Not Just the Nanny

“What specifically is bothering you?”

She watched his mouth move as he said the words. His lips looked soft, the slight edge of whiskers around them only serving to outline their manly shape. “It’s … it’s the kiss,” she heard herself blurt. “Maybe I’ve forgotten how.”

Heat washed up her cheeks. It was thinking of him, his mouth, his tongue, his taste that was rattling her brain and tripping up her pulse.

His grip tightened, just those two fingers making her immobile, keeping her captured as he bent close. “Then let me remind you,” he whispered, his breath warm against her face, “of exactly how two pairs of lips are supposed to meet.”

About the Author

Native Californian CHRISTIE RIDGWAY started reading and writing romances in middle school. It wasn’t until she was the wife of her college sweetheart and the mother of two small sons that she submitted her work for publication. Many contemporary romances later, she is the happiest when telling her stories despite the splash of kids in the pool, the mass of cups and plates in the kitchen and the many commitments she makes in the world beyond her desk.

Besides loving the men in her life and her dream come-true job, she continues her long time love affair with reading and is never without a stack of books. You can find out more about Christie at her website, www.christieridgway.com.

Dear Reader,

Last week, our neighbours’ daughter visited and I held her newborn in my arms. I felt both protective and enchanted of her sweet warmth and it brought me instantly back to my days as a babysitter when I was a young teen. Oh, the nights I spent with kids not my own! The diapers changed, the owies kissed, the way those little people burrowed into my young heart.

I was reminded again that I’m a sucker for kids of all sizes.

So is Kayla James, the nanny for eleven-year-old Jane and eight-year-old Lee. She’s been with them since their mom died six years before and somewhere in those six years she’s also fallen for their father, fire fighter Mick Hanson. But will the widower ever look at her as someone other than his children’s caregiver?

For Mick’s part, he knows he’s attracted to the pretty woman who shares his kids and his kitchen, but he’s uncertain he can take on another person’s happiness. The man’s forgotten that the head cannot always rule the heart, and this good guy will be reminded of this fact while also dealing with the normal events of family life.

Some of those events come straight from my world … hope you enjoy a glimpse of my real-life cat, Goblin, and my husband’s Impossible Football Catch, not to mention grilled cheese-and-pickle-relish (yuck!) sandwiches for breakfast.

Best wishes,

Christie Ridgway

NOT JUST THE NANNY

CHRISTIE RIDGWAY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For all those who’ve given their heart to a child

not their own.

Chapter One

The woman on the sofa beside Kayla James suddenly sat up straight and looked at her with round eyes. “I’ve got it. I’ve finally figured out why you’ve been turning down men and declining invitations. You … you’ve broken the cardinal rule of nannies!”

Kayla ignored the flush racing over her face and focused on the bowl of pretzels sitting on the coffee table. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, yes, you do,” Betsy Sherbourne said. Her long, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she looked barely old enough to be a mother’s helper, let alone a full-fledged fellow nanny. She wiggled, bouncing the ruby-colored cushions. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Kayla pulled the edges of her oversized flannel shirt together. There was a chill in the air tonight. “You’re jumping to conclusions because I didn’t feel like being the fourth in your blind double date last weekend.”

“The fact is, you haven’t gone anywhere in months,” Betsy replied. “Your social life is limited to these weeknight, girls-only get-togethers we have with our friends from the nanny service.”

Kayla latched on to the new topic like a lifeline. “Did I tell you that the others can’t come tonight? Everybody had a conflict except Gwen, who should be here any minute,” she said, naming the woman who owned and ran the We

“Yes, you told me,” Betsy said. “And I won’t let you change the subject.”

“Look,” Kayla responded, feeling a little desperate. “You know I’m busy with my job and school.”

“Half of that’s not an excuse you can use anymore.”

Kayla sighed. Her friend was right. A couple months back she’d finally been awarded her college degree at the advanced age of almost twenty-seven.

