“Allison’s panties are on too tight, if you ask me,” Vicki muttered. “It’s that wedgie up her ass that makes her such a bitch.”
Jenna snorted. God love Vicki. She told it like it was, and she was pretty much immune to Allison. Allison didn’t bother her because she’d been a fixture at the Early Bird for almost two decades.
“I can take her for a few minutes if you like,” Vicki said. “She’s cute as a button, isn’t she? Reminds me of my granddaughter.”
“I’m good. She’s sleeping pretty soundly anyway. I’d hate to wake her.”
“All right, hon. Let me know if you need me to spot you.” Vicki disappeared with the coffee pot and a pitcher of iced tea, and Jenna kept working on the shakers.
It’d been a couple of years since she’d worked at the day care center, but she hadn’t forgotten how to soothe a child. She’d been working there and saving money to go back to college when she’d gotten the receptionist job at Sam Baxter’s law office. The pay had been better, so she’d left the day care center. Besides, working with kids wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. And it wasn’t always the kids who were the problem either. Sometimes it was the parents. More than sometimes, really. Dealing with parents had been exhausting, which made answering phones and typing seem like a breeze.
And yet, answering phones and typing had landed her in far hotter water than dealing with an irate parent’s complaint ever had. If she’d never left day care, she’d still be wiping snotty noses and leading craft sessions—and she’d be safe. She wouldn’t have to constantly look over her shoulder for danger.
The bell over the door tinkled, and she looked up to see Noah striding toward her. He still had that shell-shocked look of disbelief, but he seemed marginally calmer than he had before he’d gone outside. Poor guy, losing his sister and gaining custody of a kid all at once. No wonder he’d been nothing like his usual self when she’d gone to fill his coffee cup.
“Everything taken care of?” she asked as he reached the table where she worked.
He nodded as he shoved his hands into his pockets. Almost as if he didn’t want her to hand Alice over. The booth he’d been sitting at still had the papers he’d left, plus a car seat and a small suitcase that presumably contained Alice’s clothes. He ignored it all for the moment. It was safe enough there, but maybe he just didn’t want to face what looking at those things meant.
“Help is on the way. For now, I mean.”
Jenna smiled up at him. “You’ll figure it out. You seem pretty competent.”
He snorted. “You can’t know that. What if I’m highly incompetent at everything except ordering food and eating it?”
“The military must think you know how to do something, right?” She offered him a smile, and he nodded more seriously than she would have expected.
“Yeah, I’m good at the job. But the job doesn’t involve children.”
“I worked in a day care once, so let me give you a tip; kids can scent fear. Don’t wallow in your belief you’re incompetent when it comes to her, and don’t let her know you haven’t a clue what you’re doing sometimes. It’ll be fine. These days, you have the entire world at your fingertips. Need to know how to change a diaper? Google. Want to know if she can eat a steak at her age? Google.” She shrugged. “The internet is your friend.”
He slid into the seat opposite her and unscrewed caps from the salt shakers she still had left. “You’re right. I’ll get it worked out. It’d be easier if I had your experience.”
Jenna couldn’t help but smile. “You’ll get there pretty quickly. Kids are trial by fire.”
“Jesus,” he muttered as he stared at the salt shaker in his hand. “I didn’t even know she had a kid.”
Her heart squeezed with sympathy. “I’m really sorry, Noah. It has to be hard to find out she’s gone and that she had a child you didn’t know about.”
“Yeah.” He picked up the salt and filled a shaker. “Sally had some issues. I tried to help her get clean, but it wasn’t what she wanted at the time. She stopped calling me about three years ago. I tried to call her, but she never responded so I stopped.”
His jaw tightened with emotion. “I should have kept trying.”
“You can’t force someone to talk to you.”
“I know. But I think maybe she thought I’d given up on her.” He focused on Alice. “I wish she’d called and told me she had a baby. I’d have helped her if she needed it.”
Jenna didn’t know what to say so she didn’t say anything. He didn’t seem to expect her to anyway. Perhaps it was simply his way of working it through in his mind.
“What do I say when she asks for her mama again?” His voice sounded strangled with emotion.
Jenna reached out with her free hand and touched his. A zing of electricity zapped through her. He looked at their hands for a long moment and then lifted his head to gaze at her expectantly.
“You have to tell her the truth. Not the literal truth, because she’s too little, but tell her that her mama went to heaven and she can’t come back. If you don’t believe in God, then tell her something else, but make it clear that her mother can’t come back. She’s very young and doesn’t really understand death. She’s going to get past this faster than you think, though she’ll likely be clingy for a while. To her, the most significant person in her life is gone. She needs understanding and stability most of all right now.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to give her that. I deploy often, and I can be gone for weeks. Shit.”
“You could hire a nanny. Someone to live with you both and help out with childcare. You have to realize that little Alice will bond to that person too, but it might be the best solution you have right now.”
He blinked as if considering. “What about you? You said you worked in a day care, and she clearly likes you.”
Jenna’s heart thumped. “I have a job and a roommate. I can’t quit and I can’t bail on her.”
As much as she might like to. Living without the smell of pot in her life every day might be nice for a change. And it wasn’t like she owed Tami. If anything, Tami owed her.
He nodded. “I get it. You have other responsibilities.”
“I’m sorry, but yes, I do. You can find reputable nanny placement services online, though. This close to DC, there are bound to be a lot of them.”
Allison poked her head out of the kitchen door, glaring daggers at Jenna.
“Speaking of jobs,” she said, “I need to start taking orders. The dinner crowd is beginning to trickle in.”
“Right. Of course.”
Jenna eased from the booth and stood. Noah stood too. He was tall and so damned good looking. Brown hair, blue eyes, and the kind of jawline that could make Hollywood sigh. It definitely made her sigh. Made other parts of her take notice, too. It’d been a long time since she’d been on a date with anyone. A long damned time.
“You’ll have to take her,” she said softly. “We can do this quietly so as not to wake her.”
Noah swallowed. “Okay.”