Corporate Daddy

by Arlene James

  “I may have a prospect you’ll like.”

  He grabbed an ink pen and pulled a notepad forward. “What’s her name?”

  “Carol Jefferson. She put up an advertisement on the bulletin board in Dr. Costas’s office, so I asked about her when I had Sawyer in for his booster shot. Dr. Costas recommends her highly.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Sounds promising. Got a phone number?” She pulled a slip of paper from her purse and read off the number to him. “I’ll call and set up an appointment today,” he said.

  “Let me know how it works out,” Eden murmured.

  “I will. Thanks, sis.”

  They talked awhile longer, about Ryan and the kidnapping of Matt’s and Claudia’s baby Bryan and the testing to find baby Taylor’s parent. Finally Eden rose to take her leave.

  “Just one thing,” she said, pausing in his doorway. “Don’t wait too long, with Emily, I mean. Women like her need commitment, Logan. Women like us, I should say.”

  He nodded and smiled, knowing that she’d just shown him a part of herself that she usually kept carefully hidden so he’d put stock in what she’d said. He was grateful for that, very much so, but he couldn’t help thinking that Eden didn’t have all the facts. Emily was the one holding back. Emily needed time to understand that she loved him. It would do no good to ask her to marry him until then, because Emily Applegate would only marry for love. How ironic that the one woman he would ever consider marrying had to be convinced. How many others had tried to trap him, knowing he didn’t love them and that they didn’t love him? It would never be the money or the prestige with Emily. She just needed some time to fully trust him and understand that he was the only man for her. Then he would ask her, and she would say yes, and they could move forward together.

  He smiled to himself, wondering how long they should wait to begin thinking about another child. He wanted that deeply, and was pleased with himself because of it. Logan Fortune, family man. And happy about it! So very happy about it. Happy enough to wait, to be patient, as long as it took.

  “I like her,” Logan whispered, sliding his arm around Emily’s waist.

  “Me, too.”

  Carol Jefferson had come to the office to interview for the nanny position. She and Amanda Sue got along wonderfully and both Logan and Emily were pleased by her credentials.

  He raised his voice. “Ms. Jefferson, I have one more question, if you don’t mind.”

  The woman had been playing on the floor with Amanda Sue. At Logan’s question, she sat up straight and shifted around on the floor to face him, legs folded. Not content to lose her attention, Amanda Sue promptly climbed into the woman’s lap. The nanny shifted and rocked to accommodate her with the same ease she’d use to pull on a sweater or tie her shoes. She wasn’t at all what Emily had expected, frankly. Dressed casually in loose, knit pants and a print cotton smock worn over a gray turtleneck sweater, she was not the most professional-looking applicant they had interviewed. Her thin, dark blond hair was pulled back into a skinny ponytail at the nape of her neck and held with a green rubber band. Her plain face was round and flat, her front tooth chipped noticeably, but the sparkle in her otherwise colorless eyes was positively jolly. Her manner was utterly relaxed and casually friendly. Emily suspected that she was younger than she looked, but appearance didn’t seem to matter to the woman in the least.

  “I don’t like to be called Ms. Jefferson,” she told Logan mildly. “Just call me Carol.” Her voice seemed to contain a measure of laughter in it, whatever the words.

  Logan smiled, a natural response. Carol Jefferson was a woman to whom one wanted to be nice. “All right, Carol. You were in your last position ten years. According to what we’ve seen, that’s an uncommonly long tenure,” Logan stated carefully. “I guess I’d like to know why you stayed so long.”

  Carol shrugged. “They kept on having babies, you know, after the twins. Besides, I love them. They’re like my family. Half the time we were off someplace in the world. I’ve been all over, wherever the Major was stationed, except in the wars.”

  “So why leave them now?” Logan asked, finally getting to the point.

  “Not leaving them,” she said. “They’re leaving me. I grew up right here in San Antonio, and this is where they picked me up. I’m just ready to stay home now. ’Sides, they don’t need me anymore. The baby’s starting school this year, and the missus says there won’t be another.”

  “It must have been difficult to let you go after all those years,” Emily said.

