Not Just the Nanny Read online

  “Morning, La-La,” Lee murmured.

  Mick couldn’t help but smile, his mood notching higher. His daughter might be racing toward lipstick and a driver’s license, but at eight, Lee looked the same as he had at two. He still loved trucks and dinosaurs; and give him some sort of ball and he would amuse himself endlessly. So blissfully uncomplicated. So unlike—

  “Daddy,” his daughter said. “You messed up again.”

  Mick made a mental eye roll. “Yeah, how’s that? Is my handwriting not good enough where I signed off on your homework? Or have we forgotten something at the store you need for school? It’s my volunteer day, so I can bring it when—”

  “No. You forgot to mark Kayla’s birthday on the calendar. I remember the date and it’s the Sunday after this one.”

  “Kayla’s birthday?” He didn’t know it off the top of his head, but every year when they got a new calendar he paged through the old one in order to mark down important events. It was something he recalled his mom doing, and as a single parent, he’d taken on the habit for himself. “I can’t believe I missed that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the nanny said, as she pulled out a chair for Lee at the kitchen table.

  “Birthdays matter,” Jane countered.

  “Not so much when you’re turning twenty-seven.”

  Mick frowned at that. Twenty-seven. Last night, Austin had mentioned she was a woman, and of course Mick had been noticing she was a woman for six months now, but still…twenty-seven. She wasn’t any kid. At twenty-seven he’d already been married and a father two times over.

  “We have to have cake and presents,” Lee said as he dug into the bowl of cold cereal Kayla had poured for him. “And balloons, and…”

  Mick half listened to his son ramble on about his favorite birthday elements. He didn’t think Kayla would want pony rides or an inflatable party jumper shaped like a pirate ship. Instead, he pictured her across a small table. A white cloth, wineglasses, gleaming knives and forks. A date scene. Definitely a date scene, because the menu he was envisioning with that table didn’t include any kind of kid entrées.

  “We’ll go out,” he said, cutting through Lee’s Cheerios-muffled voice.

  Kayla frowned at him. “I can get my own dates.”

  That’s right. Although she didn’t seem too excited about the one she’d set up with Betsy the night before. “I didn’t mean—” he started.

  “I’m sure I’ll be doing something with my family anyway,” she said, turning away. With quick steps, she crossed to the refrigerator and started removing the standard basics that comprised his kids’ lunches.

  He bent to retrieve the white-but-whole-wheat loaf from the bread drawer. For a few minutes their morning was like it always was when he wasn’t at the station. The kids chattered, he and Kayla responded, even as they moved about the kitchen like a couple of contestants in that celebrity dancing show that Janie loved. In sync. He slapped the bread on the board, she spread the mayo, he squeezed the mustard. Turkey, a very thin slice of tomato (Janie was very particular about that), a crisp piece of iceberg.

  When had they turned into a team?

  No. He was merely being a father. She was just doing her job.

  But that thought was so…unworthy, that he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “If you’re busy on your birthday, we can choose another day.”

  “The Thunderbird Diner,” Jane put in. “Me and Lee love the fries there.”

  “I want onion rings,” Lee corrected. “I had them when I went there with Jared and his parents.”

  Mick tried to ignore the small wrench of disappointment he felt at their words. Of course the kids would want to be included. Of course that was the appropriate way to celebrate their nanny’s special day.

  But he couldn’t stop himself from seeing it in a completely different manner. He could suffer through a tie. And she’d smell great, as a matter of fact like she smelled right now, a scent that was mostly flowery but with the slightest of spicy notes that said feminine with staying power. So Kayla.

  He’d put his fingertips at the small of her back as they walked into the restaurant. The little twitch she made at his touch would mean that her breath had caught…and then his breath would catch, too. Once they were seated, their server would ask if it was a particular occasion like an anniversary or a birthday. Kayla would look at him, her heart in her eyes, because she would dislike any widespread attention. So he’d smile and just say it was always an occasion when he was out with a beautiful woman.

