Читать книгу Your Baby or Mine? - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 10

For a moment Alec considered leaving Andrea at the jungle gym. No less than three mothers had volunteered to look after her along with their own offspring. But in the end, he opted to tuck his daughter onto his hip as he went to corner the agile instructor. He wasn’t all that keen on leaving his daughter with strangers, even nice ones.

Marissa was all the way at the other end of the large room. By the time he had made it over to her, he’d had to change direction three times and felt as if he was trying to catch a butterfly. The toddlers in the class weren’t the only ones with an endless supply of energy.

“Excuse me. Excuse me.” Weaving his way around the last obstacle—a woman with an exuberant twin firmly tethered to each hand—Alec finally managed to get close enough to Marissa to call out to her. “Mrs. Rogers, could I speak to you?”

Her arms full of wiggling child, Marissa turned around. He looked harried, she thought, an amused smile tugging at her mouth. It warmed her heart every time she saw a man taking the trouble to play his role as a father to the fullest. It proved to her that there were good fathers out there, even if neither her father nor Antonio had managed to take on the role with any grace or flare.

“Sure, if you call me Marissa. When you call me Mrs. Rogers, I have this urge to look over my shoulder to see if my mother is standing there.”

With an approving nod, she handed the little boy she was holding to the child’s mother. No sooner were her arms free than Andrea made a grab for her. Without missing a beat, Marissa took the little girl into her arms.

He was amazed at how easily Andrea seemed to take to the woman. It just reinforced his feelings about his decision.

“Then you’re not married?” The question came out of nowhere, nudging aside the one he thought he was going to ask.

She laughed softly, shaking her head. Though she considered herself to be a warm, friendly person, there were certain personal things she was reluctant to share. And what had happened between her and Antonio came under that heading.

Brushing Andrea’s wispy blond hair back from her face, Marissa evaded the question. “Not to my father, no.” Whenever she mentioned or thought of the Sergeant, it always evoked the same image for her. An open suitcase. It seemed as if she’d spent her entire childhood either packing or unpacking one, traipsing around the country because her father had signed his life away to the army.

Andrea seemed bent on restructuring Marissa’s face. Taking the little hand in hers to keep Andrea from widening her mouth, Marissa pressed a kiss to the busy fingers. Andrea cooed. Raising her eyes to Alec’s gaze, Marissa waited for him to continue. “Is that what you wanted to ask me?”

She knew it wasn’t. This wasn’t the kind of place a man came to meet women. Even if it was, he didn’t look like the type. Alec Beckett gave every impression that he was very Ivy League, very businesslike. Even in supposedly casual clothes, he looked ready to leap into a board meeting at a moment’s notice. She wondered what he did for a living and if he ever loosened up.

Alec noticed that Marissa didn’t seem to be distracted by the fact that Andrea was trying to climb up her body. If anything, she appeared to be at ease, as if it was all natural. An admiration for a talent he knew was way beyond him took hold.

“No, um…” Alec surveyed the crowded room. “Could we talk?”

Deftly, Marissa pried childish fingers away from her gold chain, a gift from her brothers and sisters when she graduated high school. It was her one cherished possession.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing now, Mr. Beckett?”

Marissa glanced toward the play area to see how Christopher was doing. Cyndee, a three-month veteran of the class and her self-appointed assistant, was watching over him as well as her own daughter and another child. The hopelessly perky woman was braver than most people here, Marissa mused. Everything seemed to be under control.

“I mean privately.” Alec wasn’t prepared to discuss business with an audience around.

He sounded serious. Marissa wondered if something was bothering him. He wouldn’t be the first parent who had sought her out for a sympathetic ear.

The room was full of parents and babies. It seemed as if each class was larger than the last. Not that she minded; she took it as a compliment. Marissa nodded over to the side.

“I’m afraid that a comer is the best I can do under the circumstances. Unless you want to wait until after class.”

“A corner will do fine.” He wanted her to have some time to think about what he had to propose. If he waited until after class, she might be too tired and automatically turn him down. He didn’t want to be turned down.

Alec followed Marissa. He noticed that several of the mothers were looking at him knowingly, as if the word “novice” were still stamped on his forehead. Sometimes, he had to admit, he felt that way. One year and he was still feeling his way around this maze called fatherhood.

Marissa leaned against the beige wall and looked up at him, waiting.

