The Contractor

by Sammi Franks

  I should’ve been honest with him. I should’ve told him that I had no idea what I was going to do tomorrow, let alone in a few weeks, let alone in a year. But there was something about him, something about this family, I wanted to be close to. And being needed after everything that happened with Stan was something I craved, something I yearned for.

  “Yes,” I told him. “You can depend on me. Like I said, job security.”

  7

  Will

  By the time Mo departed a little less than two weeks later, I no longer felt scared. Instead, I had felt hopeful. While Mo had been Thea’s last link to her mother, Beatrice seemed to fit in nicely. She’d spent the remainder of Mo’s time here by learning the routines. She had even begun to drive Thea to work with Megyn’s old car. She stayed long enough to tuck her in at night. And though I’d been reluctant at first, with a push, I’d started driving her back to Marlene’s once Thea was in bed.

  “Why?” I grumbled, the first time Mo suggested it. “This isn’t a date, she’s the nanny. Or she’s going to be. No need to let her think anything different.”

  “Well, maybe she has stuff…you know, belongings and you could start bringing them back with you. Then the move wouldn’t be such a big deal, such a huge change. It would be gradual and you could ease into it. I know you, Will Treadway.” She glared at me.

  I found it impossible to argue with her reasoning. She made sense. As much as I hated to admit it. So, I’d responded with a ‘fine’ and begrudgingly drove Beatrice home. Once she understood the plan, everything went much more smoothly than I could’ve anticipated.

  “This is everything,” she murmured while gesturing to the stack of bags and boxes. “I brought all my clothes over from England, of course. And my family shipped me the rest. It cost a small fortune.” Her chin nearly touched her chest and her cheeks flamed a bright pink. With a sigh, she looked up at me with big watery eyes. “I’ll need your help with changing over my visa, so I can stay.” She wrapped her arms around her body and shuddered slightly. “I came on the fiancé one and now I’ll have to stay on a work one.” She shrugged. “No matter. What’s done is done.”

  I don’t know what made me do it. Since Megyn’s passing, I hadn’t been playful in the least. Still, I leaned close and began to sing in Beatrice’s ear. “Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down…”

  She spun around and soon, she giggled and joined in on the song. We were dancing and laughing, the pain of our situations forgotten until Marlene popped her head into the room. “Don’t mind me. Just wondering what all the ruckus was about.” She leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms over her body. “I get it. You have your very own Mary Poppins.”

  “Well, I am British.” Beatrice curtsied.

  “And practically perfect in every way,” I chimed in with a grin that almost made my face hurt, since those muscles had seen little use in the last few years.

  Marlene’s eyes widened slightly and I suspected my happiness had positively shocked her. “I’ll let you get to it then,” she murmured as she slowly backed away.

  “I could take a couple of boxes back with me each night,” I offered. “Mo is packing up. You could unpack, or wait. It’s up to you.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate this. We’ll figure it out.” She nodded and we carried two boxes to my truck.

  Then I loaded them in the back and wandered over to my door. We stood there quietly staring at each other. I didn’t know what to do or how to say goodbye. So after several minutes of awkward silence, I finally blurted out, “I don’t know why, but I feel like this might just work.”

  Beatrice relaxed and a smile spread across her face. “I think so too.” She shrugged slightly and I couldn’t help but feel like there was more she wanted to say. In my mind, I heard a giant ‘for now’ hanging in the air between us. My breath caught in my throat and I reminded myself not to get too comfortable. Nothing about life was guaranteed except for taxes…and death. I’d grown accustomed to the pain of taxes, but I might never recover from Megyn’s death.

  “Well, I should go,” I mumbled awkwardly. “Early morning.”

  Thus our routine developed. We carried on like that for a good ten days while I drove her back to Marlene’s, grabbed boxes, and trudged back to my house. The place was uncomfortably busy for a guy who liked silence and order. The constant reminder of Mo’s departure ate at me. She’d taken to stacking boxes in my garage. I had no idea where she’d even acquired all that stuff.

  “Wedding is in three weeks, remember?” She began by way of explanation as I helped her load her car the morning of her departure. “I saw to it that Thea had her last fitting already. I’m taking my little flower girl’s dress with me so all you have to do is show up.”

  “Right,” I muttered. I wasn’t looking forward to the event, since I’d never been to a wedding without Megyn and now, with Max and Victoria’s plans, it appeared I’d be attending two.

  “I’ve invited Beatrice. So, she’ll be with you.” Mo shrugged like it was no big deal, but my stomach was in knots at the thought.

  “Oh. Yeah. Beatrice, huh?” I rubbed the back of my neck.

  Bumping into me intentionally, Mo laughed. “Well, I figured it was the least I could do. If she didn’t take this job and tolerate you, I wouldn’t be getting married.” She winked at me then threw herself in my arms for one last giant hug. “This is going to be great for all of us. You’ll see.”

  “What if it isn’t?” I grumbled.

