“Honesty, remember?” Her heartbeat pounded so loud in her ears now she didn’t know if she would hear his answer. “You promised to tell the truth.”
He glanced away, then it was he who rose to his feet in an abrupt movement. “I want what I’ve always wanted. To raise happy and successful kids. Not to have that responsibility make me crack.”
With jerky movements, he yanked open the dishwasher and loaded his plate and mug, then slammed the door shut. “Which means I want to keep all the damn balls I already have in the air.”
He snatched the newspaper—unread, not that she planned on mentioning it—off the table and threw it into the recycle bin by the back door. “And not add yet another to the mess I’m already juggling.” A drawer was shoved shut with the flat of his big hand. “I don’t want to risk screwing everything up.”
Then the frying pan landed with a clatter in the sink. “What I want, Kayla, is no more changes!” The faucet gushed on. “Is that so hellishly demanding of me?”
Kayla gasped. She’d never seen his temper flare like this before. Mick had a long fuse and he’d always managed to smother the spark before an explosion. But now he appeared a breath away from an authentic, man-size detonation.
With his back to her, he grasped the edges of the countertop. Those muscled shoulders she always so admired were tense beneath the thin cotton. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. She heard him take in a long, audible breath, then blow it back out. “Really sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
She knew. Last night they’d upset the order. They’d initiated an alteration that he didn’t desire. Mick wanted a nanny, not a lover.
Meaning he definitely didn’t want her in the same way that she wanted him—and he definitely didn’t want to want her that way. There would be no affair with the possibility of something else altogether.
So she stood again. “I understand,” she said. “I understand perfectly.”
Mick spun around. “You can’t. You don’t. Because I don’t even—” He broke off at the sound of the front door opening and children’s footsteps clattering against the floorboards. Jane and Lee’s father groaned. “Look—”
“I get the message,” she told him, as the children’s voices drew nearer. Whether he wanted her to leave his employment for Europe was unclear. But she knew perfectly well now that he didn’t want their previous platonic relationship modified in the slightest way. “And I’m happy to reassure you. What’s between you and me hasn’t changed,” she said. “And I’m quite okay with that.”
It might not be honesty, but her birthday wish had come true—Don’t let what I say ruin anything—if Mick’s relieved expression told the truth that she hadn’t.
Chapter Eight
Surely every parent had moments when they silently groaned at the untimely arrival of their beloved children. When assembling a tricycle, say, on Christmas Eve or when downing a spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough straight from the tube. But this time Mick wasn’t wielding a wrench or guiltily ingesting a concoction of uncooked eggs, flour and sugar. He was midway into discussing some serious subjects with the nanny.
With Kayla, whom he’d made love to the night before.
He glanced over at her as the kids came rushing into the kitchen and the closed expression on her face and her stiff posture told him everything he needed to know. He hadn’t handled the morning-after thing well, not since he’d slid a breakfast plate under her pretty nose.
Damn him!
Last night had been… God, last night he’d been in bed with a naked woman wearing black leather boots! He hadn’t even fantasized something so good since a million years ago before marriage and kids, and that it was Kayla’s soft flesh and Kayla’s sexy footwear only made it sweeter…and hotter.
The kids were chattering to them both about something and he pretended to listen as he cleaned up the pans. He’d fumbled presenting her the Europe opportunity, too. He could have mentioned it in a neutral manner, but the idea of her leaving them had singed the edges of his brain. So he’d ranted about change, stomped around like a two-year-old and generally made an ass of himself.
An ass she’d probably be happy to leave behind in the States when she went off to Europe with Poaching Patty and family.
Mick realized he was strangling a handful of cutlery, so he forced his fingers to relax and dropped them into the dishwasher. Okay, he had to calm down. He had to calm down and then talk to the nanny like a rational being and express to her that he was completely fine with her decision to leave them, if it came to that. And then he’d agree with her last statement to him. Sure, they’d been intimate last night, but that didn’t mean anyone had to change their life over it. He didn’t want to change his life over it.
