style="font-size:15px;"> What he hadn’t liked was the weariness he saw in her. A sorrow that touched her golden eyes and full lips. The way her smile and her laughter didn’t come easily. Seemed as if they both needed some time to cure themselves.
He was curious about her, but stepped down on it. He hadn’t come out here to make new friends or get tangled up in anything. No, he’d come to find his own footing and get his own head and heart sorted out.
Sometimes he felt as if he was dancing all the time to some insane piper. He needed a breather, some downtime, an escape from a pace that never really flagged. Oh, he could get some time by himself, but never enough of it. There was always something he needed to do, friends who wanted to get together...in short a full life. Too full. With one great big gaping hole in it, dug by his ex-wife Stella and her winning custody of their daughter, Regina.
He guessed he had some holes to patch, too. Being shed of Stella was a relief. He just wished the courts hadn’t sided with her when she insisted a young girl needed her mother, not her father. He hadn’t expected that, and regret still dogged him. That was killing him.
So maybe Brian, his manager, was right when he said Rory was running away. But running away had served him once before, and it might again. If it didn’t, he could head back to Nashville in a few months and pick up the rat race again.
But the hollowness had been filling him for a while, and going through the motions wasn’t the kind of life he wanted. He needed to find his music again, the music that had given him meaning and purpose. If he didn’t, then he was nothing but a sham any longer.
He paused, listening to the wind. It had a music of its own, and once it had filled him with creative impulses. But after a few minutes, he gave up. He heard nothing in its sigh, not yet. Maybe he’d lost the ears to hear.
* * *
Abby watched his return, and wondered what to do. She’d made a lasagna that morning, figuring she could heat it whenever he was ready to eat, but Rory McLane had told her he’d eat whenever he felt like it. So what was she supposed to do?
He’d basically left her free to do as she liked, but maybe he didn’t realize how difficult that might be for her. She was acutely aware that she was being paid generously, and felt as if she ought to be earning that check. Part of her job was feeding the man. A man who apparently didn’t want to be fed, at least not on any kind of routine.
Awkward, that’s what it was. Finally, deciding that she needed her supper even if he didn’t, she popped the lasagna in the oven. She was going to take a small portion for herself, then section it up into individual servings either one of them could heat easily. It was the only way she could think to handle it.
She knew she had to try this his way, but she wondered if sooner or later they were going to need to have a more detailed talk about her role. Winging it might work for him, but already she had a million questions about how to best handle things for him.
She heard him come through the front door, and managed to put a note of cheer in her voice. “I just put a lasagna in the oven. Ready in about an hour if you decide you want to eat.”
She heard his steps stop in the hallway and tensed, wondering if he’d remind her yet again that he didn’t want to be bothered with anything.
Then she heard his approach. He stopped in the kitchen doorway. Easy to see how this man had become a heartthrob for millions. Her heart accelerated of its own accord, and she felt the first stirring of long-absent desire. Not good.
“Lasagna?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Sounds good. I may...”
She heard a phone beep and he fell silent as he pulled a cell from his pocket. “Stella,” he said with distaste. “Sorry. Give me a minute.”
He walked out, leaving her alone in the kitchen again. For a guy who didn’t want to be bothered, he was being bothered rather soon. She seemed to recall from her brief research on him that Stella was his ex. She still called him? Her own ex, Porter, hadn’t spared a word for her since the divorce.
Fifteen minutes passed. She considered bringing out the salad she had prepared earlier, then decided it was too soon. Should she set places for both of them in here? Or maybe he’d want to eat alone in his fancy dining room.
Dang, there seemed to be more questions than answers with this job. He made it sound so easy, but as she was rapidly discovering a lack of guidance was anything but easy.
At long last she heard the unmistakable steps of his boots.
“Well,” he said, “your job just got more complicated.”
She whirled to look at him. “Yes?”
“That was my ex. I’ll be leaving tomorrow to go pick up my daughter. It seems she’s too much for Stella.”
Abby could barely keep herself from gaping. “Too much?”
“Running off nannies constantly. Stella’s too busy to deal with it.” Rory astonished her with a big smile. “Hot damn,” he said. “I’m getting my daughter! And not just for Christmas.”
Abby felt her heart sink and the early stirrings of panic even as she appreciated the joy reflected in his smile. And what a smile it was, nearly depriving her of breath. The guy was clearly thrilled about seeing his daughter. That should have touched her.
Instead, the gnawing worry about how to handle this inchoate job burst out of her before she knew the words were coming. “I wasn’t hired to be a babysitter.”
His smile faded a bit. “I’m not asking you to. Regina’s ten. I’m her father. Let me do my job and you do yours.” Then he turned and left. Moments later she heard him head out the back door.
She hurried back to her suite and saw him walking toward the barn.
“Idiot,” she said aloud to herself. What had possessed her to say that when the man was so clearly thrilled? What kind of selfish shrew was she becoming?
But a girl who was driving away her nannies?
All of a sudden this job seemed more complicated that she could have begun to imagine.
Abby didn’t see Rory again before he left the following morning. She tried to tell herself he was just being the hermit he had warned her he was going to be, but guilt rode her hard anyway. This was his house, and she’d had the nerve to let him know that she wasn’t thrilled about the arrival of his daughter.
She’d be lucky if he didn’t fire her when he got back. But the truth was, she hadn’t been hired to be a babysitter, she knew next to nothing about kids and a troubled one would be more than she could adequately handle. Maybe she should have waited to bring it up, but concern had pushed the words out of her mouth at the worst possible time.
She wanted to bang her head on something. Porter’s cheating and desertion weren’t that far in the past, and she often felt she was turning into a person she didn’t know and one she didn’t especially like. Bitterness rose
