Marrying the Northbridge Nanny (15 page)

“It is great…” Meg said, wavering because what he said was true. More than he knew.

“You can argue down anything, Meg,” Logan went on. “And yeah, what I’m proposing is built for it. But
don’t do it. Don’t put the weight on the reasons why not, put the weight on what you feel, on what we have here.”

An unfamiliar, foreign part of Meg urged her to just say okay. After all, more than once last night she’d pictured herself spending the rest of her life with this man. She’d wished for it.

But she’d also known that despite its appeal, the idea of actually trying to make that fantasy into reality at this point shouldn’t even be entertained.

And even if she accepted Logan’s claim that he knew himself and his feelings enough to trust that he could make a decision like this now, what Meg knew about herself was that at a time when she was questioning so many other things, making a decision of this magnitude was not wise. It was something she just couldn’t do.

So she summoned every portion of her that was anything like her grandfather, stood straight and stiff, and said, “I can’t do it, Logan. I just can’t.”

“You can do anything, Meg,” he said as if he were encouraging her to take a dive off the high board. “There isn’t a rule book here—”

“Don’t use what I told you about Randy against me!”

“You said yourself that he was right, that you
had
played things too much by the book with him, that you disconnected from your own emotions. I’m just saying don’t do that now, with us.”

She hadn’t thought she’d regret that he listened so intently to what she said but at that moment she did.

Logan continued, his voice lower. “You did this disconnecting thing with that other guy because you
weren’t
really in that relationship with him wholeheartedly, because deep down you
didn’t
have the kind of feelings for him that you should have had in order to marry him. Is that what you’re telling me now? About me? About what we have together?”

“No!” she said without having to think about it. “I’m just telling you that we can’t ignore—”

“We can ignore anything we want to ignore. There’s nothing here but you and me and what we want and what we don’t want. That’s it. That’s all there is. So either you want a future with me, or you don’t.”

“It isn’t just black and white, Logan!”

“It is if you let it be.”

“I can’t let it be.”

“You can if you let go of the rest, Meg. That’s what you came here to do—to let go, to loosen up. So do it.”

But everything she knew screamed at that unfamiliar impulsive portion of her that was tempted, screamed that to make a life-altering decision on a whim was just asking for trouble. Screamed that there was a child involved. A child who could get caught up in this. Who could get hurt…

“I can’t let go of the rest because I know there’s validity to it. And I also know that with Tia involved…” She shook her head. “There’s all the more reason not to just let ourselves get carried away.”

“Too late for that!” Logan nearly shouted.

But Meg merely shook her head again.

Logan sighed, jammed his hands into his rear pockets and slung his weight to jut out one hip. “So what do we do? This?” he demanded with a nod to the space around
them. “Play we-just-work-together all day and then sneak up here for the nights?”

She knew that would never work. She’d known it before, which was why she’d avoided thinking about it every time it had weaseled its way into her head today. But now that he’d forced her to confront it, she had to.

“That isn’t what you want to do and it isn’t what I want to do, either,” Meg nearly whispered.

But she also knew that there was no way she was going to be able to rewind the clock and take this back to a time when she could maintain even a semblance of control with him. If she stayed, this was where they would end up. If she even found somewhere else to live and just came out to be Tia’s nanny, this would still be where she and Logan would end up because she wanted him too much for this
not
to be where they ended up…

“I think I just have to leave, Logan,” she nearly whispered. “I’m sorry. I hate that you’ll be left hanging when it comes to Tia—”

“Then don’t do it,” he said as if he couldn’t believe what she was saying, as if everything in him wanted not to.

But Meg merely shook her head again and continued with what she’d been about to say. “I’ll pack up tonight and talk to Tia in the morning so she’ll have some closure before I go.”

Logan’s pale blue eyes bored into her as he took a turn shaking his head. But the longer he went on looking at her, the more anger appeared in his handsome face.

