While Tia napped on Sunday afternoon, Hadley stayed to listen for her as Lucas put the finishing touches on the apartment he had promised Meghan.
It was in the upper level of the triple car garage close behind- but not attached to- his house. He'd hired out the plumbing, electrical and drywalling work which he wasn't qualified to do, but he'd done the rest of the construction himself.
The studio apartment wasn't as spacious as the loft that he and his partner were putting into the upper level of the barn. That would be Chase's place over the workroom,the office and the showroom that were on the ground floor of the larger structure. But even so,the nanny's apartment was open and airy and not at all cramped.
There was a small kitchen with a built-in table that Lucas had designed, complete with a semi-ornate, hand carved edge. The living room was comprised of a sofa and two matching easy chairs that had come from a collection he and Chase had done a few years ago that were a combination or Oak and Leather that made them comfortable and sophisticated at once. There was a beautiful double sized sleigh bed that Lucas had also designed and made himself, set on a platform area that rise two steps above the rest of the space to give some sense of separation. And there was also a large bathroom and walk-in closet that provided the only closed in sections of the place.
Curtain had bern hung, the hardwood floor was finished, and there was even a small fireplace with a mantel he had crafted himself.
And as he stood surveying his handiwork to make sure the apartment was ready for occupancy, he was satisfied with the way it had come out. He was also a little turned on by the image of Meghan living there, using the table, sitting on the sofa and the easy chairs, sleeping in the bed.
And he had no idea why....
But then, he wasn't quite sure of what to make of Meghan all the way around. Or of his own reaction to her and the fact that he had been thinking about her incessantly since she'd left yesterday.
Meghan's sister, Kate- who lived in Northbridge - had seen an ad they had placed in the local newspaper and passed it along to Meghan. She looked good on the surface,- she had a PhD in Child psychology,for crying out loud, and Hadley had told him that she'd learned through their interview that Meghan had gone from babysitting as a teenager to working her way through college doing day care, to counseling and treating kids at Children's Hospital in Denver. Her background was full of her work with children, so, who better to be Tia's nanny?
That had been Hadley's argument in favour of Meghan since Hadley had handled the whole thing while he was juggling keeping up with business, the move, and getting the apartment finished. So, even though he had been concerned that Meghan was tremendously overqualified and wondered why she was willing to spend her summer as a Nanny - something he still didn't have an answer to- Hadley had talked him into it.
His first impression of Meg hadn't been bad, but that had been surface too. Initially, when he had seen her standing at the other end of the hallway, he has registered incredible,thick, wavy hair the colour of cherry wood, beautiful emerald green eyes and a warm smile.
By the time he has joined her and Hadley in the entryway, he had realized that those weren't her only noteworthy physical attributes - she also had flawless alabaster skin; a perfect, straight, thin nose, high cheekbones any model would have envied, and lips that he couldn't help thinking of as anything but luscious - although that didn't seem like a good way to think about his daughter's nanny.
She also had a great, compact, curvy little body.
But it hadn't only been her looks that had counter in her favour during that first impression. He had also liked that she hadn't gone overboard trying to sweet talk Tia the way he had seen babysitters and other caregivers do in an attempt to prove how good they were with kids. As a rule, once his back was turned, those were the people who ended up being the worst with her.
Meghan had been more on the conservative side than the effusive one and he knew from experience that Tia responded better to being left alone to her own timetable when it came to letting new people in. That they were all better off with someone calm, soft spoken, even keeled.
Those were all the things that see Ed to describe Meghan.
She had also seemed slightly self constrained and maybe a little tense about coming into a new situation, but the warmth in her smile had led him to believe that there was a sifter side to her that they'd probably see more later on.
Then, she's trotted out that stuff about age appropriate expectations, social skills, and exploring the environment, and that made him think twice about her.
Tia was three years old, for crying out loud - he was lucky that she was out of diapers and eating the same foods he did. He needed someone to watch her, play with her, feed her and keep her out of harm's way. He didn't need a bunch of textbook terms thrown at him. Besides, people who were convinced they knew so much more than anyone else that they had to educate "lesser mortals" struck a particularly raw nerve in him.
At that point, he had thought that maybe he shouldn't hire her.
On the other hand, he has also known that Hadley was all for Meghan. And he had gotten kind of a kick giving her a hard time for that communal living panic she'd shown- kind of a kick that he hadn't felt in a long while. Plus he had liked that hunt of spunk she had shown in the kissing cousins comment.
And she did babe that hair and those eyes....
He had opted to give her the benefit of the doubt because Hadley has been so impressed by more than her résumé , because Hadley had liked her and had said that despite leaving Northbridge the way he and Chase and Hadley herself had, Meghan still seemed like a Northbridge girl....
He and Chase and Hadley had all returned to their small hometown because they were weary of what they'd found in more bustling parts of the country - or in Hadley's case, in more bustling parts of the world. They all wanted the homier atmosphere of Northbridge. The closeness. The down-to-earth aspects of it. And if that was what Meghan could offer Tia,then Hadley was right and Meghan was the best person for the nanny job.
And it was a temporary situation, he reminded himself as he smoothed the quilt on the bed Hadley had made up for Meghan.
Meghan made sure he knew she wasn't signing on for anything permanent but that could be his escape clause,too, if she ended up rubbing him wrong more than she rubbed him right.
Not that there would be any rubbing involved, he amended his own thoughts when more literal images of that began go pop into his mind. More literal and appealing images .....
But he wasn't interested in Meghan as anything but Tia's nanny.Not only did he need to get settled into Northbridge again, but he also had to put his divorce behind him once and for all, and to concentrate on being a single dad. And even if he were in the market for a relationship - which he absolutely wasn't - it wouldn't be with a woman like Meghan. That PhD she was sporting, the expertise she hasn't been able to keep from spouting - those were like detour signs telling him to go in a different direction to avoid the king of problems he had encountered before. No matter how attractive Meghan might be, the last thing he wanted was another brain-meets-brawn situation with any woman.
And yet, even as he was telling himself that,he was standing at the foot of the sleigh bed, picturing Meghan stretched out on the mattress.....
It was that red hair, those eyes, the warmth in that smile that he just couldn't get out of his head....
But those things aside, he was betting Miss Age appropriate expectations would probably not be able to resist showing off some more that would hammer out of him whatever it was that had caused him to even dream about her lady night.
At least, that was what he was hoping.
Lucas took his hand off the bed frame and jammed it into his jeans pocket.
Age appropriate expectations. Social skills. Exploring the environment.
Those were the kind of things he needed to remember about her. Not how green her eyes were..Not how soft her skin has looked. Not that when he had joined her in the entryway he had caught a whiff of a clean, airy wildflower scent that he knew hadn't come from his sister or daughter.
Meghan was the nanny and that was it. Yes, he had meant it when he told her he wanted her to be a part of everything around here so she seemed like family, but that was for Tia's same, not his.
He just needed to think of her the way he thought of his ex-wife - as a person he had to be civil and courteous to for his daughter's happiness and well-being.
Other than that?
There wouldn't be anything other than that between him and Meghan.
It was something he swore to himself.
That no matter what, her brain was not meeting his brawn.