Mommy for Hire

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Grady stopped to hold the door for them and then turned to shut it, noticing as he did so that his gallant action gave him a clear view all the way to the rear of the store, where three pedestals were located.

  Standing on one was Savannah, in a pale yellow dress with a ribbon sash, perfect for her age. She was playing with a wreath of flowers on her head, looking happier than he had seen her in a long time.

  On the pedestal next to her was an ethereal vision in white satin. The world slowed down. Nothing existed but this moment in time. He stood rooted in place as he gazed at the stunning beauty who had become such an evocative presence in their hues.

  Chapter Ten

  “I want you to put a wreath in your hair, too!” Savannah said, giggling.

  “I already have a veil,” Alexis protested, feeling a little silly—and a little magical—in the gorgeous off-the-shoulder, embroidered wedding gown.

  “Pretty pretty pretty please!” Savannah jumped up and down on the pedestal next to hers. “I want us to match!”

  “Then that’s what you shall have, my little princess.” Alexis stepped down off her pedestal. Savannah did the same. Closing the distance between them, Alexis gathered her train in both hands and bent down, in a deep curtsy. Grinning, Savannah stood on tiptoe, and with all the reverence of a flower girl assisting a bride, gently laid the wreath of flowers on top of Alexis’s hastily upswept hair.

  Finished, Savannah stepped back to admire her handiwork, then clapped her hands together. “Now you look really pretty!”

  Silly was more like it, with a tiara and veil perched on the back half of her head, a wreath of flowers slanting down over her forehead. Still, Alexis couldn’t help but laugh aloud. She had forgotten what it was like to let go of life’s problems and difficulties and just do whatever made her happy.

  She bent down and gathered Savannah into a heartfelt hug. “You look incredibly pretty, too, sweetheart.”

  “This is the dress I want to wear to my graduation,” Savannah declared, ‘because it’s the color I like the mostest.”

  Alexis stepped back to admire her once again. “I think that’s a very good choice, Savannah. You look very pretty in yellow.”

  “You both look very pretty,” a male voice interjected.

  In unison, Savannah and Alexis turned toward the sound. Grady stood there, smiling as widely as his daughter.

  Alexis blushed as she hadn’t since she was a gawky teenager.

  “This time we tried on dresses together!” Savannah said. “And it was way more fun, Daddy.”

  “I can see that,” he murmured, an appreciative glimmer in his eyes.

  Lynn, who’d been busy with another customer, came bustling back. “How are we doing?” she asked.

  Alexis confirmed the purchase with both father and daughter, then said, “We’re going to take the yellow dress for Savannah.”

  “Are you going to get yours, too?” the child asked.

  “Not this time,” she answered.

  Savannah’s face fell. Then she perked up. “Does this mean we get to come back and try on dresses again?”

  Aware of Grady’s eyes upon her, Alexis blushed all the more. “Maybe the next time you need a special dress,” she allowed.

  TO CELEBRATE THE successful purchase of a graduation dress, they stopped by the park to let Savannah romp in the shady playground. While Alexis lounged on a bench, watching her race over climbing equipment with a group of other kids, Grady ambled off to purchase cold drinks for all of them.

  He returned with three tropical slushies. Savannah ran over to take a long drink of hers, then left the icy beverage with her daddy while she returned to her new friends.

  Grady dropped down beside Alexis and stretched out his legs. The look in his eyes made her flush from the inside out. “You can stop blushing now,” he teased.

  Alexis focused her gaze straight ahead. “You can stop looking at me as if you’re still seeing me in that gown.”

  “Can’t help it.” He shrugged and glanced away. “You were gorgeous.”

  Alexis took a pull on the straw, enjoying the tropical fruit flavor, the crushed ice melting on her tongue. “I know I shouldn’t have tried it on. I just wanted to distract Savannah, wipe out the memory of our disastrous shopping trip this morning. And I know how much she likes playing dress-up, so when she insisted I try on a gown alongside her, I said yes.”

