by Nancy Warren
11
ANNIE AWOKE with a start, heart pounding.
For a second she was completely disoriented. All she knew was she couldn’t move, trapped by warm bonds that imprisoned her so she could barely breathe.
Shaking herself fully awake, she remembered.
A smile curved her lips. She was on her side, tucked into Mark’s body, his arms wrapped around her possessively.
Much too possessively. With a jerk, she pulled herself away.
He grunted in his sleep, rolling forward until he was in the spot she’d vacated and she was teetering precariously on the edge of the mattress.
What had they done? What on earth had she been thinking? Mark wasn’t a man a girl could have a few laughs with and move on. He was a protector, a possessor, a…
There must be at least one more P word that would describe the sense of claustrophobia he induced. He was a—an imprisoner. That was close enough.
And Emily. What would Emily think if the nanny rolled out of her uncle’s room in the morning?
A squint at the clock told her it wasn’t even dawn yet. Carefully, she eased out of the bed and gathered her clothes. She crept in the general direction of the door and after some silent detective work finally located it.
In less than a minute she was in her own room, in her own bed. Alone.
She found she was trembling.
It must be colder in her room.
“HI, GIRLS.” The deep voice sent quivers of longing into the depth of Annie’s very being. She checked the lentil casserole one more time, hoping the heat from the oven would explain the heat in her cheeks, then turned with what she hoped was her usual cheery employee-to-employer expression.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t playing by the same rules. The expression he gave her was intimate and tantalizing. He came so close she thought he was going to kiss her.
She jerked her head Emily’s way in warning. “Tell Uncle Mark about your day, Em,” she said.
Later, his expression promised, setting off an urgent throbbing in her most sensitive areas.
Mark laughed when the child demonstrated the disappearing pencil trick she’d mastered, a carefree chuckle that brought a smile to Annie’s face. When had he started to change from the stiff-rumped excop? She wasn’t sure, but she had a feeling last night was a part of it.
Strangely, last night had the opposite effect on her. Where she’d been carefree before, now she felt tense. Like a trap was closing in, and she had to bolt before it was too late.
They’d miss her at first, but after she was gone, they’d continue, a healed and better family. She sighed at her usefulness to these two people she’d come to care for, feeling like an angel from TV who fixes a problem then flits away to a new situation next week.
Angel Annie. Had a nice ring to it.
They ate dinner, and nobody whined about lentils. Mark pretended he didn’t know Kitsu was watching them like a hawk, not in case some crazed drug dealer crashed their family dinner, but in case a stray tidbit should fall from a plate.
It had become so much a routine that after dinner Emily would go upstairs to practice her violin and do her homework and Annie and Mark would do the dishes together that Annie didn’t know how to get out of it without appearing to be avoiding him.
As soon as Em was out of the room, she jumped up and started gathering things off the table, anxious to avoid the intimacy of a tête-à-tête.
It was a useless plan.
“I thought about you all day,” Mark growled against the back of her neck.
Darn it all, didn’t he know that was probably the third most erogenous spot on her whole body? The whisper of his voice sent tingles all the way down her spine in some sort of biochemical ambush, igniting tiny flames in the top two erogenous zones. Carefully, she put the dishes on the counter before she dropped them.
By that time, he’d taken shameless advantage of the fact that her hands were too full to bat him away and he’d slipped his hand under her cotton sweater. “Do you think Emily’s asleep yet?” he whispered in her ear.
“It’s six forty-five. I doubt it,” she whispered back, her voice husky.
His hands were caressing her breasts, and she could barely think clearly. She had a vague idea she should stop him, but she’d forgotten why.
“My office door locks,” he suggested.
She wished he’d stop whispering in her ear like that. It sent more shivers through her body. They could have a lot of fun in his office with the door locked. She forbade herself to even think about how much fun. “We should do the dishes first.”
“When did you get so concerned about housework?”
“When did you get so irresponsible?”
“You must be rubbing off on me.”
Since his hands were currently rubbing her nipples, she groaned loudly at the horrible pun. She yanked his hands from under her top and thrust a dishcloth at him.
“Here. Find something more useful to do.”
He gave in good-naturedly, turning on the tap and squirting dish-washing liquid into the sink. Over the noise of running water he said, “I wanted to talk to you, anyway.”
“You did?” She was always the one who used those ominous words, We have to talk. They always led into the goodbye speech. Surely he wasn’t giving her the goodbye speech? After just one night?
“I always take Em on vacation during the summer holidays. It’s getting late, and I’ve got to book something. I want…I mean, would you like to come with us?”
She felt a curious sensation, as if she were an over-filled balloon and the air was slowly leaking out of her. She fixed all her concentration on the green dish she was drying.
