A Nanny In The Family

A Nanny In The Family
Catherine Spencer

NANNY WANTED By a lively, lonely four-year-old… and his handsome, eligible guardian… Pierce Wagner was getting used to changes in his once orderly life, now that he was responsible for his cousin's little boy. Apart from having a four-year-old running riot through his luxury home, he was also having to take orders from Tommy's beautiful but headstrong new nanny!Nicole's natural flair with Tommy soon bowled Pierce over, and not only was he now playing father, he was also considering another new role - as Nicole's husband. Would he still want to marry Nicole when he discovered that she had failed to tell him one important detail about herself - something that would explain her immediate bond with Tommy… ?

From the minute the new nanny had set foot in the house, she’d brought Pierce nothing but complications (#u122a12f7-e723-5f82-a61a-7432699c1a83)Letter to Reader (#u0822e411-94e6-5178-8cfb-40b8bf91f8c0)Title Page (#u9c252a9b-ce37-5006-b184-0c540bec711e)CHAPTER ONE (#ubc8c9ebf-a1ed-555a-bc43-6120ac407d06)CHAPTER TWO (#u760104a2-af86-5ffb-a6f8-cd9b2fc6cc91)CHAPTER THREE (#uf31e9dca-37bb-5202-8718-5fe5a5139082)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

From the minute the new nanny had set foot in the house, she’d brought Pierce nothing but complications

He didn’t understand Nicole; he didn’t know how to deal with her. She turned his orderly life upside down and usurped his authority.... Yet despite all that, the fact remained: he enjoyed every minute of the aggravation she brought to his life.

He found himself watching her as she interacted with Tom. He was blown away by her patience and tenderness with the little boy. And he’d even gone so far as to wonder how she’d be with a child of her own, a baby. His baby....

Dear Reader,

A perfect nanny can be tough to find, but once you’ve found her you’ll love and treasure her forever. She’s someone who’ll not only look after the kids but could also be that loving mom they never knew. Or sometimes she’s a he and is the daddy they aspire to.

Here at Harlequin Presents we’ve put together a compelling new series, NANNY WANTED!, in which some of our most popular authors create nannies whose talents extend way beyond taking care of the children! Each story will excite and delight you and make you wonder how any family could be complete without a nineties nanny.

Remember—nanny knows best when it comes to falling in love!

The Editors

Look out next month for:

The Millionaire’s Baby by Diana Hamilton (#1956)

A Nanny In The Family

Catherine Spencer

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

IT SHOULD have been raining, with the drops falling from the trees softly, steadily, like the tears she’d shed all night long. The sky should have been draped in mourning gray and the ocean swathed in funereal mist. Instead, the day was indecently gorgeous, with the sun beating down and the gardens flaming with geraniums and early roses.

Even the house seemed to smile, with its mellow rosy pink walls and sparkling paned windows. Four elegant chimneys posed against the clear sky, the white painted woodwork gleamed, the brass door knocker shone brilliantly. Or was it the threat of yet more tears blinding her so thoroughly that she had to blink repeatedly before she dared step out of the car?

Suddenly, the front door swung open and a middle-aged woman appeared. She paused on the top step and spoke to someone standing out of sight within the house. Shook her head commiseratingly and reached one hand forward as though to pat the unseen person’s arm.

She looked, Nicole thought, exactly the way a nanny should look: pleasingly plump, competent and cheerful in her print dress and sensible white shoes. The last thing Tommy needed at this point in his life was a woman drearily mired in her own misery.

Blinking again, Nicole swung her gaze away and stared at a bed of deep blue hydrangeas flanked by spiny white Shasta daisies the size of baseballs. Be here at two, the voice on the phone had said, and it had been exactly five minutes to the hour when she’d turned off the quiet road and driven through the wrought iron gates described by the woman she’d met yesterday, at Arlene’s house. She had a minute, two at the most, in which to prepare herself for the most consummate performance of her life. Yet how did a person push aside a grief so new, even for a moment? Worse, how to keep it permanently in the background, hidden under a facade of serene capability?

The other applicant came down the steps, large white handbag slung over her sturdy wrist. She nodded pleasantly as she passed Nicole’s car and continued down the drive, planting one foot solidly in front of the other.

She would be kind and firm. Under her care, Tommy would learn to like green beans and spinach, and go to bed on time. When he cried for his mommy and daddy, he would be taken up on that ample lap and comforted. But it wouldn’t be enough. Only she, Nicole, could truly understand his loss, and only she could compensate for it.

