Baby Lessons

caring for Jack Cole’s little girls had taught her a thing or two. Mostly, it had confirmed the fear she’d managed to bury deep inside all her adult life—she wasn’t cut out to be a mother.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked hard. She’d been on the fast track since she’d graduated from Columbia, determined to make a name for herself in Manhattan. She’d always loved fashion and for a while, she’d thought about going to Parsons School of Design. Her dad had been the one to steer her toward fashion journalism instead, suggesting it might the safer choice. The secure choice.
She’d thought she’d simply been emulating her father. He’d been a powerhouse, a corporate legend. Madison had been less than a year old when her mom died, so she had no idea what kind of man Edward Jules had been before fate had cast him into the role of single dad. The father she’d grown up with had been one who’d taught her to work for a life built on a solid foundation. Taking the safe and logical route meant never having the rug swept out from under you. It meant security. It meant control—inasmuch as life could be controlled.
Madison adored her dad, so of course she’d chosen to follow in his footsteps. She’d found a way to pursue her dreams of a job in fashion the smart way, the practical way. She was her father’s daughter, through and through. But despite all her efforts to safeguard her life, she’d been laid off. Since her dad’s fatal heart attack five years ago, her career had been her entire life. And she’d lost that life in the blink of an eye, in the same sort of heartbreaking efficiency with which she’d lost her father.
Madison had been so busy trying to get her life back that she hadn’t stopped to think about everything she’d given up for her success.
Until now.
She knew her dad’s intentions had been good. He’d only been trying to protect his little girl from further pain. Further loss. But maybe there was more to life than simply feeling safe and secure. After all, a life without loss was a life without love.
So yeah. In a moment of weakness, she’d seen those two sweet babies and they’d reminded her so much of herself at their age that she’d actually wanted the nanny job. She’d wanted to dote on Ella and Emma and perhaps find a part of herself that had been lost all those years ago.
What a fool she’d been. There wasn’t a maternal bone in her body. No wonder her parenting column was such a disaster that a critic had made it his own personal mission to make her life miserable. Fired Up in Lovestruck knew the truth.
“I’m going to quit,” she said quietly.
Aunt Alice’s hand fluttered to her chest. “Your column?”
“No, of course not. The nanny job. It’s—” Madison swallowed around the lump in her throat “—it’s just not for me. I don’t have time. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I thought it was only two or three times a week? Just the nights that Sarah’s son has off from the fire station.”
“It is.” Madison shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “But look at me. I’m a mess. I’ve had maybe three hours of sleep and I have to work today. At my real career.”
“Okay, then. Whatever you think is best, dear,” her aunt said, supportive as always.
But her heart wasn’t in it. Madison could hear the slight hint of disappointment in her tone, and it was like an arrow to her heart.
Join the club, she wanted to say. No one was more disappointed in Madison than she was in herself.
Maybe she should tell her aunt about the baby powder explosion she’d created when she’d dropped the container and it had bounced from the end table to the sofa to the floor. Or perhaps she should share the fact that it had taken her four tries to get the rice cereal right and probably glued a bowl permanently to the inside of the microwave in the process. Even the clothes had been tough to figure out. Did infant pajamas really need 10,000 snaps?
As for the diaper situation...it was beyond description.
As humiliating as those mistakes had been, nothing had been as mortifying as waking up just before dawn, stumbling into the den and realizing that at some point during the night, Jack had gotten up and cleaned every inch of the mess she’d made. The sight of the pristine kitchen had nearly made her weep from shame. He was going to fire her. Obviously. Any sane person would.
Her only saving grace had been the fact that Sarah showed up promptly at six in the morning, before Jack had even emerged from his bedroom. By some miracle, Emma and Ella had also been asleep in their cribs. Sarah couldn’t stop gushing about what a wonderful job she’d done, and Madison just couldn’t take it. She’d slunk away before Jack even made an appearance.
And now here she stood in her aunt’s kitchen, too ashamed to admit the truth: she was a horrendous night nanny, and Jack’s baby girls deserved better. They deserved the world.
Madison took a bite of her oatmeal. It was delicious, but for some silly reason, the homey flavors of nutmeg, cinnamon and apples made her want to cry all over again.
She looked up, and her aunt cast her a questioning glance.
Are you sure you want to quit?
The question was written all over the older woman’s face. Even Toby was looking at her with wide, penetrating eyes.
“I just can’t do it,” Madison said, and it might have been the most honest thing she’d uttered all morning.
It was a good thing Jack had finally gotten some sleep, because the morning awaiting him at the fire station was the busiest he’d had in quite some time.
First up was a motor vehicle collision on the highway on the outskirts of town. Engine Co. 24 was the first to arrive on the