Single with Children

The children descended into loud laughter. Adam felt the syrup pitcher lifted out of his hand. An instant later, it was replaced by a damp white towel. “Allow me,” said a soft voice. Adam caught a flash of pale blue uniform and brown hairnet as he bent to wipe at the stain on his thigh. He looked up in time to see a slender young woman tugging Wendy’s leg down into place and sliding her chair farther under the table, situating the hand with the fork over her plate. She smiled down at the girl, then moved on around the table, putting Ryan back into his booster seat and pushing his milk glass away from the edge of the table. She leaned down and whispered something to him before moving on to Robbie, and Ryan instantly picked up his fork and began to eat. Robbie required a bit more attention.

“Well, now, handsome, you’ve made quite a mess of yourself, haven’t you?” she said, going down beside his chair and ruffling his hair. “The food’s supposed to go in your tummy, not on it.” She dipped a paper napkin in his water glass and began carefully dabbing the worst of the syrup off his shirt. “What beautiful eyes you have,” she said, smiling into moss-green eyes mottled with yellow and tiny spikes of blue. Robbie grinned, clearly besotted, and when she turned her smile on Adam, he understood the sentiment completely.

She was really quite astonishingly lovely, with an oval face built of high, delicate cheekbones, a broad smooth forehead and a slightly blunted chin. The straight, thick bangs that brushed the peaks of naturally arched brows were the palest gold, and fine as corn silk. Her lips were wide and rather spare, but perfectly shaped and rosy pink beneath a small, patrician nose with two small depressions high up on the narrow bridge, indicating that she wore, or used to wear, glasses. But her eyes were her dominant feature. Large ovals, widest at the inner edge, they were a clear, brilliant green spiked and veined with rich blue and thickly fringed with tawny lashes. Heavy lids gave them a sultry look, and Adam suspected that she was somewhat nearsighted. Perhaps she wouldn’t notice that his mouth was hanging open. He snapped it shut and formed it into a smile.

“I think you’ve just averted a major disaster,” he said, bowing himself down into his chair. “Thank you.”

She turned the napkin in her hand, dipped it in the water once more and continued cleaning Robbie’s shirt. “No problem.” Her mouth quirked up at one corner. “You looked like you had your hands full.”

Adam amazed himself with a warm chuckle. “You could say that, yes. Our nanny quit last night, and I’m sorry to say I haven’t quite gotten the hang of this single-father thing yet.” Had he really said single?

She shot him a look that was part disdain and part curiosity. “What happened to your wife?”

“She dead!” Ryan announced at the top of his lungs.

Mortified, Adam felt the weight of gazes turning his way as colored heat climbed his neck and face. He shot his son a quelling glare and quickly looked back to the pretty blonde. “My, um, wife was killed in an auto accident eighteen months ago,” he said softly. “The boys were only about a year and a half old, and you know how kids are. They don’t always grasp the significance of—”

“You poor darlings,” she said, standing to loop an arm around each of the twins’ necks. “You’re so sweet, I could just eat you up!” She bent to kiss first Ryan and then Robbie. They soaked it up as if it were sunshine, gazing up adoringly and laying their heads back against her arms. She rubbed noses with each of them in turn, making them giggle, before gazing across the table at a thoughtfully watching Wendy. “You probably remember everything, don’t you, sweetheart?” Wendy nodded, round-eyed, but Adam would have bet a small fortune that she had only the scarcest notion what the waitress meant. “I bet you miss her awfully, too,” the woman whispered, and Wendy’s lower lip trembled, more in empathy with the woman’s tone than from anything else. The blonde glided with a dancer’s grace around the table to loop her arms around Wendy’s shoulders. “What an angel! You must have loved her very much.” Wendy nodded solemnly as the young woman hugged her to her bosom—a firm and bountiful bosom, Adam noted.

The woman went down on her knees, her full attention focused on Wendy. “I remember something Sister Agnes used to say about a mother’s love. Do you want to know what it was?” Wendy nodded again, and the woman went on. “Sister Agnes said that a mother’s love never dies. It lives on and on in the hearts of her children, and if you close your eyes and stay very still, you can feel it beating there, strong and happy and comforting.”

Wendy said, “Who’s Sister Agnes?”

“The nurse at the place where I went to live after my mommy went to heaven. She was a nun—Sister Agnes, I mean. It was a Catholic place, you see.”