She had to have the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. So blue that they could have easily made him lose his train of thought. Because he suddenly felt awkward, Alec took his daughter from her. Holding Andrea gave him something to do, somewhere else to look besides her eyes.

Whenever he made presentations, he always strove for a good opening line. He knew the value of capturing his audience’s attention right from the start. But none occurred to him now. Making the best of it, Alec plunged in, stumbling.

“I noticed how good you are with the children.”

Marissa smiled. Where was he going with this? “The job kind of calls for it.” She saw at least three mothers who required her attention. She hoped that whatever Beckett had to say, he’d get to it quickly.

“I was wondering if you’re that good on a one-to-one basis.” This wasn’t going well, he thought.

Marissa turned her head back toward him with a jerk. He had her full attention now. She stared at him, voicing her thoughts aloud.

“Are you hitting on me?” Maybe she hadn’t gotten to be a good judge of character after all.

Completely wrapped up in the dilemma he found himself in, Alec took a moment to fully process her question.

“What?” Talk about wrong impressions. She thought he was trying to pick her up, he realized. Belatedly, he remembered he’d asked her if she was married. What else was she supposed to think? “Oh, no, really.” He’d denied it so adamantly, he knew that he inadvertently was sending out the wrong message. “I mean, not that you’re not pretty, you are. Very. Maybe even beautiful, but—” He stopped abruptly before he managed to make a complete fool of himself. He was hanging by a thread now. Alec’s laugh was rueful. “I’m not saying this very well, am I?”

He had a nice smile, she thought. Not merely a pleasant one, a really nice one. A smile that spoke of sincerity and went straight to the soul. Taking pity on him, she gently eased him off the hook.

“Well, the words pretty and beautiful can’t be held against you, but, no, you’re not.” She saw a woman waving at her to catch her attention. “I’m afraid I have to hurry you along, Mr. Beckett. What is your point?”

Alec felt disgusted with himself. How the hell could a man who could conduct meetings involving several hundred people be so tongue-tied when it came to talking to just one petite woman?

Because he wasn’t in his element, he reminded himself. His element contained software programs, computers. Sterile things, not things that required a sterilized environment. He glanced down at Andrea who was once again attempting to see just how much of his sweater she could stuff into her mouth. With an inward sigh, Alec eased the expensive wool out past tiny pink lips.

Marissa was beginning to edge away. If he didn’t talk quickly, he knew he was going to lose her. “My nanny quit.”

She couldn’t help herself. The declaration begged for a comeback. “Aren’t you a little old for a nanny, Mr. Beckett?”

For a second he thought she was serious. The amusement in her eyes set him straight. Humor. He realized that in the past year he’d almost forgotten how to laugh.

“No, I mean, Andrea’s. Andrea’s nanny quit.”

She stood on her toes, as if that would make her voice carry better. “I’ll be right there, Mrs. Stewart,” she promised the woman who was waving at her. Marissa turned back to Beckett, laying a hand on his arm. The moment instantly turned private.

“I know.” Marissa laughed. “Forgive me, but you looked as if you needed to be teased a little. I’m sorry, it was a poor joke. You were saying?”

Her eyes were so brilliant, so animated, they reminded him of the lake outside his window when the sun reflected on the calm water. It took him a second to retrieve his thoughts from their grasp.

Andrea, frustrated that she couldn’t teeth on her father’s sweater, squealed. “Andrea’s nanny quit last night and I was wondering if—”

Marissa nodded, finishing his thought. “I know of anyone for the job?”

She was only half right. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of you for the job.”

Marissa blinked. Had she missed something? Why would Beckett think that she needed a job? In light of what was presently going on in her life, the suggestion was particularly stunning.

“Me?”

She looked dumbstruck. Oh, God, he hoped he hadn’t insulted her somehow. But he was desperate and desperate men did desperate things. Alec began talking quickly. “Yes, you’d be perfect. The kids all seem to respond to you.”

He’d already said that, she thought. Marissa began moving toward Mrs. Stewart again. She did have a job to do and she wasn’t seeing to it by standing here, talking to him.

“Well, I thank you for the compliment, but as you can see, I already have a job. One that I really should be doing."

He wasn’t giving up that easily. Not after seeing the way Andrea took to her. Andrea had always cried whenever a new nanny came into her life.

“Is this full-time? Your job?” God, just listen to him. He was talking as if English were his second language.

