She gives Finn a quick smile then slips past me and down the stairs. The back door clicks shut behind her.
The silence stretches. Finn scowls at me.
“Finn—” I start, but he scrambles off the beanbag and digs through his toy box like a lad on a mission. Then he turns to me, wielding a bright orange Nerf gun, and?—
Thwack.
The foam dart nails me square in the chest then bounces off to land at my feet.
“You were mean to Blair!”
Christ. A minute ago he was laughing his head off, completely content. Now he’s firing projectiles at me like I’m the enemy.
“Look, Finn, I’m paying her to keep an eye on you, not to make a big mess I have to tidy up when I get home.”
“But... but...” His lower lip juts out in that stubborn way that means he’s really upset.
This isn’t how things usually go between us. Finn and I get along. We’re a team. But here he is, glaring at me like I’ve committed some unforgivable sin.
Right. Time to reset.
I drop into a crouch and hold my arms out wide, wiggling my fingers menacingly. “Oh no... I think I feel the tickle monster coming...”
Finn’s scowl wavers. “Da, no . . .”
“Aye! The tickle monster is here, and he’s looking for little boys who fire darts at their fathers!”
I lunge forwards, and Finn shrieks with laughter, dodging around his bed. “No! Not the tickle monster!”
“There’s no escape!” I chase him around the room, Gus bouncing alongside us, barking excitedly and trying to join in the game. When I finally catch Finn, I scoop him up and tickle his ribs until he’s giggling so hard he can barely breathe.
“Okay, okay!” he gasps. “I surrender!”
I set him down, and he’s grinning again, the earlier tension forgotten. That’s more like it.
“Right then,” I say, ruffling his hair. “We’d better start thinking about dinner. But first, we’ve got some tidying up to do downstairs. Why were you two baking anyway?”
“We made cookies for Flora,” Finn explains, following me down the stairs. “Because she can’t bake anymore with her hurt wrist, and I felt bad about that. We made some for you too, for after dinner. And maybeIcan have one after dinner?”
Something twists in my chest. They made cookies for Flora. And for me. Shit, that was a nice thing to do, and yet I tore into Blair. Was I too harsh on her?
Maybe. Okay, yes. But then the whole point of hiring help is to make my life easier, not harder. I can’t come home every day to a load of dishes to do.
I fill up the basin while Finn chatters away about his day. He talks while I wash dishes and he dries them. He talks while I prep the salmon and he scrubs the potatoes. He talks while we eat. Even with his mouth full of potato—which I’d normally tell him off for—he won’t stop going on about Blair.
“And she knows all aboutHow to Train Your Dragon. All the films and all the books. And she said we can go to the library tomorrow to get some new stories, and?—”
“Slow down there, lad. Chew your food.”
But he barely pauses for breath. “She’s really funny too. She told me not to spill my soup on my pants, but she meant trousers, and we both laughed at that. And—and I really like her smile, Da.”
I nearly choke on a forkful of salmon. Christ, isn’t he a bit young to be noticing things like that?
But then I think about Blair’s smile—how it lights her whole face, how those pale blue eyes crinkle at the corners—and I have to admit he’s got a point.
“Aye, Finn,” I say carefully. “She does have a nice smile.”
Too nice, probably. And those long legs in her jeans, and the way she moves with that easy American confidence...
