Mommy for Hire

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Alexis slipped into the mode that had made her one of the best matchmakers of the company. For every money-minded client like Zoe, there was a money-minded man. “Let me take you to my office and we’ll get you set up with the personality questionnaires and wish lists, so we can figure out together who your dream man might be….”

  An hour later, Zoe left the building with high hopes and a much more open mind. Directly after that, Holly Anne walked into Alexis’s office and shut the door behind her.

  Time for the mud to hit the fan.

  “I think I deserve an explanation,” she announced grimly

  Alexis flushed guiltily. “I’m sorry.” She hesitated, not sure where to begin.

  Holly Anne’s eyes narrowed. “I assume your absence this morning had to do with Grady McCabe?”

  “He’s proved to be a very demanding client,” she said finally. “So demanding, in fact, that you and I need to talk.”

  “WHAT’S THE MATTER, pumpkin?” Grady asked Savannah when he picked her up from her after-school program that afternoon. He knew it couldn’t be homework. The last take-home assignment had been given the previous Friday.

  His daughter slumped dispiritedly in her seat. “Everybody else has two dresses. One for the graduation, and the other for the tea party at Lisa Marie’s house. I only have one.”

  Uh-oh, Grady thought. Crisis. “So what should we do?” he asked calmly. “Go shopping again?”

  A glance in the rearview mirror showed his suggestion had gone over well.

  Savannah sat up straight, smiling now. “Can we go with Alexis?”

  Good question. He had left messages on Alexis’s cell, home and office voice mail, but she had yet to return his calls. He hadn’t spoken to her since she had slipped out of his house this morning. Not about to make a promise he couldn’t keep, he said, “I think she’s working late tonight. I could take you, though.”

  His offer was followed by silence.

  Grady hazarded another glance in the mirror. Savannah’s eyes met his and she gave him a soulful look, the one that always came up when the topic of her not having a mommy came up. She sighed.

  “Been there, done that, hmm?” Grady mused, when they stopped at a traffic light. Another glance showed tears trembling on his daughter’s lashes.

  As soon as he could, Grady pulled the car over into a parking lot and put the engine in Park. He unfastened his seat belt and turned around to face his daughter. “Is anything else wrong?” he asked gently. Had Savannah heard about his private meeting with Principal Jordan that morning? Had someone told her there was pressure to hold her back a grade? If so, he thought grimly, there would be hell to pay.

  Savannah turned an accusing glance his way. “Everybody else has been drinking tea and eating little sandwiches, too. And practicing, Daddy.”

  It took a moment to decipher that. “You mean they’ve been going to tea?”

  Savannah nodded vigorously. “At a hotel.”

  Talk about keeping up with the Joneses! This was getting ridiculous, he thought, a little disgruntled. On the other hand, he did not want to withhold anything he could easily provide his little girl when her self-esteem and self-confidence were already shaky.

  Fortunately, Grady thought, he’d have her out of this quagmire of snobbery and bad behavior soon, but until then he had a job to do. “Let me make a call. I’ll see if I can figure out a good place to go.”

  Grady punched in a number on his speed dial. Once again, he got the voice mail for Alexis’s cell. He dialed her office. Martha, the receptionist, picked up. “Grady McCabe, calling for Alexis Graham.”

  “Oh, hello, Mr. McCabe! Alexis said you might call. She’s in a meeting. She wanted to let you know she won’t be stopping by this evening. She left a message to that effect on your home phone.”

  She’d known he’d been at the office.

  Not sure how to decipher that, Grady figured he’d find out later. He thanked Martha and cut the connection. “Looks like we’re on our own tonight, pumpkin.”

  Grady wasn’t surprised to discover Savannah wasn’t any happier about that than he was.

  AS THE HOURS WORE ON, Alexis’s Monday went from bad to worse. She was assigned three new clients, all of them difficult personalities. The temperature in Fort Worth topped one hundred ten degrees, and the window unit in her apartment, which had been acting a little off lately, took that moment to decide to blow out nothing but hot air.

