Marrying the Northbridge Nanny (14 page)

Neither of them said anything for a while, basking in a sublime afterglow until the sound of the storm penetrated, and then Logan said, “I’m thinking I might have to wait out this weather all night…”

“You made the bed, I guess it’s okay if you lie in it,” Meg joked.

Logan laughed. “What if I hadn’t made it? Could I still lie in it the rest of tonight?”

“I think that might be a really fine idea,” she said on a replete sigh.

He turned just slightly to his side to almost face her and pulled her even more closely to him so he could rest his chin on the top of her head and drape a heavy thigh over her hip.

Meg knew that he was falling asleep, but that seemed like the best idea for her, too, and she closed her own eyes.

Once she did, she was lost in the warmth of Logan’s body all around her, in the sound of his steady heartbeat beneath her ear while the storm raged in the distance.

She couldn’t recall ever feeling the way she did at that moment. Ever feeling as safe, as secure, as happy.

Ever feeling the kind of peace and tranquility that was filling her. A peace and tranquility that was so much better than she’d thought it was possible for her to achieve, even back home.

And despite the fact that she knew it was only
whimsy, as she drifted off to sleep, she had the thought that she could easily spend the rest of her life right where she was…

W
hen it came to furniture-making, one of Logan’s favorite tasks was the sanding of the wood pieces. He and Chase both did it the old-fashioned way—by hand—and there was something about the process that was calming, that opened up his mind to do what he considered his best thinking.

And as he worked on a tabletop for a formal dining table Monday morning, his best thinking was about Meg. And the night together that had left him feeling lazy today.

Last night had been different for him.

And not because sleep had only come in naps between the three times they’d made love before he’d left at dawn in order to be home when Tia woke this morning.

He’d had more than his fair share of nights like that
to compare last night to—he and Chase had never been angels and that was particularly true of their traveling days. But not once—not even with Helene—had there been a night
exactly
like last night.

And that was because last night had been with Meg.

The table he was working on was made of oak. The top was composed of two wide planks that, while their grains were unique, blended to form a pattern of lines that were interesting and beautiful together from each and every angle.

The wood had come from separate shipments, from separate mills, from separate trees, and yet the moment Logan had laid eyes on them he’d known that they were the absolute perfect match.

That was how he’d felt last night with Meg.

He couldn’t explain it. He’d never experienced it with any woman. But lying in bed with Meg after they’d made love for the first time, he’d felt as if he’d met
his
match. And that feeling had been with him ever since.

But this good feeling warred a little with his thoughts now, in the light of day.

Thoughts about the fact that being a nanny was not Meg’s life’s work. That she was every bit as well educated as Helene. That she obviously had to have been career-driven to achieve what she’d achieved. Thoughts about the fact that her time here was a break from her work, the way being with him had been a break from the norm for Helene when they’d first met.

Back and forth, back and forth—he went on sanding. Sanding and thinking…

In some ways comparing Meg and Helene seemed
like a joke. Yeah, Meg had started out a little like Helene was now—stiff, somewhat formal. But once Meg had gotten comfortable, she’d proven to be warm and kind and loving. And while it might be her nature to be slightly on the shy, reserved side, they’d gotten past that, too.
Well
past that last night…

So he didn’t think Meg’s basic nature was anything like Helene’s, and that was a good thing. But the other things—the education and career focus—those had ultimately been his downfall with Helene and he could see where they could be his downfall with Meg eventually, too. He’d bored one big-brain, there was no reason to think he wouldn’t bore another one.

Or was there? he asked himself when he realized he couldn’t imagine Meg giving him the kind of you-are-so-dim looks that Helene had tossed at him frequently at the end of their marriage.

On the surface it had seemed like Helene’s advanced education and her life in academia were what had done them in. But behind that there was also the fact that he had never been the person Helene had confided in or aired her problems or concerns or dilemmas to.

Early on she’d said she didn’t want to bother him, that he was busy getting his business going and she didn’t want to interfere with that.

But later, when Mackey and McKendrick Designs was out of the red and sailing along pretty smoothly, Helene still hadn’t been interested in his opinions, his help, even in venting to him. By the time all the facade was down, she’d outright said that she didn’t want to waste her time talking through things with someone
who wouldn’t understand and couldn’t offer her anything of value as a solution.