Then, as if he couldn’t trust himself to say another word, he stormed out of the apartment.

And even though Meg was convinced that she’d
made the choice she needed to make, the emptiness that flooded her once he was gone left her sorrier than she’d ever been in her life that she’d had to make it.

B
y eight o’clock the next morning Meg’s things were stacked beside the apartment door waiting for her to load them into her car.

She’d showered, pulled her hair into a geyserlike ponytail at her crown, and applied some makeup to conceal what a miserable night she’d spent packing and crying. She wore jeans and a plain gray hoodie that zipped up the front.

But now the time had come for her to take her final walk across the yard to the main house to say goodbye to Tia.

And as much as she wanted to get it over with, somehow she couldn’t force her feet to move.

Instead she was standing at the window that allowed her to look in that direction, wondering how she was going to get through this.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t said goodbye to any number
of kids—some she’d done lengthy work with and become very attached to. But no matter how difficult it had been, she’d always managed to buck up and do it.

And yet with Tia, she just couldn’t make herself.

Of course she hadn’t been Tia’s therapist, she’d been her nanny. And while she was always careful not to blur the line between therapist and parent, she knew she’d allowed that to happen to the line between being the nanny and being the mom.

Now she was paying the price for that.

And what if Tia did, too?

She hated that thought. Tia already had a mother who had abandoned her, who couldn’t even visit her without being cold and critical. The last—the very last—thing Meg wanted was to be the second person in the three-year-old’s life to leave her behind.

But that was what she’d opted to do and she knew she had to do it.

She just didn’t want to. She didn’t want to leave Tia. She most certainly didn’t want to leave Logan…

Tears threatened again but Meg blinked them away. It wasn’t as if they helped. This whole thing was tearing her apart and nothing made that any better.

Nothing except the thought of not following through with it.

Just go with what you want this time…

Logan’s words kept repeating themselves in her mind, haunting her, tempting her.

But she had reasons not to go with what she wanted. Legitimate reasons. It was just that those reasons—strong as they were—weren’t strong enough to actually
put her into motion. And as a result she was stuck right where she was.

She was stuck to that spot at the window. Not doing what she knew she should be doing. Wondering how it was possible for her heart to be in such total disagreement with her head…

As she went on staring at the back of Logan’s house, Tia opened the screen door, bounding out onto the deck in shorts, a flowered T-shirt and stockinged feet, her blond curls bouncing as if they were on springs. Harry and Max were fast on her heels and the sight of the three-year-old and her puppies almost made Meg cry again.

Did he tell you I’m leaving?

Tia seemed as carefree as ever and Meg was glad to see that. One way or another, the child wasn’t upset.

Glad and also slightly hurt to think that Logan might have told Tia and that Tia cared as little as she cared when her neglectful mother left her behind.

But maybe Logan hadn’t told her…

As Meg watched, Tia took the dogs’ hairbrush out of a basket that held some of the puppies’ things and began to attempt to groom the rambunctious animals. It was comical to see the dogs outwitting the three-year-old, and Meg couldn’t help smiling even as it brought more tears to her eyes. But again she refused to let them fall.

Then Logan came out onto the deck, too.

And there was no stopping the hot, salty grief from trailing down her cheeks.

How could she cry and yearn for him all at once? Or was she crying
because
she was yearning for him so much and had denied herself?

She was afraid to answer that, instead putting her willpower into staunching the flow before she used a tissue she took from a nearby counter to dab at her face and eyes. All while keeping Logan in view.

He was wearing torn jeans and a blue chambray shirt that he often wore to work. The shirttails were untucked; the sleeves were rolled to his elbows. He was carrying a pair of Tia’s tennis shoes that he took with him when he went to sit on the edge of the deck.

Wearily? Or was she misinterpreting the way he sort of deflated there? Meg wasn’t sure. Although she did know that there had been lights on in his house all night long so she doubted he’d had any more sleep than she had.

