Ex-Convict Nanny and Billionaire Single Dad novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Pier
Six days out of prison, Holly pulls a little girl out of Green Lake while the girl's babysitter talks on her phone, and the babysitter turns out to be her sister Shelby, who tells the crowd and the girl's billionaire father what Holly went to prison for; he takes his daughter and warns Holly never to come near her again.
The little girl in the yellow raincoat was alone at the end of the pier, and the woman who was supposed to be watching her was on the phone.
I was six days out of prison.
I was cutting across Green Lake to get to my shift at the diner, hood up, hands in my sweatshirt pocket.
And a kid, maybe six, with red curls sticking out from under her hood.
She was on her knees at the very end of the fishing pier.
A toy sailboat was bobbing just past her reach.
She stretched for it.
Forty yards back a blond woman sat on a bench with her legs crossed and her back to the water.
She was laughing into her phone.
"Hey," I called. "Hey, honey, scoot back."
The girl leaned out farther.
Then she was gone.
Just yellow, and then no yellow.
I was already running.
I remember kicking off my shoes at the end and thinking, don't dive, you don't know how deep.
I jumped feet first.
The cold hit me.
Forty-eight degrees in March, the sign by the boathouse said, and every one of those degrees went straight into my chest.
I swept my arms out.
My hand hit fabric.
I grabbed a fistful of raincoat and kicked for the light.
She came up limp against me, her face gray and her lips going blue.
"Come on," I said. "Come on, baby."
I got one arm around her and the other on the pier ladder.
Hands took her from me, and I hauled myself up after, shaking so hard my teeth clicked.
A jogger had laid her on the boards.
She wasn't breathing.
I pushed him aside.
I'd done the course every year from fifteen to twenty-four, infant and child, the doll on the gym floor.
My body still knew it.
Tilt the head. Two breaths. Watch the chest.
Thirty compressions with the heel of one hand, not too hard, she's small.
"Somebody call 911," I said.
Two breaths.
On the fourth round she jerked under my hand.
Lake water came out of her in a gush.
I rolled her on her side and she coughed and coughed and then she started to scream.
It was the best sound I had ever heard.
I pulled her into my lap and wrapped myself around her, both of us dripping.
"You're okay," I said. "You're okay, I've got you."
She clutched the front of my sweatshirt with both fists.
"My boat," she sobbed.
"Forget the boat. You're a way better swimmer than that boat."
She hiccupped and almost laughed.
Then I heard running heels on the boards.
"Lulu! Lulu! Oh my God!"
The blond woman from the bench pushed through the little crowd.
She dropped to her knees in front of us and reached for the girl.
Then she looked at my face.
All the color went out of hers.
I knew that face better than my own.
I'd last seen it white and blank beside a swimming pool four years and eight months ago, a glass tipped over in the grass.
"Shelby," I said.
"Holly," she whispered.
My little sister stared at me.
"You're supposed to be..." she said, and stopped.
"Out," I said. "I'm out."
A man was running down the path from the parking lot.
Tall, dark coat flying open, black hair wet with rain.
"Lulu."
The girl twisted in my arms. "Daddy!"
He went down on the boards and put his hands on her face, her chest, her hair.
Then his eyes came up to me, blue and hard.
"What happened?"
Shelby got there first.
She always did.
"Nate, get her away from that woman," she said, loud and shaking. "That's my sister. She just got out of prison."
The crowd went quiet around us.
"For what?" the jogger said.
Shelby pressed her hand to her mouth like it hurt her to say it.
"She almost drowned a little boy. A three-year-old. In a pool."
Every face on that pier turned to me.
I had stood in a courtroom inside it.
I could feel our mother's hand on my arm in that hospital stairwell, and her voice. "You'll get probation, honey. Please. For your sister."
I had promised.
I wasn't going to break it on a pier in front of strangers.
But I wasn't going to carry this one too.
I stood up with the child still clinging to my neck.
"It's true," I said. "I went to prison for a little boy who went into a pool."
The man's jaw locked.
"And your daughter went into this lake," I said, "while she sat on that bench on her phone with her back to the water."
I pointed.
Every face turned to the bench, then to Shelby.
"Somebody saw," the woman with the phone said slowly. "I saw her on the phone."
Shelby's eyes filled. "Nate, I looked away for one second."
"She was out at the end of the pier alone," I said. "I called to her. You didn't hear me."
Sirens were coming down Aurora.
The man looked at me for a long, cold moment.
Then he lifted his daughter out of my arms.
She screamed and grabbed for me.
He held her tight against his chest and wrapped his coat around her.
"Come near my daughter again," he said quietly, "and I'll call the police."
He turned and carried her away up the pier, my sister hurrying after him.
Over his shoulder, Lulu reached both hands back toward me and wailed.
Shelby glanced back once.
She mouthed:
"Thank you."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend