The Nanny Proposal

When she’d arrived in town, she’d had no idea what she meant to do other than to throw herself on Greg Hamilton’s mercy, beg him for information about where Pricilla and Joy might be. During the days since her sister had disappeared with the baby, Jane had called every friend Pricilla had ever talked about. When a week had passed with no word from her sister, Jane felt she simply couldn’t hang around the apartment any longer. She wasn’t eating. Wasn’t sleeping. Couldn’t keep her mind on her work. She’d reached the end of her rope. She simply had to find Joy. However, when Jane had gone to her boss to ask for some time off to search for her family, she’d been told that if she walked out the door, she’d be walking away from her job. For good.

Jane had walked out the door without a backward glance.

She’d been that desperate to find her niece. She’d been that desperate to somehow heal the aching hole the baby’s disappearance had left in her heart. In her soul. She’d been that desperate to put to rest the worry she’d felt for Joy’s welfare. Pricilla had proved time and again during the past ten months that she wasn’t a good mother. Heck, Pricilla hadn’t wanted Joy. Who knew what her sister might do? Jane had been terribly anxious for Joy’s well-being.

Once she’d left her job, Jane had visited all Pricilla’s friends, hoping against hope that one of them had lied about harboring her sister and niece. Jane had questioned each of them. None of them had known where Pricilla might be. A few of them had told Jane that surely Pricilla would show up. Eventually.

Jane couldn’t take that chance. Not with Joy’s health and safety at stake.

It might have sounded strange, but little Joy always seemed to feel discomfited by her own mother’s presence. The baby would fidget and cry and reach for Jane. Jane suspected the child sensed Pricilla’s lack of mothering instinct.

To be absolutely honest, Jane loved Joy as if she were her own daughter. She felt like Joy’s mother. She loved the child to distraction. And that’s why she was willing to give up everything in order to find her.

And she had!

Jane had hardly believed her ears when the doctor mentioned needing a nanny for his daughter. She’d nearly toppled right off the examining table onto the floor.

Images of her appointment with Dr. Greg Hamilton this morning swirled, unbidden, into her brain like the heated waters of some tropic flood, invading and filling every nook and cranny of her thoughts. His hands had been so warm, so gentle on her skin as he’d listened to her heartbeat. She’d been certain that her pulse had accelerated. And she’d been utterly mortified when the silky touch of his fingers brushing her chest had caused her nipples to bud to life. However, she’d noticed that his gaze had been averted, and for that she’d been terribly relieved. Even now, as she thought about the way his mahogany hair fell in thick waves, the way his forest-green eyes studied her with concern, her heartbeat pounded, her face flushed.

“Stop.” She whispered the word aloud and Joy looked up at her from where she sat on the floor, gnawing happily on a teething ring.

How Joy came to be in Greg’s care, Jane couldn’t be sure. But there could only be one answer. Pricilla had given the baby to Greg.

Jane had no idea if Pricilla planned to return for Joy. Or if her sister simply meant to give Greg all parental rights to the baby.

The mere idea made Jane tremble with fear. She couldn’t imagine her life without this baby in it. She just couldn’t.

The lies she’d told Greg were wrong. She’d known that even as the grand stories had come rushing from her. However, she had good cause. And she reached for that cause, a big smile spreading across her face.

“Are you ready for a bath?” Jane asked Joy.

Joy chuckled, the dimples in her creamy cheeks deepening. The baby was so happy with any small amount of attention she received. Joy was an angel. She was Jane’s angel. It was true that Jane hadn’t given birth to this little girl, but she couldn’t love the child more even if she had.

“Let’s go have a tubby,” Jane crooned.

She’d have to tell Greg the truth. She knew that. But she’d win his trust first. She’d show him that she was the mother for Joy that Pricilla simply didn’t have it in her to be.

