“What specifically is bothering you?”

She watched his mouth move as he said the words. His lips looked soft, the slight edge of whiskers around them only serving to outline their manly shape. “It’s … it’s the kiss,” she heard herself blurt. “Maybe I’ve forgotten how.”

Heat washed up her cheeks. It was thinking of him, his mouth, his tongue, his taste that was rattling her brain and tripping up her pulse.

His grip tightened, just those two fingers making her immobile, keeping her captured as he bent close. “Then let me remind you,” he whispered, his breath warm against her face, “of exactly how two pairs of lips are supposed to meet.”

About the Author

Native Californian CHRISTIE RIDGWAY started reading and writing romances in middle school. It wasn’t until she was the wife of her college sweetheart and the mother of two small sons that she submitted her work for publication. Many contemporary romances later, she is the happiest when telling her stories despite the splash of kids in the pool, the mass of cups and plates in the kitchen and the many commitments she makes in the world beyond her desk.

Besides loving the men in her life and her dream come-true job, she continues her long time love affair with reading and is never without a stack of books. You can find out more about Christie at her website, www.christieridgway.com.

Dear Reader,

Last week, our neighbours’ daughter visited and I held her newborn in my arms. I felt both protective and enchanted of her sweet warmth and it brought me instantly back to my days as a babysitter when I was a young teen. Oh, the nights I spent with kids not my own! The diapers changed, the owies kissed, the way those little people burrowed into my young heart.

I was reminded again that I’m a sucker for kids of all sizes.

So is Kayla James, the nanny for eleven-year-old Jane and eight-year-old Lee. She’s been with them since their mom died six years before and somewhere in those six years she’s also fallen for their father, fire fighter Mick Hanson. But will the widower ever look at her as someone other than his children’s caregiver?

For Mick’s part, he knows he’s attracted to the pretty woman who shares his kids and his kitchen, but he’s uncertain he can take on another person’s happiness. The man’s forgotten that the head cannot always rule the heart, and this good guy will be reminded of this fact while also dealing with the normal events of family life.

Some of those events come straight from my world … hope you enjoy a glimpse of my real-life cat, Goblin, and my husband’s Impossible Football Catch, not to mention grilled cheese-and-pickle-relish (yuck!) sandwiches for breakfast.

Best wishes,

Christie Ridgway

NOT JUST THE NANNY

CHRISTIE RIDGWAY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For all those who’ve given their heart to a child

not their own.

Chapter One

The woman on the sofa beside Kayla James suddenly sat up straight and looked at her with round eyes. “I’ve got it. I’ve finally figured out why you’ve been turning down men and declining invitations. You … you’ve broken the cardinal rule of nannies!”

Kayla ignored the flush racing over her face and focused on the bowl of pretzels sitting on the coffee table. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, yes, you do,” Betsy Sherbourne said. Her long, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she looked barely old enough to be a mother’s helper, let alone a full-fledged fellow nanny. She wiggled, bouncing the ruby-colored cushions. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Kayla pulled the edges of her oversized flannel shirt together. There was a chill in the air tonight. “You’re jumping to conclusions because I didn’t feel like being the fourth in your blind double date last weekend.”

“The fact is, you haven’t gone anywhere in months,” Betsy replied. “Your social life is limited to these weeknight, girls-only get-togethers we have with our friends from the nanny service.”

Kayla latched on to the new topic like a lifeline. “Did I tell you that the others can’t come tonight? Everybody had a conflict except Gwen, who should be here any minute,” she said, naming the woman who owned and ran the We Our Nanny service which had placed both Kayla and Betsy with their current families.

“Yes, you told me,” Betsy said. “And I won’t let you change the subject.”

“Look,” Kayla responded, feeling a little desperate. “You know I’m busy with my job and school.”

“Half of that’s not an excuse you can use anymore.”

Kayla sighed. Her friend was right. A couple months back she’d finally been awarded her college degree at the advanced age of almost twenty-seven.

Since then, her friends had bombarded her with suggestions about how to fill her newfound free time. “I should have never let you guys throw me that graduation party,” she grumbled.

“Yeah, and other than those brief hours when we whooped it up, when was the last time you took some time out for yourself?”

