The Nanny and Me

by Teresa Southwick

  “I’m not so sure.”

  She decided to ignore that. His actions spoke louder than her words. “Now that you’ve taken her in, don’t let it just be about a place to live. Go the extra mile and really help her. Make a difference in her life.”

  In her earnestness to convince him, Casey put a hand on his arm and felt the strength beneath the warm skin. The contact with him made her heart race again. “You’ll feel good about yourself.”

  “Okay, sign me up.” His voice was husky and deep and scraped along her nerve endings.

  He reached for her and pulled her to him. It felt like slow motion but happened at the speed of light. She was in his arms and it was better than anything her imagination had dreamed up. He was all hard muscles and coiled strength before he lowered his mouth to hers. It was as if she’d been holding her breath for this since the moment she’d met him, and she couldn’t stop the sigh of contentment. It was as if she’d waited all her life to feel Blake Decker’s chiseled lips take hers, tasting like Southern Comfort and sin.

  Her breasts were crushed to his chest as he held her against him with one hand, the fingers of his other hand snarled in her hair, angling her head to make the contact firmer, deeper, better.

  He made a sound in his throat, part groan, part growl, but all male. She breathed in the spicy scent of his skin combined with the warm breeze off the desert, and the exotic mixture was like a drug coursing through her system. Discipline where he was concerned was a pipe dream. Soft sounds of approval drifted between them, and she was vaguely amazed that they were coming from her. But she couldn’t seem to help it, because his mouth was doing delicious things to her mouth, her face, her ears, her neck. Good Lord, it was like a jolt of the best kind of electricity arcing through her.

  They were both breathing hard, and she felt as if the heat was melting her from the inside out, fusing her body to his in the most wonderful way. She wanted to be even closer, needed to be nearer.

  Just as she was praying it would never end, it ended. He seemed to freeze, then dropped his hands as if they suddenly burned.

  “Casey…” He took a deep breath and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “That was my fault.”

  Fault? That meant that what quite possibly was the best kiss she’d ever had was wrong. Or he believed it was wrong, which was right. This was wrong because it was confusing and so very not right. If there was anything positive about what was happening, it was that none of those words came out of her mouth as she blinked up at him.

  He moved back, far enough that he couldn’t touch her. “That was inappropriate. You’re my employee. I know better. I’m sorry.”

  He stared at her a moment longer, something dark and unreadable in his eyes. Abruptly he turned away and disappeared through one of the sliding glass doors to the penthouse master bedroom.

  Casey touched trembling fingers to her lips, still moist from his kiss. He’d been right, of course, to stop. But, God help her, the distance he’d put between them didn’t stop her from wanting him. And she couldn’t decide which was more humiliating—that he’d put an end to it or that he was sorry he’d done it at all. It was fate or something that he’d finished what he’d started earlier.

  Maybe it had been calculated to distract her. The plan had worked brilliantly, because she still didn’t know why the Decker men had felt the need to protect Patricia from her daughter’s child.

  Even with suspicions running rampant, Casey was missing the warmth of just moments ago. It was still hot outside, but she was cold all the way through because she felt empty inside.

  As wrong as it was, she still wanted him, just one more item in the long list of her sins.

  Chapter Five

  While Mia was in talking to the counselor, Casey sat in the waiting room—waiting for Blake. This was your standard issue area for hanging out. The chairs had a tweed seat on an oak frame and were arranged around the perimeter of the room. Walls painted in a serene shade of blue surrounded her, with generic seascapes hung here and there. A receptionist huddled behind a sliding glass window, probably looking at her watch every ten seconds to see if it was time to go home yet.

  This was the last appointment of the day and Casey had called in reinforcements to set it up. Ginger Davis knew a lot of people in Las Vegas, and the counselor had worked them in two days after Mia’s last disappearing act. Which also happened to be the same night Blake had kissed Casey on the terrace of his penthouse. Kiss and penthouse were two words she’d never expected to use in the same sentence regarding herself, but there it was.

  Casey looked at her watch and noted that Blake was now officially a half hour late. She couldn’t help wondering if his tardiness had anything to do with what had happened on said terrace, because she’d seen very little of him ever since. He was back to leaving early and coming home late. But he knew about this meeting with the counselor. Casey had called his secretary, who’d promised to remind him it was the last appointment of the day, making it easier for him to get here. And yet he wasn’t here.

  She’d tried calling his cell, but the call had gone to voice mail. Was he screening his calls? Because of that kiss? Or was it the fact that she’d drawn a line in the sand and made his presence here a condition of her continued employment? His not showing up would have to go under the heading of calling her bluff.

  After exactly sixty minutes the door beside the reception window opened and Mia walked into the waiting room with Lillian Duff. The counselor was a small woman in her early to mid-fifties, with light brown hair and eyes. She wore square, black-framed glasses and looked as serene as the blue on her walls.

  Casey stood and forced a smile. “So, how’d it go?”

  “We got acquainted.”

  “Yeah, right.” Mia rolled her eyes. “This is sooo lame.”

  “Feelings are good.” Casey tried to put an optimistic expression on her face when she looked at the counselor. “It’s best not to sugarcoat it, right? It’s best to tell how you really feel.”

