Daddy For Hire

Abigail hid a smile. “Your views on homework? TV before or after?”

Jack pulled his daughter back on his lap after she slid to the floor and reached out for a china doll that sat on the coffee table.

“Television? Kids should be outside doing things. It’s probably best they get their homework over with so the evening is free.”

“Would you help them with their homework or expect them to figure it out on their own?”

His gaze met hers directly. “I hate homework, but I’d help to a point. I’m sure you do.” He waited patiently for her to deny it. She couldn’t.

“I hope this never happens, but what if you all come home from the store together and you find that one of the kids hasn’t paid for something?”

“Lifted it? Easy. They take it back, apologize. All that Opie Taylor stuff. I’m an honest man, Mrs. Roberts, and I plan on raising honest kids.”

If she had met this man at a party—before her bitter experience with her deceased husband, that is—she would have been fascinated by him immediately. Humor lurked in his eyes, and his easy good nature and confidence were nice to be around.

Little Katie sighed, yawned and leaned back against her dad, her eyes drifting closed. Jack shifted her so she was in a more prone position and added a little bounce with his knee. Abby didn’t miss how natural the movement came to him.

Abigail let the offer roll off her tongue before she could stop it. “I have a couple of spare rooms. You could put her down on one of the beds if you like.”

“Thanks.” He stood up and picked up the dozing child.

Abby led the way, pausing as he headed into one of the spare rooms. Watching from the doorway, she became absorbed in the way this huge man bent, laid the little sleep-limp body down and pulled her shoes off. He glanced around the room and, finding a chair, pulled it over and jammed it against the side of the bed to keep her from rolling off. He pulled a corner of the bedspread over her.

He glanced up just in time to catch Abby staring at him. She couldn’t pull her gaze from his quickly enough. What was this awareness that danced between them? Something so bright…like some bright orange sunspot. Perhaps it was simply a level of understanding about what the other was going through. A familiarity. That was all. Wasn’t it?

The timer went off in the kitchen. Saved by the bell. Abby had forgotten all about the cookies. She scooted toward the back of the house, glad something had jerked her attention back to the here and now.

Jack caught up to her and wound his way through the huge house behind her, recognizing expensive Oriental rugs and Queen Anne furniture. The house smelled of lemon-scented polish and wildflowers.

He liked the way she was dressed. A white sleeveless top was tucked into her well-worn jeans. She wore white sandals that accented her tanned tiny feet. He thought those feet might just fit right in the palm of his hand. Her reddish brown hair swung in a long ponytail that reached to her belt and was tied off with a green ribbon, teasing him to touch it. He wondered what all that gorgeous hair would look like swinging free, falling around her shoulders. She smelled of honeysuckle. Jack Murdock breathed deeply.

The kitchen was bright and spacious, and Jack found himself looking around with genuine interest. There were pictures drawn by the kids pressed to the refrigerator with cartoon-character magnets. Two lunch boxes waited on the countertop to be filled. A tennis racket leaned against the wall, a few strings curled loose. A broken remote-control car was in numerous pieces on one end of the long table that sat in the center of the room. A lone daisy drooped from its perch in a jelly glass converted to vase. An apple, with one small bite taken out of it, teetered near the edge of the countertop.

Home. The word shouted at him.

Jack watched as she bent down to pull the cookie sheet from the oven. She picked up the fresh, hot cookies with a spatula and transferred them from the aluminum onto a piece of wax paper to cool. The aroma made Jack’s mouth water. Her movements made his mind wander.

He appreciated the room. Like a page from Good Housekeeping, it was a lived-in space. Oak furniture. A long, rectangular table with claw feet was surrounded by eight ladder-back chairs. Gleaming copper pots hung in a circle over the bright orange island center. Dark green ivy grew in shiny brass pots suspended from the dark-stained wood beams overhead. The glint of silver, the glisten of china and the sparkle of crystal winked at him from the grand antique mahogany sideboard.

He had never been poor but he knew what kind of money it took to build and maintain a home like this. And what kind of care.

