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He decided arguing would be useless. “Okay, then.”
He watched her walk out of the room, until she’d disappeared. But even after he heard her close the door to her room, he had to force his attention back to his son. His conscience bothered him. He’d been unfair to her from the moment he had seen her getting out of her car that first day. So what if his sister was matchmaking? He didn’t have to fall for it. Hayley Brooks was an attractive young woman. He couldn’t deny that. But he was old enough—and wise enough—to get past her looks. Or he should be. He had to be. Only a fool who had made the mistake of marrying the wrong woman would let his libido rule his head.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to convince his libido that he wasn’t attracted to Hayley.
“Hey, Brayden, ready to eat?” he asked. But it didn’t keep him from thinking about the woman who was now living in his home.
* * *
“LET’S GET YOU CLEANED UP.” Hayley took the colored markers from Brayden and lifted him into her arms. “If it warms up enough,” she told him, “maybe you can do some finger painting on the patio after lunch. Would you like that?”
“Dat,” he echoed.
Laughing, she gave him a hug and carried him through the house and up the stairs to the bathroom on the second floor. In only four days, he had begun to talk more. Of course, it wasn’t always clear what he was saying, and he’d suddenly started echoing the last word of everything she said to him. She’d meant to ask Luke if he’d noticed it, but after her first day, she hadn’t seen much of him.
As she dampened a washcloth and added a drop of soap, she thought of how little she’d seen of her employer. During the day, he was out of the house, and in the evening, school and studying had kept her busy. “And that’s the way it should be,” she muttered while washing the bright marks of color from Brayden’s hands and arms.
“Shoo bee,” Brayden echoed.
She looked at him and laughed. “You’re probably right.”
“Right about what?”
She jumped at the sound of a much-deeper voice and spun around to find Luke standing in the doorway of the bathroom. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You only surprised me.” She moved to the sink, her heart pounding and her hands trembling from the fright. Rinsing the cloth, she wondered why he’d come inside so early. “Brayden has been coloring with the markers and missed the paper.”
“I think there are some crayons in a drawer in his room. His aunt Erin sent him some for his birthday.”
Nodding, she returned to Brayden and wiped away the soap. “I’ll check. We may try finger painting this afternoon.”
Luke reached over and tugged at Brayden’s curls. “I bet you’ll like that,” he told his son.
“Dat,” Brayden repeated.
Hayley felt Luke watching her. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t make a mess. We’ll only do it if the weather is nice. Out on the patio.”
“Sounds like fun.”
She rinsed the washcloth again and placed it over the towel bar to dry. “It sounds messy, I know,” she said, turning back to Luke and wishing he would leave. She didn’t like having to explain herself to him, but she felt she needed to. “I have an old shirt that had been one of my brothers. It will cover most of Brayden’s clothes so the paint won’t get on them. And I’ll wash down any paint that gets on the patio.”
“I’m not worried about it,” Luke replied. “Brayden made a lot more messes before you came to watch him, and we both survived them.”
Although the bathroom would be considered large by most standards, to Hayley it was too small for comfort. Before she could scoop up Brayden and escape, Luke had taken him by the hand and turned to leave. Hayley breathed a sigh of relief.
“You haven’t started lunch yet, have you?” Luke asked as she joined them in the hallway.
“No, not yet. Brayden and I have been busy, and I wanted to get him cleaned up first.”
Luke nodded. “Good. I thought we could run into town and have lunch at the café. It’s a good place to meet people and get a feel for the town.”
“Oh! Well, sure, if you think so. I guess.” The suggestion took her by surprise, and she wasn’t sure what to think. “Brayden needs his clothes changed, though, and I need to run a brush through my hair and—”
“I’ll take care of Brayden, while you do whatever you need to do. We’ll meet you in the family room when you’re ready.”
She nodded and hurried down the stairs to her room. As she freshened her makeup, she realized she was letting things get to her and worrying when she probably had no need to. It wasn’t the way she usually reacted to things.
“You’re going to a small-town café to eat lunch with your employer and your charge,” she whispered to her reflection in the mirror. “There’s no reason to panic or be nervous.”
Grabbing her purse from her room and slipping on a jacket, she met Luke and Brayden in the family room, just as they were coming down the stairs.
“Are we ready?” Luke asked.
Brayden shouted that he was and Hayley nodded in agreement. Once in the pickup, with Brayden settled in his car seat in the back of the extended cab, they were on their way.
Hayley watched out the window as Luke drove them to town. Others might think it was a bleak scene, but she loved the contrast of dark, bare trees and earthy, dormant fields against the bright blue sky. The late winter had gifted them with warm days, well above freezing, and birds were busy hopping from tree limb to tree limb. Even though she’d lived on a farm while growing up, she’d become accustomed to the city and often forgot the beauty of a world without skyscrapers, interstate highways and traffic.
She kept Brayden busy during the ride by reciting nursery rhymes, which made him giggle and squeal. Luke joined in now and then, and before she knew it, they were almost to town.
