She tucked him into bed, popped his favorite Elmo toy next to him, and kissed him.
She loved how utterly innocent he looked in sleep, his ginger eyelashes fanned on his cheek, his mouth slightly open, his body twitching sometimes, obviously dreaming. What would a child his age dream about?
Through the open door she could hear the faint sound of pans clattering in the kitchen below. Was she dreaming? She’d be able to eat a decent meal and relax in a tidy house before she tackled that briefcase of work. With luck, she’d be in bed before midnight. Thanks to Joe Martin.
She could also relax knowing her child had been well looked after, even meeting Diane’s exacting standards.
She switched on Mitchell’s night-light and prayed that he would sleep through the night. There was another round of meetings in the morning; if she had to get up to him she knew she’d be operating below par.
She went downstairs, where Joe Martin was on her sofa pulling on his boots. Then he stood up, shrugged on his leather jacket and picked up his helmet.
Dressed in his biker gear he looked somehow less approachable than in his damp T-shirt and bare feet. Tough. Unconventional. As far away from the picture of a nanny as it was possible to be.
“I’m off,” he said.
They were standing close enough for her to see into the depths of his navy blue eyes, to note his firm, sensual mouth and strong jaw.
She wished she hadn’t met Joe Martin like this—he her nanny, she his employer. She wished they’d met in a club, a bar, even the supermarket. She took a deep breath.
“Joe, I’d like you to come back tomorrow to look after Mitchell. And for the remainder of your trial week as booked. I’ll call Sandy and cancel your replacement.”
If she’d expected gratitude, amazed surprise, she was disappointed. “That’s cool. I’ll see you same time tomorrow,” was all he said.
He closed the door behind him. She could hear the heavy beat of his boots sound down the short pathway, then the squeak of her metal gate opening and the clunk of it shutting.
She heard the powerful throb of a motorcycle draw up in front of her house. She hadn’t given a thought to where Joe had parked his bike during the day. A permit was needed to park outside the house. But he hadn’t left it here; someone was picking him up. She walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside, just enough for her to see out but not enough for Joe to be able to see her.
In the light from the street lamp, she saw a small, slender figure spring off the bike and take off her helmet, shaking out long, auburn hair to fall around her shoulders. Joe Martin pulled her to him in a hug. The girl’s arms reached up around his neck.
Allison let the curtain fall, and stood there until she heard the motorcycle roar away. She replayed the hug over and over in her head. Would the hug be followed by a kiss when Joe and his friend got home? How would it feel to be kissed by Joe, to have his sexy mouth possess hers, to be pulled against his hard body and feel his hands caressing her?
Her nipples hardened and tingled at the thought. Her physical response surprised her—she hadn’t felt sexual stirrings for a long time.
She knew she would think about kissing Joe; think about it again and again as she lay alone and restless in her bed, imagining herself in that young woman’s place, and desperately trying to suppress a racing excitement at the thought of seeing her son’s nanny again in the morning.
CHAPTER THREE
The lunch was going well. Not only were the Hong Kong bankers positive about the syndication deal for Allison’s client, but the bank colleagues Allison had invited were amazingly supportive of her proposals.
Anything for the bank, she thought, cynical at their show of support for her in front of the clients. She had no illusions that the men in her division were rooting for her personal success. She’d been promoted over them. If they could snatch this deal from her for the bank, and get the glory and the commission for themselves, they wouldn’t hesitate to cut her down.
This ruthless male competitiveness was a part of her job she hated—accepted, it went with the turf—but hated all the same. And it made her determined not to let them win. She knew she was smarter and more perceptive than most of these guys—that’s why she’d gotten the job.
Clive made a point of praising some research Allison had done. She looked across the table at him with gratitude—he was the exception among her ruthless, power-hungry colleagues. About forty, attractive in a lean, intense way, Clive Henderson had been her mentor since she’d started at the bank.
