Despite the sun, Nicole went cold, afraid she’d somehow tipped her hand and that the other woman had guessed her secret. But then common sense prevailed. Louise wasn’t interested in Tommy; Pierce was her only concern. “There’s no hidden agenda, Miss Trent. I’m merely bringing to this position the same dedication I’ve brought to others I’ve held.”
“So the child is the drawing card?”
“Yes.”
“And Pierce?”
Certainly no one could ever accuse Louise Trent of skirting an issue! She delivered the question in the form of a challenge, her attractive hazel eyes laser sharp as they tracked Nicole’s face where the beginnings of a blush threatened.
Quickly, before it gave her away completely, Nicole sprang to her feet and began stacking the lunch dishes. “The Commander is merely my employer.”
It was true. He’d done nothing, said nothing, to lead her to believe otherwise. His primary consideration was making a home for Tommy and she was merely an accessory to that end. An entirely disposable accessory, should she not perform satisfactorily.
In the clear light of day, her nighttime thoughts about him showed up for what they were: ridiculous fantasies of the kind that junior nurses often harbored about doctors and which she liked to think she’d outgrown years ago. Louise Trent need fear nothing from her. “I love children,” she said. “I have devoted my entire adult life to them.”
“Very noble of you, I’m sure,” Louise replied silkily. “And very clever, too.”
“Clever?”
“Well, my dear, Pierce would have a difficult time justifying your presence here if Thomas shrieked every time he set eyes on you, now wouldn’t he? As it is, he’s indebted to you.” There followed a small, calculated pause. “As am L Your competence and dedication allow Pierce and me to pursue our private relationship without fear that Thomas is being neglected. We are both very grateful. I’m sure you understand what I’m saying?”
“Perfectly.” Nicole held the stare directed her way without flinching. “Three’s a crowd.”
Louise Trent’s smile was about as subtle as a tiger drawing back its lips to reveal its teeth. “Very good, dear! I so dislike having to belabor a point. You’re a perceptive woman, Nicole.”
I’m a liar, Nicole thought, watching Louise walk away. I’m lying to everyone, including myself. And I can’t afford to make an enemy of a woman who, if she ever uncovered my deceit, would cut me up in little pieces and serve me to Pierce on a platter.
“Hey, Nicole!” Pierce waved from the shallow end of the pool, his dark hair slicked down and gleaming with water. Tommy bobbed at his side, squealing with glee. “Somebody here wants your company.”
Temptation beckoned. Where was the harm, after all? And wasn’t this what she’d been hired to do: stand in as the mother figure for a little boy who’d lost both parents?
Yes, the voice of common sense agreed. But not if, in the process, you forget that Pierce Warner’s role stops short of being your mate. He’s seeing another woman. He’ll be spending the evening with her—maybe the whole night. Three isn’t really a crowd here. It’s just that, job description notwithstanding, you’re not the third member of the party. Louise Trent is, and she won’t willingly abdicate the spot.
“Come on, Nicole. What’s keeping you?”
Although the effort made her teeth ache, she smiled and picked up the lunch dishes. “I promised to help Janet pick raspberries for dessert tonight. I’ll take over later while you get ready to go out.”
He shrugged the broad, tanned shoulders which recently had occupied far too much of her attention. “If that’s what you want.”
It wasn’t. But what she wanted wasn’t hers to have.
He didn’t come home until after one the next morning. Not that Nicole spent the entire time clock watching, but Tommy had woken up crying and she just happened to be on her way to his room when Pierce appeared at the top of the stairs.
“What is it?” he asked in a low voice, striding down the hall toward her. “Is Tom sick or something?”
“I think he’s having one of his bad dreams. The monitor picked up the sound of him crying out.”
“Poor kid,” Pierce murmured sympathetically. “Want me to lend a hand getting him settled?”
“I can manage on my own.”
“I’m sure you can, Nicole, but he might feel better having both of us there to reassure him.”