  “Oh, they haven’t let me go,” she said. “The missus says she don’t know what she’ll do without me. But California is where they mean to settle, and the truth is, I just can’t see myself living out there.” She shivered dramatically. “All those earthquakes. Why, the whole place is like to fall off into the ocean one day. And my old mama is here, you know. She lives with my brother and his family, so she’s taken care of, but I’m figuring maybe we don’t have too many years left together, so I’m for home now. Besides, I’m ready for another little one.” She looked down at Amanda Sue, smiling placidly. “She sure is sweet and a real strong mind, too. Won’t never be boring with her around, I bet.”

  Logan chuckled. “You’ve got that right.”

  The nanny hugged Amanda Sue close, and Amanda Sue allowed it with considerable aplomb. “I’m thinking she’s just what I’m looking for,” Carol said firmly.

  Emily looked at Logan, and he cleared his throat. “Emily and I agree that she ought to stay home with Amanda Sue a while longer. We’ve explained the adjustments she’s had to make. I assume you have no objections to that.”

  “Jeepers, no,” Carol Jefferson said. “My last missus, she always stayed home. We got on fine.”

  Logan looked at Emily. She shrugged. “I can’t think of anything else.”

  He looked at Carol. “Anything you want to ask us?”

  Carol’s expression turned canny. “Any chance you’ll be having more babies along the way?”

  Emily nearly fell off the arm of the chair. “Uh—”

  Logan clamped a hand over her knee, saying, “It’s a possibility.”

  “Good,” Carol said blithely. “I’d like the job.”

  “When can you start?” Logan asked, and it was done.

  She got up, lifting Amanda Sue with her. “I’ll get the Major to help me move my things over tonight. My folks would feel better if they could see where and who I’m going to.” Carol carried Amanda Sue over to them and placed her in her father’s lap. “Well, I guess I’ll see ya’ll after dinner.”

  Emily smiled. Logan nodded.

  “Okay, then.” Carol bent down and put her nose to Amanda Sue’s. She poked a finger gently into the baby’s belly. “Glad to have met you, Miss Amanda Sue.” Amanda Sue sprawled back against her father’s chest and grinned as if delighted. Carol winked and walked toward the door. “We’re gonna do good together,” she said confidently, and then she waved and walked down the hall.

  Logan leaned his chair back, throwing Emily against his shoulder and making Amanda Sue look up in surprise. Logan dropped a kiss on his daughter’s forehead, then turned his face up to Emily, kissing her with deliberate thoroughness. Breaking the kiss, he said with deep satisfaction, “We finally found a nanny.”

  Emily smiled, her happiness in finding Carol a mere veneer over the soul-deep personal sadness growing within her. Carol was going to work out wonderfully, which meant that her time with Logan and Amanda Sue was growing short. She could stay and endure a long, slow torture as Logan grew tired of her and disenchanted with monogamy, or she could make a clean break before she began to hope that what he felt was real. She feared the pathetic, clinging creature she might become if she let hope take root in such rocky soil. No, it was better to go sooner rather than later.

  It was a strained, hectic scene in the Fortune household that evening. Carol’s “folks” came along en masse to deliver their former nanny to her new home. The ten-year-old twins, both
boys, solemnly flanked her as she introduced them. Their older brother, all of thirteen, kept patting the shoulder of his six-year-old little sister, whose trembling lip threatened tears at any moment, while the eight-year-old stomped around frowning, anger flashing in her belligerent eyes. The “missus” sniffed and dabbed, supported by her husband with his military bearing and commanding manner, which did little to hide the distress roiling just beneath the surface of his stern expression. Carol calmly directed the placement of her boxes and bags, even as she comforted her former charges with pats and hugs and whispers.

  Logan did his best to put them all at ease, announcing that Carol was free to make any decorating changes to her room that she desired and talking about the larger home he intended to buy soon and the summers to be spent on the ranch. He rattled on about how many applicants he and Emily had screened and how he couldn’t trust his Amanda Sue to just anyone. He had introduced Emily only by her first name, and it was obvious they all thought that she was his wife, despite the fact that she had introduced herself to Carol as Emily Applegate. She could only wonder what Carol would make of the fact that she and Logan were sharing a bedroom together. Perhaps she thought Emily had simply chosen to retain her maiden name for professional purposes. Or perhaps even Carol realized that she was likely to be in residence much longer than Emily herself.

