Читать книгу: «The Nanny Solution»

Chapter One

“Can I have this dance?”

Hannah Evans faced Jake Malloy and his mouth fell open slightly. He had been expecting shyness and freckles from the baby sister of his best friend. Instead he found a woman’s smile and skin as perfect as a sun-washed June morning. With her big green eyes, blond hair and shapely mouth, she was as classically beautiful as Lauren Bacall or Cybill Shepard.

His gaze involuntarily slid from her face, down the long column of her slender neck and to her breasts. The back of her black gown might have been the simple fare he expected from the former tomboy, but the front was not. Black lace cruised an enticing strip of white cleavage.

Something twisted in Jake’s gut. When in the hell had Luke Evans’s little sister grown up?

Jake’s birthday guests mingled around them. The swish and rustle of satins and silks punctuated everyone’s movements. Hannah smiled shakily. “I’m not much of a dancer…”

“Oh, that’s all right.” Jake took her hand, leading her onto the dance floor—which was really the living room of his huge home with all the furniture pushed back against the walls. The slide of her palm against his sent a frisson of awareness through him, and though this was his best friend’s little sister, Jake didn’t stop himself from enjoying it.

Besides, this was business. He hadn’t asked Hannah to dance out of romantic interest, but because she was talking to Jake’s former college roommate and current CIA contact, preventing him from leaving. While Jake and Hannah danced, Edgar Downing would slip out of the party unnoticed.

Just as they found a clear spot on the dance floor, the fast music stopped and the DJ shifted to a slow, romantic tune. Again, Jake ignored the twinge of conscience that this was Luke’s baby sister. He wasn’t interested in Hannah, only doing his job. He took her right hand in his and slid his left hand around her waist, pulling her close enough to make sure he kept her attention off Edgar and on him. The material of her silky slip dress felt soft and feminine against his fingers. He could smell her hair.

“So you’re a teacher?”

She peeked up at him. Her long, straight locks shifted, slipped off her shoulder and cascaded down her back. They grazed the top of his hand. “I was.”

He grimaced. “Sorry. I forgot Luke told me you got laid off. I didn’t mean to bring up something unpleasant.”

“Oh, that’s all right.”

Jake noticed that though she was talking and dancing, her eyes had begun to move again. He didn’t think she was looking for Edgar. He believed it was a coincidence that she’d engaged his CIA boss in conversation the very minute Edgar needed to leave for another appointment. He suspected Hannah’s lack of eye contact was the shyness he had been expecting to find when he’d first tapped her on the shoulder.

Not only had she always been a bit timid, but Jake was also nine years older than Hannah. Plus, he was quarterback of the football team that had won the state championship fifteen years ago. No team had ever come close to their record. Jake himself got a college scholarship out of it. When he graduated, he talked Troy Cramer, owner of one of the biggest software companies in the world, into forming an investment partnership. Troy put up the money and Jake investigated and chose the investments. Now Jake was also rich.

He was older, wiser, sophisticated, and in the small town of Wilburn, Pennsylvania, he was a legend. To a woman like Hannah, who hadn’t even left home for college, dancing with him could be as intimidating as being asked to dance by Brad Pitt. Especially when her own life was in such a downturn.

“There’s little point in trying to run from the truth,” Hannah continued. “I got laid off thanks to some cutbacks. And I’m not the only one to get the ax, so everyone in town knows.” She met his gaze. “Wil-burn is too small of a place to run from things like that.”

He wasn’t prepared for the impact of staring directly into her pretty green eyes and didn’t have time to brace for the bolt of lightning that sizzled through him. He hid his reaction with a grimace. “I’m still sorry for bringing it up.”

As if dismissing the topic, she returned her gaze to Jake’s party guests. Her eyes once again surveyed the crowd. “I suppose I should tell you happy birthday.”

“If you bought me a gift, that’s happy birthday enough.”

Just as Jake had hoped, his silly remark brought her attention back to him. “Very funny.”

He smiled, continuing the teasing because he hated that she seemed so dejected. “It wasn’t intended to be. I like presents.”

“Right. I get it now. That’s why you gave yourself a party.”

“It didn’t seem as if anyone else was going to give me one.”

She laughed. “Then everything Luke told me about your vanity must be true.”

“Absolutely,” Jake agreed, tightening his hold on her waist, thrilled he had made her laugh. He knew he couldn’t have her. He absolutely, definitely would not date the little sister of a man who knew the sordid details of Jake’s love life. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy dancing.

