Hired: Nanny Bride (13 page)

Ironically, even after he’d made the decision that would supposedly set him free, he had been a prisoner of it.

Dannie had seen that right away.
Sun. Son
.

A nibbling sense of failure, of having made a mistake in an area where it really counted, had chased him, and chased him hard. He had barely paused to catch a breath at each of his successes before beginning to run again. He had lost faith in himself because of that decision.

And no amount of success, money, power or acquisition had ever absolved him.

But Dannie was right. It was about the child, not about him. If he found out if his boy was okay, then would the demons rest? If he was able to put the needs of that babe ahead of his own, then was he the man worthy of what he saw in Dannie’s eyes?

Joshua realized when he had come back into this cabin, after Michael had roared away in the motorboat, leaving them here together until morning, he had thought his mission was to get her to trust him again, the way she had when she had told him about her dis
astrous nonrelationship with the college professor. The way she had when she had told him about a wedding gown that she had spent all her money on and that she would never wear.

But now he saw that mission for what it was: impossible.

He could not ask anyone else to place their trust in him until he had restored his trust in himself, his belief that he could be counted on to do the right thing.

Where did that start? Maybe his journey had begun already, with saying yes to the needs of his niece and nephew. And then again, maybe that didn’t count, since he’d had an ulterior motive.

Maybe his journey had begun when he had backed away from Dannie, backed away from the soft invitation of her lips and the hot invitation of her eyes, because he had known he was not ready and neither was she.

And maybe he could win back his trust in himself by taking one tiny step at a time. Was it as simple—and as difficult—as adding his name to an adoption registry, so that his son would know if he ever wanted him, he would be there for him?

“Thank you for trusting me,” Dannie said softly.

The last of the embers were dying, and her voice came at him out of the darkness.

“Dannie, you are completely trustworthy,” he said. And he wondered if someday he was going to be a man worthy of that.

But he had a lot of work to do before he was. The darkness claimed him, and when he woke in the morning, it was to the sound of a powerboat moving across the lake. His neck hurt from sleeping on the couch; he could not believe how good it felt to have her cuddled into him.

Trusting.

He sighed, put her away from him, got up and pulled his stiff slacks from where they were strung in front of the now-dead fire.

Trust. He could not even trust himself to look at her, did not think he was strong enough to fight the desire to say good morning to her with a kiss.

Dannie barely spoke on the way back across the water. Neither did he. There was something so deep between them now it didn’t even need words. That was what he wanted to be worthy of.

They had barely landed when Susie greeted them, by dancing between the two of them, and throwing her sturdy arms around their knees, screeching as if it was Christmas morning. Even the baby seemed thrilled to see them.

Worthy of this kind of love
.

“Were you okay over there?” Sally asked. “What a terrible thing to happen.”

“We were fine, but I think the canoe is beyond repair,” Joshua said. “I’ll replace it.”

Sally made a noise that sounded suspiciously close to disgust. “I’m not worried about
stuff,
” she said annoyed. “Stuff can be replaced. People can’t.”

A little boy in a blue blanket. Never replaced. Not with all the stuff.

“I’ve made a farewell breakfast,” Sally said, turning away from them and leading the way back to the lodge. “Come.”

With Susie holding his one hand, as if he completely deserved her love and devotion, and the baby in the crook of his arm, he followed Sally up to the lodge. Dannie trailed behind, lost in her own thoughts.

Sally had made a wonderful feast: bacon, eggs,
pancakes, fresh-squeezed juice. For them. For people she barely knew. Still, she looked a little sad and Joshua realized that was part of the magic of this place. It made everyone who came here into family, it made every farewell difficult.

He had not once discussed business with Michael, and suddenly he was glad. He had not made any promises he could not keep.

Trust
. It was time to be a man he could be proud of. That Dannie would be proud of. That maybe his son would be proud of one day.

“I have a confession to make,” he said, when the remnants of breakfast had been cleared away. Susie was in front of the fire, playing with an old wooden fire engine, out of earshot.

He looked Michael in the eye. “Michael, I was trying to get rid of my niece and nephew when you called. They’d arrived in my life because of an error in dates. I didn’t want them there. They made me feel inadequate and uncomfortable. But when I got the feeling that they might improve my chances of acquiring the lodge, I jumped at your invitation and I brought them with me. I was going to play devoted uncle to manipulate your impressions of me.”

