The Lumberjack's Nanny: A Forbidden Romance (Rockford Falls Romance)

by Natasha L. Black

  We ate our ice cream on the bench, with Sadie sitting on Max’s lap. I leaned my shoulder against his without realizing it, so when I got up to throw the trash away, I noticed and apologized.

  “Sorry. I was crowding you.”

  “I don’t mind being a little crowded,” he said. Sadie was resting her sticky cheek against his shirt, looking sleepy.

  “I think we wore her out,” I said.

  “If you look directly at her she’ll sense it and wake up,” he said, “Sit back down.”

  I sat on the bench a couple feet away from them.

  “No,” he said, “the way you were. She was cozy. It was comfortable. Just sit down and relax for a minute. She won’t doze for long before she’s up and running again.”

  “I have wet wipes in my purse. That sticky face—”

  “It’ll still be sticky in ten minutes. Just take a break. You don’t have to be on. Just settle in.”

  I listened to him without arguing. I scooted over until his upper arm was against my shoulder. I took a breath and stretched my legs out.

  “You look like you could nod off any minute now too,” he teased. “You could use a nap, too, eh? You’ve been up since, what? Five?”

  “Four-thirty. I had to bake pies.”

  “Then take ten minutes, have a cat nap in the sun.”

  I sighed, “I would, but it doesn’t look right. Out here in the park, me sitting too close to you. I don’t want anyone who walks by getting the wrong idea, upsetting Sadie about something that isn’t even—”

  “You think too much, Rachel,” he said.

  “I know! Me out of all people,” I told him.

  He smirked. “Take a break. For me.”

  “Fine,” I sighed, and I tipped my head maybe two inches to the right until it rested against his bicep and shoulder. I felt tension go out of me, felt the warmth of his body solid against me. I felt—safe and whole and happy. I decided not to overthink it. I shut my eyes, the sun still bright behind my eyelids, and relaxed against him. I didn’t sleep but I dozed, warm and relaxed, drifting a little. I felt what I thought were his lips brushing against my hair, but I couldn’t be sure. I just let myself have this, a few moments peace on a park bench.

  “Can I go down the slide?” I heard Sadie ask. Her dad answered her in a whisper, and I heard her footsteps as she scampered off. Then I drifted back off and the next thing I knew, Sadie’s voice was in the distance calling for someone to watch what she could do. I stirred a little.

  “Shh. It’s okay. I’m watching her,” his voice was close to my ear.

  “Mmm,” I mumbled and started to slip back into sleep. At once, I shook myself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall sleep. I’ll go—”

  “She’s fine. I’ve been right here the whole time. You’re not working. You’re just hanging out with us. You’re allowed to rest.”

  “Did you tell her to be quiet because I was asleep?” I asked, mortified.

  “Yes, I did. Because I want her to be a considerate person.”

  “She is. I just—fell asleep in public. On you.” I rubbed my eyes, embarrassed.

  “I think I invited you to come here with us, and to take a rest. What’s the problem? Are you supposed to be invincible and since I’m from out of town I didn’t get the memo? You’re human. Let yourself have a break.”

  “You build stuff in your free time when you’re not chopping down trees and raising a kid. You don’t take any breaks.”

  “If I take a break, I’ll notice that I’m lonely, Rachel. That’s why I like to keep busy.”

  I gaped at him, astounded that he’d just confessed his loneliness, to the nanny, in fact.

  I felt such a pull toward him, such a powerful desire to kiss him, to feel his arms around me, to show him that he didn’t need to be lonely at all. It was half sympathy, half pure romantic feelings. I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him and kiss him, sweetly, reassuringly, until he felt that sadness fill up with something better.

  “Do you ever get lonely?” he asked, and the serious way he looked at me made me almost quake inside.

  “I don’t let myself think about it. Mostly I’m busy with work, or I’m with my friends, or playing with Brenna over at Laura’s house. At night, I guess I’m lonely sometimes. But I’m normally so tired I don’t dwell on it,” I said.

