Nanny Needed

by Cara Colter

  Simon had the ridiculous urge to ask the dog to take good care of her because she wouldn’t let anyone else do it.

  But he just shook his head, hoping she wasn’t there to tell him she was leaving, hoping he wouldn’t do anything to make the situation worse.

  He walked up to her and gave himself a moment to study her. The faint, bruised look under her eyes that told him she wasn’t sleeping well. The way she held herself, as if she had the weight of the world on her slender shoulders, told him she was still beating herself up about everything. The way she seemed a little bit afraid to even say anything to him, when she’d never seemed that way before, worried him even more.

  “What can I do for you, Audrey?” he asked.

  She held out a notebook she was carrying. “I need just a moment of your time. For some things to do with the yard.”

  “Okay,” he agreed.

  She put the notebook on the hood of his car and opened it up to a photo from a magazine of a pretty yard. A bit fussy for his tastes, but … fine.

  “Just tell me what you like and what you don’t like,” she said.

  He did, and she circled things and crossed other things out. They flipped through the notebook of photos in under a minute.

  “Okay,” she said. “Thank you. I just … needed a little guidance. I hope to have a plan for the front yard to show you in a few days.”

  Simon stared at her, baffled.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Do you know how much information you just presented, how much feedback you got from me and how little time it took you to do it?”

  She looked puzzled. “I was just trying not to take up too much of your time. I know you’re always in a hurry.”

  “I have MBAs who couldn’t come close to making a presentation that effective or getting that much information from me in return. You could give them lessons.”

  “Simon, don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not,” he told her. “I’m seriously impressed.”

  She grabbed her notebook and hugged it to her chest. “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Say things like that.”

  “Why not?” He frowned. “It’s true.”

  She gave him a look that said he was making things worse with every word. Did she think he didn’t mean it? Or that he was flirting with her?

  He sighed, digging for a patience that was in scant supply inside of him. “Fine. I have to go. I’ll be back Friday afternoon. Peyton’s coming for the weekend.”

  Tink perked up at that name. Silly dog even looked as if he was smiling.

  Audrey wasn’t. She looked …

  He couldn’t really decide what she was feeling.

  He shook his head, fought the urge to kiss her goodbye, which he had no right to do, and settled for saying, “Try to miss me, will you?”

  And then he was gone.

  Miss him?

  How dare he?

  Audrey was so furious she spent the day tearing old, ugly, scraggly bushes from the front yard, even though she shouldn’t have until she was ready to put something in their place.

  Tink thought they were playing some sort of game, as if it was okay to dig holes again and demolish plants. She finally convinced him he could chew on the ones she gave him but no others, and she thought he understood.

  She dug until her whole body ached and she had dirt all over herself, even in her hair, and she was still mad when Simon came home on Friday.

  He came to find her at her spot in the side yard, where she’d decided to take out a bunch of scraggly half-dead hawthorn bushes, and just stood there staring as she worked.

  “What?” she asked, not at all nicely.

  “Ms. Bee said you’ve been mad as hell since I left.”

  “So?”

  “I just wondered if you could tell me why,” he said, sounding much too reasonable.

  She was instantly suspicious.

  Was he smiling at her? Was he enjoying this, her being this mad?

  She grew even more furious.

  “Miss me?” she said.

  “Immensely. And don’t bite my head off for it. If you didn’t want to know, you shouldn’t have asked.”

  “I wasn’t asking you if you missed me!” she yelled, worrying the dog and obviously amusing him even more. “I was repeating what you said to me when you left. You asked me to miss you!”

  “And that’s some sort of crime?”

  “In my life, yes. I thought you understood. I can’t do this—”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this is exactly what everyone expects from me. They think I’m weak. They think I’m going to go find a man, a rich man to take care of me and go back to being another man’s wife, totally dependent on him. They think I’m not capable of taking care of myself. God knows, I never have, and it’s long past time I did, don’t you think?”

  Simon took a breath, then another.

  He was a rich man. He couldn’t change that. And he really wanted to take care of her. Not with money, although that would certainly be a part of life for any woman he brought into his world. But in every way there was. He wanted to fix everything for her, wanted to protect her and hold her and comfort her and make everything all better.

  How did that get to be a bad thing?

  Although, he had to admit, he understood her need to be independent. Hell, he even admired it.

  It was just so damned inconvenient, given how he felt about her and what he wanted to do with her, for her.

  He backed up, frustrated beyond belief. “All right. I’m sorry.”

  Simon thought she was still fuming as he walked away.

  Audrey felt a little guilty about how mad she was at Simon. It wasn’t his fault that her life was a mess, and he was her boss. It was odd, too, that she’d let herself get that mad at anyone. She was normally the one who smoothed everything over for everyone, who tried to keep everything normal and happy and flowing along. She would never have talked to Richard that way when they were married, and he’d done much more than Simon ever could to make her mad.

  And the truth was, she missed Simon. Missed him desperately. He’d spent a quiet weekend here with Peyton and then left again.