He glanced at Dannie, could not read the expression on her face. Had he disappointed her again?

“Instead of
using
them, as I’d intended,” he continued, “the lodge gave me a chance to spend time with them and really enjoy them, and I’m very thankful to you and Sally for that opportunity.”

No one looked at all surprised by his confession, as if he had been totally transparent all along. No one looked angry or betrayed or hurt.

Somehow he had stumbled on the place that was
family,
where everyone saw you as you were, and
while they hoped the best for you, always saw the potential, they never seemed to judge where you were at in this moment.

“So, Joshua, what are your plans for the lodge if you acquire it?” Michael asked, but his voice conveyed a certain reluctance to discuss business.

Joshua was silent. Then he said words he did not think he had said in his entire business career. “I thought I knew. But I don’t. I can’t make you any promises. I don’t know what direction Sun is moving in.”

He glanced at Dannie. He knew she had heard the truth. It was not about Sun right now. It was about son.

Michael sighed and looked at his hands, Joshua could clearly see he was a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Dannie, always intuitive, saw it, too.

“Why are you selling Moose Lake Lodge?” Dannie asked. “You obviously love this place so much. To be frank, I can’t even picture the place without you two here.”

It was the kind of question Joshua would never have asked in the past. It was the kind of question that blurred the lines between professional and personal.

On the other hand, hadn’t those lines been blurring for days now? He felt grateful it had been asked. He felt as if the right decision on his part needed the full story and all the facts.

Sally shot Joshua a look, clearly wondering if he would use any weakness against them. She glanced at her husband. He shrugged, and she covered his big work-worn hand with hers.

It was a gesture of such tenderness, some connection between them so strong and so bright, that Joshua felt his eyes smart.

Or maybe it was just from the fire smoking in the
hearth. Or from several days so far out of his element. Or from falling in love with Dannie Springer.

He looked at her again, saw her watching Sally with such enormous compassion. Remembered her over the past few days, laughing, playing with the kids, running into the lake right behind him when the boat had broken free.

A woman a man could share the burdens with, just as Sally and Michael so obviously had shared theirs over the years. A woman a man could go to as himself, flawed, and still feel valued.
Worthy.

He had said it in his own mind. He was falling in love with her. He waited for the terror to come.

But it didn’t. Instead what came was a sense of peace such as he had not felt for a very long time.

“We’re selling, or trying to sell, for a number of reasons,” Sally said, her voice soft with emotion. “Partly that we’re too old to do the place justice anymore.” She stopped, distressed, and he watched Michael’s hand tighten over hers.

“It’s mostly that our daughter is sick,” Michael said gruffly. “Darlene has an aggressive form of a degenerative muscle disorder. She practically grew up here, but she can’t come here anymore. She’s got three little kids and she’s a single mom.

“Pretty soon she’s going to need a wheelchair. And if she’s going to stay in her own home, everything has to be changed, from the cabinets to the door handles. She’s going to need a special lift system to get in the bathtub. She’s going to need a modified van. She’s going to need us.”

Joshua heard the unspoken: it was going to take more money than they knew how to raise to take care of their daughter as her health deteriorated.

Michael got up abruptly and walked out into the clear brightness of the morning, a man prepared to do the right thing, no matter how hard it was, no matter what it cost him, no matter what he had to let go of.

“Sorry,” Sally said, watching him go, pain and love equal in her eyes. “It’s hard for a man to care as much as he does and to find himself helpless.”

It really confirmed everything Joshua already knew about love. It could slay the strongest man. It could tear the flesh from his bones. It could leave him trembling and unsure of the world.

He looked at Dannie. She was staring into the fire.

He saw her hand had crept into Sally’s. Such a small thing. Such a right thing.

He felt sick to his stomach. He wanted the Moose Lake Lodge, and he wanted it badly. But he wasn’t going to take advantage of these fine people’s misery.

Except they needed the money.

And they only had one way to get it.

To sell what they loved most. Their history. Their memories.

Why did his whole life feel all wrong ever since the nanny had put in an appearance?

Only a few days ago, Joshua Cole had been sure of his identity: businessman, entrepreneur. Maybe he’d even embraced the playboy part of it a little bit because it had allowed him to fill up his life with superficial fun but never required anything
real
of him.

