The Last Single Garrett
She nodded, and then said, “I has to go potty.”
“You just went when we were at the store,” he reminded her.
“I has to go agin,” she insisted.
He looked at Tristyn, who sighed. “This is the real reason you offered to buy me dinner, isn’t it? So that you could escape bathroom duty.”
“Well, I can’t take her into the men’s room, and there’s no way I’m walking into the women’s,” he pointed out.
“I hafta go, too,” Emily said.
“Charlotte?” Tristyn prompted.
She shook her head.
“Why don’t you come, anyway, to wash up before dinner?” Tristyn suggested.
So she herded the three girls off to the ladies’ room, leaving Josh alone at a table for five. Thankfully, he knew what everyone wanted, so when Sydney passed by the table again, he was able to place their order.
Charlotte and Hanna returned first, and Josh was settling his youngest niece into the booster seat again when Tristyn’s sister Jordyn came over. Jordyn was married to Marco Palermo, whose grandparents had started serving pasta in the original downtown location of Valentino’s almost fifty years earlier. Recently, Marco had spearheaded the expansion of their business with Valentino’s II. He and his wife had also recently expanded their family with the addition of twin boys, who were now about nine months old.
“Gemma told me that Josh Slater had come in with four gorgeous females, which I thought was a little excessive—even for you.” Jordyn winked at him before turning her focus to the girls.
“These are my nieces Charlotte and Hanna,” he told her. “Emily must still be in the bathroom.”
“She stuck her hands up under the faucet and sprayed water all over her shirt,” Charlotte explained. “Tristyn’s drying it off under the hand dryer.”
Jordyn’s brows lifted as she turned back to Josh. “My sister Tristyn?”
“She’s the only Tristyn I know,” he acknowledged.
“She was supposed to have a date with Rafe tonight.” Then she shook her head. “Apparently her plans changed.”
“That might be my fault,” he acknowledged. “She saw that I was overwhelmed by the prospect of cooking another meal for three fussy kids and obviously took pity on me.”
“We’re not fussy,” Charlotte interjected. “We just like what we like and don’t like what we don’t.”
“Which is exactly what their mother used to say when she refused to eat what was put on the table,” he acknowledged.
“How long have you been staying with Uncle Josh?” Jordyn asked Charlotte.
“We got here yesterday, and we’re supposed to stay for the whole summer,” she said, her glum tone clearly indicating her displeasure.
Josh wasn’t overjoyed, either, but he couldn’t see a way out of the situation for any of them. “My sister’s in Spain on business for the next eight to ten weeks.”
“The whole summer with Uncle Josh,” Jordyn mused. “That should be...interesting.”
“For all of us, I’m sure,” he remarked drily.
But Charlotte was shaking her head. “He doesn’t have any cool stuff and I had to sleep with Emily.”
“In my bed,” he pointed out. “While I slept on the sofa.”
Jordyn chuckled softly. “Oh, yes, it will be an interesting summer.”
“How are Henry and Liam?” he asked.
“If I had my phone handy, I’d bore you with a thousand pictures,” she said, her deep green eyes—so similar to her sister’s—suddenly going soft and dreamy. “They are the lights of my life.”
“Along with your darling and devoted husband,” Marco said from behind her.
Jordyn grinned as she glanced over her shoulder. “Along with my darling and devoted husband,” she dutifully intoned.
The aforementioned spouse slid an arm across her shoulders. “You said you wanted to have a quick word with Gemma while I went to the kitchen to grab a tray of lasagna for the potluck tomorrow, and when I came out of the kitchen, you were gone.”
“Gemma told me that Josh was here, so I came over to say hi. And now I’ve met his nieces Charlotte and Hanna—and this must be Emily,” she said, as his third niece and Tristyn made their way back to the table.
“And now we really have to go,” Marco urged. “We’ve already been away longer than we planned and your mom has a ton of things to do before the picnic tomorrow, none of which she is getting done with Henry and Liam underfoot.”