However, her cynicism button was not switched off. Clive had never hidden the fact he found her attractive. And it was in his interest to have her succeed. It didn’t do his career any harm to have a rising star such as herself on his team. But he’d helped and encouraged her more than he had to, especially when she’d been going through the traumas surrounding Mitchell’s birth and the divorce.
“Been there, done that,” he’d explained when she’d thanked him for his support. He’d been divorced twice—marriages were a casualty of the long hours and excessive dedication her business demanded.
As a result, she had sworn she would be loyal to him. If she could close this deal it would not only help her out financially, but also in some way repay him for the trust he’d placed in her.
There was a lull in the conversation and Allison seized the opportunity to excuse herself and head toward the restaurant’s rest room.
That morning, Joe Martin had turned up on time and she’d felt confident about leaving Mitchell with him. But Mitchell was developing a cough and she wanted to check he was okay.
She used her cell phone to call the other cell she’d given Joe Martin that morning, asking him to keep it switched on so she could always get in touch. A cell phone for the nanny was an expensive luxury, she knew, one she could ill afford with the debts she had to repay, but worth it for the reassurance it brought her.
Joe answered the phone in his distinctive, husky voice.
“Is Mitchell okay? How’s the cough?” she asked.
“Fine. No trace of it now. It’s warm and sunny so I thought he was well enough to let him go to the park. His grandparents think he’s okay, too.”
Allison felt her heart pump violently in her chest. The blood rushed in her ears and the sounds of the restaurant receded.
“But he doesn’t have any grandparents.” Panic squeezed her voice to a shriek. Her mind began to race. Mitchell did have grandparents but not any who had ever acknowledged his existence.
Joe Martin sounded puzzled but not concerned. “They said they visit with him on Wednesdays.”
“You believed a pair of strangers?” Rage and terror choked her. “What did they look like?”
Cell phone reception was notoriously bad in harbor-side McMahons Point, thanks to interference to the signal from the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Allison strained to hear Joe’s reply as his voice broke up. “In their sixties, gray-haired, the woman—”
That gave her no clues.
“Where is Mitchell now?”
“At the park—”
“Go after him. Get him back. Now.”
“But I—”
The phone cut off. She couldn’t even be sure Joe had heard what she’d said. She shook her cell and hit it hard but still no reception. She shoved it back in her purse.
Mitchell. Her baby. Abducted. Kidnapped. Worse.
She could be cool and calm in the boardroom with billions of dollars at stake, but a suggestion that Mitchell was in danger or trouble and her professional control went out the window.
What to do? Surely Joe wouldn’t put Mitchell in danger? But how much did she really know about him?
Her palms felt slick with sweat, her heart thumped with panic. She would have to go home and check. But first she would call again on a landline. It might be a mistake. Falling apart would not help Mitchell. She found the restaurant’s reception desk.
“Please, I have to use your phone.” The waiter behind the desk must have rea
d something in her face because, without a word, he pushed it toward her. She called the house, but her voicemail cut in.
She slammed down the receiver. The waiter started at the noise. “Is everything all right?”
Allison covered her eyes with her hands and shook her head. The lunch. The meeting. The deal. The deal that was so big, so important, Clive had taken her off her other accounts.
Blow this deal and she could well be heading out the bank’s revolving door the wrong way. No commission. Her reputation shot. No way to pay off the debts. No money to support Mitchell. The only way open the stigma of bankruptcy and the end of her career in banking.
She had no choice. She broke into a half run toward the table. Eight pairs of masculine eyes looked up at her in surprise.
“My son,” she choked out, “something’s happened to my son. I’m sorry, I have to go.”
From the visiting bankers, surprise, shock. From her colleagues, stunned disbelief, even a thinly disguised glee. To them, she’d proven what they privately maintained—mothers didn’t make senior managers. And they’d turn her perceived weakness to their advantage.
Clive jumped to his feet. “Allison, surely it’s something your nanny can manage.”
