Your Baby Or Mine?

by Marie Ferrarella

  She had to have the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. So blue that they could have easily made him lose his train of thought. Because he suddenly felt awkward, Alec took his daughter from her. Holding Andrea gave him something to do, somewhere else to look besides her eyes.

  Whenever he made presentations, he always strove for a good opening line. He knew the value of capturing his audience’s attention right from the start. But none occurred to him now. Making the best of it, Alec plunged in, stumbling.

  “I noticed how good you are with the children.”

  Marissa smiled. Where was he going with this? “The job kind of calls for it.” She saw at least three mothers who required her attention. She hoped that whatever Beckett had to say, he’d get to it quickly.

  “I was wondering if you’re that good on a one-to-one basis.” This wasn’t going well, he thought.

  Marissa turned her head back toward him with a jerk. He had her full attention now. She stared at him, voicing her thoughts aloud.

  “Are you hitting on me?” Maybe she hadn’t gotten to be a good judge of character after all.

  Completely wrapped up in the dilemma he found himself in, Alec took a moment to fully process her question.

  “What?” Talk about wrong impressions. She thought he was trying to pick her up, he realized. Belatedly, he remembered he’d asked her if she was married. What else was she supposed to think? “Oh, no, really.” He’d denied it so adamantly, he knew that he inadvertently was sending out the wrong message. “I mean, not that you’re not pretty, you are. Very. Maybe even beautiful, but—” He stopped abruptly before he managed to make a complete fool of himself. He was hanging by a thread now. Alec’s laugh was rueful. “I’m not saying this very well, am I?”

  He had a nice smile, she thought. Not merely a pleasant one, a really nice one. A smile that spoke of sincerity and went straight to the soul. Taking pity on him, she gently eased him off the hook.

  “Well, the words pretty and beautiful can’t be held against you, but, no, you’re not.” She saw a woman waving at her to catch her attention. “I’m afraid I have to hurry you along, Mr. Beckett. What is your point?”

  Alec felt disgusted with himself. How the hell could a man who could conduct meetings involving several hundred people be so tongue-tied when it came to talking to just one petite woman?

  Because he wasn’t in his element, he reminded himself. His element contained software programs, computers. Sterile things, not things that required a sterilized environment. He glanced down at Andrea who was once again attempting to see just how much of his sweater she could stuff into her mouth. With an inward sigh, Alec eased the expensive wool out past tiny pink lips.

  Marissa was beginning to edge away. If he didn’t talk quickly, he knew he was going to lose her. “My nanny quit.”

  She couldn’t help herself. The declaration begged for a comeback. “Aren’t you a little old for a nanny, Mr. Beckett?”

  For a second he thought she was serious. The amusement in her eyes set him straight. Humor. He realized that in the past year he’d almost forgotten how to laugh.

  “No, I mean, Andrea’s. Andrea’s nanny quit.”

  She stood on her toes, as if that would make her voice carry better. “I’ll be right there, Mrs. Stewart,” she promised the woman who was waving at her. Marissa turned back to Beckett, laying a hand on his arm. The moment instantly turned private.

  “I know.” Marissa laughed. “Forgive me, but you looked as if you needed to be teased a little. I’m sorry, it was a poor joke. You were saying?”

  Her eyes were so brilliant, so animated, they reminded him of the lake outside his window when the sun reflected on the calm water. It took him a second to retrieve his thoughts from their grasp.

  Andrea, frustrated that she couldn’t teeth on her father’s sweater, squealed. “Andrea’s nanny quit last night and I was wondering if—”

  Marissa nodded, finishing his thought. “I know of anyone for the job?”

  She was only half right. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of you for the job.”

  Marissa blinked. Had she missed something? Why would Beckett think that she needed a job? In light of what was presently going on in her life, the suggestion was particularly stunning.

  “Me?”

  She looked dumbstruck. Oh, God, he hoped he hadn’t insulted her somehow. But he was desperate and desperate men did desperate things. Alec began talking quickly. “Yes, you’d be perfect. The kids all seem to respond to you.”

