Mommy for Hire

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Chapter Fourteen

  Grady looked at Alexis. The stunned expression on her face was not the reaction he had been hoping for. It didn’t mean all was lost, just that he had to have a better pitch.

  After all, he had the McCabe and the Corbett-Wyatt genes. He knew how to finesse a situation that would leave everyone not only richer, but much happier to boot.

  “You’re here all the time, anyway. We have a guest room that stands empty. Savannah adores you and she’s been longing for a mommy in her life. You’ve met that need.” Feeling her sink even farther away from him, Grady flashed a winning smile. “I love having you around, too.”

  She started to turn away, but he caught her hands and drew her back. “I love making love with you, being with you,” he told her sincerely.

  She didn’t respond.

  He tried again. “I want to help. I want to be part of your life.”

  Still nothing.

  “I want you to be part of ours.” Just the way you have been. “I want us to be—”

  “Like family?” Alexis interrupted, not looking all that pleased.

  Well, no, Grady thought, that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted them to be family. But, figuring that wasn’t what she wanted to hear—at least not this soon in their relationship—Grady said the word he expected she wanted. “Sure.”

  She let go of his hands as swiftly as if he had burned her. And this time she did turn away, looking thoroughly ticked off. “I don’t think so.” She pushed the words through gritted teeth, snatched up the scattered pieces of clothing she had worn to Savannah’s graduation, and headed into the master bathroom.

  Grady followed and planted himself in the doorway, feeling as if he were squaring off with a bear that had caught its paw in a trap. “You’re mad?”

  She whirled, sending a wave of her perfume drifting his way. “Gee…you think?”

  Not giving him a chance to answer, she tossed her clothing on the marble counter and slammed the bathroom door in his face. Grady heard the swish of cloth on the other side. He leaned against the doorframe, trying not to envision the splendid beauty of her nakedness. “Okay. So maybe it’s a little soon to be asking you to move in with us.”

  The silence was broken only by the rasp of a zipper.

  “But it’s what I want,” Grady continued, over more rustling cloth. “I’m not going to lie about that.”

  The door swung open. Alexis marched out, still buttoning the jacket of her suit. “I’m not going to lie, either. It’s not what I want.”

  He watched her hunt around for her sling-back heels. “I thought—”

  “I know.” She sat down on the bed to put on her shoes, her skirt hiking up well past her knees. “You had every reason to come to that conclusion.” Finished, she stood. “I’ve behaved like a fool. But no more.”

  “Alexis—”

  She spun around to face him, tears glimmering in her eyes. “I told you when we first met, Grady. I’m tired of only living half a life.” She held up her hand before he could interrupt. “I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to settle for friendship when I might have the kind of love I had with my husband.”

  Grady stared at her, aghast. How could he have been so wrong? So sure she mirrored the way he felt, deep inside? He swallowed, realizing his whole world was crashing down around him, without warning, once again. Fighting to keep a tight rein on his emotions, he swallowed. “You’re saying that what I am offering isn’t enough?”

  It was her turn to look unbearably disappointed. Alexis sighed, swept her hands through her tousled hair and sadly met his eyes. “I’m saying what I’ve said all along, Grady. I’m tired of living a diminished life. No one knows how much time they have here on earth, but while I’m here, I want it all. And until I get it, I’d rather be alone.”

  “DADDY, IS ALEXIS STILL looking for a new mommy for me?” Savannah asked three days later, as they walked onto the front porch at his parents’ ranch.

  Setting down the huge basket of corn his mother had asked him to shuck, Grady took a seat on the cushioned wicker settee. “Um, no, honey, she’s not,” he drawled as the scents of mesquite and slow-roasting barbecue filled the manicured yard. “I told her it probably wasn’t the right time for me to start dating again.”

  In the distance, his dad and some of his brothers worked on setting up the portable dance floor, while two more minded the wood-fueled smokers.

  “That’s good.” Savannah settled next to him and accepted an ear of corn. She peeled off one green leaf, then another, revealing the layer of cornsilk underneath.

