Marrying the Northbridge Nanny (6 page)

Meg thought for sure that Logan would have something to say to that that would keep this back-and-forth teasing going. Instead her comment left him quiet for a moment before he said, “Yeah, I guess we can’t all be super-brains and it’s a good thing for Rick that he had the body to get him by.”

Had what she’d said sounded so derogatory that it had been offensive? She hadn’t thought so but maybe she was wrong.

“But if what I’m remembering about Rick is right, he
was
pretty successful with the bodybuilding stuff,” she said to try to make amends. “That’s part of what I do in my not-the-nanny job—emphasize the strengths and find adaptations for the weaknesses so they can get by.”

And now she was back to the protection of her expertise…

Maybe she should just shut up.

Then Logan surprised her with a glance sideways at her and said, “What’s your weakness?”

She rolled her eyes. “Main Street isn’t long enough even going up one side and down the other to get through
that
list.”

“Give me the top three.”

“Chocolate,” she said because that seemed safe. “I eat chocolate at least three times a day, every day. And if there’s more stress, I eat more chocolate.” At that moment she would have killed for the thickest, darkest chocolate brownie topped with chocolate ice cream, fudge sauce and chocolate sprinkles…

He smiled but now it was more indulgent and contemplative than the joking-around smiles of before. “I’m not talking about what you have a weakness
for
. I’m talking about what your weaknesses
are
. Top three.”

“That’s a lot to admit to,” she said.

“You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”

That seemed fair. And like something that was venturing further into the personal than she was supposed to be going with him.

But she decided that she would rather do that than have him think whatever negative things he was thinking because of her remark about Rick Weaver’s lack of intelligence.

“My top three weaknesses…” she said as she considered what to tell him. “I’m not outgoing enough—that’s the biggest. It’s my nature to sit in the corner or the back of the room, to watch and listen. But participating or socializing? I have to force myself. And meeting new people makes me a wreck.”

“Don’t you have to do that all the time in your not-the-nanny job?”

“I do. But the difference is that I come in as the person people are looking to for help, the person who has the education and training and experience to make things better. It’s not about me, it’s about what I know and can do for them. That’s kind of my version of Superman’s costume—mild-mannered, retiring Clark Kent turns into someone completely different when he gets into those tights. Give me a file full of cognitive test results and assessment reports, and I’m fine. A dinner party or a first date? I’m too nervous to eat. You
can bet that I will have a candy bar in my purse that will very likely get eaten on the way home—or in the ladies’ room in the course of things if they’re really going bad.”

“So when you pull out the I’m-A-Psychologist stuff it’s because you’re nervous?”

She hadn’t expected him to put that together. And wished he hadn’t.

“That happens sometimes, yes…” she admitted with reservation and then, to keep things moving away from that, she said, “That’s one. Two, I have a crazy-strong sense of smell—”

“That’s a weakness?”

“It’s so strong that when I was a kid I could never eat lunch at school because I couldn’t stand the mixture of smells in the cafeteria. That’s the kind of thing I would fix for kids I deal with now by making sure they can eat somewhere else. And certain people have a scent to me that I just can’t take—”

“I hope I’m not one of them,” Logan said, sounding slightly alarmed.

“You aren’t,” she assured. It would actually have made things much easier if he was one of the people she hated the smell of. As it was, whatever scent he gave off did just the opposite—it made him more appealing to her.

“That’s two weaknesses. One more,” he reminded.

“If I find a single hair in my food, that’s it for me.”

“I’m not sure that should count,” he said.

“Believe me, if you saw the gag reflex that happens if I find a hair in my food you would count it as a weakness.”

He looked skeptical but by then they’d reached the new home improvement store that had been brought into Northbridge by his recently-revealed cousins, the Graysons. Home-Max was closed but they paused in their walk to look in the windows. It was a major change that had come to the small town.

They crossed to the other side of Main Street then and Meg said, “Okay, now you. Three weaknesses.”