  I got up and went to where Sadie was going down the slide. It was a short plastic one on the little kids’ playset. I held out my hand and she took it. We went to the taller slide and I climbed up behind her, took her down the slide on my lap. She squealed excitedly and wanted to go again. After a few more trips down the slide, and in spite of the ice cream we’d had, I heard her tummy growl.

  “Are you hungry again?” I asked. She grinned.

  “Can you come for supper? Please?” she said.

  “Sadie, Rachel gave up her afternoon off for us. She may have plans tonight to see her friends.”

  “Or a boyfriend!” Sadie crowed. I laughed.

  “I don’t have one of those,” I told her. “But I could go for some Chinese takeout. Anybody want some?”

  “I like shrimp and noodles!” Sadie said.

  “What about you?” I asked Max. “Is it okay with you if I stay for supper?”

  “Yes, but only if you’re sure. I don’t want to intrude on your personal time.”

  “Really? I have free will and car keys, Max. I’m where I want to be. If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be.”

  “Then let’s go get some takeout and head to my place.”

  “Actually, what if you came to my place instead?” I asked.”

  “I can go to your house?” Sadie wondered.

  “If your dad says it’s okay,” I replied.

  “We’ll bring the takeout and meet you there.”

  “I’ll go pick up my laundry and hide it in the closet,” I laughed. “Hey, don’t forget Mooshie,” I called. Sadie dashed back and grabbed her stuffed bunny off the bench before they left.

  I was excited about having them over, about showing Sadie my cookbooks and stuff. I felt a bubble of joy start in my chest.

  12

  Max

  I was surprised Rachel invited us to her place. It would have felt like a date if it weren’t for Sadie. It occurred to me that I was hiding behind my daughter to avoid getting involved, but the fact was, I wasn’t dragging my child through a series of failed adult relationships. We went to get Chinese food and took it back to her apartment. It was small and simple, but Sadie was so thrilled to go there. We crowded around her small kitchen table and unpacked the food. Sadie promptly ate all the shrimp out of the lo mein carton and some noodles and zero vegetables. Rachel and she had a long talk about trying some, and she eventually nibbled at a snap pea.

  Sadie was sitting on the couch looking at Rachel’s first cookbook, a kids’ one that had a lot of pictures, while we cleaned up. When I turned to see if Sadie wanted any more of her water, I saw her head thrown back, fast asleep.

  “I think maybe we should go. All the fresh air and exercise did her in. I know you’re tired, too. You took a little nap in the park.”

  “Power nap. I’m good for another twelve hours,” she joked.

  “You have to take care of yourself. Besides, this little girl is going to wake up ready to go in the morning. It meant a lot to her to have you come to the park today, and I appreciate you inviting us over to eat. From now on I’ll make sure we leave you alone on the weekends,” I said, uncomfortable. I didn’t want to intrude, didn’t want her to think that entertaining my daughter was her job seven days a week despite being hired for only four.

  “I wanted to be there. It was fun. I wish she hadn’t crashed so soon. I wanted to show her my pink lemonade recipe out of that book and make it with her. I have raspberries in the freezer we could’ve used,” she said.

  “You’re incredible,” I blurted out.

  “Thank you,” she said, leveling a look at me that could’ve bu
rned my clothes off.

  “With Sadie,” I amended, “you’re very engaged with her and generous with your time.”

  “Right,” she said, seeing through that cop out.

  She was amazing with Sadie, but she was incredible in a lot of ways. Like the way it felt when she tipped her head against my shoulder, the looseness of her warm body against my arm. I had wanted to dip my face to hers and take her mouth, kiss her awake. I had to fight the urge to kiss her all the time now.

  “We’ll see you in the morning,” I said. “Thank you for today.”

  “Anytime. I mean it, Max. You’re not an inconvenience to me and neither is Sadie.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You’ve suggested it in a dozen ways, like you’re imposing on me and my wild social life of clipping online coupons to save more money for the down payment on the diner. Listen—I’m going to say this one time. I’ve worked at that place since I was a teenager. One day and that was it for me. Don’t think for a second I haven’t been offered more money to work in Overton. There’s a bakery that wanted to sell my pies, and if I’d accepted the contract, I wouldn’t need to babysit to make up a down payment, that’s for sure.”

