He looked pleasantly surprised. “Thank you. I’m sure Janet will appreciate having the evening off.”
“Then I’ll go and collect my things.” Nicole flicked a glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. “I have a few odds and ends to take care of, but I can be back here by six.”
“Thank you again. I’ll warn Janet to expect you for dinner and leave her to show you to your suite of rooms.”
“Fine.” She picked up her bag from where she’d left it on the floor next to the desk. “I’ll see you later, Commander.”
She walked demurely along the hall and out through the front door. Climbed into her car, drove sedately down the driveway, and waited until the house was hidden behind a belt of trees before giving vent to the pent-up sigh of relief that was stretching her lungs to bursting.
She was home free! Provided she could keep her grief under wraps, the rest would be easy. Once she’d allayed any fears her employer might have regarding her motives, she could erase the lies and half-truths by which she’d gained access to Tommy and present herself for who she really was: his dead mother’s long-lost sister.
In the meantime, she had shopping to do. She’d come with party clothes, the sort of things a woman packed when she thought she was embarking on a holiday reunion. Sandals, sundresses, cocktail gowns. Beaded bags and diamond studs, spindle heels and sheer silk lingerie. And Pierce Warner’s lady friend was right: such a wardrobe no more fit the role of nanny than that of coffee shop waitress.
She needed clothes to fit the part. Denim skirts and trim white blouses. Cotton shorts and tops. Flat-heeled sandals and a plain bathrobe to replace the French silk peignoir lurking in the bottom of her suitcase.
The only things she didn’t need to acquire were a bottomless well of sympathy, an endless supply of tears, of love, of gut-wrenching pity. Those she already had in abundance. She could only hope they’d be enough.
“Pierce, that’s the fourth time you’ve looked at your watch in the last fifteen minutes and I’m beginning to feel neglected.”
“Sorry.” He drummed up a smile and touched his glass to Louise’s in a toast. “I didn’t realize I was being so obvious.”
“Sweetness, the woman is clearly as trustworthy as Mother Teresa. She was practically drooling all over Thomas when they came back from the beach and he seemed just as enthralled with her. It’s obviously a match made in heaven.”
“I agree. It’s the reason behind her being hired that I’m having a tough time coming to grips with. It just hasn’t sunk in yet that Jim and Arlene won’t be coming back.”
“I know. I can’t believe it, either.”
He shook his head, impatient with himself. “Death doesn’t get any easier to accept. I’m still haunted by that kid I lost on my last deployment. Now losing Jim, too—” He bowed his head, his chest aching. “I feel so bloody helpless.”
Louise shifted closer on the banquette until her knee was rubbing against his and her breast nudged his arm. “Pierce, stop it! That seaman’s death was no more your fault than your cousin’s accident was. Sadly, these things happen sometimes but the best thing we can do is go on with our lives. And, sweetie, you’ve become very much a part of mine. You do know that, don’t you?”
She increased the pressure on his arm, reminding him that she had very nice breasts indeed, and looked at him from eyes grown heavy-lidded with promise. He felt his own flesh tightening in response and suddenly wished they were alone instead of in a restaurant, and that he could lose himself inside her. Perhaps then he would forget, if only for a few minutes, the picture of Jim and Arlene as they’d looked when he’d gone to identify the bodies.
“How hungry are you, Louise?”
They’d become lovers about a month ago and she knew exactly what prompted the question. “Starving,” she purred, rolling her martini olive into her mouth with the tip of her tongue. “But not for chateaubriand. Let’s go, Pierce.”
She lived about half a mile from him, in a house she’d spent a small fortune renovating. Everything about it, from its marble-floored entry to the gold faucets in her bathroom to the dozen or so water candles arranged around her bed, reflected her sybaritic tastes. “There are glasses and champagne chilling,” she cooed, nodding at the bar refrigerator concealed in the lacquered wall unit at one end of her bedroom. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
He opened the champagne, stood it in a bucket of ice, then lit six of the candles. Strolling to the window, he loosened his tie and checked his watch one more time. Almost twenty-one hundred hours. Was Tom settled for the night? Should he phone to make sure everything was going smoothly with the new nanny?