  His gaze returned to hers. “You don’t have to explain.”

  She knew that. So why was she? Why did it matter so much how Grady McCabe saw her?

  His dark brows lifted slightly and one corner of his mouth turned up in that lopsided smile she found way too sexy for her own good. “I enjoyed seeing you in a wedding dress. It gave me an idea of what you must have looked like the first time around.”

  Not quite. “Scott and I didn’t have a big wedding.”

  Clearly, that surprised him. And she knew why. Most self-avowed romantics like herself insisted on them. “We eloped.”

  “Is that what you wanted?”

  Yes and no. “I really wanted to be with him,” Alexis said softly.

  “Why do I think there’s more to this story?” he mused.

  Because there was. Aware she had never talked about this with anyone, Alexis shrugged, as if it hadn’t really mattered, when she knew, deep down, that it had. “He was pushing us to move in together.” And at the time, she had lacked the confidence to stand up to him. “Economically, it made sense. We were both just out of college, and neither of us could afford much on our own. Together, with both of us working, we could afford a nice two bedroom apartment and two decent cars, and to start saving for a down payment on a house. And he thought eloping was the most romantic way of all to marry.”

  Grady’s face softened. “And you went along with it to please him. Circumventing what you really wanted—a fairy-tale wedding.”

  Alexis sipped her drink and looked into his eyes. “It seems Savannah and I have that in common. We both love really fancy dresses.”

  They fell into a thoughtful silence once more.

  “Any regrets?” Grady asked, gauging her reaction.

  Alexis shook her head. “I’ve always believed that things work out the way they should. Forgoing the big wedding gave us another year of marriage. I thought about that a lot as Scott battled leukemia.”

  “Next time,” Grady said quietly, with understanding reflected in his deep blue eyes, “maybe you’ll get what you want.”

  “I will,” Alexis said. Or she wouldn’t marry. She turned toward him, her knee nudging his thigh slightly in the process. “What about you?” she asked, shifting slightly on the bench, so they were no longer touching. “Did you and Tabitha have a formal wedding?”

  Grady nodded, and waved at Savannah, who was still happily monkeying around on the climbing gym. “We married here in Fort Worth.”

  Alexis regarded him curiously. “Was it everything you wanted?”

  “Except for the location.” He shrugged. “I would have preferred having it in my hometown, but I deferred to her wishes.”

  Alexis appreciated his gallantry. “Seems you and I have that in common.” A habit of putting others before themselves….

  “As well as something else,” Grady said.

  She shot him a baffled look.

  “When I saw you in that dress today, laughing and hugging Savannah, I realized it’s not just my little girl who wants me to be married again,” Grady explained. “I want that, too.”

  ALEXIS SWALLOWED, not sure she’d heard right. “You’re serious?” she said, when at last she could speak again.

  Grady nodded. He waved at Savannah, who was now sitting atop the fort-style play gym, talking to two other little girls and a boy. Although they had never met before, they seemed to be having a good time.

  His expression sober, Grady continued, “It made me think how much Savannah and I have both enjoyed having you with us this last week, helping with homework and dinner and bedtime and
dress shopping. I realized how much we would be shortchanging ourselves if I married someone under the guidelines I originally set up with your matchmaking service.”

  At last he had come to his senses! Alexis thought jubilantly, aware how much easier that would make her job, professionally speaking. Emotionally was another matter. It was going to be tough for her to watch him fall in love with someone else. Harder still to watch another woman step into the intimate day-to-day activity of Grady and Savannah’s lives. And yet she knew he would be so much better off if he let himself be loved again, so she had to be happy about that.

  Determined to do the right thing and help make that happen, she forced herself to be the premiere matchmaker he had hired. “So you want to change your requirements in a potential spouse? Redo your profile and questionnaires and video interview?”

  “Not necessarily,” he said, with that Difficult Man note in his tone again.