  Then Kayla would—

  “Daddy,” his daughter whispered, breaking the bubble of his fantasy.

  He shook himself and stared down at her. “What?”

  Jane’s face was so familiar…and yet so different. The cheekbones were sharper against her skin, her eyes seemed wider than ever before and her neck longer, somewhere between gangly and elegant. When she opened her mouth, that gap between her front teeth told him that he needed to make that orthodontist appointment he’d been putting off. A now-familiar sensation constricted his chest and he reached out to slide his hand down her hair.

  “Daddy,” she said again, under the conversation that Kayla and Lee were conducting about the merits of French fries versus onion rings. “We need to get Kayla the perfect gift.”

  He could see it. Other years it had been scarves and stationery and coffeemakers, but he knew her better now. He could see himself in that certain department he always made sure to keep his gaze averted from and there he would find something…not slinky, nothing so cheesy. Kayla’s blond beauty would look best in a flowing garment, fragile layers that would only briefly cling to her curves and then float away.

  Oh. Oh, man. It wasn’t that he knew her better now; it was that he wanted to know her better now.

  He shifted away from his daughter to pack the lunch items into Lee’s lunchbox and Jane’s brown sack—the last teen heartthrob lunchbox had been tossed away in a fit of preteen “maturity.” Kayla joined him at the counter, completing her part of the morning ritual. Their hands both closed over the same sandwich bag of apple slices.

  She raised her gaze to his.

  It was his turn to twitch. Damn! How had this happened? He’d been no more aware of her than he’d been of the…the teakettle on the stove. But then he’d caught her almost kissing that bristle-haired Lothario and everything had changed.

  He’d developed this weird overprotective thing. That was all. He’d realized that she was a woman, not just the nanny, and he’d felt responsible for her because she was a member of his household.

  Yeah.

  Her brows came together. “What’s wrong?”

  He’d claimed he could see inside of her, but clearly that went both ways—she knew he was unsettled. All because he saw her as a woman now, and because, damn it, he didn’t want to see her as a woman! He had enough on his plate without taking on this…this…

  “I’m fine,” he said, turning so that he was no longer meeting her gaze. She was so pretty. And, face it, sexy.

  The acknowledgment of that slid over him like a hot hand, stiffening his muscles, putting every cell of his body on hyperalert. She stood at his left side, just a few inches away, and his skin prickled, his pulse pounding against his flesh like a drumbeat.

  His mind flashed on lingerie, intimate dinners, candlelight. He pivoted toward her. “Kayla…”

  How could he ever have viewed her as a child or a girl or anything less than a full-grown, fully attractive woman? How could anyone miss that shiny golden hair and the vivid blue of her beautiful eyes? As he looked down at her he saw a rush of goose bumps scurry down her throat toward her breasts.

  His mouth dried. He saw her tongue dart out to wet her top lip and in another mind-flash he wondered if she was wet somewhere else. Kayla. Wet for him. His body twitched again.

  “Kayla,” he repeated. Perhaps it was time to come clean. Perhaps it was time to tell her he was thinking of private meals, sheer fabrics, hot skin. He glan
ced up and could see on her face a combination of confusion and trepidation.

  Still, he opened his mouth to tell her everything on his mind, but then that look on her face arrested him. Think, Hanson! Confusion. Trepidation.

  Both were warnings that he should be cautious, too. What had he been thinking the other night as he sat beside Will? That he couldn’t take on the responsibility of making another person happy.

  Without a mother, Jane and Lee had to be his priority. Under the weight of making yet another relationship work he might crack, and then where would his beloved children be?

  Kayla put her hand on his arm. He jolted back, but then steadied so he wouldn’t look like such a wuss. Still, he felt her fingertips as if they branded him. His groin grew heavy. Just at that!

  “Mick. What’s wrong?”

  “I…” He felt an explanation stick in his throat. He couldn’t seem to mouth an excuse, and yet he couldn’t seem to make a claim, either. His claim on her.

  Her fingers caressed his forearm. “You can tell me.”