  “How come?” Grady asked, husking an ear with two swift pulls.

  “Because I don’t want a new mommy,” Savannah said, serious as could be. “I just want Alexis.”

  So did Grady. “I know you do, honey.”

  “How come we haven’t seen her?”

  “She’s been really busy,” he fibbed, not about to tell his daughter the woman she wanted in her life was no longer going to be there.

  It was hard enough for him to accept. How could he ask Savannah to do the same?

  “Is Alexis coming here to eat barbecue and see the fireworks with us?” Savannah struggled to pick the silk off the kernels.

  “No.” Grady picked up another ear and methodically shucked it, too.

  His daughter looked as sad and disappointed as Grady felt. Her lower lip trembled and tears shone in her eyes. “Doesn’t she like Laramie?”

  Irritated with himself for bringing a woman into their lives, only to have the relationship end as unfairly as his marriage had, Grady worked to spare his daughter’s feelings once again. “I’m sure she would like Laramie just fine, if she’d ever been here.”

  Savannah dropped her shucked ear into the bowl of cleaned cobs and grabbed another. “Then why won’t she come to our Fourth of July party?”

  Maybe it was time to be a little more open. “I think she might be mad at me,” he admitted finally.

  His daughter looked as if she found that hard to believe. “Why?”

  Discovering it was more difficult to curtail his emotions with every second that passed, Grady exhaled. “I’m not sure.”

  Savannah narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t buying that for one red-hot second.

  “Okay, maybe I have an idea,” Grady allowed. “I think I might have rushed her.” Either that or Alexis didn’t see herself ever falling in love with him, and that wasn’t an idea he wanted to wrap his mind around. He didn’t want to think he’d been nothing more than a fling to her….

  Savannah blinked. “What does that mean?”

  It means, Grady thought, I shouldn’t have asked Alexis to move in, when love isn’t in the cards for us—at least as far as she’s concerned. The only thing she apparently had wanted from him was temporary passion. The kind that took someone off the bench and put him or her back in the game.

  Which was why, he realized way too late, he should have followed his instincts and never gotten off the bench in the first place. He’d been right to think that lightning only strikes once in a lifetime. Correct to feel that the odds of him falling for a woman who would in turn, fall for him were astronomically against it. He hadn’t wanted to be hurt again or feel mind-numbing loss. Yet here he was, feeling worse than if he had just remained alone and celibate for the rest of his life. What kind of fool did that make him? What kind of father?

  “Daddy?” Savannah said, sounding a little less hurt and a lot more reasonable.

  Unable to quell his sadness, Grady looked down at her. “What, pumpkin?”

  His five-year-old daughter gave him the stern but loving look he always gave her when he reprimanded her. “I think you should just say you’re sorry. Then Alexis won’t be mad at you anymore.”

  Had the situation not been so completely disillusioning, her dictum would have been funny. “Honey, I wish it was that easy. I really do.”

  Savannah stamped her foot. “But, Daddy, you always tell me—”

&nbs
p; “Not in this case.”

  She slumped in her seat, looking as if her heart would break. As if she’d almost had everything she ever wanted, only to have it cruelly snatched away.

  Unfortunately, Grady knew exactly how his little girl felt.

  ALEXIS WAS IN THE OFFICE, catching up on work, when her phone rang. Wondering who it could be, since she hadn’t told anyone she was spending the holiday alone, she picked up.

  “You’re a hard woman to track down,” Josie McCabe said.

  “Sorry.” Alexis had turned off her cell. She hadn’t wanted to think about the calls she wouldn’t be getting from Josie’s son. “I’ve been catching up on a lot of work.” Or trying to. She hadn’t actually been getting a lot done.

  “Honey,” the woman chided. “On a holiday?”

  Alexis felt a pensive smile coaxed from her lips. If she were in the market for a mom to replace the one she’d lost, she wouldn’t mind it being Josie McCabe. But Josie couldn’t be her mom unless she was connected to Grady.

  “I think I have an idea why you’re calling,” Alexis said.

