Cattle Baron: Nanny Needed

by Margaret Way

“At one time, so did I. It seems obvious now that I didn’t search far enough for the woman I want. Neither did you for the right man.”

  “When you get right down to it, no,” she admitted with a sigh. “But don’t let’s spoil a beautiful night mulling over our past mistakes. What about a legend or two? As a child I loved stories. My father used to read to me at bedtime. I loved him so much.”

  “And he would have loved you, his little princess.” Again, he surprised her by dropping another kiss on the top of her head. His empathy was genuine. It filled her with warmth and a surprising measure of comfort. “Maybe you don’t have your father, Amber, but you have a lot of happy memories.”

  “He has never really died for me.” Her voice broke a little.

  “My dad either,” he said, so much the man he wasn’t afraid to show his feelings. “I still see him around the station.” He lifted his dark head, pointing with one hand. “He’s up there among the countless millions of stars in the Milky Way. That’s where heroes go. There’s a story about the Milky Way’s creation. What to hear it?”

  “I told you. I love legends.”

  “Well, then…” He took her arm. “Once, during the Dreamtime, there was a giant Being called Ngurunderi who resolved to brighten the night sky…”

  Going to sleep was out of the question. She was too wound up. To be honest, too erotically charged. Amber moved around her bedroom in her nightdress, touching this, studying that, unable to relax. Not to put too fine a point on it, she had never felt more stirred up in her life. That was just how good the Cattle Baron was. Out of nowhere an irresistible force had blasted his way into her life. She barely knew him, yet she felt as though he had always been somewhere at the back of her mind. She could still feel the warmth of his skin, the strength of his hands, the male scent of him, the slight rasp of his beard, the wondrous pressure of his mouth on hers. She felt weak even thinking about it. How in the world had his ex-fiancée ever let him go? She had to be mad. Or she had so missed the excitement of the man, the marvellous sex, when he was away, that she had surrendered to a one-night stand for simple relief? Such things happened.

  Not apparently to the Cattle Baron. One strike and you’re out! Not that she would have taken Sean back, even if he hadn’t married his Georgie. She didn’t even waste time wondering if they were enjoying their honeymoon.

  The other thing that was really worrying her was Janis MacFarlane. Eliot should pack up his wife and child and never come back. Not until his nephew was safely married to someone who wouldn’t let another woman in the world steal her man. It must be utter agony for Janis, living under the same roof with an impossible dream. It didn’t excuse her lashing out but it did explain a good deal. The biggest victim here was little Marcus. Surely Janis realized that love for her little son could save her? So many women were desperate to have a child—undergoing protracted procedures—yet Janis couldn’t see her baby as her most precious possession.

  Amber had no answer for that.

  Just as she was contemplating turning in, a thundering came on the heavy mahogany door. Those were some tough knuckles! Could the Cattle Baron be so blatant? Not possible. Even if he were, that didn’t lower her level of desire.

  Swiftly she belted her satin robe tightly around her, thrust her long hair over her shoulder and went to answer before the door was broken down.

  “Cal!” Her heart leapt. She couldn’t bank it down. “What is this—a very noisy seduction scene first night off?”

  “Is that what it looks like?” His green eyes, normally so cool, were ablaze.

  “Well…” She hesitated, not sure she could handle this veritable powerhouse of passion, let alone herself.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, do I look nakedly desirous?” he asked jaggedly.

  “I can’t pronounce on that with any degree of confidence. Are you?”

  “More than you’ll ever know,” he groaned. Here was this glorious woman, her hair springing back from her radiant creamy face, her slender body just barely hidden by a filmy pink nightdress and a slinky satin robe right there in front of him. Maybe even his for the taking. She would have turned on a monk. She was turning him on right now. But there was an embarrassing crisis to hand. “Janis is having the mother of all tantrums,” he explained. “It’s the baby I’m worried about. He’s screaming. The seduction scene will have to keep for another night. I promise I’ll make it worth the wait. For now, we desperately need your calming hands.”

  She could handle that. “And leave the rest of me behind?” she joked, to bring down the tension.

  “Bring the lot.”