“How come you had to go to a Catholic place?” Wendy wanted to know.

“Because, you see, my daddy went to heaven even before my mommy did.”

Wendy looked at her father with wide, surprised eyes. “My daddy went to ’Rabia,” she said, “but he came home.”

The blonde smiled at Adam. “Well, you’re very lucky then, aren’t you?”

“He did the army,” Robbie said, tired of being left out.

A blond brow lifted at that. “Did he now?”

Adam cleared his throat. “I was in Saudi Arabia when my wife…had the accident. I hurried home to find my children with my aunt.”

“My grandma died, too,” Robbie announced.

The blonde gasped, a hand going to her chest. “Oh, my!” She looked to Adam for confirmation.

A shaft of pain speared through him. He resolutely pushed it aside. “Great-grandmother, actually,” he said tersely. “Plane crash.”

The waitress pulled in a deep breath, tears sparkling in her astonishing eyes. “Gosh, I’m sorry.”

Adam, you’re a scoundrel, he told himself, even as he bowed his head and swallowed noisily, wringing every possible ounce of compassion out of her.

“My heart just goes out to you all,” she said, adding briskly, “Stop that right now, young man. We don’t allow our food to be thrown.”

Adam looked up in time to see Robbie drop a handful of soggy pancake onto the table. He rolled his eyes, leaning forward. “That’s it, Robbie Fortune. You are going to get it just as soon as we get home!”

The waitress chuckled, getting to her feet. “You really don’t know anything about children, do you?”

Just then a bald, portly man appeared at her elbow. “Laura, you have customers waiting.”

“Oh. Sorry, Mr. Murphy, I was just trying to help this gentleman—”

“I told you when I hired you,” the man said sternly, interrupting her, “no flirting with the customers!”

“But I wasn’t—”

Adam cut in. “She wasn’t flirting! She was trying to clean up after my son when he—”

The man pointed a finger at Adam. “I’ll thank you to stay out of this. We have rules here, and as manager, it’s up to me to enforce them. You don’t see the other girls ignoring their own customers to bat their eyelashes at married men.”

“I’m not married!”

“He’s not married!” she cried at the same time.

The manager smirked. “Not flirting, huh? You’ve already determined his marital status, but you weren’t flirting. I’m disappointed in you, Laura, very disappointed.”

Laura’s mouth fell open. “He was just telling me how his wife—his late wife—was in an accident while he was in Saudi Arabia.”

The manager glared at her. “I don’t like argumentative employees. You have five seconds to get back to your station or you’re fired. Five. Four.”

Adam got to his feet. “This is absurd! She hasn’t done anything to warrant this kind of heavy-handed bullying.”

“Three. Two.”

“Don’t bother!” Laura ripped off her hairnet, freeing a sleek cascade of hip-length blond silk. Adam’s breath caught. She threw the net on the floor. “I quit!”

The manager sneered. “I knew you wouldn’t last the day!”

“You’re just mad because the owner made you hire me!”

“It obviously wasn’t for your waitressing skills,” he returned snidely.

Adam threw his napkin on the table. “Mister, you’re asking for a broken nose!”

Laura gasped and threw up a protective hand. “No, don’t! I don’t want the job, honestly, and I can’t stand fighting. Please.”

Adam looked at the mixed desperation and hope on her face and felt his heart lurch inside his chest. He swallowed down the anger and glanced around the table. “Get your coats on, kids,” he ordered brusquely, digging into his pocket. “We’re getting out of here. And we won’t be back,” he added for the manager’s benefit.

The odious man snorted. “Now that’s a real tragedy.”

Adam fixed him with a narrow glance. “Tell your boss that he’ll be hearing from Adam Fortune.”

At the mention of the Fortune name, the man went pale. Adam nodded with satisfaction and helped Robbie down from his chair, while the woman named Laura hurriedly did the same for Ryan. Adam stepped to her side, reached out and grasped her by the arm. “Where’s your coat?”

Her eyelids lifted with surprise. “I-in the back, but—”

“Get it,” he said flatly, leaving no room for argument. “You’re going with us.”

“B-but I can’t just—”

“Look, you were just trying to help out an inept father when this jerk came storming over and fired you.”

“He didn’t fire me, I quit,” she pointed out, lifting her chin.