So he’d be sure the nanny understood that he understood that the joining of their bodies the night before hadn’t created a snarl in their domestic lives that couldn’t be loosened.
With that decision made, he interrupted Jane’s blow-by-blow description of the movie she’d watched with her girlfriends the night before. “Kids, go up to your rooms and put your sleepover stuff away. Leave the sleeping bags beside the hall closet and I’ll stow them on the shelf later.”
“Daddy—”
“Now, Janie.” He gave her the “or else” eye, which put a puzzled look on her face, mainly, he supposed, because he wasn’t big on “or else” parenting. But she left the kitchen anyway, her little brother trailing behind her.
As soon as they were gone, he turned back to Kayla. “Listen…”
She was already on her way to her room. He leaped to catch her, managing to snag her arm. They both stilled. It was the first time he’d touched her since leaving her bed. At dawn, he’d come awake, and from the pillow beside hers, he’d stared at Kayla, taking in the tumbled hair, the mouth still swollen from his kisses, the feathery delicacy of her eyelashes. He’d looked at people sleeping before—had watched his kids’ snoozing away a hundred times—but watching Kayla sleep had sent him straight into panic.
Because he’d wanted to wake her up and he’d wanted to watch over her sleep—in equal measure. He’d wanted her like a man wants a woman and wanted to protect her…like a man wants to protect a woman, too.
“Kayla.” Looking down, he realized they were standing in that magic place again, the one that had been the site of their first kiss and then for their next one that had led them straight to her bed. “This spot has got to be like that phantom tollbooth or that oddly numbered railway platform.”
She didn’t laugh. The seriousness of her expression told him he’d really, really blown it before. But with her so close, he couldn’t seem to think of the best way to make up for it. And then he realized she was trembling at his touch, and his chest started to ache again. “Kayla,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her.
“Dad!” At Lee’s shout, Kayla jerked away from him. Her arm slid through his grasp like water, leaving his hand open…and too empty.
“Dad.” Lee’s sneakers slid on the hardwood floor as he came to a stop. “Where’s Goblin? We can’t find her anywhere.”
Mick stifled his sigh. “Are you calling for her? You know that sends her deeper into hiding.” The perverse creature seemed to enjoy being elusive. “Remember, we have to trick her. If you go about your business, sure enough she’ll show up.”
“Why are girls like that?” Lee demanded.
Jane, stepping into the kitchen, scowled at her little brother. “Maybe because boys are so stupid. Always shouting and rough.”
Mick winced, thinking of his clumsiness this morning. No wonder Kayla had tried to escape to her bedroom before he could clear things up with her. “Uh, let’s not use the word stupid, okay, people?”
His daughter’s face took on that teenish stubborn cast that made him dread the future. “But, Dad—”
“Jane, why don’t you check the linen closet in your bathroom?” Kayla put in. “You know how Goblin loves to knock over the stacks of towels
in there. Lee, you look under your bed.”
The kids filed out of the room, distracted from an incipient argument. What would they do without Kayla? Mick wondered. Surely he’d need the nanny as teen hormones continued to rise. Only she could help him manage creatures he feared might start behaving like werewolves under a perpetual full moon.
But he wasn’t supposed to be thinking of a future with Kayla in it, he reminded himself, as he heard the kids’ footsteps on the stairs. He was supposed to be making it clear she’d was free of him and his family if that’s the way she wanted it.
Turning to her, he started the discussion that had been interrupted before. “You need—”
She clutched his arm. “Mick,” she whispered. “Did you bring in the cat last night?”
His eyes widened. Crap. Crap. Goblin had adopted them at approximately age one and she’d clearly been accustomed to being outdoors at least part of the day. They managed to get her in each night—though he didn’t want to think about how often he’d had to wander around the yard to lure her from the darkness with a piece of cheese or salami. Yeah, she was a deli kind of cat. But last night…
“Last night I wasn’t thinking of much besides…”
“I know.” She bit her lip even as her grip tightened on his arm. “We should have remembered, though. Think of all those gruesome coyote stories we’ve heard.”