“Today. I went shopping. I bought bras.” Kayla rummaged in the knitting basket beside her, withdrawing the almost-finished mitten she was working on. “What do you think?” she asked in a bright voice, still determined to distract her friend. “Is this large enough for Lee? He’s big for eight.”

“Bras?” Sounding skeptical, Betsy ignored the mention of Lee, one of the two children Kayla looked after. “What color bras?”

“What does color have to do with anything?”

There was pity in the other woman’s gaze. “Kayla, swear to me you have more than white cotton in your lingerie drawer.”

She felt her cheeks go hot again. “Do we really have to—”

“Okay.” Betsy relented. “Just tell me about these bras, then.”

“The bras. They …” Kayla sighed again. “Okay, fine. They were for Jane.”

“Jane! Jane’s first bras?”

Kayla nodded, hope kindling that this would be the topic to derail the original discussion, even though it was a risk to bring up the kids again, as the second cardinal rule of nannies was to never get too attached to the children. “Can you believe it? All her friends have them now. Time has sure flown.”

“Yes.” Betsy reached for a pretzel and eyed Kayla again. “And you’ve given Mick and his kids almost six undivided years of yours now.”

Uh-oh. She was losing the battle once more. “I’ve not given it to them,” Kayla said, aware she sounded defensive. “I’ve been employed by Mick to take care of his daughter and son.” It had been ideal. As a firefighter, after his wife died in a car accident, Mick had needed an overnight, in-house adult when he was on a twenty-four-hour shift. His schedule, however, had enough off-duty time in it that Kayla could pursue her degree part-time. But now that she’d graduated, and now that the kids were getting older, eleven and eight, the people in her circle were starting to squawk about Kayla making some adjustments.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. “La-La,” a voice called from above. Mick’s voice, using the name that toddler Lee had used for Kayla when she’d first come to live with them.

Jumping to her feet, she strode to the bottom of the staircase, her expression determinedly blank in case her nosy friend was watching her too closely. “You rang, boss?” she asked, focusing on his descending shoes since no one would show inconvenient emotion staring at shoelaces. His feet stopped moving at the bottom of the steps. She detected his just-out-of-the-shower scent now, and she put the back of her fingers to her nose in order not to inhale it too deeply. The soap-on-a-rope and companion aftershave had been her Christmas present to him and she should have thought twice before purchasing a fragrance that appealed to her so much.

“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.

“I thought you told us she graduated. From college. And she’s got to be in her mid-twenties.”

Mick waved a hand. “Still a girl.”

Austin grinned. “Looks like a woman to me. As a matter of fact—”

“She’s off-limits,” Mick ordered.

The other guys were staring again, so Mick jerked up his chin and focused on the television. “How about those Cowboys?”

“How about those cheerleaders?” Austin countered.

Which was exactly why Mick had warned the other man off. He was all about the superficial stuff, flashy boots, short skirts, and big … pom poms.

“You can’t keep them all under wraps forever,” Will said quietly from his seat in the booth beside Mick. “Believe me. I raised my five younger brothers and sisters and among the many things I learned, besides how to stretch a dollar until it squeals for mercy, was that they grow up and then itch to get out on their own.”

Mick groaned. “I don’t want to think about that.” It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. After losing his wife, Ellen, and the future he’d envisioned for them had been snatched away so cruelly, he couldn’t imagine how hard it would be for him to loosen his hold on his kids.

Will laughed a little. “Nature has a way of making that easier. It’s called ‘the teenage years.’”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Mick took another swallow of his beer. “Though I’ve already explained to Jane there will be no dating until she’s thirty-one.”

Will laughed again. “Good luck with that. But maybe all this would be a little easier if you considered finding a love interest yourself.”

“Not going to happen.” He couldn’t imagine it. Although life with Ellen had been good—despite the fact that they’d been so young he could hardly recognized the kid groom he’d been in the man he was now—he had no plans to add a permanent woman to his life. He barely managed his current situation. Single dad, fire captain and somehow a romantic relationship, too? Wasn’t going to happen.

He couldn’t take on the additional responsibility … he didn’t want the responsibility, even for the tempting trade-off of regular companionship in his bed.

