reached for the back door of the SUV just as a tall redhead walked out of the mansion. He would have been lying if he said he didn’t notice her face was pretty. Big brown eyes, a pert nose and full, lush lips always added up to pretty. But she wore a plain white blouse, gray pants and ugly—truly ugly—black shoes.
His mother said, “By the way, this is Victoria Bingham. She likes to be called Tory. I hired her to be your nanny.”
Normally, he would have reached over and taken the hand she extended to shake his. Instead, he turned to his mom. “I told you, Mom, I want to raise the kids myself. I came here for help from you, not an outsider.”
Gwen straightened as if he’d mortally wounded her. “Well, of course, I’ll help you. But you also need a nanny for things like diapers—”
“I can change diapers. I’ve changed thirty thousand in the past two weeks. These kids were abandoned by their mom. They’re not going to lose their daddy too.”
She laid her hand on his cheek. “Oh, darling. We are not going to let these kids go without love. You had a nanny until you were four. And you don’t think I love you any less than a baby raised without a nanny, do you?”
He shook his head. Gwen’s love had been proven a million times over when she accepted her husband’s infidelity a lot better than Chance had.
“So, you see? Nannies are perfectly suitable help.”
He mumbled, “I suppose,” turned to the SUV door, opened it and revealed his two true pride and joys. Little bruiser Sam yelped indignantly as if he resented being stuck in his car seat while everybody else talked. Cindy gurgled happily.
“Oh, darling! They’re gorgeous!”
They were gorgeous.
Standing off to the side, Tory Bingham stared at the two blond-haired, blue-eyed babies. She hadn’t wanted this job. After years of surgeries and the resultant therapies to repair her left leg, which had been shattered in a motorcycle accident, she could finally walk with the support of orthopedic shoes. She could also drive. Her plan had been to spend her days with her fiancé, who hadn’t fared as well as she had after their accident. But her parents had other ideas.
They wanted her to get a job. Worse, they wanted her to get on with her life. While her fiancé lay in a personal care facility struggling, they wanted her to move on. It wasn’t just ridiculous; it was horrific.
But she was twenty-five years old. She didn’t have any money. She didn’t have health insurance. All of her medical expenses had been picked up by Jason’s motorcycle insurance, but she was reaching even those limits. Her parents might be friends of the Montgomerys but they didn’t have the money the Montgomery family had. She had no choice but to take the job Gwen had offered.
And now the prodigal son didn’t want her.
Fine with her. She would find work somewhere else. Except …
Well, his babies were adorable. The two sweet angels sitting in bear-print car seats caused an unexpected tumble of her heart, and she couldn’t stop staring at them.
Chance ducked into the SUV. “Here, I’ll get them out.”
“That’s okay.” Gwen scurried around the trailer hitched to the back of the SUV—the trailer hauling a big black motorcycle. “You get Sam. I’ll get Cindy.”
She opened the door and leaned in to get the little girl, but within a few seconds, she pulled out again. “Tory, can you help me with these strap things? I can’t seem to get them unbuckled.”
Tory said, “Yes, ma’am,” and hurried around the trailer. Apparently she wasn’t being fired after all.
But even staying as far away as she could from the black beast on the trailer, her chest tightened with terror as she maneuvered around it. She remembered her motorcycle accident as something like a soundless blur that flashed into her brain at the oddest times of the day and night. A blur that had all but destroyed her leg and nearly taken the man she loved.
“Hurry, Tory!”
Tory scooted to the SUV door, dipped in to undo the buckle and found herself six inches away from the most adorable face in the universe. Big blue eyes blinked at her. Cherubic lips blew spit bubbles. “Well, hello, there.”
The baby gurgled with happiness.
“Aren’t you just the sweetest little thing?” She undid the last buckle and lifted the baby out of her seat.
For the first time since the accident, Tory’s chest expanded with delight. The baby patted her face and she laughed. But Gwen eagerly waited to hold the little girl and Tory handed her over.
“Well, my goodness,” Gwen said. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Cindy. I’m your grandmother.”
Tory’s eyebrows rose. Gwen had never met her own grandchildren? She knew Chance had been away for a while, but she’d thought they’d reconciled.
Gwen walked around the trailer again. “Come on. Let’s get them into the house.”
“Actually, Mom—” Chance winced. “One whiff of Sam and I can tell he needs to be changed. Maybe we should just take them directly to the cottage?”
His mom’s face fell. “Oh.”
“It’s been a long drive and once I change them I should feed them.”
Gwen smiled as if she was so happy to have her son home she would agree to anything. “Okay. Tory and I will come with you.”
He glanced over at Tory and she looked back at him. She’d already noticed he was tall and lean. That his hair was black and his eyes were blue. That a red flannel shirt suited him and so did butt-molding jeans. But holding the gaze of his blue eyes, she saw other things. Subtleties. Those pretty sapphire eyes had the wariness of a man who didn’t trust.
Which was just perfect. She hadn’t ever worked fulltime beyond the job of watching kids for three summers when she was in high school, and now her first real nanny job came with a distrustful father.
Well, she wasn’t going to beg him to keep her or even defend herself. She didn’t really want to work for a grouch. Especially not a grouch she didn’t know. Nannies lived with the family who employed them. If he kept her, she’d be spending twenty-four hours a day with him.
“Just think, Chance,” Gwen said teasingly. “If you have a nanny, you don’t have to get up with the twins in the middle of the night—and, even if you do, you only have to change and feed one baby.”
He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck, as if bone tired and finding it hard to refute that argument. “All right. You both can come.”
After they strapped the kids into their seats, Tory sat between the twins so Gwen could ride in the front with her son.
As they made their way down the slim brown brick lane that wound through the forest behind Gwen’s mansion, Tory began to see just how private their living arrangements would be. The trees were thick enough that it was nearly dark. Only occasionally did light pierce the red, yellow and orange