“But, ah, Bea will be back soon.”
“I’m not asking you to come as Em’s nanny, but as a, well, a friend.”
“You mean like a girlfriend?” The words echoed strangely in her chest.
“You’re going to rub the glaze right off that plate.”
Realizing she was still polishing the same plate she’d started with, she carefully put it down. A glance showed his face wore that earnest, tender expression that scared the pants off her.
“Girlfriend…I guess so. I mean my girlfriend, not Emily’s.”
Girlfriend was one of those terms, like retirement planning, that gave her the willies. And yet, even as one part of her shied away in horror, another part was strangely attracted to the idea. A family vacation. She could pretend they were a real family. They’d play all day, and at night she and Mark…
“Where would I sleep?”
“With
me.”
“But what about—”
“Emily loves you, Annie. This is just a chance for us to have some fun together. Nobody’s asking you for forever.”
She flinched. There was another word she hated. Forever. As in, to have and to hold, forever… A couple of weeks would be just a little taste of forever. If it was only Mark, she might have said yes. But Emily was already getting attached. It wasn’t fair to raise the child’s expectations when Annie couldn’t meet them.
Reluctantly, she shook her head, knowing she had to be strong enough to do the right thing for all of them. “I already have holiday plans. I’m going to Asia.”
“Yes. I know. Couldn’t you put it off for a couple more weeks?”
Of course she could. She could put it off permanently if she felt like it. They both knew that. But that trip was her escape hatch out of a situation that was starting to feel way too serious.
She sighed. It was the great sex that had got her into this horrible emotional tangle. Yesterday, Mark hadn’t been asking her to go on vacation. He’d been accusing her of being a harebrained ninny incapable of looking after one eight-year-old girl. Today he used words like girlfriend. Why couldn’t he get it through his thick head that she didn’t want strings attached to this relationship?
All she wanted was the great sex.
And yet, it was that sense of connection that made t
he sex so great. Not sex, making love, a little voice whispered. And love was the scariest of all the scary words.
Her silence had stretched so long that Mark had gone back to washing the dishes. He was stacking them neatly in the space-age stainless-steel drainer. The dishes stood pale green and glistening with water while she stood there stupidly trying to decide what to do.
“I don’t think so. I really need to get going to Asia.”
“I understand.” He glanced up with an expression of pain and resignation on his face, and she had a horrible feeling he did understand. A lot more than she wanted him to.
They continued the dishes in a kind of awkward, stilted way, their conversation sounding like bad dialogue. When they were done he didn’t say another word, just headed down the hall to his office.
And he didn’t invite her to join him.
It looked suspiciously as if she’d just had the shortest affair of her life.
MARK STRETCHED a cramped biceps and yawned as he approached the kitchen. He knew he was overdoing his workouts, but the basement gym was his refuge when he started thinking too much about Annie and how she was sleeping on the other side of the wall from his bedroom.
If she’d stay in her clown costume all the time it wouldn’t be so bad. Like yesterday, when she and Emily had gone off hand-in-hand, big clown and little clown, to Em’s school. Who got erotic fantasies about a woman in size nineteen polka-dot shoes and a baggy clown costume?
Well…he
did.
It didn’t seem to matter what she wore, or didn’t wear. He wanted that clown and he wanted her bad.
If he hadn’t botched it so badly the other night, he’d be having her, too. What in blazes had possessed him to invite her on holiday? You didn’t need to be Freud to figure the lady had some kind of commitment phobia.
One night of heaven had been his. Just one glorious night. He knew he’d remember that night until the day he died. And it wasn’t just him feeling as if he’d found the other piece of himself. He was almost certain of that. Annie had felt something, too.
And that scared her.
It wasn’t as if he’d gone down on his knee with an engagement ring in his hand and asked her for a lifetime commitment. It was two weeks in a cabin somewhere, maybe on a lake, where they could hike or fish or go horseback riding.
But, apparently, even a couple of weeks was too much to ask. Those polka-dot shoes were ready to walk out on him and Em, and just keep on walking.
He hadn’t asked for forever, but somehow, the fact that she couldn’t even contemplate being with him a few weeks had soured him on the whole affair. To hell with it.
So, night after night, he punished his body, trying to exhaust himself so he could get some sleep. He couldn’t take much more of this. Walking down the stairs, he stifled a groan. He’d really overdone it last night. No matter how many pounds he bench-pressed, he couldn’t push away the image of Annie naked in his bed.
Even though she was the magician, not him, he felt as if he’d conjured her up when he entered the kitchen and saw her there. His bad mood vanished when he caught sight of her short shorts riding up her thighs. She was leaning over, trying to choose between three bags of coffee.