  And he thought again that maybe he should. Maybe he’d tell her that she wasn’t just an employee in his eyes. That somehow she’d found her way under his skin and that perhaps they deserved a special night to explore what might be.

  A trilling sound broke the bond between them. She took her hand off his arm to dig for her phone in her pocket. Her brows came together as she glanced at the screen and then she held the phone to her ear.

  He moved away to give her a bit of privacy for her call. As soon as it was over, though, he would come clean, he decided. Caution be damned.

  Seconds later she afforded him—and Jane and Lee—a lopsided smile. “Confirmation of my double date with Betsy tonight,” she said. “It should be fun.”

  Her date with a stranger. It made Mick’s skin itch. Even though she wouldn’t be alone with the guy, this other man was likely someone unencumbered by children, memories and a reluctance to take on a relationship. Mick inhaled a breath. “Good for you,” he said.

  And tried to mean it.

  Chapter Three

  One Friday each month, Jane and Lee’s school, Oak Knoll Elementary, devoted the morning to track-and-field sports. There were the usual sprints, longer distance runs and broad jump, as well as other non-Olympic-type events such as a bean bag toss and Mick’s brainchild, the Impossible Football Catch.

  Parents guided the children from the event positions that were set up and run by yet other volunteers. Mick usually enjoyed these Friday mornings—he made sure he attended all that his work schedule allowed—but today he found himself squeezing the football and staring off into space instead of anticipating the next classroom of kids to come by his station.

  His partner that morning was Patty Bright. He’d known the short redhead with the splash of cinnamon freckles across her face for years. Her husband, Eric, too, since their daughter and Mick’s had attended preschool together. Patty and his wife, Ellen, had been good friends, and the couple often invited him and the kids to social occasions at their house. Kayla, too.

  Across the field his eye caught on the nanny as she moved to the twenty-five-yard dash with Lee and his classmates. School volunteer was not part of her nanny job description, but she’d started putting in hours as a requirement for a childhood development course she was taking in college. She’d continued the gig on a regular basis. She bent down to retie Lee’s shoelaces, and Mick’s fingers tightened on the football as his gaze focused on her round, first-class curves.

  “Quite a sight, huh?” Patty said.

  Mick gave a guilty jump and shifted his gaze to the other woman’s face. “What?”

  “I was just commenting on how tall Lee has grown in the past few months.”

  Grunting in acknowledgment, Mick pulled the brim of his ball cap a little lower on his head. Geez, Hanson, he admonished himself. You have no business checking out the nanny during school hours.

  He had no business checking out the nanny any time. So what that her silky blond hair rippled in the breeze and the little chill in the air turned the tip of her nose pink and reddened her luscious mouth? She was off-limits to him, and he was determined to see her as a competent caregiver, not some sexy—

  Realizing he was staring at her again, he wrenched his gaze away and scuffed his shoe in the dirt. He wouldn’t let her distract him again. “So, Patty, Lee looks like he’s growing to you? I was just thinking this morning that he was still my dinosaur-lovin’, veggie-hatin’, grubby little boy.”

  Patty smiled. “When I look at him I see that little guy, but I also see a lot of Ellen, too.”

  Ellen. Mick jerked his head toward his son and inspected him from cowlick to rubber soles. Ellen. Yeah, he could see it now, too, the same straight, dark hair, the wide grin, the masculine version of his wife’s adorable snub nose. His chest constricted, a little squeeze to remind him of how short their time here could be.

  A hand touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Mick. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He found a smile. “Memories of Ellen aren’t bad at all. We had a good life together.” Remembering that he was all alone to raise the fruits of that good life—Jane and Lee—was what would get to him at times. How could he make sure he did the right thing by them? Could he stand up to the responsibility of ensuring their health and happiness?

  “About that ‘veggie-hatin’’ of Lee’s,” Patty put in, apparently eager to move on to another subject. “They have cookbooks devoted to recipes that show you how to hide them in things that kids will eat.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” he said. Maybe that was a present he could give Kayla for her birthday. Sort of like the vacuum cleaner his dad had gifted his mom one year. She’d locked him out of their bedroom for a week following the incident, and that might not be a bad thing in this case, either.

