by Zoe Chant
The living room was very quiet and dark. The light was coming from the kitchen, where he heard soft clinking and then a voice muttering quietly.
Dan arrived in the doorway and found a smallish woman with her hair pulled back in a dark ponytail, bent over and rummaging through a cabinet.
Ah. This must be Derek's mate Gaby. He hadn't actually met her yesterday. She had come home while he was out with Derek in the barn, being shown the animal-related chores, and by the time they were back in the house, Gaby was upstairs taking a nap. According to Derek, she worked extremely early hours at the bakery these days and was sometimes in bed as early as 7 p.m.
"Where did I put that pastry cutter?" Gaby muttered under her breath. "Come on, it's gotta be here somewhere." She straightened up, still carrying on her inner monologue. "I can always ask Mom where the—AAAAAAAA!"
Dan jumped back. "Sorry!" he said hastily.
Gaby clapped a hand over her mouth. She held very still. Dan started to open his mouth. Gaby shook her head vigorously and pointed a finger toward the ceiling. Confused, Dan stood still too, and then he heard a faint, wailing cry from upstairs.
"Uh," he said sheepishly. "Sorry."
"I'm the one who woke her," Gaby said. She swiped a hand across her hair, smoothing it back into the ponytail. She was small but very intense. "Do you always sneak around? I'm guessing you're Dan. Derek told me about you." Her gaze dropped to the stump of his right arm. Her eyebrows went up a little, but she didn't say anything, which was almost worse than if she had.
"Uh, yeah," he said, feeling intensely self-conscious. The baby was still crying upstairs. "Listen, I'll get that. I think it's my job now. Okay?"
Gaby hesitated, then nodded, but as he went upstairs, he was aware of her quiet, padding footsteps following him. He liked that about her. He wouldn't have wanted a stranger picking up his baby unsupervised the first time, either.
Derek's tour of the house yesterday had included the upstairs, but in the dark Dan had to pause for a moment, even with acute shifter night vision, to remind himself where everything was. The wailing came from a bedroom to his left with an open door. At the end of the hall, the master bedroom door was cracked open. From behind it, there was rustling, and Derek groaned sleepily, "I'm up, I'm up."
"Don't worry about it," Dan said quietly, not wanting to wake up the other kids. "I'm on it."
"He's on it," Gaby echoed, sounding a little baffled, as a drowsy-looking Derek appeared in the bedroom doorway in boxers and a football T-shirt.
Dan went into the baby's room. A nightlight shaped like a butterfly glowed dimly in the corner. By that light and his own night vision, he found his way to the crib. Lulu, in a white onesie covered in blue flowers, had kicked off her covers and was thrashing and crying.
"Hush, baby," Dan murmured. He had a moment of low-key panic when he wasn't sure if he could pick her up one-handed, or if he trusted himself to pick her up that way without dropping her. But then it passed. He had handled belligerent drunks one-handed. He'd learned to shave and brush his teeth and take the lids off of jars. He could handle one not-very-big baby.
He dipped a hand under her and scooped her up, bringing her against his shoulder. It worked beautifully. He used the stump of his other arm as a light prop for extra security, but didn't really need it. It was years since he'd held a baby, but his body still knew exactly what to do. He cuddled her against his shoulder, and her crying settled down into tiny hiccups and then silence.
Turning around, he saw Derek and Gaby in the doorway, Derek with his arm around his mate's shoulders.
"Yeah," Gaby said after a moment. "I think this is going to work out just fine."
Gaby had to head off to work, and Derek went back to bed. Lulu cried every time Dan put her down, so he carried her with him while he moved around in the Rugers' kitchen, starting coffee and familiarizing himself with the kitchen's contents.
It was strange to be in someone else's kitchen like this. He reminded himself that this was his job now. At least until the security agency got off the ground and they had to work out some other arrangement. Not exactly how he would have seen his life going, but right now, with Lulu's soft little baby head nestled under his chin, smelling of powder and baby shampoo, he would take this in a heartbeat over being a bouncer at some hole-in-the-wall nightclub run by a douchebag.
