Renee Andrews - Mommy Wanted

“I’d love to help you,” she said, her voice filled with so much compassion that Mitch thought she seemed on the verge of tears. He focused on her eyes, blinking more than normal and definitely fighting whatever emotion Dee’s request had evoked.

Mitch was fighting one himself, because other than their family members, Dee didn’t typically ask for help from anyone but her daddy. He kept his attention on securing Emmie, now snoring softly, into her seat, but looked up to lock gazes with Kate. Her dark, unruly hair framed her petite face as she focused on buckling Dee in and then gave his daughter a smile.

“How’s that?” she asked.

Dee examined the buckle on her car seat and nodded. “You did good.”

Kate’s face practically glowed at Dee’s praise. “Thanks.” Then she looked up, caught Mitch staring, and they both quickly got out of the close space and shut their respective car doors.

“I’ll call you after I’ve spoken with your references,” he said, attempting to sound as professional as possible given whatever had just passed between them.

It’d been eighteen months since he’d felt anything remotely near to this. Maybe it was because she was someone new, someone who wasn’t from Claremont and didn’t know him as the young widower in town, as Jana’s husband, or as Dee and Emmie’s dad. Those were the references to him nowadays, and rarely did he simply feel like Mitch. But he didn’t want to give up his new monikers because giving them up meant letting go of Jana.

Wasn’t happening.

“Can you tell me something before you go?” Kate asked.

Mitch paused, his hand on the door handle. “Sure.”

“I’m going to stay at the town’s bed-and-breakfast until I find a place to rent. Can you give me some easy directions to—” she pulled a small slip of paper from her pocket “—111 Maple Street?”

Mitch nodded. “It’s easy to find, only three miles away, but it’d be even easier for me to show you, since I live across the street from the B and B. You can follow me.”

Another one of those mesmerizing smiles blindsided him again. “Thanks!”

Mitch climbed in the car, buckled up and then checked the rearview mirror to see Emmie still sleeping and Dee looking directly at him in the mirror.

“I like Miss Kate,” she said.

“I do, too,” he admitted. Which was good. He would need to like his employee, as long as he made sure to control the extent of that “like.”

Dee peered out the window and waved to Kate before Mitch put the car in Reverse and backed up. “She’s like Snow White,” she said.

Mitch thought of Dee’s favorite story and of the lady who seemed out of her element and took care of everyone she met. And maybe that was why God had plopped Kate Wydell in his world. He needed to simply thank Him and accept the fact that he might finally have someone to relieve the workload at the office. “Maybe,” he said, “she is.”

Chapter Three

Annette Tingle walked ahead of Kate toward the last room on the second floor of the bed-and-breakfast. “I know you said you wanted a small room, but this is the only one that we have available for an extended stay.”

“I’ll be looking for a house to rent,” Kate said, “but I’m assuming I won’t be able to move in until the first of the month.”

“That’s probably true,” the lady agreed. “Hard to believe it’s nearly June already. The year is flying by, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Kate said. Life, in fact, had flown over the past year and a half.

“Well, this is your room.” Annette opened the door to a spacious bedroom complete with a canopied four-poster bed. A simple old-fashioned coverlet topped the mattress with embroidered pillows in shades of blue and rose adding a subdued hint of color. An enormous bay window with a window seat upholstered in the same shades overlooked Maple Street and consequently offered a direct view to the antebellum home across the street, the one where she’d watched Mitch pull in a short while ago.

Unable to stop herself, she walked to the big window, peered at his home and wondered how he and the girls were doing.

“Your bathroom is connected through this doorway,” Mrs. Tingle said from behind her, “and you have extra linens in your closet if you need them at night. We’ll charge you the regular room rate, even though this is master-sized, since that’s what you’d have preferred.”

“Thank you,” Kate said, still focusing on the house across the street.

“And you said you’re moving to Claremont?” Mrs. Tingle asked, causing Kate to reluctantly turn away from the window. She’d so enjoyed her time with Mitch’s little girls. Maybe that was an indication that she could be a good mother, which was the entire reason she was here. “Are you here for a job, or family?” the woman continued.

Kate swallowed. Family would be the most correct answer, a little girl who was the same age as Dee Gillespie and whom Kate had abandoned nearly four years ago. But she wasn’t ready to divulge that colossal secret. She focused on answering the woman’s question instead of breaking down in tears. “I’ve applied for a job at Gillespie Insurance Agency as an office manager.”

Mrs. Tingle clasped her hands together. “Well, that’s wonderful. I’m so glad Mitch is getting some help. He’s been trying to find someone for quite a while now, but it’s a small town, you know. Not a lot of people with the kind of experience he needed. I told him that someone would turn up, though, and here you are.” She smiled so broadly she practically beamed.

“Yes, here I am,” Kate said, her voice raspy with emotion. Would Mitch still be so happy about her presence when he realized that Kate was the one who had hurt his friend?

“That young man stays so busy with work and raising his girls by himself and everything,” Annette said. “It’ll be good for him to have some help in that office. He’s our neighbor, you know, lives just across the street.”

“I know,” Kate said, wondering why Mitch was raising his girls “by himself.” “I was putting my résumé in at his office and asked him where I could locate the B and B, and he told me I could follow him, since he lived across from y’all.”

Mrs. Tingle frowned. “He’s home already? That’s surprising. It’s only four-thirty. He usually doesn’t finish at his office until five o’clock, then he goes to get his girls and then comes home.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “I bet that sounds like I’m nosy. I’m not, really. It’s just that L.E. and I try to watch after our neighbors, and they do the same for us. Mitch has a fairly regular schedule. Usually he doesn’t come home until his day is done.”

“His little girl was sick, so he went home early,” Kate said, then explained, “I’d stopped by to drop off my résumé, and he was there getting his computer so he could work at home.”

The worry on Annette’s face was instant. “Oh, bless that boy’s heart. I wonder if he’s got some soup for her. I bet he doesn’t. And some food for himself. If he’s trying to work from home and take care of both of the girls, too, he’ll need help, especially if one is sick.” She paused. “Which one is sick?”

“Emmie,” Kate said, touched by the concern the woman showed toward her neighbor.

“Poor little Emmie,” Annette said. “Well, okay, I’d normally have L.E. take some things over for them, but he’s gone to Stockville to pick up some supplies. And I’ve got a few more guests that are supposed to arrive within the next hour, so I shouldn’t leave. Do you think you’d mind running a little care package over to Mitch from us, dear? You did meet him already, right?”

“I did, and I’d be happy to.” In fact, she hadn’t been able to get the girls off her mind. Emmie was so sick, and Dee had seemed sad that her daddy’s attention would have to be focused on his youngest daughter instead of playing with her. Following along as the woman returned to the hallway, Kate thought of Mitch, holding Emmie and promising Dee that he’d find a way to play a game with her, too. What a wonderful parent he was, someone whom she could watch and learn from, for sure. Because she desperately wanted to be a parent, a wonderful parent, to Lainey. If Chad would give her a chance.