Did that really ever happen to anyone? She couldn’t believe that it did, but it was happening to her!
“You’ll need a place to put your paints and materials. What do you call those things with drawers?” Jared’s hand sketched a low table in the air at about his knee level.
She put all her disorienting thoughts aside to answer him.
“A tabaret,” she said.
“Right. And you’ll need somewhere to put yourself when you’re using it. A stool, maybe? I think we have an old bar stool with a back in the shop.”
“Please,” she told him. “You aren’t required to provide what I need for my spare-time activities.” She didn’t want him to think her art would interfere with her obligations to the children. Particularly since she ultimately intended to win them from him. Determination and guilt, she decided as she shifted her weight uncomfortably, were quarrelsome emotions when carried together.
“You have to have something to do with your weekends,” he said politely. He managed to reinforce, she thought with a sigh, the point that she was employed, and would be expected to stay out of their way when she was off duty.
It occurred to her for the first time that weekends would probably be awkward. Would she have to leave the house? Provide her own food? She had no cooking facilities.
She couldn’t very well take a motel room for two days.
“The bar stool would be great, thank you,” she said, unconsciously adjusting the table to the angle she preferred. “And I can get by without a tabaret and make do with a flat table.” She looked around her for something she could cover with a cloth, but a small escritoire, and a little table by the chair she’d moved both looked too-valuable to put to such use.
“I’m sure I’ve got something in the workshop I can bring over,” he said. “Anything else you need?”
“I do have a question about weekends.”
He rested his hands on his hips. “What is it?”
“Would you like me…out of the house?”
He seemed to be trying to measure the question—and possibly her mood after their little exchange when they’d parted company earlier in the day.
“You mean because you’re just the nanny?” he asked. His expression was straight, but she saw the humor in his eyes.
She had to get on a comfortable footing here, so she swallowed her pride. “All right. I apologize. But I’ve never been…” She stopped herself just in time. She had to remain alert! “I’ve never been a live-in nanny before. I’m not sure about the protocol.”
He nodded and folded his arms, obviously taking her seriously. “Fair enough. I’ve never employed one before, so we’ll probably both be learning as we go. Right now, as far as I’m concerned, you can leave if you like, but you aren’t required to. Where would you eat and sleep?”
She felt great relief. “I don’t know. That was my question.”
“Look. You live here. But weekends will be yours. You can work up here, or you can come downstairs and entertain yourself however you like. Town’s an easy mile walk, and Justy’s always running off to Longview to shop—that’s about an hour away—or to Astoria. There are a few things to see there, several nice galleries. Do whatever you like. On Saturdays and Sundays, you can come and go. The difference will be that if you’re home and the children call or cry, you don’t have to respond.”
How could she not? She’d have to try to cooperate. She didn’t want to alienate him and have him fire her before she got the children from him.
Plus the salary he paid her and the conditions he offered were more than generous. She was grateful for that. Had the situation been different, she might have found him appealing.
Well. Truth to tell, she did find him appealing. But if the situation were different, she’d do something about it.
“All right,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Sure. Anything else?”
The sound of a child crying suddenly penetrated the upstairs quiet. Libby ran across the hall, Jared right behind her, and found Savannah standing in the middle of the room looking sleepy and disheveled, wringing her little hands.
Libby dropped to one knee in front of her and took hold of her arms. “What, sweetie? I’m right here.”
“I forgot where the bathroom is.” She wept urgently.
Libby pointed to the door at the end of the room. “Right there, Savannah. You have your own. Do you want me to—”
“No. I can do it by myself.” And Savannah ran.
Libby pushed herself to her feet, relieved that the crisis had been so ordinary. She turned to find Jared standing just inside the door, watching her with a thin, reluctant smile.
Then she realized what she’d done.
“Am I not supposed to respond if you’re around?” she asked. This was going to be so much more difficult than she’d imagined.
He shook his head at her, the gesture almost indulgent. “I think you’d implode if I asked you to do that. You’re sure you haven’t been at this very long? You seem to have well-honed child-care instincts.”
She made a careless gesture with one hand. “I’m a woman.”
His glance swept her from head to foot with an acceptance of that declaration that managed to be respectful and unnerving at the same time.
“That you are,” he said. Then he turned away from her to look around the room. “So, what do you think? Should we paint this pink?”
Perfectly willing to let the matter drop, she began a serious study of her surroundings. “Actually, I was thinking that I could paint a border on it for Savannah, if you don’t mind. And if we can get her to agree. It would create much less disturbance. You wouldn’t have to move everything out or cover it.”
“What would you paint?”
Savannah reappeared, her cheeks flushed from sleep but her eyes now wide and bright. Her rich brown braids were in disarray.
Libby pointed to the wall of cupboards and drawers. “Shall we paint Rosie on your wall, Savannah? And make some kitty pillows for your window seat?”
Savannah looked up at the wall they studied. “Pink ones?” she asked.
“Sure. Maybe some in every color.”
“Who’s Rosie?” Jared asked.
