Marrying the Northbridge Nanny Read online

  Meg looked at Hadley again, the other woman shrugged as if she didn’t know what to do, but neither of them said anything to Logan.

  Then he let out another sigh and finally came around to where Meg could see him again.

  “I don’t know what goes through that woman’s head—” he began.

  But this time it was his daughter who didn’t let him finish because just then Tia bounded back into the kitchen wearing brown furry gloves that had been the bear claw portion of a costume. “I can open the pickers wis my bear hands!” she proclaimed.

  “Oh, bear hands, not bare hands,” Hadley said as what the little girl meant sank in.

  When it did, even Logan laughed at the three-year-old who was holding her bear-claw-encased hands in the air so that the two puppies who followed her around couldn’t reach them.

  “Too late, Bear Hands, the pickers jar is already open,” Logan told his daughter, who seemed oblivious to the tension that had erupted while she’d been gone. “But you know what we forgot? The sunblock. How about if you run back upstairs and get that for us?”

  “Can I puts sunblock on Max and Harry?” Tia asked.

  “No, no sunblock on the puppies. Just go get it and bring it to me,” Logan instructed patiently.

  “Okaaay,” the three-year-old conceded reluctantly, charging out of the kitchen with the dogs fast on her heels again.

  Once Tia was no longer within earshot it was Hadley who ventured back to the subject of the phone call and what Logan had started to say. “Helene?”

  “Apparently we’re being graced with her presence this afternoon,” Logan said. “She’s engaged and on her way to meet her future in-laws in Seattle. She thought it would be nice to drive through Northbridge so the new man in her life can meet Tia. And could I please keep Tia from carousing with other children when Helene and The Future Mr. Helene make their appearance because Helene wants Tia to make a good impression on The Future Mr. Helene.”

  There was enough of an edge to Logan’s voice to let Meg know that the phone call had opened a bit of a Pandora’s box in him after all.

  “Helene didn’t want to stay over or take Tia for the night or plan a visit with her on the way back from Seattle?” Hadley asked.

  “She doesn’t have any of that in the schedule. They’re only able to stop in Northbridge because they’ve made better time than they expected to—she hadn’t planned to do it, that’s why she didn’t call before. But about half an hour is all they can spare once they get here.”

  “She didn’t even bother to say goodbye to Tia before you guys left Connecticut, and now all she can spare is half an hour?” Hadley asked.

  Logan shrugged. “That’s Helene. She never fails to amaze when it comes to Tia.”

  “And not in a good way,” Hadley agreed. All the while Meg stayed out of it, knowing it wasn’t her place to make any comment.

  Logan seemed to be accepting the situation whether he liked it or not, however, because he said, “It doesn’t matter. We won’t let this ruin our day. Helene and Mr. Helene will be in and out—if they actually show up. We’ll just do what we planned to do before and after, and whatever Tia does if and when they meet us, Tia does. The one thing we aren’t going to do is change anything because of this.”

  “That seems fair since Helene won’t change anything for anyone else,” Hadley muttered under her breath just before Tia hollered from the living room.

  “Max gots my bear hand and he won’t give it to me!”

  “I’ll go,” Hadley offered, leaving Meg and Logan alone suddenly.

  When that happened Meg felt the need to say something.

  “Are you okay?” Meg asked him.

  “Sure,” he answered as if he genuinely was. “Helene is just Helene—believe me, I’m used to dealing with her. She took me by surprise, but it’s no big deal.”

  “Is there a formal visitation order between the two of you?”

  “I have custody of Tia, Helene has open visitation that she rarely uses. So she thinks that on those rare occasions everything should be adjusted to oblige her. Under other circumstances it wouldn’t have been worth fighting. But we have plans and when that’s the case, plans win out over unplanned visits, as far as I’m concerned. Even if Helene doesn’t like it.”

  He said that matter-of-factly, without any hostility or any indication that he felt as if he’d won one over his ex—things that might have led Meg to think he still had an emotional attachment to her. As it was, she didn’t think he did and when he went on it was in the same vein.