Not to mention the difficulty of finding someone the rest of his household would get along with, too. “What kind of woman would Jane and Lee like? And Kayla? Who would she approve of?”

“Mick, Kayla’s the nanny. And she’s not going to be with you forever anyway, right?”

Wrong.

No, no, not wrong. Kayla gone was just something else he couldn’t picture in his head.

He had another image in there instead, one that had been impossible to banish, for the last six months. She’d been out for the evening and he’d just gotten Lee back to sleep after the third request for water when he’d heard a muffled thump coming from the porch. Without thinking, he’d yanked open the front door, only to find … to find …

It replayed in his mind. A young man, sporting a sandy crew cut, his hands cupped around Kayla’s face, his mouth descending toward her upturned lips. The moment had stretched out, it seemed, forever.

Mick had time to notice the bright glint of Kayla’s shiny blond hair in the lamplight, the dark sweep of her lashes against her cheek and then the stunning blue of her eyes as they lifted and she caught him witnessing her good-night moment.

They’d flared wide and her cheeks had flushed pink as she hastily stepped back from her date and away from the almost-kiss. “I…. um … uh …” she’d said, her gaze fixed on Mick’s.

Instead of smoothing the moment over and retreating, Mick, bad Mick, had merely held the door open so she could slip inside. He supposed he’d been frowning, because it was the proper expression for a man feeling decidedly hot under the collar.

Like an overprotective father might feel.

Or a jealous—no!

But damn, ever since that night he hadn’t been able to see her as “just” the nanny. Although she’d never been that, not with the way she’d taken to his children and they’d taken her into their hearts. But he hadn’t seen her as a woman, a kissable, desirable, damn beautiful woman until that awkward instant on the porch.

And he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it for one day since, even though he didn’t believe she’d seen that young man again, or any other in the six months that had passed.

She’s not going to be with you forever anyway, right? Now it was Will’s question on replay in his head. But damn it, she was with his family now, and he had a sudden compunction to return to his house, just to assure himself that she was still there and that everything else was also still the same.

Mick got to his feet and fished some bills from his pocket. Austin looked up. “Where you going?”

“I want to be home when Lee gets back from Scouts. I need to watch my daughter walk down the sidewalk.” I have to see that Kayla isn’t kissing some man.

He’d forgotten about her nanny friends, though. When he spotted their cars outside his house, he let himself into the kitchen through the back door and decided to make do with leftovers for dinner. The kids had already eaten and he’d run from the bar before the pizza they’d ordered with their beer had arrived.

Even with his head in the refrigerator, Mick could hear Kayla’s voice rise. “All right, fine. You win.”

Bemused by her beleaguered tone, he straightened. He strolled toward the doorway that led to the dining room and from there the living room, wondering if she needed him to distract her friends. It sounded as if they were on his pretty Kayla’s case about something.

No. Not his Kayla. Remember that. Not. His. Kayla.

She spoke again. “I said I’ll do it.”

“You agree?” It was her friend Betsy’s voice.

“That’s what I said,” she answered, sounding testy.

Poor girl. He took another step closer to the living room. He could picture Kayla’s flushed cheeks, her silky blond hair mussed by frustrated fingers. Her eyes, surrounded by her long, dark brown lashes, would stand out like blue jewels as she gazed on her friends.

“You’ll go on the date?”

Mick froze.

“I’ve got to do something,” he heard his nanny mutter. “So, yes.”

If there was more conversation from the living room, Mick didn’t hear it, not when he was contemplating just why her need to “do something” had turned into a need to date. Not when he was wondering exactly how many front-porch kisses that would mean.

Not when he was considering if he could manage to interrupt every single one of them.

His footsteps retreated back toward the refrigerator as resignation settled over him. Kayla. Back to dating? Damn. And double damn.

Despite his best hopes, it appeared as if he was going to be forced into doing some kissing himself. As in kissing his status quo goodbye.

Chapter Two

Kayla’s bedroom and bath were located down a short hallway off the kitchen, while the rest of the household slept upstairs. And they were still at it the morning after her nanny group get-together, which gave her time to stew alone while the coffee brewed. Both she and Mick liked theirs medium strong, but hot, hot, hot. After an internet search, last Christmas he’d located a new maker that he’d wrapped and placed under the tree. It had been tagged to both of them, from “Santa Starbucks.”

