Oh, Babies!

“They do need a nap,” Mrs. Romani reminded tersely and, as if on cue, the little boy began to cry. One of the girls rubbed her eyes.

“And we should be outside with Lily and Chas,” the woman in the orange gown said. “They can’t handle all the guests on their own.”

“I’m still working with the caterer,” Evan interjected. “At this rate it will be another ten minutes before we eat.”

“Okay. Okay,” Grant said with a sigh, turning to Kristen again. “If you’re sure you don’t mind, we’d appreciate your help with the babies.”

Kristen smiled. “It will be my pleasure.”

The brunette handed the dark-haired little girl to Kristen and it was everything Kristen could do to keep from gasping with pleasure. Carrying the little boy, Grant Brewster accompanied Kristen and Mrs. Romani upstairs into the nursery, which was clean and bright, and decorated with rainbows and angels.

She wanted to hold the baby forever. Grant instructed her to lay the child in her crib. Reluctant, but resigned because she didn’t want to draw any undue attention, she placed the little girl in her bed, slipped off her ruffly pink outfit and tights and dressed her in lightweight pajamas.

“What’s her name?” she asked quietly as the baby rolled onto her side, wrapped the rim of a blanket in her small fist and began to drift off to sleep.

“Taylor,” Grant whispered. “The little boy is Cody. The other girl is Antoinette. We call her Annie.”

“Annie,” Kristen said, smiling.

“If you two are okay, I need to get back downstairs,” Grant said, turning toward the door.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Mrs. Romani said, shooing him out with her hand. “We’re gonna be just fine.”

He cast the woman a narrow-eyed glance, one that clearly told Kristen he wasn’t overly thrilled with Mrs. Romani’s gruffness, then left the room.

Mrs. Romani sighed with relief. “He’s a tough one.”

Kristen couldn’t help it, she giggled. “Seems like.”

“Oh, he’s nice enough, but when it comes to these kids, he’s a real pain in the butt. When I took this job I had every intention of working as both housekeeper and nanny—I could handle three kids in my sleep because I worked in day care—but that one, that Grant, he’s such a nitpicker I didn’t want the aggravation.”

“He can’t be that bad,” Kristen said, taking a cue from Mrs. Romani and settling in one of the three rocking chairs far enough away from the cribs that their whispered conversation wouldn’t disturb the kids.

“He’s worse,” Mrs. Romani said, pointing a stubby finger at Kristen. “That’s kind of why I’m glad we got a minute alone …Kristen Devereaux,” she added slyly, looking directly at Kristen. “I haven’t been with the Brewsters long, but when I clean I have access to absolutely everything. While I was storing some things in the basement cabinets for Chas a few weeks ago, I came across your name on papers in boxes of Angela Morris Brewster’s things.” She paused, holding Kristen’s gaze. “I know who you are…”

Grant couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew Kristen Devereaux. When he’d first seen her on the threshold of his home, he couldn’t remember her name from the guest list, but he had to admit that once he got a really good look at her he wouldn’t have cared if she had crashed the wedding. She was so darned attractive that he was absolutely speechless for a good thirty seconds. He hadn’t met a woman who had had this kind of effect on him in years. Hell, he didn’t think he’d ever met a woman who made his mind go blank the way Kristen Devereaux had.

“You seem to be well,” Evan said, sidling up to his brother and handing him a tall, cold glass of beer, “not really angry, but not really pleased about something.”

“I’m fine,” Grant mumbled, accepting the glass from his brother. Though most of the guests were happily sipping champagne after dinner, Grant was a simple man who liked a good beer. The fact that his youngest brother remembered that was a sign of respect of sorts. The fact that his second brother brought him a drink when there were other chores to be performed was a sign that everybody noticed his mood.

Not good.

“You’re not fine,” Evan stated. “Because if you were, you would be enjoying the wedding. I always know when something’s bothering you, because you stand around as if you’re in a daze or thinking. Maybe thinking too hard when you should be celebrating?”