She shook her head. “No. It isn’t. I’m sorry.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. He couldn’t dissuade her.
She turned to the men from Hong Kong. “We understand of course,” one murmured politely. She didn’t care if they didn’t. Her child came first and always would.
She ran into the street and immediately hailed a taxi. “McMahons Point, as fast as you can.” She fumbled in her purse and threw a fistful of notes onto the front seat.
“Right,” said the taxi driver and took off.
With trembling fingers, Allison punched out the number of Joe’s cell phone, but only got an impersonal voice telling her the number was not responding.
Where was Joe? With Mitchell and these “grandparents”? Or still at home?
She gripped the seat in front of her, mentally urging the car on. Traffic was sparse and the taxi was speeding. She was in her street within five minutes.
“Wait here,” she instructed the driver. She dashed into the house. Empty. She’d try the park. Though why the heck would kidnappers take a child to a nearby park?
She got back into the taxi. “The park at the end of Blue’s Point Road,” she directed the driver.
The park was right at the edge of the harbor. But Allison didn’t notice the breath-taking views of the bridge and the Opera House or the ferries plying their way across the dancing blue water. All she saw was Joe Martin sitting on a park bench reading a book.
She ran toward him. “Where is Mitchell?” she cried, as she reached him, gasping for breath. Joe met her gaze calmly and she wanted to grab his book and hit him with it. “Where is he?”
He got up. “Over there.” He pointed to the children’s playground area. “With his grandparents—”
Intent on reaching her baby, she was away toward the playground before he finished the sentence.
Mitchell was on the other side of the playground with a man and a woman. The woman was pushing the child on a swing. As she got nearer, Allison could hear Mitchell’s laughter. He was okay. He wouldn’t laugh like that if someone were hurting him.
The man had his back to her but he turned around as she drew near. It was her ex-husband Peter’s father. She’d only met him once, at her wedding, but she recognized him immediately. “Bill!” she gasped, scarcely able to push out the word.
He looked awkward. Even shamefaced. He glanced imploringly towards the woman whom Allison now recognized as Peter’s mother.
“Nancy?” Allison looked in bewilderment from Nancy to Bill and back again.
“Momma!” cried Mitchell joyously. Allison snatched him off the swing and pulled him to her. He began to wail at the shock of it.
Allison found her knees were trembling but then Joe Martin was there, his strong arm supporting her and Mitchell. Gratefully, she leaned against his warmth and strength. Mitchell stopped crying.
But she was too stressed out by what had happened to relax. She twisted away from Joe, embarrassed at such closeness.
He spoke first. “I called you back on your cell to let you know I’d come to the park with Bill and Nancy.”
Her heart was still pounding. “A call came but—”
“I couldn’t get through. Did you think I’d let Mitchell go alone with anyone without your authority? Even his grandparents?”
Allison clutched onto Mitchell, she was still so breathless from her panicked run across the park it was difficult to speak. “I was terrified. His grandparents have never met him.”
“He was never in danger,” said Joe. “Not for a second.”
Tears of relief threatened to engulf her and she blinked hard against them. She started to shake. Then Joe’s strength and warmth was there again as he pulled her and Mitchell to him in a comforting hug.
Allison’s heartbeat accelerated again—but this time it wasn’t from panic. She was intensely aware of how close she was to Joe, of her body pressed to his. She breathed in his scent—a heady mix of leather, spicy after-shave and something uniquely Joe.
They stood without words. She forgot all about Bill and Nancy, standing awkwardly by. Forgot about Peter. Never gave a thought to the big deal she’d just run out on. There was just her and Joe and Mitchell bonded in comfort and reassurance and—for her—a stirring new excitement.
“Group hug,” said Joe with a laugh. Allison laughed, too, as they drew away from each other, she with regret.
Joe glanced toward Peter’s parents, and nodded to include them. “Bill and Nancy told me a little of their story,” he said. “I knew Nancy must be Mitchell’s grandmother. He’s the spitting image of her, except for the eyes.”