Though the song was slow, he spun them around as if they were waltzing. He felt alive and wonderful and though he knew dancing with Hannah was part of the reason, the other part had more to do with Edgar recruiting him to work full-time for the CIA.

After eight years of being an Agency courier, someone who traveled so much that he could do pickups and deliveries for them, Edgar had approached him about becoming an agent. Not being able to shoot a gun and knowing absolutely nothing about covert operations, Jake had questioned Edgar’s sanity in making the offer, but Edgar reminded him that he traveled so much that he knew certain cities like the back of his hand. He knew currency. He knew languages.

With that explanation, Jake had become unexpectedly interested. Not because he craved adventure—though he did—but because he was bored. So Edgar’s offer appealed to him, and he told Edgar that if the CIA agent could show him he could handle this job, he would take it.

To prove to Jake that he could do this, Edgar had arranged for a more risky courier assignment. On Wednesday, Jake was to deliver a passport that had been sewn into the cover of the Day-Timer that Edgar had brought tonight as a birthday present. Jake would then “forget” the Day-Timer in a Paris café and it would be picked up by a waiter, who would drop it in the trash to be taken to a Dumpster behind the restaurant. An agent would pick it up and deliver it to the wife of an Iranian diplomat who had refused to defect until he had proof his wife was safe.

Though he hadn’t yet fulfilled the assignment, Jake knew he could do it in his sleep and within a few weeks he would be on the CIA payroll. In spite of the fact that becoming an agent would probably mean he could have to quit working for Troy, Jake knew he had found the way to make his life interesting again. And that knowledge filled him with absolute joy.

“I don’t mind being happy and confident. I’m lucky,” he said, teasing Hannah again, making sure she enjoyed this dance as much as he did. “My life panned out beautifully. I have more money than I could ever spend. And I’m not too bad-looking if I do say so myself.”

“You don’t have to say so yourself,” Hannah said, though her eyes were focused anywhere but on him. “Just hang around the bar. Most of the women there are talking about how attractive you are in that tux.”

And she’d noticed. No wonder she wouldn’t look at him. She didn’t want him to see she found him attractive, too. “Well, I think that’s only fair since I am the birthday boy. I should be the center of attention.”

She snorted with disgust. “Right.”

Jake laughed again, spun them around, but the song ended and Hannah quickly stepped away. Jake decided that was good. He liked her and they definitely had some kind of chemistry, but this was his best friend’s little sister. If he as much as kissed her goodnight, Luke would probably punch him.

“Thank you for the dance.”

“You’re welcome,” Hannah said, turning and scampering away from him.

Hannah Evans had no idea why Jake Malloy had asked her to dance, but she did know he wouldn’t ask her again. Why? Because she was a dimwit.

Within two minutes of sliding into his arms, she’d had to admit that she had lost her job, which could only make her seem pathetic. Then to make matters worse, she couldn’t keep eye contact because his eyes were so…well…powerful. Dark and focused, they glowed with the confidence of a man who had been around the world several times for business…and for pleasure. Even if she had dared to dream that he had asked her to dance because he was attracted to her looks—and from the once-over he had given her before he’d led her out to the dance floor, she had actually thought he was—she knew men like him preferred their women on the sophisticated side.

If there was one thing the regular citizens of Wilburn—including herself—were not, it was sophisticated. Wealthy residents like Jake and Troy Cramer, who globe-trotted, had formal parties and mingled with heads of state, were the exceptions, not the rule. If Jake hadn’t known that before, she had succeeded in proving it when they’d danced. She had probably also reminded him of why he didn’t date women from his hometown, even if he was attracted to them. Which was why she had been pacing in the open area of the powder room cursing her stupidity for the past few minutes. She wasn’t the kind of girl who had to be the belle of the ball, but just once in her life she would like to dance with the Prince without making a fool of herself.

“Come on, Hannah. We’re about to sit down for dinner.” Hannah’s older sister, Sadie, had opened the door and peeked inside. Dressed in a sleek pink gown and dangling diamond earrings, Sadie not only glowed, she also canceled Hannah’s belief that all of the residents of this town were unsophisticated. Sadie had recently married Troy Cramer, the software billionaire, and from her chic outfit to her demeanor, Hannah’s sister was the picture of poise.

“Okay.”

Hannah left the powder room and followed her sister down the hall. But the whole time she and Sadie walked toward the party she stared at her sister wondering when this transition had occurred. Sure, Sadie had gone away to college. She had attended the police academy. She had also lived in an apartment in Pittsburgh and worked on the city of Pittsburgh police force for five years. Hannah knew Sadie was a little more worldly than everybody else, but she hadn’t noticed her turning into somebody who could fit in at a presidential reception. Yet, here she was.