Since then, her friends had bombarded her with suggestions about how to fill her newfound free time. “I should have never let you guys throw me that graduation party,” she grumbled.

“Yeah, and other than those brief hours when we whooped it up, when was the last time you took some time out for yourself?”

“Today. I went shopping. I bought bras.” Kayla rummaged in the knitting basket beside her, withdrawing the almost-finished mitten she was working on. “What do you think?” she asked in a bright voice, still determined to distract her friend. “Is this large enough for Lee? He’s big for eight.”

“Bras?” Sounding skeptical, Betsy ignored the mention of Lee, one of the two children Kayla looked after. “What color bras?”

“What does color have to do with anything?”

There was pity in the other woman’s gaze. “Kayla, swear to me you have more than white cotton in your lingerie drawer.”

She felt her cheeks go hot again. “Do we really have to—”

“Okay.” Betsy relented. “Just tell me about these bras, then.”

“The bras. They …” Kayla sighed again. “Okay, fine. They were for Jane.”

“Jane! Jane’s first bras?”

Kayla nodded, hope kindling that this would be the topic to derail the original discussion, even though it was a risk to bring up the kids again, as the second cardinal rule of nannies was to never get too attached to the children. “Can you believe it? All her friends have them now. Time has sure flown.”

“Yes.” Betsy reached for a pretzel and eyed Kayla again. “And you’ve given Mick and his kids almost six undivided years of yours now.”

Uh-oh. She was losing the battle once more. “I’ve not given it to them,” Kayla said, aware she sounded defensive. “I’ve been employed by Mick to take care of his daughter and son.” It had been ideal. As a firefighter, after his wife died in a car accident, Mick had needed an overnight, in-house adult when he was on a twenty-four-hour shift. His schedule, however, had enough off-duty time in it that Kayla could pursue her degree part-time. But now that she’d graduated, and now that the kids were getting older, eleven and eight, the people in her circle were starting to squawk about Kayla making some adjustments.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. “La-La,” a voice called from above. Mick’s voice, using the name that toddler Lee had used for Kayla when she’d first come to live with them.

Jumping to her feet, she strode to the bottom of the staircase, her expression determinedly blank in case her nosy friend was watching her too closely. “You rang, boss?” she asked, focusing on his descending shoes since no one would show inconvenient emotion staring at shoelaces. His feet stopped moving at the bottom of the steps. She detected his just-out-of-the-shower scent now, and she put the back of her fingers to her nose in order not to inhale it too deeply. The soap-on-a-rope and companion aftershave had been her Christmas present to him and she should have thought twice before purchasing a fragrance that appealed to her so much.

“Hey, there, Betsy,” he called over Kayla’s head. “I’ll be out of the way of you ladies in a minute.” His voice lowered. “Can I talk to you in the kitchen?”

She glanced up. She shouldn’t have.

When had it happened? When exactly had the widower she’d first met, the man with five o’clock shadow and weary eyes, gone from gaunt to gorgeous? The straight, dark hair hadn’t changed, but he smiled now. There was warm humor more often than not in his deep brown eyes. She supposed he still had his demons—she knew he did, because on occasion she’d catch him sitting in the darkened living room staring off into space. But he’d found a way to manage his grief and be a good dad to his kids.

A good man.

One who looked at her, who treated her, just as if Kayla was the fifteen-year-old girl next door who occasionally babysat when both she and Mick had to be out.

She followed him across the hardwood floor, trying not to ogle the way his jeans fit his lean hips or how his shoulders filled out the simple sport shirt. She’d ironed it for him as part of her job, of course, just as she’d helped Jane pick it out as his Christmas gift, knowing the soft chamois color would look wonderful with his olive skin.

In the kitchen, he swung around, nearly catching her too-interested examination. He was only thirty-four years old, but she figured he’d have a heart attack if he knew in which direction the nanny had been staring. With a flick of her lashes, she redirected her eyes to the calendar posted on the double-wide refrigerator that was nestled between oak cabinets and red-and-white-tiled countertops. Mick turned his head to follow her gaze.