She was a pretty little thing and seemed capable enough. Not that the two were related, but it seemed to him that it would be easier for a kid of four to take to someone who looked a bit like his mother than it would to someone old enough to be his grandmother.
Not that the dark-haired, dark-eyed Miss Bennett bore much resemblance to Arlene, who’d been blond. But they were about the same age and of similar height and build. Though perhaps the nanny weighed a couple of pounds less—about a hundred and ten, he figured, and they hung remarkably well on her five foot, five inch frame.
“Why, Pierce, here I am all ready to be seduced and you haven’t even gotten around to removing your shoes!”
Louise swanned back into the room, half dressed in one of those floating negligee things that revealed more than it covered and which he’d previously seen only on posters pinned up in lockers aboard ship. All he had to do was tug lightly on the piece of ribbon holding it closed and the whole contraption would slide down around her feet. The thought, coupled with the amount of exquisite ivory flesh already on display, should have left him straining for release.
It didn’t.
“I’ll pour the champagne,” he said, and knew, from the way she flounced over to the bed and spread herself out against the pillows, that she was disappointed by his delaying tactics.
“Aren’t you going to join me, darling?” she pouted, accepting her glass of champagne. “It’s lonely in this big old bed without you.”
Before he could stop himself, he glanced again at his watch.
“It’s only five past nine, Pierce,” she protested, sighing audibly. “No one’s going to report you AWOL if you stay out another hour or two.”
She was ticked off and he couldn’t blame her. “Sorry,” he said yet again, dropping down beside her on the bed and stuffing a pillow behind his head. She was the only woman he’d ever met who actually used satin sheets. He found them very slippery.
“You’re forgiven.” She smiled, a lazy, sexy smile, and leaned over to unbutton his shirt. “Just don’t let it happen again.”
Her hands were cool and very skillful. Were the nanny’s? Would she handle Tom gently when she lifted him out of his bath?
He shook his head irritably. Of course she would! She was a nurse, for Pete’s sake!
“Come back, sweetness,” Louise whispered, raking her long fingernails over his chest with just enough pressure to indicate she didn’t care for his preoccupation.
“Hey,” he said, trapping her hand, as a thought occurred to him, “is the phone turned on in here? I mean, if anyone wanted to get hold of me, would they be able to get through?”
“Pierce,” she said, on another long-suffering sigh, “I’m in real estate. Have you ever known my phone not to be turned on?”
“No,” he admitted wryly. They’d been in the middle of making love for the first time when she’d received a call from a client wishing to view a house she’d just listed. Apart from being a touch out of breath throughout the conversation, she’d managed to set up the appointment without missing a beat. He hadn’t known whether to be flattered or insulted.
“Then why.” she said now, “don’t you just relax and make us both enjoy ourselves?”
She had the most delicious legs this side of a chorus line. A man would have to be dead not to respond to the lure of them. “Rig
ht,” he said, taking her glass and placing it beside his own on the night table. “We’ve wasted enough time on small talk.”
“Thank God you finally got the message,” she breathed, leaning forward to touch his nipple with her tongue. “Take your pants off, Pierce, darling. Although I love a man in uniform, a charcoal lounge suit doesn’t do a whole lot for me at a time like this.”
Her hands slid to the buckle of his belt, adding urgency to her request. It should have been enough to trigger the response she was seeking. Tonight, it wasn’t—a fact she’d discover for herself soon enough.
Cupping her face, he kissed her with great determination. Her lips were lush as ripe strawberries. Her skin smelled of Paris, very chic, very French—as it should, considering the imported hand-milled soap she used and the perfume specially brought in for her by Marshall Fields in Chicago. Her hair, a rich red-gold, glowed like a flame. Unfortunately, none of the aforementioned set him on fire.
