The Bear’s Nanny by Erin Havoc
05
ASTRID
OWEN’S THE SWEETEST child I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve met many because this is the first time I've worked as a babysitter, but he’s just so sweet I could gobble him up.
I reach behind the passenger seat, touching his foot as he coos at me. A smile on my lips, I make faces at him until his childish laughter rings out, making my heart flip. Children laughing, especially babies, makes my heart warm. Motherhood calls for me, even if it’s a muffled murmur in the back of my mind.
There are women out there who don’t want to be mothers, and I get that. But me? I would have had six children by now. Pete never wanted any — not with me, anyway — and now I see life has worked in a mysterious but sure way.
Oh, what a deep pit I would be in if I had kids with him. Cheated on, but completely dependent. Stuck. I wouldn’t be able to raise six kids on my own. I definitely wouldn’t have taken the car and driven out on an impulse. Good things may flourish from shit, apparently.
“This is crazy,” Kieran mouths next to me. His blue eyes shoot between Owen and me, and they’re wide in astonishment.
I shrug. “Looks like I’m a kid whisperer.”
“It does look like that,” he smiles. He should do that more often. It looks amazing on him. But the curve of his lips doesn’t reach his blue eyes, as if he’s not that used to smiling. “It almost makes me forget I haven’t slept in days.”
A chuckle bubbles up from my chest. I’m surprised by it. A week ago, I drove out of the parking spot in front of Pete’s house. His, not ours. We had separate accounts, everything very individual. I was in a very different mindset, a very dark one. If you asked the then-Astrid, she’d tell you she would never laugh again. Yeah, there’s also a pinch of drama, but come on. I had just found my husband screwing the nanny from behind.
Things have changed. The betrayal still hurts, but it’s in the back of my mind. I want more out of life. The funny thing is — this job? I’m someone’s nanny, oh the irony. But Kieran said he’s not married, so it’s not like the situation’s the same.
Where’s Owen’s mother? Did she die? Is Kieran a widower? I side-glance at him. He would have said it, no? When I asked if he was married, he would have said he’s a widower. That’s what people usually do. My teeth sinking into my lower lip, I place my hand over my lap. I shouldn’t be thinking about any of this. Why do I care if the man’s married or a widower or single? That’s not my business. He’s just paying me to keep an eye on his son.
And I’m certainly not going to fall into the cliche. The nanny who screws the boss? No way. That’s disrespectful. That’s... a very slutty thing.
I think back to Pete fucking the nanny from behind. She was younger than me, a neighbor who was in high school when she started looking after Pete’s son years ago. Classic porn movie story. She’s younger and slimmer, and I treated her well, goddamn it.
My eyes sting with tears, but I quickly blink them away. Being stabbed in the back by people you trust cuts deep. But I can’t be mad at her. She’s young and stupid, and twenty-five-year-old girls often think married men are amazing and would drop their wives for them. That’s not how it works. There’s no respect, and I’m sure the nanny will not take my place in the house. She’s just another woman for Pete to use.
“You okay?”
I blink in Kieran’s direction. For a second, I was lost in my thoughts. His brows angle as he looks at me, driving up the beaten road amid the trees as if he knows it like the back of his hand. Which I guess he does. People here in Shadow Falls look like they’ve never left the place.
I shove the thoughts of Pete and the nanny into the basement of my mind and force a smile. “Sure. I’m just glad I found work this easily.”
“You said you weren’t sticking around, though. Have you been looking for something?”
I tap a finger to my chin. “Not really. But Sabrina reads minds, I guess? She told me it would be good to make some money while I wait for my car. And I think she’s right.”
He chuckles softly. “Yeah, she does that often.”
There’s something in the way he says it that makes me think Sabrina might just be a psychic. “What about you? Were you looking for a nanny for long?”
Kieran shakes his head. The long locks of his dark hair cover his shoulders. They look smooth. I itch to run my fingers through them. “Not really. Owen’s been around for some days. I tried to deal with it, but I’m not that good.” He shoots me a side-smile. “Not a child whisperer.”
I smile back and look forward. What does he mean Owen’s been around for some days? The kid looks around one-year-old. Did he live with his mother before? I think of asking Kieran, but we’re definitely not that close. So I focus on the road.
The trees lean over the road, keeping much of the sun from reaching the ground. But some sunlight still filters through the leaves, washing the place in different shades of green like a kaleidoscope. Kieran takes his time driving up, careful not to sway the car too much on the beaten road. I watch birds crossing the way ahead and turn to roll my window down. This place is marvelous. I’ve never traveled much, always being a city girl. But I ignore the sound of tires crunching stone easily once I focus on the woods. The rustle of leaves as the wind kisses my face is hypnotic.