“I’m a big macho man—macho men don’t have weaknesses,” Logan joked.

“So now we know that you lie—not so much a weakness as a flaw…” she goaded.

He laughed. “Okay, okay. Three weaknesses…Tia has to be the top of the list. You don’t realize how vulnerable a kid makes you until you have one and start worrying about something happening to them. She’s definitely my Achilles’ heel.”

“Okay, but that’s a given and not exactly a weakness in your character or personality or psyche so the other two had better be good.”

“I’m overly sensitive about the fact that I didn’t go to college….”

That was surprisingly candid. “Really? You didn’t go to college?”

“Not everyone does, you know.”

Ooh, he
was
sensitive about it…

“I know. I guess I just assumed with all you’ve accomplished that you did.”

“I didn’t. Neither did my business partner, Chase. It didn’t seem as if it would ever matter. But sometimes it does…”

Meg had the impression that it mattered a great deal to him for some reason, but he wasn’t giving any clue why. And he was so obviously sensitive about it that she didn’t feel free to probe. In fact, from the frown that was marring his face once again, she could see that he was regretting that he’d admitted it to her at all so she let him off the hook and went on.

“Okay, number three,” she said.

“Number three…I suppose if I wouldn’t let you use chocolate, I can’t use bacon.”

“No. But
do
you have bacon in your pocket right now in case of an emergency?”

That made him laugh again—what Meg was hoping for when she’d asked the outlandish question.

“Wouldn’t your super-nose be able to smell it if I did?”

Meg laughed. “Oh, good one,” she commended his comeback.

“No, I don’t have bacon in my pocket. I just have a weakness for it.”

“No weaknesses for—your rule. Come up with something else.”

But they passed Adz restaurant and bar then—the local hangout where everyone gathered, particularly after the Bruisers’ games. Logan asked if she wanted to go in for a drink.

That would have meant being with a lot of other people rather than being alone with Logan, though. And while it was what Meg knew she should have done to diffuse the sense that this had evolved into a date after all, she couldn’t do it.

So she declined that offer and they went the rest of
the way down Main Street to where Logan’s SUV was parked at the school.

As they headed for home, Meg returned once again to their weaknesses conversation. “Number three.”

“Hmm, let’s see…What if I say I have a weakness for the nanny?” That came with a sideways glance at her and a sly smile.

“Another weakness
for
and you’re just saying that to slide by anyway.”

“Am I?”

Oh, the wicked smile that accompanied that!

It was enough to heat Meg to the core and leave her leery of pushing this game any further.

So she sighed and, as if she still didn’t buy that he had a weakness for her, conceded facetiously, “Fine. You have a weakness for me.”

He smiled the smile of a mystery man and then changed the subject. “Can we talk about this next week instead?”

“Things aren’t working out and you’re firing me?”

“I think things are working out great—aren’t they for you? Are you not happy with us?” he asked, sounding suddenly concerned.

“No, I was just joking. I’m really happy,” she said in a hurry, realizing as she did that despite the fact that it had only been a short while since she’d become Tia’s nanny, she
had
felt better during that time than she had in months, that she hadn’t had a single bout of fretfulness or anxiety. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Just that I have to leave town for the next week.”

That definitely didn’t make her happy…

“Oh,” was all she said as he pulled onto his property and drove around to the garage and her apartment.

“It won’t change anything for you—Hadley will still be home when Tia gets up in the mornings and won’t go to work until you come over. Dinners will be the same, and Hadley will take over with Tia after that if you want. It’s just that I won’t be here.”

Which, for Meg, somehow put a gigantic hole in the picture. And telling herself that was silly, that he wasn’t a part of her job or her reason for being there, didn’t help to fill that hole.

“Where are you going?” she asked, hoping the question sounded merely conversational and friendly.

“Connecticut and New York. I have business to deal with in both places, I have to close on the sale of my house in Connecticut, and I promised to help Chase in New York with some things for his move here. I figure it’ll take about a week altogether. But like I said, everything with you guys should just go on as usual except that it’ll be Girls’ Club. Is that okay?”

