Marrying the Northbridge Nanny (2 page)

“As long as
relaxed, family atmosphere
doesn’t mean kissing cousins,” she muttered.

“We aren’t cousins and I promise—no kissing,” he responded to her utterance, somehow making her feel the teensiest bit rejected for some reason that didn’t make any sense.

But Meg ignored it and got back on track herself. “Relaxing a little is my goal this summer, too,” she said, just more stiffly than she wished it had come out.

And that made the crooked smile straighten and broaden into a full grin. “You’re the old Reverend’s granddaughter, aren’t you?” he asked out of the blue then, as if light had just dawned in him to explain her behavior. And, to some degree, Meg’s being the former town reverend’s granddaughter did throw light on her reaction.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

He nodded slowly, knowingly, and in a way she wasn’t sure she appreciated because she could see that he was thinking she was some prim and proper, stuffy, nose-in-the-air conservative prig like her grandfather. And she wasn’t. She was just a very quiet person who
battled shyness along with the lingering effects of a stringent upbringing.

He didn’t pursue that reference to the Reverend, though, finally continuing with what he’d been saying. “I want this to be an informal environment for us all. Casual, friendly…”

Did he think she was going to be
un
friendly? Or was she just giving the impression that she was too wooden? Because she knew she sometimes came off that way even though she tried not to.

In an attempt to counteract that impression, she said, “One of the main reasons I want to do this is for the fun of it. I like the idea of Tia seeing me as part of the family. But all kids need boundaries, limitation, rules and to know what the expectations of them are. It not only teaches them things, it also makes them feel safe. So, as Tia’s nanny—assuming you decide to give me the job—I’ll make sure there are enough of those.”

While Meg’s intention had been to ease Logan McKendrick’s mind, by the end of that all the amusement had left his handsome face and a slight frown had replaced it. “What are we talking in the way of boundaries, limitations, rules and expectations?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she tried to reassure him. “Regular bedtimes and mealtimes, making sure teeth are brushed, hair is combed, that she’s dressed when she should be. She can be given small responsibilities like helping to pick up her toys, putting her shoes in the closet—age-appropriate expectations. Three-year-olds like to test authority, to see what they can get away with, what they can control, and just how inde
pendent they can be—some of that is good and needs to be encouraged, some of it has to be struggled against. She can learn that there is a right and a wrong time and place for certain things. Punishments can include brief timeouts, maybe going without dessert—”

“Okay, I can see you know your stuff,” Logan said to stop her.

Had she sounded too clinical? Sometimes she did that, too. Unintentionally.

Still in damage-control-mode, she said, “But three-year-olds primarily need a lot of playtime, a lot of safe ways to explore their environments…” She stopped herself this time, knowing she was still sounding too much like a textbook. “And really, beyond doing what needs to be done to keep her safe and happy, I would just want her to have a good time.”

Logan McKendrick nodded but she could see that he had more reservations now than he’d had before.

“We don’t keep military precision when it comes to meals,” he said. “I give Tia breakfast whenever she gets up in the morning, lunches will probably just be you and Tia because Hadley and I will be working, but we like to do dinner as a group project with everyone pitching in—even Tia gets out the napkins—and then we sit down to eat together. How would you feel about that? Would you want to be included or not?”

“I’d like to be included. Actually, family dinners are more important than some people think.”

“But again, it’s a
casual
thing—the cooking, the cleanup, we all just chat while we get things ready, while we eat.”

“It sounds great,” Meg said, deciding to keep her answers more simple. “I don’t know how good a cook I am, but I know my way around a kitchen.”

“We’re not gourmets,” Hadley assured.

“I should warn you, though,” Meg said to Logan then, thinking that if she’d put him off too much maybe she should give him an easy way out of hiring her. “This is only a temporary thing for me. I’m on a leave-of-absence for the summer.”

“Yeah, Hadley told me. But that’s not a problem. We’re just setting up in Northbridge again ourselves—in fact I’ve been so busy around here that I haven’t even been into town more than a few times the whole month that Hadley and I have been here. I’m not sure what I’ll want to do with Tia in the long run—the summer will give me a chance to check out the day care and preschool situations.”

