Marrying the Northbridge Nanny (11 page)

As she savored the rich blend of flavors, Logan said,
“Did you go wild when you finally got away from here and went to college?”

Meg shook her head. “I didn’t—that just wasn’t me. Plus my sister Kate had caused some family drama over a boy and I didn’t want to do that, too. I mainly concentrated on my studies.”

“Come on,” he cajoled. “You didn’t do
anything?
You still didn’t date?”

“Not the first two years of college. But after that I started to worry that all work and no play was making me a very dull girl, so I made some time for a social life.”

“Finally!” He was fiddling with the wisps of hair at her nape and it tickled and tingled at once, sending goosebumps down her arms. But in a good way, especially since he’d somehow moved closer to her to do it.

“Was your socializing in the form of dating multiple guys or long-term relationships?” he asked then.

“Both,” she said. “I dated some guys on campus until I met my roommate’s brother—I was with him all through senior year, but graduation ended that. And then I was involved with someone else through all of grad school and up until about a year ago…”

“That one left a mark,” Logan guessed.

Meg hadn’t meant for her voice to change when she’d mentioned the only genuinely serious relationship she’d been in. But it had, and she couldn’t help it. She was sure that had given her away.

“Randy was a junior high school teacher I met during a practicum at his school. We were together two years.” She hesitated and then admitted, “We were engaged but it didn’t work out.”

“Do I need to go back and get more cupcakes to bribe you into telling me why?”

She laughed, thinking that she was still enjoying herself even though they’d ventured into a subject that was unpleasant for her.

“Would you?” she asked hopefully.

“Back in a flash.”

“No, I’m kidding,” she said before he got more than a few inches off the bench. But somehow her hand had gone to his knee to stop him and
that
was certainly more familiar than she should have been with him!

She snatched it back in a hurry.

But even though she was embarrassed to have done it, she wasn’t sorry that when he sank onto the bench seat again he was nearer still. Near enough for that thigh she’d just reached for to press up against the length of hers.

“So why didn’t you marry this Randy guy?” Logan asked then, apparently taking her grab of his leg in stride.

“He broke it off. For reasons you’ll probably understand.”

“I doubt that.”

“You hate it when I’m too much the psychologist.”

“I just don’t like things overly technical or formal.”

“Says the man who owns his own tuxedo,” she goaded just to keep the tone light because she was having such a good time with him she didn’t want to put too much of a damper on it—despite the fact that he seemed determined to hear about her failed romantic past.

“I don’t think owning my own tuxedo because I made off with it during my brief foray into moviemaking
qualifies me as a formal kind of guy. Don’t forget, I never even went to college.”

She also hadn’t forgotten that it bothered him so Meg didn’t dwell on what she was afraid really could ruin the evening, and instead told him what he wanted to know.

“The breakup came out of a fight over something he said was nothing—we were supposed to pick out wedding invitations and he stood me up.”

“That doesn’t seem like nothing.”

“That’s what I said,” Meg appreciated that Logan was on her side. “I said we should talk about it. That it seemed like a passive-aggressive way of letting me know that maybe he wasn’t ready to move forward with the wedding.”

Logan smiled. “But
that
sounds more like a psychologist talking than someone who has reason to be ticked off over being stood up to pick out her wedding invitations.”

Meg sighed. “Randy’s point exactly. He said that was the real problem—that I never knew when to stop being a psychologist. That he felt like everything I did or said came from some kind of manual for how to have an emotionally healthy, psychologically well-balanced relationship. That even when we fought, he lost his temper and yelled and screamed, and I just analyzed everything—him included. That when I should have been furious about him not showing up to pick out the invitations, I wasn’t, I was just holding a clinic on passive-aggression.”

“And what did you think about that?”

“I thought we were both right.”

“That he wasn’t really ready to get married and
had doubts, and that maybe you
had
played it too much by-the-book?”