Adam smiled. Oh, he liked this woman, a lot. “Fine, you quit, but you wouldn’t have had to quit if it hadn’t been for us. So, in my book, that means I owe you. Now get your coat.” He turned her toward the back of the little café, then counted money out onto the table. “That should do it.” He looked up at her. “Go on!”

“I—I’ll have to change out of the uniform,” she told him over her shoulder, hurriedly threading her way through tables full of gaping diners.

“We’ll warm up the car,” he said, grabbing Ryan by the hand as he reached for a milk glass. He snagged the collar of Robbie’s coat as he dropped toward his knees, intending to crawl under the table.

“Uh, n-no need for this,” the manager stuttered nervously, scooping up the money and shoving it into Adam’s coat pocket. “Breakfast is on the house…sir. S-sorry for the, um, misunderstanding.”

“Nice try,” Adam said through perfect white teeth, “but I still think I’ll speak to the owner.”

The man gulped and mopped his brow with a shaking hand. “M-Mr. Fortune, c-couldn’t we, ah, discuss this?”

“No.” Adam hauled Robbie to his feet and moved him bodily toward the door, dragging Ryan behind him.

Wendy stuck her tongue out at the man and ran before them to hold open the door. It hadn’t even closed behind them when she launched into speech. “I like her, Daddy! Don’t you? Wouldn’t she be a good nanny? Wouldn’t she?”

Adam grinned down at his astute young daughter. Maybe she understood more about everything than he realized. Her happy, expectant doll’s face sent a surge of love through him. “Yeah,” he said, “I think she might at that, but she has to agree, hon, so don’t get your hopes up just yet.”

“Oh, but she needs the job!” Wendy assured him sagely.

Adam cocked his head. “Maybe so, but she might not want it. We’ll see. Now get in the car. It’s cold out here.”

He opened the driver’s door, and Wendy scrambled inside. “Back seat,” he said, flashing her a grin, “just in case.”

Nodding, she crawled over and squeezed in between the twins’ car seats. Adam went through the laborious routine of getting the boys into their seats and buckling them in. Robbie hated being restrained in any way, but he stopped fighting when Adam told him that he had to check on her. Adam glanced at the front of the café, but he had learned a few things in the past eighteen months. Before he stepped away from the car, he fixed each one of the little heathens with a stern glare. “Don’t touch a thing!” Three little heads nodded eagerly. He closed the door and trotted over to the front of the café, flailing his arms against the brutal cold.

Just as he suspected, the manager had waylaid her to plead for clemency. Fat lot of good that would do him. Adam pushed the heavy glass door open and leaned inside. “Laura?”

She looked up in surprise at the mention of her name. “Coming.”

She threw on her coat and left the manager massaging his temples. Adam watched her graceful, long-legged glide with a dry mouth. She looked taller in those skinny blue jeans than she had in that dumpy uniform. And that hair! His fingers itched to get into it. His heart whammed in his chest as she slipped through the door and by him.

“It’s Laura Beaumont,” she said huskily, her smile suddenly shy.

“Laura Beaumont,” he repeated dumbly.

“And you are Adam, I think you said?”

He realized abruptly that he was staring and stuck out his hand. “Adam Fortune.”

The name didn’t seem to mean a thing to her. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Fortune.”

Her hand felt delicate and weightless and utterly feminine in his. “Call me Adam.”

“Yes, of course, if you’ll stick with Laura.”

“Oh, I will,” he mumbled absently, warmed by the bright golden droplets of laughter that filled the cold February air. “Indeed I will.”

It suddenly seemed no burden at all to be single with children.

Two

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he was saying. “I won’t call the owner of the diner if you’ll come to work for me. You see, we need a nanny.”

Laura pulled her gaze in and tamped down her excitement. He was entirely too good to look at, and if she had learned anything, it was to be leery of good-looking men. And yet… She shook her head. “I don’t have any experience or training in that area.”

He looked at her, momentarily taking his eyes off the road. “No? Well, maybe that’s a good thing. You sure seem to have a way with them, and maybe that’s more important.”

She sucked in her bottom lip, wavering. Something good could happen once in a while, couldn’t it? Her luck didn’t have to be all bad. What did she have to lose, anyway? She tried to think. “I, um, don’t have a car.”

