The Nanny's Double Trouble. Christine Rimmer
Читать онлайн книгу.
before bed. He walked fast, too, just in case Keely got it in her head to try to stop him, to start asking questions he saw no win in answering.
* * *
Daniel got in bed around midnight. He had trouble sleeping until a little after two, when he heard Grace come in. Relieved that she was home safe, he finally drifted off.
He woke to the sound of one of the kids crying. Maisey was already out of her dog bed and sniffing at the door. She gave a worried little whine, urging him to hurry as he yanked on track pants and a frayed Go Beavers T-shirt. When he opened the door, she pushed out ahead of him, leading the way along the hallway to the twins’ bedroom.
The door stood open, dim light spilling out. Maisey went in first.
Keely was already there, Frannie in her arms. She was pacing the floor in the muted light from the little lamp on the green dresser. She turned when he entered, her hand on the back of Frannie’s head, stroking gently as Frannie sobbed against her shoulder.
He felt that familiar ache his chest, the one he got when one of his own was hurting. A quick glance at Jake’s crib showed him his boy was still asleep. That miracle wouldn’t last long. “Let me take her,” he whispered.
Keely kissed Frannie’s temple. “Here’s your daddy,” she murmured, keeping it low, probably hoping Jake wouldn’t wake up.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
Daniel held out his arms. With a sad little cry, Frannie twisted in Keely’s hold and fell toward him. “Da-Da!” she wailed. He caught her and gathered her in. She dropped her head against his chest. “Ow. Ow, ow, ow.”
Keely moved in close, the soft sleeve of her flannel pajama top brushing his arm. He got a faint whiff of sweetness—her shampoo? Her perfume? “Ear infection?” she whispered.
He felt the back of Frannie’s neck as she sobbed against his chest. “She seems kind of hot.”
“I thought so, too.”
“We should take her temperature.”
“I’ll get the thermometer.”
“It’s the one that says rectal on the case,” he advised over Frannie’s unhappy cries. Rectal. Story of his life. Rectal thermometers and never enough sleep—and did Keely know where to look? “Cabinet in the big bathroom,” he added. “On the left, second shelf. Just to be sure it’s sterile, clean it with alcohol and a little soap and water.”
“You got it.” She disappeared into the hallway. Really, she was a champ, that Keely.
About then, Jake woke up with a startled cry. “Da?”
“It’s okay, big guy.”
“Fa-Fa?” It was Jake’s name for his sister.
“She’s not feeling so good.”
Jake stood up in his crib. “Fa-Fa?” he called again.
Frannie answered, “Day!” She couldn’t make the j sound yet, and she tended to drop hard sounds at the ends of words, so the k got lost, too, and she called her twin Day. “Ow, ow, ow!”
“Shh.” Daniel soothed her. “It’s okay...” Gently, he laid his wailing daughter on the changing table. As she wiggled and whined, he took off her one-piece pajamas and her diaper. Meanwhile, Jake jumped up and down in his crib, calling out “Fa-Fa, Fa-Fa!” in frantic sympathy, followed by a bunch of nonsense words to which Frannie replied with nonsense of her own—well, maybe not nonsense to the two of them. They had their own language that only they understood.
Keely came back with the thermometer in one hand, a bottle of liquid Tylenol and a dosing syringe in the other. “We’ll probably need it,” she said, meaning the Tylenol. Chances were way too good she was right.
He held out his hand as Frannie continued to cry and squirm. Keely passed him the thermometer—and Jake let out a wail from his crib.
“I’ll get him,” she said. “Tylenol’s right here.” She set it on the shelf above the changing table and went to reassure Jake.
The thermometer registered 102 degrees. He put a fresh diaper on Frannie and dosed her with the Tylenol as Keely sat in the corner rocker, soothing the worried Jake.
Once he had Frannie back in her pajamas, he walked the floor with her until the Tylenol seemed to kick in. She went to sleep against his shoulder.
He kissed the top of her sweaty little head and glanced over to find Keely watching him.
She mouthed, Sleeping? At his nod, she nodded back, pointing at Jake, who was curled up against her, sound asleep, too.
It was only a few steps to Frannie’s crib. He carried her over there and slowly, gently, laid her down. She didn’t stir as he tucked the blanket in around her.
Across the room in the other crib, Keely was tucking Jake in, too. She turned off the lamp, and they tiptoed from the now-quiet room together.
“Psst. Maisey,” he whispered. The dog lurched to her feet and waddled out after them. Daniel closed the door. “Whew.”
Keely leaned back against the wall next to her bedroom and said hopefully, “Maybe they’ll sleep the rest of the night and Frannie will be all better in the morning.”
“Dreamer. And what rest of the night? It’s already morning, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Don’t go overboard looking on the bright side there, Daniel.” She glanced through the open door to her room and blew out her cheeks with a weary breath. “Sadly enough, though, you’re right. The clock by my bed says it’s almost five. Tonight is officially over.”
“Let’s hope we get lucky and they both sleep till, say, eight.”
“As if.” She laughed, a sort of whisper-laugh to go with their low, careful whisper of a conversation. The low light from the wall sconces struck red glints in her brown hair, and she looked sweet as a farm girl, barefoot in those flannel pajamas that were printed with ladybugs.
He thought of Grace suddenly, knew a stab of annoyance that kind of soured the companionable moment between him and Keely—and there it was again, that word: companionable. He’d felt companionable with his dead wife’s cousin twice in one night, and he didn’t know whether to feel good about that or not.
“What?” Keely asked. “Just say it.”
He went ahead and admitted what was bugging him. “Grace. She’s got one of the baby monitors in her room, so she had to hear what was happening. But she didn’t even come check to see if we needed her.”
“Yeah, she did. She came in the kids’ room before you. I knew she’d been out late and could use a little sleep, so I said I could handle it and sent her back to bed.”
He hung his head. “Go ahead. Say it. I’m a crap brother.”
Maisey chose that moment to get comfortable. She yawned hugely, stretched out on the floor and lowered her head to her paws with a soft doggy sigh.
Keely said, “You love Grace. She loves you. Ten years from now, you’ll wonder what you used to fight about.”
“Uh-uh. I’ll remember.”
“Maybe. But you’ll be totally over it.” Would he? He hoped so. She said, “When I was little, living with the band on my mother’s purple bus, I used to dream of a real house like this one, dream of having sisters and brothers. Family is hard, Daniel. But it’s worth it. And I think you know that it is.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “You’re right.”
Family was everything. But that didn’t stop him from fantasizing about totally non-family-related things. Partying till dawn, maybe. A game of poker that went on till all hours, with a keg on tap and all the guys smoking