Funny man.

But not the man she should be thinking about at the moment. A normal, non-rule-breaking nanny should be contemplating the double date she’d agreed to let Betsy set up—the other woman had an address book full of eligibles, apparently. Lord knew that Mick—the widower who wouldn’t see her as a woman—wasn’t one of those. She sighed.

Then sighed again, because darn it, she was thinking about him again when the only sensible thing to do was forget all about the man—or at least find a way to dispatch these inconvenient feelings she had for him.

Determined to put Mick from her head, she pulled a coffee mug from the cupboard and then directed her gaze to the window over the sink. It looked out onto the backyard patio, the sprawling oak beside it, and then the rectangular expanse of grass. Two sections of fencing had been removed to facilitate the neighbors’ pool building. Like every morning for the last week, a good-looking man tramped around the area, taking notes on a yellow pad.

Pool contractor. A definitely good-looking one in that way of men who worked outdoors. His hair was breeze-tousled, the ends lightened by the sun. His face and forearms were tanned and the rest of him looked fit and strong.

As she watched, he turned and caught her eye through the window then gestured for her to come outside. Her heartbeat ticked up a little as she stepped through the sliding door that led to the back. They’d had a few conversations and she’d found him pleasant. Friendly. Betsy would place him squarely in the eligible category. “Hey, Pete,” she called. “Everything okay?”

“I just wanted to let you know we’ll have the fence back up on Monday.” He paused to give her a smile. “How are you this morning?”

“Good.” She smiled back. “Fine.”

“And the kids?”

“Terrific.” It struck her that a woman who didn’t have a thing for the firefighter who signed her paychecks would be clearing something up for Eligible Pete about right now. So … “You know, um, Jane and Lee, they’re not my kids.”

“Oh, I got that,” he assured her. “You’re too young to be their mother.”

She frowned at that. Technically, not true. “Well—”

“I was raised by a stepmom myself. Love the woman to pieces, even more for taking on the ragtag rowdies that were me and my little brothers.”

They had something in common, she thought. “I have stepparents myself.”

“A split in your family, too?”

“When I was ten. Both parents married other people, had more kids.” Leaving her the lonely-only issue of their short-term union. Now her mother and father had big rambunctious families with their new spouses.

“That must make it crazy on Christmas and Thanksgiving for you.”

She forced a laugh. “Sure.” More often than not, though, each parent assumed the other had set Kayla a place at their table—which left her with no place at all.

“Yeah,” Pete spoke again. “All that blended family business must mean you and Mick have a lot to juggle.” His gaze shifted over her shoulder.

Kayla turned to see what had snagged the pool contractor’s attention. Who. Mick. Coffee in hand, he was eyeing them out the window. Even from here she could detect the comb lines in his just-shampooed hair. The man liked his showers.

And just like that, her memory kicked in and she swore she could smell the scent of his damp skin. Her hands tightened on her mug as a little shiver tracked down her spine. She really shouldn’t have gifted him with that delicious aftershave.

“How long have you two been together?”

“Six years,” Kayla murmured absently, her mind still far away. When Mick returned home from work, he almost always made a stop in the laundry room on the first floor where he stripped off his boots, socks and shirt. If she could get away with it undetected, she’d watch him walk through the kitchen and then up the stairs bare-chested, the muscles in his back shifting with every footstep. There were a lot of those muscles—all along his spine and across his shoulders, although she particularly liked the ones that moved so subtly at the small of his back, right above the taut rise of his—

Pete’s question suddenly sank in. How long have you two been together?

She whipped back to face the contractor. “Oh. Oh, no. Mick and I. We’re not together.”

“You don’t live together?” Pete asked, his expression perplexed.

“Well, yes, obviously we live together, but we don’t, um, live together. I’m just the nanny to his children. To Jane and Lee.”

“Oh.” Pete’s confusion seemed to intensify. “He didn’t mention that.”

Kayla frowned. “You were talking about me to Mick?”