  Not that he was anywhere near Kayla’s bed.

  But he’d thought of her there during the last six months. Her room was a floor away from his and he had no way of hearing her moving around inside it. Despite that, he’d imagined her in that room with the pale blue walls and white trim. Her bed linens were white too, the comforter lacy, and he’d pictured her tossing and turning between her sheets, just like he so often did, while replaying a smile she’d shot him over Janie’s head or the accidental bump of her elbow against his ribs as they prepared a meal.

  Something as simple as that smile or touch would arouse him in the privacy of his bed. There. He’d admitted it. For six months, thoughts of Kayla had been amping up his sexual meter. Sure, he’d reexperienced the natural urge for sex once the worst of his shock and grief over Ellen’s death had passed. But this feeling was different. It had an edge to it that got harder and harder—oh, jeez, that word worked—the more he smelled Kayla’s skin and the more he watched her move.

  Once again, he remembered that night he’d witnessed her kiss on the porch. Damn him! And damn her, too, because the moment she’d brushed past him to go inside, her shoulder glancing his chest, a soft strand of her hair grazing the back of his hand, everything inside of him had shifted. Altered.

  But he was working to put that “everything” back to rights, wasn’t he? She was the nanny, he was the daddy and that was all there was to it.

  “Mick…” There was a new hesitance in Patty’s voice.

  He turned to her. “What?”

  The woman bit her lip. “Well…”

  Frowning, Mick tucked the football under his arm. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s about Kayla. Well, about you and Kayla.”

  Mick froze, hoping like hell she hadn’t guessed his secret. He kept his voice nonchalant. “What do you mean? There’s no ‘me and Kayla.’”

  It was Patty’s turn to frown. “Well, of course there is. She’s your nanny.”

  “And I’ve never thought of her in any other way.” Mick voiced the quick lie. Although he didn’t think Patty expected he’d never have another woman in h
is life, he didn’t want her speculating on this crazy little…interest he had in the woman caring for his children. He was putting it from his head, wasn’t he?

  The puzzled expression on Patty’s face made Mick puzzled in turn. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Pat, but what exactly are you getting at?”

  She sighed. “You know it’s an unspoken rule of parenthood that you don’t poach on other couple’s babysitters.”

  “Sure.” When Ellen had been alive, they’d learned that lesson right away when they’d asked the family down the street for the names of some reliable sitters. Not everyone was willing to share, and you had to approach the subject with as much delicacy as prying open an oyster for the pearl inside.

  “So I wouldn’t just go to Kayla myself, not without checking with you first,” Patty assured him.

  Frowning, he studied his friend’s freckled face. “What the heck are you dancing around?”

  She took a quick breath, and then the words tumbled out. “Eric has been offered the chance to work in the London office this summer. Well, starting late spring actually. And I think we’re going to move—all of us. Danielle and Jason, too.”

  Danielle and Jason, Patty and Eric’s kids who were the same age as Jane and Lee. “Sounds like a great opportunity,” Mick said.

  “Even greater if sometimes Eric and I could take a few weekend jaunts around Europe, just the two of us,” Patty added. “Though there’ll be other times it would be all five.”

  “Five?” His brow furrowed, then he got it. “You…you would like to take my nanny with you for three months?”

  Patty bit her lip again. “It could last up to a year if we like it,” she confessed.

  Mick didn’t know what to say. This was poaching of the first order! Taking his K—his nanny—away from his kids. Out of the country!

  His expression must have looked thunderous, because Patty grimaced. “I know, I know. But I just had to ask, Mick. My kids love Kayla and I would feel completely comfortable leaving them in her hands when Eric and I could get away to Edinburgh or Paris. And it would be an opportunity for Kayla, too. She told me that she traveled in Europe one summer. It sounded like a fabulous time for her.”