Not Just the Nanny

He’d claimed he could see inside of her, but clearly that went both ways—she knew he was unsettled. All because he saw her as a woman now, and because, damn it, he didn’t want to see her as a woman! He had enough on his plate without taking on this … this …

“I’m fine,” he said, turning so that he was no longer meeting her gaze. She was so pretty. And, face it, sexy.

The acknowledgment of that slid over him like a hot hand, stiffening his muscles, putting every cell of his body on hyperalert. She stood at his left side, just a few inches away, and his skin prickled, his pulse pounding against his flesh like a drumbeat.

His mind flashed on lingerie, intimate dinners, candlelight. He pivoted toward her. “Kayla …”

How could he ever have viewed her as a child or a girl or anything less than a full-grown, fully attractive woman? How could anyone miss that shiny golden hair and the vivid blue of her beautiful eyes? As he looked down at her he saw a rush of goose bumps scurry down her throat toward her breasts.

His mouth dried. He saw her tongue dart out to wet her top lip and in another mind-flash he wondered if she was wet somewhere else. Kayla. Wet for him. His body twitched again.

“Kayla,” he repeated. Perhaps it was time to come clean. Perhaps it was time to tell her he was thinking of private meals, sheer fabrics, hot skin. He glanced up and could see on her face a combination of confusion and trepidation.

Still, he opened his mouth to tell her everything on his mind, but then that look on her face arrested him. Think, Hanson! Confusion. Trepidation.

Both were warnings that he should be cautious, too. What had he been thinking the other night as he sat beside Will? That he couldn’t take on the responsibility of making another person happy.

Without a mother, Jane and Lee had to be his priority. Under the weight of making yet another relationship work he might crack, and then where would his beloved children be?

Kayla put her hand on his arm. He jolted back, but then steadied so he wouldn’t look like such a wuss.

Still, he felt her fingertips as if they branded him. His groin grew heavy. Just at that!

“Mick. What’s wrong?”

“I …” He felt an explanation stick in his throat. He couldn’t seem to mouth an excuse, and yet he couldn’t seem to make a claim, either. His claim on her.

Her fingers caressed his forearm. “You can tell me.”

And he thought again that maybe he should. Maybe he’d tell her that she wasn’t just an employee in his eyes. That somehow she’d found her way under his skin and that perhaps they deserved a special night to explore what might be.

A trilling sound broke the bond between them. She took her hand off his arm to dig for her phone in her pocket. Her brows came together as she glanced at the screen and then she held the phone to her ear.

He moved away to give her a bit of privacy for her call. As soon as it was over, though, he would come clean, he decided. Caution be damned.

Seconds later she afforded him—and Jane and Lee—a lopsided smile. “Confirmation of my double date with Betsy tonight,” she said. “It should be fun.”

Her date with a stranger. It made Mick’s skin itch. Even though she wouldn’t be alone with the guy, this other man was likely someone unencumbered by children, memories and a reluctance to take on a relationship. Mick inhaled a breath. “Good for you,” he said.

And tried to mean it.

Chapter Three

One Friday each month, Jane and Lee’s school, Oak Knoll Elementary, devoted the morning to track-and-field sports. There were the usual sprints, longer distance runs and broad jump, as well as other non-Olympic-type events such as a bean bag toss and Mick’s brainchild, the Impossible Football Catch.

Parents guided the children from the event positions that were set up and run by yet other volunteers. Mick usually enjoyed these Friday mornings—he made sure he attended all that his work schedule allowed—but today he found himself squeezing the football and staring off into space instead of anticipating the next classroom of kids to come by his station.

His partner that morning was Patty Bright. He’d known the short redhead with the splash of cinnamon freckles across her face for years. Her husband, Eric, too, since their daughter and Mick’s had attended preschool together. Patty and his wife, Ellen, had been good friends, and the couple often invited him and the kids to social occasions at their house. Kayla, too.