  Her emotions awhirl, Alexis tightened her grip on the drink clutched in her hands. “Well, I guess I can just interview you about what you want in a wife, and make the adjustments myself.” It wasn’t the usual procedure, but then what about her relationship with Grady had been ordinary thus far?

  He turned toward her and draped his arm along the back of the park bench behind her. “To tell you the truth, I’d like to bypass the process altogether and just go with what I know, what has been proven to work.”

  She studied him, more confused than ever.

  “I’d like,” Grady said, “to go with you.”

  OKAY, GRADY THOUGHT, that hadn’t come out right. But maybe there was no correct way to say it.

  As the meaning of his words sank in, Alexis’s mouth dropped open. Then slammed shut.

  He held up a hand before she could jump to the wrong conclusion. “Obviously, that’s not going to work,” he admitted. “You want someone who still has all the hearts and flowers stuff in him.” The kind of guy who would give her that big wedding and enjoy every second of it.

  She squirmed uncomfortably.

  Afraid she would bolt, given half a chance, he reached over and laid his hand on her arm. “And I want a woman who’s not going to ask me to pretend to have stars in my eyes anymore,” he said practically. “Unfortunately, there’s no way to fix that.” He dropped his voice a notch, regretting that didn’t have half her optimism where his personal life was concerned.

  “And that’s a shame, because we get along really well in every other way.” So well that he wanted nothing more than to make love to her again—without restraint this time.

  “Savannah adores you,” he added, “and I can see you adore her, too.”

  As if unable to argue with any of that, Alexis looked away. Guilt flooded Grady when he saw the sentimental glimmer in her eyes. This was exactly why he needed to stay away from her.

  He forced himself to continue. “But one good thing has come out of this.”

  She turned back to him, and Grady lifted his hand from her arm. “The three of us have the start of a beautiful friendship. The kind that can last a lifetime. And I want it to last a lifetime, Alexis.” He wanted her to know he could always be there for her, even though as yet she’d let him do precious little for her.

  For a second, she looked as if they had been dating and he had just tried to break up with her. Which was kind of funny, because it was starting to feel that way to him, too. Again, not what he intended…

  Then she shook her head, moved slightly away from him and visibly pulled herself together. Which was good, because he needed things to be friendly and platonic between them. In an attempt to lighten the mood, which had gotten way too serious, he teased, “If we could just clone you…”

  She flashed him a feisty smile. “Or make a few slight adjustments and clone you.”

  He couldn’t help it—he laughed.

  “But,” he drawled, while Alexis made a great show of sighing, “since that is out of the question, at least for now, back to finding me a wife who will accept my limitations.”

  Alexis plucked her BlackBerry out of her purse. “You want to start looking right away?”

  Grady thought about it. Although he had realized today he wanted to be married again, the thought of spending time with another woman besides Alexis just did not appeal. “No,” he said firmly. “That’s going to have to wait until after the Fourth of July Day holiday.”

  Alexis squared her shoulders, as if preparing to do battle. “So we’re talking two weeks from now?” she inquired crisply.

  Grady nodded, apprehensive that in trying to be as honest as possible with her, he had nonetheless taken a grave misstep. “At the very least.”

  ALEXIS WAS IN THE OFFICE Sunday afternoon, filling out her time card for the previous week, when her boss walked in. “You’ve been logging a lot of hours lately,” she noted. “How’s it going with Grady McCabe?”

  Alexis rocked back in her chair. “He decided yesterday he’s no longer just looking for a mommy for his little girl. He wants to be married.”

  “Hmm. That’s good.” Holly Anne pulled up a chair. “Isn’t it?” she asked, studying Alexis.

  Doing her best to put aside her own tumultuous emotions, she picked up a pen and rapped it on the top of her desk. “I haven’t a clue.”

  Holly Anne ran a hand through her dark hair. “What’s the problem?”

  “I just…” Alexis sighed and plucked at the crease on her cotton capris. “I don’t know that I can please this guy.”