The front door to the house stood open still and another woman, older and more slender than the first, beckoned to her from the top step. Nicole nodded and glanced quickly in her rearview mirror, thankful to see the eyedrops she’d used had reduced the redness brought on by a night of weeping. She could not afford to look distraught. She dare not break down.

“You must be the young lady who phoned just this morning. Miss Bennett, right?” The woman at the door spoke with a trace of a British accent and wore a starched white apron over her plain gray dress. “It’s good that you’re on time. The Commander expects punctuality.”

The Commander expects. The words filled Nicole with dread, evoking an image of aging but erect military bearing born of regimented discipline. And Tommy was only four. Oh, the poor baby!

“Have there been many other applicants for the job?” she asked, quickly before she burst into tears again.

“Only three, I’m afraid.” The woman shook her head. “You’re our last hope unless someone else turns up unexpectedly. Commander Warner’s at his wit’s end, what with losing his cousin so tragically and then, with poor Doctor Jim and his wife barely cold in their graves, finding himself standing in as Daddy for their boy.”

She pulled a tissue from her apron pocket and wiped at the tears filming her eyes.

Don’t cry, Nicole silently begged, or you’ll start me off again and I’m afraid I’ll never stop. “I take it,” she said, “that Commander Warner has no children of his own?”

“Gracious, no,” the woman exclaimed, recovering herself. “He’s not even married—though not from want of trying on some people’s part! The most he’s been used to is playing long-distance uncle to young Tommy. Not that he’s the boy’s uncle exactly—second cousin, more like—but what does it matter? The important thing is, they’ve got each other and thank God for it, or I don’t know how either of them would get through this dreadful time. Come along this way, dear. The Commander’s interviewing in the library.”

A long hall with a dark polished wood floor covered by a carpet runner stretched from the front door to the rear of the house. Following behind the woman, Nicole passed a wide archway leading into a formal living room flooded with sunlight.

Directly opposite, a similar archway showed a dining room with a Duncan Phyfe table and eight high-backed chairs set precisely in the middle of a pale Aubusson rug. Was that where Tommy took his meals now, and did the Commander realize that four-year-olds occasionally spilled food on the floor?

“Miss Bennett’s here, Commander.”

“Thank you, Janet. Show her in.” His voice was deep and smoothly rich, a crooner’s voice almost, ludicrously at odds with the authoritarian impression Nicole had built of him.

The woman smiled encouragingly at Nicole, then turned away down another, narrower hall that led under the curving staircase to what was probably the kitchen wing.

Don’t leave me, Nicole wanted to call after her. I can’t handle this alone!

“Are you there, Miss Bennett?” The voice from the library rang with an edge of impatience this time, suggesting there was steel under all that velvet.

“Yes,” she said, still from beyond the threshold of the room.

“Then be so good as to present yourself in the flesh.”

There was no mistaking the steel now. Any more shilly-shallying on her part and the interview would be concluded before it had begun. Bracing herself, she walked into the library with what she prayed would strike exactly the proper blend of ability and deference such an old curmudgeon would undoubtedly expect of an underling.

The man rising from behind a handsome Georgian desk to shake her hand, however, looked anything but the part she’d assigned to him. Mid-thirtyish, tall and broad-shouldered, with devastatingly blue eyes and a granite jaw, he epitomized vintage Hollywood at its most alluring.

At any other time, Nicole might have dwelled on the romantic potential of such a fine specimen. As things stood now, however, he was merely the means to an end and could have two heads, for all she cared.

“How do you do? I’m Pierce Warner.” His handclasp was brief and firm. “Please be seated, Miss Bennett.”

“Thank you,” she replied, appalled to hear her words hanging in the air, breathy as a teenager’s.

The last time she’d been this nervous was when she’d appeared for her final interview at The Clinic. The ink on her nursing degree had been barely dry at the time and if she’d been asked how many limbs the human body normally came equipped with, she’d probably have given the wrong answer. But that was six years ago and she’d have thought herself past the sort of uncertainty that gripped her now.

She’d nursed terminally ill children, she’d comforted bereaved parents, and even though she’d many times thought her own heart would break for them all, she’d somehow managed to control her emotions. So why was she falling apart now, at this most crucial time?

“Tell me about yourself, Miss Bennett,” the Commander commanded, fixing her in the sort of close scrutiny that missed nothing.

“Well,” she began, discreetly wiping damp palms on her skirt, “I’m new to the area.”