  Casey refused to pretend everything was fine. If that were the case, they wouldn’t be here. If everything was hunky-dory, Blake would have made the effort to show up at the penthouse and take Mia to counseling, just the two of them, instead of standing his niece up.

  “I have nothing to say.” Mia flopped in a chair and folded her arms over her chest.

  “Would you look at that open body language,” Casey said.

  “Bite me.” The kid huffed out a breath.

  “That’s funny. When you ran away the other night and showed up at your grandparents, you had quite a bit to say. I’m thinking counseling is a good place to focus on what you’d really like to tell them.”

  “Dorks,” she muttered.

  Casey looked apologetically at Lillian. “She has issues.”

  “I noticed. Most kids who come to see me do.” The counselor looked at her watch. “I see Mr. Decker wasn’t able to join us.”

  “No.” Multiple excuses flitted through Casey’s mind, but she didn’t say anything. It wasn’t her job to monitor Blake or put a positive spin on his AWOL status. She glanced at Mia, who was putting a lot of energy into looking mad. “I’d like to make another appointment.”

  Lillian nodded. “For Mia and Mr. Decker?”

  “Just Mia.”

  Casey set her anger on simmer. Blake was going to get his session, but it would be with her instead of the counselor. He was writing checks to both of them, so what the heck? Coming from her, it wouldn’t be quite as politically correct.

  Casey set up an appointment for the same time next week. Then she and Mia walked into the carpeted hall and headed for the elevator to the parking structure. She pushed the elevator button, and Mia turned away, slouching against the wall. The silence was deafening, worse than shrugs, eye rolling or name calling. It really fried her that all Blake had had to do was show up. He hadn’t even had to say anything profound, because just being here would have said that he was invested in this child that no one wanted
.

  In all fairness, the Deckers were caught in a vicious cycle. Mia’s inappropriate behavior was a cry for attention, but it made her hard to like and gave her uncle an excuse to push her away.

  The elevator opened and Casey took a step forward so the doors wouldn’t close. “Come on, Mia.”

  With the kid’s back to her, all Casey could see was that she lifted a hand to her cheek.

  “Hey, kiddo, we need to go.”

  Mia’s thin shoulders hunched forward and she made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle. Casey held in a groan, but this was one more in a long list of reasons for her decision to specialize in the ten and under crowd. There was a world of difference between nine and Mia, who was going on thirteen. Hormones and feelings. Trauma and drama happened in that time and if a kid was at risk, this was when the behavior was most likely to show up.

  Casey was used to dealing with kids pre-trauma and drama, when she could impact them in a positive way and head off the things that would send them down the wrong path. A path of destruction, like the one chosen by a kid she’d befriended in Baghdad. The seeds for his anger and frustration had been sown long before Casey met him, and dealing with Mia felt a lot like that.

  But right here, right now, it was just the two of them and she had to do something. The question was what.

  “Mia?” No answer. She waited, hoping the kid would blink first, but the standoff continued. “Are you crying?”

  “No.”

  Casey moved away from the elevator and, when the doors closed, let it go. She walked over to the girl and stood there, but Mia didn’t turn around.

  “Hey, kiddo, talk to me.”

  There was no response, but the body language was dejected and unhappy.

  Casey drew in a deep breath as she stuck her keys back in her purse and settled the strap more securely on her shoulder. She put her hands on Mia’s thin shoulders and tried gently to turn her, but the kid resisted.

  “I’m here for you.”

  “So?”

  Casey was trying to pick up signals, but Mia didn’t make it easy. It was hard to read between the lines when it was a single-syllable, one-word response, but Casey heard frustration, anger, hostility and, most of all, hurt. Maybe it would help if she could coax Mia to talk about it.

  “Look, I think you know that your uncle is a busy lawyer. I’m sure something came up.” Something like he absolutely had to make sure a married couple’s relationship was severed between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. today.

  “Who cares about him?”

  “Not me,” Casey said, except maybe the part of her that felt guilty if the kiss she’d shared with him had in any way factored into his absentee status.

  She should have stuck to her guns and not taken this job when her instantaneous attraction to him was off the charts. He’d kissed her, and she wished she could say she hadn’t seen it coming. In hindsight she should have said her piece and walked away. In hindsight she wondered if deep down, she’d wanted him to kiss her. And now Mia was paying the price for her weakness.

  “Look, Mia, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that you obviously care about being stood up.”

  “You’re wrong. I didn’t want to talk to him, anyway.”

  “Okay. But wouldn’t you have liked to not talk to him to his face?”

  Casey turned the girl toward her, and the kid’s eyes looked even more turquoise, because they were red rimmed. She had to do something to comfort this child. It was always easy to do that for the under-ten group. A hug. Kiss the boo-boo and put on a Band-Aid and off they went. She was winging it with Mia and felt as if she was skydiving and her chute hadn’t opened.

  Still, she figured a hug couldn’t hurt and tugged the girl awkwardly into her arms. Mia stiffened and tried to jerk away, but Casey hung on, refusing to let go. Somehow Mia was going to get the message that someone in this world gave enough of a damn about her to acknowledge by comforting her that this situation sucked a lot.

