Nanny and the Professor (10 page)

The hard thing was going to be controlling this fascination she had with him.

"There are a few things we need to discuss," he told her.

He motioned for her to sit, and then he lowered himself into his chair.

"It's not that I don't ever allow Andrew into the pool," he said. "It's just that I like to be present. I like to make sure he doesn't overexert himself."

"I told the boys they could only putter around in the water," Cassie assured him.

"But you should never have gone into the pool when you couldn't swim."

"Oh, but–"

"I don't mind the three of you using the pool," he stressed, cutting her off. "But I
must
insist that you let me teach you to swim first. We'll do it this evening."

"But I don't
need
–"

"I
insist
, Cassie. If you want this job you'll do this." The hard edge on his voice matched the hard gaze in his eyes.

Her mouth snapped shut. This was the employer talking, no,
ordering
the employee about what was expected.

Relax, she told herself. Don't let his demands bother you. But his tone alone fanned the embers of her ire and, try as she might, she couldn't stop her irritation from bursting into flame. In an effort to douse her temper, she laced her fingers in her lap and tightened her hold until her knuckles went white.

"We'll have a light supper," he instructed, his tone brooking no argument. "And then we'll settle the boys in front of the television. We'll cue up a nice, wholesome movie on the player, one that will keep them occupied for a while. We want the boys to view you as an authority figure, and if they see you in the position of student, it might undermine that goal. Besides, I wouldn't want you to be embarrassed if you didn't catch on right away."

Were she not totally ticked off by the way he was dictating, she might have found Joshua's effort to save her from humiliation almost charming. Fortunately, the thought was fleeting, chased off by her annoyance.

But she
could
swim. Like a damned dolphin. And now that she thought about it, the snappish manner in which he'd laid out plans for how and when he would give the idiot under his roof swimming lessons really rankled. She could feel her shoulders stiffening as her anger churned and bubbled and threatened to erupt.

Tell him!
The charged words echoed in her head. Tell him you can swim.

But at that moment a curious calm overtook her whole being. She wouldn't tell him. She'd
show
him. She'd march out to the pool after dinner, execute a perfect jackknife off the diving board and perform some of her best swim strokes for him. She fought the sly grin that teased her lips as she imagined his shocked expression.

"How does
seven o'clock
sound to you?" he asked, glancing at his wristwatch.

Although it seemed as if he was asking for her input on the time for their lesson, Cassie could tell by his firm, unwavering tone that a differing opinion wouldn't be considered even if she did have the gumption to voice one.

"Seven will be fine." The words were short, clipped to within an inch of their lives. The crafty smile pulled even harder at her mouth, but she won over it by nibbling on her bottom lip.

She stood. "If there's nothing else, I'll go upstairs and check on the boys, and then start dinner."

He simply nodded and she turned toward the doorway.

As she started up the steps, she realized she was exhausted. And it was no wonder, seeing as how there had been so many dramatic twists and turns to her conversation with the professor– with
Joshua
, she amended. She'd felt everything from trepidation and anxiety, hope and relief, annoyance and irritation, up to and including an astonishing temptation and attraction.

At the top of the stairway she paused and looked back toward the library, wondering how one man could make her jump through so many emotional hoops in one meeting.

~
 
~
 
~

Five full minutes before the allotted swim lesson, Cassie walked across the grass toward the pool. She tugged on the belt of her terry robe and fought the wariness that had grown like a tenacious wild weed in the pit of her stomach. As much as she hacked at it, it refused to die.

She knew she should be feeling very happy about having kept her job. She should be feeling relieved that she and Eric had enjoyed a hot meal with Andy and Joshua, that she and her brother had beds to sleep in tonight. But those feelings simply were nowhere to be found at the moment. She'd even lost the smugness she'd enjoyed about her plans of showing off her swimming ability to Joshua.

A cautious apprehension had crept up on her. The feeling had slowly formed all the while she had prepared dinner, and it had solidified and hardened as the four of them had sat around the dining room table eating.

She knew very well the source of this formidable feeling: her attraction to Joshua. She'd come to the conclusion that she must control herself. But all through dinner she kept thinking that he was so damned handsome, and how his smile made her lose her train of thought, and how that certain tone of his voice caused her to go all warm and tingly inside. These things frightened her. What if her feelings were not as manageable as she'd thought?

During dinner she'd felt his dark, contemplative gaze on her. It was too bad she couldn't read his thoughts. She began to imagine how easily those intense eyes of his could make her stomach turn to jittery butterflies, how those fingers that grasped the crystal glass so gingerly might caress the skin of her hand... or shoulder... or thigh. These ideas had been crazy, she knew, but she couldn't stop them from bombarding her brain as she tried to focus on the food or the boys' conversation or the salt and pepper shakers or
anything
besides Joshua. But it had been a lost cause.

As all four of them worked to clean up the mess, she found herself doing a sort of dance with him, sidling by to set the glasses on the counter, nearly brushing shoulders with him as they loaded the dishwasher. This game could very well lose her this job.

