Not Just the Nanny

“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.