Pete gave her a wry smile. “Just trying to get the lay of the land, if you know what I mean.”

He’d been asking about her? If Betsy was here, she’d be thrilled by the news. Kayla realized she only felt embarrassed. “I suppose I do.”

“And Mick gave me the impression that the, uh, land was, already, uh … uh …”

She glanced at the house, then looked at Pete again. “Already, uh … uh … what?”

“I probably misunderstood,” Pete answered quickly. “I asked for your cell phone number and he got this weird expression on his face.”

She frowned. “What kind of weird expression?”

Pete hesitated. “The kind that made clear your evenings weren’t free.”

A burn shot up her neck. More embarrassment. Maybe irritation. Likely an uncomfortable combination of the two. Mick was warning men off from her—even though he didn’t seem to notice she was even a girl?

Such a pal to me.

“It must have been a misunderstanding,” Pete started. “Though I …”

Kayla didn’t hear the rest of what he had to say, as she was already stalking back to the house. What right did Mick have to interfere? she fumed, her temper kindling. He’d already invaded her nightly dreams. Wasn’t that enough for him?

She flung back the sliding door and stomped into the kitchen. The man she worked for looked up from the utensil drawer he was rummaging through. “Was that guy bugging you?” he demanded.

“No!” She frowned, even as she noticed he looked handsomer and fitter and stronger than the pool contractor she’d left outside. His jeans and faded sweatshirt were nothing special, so the eye was drawn to the masculine angles of his face. He was all guy, from his midnight-black bristly lashes to the scuffed toes of his running shoes. And all-out attractive, she thought, then shoved it from her mind as she remembered she was mad at him. “Bugging me is—”

“Kayla,” wailed Jane from the doorway. “What will I do? I can’t go to school like this.”

Kayla whirled toward the preteen, saw the distress on her face and then the outstretched fingernails with their messily applied raspberry-colored polish. “Oh, Jane,” she said, hurrying toward her. “Don’t worry. We can clean them off in a jiffy.”

“No.” Tragedy laced the single word and was written all over the eleven-year-old’s face. “Every girl is coming to school with their nails painted today.”

Kayla glanced at Mick and took in his baffled expression. “Jane,” he said. “It’s no big deal. Let Kayla help you take all that junk off and—”

“I have an even better idea,” Kayla said, widening her eyes at her employer to signal that he was an uninformed male moment away from a true crisis. “In my bathroom is this great little tool shaped like a marking pen that erases polish gone awry. Your nails will look perfect in five minutes.”

It was more like ten, but when Jane returned to the kitchen with Kayla, she was all smiles. “Look, Daddy,” she said, fanning her fingers for her father’s eyes. “See how pretty they look.”

Mick obediently bent for an inspection. Jane didn’t appear to notice, but Kayla saw the dismay that washed over his face. Then he looked over his daughter’s head to meet her eyes and she knew what he was thinking.

First bras. Painted fingernails. What was next? Jane was moving from little girl to young woman one morning at a time and he could do nothing to stop the transition. Even though she was still mad at him, Kayla moved toward father and daughter, and brushed Jane’s hair behind her shoulder.

“Remember those spa sleepovers we used to throw, Janie?” she asked. “Your friends would come over and I’d paint all your nails with glitter polish and put avocado masks on your faces.” She glanced at Mick, projecting the message that the same little girl who ran around in Disney princess pajamas and bunny slippers was still inside this growing child with her long, coltish legs and slender fingers.

“We should do that again,” Jane said, turning to Kayla with eagerness.

“It would be fun,” she agreed.

“And not just fingernail polish and facial masks,” Jane insisted. “We’ll also try—” her voice lowered with reverence “—makeup.”

Kayla glanced at Mick again, catching his wince. Makeup, he mouthed over his daughter’s head. Makeup!

She smiled at him, both amused and sympathetic. “Don’t let it get you down, big guy.”

He smiled back, his gaze wry and warm and so intimate that it was as if they were touching palm to palm. The sensation traveled up her arm to her chest where it wrapped around her heart. And she could read his mind again. He was thinking—

“Let’s do it soon,” Jane said, her voice breaking that bond between her father and Kayla. “Say we can do it tonight. It’s Friday.”

