‘I don’t want to be a nanny.’ Imogen gave a polite smile. ‘I am trying to have a bit of a holiday, believe it or not.’
‘I’m not asking you for that.’ Angus cleared his throat. ‘Just helping out a friend and you’d be helping me too. It makes sense.’
‘Why would you do that?’ Imogen asked, and he opened his mouth to respond only Angus couldn’t, because if it had been anyone else at work in her predicament, he wasn’t sure that he’d make the same offer. In fact, he wouldn’t even be having this conversation, would never dream of telling anyone at work so much about him and Gemma. There was just no point of reference—nothing familiar—and not a hope of answering her question.
‘It would be bliss to actually have Heath stay over with me for a couple of nights during the week, and that’s not going to happen at the youth hostel.’ Her voice dragged him out of his introspection. ‘I could juggle my shifts around yours…Are you sure about this, Angus?’ Imogen asked.
‘Absolutely.’ Angus answered, without thinking, but when his brain caught up the conclusion was the same. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Just till your mum gets here?’
‘Whatever suits you.’
‘How soon…?’
‘When can I…?’
They both laughed as they spoke over each other.
‘Why don’t I go home and speak to the kids?’ Angus suggested. ‘You go and pack up your stuff. Then, if it’s OK, I’ll dash over to the hospital and tell them….’
‘Tell them what?’
‘That I…’ He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. ‘I’m on all day tomorrow…Are you sure?’
‘Works perfectly for me!’ Imogen answered. ‘I’m on a day off.’
CHAPTER SIX
PACKING up her things at the youth hostel didn’t take Imogen long. Angus had assured her his house was easy to find and was a mere two minutes’ walk from an underground station. She had his address and phone number in her pocket, but as Imogen sat on the tube, her heart was hammering.
It had all made perfect sense at the time.
Sitting in the café with him, talking to him, confident and relaxed in his company, it had seemed an obvious solution for both of them. The last night at the hostel had been hell—the noise, the laughter, the sheer energy of the place just too much to deal with, when all she’d wanted was to flop in front of the television and not think about her day. It was also no place to bring Heath and although she was desperate to cram in as much sightseeing as possible with him, she was already tired of sitting in cafés with him. A homebody by anyone’s standards, at the end of the day Imogen wanted to be in rather than out, wanted to just be with her son rather than think up things to amuse him.
It just didn’t make perfect sense now.
Coming out from the underground station and finding Angus’s street easily, Imogen was tempted to turn and run in the other direction as she wheeled her suitcase towards yet another destination unknown.
And how she hated them.
Hated the chaos her life had been plunged into when Heath had been just a baby. She had spent the last three years extricating herself from it.
Sensible might just as well be her middle name. She never took risks, never did things on impulse, well, hadn’t done in a long time. As amazing as Angus thought she was for coming to London, he hadn’t known the angst it had caused her to be hurtled out of the comfort zone she had created for herself and Heath back home in Australia. He wouldn’t have a clue how out of character it was for her to have asked him for coffee, to sit in a café with a man she’d only just met and then agree to move in with him!
And he couldn’t possibly have known how much courage it took for her to knock on his door and smile widely as he opened it.
‘This is Imogen…’ Angus introduced her as he led her through to the lounge. ‘She’s a nurse from the hospital and she’s going to help out for a little while.’
‘Will Ainslie come back?’ Clemmie, her hair thick with curls and her eyes as green as Angus’s, gave Imogen a bored glance then spoke to her father.
‘No, Ainslie’s got a job with a new family now,’ Angus answered.
‘Ainslie was fun!’ Dark eyed and dark haired, Jack looked directly at Imogen as he threw down a challenge.
‘I can manage fun.’ Imogen smiled, unfazed. ‘I like your Christmas tree!’