“Yes. Not that I did what I did on purpose, but I could see where he probably was getting more therapist than partner. Where I disconnected from my own emotions and did more analyzing than really being a full part of things—”

“Because maybe you weren’t ready to marry him, either, or maybe because you knew he wasn’t the right guy for you after all…”

Meg grimaced. “How come everyone but you heard this and only saw what a rotten thing it was for Randy to dump me?”

Logan merely arched a challenging eyebrow at her.

“Okay, yes,” Meg conceded. “I don’t think I was really head-over-heels, swept-off-my-feet
in
love with Randy and so that’s why I was going more by-the-book, through-the-motions, than being as invested as I should have been, as I would have been if I
had
been head-over-heels, swept-off-my-feet
in
love with him. But you’re not supposed to realize that and call me on it, you’re supposed to feel bad for me and say what a jerk he was for dragging his feet and ultimately rescinding his proposal.”

Logan grinned. “I can’t tell you how bad I feel for you. That guy had to be a huge jerk for asking you to marry him if he wasn’t ready for it and then dragging his feet after the fact,” he recited mechanically.

But then he switched gears, looking at her sympathetically when he said more genuinely, “I’m sure it still hurt. You must have had deep enough feelings for him to say you’d marry him in the first place and you
were
planning your future with him. Regardless of the rest, it was an end to all of that and that’s never easy.”

She appreciated that he saw that side of it, too. “It did hurt,” she confessed with less flippancy than before. “In a lot of ways we were really good together. He was a decent guy, we wanted the same things, we’d planned to have kids and he would have been a great dad. There wasn’t anything wrong with him on the whole, it was really me who blew it. And since then I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what was wrong with me that I
didn’t
love him more. If maybe being brought up the way I was had somehow stunted me, left me lacking or incapable. Or if maybe there was too much of my cold, remote, withholding grandfather in me—”

Meg caught herself, surprised that those words had just come out.

“I can’t believe I said that,” she admitted. “I haven’t told that to anyone.”

Logan cupped a hand around her nape and gave it a comforting squeeze. “I haven’t noticed anything stunted about your growth,” he joked gently.

He kissed her then, but it wasn’t a consoling kiss. Even from the start it was a kiss that said something else was overtaking him, too. His lips were parted when they met hers and there was heat in the kiss from the very beginning. Heat that Meg welcomed, met and matched in the parting of her own lips, in the instant raise of her hands to his chest.

She had no idea what exactly it was that was going on when it came to Logan, she only knew that every time they were together there was some kind of irresist
ible draw that caused things to erupt between them. Things that she couldn’t deny. And no amount of reminding herself why she
should
deny them, made her.

Instead she responded to that kiss with a fervor of her own, greeting his tongue when it made its appearance, more than ready to frolic and play and counter every twist and turn, every thrust and circle.

His free arm went around her. He pressed his hand to her bare back much as he had every time they’d danced. And maybe that was the problem, because after an evening of the feel of his palm against her skin, now that they were alone, now that he was kissing her the way she wanted him to kiss her every time she set eyes on him, having his hand on her back again only made her want more than that.

Her nipples were tight little knots of desire straining against the built-in bra of her top, screaming to know his touch, too.

She sent her hands from the outside of his tuxedo jacket to the inside as if that might give him some clue, adding the arch of her spine even as he massaged her back in a sensual way he hadn’t on the dance floor.

Their mouths opened wider, their tongues grew brasher and bolder. Meg found Logan’s perfect pectorals through his shirt, mimicking his massage on her back with just the cloth of his shirt as a barrier.

Oh, to be wearing only a single layer! As it was, when Logan slid his hand from her back to just the outer swell of her breast, what he encountered were folds of sequined silk over the inner shell of bra. It might as well have been chain mail for all Meg could feel.

A frustrated sigh escaped her as mouths continued their rapt quest.

But Logan was apparently not going to let simple sequins get the best of him because he found the hem of her top and slipped his hand underneath.

