Best Laid Plans (11 page)

Her mother set the cup in front of her and Violet inhaled the herb-scented steam. “Oh, Mom, I understand.”

Although her mother still worked as an elementary school principal, her stepfather was retired. Sandra’s time off was sacred, and usually spent traveling. Sometimes Violet considered the irony of having her mother out of the country a third of the year. At the age of twelve she’d envisioned herself becoming a journalist who traveled the world, following the hottest stories. But in the end, she couldn’t abandon her mother the way Monty had. Now she felt like her mother was abandoning
her
.

“If you don’t find a nanny tomorrow, you can ask Jake to come back and help, right?”

Violet sighed. “He ran out of here so fast yesterday, you’d have thought the house was on fire.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Sandra’s lips tightened and she scrubbed the sink harder. “You’ve been trying to run him off since he got here.”

“Because his running off is inevitable. Might as well get it over with.”

Sandra poured her own cup of tea and sat across from Violet at the glass-tiled table. “You seem to know an awful lot about a man you spent one night with. I’ve been with David for fifteen years, and I still can’t predict what he might do.”

Violet hated it when her mother went into teacher mode. “He’s an ‘artist.’ He travels. He’s just like …”

“Your father?” Sandra smiled and blew on her tea. “I very much doubt it. But I haven’t met the man.”

Violet hoped to keep it that way. “You remember Richard Rayburn, don’t you? I let Jake think I’m seeing him.” She’d let Jake think she was
marrying
him, but she didn’t tell her mother that. “He’s in love with me, and I’m hoping I might feel the same if I give him a chance. He’s a good man. In fact, he reminds me of David.”

Sandra slammed her cup down on its saucer so hard the delicate handle broke off in her hand. She and Violet stared at it, momentarily stunned. Then they both began to laugh. Her mother was the first to stop. “Oh, Violet, you’re
hoping
you’ll love him? I have nothing against Richard, but that isn’t how these things work.” She picked up the cup handle and surveyed the damage. “I’ll take this home with me. David has some wonderful glue, I’m sure he can fix it.”

“Mom, you always told me not to save the good stuff for a special occasion. So you broke one of Grandma Foster’s cups. What are there, about seventeen more?”

“But …” The doorbell interrupted her mother’s protestation.

Violet sighed. “It’s probably Richard. He’s taken to popping in unexpectedly.”

Her mother’s voice followed her out of the kitchen. “I have to say, you don’t sound very happy to see the man you’re
hoping
to fall in love with.”

Score one for Mom.

She forced a smile and flung open the door, only to find herself face to face with Jake, who responded with a big grin of his own. “Oh.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I wasn’t expecting you.” Just so he’d know her pleasant expression hadn’t been meant for him.

“Can I come in? I have a proposal for you.”

“A proposal?” Her mother said from behind her. “How delightful! This must be Jake, I can see Daisy’s bone structure in his face.”

Violet didn’t bother turning around. “Jake, this is my mother, Sandra Gallagher.”

He stepped inside and reached for her mother’s hand. “Sandra? As in the first hit song by the Ultimates?”

“Yes, it’s
Sultry Sandra
, in the flesh,” Violet said. When she was a teenager, the existence of a famous album cover graced with a picture of her mother wearing only an oversized man’s white shirt had been her greatest embarrassment in life.

“That was a long time ago,” Sandra said. “I was just a girl.”

Violet watched as Jake scanned her mother from top to bottom the way men do when they meet an attractive woman, taking in the fact that she was once again dressed in a man’s shirt. “You’ve only improved with age, and now I see where Violet gets her beauty. I knew it wasn’t from Monty McCall.”

“Oh, Monty was handsome as a young man. Before he …” She was interrupted by a cry from Daisy, heard in stereo from upstairs and the monitor in the kitchen. “I’ll take up a bottle and feed her. Violet, you take this charming man into the living room and find out what it is he’s proposing.”

“Why is your mother giving Daisy a bottle?” Jake took a seat on the couch.

“My milk has … dried up. I think what happened with Carrie, and Daisy being sick, was just too stressful. I wasn’t planning to nurse much longer anyway, so it’s not a big deal.”