  Her boss shrugged. “You’ve had difficult clients before. What’s different this time?”

  I think I might be falling in love with him. Once again, Alexis pushed the unwanted emotion away. She had bills to pay, a promotion to earn. She had to get a grip. “Nothing, I suppose, except…He’s been so determined not to get hurt again that he hasn’t dated anyone since his wife died, five years ago. If he’s on the rebound, it might be impossible to find a match for him that will last.”

  “So if we do match Grady McCabe and it doesn’t work out…” Holly Anne theorized, quickly seeing the business implications of that. Alexis had already had one socially prominent couple that she’d matched—Russ and Carolyn Bass—file for divorce this month.

  “I don’t want to fail,” Alexis said. For more reasons than I can count. “I don’t want to put his daughter through that. Raise her hopes that she’d finally get the mommy she wants, only to have it all fall apart in the end. I think that might be devastating for Savannah.” Almost as hurtful as it had been for Alexis herself, the previous day, when Grady told her he had decided he wanted a full relationship with a woman again—just, for obvious reasons, not with her.

  Alexis’s boss shrugged again. “I see your point regarding his daughter, but I still think you can do it.”

  Nothing like a little pressure.

  “When is his next match supposed to take place?”

  Alexis stood and went over to her bookshelves, pretending to look for something. “He doesn’t want to set anything up for two weeks.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  She picked up a stack of client videos and returned to her desk, facing her boss again. “He still wants me spending time with him and his daughter. He thinks the better I know them, the better a match I’ll eventually make for them.”

  “I’m not certain that’s necessary,” Holly Anne said. Assured everything was under control, she was already on her way out. She tossed her parting words over her shoulder. “But as long as you’re billing him for your time, and he’s paying, who are we to quarrel?”

  Who indeed? Alexis wondered.

  In the meantime, she would concentrate on her other clients, while she did her best to be pals with Grady and Savannah, but nothing more.

  “THANKS FOR GOING to this meeting with me,” Grady told Alexis, as they walked into the lobby of Miss Chilton’s Academy Monday morning.

  “Happy to do it,” Alexis murmured. She didn’t want to see Savannah treated unfairly any more than Grady did. And
it quickly became clear, as the closed-door session began, that was exactly what the headmistress had in mind.

  “Before we start—I’m curious.” Principal Jordan eyed Alexis with obvious disdain. “Why did you bring your matchmaker to this meeting, Mr. McCabe?”

  “Ms. Graham is also a family friend. She’s been working with Savannah on her homework issues and, I’m happy to report, it’s no longer the problem it was for a while. Savannah sits right down every day and does her work in five or ten minutes, and puts it in her backpack.”

  “I’m glad to hear she is behaving responsibly.” Principal Jordan paused. “However, as you know, that is not the only difficulty we have had with your daughter this spring. She’s still having quite a bit of trouble socially.”

  Grady’s jaw set. “Are we referring to the way the other little girls are picking on her?”

  Briefly taken aback by his blunt assessment of the situation, the administrator responded, “We’re referring to her apparent inability to hold her own in a convivial setting. Which is why we still think it would be wise for Savannah not to graduate with her classmates on Thursday afternoon, and instead repeat her kindergarten year.”

  Silence fell.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Grady said finally.

  Principal Jordan shook her head. “Quite the contrary.”

  “There’s no way I’m going to agree to this,” Grady stated, his expression grim. “She has done all the work, and earned the right to move on to first grade, along with all her friends.”

  Alexis admired the way he stood up for his daughter. It was exactly what she would have done.

  “That’s the problem,” the principal admitted with obvious discomfort. “Savannah doesn’t have many friends in her class. We were hoping—the other teachers and I—that it would be different next year.”

  “How? Can you guarantee there will be kinder, more em-pathetic girls in her class? Or just more of the same, tormenting her over her lack of a mother?”

  The administrator leaned across her desk. “I would thank you,” she said tightly, “not to refer to our students that way.”