Finally, he pulled away, took her hands in his and held her at a distance. “We’re trying too hard, Louise.”
“Why, Pierce,” she murmured, pouting again. “Have I lost my touch?”
“It’s not your fault,” he said, his glance sliding yet again to his watch. “I’ve got too many things on my mind right now.”
“And I’m obviously not one of them.” She drained her glass, clearly annoyed.
He could hardly blame her. They were in her bed at his suggestion, after all. “Let me just call home,” he began. “Once I know—”
“Oh, forget it!” She flounced off the bed and splashed more wine into her glass. “Frankly, you’re not the only one no longer in the mood. Good night, Pierce. Call me when you get your act together.”
There was a light showing at the nanny’s bedroom window when he got home. Treading softly so as not to disturb Tom, who’d been sleeping very restlessly all week, Pierce stopped outside her door, surprised to see it standing ajar. He’d assumed she was in bed already but she sat instead in the little sitting room that faced the back of the house and looked out to sea.
She wore a long blue dressing gown and had white furry slippers on her feet. Her dark brown hair hung around her shoulders in soft waves, and her face was scrubbed clean of what little makeup she’d worn earlier. She was reading a letter and several others lay in her lap. She held a steaming cup in one hand.
Suddenly, she glanced up and did a double take when she found herself being watched. He saw then that she’d been crying.
“Sorry,” he muttered, pushing the door open a little farther. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I just got home and wondered how you’d managed with Tom. You seem upset. Did he give you a hard time?”
“No,” she said, making an effort to compose herself. “It’s not that at all. He was as good as gold.”
He shrugged helplessly. He never quite knew what to do with weeping women; they weren’t too common on board a naval destroyer. “Well, if it’s not Tom, then what? Are you having second thoughts about the job?”
“No.” Setting her cup on the table in front of her, she fished a wad of tissues from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. She was silent for so long that he thought the conversation had come to an end when she seemed to reach a decision of some sort and spoke again. “I think, Commander Warner, that there’s something you ought to know.”
“I’m listening,” he said, bracing himself. She had a look about her that spelled trouble.
She plucked a fresh tissue from the box at her elbow and blew her nose. “I haven’t been exactly truthful, I’m afraid.”
It wasn’t exactly the sort of news he appreciated hearing! Pretty direct himself, he hadn’t much use for people who weren’t equally up-front in their dealings. “In what respect, Miss Bennett?”
“Well...” She stopped and chanced a quick glance at him.
He held her gaze relentlessly. “Please continue.”
Her chin wobbled dangerously. “Recently, I... suffered...um...um....”
What? he was tempted to bark at her. A spell in prison for child abuse? A nervous breakdown? A malpractice suit for dereliction of duty?
“Something happened,” she said, and dropped her gaze to the letters in her lap.
Of course! She’d received a Dear John—or was it a Dear Jane for a woman? Either way, he thought he’d figured out what had brought on the tears. He’d seen it happen before enough times to recognize the symptoms. Otherwise fearless men brought to their knees by a one-page letter telling them they were history in some woman’s life.
“So that’s why you left Minnesota,” he said.
She looked up him, her dark brown eyes wide and startled. “What?”
“You wanted to make a fresh start.”
“Yes,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously. “But I’d already decided to do that before...”
The waterworks were about to start again. “Before he broke your heart,” he finished for her, deciding a quick, clean cut was kinder than letting her linger in misery.
She continued to stare at him as if she thought he was slightly mad. “No. Someone in my family died.”
“Oh,” he said, and then, insensitive clod that he was, added, “I assumed some guy had dumped you.”
She gave a watery laugh at that. “No, nothing quite that simple, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Bennett, I didn’t mean to make light of your loss.”
A fresh load of tears sparkled in her eyes. “My emotions are very close to the surface right now.”
“I fully appreciate that.” Uninvited, he advanced into the room and perched on the windowsill. “What can I do to make things easier for you?”