It didn’t feel okay. But it had to be, didn’t it?

“Sure,” she said with manufactured cheeriness.

Then, since he’d turned off the engine, she got out of the SUV before he might have any inclination of how much she hated the news he’d just delivered. News that shouldn’t have caused her to feel anything whatsoever.

Or if it did, the only feelings it should have caused were relief at the thought that for the next week she wouldn’t need to wrestle with her attraction to him, and hope that maybe by the time he got back she would have it conquered.

But that wasn’t the case…

He walked her to the stairs that led to her apartment and would probably have gone up them with her if she hadn’t half-blocked them to stop it. There was no reason for it other than that if he was going away, she wanted the cut to be quick and clean, to happen now, before she felt any worse—something that seemed to be happening the more it sank in that she wasn’t going to see him for a week…

“Did you say you’re leaving tomorrow?” she asked, keeping her back very straight, her chin high, facing him as if she were unfazed.

“At the crack of dawn. About the time Tia usually gets up, so I figure I’ll say goodbye to her and go. But Hadley is always up then, too, so she’ll be here—you don’t have to worry about coming over any earlier.”

Meg nodded. “Well, have a good trip,” she said perfunctorily.

Logan didn’t say anything. And he was looking so steadfastly at her, those penetrating eyes of his studying her face.

Could he see how much this was bothering her? If he could he was probably as confused as she was about why that should be.

Because it was confusing. Days—it had only been a matter of days since they’d actually met, how could she be so rocked by the thought of him going out of town? And only for a week—it just shouldn’t have been a big deal at all. It was crazy that it was.

Then, in a quiet voice, he said, “You know, I wasn’t kidding earlier.”

“About what?”

“About my weakness for the nanny…” His eyebrows arched in a confusion that seemed all his own. “I keep telling myself to cut it out, but so far…” He smiled an endearingly sheepish smile and shook his head. “So far I’m not doing too well at that.”

You fooled me,
she thought even as her spirits lifted considerably at that admission and the knowledge that she wasn’t alone in whatever was happening between them.

Logan’s smile tilted slightly. “I even tried to postpone this trip,” he said as if he couldn’t believe it himself.

“Too bad you couldn’t…” Meg whispered, the most she could do in response to what he was saying, what she knew he shouldn’t be saying. What she shouldn’t be hearing because it only complicated things…

“Yeah, too bad I couldn’t,” Logan whispered back just before he kissed her.

It was a kiss that happened so fast Meg didn’t see it coming. A kiss so light it was almost as if their lips didn’t meet. A kiss that was over before she could enjoy it.

Not at all the kind of kiss she’d been thinking about giving him last night.

And yet there was still enough to it to send a mini-earthquake rippling through her…

Then he took a step away from her and held up both palms as if in anticipation of her taking him to task. “I know, a relaxed family atmosphere was not supposed to mean kissing cousins,” he said, reiterating what she’d said that first day at her interview.

“We aren’t cousins,” Meg said, repeating his words
of that day because it was the only thing she could think of to let him know she wasn’t going to complain.

“But I did promise no kissing.”

She was on the verge of saying it was okay to kiss her when he took another step back and said, “I’ll see you in a week.”

Then he pivoted on his heels and she was just left watching him walk away again with that swagger that was a turn-on all by itself.

And what could she do? She couldn’t shout that he was welcome to kiss her again anytime. Especially when he
shouldn’t
be welcome to kiss her again anytime. Or ever…

Which was an even more depressing thought than that he would be gone for the next week.

You definitely better use this time to get some control when it comes to Logan McKendrick,
she told herself firmly as she headed up the steps.

And then something else occurred to her.

Logan could be telling himself that exact same thing about her.

Oh, how she hated
that
possibility!

And the chance that he might succeed…

T
he day after Logan left, Tia came down with a cold. Meg and Hadley both assured him over the phone that they could handle it and would keep him informed, convincing him to go on with what he needed to do on his trip.