“Did you see much of Desperation when you stopped for groceries the other day?” Luke asked.
“Only a little,” she admitted. “I was focused more on where I needed to go, since I had Brayden with me and didn’t really look around much.”
Within seconds, he brought the truck to a stop at the intersection of Main Street and the county road. “We’ll be at the Chick-a-Lick before you know it.”
She wasn’t certain she’d heard right. “Excuse me? The what?”
“Chick-a-Wick!” came the yell from the back.
Luke laughed. “He has a little trouble with some of his letters. It’s the Chick-a-Lick Café, and it’s been here for as long as I can remember. People have been known to come as far as fifty miles for the food and the company.”
“Then I’m definitely looking forward to lunch.”
After turning the corner, Luke drove slowly down the street. Pointing out the window, he said, “That’s the old Opera House the town folks have been renovating for several years.”
“It’s beautiful,” she answered, as he pulled into a parking spot in front of what was obviously the café. She waited until he shut off the engine, then she stepped out of the truck and took Brayden from his car seat.
Luke joined them at the curb and took the squirming little boy from her arms, setting him on the sidewalk. “He loves coming to the café. He gets to see all his favorite people.”
“I guess so,” Hayley said, laughing, as Brayden ran toward the café. They followed and Luke opened the door, while Hayley took Brayden’s hand in hers, and they all walked inside.
Her first impression was that the Chick-a-Lick was a typical small town café. But when she stepped farther inside, silence moved through the room filled with customers like a wave, and she felt all eyes on her. “Oh, my,” she whispered.
Chapter Three
For several seconds, Luke wasn’t sure what to do. Everyone in the café was watching them, and the words fight or flight jumped to mind. Common sense quickly told him that there would be no tucking tail and retreating. He’d have to find a way to make this uncomfortable moment a little easier for both him and Hayley.
“There’s a booth over there,” he said, pointing to the only empty spot in the café. Hayley nodded, and he followed her through the crowded but unusually quiet room, making a point to nod and say hello to neighbors and friends.
“Hey, Luke,” Tanner O’Brien called to him.
“Tanner,” Luke greeted, and smiled at his friend’s wife as if walking into the Chick-a-Lick with a pretty woman was a daily thing for him. “Good to see you, Jules. And Wyoming,” he added, patting their young son on the shoulder as he passed.
He grabbed a high chair on the way, and by the time Hayley had settled Brayden into it and scooted into one side of the booth, the usual buzz of conversation in the café had resumed. Still, Luke knew people were speculating on who she was and what was going on.
Hayley picked up one of the menus tucked behind the napkin holder and looked around the room. “You were right. It’s definitely a popular place.”
He nodded his agreement and grabbed his own menu, hoping to hide the fact that he was clueless on how to handle this predicament he’d gotten them into. He hadn’t given any thought to how the first visit to town with Hayley would quickly become a topic of gossip. After all, he’d never come into the café before with any woman other than his wife, when he was married, and everyone in town knew how that had ended.
He rarely missed Saturday lunch at the Chick-a-Lick. Even Brayden knew with some kind of sixth sense where they were going when they started for town on Saturday. Leaving Brayden behind was never an option. His son would complain. Loudly. But taking Brayden, while leaving Hayley behind, just hadn’t seemed right, either. So here they were.
As he looked over the menu, he told himself that she deserved to have a meal she hadn’t cooked, and this was the perfect chance to introduce her around so she could meet people and maybe make a few friends. Now all he had to do was find a way to keep gossip at a minimum.
By the pale, pink blotches on Hayley’s cheeks, he guessed she was feeling a little embarrassed and maybe even uncomfortable. “They’re curious,” he told her. “They’re all good people.”
“It’s all right,” she answered. “I guess I’d be surprised if they weren’t. I’m sure that even if I was eighty and gray-haired and wrinkled, they’d still wonder.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, you’re right.” And he felt better because she understood.
“So what’s good?” she asked. “Besides everything.”
Suddenly glad she wasn’t eighty, gray-haired and wrinkled, he was in the middle of making lunch suggestions when the waitress came to the table.
“Hey, Luke,” she greeted. Placing several packages of crackers on the table in front of Brayden, she turned to smile at Hayley. “I’m Darla. Welcome to the Chick-a-Lick.”
“Nice to meet you, Darla. I’m Hayley Brooks, Brayden’s new nanny.”
Darla took the hand she offered. “Aren’t you the lucky one? He’s such a cute little guy. So are you all ready to order?”
When Hayley nodded in his direction, he answered, “I guess we are,” and they gave Darla their orders. She’d just walked away when Tanner and Jules O’Brien approached the booth with their son.
“Okay, I’ll say it. Jules is dying of curiosity,” Tanner said, laughing.
“I am not!” His wife gave him a playful punch in the arm, and then laughed, too. “All right, I guess small-town nosiness has rubbed off on me,” she said, smiling at Hayley.
Luke hurried to introduce his friends, and explained that Hayley was his son’s new nanny, without feeling it was the wrong thing to say.