  “So if she doesn’t change her mind,” he concluded, “she’ll find us at the picnic.”

  Logan’s tone seemed to relay the message that he didn’t want to talk any more about it. And since he also changed the subject to what other things they would need for the day at the park, Meg let it drop.

  But as Logan packed the picnic basket and Meg put the finishing touches on the potato salad, his ex-wife was definitely still on her mind.

  There were just so many things that she was curious about—Logan’s relationship with his ex-wife, what had ended their marriage, his feelings for her, his ex-wife’s relationship with Tia, and, certainly not least of all, Meg was curious about his ex-wife herself.

  And now she was going to meet her.

  The woman Logan had been in love with once upon a time.

  The woman he’d shared a bed with. Had a child with.

  This should be interesting…

  But while the psychologist in her might be intrigued, the woman in Meg felt a little on edge at the prospect of coming face to face with the former Mrs. Logan McKendrick…

  The grand opening of the renovated bridge and its surrounding park was like most of Northbridge’s events—festive, cheery and well attended.

  Booths offering homemade food and goods for sale had been set up inside the bridge itself. There were events and games for children only and for the children to do with the adults. There was a magician performing on the platform that had been the dance floor the previous evening, there were pony rides, and there was a teenage boy making balloon animals and hats for anyone who wanted one.

  Tia wanted both and so had a pink balloon giraffe and a matching pink balloon hat that she managed to keep on her head even as she ran to find her friends Bethany and Howie from the Town Square playday to play with.

  The picnic, encountering more people from their school days, visiting the booths, and watching Tia kept Meg, Logan and Hadley busy from the moment they got there. And yet Logan’s ex-wife’s impending arrival was never far from Meg’s mind.

  But just when she’d begun to wonder if the other woman was going to make an appearance after all, Meg spotted her.

  Logan’s former wife looked much the same as she had in Tia’s photograph. She was tall and thin, her hair was swept into a French twist, and she was impeccably dressed in white pants and a white sweater set with a blue fleck pattern in it that made Meg and everyone else at the picnic seem dowdy in the jeans, shorts, shirts and T-shirts that predominated.

  She was also very straight-backed and Meg’s first thought when she saw her was that she looked austere and unapproachable. Even as she spotted Logan and approached the picnic table where Meg, Logan and Hadley were sitting.

  “You made it,” was Logan’s greeting as the lady in white led a man dressed in slacks and a sport shirt to them. And by the looks of the man’s salt-and-pepper gray hair, he was at least fifteen years older than Logan’s ex-wife.

  “Logan. Hadley,” was the woman’s response, ignoring Logan’s comment. “I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Dietrich Wietzel. Dietrich, this is Logan McKendrick and his sister, Hadley.”

  Logan stood and shook the other man’s hand and if there was any resentment, Meg didn’t see it. Logan seemed merely congenial.

  Then he introduced Meg, saying nothing about her being the nanny. Which Meg appreciated—not because she was in any way embarrassed or ashamed of that position, but because she di
dn’t feel as if she was only that.

  Helene barely allowed her a nod, as if Meg wasn’t important enough for more, and then looked back at Logan and said, “Where is Tia?”

  “Pink balloon hat,” Logan said with a nod of his own in the direction of where the three-year-old was digging in the sandbox of the nearby play area with her friends.

  Then he called Tia to join them.

  “I dow’ wannoo,” Tia called back, not so much as glancing up from her digging.

  “Come on, you have company,” Logan said.

  With that, Tia raised round eyes to their general area. But it didn’t seem to instantly register who her company was.

  “Come on,” Logan repeated, “your mom’s here.”

  Meg thought he must have realized that the three-year-old—who was in a sea of strangers she wasn’t paying any attention to—must not have looked closely enough to know that her mother wasn’t merely another one of them.

  That was apparently the case because when he said that Tia took a more concentrated look, dropped her shovel and finally came to the table. But not in any hurry and not with any kind of enthusiasm or excitement.

