She thought of Ellen Hanson and the promise that she’d made to her just a few days before. She’d promised not to let her children down, and wasn’t part of that being a role model for Ellen’s offspring? A woman who hung on to hopes and didn’t seek what she needed in life—love and family of her own—wasn’t a good example for either Lee or Jane. To make things right—for all of them—it seemed clearer and clearer that she’d have to move on.
“I think I do, Jane,” she whispered when she saw that the girl had fallen asleep. “I think I have to leave all of you.”
She turned to the door, jumping when she saw a large shadow looming there. Her hand reached for her thudding heart. “Mick,” she whispered. “What?”
He beckoned, and her nerves still jangling, she obeyed. In the hall, he reached around her to shut Jane’s door, then, still silent, he pressed her against the wall and bent to take her mouth.
The kiss demanded her cooperation. She clutched at his naked shoulders—he was wearing only pajama bottoms—and opened her mouth to the thrust of his tongue. Her skin had cooled on her trek through the house in her oversized nightshirt, but now it was hot, burning, set on fire by Mick’s mood.
It would be so easy to go under, so easy to surrender to skin and kisses and good sex, but none of that changed the fundamental conflict between them. She pushed him away.
“I want more,” she said, her chest heaving.
“I’ll give you all you want.”
But she noticed he didn’t move. She noticed his hands were at his side, his fingers curled into fists. Mick understood what she’d meant.
Running his hands through his hair, he turned away. “Do you really have to go?” he asked, in an echo of his daughter.
If she wanted to make things right, she really did.
Mick was in a foul mood the morning after his hallway encounter with Kayla. She was going to leave them, head off with Poaching Patty and her family to Europe to find adventure and everything he and the kids didn’t have to offer her here.
She’d be visiting the Eiffel Tower while the only tower around the Hanson household was the tower of dirty towels that needed to be washed each week. Her day would be filled with exotic foods and handsome men instead of PB and J and an eight-year-old with a newfound ability to fart with his armpit.
Then there was Mick himself. A guy willing to share her bed, but who knew he didn’t have the energy or the ability to make her happy as well as keep up with the rest of his life as fire captain and father.
No wonder she was leaving them.
But he was going to be gracious about it, he decided as he stopped at the elementary school close to the lunch period. Today the PTA was sponsoring a midday safety fair. He was on tap to provide a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation demonstration. Kayla would be there helping out. No doubt that traitor, Patty Bright, would be on hand, too.
Yet he wasn’t going to let the impending change in his circumstances affect how he went about his day. No sour grapes or surly attitude on display.
“What are you looking at?” he barked at a little kid as he walked through the school gates with the life-size demonstration dummy.
The child’s eyes rounded and he clutched his lunchbox to his chest. “What’d you do to the person?”
Mick realized he was carrying the mannequin with both his hands around its neck. He eased his strangling grip and softened his voice. “It’s not a real person. We practice on it to save lives. Come see me after you eat your lunch and I’ll show you.”
The kid made a face. “My lunch is tuna fish. It tastes gross.”
“You can breathe tuna fumes into Donald Dummy’s face. That’ll be fun.”
The boy’s interest kindled. “How about if I eat my carrots and cookies instead?”
A familiar voice piped up beside Mick. “Christopher Carter, I think you better eat everything in your box. Then you’ll have enough energy for math after lunch.”
Mick glanced over at Kayla. Her hair was pulled back in a golden ponytail and she wore jeans, a fuzzy white sweater and low-heeled suede boots. He wanted to take her home and snuggle with her on the couch.
He’d settle for taking her home and chaining her to the couch.
Instead, he cocked his head toward the little boy. “Pal of yours?”
Her gaze was on the youngster whom she waved to as he took off in the direction of the lunch benches. “I run a math recovery group that meets once a week. That guy’s always claiming he’s too tired to remember his times tables.”
His eyebrows rose. “I didn’t know about this.”
