“When I arrived in his office,” he said, “he told me no one had come forward to take the children.”
Her throat tightened painfully when she remembered how close she’d come to having the children to herself. “I was on my way to his office,” she said, her voice raspy, “and had an accident. I wasn’t hurt severely, but I was unconscious for two days. When I came to, you’d already taken them.” She withheld the detail that she’d come back in time with a second chance.
He looked skeptical. “Coincidental timing.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “If you think I’m lying, you’ll recall that my friends mentioned having left me on the sofa with the doctor’s instructions to stay down.”
“I remember,” he said grudgingly. “But that’s when you came to my hotel suite.”
She nodded. “Mr. Miller told me you were there.”
“And you just happened along at the same time that I was waiting desperately for help from a nanny service.”
“Yes.” She admitted with a small smirk, “I met the nanny from the agency in the hallway when you sent me home to get my things. I told her I was your secretary and that you’d already filled the position and checked out.”
He frowned. “And she believed you?”
Libby met his gaze blandly. “Didn’t you?”
He wasn’t pleased at being reminded of that. “Why didn’t you simply tell me the truth?” he asked.
She slapped both hands on the sofa cushions in exasperation. Why hadn’t she, indeed? “Because I’m a part-time waitress with no bank account and very few possessions. It would have been one thing had I been the only one available to adopt the children, but pitted against you—the paragon of education, accomplishment and stock-market successes—I hadn’t a prayer. So…” She drew another deep breath and looked boldly into his eyes. “So, I’d just come to see you to try to tell you how much I loved Savannah and Zachary. To see if maybe you were wishing you could unload them on somebody. When you mistook me for the nanny, it came to me in a flash. If I could observe you in action as a father and find fault, I could build up a case for getting the children away from you. Or, failing that, I would be around to take over when you decided that a bachelor adopting two young children was a big mistake. I was pretty sure that one way or the other, I’d come out on top.”
He looked back at her a moment as though he couldn’t believe her audacity. Then he asked with quiet arrogance, “And that’s usually where a manipulative woman likes to be, isn’t it? On top?”
She replied in the same tone, “And that’s always what the bull male fears most, isn’t it? Loss of power and control.”
He wasn’t going to argue that issue with her. He’d come very close a little while ago to letting her be wherever she wanted to be as long as she made love to him. And now that rankled him, as well as filled him with profound regret. So he fell back on the real issue.
“You lied to me.”
She accepted that accusation without denial this time. “I wanted the children. And frankly, that first day, I didn’t think you were going to be able to cope.”
Frankly, he’d had several occasions of real doubt himself.
“You lied to my mother and my brother,” he further accused.
Again she had to accept that she had. “I do regret that,” she admitted gravely. “I like them both. I’m sorry.”
“Just how far were you willing to go?” he asked coolly. “Into my arms, then into my bed, aiming unerringly for into my life?”
“No.” The denial was whispered on a gulp of indignation. Until that moment, she hadn’t even guessed he would think that, though as she gave it thought, it seemed like an obvious conclusion after the way she’d reacted to his embrace the night before and the way she’d melted in his arms earlier that night. But her response to him had been honest, the result of feelings she’d harbored for him since the first time she’d seen him.
“Then that was love,” he said, his dark eyes as blatantly disbelieving as his tone.
She met the mockery with her own even gaze. “No,” she said, staring him down. “It was interest, possibly even fascination. You’re wonderful with the children, despite your inexperience, and you were kind to me in a way that made me feel…cherished. That’ll stop any woman in her tracks and make her want to learn more about the man.”
That admission seemed to startle him for a moment, though hardly a muscle twitched in the set lines of his face. Then he stood and paced away from her. She had the most horrible feeling that all her honesty had done was alienate him.
Jared felt a clutch of panic in his chest. He didn’t know whether to believe her or not. All his male instincts told him she hadn’t been pretending anything, but then, those same instincts hadn’t alerted him even once when she’d been convincing him she was a nanny. They couldn’t be trusted.
And neither could she—about anything. He turned to face her, looking past the love in her eyes for the children down to the woman who’d lied to him.
“I’m terminating your employment, Libby,” he said, relishing the distress he knew this would cause her. His self-satisfaction was deflated the next moment when he saw pain standing in her eyes, darkening them to deep blue. But he made himself go on. “I’d like you to pack and be ready to leave in the morning. I’ll hire a car to take you back to Portland.”
She held tears at bay through strength of will. “You know I wasn’t reacting to you because of the children. I did trick you about being a nanny, but not about caring for you.”
He jammed both hands in his pockets. “You’ll forgive me if I find that difficult to believe.”
She stood, trying not to think about her future draining away. He seemed to find it so easy to hurt her; she wanted to hurt him back.
“I know you find it difficult,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s because of me. I think it’s because you never forgave Mandy for loving your friend more than she loved you.”
He knew that at some level that was probably true. Because he’d loved them both, he’d suppressed the anger he felt, knowing it shouldn’t be directed at them, and therefore had never found an outlet for it. He’d just been determined to live around it.
And it had worked until he’d learned about the children—and until the nanny who really wasn’t had walked into his life.