Actually, she didn’t. On the positive side, at least it was a real Christmas tree, but it was so tastefully decorated it surely belonged in a department store. Large silver ribbons and not a lot else dressed the lonely branches, and several, beautifully wrapped silver boxes lay strategically underneath, causing the children to stand to rigid attention when Imogen strolled over and picked one up.
‘You’re not supposed to touch!’ Clemmie warned.
‘Whoops! Are they for display purposes only?’ Imogen smiled, replacing the empty box.
‘I made a decoration at school…’ Jack scampered out and returned with several pieces of pasta stuck on a card and sprayed gold.
‘That’s fabulous!’ Imogen beamed, placing it on the tree and standing back to admire it. ‘Maybe we can make some more tomorrow when your dad’s at work—if that’s OK with you guys!’
‘Imogen is not the new nanny,’ Angus warned his children. ‘She’s a friend, helping out for now, so remember that.
‘Come on.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll show you around.’
The children didn’t follow, and now, back in his company, chatting easily as he showed her around his home, it all made perfect sense again. Even though it was an enigma to Imogen, from the two busy schedules that were pinned up on the fridge the Maitlin family was obviously used to having staff, used to having people living in their home, cleaning their things and looking after their children.
‘The children have a separate menu?’ Imogen frowned as she looked at a piece of paper attached to the fridge.
‘I’m not expecting you to follow it.’ Angus laughed. ‘That was for Ainslie. Anyway, the children have already had tea…’ Which did nothing to fade her frown. ‘At my sister’s.’
‘You mean dinner?’
Still, apart from the endless lists, the house was gorgeous.
Well, apart from the endless photos.
For the most part she was comfortable with her body. Sure, Brad’s words had hurt at the time and for a good while after that, but, as her mother had pointed out, her whole family might be curvy, big bosomed and big bottomed, but they weren’t unhealthy. Imogen’s sister had also pointed out, furiously jabbing at a magazine to reiterate the point, that no woman who had had children could possibly, without a lot of airbrushing, look like that!
‘When was that taken?’ Imogen paused at a particularly spectacular image of a woman rising from the ocean in a man’s white shirt.
‘The year before last…’ Angus frowned. ‘When we went to Thailand, supposedly to try and make things work.’
‘It’s lovely,’ Imogen said, deciding to take a photo of her own to send as a postcard to her sister!
Used to airy, open-plan houses, painted walls and floorboards, Imogen adored the old house. The carpets were thick and cream and the bold choices of colour on the wallpapered walls were so different to their own house—even the stairs would be a novelty for Heath. She could practically see him surfing his way down them head first. There was even a little box bedroom, which at first Imogen assumed was for her but was actually a spare that, Angus told her, she was welcome to use for Heath.
‘This is yours.’ He led her up yet another set of stairs to the ‘nanny’s accommodation’, which translated to a converted attic decorated in white and yellow, with a skylight that had blinds and even a little kitchenette with a microwave, fridge and kettle.
‘Does anyone actually eat together in this house?’
‘I don’t expect you to hide away in the attic,’ Angus said. ‘There’s no bathroom facilities up here, though…’
‘I wasn’t expecting
there to be.’
‘Getting and keeping a good nanny is a serious business here,’ Angus explained to a thoroughly bemused Imogen. ‘Ideally they should have their own self-contained accommodation.’
‘So you don’t have to see them!’
‘It’s the other way around.’ Angus laughed. ‘They don’t want to see us on their time off. Honestly, it’s like a minefield.’
And one she had no intention of walking through!
Especially when at seven p.m., Clemmie informed Imogen that she’d forgotten to put her pyjamas out on her bed for her.
‘Ainslie always did!’ Clemmie said tearfully when Angus scolded her.
‘Imogen is not the new nanny. I’ve told you she’s a friend who’s helping us out. Imogen’s got a job at the hospital and her own little boy to look after.’
‘How old is he?’ Clemmie asked, suddenly interested.
‘Four—like you. He’s called Heath.’
‘Well, my dad’s on the television!’ Clemmie said proudly.