To her waist alone at first.

She didn’t know why, after an evening of having his hand on her exposed flesh, it should seem different there, but it did. Different and exciting, intimate and forbidden, it kicked up their kiss a notch, too, becoming a frenzy. Their breaths came faster, and so did Meg’s heart rate in eager anticipation as Logan’s hand began to rise.

Slowly, building her craving of his touch, he left a trail of glittering sensations along the surface of her skin until he finally discovered her breast.

She didn’t want to moan but a very soft one sounded at that first contact. That very first, glorious contact when his powerful hand closed around her yearning breast and let her nipple harden into a diamond against his palm.

His fingers pressed into her, kneading, caressing, molding that oh-so-pliable globe, awakening and arousing dangerously delicious things inside of her, making her increasingly aware of the scent of his cologne, of the cottony whisper of his breath against her cheek, of the hardness of his muscular torso bracing her hands.

She wanted—needed—to be closer to him. To know the length of his body running the length of hers. To bear the weight of him and explore so, so much more.

But it was a scant bit of a breeze that brushed across them then that reminded her where they were, that no matter what was coming to life in her, it couldn’t be satisfied there and then. And with that came the thought that anyone else from the dinner dance could take the same walk she and Logan had taken and happen upon them.

That should have put a damper on her desires. But she wanted this to go on so badly that it still took an act of will to force herself to put an end to at least the kiss in order to say, “What if somebody comes out here?”

It was Logan’s turn to groan but his was in complaint before he took a deep breath and exhaled resignedly. “Yeah, I don’t suppose we should be christening the park ourselves,” he conceded. “But we could take this home…”

“We could,” Meg confirmed, the thought of picking this up in a more private setting titillating the needs that were still churning in her.

Logan slipped his hand from under her top, took her hand in his grip instead and they retraced their steps on the river bank walkway, bypassing the party to get them to his SUV with single-minded intent.

But somewhere along the way home reality sank in for Meg and by the time they reached the apartment door she stalled.

Rather than letting them both inside, she turned and faced Logan, peering up at that handsome face dusted in moonlight, wanting him still so much she ached, but cursing courage lost to remembering their work arrangement, and transitions and upheaval in both their lives, and that there was also Tia to consider…

“Second thoughts?” he asked as if reading her mind, disappointment in his tone.

He was standing close in front of her, holding both of her hands in his at hip-height, and it was so tempting to just give in.

But she didn’t.

Instead she said, “I hate to say it—”

“But yes, you’re having second thoughts,” he finished for her.

He looked down into her eyes for a long moment, patiently accepting without condemning. Understanding.

Then he smiled a cocky half smile that made her want him all over again and said, “Tomorrow’s another day.”

Meg smiled back at him but that was her only response, not committing to anything, but not refusing anything either.

He kissed her once more—mouths wide, tongues teasing again just that quick, before he was the one to end it this time.

“Nope, you’re not stunted,” he joked.

Another kiss—not quite chaste but keeping his tongue to himself—and then he said good-night.

And tonight Meg went inside rather than watching him go because she knew that the sight of him leaving was too likely to spur her to beg him not to.

But even behind the closed door of her apartment, when she told herself she’d done the right thing in not taking what had happened alongside the river any further, she wasn’t quite sure she believed it.

Not when she was fighting the mental image of tearing away that tux he’d had on tonight, dropping her
own fancy clothes, and sharing the bed he’d made with his own two hands.

Hands that she could still feel on her back, on her breast.

Hands she just wanted to feel everywhere else, too…

M
eg spent Sunday morning at the main house packing for the bridge’s public grand opening picnic with Logan, Hadley and Tia.

In those situations Meg and Logan didn’t behave any differently than they had at the outset of Meg becoming the nanny. But despite the fact that they’d somehow silently agreed not to give away what was going on between them when they were alone, Meg still felt a sort of electricity in the air whenever Logan was in the room. Electricity that sent an extra jolt through her each time some chore brought them near to each other.

