Austen Box Set

by Hart, Staci

  I was the caregiver for my niece and nephew, and my payment was that I had a place to stay. But I received my other, more substantial income in the form of macaroni art and messy kisses.

  When I looked up from my phone, Rick was watching me.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  "Yes, I'm sorry. It's my sister — she needs help with the kids."

  He tried to smile. "Go."

  I reached for his hand. "I don't want to."

  "Don't worry. Tired."

  "I promised I'd stay."

  "S'okay." The words slurred together. "Go."

  I looked down into my lap, torn.

  "Elliot," he said, and when I met his cool, gray eyes again, they were full of understanding. "Go. M'okay."

  I let out a heavy breath. "All right. I'll come see you tomorrow, okay? I promise."

  He squeezed my hand, and I let him go, firing off messages to my sister and Sophie before packing my things, except the book, which I slipped under his hand. He flexed his fingers, trailing the canvas cover with his fingertips.

  I smiled and cupped his jaw, which was strong, just like Wade's. "I'll bring more tomorrow. How about Emerson?"

  "Yes, please."

  And then I kissed him on the forehead, smoothing his dark hair before I turned to leave, hating that I had to choose. But my family, those children, were my world, and I worried over what was going on at home that was so important that she'd interrupt this. Interrupt my time with Rick.

  So I hurried home, anxious about them, and when I blew through the door, I found a disaster zone.

  Toys were strewn all over the entryway, and Mary looked frantic, her dark hair in disarray and brown eyes wide. A crying Maven sat propped on her hip, and Sammy was in tow, his face smeared with jelly.

  "Thank God you're here," she said, passing Maven to me.

  She stopped crying the minute Mary let go of her.

  "What happened?" I asked as Sammy twisted away from her and ran down the hall.

  "Get back here!" she called, chasing him down, marching back over to me with him under her arm. "It's just been a mess ever since I walked in the door."

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. She'd been home an hour. "Where's Charlie? Did the kids have their snack?"

  She huffed, shifting to keep the wiggling boy in check. "He's in the office, working, just dumped them on me the second I walked through the door. Can you believe that?"

  "Shocking." I smiled at Maven, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "And the snack?"

  "Who knows, Charlie was on duty." She readjusted her grip on Sammy, but he thrashed, making monster noises.

  "I left him a list."

  She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you did. Doubt he read it. Here," she said, passing Sammy over. "It's bath time."

  I frowned at her as Sammy chanted Ellioooooot, Ellioooooot, over and over again, dragging the word out. "They ate, right?" He wrapped his arms around my neck and planted a sticky kiss on my cheek.

  Mary waved a hand, already turning to leave. "I didn't feel like cooking, so they had sandwiches."

  I nodded and moved to the stairs. "Sounds yummy," I said to Sammy, setting him down so I didn't topple over trying to carry them both up. I bent down to get eye level with him, smiling as I dipped a finger in the purple massacre on his cheeks, pretending to lick it. "Mmm. Grape?"

  He nodded, smiling wide. "With goldfishes!"

  I opened my mouth in mock surprise. "Goldfishes and grape jelly? What a feast."

  "It was good, good, good," he said, hopping up the stairs with each word.

  "Ready for a bath?" I asked Maven, whose nose was still red, her little finger hanging in her pouty, red lips. She nodded, and I kissed her on her cool cheek. "Then let's get cleaned up, shall we?"

  I followed the bounding four-year-old up the stairs and into the bathroom.

  The routine was automatic, easy, bringing me a little bit of joy with every action: making sure the water was just right, adding the bubbles, singing them silly Beatles songs — "Octopus' Garden" was their favorite, followed by "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." I stripped the sweet babies down and took care of them, washing them tenderly, and as they began to play on their own, my mind wandered.

  One whole hour, and she'd blown up my phone to get me home. Not even an hour — she'd barely been home at all when she texted me, put out I supposed because Charlie passed the kids off on her. Heaven forbid she cook or bathe them. I was hurt that she'd given up so easily, knowing I needed some time. And I'd already been late leaving because Charlie hadn't gotten home in time for me to leave with Sophie … I'd barely had any time with Rick tonight at all.

