Adding Up to Marriage. Karen Templeton

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 like, is a disaster in the making.”

      Noah and Tess exchanged a glance before Noah met Silas’s gaze again. “Be-cause …?”

      Where would they like him to start? “What if she has to go on a call while she’s got the kids? What then?”

      “Oh, between all of us,” Tess said, far too enthusiastically, “I’m sure we could fill in any gaps. I’m with Noah—it sounds like a perfect plan to me.”

      Yeah. The perfect plan from hell.

      “Uh-oh,” Noah said. “He’s got that look on his face.”

      Silas glared at him. “What look?”

      “The I-don’t-wanna look. Never mind there’s not one good reason why this isn’t a good idea. For cripe’s sake, she’s a nurse, she knows CPR and stuff. And she cooks—”

      “Ow!” Silas said when Tess cuffed the back of his head.

      “What the—?”

      “Hell, if you don’t hire her, I will. So call her. Before somebody else snatches her up.”

      His mouth open to protest, Silas shut it again. Because Tess was right—maybe the thought of having Jewel in his house every day gave him the heebie-jeebies, but she could probably find a temporary nanny position in a heartbeat, if not here, in Santa Fe or Taos. And he was desperate.

      Not so desperate, however, that he couldn’t wait to call until he got home, since for damn sure he didn’t need an audience to add to his humiliation.

      So, an hour later, the boys bellowing and sloshing blissfully in the tub, Silas ducked back into their room to make the call, so focused on them through the door he almost forgot who he was calling until she said, “Silas?” in a voice far raspier than he remembered, or expected, or wanted, or needed, and for a moment he was torn between praying she’d say yes and fervently hoping somebody else would snatch her up.

      Thereby saving him from a fate worse than death.