Chapter One
Colin Bassingstoke,
aka a man very much out of his element
The only thing worse than belatedly realizing you’re in love with a woman?
Realizing you may have already lost her.
Forever.
Although, having your ten-year-old daughter handed a biscuit in the shape of a phallus while attempting to locate the love of your life is also near the top of the list of worst things that can happen to a man.
“No biscuits before lunch,” I tell Beatrice, covering the confection with my handkerchief and whisking it from her view. “Have you seen Savannah?”
The question is mostly to distract her from the fact that I’ve just snatched sugar out of her hand. The only thing my daughter loves more than playing Ninja Rabbits with Rabies—a game she and Savannah invented when she was younger—is scoring a forbidden sugary treat.
I try to keep her away from sugar and, quite honestly, places like this one.
This town, so far, is proving to be every bit as insane as I expected from listening to Savannah’s stories.
Happy Cat has its charms—a fine town square with some interesting architecture and a lovely river we spotted on the way in from the airport—but the townsfolk seem a bit unhinged. Beatrice and I are currently surrounded by locals buzzing about a game of Dildo Football the sophomore girls are playing later tonight and the annual treasure hunt for love about to get underway. I didn’t realize love was something that could be hunted, but apparently it is. And the townsfolk seem eager to participate, either in the hunt or in the cheering.
The crowd does finally appear to be thinning a bit, but if Savannah is here, thus far I’ve been unable to locate her.
“Papa, we shouldn’t be ashamed of our body parts,” Beatrice chides me as she attempts to recover the biscuit. “I’ve eaten biscuits shaped like hearts and noses before. I see no difference at all with eating this biscuit.”
“The difference is not giving your father heart palpitations, love. Come. We have more important things on our agenda.”
“Papa!” She grabs my biscuit-free hand and squeezes it tight. “Is that George Cooney?”
Both a raccoon and the woman holding its leash turn and peer at us as Bea points a finger their way. The woman smiles, and my heart pitter-patters like Beatrice’s feet did once upon a time in our London flat when she was small.
I’ve never been to this part of the world before, but I feel as though I know it and its inhabitants quite well. “Cassie?” I ask. “Cassie O’Dell?”
She tilts her head. Her brow furrows slightly above her spectacles, but her smile remains. “Yes. I’m sorry, have we met?”
Beatrice drops my hand and charges the poor woman as though they’ve been separated from birth. “You’re Cassie! Savannah keeps your picture on her nightstand. Where are the babies? And the rest of George’s family? We don’t have raccoons in England. Oh, they’re even cuter in real life than in pictures!”
“Beatrice?” Cassie gasps.
“Yes!” My daughter hurls herself into the woman’s arms, hugging her so tightly that Cassie’s eyeballs bulge a little. “So happy to meet you!”
“Oh my goodness, me too. You look exactly like your picture, but I didn’t expect to see you here.” Her bulging eyes shift in my direction. “So you must be the mysterious Mr. Bassingstoke, AKA Savannah’s boss?”
I clear my throat while the raccoon plops back on his haunches and studies me with a skeptical look, as though judging whether or not I’m worthy of talking to his mistress. “Yes. Call me Colin, please. How do you do?”
“Where’s Savannah?” Beatrice asks as she crouches down to extend a hand toward the raccoon. To my relief, the creature seems instantly smitten with Bea and submits to her gentle strokes along its fur with good temper. She pets it with a look of wonder that makes me silently promise to take her with me on trips more often. “Papa finally realized he has to tell Savannah how important she is to us, but it might be too late. She already ran away. We really want her back though.”
My cheeks grow warm.
Waking up to find Savannah gone yesterday, with her letter of resignation resting on the desk in my study, was the wake-up call I needed to admit what I’ve been denying for far too long.
It’s a cliché to fall madly in love with the nanny, but after three years, I can no longer deny my feelings.
I can, however, understand why it took this long to come to my senses.
The first year with Savannah was, frankly, rather wretched. Her fanciful notions and habit of sneaking Beatrice ice cream against my express orders that sugar only be allowed on Saturdays annoyed me endlessly. But she was the first nanny to stick around for more than two weeks since Beatrice’s mother passed away—allegedly the others found my home “cold”—thus I held my tongue, taking comfort in the fact that Bea and Savannah got on so well. By the second year, Van’s whimsical nature had become a normal part of life, but it never occurred to me as I re-entered the dating world that the woman I was looking for was right in front of me the entire time.