He had to put Lulu down in order to actually do anything, in his one-armed state. He took her back to the guest bedroom with him, turned on the light, and laid her on the bed. Lulu lay there, kicking her legs, and stared at him with her wide-eyed milky baby stare while he put on his prosthesis.
It was a fairly quick process now that he'd done it so often: a little baby powder on the stump to stop it from chafing, a soft stump sock to cushion it, and then the stump fit into a plastic socket above the prosthetic arm's elbow joint, and the control straps went around his upper body.
Those straps could ache and dig in after a long day of picking things up. When he had mentioned this to his physical therapist at the VA, she had said wryly, "I know it's not quite the same thing, but let me tell you how good it feels to take an underwire off after a sixteen-hour workday. It never gets fun, but you can get used to it." And then she showed him some little adjustments to take the pressure off the straps when he needed to rest the skin underneath. And she was right, he had gotten used to it and hardly noticed the pressure of the straps anymore, except at the end of the day when he was tired anyway.
Lulu watched the whole thing with her fist jammed into her mouth.
"What do you think, kiddo?" he asked her, and scooped her up again.
She snuggled against his shoulder and looked around, kicking her legs a little.
"Right. Let's go make some breakfast."
In the living room, he found a playpen and slid it into the edge of the kitchen, where he laid her on a blanket. She was perfectly calm, he found, as long as she could see him. It was only when he got out of her sight that she started to fuss and cry.
He had coffee ready and breakfast cooking by the time Derek and the other kids came downstairs.
"Wow," Sandy said. The kid was nine, big-eyed and adorable and just starting to get gawky. "You're like a male nanny."
"Alejandro Diaz Ruger," Derek began sternly.
Dan found himself grinning. "It's all right, I don't mind. That is what I am."
"Can I look?" Sandy asked, and when Dan nodded, he came over to examine Dan's prosthesis. Dan showed him how the clamps—technically a pair of curved metal hooks—opened and closed. "Whoa. Cool."
"Don't bother the man if he tells you to stop, Sandy," Derek said. He was carrying a sleepy Mina against his shoulder, her legs in little unicorn-covered tights dangling on either side of his thick forearm. He went over and fetched a piece of toast from a plate where Dan had been buttering them.
"I really don't mind," Dan said. And it wasn't just talk. He had found that he preferred kids' honest curiosity to the way that adults edged around the topic of the prosthesis and didn't really want to bring it up. "So what kind of things are you into, Sandy? You like sports?"
Sandy lit up. "I'm on the softball team."
They chatted about sports while Dan finished making breakfast and set the table. Derek settled Mina in her highchair and kept casting glances at Dan bustling around the kitchen.
In the playpen, Lulu began to fuss.
"She might be hungry," Derek said. "Sandy, go get one of your sister's bottles, okay?"
Sandy dashed off. While he was gone, Derek remarked, "You know, I gotta say, I had to ease into all of this myself. Didn't have a clue about it in the beginning. I wasn't expecting you to be a natural like this."
"Told you I was good at it."
Derek laughed. "You know, I think Gaby's right, but then, my mate's a smart lady. This is gonna work out fine."
It was a Saturday, so they had a leisurely morning. Sandy worked on a bit of homework while Dan did the dishes and Derek put Lulu down for a nap.
>
It was so homey and domestic that Dan could almost forget, for whole minutes at a time, that this wasn't his home. It was someone else's borrowed domesticity that he was enjoying.
He gave in, for a few minutes, to imagining that his mate was here. That this was his house, his kids.
But no, that didn't feel right. It wasn't his house and it wasn't his kids. He was a guest in someone else's warm, cozy family life. And as much as he appreciated them welcoming him in, he could never forget that they weren't his family and he didn't belong.
"Whoa," Sandy said from the doorway, and giggled.
Dan looked around. "What's up, kiddo?"
"I was looking for Dad. I couldn't figure out this math problem." Sandy waved the math page in the air, but his gaze was fixed on Dan's prosthesis. "Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh, just—what's that for?"
"Oh, right, that." Dan looked down at the prosthesis. "It keeps it dry."
