When the last bite of kugel was eaten and the plates cleared, Nina told her children to head to the multipurpose room to join the services.
“We're supposed to help the whole night,” Izzy protested, though Isaac, who loved Friday services, was already halfway out the kitchen door.
“Mr. Hanson is here to help me,” Nina said. “And I don't want you to miss Rabbi Jackie. She's a Renewal rabbi visiting from California. I'd like you to hear a woman rabbi.”
Izzy, who had learned from her mother and grandmother that women had not even been allowed to hold the Torah when Bubby was a girl, appeared unconvinced.
“And, I understand she raises quarter horses,” Nina added. “I'm sure she'll talk to you about that after the services.”
Bingo.
Izzy raced her brother to the multipurpose room, leaving Nina alone with David in the kitchen.
Nina stood at the sink, which was filled with dirty dishes, and watched David sample a chocolate-chip rugelach from the dessert tray they would bring out later.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
He looked up from the cookie and smiled. “Sorry. I couldn't help myself.” Popping the rest of the cookie into his mouth, he spoke around it. “Let's get to work.”
He appeared so boyish, so ingenuous, Nina had a crazy impulse to hug him as he approached the sink and stopped in front of her. He was still wearing his dress shirt from work, but the sleeves were rolled up and his tie was loosened. So formal. She shook her head.
“That's not what I mean. I mean, what are you doing here? Why were you cutting kugel for two dozen octogenarians when I know you could have found twenty free minutes to meet with me?”
“What's koo-gul?”
“The noodle casserole.”
“The one that smelled like cinnamon?”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to try that.” He glanced around.
“It's all gone. Don't change the subject.” Grabbing a dish towel, she flicked him on the middle with it. But privately she added cute to the list of descriptive adjectives she was compiling about him. “You aren't here for the food,” she insisted. “What's the deal? Is Hanson targeting seniors as a hot market? Are you building a Web zine for the over-eighty crowd?”
Golden-brown eyebrows lowered over almost similarly golden-brown eyes. David's lower lip jutted beyond its mate. The expression made Nina instantly sorry she had teased him, and she told him she was kidding. “I just can't figure out why you wanted to meet here, that's all.”
“I suppose I thought you'd be more relaxed on familiar turf,” he admitted. “More yourself. I want you to work for me, Nina. I didn't want to sit across a table from you while you come up with a hundred sound reasons to turn me down.”
“You think there are a hundred sound reasons for me to turn you down?”
“I think there are a few,” he said honestly, looking her straight in the eye. “But I think there are more reasons to say yes, and they're just as sound.”
The hair he usually wore brushed straight back had gotten mussed during his runs from kitchen to table. A gold-tinged lock fell over his forehead. Nina put both hands behind her back and clutched the towel, resisting the urge to reach up and push his hair off his brow if only to see how he would respond.
“Why do you want to hire me? It's certainly more complicated than hiring someone who has no dependents. Not to mention secure housing.”
David nodded slowly. For well over an hour now, he'd been with Nina, working under her direction, putting food on plates held out to him by quivering veined hands and watching her fill needs both practical and emotional. Nina's warmth and genuine interest in others spread over the people in her immediate vicinity like the perfect blanket on a chilly night. Watching her, feeling her beside him, he became more and more convinced that his life was a chilly night.
He began to wonder if he was heading toward a midlife crisis, dissatisfied suddenly with a path that had suited him well until now.
“I like your dependents,” he said carefully, keeping his voice light and casual. He didn't want to scare her away. He didn't want to scare himself. He didn't know what he wanted from her, really. It seemed pathetic to believe that he wanted to borrow her life for a while, to experience family by sharing the one she had created with such obvious care. David feared that might be the truth, however, as his own parents' agenda had not included making their youngest child feel warm and fuzzy.
He looked at the lovely blonde who was watching him closely with a wariness and suspicion he probably merited. She'd dressed nicely but conservatively in a pale blue sweater and long wool skirt. Her hair was pulled back in a thick bun, but she hadn't completely tamed the curls. He liked that.