Hunching her shoulders, she said, “Suit yourself,” and couldn’t resist adding, “if you’re not too tired, that is.”
He could hardly have missed the sarcasm in her voice but she didn’t give him time to take issue with it. Slipping past him, she hurried into Tommy’s room.
He lay in a tangle of covers, with his face flushed and damp with tears. “It’s too dark,” he sobbed. “I want my mommy.”
Nicole swept him into her arms and rocked him. “Tommy, darling, wake up. You were dreaming again, but I’m here now.”
“Mommy forgot me,” he wailed. “She left me by myself.”
“You’re not by yourself, darling. Uncle Pierce is here and so am I.” The tears were dribbling down her face, too; tears of grief and tears of helplessness. How could anyone hope to fill the awful gaping hole left in a child’s life when neither of his parents would ever come home to him again?
“Let me try,” Pierce said, perching on the other side of the bed and reaching for Tommy.
But Tommy would have none of him. Heartbroken, he clutched his dee-dee and hid his face against Nicole’s neck. Obviously at a loss, Pierce paced restlessly across the room, then came back to the bed. “What can I do?” he muttered, almost to himself. “If I knew what it was, I’d do it, no matter what it cost.”
“Be here for him, Pierce,” Nicole said, understanding his frustration and sharing it. “Love him. It’s all any of us can do.”
A spasm of anger crossed his face. “It isn’t enough. He needs his mother and father. He deserves them.”
“Yes.” She pressed her hand to the back of Tommy’s head and continued to rock him against her shoulder. The sobs were subsiding, but the occasional shudder still racked his little body.
Pierce watched, his expression grim. “So help me, if anyone ever hurts this kid again...” He swallowed and shook his head. “...they’d better stay clear of me, because I don’t think I’d find myself disposed to be merciful.”
Of course it wasn’t a warning directed at her. Rationally, Nicole knew that. Yet the specter of her deception loomed between them, darker and more momentous than ever. How would he react if—when he found out?
“Why don’t you go to bed?” she said, afraid suddenly of what that observant gaze of his might uncover. “There’s no sense in both of us staying up.”
“I’ll wait until he’s calmer.”
“After one of these nightmares, it often takes about an hour before he drops off again.”
“You intend to stay with him until he’s asleep?”
“Of course.”
“And what if he doesn’t settle? What if you’re up half the night with him?”
“I’ll take him into my bed with me, if I have to.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Why not?” she whispered defensively. “He’s only four years old. What possible harm can it do?”
He reared back in mild reproof. “No need to get your hackles up, Nicole.”
“It strikes me as a small enough concession if it helps him get past his parents’ death, and aren’t you the one who just said you’d go to any lengths to try to make things up to him?”
“I just wonder if we aren’t setting ourselves up for trouble if we let that sort of thing become a habit, that’s all.”
They were close enough that echoes of his aftershave drifted over her. As if that weren’t distraction enough, she noticed that at some point in the evening, he’d removed his tie. It was stuffed in the pocket of his tan blazer now, the end of it dangling in plain view and
taunting her to the point of foolhardiness. How else to account for the reckless remark that fell out of her mouth before she could prevent it? “That sounds like the sort of argument your friend Louise would come up with.”
“As a matter of fact, we have discussed it.”
“It?” she spat. “What it?”
“Your devotion to Tom. Your patience. How quickly you’ve come to love him. Louise mentioned only tonight what a remarkable woman you are but she did wonder if perhaps you aren’t spoiling him a bit.” He watched her closely, his eyes inky blue in the subdued glow cast by the small night-light on the wall next to Tommy’s bed. “Does that bother you?”
Everything about Louise Trent bothers me, she was tempted to shriek, most especially the fact that you’ve come home half undressed after spending the last six hours in her company. “Not at all,” she said, with commendable restraint. “The last I heard, we still live in a democracy and a person is entitled to her opinion.” No matter how misguided it might be!