Kayla started. Tonight! She remembered what she’d already agreed to do this weekend. “Maybe the next one? I have a date, Jane.” A double date with Betsy and the two eligibles. A social event she hoped would get her mind and heart off Mick, she thought with a frown.

Something that so far she hadn’t managed for more than two minutes at a time.

Mick didn’t consider himself an expert on females, not by any means. Take his daughter, for example. Her moods swayed with the breeze and made no sense to him at all. But Kayla … sometimes they’d share a glance or a smile and he swore he could see straight through her.

And right now she didn’t seem too happy about that date she’d set up last night.

Strange how that seemed to put him, on the other hand, in a sudden good mood. “What’s the matter, La-La?” he asked as he passed her on the way to the refrigerator. Like him, she was dressed casually in jeans, running shoes and a sweatshirt that read Mary Poppins Rocks. “Is it—”

He was interrupted by the arrival of his son, Lee, in the kitchen, looking half-awake in his San Francisco 49ers flannel pajamas and with his dark hair sticking straight up in the back, his brown eyes at half-mast. With zombie footsteps, he walked over to Kayla and simply leaned into her, as if he was no longer able to stand on his own.

She held him against her, her palm smoothing the boy’s porcupine hair. “Morning, sleepy.”

“Morning, La-La,” Lee murmured.

Mick couldn’t help but smile, his mood notching higher. His daughter might be racing toward lipstick and a driver’s license, but at eight, Lee looked the same as he had at two. He still loved trucks and dinosaurs; and give him some sort of ball and he would amuse himself endlessly. So blissfully uncomplicated. So unlike—

“Daddy,” his daughter said. “You messed up again.”

Mick made a mental eye roll. “Yeah, how’s that? Is my handwriting not good enough where I signed off on your homework? Or have we forgotten something at the store you need for school? It’s my volunteer day, so I can bring it when—”

“No. You forgot to mark Kayla’s birthday on the calendar. I remember the date and it’s the Sunday after this one.”

“Kayla’s birthday?” He didn’t know it off the top of his head, but every year when they got a new calendar he paged through the old one in order to mark down important events. It was something he recalled his mom doing, and as a single parent, he’d taken on the habit for himself. “I can’t believe I missed that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the nanny said, as she pulled out a chair for Lee at the kitchen table.

“Birthdays matter,” Jane countered.

“Not so much when you’re turning twenty-seven.”

Mick frowned at that. Twenty-seven. Last night, Austin had mentioned she was a woman, and of course Mick had been noticing she was a woman for six months now, but still … twenty-seven. She wasn’t any kid. At twenty-seven he’d already been married and a father two times over.

“We have to have cake and presents,” Lee said as he dug into the bowl of cold cereal Kayla had poured for him. “And balloons, and …”

Mick half listened to his son ramble on about his favorite birthday elements. He didn’t think Kayla would want pony rides or an inflatable party jumper shaped like a pirate ship. Instead, he pictured her across a small table. A white cloth, wineglasses, gleaming knives and forks. A date scene. Definitely a date scene, because the menu he was envisioning with that table didn’t include any kind of kid entrées.

“We’ll go out,” he said, cutting through Lee’s Cheerios-muffled voice.

Kayla frowned at him. “I can get my own dates.”

That’s right. Although she didn’t seem too excited about the one she’d set up with Betsy the night before. “I didn’t mean—” he started.

“I’m sure I’ll be doing something with my family anyway,” she said, turning away. With quick steps, she crossed to the refrigerator and started removing the standard basics that comprised his kids’ lunches.

He bent to retrieve the white-but-whole-wheat loaf from the bread drawer. For a few minutes their morning was like it always was when he wasn’t at the station. The kids chattered, he and Kayla responded, even as they moved about the kitchen like a couple of contestants in that celebrity dancing show that Janie loved. In sync. He slapped the bread on the board, she spread the mayo, he squeezed the mustard. Turkey, a very thin slice of tomato (Janie was very particular about that), a crisp piece of iceberg.

When had they turned into a team?

No. He was merely being a father. She was just doing her job.

But that thought was so … unworthy, that he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “If you’re busy on your birthday, we can choose another day.”