  I sighed as I straightened up the bathroom, putting the kids' dirty clothes in the hamper and getting fresh towels out from the linen closet.

  She had her reasons for being so unwilling to help. In part, it was bred in her by my father who indulged her at every opportunity — she'd always been this way. Past that, she was so busy at the hospital, and when she came home, she was tired and overwhelmed. Charlie too. He was an attorney and brought his work home with him nearly every night.

  I also made a quiet concession that they hadn't planned for this, even for each other. They'd only been dating a few months when she found out she was pregnant, and their solution was to get married. I thought they'd been in love, but the strain of the kids and their jobs was so much, and things had deteriorated over the years. It was another reason I was happy to help, hoping I could take some of the pressure off of them so they could get back to each other.

  I'd lived with them for nearly four years, since just after Sammy was born. My father moved to Miami with our younger sister, and Mary asked me to move in to help out. It was a perfect situation — I was in college at the time and needed a place to stay, and they'd just bought their brownstone, which had plenty of room. She offered me the guest room downstairs at the back of the house where I could look out on the patio and write.

  I jumped at the chance.

  Of course, as the years wore on, they came to depend on me more and more. And when I'd graduated with my literature degree, I didn't know what to do with it. Didn't know what to do with myself.

  The boldest thing I'd done since Wade left for the Army was to go to school. But even in doing that, I was still only going through the motions without an end game.

  He'd been my end game, and when things ended, the path of my life had been erased, left smudged and blurry. I hadn't found my way since.

  So it was easy, convenient, to be a live-in nanny, working my schedule around theirs. The kids were in private preschool three days a week, and I took care of them from the time I picked them up at three until they went to bed, and all day the rest of the time. Charlie and Mary always had places to be, benefit dinners and the opera and other sorts of social things — frankly, I lost track. And I enjoyed the solitude when they were gone.

  But before I knew it I was … stuck. I didn't think about it overly much, mostly because I didn't have a plan for the rest of my life and it was easier to just put it off. I felt no urgency — I had my degree but no idea what to do with it. And helping Mary gave me a sense of purpose, gave me a solution to a question I didn't want to answer myself.

  I pulled the plug on the old clawfoot tub and helped the kids out, drying off Maven before handing Sammy his hooded towel, knowing he'd want to put it on himself. Then Sammy ran off to his room to get dressed, and I carried Maven to her room.

  It was all pink and purple with butterflies and flowers hanging from the ceiling, with a white sleigh bed topped with pillows and her favorite stuffed animals. Her room always reminded me of Peter Pan and what I imagined Wendy Darling's room to look like, classic and Victorian, sweet and pretty, just like Maven.

  The toddler hummed tunelessly as I dressed her, and then we climbed in bed with a book while Sammy brushed his teeth. And when we were all finished with Olivia, I tucked her in and turned down the lights, clicking on her nightlight that threw stars all over the ceilin
g. I sang her a soft song, and she gave me a hug, and when she told me she loved me, my heart ached.

  Guilt sprang in my chest — I'd forgotten for a moment what the day had held, the sadness crushing me in a wave. But I caught my breath as I walked into Sammy's room to find him bouncing on his bed with a Pete the Cat book. His room was like Maven's, but all shades of blue and dark wood, with a captain's bed and a nautical theme that had skewed in the pirate direction over the course of the last year. He leaned against me as we read, though he knew all the words and recited them with me. And when all was done, I said goodnight with a wave and a kiss on the cheek before making my way wearily down the stairs.

  Mary sat in the living room on her phone, long legs crossed, wine glass in hand. People always said we looked alike, but I didn't see it. Mary was all sharp edges; even her dark eyes, the one part of her I did see myself in, held a hardness to them that I'd never understood.

  "Everything go okay?" she asked, not looking up from the screen.

