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His expression cleared as he looked away from her and said, “I don’t know if that’s the best idea right now. So far, he’s settling in okay with Amelia. Maybe we can include them later.”
Charli stared at him and as she listened to his nonsense response, she came to a chilling realization. Jackson knew. He knew about her connection to Blake, and in his own clumsy way, he was trying to keep her from having to be around him.
How much did he really know? Had he mentioned something about Layla to Blake?
She was going to have to have a conversation with him to figure out what exactly he knew and what he was going to do with that information.
For the first time since hearing that Blake was back, Charli accepted that the secret she’d held for years was at a high risk of being revealed. In fact, if Blake planned to make Serenity his home for the foreseeable future, there was absolutely no way his and Layla’s paths wouldn’t cross.
Charli’s appetite fled at the very idea of Blake learning he was Layla’s father. It seemed inevitable, and she knew that she should have accepted that when she heard that he was back in Serenity.
Instead, she’d stuck her head in the sand, believing she could keep Layla hidden from him.
But maybe she didn’t need to hide Layla. Blake had ended up going on to have a child with someone else, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he would think the same had happened with Charli. Especially since she’d made it clear to Blake how much she wanted children.
“You okay?” Janessa asked, jostling her elbow.
Charli glanced over at her as she lifted a piece of pizza from her plate. “Yep. Why?”
“You just kind of spaced out.”
“Just daydreaming,” she said.
“You always did like to drift off to another place.”
Charli couldn’t deny that. And when she hadn’t been escaping into a daydream, she’d been doing it through books. She liked to think that her imagination allowed her to relate to the children she taught, since at that age, most kids loved to dream up things.
“So, any teacher’s pets yet?”
For some reason, her thoughts went immediately to Amelia. The little girl hadn’t really warmed up to anyone, preferring to be on the edge of the group, watching everything with her big blue eyes. The air of sadness and reserve hadn’t lessened at all, and even after a week, she still only spoke when directly addressed.
“I try not to favor any of the kids, but there are a few that I will probably come to really enjoy having in the class.”
“The best-behaved ones, right?”
“Not necessarily. There’s one boy who is likely going to drive me a little batty with his boundless energy, but he also has such a sweet and funny personality that he makes me laugh. Then there’s the boy who we know from previous years has a real struggle academically, but he tries so hard.”
“You love them all already.”
Charli gave a small huff of laughter. “Of course. Each of them is amazing in their own right. What’s not to love?”
“Twenty plus kids all in one place? That would pretty much be my idea of a nightmare.”
“Well, there are parts of your job that would be my idea of a nightmare.”
Charli was thankful for the distraction Janessa provided, even though her sister had no idea what was going on with her.
On top of the realization she’d come to about Jackson, Charli was also trying not to think about the email she’d found in her work inbox earlier. She had yet to answer it because she needed to think about her response.
“What’s for dessert, Charli?” Aria asked. “I hope it’s chocolate.”
Janessa gave a snort. “Do you miss not being able to blame what you crave on the baby?”
“Everything I wanted to eat while pregnant was because I was pregnant.”
“But you’re still wanting weird stuff at eleven o’clock at night,” Gareth said. “And there’s no pregnancy to blame.”
Aria leaned against Gareth, looking up at him, love clear on her face. “And you’re so good to always get it for me, even though I’m not pregnant anymore.”