‘So’s Heath’s dad!’ Imogen said, equally as proudly, then glanced at her watch. ‘May I?’
‘Help yourself,’ Angus answered, somewhat bemused as the three of them piled on the sofa and proceeded to watch what was surely unsuitable viewing for a four-and a five-year-old, but from the squeals of recognition it wasn’t the first time they had seen the show and from their rapt expressions it wouldn’t be the last.
‘Shane’s Heath’s dad?’ Jack checked, clearly impressed.
‘Cool!’ Clemmie chanted.
And when surely he should be frantic, should be ringing round relatives, thinking about lawyers, trying to contact Gemma, for the moment at least he paused.
‘Ten minutes,’ Angus warned the children, ‘then it’s time to get ready for bed.’
Not that they were listening, all eyes in the room drawn to six feet two of bronzed Australian muscle, Shane’s sun-bleached blond hair long and tousled on the pillow of his hospital bed. As if on cue Imogen’s mobile began to ring.
‘Hey, Brad!’ Absolutely at ease, she grinned into the phone. ‘I’m watching you now—tell them to go easy on the blusher next time…’ Then she spoke with her son and Angus wondered if he and Gemma could ever get there, could chat and grin and even manage a laugh. Right now that world seemed light years away. Later, when Clemmie and Jack were in bed, and Imogen was rather expertly pulling a cork out of a bottle of her duty-free wine, Angus thought that perhaps now was the time he should be overcome with emotion, grief, panic, when surely now he should be thinking about tracking down his errant wife, or ringing his family, or getting started the million and one tasks that surely lay ahead. Instead, he pulled two steaks out of the freezer and watched as their dinner defrosted through the glass door of the microwave, watched as Imogen chopped onions and mushrooms and added a dash of wine to the sauce for the steaks, and it seemed incongruous how good he actually felt.
‘To you!’ Imogen tapped his glass and took a sip. ‘To getting through.’
‘I don’t know how I would have, especially with it being Christmas…’
‘You would have.’
‘I would,’ he agreed, taking another sip, ‘but it would have messed up a lot of people’s plans. This is really nice wine, by the way.’
‘We do a good red.’ Imogen smiled. ‘I’ve got five more bottles upstairs!’ Then she was serious. ‘The kids seem OK.’
‘They’re used to people coming and going, and they’re used to Gemma being away. They seem more upset that Ainslie’s gone at the moment…though they’ll be devastated when I tell them about their mother and me.’
‘Just wait till Gemma’s calmed down,’ Imogen said wisely. ‘Things might look different.’
‘We won’t be getting back together.’ The slight raise of her brows irritated him. ‘Once I’ve made up my mind, Imogen, I don’t change it.’
It was a nice dinner—a really nice dinner—just talking about work, and about Angus trying to cram in an eighty-hour working week at the hospital and also look after a family. They talked about Imogen’s life in Australia and her colossal mortgage, how she missed midwifery and how she juggled her shifts around Heath and Brad and she told him how much easier things would be in a few weeks once Heath started school.
‘Are you seeing anyone?’
Oh, so casually he said it—well, she knew so much about him, surely it was right to ask?
‘No.’ She frowned over her wineglass at him. ‘You?’
‘I’ve only been separated for…’ he glanced at his watch ‘…oh, ten hours now.’
That wasn’t what she’d been asking, but from the way he’d answered she didn’t need to clarify the question. Somehow Imogen knew that the man sitting at the table, leaning over to top up her glass, was as decent and as nice as he appeared.
As he went to fill her glass, both shared a quick yikes look when they realised the bottle was empty.
‘I’m going to bed.’ Imogen stretched as she stood.
‘It’s not even nine o’clock.’
‘Perhaps, but I’m still jet-lagged.’
‘Sorry—I keep forgetting you’ve only just got here. You just seem so….’ His voice trailed off, not sure himself what he had been trying to say. ‘’Night, Imogen, and thanks, thanks for all your help today.’
