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“I stupidly thought he needed a mother. What he needed was me. Then, we fought all the time, Rebecca and me, all through the pregnancy, and then she left a few months after Colby was born. That took all my focus. Anyway, I’ll go to his room. Will you…wait?”
“Sure. And…if you still want me to have the job, I’ll take it.”
Kendrick’s eyes met mine, and I watched his lips part as if he wanted to say something, but nothing came except a tired smile.
Finally, he gave me a nod and stood, heading off deeper into the house and I was left to wait.
I heard screaming, and yes, a door slammed, but then, maybe ten minutes later, they both came into the room. Both faces were a little tear-streaked, and they were two tired men, but Chandler had a bit of a smile.
Kendrick said to me, “We’d like you to stay.”
“And he means it, literally,” Chandler said. “Like, stay here. We have a guesthouse.”
I was shocked mute. I’d never expected to move until I’d earned more money.
“Did he just swallow his tongue?” Chandler whispered to his father.
Kendrick laughed and said, “I think we shocked him.”
I stood and took a step towards them but stopped. “I…I have a place, and it’s fine, you don’t need to put me up…”
“No, it’s not that, it’s not charity,” Kendrick protested.
“Rich people don’t do charity without getting something in return,” Chandler quipped then moved to the couch and fell back on it again, pulling out his phone and burying his face in it.
“Chan…”
Without looking away from his phone, he hummed, “It’s true.”
“Okay, fine,” Kendrick said to me. “It would just be easier if you were…on call? You saw it just now, we…have a difficult relationship at times—”
“Understatement,” Chandler whispered.
Kendrick continued, “It would be nice to have a referee around, close, that could…referee.”
“Do you campaign this badly?” I asked, teasing.
“Yes,” Chandler answered for him. “He does better when he doesn’t say anything. It’s his looks. All the women in town want to bone him. Probably half the men too,” he said, then side-eyed me for a second.
“Chandler!”
Chapter Five
Chandlerwasfocusedonhis phone, so Kendrick waved for me to follow him. As we went down a very wide hall, one with more family pictures in a long row, he started explaining, “I know this is out of the blue. Chandler and I, once we stopped yellingatone another and started to talktoone another, we both realized that you might be good to have around more than a nine-to-five shift.”
I understood the reasoning, but it was still a shock. “I…appreciate the offer, but I wasn’t planning to quit my other jobs,” I said before I realized he didn’t know about my side job at Cowpokes. “I mean…”
He stopped as we entered the huge, bright kitchen and gave me a heavy smirk. “The diner and the dancing gig at the totally secret gay club, the one everyone knows about?”
I stammered, but finally grinned out of embarrassment and because it was just plain funny. “That’s the one.”
“Keep that one but ditch the diner. Give notice, of course, and let them find someone else. Or take a late shift there or something. I swear, this job will pay well enough. I don’t take my children lightly and I certainly don’t take their caretakers lightly.”
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course. This isn’t a prison, I promise. You’ll have plenty of time to yourself, you’ll have privacy, and can come and go as you like.” He stopped speaking to lead me to the sliding glass doors that opened to a spacious deck with Adirondack chairs facing the most amazing view I may have ever witnessed.
It looked out on the mountains, sure, but rolling up to it was a series of small hills that were green with foliage and red with stones. Stretched from the deck to those hills were red rose bushes that showed themselves brightly against green bushes and pink groundcover. There was a small pool surrounded by earthen tiles and a tennis court enclosed in a chain link fence that was further surrounded by aspen and cypress. The skyline was bright with fluffy white clouds and the birds that flew overhead seemed like they were staged, so perfectly timed they were. The entire picture could have come right out of a design magazine.