He had found a pair of heavy-duty dishwashing gloves under the sink and stuck one of them over the end of the prosthesis. This wasn't something he'd learned from his physical therapist; it was a trick he had figured out himself the first time he had to try to figure out how to do something in the sink without soaking the clamps. Just because the prosthesis could get wet didn't mean it was good for it to be submerged for long periods of time.
"Oh. That makes sense. I'm sorry I laughed."
"Don't be," Dan said. He grinned, and flicked the rubber glove, making the bright yellow fingers wobble as if they were full of Jell-o. "It looks completely ridiculous, you're right. Hey, forget the math. C'mon over here and help me dry. That part's still hard."
"Dad never dries the dishes," Sandy said, but he grabbed a dish towel and joined Dan at the sink.
"Yeah, well, I'm the nanny, so—" So I don't get to half-ass it, was on the tip of his tongue, but then it occurred to him that the kind of friendly trash-talking he was used to doing with his ex-military buddies might not go over so well to a nine-year-old. "So it's my job to do that part too."
"You want me to do your job?" Sandy said. "Do I get paid?"
"You've got the makings of a great lawyer in your future," Dan said, and handed him a dish.
He was a little surprised at himself, finding how easy it was to smile at the kids and settle into an easy rapport with them. Derek had a really great little family here. Dan hoped that Derek knew how good he had it. But of course he did; Derek wasn't a guy who would ever take his family for granted.
"Is it really called that?" Sandy asked. He stared at the plate Dan handed him and then began to scrub it clumsily with the towel. "A nanny, if it's a guy."
"Why not? I don't think there's a specific guy term. You could call me an au pair," Dan added, dredging up the term from some news story he'd seen. Au bear, he added in his head, with a grin he kept to himself.
"Manny," Sandy said.
"I'm not calling myself a manny, you can bet your bottom dollar on that."
Sandy giggled. "We could make up a word for it."
"Like what? Like ... doodle-lally?"
Sandy snort-laughed. "I'm not gonna tell the kids at school you're our doodle-lally."
Dan nudged him. "You got a better word, then?"
"Ummmm ... well, Dad calls himself the chief cook and bottle-washer, sometimes."
"Does that make me the assistant cook and bottle-washer?"
"You're right," Sandy said. "That's not better." He hesitated, looking down at the cup he was drying, and placed it beside its fellow cups. "Do you have kids?"
"No," Dan said, with a fierce twinge. "Not any of my own."
"How did you learn to do all of this, then?"
"Hey, these are useful skills for any man to have. You should learn them too." When Sandy looked skeptical, Dan went on, "Listen, I bet your mom is so glad that your dad knows how to do all of these things."
"She had to teach him," Sandy said.
"Well then, he's a good student, and imagine how happy your future girlfriends will be when they don't have to teach you because you already know."
Sandy made a face at the mention of girlfriends. He was quiet for a little while, drying dishes, in the pensive way of a kid with something on his mind. Finally he said, "Derek's not my real dad. I mean, not my birth dad."
"Oh," Dan said. He hadn't known that. Although thinking back on it, he should have realized. Derek hadn't had a kid back when Dan had known him, hadn't even had a family on his radar. "Do you think of him as your dad anyway?"
"I guess he is. I don't really remember my real dad. He died when I was just a baby. Mom says I don't have to call Derek my dad if I don't want to, but ..." He lifted a narrow little shoulder in a shrug. "I got used to it."
"Ah, well, I guess he thinks of you as his son too," Dan said, looking down at the kid's bristling dark hair, with a cowlick that stuck up in the back. He felt completely out of his depth; he hadn't anticipated having a conversation this emotionally complicated with a nine-year-old.
But sometimes kids just hit you with stuff like that out of the blue. He found himself saying, "You asked how I learned all of this. It was in foster care, actually. Taking care of littler kids. I never knew my dad, either."
"What happened to him?" Sandy asked, looking up quickly.
"He died. Both of my parents, a very long time ago."
"Oh," Sandy said, and grinned hesitantly, a gap-toothed grin with a missing baby tooth at the edge. "I guess that's something we have in common."
"It sure is, kid."