  “Because you broke my son’s heart?” Josie interrupted, with her customary gentleness.

  Alexis was a little taken aback. “For me to break Grady’s heart, he would have to love me first,” she corrected.

  Josie paused, then asked incredulously, “Who says he doesn’t?”

  Who else? “Grady!”

  “He said that?” Josie gasped.

  Alexis lifted her shoulders in a listless shrug and rocked back in her chair. “It was more what he didn’t say.”

  His mother harrumphed. “That sounds like a McCabe male. Thinking it’s all obvious and therefore there’s no reason to state the obvious.”

  That made sense. Sort of. Alexis sat forward slightly and rubbed her temples. “What is the obvious?”

  Josie paused again. “Don’t you think you should be asking Grady that?”

  Alexis ignored the gentle teasing in the woman’s voice. She traced a random pattern on her desk with her fingertip. “I don’t think we’re speaking right now.”

  “And whose decision was that?” Josie demanded.

  Good question.

  “Look,” she continued, her exasperation clear. “I don’t know exactly what happened between the two of you. My son is not telling me anything, as usual. I do know what I saw when you were together. And I know what I see today when you’re not with each other. He needs you, Alexis, and unless I’m mistaken, you need him, too.”

  The truth of the assessment hit home. Tears blurred Alexis’s vision. Although the selfish part of her felt she loved Grady enough for both of them, she knew from her work as a matchmaker that one-sided love rarely worked out long term. In those situations, someone always got hurt. And in this situation, it wouldn’t be just her and Grady—Savannah would get hurt, too. Alexis couldn’t bear that, any more than she could bear the thought of a life without Grady and the little girl she had come to love as her very own.

  She didn’t want to shortchange either of them. Need wasn’t love. Grady deserved to love and be loved as much as she did. “Believe me, I wish you were right, but it’s not that simple,” she protested in a choked voice, feeling as if her heart was breaking all over again.

  She wanted Grady—and Savannah—to have everything they deserved.

  “Honey, it’s as simple as you want it to be. Follow your feelings. Get in the car and drive to Laramie. Spend the holiday with us.”

  “Grady—”

  “Will be happy to see you.”

  FINDING THE MCCABES’ RANCH outside Laramie was the easy part. Getting up the nerve to get out of her car and go find Wade and Josie’s eldest son was a lot harder. What if Grady didn’t want her there? He hadn’t invited her to the party. On the other hand, if she didn’t take some risk, she’d never be happy again. And she so much wanted to be happy.

  Alexis drew a deep, bolstering breath, opened the car door and got out.

  Over the roof of the car, she saw a familiar figure striding toward her. It was Grady. Not in the city clothes she usually saw him in, but in jeans, boots and a white Western shirt. He had a straw hat slanted low over his brow. Although she couldn’t see his eyes, she could see the serious slant of his mouth. His lips were thinned, his jaw set in the same grim don’t-mess-with-a-McCabe tilt she had witnessed the other night, when she’d walked out on him.

  Her spirits rose and then sank, then rose again.

  And suddenly he was bypassing the three-dozen vehicles already parked on the lawn, on either side of the long elegant drive. Quickly rounding the back of her car, he came to stand beside her. In the distance, Alexis could hear the sounds of a party. Lively music, laughter, shrieking children, the raucous splashes of people jumping into a swimming pool. But here in the quickly diminishing light, there were only the two of them. Only this moment in time. Maybe even only this chance.

  Alexis looked up at him, heart in her throat, her emotions on the line. She felt her eyes brim with tears. It was time to take a risk. Way past time. “About moving in with you?” she said simply, her gaze on his face. “My answer is yes.”

  Grady stared at her, undecipherable emotion flickering in his eyes.

  Silence strung out between them.

  Finally, he grimaced and said, with what sounded very much like a mixture of gratitude and regret, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  Something crashed inside her once again.

  He took her hand. Their fingers twined and he stared down at the place where their palms interlocked. Finally, he looked back up again. “You deserve better.”

