“Should we make him something else?” I asked. “I was thinking of making a rainbow cookie. What do you think?”
“I love rainbows!” she said, already reaching for a lump of yellow dough. “I can help!”
“Awesome. And then once that’s done and we’ve cleaned up, we can go to story time at the library.”
“Otay.”
6
THEO
“What a day,”I muttered as I pulled into the garage Monday evening. It was pushing six-thirty, and all I could think about was getting out of my suit and into something that didn’t feel like a starched cage.
I grabbed my bag from the passenger seat, hit the button to close the garage, and stepped through the door that led into the mudroom by the kitchen.
And immediately stopped because something smelled incredible.
Warm. Savory. Comforting in a way that wrapped right around the edges of my exhaustion.
I followed the scent into the kitchen where I found Nora pulling a casserole dish out of the oven, her face focused, cheeks flushed from the heat.
“You made dinner?” I asked, surprised.
“Technically, Jessie made it.” She looked up, grinning a little sheepishly. “I just followed the instructions she left.”
“Oh.” I stepped farther into the room, relief and gratitudeloosening something in my chest. “Thank you. That’s really awesome. You didn’t have to do that.”
“It wasn’t hard. You know—” She nodded toward the commercial double oven range. “—once I figured out how to work your fancy spaceship oven.”
“Yeah,” I said, huffing out a laugh as I glanced at it. “It’s a bit overboard, isn’t it?”
Alisha had insisted on the best of the best back when we’d built the house—top-of-the-line appliances, all the bells and whistles.
Growing up as an heir to the Vanderbilt Hotel empire, my late wife had taken cooking lessons from the gourmet chef her parents had employed and had been an excellent cook.
I, on the other hand, mostly used the oven for reheating things.
“What did Jessie whip up for us today?” I asked, nodding toward the casserole dish.
“Whatever this is.” Nora peeled back the foil, and steam curled up, carrying the smell of melted cheese and herbs. A bubbling baked pasta stared back at me, golden on top.
“That looks amazing.” My mouth actually watered. “Thanks for heating it up.”
“Of course. I knew you’d probably had a long day in court.” She shrugged lightly. “So I wanted to make sure your meal was ready when you got home. Plus,” a teasing smile tugged at her lips, “Charlotte may have been talking about how starving she was.”
“Speaking of Charlotte…” I chuckled under my breath and glanced around the kitchen. “Where’s my little Tasmanian devil?”
“She just ran to wash her hands,” Nora said, a smile on her pink lips. “She wanted to be extra ready for dinner.”
“Perfect.”
I took another look around and noticed the table. It was set neatly with plates, napkins, even silverware lined up straight. “Looks like you set the table, too. Thank you.”
“Of course.” She shrugged, like it was nothing.
But I couldn’t help thinking she must’ve found one of those nanny handbooks online and memorized it cover to cover. Because she was doing literallyeverythingI’d put in the job description back in April when I was first hiring for the job.
Which was honestly above and beyond anything I’d expected her to do, since just having someone I trusted step in at the last minute already felt like a gift.