As a result, Meg spent the week that Logan was gone juggling a maid-of-honor’s duties for the week before the wedding with dealing with a sick child.

Working at a hospital, she’d had experience dealing with sick children, though, and with Hadley’s help, the week still went smoothly. In fact, the Girls’ Club feel of it actually helped because Tia liked cozying up on the couch with Meg and her aunt to be pampered and watch animated movies.

The week also allowed Meg to get to know Hadley better, and she came to like Logan’s sister a lot. To feel
as if they were becoming friends. So much so that by the third evening, after Tia was asleep for the night, Meg and Hadley began an every-night run of romance movies, snacking and girl talk.

And yet through it all, for Meg, there was still something missing without Logan there. And no amount of reasoning with herself, no amount of telling herself how insane it was to feel that way after so little time with him, made any difference. Every day seemed slightly empty because he wasn’t there to say good morning when she first went to the main house. Every dinner lacked something because he wasn’t there to add to the chitchat. Every bedtime and reading of
Goodnight Moon
was a little less fun because he wasn’t there, too.

And every after-Tia-was-asleep time with Hadley just wasn’t the same as those few after-Tia-was-asleep times with Logan had been.

So by Thursday of the following week when he was due back, Meg hardly felt as if she’d gained any more control over her attraction to the man.

Not that her determination to resist that attraction wasn’t in full force, because it was. None of the reasons to resist it had gone away. But she also wasn’t going to be able to meet his return with any less of a weak spot for him, either.

Which was why excitement at the prospect of his coming home woke her up long before her alarm went off on Thursday morning, and why he was on her mind almost every minute of the day.

He still wasn’t home yet, though, when she left Tia with Hadley at four o’clock to go to the rehearsal and
rehearsal dinner for Friday night’s wedding of her sister, Kate, to Ry Grayson.

After the rehearsal itself, everyone headed to the local restaurant and pub—Adz—which had closed for the rehearsal dinner. Food, music, dancing and even a friendly pool tournament made it a big party. A party that should have kept Meg well occupied. But the fact that she could hardly sit still through what should have been a perfectly relaxed and enjoyable evening, and the fact that she kept watching the clock and wishing things would move more quickly so she could get back to the McKendricks’ place, were other indications that she definitely didn’t have any more power over what was going on with her when it came to Logan McKendrick just because he’d been gone for a week.

But there wasn’t anything she could do about it except tell herself—again—that, weakness or no weakness, there had to be boundaries and she had to stick to them.

In fact, she swore that she
would
stick to them.

And if Logan came back with renewed convictions and self-control of his own that kept him from tempting her with even scant kisses like the one he’d given her the night before he’d left?

All the better.

At least that was what Meg told herself…

“Daddy’s home!” Tia announced to Meg at eight o’clock Thursday evening when Meg returned early from the rehearsal dinner after having given up trying to enjoy herself when all she could do was think about Logan.

Logan had apparently gotten there only moments before Meg had because he, Hadley and Tia were still in the entryway with Tia in his arms and his suitcase at his feet while Hadley looked on.

Meg had seen Logan’s SUV parked in front of the house when she’d pulled in. To hide her own elation at the fact that he was finally back, she’d made herself drive around to park where she usually did at the garage. But she hadn’t so much as gone up to the apartment before hurrying across the yard to go into the main house from the rear.

“I see that your daddy is home,” Meg answered, working to keep her voice sounding normal when what she was feeling was the same kind of excitement as Tia obviously was.

“He jus’ gotted here!” Tia informed her.

Meg tried to ignore the race of her own pulse and reminded herself of the vow she’d made to take things with Logan back to day-one—she was the nanny, he was her employer, and that was all there was to it.

