Marrying the Northbridge Nanny (5 page)

“So you were a late-bloomer.” He said that as if there was no question that she’d blossomed.

It was flattering for Meg who had trouble seeing herself that way. It was especially flattering when he was looking at her as if he did. And, like the previous night, she blushed. Only tonight it didn’t have anything to do with embarrassment over Tia calling the thong panties a cape. It had to do with the warmth that seemed to be coming from Logan. From eyes that just might have held the kind of appreciation and attraction she felt every time she looked at him.

But then he took a deep breath and sighed. “I suppose I should let you get to bed. Tomorrow will be here before we know it and it’s anybody’s guess what Tia will be up to.”

“I’m taking her to a playgroup in the Town Square, if that’s all right,” Meg said, willing him not to go. Not just yet…

“Yeah, she told me. I was tempted to punish her for the Diving Man incident by telling her she couldn’t go but I couldn’t do it,” he admitted.

“That would have been kind of a big gun to bring out for a small infraction. Plus getting to play with other kids is really important for her.” Meg was doing her best not to slip into lecture-mode again. And as she gazed at Logan so nearby, as she looked into those eyes that turned silvery in that light, at that face she just wanted to trace with her fingertips, all she could really think about was kissing…

“So you’re telling me that it’s good that I didn’t punish her by taking away something she needs—like
food or water or air or getting to know the kids she has to make friends with to be happy here?” Logan said with a smile that announced that she was once again telling him something he already knew.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” she said, making it obvious that she was merely playing along.

Apparently he liked that because he grinned at her once again.

But that grin drew her attention to his supple mouth and just made her think about kissing all the more…

And it didn’t help that he still wasn’t looking at her the way any boss before him ever had. He was looking at her the way men she’d been on successful dates with had. Men she’d ended up having relationships with.

Close, personal,
kissing
relationships…

And she was suddenly very aware of their positions again. Of how little distance separated them. Of her own advantage.

She would only have to lean forward a few inches and she could kiss him…

Wouldn’t
that
surprise him! He’d never expect the Reverend’s granddaughter to do that!

And she wanted to. So much it shocked her. So much she felt herself actually move in. Barely. But some…

Did he move, too? Upward? Toward her?

If he did it was so scant she couldn’t be sure. But he might have…

Did that mean it would be all right for her to kiss him? That he might even want her to?

She wanted to.

She really, really wanted to…

But she couldn’t just up and kiss the man, she told herself. Not a man who she wasn’t convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt wanted her to kiss him. Not a man who hadn’t kissed her first.

But she
had
leaned in a little and she suddenly felt the need to make it seem like that had been for another reason. So she added to it and used it as the arch that swept her up to her feet as if she were just taking seriously his suggestion that they say good-night.

Logan didn’t immediately follow suit. He stayed lounging there on her steps. And he let his eyes take a long, slow rise right up the length of her until they met hers.

Then he smiled, knowingly again, and she didn’t think for a minute that she’d fooled him.

But he didn’t say anything. He just pushed off the landing with his elbow and got to his feet, too, taking a few steps down before he even glanced at her again.

“Thanks for making the sandwiches and keeping Tia out of the way tonight,” he said over his shoulder as he sauntered down the remaining stairs, giving no indication that anything might have passed between them.

“Sure,” Meg said in a voice more soft than she wanted it to be.

“See you in the morning.”

“See you in the morning,” she repeated.

Then she watched him cross back to the house with that sexy-as-hell walk that was even better going than it had been coming.

And she just couldn’t help wondering what it might have been like if she
had
had the courage to kiss him.

If he would have balked.

Or would he have taken what she’d started and run with it…

He probably would have balked because it would have been so out of line,
she told herself firmly.

But deep down?

She thought there was just the faintest chance that he might have grabbed her by the arms, pulled her close, taken what she’d started and made it into something even better.

And it was that image that followed her right inside her apartment and all the way through the rest of the night…

“H
ow did Tia do at the playgroup in Town Square today?” Logan asked on Wednesday evening.