“That’s none of your concern at this point,” he said, his tone mild, though his eyes were not. “And if you ever plan to try the nanny gambit again, you’re going to have to get a better grasp on what concerns you about the family and what doesn’t. Or you’ll find yourself out in the street again.”
“My mistake,” she admitted, facing him across the coffee table, “I thought when you cared, everything concerned you. Who’ll watch the children tomorrow when the truck arrives with your shipment from Scotland if I’m on my way home?”
That would have occurred to him eventually, he was sure. He was definitely into father mode; he just occasionally forgot to be prepared for the details.
“Justine,” he replied as though he hadn’t had to think about it.
“What about the shop?”
“It’s closed on Mondays.”
“Oh.” The little word was spoken in a fragile tone. Then Libby sighed deeply and nodded. She felt as if the moment were frozen—a notion that didn’t seem alien at all to a woman who’d already played with time once.
She tried to sort through the sense of what had happened. She’d been so sure that reclaiming the children was the reason she’d been brought back. And she wanted to storm off to bed right now with the dramatic parting line that she would see Jared in court.
But love for Zachary and Savannah would prevent her from doing that. They were settling in here, Savannah was thinking of Jared as her daddy and Zachary grinned gummily every time Jared came into view. She couldn’t rip them away from the security being reestablished in their lives.
And she could never provide them with the comforts they knew in this wonder
ful house. Undoubtedly with two small children to look after, her future would change and she probably wouldn’t have the house at Hessler Hills and the Mercedes.
“Well.” She couldn’t dispel the feeling that God had stopped the Earth in its orbit, given her a giant push backward to where He wanted her to be—and yet with all that divine interference, she’d still managed to fail. She hated to think about what the consequences were of a defeat that cosmic. She sighed and fixed Jared with a stiffly courteous half smile. “Thank you for the past week,” she said, her voice strained. “Good night.”
“Libby!” His voice stopped her on the stairs.
She looked over the railing at a foreshortened view of him in which he appeared to be all shoulders, all solemnity in the face turned up to her.
“You’ll be compensated,” he said, “for using your weekend to paint Savannah’s room.”
She shook her head at him for so misunderstanding her. “That was intended as a gift to Savannah. Good night.”
Jared watched her disappear up the stairway and knew he’d overreacted. Though she had deceived him, she’d done it because she loved the children. Under his indignation at having been tricked, he understood that and had to admit that was easy to forgive.
But suspecting that she’d lied while kissing him and making him wild with wanting her was another matter entirely. It was probably just ego that made him think it had all felt so sincere. And he couldn’t risk being made a fool of a second time.
He checked the fire and, satisfied that it was little more than hot coals, pulled the ironwork doors closed. He flipped off the living-room lights and wandered into the kitchen in search of Darren’s brandy. Enough of it ought to dispel the image in his brain of Libby’s face, big eyed with loss and despair.
LIBBY TOOK the call from Justine while trying to maintain a little haven of peace in the pandemonium that was the rest of the house, the front lawn and most of the way to the workshop. The truck had arrived early, and the two men who’d driven it from Portland unloaded the contents of Savannah’s and Zachary’s bedrooms first.
“Speak up, please!” Libby pleaded, holding her left hand against her ear to blot out the sounds of male laughter, Savannah’s squeals of excitement and Zachary’s distressed cries at being ignored.
“I hab de flu! De flu!” a thick, croaky voice said in a pathetic attempt at a shout.
Libby thought she recognized the caller under the strange dialect. “Justy?”
“Yez, yez! I’b sick. Cad you tell Jared I cand watch de kids?”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” Libby felt a tiny surge of excitement. She knew it was heartless, in view of how Justy sounded, and probably unwarranted, because given Jared’s attitude all it would do was delay the inevitable, but when the cosmos was at work for you it was hard not to have hope. Anything could happen in a day. “Ah…what can I do for you, Justy? Do you need some soup? Some herb tea?”
“Do, I be fide. I’b got bedicine.”
“Darren’s here, helping Jared unload the truck. I could send him over with…”
“Do! Absolutely dot!” Justy’s foggy voice grew high and agitated.
“Okay, okay,” Libby shushed her. “Don’t upset yourself. Go back to bed and we’ll take care of everything here. I’ll call you later to see how you’re doing.”
“I’b sorry.”
“It’s okay. Go back to bed.”
“My beauty shop!” Savannah shrieked in excitement as Libby hung up the phone. “Libby come see! My Curling Katie Beauty Shop is here!” She grabbed the side of Libby’s blue wool pants and pulled her with her.
Libby picked the screaming baby up out of his carrier and put him to her shoulder. He quieted almost instantly.
“Hi, Libby!” Darren greeted her cheerfully as he carried in a child-sized pink-and-purple plastic dressing table decorated with pink plastic daisies. “Where’ll we put this superduper froufrou thing?”
Savannah led the way upstairs, giggling excitedly. Libby followed and nixed the plan to put it right in the middle of the floor.
“It’ll be in your way, sweetie,” she cajoled. “How about under the window nearest the bathroom so you’ll be close to water and styling gel and stuff like that.”
