Page 17 of Worth the Try
Ansel’s eyes flick up to mine, and I freeze, a baby deer caught in the big bad wolf’s gaze. Is that a thing? Do wolves eat deer? They probably eat anything.
“Elodie?” Ansel prompts. “Are you okay?”
I spring back into life, lurching to the island before doing a one-eighty and aiming for the counter beside the sink. “I’m fine. Um, but the oven in the guesthouse doesn’t work?” I wince. Why am I saying it like a question? I swallow and palm the surface, letting the coolness of the stone ground me back into the reality whereI am a strong woman.Taking a breath, and far happier to be facing away from Ansel than looking right at him, I try again. “I wanted to make a breakfast casserole, but the oven won’t turn on. Can I use yours?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t like breakfast casserole,” Rosalie declares.
I whirl around, horrified. “Oh no. Really? Well, um, that’s okay…”
But Ansel just smiles down at her. “Rosie Posie, you don’t even know what it is.” He looks up at me. “It sounds delicious.”
My heart squeezes. There’s so much here to unpack, and I have no business unpacking it. Instead, I put my focus back on the bowl of eggs.
“Do you have a Pyrex?”
“A what?”
“A glass pan, like a casserole dish? Usually clear?” I explain, holding my hands out to show the size as I do.
“Ah. Yes. It’s…well…” He shrugs. “I can grab it as soon as I finish here.”
“Just tell me where it is; I can get it.”
With a relieved smile, he directs me to it. “Sorry if it's a little cluttered,” he apologizes. “I have a system of where things go, but it keeps getting changed.”
“It’s because every new nanny has a different spot for things, Daddy.”
A pained expression crosses his face. After a beat, he nods and gestures for the rubber band next to Rosalie’s hand. She gives it to him, and a moment later, one side of her hair is tamed into a sleek braid.
Then, with horror, I realize I've been watching him instead of doing the very thing I came in here to do.
Get it together, woman.
Dumping out the cheese, chives, and two potatoes, I prep the rest of the casserole. Behind me, Rosalie hums and chatters about the scene she’s coloring fromBrave, all while I force myself to keep my eyes on my work. By the time I have the dish in the oven, Ansel, who’d left the kitchen after finishing Rosalie’s hair, is striding back in.
And I…I might black out.
Because it’s the first time I’m seeing Ansel up close in his workout shorts.
Um.
Is it hot in here? It’s hot in here.
This isn’t fair. In no way, on no planet, is any of this fair.
First, he had the glasses, and that’s bad enough. But now? He…he has a tattoo. On the outside of his thigh. The most intricately done roses that I have ever seen. They’re mostly deep red with shades of pink woven in as well. How did I not notice that first day? Or yesterday?
Bless those rugby shorts. Bless,blessthem. So very much.
“Elodie?”
I snap out of it, jerking my gaze up to Ansel’s, my cheeks heating furiously once again. “Hmm?”
He grins, as if he knows exactly what I was looking at and is very aware of the effect it’s having on me.
Is there an escape hatch anywhere?