“It’s new. Once I got my degree in early elementary ed, I approached the principal about putting it to use. It’s a mixed bag of kids who could use some extra help. I meet with them the last forty minutes before school ends on Wednesdays.”
Just another thing she’d be leaving behind when she went on her search for adventure. “Where do I set up?” he asked, his voice abrupt.
She didn’t comment on his brusque tone of voice. Maybe he was a better actor than he thought. Maybe he could really be gracious about all this.
He had a table in the auditorium. Beside him, the nutritionist for the school district set up a food pyramid. On his other side, the school nurse positioned little bottles of hand sanitizer to give away. The plan was for the event to be more casual than formal. The kids would be allowed to roam around the space and stop and ask about what interested them.
Not that he was trying to unfairly attract his share of the crowd, but he’d also brought turnout gear, including boots and a helmet, for the kids to try on if they wanted. Not to mention his other ace in the hole. He went back to sprucing that up when he heard a little voice behind him.
“It’s Mrs. Thompson!”
Christopher Carter, with or without fish breath, had arrived on scene. He was staring at the dummy laid out on the table. “You made the dummy look like our principal.”
A little firefighter’s trick he’d picked up along the way. Nothing tickled kids more than to see a lifeless mannequin wearing a wig that resembled the hair-style of their head administrator, along with a school T-shirt, a flowered skirt and the woman’s ubiquitous walkie-talkie in a fake rubber hand. He grinned at the boy. “You want to learn how to save her life?”
“I don’t know. She says no tag on the blacktop.”
“No tag? That does sound a little harsh. Maybe she’ll have a change of heart if you give her mouth-to-mouth.”
The kid stared. “Eew. Gross.”
Mick sighed. There was always this hurdle to overcome. “Maybe I should have dressed up the mannequin like somebody else.”
Christopher Carter’s smile turned sly. “Maybe. Maybe like her.” His gaze shifted to the auditorium entrance, where Kayla was shepherding in a group of little ones. Kindergarteners, he guessed, because they had that special wide-eyed look and a couple of them were holding hands unselfconsciously.
Mick cast a look at Oak Knoll Elementary’s little Lothario. “So you like Ms. James?”
The kid’s expression said duh. “Don’t you?”
His gaze went back to the blonde. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
She was leading a group of the teeny ones around, pointing out the different displays. Hunkering down, she helped a little girl unbutton her sweater and then tied it around the kid’s small waist. Mick had seen her do things like that for kids—his kids—dozens of times. But this time it made him catch his breath. She wasn’t just the nanny, or the hot sexy thing in black boots whom he’d taken to bed.
She was so much more: a gentle touch, a teasing laugh, a patient teacher, a kind friend. A woman who was walking out of his life.
He had to look away as she walked toward him now. “Captain Hanson,” she said, a gaggle of kindergartners around her. “This is some of Room 2.”
A five-year-old pointed toward the rubber figure. “Is it dead?”
“No.” He didn’t bother to explain it was dressed as the principal. Apparently his lit
tle joke was beyond the ken of kindergarten. “This is not real. It’s a dummy—”
“Bad word,” a gossamer-haired cherub said, frowning at him. “We don’t call anybody a dummy. It’s a Room 2 rule.”
Mick’s gaze met Kayla’s. She shrugged, her amused gaze clearly letting him know he was on his own. Like he’d be, forever, after she left.
He glanced back at the little girl. “I’m sorry. It’s a…like a doll. And we practice on it to save lives.”
“So it is dead,” the first kindergartener reiterated.
“I…” He gave up. “In a way, I guess you’re right.” Shaking his head a little, he moved over to the table and launched into his supersimple spiel about exchanging the breath of life. Whether the contingent from Room 2 got anything out of it, he didn’t know. Not after he wound down and looked up, straight into Kayla’s eyes.
Under his hand he felt the rubbery exterior of the dummy. It was just how he’d felt after Ellen’s death. Lifeless. Emotionless. Stiff. But then time had passed and he’d heard his children laughing again and seen the sunshine in the hair of the pretty woman smiling at him over coffee every morning. Somewhere after grief and before Kayla going away he’d…
He’d fallen in love with her.
