by Bria Quinlan
He glanced at the flowers near the baked goods as he picked out the most decadent brownies he could find.
Flowers might be pushing it. He had to remind himself this wasn’t a date. She was the nanny. The hot, funny, smart, caring nanny who could probably date a guy who wasn’t a skinny computer nerd.
He set the flowers back in their bucket and headed home. He’d just have to enjoy the time he had with her until it was over.
He drove back to the house, forcing himself to not speed since he kept wondering what Minx and Gus were doing. He pulled into the garage and made a note to find the other door opener for Minx so she could park inside if she wanted to.
When he opened the kitchen door, he could hear laughter echoing down the back hall and calling to him. He’d never walked into his apartment and felt the sudden ease that rushed over him at the sound of the giggles.
It was like he was coming home for the first time, even though this wasn’t his house—and they weren’t his family.
He shook the thought off and set the grocery bags down before heading to the back sitting room.
He couldn’t help but find himself delighted—and what guy was ever delighted—by what he found.
Minx and Gus were sitting on the floor, playing with one of the toys Gus seemed most drawn to. Colorful blocks of different shapes that got fit into matching slots. Minx held each shape up, saying the name, rolling it around so he could see each side, as Gus nearly fell forward reaching for each. Sometimes he put them in one of the slots (occasionally the right one, even) and sometimes he just stuck them in his mouth.
You’d think the world was peppermint flavored the way he put everything straight in his mouth.
“Hey, guys.” Tim tried to keep his gaze fixed on Gus, but it kept slipping toward Minx and the way she lit up when she smiled. “I brought home steak for dinner. I’m going to go throw it on the grill if you’re starting to get hungry.”
As soon as he said the words, he wondered if steak was the right choice. The last woman he dated only ate dry chicken and lettuce.
Not that he was dating Minx.
“Oh, steak on the grill. Nice.” She hopped up and leaned over to pick Gus up, showcasing the way today’s skirt slipped over her rear and down her legs. “We’ll bring our swing in there and watch Uncle Ho—Tim make us dinner, sound good, pumpkin?”
To get his mind off of his nanny, Tim went to the other side of the room, keeping his eyes fixed on the baby swing, and carried it behind them to the kitchen. As Minx set Gus up in his seat, a front row seat to their non-date, Tim started pulling stuff out of the bags.
“Oh, I got you some tea,” he said as nonchalantly as possible. “It’s in that other bag.”
Minx glanced at the bag, probably wondering why tea took up so much space. He wasn’t going to defend his five boxes…or maybe he was.
“I didn’t know what to get,” he said as he turned to put the salad bag away. “I figured you can never have too many tea options.”
“Oh, these are wonderful.” Minx’s words ended with a happy sigh.
Tim couldn’t believe he’d won her over with tea. That was certainly better than champagne—not that he was trying to win her over he repeated to himself.
“You didn’t have to do this.”
He straightened from the fridge, pleased that she was happy about his little gift. “It wasn’t a big—”
In her hand, Minx had the bouquet of flowers he’d put back. And not the normal-size one, the ginormous, who buys this size one.
“Oh.” Tim glanced at the flowers, then at the bag they’d come from.
He was one hundred percent sure he hadn’t bought flowers. Sure, he’d wanted to buy them, wanted to see her face light up like that, but he hadn’t dared. He’d drawn the line. He was her employer and he didn’t want her to feel weird.
Also, she probably dated rock stars and famous guys who had women throwing themselves at them.
“These are beautiful.” She stuck her face deep in the petals, inhaling like it were a drug. “No one’s ever bought me flowers before.”
“No one?” he asked, shocked and a little embarrassed he hadn’t bought her flowers, either—or at least he was pretty sure he hadn’t.
“No.” She smiled up at him like he’d brought her the deed to a small island, not just some mysterious plants. “Thank you.”
“Oh, well.” He cleared his throat, thinking fast on his feet. It had been a mistake, but he’d wanted to buy them, and they made her happy, so why kill that joy? “You’re welcome.”
Just as he said it, the silent baby in the swing started clapping as if he’d done an amazing trick.
And, Tim was beginning to wonder if he really had.
CHAPTER NINE
MINX
The average American woman has two heartbreaks before finding love.
Flowers.
He got me flowers.
I tried not to get all gushy about it, but no one had ever bought me flowers before. I couldn’t believe we were sitting there, over steak and wine, chatting about life and getting to know each other—and between us were my flowers.
Well, they were kind of huge, so they were more off to the left so we could see one another.
It was the sweetest thing. That, and the fact he’d brought home enough tea for three months’ worth of mornings because he wanted to make sure I had what I liked.
How could I avoid falling for a guy like this?
My mother had always said that’s how it happened for her. Love at first sight. I couldn’t help but point out that a large number of women felt that way about my dad, seeing as he was a rock star. Also, vice versa on the men-slash-mom thing.
Just like when Frazzled Uncle Hottie opened the door and handed me a baby. I’d been done for then that first day, baby in hand. No flowers needed.
Not that I’d ever tell him that. I really loved the flowers.