He didn’t respond right away. He rocked on his heels and simply looked at her, a slight frown puckering his brow. Then, to her surprise, he reached out, traced his forefinger over her jaw and said gently, “It’s been a long day, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she half muttered, melting beneath his touch. How badly she wanted to turn her head and trap his hand; to kiss it and in so doing turn his casual gesture of kindness into something close and intimate and unforgettable.
“Then let’s put Tommy back under the covers and get some rest. He’s sleeping quite peacefully now, see?”
So he was. When Pierce lifted him from her shoulder, she saw that his long blond lashes lay on his cheek and he was breathing evenly again.
Carefully, Pierce placed the child’s head on the pillow and tucked his Winnie the Pooh quilt around him. Then, straightening, he held out his hand and pulled Nicole to her feet.
His clasp was warm and strong, the kind a woman could depend on. Against her better judgment she let her hand linger in his, cherishing the moment and expecting that he would end it by withdrawing from her. But he didn’t. Instead, he wove his fingers between hers, walked her out into the upstairs hall and tugged her around to face him.
Behind him, the door to her suite stood open, spilling a runway of lamplight over the polished floorboards and beckoning her to safety. Blindly, she went to move past him, knowing that the sooner she left Pierce Warner, the farther removed she’d be from acting on the crazy impulses welling within her.
“Nicole?” His hand slid to her arm, halting her escape.
“Hmm?” She did not—dare not—look at him.
“Everything’s all right, isn’t it? Between us, I mean?”
If only! “Uh-huh.”
“If it isn’t, I wish you’d tell me.”
Was the way he was stroking her wrist an attempt on his part to mesmerize her into unwise confession, the adult equivalent to patting a baby on the back to rid it of indigestion, or was he simply trying to drive her wild? Did he really want her to spit out the appalling truth: that her emotions where he was concerned were getting away from her; that she was eaten alive with jealousy whenever she thought of Louise Trent in his arms; that she was afraid she might be falling in love with him?
She uttered a sound midway between a laugh and a sob. Heavenly days, how incredibly clichéd the whole situation was! “Everything’s fine,” she choked, wrestling to control herself.
“I hope so.”
Did he realize that they were standing much too close? Was that what caused his voice to jolt unevenly, the way a car might if it hit a patch of gravel on an otherwise smooth road? But if that were the case, why didn’t he let go of her, step back, put some space between them? Why, instead, did he slide his palms inside the wide sleeves of her dressing gown, cup her elbows and propel her toward him?
“Because,” he went on, in the same husky murmur, “I don’t know how I’d manage without you, Nicole. You haven’t been here very long, but already you’ve made yourself...”
“Useful?” she croaked, aware that the distant trembling deep within her was merely the precursor of much greater upheaval should all this continue. Yet everything conspired against her. the middle-of-the-night silence which amplified even her heartbeat into a clamor, the sanction of the shadows lurking around them, the atmosphere itself which hummed with vibrant tension.
“Not exactly,” he said, bringing just enough pressure to bear on her elbows to inch her even nearer. “Indispensable is more the word I’d use.”
The description floated between them, preposterously erotic. Nothing he might have said instead—no hushed endearment, no muttered comment on her face or figure—could have conveyed more clearly that somehow, in the space of a nanosecond, their association had shifted to assume a different focus.
He’s going to kiss me! she thought, her brain at last connecting with the awareness suffusing her body.
Relentlessly, he steered her closer, introducing her to his contours and textures a little at a time. She felt the long, lean muscles of his thighs nudge against her, followed by the more aggressive thrust of his hips. She saw the broad wedge of his shoulder eclipse the light behind him, explored with her fingertips the slubbed weave of his jacket, shivered at the slight abrasion of his jaw against her cheek. His hands spanned her waist, his chest crushed her breasts.
She thought that her heart would leap free of her rib cage and fasten itself to his, matching thunderous beat for thunderous beat. She thought that her lungs might explode, that her entire body would collapse, softened beyond endurance by the heat shimmering between them.
