Page 58 of Substitute Bride

“She didn’t mean it,” Jill said, a strange sort of confidence in her voice. “It was like when I said I would never go to the beach again after I got stung by a jelly fish. But the next day I did.”

“She did the next day!”

“It’s not like that, sweetheart. Complicated things sometimes happen with adults. It has nothing to do with how much she loves you, but she’s not able to keep being your nanny.”

“Grandma says she’s a servant,” Julie chimed in.

James stiffened. “What?”

“Grandma said Rosie is just a servant.”

“When did she say that?”

“Yesterday. She was asking me if I was ready to have a new mommy, and I said I didn’t need a mommy because I have Rosie.” Julie’s eyes were wide and guileless. “And she said she’s just a servant and isn’t like a mommy at all.”

James forced the tension out of his muscles so he wouldn’t upset his daughters, but he suddenly wanted to hit something. He cleared his throat. “There’s nothing wrong with being a servant. Servants work very hard and do important work. But Rose was always your nanny and she was very important because of that. But she’s not like a mommy, sweetheart.”

Julie frowned. “But I thought a mommy loved us and took care of us and was always there when we need her.”

“That’s true,” James said, a crack in his voice.

“But that’s what Rosie did,” Julie said. “Isn’t that like a mommy?”

The little girl had been too young to ever know her mother, and James’s heart ached so much he could barely breathe at the thought of how innocently she loved Rose. In a lot of ways, Rose had been like a mother to her—the only one she’d known.

But in other ways she wasn’t like a mother at all.

“That’s true, Julie,” he said, very gently. “But a nanny gets paid for doing all that. A mommy doesn’t get paid. A mommy is part of the family.”

“But Rosie is part of the family,” Julie said, clearly trying to make sense of a very complicated situation.

“Not exactly, baby.” James stroked the girl’s hair, wishing he was smarter, wishing he was more sensitive, more articulate.

Wishing he was better at all of this.

Jill had been listening and thinking, and now she straightened up a little, turning to look up at her father’s face. “Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“If a nanny gets paid and a mommy doesn’t, maybe you can just not pay Rosie anymore.”

James swallowed hard at the words. “Jill⁠—”

Jill was getting more and more excited. “If she lives with us, she doesn’t need money, right? You can pay for her like you pay for us.”

“Jill, honey, it doesn’t work that way. She can’t live with us like that unless she’s part of the family.”

Jill suddenly looked like she’d had a brilliant insight. “Then you can marry her, right? You can marry Rosie and make her part of the family, right? That would take care of everything.”

“Yeah!” Julie cried, perking up at this idea. “Marry Rosie!”

James stared at his little girls, completely frozen. He knew he should be wise and careful and immediately nip this idea in the bud.

But he didn’t want to. Because hearing them say it made it sound like the most obvious solution in the world.

Of course they couldn’t go on as they had been doing. Rose had been exactly right. The lines were hopelessly crossed between nanny and something more, and there was no going back from that.

But she’d quit now. She was no longer his nanny. She was just a woman.