The Comeback Mom

by Muriel Jensen

  “Darren, I’ve got to go,” he said. “Don’t worry. Tell Mom, but don’t let her worry, and I’ll call both of you as soon as we’re settled in.”

  “But…”

  He hung up on his brother’s protest.

  LIBBY MADE HERSELF relax in her chair while trying to deal with the facts she’d overheard. He had a mother and a sibling—she hadn’t been able to determine male or female by his end of the conversation—and he intended to keep the children until they went away to college.

  Well. That certainly put her in a more difficult position than she’d anticipated. She’d hoped his experience with them today would have made him susceptible to a subtle suggestion on her part that he might not be cut out for the role of parent.

  But he’d sounded resolved on the phone. And he seemed to have valid reasons for having made his decision. Apparently the children’s father had been his best friend. And their mother. Libby didn’t know what the connection was there, except that she’d heard something in his voice when he’d said her name.

  That would be interesting to speculate about, but the issue at the moment was the children.

  “Zachary still asleep?” Jared Ransom asked her.

  “Yes,” she replied. “And Savannah’s asleep on the sofa.”

  “Good.” He leaned into the back of his chair and stretched long legs out to the side. “I was beginning to think I’d never get her out from under the bed. Lucky you came so quickly after my call.”

  She answered with a smile. A lie of omission had to be less evil than the real thing, she felt sure.

  “This is going to be a big job, Mr. Ransom,” she suggested in a tone that she hoped sounded respectful without being patronizing.

  Apparently it didn’t come off. He raised an arrogant eyebrow. “I thought you handled the children very competently,” he replied.

  She felt off balance for an instant. “I meant it’ll be a big job for you,” she corrected.

  He nodded, folding his hands over a flat stomach. His eyes were reading her. She didn’t like that, but she met them intrepidly.

  “I’d figured that out, Libby,” he said. “But it’s something I’m determined to do. So I will. I wanted to talk about your role in my household.”

  Her role. For ten years she’d seen her role as the children’s mother. Only she’d botched it. Now that she had a second chance, she wasn’t going to blow it again.

  “I can care for them, of course.” She spoke quietly, carefully. “But I can’t replace a parent’s love and understanding.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” he said, a slight pleat between his eyebrows. “I will provide the love and understanding as soon as I figure out how it’s done. I—”

  “But you have no experience with children, have you?”

  “I’d say that was mercilessly obvious. I’m used to dealing with wood and marble and plaster—heavy, substantial things. The children are so small and fragile that they terrify me. But I’ll get over it. Other men seem to.”

  Libby found that admission disarmingly frank. It compounded her feeling of being off balance. “You travel a lot, don’t you?” she said, then realized her gaffe. “My boss…mentioned it,” she added quickly, praying that he’d shared that information when he’d called the nanny service.

  His gaze pinned her for a long moment. She expected him to spring to his feet, declare her a fraud and order her out of his suite and out of their lives.

  She held his stare, everything inside her poised for battle. But he nodded after a moment and smiled politely. “I take several trips a year. That’s why I requested a nanny who could move to Washington with us and travel if need be. Are you willing to relocate?”

  She barely bit back a smile. She’d moved ten years back in time. A hundred miles into another state hardly seemed a challenge.

  She wondered if it wouldn’t be much simpler just to blurt out the truth. Look, Ransom. I fell in love with these children while you were chasing whatever kind of fish lives in Scotland, and frankly, though your most outstanding qualities are great good looks and an ability to melt diamonds with your eyes, I don’t see that they’ll do you much good as a parent, so why don’t you drop the whole idea of becoming a bachelor father and let me do what God sent me back to do. Let me have these children.

  But something in his eyes told her that despite his quiet, controlled manner, no business conducted with this man would go easily for the second party. He’d just told her he was used to dealing with wood, marble and plaster—all hard substances. She guessed that somewhere along the way he’d acquired some of their properties.

  “I can relocate,” she said, “but I have a particular affection for these children because…because I got to know them in the hospital. I just wonder how wise it is to uproot them when their little worlds are already upside down and—”

  “Elizabeth.”

  Her father used to say her name in just that way. There was a kind of reckoning in the tone, a reminder that one of them was parent and one child—or in this case, employer and employee.

  “Let’s clarify something here,” he said. “I don’t usually explain myself to anyone, but I understand that your position as nanny creates a unique situation and I have to consider that. But while the daily care of the children would be yours, the responsibility for their welfare, their sense of security, even Savannah’s recovery from the loss of her parents, is mine. I am not hiring you to pass that on to you. Frank Bonello was my best friend since college, and his wife and I were…acquainted…before she ever met him.”

  Libby speculated over the word he’d chosen so carefully, but she remained still as he went on.

  “Now, that isn’t your business, but I’m telling you only so that you’ll understand how serious I am about this. Those children are the offspring of my best friend and a woman I never stopped…caring about, and they have no one else in the world but me. I intend to love them and raise them and am perfectly prepared for it to be difficult for me.” He sighed, as though explaining all that had been a chore. “I hoped that hiring a nanny would make the adjustment less difficult for the children. But a nanny who doubts my abilities isn’t going to be good for any of us. I’ll be happy to pay you for today and ask the agency to send someone else. I’ll even tell them you found us unsuitable rather than the other way around.”

