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How did she explain to him, or to anyone, that the greatest pain was not in losing a husband but in the knowledge that her husband hadn’t really cared for her, or their child, at all?
She didn’t. Her personal pain was her own.
“It’s behind me now.” A total lie. A mountain of debt and a string of bill collectors snapped at her heels like Doberman pinschers. Somehow, some way, she’d repay all that was owed.
He hitched an eyebrow in the direction of the soccer ball around her middle. “Not everything.”
For the first time since Ryan Storm had stormed into her life in the middle of a snow storm, Kelsey felt a sense of calm at the mention of her pregnancy. However inconvenient the timing might be, her baby was the one joy, the one good thing, left in her life.
She stroked a protective hand over her belly. “Yes, there is the baby.”
And she’d do whatever it took to make a good life for her unborn child.
“So is it a deal? You’ll come to work for me? I promise you’ll be well-compensated.”
Well-compensated. She could deal with that. Here was a chance to save for the future, to pay off debts, to start over again for the sake of her child. What else could she say?
“A thirty-day trial?”
Ryan’s smile was more dazzling than the Texas sun at high noon. He offered a hand. As his long, competent fingers encircled her slender hand, Kelsey experienced an array of emotions. Relief. Safety. And oh dear, a zing of physical attraction too strong to be ignored.
Ryan must have felt it, too, for he didn’t turn loose of her hand for the longest time. Instead, he stared down at her with an intense and probing expression. Butterflies that had nothing to do with the baby fluttered in Kelsey’s belly.
“Daddy, Kelsey, look,” Mariah’s little voice interrupted. The adults dropped their hands as if they’d held hot potatoes and turned toward the little girl. She pointed at the windows. “The snow stopped.”
“So it has.” As though nothing had passed between them, Ryan turned away from Kelsey and got up for a closer look.
Maybe the moment had been her wild imagination. Maybe it had been her fluxuating and unpredictable hormones. But she didn’t think so.
The flutter intensified and she thought of her baby. This job was the best thing for him or her. And since Kelsey had no intention of ever getting romantic with a success-oriented workaholic like Ryan, she was perfectly safe. With that firmly in mind, she rose to follow Ryan and Mariah to the windows. Her cramped legs and back thanked her.
“The cloud cover seems to be breaking,” Ryan was saying.
“It is, Daddy. See right there?” Nose pressed to the window, Mariah turned her face toward her father. Her expression was sweet and confident. “Just like I told you before. Everything will work out fine. And it has. We found Kelsey, and now the storm has stopped. Things are looking up.”
Kelsey caught Ryan’s eye and both adults chuckled.
Yes, indeed. Maybe things were finally looking up.
Even if Ryan Storm was a little too attractive.
CHAPTER THREE
MARIAH HAD BEEN RIGHT. Planes began to fly again in a matter of hours. Once their seats were secured, the newly formed trio trudged to an eatery for a late-night snack and a round of general conversation. In that hour, Kelsey began to feel far more comfortable with the idea of working for Ryan and tutoring Mariah. The child desperately needed a woman’s influence and nurturing. And if there was one thing Kelsey could do, it was nurture.
The first sign of a snag came when Ryan said, “Before we board, I’ll call ahead to be sure a car is available to take us home from the airport.”
“I can get a cab.” She poked a fork into her fruit cup, spearing a piece of melon. It was the only thing on the menu she could afford.
Ryan, who’d ordered a full country breakfast, paused in mid-bite, frown puzzled. The result of not shaving in a while framed his mouth in such a sexy manner, Kelsey could hardly stop staring.
“Why would you need to do that?”
“It beats walking.”
“You aren’t walking. You’re going home with us.” The words were a statement of fact that brooked no argument.
Kelsey gulped, swallowing a whole grape. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I hired you because I need you now. Tonight. Tomorrow.”
The choice of words, coupled with his manly, scruffy look, brought to mind all kinds of possibilities. Troubling possibilities.
“I wasn’t expecting to begin work quite this soon.”
Nonchalantly, he applied grape jelly to his toast. The sound of knife against toast scraped against her nerves. “That was the deal.”
Not the way Kelsey remembered. She shook her head. “I’d be a lunatic to go home with a strange man in the middle of the night.”
“I’m not a stranger, Kelsey. You know me, and you have my assurance. You are perfectly safe with me and Mariah.” He wiped a bit of ketchup from Mariah’s chin. “Right, peanut?”