Teaching the classes was only a part-time job. Luckily, she did have Antonio’s child support checks. Though he had loudly proclaimed himself not to be father material, that much he had been willing to give of himself. The checks, the scholarship money the university had awarded her and an incredible ability to live on a shoestring was all she really needed.

Marissa saw no reason to go into any of that with Beckett “No, but my time is pretty well taken up.”

“With Christopher?” It didn’t take a genius to guess that.

Her smile was so wide it dominated her face and slipped up into her eyes. “Yes.”

Alec pounced. He’d been prepared for that objection when he’d made his offer. “You could bring him with you. What I really need is a live-in nanny.” It would make things a lot easier, but he could be flexible. Desperate men were. “But since you’re married, I could—”

Maybe she should clear that up, she decided. There was no reason to have Beckett laboring under a misconception.

“I’m not married. Anymore,” she added. “But that’s not the problem, Mr. Beckett. I go to school three nights and one day a week.”

He only heard what he needed to hear. “You’re not married?”

He wasn’t getting the message. “No,” Marissa said firmly. “But—”

Alec’s mind moved faster than her protest. “Then you could be a live-in.”

“If I needed to be, but—”

Relief was a heady thing and he let it wash over him. He hadn’t expected to get this lucky. Thank God he’d opted to register for this class.

“This is great. I work at home two to three days a week.” It was part of Bytes and Pieces’ policy to help solve Southern California’s escalating gridlock problem rather than add to it. All that had been needed was a terminal connected to the main computer at the office and he was on his way. “Something could be worked out.”

Temporarily forgetting about Mrs. Stewart, Marissa addressed the more pressing problem: getting through Beckett’s thick head. She raised her voice. “Yes, if I wanted it to, but, Mr. Beckett, you’re missing a crucial point here.”

He ceased mentally patting himself on the back. “I am?”

“Yes.” She looked up at him, carefully enunciating each word. “I said no.”

The foundation of the Arch of Triumph he was constructing suffered a terminal crack. He tried to smooth it over.

“Not in so many words,” Alec observed quickly.

The man had to be a salesman. “Actually, in a lot of words, some of which you wouldn’t allow me to get out. I have a very full schedule and I really don’t need to take on any more right now.”

He had a feeling about Marissa and Andrea. She would be good for his daughter. He wasn’t about to give up without a fight. “How much are they paying you here?”

His question caught her off guard. “That’s a little personal, don’t you think?”

Alec shook his head. He wasn’t trying to pry, he was trying to win. “Money is never personal. It’s a very public thing. Whatever it is, I can double it.”

The man didn’t know how to take no for an answer. Given his looks and the expensive cut of his clothing, she suspected that he probably didn’t hear it very often. “I take it that you’re used to getting what you want?”

He realized that honesty carried weight with her. It was gut feeling, but he went with it.

“No, just not used to being this desperate. I’ve had four nannies for Andrea in a year. Four women I hand-picked after long, exhausting sessions of talking to enough women to easily fill up a convention hall. They all came from reputable agencies and had long, glowing references in their possession, but things just didn’t work out.”

She wondered if the women left because of some problem that had to do with him. She couldn’t see how it could have been because of Andrea. “Why is that?”

He thought for a moment, trying to remember. “Ellen left because she fell in love with someone who was leaving town. Celeste decided that she wasn’t cut out to be a nanny. I fired Sue. Ingrid, the first nanny, retired. I think Andrea might have had something to do with that. There’s no getting away from the fact that she’s a handful.” He thought of Christopher. Andrea was positively docile in comparison. “But I think you’re used to that.”

Marissa couldn’t help smiling. Christopher was a live wire by anyone’s definition. “You might say that.”

Good, he had her attention. Alec didn’t let the opportunity slip away. “Anyway, I really don’t have the time to go through the process again. I’m in the middle of marketing this new software I developed and the thought of sitting and listening to the peccadilloes of a squadron of women while I try to separate fact from fiction to find a woman who has enough love, patience and enthusiasm to handle my daughter is particularly daunting right now.” He gave it his best shot. “Especially when I’ve found a woman who would be perfect for the job.”

Marissa sighed. He was giving her an awful lot of credit. Either that, or he really was serious about dreading the thought of conducting interviews. Either way, she couldn’t help him.

“Well, I thank you for that, but speaking of jobs…” She glanced over her shoulder at the group. Mrs. Stewart had been inordinately patient. She had to answer the woman’s question and start the new game portion of the class. “I should be getting back to mine.”

He had thought that he was winning her over. “What about my offer?”