  “Why didn’t you do it?”

  “My pies are a draw to the diner. They attract a lot of customers. People come from Overton every day to eat and get some pie and then buy a whole one to go. If I made those available to them in a bakery, that would mean less traffic at the diner, fewer regular customers from out of town. It would’ve been good for me financially, and personally if I had wanted to build a brand, but bad for the business at the diner. I knew I’d own it someday, and I made sure to keep my pies exclusive to the diner.”

  “You play the long game, is what you’re saying.”

  “No, I’m loyal is what I’m saying. When something feels right to me, I’m not looking for anything else. I knew the first day I waited tables that the diner was the right fit for me. I could imagine what I’d change, how I’d do things differently, but the goal never wavered for me. I may not have a college degree or a million bucks, but I know what I want and I’m loyal. And that’s worth a whole hell of a lot, Max.”

  I wanted to say, Damn, it’s worth everything to me. But I didn’t. Because I knew what she was getting at. How right today felt. How easy and comfortable and wonderful. How sitting on a bench having ice cream and holding my daughter in my lap and having Rachel beside me—that the only thing better would’ve been if I could’ve put my arm around her, drawn her against me. Like she belonged to me, to us. I swallowed.

  “That’s good. You’re finally getting to buy the diner, and I know you’ll make a great success of it.”

  “There you have it, the gold medal winner for intentionally missing the point,” she said ruefully. “No offense, but you’re lumberjacking this up.”

  “What?”

  “It’s like jacking things up, but with a beard,” she quipped. “You know what I meant, and you’re choosing to ignore it. I said I’d only say it once and I meant it. I thought I’d shoot my shot, you know. And I missed. Or you did.”

  I’d sure as hell missed out, but that was my choice. It was my shot to dodge, as it were.

  “We’re going to head out. Good night, Rachel.” I said, my tone final.

  With that, I scooped up Sadie off of the couch and carried her to the door. Rachel held the door open, and I went to the car, glad she had a ground floor apartment and I’d been able to park very close. I settled her into the booster seat and fastened her in. She rubbed her eyes. I shushed her, hoping she would stay asleep.

  “Mooshie?” she mumbled.

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “I’ll be right back.”

  I shut the car door, locked it with my fob and went back to Rachel’s door and knocked. When she swung it open, I knew she had been right there, probably getting ready to lock up.

  “She left Mooshie,” I explained.

  Rachel hurried to the couch where Sadie had been sleeping. I was right behind her, annoyed and ready to get the bunny and get the hell out of there. I was irritated because of the way things were between us, how she’d let me know she wasn’t going to bail on us if I let her in. How I’d turned her down. Neither of us saying the exact words, both of us knowing she’d asked, and I’d said no. It was uncomfortable as hell, and I was on her heels to get the rabbit. When she snatched it off the couch and turned around, I was standing too close. She turned around and bumped into my chest.

  Startled, she looked up at me, the rabbit in her hand. I took her by the arms. It happened so fast, I wasn’t sure if I leaned down or if she rose on her tiptoes. Like a thunderclap, my mouth was on hers, hot and insistent. Her arms went around my neck and I pulled her closer. She parted her lips between mine, and I swept my tongue in her mouth, a hot, deep stroke as I explored the curves of her sweet body with my hands. She started to tremble in my arms, and my heart hammered in my ears. I could feel her breath, her tongue stroking mine. She met me stroke for stroke, making me wild for her. I knew I needed to back away, break the kiss, but I’d waited so long, wanted her for so long. All the tension and heat between us had ignited. I gathered her close to my chest and slanted my mouth to get better access, plundering her lips, leaving her clinging to me and gasping. My knee was between her legs before I knew it, and I felt the heat between her thighs through the fabric of her shorts. If she rubbed against my thigh, if I pressed a hand into the small of her back to arch her against me, it was over in a moment’s time. We broke apart.

  “Sadie’s in the car,” I muttered, half-blind with arousal.