She could feel her face flush crimson. Although she’d prefer not to tell him, he was around enough that he’d have to find out. She only hoped this would be the
last
conversation they’d have about her breasts.

To her surprise, he began to fold the tiny baby garments in a laundry basket on the coffee table. Violet wondered what he was thinking. She knew his opinions about mothering the natural way, but it wasn’t her fault her milk had dried up. Or was it? She’d cried for half an hour last night, and felt her eyes welling up again. Her emotions hadn’t been this unstable since the days immediately following Daisy’s birth, when she had often wept for no reason at all.

“Too bad,” he finally said. “I hear it’s a wonderful experience. But I’m sure you’ll have another opportunity someday.”

Would she? She bent her head, embarrassed by her tears. Her life plan had never gone beyond one child, and, since a husband hadn’t yet materialized, a second child was hardly an option. Which reminded her of what he’d said on her doorstep.

“You have a proposal for me?”

“Something that will benefit us both, and Daisy most of all.”

He paused to concentrate on folding a fitted crib sheet, making sure the corners were tucked inside each other, while her mind raced with possibilities. Could his proposal possibly be marriage? For Daisy’s sake, if no other reason?

“I need a place to live,” he continued, “and you need a nanny.”

Not marriage, then — of course not. But why did he need a place to live? She had suspected he was living with a woman. Had she thrown him out?

“I usually stay with my brother while I work on my books, but he has a woman living with him now, and three’s a crowd.” He grinned at her.

He’d been living with his brother? That didn’t mean he hadn’t spent a night or two elsewhere, she reminded herself.

“I’m interviewing nannies tomorrow.” She’d been dreading the task. Carrie had seemed entirely suitable at her interview, and Violet didn’t trust her instincts now.

“If I stay here for three months until I have to leave for South America to shoot the next book, you’ll have more time to find the right person. Meanwhile, I can get my work done after Daisy goes to bed.”

It seemed like an ideal, if temporary, solution. Daisy loved Jake, and Violet wouldn’t have to let another stranger into her home. However, she’d have to let
Jake
into her home. Tempting, handsome Jake, who was staring at her with those deep amber eyes, waiting for her answer.

“You really need someplace to stay?”

He grinned at her. “You wouldn’t have to worry. It would be a business arrangement, more or less.”

Violet wasn’t sure if she wanted it to be more — or less. She swallowed, hard. “Can you move in tonight?”

• • •

Her mother came down the stairs with Daisy in her arms just as the door closed behind Jake. “You let him leave without saying goodbye? He didn’t even see Daisy.”

“He had an appointment with his agent. And he’s going to see Daisy every day for the next three months. Jake’s going to be her new nanny.”

Sandra put Daisy under the play gym. “Shame on you, Violet. He’s her
daddy
, not her nanny. But I’m glad that problem is solved.”

She joined her mother on the floor. “Only short-term. Then he’ll be gone again for a year.”

“Maybe not.”

Violet laughed. “I don’t know how you can still be such a romantic, after what happened with Monty.”

“I’ve never spent a minute regretting my marriage to Monty, and not just because you and Seth came out of it.” Sandra stopped shaking a rattle at Daisy and looked straight at Violet. “I loved Monty. He was a good man.”

She raised her eyebrows at her mother, who smiled and held up a slender, manicured hand.

“I know, that’s not what you saw. Unfortunately for us, it was the music he loved the most, and the rock-star lifestyle was lethal for him. He was an addict, Violet. He tried a couple times to get clean, but he was surrounded by people doing the thing he was trying to stop.”

Violet checked her watch. “I hate to say it, but it’s time to call you a cab.” She knew addiction was a disease, but she wasn’t ready to forgive her father for his neglect.

Her mother kissed Daisy and rose gracefully from the floor. “In any case, your Jake is
not
Monty McCall. Give him a chance to show you who he is.”

Violet picked up the baby and stood beside her mother. “I’m not sure who he is, but I know who he’s not —
my
Jake.”

• • •

After Jake promised Violet he’d move into the nanny’s room later that evening, he went to see Millie Winston, his agent, for a special Sunday meeting at her apartment. She’d scheduled a show of his work at a Boston gallery later in the summer, and wanted to go over the slides with him.