“Playing with other kids is important, too—good social skills are something she’ll need.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of friends and playmates than
social skills
,” Logan McKendrick said, and again Meg knew that something about her expertise actually seemed to rub him the wrong way.

Then he proved it and said, “I just want to be clear—Tia is a normal three-year-old kid who needs someone to look after her when I can’t. She doesn’t need a shrink.”

“Oh, no, I understand that you aren’t hiring me as a psychologist and that’s actually why I want the job, so you don’t have to worry about me being anything but her nanny.”

He studied her with those pale blue eyes for a while
as if he was deciding if he could believe that. But after a moment he said, “I trust Hadley’s judgment. If you want the job, it’s yours. As long as you keep in mind that we’re not fussy around here. This isn’t a hospital or a classroom—it’s home.”

“Honestly, that’s just what I want.”

He took another long look at her, possibly deciding if he believed that, too. But then he said, “Okay, how about if you move in sometime tomorrow—”

“I have a wedding shower for my sister, Kate, tomorrow. Can I come in the evening, when it’s over?”

“Sure. Anytime is fine. Then you can start on Monday.”

“Actually, if I get here before Tia goes to bed tomorrow night maybe I can go through the bedtime routine with you so I know what that is?”

“That’s fine, too. We
do
have a bedtime routine,” he added as if he felt the need to convince her that not everything was unstructured, in case she was judging him.

“Do you want to see the apartment?” Hadley offered.

“I would but I have to go with Kate to do some wedding things. I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said, making an attempt to sound more laid-back because she thought there was some judgment being passed by him, too. More laid-back than she actually was.

But she honestly didn’t have more time to spend at this, so she said, “In fact, unless you have anything else you want to talk about, I should get going.”

“No, feel free,” Logan said.

“Harry piddled,” Tia announced to the room in general then.

Hadley jumped up to scold the puppy and put him
outside, saying as she did, “I’ll clean this, Logan, if you want to walk Meg out.”

As Logan and Meg both got to their feet and headed for the front door, Logan said, “The puppies were Hadley’s moving-here present to Tia so she’s working the hardest to house-train them—it gets me out of a lot.”

Meg laughed but she didn’t know what to say. Sticking with the dog theme, she said, “Tia said Max is a doodle and Harry is a re-doodle, but I didn’t know what she meant.”

“Max is half poodle, half Labrador—a Labra-Doodle. Harry is half poodle, half golden retriever. He’s a Golden-Doodle, but when we got them I made a joke about Max being a doodle and Harry being a re-doodle. Tia took it seriously.”

That made Meg laugh, too.

Logan unlatched and opened the screen door then, holding it for her as she went out and going as far as the porch himself.

But for some reason, once she’d gone down the porch steps, Meg felt the need to pause, glance back, and reassure him. “I really do just want to be the nanny this summer.”

He nodded. “I hope so,” he said with what sounded like some skepticism.

She knew that there was nothing she could do from there but prove to him that she meant what she said, so she merely added, “I’ll see you all tomorrow night.”

“We’ll be here.”

They exchanged goodbyes and Meg went the rest of the way to her car, thinking that he didn’t need to feel
skeptical. Putting herself back in touch with the basics of happy, healthy kids—that’s what she’d set out to do for the summer and that was all she intended to do.

As she started her car and put it into gear she realized that Logan McKendrick was still standing on the porch watching her go.

And just that quick it wasn’t Tia or any other kids she was thinking about. It was the way he filled out a pair of jeans that struck her.

That
certainly wasn’t what she needed to be thinking about this summer!

But surely it would become old stuff the longer she was around him, the more she got used to seeing him.

At least she was counting on that being the case.

And she hoped that the casual, friendly, free-and-easy environment he was asking her to be a part of bred that familiarity in a hurry.

So she could stop even noticing the way he looked in jeans or anything else.