“Nina,” he said, the first time tonight that he'd used her given name. Up to now he'd stuck with Miss Baxter, which had made the old women smile. “You have the qualities I want in a personal assistant.” He decided to keep his reply and his thoughts on the business plane. “I can enumerate your assets if you like. You're efficient, a fast thinker, easy to get along with-” Her brows shot up, and David smiled. “I like people who tell me the truth. You're also warm and gracious, which will be critical at the business functions I'll expect you to supervise and attend. And, you're available. That's not good for you, but it does work out for me. I don't have time to interview people.”
“Your secretary could-”
“She has more than enough to do right now.”
“I have children. Have you ever lived with two pre-teenage children?”
He rested his palm on the sink, leaning into it. “No. I don't have kids of my own. I'm not planning to have kids of my own. But yours are already housebroken, and they seem docile enough.”
He enjoyed the rich, free sound of her laughter. “Housebroken and docile, huh? You sure you don't want to hire someone with, say, a Boston terrier?” She shook her head. “You cannot count on my kids to be quiet.”
“Silence is overrated.”
“They're messy. I don't want to worry that we're ruining a Persian rug every time Isaac brings mud in. And Izzy likes to tap dance on hard surfaces.”
“I have wall-to-wall carpeting.”
Nina began to chew her lip-unconsciously, he thought. “I need the job,” she murmured, and though he heard the reluctance in her inflection, the hope that grew in his chest felt surprisingly good.
Angling toward the sink, she turned on the faucets to fill the basin.
David picked up a sponge. “I'll wash this time. You dry.”
She eyed him doubtfully, but didn't demur. Instead, she pulled two aprons out of a drawer, insisted he don one and rolled up her sleeves to swish bubbles into the soapy water.
“Have at it, mister.”
As they began to clean the dinner mess, the sound of voices raised in song drifted in from the multipurpose room. The melody was moving and joyful, but the Hebrew words were unfamiliar to David. He was about to ask what they meant when he heard Nina begin to sing softly under her breath.
Silently he handed her the wet plates he had scrubbed and stole glances at her profile. Somehow, from her lips the foreign words acquired meaning for him. He could tell that the song was filled with anticipation, that it was about waiting and hoping for something.
Nina Baxter, he decided, was beautiful. With curly blond hair, baby-doll blue eyes and a figure like Betty Boop's, she could easily be termed cute or adorable; but that would discount the depth of her attractiveness. She was a woman, certainly not the girl who'd first come to work over a decade ago.
As she sang, her soft features seemed to mature before his eyes. The song held meaning for her. He had no intention of interrupting and was content to work and listen to her sing, but she stopped abruptly to ask, “Have you ever wanted children?”
Caught off guard, he didn't temper his response. “No.”
She looked mildly surprised, but not disappointed. “That's it, huh? Just 'no'? Have you ever thought about it
? Or is it something you've actively avoided?”
The pan David was scrubbing slipped from his fingers and clattered into the sink. Frowning, he fished it out, made sure no harm was done and wondered just how complete his answer ought to be. There were lines of decorum, he'd always felt, that shouldn't be crossed. Somehow, though, with Nina he wasn't at all certain the usual rules applied. “All right, I'm going to be blunt here. My answer involves you.”
This time, Nina's head reared back with considerable surprise. David kept working, but angled his attention toward Nina. “I remember when you were pregnant for the second time and not throwing up in a business meeting seemed like a Herculean effort for you. Then I found out you were single and had to make a living on your own….” He narrowed his eyes in an expression both wry and a bit sheepish. “I went out,” he admitted, “and bought a very large box of condoms.”
Nina stopped drying a water glass. She blinked at him. “That was really honest.”
“You asked.”
“So what was the deal, exactly? You didn't trust the woman to use birth control? You didn't trust yourself to stick around if you did make a baby?”