  Her gaze swept over him. He wore a red T-shirt and a pair of jeans he must have hastily pulled on, crow-black curls tousled. She was experiencing a heaviness in the lower part of her body. God, she wanted him…wanted him…An overpowering sexual urge. No need to feel guilty. “Should I dress?”

  “I’ve never seen a woman look better in my life. Come now. Just as you are. Babies shouldn’t be allowed to cry like that. Janis just gives in to her moods. I’d say histrionics.”

  He could well be right. But either way the woman was in pain. Amber couldn’t find it in her heart to entirely blame her.

  Following in his tempestuous wake, Amber all but flew down the corridor as Cal strode towards the suite of rooms his uncle and Janis occupied, the adjoining sitting room turned temporarily into a nursery. Eliot, white beneath his tan, must have heard Cal’s heavy footsteps—he was making no attempt to walk quietly or to keep to the muffling Persian runner—because Eliot opened the bedroom door, dressed in pyjamas covered by a navy silk robe.

  “This is not my finest hour,” he said.

  Amber fancied he was right. Why did he let things get so out of hand?

  Inside, Janis was standing in the middle of the huge opulent room, yanking at her long hair, her dark eyes the size of saucers. “Who asked her?” she screeched. It was so loud it almost pinned Amber to the door. “I don’t want her. What’s she doing here?”

  No one answered her. Cal strode through to the adjoining room where the baby was screaming his tiny head off, as well he might. He was back within seconds, making for Amber and handing her the baby. “Boy, I bet he’s glad to see you again,” he muttered.

  “Amber, I’m so sorry,” Eliot MacFarlane said. “Much to our relief, Marcus had been sleeping. Then he woke up.”

  “Screaming his head off as usual, just as I had fallen asleep,” Janis MacFarlane complained bitterly, her delicate features drawn tight. “Doesn’t anyone sympathize with me? It’s always the baby. What about me? Don’t I matter?”

  Again no one answered. Janis MacFarlane’s main concern seemed to be herself. Even then, Amber was reluctant to lay blame. Was she using anger as an antidote to thwarted passion?

  “Eliot, doesn’t Janis have a tranquilliser?” Cal turned to his uncle, trying very hard to curb his impatience. “She sounds like she’s in need of one.”

  “She’s already downed a couple of pills,” Eliot told his nephew unhappily.

  “Here, let me help you, Janis.” Amber settled the baby over her shoulder, swaying gently. “I’ll take him outside until he settles down again. I might go down to my bedroom, if that’s okay.” Exhausted, little Marcus snuggled in to Amber’s warm receptive body, the piteous cries banking down to shuddery whimpers and hiccups.

  “What are you?” Janis was fuelled by an overriding jealousy that had nothing to do with the baby. “A bloody earth mother? I wonder how good you’d be if you had a little monster like this one.”

  “Ever wonder if it’s because you’re rejecting him,” Cal retorted curtly, unable to help himself. He turned to join Amber. “I’ll stay with Marcus if I have to, Eliot. You look terrible. I’m worried about you. Both of you go back to bed. We have to find a solution to this. It’s gone on far too long. The best professional help has been made available to you, Janis, but you’ve driven everyone away. You have no choice now. I won’t abide it.”

  “God, wha
t a mess!” Cal followed Amber, baby over her shoulder, into her bedroom. “I shouldn’t have brought you out here. I apologise a million times. You’ve been the best!”

  “Hush!” she whispered.

  Very quietly he approached. The baby’s tiny body was rising and falling very gently. His little hand was caught into the glittering mass of Amber’s hair. Her robe had fallen open—the satin sash had come loose, dangling in its loops. He could see the exquisite curves of her naked breasts. Never had the sight of a woman and baby moved him so profoundly. No wonder the great artists of the Renaissance had produced masterpiece after masterpiece of Madonna and child. He couldn’t help himself. He imagined her nursing their child. The thought shocked him, not only with its element of eroticism. It was all he could do not to pull the three of them into bed.