I gave myself a shake. This wasn’t a date. This was dinner at home. On the other hand, he’d bought me flowers and a present and cooked—was it a date?
Could I just blurt out “Is this a date?” and see what happened?
Bad plan, Minx. Bad, bad plan.
“And so that’s how I ended up back working in Atlanta.” Tim smiled over his wine glass at me, and I realized I’d probably missed some mighty important information in Tim Land. I should probably Google him later or something. “How’d you get into nannying?”
“I love kids,” I responded with my typical answer—the one people expected. And then I realized, that’s not the answer I wanted to give. “No. That’s wrong.”
“You don’t love kids?” Tim looked a bit confused, and I imagined him locking Gus away with a pile of baby wipes and safety equipment while he evacuated me from the house.
I laughed at the idea, and Tim, taking my laugh the wrong way, relaxed a bit.
“I mean, I do love kids, but that’s not why I became a nanny. I didn’t even know I loved kids when I started.” Which sounded much odder out loud than in my head. “The truth is,” I glanced at Gus hoping for some encouragement, “my parents are kind of famous,” I started, afraid of where this was going to go.
“Really? As in, I’d know who they are famous?” He looked intrigued, but not in that way some people get when they hear the word famous.
“Probably. My dad is Rod Marksman, and my mom is Crystal Skyes.” Every guy in the world knew at least one of them.
“Your mom is Crystal Skyes?” he asked, a bit amazed. “I loved her in Beach City Summer.”
Oh.
And now I just had to ride out the comparisons. The “she’s so pretty, tall, stunning, talented, sexy…” whatever it is that guy had latched onto.
“Cool. But that doesn’t exactly point a straight line to nannying.” He left it out there, not quite a question but looking for an answer.
I tried to think of a way to explain it that didn’t sound like Poor Little Rich Girl syndrome. While I was thinking, Tim�
�s hand flipped over and he laced his fingers around mine, making me feel like he was protecting me, putting me in a safe place to talk.
“It was weird growing up with two famous parents. You hear these kids say all the time, ‘oh, it’s the only thing I knew so it always seemed normal.’ That,” I said, giving a sharp point of emphasis, “is a crock.”
“Yeah, it seems like it would be.” He gave my hand a little squeeze. “I always knew the parts of my family that were a little not normal and that’s normal-not-normal normal…or whatever.”
Awww. Look at him empathizing.
“I had nannies to travel with us because of my parents’ schedules. They were just…busy. And focused on their careers. An extra pair of hands was good, but they loved me. It wasn’t like my mother stopped loving me when she realized I wouldn’t be a great beauty like her.”
“I think you’re beautiful.”
My gaze had drifted away, but it snapped back to Tim’s face as soon as I heard the words. He looked almost as surprised to have said them as I was to hear them.
“Oh.”
“I mean—” He pulled his hand back, and I immediately missed the warmth of it. “You are. It’s just, I don’t want to, um…make you uncomfortable.”
“Oh,” I said again, because, obviously. “You don’t. You aren’t.”
“Okay. Good.” He cleared his throat, an endearing move I was beginning to recognize as his I’m Uncomfortable move. “So, nannying?”
I tried to focus on the story, but I was losing the thread quickly with my focus on the man.
“In the beginning, I’d planned to just take that one job. Just the one to get my own money, find a place, and figure things out. Then the one job fed into the next, and the next, and…”
And then I’d I felt trapped. But that sounded so wrong to admit.
“Then what?”
“Well, it was all I knew how to do. But, this last job—” I shuddered, remembering the last day when the FBI stormed what I had come to realize was more of a compound than a commune. “And things started to feel out of control like when I was young…”
“What kind of things made life feel out of control when you were a kid?”
“The normal stuff for a kid traveling with a rock star and supermodel. Never knowing where you are, waking up in different places, not feeling safe with their friends around…what you’d expect.”
I wondered how much I should share, but when I looked into Tim’s eyes, I saw no nosiness or pity. Worry, yes. Interest in me, sure. But nothing that makes someone start buying tabloids.
“To be honest, it was the weird stuff that really stressed me out—the unknowns. My parents had some weird friends, and it just felt like they always brought the crazy with them.” I shuddered a little, remembering some of it. “What adult artists see as avant-garde, kids can see as plain scary. I remember waking up in some villa one night and finding a clown walking a peacock down the hallway outside my room. It freaked me out.”
“Honey, I think that would freak me out now.” He even looked a little freaked out thinking about it.
“Right, so, imagine all the stories you’ve heard about rock stars on the road or diva supermodels and their entourage. All true. Actually, probably downplayed for public consumption. Now imagine you’re six and stuck with living in that crazy circus with no way out and no one who would make life seem normal.” I looked up and smiled at him. “Except, sometimes, maybe the nanny. If they weren’t there for the free travel or hoping to side step into the lifestyle, they might be there for you. But, because of our lives, they typically were only there for about six months. Six months I felt safe.”
Tim glanced away, obviously trying to say the right thing in the right way. “Did you feel unsafe a lot?”
“I didn’t realize I did until my mother sent me to therapy when I was thirteen.”