Across the field his eye caught on the nanny as she moved to the twenty-five-yard dash with Lee and his classmates. School volunteer was not part of her nanny job description, but she’d started putting in hours as a requirement for a childhood development course she was taking in college. She’d continued the gig on a regular basis. She bent down to retie Lee’s shoelaces, and Mick’s fingers tightened on the football as his gaze focused on her round, first-class curves.

“Quite a sight, huh?” Patty said.

Mick gave a guilty jump and shifted his gaze to the other woman’s face. “What?”

“I was just commenting on how tall Lee has grown in the past few months.”

Grunting in acknowledgment, Mick pulled the brim of his ball cap a little lower on his head. Geez,

Hanson, he admonished himself. You have no business checking out the nanny during school hours.

He had no business checking out the nanny any time. So what that her silky blond hair rippled in the breeze and the little chill in the air turned the tip of her nose pink and reddened her luscious mouth? She was off-limits to him, and he was determined to see her as a competent caregiver, not some sexy—

Realizing he was staring at her again, he wrenched his gaze away and scuffed his shoe in the dirt. He wouldn’t let her distract him again. “So, Patty, Lee looks like he’s growing to you? I was just thinking this morning that he was still my dinosaur-lovin’, veggie-hatin’, grubby little boy.”

Patty smiled. “When I look at him I see that little guy, but I also see a lot of Ellen, too.”

Ellen. Mick jerked his head toward his son and inspected him from cowlick to rubber soles. Ellen. Yeah, he could see it now, too, the same straight, dark hair, the wide grin, the masculine version of his wife’s adorable snub nose. His chest constricted, a little squeeze to remind him of how short their time here could be.

A hand touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Mick. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He found a smile. “Memories of Ellen aren’t bad at all. We had a good life together.” Remembering that he was all alone to raise the fruits of that good life—Jane and Lee—was what would get to him at times. How could he make sure he did the right thing by them? Could he stand up to the responsibility of ensuring their health and happiness?

“About that ‘veggie-hatin’’ of Lee’s,” Patty put in, apparently eager to move on to another subject. “They have cookbooks devoted to recipes that show you how to hide them in things that kids will eat.”

“I’ve heard of it,” he said. Maybe that was a present he could give Kayla for her birthday. Sort of like the vacuum cleaner his dad had gifted his mom one year. She’d locked him out of their bedroom for a week following the incident, and that might not be a bad thing in this case, either.

Not that he was anywhere near Kayla’s bed.

But he’d thought of her there during the last six months. Her room was a floor away from his and he had no way of hearing her moving around inside it. Despite that, he’d imagined her in that room with the pale blue walls and white trim. Her bed linens were white too, the comforter lacy, and he’d pictured her tossing and turning between her sheets, just like he so often did, while replaying a smile she’d shot him over Janie’s head or the accidental bump of her elbow against his ribs as they prepared a meal.

Something as simple as that smile or touch would arouse him in the privacy of his bed. There. He’d admitted it. For six months, thoughts of Kayla had been amping up his sexual meter. Sure, he’d reexperienced the natural urge for sex once the worst of his shock and grief over Ellen’s death had passed. But this feeling was different. It had an edge to it that got harder and harder—oh, jeez, that word worked—the more he smelled Kayla’s skin and the more he watched her move.

Once again, he remembered that night he’d witnessed her kiss on the porch. Damn him! And damn her, too, because the moment she’d brushed past him to go inside, her shoulder glancing his chest, a soft strand of her hair grazing the back of his hand, everything inside of him had shifted. Altered.

But he was working to put that “everything” back to rights, wasn’t he? She was the nanny, he was the daddy and that was all there was to it.

“Mick …” There was a new hesitance in Patty’s voice.

He turned to her. “What?”

The woman bit her lip. “Well …”

Frowning, Mick tucked the football under his arm. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s about Kayla. Well, about you and Kayla.”

Mick froze, hoping like hell she hadn’t guessed his secret. He kept his voice nonchalant. “What do you mean? There’s no ‘me and Kayla.’”