Page 64 of Falling Back to You

“Does she do okay away from home?” I asked.

He nodded. “She spends a lot of time with my parents or Grey and Paisley.”

This would be torture.

Spending one day with the girl was hard. But repeatedly getting hugs from a pint-sized darling with dark curls and exotic eyes? Her father’s eyes. Eyes that crinkled in laughter and swallowed me up. A girl could get lost in those eyes.

But Cal moved on. Loved someone else.

Watching Khia was seeing a future I’d dreamed of set in reality. I’d burned the bridges and lived to regret it ever since.

But maybe, just maybe I’d get a chance at forgiveness.

Chapter twenty-one

Cal

I’d been on pins and needles all day yesterday. Not because I didn’t trust Noelle, but because it was evident how much Khia already loved her. And if Noelle left again . . . It wasn’t just me I had to think about.

The rest of my team was ignorant to my struggles and instead found my nerves amusing.

“Anxious to get back to your girl?” Van teased after morning practice.

“I heard they went on a date,” Jamie piped up.

I rolled my eyes. “No dates. Not my girl.”

“But she is watching Khia?” Myles, of all people, asked.

I glared at him. “Your point?”

He shook his head and headed for the showers. “Just find it interesting.”

Interesting could mean anything from stupid to when’s-the-wedding. My friends were officially the worst.

Given that I took the drive home a little faster than I was supposed to, I made it home in record time. The lights in the farmhouse weren’t on, so I jogged across the lawn to the cottage. Not your girl. Platonic. She smells like coconuts. Clearly the second-chance romance by Kelsi Jacobs, our book club’s choice of the month, was going to my head.

But seeing Noelle open the door, watching how well she worked with Khia and how my daughter clearly adored her . . . It solved so many of my problems.

Asking Noelle to be the nanny might be the greatest or dumbest idea I’d ever had. The jury was still out.

True to her word, Noelle arrived promptly the next morning with a sharp rap.

“Come on in,” I hollered, trying to scrape the eggs I’d left on too long out of a frying pan.

“Daddy, orange juice!” Khia called from the table.

“Just a minute, sweetie.” I ran a hand through my hair. With all the mental gymnastics last night—the war between logic and heart was in full swing—I’d overslept my alarm, and it was the first morning since babyhood that Khia decided to sleep in, too.

Noelle slipped into the kitchen looking fresh as a daisy, minus the tired lines around her eyes. She was here. In my house.

My shoulders relaxed at the mere sight of her. The spatula slipped from my hand, and I smiled. “Hey.”

She returned the smile tentatively, fiddling with her butterfly necklace. They’d always been her favourite. “Hey yourself.” Her pink lips twitched as she took me in. “You’re kinda ruffled this morning.”

I glanced down. Why would she . . . oh. I was still in pajamas. Just like I’d caught her yesterday.

“You’re cute when you’re embarrassed,” she teased.