So she could stop noticing him at all…

W
hile Tia napped on Sunday afternoon, Hadley stayed to listen for her as Logan put the finishing touches on the apartment he’d promised to Meg Perry.

It was in the upper level of the triple-car garage close behind—but not attached to—his house. He’d hired out the plumbing, electrical, and drywalling work he wasn’t qualified to do, but he’d done the rest of the construction himself.

The studio apartment wasn’t as spacious as the loft that he and his partner were putting into the upper level of the barn. That would be Chase’s place over the workroom, the office, and the showroom that were on the ground floor of that larger structure. But even so, the nanny’s apartment was open and airy and not at all cramped.

There was a small kitchen with a built-in table that
Logan had designed, complete with a semi-ornate, hand-carved edge. The living room was comprised of a flat-screen TV hung on one wall in front of a sofa and two matching easy chairs that had come from a collection he and Chase had done a few years ago that were a combination of oak and leather that made them comfortable and sophisticated at once. There was a beautiful double-sized sleigh bed that Logan had also designed and made himself, set on a platform area that rose two steps above the rest of the space to give some sense of separation. And there was a large bathroom and walk-in closet that provided the only closed-in sections of the place.

Curtains had been hung, the hardwood floor was finished, and there was even a small fireplace with a mantel he’d crafted himself.

And as he stood surveying his handiwork to make sure the apartment was ready for occupancy, he was satisfied with the way it had come out. He was also a little turned on by the image of Meg Perry living there, using the table, sitting on the sofa and the easy chairs, sleeping in the bed.

And he had no idea why…

But then he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Meg Perry all the way around. Or of his own reaction to her and the fact that he’d been thinking about her incessantly since she’d left yesterday.

Meg’s sister, Kate—who lived in Northbridge—had seen an ad they had placed in the local newspaper and passed it along to Meg. She looked good on the surface—she had a Ph.D. in child psychology, for crying
out loud, and Hadley had told him that she’d learned through their interview that Meg had gone from babysitting as a teenager to working her way through college doing day care, to counseling and treating kids at Children’s Hospital in Denver. Her background was full of work with children, so who better to be Tia’s nanny?

That had been Hadley’s argument in favor of Meg since Hadley had handled that whole thing while he was juggling keeping up with the business, the move, and getting the apartment finished. So even though he’d been concerned that Meg Perry was tremendously overqualified and wondered why she was willing to spend her summer as a nanny—something he still didn’t have an answer to—Hadley had talked him into it.

His first impression of Meg hadn’t been bad, but that had been surface, too. Initially, when he’d seen her standing at the other end of the hallway, he’d registered incredible, thick, wavy hair the color of cherrywood, beautiful emerald green eyes, and a warm smile.

By the time he’d joined her and Hadley in the entryway he’d realized that those weren’t her only noteworthy physical attributes—she also had flawless alabaster skin; a perfect, straight, thin nose; high cheekbones any model would have envied, and lips that he couldn’t help thinking of as anything but luscious—although that didn’t seem like a good way to think about his daughter’s nanny.

She also had a great, compact, curvy little body.

But it hadn’t only been her looks that had counted in her favor during that first impression. He’d also liked that she hadn’t gone overboard trying to sweet-talk Tia
the way he’d seen babysitters and other child-care givers do in an attempt to prove how good they were with kids. As a rule, once his back was turned, those were the people who ended up being the worst with her.

Meg Perry had been more on the conservative side than the effusive one, and he knew from experience that Tia responded better to being left to her own timetable when it came to letting new people in. That they were all better off with someone calm, soft-spoken, even-keeled.

Those were all things that had seemed to describe Meg Perry.

She’d also seemed slightly self-contained and maybe a little tense about coming into a new situation, but the warmth in her smile had led him to believe that there was a softer side to her that they’d probably see more of later on.

Then she’d trotted out that stuff about
age-appropriate expectations, social skills,
and
exploring the environment,
and that had made him think twice about her.

