Price of a Kiss (Forbidden Men, #1)(11)

Another nod. Was I soaking this up well enough? I was still so freaked it felt like I was forgetting more directions than retaining. Half an hour suddenly didn’t seem like nearly enough time to learn how to care for Dawn’s daughter.

But she seemed to think I’d do just fine as she showed me Sarah’s bathing chair in the bathtub and explained the girl’s nightly routine.

“Cleaning her teeth is important. But we’ve been having trouble using a toothbrush. It used to be she’d let Mason brush them. But lately, he can’t even get her to open up. She just doesn’t like the bristles. So use a cotton swab and soak it in some toothpaste if you have to. Just do the best you can, and beware of these chompers.” With a grin she tapped Sarah’s chin. “She can bite.”

Oh, joy. I looked forward to the rest of this evening more and more. Not.

We moved through the house, Dawn talking in rapid-fire succession as she pushed the wheelchair ahead of her, making me forget more and more of what she said. As we entered the front room, Dawn stopped Sarah in front of the muted television and smiled at me.

“Oh, and if she has a seizure,” she added as she slipped on her café apron and picked her purse up off the coffee table, “don’t try to stop it, because you can’t. Just make sure she can’t do anything to harm herself and wait it out. Call 911 if she turns colors or if she has more than one.”

With that, she kissed Sarah’s cheek. “Take care, munchkin. I’ll be home by the time you’re awake in the morning.”

And she was out the door.

I panicked. Seizures should never be addressed in a parting comment, I decided. Seizures were scary. And serious. I’d just been left alone with a CP kid I had no idea how to even talk to who had seizures.

I turned slowly from the doorway, praying she wouldn’t fall into convulsions that very second.

“So…” My voice trembled as I clasped my hands together. I was afraid to step toward her, and I had no idea why. She didn’t smell bad or anything. I knew she wasn’t contagious. I was just…ignorant.

But I stretched out my arm as far as I could without moving close and tapped a picture on her board. “Do you want to watch some television?” I asked in a slow, drawling voice.

Sarah knocked the picture board off her lap with a flailing hand—I suspect she did it on purpose. Then, she moaned out the word, “no,” and despite all the bobbing her head did, I could tell she rolled her eyes at me.

Yes, she did. She rolled her freaking eyes.

The child thought I was lame. And that just wasn’t acceptable. I was one of the most un-lame people I knew.

But really, the rolling eyes thing bespoke of a rebellious move and calmed me down more than anything else had since arriving at the Arnosta house. It was comprehendible tweenie behavior. And comprehendible behavior, I could get.

Narrowing my eyes, I smiled. Game on, brat.

“So…I overheard you and your brother talking about how all your friends are at a slumber party tonight,” I started, folding my arms over my chest in a ha-take-that manner. “And you weren’t invited.”

She wailed out a groan, telling me I was trudging on dangerous ground for bringing up such a sensitive subject.

I tsked out a sympathetic sound and sat on the chair beside her wheelchair so we could be eye-to-eye. “That’s really too bad, you know. I bet they’re having loads of fun right now, putting on makeup and doing each other’s hair, maybe having a campfire in the back yard and eating s’mores while they tell spooky ghost stories.” I shivered for effect, really rubbing it in.

But then the damndest thing happened. Miserable, fat teardrops glistened in Sarah’s eyes. When she blinked them away, my throat went dry.

Now I was the total jerk face.

Here, I’d been trying to prove I wasn’t some pathetic, pushover babysitter, and my ward had been suffering from honest-to-God heartbreak. Ashamed of myself for being so cruel, I shut up and cleared my throat.

I had to fix this. Like right now.

And suddenly, as if the genius god had visited me, I had an idea. I’ve been known to have occasional, random streaks of brilliance, sure, but this one took the cake.

“Yeah, it’s too bad,” I repeated in the same fake-compassionate voice I’d been using. “Because those girls aren’t going to have nearly as much fun as we will tonight.” Then I let out an enthusiastic cheer and surged to my feet. “Let’s get this party started.”

Sarah glanced at me with a confused wrinkle in her brows.

I sighed and rolled my own eyes. “Let’s do each other’s hair and put on makeup. I swear, I have an entire cosmetic kit in my purse. We don’t need a bunch of other lame girls around to have fun. We can have it all by ourselves.”

Before she could nix the idea, I hurried to my purse I’d left on the floor by the front door and returned to the chair beside her, pulling out everything I had on me and lining each item on the coffee table.

“You sit here,” I ordered as if she wasn’t already sitting, “And I’ll glam you up.”

That’s what happened too. I babbled and applied while she sat and listened.

“The key to putting on makeup,” I murmured ten minutes later, holding my mouth just right to mimic how I wanted hers to purse while I applied glittery gloss to her lips, “is to make it look like you’re not wearing any at all. I mean, to be honest, if you’re not going out club-hopping, too much makeup these days is just tacky and gauche.”