As she gathered together a towel, the baby shampoo and a washcloth, she felt her whole abdomen seize with icy dread. She had no legal claim on Joy. She couldn’t fight Greg for custody. Not when she was only the baby’s aunt. No court of law would side with her. And it seemed that Pricilla had lost all interest in helping her raise Joy.

Hot tears blurred Jane’s vision as she plugged up the drain of the kitchen’s big porcelain sink and turned on the spigot. Joy reached up and tweaked Jane’s bottom lip between her chubby fingers, seeming to sense her melancholy mood.

“It’s okay,” Jane said. And she didn’t know whether her words were meant more to assure the baby or herself. Then she whispered, “It really is going to be okay.”

She was with Joy. And for the moment, that was going to have to be enough.

Joy was still splashing in the warm water of the sink when Jane heard Greg come in through the front door.

“Hello? Jane? Where are you?”

The frantic tone of the doctor’s voice had her frowning. Something was wrong. Something terrible. Goose bumps rose on her arms as some kind of intrinsic proof.

Leaving the baby unattended wasn’t an option, so she called out, “We’re in here. In the kitchen.”

He literally burst through the doorway.

“What?” The anxiety pulsing from him frightened Jane and she reached for Joy with both hands, pulling her from the sink and clutching the baby’s wet body to her, heedless of the water dribbling down her clothing. “What’s the matter?”

The sight of them seemed to assuage the apprehension that darkened his green eyes.

“I was just…worried.”

She didn’t like his tone. Or his frown. Or the way he was looking at her. This morning—and then again when he’d come home at lunchtime—he had been so confident in her, so at ease with the idea that she was caring for Joy, so relieved to have her help.

“You see,” he continued in a rush to explain his abrupt arrival, “I was feeling a little nervous. It’s been quite a while since lunch and…and this is your first day with Joy and all.”

Trepidation had Jane’s gaze narrowing. Something had happened to cause this anxiety in him. And it must have to do with her. He was obviously having second thoughts about hiring her.

Greg went to the counter, picked up the towel and wrapped it around his daughter. His fingertips pressed against Jane’s shoulder, her arm, her waist, every place that he tucked the towel around Joy’s little body.

“You’re getting soaked.”

His tone was calmer now, and it smoothed over her like warm velvet. Jane’s throat went dry, a giddy feeling rose up in her chest and she blinked several times. She wished her body wouldn’t react to him, to his touch, to his voice, so…wildly.

Thankfully, he was distracted by Joy’s smile of greeting—a smile that turned into a delighted giggle at the sight of her daddy.

“Hey, little girl,” he said softly. “Did you miss me today?”

He went to take Joy from Jane.

“But you’ll get your suit all wet,” Jane warned.

“It’s okay.” Joy went to him, gladly. “It’s only water. It’ll dry.”

He gave his daughter a soft kiss on the forehead. The gesture was sweet enough to make Jane smile. She didn’t want to like Greg Hamilton. She wanted him to be the ogre she’d conjured him to be in her mind. But that image was fading fast. It was obvious that he cared about his little girl.

But he refused to help Pricilla unless she signed over full custody. This man is too controlling. Heartlessly so.

Jane pushed aside the silent arguments for and against him. She needed to focus on the here and now.

“Why don’t you take her into her room?” she suggested. “I was just going to get her ready for bed.”

She led the way down the hall, and Greg made delightful baby conversation with his daughter as he followed. The sound of it made Jane grin even though an uneasiness was swirling in her belly.

“You know—” he sat Joy on the changing table and dried her with the towel “—it’s a good thing I came straight home. Bedtime is a nightmare around here. This little girl cries herself to sleep every night. It’s usually a three-hour ordeal. You might be sorry you got yourself into this.”

“Oh, no.” Jane smiled to herself as she searched through the dresser drawer for pajama top and bottom. She quietly added, “I’ll never be sorry. That’s for sure.”

He set the towel aside and eased Joy down so he could place a diaper on her bottom. “You really didn’t have any problems today? She took a nap for you? Ate her lunch?”