And there was the problem of Jane. Rosita was back to her happy self now that she was not responsible for Jane’s well-being. There was no way Nate could ask his maid to babysit and who else did he trust? Stanley? That wasn’t going to happen, either.
So he resigned himself to fending off Finklestein’s advances—again.
Once Trish had Jane, Nate called his parents. He knew Joe would be down for a nap, thanks to the meds he was on. Nate resisted the urge to put them on video chat—some things were just beyond his parents. His mom answered.
“Hey, Mom. How are you?”
His mother sniffed. “We’re getting by. How are you? How is Jane?”
“Good. Really good. She’s teething, but I think she’s doing as well as could be expected. I hired the perfect nanny and she’s just done wonderfully with Jane. She got the nursery all set up and Jane’s even started sleeping better.”
“Oh, thank God,” Mom said, the relief obvious in her voice. “We’ve been just worried sick about you two together. Honey, we’re so sorry we had to ask you to take Jane, but you know Joe hasn’t been dealing with any of this very well and—”
“I know, Mom. But it’s going to be okay. Trish is here—that’s the nanny. Trish Hunter. She knows what she’s doing. I’ll send you a couple of pictures later, okay?”
“That would be wonderful, dear.”
They talked a bit more about how Joe was doing and how the town was reacting to the loss of one of its golden boys. Then Mom said, “Oh, Joe’s up. Honey, we’ll talk later and maybe after things calm down here a bit, I’ll see about coming out, okay?”
“That’d be good, Mom. I know Jane will be happy to see you again.”
“We’re so proud of you, Nate,” Mom said. It was her usual closing statement, but it hit Nate differently this time.
“I love you, too. Tell Joe I said howdy.” He ended the call.
If only he knew what was going to happen next. Obviously, he was going to be a father. But was he going to find love and get married? Would he settle down with Lola Finklestein? Okay, he knew the answer to that one—no.
But...Stanley had been right. Nate didn’t talk to a lot of women. Would he just have nannies who helped raise Jane until she was old enough that he could handle her by himself?
The thought of Lola and other nannies bothered him. Then he thought of how Trish looked in the morning, watching the sunrise with Jane tucked on her lap.
She was only here for a month—less than a month, now. That was the plan.
But after the month was up?
He didn’t know.
* * *
It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon, from the cushy backseat of a hired car on her way back to Nate’s house after her classes that Trish used her brand new smartphone to call home. Even with the hired car, it was going to take about forty minutes to navigate all the rush-hour traffic. Trish had time to call.
“Hello?” Patsy’s thin voice answered on the fourth ring.
“Hey, baby girl,” Trish said. She’d always wondered why her mother had named two of her daughters after her—Trish and Patsy. They were all Patricia.
“Trisha!” Patsy squealed. “I miss you. When are you going to come back? Are you going to send me any more presents? I really liked the cool notebooks you sent me last time.”
“Whoa, whoa—slow down, girl.” Trish couldn’t help but grin at her youngest sibling. The Hello Kitty notebooks had been on super clearance here because no one wanted them, but out on the rez? They were a prized possession. “Are you still going to school? I expect to see a good third-grade report card before any more presents show up.”
Patsy sighed heavily and Trish was sure she could hear the accompanying eye roll. “Yes. I’m going every single day. Mrs. Iron Horse says I’m her best reader.”
“Good.”
“When are you coming back?”
“Not for another couple of months,” Trish replied gently.
“What? Why not?” Patsy pouted. “I thought you were going to come back after you finished your school.”
“Something came up. I got a new job and I have to stay here for a while.”
Patsy was silent as she thought this over. “Do you like it? The new job?”
“Yes,” Trish said without hesitating. The good food, the nice house, the amazing view—even without the huge paycheck, this was something of a dream job. That didn’t even count Nate Longmire. And Nate? He counted for quite a lot. “I’ll be home after the job is over. Is Mom home?”
“No, she got a new job, too. But Dad’s here—you want to talk to him?”
“Sure. Put Tim on.” As far as Patsy was concerned, Tim was her father. He’d come into their lives when Patsy had been only two. But Trish couldn’t think of Tim as her father. He was a good guy, but she just couldn’t do it.
“Daddy!” Patsy yelled in Trish’s ear. She jerked the phone away from her head and winced. For such a little girl, Patsy had a heck of a set of lungs. “It’s Trish!” Then she said in a normal voice, “I hope you can come home this summer. Then I can show you the award I got for writing an essay in Lakota!”
Homesickness hit Trish hard. She’d been there for all the other kids’ awards and honors. She’d spent her entire adolescence making sure that the other kids got to basketball practice or assemblies or awards ceremonies. But she’d missed the past five years of that. “That’s so awesome, baby girl. I can’t wait to see it.”
“Here’s Daddy. Bye, Trish!”
“Bye, Patsy.”
“Hey, Trish,” Tim said in his gruff voice.
“Hi, Tim. How’s it going?”
“Not bad. Your mom got a new job. Your sister Millie got her a job at the state trooper’s office. She’s typing up the police reports at night.”