He saw her shudder. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll fan out, find her safe and sound somewhere.”
Although she nodded, her face looked miserable. The ache in his chest sharpened. “Honey,” he said, tucking her hair behind her ear. The strand was silky and her skin so soft beneath his fingertips. It was bad of him, he knew it, but he bent and left a swift, hard kiss on her mouth. “We’ll handle it.”
“Okay.” She nodded again. “Okay. We always handle what comes, don’t we?”
“Yeah, but—” Then the kids were there again.
“No Goblin,” they said together, both small faces worried.
Mick slapped his hands together. “Let’s go track her down, then. Backyard, front yard. After that, we’ll hit the sidewalk if she hasn’t shown up.”
She didn’t show up.
Thirty minutes passed and they had to conclude that the cat either wasn’t nearby or she wasn’t coming out of hiding even for turkey bologna or a slice of Monterey Jack. “Damn it,” he murmured to Kayla. “Really, does she have to be this difficult?”
“Are you talking about me, Daddy?” Jane demanded, popping up at his elbow.
He was not going to survive to see her at seventeen, he thought, pressing his fingers to his throbbing temple. And then Lee was tugging on the hem of his shirt. “Promise me, Dad,” his son said, with tears in his eyes. “Promise me we’ll get Goblin back.”
A hammer went to work on Mick’s other temple. It was a parent’s nightmare, being asked to make promises he knew he couldn’t guarantee. “Sure, son,” he said, pulling the little kid close. And then Jane did one of her child-teen turnarounds and threw herself against him, too.
Kayla stood nearby, looking just as glum as the kids. Without a second thought, he scooped her into the family embrace. He didn’t feel guilty about it, not for a second, even though he realized a group hug wasn’t the best way to untangle the new knot of intimacy they’d recklessly created the night before.
After the upheaval of the past week—the unsatisfactory aftermath of the night with Mick, the unsettling news of the European nanny job, the continued and upsetting absence of Goblin the cat—it became clear to Kayla that she needed to find ways to loosen her ties to the Hanson family. When Joe Tully, her recent blind date, had called yet again, she’d stopped making excuses and agreed to go out with him again.
Maybe she’d been wrong about her feelings for Mick.
And maybe wow could arrive on the second date.
She drove to the restaurant under her own steam, unwilling to introduce Joe to the Hanson family. Tonight was supposed to be about distancing herself from them, and she tried envisioning each block was a mile as she drove to a local seafood-and-steak place that she’d suggested. As she walked inside, she smoothed her soft, printed skirt and checked that the thin cardigan she wore with it was buttoned securely to the throat.
Her date stood up and kissed her cheek when she found him in the bar. Joe was not yet thirty and he wore a pair of flat-front khaki pants and a knit shirt that displayed an impressive breadth of shoulder and well-developed biceps. His medium brown hair was clipped short, he had friendly green eyes, and he smelled like an insert in a men’s magazine.
“I’m glad we could finally get together again,” he said, as they took their seats and the waitress settled them with drinks on small square napkins. “I thought we might not have a chance before I had to go out of town again.”
“My calendar has its own limitations,” she said. “I work around a firefighter’s schedule, meaning there are stretches when I’m responsible for the kids twenty-four hours a day.”
“But you said it was a good position for you while you were going to college. Now that you have your degree are you going to use it?”
She’d thought she might. Teaching or counseling at the elementary level held a definite appeal, although each would require more schooling. “I haven’t been considering much beyond my next homework assignment and the family’s next load of laundry for so many years that it’s hard to wrap my mind around the future.”
“You could do anything,” Joe said. “Think about it, you’re young, healthy, single. Though I sometimes complain about all the travel I do for my job, most of the time I really enjoy it. Highly recommend seeing as much as you can of wherever you can afford to go.”