A glass wall looked out over the backyard. He moved to it and watched as three kids and a woman splashed around in the Olympic-sized swimming pool. Lucky kids. There was abundance in this house. And love. He could almost feel it, hanging in the air like mist after a rain. Whatever Abigail Roberts was doing, she was obviously doing it right.

When they had discussed the interview on the phone, she had revealed it was a single-parent home. Widow. But unlike his daughter, the brothers had each other.

Abby sensed a harmony. A strange addition. A man in her kitchen. It was a split thing; part of it was uncomfortable and part of it was like the scattered pieces of a puzzle falling right smack into place. His simple presence added something to the formula here. Assurance. Safety. Consistency.

Anticipation?

She cleared her throat. “Iced tea?”

“Thanks. Nice house.”

She moved about the kitchen filling two tall glasses with ice. He took a chair near the end of the table, flipped it around and straddled it. When he wasn’t watching her, he fiddled with the parts of the broken remote-control car.

How long had it been since he had sat in a kitchen while a woman waited on him? Or he on her? Forever, he answered his own question, silently. Absolutely forever. His ex-wife had made sure he was soured on everything that had to do with marriage and family before she fled. And up until this very minute, he hadn’t missed it one bit.

Abby placed a frosty glass in front of him. He noted the extra touch of the quartered lemon wedge on the rim. Some women just had a way of doing things that made a man feel special, he decided.

Brows knit together, up to his elbows in parts now, Jack held one up. “These batteries still good?”

“I think so.” She arched a brow. “It’s more like the fall it took from the garage roof that caused it to stop working.”

“Roof?” he questioned without looking up.

She slid into a chair opposite him. “Yeah, I know. What was it doing on the roof? It only took Nick a second to scamper up the ladder the painter left against the garage while he went to eat lunch.”

Jack shook his head. Abby jumped to her own defense. “I’ve tried being bilocational, but it doesn’t work. I was in the bathroom with Ben playing nurse to his bloody knee. Nick knew better, but he used to get on the roof with his dad from time to time, you know, cleaning rainspouts and retrieving tossed teddy bears. It’s a relatively flat roof….”

“Hey, relax, no one is accusing you of anything.” He chuckled and continued to toy with the loose parts. “A little glue and time might just fix this right up.”

The sight of a man sitting at her kitchen table repairing something warmed her. “Nick would like that. It’s his favorite toy.”

Jack took a few long gulps of his tea. “That’s cyclical. In a few weeks, it’ll be something else.”

She grinned. So he knew about those things. “Katie loses interest quickly, too, huh?”

He nodded as he held two broken pieces of red plastic together. “My folks sent her one of those newfangled play-tripod things. For an entire week, she seemed glued to it. Now—” he motioned a hand in the air “—nothing.” The two pieces he’d been holding together fell apart.

Small talk with a man. How long had it been? How much had she simply missed the company a man brings to a woman’s kitchen? No, she had purposely forgotten that. After what Jim had done to her…she would never want another man in her life again. At least not her very own personal life. She pushed those specific thoughts away and let her mind wander to less painful topics.

“Do your parents live nearby?” she asked.

“No. They would be able to help me out some if they did. West Coast. Retired. They want me to come out there to live—and I might have to if things don’t work out here—but I know a lot of people in this area. My reputation is already built. And I like Maryland. Where else can you find an ocean, mountains, flatland, big cities and small? The seasons are great here. When it’s summer it’s hot and muggy, when it’s winter it’s cold and icy.”

She agreed. “I like Williamstown. Old, small and quiet. Yet right on the edge of several large cities. Good place to raise kids.”

Restful. Eased. Feelings that Abby seldom enjoyed anymore sneaked up on her. She listened to the sound of his deep voice override the yelps and squeals and the occasional shout at the kids from her friend who was swimming with them.

He wiped his hands on his jeans. “Do you have any tools close by?”

“In the drawer behind you. Bottom one.”

He set a screwdriver, electrical tape and pair of pliers on the tabletop. He talked as he worked. “I let my carpentry business fade over the last year. I went through a time of…well, never mind. I’m going to need a chance to build it back up again. Right now I can be making my contacts by phone and running out to the job site off and on, whenever you’re home for the kids. I have a friend who’ll be foreman on the site for me till I get things going.”

