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It is, I repeat to myself, sweet of him.
No idea why I have to keep repeating these things to myself when they are so obvious. It’s nerves, I decide. And exhaustion from running behind Matt Hansen’s giggling kids all day.
“What are you smiling at?” Adam asks, reaching for my hand to cross a street.
Without thinking, I take a step away from him and tuck my hand into the pocket of my coat. “N
othing.”
A shadow of disappointment crosses his face, and I look away as we take a shortcut down narrow streets that will take us out to the main street.
Why did I do that? I keep thinking about it as we buy ice cream—that he insists on paying—and head back, about me snatching my hand away, not trusting him with it.
I really need to work on those first, stupid instinctive moves. I’m just not used to a guy treating me right, showing me he’s attracted to me.
It’s just hand-holding, for God’s sake.
It doesn’t escape my attention that he doesn’t try it again. That’s right. Great job, scaring nice next-door hunks off.
You’re as bad as Matt Hansen.
And… that brings me right back to the one guy I’ve been trying to put out of my mind.
Nice work, girl. Nice work.
“He has a girl, right? And a little boy.”
I nod. “Mary. And Cole.”
I can’t remember how the conversation swung back to Matt, but as we sit underneath the stars in the garden, on an old bench, it seems that at some point it did.
“I’ve seen them around town,” Adam says, leaning back and lacing his hands behind his head. “Tiny things. I hope he treats them right.”
I hope so, too. I think of how he asked me to take care of them, in that soft voice.
And then how he told me I’m only paid to feed them and keep them from falling to their deaths, and stiffen.
Matt doesn’t like me. He gave me the job because he tried to protect me from Jasper and Ross. He claimed me, somehow.
And I shouldn’t like that so much.
He did it as a last resort, and then gave me the job because he felt sorry for me. It was obvious from the first time he laid eyes on me that I wasn’t what he’d been looking for in a nanny.
Or in a woman, a voice whispers in the back of my mind, and I wince.
A woman who’s barely legal, too insistent and opinionated. And who knew that a man would object to a woman wearing dresses?
“You like being a nanny?” Adam asks.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Practice for the real thing, huh?”
Never thought of it this way. I turn to look at him, and there’s a hardness in his gaze that startles me.
“Everything’s practice for the real thing,” I say, not sure why he’s upset.
He glances away, and his shoulders relax. A smirk pulls at his mouth. “True.”
