Nanny Next Door by Michelle Celmer Page B

did. They closed doors so kids didn’t see things they shouldn’t. Like their vulnerable mother getting it on with the bachelor next door.
    Shit.
    He really couldn’t do this.
    He took her by the arms, unwound them from around his neck. “Sydney, stop.”
    She looked up at him, brow wrinkled with confusion. “What’s wrong?”
    “We can’t do this.”
    “What? Why? ”
    “Because you’re drunk.”
    “So what?”
    “You aren’t thinking clearly. And there are at least a dozen other reasons this is a bad idea.”
    “But…I want to.”
    “I do, too, more than you will ever know. But I can’t. I’m sorry.”
    Sydney looked absolutely crestfallen. And he cringed when, in the moonlight shining through her bedroom window, he could see the sheen of tears in her eyes. “But…”
    “Take a second to consider what you’re doing.”
    She looked up at him, then glanced around the room, as if she was wasn’t quite sure how she had arrived there. Then the reality of what she had been about to do seemed to hit home.
    “You’re right,” she said softly. “This would have been a mistake.”
    She lost her balance and had to sit on the edge of the mattress. “I guess I did have a lot to drink,” she said, and it seemed to take extra concentration to form the words clearly. “I’m feeling a little woozy.”
    “Why don’t you lie down.”
    She complied without question, crawling up the mattress to lay her head on the pillow.
    “You want help with your boots?”
    She nodded.
    He gently tugged them off and set them by the closet where she wouldn’t trip over them. “Anything else?” he asked, hoping she wouldn’t ask him to help take her clothes off. Even he had limits. But she shook her head.
    “I’m tired,” she said, her eyes drifting closed.
    Not ready to leave her just yet, he sat on the edge of the mattress beside her, smoothing back the loose tendrils of hair framing her face. She made a soft, contented sound.
    “Thank you for taking me out tonight,” she said drowsily. “I really did have a good time.”
    “We’ll do it again.”
    “I’d like that.”
    He kept stroking her hair until she fell asleep, then he let himself out of her house, locking the door behind him, and went home. He walked in and switched on the light beside the couch. It was so quiet.
    All he’d thought about for a month was getting a moment to himself, but now that he’d gotten it, he felt awfully… alone.

    O H. M Y . G OD . Her mom was doing it with the cop next door!
    Lacey sat on her bed, unable to believe what she’d heard last night, and listening for signs that her mom was waking up. For all she knew, he could still be in there. Last night, when she’d heard them come into the house and go straight to her mom’s bedroom, Lacey had put her headphones on and blared her music. Whatever they were doing in there, she didn’t want to hear it. And probably the only reason she’d heard anything was that her mom thought she was still at Veronica’s house.
    Lacey didn’t know if she should be shocked or happy for her or totally grossed out. Moms were not supposed to have flings with next-door neighbors. At least not her mom. She’d never done a spontaneous thing in her life! Of course, if she was going to do it with anyone, why not a man as hot as Deputy Valenzia?
    She thought of her father’s little bimbo, who had the brain capacity of a fruit fly, and actually felt proud of her mom for picking someone like Deputy Valenzia. Maybe she deserved to have some fun after all the crap Lacey’s father put her through. It was a bit gross and very weird. But maybe women her mom’s age had needs just like men did, and it had probably been a really long time since her mom had sex.
    Well, not anymore.
    She wondered if this meant she would have a cop for a stepdad.
    The phone rang and Lacey dug for the extension under a pile of clothes on her bedroom floor. “’Lo.”
    “Hi, angel, it’s Daddy.”
    Lacey rolled her eyes.