He scowled and spontaneously flicked sudsy water at her nose, not something he recalled ever doing to a woman-or an employee-before. “No. Jeez, no. I trusted myself to act with integrity.” He shook his head, working harder to scrape some kind of casserole out of a pan. “I didn't trust myself to act with joy-that was the problem. I thought a child- and a woman-deserved both.”
After a pause, Nina responded softly, “You're right. On both counts.” She kept her eyes on the glass she was still drying…well beyond the point of dryness…then looked up at him. “Hey, so you're not-”
She cut herself off.
“What?” David gazed at her. Her expression was five parts surprise, five parts mortification. “Don't stop now. We're building trust here. I'm not…?”
“Not…going…to get the stuff off the pan that way. Use the scrubber.” She nodded to a nylon ball on the sink.
He cocked a brow at her, tossed the sponge aside and picked up the scrubber. “I'm not what, Nina? Come on, cough it up. You were about to insult me again. It's all over your face.”
Nina considered a fervent denial, but fervently lying on the Sabbath would be bad karma. Also, David didn't seem particularly disturbed by the prospect of her insulting him again.
“It's not an insult this time. Really,” she said, setting aside the glass she'd wiped to a squeaky-clean shine and turning her focus on a dinner plate. “I'd just wondered-just briefly, I mean I didn't dwell on it- whether you hadn't married because you might be…” She lowered her head, not at all sure she should say it. “…ay.”
“What?” He leaned toward her. “I didn't catch the last word.”
She mumbled it a second time.
“I can't understand you. I might be what?” He shook his head. “Gray?”
“No! Gay,” she said loudly and clearly. “I thought maybe you were gay.”
He looked utterly shocked. Speechless, in fact. “It's a reasonable assumption,” she defended. “Really?”
She stood her ground and looked up at him. Now he seemed a little peeved.
Nina sighed and set the plate on top of some others. “You see? This is why a boss and a secretary should not even contemplate living together. We're going to cross all kinds of unspoken boundaries.”
“No, I think this one is spoken.”
“Well, I didn't mean anything negative.”
“That settles it, you're moving in. My reputation is at stake.”
“If you and I move in together-with my children-your reputation is the last thing we're going to worry about,” she contradicted, the topic of his sexuality losing ground to the issue of her children's well-being. “I will insist that we make it very clear to everybody that there is nothing romantic or sexual going on. I won't even consider moving in unless we're agreed on that.”
“Agreed that there is nothing romantic or sexual going on or agreed that we tell people there is nothing romantic or sexual going on?”
She folded her arms.
“All right. I will take swift and decisive action to correct any mistaken impressions. Including my own. Kidding,” David said when she opened her mouth to retort. “Meet me at my place, Sunday. I'll show you around, you can ask invasive questions and make your decision.”
Temporarily nonplussed, Nina stared.
“This is the easy part, Miss Baxter. Just say yes to Sunday. We'll take it from there.”
Two days later, on a Sunday afternoon, David stood in the steamy bathroom of his downtown condo and slapped cologne on his freshly shaved face and neck.
Nina was due to arrive to inspect his place at 4:00 p.m. And he was preparing for their meeting as if he were about to embark on the hottest date of his life.
Setting the cologne on the granite counter, he abandoned his preparations and headed for the kitchen. This wasn't a date, but he did want her to say, “Yes.” Yes, she would work for him; yes, she and her kids would move in. His reasons, he had decided while he'd run on the treadmill this morning and again as he'd pushed through several sets of flies, were sound. She'd be a great personal assistant, and if she worked for him he could stop feeling guilty that she'd been fired. He was thinking clearly.
When the doorbell rang, he was downing a glass of orange juice and blaming it for the sudden burn in his stomach.
His heart began to pound uncomfortably as he walked to the door. Damned acidic fruit juices.
Nina stood in the large light-filled hall of his twenty-third-floor condo and met his gaze with what he was coming to view as her characteristic this-will-never-ever-work expression.