Which meant that the truth was that from day one she’d written him off as someone who was incapable of operating on an intellectual playing field that was worthy of her, and while she might have pretended something different early on, that had still been the case even then.

But he hadn’t run into that with Meg. She’d confided in him about the stabbing, she’d been open with him about her family, about the effects of growing up under the rule of the Reverend. And even the times when she’d slipped into psychologist-mode talking about Tia, Meg hadn’t been talking down to him, she’d been hiding insecurities of her own with it—something else she’d told him because she’d trusted him to grasp it, to understand.

So no, he realized as he blew away some of the sawdust to move on to another section of the table, he didn’t actually think that Meg did have the same low opinion of him and his intelligence that Helene had had.

Besides, it wasn’t Meg’s style to look down on anyone. He knew that about her now. Meg was a fully-formed adult, and while the strict morals she’d been raised with might shadow some of her thinking, she was aware of the parts of her grandfather that could come out in her, and she took action to make sure she
didn’t
end up anything like the Reverend.

Meg wasn’t in some sort of stage that she would eventually evolve out of to become her true self. She was already her true self. And even now, after suffering something traumatic, when she
felt
as if more of her
grandfather might be emerging in her, Meg wasn’t merely letting that happen. She was dealing with it, doing everything she could to stop it.

So maybe, even in the light of day, there wasn’t as much to put a damper on his feelings for her as he’d thought before.

But if that was true, then what?

What did he see for them? For himself and this woman who felt like the person he was meant to be with as surely as these two pieces of oak were meant to become this tabletop? This person who he felt more strongly about than he’d even felt about Helene?

Logan blew away most of the sawdust and ran his hand along the section of tabletop he’d been working on.

It was satin smooth. And that was all it took to remind him of Meg’s skin, to make him want her so much he could hardly keep himself under control.

On his walk across the yard from the apartment at dawn this morning he’d counted how many hours would have to pass before Tia would be asleep again tonight, before Hadley would go to bed, and he could slip out to the garage apartment to see Meg again in private—the plan they’d devised before he’d left her.

But was that how the whole summer would be? Would they go on acting as if there was nothing between them during the day, just waiting for the moment when he could slip out like a thief in the night and go to her, to spend the hours of darkness with her, before he slinked back home again at dawn every morning?

The whole thing seemed a little cheap and sleazy.

And not the way he wanted things to be. Not with Meg.

He hated the idea of hiding, of sneaking, of slinking around. He wanted things to be out in the open.

But if they were, then Tia had to be factored in, too.

And if Tia was factored in, there was no way this could be a casual thing. There had to be some commitment. He had to know that there was a future to it.

Here he was thinking about a future together, about commitment.

About making Meg Tia’s
step
mother…

That stopped his work completely.

He straightened up, stepped away from the table, and as he refocused his eyes, he thought,
The future. Commitment. Marriage?

And somehow it didn’t seem strange at all….

It was ten o’clock before Logan had been able to get to her apartment Monday night. After helping put Tia to bed and leaving Logan in the midst of a business phone call from his partner, Meg had had time to shower and wash her hair, to change into a pair of shorts and a bust-boosting camisole.

But when he’d finally arrived he hadn’t done what she’d been assuming he would—what she’d been hoping he would—he hadn’t whisked her back to the bed they’d both so reluctantly left behind this morning.

“You don’t want to
defile
me?” Meg repeated with a laugh.

Instead, after a promising kiss that he’d cut short, he’d said he wanted to talk and had launched into something Meg wasn’t sure she was following.

“That’s what your grandfather would say I was doing, isn’t it—defiling you?” Logan said.

They were standing not far into the apartment. Logan’s arms were low around her waist, hooked at the hollow of her back. His jean-encased legs were brushing her bare ones, and she had her hands splayed against his T-shirted chest. And while she’d thought he’d been joking when he’d begun this conversation, she wasn’t so sure now…

“
Defiling
does sound like a word my grandfather would use, yes,” she answered. “But that’s not how I feel.”

“Maybe not yet. But what about months from now when this is all we’ve had—hiding up here every night, the rest of the time pretending that there isn’t anything going on between us? Isn’t that what you were afraid I wanted from you when I interviewed you—being Tia’s nanny during the day and sleeping with me after-hours?”