“Why did she send you to therapy? Did something happen?” The concern overflowing from him made my heart sigh with relief from the lack of judgment.
“Besides being a teenager? No. But, my mother had her therapist on speed dial. That was part of their world. My mother told me, as she sent me in the first time, that it was great. It was a time that everything was just about her, and that now I had that, too.” I laughed, because only my mother would say that. “The irony that everything was typically all about her was completely missed.”
Tim laughed kindly, not a bit of malice in the sound. “I think your mother and mine sound more and more alike all the time.”
“Oddly, the therapist was actually concerned after my first visit. I was underweight, overexposed, and off the charts anxious.” It dawned on me as an adult that many of the questions she’d asked after we got to know each other were geared toward figuring out if I was safe in my current situation.
“Really?” he asked. “How anxious?”
“Enough that I walked out of her office with a prescription in hand.” It had been a really dark time for me. I hadn’t realized just how dark until I’d escaped it. But, that was a place—and a world—I never wanted to go back to. If I’d learned anything, it was that stability was too important to my mental health to let go of.
“And what did your parents do?”
“They thought it was funny.” I remember them laughing it off, saying that it was bound to happen sooner or later, since everyone they knew was on something—legal or not.
“Oh, honey.” Tim’s thumb rubbed over the back of my hand, a soothing swish-swish, swish-swish. “You know that’s not normal and that it’s okay, right?”
“Yup. And so, all I want in life now is calm, predictable, and normal. You’d think that wouldn’t be too much to ask, right?”
After Brother Tomas’s compound had been taken down, I’d taken a break, struggling with my own returning anxiety and depression until I could handle the job again safely. Now, here I was, five months later, in a town that celebrated Halloween 24/7.
“I think you can have anything you want—and that might be aiming a bit low, but it’s a good start.” He shook his head at me, as if wanting something everyone else grew up with was the weird part. “Did the medicine help?”
“Mostly.” I stopped, suddenly afraid. No one knew the rest of the story.
I was afraid to tell him. It was too soon. We still lived in a world where depression was either an evil, ugly thing or just affected someone who wouldn’t suck up being sad for a little while.
Tim was more sensitive than that, but… Yeah. Not ready.
“I love my parents.”
“That’s great—I do, too. Well, my parents. Not yours; I’ve never met them. But, I quasi-loved them as a teen, so there’s that.”
“Right, they’re really great. But—” I couldn’t figure out how to say this without sounding horrible.
“Ahh.” Tim nodded. “A bit controlling? Thought you’d want what they want, so they’d use their own motivators to try to get you to do what they thought was best?”
I sat back in my chair, flummoxed. No one had every understood before. Especially no one who hadn’t seen that life firsthand.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“I have a bit of experience with that myself.” He sipped his wine, then poured us each another small bit. “My mother and your mother are, apparently, cut from the same cloth.”
I raised my glass, a toast to COCM—Children of Controlling Mothers.
“So, you found a job that you were uniquely qualified for, that allowed you out from the influence of your family, but that forced you to stay in a world you didn’t think was for you.”
“That’s it in a nutshell.” I sipped the wine, a peace slipping over me at the idea of someone just getting it. It happened so infrequently. Tricia was the closest person to it, and she didn’t get it.
“So, why stay with it?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure how to start. “No one has ever asked me that before.”
“You can start wherever you want.” He gave me a smile, one o
f encouragement and support without even knowing what it was that I wanted.
“Okay. I want normal.” I nodded my head, trying to make that sound like some big, unachievable goal I was chasing. “I want to have a home and settle down. I was thinking I could go to college, buy myself a little house up on the coast of New Hampshire, and just figure things out from there. Maybe get a dog. I never got to have a pet before. Just, something that doesn’t involve anyone who is rich, famous, or powerful. Normal. I just want normal.”
It sounded stupid. I glanced own at the remains of my potato, all the inside buttery goodness gone, just the shell sitting there mocking me, asking me if I knew there was more to life than buttery goodness.
“That sounds…” He paused, and I was afraid he was looking for a way to politely tell me I was a spoiled, selfish brat. Instead, he smiled that slightly crooked smile I was falling for. “That sounds really nice.”
“It does?” I asked, afraid he was humoring me.
“Yup. I’m not sure what anyone would want more in life than that. Maybe a job you love—and I’m already lucky in that department—so, you sound like you have a pretty good plan.”
We sat there, just sat for a moment, his smile the focus of everything for me, until a tiny snort came from the right where Gus had fallen asleep in his swing.
I guess both of us were waking up.
CHAPTER TEN
MINX
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
I shot out of bed at the sound of screeching so loud it echoed through the connecting bathroom and over the baby monitor.
Rushing into Gus’s room, I hurried to the crib, afraid of what I’d find after that ungodly sound. But, Gus lay there, still and silent. So silent that after that noise I feared for the worst and checked his vitals. He was sucking on his ducky again—which I was pretty sure I’d taken away for safety. I grabbed it, double-checking everything, and had just assured myself Gus was sleeping soundly when Tim rounded the corner of the door, rushing into the room.