Page 3

“Why not just hire a nanny.” He smirks a little. “Worked really well for Brody. Hell, it worked for all of us. Winnie makes the whole damn family happy.”

“Brody married her.”

“My point exactly.”

I shake my head. “A nanny can quit any time. Take a different job and move away. I need a fail-safe so that she can’t leave Shiloh.”

“You do understand that loving a four-year-old isn’t generally something you can put into a legally enforceable contract.”

“That’s why I’m here. I have plenty of money to make this situation impossible to walk away from.”

“Not everyone has a price, Mav.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.”

“Did you already put an ad out?”

“The agency calls it a profile.”

“Of course they do.”

“They have my requirements. They’re accepting applications now.”

Bryant blinks at me.

“Applications.”

“Yes.”

“For your wife.”

“I feel like there’s a goddamn echo in here.”

“Like she’s applying for a job.”

“It is a job.”

His head drops forward until his chin nearly touches his chest. Outside, a truck rattles past on Main Street, and the windowpanes shiver in their old frames.

I wait. Over the years, I’ve learned that Bryant occasionally needs time to process perfectly reasonable information.

He eventually looks up again.

“I need you to explain this to me from the beginning.”

“I just did.”

“No, you gave me the creepy Dateline version. Give me the version that makes sense.”

I grit my teeth until my jaw aches.

This is exactly why I didn’t tell him about the matchmaking service before today. I don’t need his approval. I don’t need anyone’s approval. I’ve spent the better part of a year thinking about this. Lying awake at two in the morning, staring at the ceiling fan, listening to the static of a baby monitor I still haven’t stopped using. Looking at the problem from every possible angle. Considering every possible solution.

This is the only one that makes sense.

“I’m thirty-nine years old,” I say. “I have a four-year-old son who barely talks. I’m too grumpy. He needs someone soft. I work too damn much.”

“Yes, you do.”