“Okay,” he said. “We’re good, right? You’ve got your nanny service friends here tonight. Jane is working on her poetry project, but she’s only two doors down and will walk herself home, after she calls so you can watch her from the front porch.”

“Yep.” They went through this routine every day. She didn’t know if it was a result of Mick losing his wife in such a sudden way, if it was because he was a man trained for disasters, or just because he adored his children. All made perfect sense to her. “And Jared’s mom will drive Lee home after Scouts.”

“Bases covered, then.” His mouth turned up in a rueful grin that she let herself enjoy from the corner of her eye. “So I really don’t have any excuse not to meet the guys for pizza and a cold one or two.”

“None that I can think of.” She smiled, despite wondering if that “cold one with the guys” included a couple of hot women. He’d dated on occasion—well, he’d gone along with varying degrees of good grace when someone fixed him up—but she thought she’d detected in him a change there, too. A new tension that everything female in her suspected had to do with his growing need for opposite-gender adult companionship.

Something he surely didn’t consider her in the running for.

He reached out and tugged on the ends of her blond hair in a manner that made that perfectly clear. Jane got the same treatment from him often enough.

“Why the sad eyes, La-La?”

She pinned on a second smile. “Just one of those days.”

“Tell me about it.” Mick shoved his hands in his pockets. “They’re growing up, Kayla, and I can’t tell you what a blow it was when Jane spilled about your shopping trip. All at once I felt about a hundred.”

“Nonsense. You’re only a few years older than I.”

He shook his head. “Yeah, but today my little girl went to the mall where she bought … bought …” One hand slipped out of his pocket to make a vague gesture. “You know.”

Amused by his inability to articulate, Kayla leaned nearer. “Bras, Mick,” she whispered, a laugh in her voice. Her gaze lifted. “It’s not a dirty word.”

Their eyes met. Oh, she thought, as something sparked to life in his. Suddenly, more than humor seemed to warm them. With a soundless crack, heat flashed down her neck and the oxygen in the room turned desert-dry. She wanted to put out a hand to steady herself, but she was afraid whatever she touched would emit a jolting shock.

Bras? she thought. Dirty? Did one of those two words made it feel so … so naughty to be this close to him?

Mick blinked, severing the connection, then he turned away to grab a glass from the cupboard by the sink. With a steady hand, he filled it with water and took a long drink in a gesture so casual she figured she must have imagined that moment of … of … whatever.

Wishful thinking on her part?

Kayla cleared her throat and folded her arms over her chest, the shirt fluttering at her hips. Maybe if she wore something other than jeans and flannel around him, he might notice her. But he’d had years to do that—summers when she’d been in shorts and tank tops, vacations by a pool when she’d worn a swimsuit that wasn’t Sports Illustrated–ready but that didn’t cover her like a tent, either. He’d never appeared the slightest bit intrigued by any of it. When she’d recently cut twelve inches from her long hair he hadn’t noticed for two weeks, and then only when someone else mentioned it.

Upon inspection of the new do, he’d appeared appalled by the change. She’d felt stupid, like that time he’d caught her about to bestow a good-night kiss on a date on the doorstep. The fact that she’d been glad of the interruption, and that afterward she’d daydreamed in her bed of Mick pulling her away from the other man and into his own arms instead, hadn’t been good signs.

That event had occurred six months ago, and since then she hadn’t dated anyone—or shown any interest in dating anyone—which had prompted Betsy’s earlier conversation.

“Well,” Mick said, pulling open the dishwasher to rack his glass, “I guess I’ll head out now. Have fun.”

“You, too.”

He strode toward the door that led to the garage, then hesitated. “Kayla,” he said.

Her heart jumped. “Yes?”

“In case I’ve never said it …”

She held her breath.

“You’re great. You’ve always been great.” He swung around. Reached out. “Such a pal to me,” he added, patting her shoulder.