  He’d already said that, she thought. Marissa began moving toward Mrs. Stewart again. She did have a job to do and she wasn’t seeing to it by standing here, talking to him.

  “Well, I thank you for the compliment, but as you can see, I already have a job. One that I really should be doing."

  He wasn’t giving up that easily. Not after seeing the way Andrea took to her. Andrea had always cried whenever a new nanny came into her life.

  “Is this full-time? Your job?” God, just listen to him. He was talking as if English were his second language.

  Teaching the classes was only a part-time job. Luckily, she did have Antonio’s child support checks. Though he had loudly proclaimed himself not to be father material, that much he had been willing to give of himself. The checks, the scholarship money the university had awarded her and an incredible ability to live on a shoestring was all she really needed.

  Marissa saw no reason to go into any of that with Beckett “No, but my time is pretty well taken up.”

  “With Christopher?” It didn’t take a genius to guess that.

  Her smile was so wide it dominated her face and slipped up into her eyes. “Yes.”

  Alec pounced. He’d been prepared for that objection when he’d made his offer. “You could bring him with you. What I really need is a live-in nanny.” It would make things a lot easier, but he could be flexible. Desperate men were. “But since you’re married, I could—”

  Maybe she should clear that up, she decided. There was no reason to have Beckett laboring under a misconception.

  “I’m not married. Anymore,” she added. “But that’s not the problem, Mr. Beckett. I go to school three nights and one day a week.”

  He only heard what he needed to hear. “You’re not married?”

  He wasn’t getting the message. “No,” Marissa said firmly. “But—”

  Alec’s mind moved faster than her protest. “Then you could be a live-in.”

  “If I needed to be, but—”

  Relief was a heady thing and he let it wash over him. He hadn’t expected to get this lucky. Thank God he’d opted to register for this class.

  “This is great. I work at home two to three days a week.” It was part of Bytes and Pieces’ policy to help solve Southern California’s escalating gridlock problem rather than add to it. All that had been needed was a terminal connected to the main computer at the office and he was on his way. “Something could be worked out.”

  Temporarily forgetting about Mrs. Stewart, Marissa addressed the more pressing problem: getting through Beckett’s thick head. She raised her voice. “Yes, if I wanted it to, but, Mr. Beckett, you’re missing a crucial point here.”

  He ceased mentally patting himself on the back. “I am?”

  “Yes.” She looked up at him, carefully enunciating each word. “I said no.”

  The foundation of the Arch of Triumph he was constructing suffered a terminal crack. He tried to smooth it over.

  “Not in so many words,” Alec observed quickly.

  The man had to be a salesman. “Actually, in a lot of words, some of which you wouldn’t allow me to get out. I have a very full schedule and I really don’t need to take on any more right now.”

  He had a feeling about Marissa and Andrea. She would be good for his daughter. He wasn’t about to give up without a fight. “How much are they paying you here?”

  His question caught her off guard. “That’s a little personal, don’t you th
ink?”

  Alec shook his head. He wasn’t trying to pry, he was trying to win. “Money is never personal. It’s a very public thing. Whatever it is, I can double it.”

  The man didn’t know how to take no for an answer. Given his looks and the expensive cut of his clothing, she suspected that he probably didn’t hear it very often. “I take it that you’re used to getting what you want?”

  He realized that honesty carried weight with her. It was gut feeling, but he went with it.

  “No, just not used to being this desperate. I’ve had four nannies for Andrea in a year. Four women I hand-picked after long, exhausting sessions of talking to enough women to easily fill up a convention hall. They all came from reputable agencies and had long, glowing references in their possession, but things just didn’t work out.”

  She wondered if the women left because of some problem that had to do with him. She couldn’t see how it could have been because of Andrea. “Why is that?”