Tia was three years old, for crying out loud—he was lucky that she was out of diapers and eating the same foods he did. He needed someone to watch her, play with her, feed her, and keep her out of harm’s way. He didn’t need a bunch of textbook terms thrown at him. Besides, people who were convinced they knew so much more than anyone else that they had to educate lesser mortals struck a particularly raw nerve in him.

At that point he’d thought that maybe he shouldn’t hire her.

On the other hand, he’d also known that Hadley was all for Meg Perry. And he’d gotten kind of a kick out of
giving her a hard time for that communal-living panic she’d shown—kind of a kick that he hadn’t felt in a long while. Plus he’d liked that hint of spunk she’d shown in the kissing-cousins comment.

And she did have that hair and those eyes…

He’d opted to give her the benefit of the doubt because Hadley had been so impressed by more than her résumé, because Hadley had liked her and had said that despite leaving Northbridge the way he and Chase and Hadley herself had, Meg still seemed like a Northbridge girl…

He and Chase and Hadley had all returned to their small hometown because they were weary of what they’d found in more bustling parts of the country—or, in Hadley’s case, in more bustling parts of the world. They all wanted the homier atmosphere of Northbridge. The closeness. The down-to-earth aspects of it. And if that was what Meg Perry could offer Tia, then Hadley was right and Meg was the best person for the nanny job.

And it
was
a temporary situation, he reminded himself as he smoothed the quilt on the bed Hadley had made up for Meg.

Meg had made sure he knew she wasn’t signing on for anything permanent but that could be his escape clause, too, if she ended up rubbing him wrong more than she rubbed him right.

Not that there would be any
rubbing
involved, he amended his own thoughts when more literal images of that began to pop into his mind. More literal and appealing images…

But he wasn’t interested in Meg Perry as anything but
Tia’s nanny. Not only did he need to get settled into Northbridge again, but he also had to put his divorce behind him once and for all, and to concentrate on being a single dad. And even if he were in the market for a relationship—which he absolutely wasn’t—it wouldn’t be with a woman like Meg. That Ph.D. she was sporting, the expertise she hadn’t been able to keep from spouting—those were like detour signs telling him to go in a different direction to avoid the kind of problems he’d encountered before. No matter how attractive Meg Perry might be, the last thing he wanted was another brain-meets-brawn situation with any woman.

And yet, even as he was telling himself that, he was standing at the foot of the sleigh bed picturing Meg Perry stretched out on the mattress…

It was that red hair, those eyes, the warmth in that smile that he just couldn’t get out of his head…

But those things aside, he was betting that Miss Age-Appropriate-Expectations would probably not be able to resist showing off some more and that would hammer out of him whatever it was that had caused him to even dream about her last night.

At least that was what he was hoping.

Logan took his hand off the bed frame and jammed it into his jeans pocket.

Age-appropriate expectations. Social skills. Exploring the environment…

Those were the kinds of things he needed to remember about her. Not how green her eyes were. Not how soft her skin had looked. Not that when he’d joined her in the entryway he’d caught a whiff of a clean, airy
wildflower scent that he knew hadn’t come from his sister or his daughter.

Meg Perry was the nanny and that was it. Yes, he’d meant it when he’d told her he wanted her to be a part of everything around here so she seemed like family, but that was for Tia’s sake, not his.

He just needed to think of her the way he thought of his ex-wife—as a person he had to be civil and courteous to for his daughter’s happiness and well-being.

Other than that?

There wouldn’t
be
anything other than that between him and Meg Perry.

It was something he swore to himself.

That no matter what, her brain was not meeting his brawn.

“You yike it?”

It took Meg a split second to translate
yike.
She’d arrived at the McKendrick home just after Tia’s bath, in time for the bedtime story. Logan was perched on Tia’s small twin bed, his daughter by his side as he read
Goodnight Moon
to her. Meg was on the rocking chair near the bed and the moment Logan finished the book, Tia leaned forward to see Meg—whom she was only beginning to acknowledge—to ask that question.

Yike
was apparently
like
—did she
like
the book that Logan had read?

“I did,” Meg assured the little girl.