But reminder or no reminder, she was so happy to see him that she could barely keep from grinning ear to ear. Not even the fact that he looked like someone who had been traveling all day did anything to diminish Meg’s elation as she stood somewhat behind the family tableau and watched him listen patiently to the avalanche of information Tia was giving—all of it things the little girl had told him on the multitude of phone calls they’d shared every day that he’d been gone.

And if—between
uh-huhs
to Tia—his eyes moved beyond Hadley to Meg, and Meg thought there might
have been an instant sparkle to them? She’d probably just imagined that, she thought, even as he gave her a small smile that somehow said hello without any words at all and in a way that made her feel as if something might have passed solely between the two of them…

Boundaries
, she reminded herself.
Stay within the boundaries.

But it would have been so much easier if she had just managed to get even a slight hold on herself while he was gone.

“I know you were sick—you told me every time we talked on the phone, remember?” Logan was saying when Tia began to tell him about her cold as if it were a great revelation. “But now that you’re almost all better, you might want to see what I brought you.”

That was enough for Tia to wiggle out of his arms and demand to know what was in his suitcase.

“Let’s open it upstairs, okay?” he suggested. “And then maybe—because Daddy’s really tired tonight—while I shower, I can get Meg or Aunt Had to give you your bath before I read you
Goodnight Moon?
”

The last part of that was a plea to Meg and Hadley. And since Meg was wearing the dress and heels she’d worn to the rehearsal, she was certainly not the likeliest candidate to do the three-year-old’s bath.

But despite that, before Hadley could say anything, Meg said, “Hadley is getting Tia’s cold. Why don’t we let her rest and while you show Tia what you brought her, I’ll change and come back?”

Hadley put up a very minor protest that Meg waved away.

“It’s no big deal. I’ll be back in five minutes,” she insisted, leaving again before anything could change.

And telling herself that her motive really was just to give her new friend a break.

Not because it would give her a little time with Logan…

After a mad dash to her apartment, Meg shed her dress, hose and heels in record time and put on one of her tightest pairs of jeans and a tank top that hinted at cleavage—though she was convinced that ease and speed were behind her choices, not thoughts of drawing any kind of attention to herself.

She’d left her hair loose for the rehearsal and now brushed it to freshen it while checking to make sure that the makeup she’d applied earlier didn’t need to be patched, too.

The only thing she replenished was her lip gloss, and after applying it she took one final check in the mirror, realizing that her heart was still doing an excited double time beat and that her cheeks were twin spots of pink that announced just how thrilled she was that Logan was home.

So, to her reflection, she said, “Stop it! He’s your boss, you’re going to give his daughter a bath because that’s your job, and then answer any questions he has about what went on while he was gone. But that’s all you’re going to do!”

And she meant it.

She would just allow herself to bask in the fact that Logan was back, she wouldn’t let things go beyond that.

It would be like sitting beside a lake—she could enjoy the view and getting to be near the water, but she wouldn’t dive in.

“These are my presents that my daddy brought me and this is Grilla—he falled behind the bed at Uncle Chase’s lof’. We stay’t there before we comed here and I din’t know it and I leaved him there so tha’s why we cooden’ fin’ him nowhere,” Tia explained.

Meg had given the three-year-old her bath, helped her put on her pajamas, and was ready to turn down Tia’s bed. But it was littered with the sheepishly grinning floppy gorilla Tia referred to as Grilla, a fluffy lion hand puppet, a box of snap-together building blocks, a babydoll and a framed photograph that Meg was particularly interested in.

“Is this one of your presents, too?” Meg asked of the picture that she picked up first in order to take a closer look.

“No, Daddy said the movers forgetted some boxes and Uncle Chase is gonna bring ’em wis him when he comes. But that was in one of ’em and Daddy bringed it home now.”

The photo was of a woman holding a newborn. Meg had to assume it was Tia with her mother. But she wanted to know for sure, so she said, “Is this you when you were just a baby?”

Tia was more interested in putting her hand inside the puppet and making growling noises to tease Max and Harry who had just bounded into the room and jumped onto the bed, too. “Yeah, tha’s me wis my mom,” the little girl confirmed.