“It’s a very flattering one, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass.” She was walking backward, away from him, and managed, somehow, to avoid colliding with anyone or stepping on any of the toddlers that were almost everywhere he looked. The woman was uncanny. “But I’ll let you know if I find someone who can live up to your specifications.”

“Outside of Mother Teresa, Mary Poppins and you,” he murmured to himself, “I don’t know of anyone.” Temporarily deflated, Alec looked at his daughter. He had to be in the office tomorrow. This wasn’t going to go over well with his mother. “Do you think your grandmother is up to taking you for another day?”

Andrea screwed up her face and made a familiar sound. Alec looked around for someplace where he could change his daughter. There was a change table against the far wall and he headed toward it just as Marissa called for attention.

“Don’t tell Roberta I called her that,” he whispered to Andrea. “Or she’ll really walk out on us.”

Andrea grunted again. Alec walked faster.

Roberta Beckett smoothed back her carefully styled auburn hair with a perfectly manicured hand. Two-inch-long fingernails flickered in the air like mauve butterflies searching for a place to alight. Through a meticulous regime that she adhered to religiously, Roberta managed to look years younger than the age written on the birth certificate tucked away in her safe-deposit box. Alec knew it was one of her greatest sources of pride that most people, upon seeing her with him, mistook them for brother and sister.

“It’s not that I don’t love her, Alec. I do. I truly do.” Roberta spared a smile for the child, who was holding on to the webbed siding of the portable crib and bouncing up and down in place. “But this rocking, feeding, diapering…” Her deep, husky voice dropped an octave lower as she said the last distasteful word. “It just isn’t me.”

Who knew that better than he? Still, his back was against the wall; he wouldn’t have asked her any other way. Besides, he knew for a fact that the housekeeper performed the actual dirty work. All Roberta did was add her stamp of approval.

“I know, Roberta, and I appreciate you putting yourself out like this, but—”

She didn’t want his gratitude, she wanted results. “Haven’t you found anyone yet?”

He hadn’t even had time to call the agency. He supposed he should have begun interviews yesterday instead of going to class with Andrea, but when he’d signed up, he hadn’t planned on the nanny quitting.

Mentally, he took inventory to make sure he’d brought everything that Dorothy, his mother’s housekeeper, would need to take care of Andrea. “Ellen only quit a little more than twenty-four hours ago.”

The argument obviously carried no weight with Roberta. “God created the world in six days.”

His mother had her own brand of logic. He had ceased to try to make sense of it a long time ago. “He left Adam and Eve for last. That was the hardest part.”

Roberta sniffed. Andrea squealed with glee, then landed on a well-padded bottom and a stuffed rabbit. “You don’t have to create a nanny, just hire one.”

He had to get going. Rex, one of the two owners of the company, was his best friend and incredibly understanding, but there were limits. “Almost as difficult.”

Roberta gave him a reproving look. “I never had difficulties finding one for you.”

Alec thought of the women who had paraded through his life, the ones who had been there to substitute for the genuine article. The very memory was enough to make him not want to hire anyone. He’d had a disjointed, unstable childhood at best. He hadn’t wanted that for Andrea. But he obviously had no choice. Alec sincerely hoped she wouldn’t remember any of this.

Because he needed help, he threw the ball into Roberta’s court. “All right, then you do it. You find a nanny.”

“Me? I should think that would be something you would want to handle on your own.” Roberta pursed her lips in a disapproving pout. “Really, Alec, I thought I raised you more independently than that.”

She was unorthodox, but he loved her. That still didn’t make him incline to let her delude herself.

“No, Roberta, you didn’t raise me at all. Estelle and Elizabeth and Suzanne and Joan and several other women whose names and faces begin to escape me, they raised me."

She distanced herself the way she always did when faced with something she didn’t want to deal with. A frown brought with it several wrinkles that refused to be smoothed, creamed or coaxed away. “What is your point?”

There was a vague discomfort in her eyes. Any moment now she’d announce that she was going off on a junket somewhere, leaving him completely adrift. He had to do something before that happened.

Alec looked at his mother ruefully. “The point is that I’m a little stressed out right now and I guess I’m being rude.”

Roberta smiled, graciously accepting the apology. “Yes, you are. But I forgive you because, after all, I am your mother even if I don’t look it.”

She walked Alec to the front door. “I’ll watch her today but remember, this can’t go on forever. I want you to find a nanny quickly.”