Grant couldn’t help it, he smiled. “Something like that.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Oh, there was a good question, Grant thought, walking to a chair under an umbrella-covered table. How did one explain to his little brother, who was happily, joyfully, blissfully married, that he was annoyed because the woman who was currently watching the babies nap had set off alarm bells when she told him her name, but he ignored them because she was so darned good-looking? His first instincts put him on red alert, but he’d forgotten that warning sign when feathery blond hair, big green eyes and a slight Southern drawl brought other reactions to the forefront. Packaged in a trim red dress that accented a figure that would bring most grown men to their knees, Kristen Devereaux could have asked him for the family silver and he probably would have handed it over. That was what actually bothered him.

When Grant didn’t say anything, Evan sighed. “Grant, for the first time in a long time, things are falling into place for us. The lumber mill is operating at peak performance. We found a housekeeper. Chas just married a wonderful woman. What could you possibly be worried about?”

What indeed?

Since Evan seemed willing to listen, Grant decided to give this discussion a shot. If he skipped the fact that he had ignored his internal alarm because he was incredibly attracted to Kristen and jumped to the more general aspects of the problem, like the fact that she was really quick to volunteer to sit with Mrs. Romani, maybe he did have a chance of getting his point across without looking like an idiot.

“Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious about why Kristen Devereaux offered to baby-sit the kids?”

Evan’s forehead furrowed. “Why should I be?”

“For starters, she hasn’t even said hello to the bride yet.”

“If she’s a friend of Lily’s and she realized Lily’s wedding party was having a problem,” Evan disagreed casually, “I think it’s nice that she volunteered to help out. But she wasn’t exactly dressed for a wedding. Did she say she was here for the wedding?”

“Why else would she be here?”

Evan took his time about answering, waving to a few distant relatives who sat at one of the round umbrella tables on the far edge of the patio. To keep everyone off the potentially damp grounds, tall pyramids of yellow, amber and auburn mums were strategically placed to encircle the stone floor. Potted red maples hid the in-ground pool. By the grace of God they had a warm sunny November day.

Grant glanced at the people who’d caught Evan’s eye and he, too, waved. But even as he greeted people whose names he barely recalled, he realized his brother was stalling.

“Evan,” Grant said, his brother’s name coming out like a warning growl.

“All right,” Evan said, exasperated. “Claire and I put an ad in all the Pittsburgh newspapers, advertising for a nanny. We’d had such good luck with the ad that brought us Mrs. Romani that I thought…”

“What do you mean we had such good luck with Mrs. Romani?” Grant gasped. “The woman hates kids.”

“The woman hates you,” Evan corrected, extending his arm over his wife’s shoulders when she came over and sat on the chair beside his. “Isn’t that right, Claire?”

Stunning in her burnt-orange gown, dark-haired, blue-eyed Claire looked him right in the eye. “I’m sorry, Grant, but sometimes you come across as being a little gruff.”

“Gruff!” he all but barked.

“I rest my case,” Evan said, then laughed.

“I give up on you two,” Grant said, walking away because there really were a hundred more important details to attend to than sitting around discussing their cantankerous housekeeper and his disposition. For him there was no question that Mrs. Romani was a grouchy old bat. And he also didn’t have to debate whether his disposition had gone to hell in a handbasket because he knew damned well that it had. He was a thirty-six-year-old man who’d just married off his youngest brother. He’d never, ever considered marriage for himself, but he had to admit—if only to himself—that during the ceremony he’d felt old and alone.

And right now, standing outside the French doors that would take him inside the house, and eventually upstairs to the nursery to give Kristen a reprieve from watching the kids, he couldn’t help but wonder. Did seeing the spark of attraction in the eyes of a woman as beautiful and sexy as Kristen Devereaux cause him to ignore the nagging feeling that something about her wasn’t quite right?

“I’m surprised it took you this long to get here.”

Kristen peered at the curious housekeeper, wondering if she was making an enemy or an ally. Since she couldn’t tell and expected everybody to know who she was in another two hours or so, she decided to rehearse what to say to the triplets’ guardians to make sure she said it with finesse and dignity.

“I didn’t know the triplets existed until a few weeks ago. I was grieving so hard that I couldn’t handle looking into Angela’s personal effects.”

Mrs. Romani patted Kristen’s hand. “I’m sorry, honey. I should have been more sensitive. I’m just so used to being tactless with Grant that I sometimes forget not everybody’s a pigheaded fool like him.”

That made Kristen laugh. “If you dislike the guy so much, why do you work for him?”