Nurse Or Nanny?

Chapter Nineteen

David's POV

Chris and I take separate vehicles to my house. I am secretly happy that I don't have to be in a car with Chris the whole way to my house while she interrogates me with questions about Ashley when I hardly even know her. I know I like her. I know she is beautiful and I don't think she knows it which makes it so much better. I know she is smart. And I know she is hiding something. When we pull in Chris pulls beside me and gets out of the car so fast she basically opens my door.
"Chris, you need to chill out." I say and she looks at me way to excited about tonight.
"Why? I am meeting the person that you decided was fit to take care of my god children. I'm a little excited." And she bounces off to the front door. I don't want her to go into the house before I do and scare Ashley, she doesn't know Chris yet, and she doesn't realize how much she comes over and that she has a key to the place.
"Chris! Just wait for me!" I sigh, I'm already on edge, I need to breathe. Chris walks through the front door and I am not far behind her. The house smells amazing.
"Whoa, this place smells great." Chris says like she is reading my mind. Lauren comes bounding over,
"Aunty Chris!" She yells as she jumps into her arms and gives her a big hug. Chris doesn't put her down and she kicks off her shoes and walks into the kitchen. I follow and see as Ashley is pulling something out of the oven.
"Hey Ashley, smells great in here." I say and give her a big smile. She turns around and her cheeks are a little flushed from what I assume is the hot oven and smiles back at me. Clearly pleased with herself.
"Thanks, I hope it tastes as good as it smells." She says nervously but with a small smile.
"I'm sure it will be great." Chris says and I am still looking at Ashley, she holds my gaze for a moment before she turns to where Chris is standing with Lauren.
"Oh, this is Chris. We work together." I say and Chris puts Lauren down on the bar stool next to where Joe is sitting and walks around the island to introduce herself.
"Hey, it's nice to meet you. Everything in here smells so good. Can I help with anything?" Typical Chris, always trying to help.
"No, thank you. I think I have everything under control. If you want to open the wine and pour a few glasses that would be great." Ashley says with such a genuine smile it makes my heart do funny things. She is so kind to a person she just met and making her feel useful without actually having to do anything other than drink wine. Such a hostess, and it's not even her home.
"That, I can do." Chris says and eyes me and points at the glasses, I nod. I am definitely going to need some wine to get through tonight. I go and walk around to where Chris was beside Ashley and when I get closer to her I can smell her. She smells so good, fresh, and kind of like cookies.
"Hey, you sure you don't need any help?" I ask her, really wanting to do something because I am feeling pretty useless in my own house. She smiles up at me and shakes her head.
"Nope, we are all good." She says and look at Lauren and Joe. I look at them a little confused, they never help me when I'm cooking dinner.
"Lauren is going to finish up the salad." She looks over at Lauren and nods towards the fridge,
"And Joe is going to set the table." She looks at Joe who then hops off his stool and goes to the table where it looks like Ashley already set everything.
"Well it looks like you've got things under control. Where's Jackson?" I hope he was good for her today. I know they ended things well this morning but his mood changes so much.
"He's upstairs taking a shower, he should be down soon." And almost like she timed everything perfectly Jackson comes down the stairs.
"Whoa Ash, smells good in here." Ash? He's calling her Ash, it hasn't even been twenty-four hours! This woman is magic.
"Hey Jackson. Would you mind helping Lauren with the salad." She walks over to him away from Lauren to whisper something to him. I couldn't hear it but he goes over to Lauren and helps her mix everything so its a bit more even and Lauren is putting the toppings on. I leave for one day and Ashley has these kids doing more than I could ever get them to do willingly.
"Why don't you go and relax with Chris for a few minutes. I am just going to cut up the garlic bread, the lasagna should be ready in just a couple minutes. I want it to cool down a bit before we serve." She says and basically shoos me out of the kitchen.
"Well, looks like you have a real winner there." Chris says as she reaches to the coffee table and grabs my wine for me. I look back over the couch and see my family all getting along so well.
"Yeah, I think I did." I say.
"So why does it seem like you are looking for there to be something wrong?" Chris asks me.
"What? I'm not." I say. But she knows me too well.
"Sure David. I'm not an idiot. This is going well. Enjoy it, don't ruin a good thing. Okay? If something happens deal with it then, but don't create a problem." She says, and she's right. I take a sip of my wine and am shocked at how good it is.
"I know, good right. I saw the bottle, it's a Canadian one, from BC I think, good taste." She says and takes another sip.
"Dinner is ready guys." Ashley says and everyone makes their way to the table. There is a massive lasagna, a fully loaded caesar salad and garlic bread. The kids have milk and the open red is on the end where the adults are sitting.
"Looks great Ashley, where did you find everything?" This might be a regular menu item.
"I went to that store just down the road, pretty pricey, but they had everything i needed to make this so not bad." Wait, she made this from scratch?
"You made everything here?" Chris asks, again like she read my mind.
"Yeah, not the garlic bread thought. I just found that in the bakery section, the guy said it was fresh baked today, so I hope its not stale or anything." She says as she inspects the bread.
"You made everything hear, even the dressing for the salad?" I ask.
"Oh yeah, it's not hard when you know what you're doing" She says nonchalantly and she is dishing up some lasagna for Lauren.