Like Europe. At twenty, she’d taken off for the summer and bummed around several western European countries. Everyone she’d told about it before or since assumed it was the adventure of a lifetime—and she had taken pleasure in seeing sights that she’d only read about before. But she’d also experienced a heavy sense of loneliness as she wandered down the streets of London and the lanes of Provence. Adventures—at least for her, she realized—needed a partner and she hadn’t been able to shake the notion that if she’d disappeared in the middle of Covent Garden that no one would have noticed…or cared.
Upon coming home, she’d almost immediately made herself indispensable to the Hansons. But sometimes she wondered who needed whom the most.
This night was supposed to take her away from them and those kinds of thoughts. So she pasted on a friendly smile and encouraged Joe to tell her his favorite travel destinations. He was waxing on about a trip to the Florida Keys when her chair was bumped by someone heading for a bar stool. “I’m sorry,” the woman automatically said, but then she paused. “Kayla! Hey, good to see you.”
Marcia Wells was a young mother she knew from Jane and Lee’s elementary school and whose dimples dug deep when she smiled. Usually she was dressed in bright workout gear, but now she had on dark jeans and a pretty blouse with silk ruffles around the plunging neckline.
“You and Wayne are out on the town tonight?” Kayla guessed.
The other woman wiggled in a little jig, her high heels tapping on the floor. “Date night with my hubby. Moms like us don’t get many of those—” She broke off, obviously realizing a moment late that Kayla wasn’t anyone’s mother. Her gaze jumped across the table to handsome Joe. “Um, it looks like you’re having a good time, too.”
Kayla made the obligatory introductions. “Marcia and I served on the Faculty Follies PTA committee,” she explained to Joe.
“We were in charge of the refreshments last year. This girl and I make a mean fruit punch,” Marcia boasted, her dimples flickering again. Then her gaze caught on a figure entering the bar. “Here’s Wayne now. You two have a good time!”
“Likewise,” Kayla murmured to the woman’s retreating back. Then she glanced at Joe, who was studying her with a new intensity, his green eyes narrowed. “Um? Do I have margarita salt on my n
ose?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I’m just catching on to what you do, is all. You’re not just the nanny. You don’t just babysit those kids.”
She shrugged, for some reason embarrassed. “So I serve on a PTA committee or two.”
“I don’t even know what PTA stands for.”
“You’ll find out someday, I’m sure,” she said.
Now it was his turn to shrug. “I’m in no hurry, believe me. My brother has kids and all he does is tell me about how much they cost and how they can’t even walk down the street by themselves. He’s trying to channel our dad who laid down the law and woe to he who broke a single one.”
Kayla tried not to frown, but Joe’s brother sounded, frankly, like a jerk. Mick had never complained about the expense of raising Jane and Lee. He was a protective father, that was true, but he gave them opportunities to walk down the street and venture on other independent experiences without heavy-handed supervision. And while her own father had been good with laying down the law those weekends she’d spent with him as a child, through them she’d come to realize there was more to being a parent than rule-making. He’d been absolutely clueless about her emotional landscape.
Mick got his kids, even though he was wary of what lay ahead as Jane and Lee approached their teen years. She was convinced he’d do a good job navigating troubled waters, with or without her.
Without her. Remember? Tonight was supposed to be about their life without her—or more correctly—her life without them. So she spread another smile across her face and asked Joe about his car.
He liked to talk about his car.
The meal was delicious, though she kept sneaking glances at her watch. Was this any way to look for wow? she admonished herself, even as she peeked at it again. But the whole evening felt more like whatever, she realized, as she ordered coffee to keep him company as he ate dessert.
It was not that there was anything wrong with Joe. Enjoying travel and a single’s lifestyle or expressing an uncertainty about wanting children wasn’t egregious. She knew all this. It was unreasonable of her to think a man unwilling to commit to a kid didn’t make good date material. But…
Not Just the Nanny Page 9