After viewing some of his work from Russia, she sipped her tea and smiled at him. Millie always smiled, but he’d learned to tell the difference between the polite smiles and the real ones. This one was genuine.

“We’ve been giving you a rugged-adventurer image, Jake, but maybe we should be emphasizing your paternal side.”

“Paternal side?” Could Millie know about Daisy? He’d only told his uncle, and Matt didn’t exactly travel in the Boston art circles.

She pointed to one of the slides. “Maybe not paternal, exactly, but softer. You have a real affinity for mothers and children. Some of your best pictures have a definite Madonna quality.”

He laughed with relief. Coming out as a father was something he’d have to do eventually, but he still had some time. When he examined the picture Millie was talking about, his mind flashed to a photograph his mother had proudly displayed in their living room, the only studio portrait the family had ever had taken. In it, Jamie and Jake were enfolded in their beaming mother’s arms. The arrangement of the Russian mother and her two sons echoed it exactly.

“My mother died when I was a young teenager,” he told Millie. “I think that’s why I’m drawn to mothers and their children. The photographs are my attempt to show the special bond they have.” His thoughts were a revelation. Was that really what he’d been doing? He’d only known he’d seen beauty in the women, no matter what their physical appearance.

Millie nodded silently, lost in her own thoughts. Was crusty old Millie thinking about her own mother? Did she have a sentimental side he’d never seen?

“Jake, I think we should work this angle,” she said.

So much for sentiment.

It was seven o’clock by the time Jake and Millie finished, and he headed to his brother’s, hoping the apartment would be empty. It was. If he hurried, he could pack a duffel bag with most of his belongings and get back to Violet’s before his brother — or God forbid, Pamela — showed up. It wasn’t that he didn’t plan to talk to Jamie. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what Jamie had to say to him right now. Any more advice and he might just have to pack his bag and take an unscheduled trip.

The sound of the elevator door opening at the penthouse floor and footsteps on the wooden floor told him he was trapped. He hoisted his bag over his shoulder, hoping to at least keep the lecture brief, and stepped out into the hallway.

“I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls,” he said to his brother. “I’ve been busy.”

Jamie laughed and tossed his mail onto the credenza. “So I hear.”

“You talked to Uncle Matt?”

He nodded, and furrows formed between his dark eyebrows. “I’m really sorry about the other day. All those things we said about Violet …”

“You didn’t know.”

Jamie immediately brightened. For the brothers, the brief conversation meant
all is forgiven, let’s move on.

“So, wow, I’m an uncle! This calls for a celebration. Uncle Matt also told me you’re no longer on the wagon, so let’s head down the street for a drink.”

“Will Pamela be joining us?” Jake left his bag next to the credenza and followed his brother onto the elevator.

“No, she’s meeting with clients. I know you don’t like her, Jake, and it’s okay. Maybe I won’t like your Violet, either.”

“She’s not
my
Violet.” Although he couldn’t imagine why anyone would not like Violet.

“No? Where were you headed with that bag?”

Their eyes met in the mirrored door, and Jake knew by his brother’s grin he had his number. He shrugged. “I didn’t plan this, I didn’t expect it, and I sure as hell don’t know what I’m doing about it. Other than moving in to be my daughter’s unpaid nanny for the next three months.”

Ten minutes later they were settled in a booth in the bar down the street, clinking their bottles of Sam Adams together.

“So, she’s pretty cute, huh?”

“You’ve seen her on television.”

Jamie laughed. “I meant the baby. Hopefully she takes after her mother.”

“A little bit. She also looks like me, and you, and both our parents. It’s amazing, Jamie. What’s even more amazing is how I feel about her. I want to give her the world. I’d do anything to keep her safe and make her happy.”

Jamie scraped at the label on his beer bottle. “I’m sure Dad felt that way about us, too. But even if he’d been around, he wouldn’t have been able to do those things. Nobody can.”

“Uncle Matt thinks I should marry Violet, just because she’s the mother of my child. But even if we fell in love, it wouldn’t be fair to her. I have to travel.”

Jamie leaned back and stared at his brother for a long time. “When you were a kid, and our lives were so grim, you always had your nose stuck in a book about some faraway place. You picked up a camera, discovered you were good, and got other people to pay for you to go to those places. You’ve been escaping all your life, or trying to.”