  She was standing in front of it in a cotton skirt and lace-edged camisole, trying to decide if it was broken or just unable to handle the extreme heat, when a knock sounded on her door.

  Already exhausted and stressed out, she walked over, peered through the viewer and saw Grady standing in the hall. He looked really ticked off. She opened the door. “Grady?”

  “Just when?” he growled, shouldering past her, “were you going to tell me?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Tell you what?” Alexis asked, ushering him inside.

  Grady looked around, as if noticing the stifling heat inside her apartment, but didn’t comment on it. He turned his intent blue eyes to hers and clarified, “That you asked your boss to assign another matchmaker to me!”

  Doing her best to quell her racing pulse, she moved around him to shut the door. “You spoke to Holly Anne?”

  “She telephoned me this evening.” Grady’s voice was calm. His emotions clearly were not. “She wanted to be sure I was okay with it.”

  Alexis wished she could do something about the moisture gathering between her breasts. It was beginning to seep through her camisole. And worse, Grady had noticed.

  She edged toward the stream of air blowing out of her air conditioner and stood with her back to it, figuring a hot breeze was better than no breeze. Discreetly, she plucked at the fabric of her camisole, pulling it away from her moist tummy. “And were you?”

  “Actually, no.” Looking uncomfortably warm in his stone-colored dress slacks and starched, pale blue shirt, even though the top button was undone and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Grady moved toward the unit, too. “I told her I didn’t want to work with anyone but you.”

  Alexis shifted so Grady could stand in front of what circulating air there was.

  “And Holly Anne told you it was out of the question,” she guessed, wishing her boss had given her a heads-up, so she would have been prepared for this confrontation tonight. She had hoped to put it off until she figured out what to say—and when to say it—knowing all the while there would never be a good time to tell Grady she was ditching him as a client.

  “She said you felt someone else would do a better job.” Displeasure filled his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do that?”

  Alexis shrugged, and tried not to think about kissing him. “Because I thought you might try to talk me out of it.”

  Perspiration beaded on his face. “You would have been right.”

  Alexis felt her own skin dampening, too. She stepped closer, trying to adopt a practical tone as she said, “Grady, surely you can see, after what happened this morning, that I’m the wrong person to be trying to set you up with someone else.”

  He regarded her with the steady resolve she’d come to expect. “I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

  A thrill shot through her at his matter-of-fact determination. “Only because you got involved with me,” she countered, with the same resolve he was showing. “It still doesn’t solve your problem—the lack of a mother in Savannah’s life.” Or a woman you can love with all your heart and soul—in yours.

  Grady took her in his arms. “I’ve come to the conclusion, as has my daughter, that she doesn’t need just any woman. She needs you. And so,” he murmured fervently, “do I.”

  Before Alexis could answer, his lips captured hers. Everything she had been trying so hard to forget was suddenly at the center of her world. No one had ever kissed her as tenderly as he did, as if he cherished everything about her and wanted to experien
ce even more. No one had ever brought forth such a wellspring of need, passion, and yes, love. When Grady pressed her against him, and made her feel as if the two of them were a perfect fit, it was all she could do to control the raging lust and soul deep yearning that blazed inside her. She wanted to be part of his life. His future. His present. She wanted to take what they had and use it as a foundation to build a love that would endure forever. She wanted to be singed by the hard muscles of his body, and filled with the most intimate part of him.

  But making love with him meant being vulnerable. And she wasn’t sure it was wise to feel that way tonight….

  Shakily, they drew apart.

  Alexis splayed her hands across his chest, forcing some distance between them. “This is what always gets us into trouble.”

  Grady lovingly stroked a hand through her hair. If he had any misgivings, he was not showing them, she noted.

  He rubbed his thumb across her damp lower lip. “I like this kind of trouble.”

  So did she, on some level.