Today he was sure of nothing at all, least of all his identity.

Later that morning, his bags packed beside him, Joshua watched Dannie and the kids from the safety of the porch on Angel’s Rest. They were walking the beach one last time with Sally, Dannie carrying the baby, her
feet bare in the cold sand. He acutely felt, watching that scene, the emptiness of his own life.

He had filled it with stuff instead of substance.

He watched Dannie pull something from her pocket. He saw her reach inside herself for strength, and then she sent that small object hurtling out into the water, further than he could have imagined she could throw.

He saw the glint of gold catching in the sun, before the object completed its upward arch and then plummeted to the lake and slipped beneath the surface with nary a ripple.

From here he could hear Dannie’s laughter. And understood that she was free.

He was glad to get on the plane an hour later. His world. Precision. Control. He hoped for freedom as great as he had heard in Dannie’s laughter.

But instead of feeling a joyous release as the plane took off, he was acutely aware there would be no more running. He could not fly away from the truths he had to face. They would just be waiting when he landed.

It occurred to him that maybe he would never find his own son. Or maybe he would find him, and the family would choose not to have contact.

But he was aware that he could reclaim his faith in himself in other ways.

Joshua Cole knew his heart was ready.

And he was surprised to find he did have a simple faith, after all. It was that once a heart was ready, the opportunities would come. And once a man was ready, he would take them.

T
HEY
were saying goodbye. Dannie couldn’t believe it had happened this fast. She had wanted to tell Joshua she admired him for telling Sally and Michael the truth. She wanted to ask him how he planned to help them, for surely he did.

And she had wanted to thank him for telling her about his son.

But somehow, during that short flight back to Vancouver from Moose Lake Lodge, the opportunity had never come. Aside from the fact his expression had been remote and focused, not inviting any kind of conversation, Jake had been terribly fussy.

Susie had a delayed reaction to the fact they had left her for the night without consulting her, and her upset had intensified when she had not been able to find Michael to tell him goodbye.

Now she was behaving outrageously. Bits of stuffing from the teddy bear Joshua had given her on their first day with him was soon floating in the air, landing in handfuls in the front seats of the aircraft.

Joshua didn’t even seem to notice, but no wonder when he landed, he asked them to wait, and then disappeared into the terminal.

When he came back out he told them he had arranged their flight home. A chartered plane would take them to Toronto, a car and driver would meet them and take them to his sister’s house.

He took Dannie’s hands in both his own. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but he didn’t. In some ways the look in his eyes was better than a kiss.

Trusting. Forthright.

“I’ll be in touch as soon as I can,” he said. “I have some things I need to look after first. I don’t know how long it will take, but when it is done, I promise, I will come for you.”

Words eerily like those Brent had spoken.

Would she do it again? Build a fantasy around a few words, a vague promise? But when she returned his look, she found herself believing. This time it was real.

But the lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous flight home, the growing geographical distance between them, played with her mind. Nothing about this private plane ride seemed
real.

Was it possible Joshua Cole had divested her from his life?

Was it possible he had left the story in the middle? Was it possible Dannie might never know what happened to Sally and Michael? To Sun and Moose Lake Lodge?

Was it possible he would make that journey of the heart, his decisions about his son, alone? By himself?

He was the playboy. Lethally charming. Had she fallen, hook, line and sinker, for that lethal charm, or had she really seen the genuine Joshua Cole, the one he showed no one else?

Melanie and Ryan arrived home a day later, tanned and relaxed, more in love than ever.

Their affection and respect for each other seemed, impossibly, to have deepened. Susie’s behavioral problems evaporated instantly once her secure family unit was back the way she wanted it to be.

Dannie had never felt on the outside of that family quite so much. She had never felt so uncertain of her own choices.

Part of her waited, on pins and needles, jumping every time the phone rang. Because when she thought back on her time with Joshua, it seemed as if it had been exquisitely solid, an island in the land of mist that her life had been. It seemed as if those days at Moose Lake Lodge might have been the most real thing about her entire life.

It felt as if what she had been when she was with him, alive and strong and connected to life, had been the genuine deal. She was sure he had felt it, too.