He tried not to let the melancholy feeling drag him under, not on a bright Saturday like this, with the sun glittering on the snow outside. Together, he and Sandy cleaned the kitchen, not talking much. Sandy showed Dan where to put things away, and Dan set him to mopping down the top of the stove.
"Wow," Derek said from the doorway. "You've got him doing chores already."
"It's not chores," Sandy declared promptly. "Dan's showing me how to do stuff. Dad, what do you call Dan?"
"What?" Derek said blankly, looking mildly panicked.
"He asked me earlier if I was a nanny," Dan said.
"Oh. Uh."
"I told him we should make up our own word for it. Or," Dan said, shrugging as he folded a dish towel with quick flicks of his good hand, "we could just go with nanny. It's probably not going to do much for me on the dating front, but you never know."
"Are you wearing a dish glove on your, uh—"
"It keeps it dry, Dad," Sandy declared with the confidence of a kid who had learned a new fact and needed to share it.
"Right," Derek murmured. "Listen, Dan, I was thinking—when the girls are up from their nap, do you want to take the kids into town for a while? You can get to know the place a little, and Sandy can show you where everything is. You can get lunch for them—I'll pay for it, obviously—and pick up a few groceries that we need. If you're good with that."
"Sure," Dan said, easygoing. Why not? This was his life now. There were worse things; he had just been through a few of them. And he wouldn't mind looking around the cute little downtown that he had briefly glimpsed when the bus dropped him off.
His bear seemed eager at the idea of looking around the town. Dan wasn't sure why, but he decided to roll with it. Maybe just being out of the city and closer to the woods was making his bear more active.
Derek gave him the keys to the family's all-wheel-drive, winter-capable Subaru. "You ever drive one of these before?" Derek asked.
"I know how to drive, man. I even know how to drive in snow. And if that's a sideways way of asking if I can drive at all," Dan said, "the answer is yes."
"I wasn't trying to—" Derek began uncomfortably.
"If you want to know if I can do something, just flat out ask, okay? The answer is probably yes. Yes, I can drive. I can wash dishes. I can button my shirt. I learned to do all of this stuff at the VA. I don't mind being asked. Just don't make a big deal about it."
"Yeah, don't make a big deal about it, Dad," Sandy cal
led from the entryway, where he was putting his coat on.
"Well, that's me told then," Derek said. He was down on one knee, getting Mina into her cute little pink coat. "Do you want to take the baby? You don't have to. I can keep her here with me; just one kid isn't going to be that much of an issue for getting work done."
From what Dan knew about babies, that probably wasn't true. "Nah, I can take her, if it's okay to take her out in the cold. I don't know how cold-proof babies that little are."
"She's fine. You can switch the car seat to carry her around and put a blanket over her, or use the front carrier." Derek looked up. "Uh, you haven't ever put a baby in a car seat, have you?"
"I have a big girl seat," Mina declared. Her fist was firmly clenched on her Sparkle Pony again, making it difficult to get through the sleeve of her coat. "Lu has a baby seat."
"Yeah, I'm gonna need a crash course in this," Dan admitted.
So Derek walked him through Car Seats 101, and they packed up a bag of things for Lulu and got her into a warmer onesie too. By the time they were done with all of this, Dan was starting to feel like he was getting outfitted for a mission to the North Pole rather than taking three kids shopping for the afternoon.
"Yeah," Derek said at the look on Dan's face, buckling Lulu into her car seat through the SUV's open back door. The air was sharp and cold, probably right around freezing; the sun was warm on their shoulders, but there was a slight breeze with a bite to it. "Welcome to my world. You don't have to jump in on the deep end here, you know. You can just hang out around the house today and go into town later."
"I want to go to town," Sandy declared.
"Pal, until you have a driver's license, that's not your call."
"Nah, I'm up for it," Dan said. "It'll be good to get out a little and see where things are."
"It's easy to get to, anyway." Derek straightened up and pointed. "You probably know this since you came out here yesterday, but just turn right on the road and it takes you straight into downtown. Parking's free, so you can just find a space and then walk around. The supermarket is on the edge of town by the highway. Sound good?"