And even though they kept things purely on the up-and-up, Meg did catch Logan stealing glimpses of her if no one else was looking—the way she did of him. Plus
there were a number of exchanges of small smiles that passed only between them and again, only on the sly. There was the occasional brush of their hands or arms or shoulders that appeared accidental and yet managed to rain something bright and sparkling all through Meg every time. But she honestly didn’t think that either Hadley or Tia had any suspicion that there was more going on than met the eye.

“I can’t get this jar of pickles open, Logan,” Hadley said after several attempts. “Will you try?”

“I can do it wis my bare hands!” Tia announced, running from the kitchen.

“She had to go somewhere to get her bare hands?” Hadley asked Meg.

Meg shrugged, having no idea what the little girl was up to.

Meg was making potato salad and as she broke the boiled potatoes into smaller sizes she watched Logan accept the jar of pickles from his sister. And as he clasped the jar and lid in big hands, his biceps flexing from beneath the short sleeves of his T-shirt as he loosened the seal without much effort, Meg devoured the sight and tried to keep those bright, sparkling feelings to a minimum.

Just as Logan got the jar open the phone rang, jolting Meg out of her reverie enough to realize that her potato salad making had stalled. She started again before anyone noticed, while Logan returned the jar to Hadley and went to the phone on the wall behind Meg, robbing her of the opportunity to go on looking at him.

Then she heard him say, “Helene…” in a more guarded tone of voice than Meg had ever heard him use.

Meg glanced up again, this time to Hadley.

Hadley had frozen in the middle of taking a gherkin out of the jar to stare openly at Logan with instant concern and caution in her expression. Then she averted her gaze to Meg and whispered, “His ex-wife.”

“What do you mean you’re here? In Northbridge?” Logan said, making no effort to have his conversation in private, which meant that it was impossible not to overhear what he was saying.

“So you’re in South Dakota on your way here because you felt like taking a road trip?”

Meg and Hadley continued to stare at each other while listening raptly to Logan’s side of the call.

“No, we won’t be home today,” he said. “We’re leaving in a few minutes for a town picnic to open a new park and Tia is looking forward to it—”

Logan was silent for a moment after obviously having what he’d been saying cut short.

“If you’ve been driving cross-country for the last three days you had to have known before now that you were coming through here. You could have called and—”

Another abrupt silence.

“Why don’t you get a room at the bed-and-breakfast in town for a night or two and you can see Tia—”

Silence again.

“So you don’t want to actually spend any time with her, you’re just doing a drive-through.”

Another silence.

“No, I didn’t know you were getting married. How
would I know that? The last time we saw you was on Tia’s birthday four months ago and you didn’t say anything then—”

Cut off again, Meg heard Logan sigh a frustrated sigh, but her view was of Hadley shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

“Yes, I know how busy you are,” he said with an edge of sarcasm. “But—”

The pause this time was only for a moment before he raised his voice to apparently take his own turn at cutting off whatever was being said on the other end.

“But none of that matters. This is what you always do, Helene, and I usually accommodate it. But Tia is excited for this picnic and I’m not going to disappoint her just because it’s convenient for you. You can either see her later tonight when we get home, or we can arrange something now so you can see her on your way back from meeting your fiancé’s family.”

That seemed reasonable—he was standing his ground for Tia’s sake without being hostile or adversarial. He was offering options. And he wasn’t digging in his heels merely to be contrary—Meg had the sense that he would have agreed to even the impromptu appearance of his ex-wife if there hadn’t been other factors that would adversely affect Tia.

After another, longer silence he said, “No, there’s no reason you can’t come to the park if all you want is to make a pit stop. Just don’t be surprised if Tia is more interested in—”

Another silence, another shake of Hadley’s head, this one more disgusted.

