Kids Is A 4-Letter Word Page 4

  This Montgomery woman sounded as if she was good with kids. Perhaps he could persuade her to watch them tomorrow, then he’d have the weekend to line up another sitter. He sighed at his wishful thinking, suddenly craving a cigarette. The desire for one hadn’t been this strong in the three years since he’d quit, but he forced it back.

  One hour later, John pulled into his driveway. He’d left the damned garage-door opener inside, so he parked next to an unfamiliar sport sedan. A low light burned from the den window, and various other lights glowed throughout the big house. At least the children were still awake. John drew his briefcase and suit jacket from the passenger seat, and walked the short distance to his new home, shivering in the late chill. As always, he hesitated at the door.

  God help him, he didn’t want to go in. Into a houseful of sad kids he couldn’t console or control. Into empty, unfamiliar surroundings. Into a big lonely bed. Some nights were more overwhelming than others. Tonight, unlocking the door was pure torture. Only the thought that his kids were probably unsettled and upset at having spent the afternoon with a stranger moved him forward.

  Quietly closing the door behind him, John stepped into the foyer which opened immediately into the large family den. “Father Knows Best” played on the television, the canned laughter echoing in the large room. John automatically reached up to loosen his tie, scanning the room, but his hand froze in midair.

  On a small cream-colored rug in the middle of the wooden floor, a slim woman lay asleep on her side, her knees and arms bent in repose, her slender legs extending from her slightly rucked-up dress. Her pumps had slipped off her shapely feet and lay on their shiny sides, a stray silver icicle from the Christmas tree wrapped around one stiletto heel. Short dark hair swept across her face, obscuring it from his view. And piled around her were all three of his children, Billy nestled against the woman’s chest, Jamie close behind him, and Claire flat on her back less than a half foot away, her small fingers touching the woman’s limp hand.

  John inhaled sharply, stretching his neck forward and squinting to refocus. His heart pounded, and all moisture left his mouth. He swallowed painfully, then took a silent step forward before setting down his briefcase. As he moved closer, the woman moaned and turned her head. He stopped and watched the dark hair slide from her face, revealing a beautiful profile of straight nose, high cheekbones, full mouth and sculpted chin. As she worked her mouth in sleep, a dimple appeared and disappeared beneath her right cheek.

  Holding his breath, John allowed his eyes to travel down the length of Jo Montgomery, taking in her rounded breasts, the curve of her hip, the fine bones of her slim legs. John felt an unfamiliar tightening in his groin and pulled at his waistband. The two years alone had been excruciatingly long. Taking a cautious step forward, he bent at the waist and searched for the one item he sincerely hoped the slumbering beauty didn’t possess: a wedding ring. Her shapely left hand curled toward the rug, her fingers hidden. Damn! The most unusual scent reached him, kind of…fruity. Apples? No. He sniffed again. Pears. The woman smelled like pears. He shifted uncomfortably.

  His children were motionless, except for Billy’s occasional sucking on the two fingers he’d thrust into his mouth. John sighed. Between that mangy blankie, the finger-sucking and the aversion to potties, Billy was fast becoming a therapist’s dream. Jamie lay tangled in his black terry-cloth shadow, his red hair in wild disarray. Shaking his head, John wondered if he’d made a mistake by playing along with his son’s fantasies, which seemed to have grown more creative in the past few months.

  And Claire. John smiled, and squatted to stroke the fine white-blond strands splayed across the rug. The very image of Annie, but as introverted as her mother had been outgoing. Bookish and solemn, his daughter rarely spoke, and displayed emotion even less. His concern was greatest for Claire because she remembered Annie the most and missed her so.

  Nothing to worry about, a child psychologist had told him. Love, patience, and time healed all wounds. Children are more resilient than they look, she said. And other comforting words John prayed were true. Here they were, so starved for female affection, they lay curled up to a virtual stranger. His eyes began to sting again.

  “Hello,” a woman’s voice whispered.

  Starting badly, John blinked and caught himself with one arm to keep from falling on his behind. “Hello,” he said quietly. Sleeping Beauty had the biggest, brownest eyes he’d ever seen.

