Aurora’s next-door neighbor was a widow named Donna who had been her mother’s best friend. Donna was one of those active women in their sixties whose physical fitness put Aurora’s to shame.
Donna had been there every day while Aurora’s mother had been sick, and she still came by now and then to check on Aurora now that Madelyn was gone.
On Saturday morning—Aurora’s day off—Donna poked her head in through the kitchen door while Aurora was sipping her first cup of coffee.
“Hey. How are you doing, kid? You should be sleeping in, since it’s your day off.”
Aurora leaned her butt against the kitchen counter, her mug in her hands. She was wearing sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt in contrast to the Lycra workout gear Donna was decked out in. Even Donna’s silver pixie haircut was perky.
“If I’d slept in, I’d be awake now anyway because you’re here.”
“Nah.” Donna waved off the comment. “My plan was to peek in the window and skulk away silently if you weren’t up yet.”
“Since I am, do you want some coffee? It’s a fresh pot.”
“Can’t say no to that.”
Donna didn’t wait for Aurora to pour a cup for her—the two of them were past such formalities—and instead went to the cupboard, chose a mug, and poured her own coffee.
“So, how’s work?” Donna asked as she stirred sugar into her coffee from a bowl on the table.
“Work is good. The baby is adorable, and Rowan is a good boss. In fact, he went above and beyond.” She explained how he’d helped her with the dating app and how she was getting better responses due to the changes he’d helped her make.
“Oh, honey, I could have told you about the word fun and what that means in the online dating world.” She rolled her eyes. “I made that mistake myself when I started dating about a year after Harry died.”
“You’re on dating apps?” Aurora didn’t mean to sound as surprised as she did.
“Don’t be so shocked. I’m sixty, not ninety.”
“Oh. I didn’t mean—”
“You did, but it’s fine.” She waved it off. “And I do use the word fun from time to time. Intentionally.”
Aurora laughed and took a sip of her coffee. She liked having a friend, liked having this easy rapport with another woman. She also liked that Donna had been so close to her mother. It was almost like having a little piece of Madelyn here with her.
“Well, in my case, it was not intentional. Rowan had me change it from fun and maybe more to friendship and maybe more. Now I’m getting actual questions about who I am and what I like to do instead of just crude comments on my face and body.”
“He gave you good advice.” Donna scooted her butt onto a barstool at the kitchen counter. “Are you going to meet anyone?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Aurora went into the living room, grabbed her phone off the coffee table, and brought it into the kitchen. Then she brought up the dating app and pulled up a profile of a blond man in a polo shirt. “This one seems nice.” She handed Donna the phone.
“Hmm. He’s got a good smile. Hotel manager, college graduate, likes to surf. Not bad.” Donna gave the phone back to Aurora. “So when are you meeting him?”
“We’re negotiating. Friday night, maybe.”
Donna was quiet for a moment as she sipped her coffee. When Donna was quiet, it meant she was thinking something and wasn’t sure how it was going to go over.
“Okay, what?” Aurora asked.
Donna shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I was just wondering about you and Rowan Brody.”
“What about us?”
“He’s single, you’re single. He’s incredibly hot, and rich, and a doctor …”
“He’s my boss,” Aurora protested.
Donna sighed. “Yeah, there’s that. But there are other jobs.”
Aurora leaned her elbows on the bar across from where Donna was sitting. “One, don’t you think that would be incredibly awkward? We hit it off and maybe sleep together, and then the next day I’m washing his dirty underwear?”
“You’re the nanny. Why are you washing his dirty underwear?”
“I don’t. Not always, anyway. Once or twice, when I was putting Molly’s things into the machine. But you see my point.”
“Okay, sure. I do. That was one. What’s two?”
“Two, if he were interested in me at all, would he have helped me fix my dating profile?”
Donna waggled her head—maybe yes, maybe no.
“And three,” Aurora went on, “he’s a man whore. He’s a player. Did you know that the day he found out his girlfriend was pregnant with Molly, he also got caught cheating on her?”
“That’s not how I heard it.”
“Why did you hear about it at all?”
“It’s a small town. Everybody talks. Of course I heard.”
Aurora rubbed at her eyes with her fingertips. “Okay. So, how did you hear it, then?”
“I heard that yes, he was seeing two women at once, but he and Ashley were not exclusive. She wasn’t really his girlfriend.”
Aurora threw her hands into the air. “Does that make a difference? He was sleeping with two women at once, and one of them got pregnant, and both of the women ended up pissed off and hurt!”
“Fair point,” Donna conceded. “I’m just saying, it wasn’t cheating, technically.”
“Knowing all of that, do you really think Rowan is good relationship material for me?”
“Well, no. Maybe not. But he could be a lot of fun.” Donna wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Rowan didn’t usually work weekends, but the nature of his job required that he be flexible. Newborn exams in the neonatal unit at the hospital in San Luis Obispo were part of what he did, and babies didn’t follow any schedule regarding when they were born. They didn’t stay in their mothers’ wombs until business hours just to make things convenient for him.
So he dropped Molly off with his mother on Saturday morning and headed to the hospital, his thoughts drifting during the forty-minute drive.
First he thought about leaving Molly with his mom, which made him think about what a great job Aurora did with the baby. That made him think about Aurora and her dating profile—fun and maybe more. Which made him think about how naïve she was when it came to the whole prospect of online dating. Which made him feel protective of her. And maybe a little jealous that she was going to be dating people who weren’t him.
Jealous?
No, he wasn’t. He couldn’t be, since he had no designs on Aurora for himself. He’d be an idiot to want her, not because there was anything wrong with her—quite the contrary—but because he needed her there in his house with Molly every day. She was the only thing making his life work right now. He’d be a fool to screw that up.
And he would screw it up.
Rowan’s dating history was riddled with women who now scowled angrily at him when they happened to catch sight of him in the grocery store or walking down the street.
Hell, there were entire cities he avoided due to the prospect of being beaten—or worse—by someone’s husband or boyfriend.
Of course he would screw things up with Aurora. It was what he did.
He’d never gotten introspective about why that was, and he wasn’t about to do it now. He knew himself, and he thought he knew Aurora, and the two of them would lead only to disaster. He’d hurt her, and she wouldn’t bounce back from that as easily as many of the women he’d been with. Then she’d quit, and where would he be?
He didn’t want to hurt her, and he also didn’t want to look for a new nanny, given the fact that nobody he found would be as much of a natural at it as Aurora was.
No, he was keeping his dick in his pants where she was concerned, for everyone’s sake, not least of all, Molly’s.
But that didn’t mean he had to keep his dick in his pants altogether.
He needed to post his own dating profile, that’s what he needed to do. Hook up with somebody who was amenable to some harmless fun. Molly was almost three months old, and he hadn’t been laid for at least a few months before that. Call it six months without sex. It felt like years.
Ashley’s pregnancy, then the reality of Molly, had thrown him off his game, but it was time to step onto the field again.
He was more than due for a win.