“Like I said, she’s excited to go today so she can play with the other kids. If she’s more into that than into seeing you and meeting your boyfriend there’s nothing I can do about it. If you want her undivided attention, we should do something at home at another time—it’s up to you.”

Some understandable annoyance was creeping into his tone, but by then Meg was surprised he wasn’t losing his temper.

“I can’t promise that,” he said then, “but I’ll tell you how to get to the park—you’ve been to Northbridge, you know it’s easy to navigate—and we’ll just have to see.”

Still in a level tone of voice, he gave directions from the highway exit, through town, to the bridge site. Then, he said, “So I guess we’ll see you when we see you.”

Meg heard him hang up the phone and stole a glance over her shoulder. He was still standing there, his hand on the receiver, staring at it. She thought that he was taking a moment to vent the understandable anger and frustration that anyone would have had after a conversation like the one he’d just had.

Meg looked at Hadley again, the other woman shrugged as if she didn’t know what to do, but neither of them said anything to Logan.

Then he let out another sigh and finally came around to where Meg could see him again.

“I don’t know what goes through that woman’s head—” he began.

But this time it was his daughter who didn’t let him finish because just then Tia bounded back into the kitchen wearing brown furry gloves that had been the
bear claw portion of a costume. “I can open the pickers wis my bear hands!” she proclaimed.

“Oh,
bear
hands, not
bare
hands,” Hadley said as what the little girl meant sank in.

When it did, even Logan laughed at the three-year-old who was holding her bear-claw-encased hands in the air so that the two puppies who followed her around couldn’t reach them.

“Too late, Bear Hands, the
pickers
jar is already open,” Logan told his daughter, who seemed oblivious to the tension that had erupted while she’d been gone. “But you know what we forgot? The sunblock. How about if you run back upstairs and get that for us?”

“Can I puts sunblock on Max and Harry?” Tia asked.

“No, no sunblock on the puppies. Just go get it and bring it to me,” Logan instructed patiently.

“Okaaay,” the three-year-old conceded reluctantly, charging out of the kitchen with the dogs fast on her heels again.

Once Tia was no longer within earshot it was Hadley who ventured back to the subject of the phone call and what Logan had started to say. “Helene?”

“Apparently we’re being graced with her presence this afternoon,” Logan said. “She’s engaged and on her way to meet her future in-laws in Seattle. She thought it would be nice to drive through Northbridge so the new man in her life can meet Tia. And could I please keep Tia from
carousing
with other children when Helene and The Future Mr. Helene make their appearance because Helene wants Tia to make a good impression on The Future Mr. Helene.”

There was enough of an edge to Logan’s voice to let Meg know that the phone call
had
opened a bit of a Pandora’s box in him after all.

“Helene didn’t want to stay over or take Tia for the night or plan a visit with her on the way back from Seattle?” Hadley asked.

“She doesn’t have any of that in the schedule. They’re only able to stop in Northbridge because they’ve made better time than they expected to—she hadn’t planned to do it, that’s why she didn’t call before. But about half an hour is all they can spare once they get here.”

“She didn’t even bother to say goodbye to Tia before you guys left Connecticut, and now all she can spare is half an hour?” Hadley asked.

Logan shrugged. “That’s Helene. She never fails to amaze when it comes to Tia.”

“And not in a good way,” Hadley agreed. All the while Meg stayed out of it, knowing it wasn’t her place to make any comment.

Logan seemed to be accepting the situation whether he liked it or not, however, because he said, “It doesn’t matter. We won’t let this ruin our day. Helene and Mr. Helene will be in and out—if they actually show up. We’ll just do what we planned to do before and after, and whatever Tia does if and when they meet us, Tia does. The one thing we aren’t going to do is change anything because of this.”

“That seems fair since Helene won’t change anything for anyone else,” Hadley muttered under her breath just before Tia hollered from the living room.

“Max gots my bear hand and he won’t give it to me!”

“I’ll go,” Hadley offered, leaving Meg and Logan alone suddenly.