  Mo chuckled before whispering, “Then it’s your fault.” Then she rushed to the car, started it, and sped away without looking back. Smart girl. She knew how to live. And in that moment, she’d never reminded me more of how happy I was with my wife.

  A second later, Thea and Beatrice emerged from the house, ready to drive to school. Thea bounded over for her hug while Beatrice offered me a smile and a wave. This was going to be my new normal. I had to make it work, or Mo was right, it would be my own damn fault.

  8

  Beatrice

  When Mo invited me to the wedding, I said ‘no.’ Technically, I said ‘no, thank you,’ but that was beside the point. The fact of the matter was, I couldn’t afford to go down to California, spend a ton of money on a nice dress, and pay for a hotel room. Mo refused to take ‘no’ for an answer and explained away all three of my dilemmas: Will would be going to California, since Thea was the flower girl and I could ride with him, no problem; I could buy a cheap dress from The Dress Shoppe in town, which sold beautiful dresses for any occasion for thirty dollars or less; and I could share a room with Will and Thea.

  Despite how I felt about sharing a room with Will, I found I could not successfully argue with her reasoning and finally agreed to attend. She clapped her hands together and pulled me into a tight hug. Mo was comfortable with random bursts of physical affection. I was getting used to it.

  The three weeks went by a lot faster than I originally anticipated. The wedding actually coincided with Thea’s spring break. We planned to drive down to California, which would take two days, and forced us to leave Thursday right after school rather than Friday. We hoped to get there early enough for us to have time for a nap and showers before getting ready and leaving.

  Will actually took five days off specifically for this wedding: two to drive down, two to drive home, and an extra day for recuperating. Since preparing for this trip was so challenging, I’d taken the day off from my job as a teaching assistant to focus on packing. Together, Will and I went directly to Thea’s school after packing the car with our luggage. The only thing we needed was her.

  Will managed to find a coveted parking spot outside of the school’s lot so we could avoid the pickup line. This also meant I was required to pick up Thea from the front, which was fine with me, considering I needed to stretch my legs anyway. And avoiding Will was a plus.

  Not that Will wasn’t a fantastic employer. He was - even though he worked a lot. My issue was he was terribly good-look
ing and, despite himself, charming. I had a comfortable upbringing back home and there were certain expectations of the sort of man I should be with: sophisticated, educated, wealthy. Things that weren’t actually as easy as that. Perhaps that was why I decided to run off with Stan without much thought. Stan did not tick off any box in my family’s list of expectations. Being with him, marrying him, was my little show of rebellion.

  And it completely backfired.

  While Will was nothing like Stan, he didn’t tick off any boxes either. And after what happened with Stan, the last thing I wanted was to fall for my employer and endure rejection when I wasn’t one of his priorities. And I knew I wouldn’t be. If he couldn’t even prioritize his daughter most days - whether it was because he was so busy at work or because he avoided her so he did not have confront with the fact that Thea looked just like her mother - there was no way I would even make that list.

  Which was perfectly fine.

  “I’ll be back,” I called to Will as I got out of the car, zipping up my olive-green jacket. It was cold for an April afternoon, and I wished I had brought my scarf with me.

  As I made my way up the hill of grass and over to the blue gates where Thea would emerge in ten minutes with her friends, my eyes caught sight of someone familiar.

  My heart stopped.

  What the hell was Stan doing here?

  He still looked ruggedly handsome with his dark blond hair and scruff covering the lower half of his face. He wore a light blue T-shirt and jeans. The cold didn’t look as though it affected him in any way. Probably because he was used to being on the ocean frequently and the closer one was to the ocean, the colder the temperature.

  I cleared my throat. I had no idea how to act. All of my exes were back in Pembroke. I never had to worry about running into them when I was home in Surrey so I never had to think about how to act.

  Maybe, if God was good, Stan wouldn’t recognize me. It was only then did I wish I had one of those makeovers where I cut my hair short and dyed the locks brown. I still looked like the same sad fool he broke up with months ago.

  “Beatrice?”

  I snapped my head up in his direction and found myself looking directly into Stan’s brown eyes.

  “Oh, Stan, hi, hello.” I clutched my hands behind my back, but I thought I looked awkward so I shoved them in my pockets. “Funny seeing you here.” I tilted my head. “Why are you here? Not that you don’t have a right to be here, of course. I just... Ahem.” I cleared my throat, but that didn’t work.

  “Do you work here?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “Why are you here?”

  Didn’t he know? If was he gone so often, did this piece of news didn’t reach him? Or, perhaps - and this seemed to be more likely - he simply didn’t care. It was unimportant so the information wasn’t worth retaining.

  “Stan, have you seen Aiden? We have to be getting to my Mom’s if we’re going to miss traffic.”

  I saw Susan Crawford walk up, hooking her arm around Stan’s waist.

  I paled.

  I hadn’t heard he started seeing Susan Crawford. Susan Crawford’s ex was a judge and the sheriff finally chased him out of town so she and her son were safe. Clearly, she had moved on with Stan, and Stan seemed much more domesticated with her than he ever had with me.