  “Hello, Tia,” Helene said when Tia joined them. There was more warmth in the woman’s tone than had been in anything else she’d said, but not much. And there was no attempt to make any kind of physical contact.

  “Hi,” Tia answered with disinterest.

  “What have I told you about things like that?” Helene tutored, kindly enough but still, Meg thought this was not the best time to reprimand the little girl.

  “Say things properly—say hello,” Tia’s mother instructed.

  “Hullo,” Tia said as if she were accustomed to this sort of exchange with her mother.

  “Tia, I want you to meet someone who is very important to me—this is Dietrich Wietzel. Dietrich, this is my daughter, Tia.”

  “Hello, Tia,” the fiancé said pleasantly but in no way that would engage a three-year-old.

  “Hullo,” Tia repeated robotically.

  “Dietrich and I are going to be married soon. He’ll be your stepfather.”

  Tia raised an index finger to point at Logan. “Hims my fathuh.”

  Helene flinched at that but didn’t correct Tia. Instead she said, “Dietrich will be your stepfather. That’s like a second father.”

  Tia just stared blankly at the couple, clearly unsure how she was supposed to react to that and so reluctant to react at all.

  Then, as if she knew she should say something, she said, “I gots Max and Harry. See ’em? They’re layin’ in the shade.”

  The puppies were napping at the base of an elm tree that also shaded their picnic table.

  “I’m allergic to dogs,” Helene answered.

  To his credit, Dietrich made the effort Helene hadn’t and at least glanced at the puppies, even though he didn’t make any move to pet them. But he did say, “They look like good dogs.”

  “They eats shoes and dirt.”

  There was a knot in Meg’s stomach as she waited for Helene to once again correct Tia, willing her not to. Not to make this awful, stiff and awkward reunion any worse.

  Laugh, hug her, do something—anything—nice, Meg thought as if she could telepathically force some warmth into this woman.

  But it didn’t work. Tia’s mother continued to stand there like a statue, as if she expected Tia to take things from there.

  It reminded Meg of her grandfather—the Reverend would have done the same thing, waiting for someone else to make the effort to keep conversation going, offering nothing, passing silent judgment.

  But Tia was a very small child. She certainly didn’t pick up on the fact that her mother wanted something more of her, and after fidgeting for a few minutes, she said, “Can I go back and play?”

  Helene’s sigh at that was audible. “I suppose. What do we say to someone we’ve just met?”

  Tia looked confused.

  Logan rescued her. “Say, ‘I’m happy to meet you, Dietrich.’”

  Tia did, reciting the words without any feeling, without any real understanding of what she was saying or why she needed to.

  “Now maybe you could introduce Dietrich and me to your friends,” Helene suggested.

  Tia clearly didn’t understand what was being asked of her and again Logan stepped in.

  “Or why don’t the three of you have ice cream? There’s a booth over there hand-churning it and I told Tia she could have a dish.”

  “All right then,” Helene agreed.

  Neither Logan, Meg nor Hadley said anything about the situation while Helene and her fiancé were with Tia at the ice-cream stand and within little more than half an hour they returned Tia.

  “I’m afraid she’s dribbled on her shirt but we need to be on our way so I’ll have to leave that to you,” Helene announced. Then she bent over, craned her head forward to offer a cheek and said, “Give Mother a kiss and say goodbye.”

  That part Tia was obviously familiar with because she did as she’d been instructed, and then took off like a shot to return to the sandbox, her pink balloon hat bobbing along the way.

  “She’s only three,” Logan reminded his ex-wife then.

  “It’s never too early to teach courtesy and social graces,” Helene countered critically, casting a wilting look at him.

  “Yeah, now that we’ve conquered potty training, social graces are next on the list.”

  “You might work on saying yes instead of yeah yourself, to begin with,” Helene sniped. “You’re her example, you know.”

  Unperturbed, Logan merely smiled a wry smile and shook his head.

  Then, rather than inviting Helene and her fiancé to stay any longer, he said, “How about a soda for the road?”