  “So what now?” he whispered. “Do you want me to take him?” He was fully prepared to. It struck him how much sympathy he had for this poor little unloved scrap. Unloved by his mother. At least at this point. Would it ever change? Eliot loved his son but it seemed that he had come to fatherhood too late. He certainly couldn’t control his wife.

  “I think he needs to be close to me for a while,” Amber said. “I felt very sorry for Janis and your uncle but Janis does need help. I couldn’t help noticing at dinner she hardly ate a bite, as if food was irrelevant. She could be missing out on essential vitamins and minerals.”

  “All this has been pointed out to her, Amber,” he said testily.

  “I guess. Why don’t you advise them to go away for a while until she’s feeling more able to cope? Take a trip.”

  “And leave Marcus behind?” His black eyebrows shot up.

  “Yes,” she answered, matching whisper for whisper. “We can get things organised.”

  “We? God, Amber, there aren’t enough hours in the day for me. I have a big station to run. Outstations to visit.”

  “Don’t think I don’t admire the level of your dedication.”

  “So you surely don’t expect me to babysit the little chap?”

  “Who’s asking you to?” She stared into his face, his handsome features drawn tight. There was a pulse throbbing away in his temple. She realised that, one way and another, he had put up with a good deal. This wasn’t his problem. “Though you might be expected to babysit at some time in the future. Modern dads have to pull their weight.”

  “Whoa!” He held up his hands. “I take it you mean if and when I become a dad?”

  She gave him a smile full of unconscious allure. “Come on, you know you want to.”

  Of course he would! With her as his child’s mother. The thought just surfaced. “No wonder you’re a journalist,” he said. “Winkling information out of people.”

  “I’m taking your measure, Cal MacFarlane.”

  “And I’m taking yours.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” They were indeed evaluating one another. To what purpose? Forming an intimate bond? Crazy as it was, she was more than willing to give it a go. “If your uncle and Janis are agreeable, Dee and I and young Mina will get baby Marcus into a routine. Janis’s unhappiness has been contagious. For the time being, Marcus might settle better without her.”

  “Have you any idea what you’re taking on?” He cast an eye on the child. Marcus had fallen off to sleep again. How had that happened? It had to be woman magic. This woman’s magic. What a God-given asset!

  “Of course I do, silly man.”

  “Silly man?” He gave her a look of pure disbelief. “Excuse me, Ms Wyatt.”

  “You’re a big boy. You can take it. Why don’t you go back to bed? Marcus can stay with me for the night.”

  “Maybe it would be a good idea if I slept on the other side?” There was a sudden sparkle in his green eyes.

  “You’re joking, of course?”

  “Actually, I wouldn’t mind.” He pinned her with a beautiful wry smile. “I wouldn’t mind at all. The bed is big enough to make us all comfortable.”

  “I’m not going to let you tempt me.” And he definitely was. “There’s no need to stay. Go now. We’ll be fine.”

  “Why don’t I sit down and wait until you’re both in bed?” he suggested, not happy at the thought of leaving her alone to cope.

  “No, I’m kicking you out now. You’re too much of a distraction. See, Marcus is breathing quietly. I’m quiet. He’s quiet. I can manage. I’m a babysitter from way back.”

  “Okay,” he agreed reluctantly. “You know I’m building up a big debt to you?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll see to it you pay up.”

  “The sooner the better,” he said.

  It sounded lovely. “Night, night, Cal,” she softly called. “Pleasant dreams.”

  He walked to the door—tall, dark, terrific. “I have a sneaking feeling they’ll be about you. You’re a rare woman, Amber Wyatt.”

  “Hardly!”

  “You’re too modest. I, for one, am ready to elevate you to that status.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CAL thought he wouldn’t sleep a wink, body and mind so aroused, but he didn’t stir until dawn.

  One glance at the bedside clock and he leapt out of bed, raced into the shower, afterwards throwing on his everyday gear, all the while his mind filled with the sight of a beautiful copper-haired woman cradling a baby to her breast. What had he been thinking of, inviting her out here with things being what they were? Janis running off the rails, little Marcus crying and wailing non-stop, although he didn’t have to listen to the crying all day, his uncle rendered near impotent in the face of his wife’s total inability to cope—worse, her rejection of all help. Good, caring women had been driven away with Jan screaming after them that she just wanted to be left alone. Yet Amber Wyatt with her beauty, her humour, her grace and compassion had reached out to little Marcus and miraculously found a connection.

