything before she handed the phone back to her dad.

  “I think Mom wants to talk to you,” she said. Her happy little face suddenly donned a look of concern.

  “Maleah, what is it? It’s a Saturday, and we’re—”

  I could only hear one side of the conversation, but I could hear the muffled yells of his crazy ex coming from the phone’s speaker. He listened without disconnecting the call, which was impressive, I thought. I would have hung up on anyone who screamed at me over the phone like that. When he finally ended the call, he looked at Poppy.

  “Your mom wants to spend the day with you tomorrow.”

  “Why?” Poppy asked.

  I agreed with her; I wanted to know why, too. Maleah had never requested to spend the day with Poppy before. Usually, it was like pulling teeth just to get her to call Poppy on the phone.

  “She thought that you sounded a little off on the phone,” he said. “And she wants to see you to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I didn’t sound off,” Poppy pouted.

  “I agree,” I said in support of Poppy. “She sounded happy.”

  That was a big change for Poppy, and I could see all too clearly where this was headed. Maleah had gotten used to Poppy being so unhappy and so desperate to talk to her, that when the day finally came that Poppy was happy over the phone instead of sounding so miserable because she missed Maleah, Maleah didn’t know how to take it. I was betting that it made her jealous and thus the reason that she needed to come and pull Poppy away for a day.

  “No, you didn’t,” Jake conferred. “You sounded perfectly fine. But since your mom is usually never here, and since she really wants to spend time with you tomorrow, then I think you should spend the day with her.”

  “But we had plans!” Poppy said as she got glassy-eyed. It was like Maleah just wanted to do whatever she could to hurt this poor child the most. “Annika and I were going to make paper doll silhouettes and then use them as shadow puppets to tell stories. I don’t want to spend the day with mom.”

  Jake looked at her in shock. I didn’t think he ever expected to hear those words come out of Poppy’s mouth. He looked pleased that Poppy was finally happy enough not to need her mom here, but he also looked worried. I tried to help.

  “It’s okay, Poppy,” I interjected. “We can save those plans for when you get back home tomorrow night. Shadow puppets are always way more fun in the dark anyway. You can go have a fun day with your mom, and then when you get back, we can have a fun night with the shadow puppets. Besides, by that time, your dad will be done with his work, and he can play with us, too. Maybe we can make him a bridge troll puppet to use.”

  “Okay,” Poppy said reluctantly.

  I think the bridge troll idea was what at least got her to agree to it without a meltdown. We played some more, and then Poppy decided to take a break to go on the swings for a bit before it was time to leave the park and head home. I promised her that we could continue some playtime in her room beneath the magical lights tonight after she took her bath. After Poppy was outside of earshot, I talked to Jake about the phone calls from Maleah.

  “She’s jealous,” I said while we watched Poppy swing from our spots of the blanket.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “It’s not fair to Poppy.”

  “I know that, too,” he said with a disheartened stare at her pumping her legs on the swing. “But there’s nothing I can do about it. I just hope that her jealousy prompts her to want to spend a good day with Poppy and isn’t just some sort of manipulative ploy for attention.”

  I hoped that, too, but I think we both knew that wasn’t likely the case. “Well, no matter what, we’ll fix it when Poppy gets home tomorrow. There’s nothing some shadow puppets and ice cream can’t fix.”

  Jake smiled at me, but we both knew that wasn’t true, either. There were a lot of things that shadow puppets and ice cream couldn’t fix, and this was definitely one of them.

  When Poppy got down off the swings, we packed up and got ready to go. She held onto Jake’s hand as we walked to the car and was pretty quiet on the ride home.

  She took a bath while Jake and I put away all of the things from the picnic. When it seemed to be taking her a long time to come down from the bath, I went up to check on her and found that she had already finished and crawled into bed.

  “Are you feeling all right?” I asked as I walked into her room and over to her bed. “It’s not even eight o’clock yet.”

  “I know. Yeah, I feel fine.”

  I scrunched my face into an “I don’t really believe you” look and got her to crack.

  “I don’t want to go tomorrow,” she said as she pulled her bear up
by her face.

  “But you love your mom, and you’ve been missing her like crazy,” I said as I tried to help ease the situation from the reverse end of things this time.

  “I know, I was just looking forward to hanging out with you and dad tomorrow.”

  “Well, now you get to hang out with both. Think of it like having two days in one. Do you want your dad to come up and read you a story tonight?”

  “No thanks, I think I’m just going to go to bed now.”

  “Okay,” I said as I went to go turn her light off. As soon as the overhead light was off, all of the nightlights drenched the room in the familiar soft-pink glow that made the space feel warm and safe.

  “Goodnight, Poppy,” I said as I got ready to walk out of the room.

  “Annika?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Can you come here for a minute?”

  I walked back over to the side of her bed as she got up onto her knees with Bear in her hand. I stood there in disbelief as she wrapped her arms around my waist and gave me a hug. I hugged her back and was so happy that it made my eyes start to sting with tears. When she let go, and she and Bear lay back down in the bed, I pulled the blankets up around her, and she snuggled in.

  “Goodnight, Poppy,” I whispered.

  I turned to walk to the door and saw Jake standing in the doorway with a huge smile on his face. When I reached him, he wrapped his arms around my back and kissed me. I worried about Poppy seeing, but she was facing the other way in her bed and had probably already fallen asleep with how tired she had looked after the park. Plus, I found myself completely unable to resist kissing Jake when he put his mouth over mine. When we pulled apart and both turned around to give one last look over at Poppy in bed, we were both surprised to see her turned around and watching us with open eyes and a wide smile. Her bear was sitting straight up in her arms and staring at us, too.

  “I knew it,” she said with a smile and a happy gleam in her eyes. “I told you that he liked you, too.”

  Although we were both a little worried about the fact that Poppy had seen us together and that I obviously wasn’t just the nanny anymore, I think we were both also very happy and relieved to see that she didn’t seem upset by it in the least. In fact, Poppy seemed glad about it. Tomorrow would be another day with other problems and issues to deal with, but for tonight it all just seemed perfectly magical as Jake took my hand to hold, and we said goodnight to Poppy before going to bed.