  I got one glimpse of her passion-drugged eyes, her parted lips swollen from my kiss, and I was out the door. I snuggled the bunny into Sadie’s booster where she dozed and then drove off for home, for the safety of my secluded cabin where there was no temptation, no curvy, pie baking babysitter who filled out a pair of shorts like a wet dream.

  I hadn’t been this wound up since I was a teenager. I’d never tipped over into obsession, not even in my earliest liaisons. There was something special, something dangerous about Rachel. Because this temptation was so powerful, the risk was so great. She was close to Sadie. She was insidiously easy to fit into our lives. She felt good there, felt right. I had started to want her, not just her body—all of her. I didn’t want to admit that, even to myself, but it was such a raw, wild want that I had no place to hide from it. I was in the grip of this attraction, this—infatuation. It made me feel like a fool. I should’ve seen this coming, should have hired someone else instead. But I knew I couldn’t have avoided it. I was willing to believe it was inevitable that I developed feelings for Rachel. She was warm and down to earth, funny and sexy and brave. Of course, I wanted to be with her. I just didn’t live that kind of life. So I was destined to be disappointed, to move on with a sense of regret and let it go.

  I made Sadie brush her teeth and change to pajamas before bed, and she was asleep before I even read a story. She was so wiped out from the park that I let her skip a bath till in the morning. I went and took a shower, electrified and angry with myself.

  13

  Rachel

  I stood there, completely locked up like I’d been hypnotized to remain in place. Probably, I could’ve moved if there’d been a fire or an emergency happening right in front of my face, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. It was the opposite of Sleeping Beauty. Instead of waking me up, his kiss put me in a trance. Leave it to me to get a fairytale backwards.

  That kiss. Damn. I had no words for it. Unless we count ZING as a word, because there was a lot of zing-went-the-strings-of-my-heart going on show tune style in my bloodstream and my pulse was just tap dancing along with it. A wild electricity crackled through me. I had the unusual urge to just squeal right out loud. Because that was one hell of an incredible kiss.

  You’d think after weeks of yearning and dreaming about it, that a kiss from Max would be a letdown. No real live, flesh and blood man could live u
p to that kind of expectation. Except he did. He blew the fantasy right out of the water. I’d had a theory that he was possibly a lazy kisser. That he didn’t make much effort. It was a lie I told myself to make me feel better. It was juvenile and silly, but I had told myself that men who look that amazing just don’t bother to learn to be good kissers. They think their overall attractiveness will make up for a lack of skill or finesse. Nope. Not that guy. That guy knew exactly what he was doing. And what he was doing was making my toes curl. If there was a kissing Olympics, not only would I volunteer to practice with him for the time trials or whatever, but he would win all the gold medals and other men would drop out of the competition with their egos destroyed.

  I watched him shut the door behind him after he left hastily. Which was a nice way of saying he fled like I’d released a swarm of venomous snakes after him. Not the reaction I was looking for from a first kiss, that’s for sure. I was hoping more for the kind of let’s-do-this-some-more vibe and not, oh Lord, get me out of here. He had, by his own admission, been single for a long time by choice. He didn’t go around kissing women, particularly women who worked for him, very often if at all. He was very hardcore on his monastic lifestyle and everything for the good of his child. I respected how noble that was, but at the same time I wished he’d cut it out, quit being a martyr and let himself enjoy life. Enjoy me. I wanted him to enjoy me. A lot.

  When I finally unstuck myself from the spot on the floor where I seemed to be glued, staring after him in tingly disbelief, I went and took a shower. I stood under the warm water, staring at the tiled wall. I kept forgetting that I was in there to get clean. I went over and over what had happened in minute detail, reliving it obsessively. Max had come back for Sadie’s toy. I’d turned around quickly and bumped into his chest. A solid wall of muscle that felt like a literal brick wall. Startled, I’d almost stepped back. But Max had grabbed my arms. Maybe to steady me, maybe to keep me from pulling away. Then he’d kissed me, or I’d kissed him, but technically, he started it by gripping my arms and hauling me against him. That was a pretty clear want-you-now signal. Even a workaholic who was rusty at flirting could recognize that much.