“You’re right, we have to go,” she agreed. But she gave her sister a quick hug before she turned to Josh again. “Are you taking the girls to the parade tomorrow?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” he admitted. But if he had, he would have answered with a resounding no. He’d barely been able to keep track of them in an electronics store; he didn’t want to imagine the nightmare of trying to keep them together in the midst of the crowds that gathered to celebrate the Fourth of July.
“What parade?” Charlotte asked.
“The Independence Parade is part of Charisma’s ‘Food, Fun & Fireworks’ celebration,” Jordyn explained.
“I wanna see the fireworks,” Charlotte told Josh.
“I wanna see the fun,” Emily chimed in.
“I wanna see some food,” Tristyn interjected. “Tonight. I’m starving.”
“I starvin’, too,” Hanna said, clearly not wanting to be left out of the conversation.
“And Sydney’s on her way with your food right now,” Marco said, gently nudging his wife away from the table.
“See you at the park tomorrow,” Jordyn called back over her shoulder, though Josh wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or—more likely—her sister.
* * *
Charlotte polished off her chicken fingers and ate most of the fries on her plate; Emily ate two slices of the individual cheese pizza she’d wanted; and Hanna ate one slice of her pepperoni pizza—but only after picking off all the pepperoni—and half of Tristyn’s garlic bread. Josh offered her some of the spaghetti that came with his chicken parmesan, which was what she’d originally wanted, but she wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
He was waiting for the check when Tristyn noticed that Hanna had fallen asleep at the table.
“Because she didn’t have her nap at two o’clock,” Charlotte said matter-of-factly. “And now she’s going to be awake until midnight.”
“How was I supposed to know that she should have a nap at two o’clock?” he wondered.
“It’s in the book,” his eldest niece informed him.
“And when did I have time to read the book?” he asked.
Charlotte just shrugged.
“The book?” Tristyn said.
“Is actually a binder,” he told her. “Filled with about four hundred pages of instructions from my sister on what her daughters like and don’t like, dosages for medications, if required, and apparently nap times.”
“Only Hanna has a nap,” Charlotte said. “Emily and me are too big for naps.”
He looked at his youngest niece, her head flopped back against the chair. “What do you think the odds are of me getting her home and into bed without waking her up?” he asked Tristyn.
“Not anything that I’d wager on,” she told him.
But when they got back to his condo, she guided Charlotte and Emily into the elevator while he carried Hanna. He laid her carefully on the narrow cot his sister had brought along with all their other paraphernalia, then helped Tristyn supervise while Emily and Charlotte had their baths and got ready for bed. By the time their teeth were brushed, it was almost eight o’clock—and he was ready for bed, too.
And then, as soon as the other girls were tucked in, Hanna woke up, and he got to go through the whole routine again with her. But being ready for bed didn’t mean that she was ready to sleep. In fact, she seemed completely revived after her “nap” and ready to play.
“I’m thinking Charlotte was right,” Tristyn told him. “She’s going to be awake now until midnight.”
“Lucky me.” He sighed. “And the other two will probably be awake at the crack of dawn, like they were this morning.”
“You should take them to the parade tomorrow,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I think they’ll enjoy it, and you know the whole Garrett clan will be at the park to help you keep an eye on them afterward.”
“I almost forgot tomorrow was the Fourth of July,” he admitted.
“It follows the third every year,” she pointed out.
He laughed softly. “That’s assuming I knew today was the third. I’m not even sure what day of the week it is.”
“Monday,” she said, heading toward the door.
“Thanks for all of your help,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
“I hope canceling your date tonight wasn’t a problem.”
She shook her head. “I’ll see him tomorrow.”
That revelation surprised him. “You guys must be pretty serious if you’re introducing Rafe to your family,” he commented.
“He’s already met my family,” she said, then she frowned. “Wait a minute—I never told you his name.”
“Your sister mentioned it.”
“What else did she mention?”
He shrugged. “She didn’t tell me how long you’ve been dating him...or if you’re sleeping with him.”
Tristyn rolled her eyes. “You really don’t understand the concept of boundaries, do you?”
“I’m guessing that’s a ‘no,’” Josh continued. “If your relationship was at that stage, you wouldn’t have bailed on him tonight.”
She frowned. “What kind of logic is that?”
