Dakota Nelson.
She smiled briefly at the name. The agency had given her a rundown over the phone of her qualifications—law school graduate, Ivy League graduate and she had been a nanny for one previous summer with high recommendations from the employer. From the name, she was sure she was going to see some hippie chick or else a bohemian princess, complete with multi-colored head wrap and an overpriced Princeton education. She flipped through the pages filled with bright photographs of cute storage ideas, household tips and quick dinner suggestions.
Halfway through an article on fifty ways to use vinegar around the house, she heard a soft knock at the door. She closed the magazine and tossed it onto the table.
A tall, bronze-skinned man entered the room. By her estimation, he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, twenty-six, at most. She smiled, anticipating another quick briefing on her going-to-be nanny. They certainly were thorough in this place. They held your hand every step of the way.
“Mrs. Meyers?” He entered the room and extended his hand, his handshake firm but gentle. There was restrained strength behind that handshake and she steeled her muscles to keep herself from shivering with the force of his touch. Surprised at her reaction, she withdrew her hand and let it lay in her lap, dismissing the warmth that radiated up her bare arm. She was too old to be moved by the open sexiness of such a young man—or was she?
Before he could speak, she cleared her throat. “Is Dakota going to be late? Or do you have some last minute information on her?” She kept her tone light, but she was strangely jangling inside.
A puzzled frown crossed the man’s brow then he smiled. “Mrs. Meyers, I’m Dakota. Dakota Nelson.” He slid his hands into his pockets, then pulled them out again. A leather braided bracelet circled one sturdy-looking wrist.
A quick intake of breath was her only show of surprise.
This, this, is the nanny? Dear, sweet hot biscuits.
“You’re the nanny?”
“Yes. They…didn’t tell you?”
Celeste sank back on the sofa, her mind a whirl of thoughts. Two seconds ago she was thinking about how good he might be in bed. How embarrassing. “They just said… No, they didn’t tell me.”
I must have skimmed the file so quickly that I missed it.
“Look, Mrs. Meyers.” He appeared embarrassed. “If me being a guy bothers you, I can—”
“Oh, no, no. It’s fine. I was just surprised. That’s all.” Celeste gestured him to a seat, hoping she looked more in control than she felt. “Please, sit down. Let’s talk.”
Dakota kept his grin in check, fearing that he would offend the woman who was obviously shocked that he was a guy. It happened more often than not, but he considered it an advantage. When clients were expecting a woman and he showed up, he started out with the element of surprise. Anything he did after the initial shock would impress them.
But the woman in front of him didn’t look like any client he’d run into during his tenure at the law firm. In his last nanny position, the mother had been a social butterfly who had been gone most of the day, arriving home only to supervise the making of dinner and putting the children to bed. They’d paid well enough.
Mrs. Meyers chewed on the corner of her lip and her eyelashes fluttered as she tried to regain her composure. She thumbed through the cards twice and squeezed them in her hands.
He hoped he wasn’t making her too nervous. “Mrs. Meyers, if you’d rather not interview me, we can—”
“Oh, no, no.” Celeste squeezed the cards in her hands again and gave him a brilliant, but tense smile. “It’s perfectly fine.” Her brown eyes were luminous and flashed him a hint of something before her face settled into a neutral expression.
Leaning back on the couch, she crossed one leg over the other and he caught a hint of her perfume. It was a light, citrusy scent that reminded him of a summer sunrise.
For a lack of anything better to do, he reached forward and adjusted the corner of the magazine that hung off the table. Mrs. Meyers was one hot mother. He wondered if she were single, and just as quickly put the thought out of his head. This was an assignment for six weeks, a job to give him something to do until he decided his direction for the next year.
Celeste dropped her gaze and riffled through her cards. She pulled another breath into her lungs, trying to hide her confusion and control her racing thoughts. Dakota was neither a hippie chick nor a chatty trust-fund baby from Princeton. What he was, she had no words for. Well, she had the words but they weren’t appropriate to say out loud. With yet another deep breath, a scrambled mind and an insistent throbbing between her thighs, she started the interview.