  On another, more practical one, she knew she had to retain some perspective. Otherwise heartache lay ahead, and it wouldn’t be just her heart that would be broken. Savannah could end up devastated, too, and what hurt Grady’s child hurt him.

  Still struggling to regain her composure, Alexis went to the refrigerator and got out a pitcher of water flavored with fresh mint leaves.

  Grady studied her as she put ice into two glasses and then filled them to the rim. He seemed to know intuitively there was another reason why she hadn’t contacted him. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked after a moment, accepting the beverage she handed him. “What else was said between you and Holly Anne?”

  Alexis sat down at the café table, relieved to be able to talk about work. “A lot, actually. She’s right to be very disappointed in me. You’re a big client, with a lot of money and the McCabe name, not to mention being one of the movers and shakers in this city. She expected me to make a match for you that would dazzle everyone and make you very happy.”

  Taking a seat opposite her, Grady favored her with a lopsided grin. “Who says you haven’t?”

  She refused to let him distract her; he had done that far too often as it was. “I should have been focused on my job.” Instead of how attracted I am to you. Pressing the cold glass against her forehead, to bring down the heat, she continued her litany of regrets. “I forgot what my goal as your matchmaker was, and got personally involved with you and your daughter. I ended up billing for time spent helping Savannah with her homework!”

  “At my request,” Grady argued, shifting his big frame in the small chair. “To help you get to know Savannah, so you would know what kind of woman she needed in her life.”

  It didn’t matter that she had gotten her boss’s approval prior to caving to Grady’s request. Alexis had known on a gut level it was the wrong thing to do, professionally, but she had acquiesced because she’d wanted to spend time with Grady and Savannah. Because being with them made her feel like part of a family again. And she had needed that more than she wanted to admit—to the point she knew her judgment was hopelessly skewed, in his favor. For both their sakes, she needed to reassert her boundaries. She took a long sip of her mint-flavored ice water. Was it roasting in here or what? “Grady, I’m not a tutor.”

  “I agree.” He drained his glass and went back to the fridge to retrieve the water. Returning, he poured them each another glass, put the pitcher on the table and sat down again. “You’re more in the class of miracle worker, where Savannah is concerned. Do you know how happy you’ve made her and me, just being with us and resolving problems?”

  As happy as it made me, taking on the mommy role? Alexis thought pensively. She sat back and rubbed at the tense spot in her neck. “But I’m not her mother, Grady. I never volunteered to be.”

  He studied her quietly, looking every bit as hot and uncomfortable as she felt.

  “I’m not your girlfriend. I’m barely a family friend.”

  Grady continued to gaze at her in silence. She had the impression he wanted to argue with her about all of that. Instead, he inquired, “What does all this have to do with your job?”

  Alexis let her hand drop back to her lap. “In failing you and Savannah I severely damaged my chances to run the Galveston office.”

  There went the promotion, the pay raise that would have quickly paid off her medical debts, the move that would have helped her start a new life. A new beginning without the reminders of the husband she had lost, and the temptation of Grady and Savannah nearby. Because as much as she loved them—and she did, Alexis realized—Grady did not love her the way he should love a woman he intended to make his wife. And she could not pretend that didn’t matter to her. It did. She just wasn’t sure it was enough of a deterrent to keep her from seeing Grady and Savannah again.

  Had she been wrong all this time? Was getting everything she wanted from her personal life—except romantic love—better than being alone?

  Alexis’s mind told her no. Her heart felt otherwise whenever she spent time with Grady.

  He reached across the table and took her hand. “You shouldn’t be held accountable for my actions.”

  Alexis tried not to notice how good her palm felt wrapped in his. She swallowed and forced herself to look him in the eye. “My boss has every right to be unhappy with me at present. I should have been focused on business when I was working with you. I should have looked at the big picture for the Fort Worth office and thought about what my success with you could mean in jump-starting the Galveston operation. Instead…” Alexis sighed. “I lost sight of all of that, Grady, to the point Holly Anne now questions how much I want to relocate.”