He had shared his secret self with her. He had told her about his son. Every time she thought of the way he had looked as he told that story, lost and forlorn, and yet so brave and so determined, she felt like weeping. She felt as if she wanted to be there for him as he took the next steps, whatever he decided those would be.

She had been sure he would call. Positive that his promise meant something. She had felt as if he needed her to navigate the waters he was entering, as if she could be on his team as surely as when they had paddled the canoe together.

When he did not call, for one day and then another, her self-doubt returned in force. When a week passed with no call, Dannie condemned herself as the woman who could spin a romance, a fantasy out of the flimsiest of fabrics.

Brent had given her a locket with his picture in it. He had made vague promises. Naturally he was coming home to marry her.

Joshua Cole, World’s Sexiest Bachelor, in a moment of complete vulnerability had told her his deepest secret. Naturally that meant he was throwing over all the women he’d been paired with in the past!

He was giving up actresses and singers and heiresses for the nanny! Of course he was! Dannie even took her wedding dress out of its wrapper and laid it on her bed, allowed herself to look at it wistfully and imagine herself gliding down the aisle,
him
waiting for her.

But as the days passed and it became increasingly apparent he wasn’t, Dannie found comfort in chocolate rather than her wedding dress!

“Okay,” Mel said finally. “Tell me what on earth happened to you, Dannie?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re gaining about a pound a day! You’re not the same with the children as you were before. It’s as if you’ve decided to be an employee instead of a member of our family. I miss you! What’s going on?”

“It’s the whole Brent thing,” Dannie lied.
The whole romance thing. The whole life thing.

But Melanie stared at her, and understanding, totally unwanted, dawned in her eyes.

“It’s not Brent,” she guessed softly. “It’s my brother. What has Josh done to you?”

“Nothing,” Dannie said, quickly. Obviously way too quickly.

“I’m going to kill him,” Mel said.

Dannie had a sudden humiliating picture of Mel phoning her brother and reaming him out for having done something to her nanny.

The one he had probably forgotten existed as soon as he’d divested himself of her at the airport!

“You didn’t do a bit of matchmaking, did you? You
didn’t think your brother and I would make a good pair, did you?” Dannie asked, remembering Joshua’s embarrassing conclusion on their first meeting.

“Of course not,” Melanie said quickly and vehemently, her eyes sliding all over the place and landing everywhere but on her nanny’s face.

“You did!” Dannie breathed.

“I didn’t. I mean not officially.”

“But unofficially?”

“Oh, Dannie, I just love you so. And him. And you both seemed so lonely and so lost and so devoted to making absolutely the wrong choices for yourselves. I thought it couldn’t hurt to put you together and just see what happened. I thought it couldn’t do any harm. But it did, didn’t it?”

Harm?
Dannie thought of her days with Joshua, of the delight of getting to know him, and herself. Even if he never called, could those days be taken away from her? Could what she had glimpsed in herself fade away?

Only if she let it.

“I’m going to kill him,” Melanie said again, but with no real force.

“You know what, Melanie?” Dannie said slowly, as understanding dawned in her. “Your brother didn’t do anything to me. I do things to myself.”

“What does that mean?” Melanie asked, skeptical.

“It means I have an imagination that fills in the gaps where reality leaves off.”

As she said it, Dannie’s understanding of herself grew. She was too willing to give her emotions into the keeping of other people. She was too willing to rearrange her whole world around a possibility, to put her whole life on hold while she
waited
for someone else to call the shots.

It was not admirable that she was willing to put her whole world and her whole life on hold in anticipation of some great love, some great event in the future! She’d done it with Brent on very little evidence, and now on even less evidence—only four days—she was going to waste time mooning over Joshua Cole?

No, he could have his car and his airplane and his fancy apartment and his five-star resorts. He could have heiresses and actresses and rock stars, if that was what made him happy. Love wanted the beloved to be happy. It didn’t demand ownership!

Besides, Dannie missed the girl she had been, ever so briefly, in that canoe. Not a girl who
waited
for life to happen, but someone who participated fully, someone who had discovered her own strength and insisted on pulling her own weight.

While Melanie watched her, Dannie took the ice cream she was eating and washed it down the sink.

“That’s it,” she told her friend and employer. “No more self-pity. No more being victimized. I have a life to live!”

“I’m still going to kill him,” Melanie muttered.

