Free The Nanny's Little Matchmakers (Love Inspired Historical) by Danica Favorite Page A

last, for the children’s sake, he’d accept it.

Chapter Six
    P olly tucked the blankets around Isabella, pleased that the children were settling in so well. Their father, however, was another story. Why was Mitch being so obstinate about accepting help? Yes, he was letting the children stay at the parsonage, but how did that help exonerate him? How did that ensure that the children would continue to have a father?
    She turned to leave, but the little girl sat up in bed. “You didn’t say my pwayers wif me.”
    Warmth radiated through Polly’s chest. With so many things about the situation bothering her, at least something was going right. This sweet little girl, who’d clearly not known the Lord before meeting Polly, asking for prayer. Louisa still sullenly ignored her, and the other children seemed to tolerate it, but at least Isabella seemed to love Polly’s nighttime prayer.
    “I’m sorry, I thought you were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you.”
    A drowsy smile filled the girl’s face. “I sweep better wif my pwayers.”
    Polly knelt beside the bed and recited the prayer she said every night. Before the “amen” was out of her mouth, Isabella had drifted back to sleep. She’d join the little one in bed later, but she still had other things to do before retiring.
    As she exited the room, she nearly ran into something hard, firm and warm—Mitch’s well-built chest.
    “Oh!”
    He smelled fresh, clean and with just a hint of the pine-scented soap she’d helped Maddie make over the summer. She hadn’t thought of soap being so...intimate...and yet Polly recognized the feeling of attraction almost immediately.
    With a quick step to the right, Polly got out of his way, trying not to notice how handsome he looked with his still-damp hair. The butterflies fluttering in her stomach had no business there. She was meant to do a job, not ogle her employer.
    “Sorry,” he said slowly. “I didn’t mean to be spying on you. It’s just that...” His voice caught, and for a moment, Polly thought she spied tears glistening in Mitch’s eyes.
    “I don’t think Isabella has ever known such tenderness and love before.”
    Polly’s heartbeat returned to its original state. At least Mitch hadn’t noticed her foolishness over him. And instead, he’d brought her focus back to where it should have been in the first place—his children. “I imagine it’s been hard, having so many nannies, and with her mother now gone, love is all the little dear needs. And I’m happy to provide it.”
    But Mitch didn’t return the expression. Instead, his eyes looked haunted, his brow furrowed. “I don’t think she even had that before.” He rubbed his forehead, then shook his head slowly. “How could I have missed it, all this time?”
    “Missed what?” Polly reached forward and touched his arm tenderly. Oh, if he were only a little boy like Rory or Thomas, she could take him in her arms and hold him. But Mitch wasn’t a boy, and the longing in her heart felt different from how she felt toward his sons. But it didn’t change her wish to somehow make whatever was going on in his mind better.
    “They’re so easy to love. But why couldn’t the nannies? Why couldn’t she have loved them?”
    “She?”
    In the dim corridor, Polly couldn’t read his expression. But when he spoke, his voice cracked, and the ache in Polly’s heart deepened.
    “Hattie.”
    Their mother. “I’m sure she loved them. Of course she loved them.”
    Mitch shook his head slowly, his brow twisted momentarily, though he was trying to figure out a puzzle. Just as quickly, the expression disappeared, then he spoke. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I’ve just never seen a woman tuck my children in and say prayers with them. Hattie wasn’t the motherly sort, and the nannies were more interested in discipline than love.”
    Something in Mitch’s mood had shifted, and it seemed better to lighten the atmosphere. “Perhaps you