  He thought for a moment, trying to remember. “Ellen left because she fell in love with someone who was leaving town. Celeste decided that she wasn’t cut out to be a nanny. I fired Sue. Ingrid, the first nanny, retired. I think Andrea might have had something to do with that. There’s no getting away from the fact that she’s a handful.” He thought of Christopher. Andrea was positively docile in comparison. “But I think you’re used to that.”

  Marissa couldn’t help smiling. Christopher was a live wire by anyone’s definition. “You might say that.”

  Good, he had her attention. Alec didn’t let the opportunity slip away. “Anyway, I really don’t have the time to go through the process again. I’m in the middle of marketing this new software I developed and the thought of sitting and listening to the peccadilloes of a squadron of women while I try to separate fact from fiction to find a woman who has enough love, patience and enthusiasm to handle my daughter is particularly daunting right now.” He gave it his best shot. “Especially when I’ve found a woman who would be perfect for the job.”

  Marissa sighed. He was giving her an awful lot of credit. Either that, or he really was serious about dreading the thought of conducting interviews. Either way, she couldn’t help him.

  “Well, I thank you for that, but speaking of jobs…” She glanced over her shoulder at the group. Mrs. Stewart had been inordinately patient. She had to answer the woman’s question and start the new game portion of the class. “I should be getting back to mine.”

  He had thought that he was winning her over. “What about my offer?”

  “It’s a very flattering one, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass.” She was walking backward, away from him, and managed, somehow, to avoid colliding with anyone or stepping on any of the toddlers that were almost everywhere he looked. The woman was uncanny. “But I’ll let you know if I find someone who can live up to your specifications.”

  “Outside of Mother Teresa, Mary Poppins and you,” he murmured to himself, “I don’t know of anyone.” Temporarily deflated, Alec looked at his daughter. He had to be in the office tomorrow. This wasn’t going to go over well with his mother. “Do you think your grandmother is up to taking you for another day?”

  Andrea screwed up her face and made a familiar sound. Alec looked around for someplace where he could change his daughter. There was a change table against the far wall and he headed toward it just as Marissa called for attention.

  “Don’t tell Roberta I called her that,” he whispered to Andrea. “Or she’ll really walk out on us.”

  Andrea grunted again. Alec walked faster.

  Roberta Beckett smoothed back her carefully styled auburn hair with a perfectly manicured hand. Two-inch-long fingernails flickered in the air like mauve butterflies searching for a place to alight. Through a meticulous regime that she adhered to religiously, Roberta managed to look years younger than the age written on the birth certificate tucked away in her safe-deposit box. Alec knew it was one of her greatest sources of pride that most people, upon seeing her with him, mistook them for brother and sister.

  “It’s not that I don’t love her, Alec. I do. I truly do.” Roberta spared a smile for the child, who was holding on to the webbed siding of the portable crib and bouncing up and down in place. “But this rocking, feeding, diapering…” Her deep, husky voice dropped an octave lower as she said the last distasteful word. “It just isn’t me.”

  Who knew that better than he? Still, his back was against the wall; he wouldn’t have asked her any other way. Besides, he knew for a fact that the housekeeper performed the actual dirty work. All Roberta did was add her stamp of approval.

  “I know, Roberta, and I appreciate you putting yourself out like this, but—”

  She didn’t want his gratitude, she wanted results. “Haven’t you found anyone yet?”

  He hadn’t even had time to call the agency. He supposed he should have begun interviews yesterday instead of going to class with Andrea, but when he’d signed up, he hadn’t planned on the nanny quitting.

  Mentally, he took inventory to make sure he’d brought everything that Dorothy, his mother’s housekeeper, would need to take care of Andrea. “Ellen only quit a little more than twenty-four hours ago.”

  The argument obviously carried no weight with Roberta. “God created the world in six days.”

  His mother had her own brand of logic. He had ceased to try to make sense of it a long time ago. “He left Adam and Eve for last. That was the hardest part.”

  Roberta sniffed. Andrea squealed with glee, then landed on a well-padded bottom and a stuffed rabbit. “You don’t have to create a nanny, just hire one.”

