She turned back to face Joshua, but Kalvin caught her eyes first. He stood beside Joshua with the most hopeful and pleading statement, begging her to forgive Joshua and give him another chance. Dominique knew her son would never forgive her if she threw Joshua out that minute.
So much for being a good judge of character.
"All right, you’re forgiven," she said curtly, then sighed, not meeting Joshua’s gaze.
Joshua let out a low whistle of relief. He took a step back and sat in the recliner. "Thank you."
Apparently satisfied, Kalvin selected another cartoon off the shelf and popped it into the VCR.
Dominique began pacing the floor. The tension she had imagined before was definitely in the air now, so thick she could feel the weight of it on her shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Joshua smile slightly, and the fluttering butterflies in her stomached picked up pace again.
"Okay, Mr. Divine." Dominique hesitated, still pacing. "Why do you want the job of babysitting my son, and what makes you think you would be a good sitter for him?" Her voice came out calm and controlled, in full authority.
Joshua sat up straighter in the chair and placed his hands in his lap. Great! He thought. Now she’s gone completely professional on me, calling me Mr. Divine. I hate being called Mr. anything!
Suddenly, he realized his palms were sweating from nervousness. This was totally unlike him! "Th-that’s simple. I love children. I’m the oldest in a large family of two sisters and three brothers, ranging in ages from five to twenty-five. I’ve been around children all my life, and can’t stand to go a single day without having one around."
"Why not have a child of your own?" Dominique suggested, cocking her head to one side. "That’s the sure-fire way to have one around twenty-four hours a day."
Joshua chuckled slightly. "Yeah, I guess that would make sense." Then his face clouded over in what Dominique could only guess was a momentary sadness. "Lets just say the good Lord hasn’t decided it’s time for me to have a child of my own yet. That and I guess I’m just not ready for my own."
Getting the awkward feeling she had hit a sore subject, Dominique changed her line of questioning. "Why not work at a day care or something?" She studied him, looking for any signs or signals of warning. Working at a daycare seemed a more likely place to work to her. If he loved children so much, why be around just one when he could be around many?
"I’m a college student."
Dominique halted in the middle of the floor. "You’re a college student!" She repeated it more to clarify the statement in her own mind than for any other reason. "And exactly how old are you?"
Joshua squirmed in the chair. "Twenty-nine. I’ll be thirty in three months."
He picked up the bottle of water she had given him before their unexpected blow out and took a long swig. "I’m studying to be a child psychologist. My instructor advised me to try to spend more one-on-one time with children other than my siblings and their friends. I could work at a daycare, I guess." He lifted one shoulder. "But I’m in my last semester and I have a full class load. Daycares don’t offer the hours that I’m available to work." He took a deep breath. "Besides, it’s kind of hard to spend one-on-one time with a child when there are so many others around, like there are in a daycare."
Dominique felt a heavy steel wall slam shut in her mind. He had actually been convincing her to reconsider her decision to hire him until he came out with that. She fixed a hard glare on Joshua, one that could have burned holes through metal. "I will not have my son being used as some sort of experiment," she informed him forcefully. Sarcasm simmered in her voice.
Joshua shook his head and laughed uneasily. "You do speak your mind, don’t you?" He smiled and ran his fingers through his hair. "I promise, Dom--I mean, Ms. Gabor," he corrected himself. "I have no intentions of practicing psychology on Kalvin. Believe me, I get enough of that in class. I simply want the opportunity to spend time with a child. I want to watch someone other than my brothers and sisters learn and grow into their own person."
Dominique wasn’t sure if his explanation was good enough for her or not. Uncertainty settled in the pit of her stomach, but she moved on. "You said you have a full class schedule. Are you sure that won’t interfere with this job?"
"Not as long as the hours you listed in the ad were correct. I really don’t have a full schedule but it’s pretty packed. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have classes from ten until two. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, my classes end at eleven. I don’t see any reason why I couldn’t be here by three-thirty each afternoon."
"What about your personal life? You said on the phone that you’re not married. Do you have a girlfriend?" It was an important question, yet Dominique found herself asking more for her own personal reasons rather than for the job.
Joshua appeared to bite back a grin. "Yes, I do have a girlfriend. Her name is Heather."
An irrational pang of jealously shot through Dominique’s heart. And she thought a man that handsome would be single! She wanted to grill him about this woman, to find out exactly what she had done to get her claws in such a gorgeous creature. Instead, she voiced a more appropriate question. "And how does she feel about you applying for the job?"
Joshua seemed to hesitate. His chest heaved in a sigh. His gaze darted quickly around the room before landing back on Dominique. "She doesn’t know yet. I haven’t had the chance to talk to her since you and I hung up the phone earlier."
When Dominique gave him an uncertain look, he added, "I’m sure she won’t have a problem with it. She knows how bad I’ve been looking for something like this."
"Weekends--would they be a problem? I may be working every Friday and Saturday night some weeks."
"No problem at all."