  He forced a tight-lipped smile and walked closer to the gate with Susan.

  The minute Thea came out, I was able to force a smile and lead her back to Will. California seemed wonderful now. I was looking forward to getting out of Washington, away from Stan and what could have been.

  9

  Will

  Beatrice sank into the car and covered her eyes with one hand.

  “That looked…incredibly uncomfortable,” I commented, hoping I sounded supportive, even though I’d tensed at their meeting. When she didn’t respond, I continued to make a freaking fool of myself. “Guess I don’t have to worry about losing you to Stan then?”

  Her jaw dropped open and she stared at me while I pulled out of the parking lot. “Lose me to Stan?” She finally managed to respond. Her cheeks had turned bright pink.

  “Why is Beatrice blushing?” Thea asked from her spot in the middle of the back seat.

  “Because I don’t know when to stop talking,” I responded honestly. I glanced at Beatrice nervously to see if she was paying attention. “What do you want to eat for dinner? If you tell me now, I can start watching for a place while we drive.”

  “French fries,” Thea squealed in excitement.

  Since Mo moved in after Megyn’s death and Beatrice was here now, Thea rarely ate at fast food restaurants. Getting to enjoy the treat on a road trip was particularly exciting. “What besides fries?” I asked with a laugh.

  “Um…a cheeseburger.” Her hands folded solemnly in her lap and I knew she’d made up her mind.

  “I sense I have a lot of leeway here,” I joked with Beatrice. “How about you? Any particular requests?”

  “No. I just can’t go too crazy. The dress I wanted only came in one size, my thin size, so there’ll be no fries here.” She glanced at Thea sadly. “Or burgers. I’m strictly salad until after the ceremony. Otherwise, I’ll embarrass myself…more than I did picking up the flower girl.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder for effect.

  “I’m sorry.” I sighed. “I don’t know what to say sometimes and maybe it would be better to say nothing at all instead of blurting out something stupid, but conversation is a skill I never truly mastered.”

  “Well, you couldn’t have been all bad at it. After all, you managed to snag your wife.” Beatrice grinned.

  “Megyn was…special.” I shrugged and stared out the windshield. This was one of those times I didn’t want to be reminded of her. Not when I was about to spend five nights in a hotel room and four days stuck in a car with Beatrice. “She never made me feel nervous. She was happy to blather on and have me just listen, which I could’ve done all day. The best times, though, were when we were quiet and cuddled together.” I sighed. “There were a lot of days like that at the end.”

  “How do you do it?” Beatrice shook her head, then glanced over her shoulder to see how much Thea was paying attention to us. My daughter had found the bag of books I’d put beside her seat and was engrossed in one of her first chapter books.

  “We have a good hour before she talks to us again,” I joked. “So, what can I do? It’d be nice to hear something I do well. After all, I spent the past two years with Mo enumerating all my flaws. You’ve been remarkably kind these past few weeks.” I smiled nervously. A few loose strands of her blonde hair had caught my eye and they were fluttering beside her face. For some reason, I wanted to reach out and brush them away from her cheek to get a better look at her eyes.

  “How do you hold it together? How do you recover from that kind of loss? I’m barely skating by after Stan. You saw how well that went back at the school.” Her cheeks flamed red again and she pressed the palms of her hands to them.

  “Well, with Stan, it’s more of a humiliation thing, right? Were you madly in love with him? Was he really the guy you wanted to spend forever with? Or was he just an adventure?” I tried to watch her for a reaction while still paying attention to the road.

  “That’s a lot of questions. And I noticed you offered zero answers,” she challenged. “But we have a long drive and I’m game for a ‘get to know you’ session, if you are.”

  “Okay,” I responded with a shrug. Then I swallowed hard, already nervous. This felt like a game of truth or dare. Every day with her was one giant dare; life dared me to ignore the attractive young woman living under my roof. Happiness dared me not to get attached. Love, however, offered the biggest dare of all: don’t fall for her. It has only been two years. How could I already be noticing other women? Only it wasn’t other women. In all this time, I had only noticed Beatrice.

  “Okay, so how do you do it? You never told me.” She bit her lip and studied me while she waited.

  “I had to.” I
jerked my head toward the back seat. “When I wanted to die, I had to live for both of us. So I turned off my emotions. I put one foot in front of the other. I forced myself to survive for Thea. Everything I do is for her…because of her…about her.”

  “That’s beautiful. Really it is.” She sighed.

  “Now you. Ready to answer me?” My brows arched hopefully.

  She nodded hesitantly. “You won’t judge me, right? I already feel badly enough about this situation. I think…I did want an adventure. I wanted a great love story. What’s bigger than traveling across an ocean? I think I was in love with the idea of what was supposed to be, because when I was faced with the reality of my situation, I didn’t even like it.” She frowned. “And life gets better day by day. I know this. It’s better because of you.”

  I wasn’t sure how to take her words. Better because of me. “The job, right? I’m glad you’re here for me…and Thea. You’re wonderful,” I admitted quietly. In my heart, something stirred.