“Rosie Posie,” Savannah said, moving to his side, her eyes wide. “She flies. She gots wings.”
“Ah.” He lifted her up into his arms. “An angel.”
“No. A little girl. Like me. Libby made her.”
Jared looked beyond the child to Libby for an explanation.
“She’s in the book I’m trying to sell,” she explained. “Her mom’s an executive, and the nanny has Rosie’s twin baby brothers to claim her attention, so Rosie Posie and her cat sprout wings and go off on adventures.”
He smiled. “Obviously a less vigilant nanny than you are.”
“Obviously.”
“Do you have everything you need for the project?”
“I’ll look my paints over. I might need a few colors. But I’ll draw it up first and get Savannah’s and your approval.”
“All right with you?” he asked Savannah. “Libby’s going to make a picture of what she’s going to paint.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I want to paint, too.”
Jared looked doubtfully at Libby.
“Sure,” she said. “We’ll give her one drawer, or one closet door she can do herself. Wouldn’t that be all right?”
“It’s your masterpiece.”
A squeal from the baby downstairs made Libby turn in that direction. Then she turned back, not sure whether Jared wanted to be left with Savannah.
“Go to Justine’s rescue,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”
She hurried off, thinking that things just might be taking a positive turn. He seemed to be willing to work with her if she showed a cooperative frame of mind.
That was good. It might help to make a friend of him before she tried to convince him she’d make the better parent.
“WHAT’S IN THERE?” Savannah ask
ed, pointing to the drawers and closets under discussion.
“Nothing right now,” Jared said, taking a few steps forward and opening a closet door so that she could peer inside. “But when your toys come, we’ll put them all in here.”
“But they’re home.”
“I had a big truck pick them up at home, and now they’re on their way to you.”
She smiled, seeming to like that idea. “I gots a Katie Cooking Kitchen.” She spread her arms, seemingly to indicate that it was enormous. “An’ a beauty shop.”
“Wow.”
She put small fingers to the hair on his forehead. “I can curl your hair.”
“Oh, boy,” he said. Life as a parent would take some adjustment, but he was willing to bet it would be the small things that made the biggest impact on him.
For instance, when he’d decided to do this, he’d had no idea there’d be such pleasure in simply holding a child, in feeling her warmth as she leaned trustingly against him. He’d had no idea how eagerly he’d wait for a smile, or how it would warm him when it came and make him think that maybe this was what it was all about, rather than any other kind of success.
Savannah looked into his eyes and he saw Frank there—serious, earnest, but with a spark of humor tucked away. Then she smiled and he saw Mandy—charming, flirtatious, greedy for life.
He’d resolved the anger that had ruled him for months after they’d told him they were in love. He’d moved to another project, and felt mature and magnanimous when he’d sent a wedding gift in response to their invitation. But he hadn’t gone to the wedding.
Then Frank had called and begged him to come back for their baby’s baptism. When he’d pleaded overwork, Mandy had gotten on the phone and told him they’d talked it over and decided that even if he couldn’t forgive them, they wanted to know that their child would always belong in some part to him.
And he hadn’t known how to dismiss that trust.
And as Savannah now wrapped her arms around his neck, he was glad he hadn’t.
“I like you,” she said, as though sure he’d been waiting to hear that.
He had.
LIBBY SMILED at the freshly bathed child in her Pocahontas pajamas. She’d eaten a reasonable portion of chicken and noodles, helped Libby load the dishwasher and clean up the kitchen, and had been bribed into going to bed with promises of a Rosie story.
Savannah crawled under the covers and snuggled in, her balding gingerbread man in the crook of her arm. “The one about her at that place with the tall thing.”
“The Eiffel Tower.” Libby sat on the edge of the bed and turned the beside lamp onto its lowest setting. Rosie in Paris was her favorite, too.
Slowly, quietly, she spun out the story of the little sixyear-old who made friends with a stray tuxedo cat and discovered that when she held the cat and wished very hard, her dreams came true.
And because she’d been supplanted in everyone’s attention by two screaming baby brothers, her dream was always to go far away and visit the places where her mother went on business.
When her mother went to Paris to close an important deal, Rosie and Tuxedo followed after her.
They flew over the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de triomphe, Notre Dame and all the other attractions that drew tourists. When they tired of that, they ate croissants at a boulangerie, drank tea in a sidewalk café, and went shopping on the Champs-Élysées.
Savannah’s favorite part was when they stowed away on a barge on the Seine and were discovered by the captain, but instead of calling the police, the captain shared his pâté and crackers with them.
At the end of the book, Rosie and Tux bump into her mother at Tour d’Argent and they all flew home together on the Concorde. But Libby left out that part, afraid of reminding Savannah that her own mother could not be found.
“So, where does she go after that?” Savannah wanted to know.
“I think to Rome,” Libby replied. “She wants to see the pigeons at the Vatican. But we’ll save that story for tomorrow night, okay?”
“Okay.”
Libby leaned over to kiss her cheek, then stood to turn out the light, and noticed Jared in the doorway, a shoulder leaning against the molding, a very wide-awake Zachary in his arms.