"Dig in guys, there's lots here." She says, and I can see she looks like she's getting a little nervous like we don't want to eat her homemade food. A few minutes later and the table is silent. A good sign that the food is good. And is it ever delicious. There's something different about the lasagna that I can't point out but I really like it.
"Ashley, what is that spice in here, it's different but I like it." Jackson nods his head in agreement. She smiles like she's had this question before.
"Nutmeg." Huh, never would have thought of that.
"My Nana used to do it, then my mom and I guess me." She says with a smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. There is something there and I'll ask her about it later, but not now. Not in front of everyone.
"Well it is delicious. I can't believe you made all of this from scratch." She shrugs her shoulders and puts her hands in her lap.
"Oh, I made cookies this afternoon and have some ice cream in the freezer for dessert. Does anyone want some?" She asks and looks around the table with everyone nodding her head. She smiles and gets up. She goes to the freezer, pulls out the ice cream and also preheats the oven. She comes and sits back down with us and takes a sip of her wine. I can see a blush forming on her cheeks from the wine and all I can think about how I want to put that blush on her cheeks. I feel Chris looking at me and when I look over at her she just smiles. Dammit she caught me staring. She just grabs the bottle and pours herself a little more wine, she tops mine up and gets up and walk down to Ashley,
"More wine?" Chris asks.
"Oh, yes. Thank you." Ashley says and moves her wine glass over to Chris. Ashley looks around the table at the empty plates,
"Does anyone else want anymore?" I already ate probably more than I should have but I couldn't stop myself. When everyone nods no she starts gathering the plates.
"No, no. You cooked, I'll clean." I tell her and she gives me a weird look.
"It's fine, you worked all day, I've got this." She says with a smile and keep gathering up everyone dishes.
"No Ashley, we will do this, go and sit down." Chris says. Thank you Chris for seeing sense.
"Really, its okay. I don't mind." I am annoyed, why won't she just let us help, anyone else would be happy about this right now.
"Remember when you said that because both of us have never had experience with this nanny gig and we'd work on how thing would work. This is us making it work, if you cook, other people will clean." I say and look her right in the eyes, and I am standing closer to her now.
"Okay." Is all she says and she carefully hands me the plates.
"Thank you." I say and Chris and Jackson grabs the leftover food off the table and start putting it away. It's not like cleaning up is a big deal, I have a dishwasher. As we are cleaning Ashley is putting some cookies on a cookie sheet and putting them in the oven. They already looked cooked so I am a bit confused.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Just warming up the cookies to have with the ice cream." She says and she is getting plates and spoons out.
"You are spoiling us tonight." She just looks over at me again and gives me a small smile and shrugs. She is so cute.
"Lauren can you come and help me." Ashley says and Lauren comes running. Ashley has taken the ice cream that has had some time to soften, the plates and an ice cream scoop over to the kitchen table. "Can you please put one big scoop on each plate and a spoon as well." She emphasized the word big and Lauren couldn't have looked more happy. Ashley comes back into the kitchen and turn on the oven light. She looks around till she finds Joe and waves him over.
"Do you think these look done?" She asks him. Joe looks into the oven for a couple seconds,
"The chocolate is all melty, so yes?" He asks.
"Okay, I'm going to take your word for it." She hands the oven mitts to Joe. "Think you can take them out without burning yourself?" Joe looks at the oven for a second and nods his head. Joe puts on the mitts and I am very nervous. I haven't let him do anything like this before. But I can see Ashley has a tea towel in her hand, I would assume to help if Joe needs it. He takes them out just fine and is so happy with himself. I'm done loading up the dishwasher and Chris and Jackson have wrapped the food up, put it away and are sitting at the kitchen table.
"Well done my man" I say to Joe.
"Dad, I took these out all by myself!" He practically shouts at me.
"I know bud, I saw. Good job." I give him a high give. As this is happening Ashley is scooping them up onto a plate and turn around.
"Here, can you take these to the table. Be careful they are a little hot. Here," she turn around and grabs some tongs, "use these and put one on each plate." They are big cookies so one is more than enough. I am so happy that is only took a day and these kids have taken to her. I was thinking the transition would be difficult at first but Ashley is making everything so easy. Before we head back out to the kitchen table I turn to Ashley and step in her path,
"Hey, thank you so much for tonight. I haven't seen my kids this happy in a long time." She looks up at me and I wonder what she is thinking. I wish I had met her somewhere else and she wasn't my nanny. She is too good for my kids and I can't mess this up for them.
"No problem. I think my plan worked." She smiles at me and walk around me to the table and sits beside Chris. When everyone is finished I gather up the plates and put them in the dishwasher and turn it on. Lauren and Joe make their way to the TV room and Jackson is about to head upstairs when I hear Ashley say,
"Hey Jackson. You still on for our one on one game tonight?" She said with a little cockiness to her voice, I am sure it's just to lead him on. Jackson turns around and smiles at her.
"You sure you want to do this." He says at he walk towards her. "I wouldn't want to embarrass you in front of everyone on your first night here." He says confidently.
"If anyone is getting embarrassed tonight it's going to be you Jackson." Ashley says. Whoa I did not know she had this side to her. Maybe she is competitive. Jackson laughs,
"Okay, grab your shoes, let's get this game started." Ashley nods her head and starts to make her way upstairs. I am a little surprised this is happening but excited too, Jackson is having fun. I look over at Chris who is eyeing me hard. She is excited for this too.