  “No, thank you,” his former wife said very formally. “But if you come to our car, I have something for you—we just came across that bottle of wine your client gave you a few years ago. I thought you might want it but I didn’t know if this venue would allow liquor.”

  “Okay, I’ll walk over with you,” Logan said as he stood.

  His former wife said a clipped goodbye to Hadley and a perfunctory, “Nice to meet you,” to Meg and headed for the parking area with a silent fiancé and Logan bringing up the rear.

  Not until they were out of earshot did Hadley mutter after them, “Good riddance.”

  Meg agreed with the sentiment but she didn’t say it. She just got up and went to the sandbox to be with Tia.

  “I’m makin’ a moun’ain,” the little girl announced when Meg sat beside her.

  “It’s a big one, too,” Meg said enthusiastically, looking for any indication that the three-year-old was upset by her mother’s brief visit or departure.

  None of it seemed to have had an effect—Tia was merely going about her business as if nothing at all had happened.

  But the encounter had left Meg wanting to wrap her arms around the child and give her the hug her mother hadn’t.

  She didn’t, because she didn’t want to make a big deal of things that Tia was oblivious to.

  But she did show Tia, Howie and Bethany how to mold sand into shapes using cups and bowls, which delighted them all.

  And while to Meg it didn’t make up for the poor parenting she’d just witnessed, it helped her to see that Tia was still enjoying herself.

  In spite of her mother.

  Chapter Ten

  After Logan’s ex-wife and her fiancé left the picnic, the remainder of the day and early evening went on as planned. Neither Meg, Hadley or Logan made mention of the woman or her brief, unpleasant visit, and certainly Tia didn’t.

  By eight o’clock all the entertainments for the kids had ended. The Battle Of The Bands competition that started then was of no interest to Tia. Plus she’d missed her nap and was getting cranky. Since everyone else was worn out, too, they put the bridge’s grand opening behind them and went home.

  Once they were there Tia demanded a glass of milk before her bath and prompt
ly spilled it with a great splash all over Meg. Since the stuff was even dripping from the tip of her nose, Logan suggested that they forego doing Tia’s bath and bedtime together—the way they usually did—so Meg could go to her place and shower.

  She’d finished that, put on a loose-fitting pair of navy blue pajama pants with a tight white tank top, and dried and brushed her just-washed hair when there was a knock on the apartment door.

  Meg had been telling herself that, after what had almost happened on the riverside bench last night, it was probably better if she and Logan didn’t end today alone. And yet the thought that it could be Logan outside on the landing, that the day and evening that had been spent with so many other people might still be able to end with some alone time with him, made her rush to the door.

  And sure enough, when she opened it, there he was, standing in front of a backdrop of thunder and lightning from a threatening storm, holding up a bottle of wine.

  “I think I owe you an apology,” he said without saying hello. “How about I say it with this?”

  “I don’t know what you owe me an apology for but a glass of wine sounds great,” she said because it was true. Not as true as the fact that being with him—with or without wine—was really what appealed to her, but she thought she’d keep that to herself.

  She stepped out of the doorway to let him in, closing the door behind him just as the first few drops of rain fell.

  “Looks like the Battle Of The Bands is going to get rained on,” she observed, turning to find that Logan had gone to the kitchen to open the wine with the corkscrew he’d also brought with him.

  “They’ll probably move it inside the bridge,” Logan said as she joined him. “Were you considering going back?”

  “No, I’m happy to be in for the night.” Especially now that he was there.

  Logan had showered, too. And shaved. She could tell because his hair was still the slightest bit damp, his face had lost the shadow of beard he’d come home with, and he smelled of that ocean-air cologne he used. He’d also changed into a pair of jeans that were more faded than what he’d had on earlier and a plain white crewneck T-shirt instead of the polo shirt he’d worn to the picnic. A T-shirt that fitted him every bit as tightly as the one she had on, showing off such impressive pectorals, abs and biceps that it almost made Meg’s mouth water.