  Emily tried not to be embarrassed about the situation. It was no one else’s business but hers and Logan’s, after all. Somehow she couldn’t quite manage the necessary detachment, though. She did not have Logan’s experience with this kind of thing, nor did she intend to. Sharing her body and a bedroom with a man who did not fully own her heart was unthinkable to Emily. She fully expected this to be her one and only experience. Deep down, she knew she wouldn’t, couldn’t, love again. She wondered wildly if Carol Jefferson could understand that, but how could she when Emily didn’t understand it herself?

  The farewell was as tearful and tugging as expected. The children huddled around Carol and wept noisily or surreptitiously wiped at their noses with their sleeves. Then their mother threw her arms around Carol and bawled gratitude and affection all over her. Even the Major unbent enough to hug the nanny. It was Carol who remained calm and placid, sweet and encouraging through it all. She herded them gently down the hall and out the door, promising to keep in touch and come for visits. Then she cheerfully returned to the living room to announce that she was going to her room to unpack and “boo-hoo” for a bit before giving Amanda Sue her bath and getting her ready for bed.

  Logan watched her climb the stairs with his hands on his hips. When she disappeared from view, Logan turned to Emily, spread his arms wide and said, “I think we won the nanny lottery.” Then he whooped and threw his arms around her, swirling her high off the floor, a trick Amanda Sue thought superb and demanded he repeat on her. They swung around and around until, dizzy, they collapsed on the couch, laughing. Snagging Emily’s hand, he pulled her down with them and looped an arm around her neck.

  “Ah, what could be better,” he asked rhetorically, “than having three wonderful women in my life? I love you both, and something tells me that Carol is going to make her own place in all our hearts.” He pulled Emily close and whispered, “Especially if she gives me just a little more time to spend with you.”

  A little more time. She couldn’t help thinking, even as she returned his kisses, how sadly true that was. Just a little more time was all they had left.

  Thirteen

  Emily pushed hair out of her eyes and wandered into the living room, dressed only in her pajamas. Instinct told her that it was far later than normal. It had been so long since she’d awakened to anything but the buzz of the alarm clock or the sound of Amanda Sue’s cries that she couldn’t quite figure out what had roused her. Amanda Sue was sitting on the sofa with Carol and Goody. Carol was folding laundry.

  “Mimly!” Amanda Sue shouted, plopping over to slide off the couch.

  “Hello, sweetheart.” Emily went down on her knees and opened her arms. Amanda Sue hurled herself into them exuberantly, babbling.

  “I kwite. Shhh-shhh. Mimly sweep Daddy werg Curl pol cwos.”

  Emily sat down on her bottom on the floor and painstakingly translated Amanda Sue-speak into English while dispensing kisses. “Let’s see. You were quiet so I could sleep—you angel child—and Daddy’s gone to work. Is that right?”

  Amanda Sue put her finger to her puckered lips and shhshhed, then nodded. “Yeah, Daddy werk. Wuv oo.” She kissed Emily with a loud smacking sound.

  Emily laughed. “Did Daddy tell you to give me kisses?”

  Amanda Sue nodded, vastly pleased with herself.

  “What a sweet daddy,” Emily said. “Now what’s this about Carol?”

  “Curl po-fwol cwoes.”

  “Carol is folding clothes, is she? That’s very nice of her.”

  Carol chuckled from her seat on the sofa. “I just did the little tyke’s laundry with some things of my own. Mr. Logan said it was all right.”

  “Certainly,” Emily said. “Did Logan also tell you to let me sleep?”

  “He did,” Carol confirmed. “He had to show the little one that you were, indeed, home, but once she saw you, she was very, very good about staying quiet. Once she even told the cat it was purring too loud.”

  “What a good girl,” Emily said, giving Amanda Sue another hug. “Daddy will be so proud.”

  “Yeah,” Amanda Sue said, nodding authoritatively. Emily could only laugh.

