Читать книгу A Man Worth Loving - Kimberly Van Meter - Страница 11

SAMMY WAS SHIT-FACED. The woman who was propping him up giggled as he tried to fit his key into the lock and she had to help guide it in.

He made a sexually suggestive comment that made her giggle again and they both fell into the door, slamming it open against the wall.

“Oops.” The woman laughed as they stumbled inside, making a racket loud enough to wake the dead. He pressed against her, slanting his mouth over hers, eager to get the party started. Sammy remembered he already had company just as Aubrey came around the corner with a disgusted expression on her face.

His date quickly sobered and looked askance at Aubrey, who appeared the part of a very annoyed housemate, which if Sammy hadn’t been two sheets to the wind, he might’ve realized wasn’t funny at all. But as it was, the pinched look on her face was quite comical. “Who is that?” the woman—Sharlene? Sherry? Crap, he couldn’t remember—didn’t sound amused, either. She turned to him as he used the wall to steady himself. “I thought you said you weren’t married,” she said with a definite edge to her voice.

“I’m not.” He pushed off from the wall and walked unsteadily toward Aubrey, who looked ready to kick him in the shins with her tiny feet. Boy, she was petite. So different from Dana. Dana had been tall and beautiful, his Amazon wife, he used to tease. Frowning, he gestured toward Aubrey as he walked past her toward the kitchen. “She’s my nanny. Want a beer?” he asked.

“Mr. Halvorsen…a moment, please,” came Aubrey’s firm request as she turned on her heel and marched from the living room. Judging by the way she didn’t wait to see if he would comply, she clearly expected him to follow.

Sammy sighed and gestured to the blonde to make herself comfortable while he took care of the situation at hand. He found Aubrey in his bedroom, which suddenly made him intensely uncomfortable. Aubrey in his bedroom was…not right. At all.

As if reading his mind, she peered up at him, tightlipped and angry. “It’s a small house, Mr. Halvorsen. I did not feel it prudent to air my concerns in front of your friend, and I’m not about to wake Ian up by taking this conversation into his room, though by the way you crashed about like a drunken ox it’s a wonder the baby didn’t wake up screaming,” she muttered with a glare.

“We weren’t that loud,” he said defensively, though he knew that she was probably right. Damn. This nanny rode him harder than his ma, which was probably why Mary Halvorsen hand-selected her.

“You’re drunk,” she accused, clearly unamused.

“Of course I am,” he said, smiling lopsidedly at her. “That’s the whole point, ain’t it? Have fun, cut up, cut loose—”

“Bring home floozies with your infant son sleeping in the other room,” she interrupted and he jerked.

“That’s a shitty thing to say.”

“Yes. And equally bad because it’s true, isn’t it?” she queried him, crossing her arms. “Mr. Halvorsen…if this is your type of behavior, the kind of thing I can come to expect from you…”

“Will you stop with the Mister already? I told you—”

“And I told you no. The problem I see with you, Mr. Halvorsen, is that you’re not accustomed to responsibility. I am your son’s nanny. Not yours. You’ve put me in a pickle, Mr. Halvorsen.”

His alcohol-soaked brain zeroed in on the word pickle and he chuckled. Who talked like that? It was cute in an annoyingly stuck-up way. If he were attracted to the librarian type, which he wasn’t, he might be seriously turned on by her prim and proper routine. But as evidenced by the bleached blonde getting bored and sober in his living room…nope, it wasn’t the brainy types that turned his head. Although…

She snapped two fingers in front of his face, and he refocused on her. “As I was saying, you’ve put me in a bad spot. I don’t feel comfortable leaving you with Ian in your condition or with the company you’ve chosen to bring home with you—” she might as well have said vermin the way she phrased it “—but I don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to take Ian out of bed at this late hour and take him home with me. So you leave me no choice but to insist that you send that woman home and put yourself to bed.”

He balked. “That wouldn’t be right. I invited her to stay.”

She gave him a steely glare. “Nothing about this situation is right by my estimation. Send her home or I quit.”