“The undisputable kind. Because if you were sleeping with him—and he was able to satisfy you in the bedroom—you wouldn’t have let anything interfere with your plans to be with him,” he said.
“Of course, the other possibility is that you are sleeping with him but he’s lousy in bed.” Then he shook his head. “But no, I can’t imagine you would still be with a man who wasn’t able to meet your needs.”
“You do realize this whole conversation could be categorized as sexual harassment,” she noted.
“Are you feeling harassed?”
No, she was feeling...aroused, she realized uneasily.
Which, she was certain, had absolutely nothing to do with Josh but was simply a result of the topic of their conversation—and the fact that she hadn’t had sex in almost two years. A sexual hiatus that she’d considered ending tonight.
She wondered what it said about her relationship with Rafe that she hadn’t hesitated to break their plans—that she had, perhaps, even been a little relieved to have an excuse not to take that next step right now. She liked Rafe—she really did. He was handsome and sweet and kind, and she always had a good time with him. But for some inexplicable reason, she wasn’t eager to get naked with him.
Or maybe the reason wasn’t inexplicable at all.
Maybe the reason was standing right in front of her.
She pushed that unwarranted and unwelcome thought to the back of her mind. “I’m going home now,” she told Josh.
“And if you were sleeping with him,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “you’d probably be stopping by his place on your way home to—”
“Good night, Josh.” And with those final words, she opened the door and made her escape.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy to escape her own thoughts and feelings. Because the truth was, simply being in the same room with Josh stirred her up far more than being in Rafe’s arms ever did.
Chapter Four
The Independence Parade was always the opening event of Charisma’s Fourth of July celebration. Although Josh enjoyed the festivities at Arbor Park, where the processional ended, he didn’t usually seek out a spot on the parade route to watch the various groups and floats go by. Of course, he didn’t usually have three little girls with him, but as soon as Jordyn had mentioned the parade and fireworks at the restaurant the night before, his nieces had been clamoring to attend. On the plus side, because they were in a hurry to get out of the house, they didn’t grumble too much about having sandwiches for lunch.
Shortly before one o’clock, Josh was piling the girls into his truck again because he knew that all the best viewing spots would be gone at least an hour before the parade started. It was a beautiful, clear day, which meant that the sun was in full force. Thankfully, Charlotte had reminded him about the bottle of sunscreen that her mom had packed, and he’d rubbed them all down before they left his condo and brought the bottle along to reapply as necessary. They were all wearing hats, too, but he still worried that they were likely to bake in the North Carolina sunshine.
There were some trees along the parade route, but those coveted spots were all occupied by the time he’d parked and herded the girls toward the end of the route, where they would be closer to the park for the other festivities when the processional ended. He hadn’t gone too far before he found Tristyn’s other sister, Lauryn, with her husband, Ryder, and their kids, Kylie and Zachary. Lauryn and Ryder rearranged their grouping to make room for Josh and his nieces to join them. Charlotte and Emily sat on the curb with Kylie, while Zach and Hanna perched on top of the chest cooler behind them.
He saw the speculation in Lauryn’s gaze as she looked at the three girls, so before she could ask, he turned to Ryder and questioned him about the restoration he’d recently completed in Watkinsville, Georgia. That topic kept the conversation going for a while, then Ryder said, “But we’ve got an even bigger project under construction right now.”
“What’s that?” he asked, at the same time Lauryn rolled her eyes at her husband.
“We were going to wait awhile before we told the whole world,” she reminded him.
“Josh isn’t the whole world—he’s practically a Garrett,” Ryder argued. “And since we’ve told the rest of the family—” he turned back to Josh “—he should know that we’re going to have another baby.”
“Congratulations,” Josh said, offering his hand to the handyman.
Though technically the baby that Lauryn was expecting would be her first with Ryder, her new husband had formally adopted the children from her previous marriage on the same day he’d married her, so that they officially became a family.
Josh couldn’t resist teasing Lauryn, asking, “One baby or two?”
“One,” she said quickly, firmly. “I have them one at a time. Jordyn’s the overachiever—and the twin gene came from Marco’s family.”
“One at a time works for me,” Ryder said. “Because making them is half the fun.”
