The Comeback Mom

by Muriel Jensen

  Well, that was a problem for a later date. Right now, she had to concentrate all her energies into convincing the fogey that she would be a more suitable parent for Savannah and Zachary. If she was lucky, he’d even be grateful that someone else was willing to assume responsibility. After all, if his business took him to places like Scotland, having two little children around could prove a major inconvenience.

  Yes. That would be a good argument.

  IT WAS two o’clock in the afternoon when she knocked on the door of the Rockland Hotel’s presidential suite. The cacophonous sounds of shouting adults and screaming children could be heard beyond the door.

  Then it was yanked open as a small mustachioed man in a three-piece suit marched through it, pushing her aside with an abrupt and ill-tempered “pardon me.”

  He turned to confront the tall man who appeared in the doorway in his wake. On the tall man’s left arm was Zachary Bonello, and it was easy to tell that the baby was desperately upset about something. His cheeks were apple red, his eyes screwed shut and his little mouth wide open and emitting screams at jumbo-jet takeoff levels.

  “I know they’ve been crying for hours!” the man holding Zachary shouted after the smaller man, “and as soon as I figure out how to stop them, I will. But considering what you charge for this room, and considering there are no other guests on this floor, I’m surprised you can’t be a little more tolerant.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the little man said stiffly, “but we’ve had complaints from guests on the ground floor. You must do something about the noise, or we’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  The little man stalked away, and Libby found herself face-to-face with the tall man, who looked as though the wrong word could push him to murder.

  He turned the baby onto his shoulder, patted his back a little awkwardly and shouted at her over his screams. “I know, I know! You’ve paid good money for a peaceful, quiet room, and you’re not getting it. I understand. But help is on the way. Please be patient.”

  In jeans and a chambray shirt, he looked down on Libby with an air of exasperated desperation she might have smiled at if it hadn’t been so important that she get on his good side. He must be employed by the fogey, in which case it was important that she win him over. Her future was at stake here, and that of the children.

  She gauged his amenability. The man was big shouldered and lean hipped, with the angular face and smoky dark eyes one often saw under the brim of a Stetson on the cover of a country-music album. Was he some assistant architectural historian? Some associate fogey?

  She smiled tentatively and reached both hands out for the baby. “May I?” she asked.

  He gazed at her doubtfully. “I don’t think so. Everybody from the maid to the elevator operator has tried to—”

  She lifted the baby from his arms, smug with her insider knowledge that this particular infant was colicky and had responded well in the hospital to the football hold. She rested him on his stomach on the flat of her hand and patted his back. His sobs quieted almost immediately to sniffs and breathy gulps.

  The man was astounded. She smiled modestly.

  “I was looking for Jared Ransom,” she said, trying to see past him into the room. But he filled the doorway.

  His eyes moved from the baby to her face, roved it with a thoroughness that made her wonder if he was analyzing her facial architecture, then rose to the feather on her hat and lingered there for a moment of apparent indecision.

  She noticed, while he was distracted by her plumage, that his eyes were thickly lashed and very dark.

  Then he lowered them to hers and said, his voice reflecting mild confusion, “I’m Jared Ransom. And you are?”

  She clenched her teeth to prevent her jaw from dropping. Then she had to think about the question while her mind tried to adjust to the difference between her image of Jared Ransom and the reality. The fogey was gorgeous.

  She forced her brain into gear again. He was still single, with a job that took him out of the country. And he did not seem to be dealing well with at least one of the children. She would be better for them than he would.

  She began to give him her name, when a light seemed to go on in his eyes and he said with sudden relief, “Of course! You must be from Northwest Nannies. I appreciate your coming so promptly.”

  Libby opened her mouth to correct his misconception, then stopped when she recognized that moment as significant. She could tell him the truth as she’d intended. Or she could accept his misinterpretation of her presence as the gift it was—just as the trip back in time was—just as the opportunity to spend time with the children would be.

  In light of what had happened to her since she’d opened her eyes that morning, it seemed entirely possible that this was a present from the hand of God Himself, ordained to rectify the past.

  With a sense of free-falling without a rip cord within reach, she smiled widely and offered her hand. “Elizabeth Madison,” she said. “Libby.”

  He shook her hand in a warm, firm grip, then resumed his earlier frown as he pulled her inside. “Come on in. I have a second challenge for you inside.”

  Libby got a quick impression of blue-and-ivory silk wallpaper and Queen Anne furnishings as Jared led the way through the small living area to a large room beyond. It was a bedroom.

  He swept a large, square hand to the king-sized sleigh bed covered in a pink-and-green flowered quilt. “Let’s see what you can do with that,” he said.

  She studied it a moment, her mind sorting through all the possible interpretations of the statement. She turned to him, an eyebrow raised.

  He returned her look blandly for a moment, then quickly shook his head. “No. Under the bed. Savannah—your second charge—has been under the bed since breakfast.”

  “Oh.” Libby laughed softly and handed him back the baby, taking his muscled arm and making a hook of it so that the baby could remain on its stomach. Then she got down on her hands and knees and peered under the bed skirt.