  The battle of wills persisted for another thirty seconds, which seemed like forever. Finally Mia relaxed into her and buried her face in Casey’s shoulder. The girl was only a couple inches shorter, but a whole lot more lost, and the tug on Casey’s heart didn’t go unnoticed. She was officially sliding out of neutral and into the deep doo-doo of the affection zone. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Darn it.

  “I’m here,” Casey crooned, patting the shaking shoulders. “It’s okay. You’re not alone, kiddo. And just so you know…” She paused for dramatic emphasis, to make sure Mia was listening. “You’re right. Your uncle is a dork.”

  There was a muffled giggle before the girl looked up. “Told you so.”

  Casey pulled a tissue from her purse and handed it over. “Are you ready to go now?”

  “I guess.” Misery still coated her from head to toe.

  Casey couldn’t remember wanting so badly to see a kid smile. “How about on the way home I buy you anything you want?”

  An unmistakable spark of interest appeared in Mia’s eyes, for just a moment chasing away the indifference she wore like a favorite sweatshirt. “Anything?”

  “Within reason.” She put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and led her back to the elevator. “Is there something you’ve always wanted?”

  “A dog.”

  Holy Mother of God. But the more Casey thought about it, the more she liked the idea. A grin started slowly, then grew wider as Mia smiled, too.

  “A man’s best friend,” Casey said as the elevator doors closed.

  It was nearly nine when Blake rode the private elevator to his penthouse. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired, but that was Casey’s fault, which was his last thought before walking into his foyer where he found her standing. Kissing her had single-handedly sabotaged any restful sleep ever since, so it seemed somehow fitting that she looked ready to do battle.

  And that was when he remembered that today was the counseling appointment he’d agreed to.

  “Hi,” he said, setting his briefcase on the floor. “How did the counseling go?”

  Surprise flickered briefly in her eyes. “How do you know it took place? Maybe something came up and we forgot.”

  Along with the anger sparking in her eyes was a gleam of intelligence. Dealing with her would be much easier if she weren’t so bright. But not nearly as entertaining.

  “You don’t forget anything,” he said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that you and Mia were there. And I wasn’t.”

  “You’re not even going to pretend it slipped your mind?”

  He shook his head. “I was in mediation for a client whose financial settlement has been dragging on for close to a year. There was a breakthrough. Ending the session could have stalled things when we were on a roll.”

  “I see.”

  Her tone and the look on her face said that she didn’t see at all and that he was lower than the lowest life form. “Look, Casey, I know I—”

  He heard something that sounded a lot like a throaty, deep bark just before a big yellow dog galumphed into the foyer. There was a clicking sound from its nails, which he knew couldn’t be good for the expensive marble floor. Seconds later the animal peed on a leg of the table in the foyer, leaving a dark stain on the rug underneath. Just then Mia came racing in and skidded to a stop when she saw Blake, uncertainty in her big eyes.

  He glanced from her to Casey as shock, surprise and anger rolled through him—in that order. “If I lived in the suburbs, I could see where it might be possible for Old Yeller to end up in my house. But this is the top floor and without opposable thumbs, I’m pretty sure it couldn’t use the key card in the elevator.”

  “She’s not an ‘it.’ Blake, meet Francesca. Frankie,” Casey said to the dog, “meet Blake, your new dad.”

  “You brought this beast into my home?”

  “It’s Mia’s home, too.” Determined, Casey lifted her chin slightly. “She followed the rules and went to counseling, even though it
was lame, dorky and sooo stupid. She was there in good faith, so I thought a reward was in order. She’s always wanted a dog. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s true. So I agreed.”

  “I don’t and I’m reversing that decision.”

  “No, Uncle Blake. Please let me keep her.” Mia went down on one knee and put her arms around the dog, which nuzzled her cheek. “I promise she won’t be any trouble.”

  “Too late.” He looked at the dark spot on the rug. “She has to go. I mean leave.”

  “You can’t do that,” Mia cried.

  “I already did,” he said.

  “Mia,” Casey moved to the two of them and scratched the dog’s head. “It would be best if you let me talk to your uncle. Show Frankie her bed in the laundry room.”

  “But—”

  “Now,” Casey said. “Make her comfortable, secure and accepted in her new environment.”

  Blake was pretty sure there was a message in those words for him, but he refused to feel guilty. He lived here, too, and last time he checked, the money for all this came out of his bank account.

  He walked through the foyer, into the family room and straight to the kitchen, where he grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. After twisting off the cap, he took a long drink and let the cold, bubbly bite slide down his throat to his empty stomach. Damn the torpedoes and let the chips fall where they may. Fireworks were imminent, because Casey was right behind him.

  “There’s no way I’m telling that child she has to give up the dog.”

  He looked down at her. “You don’t have to. I already did.”

  “Reversing that decision is the least you can do to make up for being such an ass.”

  He set his beer on the kitchen island and stared at her. “Excuse me, but I could have sworn you called me an ass.”

  “If that’s your way of giving me a diplomatic out for what I said, forget it. I stand by the words and will say them again. You’re an ass. The dog stays. And, if I have to, I’ll take you on.”