“Really? Does she like it?” Because the Pat that Trish remembered couldn’t hold down anything—a man, a job, a house. Nothing. It’d all been on Trish.
“Eh,” Tim said. “You know how she is. But she gets to find out a lot of gossip as it’s happening and she likes that, so I think she’ll stay with this for a while.”
“Yeah,” Trish said. “I know how she is. Hey, the reason I’m calling is that I got a new job and I wanted to give you the address I’ll be at for the next month.”
“Gimme a sec,” Tim said. She heard him rustling through papers and pens. “Okay, shoot.”
Trish recited the address and then the new phone number. “I got a huge signing bonus,” she went on. “I can pay you back that $350 you loaned me for my security deposit.”
There was a moment of silence on the line that Trish wasn’t sure how to interpret. “Trish, that was a gift.”
“Well, I can pay you back. This is a really good job and—”
“Trish.” It was as sharp as she’d ever heard Tim speak. “It was a gift. I’ve tried to help out all your brothers and sisters here, but you were so independent. The best I could do for you was to front you a little traveling money and give you a chance.”
“You really don’t have to do that,” Trish said. Her throat was in danger of closing up and she wasn’t sure why. “I mean, if you hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t have been able to leave. I’d have had to stay home and...” and continue being a mother to Pat’s babies.
Trish never would have made it to San Francisco, never would have gotten one degree and almost completed a second one—never would have started her charity. She’d be stuck on that rez, no prospects and no hope. Nothing but doing her best to make sure that all of her siblings had the best chance she could give them.
“You don’t have to give me anything more than what you’ve already given me,” she finished in a low whisper, her voice shaking. “At least use it to get the kids something.”
Tim had the nerve to laugh.
“You always were the hardest of hard-headed kids. Toughest girl I ever did meet. I guess you had to be, what with Pat being Pat.”
Then, before she quite realized it, she asked, “Why do you stay with her?”
She’d always wanted to know. She got why men would hook up with Pat—she was beautiful and liked to have a good time. Despite the ten kids, she still had a good figure. But looks weren’t everything and no one else had lasted anywhere near as long as Tim. Sooner or later, Pat’s drama would cancel out whatever good grace her face bought her and men would walk. Sometimes that was a good thing and sometimes it wasn’t.
Tim kind of chuckled. “Love does funny things to a man, I guess.” He sounded wistful. “I know she’s not perfect and I’m not, either. I got the failed marriages to prove it. But there’s something about being with her that makes me feel right with the world. And when you’ve seen as much of the world as I have, you know that’s no small thing.”
“Yeah, I guess...”
Tim laughed. “You’re an old soul, Trish. You had to grow up early and quick. But take it from an old man—you’re still young. You’ll know what I mean one of these days. Keep the $350 and do something nice for yourself or run it through your charity or whatever. It’s your money. I don’t want it back.”
“Thank you, Tim. I...” She swallowed, trying to get her voice under control. “It means a lot to me.”
“Don’t mention it. You want me to tell your mom you called?”
“That’d be great. Tell her I’m glad she’s liking her new job, too.”
“Will do. Take care, Trish.”
The call ended. Trish sat in the back of a very nice car being driven by a very nice man, taking her back to a very nice house with a home-cooked meal and an attractive, interesting billionaire who liked her.
There was nothing about this that made her feel right with the world.
Seven
He couldn’t tie the tie. This was why he paid Stanley money—to tie his damn ties for him.
Every time Nate tried to loop the ends around and under, just like the how-to video on YouTube, it came out...not tie-like. More like a four-year-old’s attempt to tie his shoes than a polished, James Bond–like piece of neckwear.
“Hell,” he mumbled as he undid the mess again. Maybe he wouldn’t wear the bow tie. Maybe he’d go tieless and proclaim it was the latest fashion trend. It might even be a fun sociological experiment—how many people would follow suit because the richest man in the room said so?
Or he could still just cancel. That was an option, too. Sure, it was a gala sponsored in part by the Longmire Foundation and yes, people were probably starting to wonder if he’d died, since he hadn’t been seen in public in three weeks. But he was Nate Longmire. He could do whatever he wanted.
“Knock, knock,” Trish said from the doorway. “We came to say good-night.”
Nate turned and saw Trish silhouetted from the light in the hallway. Jane was in her arms, her little head tucked against Trish’s neck.
Mental correction—he could do almost whatever he wanted.
“Ready for bed?” he asked.
Jane turned her head away from him, which Trish had explained meant not that she didn’t like him, but that the little girl was too tired to process.
Still, it stung in an entirely childish way. Nate crossed the room and kissed the back of Jane’s head. “Good night, Janie. Sleep well.”
He straightened up. Trish was looking at him, her large brown eyes taking in everything.
They stood like this a lot—so close together he could see the way her eyes shifted from a lighter brown to a deeper chocolate color. Close enough to kiss, except for the baby in between them. And, of course, there was no kissing.
In theory, he was getting better at not thinking about it. It was a nice theory, too. But right now...