  “Savannah?” she called. “Hi, baby. It’s Libby.”

  There was a little squeal, followed by the sounds of a rapid crawl. Then a small, round-faced little girl with large, tear-filled brown eyes and disheveled brown braids burst from under the bed and into her arms.

  The child clutched a foot-high handmade doll designed to replicate a gingerbread man. It had black button eyes, was trimmed in white rickrack, and the nap of its fabric was balding in spots from being held. Libby remembered that Savannah had been clutching the doll when she’d been brought into the hospital.

  Libby sat back on her heels and simply held her, knowing she’d been right about why she’d been sent back here. The children needed her. They wanted her. And she wanted them. Now all she had to do was explain that to Jared Ransom.

  She hugged Savannah to her with one hand and pushed herself to her feet with the other. She turned to see Ransom right beside her, his frown suspicious.

  “You know these children?” he demanded.

  Chapter Two

  Libby felt an instant’s panic, then realized the true answer was both reasonable and safe to give. “I volunteer in Pediatrics at the hospital. I read to the children.”

  He studied her a moment then seemed to relax, apparently finding it logical that a young nanny would volunteer her spare time to care for sick children.

  She became even more convinced that divine intervention was at work here.

  JARED WAS DOING his best to keep his head despite the unreality of the past few days. He’d lost the man who’d been a lifelong friend, the woman who’d been the love of his life, and he’d assumed guardianship of their two children, when he knew next to nothing about how to care for them.

  Then, in his darkest hour, this plumed angel appeared and hushed the tumult in his world. It was weird. He’d always felt that things that seemed too good to be true generally were.

  But she seemed to be true. She was certainly flesh and blood. Pink and smooth flesh that was just a littl
e freckled over a small, straight nose. She had summersky eyes, a berry colored mouth and long, straight hair the color of old marble. And that incredible package was topped by a tweed hat with a preposterous feather.

  Her appearance had a sort of magical effect on a situation he’d begun to believe was hopeless. Now, after eighteen hours of one child screaming and the other hiding, both were quiet and a new serenity was settling over his surroundings.

  A subtle disturbance stirred inside him where he usually managed to maintain clarity and peace. A beautiful nanny appearing at just the right moment and seeming to be precisely what the children needed? Was he trapped in a television sitcom, or had heaven sent him an angel?

  His eyes went to the feather on her hat as he lingered over the thought.

  “I want my mommy,” Savannah wept pathetically against Libby’s neck. “I want my daddy!”

  The child had been telling him that for the past eighteen hours. He had no idea how to explain to a fouryear-old that her parents were dead and that she would never see them again.

  Libby glanced up at him, her eyes filled with empathy. “Has she eaten?”

  He shook his head. “Not a bite today.”

  “Would you see if room service can deliver a grilled cheese and a glass of milk?”

  “Sure.” Jared took the baby into the other room and called room service. While waiting for them to pick up, he heard Libby’s voice soothing Savannah.

  “We talked about this in the hospital, remember? Mommy and Daddy went to heaven to be with God.”

  “I want them to come back!”

  “They can’t, sweetie. Now it’s just us, but we’re going to be fine. You’ll see.”

  Just us. Jared leaned a hip against the back of the sofa, the baby now sound asleep on his forearm, and thought her “us” had a particularly intimate sound, as though he’d been left out of it.

  He concluded the next moment that that was ridiculous. It was just that he felt far less competent with the children than she obviously was. Then room service answered and he turned his attention to placing the order.

  While Libby and Savannah ate on stools at a small bar that separated a tiny kitchen from the living area, Jared put the sleeping baby in his carrier. Then he braced himself and called his mother. Everything had happened so fast that he hadn’t had a chance yet to tell her about Frank and Mandy and his impulsive decision to take the children.

  He was grateful when he got his mother’s answering machine. He simply told her he was finally back in the country and that he’d be home the following afternoon.

  She wasn’t going to like this. Though she was always campaigning for him to marry and produce grandchildren, she wouldn’t be happy that he’d chosen to connect himself forever with the children of the woman who’d left him for his best friend.

  He felt as though he’d resolved the past, but his mother was fiercely loyal to him. She thought of Mandy only in the darkest terms.

  Now all he had to figure out was how in the hell he was going to do this. He was certain that he’d figure it out eventually; his business life was all about salvage, after all, and he was good at it.

  He went to the counter in the kitchen, where room service had left the tray, and poured himself a cup of coffee. He turned to find two pairs of eyes on him—one pair wide and dark and frightened, the other clear blue and speculative.

  Libby had taken off her hat, and gold bangs skimmed her eyebrows, while the lustrous length of her hair lay like a shawl around her shoulders and down her back. For a moment, he was helpless to pull his eyes away from it.

  Then Savannah squirmed and he turned his attention to her. He noticed that she’d eaten half the sandwich and pushed the rest away. Her small fingers were wrapped around the glass of milk, and she sported a white mustache.

  “Scooby is on,” she said, as though the statement required some action on his part.

