Well, it had been a long time.
He shrugged on jeans and a T-shirt, not bothering to check his appearance in the mirror. His curiosity about what was happening in the kitchen trumped the urge to take extra time to spruce up before presenting himself to the world—or rather, to Stephanie.
Drew walked bare-footed into the kitchen, where he discovered Stephanie at the stove flipping pancakes, while Pop and the twins waited impatiently at the table, forks in their hands and expectant looks on their faces. Someone had set a basket of fresh strawberries on the table and both of the boys sported telltale red-stained faces.
“Good morning, Drew,” Stephanie greeted as he entered the room and tousled his twins’ hair.
“Morning,” he echoed absently as he tried to take in the full extent of what was happening.
Stephanie was dressed in gray sweatpants and a loose-fitting pink T-shirt and had her sun-gold hair swept back in a ponytail. Even in casual clothing, she was strikingly beautiful, especially because she appeared at ease and in her element with giggling children in the room.
At home. In his house.
In the week since she’d arrived to supervise his sons, the whole house seemed to be more orderly and less stressful. She was paradoxically full of energy and yet able to create a calm, tranquil atmosphere in the house when need be. The boys loved her, and he had no qualms about having the twins stay in her care while he taught at the elementary school. He might not have known Stephanie for long, but he trusted her.
She’d apparently scoped out his pantry at some point during the week. Not only had she found all the ingredients to make breakfast, but she was wearing his Don’t Mind the Fire: Everything is Under Control apron that he used when he grilled outside.
“Pull up a seat,” Stephanie continued cheerfully. “Your pancakes are almost ready. I hope you’re hungry. I made a lot of them.” Her voice was as bright as sunrise on a spring day, which only served to rattle Drew’s nerves even more. Ugh. He wasn’t a morning person on the best of days, and this was not his best day.
“Look, Daddy. It’s a kitty.” Matty pointed to his plate. Sure enough, there was a pancake shaped in the form of the little boy’s favorite animal.
“Really cool, buddy,” he said. Fairly creative, he had to admit. Breakfast art. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an animal pancake before.”
“Me, too. Me, too. Stephie made it,” Jamey informed him, pumping his little arms in excitement and pointing at his own plate. “I got a mouse.”
Stephanie’s sparkling brown eyes met Drew’s as she chuckled and glanced over her shoulder. “I gave it my best try, anyway. A kitty’s tail is a little bit more difficult than mouse ears, and I’m not an artist on my best day.”
“You don’t hear anyone complaining,” his pop said, in an unusually chipper voice. Stephanie’s presence had seemed even to have worked on the grumpy old man.
Drew directed his gaze to his father’s plate, amusedly wondering if Stephanie had made Pop an animal pancake. Like maybe a porcupine. But he seemed to be happy devouring his silver-dollar half-stack.
“What is all this?” he asked, wondering if he sounded as disconcerted as he felt. It was as if he was a modern-day man stepping into a 1950s appliance advertisement.
Fortunately, Stephanie didn’t seem to notice his agitation. She just smiled and gestured to the skillets on the burners of the stove.
“It’s just what it looks like. The twins said they were hungry for breakfast, and I thought I might as well cook for everybody. It’s not any harder to whip up a meal for the whole family than it is just for the boys. I hope you don’t mind. I asked your father if it would be okay and he said it would be fine.”
He shrugged and shook his head. “No problem.”
Truthfully, he didn’t know how he felt about Stephanie taking over the kitchen. She fit into his family like fingers in a glove, and he wasn’t sure he was comfortable with that. It was too cozy. Too personal.
Like the sweet family gatherings he’d always hoped for and pictured in his mind but had never quite had. Reality was blinding. And now Stephanie was bridging that gap with her smile and a batch of pancakes. With what appeared to be effortless grace, she flowed into the current of their family, seamlessly blending with them as if she’d been there all along.
“I take requests,” she joked, waving her spatula around like a drum major marking time with a baton. “No promises, but I’ll give it my best shot. An animal? Your favorite sport?”
“Plain pancakes are fine. What Pop’s got on his plate looks great.” He felt awkward being waited on in his own kitchen by a woman he’d invited to his house. She wasn’t exactly his guest, but he hadn’t hired her to cook and clean, either. He hoped she knew that.
“A full stack for you,” she amended. “You’re still a growing boy.”
“I’m going to be, if I start eating a full-size breakfast every day.”
“It’s important to start the morning with a good, nutritious meal, don’t you think? It gives you energy and sets the tone for the day.”
Stephanie was certainly setting the tone this morning. Clear skies, sunny and warm. What a counterbalance to Drew’s current partly-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-rain attitude.
“If we’re talking about needing some energy, I’m going to require a solid jolt of caffeine,” Drew added, smothering a yawn.
“I think we can include a cup of coffee or two with your meal, as long as you eat everything else on your plate and drink a tall glass of orange juice.” She set a steaming mug of coffee before him and he took a long, fortifying sip.
“Because it’s nutritious,” Drew repeated, mimicking Stephanie without mocking her.
She slid him a smile that affected him more than he would have liked.
“Tritious,” Jamey repeated, shoving a large strawberry toward Drew’s mouth.
“That’s right, Jamey,” Stephanie encouraged, sounding just as proud of the young boy as Drew was, even though she had no vested interest in his children beyond being their nanny.
Drew barely dodged the squished-up fruit Jamey was aiming at his face and regarded the boy thoughtfully. Jamey was his shy one. It took a while for the boy to open up, and he didn’t usually speak around people that he didn’t know, especially adults.
But Stephanie was different. Jamey already trusted her, and Drew had to admit, if only to himself, that he could see why. She already knew which twin was which and was able to address each of them by name. Most people couldn’t tell the boys apart, even after they’d been together for a while.
And her ease with the boys wasn’t the only conquest she’d made. She’d even won over his ornery, cantankerous father, which was no easy feat.
“New-tri-shush,” Matty corrected, even though the word was new to him.
Stephanie set a plate piled high with pancakes, bacon and eggs in front of Drew. For some reason seeing this well-rounded meal right in front of him convicted him of his own lapse in parental aptitude.
Nutrition hadn’t exactly been the word of the day where Drew and the kids were concerned, especially recently. An image of the blueberry toaster pastries and quickly peeled bananas that he usually served on busy school-day mornings flashed through his head, followed by a gut-tightening wave of guilt.
When had convenience food become the extent of their morning routine?
He had to hand it to Stephanie—this was the first really nutritious breakfast the twins had had in ages. He, too, for that matter. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon and a large pitcher of orange juice. His mouth was watering already.