“Oh? Well, that doesn’t matter, really. It’s, um, a live-in position. Room, meals, salary.” He shot her a grin. “And I think we can do better by you than that pancake house back there.”

Laura caught her breath. Room, meals, and a salary? He went on talking.

“Breakfast is the sticking point. Trained nannies don’t like to cook. However, our cook doesn’t like to live in. She’s married, you see, and by the time she can feed her husband and get him off to work, straighten her house and get out to ours, it’s time to fix lunch. And since I’m about as useful in a kitchen as a coat hanger, the nanny has to fix breakfast. Think you can handle that?”

Laura had to smile. As if making breakfast were a problem. She’d once thought that she’d gladly do without just to escape kitchen duty at the group home where she spent the majority of her childhood. Once again, however, the home had proved its value, home being the operative word. It would be nice to have a home again. She frowned. If she did this thing, she mustn’t let herself fall into the trap of considering Adam Fortune’s home to be her home. Still…Room, meals, and a salary—it was just too good to pass up. She took a deep breath. “You have to understand, it would only be temporary.”

His brow wrinkled at that. “How temporary?”

“Well…” She thought quickly, looking for a fair way to protect herself. It was February. March, April, May, June… School would be out, summer would come, traveling would be easy… School. Yes, that could work. She winced inwardly at how easily the lie came to her. “The thing is, I promised, um, Sister Agnes that I would finish my college degree. I had help the first year, sort of a scholarship, but the rest is up to me, so I’ve been working and saving my money, and now I almost have enough to go back to school.”

He nodded. “Okay. Can’t argue with that. So what you’re saying is that you’d be leaving us in the fall.”

“Well, maybe sooner. It—it all depends.”

He sent her a quizzical look, and for a moment she thought he’d demand a firm date of departure, but he only inclined his head, shifted in his seat and said, “About your salary, shall we say…”

He named a dollar amount that made her mouth drop open. When she recovered, she very nearly told him that it was too much, but then she thought about how far she could go on such an amount, how well she could hide. She could save almost every penny of it, since she wouldn’t have to pay rent or buy groceries. She closed her eyes and silently gave thanks. Perhaps God had not abandoned her after all. Perhaps she had finally atoned for the past, and the long nightmare was over. Her eyes popped open. No, that was dangerous thinking. She dared not let down her guard, especially now. She was responsible for the care and safety of three precious children now, and she would protect them, as God was her witness, with her very life.

Adam supposed that he should be pleased with himself. He hadn’t had to cancel his appointment or call on his sister or his aunt. Granted, all he had accomplished with his meeting was to cross another prospect off his list. Auto lube was definitely not his thing. The problem was that he was no closer to finding his thing than before. He would have to draft a letter for his secretary to type informing the franchise people that he wasn’t interested in lubing cars. He shook his head. He had an office. He had a secretary. He just didn’t have anything to do. Well, at least he’d solved the problem of the nanny—hopefully. He was feeling a little less sure of that decision now.

It had seemed so right at the time, but what did he know about Laura Beaumont, really, besides the fact that she was beautiful? He supposed that was part of it. What had a woman like her been doing living week to week in a seedy motel on a poorly traveled road and slinging hash in a pancake house? She might be just what she seemed, a rootless young woman without family or friends, trying to make her way in the world alone, saving up tuition for college, but it seemed preposterous that she wasn’t attached to someone by now. She wasn’t the sort men passed by without a second look. It just didn’t add up. She didn’t add up.

He opened his front door with more than a little trepidation, uncertain what he was going to find. The place was silent, almost ominously so, given that his children were in residence. Had she gagged and bound them? Locked them in closets? Tied them to their beds? He hung up his coat, the hair standing on the back of his neck as he silently surveyed the area. He stepped across the hall and into the living room.

“Wendy? Rob? Ryan? I’m home.”

Nothing. He stepped back into the hall and moved swiftly toward the bedrooms. He turned the knob on Wendy’s door and thrust it open, stepping aside, as he’d been taught to do in the army. The room was empty—and neat. The bed was made, the clothing was put away, the toys were stashed out of sight. What was going on here?

He crossed the hall to the boys’ room. The place was neat as a pin, and Robbie was lying on his bed, looking at a book. A book! Adam walked over and slipped his hands in his slacks pockets, noting that an egg timer from the kitchen was ticking away on the dresser.

“What’re you doing, Rob?”