“Let’s go find Troy,” Sadie said, gracefully maneuvering through the crowd and heading toward the French doors, directing Hannah to Jake’s patio where a tent protected round tables that had been arranged for dinner. Covered in white linen cloths and decorated with fat bowls of fresh roses, the tables formed a large U around the pool. The June air smelled of blossoms.

The elegance of the house, the beauty of the grounds around it, and the casual romance of the night had Hannah almost sighing with longing, not so much out of desire for Jake’s exquisite home as for the man who owned this wonderful place. Jake was handsome, masculine and vibrantly alive. He had as much charm and charisma as his wonderful estate. When she’d danced with him she would have happily cuddled closer—if only because he was irresistibly sexy. But, stunned by the impact of those dark eyes of his, she’d panicked, acted like a schoolgirl and blown any chance she might have had with him.

Sadie began guiding her to the table where Troy sat with Jake, and Hannah stopped abruptly. There was no way she was eating with him. None. She had already made herself look foolish enough. She wasn’t adding to his already miserable impression by dropping a shrimp in her lap, which she would undoubtedly do if he gave her one of those looks again.

Before Sadie got too close to the table, Hannah indicated with a movement of her hand that she was about to go right. “I think I’ll sit with Mom and Dad.” She pointed to her parents, Lily and Pete Evans, who had an empty seat at their table.

Sadie gasped and scrambled back to Hannah. “Why? For Pete’s sake, Hannah! Jake is single…”

“Which is exactly why I’m…Oh, no!” Hannah said, realizing Jake might have danced with her because her sister had put him up to it! Oh, Lord! If Sadie had told Jake to dance with her and was now forcing them to sit together because she was matchmaking, Hannah would die of embarrassment. “No. Now for sure I’m not sitting with you.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Hannah countered incredulously. “Because you’re matchmaking! And it’s obvious!”

“Don’t you like him?” Sadie asked with a laugh.

“Or maybe she does like him.”

Hannah whipped around to face her oldest sister, Maria. Short and cute, with abundant curves and thick black hair that fell almost to her waist, Maria looked more like a Spanish singer than an all-American mom with three kids and a nearly bald husband. Though the sleek red dress Maria wore contributed to her saucy demeanor, Hannah knew a person had to have a certain “something” to carry off the sexy aura Maria projected; she experienced the same rush of recognition that she had with Sadie. Just like sister number two, sister number one had “it.”

“I do not like him,” Hannah said, if only to save herself from the embarrassment of the matchmaking and years of potential teasing that would follow if she so much as admitted she thought Jake was cute.

“I think you do,” Maria singsonged. She leaned closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “And why wouldn’t you? The man is gorgeous. All that wonderful black hair and those piercing brown eyes. Yum,” Maria said, leaning even closer to Hannah. “In that tuxedo of his, he’s absolutely perfect.”

Yeah, that’s exactly what the women at the bar were saying and exactly why Hannah should have been suspicious of him asking her to dance. Never in a million years would someone as sophisticated as Jake be interested in her.

But, again, there was no reason for Hannah’s sisters to know that she agreed he was gorgeous and, just like every other woman on the face of the earth, found him attractive.

“He’s isn’t perfect. He’s old.”

Maria gasped as if Hannah had struck her. “He’s thirty-three. A year younger than I am!”

“And I’m twenty-four,” Hannah said, pleased with the airtight excuse that would keep anyone from realizing she found Jake Malloy attractive and might even stop her sisters’s matchmaking. “He’s in another generation. He probably still listens to Hootie and the Blowfish.”

This time Sadie gasped. “I listen to Hootie and the Blowfish!”

Hannah smiled smugly. “I rest my case,” she began, but she didn’t finish her thought because she noticed her third sister, Caro, and Caro’s fiancé, Max Riley, taking two of the four remaining seats at Troy and Jake’s table. Dark-haired Max wore a black tux and Caro a strapless blue gown. Caro was so lovely and had such perfect carriage and comportment, she could have posed on the cover of Vogue. Though she wasn’t marrying a billionaire, she was marrying a former FBI agent, who was about to start his new job as Assistant D.A. and who had aspirations of becoming Pennsylvania’s attorney general. In the not too distant future, Caro would be a political wife, dining in the governor’s mansion.

How, in one short year, had all of her sisters changed so drastically?

