A Man Worth Loving. Kimberly Meter Van

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      “He’s fine,” Annabelle assured Mary, who wore a concerned frown on her face. “He just got the wind knocked out of him, but I told Sammy he should never leave Ian on the sofa without watching him. He’s just learning to roll over on his own. The sofa’s not that high off the ground but if it’d been the bed…he might’ve been really hurt.”

      Mary scowled. “That boy ought to be horsewhipped for the idiot he’s being. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He was raised better than that, I can tell you that right now. His father and I are beside ourselves….” Mary stopped as Aubrey approached, her tirade momentarily halted. A bright smile followed. “Why, Aubrey, hello, I didn’t see you there. You remember my daughter-in-law Annabelle?”

      “Nice to see you again,” Aubrey murmured, taking in the beautiful, curvy redhead and the little blond girl skipping around her feet. She smiled at the girl, who had stopped to stare at her with wide, inquisitive blue eyes. “Is this your daughter?” she asked Annabelle.

      “One of them. This is Honey. My baby, Jasmine, is home with her dad. I just needed to talk with Mary about Ian. I knew she’d be here at the shop so I made a quick stop. You’re going to be Ian’s nanny, I hear?”

      “Yes. I start this afternoon. What happened to Ian? I couldn’t help but overhear.”

      “Oh, it was nothing really but it shook Ian up a little. He took a tumble off the sofa and it knocked the wind out of him. He was totally fine when he got some love and affection. And a bottle. Poor guy was starving. I told Sammy I left him some preprepared bottles in the diaper bag but I found them under the sofa.”

      “What kind of formula does he use?” Aubrey asked, getting a notepad ready to jot down the brand. Mary and Annabelle exchanged a look and Aubrey wondered what she’d inadvertently said wrong.

      “He doesn’t drink formula much,” Annabelle said, pausing. “Depending on your philosophies, this may sound really strange, but I express breast milk for Ian.”

      “Excuse me?” Aubrey started, not quite sure she heard that correctly. “Did you say you’re breast-feeding your nephew?”

      “No, I said I’m expressing breast milk for my nephew.”

      Mary intervened, speaking warmly of her daughter-in-law as she explained. “You see, Dana died in childbirth. A rarity in this day and age but it still happens. Annabelle had only just given birth to Jasmine a month earlier and because Dana had planned to breast-feed for as long as possible, Annabelle started expressing milk for Ian before he even left the hospital because she knew it was what Dana would’ve wanted.”

      Aubrey didn’t know how to respond. The concept was so foreign to her. Her own mother hadn’t breast-fed, saying it wasn’t seemly to be seen with two babies hanging off her chest as if she was some kind of baboon in the jungle. Annabelle mistook Aubrey’s silence for reproach and stiffened. “It’s perfectly natural. Back in the medieval days, royalty often used a wet nurse. It’s healthier than formula and helps with their immune system.”

      Aubrey wasn’t judging, though it was certainly a shock. Aubrey tried to imagine what her mother would have to say about that and nearly giggled at how appalled Barbie would be. Her twin sister, Arianna, would likely mirror that horror. They’d both arch perfectly waxed eyebrows in distaste and remark on how white trash it all was. “I think it’s beautiful that you loved your friend so much you would do that for her son,” Aubrey said.

      Annabelle’s eyes watered for a brief moment. “Thank you. I just want the best for him. She wanted a baby so badly. When she got pregnant we cried together. I think she told me before she told Sammy. It was the happiest moment of her life.”

      “How’d Samuel react to the news?” Aubrey inquired, not quite comfortable using her employer’s more familiar nickname.

      “He was happy but I think he would’ve given Dana the moon if she asked for it even if he preferred sunlight. Dana was the one who really wanted to start a family right away and it took a while to get pregnant. Dana called Ian her miracle baby.”

      Aubrey’s eyes threatened to water, wishing there’d been such a miracle in her own life. Don’t go there. She forced a bright smile. “It was nice to meet you. I suppose I’ll see you two a lot while I’m Ian’s nanny. I hope to become good friends.”

      And then, before either could say anything further, she left the shop.

      It wasn’t until she was halfway to her rented house that she realized she’d forgotten all about the quilting fabric she’d wanted to check out. She sighed heavily and put it out of her head. She needed to get ready for her first day of work.

      SAMMY SLAPPED A LITTLE aftershave on his cheeks and winced when tiny nicks from the quick shave job screamed at the alcohol splash. He sucked in a breath and then grinned in the mirror, his best roguish charmer that usually worked pretty well on the ladies, and then, remembering that his jeans were still in the dryer, he stepped out of his bedroom to find Aubrey in the hallway. She seemed frozen to the spot, a look of chagrin and embarrassment on her face.

      She turned quickly and stammered an apology. “The door was open…. I didn’t realize…I thought you said to be here…Oh, I’m a few minutes early, though, not because I’m one of those people who are ridiculously punctual, well, actually, I am one of those people because I hate to be late—”

      “It’s okay,” he said gruffly to her rambling. If he hadn’t been embarrassed himself, he might’ve found the humor in the situation, but at the moment he wasn’t feeling anything but intense mortification at being caught with nothing but a towel around his ass on his nanny’s first day on the job. Nice going. If she didn’t quit right then and there it’d be a miracle. He wrapped the towel a bit tighter to ensure there weren’t any wardrobe malfunctions and said to her back, “Kid’s asleep in his swing. Why don’t you go wait in there while I get dressed.” She bobbed her head in agreement before skittering away.

      He detoured to the dryer and jerked the jeans up over his hips quickly. When he was decent, he sent a prayer to heaven that she was still willing to take the job and tried that charming smile on again to up the odds of her staying.

      She rose from the sofa where she’d been fidgeting with the strap of her purse when he entered the living room. He waved away her attempts to apologize again. “It’s my fault. I’m not quite used to having someone else in the house and I forgot to grab my clothes before I hit the shower,” he said, cringing at the red blush staining her cheeks. “It’s okay. Really. No big deal. No harm no foul as they say.”

      “I’m assuming there will be no more of these types of incidents while I’m in your employ?” she said, her tone implying that perhaps he’d engineered the whole situation.

      “Of course not,” he said, slightly insulted that the sight of his toweled body had offended her so much. There was no reason to make a federal case out of it. “It was an accident. The last thing I need is my kid’s nanny to be thinking about me naked,” he muttered.

      “Not a problem,” she retorted, a bit sharply. “I’ve already put the incident out of my mind.”

      If it weren’t for the high color in her cheeks he might’ve believed her. But she was holding to it so that was fine with him. He wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t want the nanny to think of him in any way that wasn’t completely professional.

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