Mother In Training (Talk Of The Neighborhood 4) by Marie Ferrarella

Author:Marie Ferrarella [Ferrarella, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Romance, Fiction, Neighborhood, Danbury Way, Small Town, Suburban, Emotional, Meticulous, Corporate, Lawyer, Small Children, Babysitter Quit, Single Father, Nanny, Uninhibited, Family Business, Desk, Watch Children, Levers Family, Family Life, Hopelessly, Children Loved, Different, Story, Bachelor, Single Woman
ISBN: 9780373247851
Goodreads: 3895480
Publisher: Silhouette Special Edition
Published: 2010-07-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Zooey closed the front door behind her. She’d just ushered her charges into the house after picking up Emily and Olivia at school and dropping the latter at her house.

There was homework to get to and dinner to start, but Zooey firmly believed in balancing out work with play. She had milk and chocolate chip cookies waiting for the children in the kitchen. Leaving the treats out without having Jackie get into them had been the tricky part.

Under Zooey’s watchful eye, both children took their turn at getting up on the wooden step she had butted up against the sink and washing their hands before sitting down at the table.

Zooey paused to wipe the area around the sink after Jackie had finished. There was enough water there to fill half a duck pond.

“Are you excited about Halloween?” Zooey asked Emily as she hung up the towel again.

“Halloween, Halloween,” Jackie cried, providing the excitement that was missing from Emily’s face.

He was like a three-foot-tall tape recorder, repeating everything he heard, Zooey thought. But the little boy wasn’t her main concern at the moment. Emily was. Granted, Zooey had gotten the child started. Once or twice in the last few weeks she’d even heard Emily begin a conversation when she was around Olivia. But she needed more. Something to give her more confidence, make her feel as if she blended in better.

The displays of Halloween candy in the supermarket—the displays Jackie had made a beeline for before she managed to grab him—had given her an idea. Emily could have a Halloween party, one for the children in the neighborhood and their parents. It wouldn’t hurt Jack to do a little mingling, either—with someone other than Rebecca.

Getting permission for the party was going to require some finessing on Zooey’s part when it came to Jack. But before she undertook that, she needed to get Emily on board. If the little girl regarded the holiday in the same manner that most kids regarded broccoli, there was no point in knocking herself out.

Still, she couldn’t picture any child not liking Halloween.

“Maybe,” Emily finally said. The single word was accompanied by a vague, careless shrug of her small shoulders.

When Zooey and her siblings had been little, they couldn’t wait for Halloween to come around. To them, it was almost as big a holiday as Christmas. She didn’t understand Emily’s lack of enthusiasm.

She sat down at the table, taking a cookie. There was already a circle of crumbs around Jackie’s plate, along with splotches of milk. She was letting him sit on a booster seat instead of his high chair today, and was beginning to doubt the wisdom of that move.

“Don’t you like dressing up for Halloween, going trick-or-treating?” Zooey pressed.

Emily looked at her for a long moment as if she was talking about something entirely foreign. “We don’t go trick-or-treating.”

This might be easier to pull together than she’d thought. “Because you have a party?” Zooey asked.

Emily shook her head. “No.”

And then again, maybe not. “Do you dress up?” Again, Emily shook her head.

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