Meg was sitting with him in the outdoor bleachers of the high-school field at a baseball game being played by the local sports team that called themselves the Bruisers. They were a group of Northbridge men who got together to play whatever sport was in season, dividing into two groups to compete against each other. It was a casual thing that had become a year-round, weekly event that most of the town turned out to watch.

When Logan had suggested to Meg that they go, her first impression had been that he was asking her on a date.

In anticipation of that, while Tia napped at the apartment after playgroup, Meg had showered a second time, shampooed her hair, pressed one of her favorite blouses—
a white eyelet she wore over a tanktop—and chosen a new pair of Capri slacks that made her ankles look thin.

Then, at dinner, she’d discovered that Hadley and Tia were also going.

Which, of course, made more sense and prompted Meg to remind herself that she needed to keep her dealings with Logan on a professional level regardless of how relaxed things were.

It was now after eight and Hadley had just opted to take Tia home to put her to bed, leaving Meg and Logan alone after all. Still, Meg steadfastly refused to entertain the idea that this was anything more than it was. Even if Logan suddenly seemed more interested in talking than in watching the game.

Meg answered his question about the playgroup. “Tia did about what I expected her to do. She was shy and just wanted to stay with me at first. Then she wanted to play, but she wanted me to go with her. But eventually the appeal of the slide and the shovels and dump trucks in the sandbox was stronger than she was.”

Something Meg understood because she kept having the same experience with Logan—his appeal repeatedly became stronger than her resolve to resist it…

But she chased that thought away and went on with what she’d been saying.

“Eventually Tia did leave my side, but she didn’t go far and she made sure she could see me and that I was within hearing range—that’s a normal attachment response.”

Instant frown. Meg knew
attachment response
had brought it on. But on top of combating the earlier illusion that this was a date, she was also dealing with
the memory of how close she’d come to kissing Logan the night before. And if nothing else, the ability to be the authority on the subject of a three-year-old’s development gave her the feeling that she had at least a little control.

Otherwise, she was just the ditz who couldn’t stop noticing even the smallest details about this man. The ditz who had almost made the supreme mistake of kissing her boss last night. The ditz who had thought she was being asked on a date when she wasn’t…

“Did Tia join in with the other kids at all?” Logan asked without commenting on Meg’s formal-sounding assessment.

“Yes, Tia did very well. She didn’t show any signs of aggressive behavior. When she wanted a toy someone else had, she either waited for them to leave it behind or she came and asked me to make them give it to her—”

“Oh-oh, have I spoiled her so much she thinks she can have anything she wants, even if it belongs to another kid?”

Meg shook her head. “The toys were all there for everyone to play with, they didn’t
belong
to any one child. And it’s normal for a three-year-old to think she should have anything she wants. What Tia was doing was trying to find a way to get what she wanted without making it a battle—she wanted me to be her problem-solver. And when I explained to her that she had to wait her turn, she accepted that.”

“Okay…” he said as if he wasn’t sure why Meg hadn’t merely said that in the first place. “So she got along with the other kids?”

“She did. And she made some connections—you heard her at dinner—she remembers the names of the other children, she knew which ones she liked and which ones she didn’t like—”

“She didn’t like the boy in the red shirt who picked his nose and the mean girl who hit Howie—whoever Howie is.”

So he listened when his daughter talked, too. Meg was glad to know that.

“Right—she didn’t like the nose-picker and the hitter,” Meg confirmed. “She was protective of Howie and stood up to the bully who wanted Howie’s shovel, and when Howie was afraid of going down the slide Tia suggested they go down together.”

“Yeah, I thought she must have liked Howie when his name kept coming up. And there was someone else…Bet’ny?” Logan said the name he’d obviously realized his daughter had mispronounced.

“Bethany,” Meg clarified.