She nodded. She could see his reasoning. As a manny, he would have a salary, a place to stay and meals for both him and his daughter. He would have the benefit of an almost-wife and mother without the reality of it. Katie would never know the difference. Not for a long time anyway. Ben and Nick were a different story. Yet, she thought, maybe having him move in wasn’t such a far-fetched idea after all. But could she really contend with having an almosthusband around? She hunched her shoulders. He’d never be that. Just a helper.

Jack caught her staring at him. He grinned. She warmed beneath it. It did feel as if the arrangement might work. She had hatched this flighty plan for exactly that reason, with the best interest of her boys in mind. Granted, it was a little more than Big Brothers of America, but it was no real big deal. Was it?

After catching the first few words about it from the TV talk show, she had sat down and listened. It was working. Men were proving themselves very adept at the nanny role. Retired football players were doing it. Preppies putting themselves through college were doing it. Single men not wanting to get into the office grind were doing it.

And it was successful. In many different instances, it was the answer to single or distant parenting. A different kind of family was better than no family at all. In distant parenting, it was a relief to the estranged father or mother who only had certain visitation rights to know that there was a male or female influence in the house, someone to take care of what needed tending to.

Her thoughts were moving too quickly. She got up from the table and went back to the countertop. Snagging two cookies, handing him one, she walked to the wall of glass to watch the kids.

“Mr. Murdock, those two kids out there are the most important thing in the world to me. They’re my life. I’m sure you understand that with your daughter. I’d be handing you my whole being, putting it in your hands, if I were to proceed with this. It’s why I have to be so careful before I make a decision. The television show made it all seem so simple, but it’s far from that, I assure you.”

“True enough. You placed the ad. I just answered it. I don’t eat little kids for lunch, and the last time I got caught slinging one of them off the steeple of the closest church, they burned me at the stake. I’ll even get a note from my mother.”

She laughed. “Sometimes I wonder how we find ourselves in the situations we’re in. There isn’t enough of me to go around.” She heard metal against metal as he continued to tinker with the broken toy.

He stated matter-of-factly, “Even between the two of us, I suspect we’d be hard put to do all, see all. I don’t know anyone who does.”

“What are you hoping to get out of all this, Mr. Murdock?”

He sat back in the chair and examined her. Drawing some sort of conclusion, he answered. “The same thing you are, I expect. Help. More love for the kids. They can’t have too much of that, you know. Someone to share the laughs and help me wipe away the tears.” He scratched his back with the screwdriver. “I don’t talk like this. Don’t make me talk like this.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at him. The twinkle in his eye, the sure way he was planted at the table.

“I’ll call the boys in to meet you.”

Chapter Two

Abby walked to the back door, pushed the screen open and shouted over the splashing water for the boys to come in.

Jack listened to their halfhearted protests as he grabbed a few more cookies and went back to his seat at the table only a little ashamed at how many peanut-butter cookies were landing in his gut. It had been so long since he’d had anything that tasted this good.

He was indulging himself in a feeling he hadn’t had in a long time: anticipation.

Abby sauntered back from the door and over to the sink, leaning a hip on the counter. “Okay, Murdock, if you can win over these boys of mine, that aren’t too keen on the idea to begin with, if you can pass the ultimate test of two tough little guys who think they’re taking great care of themselves and Mom just fine, then I’ll give it some serious thought. Maybe trying it for the summer.”

He offered a mock salute. “Can’t ask for more consideration than that.”

Abby’s friend Mary Kay came through the door first, way ahead of the boys, and slid to a surprised halt. “Well, hello.”

Jack immediately stood up and moved over to her, offering his hand. “Jack Murdock. Nanny applicant.”

“Oh, yeah. Mary Kay. Neighbor.” As her son, Matt, ran through the doorway, she snagged him and slowed him down. “My kid, Matt. Slow down, big guy.”

