Christie Ridgway: Not Just the Nanny

Kayla’s bedroom and bath were located down a short hallway off the kitchen, while the rest of the household slept upstairs. And they were still at it the morning after her nanny group get-together, which gave her time to stew alone while the coffee brewed. Both she and Mick liked theirs medium strong, but hot, hot, hot. After an internet search, last Christmas he’d located a new maker that he’d wrapped and placed under the tree. It had been tagged to both of them, from “Santa Starbucks.”

Funny man.

But not the man she should be thinking about at the moment. A normal, non-rule-breaking nanny should be contemplating the double date she’d agreed to let Betsy set up—the other woman had an address book full of eligibles, apparently. Lord knew that Mick—the widower who wouldn’t see her as a woman—wasn’t one of those. She sighed.

Then sighed again, because darn it, she was thinking about him again when the only sensible thing to do was forget all about the man—or at least find a way to dispatch these inconvenient feelings she had for him.

Determined to put Mick from her head, she pulled a coffee mug from the cupboard and then directed her gaze to the window over the sink. It looked out onto the backyard patio, the sprawling oak beside it, and then the rectangular expanse of grass. Two sections of fencing had been removed to facilitate the neighbors’ pool building. Like every morning for the last week, a good-looking man tramped around the area, taking notes on a yellow pad.

Pool contractor. A definitely good-looking one in that way of men who worked outdoors. His hair was breeze-tousled, the ends lightened by the sun. His face and forearms were tanned and the rest of him looked fit and strong.

As she watched, he turned and caught her eye through the window then gestured for her to come outside. Her heartbeat ticked up a little as she stepped through the sliding door that led to the back. They’d had a few conversations and she’d found him pleasant. Friendly. Betsy would place him squarely in the eligible category. “Hey, Pete,” she called. “Everything okay?”

“I just wanted to let you know we’ll have the fence back up on Monday.” He paused to give her a smile. “How are you this morning?”

“Good.” She smiled back. “Fine.”

“And the kids?”

“Terrific.” It struck her that a woman who didn’t have a thing for the firefighter who signed her paychecks would be clearing something up for Eligible Pete about right now. So … “You know, um, Jane and Lee, they’re not my kids.”

“Oh, I got that,” he assured her. “You’re too young to be their mother.”

She frowned at that. Technically, not true. “Well—”

“I was raised by a stepmom myself. Love the woman to pieces, even more for taking on the ragtag rowdies that were me and my little brothers.”

They had something in common, she thought. “I have stepparents myself.”

“A split in your family, too?”

“When I was ten. Both parents married other people, had more kids.” Leaving her the lonely-only issue of their short-term union. Now her mother and father had big rambunctious families with their new spouses.

“That must make it crazy on Christmas and Thanksgiving for you.”

She forced a laugh. “Sure.” More often than not, though, each parent assumed the other had set Kayla a place at their table—which left her with no place at all.

“Yeah,” Pete spoke again. “All that blended family business must mean you and Mick have a lot to juggle.” His gaze shifted over her shoulder.

Kayla turned to see what had snagged the pool contractor’s attention. Who. Mick. Coffee in hand, he was eyeing them out the window. Even from here she could detect the comb lines in his just-shampooed hair. The man liked his showers.

And just like that, her memory kicked in and she swore she could smell the scent of his damp skin. Her hands tightened on her mug as a little shiver tracked down her spine. She really shouldn’t have gifted him with that delicious aftershave.

“How long have you two been together?”

“Six years,” Kayla murmured absently, her mind still far away. When Mick returned home from work, he almost always made a stop in the laundry room on the first floor where he stripped off his boots, socks and shirt. If she could get away with it undetected, she’d watch him walk through the kitchen and then up the stairs bare-chested, the muscles in his back shifting with every footstep. There were a lot of those muscles—all along his spine and across his shoulders, although she particularly liked the ones that moved so subtly at the small of his back, right above the taut rise of his—

Pete’s question suddenly sank in. How long have you two been together?

She whipped back to face the contractor. “Oh. Oh, no. Mick and I. We’re not together.”

“You don’t live together?” Pete asked, his expression perplexed.

“Well, yes, obviously we live together, but we don’t, um, live together . I’m just the nanny to his children. To Jane and Lee.”

“Oh.” Pete’s confusion seemed to intensify. “He didn’t mention that.”

Kayla frowned. “You were talking about me to Mick?”

Pete gave her a wry smile. “Just trying to get the lay of the land, if you know what I mean.”

He’d been asking about her? If Betsy was here, she’d be thrilled by the news. Kayla realized she only felt embarrassed. “I suppose I do.”

“And Mick gave me the impression that the, uh, land was, already, uh … uh …”

She glanced at the house, then looked at Pete again. “Already, uh … uh … what?”

“I probably misunderstood,” Pete answered quickly. “I asked for your cell phone number and he got this weird expression on his face.”

She frowned. “What kind of weird expression?”

Pete hesitated. “The kind that made clear your evenings weren’t free.”

A burn shot up her neck. More embarrassment. Maybe irritation. Likely an uncomfortable combination of the two. Mick was warning men off from her—even though he didn’t seem to notice she was even a girl?

Such a pal to me .

“It must have been a misunderstanding,” Pete started. “Though I …”

Kayla didn’t hear the rest of what he had to say, as she was already stalking back to the house. What right did Mick have to interfere? she fumed, her temper kindling. He’d already invaded her nightly dreams. Wasn’t that enough for him?

She flung back the sliding door and stomped into the kitchen. The man she worked for looked up from the utensil drawer he was rummaging through. “Was that guy bugging you?” he demanded.

“No!” She frowned, even as she noticed he looked handsomer and fitter and stronger than the pool contractor she’d left outside. His jeans and faded sweatshirt were nothing special, so the eye was drawn to the masculine angles of his face. He was all guy, from his midnight-black bristly lashes to the scuffed toes of his running shoes. And all-out attractive, she thought, then shoved it from her mind as she remembered she was mad at him. “Bugging me is—”

“Kayla,” wailed Jane from the doorway. “What will I do? I can’t go to school like this.”

Kayla whirled toward the preteen, saw the distress on her face and then the outstretched fingernails with their messily applied raspberry-colored polish. “Oh, Jane,” she said, hurrying toward her. “Don’t worry. We can clean them off in a jiffy.”

“No.” Tragedy laced the single word and was written all over the eleven-year-old’s face. “Every girl is coming to school with their nails painted today.”