“The Thunderbird Diner,” Jane put in. “Me and Lee love the fries there.”

“I want onion rings,” Lee corrected. “I had them when I went there with Jared and his parents.”

Mick tried to ignore the small wrench of disappointment he felt at their words. Of course the kids would want to be included. Of course that was the appropriate way to celebrate their nanny’s special day.

But he couldn’t stop himself from seeing it in a completely different manner. He could suffer through a tie. And she’d smell great, as a matter of fact like she smelled right now, a scent that was mostly flowery but with the slightest of spicy notes that said feminine with staying power. So Kayla.

He’d put his fingertips at the small of her back as they walked into the restaurant. The little twitch she made at his touch would mean that her breath had caught … and then his breath would catch, too. Once they were seated, their server would ask if it was a particular occasion like an anniversary or a birthday. Kayla would look at him, her heart in her eyes, because she would dislike any widespread attention. So he’d smile and just say it was always an occasion when he was out with a beautiful woman.

Then Kayla would—

“Daddy,” his daughter whispered, breaking the bubble of his fantasy.

He shook himself and stared down at her. “What?”

Jane’s face was so familiar … and yet so different. The cheekbones were sharper against her skin, her eyes seemed wider than ever before and her neck longer, somewhere between gangly and elegant. When she opened her mouth, that gap between her front teeth told him that he needed to make that orthodontist appointment he’d been putting off. A now-familiar sensation constricted his chest and he reached out to slide his hand down her hair.

“Daddy,” she said again, under the conversation that Kayla and Lee were conducting about the merits of French fries versus onion rings. “We need to get Kayla the perfect gift.”

He could see it. Other years it had been scarves and stationery and coffeemakers, but he knew her better now. He could see himself in that certain department he always made sure to keep his gaze averted from and there he would find something … not slinky, nothing so cheesy. Kayla’s blond beauty would look best in a flowing garment, fragile layers that would only briefly cling to her curves and then float away.

Oh. Oh, man. It wasn’t that he knew her better now; it was that he wanted to know her better now.

He shifted away from his daughter to pack the lunch items into Lee’s lunchbox and Jane’s brown sack—the last teen heartthrob lunchbox had been tossed away in a fit of preteen “maturity.” Kayla joined him at the counter, completing her part of the morning ritual. Their hands both closed over the same sandwich bag of apple slices.

She raised her gaze to his.

It was his turn to twitch. Damn! How had this happened? He’d been no more aware of her than he’d been of the … the teakettle on the stove. But then he’d caught her almost kissing that bristle-haired Lothario and everything had changed.

He’d developed this weird overprotective thing. That was all. He’d realized that she was a woman, not just the nanny, and he’d felt responsible for her because she was a member of his household.

Yeah.

Her brows came together. “What’s wrong?”

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.’”

It was Patty’s turn to frown. “Well, of course there is. She’s your nanny.”

“And I’ve never thought of her in any other way.” Mick voiced the quick lie. Although he didn’t think Patty expected he’d never have another woman in his life, he didn’t want her speculating on this crazy little … interest he had in the woman caring for his children. He was putting it from his head, wasn’t he?

The puzzled expression on Patty’s face made Mick puzzled in turn. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Pat, but what exactly are you getting at?”

She sighed. “You know it’s an unspoken rule of parenthood that you don’t poach on other couple’s babysitters.”

“Sure.” When Ellen had been alive, they’d learned that lesson right away when they’d asked the family down the street for the names of some reliable sitters. Not everyone was willing to share, and you had to approach the subject with as much delicacy as prying open an oyster for the pearl inside.

“So I wouldn’t just go to Kayla myself, not without checking with you first,” Patty assured him.

Frowning, he studied his friend’s freckled face. “What the heck are you dancing around?”

She took a quick breath, and then the words tumbled out. “Eric has been offered the chance to work in the London office this summer. Well, starting late spring actually. And I think we’re going to move—all of us. Danielle and Jason, too.”

Danielle and Jason, Patty and Eric’s kids who were the same age as Jane and Lee. “Sounds like a great opportunity,” Mick said.

