Now he wasn’t answering his phone? “Bill, it’s Daisy.” She hurried to speak after the tone, using her given name because neither Bill nor Eileen had liked it when she called herself D.J. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going fishing? You don’t even like fish!” Taking a breath, she tried not to sound as frantic as she felt. It simply wasn’t like Bill to disconnect completely. “Listen, where are you exactly? Call me on my cell, okay, as soon as you get this. I’m in southern Oregon, by the way. I took a job down here. It’s a good one. I’ll be home soon.” She paused, wondering what else she should tell him: I’m trying to save our business? She didn’t want to sound nagging or judgmental or paranoid, but she wished he’d acknowledge the financial trouble they were in. “Okay. Well. Call me.”
Snapping her phone shut, D.J. slumped against the wall. Bill had always been such a rock. Now he wasn’t even trying to save the agency he’d spent thirty-some years building, and she couldn’t predict his actions at all.
Bill simply hadn’t recovered from the loss of Eileen; that had to be the problem, and it was up to D.J. to help. Like her, he had no one else. Bucking up her resolve, she knew she wouldn’t let Bill or the business down.
“Hey, there you are.” Max rounded the corner with one twin hanging on his leg, another hanging upside down in his arms. Anabel and Liv brought up the rear. “The boys need to use the john. Will you watch the girls?” Anabel’s wary expression said she wasn’t at all certain D.J. was up to this task.
“I got a bathing suit,” Livie announced gaily. “It’s brand-new, and it gots beautiful flowers. I’ll show you.”
D.J. smiled. It was nearly impossible to hang on to tension when the winsome four-year-old blinked those blue eyes up at her. She wondered if Terry had been a devoted mother. The kids’ basic happy natures and Max’s love for his late cousin suggested that she’d done a good job with the kids.
“Did you get a bathing suit, too, Anabel?” D.J. asked the preteen, hoping to receive at least a brief answering smile.
The girl pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I don’t need one. Uncle Max has a lot of extra mouths to feed now, and my bathing suit still fits.”
Geez, Louise. D.J. glanced at Max, who rolled his eyes.
“You’re very thoughtful, Anabel,” D.J. commended. And way more grown-up than you should be. Anabel too easily assumed a parental role, which made D.J. wonder if she should amend her estimation of Terry. D.J. had been like that, too, as a kid. She’d figured out early on that she’d have to rely on herself. Did Anabel feel the same? D.J. made a mental note to get more concrete information about Max’s cousin as soon as she could.
Max interrupted her thoughts. “Now that Livie’s got a new swimsuit, when we come out, we can get one for you.”
It took D.J. a moment to realize he was addressing her and not Anabel. “Oh, you know, about that—”
James squealed as Max dipped him toward the ground. This time D.J. was sure it was James. She’d realized she could distinguish between the twins if she remembered that James’s hair was curlier.
Max swung the little boy like a pendulum, making him chortle. D.J. grinned. For a flash, she wondered what might have happened if she and Max had really truly met in a bar, no hidden agenda involved, with her in a red dress and him seeing her from twenty feet away and sending her a drink. On the house.
“So, you’ll watch the girls while the fellas and I are taking care of business?”
D.J. nodded. “Sure. I’ll be here.”
Max gave her a lingering look that sent about a thousand butterflies swirling through her stomach. “I’m counting on it.”
Chapter Five
“I don’t have money for a swimsuit.” And if I did, it would be a tankini from Land’s End, not the kind of one-piece people buy when they actually intend to swim.
Daisy, the nanny, stood with her arms crossed, red Dansko sandal tapping the smooth floor. Three feet away, Max held up two hangers with the kind of solid, utilitarian swimsuits worn by Olympic athletes and members of the Polar Bear Club. Yech!
“I don’t really need a suit, anyway,” D.J. pointed out. “You’re going to be at the pool. I can sit on the sidelines in case one of the kids decides not to swim. We could…color.”
Max frowned heavily. “All the kids will swim. They love it. Livie’s going to start lessons at the Y. You may be at the pool a lot.”
He let the comment hang in the air. You may be at the pool a lot…as if she’d already agreed to his year contract. D.J. glanced at Anabel and Livie, trying to hide in a rack of clothing. The boys were a few feet away, scooting matchbox cars across the floor. All were within earshot, so she decided not to say anything now, but tonight she was definitely going to have to disabuse him of the idea that she was a permanent hire.
“I’m sure the pool has a lifeguard, right? And the kids can wear those floaty devices. So I’m good with shorts. I brought shorts.”
“Daisy, if it’s about money, I’ll pay for the swimsuit,” Max told her. “Think of it as an employer-supplied uniform. Look, as far as I know there’s no lifeguard at the pool we’re going to today,” he told her when she looked as if she was going to protest again. “I’d feel better if I knew you were there.”
Daisy cringed. She had to divulge her secret now: the only emergencies she felt capable of handling around a pool were refilling a margarita pitcher and applying sunscreen.
“I can’t swim,” she said, her voice low, the words deliberately mumbled.
Max craned his head toward her. “Say again.”
D.J. made a face. He’d heard just fine; the disbelief in his expression told her so. Raising her chin, she announced more clearly, “I cannot swim.”
The entire Wal-Mart got quiet. That’s how it seemed to D.J., anyway.
She was ashamed about very little in her life, but somehow her inability to execute a decent freestyle, or even to dogpaddle, felt embarrassing down to her core. The whole world knew how to swim. Every parent taught his kid how to float in a pool or at least sent the poor shlub for swim lessons. In her case, neither event had happened. Her birth family had spent too much time fighting or drying out in detox centers to recall they even had a kid. And her early foster families had neither the time or patience to show her how to swim when they had more pressing concerns, like teaching her not to mouth off at the slightest provocation or steal from her foster siblings. By the time she’d moved in with the Thompsons she’d been twelve and adept at avoiding issues that bothered her.
“I’m just not crazy about water,” she told Max, willing him to drop the subject.
He didn’t. “Are you afraid of the water?”
“No, I’m not ’afraid.’” For some reason she hated that word. “I don’t like to get wet.”
Slowly, he lowered the swimsuits he’d been holding for her approval.
D.J. felt a prickly heat fill her face. She just wanted to get out of here. Was that too much to ask for? “It’s not a priority.