  Jo squinted into the light of the ornate ceiling fan, trying to focus. She sincerely hoped the man squatting near her was John Sterling and not a burglar, because she didn’t have the strength to run for help. Billy stirred beside her, then quieted.

  “I’m afraid to move,” she said, grimacing at the blurry man. “I might wake them.” A thought so harrowing she was willing to lie there until the Second Coming.

  “Give me your hand and I’ll help you up.” She immediately recognized his deep voice. Hesitantly, Jo lifted her hand and was pulled gently to her stockinged feet. She swayed to gain her balance, and his strong arm steadied her.

  Jo lifted her head to thank him and stopped. John Sterling’s eyes were the palest green, framed with gold lashes and set in a tanned face sprinkled with dark freckles. Deep auburn hair as thick as an animal’s pelt faded to burnished gold around his temples, the same color as his sunlightened eyebrows. His square jaw glinted with a day’s growth of red-gold whiskers—he looked like the type who might have first shaved in the sixth grade, a man who could sprout a beard over a long weekend. A half smile played upon the man’s mouth, revealing laugh lines that promised to become deep channels with the accompaniment of a grin.

  She searched his eyes, and found…surprise, awareness, confusion. His lips parted slightly and Jo experienced a strong sensation of déjàvu. She knew this man, but had never met him. An age-old acquaintance in a stranger’s body. Where have you been? she felt on the verge of asking.

  He was a tall man, broad-shouldered and imposing. His tie was loosened and his shirtsleeves rolled up just below his elbows, revealing more golden hair on his thick forearms. He could not have looked more masculine if he’d been wearing a loincloth and carrying a shank of raw meat. Jo knew her mouth hung open because she could feel her breath moving across her teeth, but only two words came readily to mind.

  “Me Jane,” she murmured.

  His forehead creased and he leaned toward her slightly. “Excuse me?”

  “Me Jo,” she said more loudly, then recovered and stepped back, causing him to relinquish his hold on her arm. “That is, I’m Jo. Jo Montgomery.” She smiled awkwardly, then extended her hand. He clasped her clammy hand in his warm one, sending so much electricity through her nerve endings, Jo was sure he could see her skeleton like a flash of green X ray.

  “John Sterling,” he said, the corners of his mouth lifting higher. “It seems I’m indebted to you, Ms. Montgomery.” He released her hand and waved an arm toward his sleeping children.

  Jo glanced at the tangle of little arms and legs, and gave him a small shrug. “They weren’t much trouble,” she lied outrageously.

  He laughed softly. “Your clothing tells a slightly different story.”

  Self-consciously, she ran a hand over the neckline of her ruined coatdress, coming up with a gob of stale peanut butter. With a little laugh, Jo wiped it on her smudged lapel and said, “Okay, maybe they were a little less than angelic.”

  John had the grace to blush. Splaying his hands apologetically, he said, “When I made the remark this morning about my kids being angels, I didn’t realize you’d be stuck watching them most of the day. I’m sorry, and I’m also very grateful. Please send the bill for your dress to my office.”

  “I’ll put it on your account,” Jo said cheerfully, referring to her future design job.

  “It’s pretty bleak around here, isn’t it?” John asked, surveying the room. “How soon can you get started?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to look around today, so I’ll come back
tomorrow if someone is going to be here.”

  Shifting uncomfortably, John said, “I don’t have a sitter lined up yet, so I might have to take the kids to the office with me in the morning, but I’ll be back around lunchtime. You can wait until then or I’ll give you a key.”

  Remembering her morning appointment with the Pattersons, Jo made a snap decision. “I can come by in the morning to make some notes and watch the kids until you get home.”

  Incredulity registered on John’s face.

  “That is,” she continued nervously, “if you don’t mind me taking them on a quick errand.”

  “No,” he nearly shouted, and Jamie turned over on his stomach. They both glanced down and held their breath. “I mean, no,” John said, his voice lower. “I don’t mind at all. But,” he hastened to add, “that’s not necessary.”

  “I want to,” Jo said, smiling tightly.