“Even greater if sometimes Eric and I could take a few weekend jaunts around Europe, just the two of us,” Patty added. “Though there’ll be other times it would be all five.”

“Five?” His brow furrowed, then he got it. “You … you would like to take my nanny with you for three months?”

Patty bit her lip again. “It could last up to a year if we like it,” she confessed.

Mick didn’t know what to say. This was poaching of the first order! Taking his K—his nanny—away from his kids. Out of the country!

His expression must have looked thunderous, because Patty grimaced. “I know, I know. But I just had to ask, Mick. My kids love Kayla and I would feel completely comfortable leaving them in her hands when Eric and I could get away to Edinburgh or Paris. And it would be an opportunity for Kayla, too.

She told me that she traveled in Europe one summer. It sounded like a fabulous time for her.”

Better than the years she’d spent hanging around a grumpy old widower, he supposed.

“I was thinking she’d go with us to Hawaii this summer,” he muttered. It wasn’t the British Museum or the Louvre, but at their young age, Jane and Lee wouldn’t really appreciate a trip like that.

Patty nodded. “My kids would rather we were going to learn to surf as well, but this is an opportunity that might not come our way again. The company will pay for a lot of it and I’ve never been anywhere east of Dallas, Texas.”

He scuffed at the dirt with the toes of his running shoes, unsure what to say. Sure, it would be a great opportunity for everyone … everyone but him and Jane and Lee. “The kids wouldn’t want to lose Kayla,” he said, focusing on them.

“And you’d miss her, too, I know,” Patty added.

He didn’t dare look up. “So …”

“So I was also thinking that your kids are getting older, Mick. Before they get too attached to their nanny, I thought you might be considering making a … a change.”

Change! There was that poisoned word again. Change was what had messed up his ordered life.

The change in how he saw Kayla made him edgy. Frustrated. Damn needy.

But maybe Patty had something there. To get back to sanity, perhaps another change was required. He closed his eyes for a moment, depressed by the damn thought, then he looked over at his friend. “Could you give me a little time? To broach the idea with the kids and with Kayla? But by next week … by next week I’ll tell her about your offer, okay?”

Patty smiled. “Okay.” Her expression turned hopeful. “Or sooner?”

“Sure.” He ignored his tight chest and the urge to glance around and assure himself that Kayla was still, for now at least, in the vicinity. “Or sooner.”

Mick had half promised sooner, and even considered telling Kayla that very day, but obstacles kept getting in the way. She took off on errands in the afternoon. Then Jane and Lee were home, and he didn’t want to discuss the subject with them in the room.

As he and Kayla made dinner, the kids got their weekend homework out of the way at the kitchen table. It was like it always had been, the kids fairly diligent, he and the nanny supplying help when necessary. As usual, they bickered with good nature over the best way to remember the spelling of the words on Lee’s test.

The only difference this evening was that he could hardly stop staring at Kayla’s mouth or finding some excuse to brush against her. His skin felt shrink-wrapped to his bones and inside he burned like a three-alarm fire.

He had it bad, and depressing thought or no, Patty had provided a prescription for relief.

“Kayla,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’d appreciate it if we could have a talk after dinner. Just, uh, just the two of us.”

She glanced up at him, her face coloring. “Just the two of us?”

He shifted, embarrassed at how intimate he’d made it sound. “I mean, I want to talk about the kids.”

“Oh. Right. The kids.” Her head bobbed up and down. “But … Mick, I’m sorry, I have to get ready now for my date. I won’t be here for dinner … or after.”

“Ah. Yeah. Sure. Some other time.” He felt like an idiot, because he was holding plates in his hands, ready to set the table for four. He’d forgotten about Kayla and her date.

She hurried out of the kitchen while he just stood there, his mind replaying her words. I won’t be here for dinner … or after. She’d be with some other man for dinner … and after.

It couldn’t be jealousy, he told himself, but God, the taste of something bitter and green stuck to his tongue. He served up the plates for himself and the kids, hoping that the chicken and rice would dissipate the god-awful taste.

The food smelled good enough.

The scent of it lingered in the kitchen as they ate and even as he cleaned up the dishes. But then a new note entered the atmosphere, one that drew him around immediately.

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