  It didn’t help that he was doing as she asked, staying away, honoring her need to have nothing between them, and she missed him so much she could have screamed if she’d let herself.

  Still, she kept going, coming up with a plan she was mostly happy with for the front yard, then coming up with another while she was trying to work up her nerve to show him the first.

  She’d read a book on landscaping that suggested photographing your house, blowing up the photo and then tracing the house, the driveway, any trees you wanted to keep onto tracing paper, then drawing in the new elements of your landscaping plan. She’d gotten a set of colored pencils and gone to work with the obsession of a painter trying to get a beautiful landscape just right.

  Then she put her drawing on the opaque paper over the photo of the house and … voilà—Simon’s house the way it would look with either plan.

  She thought they both looked great, but then she was probably biased.

  Maybe she’d show them to Marion first, and then maybe Simon.

  He was due back this afternoon, having a fancy dinner party at the house for some business executives of a company he was courting, hoping to form a partnership on a project in Michigan. Audrey knew that much because she’d received instructions from Ms. Bee on doing what she could to spruce up the yard for the evening and keeping the dog out of sight and hopefully not barking at the guests as they arrived.

  She’d run him extra hard this morning and might just take him out again during the time the guests were supposed to arrive. He couldn’t bark at them if he wasn’t here.

  He was doing so well with his training. Not digging. Not jumping on anyone anymore. Not eating the bushes. Responding beautifully to voice commands and hand signals.

  Ti
nk followed her around the house to the patio and the door closest to the kitchen. Audrey ordered him to sit, then lie down on the patio while she went inside, and he did it without complaint.

  She found Ms. Bee in the kitchen, where she normally was this time of day, and asked what time Simon’s guests were due to arrive, so she’d know when to take the dog away.

  Ms. Bee turned around from her spot near the sink, and Audrey gasped. The woman was a ghastly shade of white, a pained expression on her face, her hand clutching her stomach as if she was in a great deal of pain.

  “What’s wrong?” Audrey asked.

  Ms. Bee shook her head, unable to answer, then she pitched forward, and Audrey somehow managed to catch her.

  Simon got home just after four o’clock in the afternoon. His guests were due to arrive at six for cocktails, and Ms. Bee would serve dinner precisely at seven.

  He didn’t do this often, not liking to make extra work for her and unable to talk her into bringing in help for such occasions. She didn’t like having outsiders in her kitchen, and that’s how she saw it. Her kitchen. She didn’t really like having other people messing with the house at all, so all the work fell to her, and as strong and as tough as she was, she wasn’t as young as she used to be.

  Not that he’d ever dare tell her that.

  But he walked into the house that afternoon and felt like Goldilocks in the fairy tale.

  Someone had been in his house.

  Things were subtly different.

  Very nice, but different.

  He could tell Ms. Bee hadn’t arranged the fresh flowers—white roses with lots of greenery. Definitely not her style. The table setting was different, too. Different china, different crystal, different everything. It was nice, very nice, but different. The wet bar set up in the family room was somehow different, too.

  Even the food—rack of lamb, he thought—while it smelled terrific, was different.

  He walked into the kitchen, spotless save for the food being prepared for the dinner party, and saw Audrey, wearing black slacks, a white shirt and a big, white apron, looking ready to serve dinner, the dog lying forlorn in the far corner of the room and being ignored.

  That was odd.

  He wondered for a moment if he was dreaming.

  If thinking of Audrey had addled his brain.

  Here he was, coming home from a long, often-frustrating trip, to a beautiful home and a beautiful, welcoming … partner.

  Even in his dreams he shied away from the word wife.

  Still, she delighted in his daughter, tamed that wild beast of a dog, made his home look elegant and comfortable without ever seeming fussy; he could imagine her being the ultimate corporate hostess, charming guests, flattering them, buttering them up for any sort of deal Simon might propose, throwing dinner parties like this with ease.

  And waiting eagerly for him in his bed at night.

  Simon frowned.

  He’d never gotten a welcome home like that from his ex-wife.

  He hadn’t even known he wanted a welcome like this.

  But it just looked so damned good.

  Oddly like a 1950s fantasy, he knew, but still … he wanted it.

  He was tired, frustrated, missing his daughter, missing … so much it seemed.

  Simon wondered oddly if he’d been hit on the head or had really been working too hard.

  Was any of this real?

  He cleared his throat, just to see what woman of his fantasy-life would do at the sound.

  She was handling a big kitchen knife, and he didn’t want to startle her. Plus, he was hoping she wasn’t as mad at him as she’d been over the last few weeks.

  She turned around, indeed looking like someone who might be serving dinner at a fancy party.

  “Where is Ms. Bee?” he asked. “And how did you ever get her to allow you into her kitchen? Much less actually prepare food here?”

  That more than anything else had him wondering if he was dreaming.

  No one cooked in Ms. Bee’s kitchen.

  “It was the only way I could get her to leave,” Audrey said. “I promised to carry on as she would have. Not up to her high standards, of course, but to do my best in a pinch. She was adamant that she couldn’t let you down by not being here to pull off this very important dinner party.”