  “He said to call when you were awake,” Carol informed her. “There’s coffee in the pot and hotcakes in the oven, if you want to eat first.”

  Emily got up, taking Amanda Sue with her, though it was a struggle. “You’re getting big,” she said to Amanda Sue, noting how difficult it was to lift her weight to a full stand. To Carol she said, “You must have made breakfast. Logan couldn’t put together hotcakes if his life depended on it.”

  Carol chuckled. “He was prepared to settle for crackers and peanut butter, but I like to cook, so it was no imposition.”

  “Carol, you’re too good,” Emily said, carrying Amanda Sue toward the kitchen. “I can’t remember the last time I could sleep until I was ready to wake up, but we’re not going to make a habit of this. I’ll be going back to work soon, so there’s no sense in getting out of the habit of rising at a reasonable hour.”

  “That’s something you should take up with Mr. Logan,” Carol said with a knowing smile. “I get the feeling that he likes indulging you.”

  Emily just smiled, thinking that she liked to indulge him, too, so much so that she was practically living with him, not to mention sleeping with him. She wondered what Carol thought of this situation, but she didn’t dare ask. Carol might actually tell her!

  She used the cordless phone to call Logan while eating Carol’s excellent hotcakes. All in all, it was a pretty disjointed talk. Not only did Amanda Sue demand that Emily share both her food and the phone but Logan was giving orders to Hal on his end of the conversation, as well. Emily thanked him for the opportunity to sleep late and even managed to insist that he not do such a thing again. He whispered something about loving to watch her sleep but made no promises. She decided that she would have to take the matter up with him later.

  Meanwhile, she couldn’t help noticing how well he seemed to be getting along with Hal. The two communicated business matters in the same kind of spoken shorthand that she and Logan had once shared, but they also cracked jokes with the easy camaraderie of two friends of the same gender, something she and Logan could never do. Oh, they had teased; she’d become quick and creative with acerbic, slightly barbed put-downs and comments, but she realized now that they’d always been loaded with an unwanted awareness of him as a member of the opposite sex. She almost grieved for what could never be again, the tightrope walk between professionalism and familiarity that had been her relationship with Logan before Amanda Sue.

  Well, it didn’t matter now. She’d fallen off the rope.
Fallen? Heck, she’d dived off headfirst, even knowing that she had no net to catch her. One day soon she’d hit the ground, and if the only thing that shattered was her heart, she’d count herself lucky. Going back to work at the Fortune company wasn’t an option anyway. It would be impossible to spend her days with him and not her nights. However it ended, she had spent her last day in that office in any official capacity, but she wouldn’t worry about that now. She could always find another job. When the time came.

  After her late breakfast, she hurried to get dressed, managing it just moments before the phone rang. Emily went to answer it, but before she reached the phone, Carol called, “It’s for you, Ms. Emily, someone named Cathy Wazorski.”

  “Thanks, Carol.” Emily smiled thinking how Cathy’s real name was so ordinary compared to her movie star name, Ciara Wilde.

  Emily answered the phone, happy to hear from her childhood friend, even though Cathy sounded tired and troubled. Emily knew that the movie star had grave misgivings about her upcoming wedding with action film star Brendan Swift and was dissatisfied with the track her career had taken. To hear Cathy tell it, her film career consisted of a string of cheesy thrillers, wherein the main thrills were numbered by the articles of clothing she was willing to discard in a given scene. It was Emily’s opinion that Cathy was both too good and too smart for the role she’d been assigned by Hollywood, but she also thought that Cathy sold herself rather short.

  After a quick chat, Emily parlayed a luncheon date two weeks in advance at a restaurant in Cathy’s hotel where she, Eden and Cathy could sit down together and have a good old-fashioned hen party. Emily had been meaning to update her wardrobe and this outing was the perfect excuse for at least one new outfit.

  When she mentioned to Logan that evening that she might do some shopping in a few days, he offered to take off work and go with her. “You can’t do that!” Emily protested.

  “I can so,” he countered. “After all, I’m the boss.”

  She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be right to pull you away from work for something like this.”