Her skin jittered, his light touch zinging all the way through the heavy plaid fabric of her shirt.

No. Make that his shirt. She’d been attached to it like a new fiancée to her engagement ring since the last time she’d removed it from the dryer.

“Yeah.” He patted her again. “Such a pal to me.”

And as he walked away, the appreciative words slid down her throat like a medicinal dose of disappointment to land like lead at the bottom of her belly. Who knew that “such a pal to me” could cause such gloom?

But somehow it did, because …

Oh, boy. Oh, no. Oh, it was useless to deny the truth any longer.

Betsy was right, it seemed. Kayla had shattered the number-one item on the no-no list. Because the cardinal rule of nannies was simple.

Never fall in love with the daddy.

It wasn’t until the barmaid set the cold beer in front of Mick that he actually registered his surroundings. He looked around the place that should have been as familiar to him as the back of his hand. He’d been coming to O’Hurley’s with his buddies Will, Austin and Owen for years.

“When the hell did they paint the walls?” he groused, scanning the cream-colored surface. “What was wrong with dingy gray?” Then he craned his neck to inspect the rest of the interior. “And new TVs? Were the other ones broken?”

Austin stared at him, his dark eyes perplexed. “Dude. Flat-screens. Each of ‘em as big as the back end of my grandma’s Buick. You’d rather watch the game on something smaller?”

Mick lifted his beer for a swallow. “I’d prefer things to stay just as they were,” he mumbled.

Owen’s brows rose. “Good God, Mick. You sound like a grumpy old man. Next you’ll be yelling at kids to get off your lawn.”

He felt like a grumpy old man. That was the problem. The store department he always averted his eyes from was now the new playground for his preteen daughter. His son was out of T-ball already. His nanny was a college graduate.

“The kids in my house are almost too old to play on the grass,” he said. “Lee and Jane and Kayla are growing up before my eyes. I’m almost afraid to blink.”

“Mick …” His friend and fellow firefighter Will Dailey wasn’t blinking. He was staring, just like Austin had a few moments before. “Kayla’s not a kid. You know that, right?”

“She’s a student,” he shot back. “That makes her a kid. Sort of.” It sounded stupid even to his ears, but he could only afford to think of the nanny in those terms.

“I thought you told us she graduated. From college. And she’s got to be in her mid-twenties.”

Mick waved a hand. “Still a girl.”

Austin grinned. “Looks like a woman to me. As a matter of fact—”

“She’s off-limits,” Mick ordered.

The other guys were staring again, so Mick jerked up his chin and focused on the television. “How about those Cowboys?”

“How about those cheerleaders?” Austin countered.

Which was exactly why Mick had warned the other man off. He was all about the superficial stuff, flashy boots, short skirts, and big … pom poms.

“You can’t keep them all under wraps forever,” Will said quietly from his seat in the booth beside Mick. “Believe me. I raised my five younger brothers and sisters and among the many things I learned, besides how to stretch a dollar until it squeals for mercy, was that they grow up and then itch to get out on their own.”

Mick groaned. “I don’t want to think about that.” It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. After losing his wife, Ellen, and the future he’d envisioned for them had been snatched away so cruelly, he couldn’t imagine how hard it would be for him to loosen his hold on his kids.

Will laughed a little. “Nature has a way of making that easier. It’s called ‘the teenage years.’”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Mick took another swallow of his beer. “Though I’ve already explained to Jane there will be no dating until she’s thirty-one.”

Will laughed again. “Good luck with that. But maybe all this would be a little easier if you considered finding a love interest yourself.”

“Not going to happen.” He couldn’t imagine it. Although life with Ellen had been good—despite the fact that they’d been so young he could hardly recognized the kid groom he’d been in the man he was now—he had no plans to add a permanent woman to his life. He barely managed his current situation. Single dad, fire captain and somehow a romantic relationship, too? Wasn’t going to happen.

He couldn’t take on the additional responsibility … he didn’t want the responsibility, even for the tempting trade-off of regular companionship in his bed.