Plain old Colombian worked just fine for him, but she kept bringing home bags of exotic beans. He wasn’t sure if she was drawn more to the colorful packaging or the name of the blend. Anything with a faraway country in the name seemed to appeal to her, he’d noted, as did anything with an extraordinary bird or plant in the name.
At the moment she appeared torn between three varieties. “Paraguay Parrot, Rain Forest Mocha, Kenyan Sunrise,” she mused aloud, in an eenie, meeny, miny, moe voice, her back still to him.
Her small hand flitted from one to the other until he watched her shoulders shrug and she opened all three, pouring a liberal number of beans from each bag into the grinder. She pushed the button, and the mechanical whir filled the air along with the aroma that made getting out of bed worthwhile.
A few coffee beans had spilled on the counter. She picked them up, contemplated them, then started juggling them. He loved watching her. She was the only woman he knew who could make brewing coffee a game. She was completely absorbed in tossing and catching the beans in some complicated arrangement. Her pink tongue teased her upper lip as she concentrated, and he felt a rush of heat roar through his bloodstream.
Of course, she’d forgotten all about the coffee grinding itself into dust. In a couple of strides he’d crossed to the machine and pushed the button.
As quiet suddenly descended, she gave a startled, “Oh,” and glanced his way.
Beans rained to the floor, rattling like hailstones in the sudden silence. Their
gazes
locked.
He took a slow, deliberate step toward her, wanting to run his fingers through her sleep-tousled hair, kiss the soft lips. Under his gaze, her nipples came to attention beneath her shirt, resembling the size and shape of those foolish coffee beans she’d been juggling.
She swallowed. “I thought you’d be working today.” She sounded as if she wished he were gone.
“It’s Saturday,” he reminded her. “We could both use a day off.”
“But the conference—I thought—”
“The dictator had a heart attack yesterday. Not life-threatening, but enough to keep him at home. My job just got easier again.”
“That’s great news. I’ll just, um…”
“Have your coffee first,” he said and clomped down the hall to his office. She was so skittish all of a sudden and so obviously didn’t want him around that he felt as sulky as a bear. And not just any bear. A big, mean grizzly. He would have liked to stomp through the woods roaring for a while, scaring small animals. That’s the kind of mood Annie put him in. He knew she was just scared of her feelings, but it didn’t make her deliberate avoidance of him any easier to take.
With a sigh, he dumped himself in his chair and sorted through yesterday’s mail.
What was Bea writing to him for? Mark wondered as he slit the envelope. He hoped she wasn’t quitting on him. With Annie due to leave, he couldn’t face finding yet another nanny for Em.
Puzzled, he found a short printed letter on plain white paper, the kind he used in his computer, with a yellow Post-it note attached. “You’d better read this,” said the note, and Bea had scrawled her name.
He opened the letter fully and read.
Dear
Bea,
How are you?
I
am
fine.
I hope you are feeling beter now.
We have a new nany. Her name is Annie and she and me are geting maried. Emily is being a bridesmade. She might ware a blue dress, or maybe green. But NOT pink.
Anyhow. We don’t need you to be our nany any-moor.
Your
frend,
Mark Saunders
Dropping his head into his hands, he groaned. That’s what the get-well card was all about. Emily had found a way to get Bea’s address and a stamp in an elaborate plot to get rid of the housekeeper, thereby making Annie stay. It would be a cute childish prank if it wasn’t so damned sad.
In her innocent way, Emily wanted everything to work out like magic. Like one of Annie’s crazy tricks where she could wave her magic wand and poof, they’d be a family. Poor Emily couldn’t have picked a worse person on whom to pin a mother fixation. Annie couldn’t commit to a two-week holiday. How the hell could she ever be a mother?
Or a wife?
A little spurt of excitement jabbed his gut at the thought of Annie as his wife. Annie being there every day with her clown pizzas, juggling coffee beans. Annie who made life a game. And yet, for all his reservations, she’d proven to be a reliable companion to Emily.
Okay, so she didn’t phone in on time, if at all. He knew she’d do whatever she had to do to keep Emily safe. And she was giving the child something she hadn’t had in a while. Fun.
An
nie had given him fun, too. Not only the roll-in-the-hay kind, but the everyday fun of being alive. Of wondering what she’d say and do next. It might be outrageous, but it would never be mean-spirited or unkind. He glanced at the letter.
Em had a dream, and he’d do his damnedest to make it happen. Besides, he could think of worse things than being married to Annie.
She might pretend the other night meant nothing, but he knew better. He’d read the truth in her eyes, felt it in her body. He meant something to her. And so did Em. He wasn’t sure how much they meant, but he intended to find out.
Still gripping the letter, he stood.
