“That’s why I have you.” That did not come out the way he’d meant it, Jack thought, afraid that Zooey might take offense. “I mean, that’s what you’re supposed to provide for her.”
“Which I’m trying to do,” she emphasized, bringing the conversation back full circle. “As soon as you say yes to the party.”
He was not the kind of man anyone ever accused of leaping first and looking later. Before he jumped into a pool, he not only looked it over but asked to review the building specs on it as well. Giving his permission for the party came under the same heading. He needed to have more input before he agreed. Who knew what Zooey thought constituted a party?
“Just how many people are you planning to invite to this so-called party?”
She could almost see the way his mind worked. “Not the immediate world,” she assured him. “Just the kids in the neighborhood—and their parents.”
Zooey had her mind made up, he could see that. He could also see why this would be good for Emily. He’d never had a party of his own when he was a kid, and maybe that was part of the reason that socializing without a legal brief in his hand had always been difficult for him. “When’s Halloween?”
“Same day it’s always been—October 31st. In two weeks,” she added, in case today’s date escaped him.
“Sure, go ahead.” Pushing back his chair, he rose from the table. “I suppose I can stay late in the office even if I’m not on a case—”
“No, no, no!” Zooey interrupted with such feeling that Jack stopped in midsentence and stared at her. “You have to be here.”
He saw absolutely no reason for his presence to be required. “Why?”
“Because it’s for the parents as well,” she emphasized, “and the last I looked, you’re Emily’s parent.”
The thought of attending a party with a bunch of kids running around sent a shiver up his spine. Mingling with adults he didn’t know all that well held no attraction for him, either.
“You can take my place.”
“I don’t look mean enough.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
“Mean?”
He’d never thought of himself as being mean, especially not around the children. Granted, he wasn’t around them all that much, but when he was, he never raised his voice, never lost his temper no matter how rambunctious Jackie became.
Zooey backpedaled tactfully. “Okay, maybe stern is a better word. You do scowl a great deal,” she pointed out. He looked surprised. Didn’t he know? “Of course, you can do that on Halloween because it’ll go with the costume.”
This was getting out of hand very quickly. “What costume?”
“The pirate costume you’ll be wearing,” she answered innocently.
The hell he was. Jack knew he had to lay down the law to Zooey very succinctly. “I will not be wearing a pirate costume.”
“Oh?” She could easily envision him as a pirate. There was a hidden, rakish side to him. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be so attracted to him. But she wasn’t going to push that if he wanted to go another route. “Then what kind of costume do you want to wear? I’ve got to get to the stores soon to find one in your size. They run out fairly quickly.”
She said that as if she was familiar with the supply and demand of Halloween costumes. He had no doubt that she probably was. “A jacket, matching trousers and a tie,” he answered.
She should have known. Zooey shook her head. The man had to get with the program. “The object is to dress like something other than what you are. If we don’t find a costume to your liking, I can sew one.”
That caught him off guard. “You sew?”
She knew she didn’t look like the domestic type. Yet she loved to cook, loved caring for children, she’d discovered. And sewing relaxed her, she’d told him.
She did not strike him as a relaxed woman. “You haven’t sewn much lately, have you?”
She laughed. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you make a joke.”
“I wasn’t joking.” It was merely an observation on his part. “Look, Zooey, you can do whatever you think is necessary to make my daughter happy. I’ll give you my credit card and you can get anything you want for this party—”
“Good, because the first thing I want is you.” That came out a little too quickly, with a little too much feeling, she thought. “For Emily,” she added. “How do you think she’ll feel when all the other kids have their parents there and she’s the only one without a mother or father in attendance?”
He supposed she had a point, even though he hated to admit it. “You’re an expert at this guilt thing.”
Zooey laughed, taking his plate to the sink and rinsing it before putting it in the dishwasher. “I had a great teacher.”
“Your mother?” he guessed.
“My father.” She closed the dishwasher door, then turned to face him. “So, you’ll come?”
He really didn’t want to, but she had his back against the wall. “You make it sound like Emily will spend the next ten years in therapy if I don’t.”
Then her work here, Zooey thought, was done. At least for the time being. Before turning off the light, she smiled at Jack. “I’m glad we understand each other.”
Not hardly, he thought as he followed her out of the kitchen. He really doubted that he would ever understand the way her mind worked.
A pirate. He sighed inwardly. There had to be a way around that. He had two weeks to find it.
Chapter Ten
Caches of candy began showing up throughout the house in strange places. There were three bags on the top shelf above the built-in cabinets in his three-car garage. There were four hidden inside his bedroom closet, where even Jack couldn’t reach them without first pressing a stepstool into service.
When he groped for a seldom-perused book on the uppermost shelf in his study and was unexpectedly showered with a hailstorm of M&M’s that had torn loose from their bag, he figured it was time for an explanation.
It only took calling her name twice to get Zooey to put in a personal appearance.
“You bellowed, sir?” she asked, wiping her damp hands on her apron.