"I don’t want your girlfriend over here." Dominique raised a finger in the air. Her gaze remained fixed and deadly serious. She wasn’t going to have a woman in her house intimately involved with her son’s babysitter. Unless that woman was her. The thought startled her. She felt her nipples leap to an erection, and folded her arms across her chest, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
Joshua was intrigued at how insistent Dominique was about Heather. Her request made sense. He wouldn’t want a babysitter’s girlfriend or boyfriend over at his house if they were babysitting his child. Yet it struck him that that wasn’t the only reason Dominique didn’t want Heather at her house. She had this look on her face, almost as if she were…
Jealous? No way. How could he have allowed the thought to enter his mind? He had a girlfriend and, while he was finding himself wildly attracted to this woman, his detest for her profession hadn’t changed. He had sworn off women like her a long time ago. Anything remotely close to a relationship with her would never work. He wanted the job, and nothing more
"I wouldn’t dream of having Heather over here," he assured her, laying on the charm he had been so blessedly born with. "I couldn’t bring her to any other job. This one would be no different."
"I was only offering to pay sixty dollars a week," Dominique said. A bit embarrassed by the small sum she was able to pay, she added, "If things work out with the person I decide to hire, I will probably pay more after a while, when I can afford to."
"That sounds reasonable to me," Joshua said, rubbing his palms together.
Dominique was surprised at how well this was going. But how could he expect to live off of sixty dollars a week? How did he support himself?
Then she thought, duh, he didn’t have to worry about that. He was in college. He was one of those men who still lived with his parents at the age of thirty. And here she was thinking he sounded so responsible.
Dominique grew quiet. Tucking her tongue in her cheek, she paced slowly, her mind reeling. She had been spitting off question after question for a half an hour and suddenly she was speechless. The thing was, despite the fact that he was still dependent on his parents and somewhat arrogant about his feelings toward her profession, he had answered all her questions perfect
ly. Even old lady Noble hadn’t done that. There was still the little tid-bit about his psychology major. Her concern of him interfering with the way she was raising Kalvin was still there. Aside from that, what reason did she have for not hiring him?
There had to be something!
Snapping out of her reverie, she realized that Kalvin was again standing next to Joshua, wearing that irresistible hopeful, begging statement. He liked Joshua, and she knew she would never hear the end of it if she hired someone else.
"All right, you’re hired," she reluctantly said. Her sudden decision shocked her as much as her new employee. "On a probationary basis," she added quickly.
Joshua and Kalvin looked at each other, and Kalvin gave him a high-five.
They were teaming up on her! Great, now she’d outnumbered herself.
Still, an overwhelming sensation of relief passed through her. The relief of knowing she had finally conquered one obstacle standing in her way to riches and her happiness. To Joshua, she said, "My boss will be making the new schedule tonight. I’ll call her and then give you a call, but I will most likely need you to start tomorrow."
Joshua simply nodded in agreement. Kalvin had climbed to sit in his lap. He had gotten the job.
Now he could be here for this precious little boy. And see just how truthful Ms. Dominique had been when she swore she wasn’t like other female bartenders.
Three
When Joshua saw the silver Saturn parked in the driveway of his home, he had no doubt who it belonged to. He pulled in behind it, and slammed his midnight blue sports utility vehicle in park then hopped out. Jamming his fingers through his hair, he rolled his eyes to the sky as he treaded across the grass to the house.
Heather had let herself in again and was probably making herself at home. Girlfriend or not, she had no right to enter his place when he wasn’t there, and she most certainly had no right to take possession of the spare key he usually kept in a hiding spot outside the door. He had made the mistake of telling her where he kept the key one evening and she had taken the liberty of confiscating it right away. Still, as badly as it irritated him, he said nothing to her about the key.
He felt his frustration reach record heights when he tripped over one of her high-heeled shoes as he stepped through the door. The mate to the neck-breaking object lay tossed on the floor several feet away by the glass coffee table. Textbooks were scattered over the cushions of the long, rust colored sofa. A dirty plate and emptied glass sat on the edge of the glass endtable. One shake would have sent it and the pile of ketchup that remained on the plate tumbling to the pale beige carpet below.
"The least you could do is clean up after yourself," Joshua grumbled through clenched teeth. He snatched up the shoe by the door and placed it next to its mate by the coffee table, straightened the books into a nice neat stack on the end of the sofa and carefully removed the plate and glass from the endtable.
He stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, slammed his eyes shut and took a deep, forceful, calming breath. This room was even more of a mess than the living room. Mayonnaise left open to spoil with a butter knife resting on the lid, a loaf of bread also left open and topped with a packet of sandwich meat and three slices of cheese, a bottle of ketchup and a carton of milk were strewn across the Formica counter top closest to the refrigerator.
"One simple move of your hand is all it takes to put this stuff back where it belongs," he muttered. His jaw tightened as he put away the things himself. When he bent over to put the mayonnaise in the refrigerator, he felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He glanced over his shoulder.
"It’s about time you got home," Heather cooed, swaying toward him. She slid her arms around his waist and nestled her plump breasts against his back.
