Project: Daddy. Patricia Knoll

been willing to let the children sleep with him, she reminded herself, but a cynical little voice also recalled that it was so he could get some sleep himself.

      Knowing she probably wasn’t going to figure Mac out too quickly, Paris slipped from under Simon’s tiny hand and left the room. With any luck, she would have time to shower and dress in the other bathroom down the hall before they woke wanting breakfast.

      Ten minutes later she discovered that luck wasn’t on her side when the bathroom door banged open. With a startled squeak, she swiped shampoo from her eyes and peeked out from behind the shower curtain to see Elly standing there, holding Simon by the hand.

      “Pris?” Elly asked in a fearful tone. “You in there?”

      “Yes,” Paris answered, pulling the shower curtain around her. “If you two will wait in the hall, I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

      Elly shook her head. “We wait here.” She sat down in the middle of the bathroom rug and tugged her little brother down with her. Simon, with his ever-present book under his arm, sat where she indicated, and popped his thumb into his mouth, content to wait.

      Flabbergasted, Paris stared at them. They seemed quite determined to stay. Naked and dripping as she was, she had no way to dislodge them. She’d heard it said that mothers of small children forfeited all privacy. No one had ever mentioned that was true of nannies, as well. Resigning herself to her fate, she pulled the curtain shut and quickly finished, rapidly learning that she didn’t need all the time she usually took in the shower.

      Once she was ready, she began dressing the children and realized that a four-year-old girl has more established fashion opinions than one might have expected. Her clothes had to match and her shoes had to be tied in precise double knots so they wouldn’t slip off. Then Elly had to supervise while Paris dressed Simon, who couldn’t have cared less how he looked as long as his precious book was firmly in his grasp.

      By the time they were finished, Paris felt as though she needed to stop for a deep breath. She didn’t have time to put on makeup or blow-dry her hair as she usually did in an effort to tame the natural curl. Instead, she decided it would have to go wild and she shepherded her little charges to the kitchen where she fixed their breakfast. Glancing around, she saw no evidence that Mac had eaten before he’d left and was saddened by it. No matter what he said, Paris felt that she wasn’t earning her salary if he wasn’t being provided for, too. However, she wasn’t going to talk to him about it again. Instead, she would bake some kind of breakfast rolls and leave them where he could find them. Not that he would probably thank her for the effort, she thought grimly as she sat down at the table and began eating her own breakfast. He certainly seemed determined to accept nothing from her.

      “Where’s Unka Mac?” Elly asked abruptly, looking up from a piece of pancake she’d been trying to spear with her fork.

      “He’s gone to work,” Paris answered absently.

      “Like a daddy?”

      Focusing on the little girl’s interested face, Paris nodded. “That’s right.”

      “That’s what daddies do,” Elly said with the air of an expert. “They go to work and the mom and the kids stay home.”

      Paris grinned. “Have you been watching television shows from the fifties?”

      “Huh?”

      “Where did you hear this about daddies going to work and everyone else staying home?”

      “From Sarah. She’s seven. She was my friend at my other house where I lived with my mommy. My mommy went to see elephants and when she gets back she’s going to take me and Simon to see them.”

      Paris’s heart sank at the assurance in the little girl’s voice, but she could think of no words to answer her. She didn’t have to because Elly went on, “Sarah said that daddies go to work. That’s what Unka Mac does, but he’s not really a daddy.”

      “Well, no, he’s not,” Paris admitted, wondering where this was leading.

      “He could learn to be a daddy.” Elly bumped her feet against the chrome legs of the chair as she considered that. She nodded as if satisfied with her conclusion. “Because he knows how to read.”