When that happened Meg felt the need to say something.

“Are you okay?” Meg asked him.

“Sure,” he answered as if he genuinely was. “Helene is just Helene—believe me, I’m used to dealing with her. She took me by surprise, but it’s no big deal.”

“Is there a formal visitation order between the two of you?”

“I have custody of Tia, Helene has open visitation that she rarely uses. So she thinks that on those rare occasions everything should be adjusted to oblige her. Under other circumstances it wouldn’t have been worth fighting. But we have plans and when that’s the case, plans win out over unplanned visits, as far as I’m concerned. Even if Helene doesn’t like it.”

He said that matter-of-factly, without any hostility or any indication that he felt as if he’d won one over his ex—things that might have led Meg to think he still had an emotional attachment to her. As it was, she didn’t think he did and when he went on it was in the same vein.

“So if she doesn’t change her mind,” he concluded, “she’ll find us at the picnic.”

Logan’s tone seemed to relay the message that he didn’t want to talk any more about it. And since he also changed the subject to what other things they would need for the day at the park, Meg let it drop.

But as Logan packed the picnic basket and Meg put the finishing touches on the potato salad, his ex-wife was definitely still on her mind.

There were just so many things that she was curious about—Logan’s relationship with his ex-wife, what had ended their marriage, his feelings for her, his ex-wife’s relationship with Tia, and, certainly not least of all, Meg was curious about his ex-wife herself.

And now she was going to meet her.

The woman Logan had been in love with once upon a time.

The woman he’d shared a bed with. Had a child with.

This should be interesting…

But while the psychologist in her might be intrigued, the woman in Meg felt a little on edge at the prospect of coming face to face with the former Mrs. Logan McKendrick…

The grand opening of the renovated bridge and its surrounding park was like most of Northbridge’s events—festive, cheery and well attended.

Booths offering homemade food and goods for sale had been set up inside the bridge itself. There were events and games for children only and for the children to do with the adults. There was a magician performing on the platform that had been the dance floor the previous evening, there were pony rides, and there was a teenage boy making balloon animals and hats for anyone who wanted one.

Tia wanted both and so had a pink balloon giraffe and a matching pink balloon hat that she managed to keep on her head even as she ran to find her friends Bethany and Howie from the Town Square playday to play with.

The picnic, encountering more people from their
school days, visiting the booths, and watching Tia kept Meg, Logan and Hadley busy from the moment they got there. And yet Logan’s ex-wife’s impending arrival was never far from Meg’s mind.

But just when she’d begun to wonder if the other woman was going to make an appearance after all, Meg spotted her.

Logan’s former wife looked much the same as she had in Tia’s photograph. She was tall and thin, her hair was swept into a French twist, and she was impeccably dressed in white pants and a white sweater set with a blue fleck pattern in it that made Meg and everyone else at the picnic seem dowdy in the jeans, shorts, shirts and T-shirts that predominated.

She was also very straight-backed and Meg’s first thought when she saw her was that she looked austere and unapproachable. Even as she spotted Logan and approached the picnic table where Meg, Logan and Hadley were sitting.

“You made it,” was Logan’s greeting as the lady in white led a man dressed in slacks and a sport shirt to them. And by the looks of the man’s salt-and-pepper gray hair, he was at least fifteen years older than Logan’s ex-wife.

“Logan. Hadley,” was the woman’s response, ignoring Logan’s comment. “I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Dietrich Wietzel. Dietrich, this is Logan McKendrick and his sister, Hadley.”

Logan stood and shook the other man’s hand and if there was any resentment, Meg didn’t see it. Logan seemed merely congenial.

Then he introduced Meg, saying nothing about her
being the nanny. Which Meg appreciated—not because she was in any way embarrassed or ashamed of that position, but because she didn’t feel as if she was
only
that.

Helene barely allowed her a nod, as if Meg wasn’t important enough for more, and then looked back at Logan and said, “Where is Tia?”