Allison sniffed back the last of her tears. “I...I guess so. This is the first time I’ve seen them together.”
“Let me take Mitchell, while you sort things out.” He swung Mitchell up into his arms. “Come on, Tiger, let’s have some fun on that slide.”
Allison stepped closer to Bill and Nancy, uncertain of what to say to them. The older woman did look like Mitchell, but her face was grim. “I won’t say I’m sorry, Allison, we had to see him. He’s our only grandchild. You’ve kept him from us long enough.”
Bewildered, Allison shook her head. “But...but you wanted nothing to do with him. Just like his father.”
It was the older couple’s turn to look bewildered. They exchanged quick glances. Together, their voices sad and disillusioned, they said as one voice: “Peter.”
Then Nancy told Allison how they hadn’t even known of Mitchell’s existence until well after he’d been born. How Peter had told them Allison didn’t want them in contact with Mitchell. And how they’d sent gifts that had never been acknowledged.
Allison was stunned by the pain in her former mother-in-law’s voice—a pain that echoed in her own heart. She’d longed for Mitchell to know his family, but she’d given up sending photos when Bill and Nancy had never shown any interest. Photos sent to an address provided by Peter. Somehow, Peter had manipulated things so that Mitchell had been deprived of grandparents as well as a father.
“But we often thought about the baby,” said Nancy. “Every time we saw a boy his age we’d wonder what Mitchell looked like.” She explained that Bill’s health was poor and they’d decided to travel from Adelaide to Sydney and try to see Mitchell.
“I’m sorry we lied to your young man. But we couldn’t go away without seeing our grandson.”
“Th..that’s okay.” Allison’s laugh was tinged with hysteria—not least at the fact that her former parents-in-law obviously thought Mitchell’s nanny was her lover.
She’d walked out of one of the most important meetings of her career. Maybe even lost the deal that would get her out of her financial hole. But it was okay. It was worth it for Mitchell to discover his grandparents.
She
glanced across to where her tall, dark-haired nanny still played with her son, effortlessly lifting him onto those broad shoulders and up the ladder to the slide.
She cringed with shame over the way she’d behaved toward Joe Martin—she’d virtually screamed at him when she’d arrived at the park. Her near panic was no excuse for such appalling behavior. What had happened to all her management skills? She hadn’t given him a chance to explain himself. It would serve her right if he quit.
She stood by Nancy and Bill and watched Joe supervise Mitchell’s forays down the slide. He was endlessly patient with her little boy. Mitchell would tire of the game long after Joe. But Joe just kept on playing the way she did herself when she took Mitchell to the park. If only she’d met someone like Joe years ago. He’d make a wonderful father. She reined in her thoughts. Don’t go there—not even for a second.
Joe bent his dark head to Mitchell’s ginger one to listen to her toddler’s few babyish words. His patience was incredible. His ability to communicate so well with a child Mitchell’s age was a real gift. It made her long to learn more about Joe Martin.
Suddenly she found herself caring very much that there was a good chance he was about to walk out of her life.
Warning! Warning! Danger! Danger! The alarm signals reverberated through Joe’s head. He wished he could back away and keep right on backing until he reached the harbor—then turn tail and sail as far away as possible.
He didn’t like messy, emotional confrontations of any kind. He didn’t like dealing with women who came encumbered with ex-husbands; the disaster with Deborah had wised him to that. Most of all, he didn’t like the uncomfortable jolt to the heart he’d felt when he’d been forced to watch Allison’s distressing encounter with her parents-in-law.
Her face had been etched first with her fear for her child’s safety, then her shock and bewilderment at the unexpected meeting and the painful revelations it had brought. She’d gone so white he’d thought she’d faint.
She seemed so smart, the ultimate boss lady. But when it came to her kid she was as vulnerable as hell.
Something About Joe Page 4
