Page 17 of Frog

“Unless I get some help.”

“Ma’am—”

“Lyn,” she corrected, eyes steady on me.

I shook my head.

“Weber,” she said, sucking in her breath. “I really need you.”

I studied her face and then smiled. “I’m not one to accept charity, Lyn. I thank you for your kind offer, but you don’t know me from—”

“My brother knows you,” she told me, interrupting. “And I see how you are with my boys firsthand, and I have never seen them take to anyone so fast, especially….” She opened her eyes wide before looking at Micah and then back to me. “I could drop them off every morning, and you can have my car, and I’d be here between five thirty and six every night to pick them up. I mean, starting Monday I’m in trouble. I don’t have the time to find someone I trust, and I can’t afford to not work, as I’m about to be a single mother.”

I stared at her.

“I just… need a break.” Her chin quivered. “I mean, I have the money. I could hire someone, some stranger, but these are my kids, you know? I could run to my parents or here to my brother or even to my older brother and my sister-in-law if they weren’t going out of town for the holidays”—she was rambling—“even though Rachel’s perfect and I’m not—but the fix would still end up being a stranger because they all work and my folks just live too damn far away!”

“Mom, you’re not supposed to use that word.”

“I know, Tris.” She took a breath, clearly willing herself to not break down. She closed her eyes a moment, and when she opened them, they were red but there were no tears.

Jesus, what the hell was I supposed to do?

“I don’t want to send them some place I don’t know or leave them with someone I don’t trust. Please.”

I turned to look at Cy.

“Don’t even look at me,” he grumbled. “For once you can’t accuse me of plotting. It’s not my fault that her piece of crap hus—”

“Don’t,” I cut him off, scowling. “We do not speak ill of people’s parents, ever.”

He huffed out a breath even as I felt his hand slide between my shoulder blades.

“Weber.”

I looked back at Carolyn.

“It’s only for two weeks, and then Tristan and Micah will both go back to school, and Pip’s preschool will reopen as well. I just need a temporary fix.”

“I wouldn’t feel right takin’ money from you for watchin’ your boys. It would be my pleasure to do so.”

“Yes, but it’s hard work.” She sighed. “It is. How does twenty-five hundred sound?”

“Like not enough.” Cy was indignant.

“That would be more than enough,” I told her. “And far too generous.”

“No,” she assured me. “Cy’s right. If you made twenty an hour and you have an eight hour day, then—”

“How ’bout a thousand and I won’t feel quite so crappy takin’ you up on your kind offer.”

“Oh, Weber, a thousand is—”

“I’ll do it for that and not a penny more.”

She gasped. “Really?” Suddenly she was verging on tears, but they were the good kind. “You will? You’ll watch the boys for me?”

“Yes, ma’am, it would be my pleasure.”