“No more than me, Roberta,” he assured her. “No more than me.”

“By tomorrow,” she called after him.

With any luck, tomorrow could be one of the days he worked out of the office he had set up in his den. That would give him the opportunity to conduct a few interviews. If conducting interviews for a nanny could be referred to as an opportunity.

He fervently hoped it would be the last time he’d have to go through this.

“Thanks, Jane, you’re a lifesaver.” Marissa shed her sweater, draping it over the back of the kitchen chair. Class had run over. Professor Johnston had gotten into a heated discussion with one of the students over the administration of corporal punishment and the class, divided, had taken sides. She was more than half an hour late. She’d called Jane from the campus, but that hadn’t changed the fact that it was way past the time she’d promised to be back.

Jane gathered her books together, depositing them into her backpack. She grinned. “Hey, no problem. Think of it as payback time. I remember when you used to baby-sit me.” The young girl got up. “You made things so much fun.”

The Sergeant had been stationed here for a while when Marissa was in her mid-teens. She’d always liked babysitting at the Hendersons. Their house always seemed to be so comfortably disorganized. Not the pristine living quarters that the Sergeant insisted on. “I liked you, it was easy.”

Jane nodded over her shoulder toward the tiny alcove off the living room. “Christopher is in bed.”

“Asleep?”

It was a rhetorical question. If he hadn’t been, Marissa knew she would have heard him by now. He wasn’t a child who didn’t make himself known.

Jane nodded. “I think we tired each other out.”

She’d already called her father and knew he was on his way to pick her up. He’d be out front by the time she got down to the ground level.

Jane was at the door when she suddenly remembered. “Oh, and you had a phone call. I took the number down. It’s posted on the refrigerator.”

“Thanks.” Marissa handed Jane her money. “And good night.”

“Same time Thursday?”

“You bet.” Marissa locked the door and crossed to the refrigerator. Taking the paper from under the magnet, she stared it at. The number wasn’t familiar.

But the name was. Jeremy Allen. The man she was subletting the apartment from. Tucking the phone number into her jeans, she first crossed to the alcove to check on Christopher.

He was still asleep. She stood, looking at him, love swelling within her heart. During the day Christopher was sheer energy, but once he was down, he was down for the night. It was, she supposed, nature’s little way of compensating.

She was still smiling to herself as she dialed the phone number. A sleepy voice answered on the fourth ring and said what passed for hello.

“Jeremy? This is Marissa.” She glanced at the clock and realized what time it was in New York. She’d completely forgotten about the time difference. “Oh, God, did I wake you?”

“Yeah, but that’s okay.” She heard rustling on the other end, as if he was sitting up in bed. “I’ve got some news.”

Marissa didn’t know if she particularly liked the sound of that. It was the exact same way her father used to preface his announcements that they were moving yet again.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’m coming home.”

She could feel her stomach sinking down to the floor. The apartment was a godsend for her. Located just a couple of miles from the campus and close to both her job and Jane, it made her life easy.

Easy was obviously not a word destined to remain with any permanence in her life. “When?”

“End of the week.”

“The end of. the week?” When she’d agreed to sublet the apartment, Jeremy had said that he was leaving for two years. It had only been nine months. “But you said—”

It was clear that he didn’t feel up to being hassled when he was half asleep. “That this was only temporary,” he reminded her.

She could barely afford to live here. How was she going to pay for a regular apartment and still go to school? “Yes, but you made it sound as if it was until the end of next year—at the very least.”

He didn’t sound any happier than she did about the need to return home. “It was, but the funding for the play ran out We closed today.” Jeremy let out a long sigh. “I could let you stay on. Of course, it’d be a little tight.”

In more ways than one, she thought. It was all right to deal with Jeremy when he was three thousand miles away. But she knew what close proximity would bring and she wasn’t up to the struggle involved with keeping him at arm’s length all the time. Jeremy believed that no woman should die without experiencing the pleasure of having slept with him, at least once.

“That’s all right,” she told him. “I’ll be out by the end of the week.” Oh, God.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” He yawned in her ear. “You’d better get some sleep,” she urged. “I’ll see you Friday.”

“Let me know if you change your mind. I’m a bighearted guy.”

“Right.” Marissa hung up, frowning. She had four days to find a place to live, work on her thesis, study for an exam and juggle all the other various parts of her life.

Marissa felt as if she’d just hit the legendary wall. And it had fallen on top of her.