  John angled his head. “Really?”

  Swallowing guiltily at the delight shining in his eyes, Jo put her hand behind her back and crossed her fingers. “Really.”

  3

  “WHERE’S JO?” Jamie murmured sleepily, his eyes only halfopen. Claire and Billy were already safely tucked in and slumbering. Normally, John saved Jamie until last, since he was the most difficult to persuade to go to sleep. Which amazed John considering the energy his son expended in a day.

  “She had to go home,” John said gently, pulling the sheet over Peter Pan pajamas and up to his son’s strong little chin.

  “She’s a nice lady,” Jamie said, blinking heavily.

  John smiled. “Liked her, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Jamie nodded, his hair dark and unruly against the white pillowcase. “Can we keep her, Daddy?”

  The question slammed into John like a steel beam. His smile vanished and he searched his son’s questioning green eyes, swallowing the lump that lodged in his throat. Slowly reaching forward to tousle Jamie’s hair, he said, “She’s not a puppy, son.”

  “But she’s pretty—don’t you like her?”

  “Jamie—”

  “And she’s no one else’s mommy—I already asked.”

  John blinked fiercely. “Is that so?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He couldn’t fault his son’s taste. “Well, there’s more to it than that.” John spoke carefully. “Being a mommy is tough work, and not every lady wants to have children.”

  Jamie’s face crumpled. “She didn’t like us?”

  “Of course she liked you,” John assured him. “And she’s going to fix up our house, so she’ll be around a lot.”

  “When will I see her again?”

  “She’s coming back in the morning to start working. In fact, she’s going to keep an eye on you guys until I get home at lunch.”

  A grin appeared, revealing small white teeth. “So she does like us.”

  “I guess so,” John said, his heart crashing at his son’s elation. He raised his index finger and wagged it with mock fierceness. “But no more quizzing her about being a mommy, okay?” He leaned forward and whispered, “We don’t want to scare her off!”

  Jamie giggled, and John kissed his forehead. “Now go to sleep so you’ll be wide-awake when she gets here.”

  In a rare moment of obedience, the little boy rolled over and squeezed his eyes shut. John patted him on the behind before he stood up. He switched on the Tinker Bell night-light, cast one more glance over his sleeping boys, then left the room with a hundred emotions, new and old, jabbing at him.

  Ten o’clock. Too early for bed, but he didn’t feel like opening his briefcase. John slipped off his dress clothes, tossed his rumpled shirt into a dry cleaner’s bag and rehung his suit. He turned his wallet over in his hands several times, then opened it, flipping past the credit cards until he came to Annie’s picture.

  Just a snapshot, the picture had been taken when she was pregnant with Jamie. Radiantly round, her pale blond hair was tossed over one shoulder, her hands resting proudly on her protruding tummy. John remembered the day, he’d insisted on taking the picture because she had never seemed more beautiful.

  Carefully, he removed the faded photograph, cropped to fit inside the plastic sleeve, and rubbed his finger over the image of her smiling face. Gone but not forgotten. In a split second of revelation, John suddenly realized he still compared every woman he met to Annie. But it wasn’t fair to the other women, it wasn’t fair to him and it wasn’t fair to his children.

  John slowly walked to his nightstand and slid open the drawer. Annie’s family Bible rested near the bottom, under paperbacks, magazines, old newspapers and other odds and ends. He opened the cover and placed her photo inside, on the page where her ancestors’ names were logged, where he’d penned her date of death the afternoon he’d returned from the funeral. “Goodbye, Annie,” he whispered as he closed the cover and replaced the volume.

  John dragged his hand over his face and exhaled noisily, then turned toward his cavernous bed. Alone again. He was beginning to loathe the smell of his own faded aftershave on the pillows, night after night. The scent of pears suddenly seemed especially appealing.

  He stretched out on top of the comforter and reached for the remote control, again experiencing the need for nicotine. John ground his teeth and wondered if Jo Montgomery had gone home to a vacant bed, and absurdly hoped so. She hadn’t been wearing a ring. Then he frowned at his wishful thinking. Fat chance. A beauty like her, married or not, undoubtedly had someone to keep her warm at night.