She gave him her full attention. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way.”
“I’m sorry for the confusion.”
“Not your fault.” She smiled. “It’s all on me. I tend to be a speed reader. So”—she glanced at one of her cards—“I have two boys, one eight and one ten. What kinds of activities will you plan to do with them?”
She pressed her shoulder blades back against the cushion of the sofa. As he talked, she watched how animated his face became when he listed the fun activities he had in mind for her children. It was obvious he knew the area well and had a good handle on both lan and low-cost amusements. Celeste couldn’t take her eyes off him. Strong cheekbones framed a nose that was perfectly centered above lips that any normal woman would want to kiss. His dark hair was swept back loosely from his forehead into a braid—
a braid!
—down his back but a few strands escaped, floating around his face as he spoke.
“You swim?” Celeste nibbled the inside of her cheek, struggling to keep her expression cool and professional while she imagined him with his shirt off, swimming trunks slung low across narrow hips.
“I was a summer lifeguard during high school and part of college at the Natchez Swim club. I just re-certified last week.” He paused. “I was kind of late this year.”
“That’s good to hear. I have a pool and the boys like to swim.” She laughed a little. “I should actually swim more too, but sometimes I’m just so busy…” She let the sentence trail off, wondering why she’d even bothered to say that. What did he care about whether she swam or not?
“Swimming can be a great stress reliever. Maybe you’ll get more time this summer.”
Celeste nodded. She could think of a few other things that might also be stress relievers. “Maybe I will.”
“What are the boys’ names? You say they’re both under twelve?”
“Jackson and Malcolm. They’re eight and ten.”
“Those are great ages. Lots of energy.”
Celeste gripped her index cards in her sweaty palm and managed to ask him a few more questions before the time was up. They were useless because she had already made up her mind after the handshake. What better companion for her two restless little boys than another male?
“I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me, Dakota.” She shoved the index cards in her pocketbook. “I’d love to offer you the position. I mean, after you meet the boys, if you… Are you available tomorrow? Say about one?” she stumbled over her words.
“One is fine.”
“And the position would be live-in. There is an in-law suite with a separate entrance so you would have both privacy and access to the house.”
“Sounds good, Mrs. Meyers.”
“Call me Celeste, please.” She extended her hand across the low table.
He shook her hand and gave it a brief squeeze. “Celeste it is then.” He gave her a warm smile that made her insides flutter. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Chapter Three
That evening, Celeste sipped a glass of wine on the deck and watched the citronella torches flicker off the surface of the pool. She picked up the cordless telephone and called Lynn, who answered with a breathless hello.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” Celeste grinned into the telephone. “You sound like you’ve been running a race.”
“Only that you saved me from the slave-driver of an exercise tape. What’s going on?”
“I hired someone. A live-in.”
“That’s the best,” Lynn said. Her tone was approving. “Does she do a little light cooking, maybe some cleaning?”
“He said he would try.” Celeste gripped the cordless handset, still smiling, anticipating her friend’s reaction.
There was silence at the end of the line and Celeste could hear the bouncy, upbeat music from Lynn’s exercise video.
“He?” She dragged out the one syllable. “You hired a
male
nanny?”
“He was all they had left.”
“Now wait a second, back up. Start at the beginning with what he looks like. No, no,” Lynn interrupted herself, “I want to see with my own two eyes. Don’t ruin it.”
“I’ll take a picture and text it to you.”
“No, oh, no. He might not take good pictures and I’ll be prejudiced. When…when’s he moving in?”
“Probably by the end of the week, but he’s coming to meet the boys tomorrow.”
“Do the boys know?”
“I told them that I would be hiring someone for the summer to help take care of them, so kind of.”
Lynn paused. “Does Charles know?”
Celeste rolled her eyes. “Why is it his business? Would I call him to tell him I hired a female nanny? No. He’s going to be overseas anyway. What does he care?”
Lynn laughed a little. “This is going to be very interesting.”
* * * *
This isn’t going to be as interesting as Lynn thinks.
