Page 28 of Falling for the Nanny

I couldn’t help laughing. “Good thing you’re here.”

“And you,” she said, sizing me up with a keen look in her eye. “I have a feeling you stand up for yourself.”

I shrugged, watching Lily water the flowers in the window boxes of her tree house. She looked so much better than she had just a few days ago. I was relieved. I was also exhausted, which was strange considering that we’d finally been able to take a break from her grueling schedule. “I try,” I answered Francesca. “I love this job.”

“Of course you do. You get to spend all day with my perfect granddaughter in this gorgeous house he designed himself.” She winked at me. “But don’t tell him–”

“--you said that,” I finished with another laugh. “I promise not to pass on any compliments.”

Francesca then made me hold Davy, her miniature Yorkie, while she climbed up into Lily’s treehouse herself. I bit my tongue on the cautioning words I wanted to say. Francesca didn’t seem like the type to let anyone tell her what she might be too old to do. And sure enough, she scaled the ladder easily and appeared next to Lily within moments.

I held the small, fragile dog close to my chest. I’d been in Lily’s tree house a couple of times, but I was glad now that she didn’t want me to come up. I was feeling…strange. Like the effort of tilting my head back to watch them was giving me a headache. The sight of the clouds passing over the tops of the towering trees was making me nauseous.

Careful not to jostle Davy, I lowered myself to the ground and sat cross legged, staring at the stable, unmoving tree trunk that supported one side of Lily’s tree house. I was getting sick. And it was coming on as suddenly as Lily’s had. A cold, heavy dread filled my stomach entirely separate from the sickness. I couldn’t get what Lily had. It was fine for her–she was a child. But I wasn’t, and this was only my third week on the job. There was no one who could email the teacher for me and say, so sorry but Cat is under the weather, can she get an extension?

I was still sitting there, the bark of the tree shifting and rearranging itself as my eyes blurred, when Cat and Francesca climbed down the ladder, their legs cutting through my view.

“Cat?” Lily asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not feeling that great,” I said, my voice coming out thickly. God, it came on so suddenly. I remembered Lily just folding over at the breakfast room table. If only I was somewhere I felt like I could do that.

I felt a cool, elegant hand against my forehead, then Davy was neatly lifted out of my lax grip. “You’re running a fever,” Francesca said. “Lily, take Davy inside. I’ll help Cat.”

“I don’t need help.” I got to my feet to prove it, but it took more effort than it should have.

“Oh, don’t be proud.” She wrapped a surprisingly strong arm around my waist and I got a whiff of expensive perfume. At first I held myself stiff, trying not to let my weight rest on her. She had to be at least sixty-five after all. But the green lawn stretched out interminably and wore down my resistance.

“That’s right,” Francesca said with satisfaction as she felt me relent. “Don’t bother trying to be tough around me, Catherine. I can see right through it. Women are always trying to be too tough. Do you know that my niece left the hospital the day after she had her baby? The day after. I made them keep me a week!”

I didn’t know much about postpartum hospital stays, but both sounded extreme. I couldn’t quite muster the strength to respond though, and that was fine with Francesca. She went on to tell me about the bedrest she put herself on when she got the flu and the therapeutic vacation she booked for herself after she got a bad fright. She kept on with her stories as she waited for me to unlock the pool house door.

I got straight in bed, but I could still hear her talking, even as she went into the bathroom to run cool water over a washcloth. Only once she had laid it over my forehead and pulled the drapes did her voice soften to a whisper. “Rest, Catherine.”

And I did.

* * *

When I woke up, it was dark outside my windows, but there was a narrow seam of light coming from beneath the bedroom door. As I struggled up in bed, my heart pounding and my head spinning, I could hear the sounds of someone moving around the small sitting area. Warmth filled me at the realization that Francesca had stayed with me all this time. A glance at the clock told me it had been close to three hours since I laid down.

Intending to tell her she could go back to the main house and be with her family, I eased the door open. To my shock, it wasn’t Francesca I found at the small dinette table with a glass of bourbon and a laptop open in front of him–it was David. Horrified, I tried to ease the door shut again. He couldn’t see me like this. It would be worse than when he caught me moving in and I was a disheveled mess. Now I was a disheveled mess in pajamas. Old sleep shorts with my college logo just above the hem and a silky tank that kept slipping off one shoulder. I could feel that my hair had taken on a life of its own in the last three hours, and–I swiped frantically at my face as his chin lifted in slow motion–my mascara had to be in flakes all around my eyes.

David stared at me for a moment as if he didn’t recognize me. Then his mouth pulled down on one side and he said gruffly, “Get back in bed, Cat.”

“I need water.” I held up the empty glass as if I needed proof. Opening the door the rest of the way, I made my way unsteadily toward the small refrigerator. The floor felt too cold on my bare feet, and I was conscious of David’s eyes on me every step of the way. I shivered, though I couldn’t have said whether it was from the floor or his gaze or the illness. Maybe a combination of all three.

I pulled the pitcher out and had to hold onto the counter with my free hand while I tried to pour. It felt like if I let go, I might sway too far to one side and not be able to correct myself. David saw the effort it took and was at my side before I could pretend otherwise. His movements were brusque as he took the pitcher away.

“You’re sick,” he explained as though I were Lily, insisting on doing my English homework. “Get back in bed. Tell me what you need and I’ll get it.”

“I’m not an invalid,” I rasped.

David looked me over from the tangled crown of my hair to my bare feet. “You are right now,” he said shortly. “Now are you going to walk back to bed or do I need to carry you?”

Even in the floating haze of affliction, his words sent a bolt of heat right to my core. The idea of David carrying me to bed was unbearably erotic. Those strong arms holding me against his broad chest, the stubble of his 5 o’clock shadow within reach of my lips. It was delicious.

And horrifying.

I shrank back. There was absolutely no way he could touch me like this. I was almost too sick to care how bad I must look, but not quite. I thought I might have to be dead before I didn’t care what David thought.

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