But tired or not, a single dad still had duties and he began to use a stick to scrape dried mud off the bottom of the tennis shoes. All the while Tia went on futilely attempting to brush the dogs behind him.

And Meg thought:
There they are, and here I am…

Alone with her certainty that she was right. That she knew best. That Logan was wrong…

He hadn’t
really
been wrong, though, she had to admit.

He’d been right about how terrific the two of them were together. So terrific that Meg had begun to feel as if being with him was the only time she was totally alive. So terrific that every minute she wasn’t with him she’d felt as if she were swimming against the tide to get to him again. So terrific that his every touch had energized her and merely the sight of him stirred a craving for him strong enough to almost make her groan even now.

And he’d been right about other things, too.

He’d been right about how terrific things were whenever they were both with Tia. How much fun it had
been to take care of the little girl in tandem. How great it had been to share the joy of her as if she belonged to them both. They’d even been in sync when it came to disciplining and reprimanding her, when it came to parenting styles.

A voice inside of Meg was screaming for her to run to them, to pick up where she and Logan had left off last night before those stupid legitimate reasons of hers had ruined everything…

So he was right but she’d let her reasons ruin things? Was that really what she’d done? she asked herself. Had she overruled him as if she knew more than he did?

Maybe. But she thought her reasons were legitimate.

Things with Logan
had
happened fast.

She was just coming out of a rough time in her life.

And Logan
was
just coming out of a rough time in his and making a lot of changes in response.

Those were the facts and they worried her.

Just then Tia gave up trying to brush the puppies, attacked her father from behind with a bear hug around his neck, and a laughing Logan flipped her over his head to lay her across his lap and tickle her.

And the way Meg felt just watching them was enough to make all of her reasons—legitimate or otherwise—drift away like smoke. Leaving her with only her feelings bringing her to a decision.

Yoo-hoo, Logan, could you come up here a minute?
she considered calling to him.

But she couldn’t just do that, either.

So how was she going to get him up there?

Hadley?

Maybe she could call Hadley.

And hope that Hadley hadn’t been up all night listening to Logan rehash every detail of what had happened, that Hadley hadn’t spent the night consoling her brother and thinking the worst of her…

But it was the only thing Meg could think to do.

So she picked up her cell phone and dialed the other woman’s number, willing Hadley not to think too badly of her if Hadley did know what she’d done…

Meg wasn’t sure how long it might be before Logan came to the apartment after her phone call to his sister. With that uncertainty, she ignored the urge to try to find a change of clothes and merely took her hair down from its ponytail to brush it, and refined the makeup she’d applied earlier—camouflaging the damage done by her last bout of tears when she’d first seen Logan through the window.

Still, when the knock came on the apartment door half an hour later, she wished she was wearing something sexy and alluring that would aid her cause. As it was, the best she could do was lower the zipper on the hoodie by a few inches, and even then she was careful not to show cleavage because she didn’t want to be too obvious or risk any more of her pride than she already was.

With her hand on the knob, she took a deep breath and exhaled in hopes that she would at least appear calm. Then she opened the door, grateful that her vague request that Hadley watch Tia and send Logan to the apartment had been met.

Logan didn’t seem happy to be there, though. His handsome face was drawn, he looked more tired close-up than when she saw him sitting on the edge of the deck,
and he didn’t spare her more than a split-second glance before his eyes went to the suitcases and boxes beside the door—as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her…

“Do you need help getting this stuff to your car?” he asked, apparently guessing that that was why she’d asked him to come.

“I hope not,” Meg said softly. Some of her courage was waning but she pushed through and added, “I was hoping maybe we could talk—on a scale of one to ten with ten being that you’d like to see me hung by my thumbs from the barn roof, how mad would you say you are at me?”

As if he were assessing how best to haul her things out of there, he still hadn’t let his gaze move away from them. But now he did, slowly pivoting his handsome head in her direction and raising his hands to his hips.