Untying the belt of her robe, she let it slip down her arms,
then
tossed it on the nearest patio chair. She was wearing the same bathing suit she'd worn earlier this afternoon. She hoped Joshua didn't comment about it; this suit was the only one she owned. Making ends meet had been quite difficult on her previous salary. Extravagances such as an extra bathing suit were all but unheard of.

She slid her fingers across her rib cage in an effort to ease the disquiet thudding there. It didn't matter what his reaction was to her swimming attire, or to her, for that matter. She had to be vigilant over her own reaction to him. Any interest in him that reared its unruly head must be walloped at the very start. Any nuance of attraction must be squashed dead.

For one thing, Joshua was her employer. She couldn't jeopardize this job because of some silly allure she felt for him. For another, she didn't want to be hurt.

Joshua was a cultured and learned man. He'd never find a bit of enticement in the likes of her– a high school dropout. A man like him would find the very idea of her uneducated state contemptible.

Her head dipped in habitual self-recrimination and she swallowed nervously. She never wanted Professor Joshua Kingston to know the truth.
Never.

"So, are you ready?"

Cassie inadvertently jumped at the sound of Joshua's voice. She hadn't heard him come outside.

"I didn't mean to startle you," he said. "You must have been in deep thought."

"You could say that." She gave a slight shrug, hoping he wouldn't guess that she'd been thinking about him.

There was a moment of tense, staring silence. Then he dropped his towel across the foot of the white chaise lounge.

"Are the boys all set?" he asked.

She was relieved when he didn't press her to elaborate on the subject of her thoughts.

"Yes," she told him. "They're watching The Adventures of Robin Hood. Eric's pretty excited. He's never seen it."

"Eric's never seen Robin Hood?" His eyebrows inched high.

Cassie stood utterly still as she searched his face. Had there been an inflection of critical recrimination in his question? Did he think her a horrible person because her brother hadn't been exposed to the classic movie?

Drawing herself straight and tipping up her chin, she informed him, "I borrowed the book from the library and we read it together."

There was a clear defensiveness in her tone, but she thought it rude of him to criticize how she chose to raise her brother, and she wanted him to know it.

"I wasn't finding fault." He stepped closer. "I think it's great that you monitor Eric's television time."

Looking into his apologetic gaze, Cassie felt a deep sense of regret wash over her.

"It's not that I monitor what Eric watches on TV," she said. "You see, my mother had no life insurance. When she died, I had just started a new job and wasn't making enough in salary to bury her decently. So I did the only thing left to me– I sold off some household items."

She glanced off toward the horizon, embarrassed by what she was revealing about herself, about her and Eric's past.

"My mother inherited some nice silver serving pieces, some china and a beautiful antique cherry writing desk. But I still needed more money." She gave a self-conscious chuckle. "It came down to selling the television or the washing machine." His dark, unblinking eyes drew her gaze as she finished her simple matter-of-fact rationalization with a shrug and, "I needed the washing machine."

Long, awkward seconds ticked by– seconds during which Cassie had to fight the urge to squirm. She hated the thought of his knowing just how poor she'd been. And he evidently noticed her discomfort because he took another step closer and reached out to touch her shoulder.

"Cassie," he
said,
his voice low and murmurous. "It sounds as though you tried to do the right thing– for your mother and your brother. You have no reason to give an explanation, or an apology. I wasn't asking for either."

His outstretched fingers exerted a gentle pressure on her shoulder that she was certain was meant to reassure. But his skin was silky against hers, and his touch brought back vivid images of her nearly naughty thoughts at the dinner table– thoughts that were once again coming back to haunt her. She concentrated hard on pushing them from her mind.

"I know you weren't," she said. "It's just that I snapped at you and I thought you deserved to know why." She felt her face color and she shrugged to try to cover it. "I guess I'm a little thin-skinned concerning my responsibility to Eric. I was really young when I became his guardian. Several social workers tried to fight my petition, thinking I couldn't take care of my brother. I had a hard time proving myself to a system that seemed bent on tearing me and Eric apart. And I thought it was supposed to do all it could to keep families together."

His hand slid down her arm until he was cradling her elbow in his palm. Her heart thumped against her chest so hard she was afraid he would actually see it. She was jolted when her body physically reacted to his touch, and tingling sparkles or prickly stars or something equally magical ricocheted through her at lightning speed. Although she refused to allow herself to look down, she knew her breasts pressed distinctly and conspicuously against the thin fabric of her murrey-colored tank suit. But, thank heaven, he chose that moment to let his hand drop to his side and he turned toward the pool.

"Well, I realize I haven't spent much time with Eric," Joshua said over his shoulder. "But he acted the young gentleman at dinner. He chewed with his mouth closed. He held up his end of polite conversation. He even laughed at my lame joke. He has very good manners. You've done a good job, Cassie."