Matt buried his head in a towel as he attempted to dry his mop of thick brown hair. He was straightaway followed by two blondes that, except for a difference in height, could have been twins.

In a few moments, the room seemed filled with water droplets spraying everywhere, jabbering and laughter and yards of fluffy, multicolored beach towels.

Abby moved over to them and sped up their drying process. Dropping one of the towels on the floor, she put her foot on it and backtracked it to the door, soaking up the river the boys had let in.

The youngest boy had his green turtle inner tube still stuck securely around his waist. His darker blond hair was sticking straight up toward the sky, and his lips were turning purple from the sudden change in air temperature.

“Go upstairs and change and then come right back down. I want you to meet and talk with Mr. Murdock awhile.”

The oldest drew himself taller. “Oh, Mom, we were going back out to play ball.”

“Later.”

Above all the groans, Mary Kay propelled Matt toward the back door, getting the unspoken message.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Murdock.”

Matt protested. Mary Kay shoved a little harder. “Move it, kid. There’ll be time for playing later after you take out the trash and—”

“Oh, brother, what did I do now?” he whined as the door bounced shut behind them.

“Scoot upstairs and dry off. Cookies and milk when you’re back down,” Abby directed.

Silence descended as the kids left the kitchen. Abby was a little amazed that she didn’t feel more uncomfortable with a stranger sitting at her kitchen table. And a male one at that. She’d been hornet’snest mad at all men for a short amount of time after finding out. more and more about her husband’s “other life.” But she had worked her way through that as she had almost everything else: by sheer willpower.

“Do the boys play any kind of sport?”

She laughed. “Every kind. It seems like we’re on the road fifty percent of the time going to this game and returning from that one. Saturdays consist of giving up a huge midafternoon chunk of time to some sort of practice or another. And, of course, as summer grows closer there’s camping trips, swimming lessons, overnights with friends, birthday parties, and so on. They keep plenty busy.”

The adults heard the rumble of the boys’ feet as they sped down the stairs and swung into the kitchen.

“Guys, this is Jack Murdock. The last man to apply for the nanny job.”

Abby could see the curiosity in their eyes as they tried to connect this man with whatever visions six-and eight-year-olds had of a nanny. Remembering how the kids had acted up and discounted the entire situation time and time again with previous applicants, Abby was surprised when they both just gave Jack a good look over. Of course, even they had to see he was nothing like the other candidates at all.

Jack held up the fragments of the car. “So, who’s the unlucky guy who wrecked this?”

“Me,” Nick, her oldest son, said proudly, poking a thumb in his chest, his eyes lighting up. “But not before I got it to do a wheelie at the roof pitch. Mom had a fit.”

Abigail watched Jack as he listened intently to Nick’s story. He sure would be nice to have around. But then, so were German shepherds, and even they needed a lot of upkeep. This entire situation could just turn out to be a major complication. He was much too easy on the eyes. And very substantially the classic male.

Feelings she’d thought she would never succumb to again were warming her insides. She willed them to stop, but they refused.

His jeans fit perfectly. He was handsome and had a smooth way of walking, and he simply had a great body. His stomach was flat. He was a good cross between Sam Elliott and a tall Clint Black. A man that caused a woman to conjure pictures of blazing orange sunsets…wild rides on untamed stallions…the two of them wrapped in one blanket sitting near a campfire.

Abby had to admit she felt her heart slowly melting. For the first time in a long line of drawn-out, lonely days spent resenting the male species and her stupidity in dealing with it, she felt some of her pentup anger ease.

It was almost as if she could actually feel her lifeblood snaking through her veins. Hot and way too fast. She detected a quickening. A heightened awareness of her body and mind. It was like seeing everything through 3-D glasses when all her life everything had been one-dimensional.

“Have any glue?” Jack asked, a screwdriver in one hand and pliers in the other.

Nick shook his head. “Sure, but it won’t do any good to stick it all back together ’cause the motor won’t work anymore.”

“You’re sure of that?”

Nick started to affirm his train of thought but stopped short. “I guess not. But it sure looks trashed to me.” He slid from the chair and ran to his room to retrieve the tube of glue.