  "Just fine. They're all off to dreamland."

  She sighed. "Good. I hope they don't come out a thousand times."

  I tried to smile, but I found it hard to pretend. "Well, I'm heading downstairs for the night."

  Mary looked up to meet my eyes. "Oh, I didn't even ask you how Rick is."

  This was her way of asking. "He's …" I swallowed. "He's okay. I read to him while Sophie and W-wade had a meeting with the social worker." His name hitched in my throat, catching, snagged by my heart.

  "Wade's here?" she asked, one dark brow climbing.

  I nodded. "He flew in from Germany tonight."

  "Huh. Great place to be stationed. Have you even seen him since he left?"

  "No," I answered quietly.

  Compassion passed across her face and was gone. "I'm sorry. Was it hard?"

  I took a breath. "It was."

  "Is he just as handsome as he was?"

  "More. He's … he's a man now. I barely recognized him."

  She shook her head. "Well, he's really done well for himself in the military. I hate that he's back under such awful circumstances. Poor Rick. Those poor girls."

  I found it so strange that she approved now when seven years ago she was so quick to judge, so quick to steer me away from him. Another attempt at a smile had me wanting to leave. "Okay, well … if that's all, I'd really like to lie down."

  "Of course," she said with a wave of her hand.

  I started to walk away but stopped, turning back to her when I remembered something. "Oh, I'm sorry, one more thing."

  She was already back on her phone. "Mmhmm?"

  I clasped my hands behind my back, pulse speeding up at the prospect of her saying no. "The next few weeks are going to be … well, they're going to be a lot for the Winters family. Sophie's asked me to help out, and I'd like to do what I can. Do you … do you think it would be possible to put the kids in full-time school for a while?"

  Mary looked up at me, frowning. "That will cost a fortune, Elliot. I don't even know if the school has space."

  My cheeks flushed. "I know, I just thought—"

  "I mean, I can ask them, if you want to pay for it with your money. And if they have room, I guess that would be fine. But I still need you to pick them up every day."

  I blinked, simultaneously surprised at her solution and not surprised at all. "O-of course," I said, not thinking twice about doing it. I only had a few weeks left with Rick, and I wanted to be there as much as I could, whatever the cost, regardless of the slight.

  She looked back at her screen, thumb scrolling. "Unless Charlie will help out, but I doubt it. You know how busy he is."

  I pursed my lips and nodded. "All right."

  "'Night, Elliot. Get some rest."

  "'Night," I echoed and descended the stairs to the bottom floor, then into my room where I closed the door behind me with a snick.

  I loved the room, loved the creaky floorboards and the dark wood wainscot, loved the old brick fireplace and elaborate mantle. The house had been built in 1910 and remodeled, but they'd left so many of the original fixtures that it still held the charm it had always had.

  Mary's words and the stress of the day didn't ebb as I made my way through my room putting my things away, changing into more comfortable clothes, finding myself on my bed, notebook in my lap, pencil flying as I poured my heart onto the page, thinking of everything and nothing, possessed by my emotions.

  My family and my responsibilities at home, my sister … today I felt stifled and trapped, but it was less about them, I knew.

  It was Rick lying in a hospital bed. It was Sophie crying in my arms. It was Wade standing before me, a man I didn't recognize, though I knew him all the same.

  Wade.

  He was home, appearing at the edge of my universe after what felt like a thousand years without him. Changed was the word that circled my thoughts. Hardened, colder. The boy I knew was gone.

  No, not gone — he was there, somewhere. But I couldn't see him; I could only see what he'd become. I wondered how much of what he was now was due to me.

  I set my pen down in the crease of my notebook and leaned back, my eyes on the fireplace as I thought back to the night he asked me to marry him, the last time I was truly happy, even though it was only for a moment.

  It had been summertime, just after his graduation, a bittersweet affair. It was a celebration of all he'd accomplished and a moment that marked the beginning of the end. Because once he had graduated, he'd enlisted in the Army.