“It’s so quiet up here,” I mouth, breathing the air in. It’s colder than down by the city, making my nostrils sting, but it has a pure quality to it I never expected to taste.
Kieran chuckles. “I wonder how noisy the place you lived in was. The birds can make quite a hassle.”
I stare back at him, grinning. “There’s no comparing the cacophony of sirens and honks and people screaming in a big city. I never got that. Why does everybody have to be so loud?”
Kieran laughs, his head tilting back slightly. I like that. How it looks like he’d throw his head back and have a good laugh. He looks like a serious person, with these deep blue eyes and a colossal frame. He looks like one of those guys who is huge but has just as big of a heart. Like a teddy bear. A hot teddy bear.
“Where are you from?” He asks, and I take a moment to adjust the story in my head.
I tell him about the city and my job. How I wasted years of my life commuting until I got my car, and how I’d listen to audiobooks to distract myself from the endless traffic. I tell him about the small patches of grass in town and how I used to sleep with noise-canceling earbuds. The year the neighbor next door renovated his house was a nightmare.
But I don’t tell Kieran I’m divorced. The first thing I did after leaving Pete was to find a lawyer. He contacted me days ago, assuring me Pete signed everything. But I’m not ready to go into that story.
It’s not that I want to fool Kieran or something. I just don’t want him to think of me as a failure this soon. The job might be quite a help, but I don’t need his pity. After all, I’m a forty-one-year-old whose husband cheated on her with a nanny fifteen years younger. I don’t have kids or anything to show for my life. No friends, no family.
Before I get too depressed, we take a turn, and a massive clearing opens in the woods. I part my lips, watching the enormous house in the center. With two floors, a wide porch, and walls made from thick lumber, the dark color turns golden in the sunlight.
“Is this where you live?” I ask him, feeling silly a second later. Why would he take me anywhere else? Of course, this is his place.
Kieran nods. “Yeah...” He shoots me an odd glance, his brow cocked up. Is it hesitation I see on his face? Why? “You okay with that?”
A chuckle leaves me. “I mean, you’re an adult; you choose wherever you want to live.”
He parks the car, but there’s something on his face. He seems to debate himself. I don’t get it. Why does it look like what I said disappointed him?
Kieran nods once. “Of course,” he says in a monotone voice and turns the car off. He’s out of it the next second.
I follow suit and wait for him to pick Owen up as I peek around. There’s another car parked next to Kieran’s, and my gaze takes in the porch. Several chairs are arranged in a semi-circle, a book forgotten over one, a coat on the back of another. Kieran doesn’t live alone. Or he receives guests often.
“I kind of expected you lived in a house in the woods, but not like this,” I blurt out. I don’t know why I’m this comfortable around him. Maybe it’s the way he looks at me. Like he’s paying attention.
Kieran arches a brow, bringing Owen up in his arms and slamming the car door shut. “It is a house in the woods.”
“Not exactly,” I motion a hand around us. “More like a mansion.”
“Oh.” He chuckles, but it’s not an easy sound. Owen digs his tiny hands into Kieran’s hair. I’m jealous. I’m so jealous I almost miss how Kieran’s eyes look everywhere but at me. “Yeah. There are others. But they won’t mess with you; everyone works down in the city. Well, Asher’s around sometimes, but there's a high chance you’ll never see him. He loves to hole up.”
I laugh under my breath, covering my mouth as I follow Kieran to the entrance. He says nothing as his big hand comes down on the knob, and the door opens. No need for locking up? What a dream.
His wide shoulders brush the door frame as he crosses it. I follow him inside, my eyes wide as I take the living room in, a huge gray couch, a gigantic flat-screen TV, and several bookshelves. I don’t have the time to study the frames on the TV stand since Kieran keeps going, turning a corner, and climbing a set of steps. Several closed doors take up this hallway, and he strides to one, opening it and walking inside. I look around us as he puts Owen down into a playpen. This place is a small living room, with a chair and one bookshelf. Kieran straightens his spine, then immediately bends, picking things up.
“I’m so sorry about this mess. I didn’t know I’d find someone this quickly.”
It is a mess. Mainly with child stuff. Two doors take up each side of the room, and one is ajar to reveal a bedroom. I help Kieran pick everything up, even when he tries to stop me. It’s good, though. We talk a bit more, and Kieran tells me about his job as he folds clothes. It’s almost like I’m visiting, not working.
