Page 35 of Mountain Men’s Nanny

“It’s a surprise, Daddy, but you can’t come up, okay? Just me and Brie,” Lexi said seriously.

17

Girl Time

~

Brie

Upstairs in Lexi’s room, I could still hear the men ribbing each other. There were jokes, laughter, and some kind of countdown. I blocked it out and looked for a place to sit, choosing the little chair in front of Lexi’s dresser. Then I waited.

Lexi walked around her bedroom as if trying to figure out how to say what she had so excitedly brought me here to say. It was urgent and important, but she was struggling to find the words to say it. She stopped in the middle of the room, her little hands balled into fists at her sides, her head bowed.

She took a deep breath and then, with her eyes closed as if making a wish, she just said, “Can you help me look pretty?”

My heart jumped, not in a good way; it was like a painful lurch. I dropped to my knees and held her hands.

“But Lexi, you’re already pretty,” I said gently.

Lexi’s face crumpled up into that same impatient scowl I had seen on Tobias’s face. “But I look like a boy,” she explained. “I want to have my hair done and paint my nails, like a girl.” She sighed, hoping I would get it this time. “Like you.”

I nodded solemnly. She was so adorable, but that was probably the last thing she wanted to hear right now. I had been entrusted with a task, and I couldn’t fail.

Lexi gently let go of my hands and walked to stand in front of the mirror in the corner of the room. “We need to do something with my hair. What do you think?”

Her hair sat in a tumble of curls around her face. She hadn’t let me touch it before, and from the state of it, she didn’t let anyone else touch it either. I gently reached for it, ready for her to flinch or back away, but she didn’t. She stood there stoically, watching me in the mirror.

“First, we’d have to wash it. Is that okay?” I asked cautiously.

Lexi nodded and walked over to the bathroom, ready.

Bottles of unopened, unused shampoo and conditioner with pictures of little girls and princesses stood ready. Some were older than others. I didn’t ask her about them, but I could guess. Tobias likely bought bottle after bottle, attempting to persuade Lexi to try them. Regardless of the princess depicted or the bottle’s attractive decoration, Lexi refused to use it. He had a lot on his plate as it was. The battle for washed and conditioned hair was one he had given up on.

I folded up some towels for Lexi to sit on and hang her head over the bathtub. I tested the water on my wrist, adjusting the temperature until it was just right, then sprayed it over Lexi’s head.

Her eyes were closed tight, and she gripped the edge of the tub, doing all she could to stay calm.

“Do you think your dad still has everything handled downstairs?” I asked. I wanted her to think about something else, anything other than having her hair washed.

“Daddy always has everything under control,” she said casually. “Sometimes he gets mad when things don’t go his way, but he always figures it out in the end.”

She had Tobias figured out. He was a man used to having things his way, and, like his daughter, he had no problem making it known when he wasn’t happy with how things were unfolding around him. I had already been on the wrong side of that twice with Tobias.

“But you shouldn’t worry about it,” Lexi said. “My Daddy, Gideon, and Gunner will get Thanksgiving dinner on the table no matter what.”

She was so confident in these men. It was a testament to the many times they had made the impossible look easy for her. She had me convinced, too. Nothing was impossible for those three, as long as Lexi wanted it.

“They love you very much,” I said. It was the only justification they seemed to need.

I rinsed Lexi’s hair and realized she had relaxed, so I had time to condition her hair too.

“It’s different, isn’t it?” Lexi asked. “The way we live here. Most people have families different from mine.”

I considered it, weighing my words before I spoke. There was nothing wrong with Lexi’s family; they had everything she could ever need, but they were different. Very different from the family I grew up in.

“Well, lots of families are different, and that’s okay. As long as they love each other, then they’re a good family,” I said with a nod.

Lexi couldn’t see my little nod. That was for me; I was satisfied with the answer I had given her. I had had my share of ‘normal’ and one breakdown later, her normal was a far better option.