  But it was only a temporary solution to a big problem. Not all women were nurturers. His own mother had cleared off, but at least she had seen him through a lot of years of his childhood. This post-natal depression thing was a mystery to him. In the beginning everyone had shown the greatest tolerance to the baby’s crying and Jan’s displays of anger and bitter resentment, but she had rejected all help. It was more like she felt trapped. Trapped by motherhood? Trapped by her marriage? He would have said Jan wanted out of the whole caboodle. He knew Amber was watching him closely, gauging his reactions, concerned he wasn’t showing enough sympathy. Maybe he wasn’t. His sympathy lay with Marcus and his uncle. Jan’s behaviour was just plain bizarre.

  No sound from either wing of the house. Peace reigned. He walked very softly down the corridor, making sure he kept to the Persian runner. He would take the little fellow down to Dee, who was always up early. He would feed the baby himself if he had to. Hell, it couldn’t be that hard. And, as Amber had reminded him, he had better get in some practice. Of course he wanted kids. He had planned to have his own happy family for most of his life. Brooke had failed him. He shunned the idea of infidelity. Why wouldn’t he? His mother had betrayed him and his father. Were his veins clogged up with mistrust? They had been up to date.

  Amber too had had a painful lesson. But she was one gutsy lady. And she was his guest. Not the new nanny. He was seriously embarrassed. Very gently, he tapped on the door, waited. No sound from within. His hand on the brass knob, his body tense, he turned it slowly, opening back the door a fraction, listening all the while.

  Dawn was casting a soft pearl-grey light over the room. A single bedside lamp was still burning. Amber lay sleeping with the baby cradled in her arms. Just as in his vision, Marcus lay cuddled up contentedly against her breast, his light cap of dark hair contrasting with this vision in pink, copper, cream and vanilla.

  The image was so powerful, so beautiful, he stood transfixed. She hadn’t made it into bed. The day bed had made a comfortable resting place for both of them, a light rug serving as a blanket. He had a tremendous urge to kiss Amber’s sleeping mouth. It wa
s gently parted on the lightest exhalations.

  “Amber?” Unable to stop himself, he bent low over her, brushing her mouth with his own. Even that light pressure made his head swim. Despite his every reservation, he had connected with this woman. He had from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Something had happened. He knew she felt it too. Something that had confounded them both. Could he allow himself to believe she was the woman to bring him lasting happiness? For that matter, could she believe it of him? Both of them had been hurt by infidelity. Since Amber had moved into his life, he had come to see that Brooke’s defection hadn’t left lasting scars. They had all but healed up.

  She must have been dreaming because she thought Cal had kissed her. A butterfly kiss that nevertheless flew deep inside her. “Oh, my goodness, it’s morning,” she said, blinking.

  “Dawn.” He was unsettled by the rush of emotions he was fighting. A mere leaf in a storm. “Let me take him. I can put him down on the bed. Bolster him with pillows.”

  “I was afraid I’d fall off to sleep and maybe roll on him.” She was speaking so softly he barely heard her. “He’s so tiny.”

  Very gently, Cal took the sleeping child from her, holding him a while. He was a dear little fellow really. He could see a family resemblance. The eyes were blue, not Jan’s dark brown. Why should there be such trauma in life?

  Amber stretched her arms first, next her legs. Then she wiggled her toes, trying to get the circulation back into her body. Truth be told, she felt quite groggy. Even on her feet she swayed.

  “You okay?” Cal wanted to go to her. The effect she was having on him was gaining an awesome momentum. He had already started to fantasize about her. So what was he going to do about it? Was he ready for another serious commitment? Was she? There were big barriers in the way. He couldn’t give up his heritage. It was the woman who would have to come to him. Could Amber turn her back on a glamorous city lifestyle?

  The higher a man flies, the bigger the crash, said the voice in his head.