  The lights were off that night so long ago, and I lay in bed, waiting for him with the moonlight bathing my room, casting long shadows in the corners as I listened for him.

  In two days, he would be leaving for boot camp, and we'd made a pact, a vow to stay together until I finished high school. Then I'd graduate, and he'd come back from his first deployment, and we'd marry. It was going to be the longest year of our lives and then … well, after that I didn't really know what would happen. I could get an online degree, find a place for myself wherever we were. Maybe I could go to a local college, transfer when we were re-stationed. Make it work. And for Wade, I'd make it work.

  That didn't mean I wasn't scared. Because anything could happen in that year. He could meet someone else. He could change his mind. Or the unthinkable could happen: he might not make it home from the war.

  I remembered breathing through the pain in my chest, wishing I could say that love would conquer all, that our love was too strong to break. But life didn't work that way, and believing in that particular fairy tale wasn't something I could ever be so innocent as to pin my hopes and dreams on.

  When a quiet thump sounded from outside my window, I sat up in bed, smiling, my worry forgotten.

  Wade.

  My heart filled up at even the thought of his name, blooming, spreading warmth through my ribs. And he opened the window, perched on the fire escape platform. His face was in shadows, but I could see he was smiling — the high curve of his cheeks gave him away.

  I whispered his name, and he whispered mine as he climbed into bed with me, wrapping me in his arms, and I closed my eyes, breathing him in, wishing I could make the moment last. But the clocked ticked on, and instead I made a tally of everything I could. The feeling of being surrounded by him. The smell of his soap. The hardness of his chest under my palms. His soft lips against mine.

  He laid us down and looked down at me.

  "Hey," he said in a whisper.

  "Hey," I said, smiling.

  And then he kissed me again. He kissed me with a thousand promises on his lips, his fingers tracing my jaw, tilting my chin, telegraphing his love through his skin against mine.

  When he pulled away, he watched me for a long while, and I memorized him some more. His dark hair, a little mussed. The line of his jaw. The curves of his lips.

  "I love you, Elliot," he said softly, as he'd done a thousand times. "I've loved you from the second I first saw you. I might have loved you before I'd ever met
you. I think … I think I'd been waiting on you, and I think if I hadn't met you, I'd have just gone on waiting."

  My chin trembled, his departure too soon, too close. There wasn't a way to make time stop, so all I could do was love him as much as I could in the time I had. My hand cupped his jaw, and emotion climbed through my chest as I tried to speak.

  "I love you, too. More than anything."

  He turned his head to press a kiss into my palm before pulling me up to sit face to face with him. I'd never forget that moment — half of his face in moonlight, the other in dark, save his eyes that shone, looking into mine with depth I'd never be able to put into words, as much as I'd tried.

  His eyes turned down as he reached into his pocket, and when he opened his hand, what sat in his palm stopped my heart.

  He opened the black velvet box, and inside sat a ring, a beautiful ring with a large square diamond in the center and smaller diamonds framing it, the band simple and delicate and absolutely the most brilliant thing I'd seen in my life.

  I couldn't breathe as he watched me hopefully.

  "I know we said we'd wait. I know we're young, and I know things won't be easy. But I can't leave without you. I can't be without you. The thought of leaving you here … the thought of spending the next year without you is too much. I don't want to live without you, not for a second longer than I have to. Marry me, Elliot."

  "Wade," I breathed. "Of course I'll marry you. But—"

  His lips were on mine, his arms around my waist as mine circled his neck blissfully, all the 'buts' flying away on flickering wings.

  I laughed softly as he pulled away, and he laughed into my neck, peppering it with kisses.

  "I'm only seventeen, Wade."

  "Just until September, and then you're legal." I could feel him smirking against my skin.

  "What about high school? I can't exactly leave right this minute."

  He leaned back so he could look down at me with a smile on his face. "I'll go to boot camp, get stationed, and I'll come back just after your birthday. That's when we'll do it."

  My hands rested on his shoulders as I watched him. "What about our families?"