Mother in Training

Mother in Training
Marie Ferrarella

Meticulous and by-the-book, corporate lawyer Jack Lever was used to order–not the disorder of two small children. When his babysitter abruptly quit, the single dad didn't know where to turn. He couldn't believe his good luck when Zooey Finnegan agreed to become his nanny.Uninhibited and fun, Zooey was happy to take care of Jack's children instead of sitting behind a desk in her family's business. And to her surprise, Zooey soon loved the Levers like they were her own flesh and blood. It didn't take long for Jack's kids to fall hopelessly in love with her, either.Their father could be a different story….

Nothing could take the edge off of the way Jack was reacting to Zooey.

Just as he’d been afraid it wouldn’t.

He’d kept himself away from the house, from her, for most of the past ten days and it still didn’t negate or even blunt the attraction he felt toward her. If anything, it sharpened it. Zooey intrigued him, she amused him, she attracted him.

Any way he sliced it, Jack felt doomed.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it because he needed a nanny and the kids were wild about her. She seemed to be the only one who could keep them from being wild, period.

Doomed. Yep, that was about the size of it.

Dear Reader,

I always wanted to live on a cul-de-sac. I grew up in a New York apartment building where the tenants mostly kept to themselves and eye contact was only made on those occasions when you were stuck on an elevator together, something that happened with a fair amount of frequency. When I moved to the opposite coast, I discovered a friendlier breed of people (constant sun tends to mellow you out). And I wound up moving to a cul-de-sac when I got married. Sadly, I live on a block with nice, friendly, but definitely non-dramatic people. They’re nothing like the residents of Danbury Way, the stars of TALK OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD. A tantalizing potpourri of people can be found here. My two happen to be a harried single dad of two, who behave more like an army of five hundred, and a young woman who is trying to find her true niche in life. On the surface, Zooey and Jack find one another rather quickly, but it takes a while for their souls to make the same discovery—and turn it into a lasting one.

Come, take a peek, and watch them fall in love. It’s worth the wait.

As always, I wish you love,

Marie Ferrarella

Mother in Training

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

MARIE FERRARELLA

This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA

Award–winning author has written over 150 books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

To

Patience Smith,

the kind keeper

of my sanity.

Thank You

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

January

The short, squat man moved his considerable bulk between her and the front door, blocking her line of vision. The look on his round, florid face fairly shouted of exasperation.

“You know how a watched pot don’t boil?” he asked her. “Well, a watched door don’t open, neither. So stop watching the door and start doing somethin’ to earn the money I’m paying you, Zoo-ie.”

Zooey Finnegan grimaced inside. Milo Hanes, the owner of the small Upstate New York coffee shop where she currently clocked in each morning in order to draw a paycheck, seemed to take an inordinate amount of pleasure mispronouncing her name.

Most likely, she thought cynically, it was a holdover from his days as the schoolyard bully.

That was okay, she consoled herself. It wasn’t as if waitressing at the coffee shop was her life’s ambition. She was just passing through. Just as she’d passed through a handful of other jobs, trying them on for size, searching for something that would arouse a passion within her, or at least awaken some heretofore dormant potential.

Her parents had been certain that her life’s passion would be the family furniture business. As the firstborn, she’d been groomed for that ever since she was old enough to clutch a briefcase. They and her uncle Andrew had sent her off to college to get a business degree, and after that, an MBA.

The only problem was, Zooey had no desire to acquire a degree—not in business, at any rate.

Her family had made their money designing and selling stylish, affordable furniture. What had once been a small, single-store operation had branched out over the years to include several outlets, both in state and out. Proud as she was of their accomplishments, Zooey couldn’t picture herself as a company executive, or a buyer for the firm, or even a salesperson in one of their seven showrooms. As far as she was concerned, Finnegan’s Fine Furniture was going to have to remain fine without her.