Tia’s mom.

Logan’s wife.

Ex
-wife.

Until Hadley had mentioned Logan’s ex-wife once or twice during their conversations this last week, Meg hadn’t been sure exactly who Tia’s mother had been in Logan’s life. She’d assumed her to be an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend and not a late wife or late girlfriend, but the subject had never come up with Logan or Tia or Hadley before that. As curious as Meg was about Tia’s mother, she’d forced herself not to pry for more information. But now here she was, with a picture of the woman in her hands…

Blond and strikingly pretty with a refined bone structure and Tia’s same brown eyes, the woman’s smile didn’t look genuine and she wasn’t holding Tia the way an infant was usually held. She was sitting and holding Tia stiffly with Tia’s back braced against her front, hands around Tia’s ribcage as if she were holding a fragile vase up for inspection.

“You were just a bitty baby,” Meg said, hoping that would prompt the little girl to add something more.

It didn’t.

So Meg said, “Do you remember when your mom lived with you?”

“Huh-uh.”

“When do you see your mom now?” Meg asked, rationalizing that inquiring about Tia’s relationship with her mother was a reasonable thing to do.

“I see her sometimes,” Tia answered without stopping her play with her puppies.

“But not a lot? Is that because she lives far away?”

“She lives in a house wis lots a books. But you can’t color in ’em. She ge’s mad if you do…”

Mom had a temper?

“Do you ever spend the night with your mom?” Meg asked conversationally as she gathered up the remainder of the toys.

“My bed’s not at her book house,” Tia said as if Meg were slightly dim to need that explained to her. “She comes to our house for a little while and I has to be p’lite.”

It took Meg a moment to figure out that
p’lite
was polite. Tia was warned to be polite to her own mother? That didn’t sound like a close parent-child relationship. But it also didn’t seem to bother the child.

“Would you like to see her more? To ever stay with her?”

“I like my dad. He knows ’bout guh’night moon and Grilla and what to do when I sneeze—say
bless you
not
use a tissue
.”

Apparently a faux pas her mother had made since Tia did a stilted-sounding mimicry.

Meg took the toys to the toy box and, with another glance at the photograph, said, “Would you rather have your mom’s picture on your nightstand or over on the dresser?”

Tia shrugged again. “Dresser,” she said offhandedly, more involved in playing tug with Harry and the hand-puppet than in the decision.

Tia’s indifference to her mother raised a lot of other
questions in Meg’s mind, but just then Logan’s bedroom door opened and he crossed the hall saying, “Okay, girls, it’s story time!”

“I know you’re tired so I’ll say good-night and let you go to bed, too,” Meg offered half an hour later when she and Logan left Tia’s bedroom after getting the child to sleep.

Ending the evening already was a reluctant suggestion because Meg would have preferred just a few minutes more with him. But he’d already announced that he was worn out and in the interest of keeping things on the up-and-up with him, she forced herself to say what she knew she should say.

Logan didn’t disagree, which made her think he might have come home with the same resolution to maintain distance between them.

He did counter her suggestion with one of his own though. “I’ll drive you around back—I’m going to move my car to the garage anyway. I didn’t feel like dragging my suitcase and carry-on and the rest of my stuff across the yard so I parked out front.”

Meg had wondered about his parking choice when she’d seen his car there. And while she certainly didn’t need a ride to the garage apartment, it did provide her with those few more minutes.

“Okay,” she agreed.

Logan held the front door for her and then the passenger door of his SUV before he walked around to his side. Watching as he did, Meg took in the sight of him freshly showered and shaved, his hair dry now from the
dampness it had held when he’d joined her and Tia for Tia’s bedtime story.

He was wearing a pair of jeans with a ragged tear below one knee and a plain white T-shirt—obviously dressed for comfort, he still managed to be sloppy and sexy at once—and it was difficult for Meg to believe how wonderful it felt to see him.

Which she knew she should take as a warning all in itself.