He’d fallen in love with her!
She gathered her charges around her now, a puzzled expression on her face, and herded them away while he just stood there, still as stupid as that dummy, because it had taken him so long to realize the truth.
How long had he been living with her and loving her? When had wow crept into the room with them? Not just the wow of sexual attraction, but the wow of…wow, she’s it.
She’s The One.
“Oh, that’s just plain unfair,” a new voice said.
Mick jerked out of his reverie to see freckled Patty Bright, her gaze on the turnout gear he’d brought. “What?”
“And an instant camera to take pictures of the kids wearing this stuff, too, ensuring yours will be the most popular station. I had no idea you were such a cheater, Mick.”
He frowned at her. “It takes one to know one,” he muttered.
Her gaze sharpened. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” He recalled his promise to be gracious. But God, that was even more difficult now, knowing that Patty had lured away the woman he loved. Knowing he couldn’t do anything about it because he had only those dirty towels, his testing daughter and his boy with the armpit farts to stack up against the call to adventure that came from the Brights. And because, bottom line, he still didn’t believe that despite these feelings he had for Kayla, that he had the emotional vigor to take on the burden of her happiness on top of Jane and Lee’s.
Not only must he put his children first, he couldn’t, wouldn’t, put Kayla last.
“Mick?” Patty came forward, concern on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Not a thing. You won.” It was more growling than gracious, but hey.
“Won what?”
“The nanny, of course. My nanny.” My Kayla.
“Mick,” Patty said. “You’re wrong. She turned our offer down.”
He blinked. “She turned you down?” But last night she’d made it clear she was leaving. “Whose nanny is she going to be, then?”
“I don’t know.” Patty shrugged. “She said she thought it was time she made a change, but she didn’t want to get so entwined again with someone else’s family.”
“What’s she going to do, then?” he wondered aloud.
Patty shook her head. “I got the sense that she was considering leaving childcare altogether.”
A thought that didn’t put Mick in any better of a mood. If she wasn’t seeking adventure in Europe, then why was she leaving them? Why couldn’t she stay? Last night she’d told him she wanted “more” and he’d thought she’d meant the excitement of travel. The glamour of new possibilities on a new continent. But if it wasn’t that…?
Screw gracious, he thought. Screw pretending he was in a better mood. He was going to get to the bottom of this.
Chapter Twelve
But Mick couldn’t get the answers he wanted when he wanted them. He didn’t catch sight of Kayla after his conversation with Patty at the safety fair. Then he had a meeting to get to and then he had to return to school for the kids. Once home, he remembered the nanny had her girls’ night out scheduled with her crew from We Our Nanny. She’d already left for her friend Betsy’s.
So he went through the father motions. Homework. A little basketball in the driveway with Lee. He started dinner and even went to work on creating a clean tower of towels by folding what he found in the dryer. Through it all he felt as if he carried a thousand-pound weight on his chest.
I might as well be a hundred and four. I feel that worn-out.
“Daddy, what’s the matter?” his daughter asked him after dinner. They were in the family room. He was seated on the couch, but the kids were standing, eyeing him instead of the TV. Oh, yeah, he’d forbidden Jane to watch her shows for a few days.
He sighed. “You can turn it on, kids,” he said, gesturing toward the screen. “Surely Zack and Cody or Phineas and Ferb are going about their zany business.”
Neither child moved. Then Lee glanced at his sister. “Are you having a bad day, Dad?”
Mick tried to smile. “Yeah, buddy. I guess you could say so. But don’t worry about it.”
“I do worry about it.” Lee launched himself forward, and snuggled in right next to Mick’s side. “Tell me what to do. I can help.”
Mick smiled again, this one more natural. He heard the echo of himself in his son’s words. “Thanks, Lee. But I’m good.”