  He didn’t even know what Scooby was, or what it was on and why that created a problem for a four-year-old.

  “It’s a cartoon,” Libby explained, her tone a little superior, he thought. “’Scooby-Doo.’ On television.”

  “Ah.” He pointed to the set, relieved to be faced with an issue he could actually do something about. “Go ahead and turn it on.”

  Savannah immediately scrambled off the stool.

  “When she’s settled,” he said, stopping Libby as she turned to follow the child, “you and I should discuss a few things. I’ll be making some calls in the bedroom.”

  She nodded. “I’ll find you.”

  He watched Libby detour to check on Zachary, still comfortably asleep in his carrier on the coffee table, then get comfortable with Savannah in a corner of the sofa. The child’s little legs stuck straight out in front of her, her tiny tennis shoes protruding from a pair of jeans trimmed in daisies. Libby gracefully crossed her legs and hooked an arm around the little girl, who leaned into her.

  She seemed perfect. She’d been here under an hour and already a pretty desperate situation was under control. He just had the most unsettling feeling that control was in her hands and not his.

  He sat at the round table near the window and punched up the telephone book on his laptop. He called Columbia Freight and discovered that his shipment from Scotland would arrive the following Monday, so he’d have a few days to make room for it in his workshop. Then he called his client for the Corinthian columns and listened to twenty minutes of her raptures on the garden house she intended to build around them.

  “Please watch for a stone urn,” she said. “Wouldn’t that just complete the interior with cascading ivy?”

  “I think my mother has one in her shop,” he said. “It’s just a molded concrete pot, but there’s an architectural sculpture of three angels back to back coming with my shipment. It’d be a great spot to put the urn.”

  “Perfect! Call me when it comes.”

  He phoned his brother.

  “King’s Ransom,” Darren’s cheerful bass voice answered. In the background could be heard the sounds of pots and pans and the din of a busy kitchen.

  “An anchovy-and-pineapple pizza, please,” Jared ordered gravely, “and a side of curly fries. Could you deliver that?”

  “Do they let you eat,” Darren asked, “in the orthopedic unit of the hospital?”

  Jared grinned to himself. “You’re not suggesting that you can put me there?”

  Darren lowered his voice. “After four days of Mom visiting me, I could tie the Eiffel Tower in a knot! Where the hell are you?”

  “Portland,” Jared replied on a low laugh. “I’ll be home tomorrow. You’re such a wuss. Mom visits me all the time.”

  “You have ten acres and several buildings to get lost in!” Darren’s angry whisper was growing more desperate. “I live in a four-room condo, three rooms of which are now occupied by our mother and the dogs. And that includes the kitchen and the bathroom. If I want to eat or…read, I have to do it at the restaurant.”

  Jared could sympathize. His mother had three of the most annoying dogs on the face of the planet. “What’s she doing there?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean, you’re not sure?”

  “I mean, I’m not the confidant you are. She just settled for me because you were in Scotland. What, please God, can you do in Scotland that you can’t do here?”

  “Buy the contents of a castle.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line while Darren apparently considered the irrefutability of that, then he sighed audibly. “Besides that,” he groused.

  “Buy you a case of the smoothest scotch you’ve ever tasted.”

  Another silence while Darren wondered whether or not to believe him. “Did you really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.” Darren’s voice became suddenly conciliatory. “Now, if you’ll get Mom out of my place, I’ll only break one of your legs.”

  “Well…” He didn’t know how to tell him that his mother
was the last person he needed to see at the moment.

  “Oh, no,” Darren barked. “I don’t care if you have brought home a delicious Scottish lass, my sanity is more important than your sex life.”

  “You don’t have any sanity.”

  “And you have more sex in your life than the NFL, so help me out here!”

  Calmly, quietly, Jared told his brother about Frank and Mandy’s deaths. “I just happened to call his office from Edinburgh because I’d found a partner’s desk he’d always wanted, and heard about the accident. I hurried right back.”

  “I’m sorry. I know how much he meant to you.” Darren sighed. “And I know you never stopped loving her.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah.” The simple affirmative lacked conviction. “So, do you have to settle the estate or something?”

  That was certainly one way of putting it. “They left two children,” he said. “I’ve got them.”

  There was another heavy pause. “For how long?”

  “Until they go away to college, I imagine.”

  A choke. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No. I have a four-year-old girl in the living room of my hotel suite at this very moment, watching cartoons, and a five-month-old boy fast asleep in a carrier.”

  “Jared—” Darren began.

  “I know,” Jared cut him off quietly. He realized how difficult it was going to be. He didn’t have to have it pointed out. “Frank and I were friends since college, and Mandy…well…” There were no words for what Amanda Breen had meant to him. “Anyway, tell Mom I said hi and that I’m going to need a little time to get the kids settled in and establish a routine.”

  “By yourself?” Darren sounded incredulous.

  “Relax. I’ve hired a nanny.” Jared looked up as he spoke the words, and found that Libby stood in the doorway. She backed away when she saw he was on the phone, but he beckoned her to return, and pointed to the chair opposite him.