“I didn’t bellow, I called,” he informed her coolly. “Forcefully,” he added when she gave him a penetrating look. “What’s this?” He nodded at the floor.
Crossing the threshold, Zooey made her way to the scene of the crime. She looked down where he indicated and pretended to study the items in question earnestly. Then she looked up at him, a tranquil smile on her lips. “M&M’s, I believe. Orange and black,” she added.
“I know what they are,” he muttered between gritted teeth. “What are they doing on my bookshelf? And in my garage? And behind the wineglasses in the kitchen? And God only knows where else.” Exasperated, he paused. “Have you acquired some kind of a sugar fixation in the last few weeks that I should know about?”
Zooey didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she smiled at him. He was familiar with that smile. It was the one she used with the children when she was patiently allowing them to prattle on until they tired themselves out. Ordinarily, he found it rather endearing.
Aimed at him, he found it irritating as hell.
“No,” she finally replied as she bent down and began to gather up the scattered candy, depositing the pieces into her apron.
He found himself addressing the top of her head, a completely dissatisfying way to conduct an inquisition, in his opinion. “Then why are there stashes of candy all over the house?”
The fallen candy secure in the artificial fold of her apron, Zooey rose to her feet. “Halloween, Jack,” she reminded him.
“Is a week away,” he responded.
He knew that because he was keeping track of the date, despite all the other things he had on his mind. He was still trying to come up with a viable reason why he couldn’t attend the party, or at least not attend it wearing some ridiculous costume. He’d never worn one as a kid and saw no reason to start now, at his age.
But for some reason, saying no didn’t seem an option in this case.
Zooey looked at him as if she couldn’t fathom his not comprehending her reasoning. “I don’t like leaving things to the last minute. Most of the good candy is gone by then.”
He blew out a breath, mystified. The woman came up with the oddest explanations. “I had no idea that there was good candy and bad candy.”
When she raised her eyes to his, Jack could have sworn there was a hint of pity in them. He resented it, and squared his shoulders.
“Weren’t you ever a kid?” she asked.
He didn’t see what that had to do with it. “Yes, but I didn’t spend my time grading candy.”
She had a feeling that he’d never gone trick-or-treating as a kid, either. Otherwise, he’d know.
“Good candy,” she explained patiently, “is the kind that all the kids are familiar with, the name brands. Bad candy is what the stores try to pass off at the tail end of a holiday like Halloween or Easter. It’s cheap and tastes that way.”
He wasn’t about to argue with her, not over something so trivial. “If you say so.” He sighed, looking at the ripped bag. “How much of this stuff do you have stashed around the house?”
“Not enough yet,” she told him frankly. “But I’m getting there.”
In his opinion, they had more than enough to rot the teeth of every kid in the neighborhood. “And you’re hiding the bags because…?”
“I don’t want to have to rush either of your children, especially Jackie, to the emergency room for a chocolate overdose,” she answered patiently. “Or spend the day cleaning up after him when he throws up. In case you didn’t know, your son absolutely cannot resist chocolate.”
Actually, Jack didn’t know that. He supposed there was a great deal he didn’t know about his children that Zooey did. But then, she was with them more than he was.
“I see your point.” About to say something else, he stopped. Zooey was reaching toward him. The next moment, her fingers were in his hair. “Zooey?”
She grinned as she held a small, round object up for him to see. “You had an orange M&M in your hair.” Without thinking, she popped it into her mouth.
Why the hell he found that unnervingly sensual, he had no idea.
Maybe he was undergoing a brain meltdown, Jack thought. Whatever the reason, it took him a second to get his mind back into gear.
Clearing his throat, he nodded toward the doorway, hoping she would take the hint. He needed some space. “Okay, you’ve explained it. Sorry to take you away from whatever it was you were doing.”
She wasn’t moving, Jack noted. “Just washing dishes.”
That didn’t make any sense. “We have a dishwasher for that.”
Zooey shook her head. “There aren’t enough dirty dishes to make it worthwhile running it.” It unsettled her sense of order.
Moving toward his wastebasket, she formed a funnel with her apron and sent the candy she’d gathered up raining into the container. Finished, she raised her eyes to his. “Have you given it any more thought?”
Jack gave up trying to ignore her so he could get back to perusing the textbook that had started all this in the first place. There was no ignoring Zooey, at least not when she was within a few feet of him. He sighed, putting the book down on his desk. “Given what any more thought?”
Zooey cocked her head and looked at him. She was wearing that tolerant smile again. “Your costume,” she prompted.
He wondered what it took to get the word no across to this woman. “Yes, I’ve given it some more thought and the thought is no.”
She shook her head, indicating that his response was unacceptable. “What other thoughts have you had on the subject?”
He could feel his temper heating up. Why amusement seemed to be hovering at the same time, he had no clue. Being around Zooey always seemed to put him at cross-purposes.
But lines had to be drawn, boundaries had to be reestablished, since they had obviously gotten blurred. She was taking far too much upon herself. “That all the other nannies I’ve hired for my kids had enough sense not to bother me with trivia like this.”