As she walked down the stairs to the living room the next morning, Celeste twirled a strand of hair around her finger and rehearsed what she was going to say to the boys in her head. It was one thing to tell them that she might be hiring someone to help out during the summer. It was another to have them actually meet the person. By the time she got to the breakfast table, the boys were reading the puzzles on the back of the cereal boxes while they munched on their shredded wheat. They both mumbled “good morning” through full mouths.
She concentrated on pouring the coffee from the pot and adding her flavored creamer. Then, satisfied that they would accept what she had to say, she sat down at the table with them.
“Since you’re not going to visit your father until August and I’m going to be very busy for much of July, I’ve hired someone to help me take care of you—a nanny.”
Jackson shoved a spoonful of cereal in his mouth before responding. “I hope she’s fun,” he mumbled. “Gabriel said his nanny is boring and stupid.”
Celeste raised her eyebrows. “Gabriel has a nanny?”
Gabriel’s mother didn’t even work.
Jackson swallowed. “That’s what he told me. He said she was boring and stupid because she didn’t know how to play video racing games. And she couldn’t talk too good.”
“Too well,” she corrected him absently.
Must be an au pair.
Malcolm shook some more cereal into his bowl. “I want a nanny to take us to the park.”
“And to the lake,” Jackson chimed in. “Don’t eat all the cereal, Malcolm. Mommy has to eat.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Celeste took a sip of her coffee. “So, listen. You guys are getting a nanny.”
Might as well get to the point.
“But I don’t want a boring and stupid nanny.” Jackson held his dripping spoon halfway to his mouth.
“Your nanny won’t be boring and stupid and I’m sure Gabriel’s nanny isn’t either. Your nanny is a boy…a male.” She cleared her throat. “A man.”
Malcolm’s eyes lit up. “He’s a dude? Can he swim? We can race in the pool.”
“When is he coming?” Jackson wanted to know. “Is he going to clean our rooms?”
Celeste checked her watch. “About one o’ clock.” She hoped they would all get along. The sooner Dakota moved in and settled, the better. A shiver of anticipation shimmied down her spine. Despite her effort to remain aloof, she couldn’t deny how much she was looking forward to having him in the house. “And no, Jackson, cleaning your room is your job, not his.”
Celeste got up from the table and rinsed her coffee cup. “Make sure you put your bowls in the sink and rinse them. Do your reading and fill out your book logs before you play any games. All right?”
“All right, Mommy,” they said in unison.
* * * *
At twelve-fifty-five, the doorbell chimed and Celeste halted her pacing in the front hall. She liked that he was prompt. Celeste opened the door and again she was struck by how attractive—
no, sexy. Tell the truth, Celeste
—he really was. He wore baggy shorts and a loose-fitting T-shirt that said ‘Young and Reckless’. His hair… Good Lord,
his hair
fell loose past his shoulders.
Young and reckless, indeed.
She forced her gaze away and looked up and down the street, knowing she had been staring too long.
“Dakota, come in.” She let the door swing open and led the way through the house.
“How are you, Mrs. Meyers?”
“Please, call me Celeste.” She glanced over her shoulder.
Keep it business, Celeste.
“I said that yesterday.”
“I just like to make sure.”
Celeste slid open the back door to the deck and ushered him through. Malcolm and Jackson were kicking their soccer ball back and forth. It looked as if they were trying to knock each other in the head rather than practicing any particular soccer skill. When they saw her and her visitor, they whooped and Jackson raced to the deck. Malcolm hung back, taking stock of the new visitor. At ten, everything was a serious consideration for him. Celeste crossed her fingers at her side, hoping that Malcolm would warm up quickly.
“Is this the nanny? He
is
a man! Do you know how to play video games?” Jackson shouted out his questions as he ran up the steps of the cedar deck and flopped on the built-in bench, out of breath. “Is he going to be living here with us like Gabriel’s nanny? She has her own room and it’s small. He could sleep in my room.”
“Yes.” Knowing he’d forgotten the questions as soon as he’d asked them, Celeste gave her younger son a one-word answer. She kept an anxious eye on her older son, who remained on the lawn, looking up.