  Suddenly, the happy future she’d once thought would never be hers seemed almost within reach. “I don’t want better,” she blurted. “I want…you, Grady. Only you.”

  He grinned and he tugged her closer, the affection she had been craving visible in his eyes. “Maybe you don’t want better, but you should have it,” he told her, pausing to take her chin in hand and deliver a soft, searing kiss that turned her life upside down once again. Drawing back slightly, he gently caressed her face with the flat of his palm. “You should have everything that’s been missing from your life the last few years. Romance, passion, fun, excitement, tenderness. And most of all,” he told her solemnly, “you should have a once-in-a-lifetime love. You deserve that, Alexis, and so much more. And so do I. Which is why,” he continued hoarsely, “I think we should take a step back.”

  “A step back.” Alexis didn’t know why she was repeating his statement. She had understood very well what he’d just said. She just hadn’t wanted to hear it. “Okay then…” She started to turn away.

  He held fast, refusing to release the grip he had on her hand.

  “I know I screwed up,” he confessed, his eyes on her face. “I know I pushed you too hard, too fast. I was selfish, but I couldn’t help it. I love you, Alexis. I love you with all my heart.”

  A hiccup caught in her throat. The tears she’d been holding back flowed, full force. “Oh Grady, I love you, too.” Alexis wreathed her arms about his neck. They kissed, long and slow…soft and sweet. “I just said no because I thought you didn’t love me!”

  He paused, taking that in, then grasped her upper arms. “I thought you walked away because you didn’t think you could ever love me.”

  Joy began to spiral through her. “Well, I guess we were wrong about that,” Alexis said, releasing a tremulous sigh.

  “Seems so.” Happiness radiating from him, he bent his head and delivered another tender kiss.

  “So about your offer…” Alexis said between kisses.

  “We’re not moving in together,” Grady announced firmly. “Not just as friends and lovers, anyway.” His voice dropped. “What we have is far too special for that.”

  This, she thought, sounded serious. But she had come to some important conclusions, too. “Life is short, Grady. Sometimes too short. I’ve waited a lifetime to feel this way again. I don’t want to miss a single second
of it, due to some arbitrary time frame everyone else thinks we should adhere to.”

  “I was hoping you’d feel that way….” Grinning, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a velvet box, which he pressed into her palm. She opened it with shaking hands. Inside was a beautiful platinum solitaire engagement ring, with tiny diamonds all around the band. It was the most beautiful ring she had ever seen, just perfect for her in so many ways.

  As firecrackers shot off in the distance, illuminating the sky, Grady dropped to one knee and looked up at her, love shining in his eyes. “Which is why I’m asking if you’ll do me the honor of saying you’ll be wife.”

  Epilogue

  Three months later…

  Savannah bounced up and down with excitement. “I knew we’d get to wear flowers in our hair!”

  Alexis secured the last pin, holding the wreath in place, then stepped back to survey her handiwork. Savannah looked precious in a pale blue silk-flower girl dress, white tights and white patent leather Mary Janes.

  “How’s it going in here?” Grady slipped in the guest bedroom door.

  “Daddy!” Savannah shrieked. “You’re not supposed to see us yet!”

  He grinned, unrepentant. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  His daughter surveyed him, deciding.

  “It’s okay,” Alexis said, soothing the little girl who would soon officially be her daughter. “I asked Daddy to come in so the three of us could have a moment alone before we go downstairs to get married.”

  They had decided to wait to get married until Savannah was nicely settled in her new school, which she now was. In the meantime, the three of them had spent every evening together, savoring each other’s company and making plans. And Alexis had approached her job as a matchmaker at ForeverLove.com with new energy and commitment, counseling her clients not to settle for anything less than real, lasting love, because, as she and Grady could attest, a love like theirs was worth waiting for.

  Now, finally, after counting down the days until she and Grady were to be wed in his home, with only a few close friends and family present, that day had finally arrived. The downstairs was filled with flowers. A harp and flute duo were at the ready. Caterers were setting up a reception beneath a tent in the back yard. The minister had arrived. And Savannah was still considering whether her dad should be allowed to see them.