Ben didn’t miss a thing even though he refused to crack a smile at Jack. He watched him manipulate the parts to the broken toy with fascination but remained silent.

Abby realized that Jack was simulating, without trying, what he might be able to do if he became part of the household: fit the puzzle pieces back into place, strengthen some weaknesses. Take the scattered pieces of the whole and patch them together so they’d work. Maybe not perfectly, not like the original, but quite good enough.

Suddenly Abby felt pure, cold fear slide over her. This man simply stirred up too many feelings inside of her. He was too physical, too powerful, too commanding a presence. Maybe this scenario would be the best thing for Nick and Ben, but what would it do to her? She shook her head. She was a mature adult. It would only do what she allowed it to do.

Certainly she could live in the same house with this man and not make a fool of herself. Not resent him the way she had come to resent the arrogant existence of the entire male population. Unreasonable feelings, true, and ones she could deal with if she had a mind to. Up until now, it had been easier not to.

Nick came running back, dropping a misshapen tube of model glue in Jack’s hand. Instead of returning to his seat, Nick stood by Jack and the two of them bent their heads over the task.

“Ben, come on over here and hold this piece against here while Nick and I use the screwdriver to set the engine back in place.”

Ben, pretty used to doing what grown-ups told him to do, got down from his chair and sauntered over, pretending to be painfully bored and unimpressed.

Abby watched, fascinated, as Jack closed his big hand over Ben’s little one. “Right here. Just like that.”

Jack tweaked and prodded and twisted and poked. The boys patiently handed him tools and held this here and that there. Abby was amazed that they could stand still that long. Abby forced herself to load the dishwasher. She needed to be busy doing something other than watching how deftly the man’s hands worked.

They were still laboring over the broken toy twenty minutes later when Katie toddled in. Her thick, dark hair was mussed, her even darker eyes were still circled with sleep and her little mouth was curled in a tiny pout. Abigail wondered at how she found her way around the strange surroundings. And she hadn’t even whimpered.

“Hi, Katie.” Abigail walked slowly toward her so as not to startle her. The little girl rubbed her eyes and blinked up at her as she drew closer.

Without hesitation, Katie stretched out both arms to be lifted up. Instinctively Abby bent down and obliged her.

The moment those soft little arms crept around her neck, the little head tucked beneath Abby’s chin, she was lost all over again. All the longings for a daughter, all the wishes for a little girl in starched dresses and patent leather shoes…She and Jim used to lie awake at night and talk about what it would be like to have a daughter. Pink things and lacy stuff. Frilly dresses. Bows. Pigtails. Baton lessons.

The child smelled of warm sheets and baby shampoo. A picture of those big hands of Jack’s lathering this tiny head appeared in her imagination. A man had to be unique, very special to actually take the time to perform the many tasks of raising a child alone.

And this child trusted that the adults in her life would love her and cherish her and do all the right things by her. She had no way of knowing that her mother wasn’t in the picture. Not yet anyway. Abby kissed her soft cheek.

That was what Jack saw when he glanced up from his conversation about camping with the boys, the repair of the car just about completed. His daughter was being happily hugged and talked to by the cool and beautiful Abigail Roberts. The picture contracted his heart.

He detected a gentleness in the way Abby soothed his daughter. Caring. He wanted this for Katie. She deserved it. She was just a toddler and relied on him to make the best decisions for her.

Regret washed over him like a bucket of ice water. Maybe he hadn’t tried hard enough to save his marriage. Maybe it was all his fault. His wife had told him it was all the time. Maybe…

He couldn’t afford to dwell on what-ifs. He looked at Abby. What were these feelings she stirred in him? Gratitude. Nothing else, he assured himself. The fact that his body had tuned itself into hers the minute she had yanked the door open was only the reflection of appreciation that a workable solution might be on the horizon. To think of her in any other way would be too dangerous at this point in his life.

Okay. So he was just downright attracted to her. Strongly charmed by her. That was the natural, biological way of things. But this was business. This was only for the sake of a bunch of kids that needed some strain of normalcy in their lives.