“Not for my benefit, you’re not,” Dannie said firmly.

The next day, her day off, she took the wedding gown to a local theatrical company and donated it to their costume department. They were thrilled to have it, and frankly she was thrilled to see it go. That’s where that fantasy concoction of silk and lace belonged, in a world of make-believe. And that’s where she was living no longer.

And then she went and signed up for canoe lessons at a place called Wilderness Ways Center. And while she was there, she noticed they had a class in rock climbing, and their own rock wall, so she signed up for that, too.

She took to her activities intensively, spending every free minute at the centre.

The loveliest and most unexpected thing happened. Danielle Springer had been waiting her whole life to fall in love. And she did.

She fell in love with herself.

She fell in love with the laughter-filled woman who attacked climbing walls and finicky canoes with a complete sense of adventure. She fell in love with the woman, whom she recognized had always been afraid of life, suddenly embracing its uncertainties.

She had always been a good nanny, and she knew that, but suddenly she felt as if she was a great nanny, because she was passing on this new and incredible sense of adventure and discovery to the children.

As the cool, fresh days of spring turned to the hot, humid days of summer, she found herself right out there jumping through the sprinkler with Susie, immersed in the wading pool with Jake.

She was teaching her young charges what she was learning: that life was a gift. An imperfect life, a life that did not go as planned, was no less a gift. Maybe a surprising life was even more of one.

The strangest thing was the more she danced with the gypsy spirit she was discovering in herself, the less she needed a man to validate her! When Joshua Cole had touched her lip with his thumb, he had told her he knew something of her that she did not know of herself.

But now she did! She knew she was strong and independent and capable. And fun loving. And full of mischief. And ready to dance with life! The irony, of course, was that men, who had always treated her as invisible, liked her. They flocked to her! They flirted with her.

The phone started ringing for her all the time. Now
that she could have anything she wanted, and anyone, she was surprised how much herself was enough. She liked how uncomplicated it was to live her own life, pursue her own interests, immerse herself in her job and her everyday pleasures. Something as simple as lying on the fragrant back lawn at night looking with wonder at the stars filled her to the top.

She was just coming in the door from her kayak lesson, when Melanie told her she had a phone call.

“It’s Joshua,” Melanie said, eyebrows raised, not even trying to hide her hope and delight that her brother might be coming to his senses.

Dannie picked up the phone. Despite how she had made herself over, her heart was hammering in her throat.

“How are you?” he asked.

Such a simple question. And yet the sound of his voice, alone, familiar, deep, masculine, tender, made her call him, in her own mind, “beloved.”

“I’m fine, Joshua.” Before she could ask how he was, he started talking again.

“Mel says you’ve been keeping really busy. Canoeing and rock climbing.”

“I’ve been staying busy,” she said, keeping her voice carefully neutral so he would not hear the unspoken,
I wish you could do it with me.

“She says the guys are calling there all the time for you.”

Was that faint jealousy in the World’s Sexiest Bachelor’s voice? Dannie laughed. “Not
all
the time.”

His voice went very low. “She says you don’t go out with any of them. Not on dates, anyway.”

“Joshua! Your sister shouldn’t be telling you anything about my private life.”

“She can’t resist me when I beg,” he said.

Who could?
“Why are you begging for information about me?”

“You know why.”

Yes.
She said nothing, afraid to speak, afraid to believe, afraid this was a test of all her resolve to not live in her fantasies but to create a dynamic reality for herself in the here and the now.

“Dannie, I couldn’t call you until I had looked after certain things. Until I had done my very best to clear away any baggage, any heartache that would have kept me from being the man you deserve.”

She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that he had always been the man she deserved, but something in her asked her to wait, to listen, and most of all, to believe.

“When I got back from Moose Lake Lodge, I thought of what you had said, about putting the ball in my son’s court. Doing what he needed, instead of what I thought I needed or wanted. I discussed the options with one of my lawyers. After a lot of discussion we finally agreed to register with an agency that specializes in triad reunions. That means all three parties, the child, the adoptive family and the birth parents, have to want a contact or a meeting or a reunion. Until all three pieces are in place, nothing happens.”

She could hear the emotion in his voice. She felt so proud of him. She felt as if she had never loved him more.

There was a long, long silence. Finally he spoke, whispered a single word.