her not wanting to get married. To Justin or anybody else. Not then, not now. Maybe not ever. But at twenty-five? No way. Not when she had all these things she wanted to do. To be.
If she sometimes yearned so much for what had kept eluding her as a child she thought she’d lose her mind, she supposed that was the trade-off for the peace that came with knowing that whatever choices she made, the only person she could hurt was herself.
And that nobody could hurt her, either.
She bet, if she had the nerve to ask him, Silas Garrett would understand where she was coming from. Shoot, ask anybody, they’d talk your ear off about his resistance to his mother’s attempts to fix him up. And the look on his face when Jewel’d asked him about the boys’ mother? Yeah, there was somebody who was more than happy with things the way they were, she was guessing. So if it was okay for Silas—who could probably use another set of hands and eyes to help him with those two rascals of his—to stay single, why wasn’t it for her?
Never mind the bizarre ping of attraction to the man, with his soulful green eyes and killer mouth and the ten kinds of take-no-prisoners, sexy authority he exuded. A thought that, okay, got her hormones just the teensiest bit hot and bothered. So sue her, it’d been a while. But please—the last thing she needed in her life was an uptight, over-protective numbers geek with borderline OCD issues.
Put like that, she probably didn’t even like him. No, she was sure she didn’t. The killer mouth/soulful eyes thing notwithstanding. And she seriously doubted he liked her. She also seriously doubted Silas Garrett had ever been the victim of a rogue hormone in his life. Heck, he probably rationed the suckers, only letting them out for a half hour on Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Saturday.
So it was all good, right?
Blowing out a breath—and putting her rowdy hormones in the corner—Jewel got to her feet to grab her purse and keys to her ten-year-old Toyota Highlander with its dings and scratches and 180,000 miles, figuring getting out of this house would improve her mood greatly. Not to mention if she wanted work, in all likelihood it wasn’t going to come knocking on her door, was it?
Arms folded, Silas sat on the beige corduroy couch in his brother Eli’s perpetually messy, eclectically furnished living room, glowering at the fire in the kiva fireplace while all around him brothers and sisters-in-law yakked, kids raced and toddlers toddled. Every other week, at least, they all got together for family dinner. Up until tonight that had always been at his folks’ house, but since Mom was out of commission Eli’s wife Tess had volunteered to host the melee.
Brave woman, Silas mused as Tess shoved two action figures and a rag doll off the overstuffed, floral chair at a right angle to the sofa and plopped into it, her seven-months-pregnant belly like a ripe melon underneath her lightweight sweater. Her three-year-old daughter Julia, all sassy dark curls and attitude, crawled up to wriggle her butt into the space between her mother and the arm of the chair while Ollie and Julia’s brother Miguel—step-cousins, classmates and cohorts in crime—chased Silas’s shrieking, twenty-month-old niece Caitlin around the room. Pretending to be monsters. Or something.
“One good thing about the noise,” Tess yelled over the insanity as she combed her fingers through Julia’s curls, “it feels so good when it stops.”
Silas smirked. “Does it ever?”
Humor crinkled the corners of thick-lashed dark eyes. “When the last one leaves for college?”
Silas laughed, but his heart really wasn’t in it. Those eyes narrowing, Tess kissed Julia on the head and gently prodded her off the chair. “Go, torment boys,” she said, then heaved herself out of the chair to drop beside Silas. The fattest, furriest cat in the world promptly jumped up in what was left of her lap, making her grunt out, “Okay, so what’s up?”
Silas crossed his arms high on his chest, his forehead knotted. “You ever work when the kids are at home?”
“Hah. Not if I want to get any actual work done. Besides, I’m out showing properties more than I’m in, anyway. I owe my babysitter my life.”
His eyes cut to hers. Purring madly, the cat stretched out one paw to rest it on Silas’s arm. “She wouldn’t have any openings, would she?”
Tess’s brow creased in reply. “No luck with the day care?”
Tad bellowed behind him, making him flinch. “One place has a possible opening in October. Mid-October. Possible being the key word here.”
“Donna should be okay by then—”
“After raising the four of us, she wants her life back.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. Can’t say as I blame her.”
Tess’s gaze shifted to her mother-in-law, holding court on the loveseat across the room, clearly enjoying the hell out of playing Queen Bee. “No,” Tess sighed out. “I wouldn’t blame her, either. I thought my two were energy suckers, but yours have mine beat by a mile.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey … maybe Rachel could fill in? She could probably use the extra bucks—”
“Did somebody say extra bucks?” his youngest sister-in-law said, her long, dark hair streaked with burgundy, her long, legginged legs ending in a pair of those dumb, fat suede boots. Pink ones, no less.
“I need a babysitter—”
Lime green fingernails flashed as Rach’s hand shot up. “Sorry, Si, but I’m doing well to handle this one,” she said, bouncing pudgy Caiti on her hip, “and school as it is. I’d really like to help, but I’m majorly slammed this semester.” She wrinkled her pierced nose. “We still good?”
“Of course, I understand completely.” Silas slumped forward, holding his head, as she strode off. “I’m doomed.”
“Why are you doomed?” Noah said, commandeering the chair Tess had just vacated and simultaneously digging into a plate of leftovers. Because clearly the first two helpings weren’t enough.
Tess gave Silas’s back a sympathetic pat. “Sweetie can’t find anybody to watch the boys.”
“Yeah,” Noah said, chewing, “that’s the problem with kids, the way somebody always has to watch ‘em.” He swallowed, pointing his fork at Silas. “A problem, you will note, I do not have.”
“Jerk,” Silas muttered without heat, since it was no secret the dude would kill for his nieces and nephews, even if the idea of having his own kids gave him hives.
A piece of chicken vanished into his brother’s mouth. “What about Jewel?”
Silas’s head snapped up. “Jewel?”
“Yeah. She said she’s got some medical bills or something—she was kind of rambling, I didn’t quite get all of it—and she’s pretty desperate for some part-time work. Even asked me if we could use her over at the shop. Hey,” he said to Silas’s frown, “you said yourself she was great with the boys. And they like her, right? So why not? You need a sitter, she needs a job …” He shrugged those big shoulders of his. “Sounds like a win-win to me—”
“What it sounds