  “Get her to leave?” Simon was still, trying to make sense of that point.

  “With the paramedics,” Audrey claimed. “Don’t worry. She’s fine, I promise. Her gallbladder is acting up, and she had a high fever and was dehydrated. But she’s got an IV pumping drugs into her, and it seems to be calming everything down. The doctors might not even have to operate to remove the gallbladder, but even if they do, I’ve been assured it’s completely routine. She’ll be good as new in a matter of days, restoring order from chaos and tending to your every need.”

  He frowned. “Ms. Bee is ill?”

  “Simon, I know you think she’s invincible and she does, too. But she is human, and I think when the paramedics asked her age, she whispered that she’s seventy-one.”

  “No way,” Simon said.

  “Really. I think that’s what she said. Although she was feverish at the time. I walked into the house this morning just in time to catch her as she collapsed. When she came to, she was mad as could be that I’d called the paramedics and that her gallbladder dared try to interfere with your dinner party. The only way I could get her to agree to go to the hospital was to promise to take care of everything here. I wanted to go with her, to make sure she was okay, but the paramedics were telling me to agree to anything she said as long as she let them take her. So, I did.”

  “And you didn’t call me?”

  “She made me promise not to. She thinks it’s imperative that you are not inconvenienced in any way—”

  “Damned stubborn woman.” He really did adore her.

  “I know. I was going to call you anyway, once I knew for sure what was wrong with her. It seemed cruel to call and say she’d collapsed and was on her way to the emergency room, when you couldn’t do anything but worry. And by the time I knew she was okay, you must have been on a plane already, because your cell phone was off. I thought it seemed kinder not to tell you until you got home.”

  So, Audrey was trying to take care of him by not calling sooner?

  How odd.

  No one took care of him. Except Ms. Bee.

  “She’s fine, I promise,” Audrey said, smiling reassuringly. “I talked to her nurse twenty minutes ago. She’s ordering the staff around and miffed that they’re not listening to her. The nurse said anyone with the energy to be that forceful with her complaints couldn’t be too sick.”

  “Well, that sounds normal for Ms. Bee,” he said, trying to convince himself of it.

  For the longest time, it had been just him and Ms. Bee, an odd kind of family, but it worked for them. And now here was Audrey, stepping in, making him think that as much as he wanted to take care of her and make things better for her, she might do the same thing for him. She was even trying to take care of Ms. Bee today, by being here, doing what she was doing.

  “She’s awake,” Audrey told him. “If you hurry, you should have time to check on her yourself before the party.”

  Which he very much wanted to do.

  “I’d have canceled the damned party,” he said.

  Audrey shrugged. “I thought you probably would have, but that would have just upset Ms. Bee even more. And we don’t want Ms. Bee lying in her hospital bed fretting because she messed up your dinner party.”

  Simon’s gaze narrowed onto her face. “You like her!”

  Audrey scoffed at that. “She’s a nit-picking, outspoken, scary old woman—”

  “You do. You actually like her.” Most people never got past being afraid of her, and they never really understood her. He was ridiculously pleased.

  “I’ve simply been indoctrinated into Simon Collier World, where everything works out precisely as he dictates and, in his absence, a
s Ms. Bee dictates.”

  Everything? Not quite.

  He didn’t have Audrey. Not the way he wanted.

  Calming down, finally, at the idea of a sick Ms. Bee, of his world without Ms. Bee, he was back again at the thought of how happy it made him to see Audrey here like this, as if she belonged here, in his house and in his life.

  She even liked Ms. Bee and was working hard just to make an old lady feel better.

  “You really didn’t have to do this,” he said. “Although I appreciate the fact that you did. I hope this wasn’t all too much for you.”

  “Simon, what do you think I did for the past twenty years? I could throw a dinner party like this in my sleep.”

  He could see that she probably could. She’d told him once she thought she and her ex-husband were partners, both working toward his business success.

  “The house looks beautiful, and dinner smells great.”

  “Don’t tell Ms. Bee, but I dared change her planned menu just a bit. I felt more comfortable using some of my own recipes.”

  “I’ll never tell,” he promised. “Now, what is this outfit you have on?”

  She glanced down at her shirt and slacks. “Best impression I could do of a caterer on short notice. Someone has to serve dinner.”

  “No. No way. You are not going to act like the hired help in my house.”

  “I am hired help.”

  “Not for this. I’ll find someone. A good friend of mine has a restaurant. I’m sure he’ll loan us a server for the evening.”

  “Why? I’m perfectly capable of serving dinner.”

  “I’m sure you are.” But he had a much more appealing idea. He wanted her by his side tonight. “I want you to put on a little black dress and heels, put another place setting at the table, and act as my hostess.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s what I want. Simon’s World, remember?”

  She shot him a look that said she might throw something at him in a moment. “They’ll all think that we’re … involved.”

  “So what? They’re all from Michigan. Who are they going to tell?”

  She was going to argue with him some more. He knew her well enough to see that. “Please,” he said. “Stand beside me for one night and look beautiful and help me make sure my guests have a good time.”