  He had to get going. Rex, one of the two owners of the company, was his best friend and incredibly understanding, but there were limits. “Almost as difficult.”

  Roberta gave him a reproving look. “I never had difficulties finding one for you.”

  Alec thought of the women who had paraded through his life, the ones who had been there to substitute for the genuine article. The very memory was enough to make him not want to hire anyone. He’d had a disjointed, unstable childhood at best. He hadn’t wanted that for Andrea. But he obviously had no choice. Alec sincerely hoped she wouldn’t remember any of this.

  Because he needed help, he threw the ball into Roberta’s court. “All right, then you do it. You find a nanny.”

  “Me? I should think that would be something you would want to handle on your own.” Roberta pursed her lips in a disapproving pout. “Really, Alec, I thought I raised you more independently than that.”

  She was unorthodox, but he loved her. That still didn’t make him incline to let her delude herself.

  “No, Roberta, you didn’t raise me at all. Estelle and Elizabeth and Suzanne and Joan and several other women whose names and faces begin to escape me, they raised me."

  She distanced herself the way she always did when faced with something she didn’t want to deal with. A frown brought with it several wrinkles that refused to be smoothed, creamed or coaxed away. “What is your point?”

  There was a vague discomfort in her eyes. Any moment now she’d announce that she was going off on a junket somewhere, leaving him completely adrift. He had to do something before that happened.

  Alec looked at his mother ruefully. “The point is that I’m a little stressed out right now and I guess I’m being rude.”

  Roberta smiled, graciously accepting the apology. “Yes, you are. But I forgive you because, after all, I am your mother even if I don’t look it.”

  She walked Alec to the front door. “I’ll watch her today but remember, this can’t go on forever. I want you to find a nanny quickly.”

  “No more than me, Roberta,” he assured her. “No more than me.”

  “By tomorrow,” she called after him.

  With any luck, tomorrow could be one of the days he worked out of the office he had set up in his den. That would give him the opportunity to conduct a few interviews. If conducting interviews for a nan
ny could be referred to as an opportunity.

  He fervently hoped it would be the last time he’d have to go through this.

  “Thanks, Jane, you’re a lifesaver.” Marissa shed her sweater, draping it over the back of the kitchen chair. Class had run over. Professor Johnston had gotten into a heated discussion with one of the students over the administration of corporal punishment and the class, divided, had taken sides. She was more than half an hour late. She’d called Jane from the campus, but that hadn’t changed the fact that it was way past the time she’d promised to be back.

  Jane gathered her books together, depositing them into her backpack. She grinned. “Hey, no problem. Think of it as payback time. I remember when you used to baby-sit me.” The young girl got up. “You made things so much fun.”

  The Sergeant had been stationed here for a while when Marissa was in her mid-teens. She’d always liked babysitting at the Hendersons. Their house always seemed to be so comfortably disorganized. Not the pristine living quarters that the Sergeant insisted on. “I liked you, it was easy.”

  Jane nodded over her shoulder toward the tiny alcove off the living room. “Christopher is in bed.”

  “Asleep?”

  It was a rhetorical question. If he hadn’t been, Marissa knew she would have heard him by now. He wasn’t a child who didn’t make himself known.

  Jane nodded. “I think we tired each other out.”

  She’d already called her father and knew he was on his way to pick her up. He’d be out front by the time she got down to the ground level.

  Jane was at the door when she suddenly remembered. “Oh, and you had a phone call. I took the number down. It’s posted on the refrigerator.”

  “Thanks.” Marissa handed Jane her money. “And good night.”

  “Same time Thursday?”

  “You bet.” Marissa locked the door and crossed to the refrigerator. Taking the paper from under the magnet, she stared it at. The number wasn’t familiar.

  But the name was. Jeremy Allen. The man she was subletting the apartment from. Tucking the phone number into her jeans, she first crossed to the alcove to check on Christopher.