And for the first few moments that his pale blue eyes were on her, she thought that if there had been a fifteen on her mad-scale he would have chosen that.

But then he shook his head and said, “If this is some closure exercise to begin the healing or for some other psycho-babble reason, skip it.”

Or maybe he would choose seventeen…

“That isn’t what this is,” Meg said, fearing more and more that she’d done irreversible damage.

“Then what is it?” he demanded.

“Maybe you could come all the way in and close the door?” she suggested since he had yet to cross the threshold.

He seemed disinclined to do that but after a moment he did it anyway, shutting the door and then leaning back against it, this time crossing his arms over his broad chest.

Confronted with Logan’s obvious—and understandable—anger with her, Meg wasn’t sure what the best way to proceed might be. And she was too nervous for any of her work skills to kick in. Plus she was beginning to think that if this endeavor was going to blow up in her face she’d rather get to that part fast, so she said, “I don’t want to go…”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m not the one who said you had to.”

“I know. But…” There was just no easy way to eat crow…

“I was wrong,” Meg finally blurted out. “I was wrong and you were right, and I was stupid and pigheaded and stubborn and closed-off and blind and—”

“Wow,” he said as the other eyebrow shot up, joining the first one. “And here I just thought you were scared.”

“That, too,” she confessed, feeling slightly better because while he might have said that with some resigned acceptance, he hadn’t said it with any malice.

“I know a lot in theory,” she continued then. “And I’m not saying any of it is worthless or unfounded or should be ignored because most of the time it has merit, but—”

“You’re talking like a textbook—why don’t you just relax and tell me what you have to say?” he said as if he were attempting to calm her down.

But his tone was warmer than it had been, his expression wasn’t as forbidding, and that helped.

“Sometimes you have to throw the book out the window,” Meg said. “Sometimes no matter how fast it’s happened, or under what kind of circumstances, or even if the timing isn’t perfect—” she shrugged, “—it really is just the feelings that have to rule because the feelings
are a six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room and they won’t let you get past them.”

And her eyes were welling up again for no reason she could fathom, and she was blinking like crazy to keep from crying again.

Which was when Logan pushed off the door and came to wrap his arms around her, to pull her against him and hold her head to his chest with one of those big hands that felt so, so good…

He dropped his forehead to the top of her head then and said in a quiet, emotional voice of his own, “On a scale of one to ten with ten being petrified, how afraid was I that you were never going to realize that?”

Meg laughed and that was what actually kept her from crying again. “So I wasn’t the only one scared?”

“Of different things, but yeah, you weren’t the only one scared.”

“I’m sorry,” she said then, her own arms around him, her hands splayed against that magnificent back. “It wasn’t that you weren’t what I wanted all along. It wasn’t that being a mom to Tia wasn’t what I wanted all along. It was just that I thought—”

“I know what you thought and it doesn’t matter as long as you don’t think it anymore.”

Meg let go of him enough to veer backward slightly, to peer up at him. “I still think it,” she admitted with a laugh. “It just doesn’t change what I want and what I want is—”

“Me,” he said with so much cocksureness that it made her laugh again.

But her heart was too full and she was too relieved that this was working out the way it was to do anything
but agree with him and feed his show of ego. “Yes, what I want is you.”

“More than your career?” he asked then, testing.

“More than my career in Denver,” she qualified.

She’d thought about that part of this while she’d waited for him, and she’d admitted to herself that she didn’t really care if she returned to her work at the hospital, that maybe the time for a change had come even before this and that that was why she’d needed to get away this summer. Which she told Logan now.

“I think I can still work here, though—there’s the school, the hospital, there’s the home for disturbed kids that’s reopened. I think that offering my services on a case-by-case basis at any one of those will keep me busy enough. But not
too
busy…”

Logan smiled down at her, warmly, softly now. “I love you, Meg,” he said for the first time.

“I love you, too,” she could respond without a single doubt.