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Mom leaned against the doorjamb as she watched me help Charlie take off his boots and coat.
“Palmer’s joining us today?” she asked with a hint of amusement in her voice.
I glanced up at her. I hadn’t even given it a second thought that my parents might mind, but now I had a sinking feeling that maybe they would. Clearing my throat, I asked, “Is that okay?”
She stared at me a beat too long before replying, “Of course it is. I made enough food to feed a small army.”
“Then why did you pause?”
A slow smile spread across her face. “No reason, Mason. Are you worried we won’t like Charlie’s new nanny?”
The emphasis on the word nanny wasn’t lost on me.
“Not at all. I simply realized I should have asked first since you did most of the cooking.”
“I don’t mind at all, but I thought you said she was excited to spend the holiday with her family?”
I finished getting all the winter gear off Charlie. “She was, but both of her parents aren’t feeling well, and neither is her brother. Her two older sisters are both pregnant, and they decided to stay home and enjoy a quiet day with their husbands, since they’re both still early in their pregnancies.”
Mom nodded. “I can see that. The first six months I was pregnant with both you and your brother, I was exhausted all the time.”
I watched as Charlie bolted through the kitchen. “Hey! Where are you going?” I asked.
Without looking back, he answered, “To tell Granddaddy that Ms. Palmer is coming over!”
I shook my head while my mother let out a soft chuckle. “He seems to really like Palmer.”
“He does.” Turning to her, I said, “I didn’t want Palmer to be all alone on Christmas.”
“No, of course not,” she said. When I looked over at her, her eyes were saying something else.
“Charlie loves Palmer, Mom, and she’s become a good friend to me. There isn’t anything else going on, so stop looking at me like that.”
She faked a shocked expression. “Looking at you like what? I didn’t look at you a certain way.”
I shot her the same look she’d given me a thousand times when she was calling me on my bullshit. “I know you better than that, Mom.”
She waved her hand at me and said, “Pfft. Nonsense.”
“Ms. Palmer made two pies and some chocolate dessert! Daddy’s going back over there in an hour to help her carry it over,” Charlie announced as he walked into the kitchen with my dad.
All my mother did was smile down at Charlie before looking at me again. I could tell she was holding back from asking a million-and-one questions. Not that she hadn’t already asked them when I’d first told her about Palmer. And then again after the first time they’d actually met.
To put her out of her misery, I changed the subject. “Palmer and Charlie are working on a secret project, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “It’s going to be for Daddy!”
“A secret project, huh?” Dad asked as he gave my mother a look.
Mom walked over and turned on the top oven light and looked in. After turning off the light again, she faced me, her head tilted slightly. “And you mentioned she was single?”
“Three times now,” I answered with a roll of my eyes.
“And you said Adelaide, your office manager, was the one who suggested her sister could be a nanny for Charlie?”
I had told my mother and father that at least five times. “Yes.”
With a confused—or at least a pretend-confused—expression, she asked, “Why do you think it took Palmer so long to agree to be Charlie’s nanny?”
Because we kissed. Because there’s something between us that neither of us will admit.
Instead of saying that, I opened my mouth and prayed I’d think of something to say, but Charlie beat me to it.
“Cause she has lots of other jobs she likes. But she still has her walking dogs job and her poop-scooping job.”
I nearly lost it laughing at the expression on my mother’s face when Charlie mentioned the poop-scooping business. She already knew about the dog walking. Charlie had told her and my father all about it, and how Palmer was paying him and teaching him how to save his money. After that story, my father had turned to me and told me to marry her.
“Lots of other jobs?” Mom inquired with a curious brow lifted.
Dad cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, did you say poop-scooping job? I thought it was dog walking.”
Charlie nodded. “She does both! Dog walking is every day. She bought me this envelope thingy and every time she gives me a dollar, I put it in one of the envelopes.”
That caused my father to lean in closer to Charlie. “What are the envelopes for?”
I could see Charlie stand up a little taller. He was so proud of saving his money. “Well, Ms. Palmer told me to write a list of things I want. Almost like a list to Santa. So I did, and then we…” He looked up in thought before the light bulb went off. “Then we breaked it down to the things I really wanted. We wrote them on little stickers and then put them on the envelopes. So, each time I get paid, I put a dollar in a different envelope!”