He cocked a rogue grin her way, oddly charmed by the show of spirit flashing in her eyes. Funny, he hadn’t noticed how cute she was. He moved closer and she took a healthy step back. He frowned, stung by her obvious rejection. Now that was different. “So quit,” he said with a shrug, anger at being rejected coupled with the tequila shots he’d downed earlier combining to make his mouth say really bad things. “It’s not like it takes a bunch of skill to watch a kid. I can find another nanny…one who’s not so uptight and bitchy.”

Her gaze turned wintry and she pushed past him. “Good luck with that, you arrogant jerk,” she muttered, moving by him so quickly he stumbled on unsteady feet. “You don’t deserve that beautiful boy. It’s probably a good thing your wife is dead. If she could see how you’re treating the child she died to give life…” She shook her head in disgust as she added, “So pathetic.”

And then stomped out the door.

ANGER VIBRATED HER ENTIRE BODY as she got to her car, intent on leaving as quickly as she could, but somehow Sammy managed to get those wobbly drunken muscles to work and he was running after her.

“Wait!” he called out. She tried to ignore him but there was a thread of desperation weaving its way through his tone that made her pause, if only momentarily. He reached the car and skidded to a stop. “I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have said that…I’ve had too much to drink and my mouth got away from me.”

“And?”

“And it was completely out of line for me to bring someone home with you still at the house. I wasn’t thinking,” he admitted, dropping his stare to the ground as if ashamed. She wasn’t sure if it was an act or not. She didn’t know him well enough to tell but she was suspicious on principle simply by his behavior so far.

She wanted him to admit that it was also bad judgment on his part to bring strangers into the house with an infant but she sensed she wouldn’t get that from him. Not yet, anyway.

“Fine,” she said tersely. “But your friend needs to leave. Now.”

“She’s not a bad gal,” he started to say but she cut him off with a glare. “Right. Gimme a minute.”

Aubrey moved past him, accidentally brushing him with her shoulder. The warmth of his skin through his shirt reminded her that it’d been a long time since she’d enjoyed the comfort of a man’s arms. Thankfully, there were no sparks that ignited at the incidental touch. She shuddered at the thought. She didn’t pause to offer any words of explanation to the woman sitting forlornly on the sofa and went to check on Ian while Sammy sent her on her way.

Treading softly into Ian’s room, her anger melted at the sight of the sleeping boy, so sweet in repose that her heart ached. Why did she have such a tender spot for children? Her life would’ve been so much easier if she’d been built more like her mother and sister. Arianna, although her twin, couldn’t be more her opposite. The idea of caring for a child, even her own, didn’t appeal in the least. It was a wonder Barbie had agreed to conceive. Aubrey could only imagine her mother’s dismay when she’d learned she was carrying not one, but two babies. She sighed softly and smoothed a lock of dark hair from the boy’s soft baby brow. If she were given the gift of motherhood…she’d never squander it.

IT WAS LONG AFTER HE’D regretfully sent Sherry on her way with an effusive promise to call her tomorrow and Aubrey had fallen asleep in his recliner in the living room that Sammy sank into a dark place that was often his resting stop after a long night. Usually he woke with a busty woman at his side and he had to sneak from her house before she woke. He rarely brought his dates home; the thought of letting another woman into his own bed made him shudder with shame. Yet tonight he’d been ready to screw that blonde in the bed he’d shared with Dana. Aubrey had hit the nail on the head when she’d called him pathetic.

He supposed he should thank his nosy and intrusive nanny for keeping him from making yet another huge mistake, but it rankled him that he gave in so easily. She treated him like he was lower than dirt—the looks she gave him could wither a flower on the vine—and yet, she seemed protective of Ian in a way that baffled him. She didn’t know the kid, not really. He was the kid’s father and he couldn’t muster up the appropriate feelings. Scrubbing his hands down his face as if he could wipe away all the guilt that weighed him down, he fell back on his bed, not caring that he was still dressed, nor that he was still wearing his boots. Honestly, what was there to care about any longer?

Dana…why’d you leave me? I’m so lost….

That mournful feeling followed him into sleep, filling the landscape of his dreams with sadness and pain, a vision of Dana dying on that table, giving her last breath as Ian gasped his first.

A tear leaked down Sammy’s face and stained his pillow.

“Dana…”