“You’re not good, Daddy.” Jane found her place on the free cushion next to him. “Lee’s right. We can do something for you.”
He wrapped an arm around each of them, pulling them closer. “Just sit here with me a few minutes.” Closing his eyes, he let his head drop back and took in the warmth of his children pressing against him. As he blew out a long breath, he felt some of his tension ease. They were good, his kids. Holding them helped.
The ache in his heart was still sharp. It killed him to think he’d fallen in love with the nanny only to watch her walk away from him, but he’d survive. The kids would lighten the weight of it.
The kids would lighten the weight of it.
His eyes popped open. He looked down at his beautiful children and the way they’d rallied to him. The way they were cuddled up to him right now, adding their strength to his.
Oh. My. God. The kids would lighten the weight of everything. Meaning, Mick realized, that they weren’t a burden on his emotional foundation, but a buttress to it. This was the magic he hadn’t understood. It went way beyond Disneyland. Together, they were a team. And “together” meant he wasn’t alone in ensuring the family’s health and happiness. He should have known that. Seen that sooner.
He cleared his throat, new optimism filling his chest. He’d been a short-sighted dummy, but he’d been given the breath of life just in time. God, he hoped it wasn’t too late. “Kids…about Kayla.”
Jane looked up at him, her dark eyes solemn. “She thinks she has to leave us.”
Lee shot upright. “What?”
Mick squeezed his son’s shoulder. “I’ve got an idea about that.” A hope about that. It gave him new energy and he pushed to his feet, a grin breaking over his face. “I think you two are going to approve.” Forget a hundred and four. He was a young man with a plan to get his woman.
Although the night was cold, Kayla felt completely comfortable under a patio heater and beneath a soft old quilt on the tiny space behind her friend Betsy’s little cottage. It was detached from her employer’s house and adjacent to the neighbor’s spacious backyard. Kayla took a sip from her wineglass and noticed a male figure pass through the sliding glass doors at the rear of the big place next door.
“Is that him?” she whispered to Betsy.
The other woman nodded. “The crabby one. The
smell of charred flesh is the giveaway.”
“Ew,” Gwen said. “Do you have to speak of grilled beef in that manner? There’s nothing wrong with a man who likes to barbecue.”
“There’s something wrong with this one. I am definitely not fixing him up with anyone I know. He’s taken to calling me Boopsie.”
Gwen and Kayla glanced at each other. “The twins call you Boopsie.”
“Exactly. So I don’t know why you guys want to keep talking about him. Sure, he’s handsome and everything. Not to mention that hard body of his. But he’s disagreeable—hello? Crabby!—and I need a third four-year-old in my life like I need a hole in the head.”
Kayla decided against pointing out no one said anything about Mr. Crabby getting into Betsy’s life. Who was she to comment on someone else’s business? She was in disentangle mode.
Gwen swiveled to gaze at Kayla again. “Your life hasn’t been going smoothly either, I hear?”
“Huh?” Kayla frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Patty Bright came to me about her family’s posting to Europe. She said she tried to persuade you to be their nanny.”
Betsy gasped. “You’re going to Europe? You’re going to leave Mick and the kids?”
She didn’t want to say that out loud. “No, I’m not going to Europe, Bets. That didn’t seem to be the right step for me.”
Gwen lifted an eyebrow at their hostess. “How about you, Betsy? Not that I encourage my nannies to play hopscotch with their positions, but it is a wonderful opportunity. Several months overseas, plenty of off-time for solo travel…”
Betsy looked down at her wine, then her glance stole across the fence to the house next door. “I’m not much of a solo girl. And my boys need their Boopsie.”
“All three of them?” Gwen murmured, for Kayla’s ears only.
Kayla hid her own sad smile. If she left town, she might miss the previously unscheduled but clearly upcoming adventures of Boopsie and Mr. Crabby. It wasn’t a happy thought, but she’d come to realize that by filling her life with other people’s families and other people’s relationships that she was missing out on building her own.
Not Just the Nanny Page 13