Joshua’s muscles constricted from her touch. Normally he would have experienced a slight arousal by the feel of her soft breasts against his body, but the anger he was desperately trying to keep under wraps prevented even the slightest tingle of response. "Honey," he grumbled, "I really wish you would learn to pick up after yourself when you’re in my house." Straightening, he slammed the refrigerator door shut.
"That’s what I was coming in here to do, but you beat me to it." Heather stepped around him, her arms never leaving his waist, until their gazes met. Her charcoal gray eyes penetrated his. "You didn’t mention anything about going anywhere this afternoon. Where have you been?"
Joshua opened his mouth to explain, but snapped it shut quickly when his gaze lowered to the long button-down white shirt Heather was wearing. His shirt! The top three buttons were undone, inviting a view straight down to her bare, smooth legs. She wore nothing else. She had let herself into his house, made a mess everywhere and helped herself to his clothes, all without permission.
His eyes darted back to hers in a potent stare. He knew unspoken anger smoldered in his eyes. "I had to go out for a while," he muttered. He freed himself from her embrace, then turned to wash the dishes in the sink, all the while doing his damnedest to keep his temper under control. Everything she had done would have been acceptable had she asked. Instead, she was acting as if she lived with him, something he didn’t like at all.
Heather strolled to lean against the counter near the sink and tucked her tongue inside her cheek thoughtfully. "Did you see what I put in the refrigerator?"
You mean you actually put something in the refrigerator! Joshua almost said but caught himself. There was no use getting on her case about her nasty habits. It had never done any good before and most certainly wouldn’t have any effect on her now. "No, I didn’t notice," he said dryly.
Heather ran a hand up the outside of his shirt until her fingers tumbled inside between two buttons. She caressed the dark curly hair that covered his chest. "I bought us a bottle of wine," she purred. "I thought we could relax while we studied tonight."
"And I thought we had agreed to go to the library to study," Joshua countered. He leaned over, resting his elbows on the edge of the sink, and glared out the window. Not that he could really see much through the multi-colored curtains, but as long as he didn’t look at her, she wouldn’t see the frustration that continued to weigh down his spirits.
"Studying here would be so much easier, even nicer. There’s always so many people at the library. I can’t concentrate with so many people around." Her hand abandoned the hairy patch on his chest and slowly made its way to caress the side of his face.
That was a lie if he’d ever heard one. The population of Summer Springs was small, and the chance of a lot of people occupying the library was virtually nonexistent. So what was the real reason? "In other words, studying isn’t exactly what you have in mind for tonight."
"Oh, I have plenty of studying in mind," Heather whispered seductively. Removing her hand from his chest, she raised it to rest on the opposite side of his face. She pushed gently with the tips of her fingers and turned his head to face her. "My kind of studying just doesn’t involve a lot of books."
Joshua’s eyes instantly returned to the view down her shirt. Reaching up, he buttoned two of the three buttons, rejecting the invitation. With his temper slowly tapering off a bit, the sight of her plump, rounded breasts was beginning to take the desired effect on his most intimate organ. "Nice thought, sweetheart, but I really need to study with books tonight. We both need to study. Tomorrow’s the big day for the Assessment and Evaluation exam, and neither of us is really ready for it."
"But we’ve been doing nothing but studying for weeks!" Heather protested, pushing strands of her short blond hair out of her face with one quick swipe. "I didn’t do this much studying in high school! I’ll admit there are still a few parts we need to focus on. So I figured we could study those for a while and then commence to studying each other."
"Honey, we’re in college remember? It’s supposed to be far more difficult. And I really need to go to the library tonight," Joshua objected again. He outlined the ridges of her warm, wet lips with the tip of his finger. "Professor Dailey
recommended a book that will help us figure out some of what we’ve been having trouble with, and he said they would have it at the library. Now, go get dressed."
Heather stood fixed in her spot, glaring at him. Her statement twisted into disappointment tainted with a hint of anger. Dropping her hand from his face with a violent motion, she huffed and stomped out of the kitchen.
Joshua stared after her, his mind reeling. What was wrong with him? Here he was with an attractive woman standing in front of him in nothing but a shirt offering to please him in the most personal way, and he wanted to go to the library!
Truth was, despite Heather’s beauty, her smooth skin and those luscious breasts, he wasn’t ready to take their relationship to the next level. It wasn’t that the feelings weren’t there. Usually, it didn’t take much for her to arouse him, and he cared for her deeply, although part of him felt she was only with him for his money. But even if those suspicions didn’t exist, he still wasn’t ready for the type of relationship sex symbolized. Though it had been nearly four years, he hadn’t had a relationship like that since Margot. And, after the many one-night-stands he’d had with female bartenders after her death, he had sworn off sex. It had been a lot longer then he cared to admit since he had allowed his sexual senses to take control, and still he liked it that way.
"You never did tell me where you were this afternoon," Heather’s voice flowed through the house from the bedroom.
The Devine Babysitter Page 3