She blinked, which pulled him out of his thoughts and back into reality. “You need some help with your tie?”
“You know how to tie a tie?”
The corners of her mouth quirked up. “I can’t do much worse, I suppose. Can you wait until Jane’s down?”
“Sure.” He watched as she turned and walked across the hall. She settled into the glider chair and told Jane a story about Goldilocks and the Three Bears while the baby had her bedtime bottle.
Nate knew he should stay in his room, finish getting ready, maybe try the tie one more time. That was the safe thing to do—the legally advisable thing to do. But he was drawn across the hall, watching Trish rock Jane to sleep.
There it was again—that feeling of absolute peace as he watched Trish nurture the baby. She looked up at him, her eyebrows raised as if she were expecting him to ask a question or something, but he just shrugged a shoulder and watched.
Yeah, it could be that the serenity was simply because he was so damned relieved that Jane was being well cared for—that he wasn’t solely responsible for her tiny person. But there was something more to this, something he didn’t quite recognize.
Something Stanley had said came back to him—“I’ve yet to see you actually talk to a woman like you talk to her.”
Comfort? Familiarity? No, that wasn’t quite it, either. They’d only been coexisting for the past week, really. They’d had some good chemistry at a coffee shop and then he’d hired her in a moment of true desperation.
Jane finished her bottle and Trish gently patted her back before laying her out in the crib. She touched her fingertips to her lips and then brushed them over Jane’s head as she murmured, “Good night, sweetie.”
Then she turned and, slowly, walked toward him. He knew he needed to move—at the very least, he needed to get out of the way so they could shut the door and let Jane sleep.
But as she approached him, a knowing smile tugging on the corners of her mouth, he couldn’t move. She was beautiful, yes, but there was so much more to her than that. She was kind and thoughtful and, perhaps most importantly, she didn’t make him feel like an idiot.
She didn’t hesitate. She walked right up to him and took hold of the ends of his tie. “Here,” she said in a breathy whisper, gently pushing him back and out of the doorway. His hands lifted themselves up and settled around her waist—for balance, he justified after the fact. “Let me.”
Without releasing her grip on his tie, she turned and pulled Jane’s door shut. Then they were moving again as she backed him toward his bedroom.
He let her. He’d let her do whatever the hell she wanted right now. If she wanted to tie his tie, that’d be fine. If she wanted to rip his shirt off his chest, well, that’d be fine, too. He had other tuxedo shirts.
“Ah,” she breathed, stopping well short of the bed. Damn. “I think I can do this.”
“I’m sure it’ll be better than what I was coming up with.”
She grinned as she started looping the tie. “You look good in a tux. Very...”
He stood a little straighter. Her body underneath his hands was so hot he was practically sweating. “Yes?”
“Very grown-up. Not like a Boy Billionaire at all.” He felt the tie tightening around his neck.
“I suppose that’s a good thing?” Was that the same as “incredibly attractive”? That’s what she’d told him once, when he was having a very bad day.
“It is. Damn.” The tie loosened. “Let me try again.”
He grinned down at her. “I think that’s the first cuss word I’ve heard you say.”
“Is it? I guess I’ve trained myself not to say bad words around kids.” The necktie tightened again. “Where are you going tonight?”
“The Opera House for the gala charity function for ARTification, a big fund-raiser. The Longmire Foundation is a sponsoring partner.” Her eyebrows jumped. “Well, that just means I gave them money and didn’t do any of the planning.”
She grinned, but it faltered. “Okay, I think I know what to do this time.” One of her fingers touched the underside of his chin and lifted. “Look up, please.”
Her touch took his theoretical mastery of his desire for her and pretty much reset it at zero. It took all of his concentration not to dig the pads of his fingertips into her glorious hips.
“I wanted to take you to this,” he said before he knew what he was doing.
Her hands stilled for a moment. “You did?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“I didn’t think you’d say yes.” He was careful to keep his chin up. “I don’t know if you know who Martin Finklestein is, but he’s pretty much decided that I should marry his granddaughter.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Lola Finklestein makes me nervous.” He forced a small smile. “Don’t tell anyone I said that.”
She didn’t respond as she adjusted the tie. He felt her hands smoothing the bow. The tips of her fingers fluttered over his neck, right above his collar. Blood began to pound in his ear. “Is that why you wanted me to go with you? To run interference with Lola?”
He should say yes. He should back away. He should do anything but look down at her, so close. So damn close and not a single baby in between them.
But then her hands were smoothing over the shoulders of his tuxedo shirt, running down the front of the shirt. She was touching him.
“No.” His hands moved without his explicit permission, tightening around her waist and then sliding toward her back. Pulling her in. He wanted to fill his hands with her skin, to know how she’d feel under him. Or over him. He wasn’t picky. “I wanted...”
He swallowed and looked down. She was staring up at him, her lips parted and her cheeks flushed. She looked...like a woman who wanted to be kissed. He didn’t know if she stepped into him or if he stepped into her, but suddenly what space had existed between them was gone and her arms were around his neck and he was lifting her toward his lips.
The Nanny Plan Page 10