That scenario had loomed in the back of her mind from the moment he’d left this morning. But every time it had crept to the forefront, Meg had chased it away with the thought of being where she was at that moment—here, alone with him. And because she hadn’t wanted to think about anything
but
being here alone with him, she hadn’t.

“It isn’t as if the sneaking-around element hasn’t occurred to me,” Meg admitted even as she was breathing in the clean scent of him and reveling in the fact that she was finally in his arms again, where she’d wanted to be every minute of today. “You’re right, that isn’t a good thing,” she conceded, “I just didn’t want to think about it…”

“Well, I
did
think about it and I came to some realizations—first and foremost that that is
not
how I want things to be. That I want what we have out in the open, for anybody and everybody to see.”

“So anybody and everybody can gossip about how we’re sleeping together?”

“I don’t want us to just be sleeping together, Meg,” he announced.

That seemed like what he’d been leading up to but still Meg was so surprised that she didn’t know what to say.

“I thought this through,” he continued. “I thought about how I feel about you, how I feel when I’m with you, how I hate every minute that I’m
not
with you because it’s like a part of me is missing—that’s how I felt the whole damn time I was away last week. I thought about how I have this overwhelming sense that you and I are like two pieces of some grand-design puzzle that have finally come together. That isn’t something we should have to do in any way that needs hiding. And when I put Tia into the mix, I realized that what I want is the whole package with you—the whole family package—”

“Oh, slow down!” Meg said, not confused anymore, but definitely alarmed.

Logan’s arms tightened around her. “That’s just it—I don’t want to slow down. I don’t see a reason to—”

“There are a whole lot of reasons to. Reasons why neither of us can make a decision like this right now—”

“I know it’s quick—”

“It isn’t
only
that it’s quick,” Meg insisted. “Decisions made in times of upheaval can be desperate attempts to regain control and not the right decisions at all.”

“I’m not in upheaval.”

“In the last few years your whole life has changed,” Meg said, refuting that. “You became a father at a time when your marriage was crumbling, you got a divorce and ended up a single parent, you’re in the process of moving your life and your business cross-country, and now you’ve just found out your ex-wife is getting married—”

“Desperation is
not
what I’m feeling,” he said firmly and with conviction. “And this isn’t some reaction to Helene getting married again—I couldn’t care less about that, she’s history for me. History I’m glad to have behind me.”

“But that kind of thing can still throw you—”

“Maybe it
can
, but it hasn’t. It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with you and I.”

“Everything has an effect, Logan.”

“Well, the effect this time is that my marriage to Helene and my divorce from her let me know how right things are between you and I. And not only by comparison, but also because when I started to think about us having a future together I
didn’t
freak out and think I’d rather be shot in the foot than go through anything like that again. I know you’re different, I know what I feel for you is different, I know what we have is different.”

He pulled her closer to him when he said that. But in the midst of shaking her head in denial Meg broke his hold and spun away from him to put some distance between them instead, facing him again only when she was several feet away where she hoped she could think more clearly.

“It may only
seem
right because it feels better than
the rejection and disillusionment and whatever else you’ve been feeling,” she said then. “The same as this feels so much better to me than all the anxiety and fear and discontent I was feeling before. But that doesn’t necessarily mean—”

“Jeez, don’t do the psychologist thing,” he said, sounding impatient. “I’m not a complicated person, Meg. I’m just an everyday guy who knows who and what he is. Who knows what he’s feeling. And none of it needs to be analyzed or scrutinized for what it’s masking. I’m just feeling what I’m feeling.”

“I have to do the psychologist thing—”

“Because this freaks
you
out and when you get nervous you use it as armor. But don’t. Not this time. This time just go with what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want!” Meg said with an edge of panic to her own tone. “That’s why I came back to Northbridge in the first place—to sort things out. That’s one of the reasons
I
can’t make this kind of decision.”

“Sure you can,” he coaxed. “Just go with your instincts—think about last night, think about this morning when you kept pulling me back to bed, think about a couple of hours ago when we were with Tia and how it is every time the three of us are together—you can’t tell me that you aren’t already invested in us both. That it isn’t so great you just want it to go on, too.”