“Some.” Sam sounded distracted, but she couldn’t blame him for multitasking while she entertained the whirlwind Mirabella.
It was truly a special kind of torture being stuck in a room of toys with a child who never stopped moving. Everly would have preferred almost anything over this—drilling with the SEALs, breaching an ISIS stronghold, hell, she’d take scrubbing a barracks toilet over this.
“Every, pay with me.” Mirabella had taken to calling her Every or Evie instead of Everly.
Everly barely held back a groan as she slid the Candyland box back onto a pile of games on the shelves. When she looked over her shoulder, she found Mirabella dragging out the container of Legos Everly had put away twice already.
She was careful to keep her voice down when she spoke with Sam and forced a perpetual smile on her face to hide her frustration. She was pretty damn sure she was either being listened to or watched. Or both.
Mirabella turned the carton of Legos upside down and they spilled across the floor. This time, Everly couldn’t hold back. She groaned.
“That sounds familiar.”
Hix’s voice startled her. She always stayed aware of her surroundings and thought she saw and heard everything. But he had been special forces for several years, so she gave herself a break and turned to smile at him.
“How many times has she done that?” he asked.
“This makes three.”
“Bella, are you torturing your new friend?”
“No torting, Daddy.”
“You’ve got one very busy girl,” she told him. “I can see why you need a nanny. You’d never get anything done without one.”
He didn’t smile, but he wasn’t wearing that suspicious expression he’d maintained in the office either. He stood in the middle of the doorway, hands on either side of the jamb. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down, and the light fabric accentuated his dark hair and tanned skin. The man seemed to slide into both roles of warrior and CEO effortlessly.
“Daddy? Pay Yegos?”
He wandered into the room and crouched beside his daughter. He ran a hand over her hair. “Daddy, will you play Legos with me?”
“Daddy, ill you pay Yegos me?”
He laughed and kissed her head. “Very good. Maybe after a snack. I bet you’re hungry after all this playing.”
As Hix and Mirabella chatted about all she and Everly had done that afternoon, Everly listened to Sam in her ear.
“I think I’ve found a way for you to add value to this deal. Mirabella is a little young for this diagnosis, but she exhibits all the signs of a child with ADHD. Based on how protective and conservative Hix is, I doubt he would want her on any medication. I’ve been looking into ways to treat ADHD with behavior modification.”
Everly knelt on the floor and helped Hix and Mirabella put the Legos back into the bin. Hix wore a soft smile as he listened to his daughter prattle on, but he still seemed to have an aversion to smiling at Everly. That was fine. She had a feeling his smile might knock her on her ass.
By the time the three of them had found every tiny Lego, Sam had offered a litany of suggestions on how she might help Mirabella with her ADHD.
“Roman and Ian just touched down in San Jose,” Sam said. “They are headed to Café Loco in Coco Beach. Contact them when you can meet. Call me if you need me, and I’ll check in soon. Signing off.”
“Everly?”
“Yes.” She responded to Hix instantly, realizing she’d missed something he’d said while her mind had been turning over the information Sam had delivered. “I’m sorry, what?”
She looked up and found Hix’s gaze on hers. It was the first time he’d looked her in the eye for more than five seconds. His eyes were somewhere between hazel and light brown, surrounded by long black lashes.
“Where’d you go?” he asked, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes suggesting he was amused. “Probably wish you were sunning yourself on the beach right about now, huh?”
“Not at all. I was actually thinking about all the ways I could help Mirabella.”
Hix pushed to his feet, and Mirabella lifted her arms to him. He picked her up and told Everly, “If you’re interested in staying on, we could talk about it over food and wine. I’m sure you could use both right about now.”
Yes. She was in. And even though that meant dealing with a kid up close and personal, it would last for only a few days at most.