Logan nodded and it was enough to send a whiff of his ocean-air-smelling cologne to her—the scent that had announced that he’d also showered and shaved for tonight. Showered and shaved and changed into a pair of dark denim jeans and a baby-blue polo shirt that accentuated his eyes and made it difficult for Meg not to get lost in staring into them…

“So, Tia had a good time,” he concluded.

“I’d say it was a successful socialization.”

“Or just a good time,” Logan repeated, obviously wanting to simplify it. “And proof that Tia doesn’t need a resident psychologist.”

Meg took what she hoped was a calming breath. “Playgroup went well,” she said succinctly.

“How about for you?” he asked then. “Did you meet up with any old friends?”

“I saw a few people I knew from school,” she answered without encouraging more, pretending an interest in the baseball game that was in the final inning.

Just then a man and woman Meg didn’t recognize came up the bleachers to introduce themselves to Logan, telling him that they were interested in a particular chair they’d seen on his Web site.

While he talked business, Meg zoned out, taking herself to task. Logan was just being friendly, why was it that she had to make more of that than it was? And then get upset when there
wasn’t
more to it?

Okay yes, she was attracted to him. But it was no different than if she’d noticed him when she was twelve and he was eighteen and had developed a crush on him—he would have been off-limits then and he was no less off-limits now.

And thank goodness she
hadn’t
kissed him! That would have given her away and been much worse to try to recover from. As it was, the worst she’d done was think things she shouldn’t have thought about him, and displayed what he probably interpreted as mood swings. If she got herself under control—in a way that didn’t make her sound like the keynote speaker at a psychology conference—Logan would never be the wiser.

Unless he knew how close she’d come to kissing him last night. It seemed as if he might.

But she had to assume that he hadn’t. She just had to or going on as his daughter’s nanny might not be possible.

Logan’s conversation with the couple ended at the same time the game did. As he and Meg stood she thought that one of the things she should do in the future was not accept invitations for things like tonight. Family meals were one thing, but family outings on which a nanny wasn’t needed should be things she begged off of. There might not be a distinct line between the personal and the professional when it came to this job, but she thought she should start to draw at least a faint one.

Then Logan gave her the perfect opportunity for that.

“How about a walk?” he suggested. “In all the time I’ve been back in town I haven’t had the chance to just walk around and see what’s changed and what’s the same.”

But did she take the opportunity and begin to draw that faint line to distinguish the personal from the professional?

She told herself to.

And yet what came out of her mouth was, “Okay. It
is
a beautiful night…”

Still, she reasoned once the words were out, she needed to amend whatever impression she might have given that she was irked about something. And a walk was just a walk—she could do that without making it into something it wasn’t, couldn’t she?

She was just going to have to.

“I’m not the best tour guide,” she warned. “I’ve been back to town for a few vacations over the years, but not often enough or for long enough periods of time to keep up.”

“Then we’ll both get to check it out,” he said as they reached the bottom of the bleachers. “But before we hit Main Street, let’s see if we can get into the middle school building. I left something there.”

The school campus was comprised of three buildings—one for the elementary grades, one for the middle grades, and one for the high school. All grade levels shared the cafeteria, the auditorium, the administration offices, the gym, the playground and the sports field.

“You left something in the middle school? Recently or when you went to middle school?” Meg asked as they turned in that direction.

“When I went to middle school. But it might still be there.”

The building’s front doors were open when they reached it and they understood why after going past what appeared to be a knitting class in the first classroom. No one took any notice of them entering, so Logan led the way to the center of the building and a bay of lockers.

“These look the same,” Logan observed. “And if I’m remembering right, it was locker 56—I was sure that even if I lived to be that old I wouldn’t get over Libby Weaver.”

Meg laughed. “Libby Weaver? The manicurist?”

“She might be the manicurist now, but in the eighth grade? She was the girl of my dreams,” he said with mock rapture as he located locker number 56.

When he did, he took a leap, caught the top edge of the row of lockers that were barely two heads from the ceiling and stayed hanging there, pulling himself up high enough to look around.