Mouth full of hamburger, Mariah batted her long-lashed eyes and bobbed her head at Kelsey in reassurance.
The little girl was such a sweetheart. Kelsey patted her hand and winked.
Though she’d been away from Dallas since her marriage four years ago, she still kept up with the local news. Ryan made the business news quite often and was known as a straight arrow who didn’t party, much to the dismay of Dallas society. And he had a child, for goodness sake.
“But my family is expecting me.” Sort of.
“Call them.”
“At this time of night?”
He gestured with his fork. “Either way, you’ll wake them.”
The man had an answer for every argument. “Now I understand how you became successful at such an early age.”
He grinned. Her stomach dipped so that she almost backed out of the entire deal.
But in the end, her desperate need for a job and a place to live, along with Ryan’s quiet insistence, won out and she agreed to go straight to his home. As a last-ditch effort at common sense, she’d phoned her father to let him know her where-abouts. He’d been none too happy about the late call, so she’d been brief, promising to drop by as soon as she was settled in her new job. Jim Slater had mumbled, “Fine,” and hung up. It was no more than Kelsey had expected. Relations had been strained since her father remarried so soon after her mother’s death.
Still, she felt strange following Ryan Storm around the airport, through the terminal and into the waiting limo.
The sensation didn’t improve upon arriving at his upscale, two-story town house in east Dallas.
Ryan, on the other hand, behaved as though he brought strange women home all the time. The thought gave Kelsey pause. Maybe he did. Maybe he was just ultra sneaky about it.
With Mariah draped across his shoulder asleep, he nudged his chin toward the stairs. “Second door on the right.”
Kelsey went ahead of him, flipped on the light and stripped the covers back on the canopy bed in preparation for the slumbering child. Ryan smiled his thanks and slid his small, limp load between the pink princess sheets.
“Shall I undress her?” Kelsey asked but didn’t wait for an answer. She reached for the child’s shoes while Ryan stripped away her coat.
“Good enough for tonight,” he said quietly. “Let her sleep.”
In the hush, she watched him tuck the cover beneath the sleeping beauty before placing a kiss on her forehead. Mariah squirmed, mumbled and then flopped over, burrowing deeper into the soft, inviting bed.
Tenderness crept into Ryan’s exhausted face. He stood beside the bed, looking down at his child for several long, sweet seconds. Emotion fluttered beneath Kelsey’s ribcage as she wondered about the man who was never home but who appeared to adore his child. Was he simply unaware of how much his child needed him? Or was he, like Mark, more concerned with success than with his family?
She also wondered about Mariah’s mother. What kind of tragedy had taken her at such a young age? What kind of woman was she that a man like Ryan Storm had married her? Did he still love her? How well had Mariah dealt with her mother’s loss?
Straightening, Ryan snapped off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into semidarkness. The resulting atmosphere was softly intimate, too much so. With a tilt of his head Ryan motioned toward the door. They brushed arms in the doorway and Ryan stepped back, letting her pass first. The air between them trembled with the same something she’d felt in the airport when their hands had touched.
“This way,” he murmured, gesturing to the left. “Your room will be this one next to Mariah’s if it suits.”
“I’m sure it will.” Right now, she just wanted someplace to lie down and put her feet up. And a shower. Oh, a shower would be heaven.
“I’ll bring your bags up in a minute.”
“I can get them.”
As if she’d threatened to burn the house down, Ryan spun around, jaw tight, eyes blazing. His mood had gone from tender to angry.
“You will not carry bags upstairs. You will not even carry grocery bags from the car to the house. Nor will you lift anything heavy while in my employ. Ever. Understand?”
Kelsey took one step back, surprised at the intensity of the remark. Was this guy moody or what?
“I’d be pretty stupid not to,” she snapped. “Although I see no need for you to be cranky about it.”
Ryan said nothing else, but his odd mood quivered in the air. Pushing a door open, he motioned her inside. Still miffed by his sharp comments, she brushed past him, but the move was too close for comfort. As in the airport, she caught the scent of expensive male cologne, glanced the surprisingly muscled arm stretched flat across the raise-paneled door. He still hadn’t shaved and his shirt—unbuttoned at the collar, his tie long ago stuffed into a pocket—was coming untucked. The result was bedroom sexy and deliciously rumpled.
Darn. There she went again.
Living under the same roof with a man who caused her mind to think such things might not be such a smart move. But it was done. At least for thirty days.