“Perfect,” Jules said, with a glance at her husband.
“Hi there, Wyoming,” Hayley said to their son. “How old are you?”
Wyoming held up three fingers.
“He’ll be four in August,” Jules added. “And we really should get home. It’s so nice to meet you, Hayley. I hope you’ll all stop by the ranch sometime.”
They said their goodbyes, and when the O’Briens were gone, Luke let out a sigh. “I guess that went okay, didn’t it?”
“Very okay,” Hayley replied.
Darla soon returned with their meal, and the three of them fell silent as they enjoyed it. Luke didn’t fail to notice that Hayley kept an eye on Brayden, helping him with his food the way a mother would. And for a change, Brayden behaved like a perfect little gentleman, instead of wanting to get up to run around the café.
Luke had just finished paying the bill at the cash register and they were ready to leave, when the door opened. “Looks like you both have your hands full,” Luke told the couple who walked into the café.
“Double trouble,” Dusty McPherson replied, glancing at his wife with a grin, as he jiggled one of his twin sons in his arms. More quietly he said, “Hey, Luke, I’ve been meaning to ask where Dylan has disappeared to.”
Luke shrugged and kept his voice low, too. “He just said he needed to get away.” After glancing around to make sure no one was listening, he continued. “You know how it is with him this time of year.”
“Maybe he’ll be able to sort it all out if he’s away from the ranch,” Dusty suggested. “Sometimes just getting away can help. I know it did me. Why, if it hadn’t been—”
“Dusty,” his wife warned, as she shifted the other twin in her arms. There was a sparkle in her eyes as she glanced at Hayley with a smile. “I’m sure Luke and his friend aren’t interested.”
Dusty grinned at Hayley. “Right. Beg your pardon, ma’am.”
Hayley laughed. “None needed. I’m Hayley Brooks. Brayden’s new nanny.”
“A nanny!” Kate looked pointedly at her husband and frowned. “Now why didn’t you think of that?”
He slipped an arm around his wife’s waist. “Maybe after the next one...or two?” he suggested with a bawdy wink.
Laughing, Luke moved to the door. “I’ll tell Dylan to stop by when he gets back. Maybe you can talk some sense into him, if he hasn’t managed to find some on his own.”
“In the meantime,” Kate said, placing a hand on Hayley’s arm, “I’m Kate McPherson, and if you decide Luke is a slave driver, I’m sure I can find a position for you. If you get my drift. Oh, and this cowboy is my husband, Dusty.” Before moving on, she flashed Luke a smug smile.
“Wow, what a pair!” Hayley said, as they exited the café and started for the pickup. “And what nice friends you have. They went out of their way to make me feel welcome.”
Luke shrugged as he opened the truck door for her. “Like I said, people in Desperation are nice folks.” When they’d settled in the truck and were on their way back to the ranch, he turned to look at her. “You don’t have to worry now. Everybody in town will know you’re Brayden’s new nanny before the sun goes down.”
“I guess that’s a good thing,” she replied. “But I wasn’t really worried. I try not to pay a lot of attention to what others say, especially when they don’t know the circumstances. Still, for you and Brayden, I’m glad everyone will know.”
He was surprised at her honesty and unsure of how to answer, so he nodded in agreement before concentrating on the road ahead. It was pretty clear that she wasn’t the type to keep her opinions to herself. While that might have been a problem with others—his ex-wife, for instance—with Hayley he was beginning to appreciate it. He never felt she was being unkind, and her honesty made things easier. He wouldn’t have to wonder where he stood with her. Even the live-in situation wasn’t proving to be the problem he’d expected it would be, now that they were falling into a routine. And he was hoping that time would take care of the attraction he felt for her. Not that it had, so far.
As he turned into the driveway to the ranch, he glanced in the rearview mirror at his son, who had fallen asleep. Brayden had been unnaturally good all afternoon, and Luke could only chalk that up to Hayley’s influence. He admitted to himself that he was pleased she hadn’t given up and left that first day of the interview.
“I’ll take Brayden up to bed,” he told her, as he pulled up to the house and shut off the engine.
“Thanks,” she said, sliding out of the truck. “It’s amazing how heavy something so small can sometimes be.”
After putting Brayden in his bed, Luke found Hayley sitting in the kitchen, her head down as she turned the page of the book in front of her. He cleared his throat to keep from frightening her, and when she looked up, he spoke. “I’ve got some work to do out in the machine shed. If you need me, just give a shout.”
She nodded, but immediately went back to whatever she was reading. By the size of the book, he suspected it was for school.
Once in the shed, he felt more like himself. Lunch with Hayley at the café hadn’t been what he’d expected, and he was grateful for work that took his mind off it.
“How’s it goin’?”
Luke jumped at the sound of the voice and dropped the crowbar he was using, missing his right foot by inches. “Damn, Dylan!” he shouted at the sight of his older brother. “You might try warning a person instead of sneaking up on him.”
Dylan snorted. “You might try being a bit less jumpy.”