  JO REACHED OVER and ran her fingers across Victor’s furred chest, and smiled at his growl of contentment. Presenting his pink tongue to Jo with a gigantic yawn, he snuggled deeper into the covers.

  “I know,” Jo crooned sympathetically to her aged collie. “Twenty-three hours of sleep a day just isn’t enough, is it, boy?” Too late, he was already in dreamland. Which is where Jo had thought she would be by now. Especially after a day with the Sterling stampede. She sighed. Eleven-thirty, and sleep was nowhere in sight.

  Flat on her back, Jo blinked at the rotating ceiling fan. She had to concede it was John Sterling who had trampled her emotions more than his needy children. Why had he caught her by surprise?

  Because she associated fatherhood with thinning hair, a spare tire. The words virile and sexy shifted her parenthood paradigm. And John Sterling turned it upside down.

  As Jo’s lids became heavier, she brushed away the shiver of anticipation at seeing him again, and strained to remember the last time a man had shaken her to the core. Long ago, Alan had affected her that way…hadn’t he?

  THE NAGGING BUZZ of the alarm gave way to a nagging buzz at the base of her brain, some leftover negativity Jo couldn’t dredge up until she rolled over and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. Then she grimaced. The Pattersons. In four hours she was expected to show up with her three little darlings in tow and her best mothering face in place. Jo soothed her guilty feelings by reasoning she desperately needed the account, plus she didn’t plan to charge John for baby-sitting. They’d be even.

  As she made the bed, she mentally ticked off her morning route: drop by the office to open up and leave instructions with Hattie, on to John Sterling’s to begin her stint as interior designer/impromptu nanny, then over to the Pattersons for a combination idea-generating and schmoozing session.

  Stepping over the silky pile of ruined coatdress, Jo smiled wryly. If she’d learned anything yesterday, it was what she shouldn’t wear around children. She opened her closet door and flipped on the light. So the imminent question was, did she have anything hanging in her closet made of paper, plastic or metal?

  Settling on a washable dark gray knit ensemble, Jo slipped in and out of the shower in record time, finger-fluffing the damp layers of her hair. She quickly applied makeup, then stepped into one-inch heels to lend a dressier look to the leggings. She had one dangling silver earring on before she remembered Billy’s inquisitive hands and switched to posts. Then Jo shrugged into a stadium-length jacket, yanked
her shoulder bag from the bureau and trotted out the door of her duplex into the chilly winter air. The sun was already shining, though, so it looked as though another record warm day was on tap.

  As she backed out of her driveway, she glanced over at Hattie’s half of the house to see if her aunt was up and about. Jo wasn’t a bit surprised when Hattie emerged in a chic running suit, gloves and muffler, bouncing from foot to foot, warming up. Jo rolled down her window and yelled, “You’re up early!”

  “The early bird gets the can of worms!” Hattie shouted before waving and jogging off in the opposite direction. Shaking her head, Jo laughed out loud. Hattie was an original, and at the age of sixty-four, had more energy than most women half her age. Indeed, at thirty-one, Jo sometimes had a hard time keeping up with her.

  Always a bit outrageous, her widowed aunt seemed to grow a little more eccentric every year. Several months ago she’d confided to Jo she’d been having vivid dreams about her first love, a military man she’d fallen in love with during college, but had lost track of when he left to fight in the Korean Conflict, as Hattie called it. Eventually she’d met and married Uncle Francis, but he’d died suddenly several years ago.

  Jo was astounded to hear that Hattie intended to research the whereabouts of a man she hadn’t seen in more than forty years, especially since she’d thought her aunt and the older woman’s longtime friend, Herbert Mann, were a couple. Hattie insisted the recurring dreams meant her soldier was still alive, and wanted to reunite with her as much as she did. Jo worried what it might do to her aunt if she discovered he was married and unavailable, or perhaps had passed away. But Hattie was determined to find him.

  Shaking her head, Jo wished her mother was as adventurous as her spirited older sister. It seemed that Helen Montgomery’s sole purpose in life was to see her daughter properly engaged, then married.