“Luckily not many things change in Northbridge, and not a lot of cleaning of the locker tops happens, either,” he said as he held on with one hand and used the other to reach for something. Then he dropped back to the ground.

Meg tried not to notice his dexterity or the way his biceps bulged to bear his weight…

“Got it!” he said, blowing many years of dust off of what he’d retrieved before showing her a poorly shaped six-inch wooden heart with Be Mine burned into it.

“Like the Valentine’s Day candy?” Meg guessed.

“Exactly. I made it in eighth grade woodshop for Libby Weaver, and I etched my name into it—under the Be Mine.” He showed her that, too. “I remembered it when I saw Libby on the street the other day. I thought if it was still here I should probably get it back. I wouldn’t want somebody to find it now and sell it on eBay as my earliest work in wood—as you can see, it wasn’t a good beginning.”

“It is pretty bad,” Meg said, unable to keep from laughing at the malformed object. “But for you there’s the sentimental value.”

That made him laugh, too. “Libby Weaver was my first love and she broke my heart,” he pretended to be morose over the memory as they headed out of the school building. “I made this for her for Valentine’s Day but just when I was going to give it to her, I turned the corner and found her kissing some other guy. I went back around to the lockers, threw it up there, and, like I said, thought that even if I lived to be the same age as my locker number—fifty-six—I’d never get over the pain of it.”

“That is sad,” Meg said sympathetically. “How long did it really take for you to get over it?”

“At least a week,” he said as if it had been an eternity.

“And when you saw her on the street the other day? Did you have pangs?”

“I didn’t even recognize her—she recognized me. And no, no pangs. She looks good, but no pangs.”

It took some work for Meg not to hate the fact that he thought the manicurist looked good.

A lot of work.

And still she hated it…

They were outside again by then and Logan suggested they go to his SUV to drop off the heart before they crossed South Street to walk Main. It allowed Meg another few minutes to try to at least stop thinking about his appreciation of his old love.

But in that endeavor she recalled something else and said, “Ahh, that’s right, the Weavers. I forgot about Rick Weaver…”

“Are those impure thoughts you’re having?” Logan accused as they left the SUV behind and crossed South Street.

Meg merely smiled, admitting nothing.

“Rick Weaver was my age,” Logan recalled. “If you didn’t notice me, how come you noticed him?”

It didn’t sound as if Logan liked that idea any better than she’d liked hearing that he thought Libby Weaver looked good.

Meg reminded herself to keep her perspective, not to forget that being there with Logan was nothing but a friendly walk with her boss on a Wednesday evening.

But she couldn’t help the charge it sent through her to think she’d gotten to Mr. Unflappable. Even just a little.

“Rick Weaver mowed our next-door neighbor’s lawn for two summers before he graduated. Every Tuesday afternoon. In nothing but cutoffs. And my bedroom window looked straight out over it…”

“Oh, that’s impure all right! What kind of a reverend’s granddaughter are you?”

Meg merely smiled more and opted to twist the knife. “And if you’ll recall, Rick was into bodybuilding. In fact, I think he actually competes now.”

“You’ve kept up on him?”

Meg couldn’t help grinning at the increasing level of outrage that was sounding in Logan’s voice. Even if he was clearly exaggerating it and likely didn’t feel any genuine jealousy, she still thought she was getting to him.

“Yep, I think I’m remembering that right—Rick Weaver became a professional bodybuilder. It’s something I heard a few years ago. I don’t know if it’s still true or not. But I’ll tell you what—for those two summers, I couldn’t wait for Tuesdays. There just must have been something about those Weavers…”

“Not too ready to analyze your own youthful behavior, though, are you?” he accused.

That made Meg laugh again. “A pubescent girl in a repressed household—there would have been something wrong with me if I
hadn’t
noticed the half-naked older boy mowing the lawn under my bedroom window. Unfortunately, one day when I was home alone I went outside while he was trimming and tried to talk to him. Poor Rick might have had a great body but he was so
dumb he couldn’t even keep up with a thirteen-year-old’s conversation. It ruined it for me.”