As she walked past him into the living room he caught her scent, a floral spice that seemed to shoot right to his brain. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said. “You’ve cleaned.”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “I didn’t realize how bad things had gotten until I saw them through your eyes. Here, let me take that.” He gestured to the suitcase she held in her hand. “I’ll just take it to your room.”
“Thanks,” she replied.
He took the case and hurried down the hall. When he returned she was in the middle of the floor with David and Mick. The boys were showing her the trucks that were their favorite toys.
“So how does this work?” he asked. “You just teach them what they need to do?”
She smiled and rose from the floor with a sinuous grace. “It’s not quite that easy, Jack. What I’d like to do this morning is just kind of sit back and observe what would be a normal morning for you and the boys. Then at lunch we’ll sit down with a game plan.”
“Oh, okay.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and stared down at his sons, then back at her. “All of a sudden I’m feeling very self-conscious,” he admitted.
At that moment Mick hit David with one of the trucks, and within seconds both boys were crying and Jack was yelling. He grabbed Mick up into his arms. “You don’t hit, Mick. That’s not nice.”
“Bad Jack,” Mick cried and wiggled to get out of his arms.
“Bad Jack,” David yelled, obviously forgetting that it was his brother, not his father, who had hit him in the head.
“Both of you go to your room,” Jack exclaimed as he set Mick back on his feet. “Go on. You’re both in trouble.”
As the boys went running down the hallway, Jack slicked a hand through his hair in frustration then looked at Marisa. “I handled that badly, right?”
“We’ll talk at lunch,” she said, her beautiful features giving nothing away of her emotions.
The morning passed excruciatingly slow for Jack. The boys seemed to be on their worst behavior, and he was overly conscious of Marisa watching his every move.
Then, right before lunchtime, while he was in the bathroom with Mick, David climbed through the window in his bedroom and snuck out of the house. As soon as he realized what had happened, Jack raced down the front porch to grab David. Marisa and Mick stood in the doorway and watched him.
Jack was exhausted and his patience was wearing thin. He hadn’t hired the lovely nanny to stand around and observe. She was supposed to be fixing things, not watching from the sidelines.
When Betty announced that lunch was ready, Jack had never been so happy for a meal. He set the boys in their booster seats at the dining-room table then gestured Marisa into the chair opposite his as he introduced her to the cook.
“About time you did something,” she said to Jack, then glared at Marisa. “I don’t babysit, and I don’t clean. I don’t leave this kitchen except to serve the breakfast and lunch meals. I don’t serve dinner. I just cook. That’s all I do.”
“That’s good to know,” Marisa replied with a friendly smile. Betty harrumphed and disappeared back into the kitchen.
“I pay her for her cooking skills, not her sparkling personality,” Jack said with a dry chuckle.
Marisa laughed, and the sound of her laughter filled a space in him that had been silent for a very long time.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d shared any laughter with anyone. For the past couple months everything had been so tense; the stakes had been so incredibly high.
“One of the first things we need to address is David’s ability to escape out any door and window,” she said. David smiled at her, his mouth smeared with mustard from his ham sandwich. “You need to purchase childproof locks for every door,” she continued.
“I agree. It’s only been in the past week or so that he’s developed this new skill,” Jack replied.
The afternoon sun drifting through the window played on those golden highlights in her hair, making it look incredibly soft and touchable. Her lipstick had worn off by midmorning, but she had naturally plump, rosy lips that he found incredibly sexy.
“What’s bedtime like?” she asked.
“Bedtime?” Memories of the visions he’d had of her the night before in his sleep exploded in his head, and he felt a warm wave seep through his veins.
“Do the boys have a regular bedtime?”
He shoved the visions away. “It’s regular in that their bedtime is whenever they fall asleep.”
“And they fall asleep in their beds?”
“They sleep wherever they happen to fall,” he replied.
“They’re bright, beautiful boys,” she said.
Her words swelled a ball of pride in his chest. “Thanks. I just want them to be good boys as well.”
“Good boys,” David quipped and nodded his head with an angelic smile, then threw a potato chip in Jack’s direction.
After lunch the boys played for a little while, then both of them fell asleep on the floor. Jack carried each of them into their room, put them in bed for their afternoon nap and then returned to where Marisa sat on the sofa.
He sat on the opposite end from her, close enough that he could smell the enticing scent of her perfume. “They should sleep for about an hour,” he said.
“What’s in the barn?”
He blinked at the question that seemed to come out of nowhere. “What?”
“Both times David got out of the house he was heading for the barn. What’s inside?”
“A small recording studio, memorabilia from my old band, my drum set.” He shrugged. “My past.”
“You miss it?” she asked.
He considered the question before immediately replying. “Some of it,” he admitted. “I miss making music, but I don’t miss everything that came with it. Why do you ask?”
Her dark eyes considered him thoughtfully. “I need to know that you’re in this for the long haul, that the number one priority in your life is your boys. I don’t want to spend a month or two of my time helping you here only to have you decide fatherhood is too boring and you’d rather be out on the road making music.”
There was a touch of censure in her voice that stirred a hint of irritation inside him. “Nothing in my life means more to me than David and Mick. When Candace and I divorced I rarely got to see the boys. Usually the only time I saw them or heard about them was if they were mentioned in an article in a tabloid.” He exhaled sharply. “I’m sorry Candace is dead, but I’m glad the boys are with me now—and I intend to do right by them not just for a month or two but for the rest of their lives.”
Warmth leaped into her eyes, and that warmth shot straight into the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had affected him so intensely. He wanted to reach out and tangle his hands in her long hair. He wanted to press his lips against hers and taste her.
“It’s not going to be easy to turn things around here,” she warned.
He smiled. “Over the past couple of years I’ve fought some pretty strong personal demons. Two little boys aren’t going to get the best of me.”
“‘Bad Jack.’ Where did they learn that?”
Jack’s smile fell and he frowned instead. “I suppose from Candace. They refuse to call me anything but that.”
She leaned back against the cushion.