AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why didn’t you come get me?” I ask, feeling both grateful and hurt that I wasn’t needed.
“None of us wanted to go down the stairs in the dark,” Colton confesses.
Sliding to the edge of the bed, Ethan adds, “I was able to assure them that no one had crawled out of the bowels of hell.”
I stare at him in his T-shirt and shorts, with his rumpled hair, and want nothing more than to crawl into bed with him, but then I force myself back to reality. “Who made the coffee?”
“Sandra sets it up before she leaves and puts it on a timer for me, so I wake up to fresh coffee.”
“Who’s Sandra again?” Wyatt asks grumpily.
“My housekeeper.”
“You have a maid?” Ash demands. “Like a real, live servant?”
Ethan shakes his head and laughs. “You aren’t long for this world if you call Sandra a servant to her face.” He explains, “Sandra is the woman who makes my life run as smoothly as it does. I’d never be able to keep this place up without her.”
“Does she come every day?” Colton wants to know.
“Monday through Friday,” Ethan says. “She has the weekends off.”
Wyatt looks at me with wonder. “Could you imagine having someone like that at home? That would be awesome!”
“We do have someone like that at home,” I tell him. “Her name is Edna.” Speaking of Edna, I make a mental note to text her and find out if they know the results of Ed’s biopsy.
“Mrs. Turner makesusdo the cleaning up,” Ash says. “She doesn’t do it for us.”
“That’s because she doesn’t want you to grow up to be useless men who can’t do the littlest things for themselves.” Four sets of eyes turn to me in looks of pure shock. “That didn’t come out right,” I start to say, but Wyatt interrupts.
“God, Mom, that’s mean. It sounds like you’re calling Ethan useless.”
“That’snotwhat I’m saying …”
Colton interrupts this time. “I bet Ethan pays her way more than you pay Mrs. Turner.” He’s right about that. The only thing Edna ever gets is free meals at the diner, and even then, she barely comes in to collect.
I turn to Ethan, who’s still staring at me with a questioning look. “I just don’t want the boys to expect other people to do things for them that they’re perfectly capable of doing themselves.”
His silence has me digging myself into a deeper pit. “I want them to be productive members of society …”How do I get this foot out of my mouth?
Ethan comes to my rescue and tells the boys, “I think what your mother is saying is that you have to know how to take care of yourselves.”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Ethan stands up. “Come on, kids. You can be my sous chefs and we’ll show your mom how capable we really are. Let’s go make her a breakfast she won’t soon forget.”
I’m so relieved this conversation is over that I step aside and let them walk by me.
After they’re gone, I continue to stare at Ethan’s giant bed. What would it have been like had he carried me up here last night? I guess I should be glad he didn’t, because the boys wound up here, but even so, the thought of the two of us in bed has my heart racing overtime.
I’m going to have to work harder than ever to separate my emotions. While I want the kids to have a great time, I cannot risk a spectacular heartbreak for myself.
The problem is, it’s already too late for that.
Chapter34
Ethan
The next two days are every bit as magical as you’d expect them to be. We spent a full twelve hours at Disneyland the first day, not leaving until after the fireworks, then got up the next morning and did the same thing at California Adventure Park, where the boys couldn’t get enough of theCarsride (and I’m including myself as one of the boys). Moira surprised me by wanting to do all the rides—including the biggest drops and roller coasters. Seeing her laugh so much and just let loose has been incredible. I feel like she’s letting go of her worries and allowing herself to just have fun. I can only hope she’ll decide she wants a life more like this—with fewer worries and more joy.
