A Nanny Named Nick

‘You’re not at home?’

‘No, I’m at work, worse luck.’

Nick wondered who Madge was. Friend? Flatmate? Another sister?

‘Okay. Don’t you worry, Linda. Your lawn will be done this afternoon. You have my word.’

‘That’s very sweet of you. Nick, is it?’

‘Yep. That’s my name.’

She sighed, and the sound immediately made Nick think of sex. He’d always been partial to women who sighed a lot when he made love to them. Especially afterwards.

‘Look, I’m sorry if I was rude just now,’ she apologised, another sigh doing nothing to lesson the image he suddenly had of her lying back naked in his bed. ‘Life has been damned difficult lately, what with one thing and another. Yes, Sue, I said I was nearly finished! Sorry. An anxious female panting on a call from the boyfriend. Still, I must go. Deadlines.’ And she hung up.

Deadlines? Nick raised his eyebrows. Another journalist in the family, no doubt. He wondered what Dave’s sister looked like, and if she was single. She’d sounded younger than Dave, and not particularly married. A married woman would have had a husband to do her lawns. Unless she was divorced, of course. Women who worked on weekends often found themselves divorced. Being a dedicated career woman was not conducive to harmony in the marital home.

Nick was partial to dedicated career women. They liked their sex without the complications of love and commitment, which was the only way Nick would have it these days.

‘Who was that on the phone?’ Dave asked wearily as he settled back in his chair. ‘Not the paper, I hope?’

‘Nope. Your sister. I didn’t know you had a sister, Dave. You never mentioned her.’

Dave seemed struck speechless for a moment. But then he laughed. ‘You don’t honestly think I’d tell you about any sister of mine, do you?’

‘Ah, she’s a looker, is she? I imagined as much. You’re a fine-looking fellow, and good genes usually run in the family. How old is she, by the way?’

‘None of your damned business. So what did she want?’

Nick could see Dave wasn’t too pleased about his having any personal contact with his sister—and who could blame him? So he decided that a little lie of omission was called for.

‘She was going to ask you to mow her lawn this afternoon. Her usual mower-man is sick.’

‘And?’

‘I told her you were much too tired from working all night at the paper, that you were about to go home to bed and she was to get someone else. She said she would, and hung up.’

Dave seemed amazed. ‘Really? Just like that? Linda hung up just like that?’

Clearly this was not usual Linda behaviour. Nick decided, in the interests of credibility, to elaborate somewhat.

‘Well, she wasn’t too thrilled at first, but I was very forceful in convincing her of your exhausted state. In the end, she quite happily agreed to follow my suggestion.’

‘You’re a true friend, Nick.’

‘You’d better believe it. Now, off home to the kip for you, I think. I’ll see you here next Saturday, if not before.’

‘You’re a good bloke, Nick. I didn’t mean to offend you about Linda. It’s just that...well...’

‘She’s your little sister and you want the very best for her,’ Nick finished wryly.

‘Something like that.’

‘So how old is this sweet young thing you’re so keen to protect?’ he asked, even more curious now.

Nick found Dave’s hesitation to answer really quite odd. Linda hadn’t sounded at all like the sort of woman who needed an older brother for a keeper.

‘Thirty-one,’ he said at last.

‘Hardly a child, Dave,’ Nick reminded him. ‘Besides, she sounded like she could handle herself very well.’

Dave chuckled. ‘She can be a tough little cookie when she’s riled. I’ll give her that.’

‘So stop worrying about her,’ Nick advised. ‘She won’t thank you for it, if I know women.’

‘You don’t know Linda,’ Dave said drily.

‘Wild, is she?’

‘No, not wild. Just bloody-minded at times.’

Nick could believe that. Beautiful women were often strong-willed. And Linda Sawyer was bound to be beautiful. Her brother would not worry so much about her if she wasn’t.

It was a pity, Nick decided, that she was at work today. He would have liked to see this Linda in the flesh.

His own flesh suddenly stirred, surprising him—till he recalled it had been some time since he’d been to bed with a woman.

He wasn’t quite the indiscriminate womaniser Dave believed him to be. Sex was, however, very important to him. He did not like to go too long without the pleasure—and tranquillising effects—of a woman’s body. Regular lovemaking soothed the demons which dozed—not deep enough—within his soul.

‘Go home, Dave,’ he advised, his voice a little sharp. Frustration did not sit well on Nick. It made him edgy.

Dave didn’t seem to notice anything. He nodded, slipped his mobile into his pocket, then left.

Nick’s dark gaze swept the room, noting a woman sitting alone over in a corner, sipping a drink and dragging on a cigarette. When his eyes met hers she stared back boldly, invitingly. She was good-looking enough from a distance. But cheap. Nick was never attracted to cheap. Which was a pity. Cheap was far easier to meet and pick up than classy.

Irritated, he stood up abruptly, stalked over to snatch up his leather gloves from the piano then whirled to stride towards the door.

The sun outside was even warmer than when he’d arrived. Summer was still three weeks away, but the heat and the humidity were oppressive.

Mowing a lawn in this heat would do him good, Nick decided as he straddled his Harley-Davidson and pulled on his gloves. Hard physical labour invariably made him forget about sex. That was why he often worked at physical jobs. Still, he hoped it was a large lawn. A very large lawn!

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS minute. Two small rectangles of ankle-length grass on either side of a central path. There weren’t any garden beds or bushes, and most of the narrow front yard was taken up with the even wider cement driveway which dipped down to the double garages jammed hard against the left boundary of the block.

The house itself, however, was not at all minute. It was two-storeyed, its flat cement-rendered façade covering the rest of the block from the garages to the right boundary. Brown and white striped awnings broke the expanse of stark white walls, and shaded the west-facing windows. Terracotta tiles covered the pitched roof.

One only had to glance at all the other dark brick nineteen-twenties federation-style houses which lined the street to know that this particular residence was a recent and very modern renovation and addition.