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I shook my head, willing myself to snap out of my frozen state. “No. It’s a nice surprise. Just…” My eyes locked with his, and if my next words were desperate, I couldn’t help it. “Promise never to leave this building with her without asking me first.”
He instantly became solemn and nodded. “Of course, Clara.”
“I promise too,” Saoirse said with as much gravity.
“I promise too, Mommy,” Nellie declared. “Sit with me please.”
When she said “please,” it sounded like “peas” and never failed to make me smile. Today was no exception.
“All right, all right.” I kicked off my heels and dropped to the blanket, kissing the top of my baby girl’s head. “What are we eating for lunch?”
Once we were all done eating and Nellie was busy listening to her aunt Saoirse tell her about the horses on her family’s ranch, Luca leaned closer to me.
“I wasn’t thinking,” he uttered.
I shook my head. “It’s been three years. I should be over it.”
“No, you shouldn’t be. I should have thought it through. You know no one else can take her out of that day care, right? Saoirse had to give a drop of blood and a chunk of her hair before they’d even let her through the first door.”
I snorted. “Hyperbole.”
“A slight exaggeration. My point is she’s safe. I’d never take her from you, and if I did, you know I’d be giving her back within twelve hours. What am I going to do with a three-year-old?”
That finally broke me out of my sour mood, and I laughed. “I’m pleased to know the one thing keeping you from absconding with my daughter is having no idea what to do with her.”
“Mommy’s laughing,” Nellie observed.
My stomach sank. I sometimes forgot how much my daughter noticed these days. I couldn’t always hide when I was worried or panicked, but I would much rather she saw me laughing.
“That’s because Uncle Luca is really silly.”
She smiled, and even with grape jelly smeared around her mouth, it melted me.
“I like silly Uncle Luca. Can I ride a horse?”
I swung my gaze to Saoirse. “That’s on you, Aunt Sershie. I know nothing about horses.”
Saoirse held up four fingers and wiggled them. “When you turn four, we’ll go to the ranch and put you on the sweetest horse we have. How does that sound?”
Nellie nodded hard. “Okay. I can ride a sweet horse.”
“Yep.” Saoirse smoothed a hand over Nellie’s unruly hair. “A sweet horse for a sweet girl.”
“I think Mommy needs to get on a horse too,” Luca chided. He knew my aversion to them. Their mouths had always given me the creeps, and I loved animals.
It was the teeth. They were just so damn big and blunt. Absolutely horrifying. “I’m not a horse girl. They’re just so…large.”
Nellie bounced on her knees. “Mommy, please. You can ride a sweet horse too.”
I shot daggers at my brother. He might’ve been a married man in his thirties, but he still liked to wind me up like only a little brother could.
“We’ll see,” I hedged, unable to fully deny her since she’d said, “peas.”
Saoirse saved the day. “Actually, I bet your mom would love to watch you, Nell-Belle. She can’t do that when she’s riding, can she?”
Nellie took that logic in and finally relented. She’d be okay with me watching her ride a sweet horse with Aunt Sershie. Luca was lucky he’d married such a gem. Otherwise, I might’ve gone to the board to oust him and stage a hostile takeover just to spite him.
The four of us had a nice lunch together—seeing my daughter and sister-in-law in the middle of my workday really had been a treat—but I didn’t truly exhale until Nellie was back where she belonged. Most people might not have understood, but I felt more at ease witnessing her day care’s security measures. No one could waltz in, claim to be her grandmother, and scoop her up.