“It’s lovely,” she said when they entered the bedroom. A small sitting area, complete with desk, chair and television opened into a bed and bath. Sleek, elegant and modern with mint-green walls and cream trim, it was generically right for a guest or an employee of status.
The room was as beautiful as any she’d ever seen, but Kelsey felt oddly disappointed. A lump of loneliness rose in her throat. She and her baby had no home to call their own. All her dreams of decorating a nursery, buying the perfect furniture and giving her baby everything tormented her. The only thing she could give her baby now was love.
She must have looked as lost as she felt because Ryan touched her shoulder. She glanced up, saw the mood had changed again. “You’re dead on your feet. Go to bed.”
At the unexpected kindness, tears burned the back of her eyes. “I have to take a shower first.”
He remained there, staring at her for several seconds. “You’ll be okay here?”
She swallowed back the troublesome emotions and forced a cheeky grin. “Sure I will. You promised not to murder me.”
The corner of Ryan’s mouth quirked. “If you need anything tonight—”
“I won’t. Go to bed, Ryan. You’re as tired as I am.” And if he stood around any longer, she might cry and embarrass them both.
“But I’m not pregnant.” The comment was an accusation, as though he resented the fact that he’d hired a pregnant nanny.
“It isn’t a terminal disease,” she said.
As though she’d slapped him, Ryan recoiled. Behind the outline of dark beard, his natural tan drained away. For a moment he wrestled with something. His mouth opened and closed. His chest rose and fell. And then without another word, he whipped around and left the room.
But not before Kelsey saw the misery in his eyes.
“Kelsey, wake up.”
Kelsey awakened in a strange room, disoriented. She lay very still, moving only her eyes until they focused on Mariah perched cross-legged next to her, books spread about her in a circle. The cobwebs cleared. She’d thought it was a dream, but she was really here, in the home of Ryan Storm. Memory came flooding in. In some moment of insanity she’d agreed to work for a man she barely knew.
Okay, so she’d been attracted to him. What woman on planet Earth, pregnant or not, wouldn’t be? And she’d been flattered at the instant trust he’d placed in her. After all, he was Ryan Storm, king of Dallas. Able to buy tall buildings with a single check.
Taking the position was a good thing, she’d told herself last night as she’d stood beneath the rain showerhead, washing hours of stomach-churning airport smells down the drain. She had a paying job, and both she and the baby had a place to live. At least temporarily.
She just wished she didn’t feel so weird about it.
Small fingers patted her knee. “Good morning. Are you awake yet?”
Then there was the other reason she’d agreed to come here. Mariah. The brilliant child who had touched her heart in Denver.
“Good morning,” she muttered after clearing the gravel from her throat. She stretched and looked around for a clock. An Asian-influenced wall hanging, more art than clock, read seven o’clock. Kelsey stifled a groan. Five hours of sleep to a pregnant woman was next to none.
“I hear Daddy downstairs,” Mariah said, raising up on her knees. “If we want to see him, we’ll have to hurry. He’s a very busy man.”
Kelsey’s heart squeezed. The little girl must have gotten up some time ago to bathe and dress herself in anticipation of spending time with her dad. Except for the mismatched colors, she appeared to have done a good job, fully dressed in a purple hoodie and green sweat pants. Her natural curls, still damp from a shampoo, had been ruthlessly stripped back from her face with a red headband.
Kelsey patted the child’s knee. “I doubt he’ll leave until we’ve had an opportunity to work out the conditions of my nannyship.”
Mariah giggled, putting both hands over her mouth in that adorable manner. “That’s a good one. Nannyship. Is it a real word I should add to my lexicon?”
A six year old with a lexicon? Good heavens. Kelsey shook her head and sat up. Sumptuous ivory sheets slid over her shoulders and pooled in her lap. “Not real, but real fun.”
“Should I leave so you can get dressed? Or would you like to begin my classes now? I brought in some of my books.”
“I thought you wanted to see your father.”
“I do, but he always says we must prioritize. Important things like work and education come first.”
“Seeing your dad is important, too.” Kelsey threw the covers back and swung her feet over the side of the bed. She dug her toes into the soft rug. “You go on and say good morning. I’ll be down shortly.”
The child scrambled off the bed and rushed to the door before turning back.
“I think your nannyship is going to work out perfectly,” Mariah said, grinning, and then she bounced through the door and disappeared.
Kelsey hoped the little optimist was right.