He straightened and walked into the room. “Good story,” he praised as they passed each other at the foot of the bed. “But when you and Rosie go to Rome tomorrow night, the pigeons are at Saint Peter’s, not the Vatican.”
Libby hated being wrong. It had been a lifelong frailty. But she smiled in the shadows and said softly, “Pigeons are generally everywhere. I don’t think Savannah cares about that.”
He tipped his head in a “probably so” gesture. “I just thought if you send that story off to a publisher, you might care. Would you hold Zack while I say good-night to Savannah?”
“Of course,” she answered stiffly, and left the room in a slight huff. But she lingered outside to listen. She had every right, she told herself. She was going to be Savannah’s mother.
“Everything okay?” she heard Jared ask. “You comfortable?”
“Yeah,” the child replied in a small voice. “Tomorrow can I paint?”
“Sure.”
“Can I have those noodles again?”
“You liked those?”
He sounded pleased. Something in his voice prodded her sense of righteousness and bled a little drop of guilt. She tossed her head and ignored it.
“They were yummy.”
“I liked them, too. We’ll have the leftovers tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
She sounded sleepy. The bedcovers rustled. Libby imagined that Jared leaned over to kiss her good-night.
He confirmed that an instant later with a throaty “Good night, Savannah.”
“’Night…I forgot your name.”
“Jared.”
“’Night, Jared.”
“’Night, baby.”
Libby dashed toward the stairs when she heard Jared get to his feet. She ran lightly down them, through the kitchen and into the living room, where she sat on the sofa with the baby, trying very much to look as though she’d been there since she’d left him.
She propped Zachary up against the corner pillows and made faces at him. He studied her gravely.
When Jared appeared, she glanced up at him, innocence in her eyes. “Everything okay?”
“Seems to be,” he replied, picking the baby up and sitting in his place, then holding him before him and letting Zachary’s toes rest on his thighs.
Nice thighs, she noticed absently, long and athletic, rather than bunched and bulbous.
“But then, you know that, don’t you?” he asked conversationally, not even turning to look at her. “You heard everything I said to Savannah.”
She gasped indignantly, but he sent her a scolding glance that cut it short.
“Don’t play with me, Libby,” he said, lifting the baby high so that the infant smiled widely and shrieked. “I thought we had this out last night. I admitted I had a lot to learn. Why do you feel you have to spy on me?”
“I wasn’t spying on you,” she denied, moving aside to put a little more distance between them.
“You were watching me, thinking that I couldn’t see you.” He smiled at the delighted baby as he hoisted him for another bounce. “What do you call that?”
She thought fast. “I…I was standing by…in case I was needed.”
“Good try,” he said, sitting Zachary on his knees and bouncing him. “I think the truth is, you don’t trust me…yet you admitted you aren’t that much more experienced at dealing with children than I am.”
She opened her mouth to rebut. He interrupted her before she could begin. “And don’t give me that stuff about your being a woman. We’re supposed to be an enlightened generation. We know that men can nurture just as well as women.”
“I was just…trying to be conscientious.”
“You were spying. And if I find you doing that again, I’ll let
you go.”
Panic seized her. She fought to keep her head. “If you’re serious about being a good father,” she said calmly, “you’ll have to learn to be less judgmental and listen to the other side of the story before you start making threats.”
“I will never,” he said quietly, very seriously, “be the kind of father—or the kind of employer—who counts to three. I will get cooperation when I ask for it, or consequences happen.”
She’d always considered counting a self-defeating style of discipline, but she was in no mood to agree with him. And she was hardly in a position to disagree. She looked for neutral ground.
“I guess,” she said, trying to appear penitent without seeming cowed, “I was a little worried that the pain the children’s parents must have caused you would affect…”
She closed her eyes for a moment over her own ignorance. She certainly had a lot to learn about subterfuge.
“Justy told me,” she admitted before he could ask how she knew what Mandy had been to him. “It wasn’t deliberate. We were discussing the children and it just sort of…came out.”
He looked as though he wasn’t sure what to be most angry about—the fact that she and Justy had been discussing him, or that she’d questioned his motives in taking the children.
His eyes darkened as he tucked the baby into the crook of his arm so that he could give Libby his full attention.
“You thought I’d take out my disappointments on two helpless children?”
Spoken aloud, it was a reprehensible question. But if he wanted frankness, she’d give it to him—as much as she dared.
“I didn’t know,” she replied, looking him in the eye. “But I spent several days with the children while they were in the hospital, and grew very attached to them. I…I was very pleased when you…when the agency sent me to you because that meant I could…keep an eye on them. They came to mean a lot to me.”
He held her defensive stare, and she saw a very subtle softening in his eyes. But it did not reflect itself in his jaw—or his manner.
“I’m glad to know that,” he said finally, “but I’m beginning to think we’ve made a mistake here. I do want a nanny who cares, but you don’t seem to be able to remember that these children are mine and not yours. And that my life is none of your business.”
The Comeback Mom Page 6