She shook her head, which was enough to send the tears flying down her cheeks. “Nothing.”
Should he lend a shoulder for her to cry on? Pat her back? Stroke her pretty hair and murmur words of comfort?
The thought stirred him more thoroughly than his earlier bedroom encounter with Louise. Hurriedly, he handed over a fresh tissue and wished he’d waited until the morning to have this conversation. “What’s that you’re drinking?”
“Herbal tea,” she said. “I thought it might help me sleep. I hope you don’t mind that I made myself at home in the kitchen.”
“Not in the least, but how about a shot of brandy instead?”
“No, thank you. I don’t drink much.”
“That’s good,” he said. A closet tippler was the last thing he—or Tom—needed! “It might not be a bad idea to make an exception just this once, though. In fact, I could use a drink myself.”
Before she could raise further objections, he stuffed another tissue in her hand and made his escape. On his way downstairs, he poked his head into Tom’s room. He was fast asleep. From behind her door, Janet’s rhythmic snoring told him all was well on that front, also.
By the time he returned to the nanny’s room, she’d got the tears under control. Even though her eyes had a bruised look about them, she managed to drum up a smile.
“Here,” he said, offering her the snifter. “Down the hatch with this and you’ll sleep like a baby, I promise.”
She took a sip and grimaced. “I do apologize, Commander Warner. I’m not usually such an emotional mess.”
“Why didn’t you say something this afternoon? Did you think I’d reject your application, because you’ve suffered a family bereavement?”
She hesitated before replying and he thought an expression of near-guilt crossed her face, but it was such a fleeting thing that he couldn’t be sure. “Private details don’t belong in interviews,” she said finally.
“They do sometimes, especially if they affect a person’s ability to cope with her duties.”
“Oh, I won’t allow that to happen!” she exclaimed, a flush of alarm tinting her pale face. “I’d never do anything to jeopardize Tommy’s well-being.”
She looked so earnest, and so damned soft and appealing that he was startled to find himself again inclined to draw her into his arms a
nd comfort her. To preclude any such action, he downed the rest of his brandy, stood up to leave, and said, “I believe you, Miss Bennett.”
“Do you? Really?”
“Every word.”
Why didn’t she look reassured at that? What caused her to gnaw uneasily on her lip, as though he’d handed her a gift she didn’t deserve?
“Look,” he said, “I understand only too well the void left behind when someone dies but the only way to get past it is to go forward, because standing still and looking back at what we’ve lost is just too painful.”
She got up from the chair and pressed her hands together. He noticed they were every bit as fine and soft as he’d expected them to be. “You’re right. Thank you, Commander. I swear you won’t regret entrusting Tommy to my care.”
“I don’t expect to. Good night, Miss Bennett.”
He’d turned away and was almost at the door when she stopped him with one last request. “Won’t you please call me Nicole?”
Strange, the effect the request had on him. There was something forlorn in her voice that told him more clearly than anything she’d actually put into words that she was hurting badly and fighting with every ounce of grit she could muster to cope with the pain.
“Nicole,” he echoed, hearing the cadence of her name on his tongue and liking how it sounded.
Embarrassed to find himself staring into her eyes as if he’d been hypnotized, he cleared his throat and said brusquely, “Well, if we’re dropping the formalities and I suppose, since you’re more or less part of the family now, we might as well, I’m Pierce.”
“Yes.” She smiled a little. “The name suits you.”
Instinct told him not to ask, but curiosity got the better of him. “How so?”
“Everything about you is very direct. A woman knows where she stands with you and I admire that in a man.”
There were a few things he admired about her, too. Her hair, for instance, and the classic oval of her face. And her long, dark lashes. If it weren’t for the fact that she’d washed or wept away her makeup, he might have thought they were false or coated with eye shadow, or whatever it was women put on them for effect. In any event, they added drama to her already lovely eyes.
A Nanny in the Family Page 3