Savannah was agreeable. Libby followed Darren as he placed the table. “I have to give Jared a message from Justy,” she said, “and I’ve tried to use the intercom, but I think there’s so much work going on there that he isn’t hearing me. Would you mind keeping an eye on Savannah while you bring in the rest of her things? I’ll take Zack with me.”
“No problem.” He straightened the table, and Savannah stood before it and giggled at her reflection in the mirror. Darren took the baby from her. “Let me have him. I need a short break anyway. You grab a few minutes of peace, and I’ll entertain these two until you get back.” He made faces at the baby, who laughed. Then he caught Libby’s arm as she would have left and asked, “What kind of message?”
Libby guessed from Darren’s natural behavior this morning that Jared hadn’t mentioned having terminated her. So she replied easily, “She was going to watch the kids today, but she had the flu.”
Fortunately, he focused on why she couldn’t watch the children rather than on why she would have had to. His frown deepened. “She seen a doctor?”
“Um…she said she had medication. So, maybe. She sounded pretty awful.”
“Does she need anything?”
“I asked. She sounded pretty adamant that she didn’t want to see anybody.” At his concerned expression, Libby added lightly, “She probably has a red nose and watery eyes, and her hair hurts too much to comb it. I told her I’d call this afternoon and see how she was doing.”
He drew a breath and caught Savannah’s hand. “It’s probably all her cussedness rupturing or something,” he diagnosed. “Poisoning her system. My guess is all our medical breakthroughs haven’t developed an antibiotic that strong.”
Libby smiled at him as she turned toward the door. “I think they have. It’s called Darrencyllin.”
LIBBY FOUND Jared carrying one end of a richly carved, high-backed bench to the far side of the workshop. He and the driver put it down, and Jared stood back to admire it. The other man hurried to help his partner, who was trying to extricate a rolled rug from over his shoulder.
The piece Jared studied was so beautiful that for a moment Libby forgot they were enemies.
Apparently so did Jared. He turned to see her staring at it and said amiably, “Wonderful, isn’t it? Know what it is?”
“A love seat?” she guessed.
“A hallway settee,” he said, dropping to one knee to pull on what looked like simply a decorative panel. But the tug revealed a drawer, and fitted inside the drawer was a banged-up metal pan.
Libby stared at it in wonder. “What is that for?”
“This provided a place to sit and remove your wet or dirty boots without tracking water or mud into the house. A servant would then remove the pan, boots and all, and the gentry never had to deal with the reality of muddy galoshes.”
“Wow. Ingenious.”
Libby smiled at Jared over the clever and practical solution, and saw that he wasn’t smiling at all but was looking into her eyes, his slightly unfocused, yet intent.
Jared had been groping for a solution to the problem of Libby Madison all night and much of that morning. But he couldn’t think of one that wouldn’t involve his backing down completely, and that prospect was hard to contemplate.
Still, seeing her all pale and windblown this morning in a shade of blue that brought to mind summer sailing, he might have no alternative.
“Yes,” he said briskly, pulling himself out of his thoughts. “I’ll have Justy make some pretty colored pillows for it, and it should bring in a good price.”
“Speaking of Justy,” she said, eyeing the floor as though reluctant to tell him what was on her mind. “She called. I tried to get you on the intercom, but I guess you didn’t hear me with all the m
oving noise.”
“Yes?”
She tried to appear regretful. “She has the flu.” And then because he looked as though he might quarrel with that, as though he suspected she was lying, she added quickly, “She sounded awful. She’s all congested. I asked her if she wanted Darren to go over with hot soup or something, but she insists that she doesn’t want to see anyone. You can call her if you don’t believe me.”
He shifted his weight. “Of course I believe you. She complained about not feeling well Friday.”
“She said to tell you she was sorry.” Then she added magnanimously, schooling her features into sweet servility, “Can you think of anyone you’d like me to call to stay with the children?”
When he hesitated, she put in calmly, as though it didn’t matter one way or the other, “Or I can stay until tomorrow morning, if that would be simpler.”
He contemplated her a moment. “You’re sure that won’t be a problem?”
“None at all.”
“Then I’d rather you stayed.”
“Fine.” The quiet answer concealed her exhilaration. He hadn’t said it would be easier if she stayed; he’d said he would rather she stayed. A subtle difference, but one she was happy to note. There was a solution here somewhere; she was sure of it. She hurried back to the house feeling a fragile bud of cheer inside her.
When everything had been unloaded and the driver and his partner had left, Darren prepared lunch.
“It isn’t fair that you should have to cook,” Libby said, trying to lend salad support as he thawed a brown block from the freezer that turned out to be beef-barley soup. “You brought all Savannah’s toys in, then you helped with the rest of the delivery.”
Darren warmed soup mugs in the oven. “Not a problem. I think I’ll save a little of this and take it to Justy on my way home.” He tried to make the suggestion sound casual.
Libby made her reply the same. “Good idea. Don’t you get tired of cooking?”
“Nope.” He took a chunk of French bread out of a built-in bread box with a roll top. “It’s been a passion with me ever since Mrs. Morden’s home-economics class.”
The Comeback Mom Page 15