  He waited for an answer.

  Libby fought desperately to keep thinking while dealing with panic. She couldn’t let him dismiss her! Not only would that immediately separate her from the children, but when he called the agency to replace her and discovered they hadn’t sent her, she’d be in trouble big time. And the story of how she insinuated herself into Jared’s hotel room was sure to make her look completely insane and unscrupulous.

  It also would not please a judge if she ended up in court one day, fighting Jared for custody of the children.

  So, she had to make this plan work so that it wouldn’t come to that.

  “Please,” she said, trying to quiet the flutter in her voice. The way she saw it, she had no alternative but to swallow her pride, apologize for presuming too much, and agree to hire on. Raising two little children was going to be harder for him than even he imagined. Her only recourse was to be around when it all fell apart on him and he finally gave up. Then they would be hers. “You’re right, of course. I’m sorry. I’m a little…over-eager, I guess. I’d like to stay on and help.” She looked at him directly with as much dignity as she could muster. “Unless you’d like to replace me.”

  He held her gaze, then after an interminable moment, sighed and shook his head. “No. You deal well with the children, and Savannah seems very fond of you—that will help. I was thinking you’d work five days a week, have weekends off unless I’m away, then you’d get compensating time off.” Then he proposed a monthly salary that was more than she made in three months waitressing—with tips.

  “That sounds…satisfactory,” she said.

  “Good.” He stood. She fol
lowed. “Can you pack your things and make your arrangements and be back tonight?”

  She looked worried. “Will you be all right until then?”

  “If you hurry.”

  Libby rode to the ground floor in the elevator, thinking wryly that the trip back in time may have been a gift, but it was beginning to look a little like a Trojan horse.

  On her way through the lobby, she heard a young woman in a severe suit ask for Jared Ransom’s room. She intercepted her before the desk clerk could put through a call.

  “Are you from…?” What had he called it? “Northwest Nannies?”

  The girl was probably college age, and wore glasses, no makeup and a very grave expression. When she nodded, Libby hooked an arm in hers and walked her back toward the door, explaining that she was Jared Ransom’s secretary and that the position of nanny had been filled.

  The girl smiled thinly. “Good. I wanted a placement in Southern California anyway.”

  Libby thanked heaven for the ease with which she’d been able to handle that obstacle, and headed for her car.

  JARED STOOD at the living-room window and watched the gold-colored speck six floors down that was Libby Madison run across the street to the parking lot.

  He didn’t know what to make of her. He could look at almost any antique object in a home, from plumbing fixtures to garden ornaments, date it within a few years, set a value on it and explain its history to a client.

  But the nanny had him puzzled. Something about her seemed curiously out of line or tune or sync. He didn’t know which or why. But she was good with the children, and he was more desperate for help with them than he wanted her to know.

  Becoming a single parent was nothing he would have chosen to do, but he owed his friend, and his first thought yesterday when he’d looked into Savannah’s eyes was that she should have been his. And now she was. And so was Zachary. And if the quirky nanny helped make that possible, it wasn’t important that he understand her. He just had to take her with them to Cranberry Harbor.

  LIBBY HELD the baby in one arm and Savannah by the hand as her new employer hauled suitcases out of the back of the truck he’d left at the Portland Airport when he’d flown to Scotland. The day was overcast and cold, and she felt Savannah huddle against her side as she stared at Jared Ransom’s house.

  It stood on a broad expanse of sand and sea grass between the Pacific Ocean and a two-lane highway that led farther down the peninsula. Tall, long-needled pines hovered protectively near it, and a fence with alternating tall and shorter pickets the same gray-green color of the house surrounded a struggling lawn. To the side beyond the fence was one large shedlike structure on which the name ARCHI-JUNK had been painted in tall, green letters.

  But it was the structure of the house itself that claimed her attention. It was two storied, with three tall peaks, a deep veranda and a decorative trim along the peaks and roofline that appeared delicate enough to be made of lace. That was impossible, she knew, but the work was so fine it gave an appearance of softness to the sharp angles.

  Jared joined her and the children.

  “Is that Gothic architecture?” she asked as he left the lineup of bags where they were and led the way up the steps.

  “The details are Gothic, but the style is called Original American.” He inserted a key in the lock, pushed the door open and gestured her inside. “Go on in. I’ll bring the bags up.”

  Savannah, clutching her gingerbread doll, kept pace with her as she moved into a high-ceilinged living room that was surprisingly light and airy, given the seriousness of the lines of the house. The walls were white, and a wide, scrolly wood trim was a warmer ecru shade. A big, comfortable-looking sofa was upholstered in a big blue-and-white check and placed at an angle to what appeared to be a blue marble-trimmed fireplace. The mantel, she noticed in fascination, was hand-painted with a scene depicting a colonial house and a spotted horse. She knew nothing about antiques, but got the feeling it was very old.

  A love seat in the same check fabric squared off the area around the fireplace, and a winged-back chair in red, white and blue stood off a ways under a standing Tiffany lamp.