Owen plays with some plastic cubes, and I take a mental note of looking for different toys for him. Kieran awes several times at how quiet the kid is in my presence, and together, we develop a schedule.
I’m so into it, talking to Kieran as if we’ve known each other forever, I almost miss the creak of the floorboards.
“Heeey there,” a male voice calls from the still-open door, making me jump. I whirl around to find a handsome man with a huge smile on his face, leaning against the frame. He raises his hands, grinning at me. “Sorry, didn’t mean to surprise you. I’m just so stealthy.”
I see Kieran rolling his eyes from my periphery. “This is Wyatt,” my new boss says, turning to bare his teeth at the man. “This is Astrid, but you don’t need to know that because you’re not sticking around, right?”
My brows shoot up. Where did that come from? I study Kieran for a moment. He has pulled his shoulders back, increasing his height, and his bared teeth make me think of a bear again. But not of the fluffy kind. Is he feeling threatened? By this man? Should I worry? But isn’t Wyatt his roommate or something like this?
I shoot a glance at Owen. His gaze locks with the newcomer, and I see his eyes glossing over, his lower lip trembling. My legs sprint into action, and I pick him up even before he can start crying.
“It’s all right,” I say right before I start humming a song off the top of my head. He clings to me as I turn him away from the man to his toys, trying to distract him. It works. Even if a tear pools in the corner of his eye, he doesn’t cry.
“Well, I’ve never been pious, but that’s a miracle,” the newcomer, Wyatt, says. “I thought it was so weird that I heard you arrive, and he wasn’t crying. For a moment, I thought you had forgotten him in town.”
Kieran grunts. “You have me in low esteem.”
“Of course not.”
I keep Owen distracted as I exit the room and pace down the hallway, away from the two. There’s a bathroom some doors down. Simple but spacious. Everything looks enormous in here. It’s a big house, and it looks like each of them has separate living quarters. From what I could see, there was a small crib sharing Kieran’s bedroom space with a bed, large enough for two people. Or one Kieran. He’s really bulky.
Owen seems distracted enough when I enter the bathroom, and he sinks his hands into a towel. “What’s this? Is it fluffy?” I ask him, holding him close. His baby smell almost distracts me from the voices.
“You going into town?” I hear Kieran say in a lower voice.
“No, I have to go to the Council.” There’s a beat, then Wyatt clears his voice. “I think you should come. Since there’s been... developments.”
Why are they being so secretive? It’s like Wyatt’s choosing his words carefully.
I walk back to Kieran’s quarters, and the two have entered the bedroom, talking in hushed voices. That’s so odd. It makes my cheeks warm like I don’t belong here. Like I shouldn’t be listening to this.
Kieran turns to me, and our eyes lock as if there’s something magnetic about the entire thing. “I’ll have to leave.” He twists his lips in apology. “The fridge downstairs is full, so there’s food for you two. Owen’s clothes and diapers are in a drawer in that room.” He points to the closed door. “I’ll be back to drive you into town.”
I smile, trying my best to pretend I haven’t been thinking they’re being too secretive for my liking. “Sure. We’ll be fine.”
He nods once, his blue eyes still on me. Like he wants to say something. Wyatt opens a smirk I don’t like at all, his gaze darting between Kieran and me.
Kieran clears his throat. “I’m off then. You have my number if something happens.”
I bob my head and watch him go, closing the door behind him. With Wyatt’s absence, Owen relaxes completely. After five minutes, I take him downstairs to explore the place. It takes several tries, but I find the kitchen. In there, I check where the milk is in case he gets hungry.
Owen’s sitting close to my foot as I whip up a snack for him. The milk splatters onto my hand, and I take an awkward amount of time to find napkins. Not totally my fault. There must be a hundred drawers in this room. Once I do, I step on the trash can lever and throw them away.
The red catches my eye. It makes me look twice. And the more I look, the faster my heart beats. I pick the white fabric up. Or it used to be white before the red smattered onto it. It’s a shirt, that much is clear, but it’s been ripped to shreds.
My stomach roils as I drop the shirt back into the trash can with a jerk. So much blood. Why is there so much blood?
Wyatt’s words drift back to me. He said something about a Council. Are they spies? Maybe hitmen? I gape down at Owen. Kieran wouldn’t be a hitman. The way he treats Owen, with all this care... And the way he treats me… But I’ve been wrong about people before. Very wrong. And I can’t wipe out that doubt as the day seeps away.