The boy dropped the book. “I’m it,” he announced.

It. “Uh-huh. How come?”

He looked not in the least repentant as he confessed, “’Cause I spitted on Ryan.”

Nothing surprising in that. Adam sat down on the edge of the bed. “You shouldn’t spit, Robbie. It’s not nice.”

“I know. Laura told me.”

Adam glanced at the timer on the dresser. “Is this your punishment for spitting on Ryan?”

Robbie nodded. “I got to lay on the bed and read this book till it dings, then I’m it.”

It again. Adam nodded as if he actually understood what the boy was saying and stood, unbuttoning his collar and stripping off his tie. Obviously he was talking to the wrong person, if he wanted to know just what was going on here. “Where’s Miss Laura?” he asked nonchalantly.

Robbie shrugged. “I dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head, all innocent eyes. Adam frowned. “Where are the other kids?”

“She hided them.”

“Hided? Hid them?” Oh, God!

Robbie nodded, smiling when the timer dinged. He tossed the book aside, threw his chubby legs over the edge of the bed and scooted over to drop down onto the floor. “I’m it!” he called, running out of the room. “Look out! I coming!”

It. They were playing hide-and-seek. Glory be. He hung his head, silently laughing at himself. In the distance he heard a sudden burst of laughter, followed by squeals and cries of dispute. He walked down the hall, back the way he’d come, past the bath and Wendy’s room on the right, the storage closets and the foyer on the left, then on past the living room and, finally, the formal dining room. The hall turned right, coming to an end at the expansive den. It was his favorite room, big and warm, with brick walls and a rock fireplace, comfortable, slightly worn furniture, a TV, bookcases, framed photos on the walls. This room had been a gift from Kate. Diana had assured him that his grandmother had been insistent on decorating it herself when they first built the house. Dear Kate. How he missed her! More, even, than his very proper, very patient, very aloof wife. The house had been nearly a year old, this room included, before he first saw it, but he’d never walked into this room without feeling his grandmother’s hand. Had he ever adequately thanked her for it? He couldn’t remember.

He caught movement from the corner of his eye and turned his head in time to see Laura crawl out from behind the big green suede couch, all three kids hanging on to her. They were giggling and wiggling and having a ball. Laura flipped her hair out of the way, then, with a dramatic groan, collapsed on her belly.

“I give! You win!”

Wendy, whose fine hair had pulled free of her pigtails to fall into her face, laid her head next to Laura’s and sprawled on the floor close at her side. The twins began clapping their hands and chanting as they piled all over Laura Beaumont. “We win! We win! We win!”

Suddenly Laura surged up into a sitting position, tossing her hair back and steadying wiggling boys with her hands. “All right, all right! Do your worst!”

To Adam’s intense amazement, his children began attacking Laura Beaumont with smacking kisses all over her lovely face, shoulders and arms, giggling as she made disdainful sounds. “Uck! Pooh! Yuck! Ick! Phooey! Oh, it’s awful! Torture! Torture!” Ryan wrapped his arms around Laura’s neck and gave her a larynx-crushing hug. She gagged appropriately, and the other two promptly followed suit. She collapsed back against the side of the couch, overcome by the sheer weight of their affection. Adam could not remember ever receiving more than a quick, dry peck from any of his children. He didn’t know who he envied more, Laura or the kids.

He knew the instant Laura realized he was in the room. Her smile faded, and she stiffened, communicating silently that the fun was over. The giggles died away. Little arms loosened. Small feet found purchase on the thick, sand-colored rug. Four pairs of eyes looked upon him with all the welcome of condemned prisoners awaiting the hangman.

“Hi,” Laura said, getting to her feet amid small bodies. She smoothed a hand over her hair, sweater and jeans. “We were playing.”

Adam allowed himself a tiny smile. “I noticed that.”

She seemed uncertain. Afraid, perhaps? He looked closely then, and saw it in all their faces—the fear of his disapproval. He made himself relax, picked up the newspaper from a table and dropped down onto his favorite chair. “How was your day?”

“Fine.” Laura sat on the couch. Wendy climbed up to sit next to her, her head leaning against Laura’s arm, while each of the twins picked a leg and wrapped himself around it. “Wendy’s kindergarten teacher called to ask why she wasn’t in school this afternoon. I didn’t know what to tell her.”