“You din’t say guh’night moon,” Tia accused.

At the end of the story, after Logan had read the last line, bidding good-night to noises everywhere, Tia had
added, “Good night, moon,” and Logan had repeated it. Meg hadn’t.

So she did now. “Good night, moon.”

That seemed to satisfy the three-year-old because she sat back against her pillow again.

Logan threw Meg a smile that crinkled the corners of his striking eyes. She’d lectured herself since she’d left here yesterday that she wasn’t going to notice things like that. But there it was anyway.

Then, to his daughter, he said, “Tell me what I told you happens tomorrow.”

“You and An’ Had has to work.”

“And while we work, who will be here with you?”

Tia leaned forward again, pointed a finger at Meg, and said, “Her will.”

“Meg. She’s Meg,” Logan reminded.

Tia sat back without saying Meg’s name the way her father was obviously prompting her to do.

“I wanna play wis you and An’ Had,” the little girl said quietly, pushing back on her pillow so she was more hidden by her father when she confided that to him.

“Aunt Had and I can’t play tomorrow. Meg will be here for you to play with,” he said with a pointed glance at Meg.

Why did he aim that at me?
Meg wondered. Did he think she
wasn’t
planning to play with his daughter?

Maybe she was misinterpreting the glance. Certainly she didn’t address it. But she did lean forward so she could see Tia and say, “I have some games and you can show me what toys and games you have that you like to play.”

“I wanna play wis my dad,” Tia responded in a thanks-but-no-thanks way.

And why it flashed through Meg’s mind that she might like to play with Tia’s dad herself, Meg had no idea. But she nipped
that
bit of insanity in the bud, and said, “I’ll tell you what, if you do what we need to do to get the day started, then as a prize, we’ll go to a safe part of the workroom and visit your dad and your aunt Hadley for just a few minutes. Then, if you do whatever we need to do after that, you can get a second visit to see Dad and Aunt Hadley in the afternoon. As long as Dad says that’s okay and that we won’t disturb their work too much.”

Tia looked up to her father for confirmation.

“I think that sounds like a good idea,” he said. “But you’ll have to do what Meg tells you to do first.”

Meg was pleased that he’d gotten the idea—visiting him would be the reward earned for good behavior. She was also glad that he wasn’t opposed to having his work disturbed.

Tia had also apparently gotten the idea that there was a price to be paid for the privilege, because she frowned mightily. But all she said to her father was, “Will you be here when I wake up?”

“I will be. We’ll have breakfast together like we always do. Then I’ll go out to the barn to work—like before, when we were at our old house, remember how I would leave to go to work?”

Tia nodded.

“Well, it’s the same as that, except I don’t go as far away. And while I do that, Meg will be with you like Nancy used to be.”

At the mention of Nancy—who Meg could only
assume had been Tia’s former nanny—Tia looked at Meg. “Hers like Nancy?” the little girl said, putting it together.

“Right. Nancy was your nanny in Connecticut, and now Meg is your nanny here—she’ll help take care of you.”

Tia seemed to accept Meg on those terms—luckily she must have had a good experience with Nancy.

But the acceptance came only in Tia not saying anything at all, but merely putting her index finger in her mouth. Which was apparently a signal to her father because seeing that, he got off the bed, slid the little girl to lie flat and covered her with her princess-themed top sheet and a light blanket.

Then he bent over, kissed Tia’s forehead, and said, “Good night, moon. Good night, Tia.”

Tia took her finger out of her mouth only long enough to say, “Guh’night, moon. Guh’night, Daddy.”

And Meg had the sense that that was how they said good-night every night. It made her smile before she whispered, “See you tomorrow, Tia.”

Out of the mouth came the index finger again. “Uhuh. Say guh’night, moon. Guh’night, Tia.”

“Ahh. Good night, moon. Good night, Tia,” Meg said, following orders, thinking that it was a positive sign that she was being included in the ritual.

“Guh’night, moon. Guh’night, Meg,” came the small, sleepy voice before the finger went back in the mouth once more and Tia closed her eyes.