  “How much do you want to relocate?” Grady asked.

  That, Alexis thought, was the million dollar question. For both their sakes she forced herself to tell him what was in her heart. “I don’t know.” Briefly, she looked down at their hands, luxuriating in the warmth and strength of his grip. “I thought it would be a fresh start for me. A way to move ahead and put the past behind me. Now, it almost seems like I’d be running away.”

  From something I never should have allowed myself to get so tangled up in.

  She shrugged, withdrew her hand and sat back in her chair. “I’m not sure I want to do that.” Restless, she stood and walked back over to the air-conditioning unit, which was now blowing out a lot less hot air than before, although the control was still set on high.

  Grady ambled after her. “I know what you mean. I’ve been having a few doubts myself lately.”

  At the mention of the word doubts, Alexis felt herself tense. She swung back around. “In what way?”

  “This process of finding someone through a third party isn’t right for me.” His expression sobered. “I think part of me knew that going in—I just didn’t want to admit it.”

  Alexis didn’t know whether to feel elated or worried. “Then why did you sign up with ForeverLove.com?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

  “Because Savannah needed a mommy. Still does,” Grady told her seriously. “And I didn’t want to go through the ups and downs of dating and all that to find her one, when I had no expectation of falling in love.”

  His words felt like a jab to her heart. Alexis struggled to be as professional as she should have been all along. “If I had found the right woman for you to date, I could have changed all that,” she said as her AC unit made a weird crunching noise.

  Grady’s lips twisted ruefully. He looked past her to the poorly functioning cooling agent. “I’m not so sure. In any case,” he added pragmatically, “it wasn’t your fault we struck out on that score—I was an uncooperative client.”

  Wasn’t that the understatement of the decade! Alexis began to pace, afraid if she stood next to him for much longer they would end up kissing again. “Plenty of clients are uncooperative, Grady.” She went over to her hanging clothes rack, in search of cooler clothing. “In fact, when it co
mes to finding love via a matchmaker, I’d say that’s pretty much the norm.”

  He watched her sort through the racks of casual clothing. “It doesn’t matter. Like I said, you shouldn’t be penalized for my indecision. If you want that job and the promotion that goes with it, I’ll move heaven and earth to get it for you.”

  Alexis whirled around, not sure whether to be horrified by the possibility or amused by his offer of assistance. “You would, wouldn’t you?” she observed wryly.

  “All that and more,” he promised. “I owe you, Alexis. For bringing me back to life.”

  Another ripple of longing swept through her. Alexis took another step back, banging into a row of shirts on hangers. “I don’t want you to owe me.”

  He closed the distance between them in three long, lazy strides.

  “I don’t want us to be on the clock.” She gulped as he ran his hands up and down her bare arms. She trembled, asserting, “If we ever make love again—”

  “We will,” he said emphatically, as sure about that as she secretly was.

  “I want it to be…” Alexis searched for the right words “…without complications. I don’t want to worry about the ethics of it, or the long-or short-term implications, Grady. I just want to live in the moment, appreciate what we have while we have it.”

  At least for now, until she figured out whether or not she was going to be content with the limitations he’d set over the long haul. “Can we do that?”

  “We can do anything you want.” Grady pulled her into his arms and delivered another searing kiss. “But there’s one thing I want you to know, Alexis. I told your boss I’m out, no longer a client of your company. I already know what I want…and it’s not that.”

  GRADY EXPECTED ALEXIS to be happy about that. Instead, she looked upset. “How did Holly Anne take it?” she demanded.

  He shrugged. “About how you’d expect. She tried to talk me out of it. When that didn’t work, she wanted to know if you were to blame. I assured her that was not the case. You had gone far above and beyond your responsibilities as my matchmaker to try and pair me up with someone, under the very trying parameters I had set.” He sighed. “To no avail. Savannah wasn’t happy. I wasn’t, either. I was trying to hire a mommy slash wife the same way I’d hired a nanny—and it just wasn’t a workable situation.”