His Nanny Mate (Moana and Edrick Morgan) novel Chapter 158

#Chapter 158: Plein Air Painting

Edrick

As soon as I saw the hurt expression on Moana’s face, I knew that I messed up by taking her tooth. Obviously I still couldn’t tell her about the Golden Wolf, but I realized that maybe I should have asked if I could take her tooth ahead of time; I could have simply told her that I wanted to take it to have some tests done, or anything to not make her panic. She clearly had been frantically searching for the tooth when I came home, and I instantly felt like a jerk for making her feel that way.

Even though Moana said that it was okay, and simply told me not to do that again, she was distant for the next couple of days. I noticed that she was being much more quiet than usual, and whenever she came to bed at night she would simply lay down and turn away from me. Maybe a combination of taking the tooth, getting upset with her over what happened with her ex-boyfriend, and not being there when she woke up for two days in a row made her feel upset.

So, I decided to make it up to her.

One morning, Moana was busy giving Ella a bath when I found Selina in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

“Selina,” I said, walking into the kitchen and pouring myself a cup of coffee, “can you help me with something?”

The housekeeper looked up from the fruit salad she was mixing and furrowed her brow. “What is it?”

I chewed my lip for a moment. It was a bit embarrassing to admit that I needed to find a nice way to make things up to Moana, but it had to be done.

“I think I really hurt Moana’s feelings lately,” I said. “I want to make it up to her, but I don’t know how. Has she mentioned anything to you?”

Selina stared at me for a moment, then shrugged and returned to stirring the bowl of fruit salad. “She doesn’t complain much,” she replied. “But she has been a little cooped up since the media attention started. On Saturday, Ella begged her to go out for breakfast. I think they’re both feeling a little stir crazy.”

I nodded slowly, considering what Selina had said. Maybe I needed to find something that Moana, Ella, and I could do as a family. Summer would be ending soon, and it wouldn’t be long after that before winter came and we would be spending a lot more time inside. Maybe it would be nice to do something outside in the fresh air.

As I sat down and began to drink my morning coffee, I opened the newspaper and started to read it front to back, just as I always did every morning. I rarely paid any attention to the advertisements, however. At least, that was until something suddenly caught my eye as I was reading.

It was an advertisement for an outdoor art class. It was called “plein air painting”, which meant that students would be painting landscape scenes out in the fresh air. And, it was family friendly. I remembered that Moana had brought her plein air easel to paint at the mountain estate, but that she had never been able to get any painting done due to the fact that we had to leave so suddenly. Moana loved drawing and painting, and I knew that going to a class to paint outside with Ella would make her happy.

I also thought back to the day that we painted at the orphanage. Even though Moana’s lesson that day was geared toward children, I had still had a lot of fun that day. It made me want to try painting some more, and so I decided to cut the newspaper advertisement out and slip it into my pocket just before Moana and Ella came out for breakfast.

“Daddy,” Ella said as she sat down at the table, “do you have to work today?”

I nodded. “I do, Princess. Why?”