Sadie’s sandy-haired husband Troy restlessly rose from his seat. His black tux seemed to bring out the best of his blue eyes. To Hannah he looked the part of the successful, savvy businessman that he was.

“Are you guys going to stand there and whisper all night or are you going to sit down?”

“We’re on our way to sit down,” Hannah said to get everybody moving without informing Troy that she had no intention of sitting at his table. Especially now that she realized how far out of step she was with everybody else in her family. Sophisticated Sadie had billionaire Troy. Next month clever Caro would marry worldly Max. Even Maria, who had married young, had managed to become savvy and chic. They were perfect, beautiful, sophisticated women.

And somehow Hannah had missed the boat.

Jake began to chuckle over Troy’s misery at being forced to endure two minutes away from his glowing bride until he noticed a whisper pass between Sadie and Maria. Suddenly he had the feeling Hannah’s sisters didn’t agree with his—and what he was sure would be vacationing Luke’s—opinion of Jake steering clear of Hannah. From the continuing whispers, he was just about certain that Sadie and Maria were trying to match him off with their little sister!

“We’re coming, darling.” Sadie said to Troy with a sweet smile. Jake glanced at Hannah and their gazes met. Her big green eyes held his captive and he felt the same zap of electricity he had the first time she’d looked into his eyes tonight. All his man-attracted-to-a-woman instincts flared. He couldn’t help it. There was something very sexy and very sensual about her tonight. Her eyes seemed to darken when she looked at him and he definitely knew she was attracted to him. Yet, she wasn’t chasing him—wouldn’t chase him. Actually, she kept running away from him.

Which was good because they were absolutely wrong for each other. Even if her sisters and his traitorous body would take issue with that right now.

“Is there room for Hannah to join us?” Sadie asked as she approached the table.

Troy pulled out the chair for his wife, and Jake rose, too. Just to keep things pleasant and to not arouse suspicion, he said, “Of course there is room for Hannah to join us.”

“My parents are right over there,” Hannah said. She met Jake’s gaze again and enough sexual electricity to power New York City passed between them. “Thank you for the offer. But I would rather sit with them.”

Jake almost breathed a sigh of relief because this situation was bad. Being attracted to somebody almost ten years younger was awkward enough, but knowing she was the baby sister of a guy who usually got details of his sexual…escapades…that was bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. She needed to sit at another table.

“Don’t be silly,” Sadie insisted, pulling out a chair for Hannah. Then she all but blocked her younger sister’s path, preventing her from leaving.

“Just sit,” Troy told Hannah, indicating the open seat with a nod of his head. “Sadie’s not going to let you get away, anyway. No sense fighting about this.”

“Right,” Hannah said. Her gaze flitted to Jake’s again and the electricity sizzled between them. He tried to blink away the connection, but it was useless. He was suffused with heat. He didn’t have a clue why, but the way this woman looked at him seemed to turn him inside out.

“Excuse me, Mr. Malloy?”

Grateful for the interruption, Jake turned when the butler he had hired to supervise his party beckoned. From the corner of his eye, he watched Hannah succumb to the pressure of her sister and brother-in-law and take the seat across from his.

“Yes, Roger?”

“You have a guest.”

Jake laughed. “It is a party.”

Roger’s eyebrows rose. “Well, that’s true. But this one has a…package for you.”

“Everybody here brought a package for me. We call them birthday gifts.”

“Yes, sir. Very funny, sir. But if you would come out to the foyer, this could be explained much, much better.”

Jake decided that was a great idea. He was sure that these few minutes away from Hannah would get rid of whatever kept causing him to feel all the wrong reactions to a woman he wasn’t allowed to want. If that didn’t work, he could simply stay away, pretend to be busy, until his head cleared and he could behave normally around her again.

“All right.”

Jake turned to walk to the French doors but before he stepped away from the table, Felicity Lockhart, his red-haired, sex-goddess ex-girlfriend, flew onto the patio. Her eyes blazed and she carried a tightly wrapped bundle—his six-month-old son.

“Jake Malloy, we had a deal!”

Just like in the movies, the entire patio became quiet. Though Jake’s first instinct was stunned surprise, he knew he could handle her. He always did.

“Felicity, it’s very nice to see you.”

She stomped her foot. “Don’t you say it’s nice to see me! You made a promise. Now you have to keep it.”

“Okay,” Jake said soothingly. “Honey,” he added, slathering more balm on her bad mood. “Why don’t you let poor Dixon out of the blanket so he can breathe? Better yet, give Dixon to me.”

