The Summer Of Sunshine And Margot. Susan Mallery

searching for a relatively inexpensive red blend. Dinner was casual and the wine should be, too.

      She found a foil cutter and bottle opener in one of the drawers in the pantry and carried the open bottle and two wineglasses back into the kitchen, then opened a bottle of sparkling nonalcoholic apple cider for Connor. If they were going to get fancy, it was nice to share.

      While Declan got Connor settled, Sunshine dropped the hot rolls into a large bowl then tossed them with melted butter and garlic. The salad was already in place, as were the plates. She gave Connor and Declan each a roll before putting the extras on the table and taking her chair.

      The kitchen table seated six. The three of them were clustered at one end, with her across from Connor. Without thinking, she put salad on his plate, only to realize that might be something his father wanted to do.

      “Oh, um, sorry. Did you want to...”

      “Go ahead,” Declan said easily, pouring them wine.

      She nodded, then waited for him to serve himself before taking the bowl from him and putting salad on her own plate. When she was done, she reached for her glass of wine just as Declan started to hand it to her. They bumped and the glass nearly spilled.

      Sunshine felt herself flushing. Great. Just great. The awkward first days were supposed to be over by now. Living in someone’s home, and being an almost-but-not-quite part of the family wasn’t an easy transition.

      Declan shook his head. “We have to work on our dinner skills,” he said, his voice teasing.

      “Apparently.”

      “The last few weeks have been hectic with my work schedule and we haven’t had a chance to get to know each other. If you don’t have plans, why don’t you join me in my study after Connor goes to bed and we’ll talk about how things are going so far.”

      “That would be nice,” she said. “Thank you.”

      Connor held up his glass of cider. “I want to make a toast.”

      “Do you?” Declan raised his wineglass. “What is it?”

      Sunshine picked up her glass and waited. She had a feeling this wasn’t going to be the statesmanlike moment Declan seemed to expecting.

      Connor grinned. “And jelly.”

      “Toast and jelly,” Declan murmured, before taking a sip of his wine. “I couldn’t be more proud.”

      Connor giggled. Sunshine winked at him.

      “We went to The Huntington after school today,” she said, picking up her fork. “To the desert garden.”

      “My favorite!” Connor announced.

      “One day I’ll get to see one of the other gardens. At least I hope so.”

      Connor raised his shoulders in an exaggerated sigh. “In two more times. I promise.”

      “Yay! And thank you.”

      “You’re welcome.” He turned to his father. “How’s the hotel?”

      “Good. The building approval has been finalized, so I can get to work on designing the gardens.” He looked at Sunshine. “The decisions about the materials they’re using will influence what I suggest.”

      “Sure. You wouldn’t want the flowers to clash with the siding.”

      “Exactly. Connor, how was school?”

      “Good. I got an A on my spelling test. We studied really hard.”

      “The lesson combined spelling words with different kinds of currency,” Sunshine added. “Euro, yen, ruble, the word currency.”

      “That one’s hard,” Connor said as he finished his salad. “And ruble is like rubble but only one b.”

      “I’d heard that,” Declan told him. “Good for you.”

      Sunshine had just stood to collect the salad plates when Connor piped up with, “Sunshine starts school on Monday and she’s scared.”

      “Yes, well, no one’s interested in that,” she murmured, walking into the kitchen and pulling the lasagna roll-ups out of the oven.

      “You’re going back to college?” Declan asked.

      “Back would be a misstatement, but yes.” She slid the steaming pasta onto plates and carried them to the table. “I’m at Pasadena City College, studying toward a degree in child psychology. I’m starting with my general education classes.”

      “Good for you.”

      “Thanks.”

      Once she was seated, she sipped her wine and told herself she didn’t care what her boss thought of her lack of education. Just because he had an advanced degree and a fancy job and a house and a kid and his life was totally together didn’t matter to her.

      She sighed. It wasn’t Declan, she reminded herself. He simply represented everything she didn’t have. Roots. Direction. A plan. Her twenties had raced by in a series of relationships that left her with exactly nothing to show for the time except for a string of bad decisions and broken hearts. Some of those hearts had even been hers.

      But that was all behind her now. She’d had a come-to-Jesus moment, she was focused and she had a life plan. And nothing and no one was going to cause her to veer off course. Of that she was sure.

      Declan Dubois hadn’t had sex in a year. Until a few weeks ago he, honest to God, hadn’t cared, but recently he’d started to notice and now he cared a lot and it was becoming a problem.

      The dry spell had started when he and Iris had been having trouble—if that was what it could be called. Not knowing if their marriage was going to survive or not, he’d taken to sleeping on the sofa in his study. Later, she’d been sick and sex had been the last thing on either of their minds. After her death, he’d been in shock and dealing with the reality of having the woman he’d assumed he would spend the rest of his life with gone. There’d been Connor and helping him handle the loss of his mother. Sex hadn’t been important.

      But it sure as hell was now, although he had no idea what he was supposed to do about it. Dating seemed impossible and a few minutes in the shower only got a guy so far. At some point he wanted a woman in his bed, and not just a one-night stand, either. He’d never been that guy. He didn’t need love to get it up but some kind of emotional interest was preferred. He hadn’t been on a first date in ten years—how was he supposed to start now? Where would he meet women? Not through work—that never went well. Online?

      He walked the short distance from Connor’s room to his study and told himself he would deal with the problem later. Now that his son was asleep, his more pressing issue was to get to know the woman he’d hired to take care of his kid. Somehow three weeks had sped by. If he wasn’t careful, he would turn around and Connor would be graduating from high school and he still wouldn’t know anything about Sunshine.

      He sat at his desk and opened the file the agency had given him when he’d first interviewed her. She’d been the fifth nanny he’d hired and he’d been desperate to find someone his son would like. Iris’s death had been a shock. It had been less than a month from the time he’d found out about the cancer until she’d passed away. There’d been no time to prepare, to be braced, and he was an adult. Connor had a lot less skill to handle the impossibly heartbreaking situation. If Declan’s parents hadn’t come and stayed with them after the funeral, he wasn’t sure either of them would have survived.

      He scanned the file. Sunshine was thirty-one. She’d been a nanny on and off from the age of twenty. She had no formal training, no education past high school and a history of walking away from jobs before her contract was finished. He hadn’t wanted to hire her, but he’d been desperate and the agency had insisted he at least talk to her. After blowing through four of their best nannies, he’d realized he couldn’t refuse, so he’d reluctantly met her.

      He