Zooey seemed unfazed by his words and his tone. “Well, too bad. They’re gone, I’m not.”
There was that amusement again, he noted, shaking his head. “You really don’t have the proper employee mentality, you know that?”
She squared her shoulders, an indication that if he meant to put her in her place, he had failed. Miserably. “You’re within your rights to fire me anytime you want, Jack.”
He realized that she was sticking out her chin. Obviously a symbolic gesture, he thought, exasperated. “I don’t want to fire you, Zooey.”
“Good,” she said, nodding her head. “Because I don’t want to have to look for another job.” And she didn’t. For the first time since she’d left school, she really liked what she was doing. It wasn’t just a way to pay the bills, but a way to make a difference in the lives she touched.
He seized his opportunity. “Keeping that in mind, maybe you could see your way to cutting me some slack on this.”
She looked surprised that he could even say that. “I am. I haven’t said anything to you about the costume for a whole week.”
“And I appreciate it. Now if you could just continue that way…”
Her expression told him he was living in a fool’s paradise even before she said anything to confirm it. “Sorry, can’t. Time’s getting short. Halloween is next Sunday, and like I said, you wait too long, there’s nothing left to pick over.”
She’d just made his point for him, he thought. “Exactly.”
Zooey continued as if he hadn’t said anything at all. “Seeing that you’re so busy and in such demand, I decided to pick up a costume for you to try on.” Then, just in case he thought he was stuck with it no matter what, she quickly added, “I know the guy who runs the shop and he said if this didn’t fit, I could bring it back.”
It was like watching a snowball descend down a hillside, gaining speed and girth. And waiting for it to swallow him up. Well, he had no intention of being swallowed up.
“Just exactly what part of ‘I don’t want to dress up’ do you not understand?” he demanded.
“All of it,” she answered cheerfully, as she exited the room.
Zooey was back in less than three minutes, holding a large box in her hands with the logo Fantasy written across it in big, bold red letters. When Jack made no move to take it from her, she thrust the box at him.
“Here. Try this on for fit,” she urged. “I took my best guess, but I’m not all that good when it comes to sizing up men.” There was amusement in her eyes as she said it.
Part of him wanted to stand firm, to tell Zooey that she probably knew damn well what she could do with the costume. But the part of him that had urged him to become a lawyer, that believed in order and prescribed ways of doing things, figured if he put the damn thing on and let her see how ludicrous he looked, she would finally leave him in peace.
Or so the theory went.
So he took the box from her and walked into the powder room down the hall to change, and finally put this verbal tug-of-war between them to rest once and for all.
Anticipation hummed through Zooey as she waited for Jack to return. It was, she supposed, like waiting to see if reality lived up to her fantasy. Since staying still was not something she had ever managed to do with aplomb, she began to straighten up the study, carefully stacking the books he’d left scattered all over on his desk.
It was rather ironic that she took better care of Jack’s house than she ever did of the tiny apartment she’d lived in before moving here. She supposed that there was something about Jack and his children that brought her nesting instincts to the surface, that made her want to take care of the three of them, because, in different ways, they all needed to be taken care of.
It was an entirely new sensation for her, a new emotional grouping to reckon with.
>
And, if she moved fast enough, she didn’t have any time left over to dwell on the fact that she had the same need within her. The need to lean on someone, to have someone who was willing to take over.
Not all the time, of course, but once in a while. When the burden on her shoulders grew too heavy. Even just the knowledge that there was someone willing to take over would have been enough.
She supposed that what it boiled down to was having someone to love. Someone who loved her back.
Zooey sighed.
She was getting maudlin. She was going to have to watch that. Being maudlin was ordinarily as foreign to her as shoes were to a duck.
The slight noise behind her had Zooey instantly turning toward the doorway. Since she’d moved into Jack’s house, her reflexes had become razor sharp. They had to be. She never knew when Jackie might decide to take a dive from one of the bookcases.
For a second, her heart stopped.
Because her fantasy had taken on flesh and blood.
Humoring her, Jack had put on the entire costume, down to the shoulder-length wig and wide hat with its colorful scarlet plume.
He looks magnificent.
This wasn’t a garden-variety cheap costume made to last a night before it began to fall apart. She had gone out of her way to find an exact duplication of what a well-heeled pirate might have worn three hundred years ago while plundering his way across the seven seas.
There was no doubt about it, Zooey thought. In another life, Jack Lever had been a swashbuckler. Every woman’s fantasy come to life.
“Well?” he finally asked, when she made no comment. He was feeling progressively more stupid by the nanosecond.
Zooey swallowed, searching for saliva so that her lips wouldn’t find themselves sealed together midword. Her mouth remained annoyingly dry. “You need a sword,” she finally said.
Her comment seemed to come out of left field. “What?”
“A sword. To complete the outfit. You need a sword,” she repeated. And I definitely need oxygen before I make an idiot of myself. As subtly as she could, Zooey drew in a lungful of air.
Mother in Training Page 11