“Yeah, we’ll see how much fun you think it is when you don’t get to sleep through the night for the first three months,” his wife quipped.
He snaked an arm around her waist and drew her close to his side. “You won’t be doing it on your own this time,” he told her.
She looked up at him, her expression filled with love and gratitude. “I know,” she admitted. “But I still think your plan to fill our house with six kids is a little over the top.”
“Six?” Josh echoed, stunned. Because six was twice as many as he was responsible for now, and after three days, he was beginning to doubt whether he would make it through the summer with his sanity intact.
“I think he just wants an excuse to build a really big house,” Lauryn confided.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about an extension—” Ryder stopped abruptly when his wife held up a hand.
“I think I hear something,” she said.
“Is it starting?” Kylie asked.
“I think it might be,” her mom said.
Josh could hear it now, too—the drums and pipes that indicated the approach of a band from somewhere in the distance.
“I can’t see,” Hanna said.
“There’s nothing to see right now,” he told her.
But as the parade drew nearer, so did the crowd, edging ever closer to the curb. As a result, the little ones had trouble seeing past the bigger bodies, so Ryder lifted Zachary onto his shoulders and Josh did the same—a little uneasily—with Hanna.
The firm grip his youngest niece had on his hair suggested that she was as uneasy as he was—at least in the beginning. But she giggled when the fire department squirted the hot crowd with a hose and clapped when the majorettes paused in front of them to twirl and spin.
After the parade, he thanked Lauryn and Ryder for sharing their curb space, then directed the girls toward the park—where they spent almost an hour in line to have their faces painted before they went to get ice cream. As they made their way toward a cluster of picnic tables, his gaze avidly searched the crowd for a familiar face. He saw plenty of people he knew, but not the one person he most wanted to see.
They succeeded in snagging a picnic table in the shade—a minor miracle—and Charlotte and Emily mostly managed to finish their snacks before they melted. Hanna wasn’t nearly as successful, and by the time she’d given up on the soggy remnants of her cone, she was covered nose to chin with chocolate ice cream.
“Apparently you’ve got a lot to learn,” Tristyn teased as she set her cousin Andrew’s youngest daughter, Lilly, onto the bench with her ice-cream cone and offered Josh a container of wet wipes.
He hadn’t seen her approach, but his initial jolt of surprise was quickly supplanted by pleasure. And the pleasure grew as his gaze skimmed over her, from the ponytail on top of her head to the skimpy tank top that molded to her curves and short shorts that highlighted her mile-long legs.
“The first rule of child care,” she continued, “is never go anywhere without wet wipes.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised, gratefully removing a disposable cloth from the container and clumsily attempting to remove the sticky residue from his niece’s face and hands. He glanced up at Tristyn. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
He was hoping she would object to the label, but she only said, “He’s helping set up the tables.”
Then, in a not-so-subtle attempt to change the topic of conversation, she turned her attention to his nieces to ask, “Did you guys see the parade?”
They responded enthusiastically and in great detail, their words spilling over one another so that he wondered how Tristyn could understand anything they were saying. As he continued to clean up Hanna, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Emily had stood up on the bench and was wiggling around.
“What are you doing?” he asked, horror dawning along with comprehension.
“I got ice cream on my shorts,” she told him, attempting to push the offending garment over her hips.
“Well, you can’t just take them off,” he admonished.
“But they’re sticky.”
The glint of amusement in Tristyn’s deep green eyes had him fighting to contain his own smile.
“Let’s see if I can help you get rid of the sticky,” Tristyn offered, taking a wipe from the container and scrubbing at the drip on Emily’s shorts.
Josh appreciated her help. He’d quickly discovered that taking care of three little girls was a lot more work than he’d anticipated—and gave him a whole new respect for his sister. He’d also realized that sharing the responsibility with someone else—with Tristyn—made it not just easier but more enjoyable. He continued to wipe ice cream from Hanna’s hands and face while Tristyn cleaned Emily’s shorts and Lilly sat quietly eating her ice cream.
“There you go,” Tristyn told Emily.
The little girl frowned at the wet spot.