Standing so close he could smell her shampoo, she said, “This will never ever work,” before she bothered with “Hello.”
David smiled, a deep smile that started low and rose until it parted his lips in a full-fledged grin. The sight of her relaxed him.
“Bummer, Miss Baxter.” He put a hand beneath her elbow. “Come in.”
Nina tugged on the lapel of her long coat. It was lightweight for spring, a powder-blue color that looked great with her eyes. “All right,” she agreed. “But only because I've never seen an apartment like this before, and I'm curious. Not because I'm still considering moving in, because now that I've seen this building-” She silenced abruptly as they entered the living room. “You said you had carpeting.”
David looked at the room, genuinely bemused. “Ahh, yes, I do.”
“It's white,” Nina said in a tone that sounded faintly accusing. All David could think about was taking her coat off so he could see how she was dressed today. So far he'd liked her best in the jeans she'd worn the day she'd lobbed office supplies at him.
“Sort of off-white-cream-ish, don't you think?” he suggested, hoping that whatever perturbed her about white carpeting would not stand in the way of their sitting down to the chardonnay and cheese tray he'd picked up at the wine shop near his gym.
“Actually, I'd call this particular hue Do-You-Have-Any-Idea-What-Grape-Juice-Does-to-a-Deep-Pile white.”
“Oh.” He smiled. “No, I don't. You'll have to explain it to me. In great detail. May I take your coat?”
After a moment, Nina shrugged out of the thin wrap. “Okay, but only because it's warm in here, and I have a feeling the tour will take a while, because this place is mammoth.”
David inclined his head agreeably. She sounded less than approving again, but she was here, and she was staying. He was getting what he wanted. Who was he to argue?
About to say he'd hang the coat up, he decided to toss it over the leather sofa instead. Obviously Nina was having a problem with the formality of his apartment relative to the casualness of her lifestyle. So he'd show her what a casual guy he really was.
Following the direction her coat took, she smoothed a hand over the arm of the sectional couch and whistled in appreciation. “Is this Corinthian leather?”
/> He nodded in satisfaction. All right, at last she'd found something to admire. The fact that he had no idea what kind of leather adorned his sofa did not stop him from answering, “Yes, it is.”
“Uh-huh.” She clucked her tongue. “One good jab from a ballpoint pen, and that's a goner.”
She was beginning to sound like an inspector for Better Homes and Gardens child-proofing edition. David put a hand on the small of her back.
“Come on. Let's get out of here before you notice the Chihuly glass bowl waiting to be shattered by one good tap of a Nerf ball.”
“My kids don't have Nerf balls,” she said, allowing him to guide her toward the kitchen. “They have the hard rubber, dangerous kind. I'm only thinking of you.”
“Miss Baxter,” David murmured as he nudged her ahead of him and sneaked a look at her jean-clad tush, “you've no idea how those words comfort me. Please believe me when I say I'm thinking of you, too.”
Chapter Six
Nina knew she was being disagreeable. She even knew why.
Knowing for sure that David wasn't gay had allowed all sorts of annoying fantasies to disturb her sleep the past two nights.
There was no denying it: She found him attractive, in a what-are-you-out-of-your-mind-he's-your-boss-and-completely-inappropriate-for-you kind of way. Moving in with him would be a disaster-capital D, capital Isaster.
Which was why she was smart to point out all the flaws in his reasoning.
“Oh wow, you have a stainless-steel fridge.” She ran her hand admiringly along the handle. “Aren't these great? I mean, if you don't have kids. Once you have kids, of course, stainless is the last finish you want on an appliance. They never look clean.” She tapped the refrigerator door with her fingernail. “All fingerprints, all the time.”
“I'll remember that, Heloise.”
“I'm just-”
“Thinking of me.” David nodded. “You've got my back.”
He took two steps toward her, pressed his palm flat against the freezer door-which would leave a terrible mark-and loomed over her. “I have a nice chardonnay chilling in this impractical refrigerator. Would you like a glass? It might help you relax.”
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