Not to mention the difficulty of finding someone the rest of his household would get along with, too. “What kind of woman would Jane and Lee like? And Kayla? Who would she approve of?”

“Mick, Kayla’s the nanny. And she’s not going to be with you forever anyway, right?”

Wrong.

No, no, not wrong. Kayla gone was just something else he couldn’t picture in his head.

He had another image in there instead, one that had been impossible to banish, for the last six months. She’d been out for the evening and he’d just gotten Lee back to sleep after the third request for water when he’d heard a muffled thump coming from the porch. Without thinking, he’d yanked open the front door, only to find … to find …

It replayed in his mind. A young man, sporting a sandy crew cut, his hands cupped around Kayla’s face, his mouth descending toward her upturned lips. The moment had stretched out, it seemed, forever.

Mick had time to notice the bright glint of Kayla’s shiny blond hair in the lamplight, the dark sweep of her lashes against her cheek and then the stunning blue of her eyes as they lifted and she caught him witnessing her good-night moment.

They’d flared wide and her cheeks had flushed pink as she hastily stepped back from her date and away from the almost-kiss. “I…. um … uh …” she’d said, her gaze fixed on Mick’s.

Instead of smoothing the moment over and retreating, Mick, bad Mick, had merely held the door open so she could slip inside. He supposed he’d been frowning, because it was the proper expression for a man feeling decidedly hot under the collar.

Like an overprotective father might feel.

Or a jealous—no!

But damn, ever since that night he hadn’t been able to see her as “just” the nanny. Although she’d never been that, not with the way she’d taken to his children and they’d taken her into their hearts. But he hadn’t seen her as a woman, a kissable, desirable, damn beautiful woman until that awkward instant on the porch.

And he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it for one day since, even though he didn’t believe she’d seen that young man again, or any other in the six months that had passed.

She’s not going to be with you forever anyway, right? Now it was Will’s question on replay in his head. But damn it, she was with his family now, and he had a sudden compunction to return to his house, just to assure himself that she was still there and that everything else was also still the same.

Mick got to his feet and fished some bills from his pocket. Austin looked up. “Where you going?”

“I want to be home when Lee gets back from Scouts. I need to watch my daughter walk down the sidewalk.” I have to see that Kayla isn’t kissing some man.

He’d forgotten about her nanny friends, though. When he spotted their cars outside his house, he let himself into the kitchen through the back door and decided to make do with leftovers for dinner. The kids had already eaten and he’d run from the bar before the pizza they’d ordered with their beer had arrived.

Even with his head in the refrigerator, Mick could hear Kayla’s voice rise. “All right, fine. You win.”

Bemused by her beleaguered tone, he straightened. He strolled toward the doorway that led to the dining room and from there the living room, wondering if she needed him to distract her friends. It sounded as if they were on his pretty Kayla’s case about something.

No. Not his Kayla. Remember that. Not. His. Kayla.

She spoke again. “I said I’ll do it.”

“You agree?” It was her friend Betsy’s voice.

“That’s what I said,” she answered, sounding testy.

Poor girl. He took another step closer to the living room. He could picture Kayla’s flushed cheeks, her silky blond hair mussed by frustrated fingers. Her eyes, surrounded by her long, dark brown lashes, would stand out like blue jewels as she gazed on her friends.

“You’ll go on the date?”

Mick froze.

“I’ve got to do something,” he heard his nanny mutter. “So, yes.”

If there was more conversation from the living room, Mick didn’t hear it, not when he was contemplating just why her need to “do something” had turned into a need to date. Not when he was wondering exactly how many front-porch kisses that would mean.

Not when he was considering if he could manage to interrupt every single one of them.

His footsteps retreated back toward the refrigerator as resignation settled over him. Kayla. Back to dating? Damn. And double damn.

Despite his best hopes, it appeared as if he was going to be forced into doing some kissing himself. As in kissing his status quo goodbye.

Chapter Two