Cara Colter - His to Command - the Nanny - A Nanny for Keeps

No relief, just guilt. Tomorrow. He’d do something about it tomorrow. And in the meantime he’d call the garage in the village and have them look out for her and offer assistance.

One of the dogs—a lanky, cross-bred creature with pretensions to deer hound—joined him, in expectation of another run.

‘Forget it, mutt,’ he said, returning to the house, grabbing his collar to stop him taking a short cut through the front door. ‘Round the back with you. Susan will kill us both if we trail mud over her polished floor.’ He pulled it shut and then followed the dog around the back.

He came to an abrupt halt when he saw the VW pulled up in the courtyard. He should have realised it was too good to be true.

Jacqui Moore, alerted by the dog, who’d rushed over to her looking for a fuss, straightened from the back seat as if caught out in a guilty act. Forgetting, for a moment, that his intention had been to stop her, that he was intent on an errand of mercy, he said, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Which was stupid, because he could see what she was doing. She was unloading the car .

‘Would you mind not using that language in front of Maisie?’ she replied, passing the child a small white bag.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, moving closer, calling the dog to heel before both females were covered in mud, further delaying their departure. ‘I’ll rephrase the question. What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Jacqui leaned into the car, ostensibly to pick up the matching white holdall, but in reality to gain breathing space.

She understood that Harry Talbot didn’t want them cluttering up his life. She understood and was sorry to be such an annoyance, but her first concern was Maisie. She hated confrontation as much as anyone, but since it was clear that she wasn’t being offered a choice, she might as well get it over with. The sooner he realised that she couldn’t be bullied, the sooner he’d stop.

‘Take your bag inside, Maisie, and stay in the warm,’ she said. And only then did she give her full attention to Harry Talbot. It wasn’t that difficult. The grey wool shirt hung loosely from his shoulders suggesting that he had, however impossible it seemed, actually lost weight and muscle. That he’d once been even broader than he was now. The washed thin denims he wore still clung to powerful thighs, however, and stretched over a hollowed stomach that only emphasised…

‘Well?’ he demanded, bringing her sharply back to reality.

She swallowed. ‘Well, Mr Talbot,’ she said, trying to erase the errant thoughts from her mind. ‘This is a car and this is a bag and what I’m doing is taking the latter out of the former.’

Sarcasm, Harry realised, had been a mistake.

He’d known it from the moment he’d opened his mouth. Regretted it the moment he’d opened his mouth. The fact that she was blonde, with curves in all the right places, didn’t make her dumb.

Despite a full lower lip that drooped enticingly and the kind of earthy sex appeal that sent out a siren call to man’s most basic instinct, she was still a nanny and nannies didn’t take nonsense from anyone. As if to confirm it, she gave him a look from grey eyes as cool as her mouth was hot, leaving him in no doubt that she wasn’t in the mood to take any from him.

‘Why?’ he demanded. It was a fair question.

‘Extraordinary,’ she replied, shaking her head, so that her misted hair swung in a soft invitation to touch. How long was it since he’d touched a woman’s hair…?

He curled his fingers tight against his palms, but she was already leaning back inside the car to pick up a second bag.

‘You don’t look stupid,’ she said, turning to him as she straightened.

He wasn’t about to debate it. He’d already had all the conversation he could handle.

‘You can’t stay here.’

She smiled. ‘There! I was right. You knew the answer all along.’

‘I mean it.’

‘I know you do, and I’m sorry, truly. But the car is damaged, Maisie is tired and, as you’ve already said , you can’t manage her on your own.’

‘That’s not what I…’ He stopped, suddenly aware of a yawning chasm opening in front of him. If he declared himself more than capable of looking after one small girl—this small girl above all others—she’d walk away and leave him to do just that.

He’d come to High Tops for solitude. Peace. To seek some kind of future for himself. She had to go and take the child with her. Now.

‘Didn’t you say something about catching a plane?’ he enquired.

‘There’s always another plane.’ Then, putting out a hand as if to touch his arm, reassure him, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Talbot, we’ll keep out of your way as much as possible.’

He moved before she could make contact. ‘This is intolerable. I’ll speak to Sally, make her see reason.’

‘You’ll have to stand in line,’ she replied. ‘There’s a queue. But no one will be speaking to your cousin until tomorrow. She’s on her way to China.’

‘China?’

‘Where the silk comes from.’ They both turned to look at Maisie, who was standing in the doorway, and once she had their full attention, she gave a little shrug and said, ‘That’s what Jacqui said when she was on the phone, anyway.’

‘You were listening?’ Jacqui asked her, not angry, not accusing the child of something bad, just distractedly; Harry suspected she was trying to remember what she’d said that she wouldn’t have wanted Maisie to overhear.

‘No.’

Maisie looked up at her, a picture of innocence. Something he’d seen her do a hundred times. She’d been listening…

‘I was waiting until you’d finished, that’s all.’ With that, she turned and flounced inside. The dog followed her.

‘When is Sally due to arrive,’ he asked, reclaiming her nanny’s attention, ‘in China?’

‘I have no idea,’ she said, adding a carrier bag to her load, which she held in one hand as she shut the car door. ‘Tomorrow some time, I would imagine. She might pick up her messages earlier if she has a stopover. Of course it’ll be the middle of the night here so she’ll probably wait until the time zones connect before she calls.’

Harry doubted that the difference in time zones would stop his cousin. It would be the sure and certain knowledge that if she called home she’d be expected to do something about the mess she’d made, rather than consideration. That and the fact that the longer she delayed, the more likely it was that someone else would have sorted it out for her by the time she did call. He didn’t say that.

He said, ‘In other words I’m stuck with the pair of you for the night.’

‘Thanks for the welcome,’ she said and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. Not the kind of smile that would make a person feel warm inside, a smile acknowledging how hard this was for him. It was a smile that suggested, in the fullness of time, he’d regret being so thoroughly ill-mannered. ‘And the tea. That at least was lukewarm when I drank it. What time do you have dinner?’

‘Whenever you feel like making it, Miss Moore. Tea is about as domestic as I get.’ He didn’t bother to cross his fingers at this blatant lie. He just wanted her to go and he didn’t care what he had to do to make it happen.

She stared at him. ‘Did someone programme you?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘So am I, but we’ll let that pass. I mean did someone take you into a laboratory and fit a chip, preprogrammed with chauvinist cliche´s, into your head?’

‘Is that necessary?’ he enquired. ‘I’d always been led to believe that it was genetic.’

‘That’s just something mendacious men made up to avoid doing their share of the housework.’