  Ecru draperies were open at all the windows, and a deep window seat across the room drew Savannah’s attention. She went to it and climbed up to sit among the red, white and blue cushions.

  Comfort seemed to have been combined with probably costly antiques to create an atmosphere that was both welcoming and awe inspiring.

  “A logger built this in 1896,” Jared said as he dropped the last bag inside and closed the door behind him. He looked around with a satisfied nod. “It’s been through a few hands since then. I bought it five years ago when I came home again.”

  “From where?” she asked, interested, then remembered that he’d drawn the line last night between himself and her. She was the nanny. His past was none of her business.

  “The East Coast,” he replied easily.

  Which surprised her. Apparently he didn’t feel that revealing that much blurred the line.

  “I’d spent a few years helping restore a Georgian mansion in Maryland, and a Victorian in Connecticut. Did I mention I’m an architectural historian?”

  She opened her mouth to admit that Miller had told her, then remembered she wasn’t supposed to know him. She pretended surprise, instead. “What does that involve?”

  “It used to mean helping restore historic homes and buildings, but now I’m into the lighter side of it. I save architectural details from buildings that are being torn down or renovated, restore them in the workshop you probably noticed as we came in…”

  She nodded.

  “Then I have a shop in town where I sell them to people looking for something interesting and different.”

  She had to admit to herself that that didn’t sound fogeyish at all.

  “It must be exciting to tie into the past that way. Did you ever feel…” She hesitated, not entirely sure what she meant to ask. Did he ever feel as though he’d been caught in the past? Even only ten years past? “You know, sort of…connected?”

  His brow furrowed at the question even as he smiled. “If you mean, have I come upon any ghosts, the answer is no. But I have sometimes run my hand along a banister, or stood in the middle of a mirrored ballroom and felt…” Then he hesitated and his expression grew more serious as he struggled to explain. “I don’t know…energy, laughter, passion…leftover, I guess, because it was just too strong to die with whoever had felt it.”

  Yes. She understood. Love for the children had brought her back.

  The baby began to fuss, and the sudden tension evaporated in the need to warm a bottle and find the baby food she’d stashed in the diaper bag.

  Jared led the way to a large kitchen, with tall, old-fashioned cupboards painted forest green and up-to-theminute stove, refrigerator, dishwasher and microwave disguised behind facades of oak bead board. A long, wide oak table occupied the middle of the room, and eight paddle-backed chairs were pulled up to it.

  The wall above the stove held several plank shelves that bore decoys, old tins, a clay crock and a large painting of a garlic bulb.

  A lacy, three-tiered bird cage hung from an exposed beam in the center of the room.

  Libby stared until Zachary’s distress galvanized her into action. She zapped rice cereal briefly in the microwave and poured in milk they’d stopped for on the way home.

  While she settled in one of the captain’s chairs to feed the baby, Jared looked through the cupboards to find something for lunch.

  “Vegetable soup?” he asked Savannah.

  She stood at Libby’s side. “Yucky,” she said with quiet disapproval.

  “Okay.” He held the door of the cupboard open farther as he perused its contents. “Tuna?”

  “No.”

  “Peanut butter?”

  “No.”

  He turned from the cupboard, a teasing smile in place. “Artichoke hearts?”

  Savannah turned frowningly to Libby. “W
hat’s that?”

  Libby laughed. “I don’t think you’d like them. Why don’t we have the soup?”

  Savannah considered that, then wandered from Libby’s chair to stand beside Jared and strain up on tiptoe to look for herself. “I can’t see,” she complained.

  Jared held his hands down to her. “Want a boost up?”

  She studied him suspiciously for a moment, then raised her arms.

  He scooped her up and rested her on his hip. She grabbed a fistful of the sleeve of his gray-and-blue plaid flannel shirt and peered among the boxed and canned goods.

  She pointed victoriously. “Olives!” she said.

  Jared looked into the bright-brown eyes, at the wisps of brown hair escaping the braids Libby had recombed that morning and the apple cheeks finally dimpled with a smile, and knew he couldn’t deny her.

  “Okay, olives,” he said, handing her the can, which she hugged to her. “And what’ll we have with them?”

  “Ummmm…” She studied her options again and spotted a box displayed on the top shelf. “Cookies!” She pointed again.

  She was a woman after his own heart. Olives and brownies were among his favorites, though he couldn’t recall having had them together.

  He took the box of fancy cookies down and placed it on the counter. “Okay. Cookies for dessert. But we need something else. Let’s try the freezer.”

  He put her down to protect her from the blast of cold air and stared in surprise at the stacks of marked freezer bags. “Whoa,” he said to Savannah. “Your uncle Darren’s been here.”

  “Who’s that?” she asked, still hugging her olives.

  “My brother,” he said, pulling out several packages. “He owns a restaurant, so we get lots of good stuff to eat.”

  “I have a brother. Zachary.”

  “Right. Maybe you’ll get lucky, too, and someday he’ll keep you in food. Let’s see what we’ve got. Veal Marsala, beef bourgignon, shrimp creole, chicken strips—”

  “Yeah!” she shouted, the smile growing even wider.

  He felt drunk with success.