Felicity shoved Jake’s son at him. Jake sighed with relief when he realized the baby was in a deep sleep. He cuddled Dixon against his chest before he faced his former girlfriend. “Where’s Amanda?” he asked, referring to the nanny for which he paid through the nose.

“She’s in L.A.,” Felicity said quietly, as if she were calming down.

“And why would she be in L.A. when Dixon is in P.A.?”

“Because you promised me that if and when this day ever came we would not desert the baby to a nanny!”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. “What day?”

She flailed her arms as if exasperated. “I am on my way to do the biggest movie of my life!”

“You got a job?” he asked incredulously, and realized too late that was the absolute wrong thing to do. Her blazing eyes heated two notches and her chin raised defiantly. It was the same expression she’d worn the whole time they’d argued about getting married. He didn’t love her and she didn’t love him, but he had been raised without his father and he wanted his son to know both parents.

“It isn’t that I don’t think you have talent,” he quickly said. “Since Dixon was born, you just haven’t really seemed all that focused on your career.”

Luckily, his mother scampered over. Tall and regal in her gray-sequined gown, with dark hair and dark eyes, Georgiann Malloy reached for the baby. “Hi, Felicity!” she greeted in an overly cherry voice. Like Jake, his mother was a student of human nature and she knew how to handle people. “Why don’t you give me the baby, and you two can go inside and talk about this privately.”

“There is nothing to talk about!” Felicity shouted. “He promised and I am going.” With that she turned and stomped her way off the patio and through the French doors into the house.

Jake’s mother made a move to run after her, but Jake put his hand out to stop her. “Let her go.”

“But…”

“Mom, I did tell her that I would take care of Dixon if she got a movie role and had to go on location.”

“Yeah, but none of us ever thought she would actually get a movie.”

“Well, she did and now I have a baby.”

Hannah rocked back on her chair, her eyes wide with surprise, her brain shocked into numbness. Jake Malloy was a daddy?

“He’s so cute,” Sadie cooed, rising from her seat to rush over and fuss over the baby. “Jake, I’m so glad we finally get to see your son!”

“So am I!” Troy said. He also rose to look at the little boy Jake held.

Jake smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, well, even I hardly get to see him since he lives in L.A.”

“Yeah,” Hannah said, more to herself than to anyone else. Jake hadn’t really kept his son a secret. Troy knew about him. Sadie obviously knew about him. Yet, Jake hadn’t exactly made a public announcement, either. Could it be that perfect Jake Malloy wasn’t so perfect, after all?

She smiled stupidly, feeling a relief of sorts that he was human. “This certainly puts Jake in a whole different light.”

Hannah’s sister Caro laughed. “Stop that,” she said, patting Hannah’s hand in reprimand. Not quite as tall as Hannah, but sharing her blond hair, Caro was the sibling Hannah most resembled.

“I didn’t mean that to be rude,” Hannah said. “It just came out wrong.”

“I hope so,” Max Riley, Caro’s fiancé, agreed, catching Hannah’s gaze with his striking blue eyes. “I would hate to have to break the news to people that you aren’t the ‘nice’ Evans sister everyone believes you to be.”

“The ‘nice’ Evans sister?” Caro and Hannah asked simultaneously.

“Yeah,” Max said with a chuckle, as if it were common knowledge. “Maria is the mom. Sadie is the hottie. Caro’s the smart…yet, gorgeous one,” he said, sliding a meaningful glance in his fiancée’s direction. “And Hannah’s the nice one.”

Hannah gaped at him. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Max said.

Hannah had a little trouble digesting the fact that she had been so neatly compartmentalized by her community, until she thought about her life. She was an elementary schoolteacher who had never left home. Not even for college. Her oldest brother, Dakota, had packed up for Massachusetts Institute of Technology and never returned, and she didn’t want to risk hurting her parents like that. So even though her other brother, Luke, and her three sisters had at least left Wilburn to go to college, she had commuted so she could continue to help her aunt Sadie with her day care, so she could go to every family gathering, so she could attend Wil-burn High football games.

Maybe she was “nice”? Maybe she was too nice? Maybe she was so stupidly nice and naive that she would trip over her tongue every time she danced with a handsome, sophisticated man like Jake Malloy!

“Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I’ve been nice too long.”

Caro said only “Hmm” as she glanced over her shoulder.

Following the direction of Caro’s gaze, Hannah saw that the baby had awakened and had nestled his face into Jake’s neck.

Max said, “Looks like that little boy is very happy to be with his daddy.”

“Yes, it does,” Caro agreed. “And it looks like his daddy is also very happy to be with him.”