His mouth brushed over hers, so softly seductive that she thought she’d die from the sheer sweetness of it. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the scent of him. He smelled of Oregon pines bathed in moonlight. Of sea breezes and sandalwood ... and very faintly of jasmine and musk.
He smelled of Louise Trent!
Abruptly, Nicole jerked back, braced her palms against his chest and thrust him away from her. “How dare you!” she snapped.
He straightened, the smoky haze of passion clearing from his eyes like mist lifting from a morning sky and leaving him looking startled, as though he hadn’t the first clue how he’d come to be caught in such a compromising situation.
“Forgive me, Nicole.” He gave just enough of a shrug for the dangling end of his tie to sway from his jacket pocket in taunting reminder of where and how he’d spent the earlier part of the evening. “That was out of line.”
“Yes,” she said. “It was.”
“It won’t happen again.”
No, sadly it wouldn’t. By tomorrow, he’d wonder what sort of mental aberration had tempted him to spare her a second glance, let alone kiss her. “It had better not,” she said.
He didn’t join them for breakfast the next morning, a rare omission made even more unusual by the fact that it was Sunday.
“He ate earlier,” Janet said, when Nicole asked. “Mentioned something about having a load of paperwork to catch up on before tomorrow and said he didn’t want to be disturbed.”
But when he didn’t show up for lunch, either, opting instead for a sandwich at his desk in the library, Nicole was forced to assume that he was deliberately avoiding her, a theory made all the more credible when he suddenly appeared in the garden around three in the afternoon and relieved her of her duties for the rest of the day.
“You’ve taken hardly any time off,” he said, not quite meeting her eye. “Go see your relatives, or something. You did say they were the chief reason you chose to move here, didn’t you?”
Alarm raced through her at that. What if he asked her where her relatives lived, or worse, their names? In weaving her web of lies, this had been one eventuality she’d neglected to consider. “Perhaps I will,” she said, anxious to make her escape before any such awkward questions arose.
“Stay away overnight, if you like. As long as you’re back before I leave for work in the morning, I can manag
e Tom on my own.”
Stay where? She had no other address, not this side of the Rockies at any rate. Without Tommy to anchor her, she was little better than one of the homeless people she’d seen sleeping on park benches in downtown Momingside.
“I’ll be back long before then,” she said, bending down to give her nephew a hug. “’Bye, sweetheart. See you in the morning.”
“No!” Tommy protested, clinging to her knees. “I want to come with you.”
“Nicole’s off duty for the next little while, Tom, so it’s going to be just us men. Let her go, sport. She deserves a little playtime, just like the rest of us.”
Pierce spoke kindly enough, but Tommy was not disposed to cooperate. “No!” he wailed, flinging himself down on the lawn in a rare display of temper. “I don’t like you. I like Nicole.”
Pierce jerked his head toward the house. “Just leave,” he told her. “I’ll deal with this.”
“I hate leaving him when he’s this upset.”
“And I hate having to argue with you when I’ve already got my hands full trying to cope with him,” he snapped.
Still, she hesitated, heartsick as Tommy’s howls escalated.
“Go!” Pierce blasted the order at her, his eyes stormy.
I have nowhere to go, she wanted to yell back. Everything I care about is right here, with you and Tommy.
But, of course, she couldn’t say that, any more than she could lean against those strong masculine shoulders and sob out the truth, and expect him to say. “It’s all right. I understand. Together we’ll work things out, we’ll make them better.”
All she could do was make her way inside, with Tommy’s shrieks following her, and be grateful that, by the time she’d reached her suite, the garden was silent again.
Carefully lifting the corner of the window shade, she peeked out. Pierce and Tommy sat facing each other on the grass. Pierce was talking and Tommy appeared to be listening. She should have been relieved. Instead, she felt left out.
A Nanny in the Family Page 5