‘’Night, Angus.’
Familiar.
As he stacked the dishwasher Angus shook his head, unhappy with the description.
Comfortable.
Only that didn’t fit either, because at every turn she shocked him, shocked himself too—he’d told her things he never thought he’d share.
She’d been right about so many things, though, Angus thought, and it had been good to talk, to be honest, to share some of what he was going through.
Though there was one thing that she’d got wrong…
Picking up the phone, he rang his mother, took a deep breath and paused for the longest time when she answered the phone.
‘Is anybody there?’
‘It’s me, Angus.’
Yes, Imogen was wrong, because his marriage to Gemma really was over. Angus knew that for sure, or he’d never have made that call.
Imogen stared at the ceiling as she listened to the low murmur of Angus’s voice drifting up the stairs as he spoke on the telephone. Suddenly she found she was holding her breath too.
In three years she’d barely even glanced at another man—let alone flirt.
Oh, and she had been flirting. Not deliberately—in fact, only now, lying in bed and going over the day, was Imogen blushing as red as her hair as she recalled some of the things that she’d said. They’d been the sort of cheeky, flirty things the old Imogen would have said a million years ago when she and Brad had been happy.
What had she been thinking? Imogen scolded herself.
Angus Maitlin was married to a model, for heaven’s sake, or had just broken up with her. As if he’d even think of her in that way. And he was only being nice because he was glad she was here, that was all. Without her, a lot of people’s Christmas plans would have been messed up and he would have had to fly his mother down from Scotland or try and arrange rapid child care just a week before Christmas. Yes, he was just glad she was here.
She was glad she was here too!
Everyone had said she was crazy, zipping over to London when she could least afford it, and had told her that she was being too soft on Brad, that he was taking advantage of her, but it was actually the other way around.
She needed this, Imogen thought. Lying in a strange bed, in a strange house, in a strange country, in the middle of an English winter—she actually felt as if she was thawing out.
As if the Imogen that had been placed in cold storage when her marriage had broken down and she had struggled just to survive was making itself known again.
So what if she had been flirting? She was testing her wings, that was all.
As the phone pinged off, as the rumble of pipes through the
house stilled, as she heard the heavy creak of the stairs, never had a house been more noisy, but as quiet filled her little attic Imogen stared up at the skylight, too tired to close the blinds now, a streetlight outside illuminating low clouds as they drifted past, the sky lighter than it had been at nine that morning, which didn’t make sense, but she was too tired to work it out.
Yes, she needed this, Imogen realised, turning on her side and letting delicious waves of sleep wash over her.
Needed to be where no one actually knew her, so that maybe, just maybe she could find herself again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AN EYEFUL of grey and the thick sound of nothing woke her up.
Staring at the skylight, struggling to orientate herself, the snowflakes falling was nothing like she’d dreamed of. The wad of grey slush peeled away from the edge of the skylight and slid down the glass and as Imogen climbed out of bed she found out for the first time what it really meant to be cold. She was tempted to tell Angus why he couldn’t keep a nanny!
‘Sorry!’ Grinning, just back from a run, Angus looked as warm as the toast he was buttering. ‘The heating timer’s not working. I meant to put it on before my run. The house will warm up soon.’
‘You run in snow!’
‘It’s not snowing!’ Angus refuted. ‘Though it is trying to. It’s turning to slush as soon as it hits the ground.’
Handing her a cup of tea, Imogen wasn’t sure if it was her breath or the steam that was coming out of her mouth. Disgustingly healthy, brimming with energy, Angus joined her, but she started to forgive him when he proceeded to spread thick marmalade on a mountain of toast. He did have nice hands, large yet neat, with short white nails and a flash of an expensive watch. Imogen noticed his left hand was now minus a wedding ring.
‘Did you want marmalade?’ He checked when he caught her looking.
‘Thanks!’ Imogen said, and forgave him completely when he didn’t moan that she ate more than half of the toast.
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