“They’ll dry in just a few minutes,” Josh promised, anticipating her complaint. “Probably less in this heat.”
“Look, Unca Josh,” Hanna implored. “Bawoons!”
He turned to follow the direction her finger was pointing and saw a couple of clowns making balloon animals for the kids who had gathered around.
With a sigh of resignation, he returned the container of wipes to Tristyn. “When are the fireworks?” he asked wearily.
She laughed softly. “Not for hours and hours yet.”
“Do you want to come with us to get balloon animals?”
“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “But I promised Rachel I would bring Lilly right back after she had her ice cream.”
“I guess I’ll see you later then,” he said, letting Hanna tug him away from the bench.
“No doubt,” she agreed.
After the girls each had a balloon animal in hand, Josh steered them toward the Garretts’ usual picnic spot.
His best friend’s family had expanded over the past several years, as Daniel and his brothers and cousins all got married and started families of their own. Now there were kids ranging in age from nine months to twelve years, and his nieces were immediately accepted into the fold.
Although Charlotte was a few years younger than Maura and Dylan, they were letting her hang out with them; Emily was playing on a nearby climbing structure with Kylie and Oliver; and Hanna had apparently become new best friends with Jacob and Zachary. The family wasn’t finished expanding yet, either. Ryan’s wife, Harper, was about six weeks away from her due date and, as he’d learned a few hours earlier, Tristyn’s sister Lauryn was scheduled to add to her family around Christmas.
In fact, looking around at the various couples and groups, he realized that Tristyn was the only one of Daniel’s cousins who wasn’t yet married—and he wondered if the guy she was with planned to change that.
Marco had introduced Josh to Rafe when he arrived, which was how he’d learned that Tristyn’s date was also Marco’s cousin and the head chef at Valentino’s II.
“So you’re the reason that Tristyn canceled our plans last night,” Rafe commented, as he shook Josh’s hand.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, as Marco moved away to help his wife set up a portable play yard for their boys.
“No need to be,” the other man assured him. “She explained the situation, and I know she’d never walk away from a friend in need of help.”
Though Josh couldn’t deny the accuracy of the description, it still grated on his nerves that Rafe was so dismissive of the time Tristyn had spent with him. It was as if the guy was so secure in his relationship with her, he had no worries about his girlfriend hanging out with another man. Admittedly, she’d been hanging out with another man and three kids, but still.
“There you are,” Tristyn said, a smile lighting her face as she made her way toward them. And for just a second, Josh thought she was talking to him. Then she linked her arm through Rafe’s, effectively dispelling that notion. “Your nonna’s looking for you.”
“And I’m hiding from her,” Rafe admitted. “It’s my day off and I don’t want to talk about tweaking any of my recipes or any other restaurant business today.”
“Then let’s take a walk before dinner,” she suggested, leading him away. “I saw your aunt brought cannoli, which means that I need to get a head start on burning off the extra calories.”
Not wanting to watch them wander off together, Josh purposely turned in the other direction.
* * *
Josh spent some time hanging out with Daniel and Kenna and their kids; chatted with Harper about her return to WNCC—the local television station for which she now produced the morning show—and her plans for juggling her promotion with a new baby; and congratulated Braden and Cassie on their recent engagement. All the while, he kept a close eye on his three nieces, who were more than happy with their new friends. When the food was finally set out—the selection covering most of two picnic tables—everyone dropped what they were doing to get in line. Since Josh hadn’t brought anything to contribute to the potluck, he bought a couple platters of burgers and sausages from the Fireman’s Picnic—another Fourth of July tradition, which brought together the local ladder companies to cook up various offerings, with the proceeds going to support the children’s wing of Mercy Hospital.
“I haven’t seen you eat anything,” Jane Garrett said, handing him a plate piled high with a double-decker cheeseburger, potato wedges, pasta salad and baked beans.
“I wasn’t going to go hungry,” he assured her. “I just wanted to make sure the girls were taken care of first.”
“Tristyn helped the little one with her plate, but the other two managed to take care of themselves.”
“The little one’s Hanna,” he said. “Emily is playing with Kylie, and Charlotte is with Maura and Dylan.”