Something About Joe (2 page)

She still
had half an eye on Joe as she called the nanny agency and asked for
Sandy. “Sandy, it’s about Joe Martin, I—”

Before she could say another word, Sandy
giggled conspiratorially over the phone.

“
The awesome
Joe? Isn’t he the hottest hunk you’ve ever seen?”

Allison looked over at Joe Martin as he
deftly wiped cereal off her son’s bedraggled hair.

Hot
hunk?
Oh,
yes
. Joe’s muscular legs strained against
the tight denim; where the leather jacket fell open, the white
T-shirt molded a powerful chest. He laughed at Mitchell, and the
flash of strong white teeth in his tanned face made her heart miss
a beat.

Joe Martin had the kind of untamed good
looks that would make people stop and stare at him in the street—he
could be a model, an actor, any job where looks were a career
currency.

She was taken by surprise at the sudden,
uncontrollable flush that warmed her cheeks. She took a deep,
steadying breath. Of course he was good looking. No red-blooded
woman could deny that. But not her type.

She’d always
gone for a more intellectual, less physical type of man, not
trusting animal attraction as the basis for a relationship. She
liked to retain control over her emotions—and you couldn’t do that
with a man who made your knees turn to Jell-O just by looking at
him.

And why was
Sandy going on about Joe Martin’s looks? Help From Above was
supposed to have found her an efficient, trained and thoroughly
reliable nanny. Not a man-of-the-month straight out of a calendar
shoot.

Allison
turned away from Joe and cradled the phone close to her mouth.
“Hmm,” she murmured, as non-commitally as she could, in response to
Sandy’s enthusiastic description of Joe Martin’s undoubted physical
assets. “I had no idea you were sending me a man. When you said
‘Jo’ on your message I assumed you meant a woman.”

She could hear the smile in Sandy’s voice.
“I thought I’d give you a surprise. Cheer you up. You’ve had it so
tough.”

It took an effort, but Allison managed to
suppress a sigh of exasperation. Sandy had been so good to her,
helped her beyond the call of agency duty, always sympathetic to
the problems faced by a mom on her own.

But she was very young. At Sandy’s stage of
life she still thought a woman’s problems could be solved by
meeting a good-looking man. Not caused by one.

Allison
lowered her voice to a whisper. “Sandy, you must know I wouldn’t
want a man. Not many women would. You hear stories
about...about...” It was difficult to elaborate on a mother’s fears
within Joe Martin’s earshot.

“
I tried to
call you last night on your cell without any luck. All I got was
your voice mail. That’s when I left the message Joe could start
with you in the morning. Believe me, Mrs. Bradley, you won’t get
better than Joe Martin. He’s got qualifications coming out of his
ears and references so glowing they shine in the dark. I gave you
all that in the email.”

“What email?” asked Allison.

“I sent you an email when I couldn’t reach
you by phone. To back up the voice mail message.”

Last night.
Her laptop. She’d taken Mitchell out to the supermarket—it was a
treat he loved though it kept him up well past his bedtime. When
they’d got back, she’d snuggled with him in the rocking chair in
his room and read him stories. Lulled by cuddles and kisses,
Mitchell had soon fallen asleep. With his warm little body against
hers, and exhausted from a grueling day at work, she’d dozed off in
the chair.

When she’d
woken up sometime during the night she’d settled her sleeping
little boy in his cot, then staggered half-asleep into her own bed
without even brushing her teeth. Checking her emails was the
furthest thing from her mind. As was setting the alarm—hence the
panic this morning.

“
Can you
hold a moment, Sandy?”

Allison
dashed into the alcove off of the kitchen that housed her desk and
a filing cabinet. It was essential for her job to have a home
office, small as it was, for the copious amount of after-hours work
expected of her. She opened her laptop.

Sure enough,
there was an unread email from the Help From Above agency. She
quickly scanned it: “Dear Mrs. Bradley, this is to introduce Joseph
Martin, one of the best nannies on our books.”

Damn.
The one night she didn’t
check emails before she went to bed. If she’d read this in time,
she could have called Sandy first thing and told her she wouldn’t
accept a male.

As it was,
she’d been so relieved at the voicemail message she’d thought no
more about it, knowing she was okay for the morning. Sandy had said
“Jo” was excellent and Allison had had no cause to disbelieve her.
Just delighted such a gem was available at short notice.

Now she was facing the impossible situation
of harboring in her kitchen a totally unsuitable biker babysitter.
She cursed under her breath and went back to the phone. Please God,
perform a miracle and let Sandy find someone else in the next ten
minutes.

“Joe really is first rate,” said Sandy. “His
references are impeccable. He’s gone through every checking
process. Our other clients have been over the moon about him. It’s
only because another client decided to go on vacation that he’s
available. Believe me, you can trust Joe Martin with Mitchell.”

Allison
wasn’t convinced. She had never considered the thought of having a
male look after Mitchell. A nanny was a female role, a
mother-substitute role. She glanced over at Joe. Tall. Powerful.
Testosterone charged. So not a mommy figure.

“I haven’t got anyone else,” said Sandy.

Allison glanced up at the clock. She’d have
to try another agency. “Okay I—”

Her cell
phone rang from her briefcase. “Could you please hold again,
Sandy?”

She burrowed
through the case, hunting for the cell phone amid a tangle of
chocolate bar wrappers. She knew it would be Clive.

He didn’t even wait for her to say
“hello”.

“Are you on your way?” Her boss’s tone was
terse. “You know how much is riding on this meeting.”

“
Of course,”
she lied, thinking of her robe and bare feet, her blond hair still
dripping uncomfortably down the back of her neck. “Just getting in
the car.”

She didn’t dare admit otherwise. Clive
didn’t deserve the extra worry of fearing she’d be late. He’d
probably been up all night agonizing about the meeting as it was.
She didn’t want to contribute to his ulcer.

She realized
she had a phone at each ear. Clive relieved her of her dilemma by
hanging up, with a brusque reminder to meet him in his office
before going to the boardroom.

She put down
the cell. “Damn. Damn. I mean
darn
.” She met her son’s
inquiring little face. “You didn’t hear that, Mitchell. Mommy
doesn’t use naughty words.” Mitchell chortled in
delight.

Joe Martin’s
dark eyebrows arched in amusement, a smile played around his mouth.
She knew she had looked ridiculous standing in her nightwear with a
phone at each ear. But with the clock ticking away, and still no
nearer to a child-minding solution, she was in no mood to be
laughed at.

“
There’s
nothing funny about it.” She pulled her robe tighter across her
breasts again, hoping it hadn’t gaped open while she was on the
phone. How had this morning gotten so out of control?

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Was I
laughing?”

She opened her mouth to reply but then the
faint, disembodied voice of Sandy from the agency came through the
other phone. “Mrs. Bradley? Mrs. Bradley? Are you there?”

Joe Martin took the receiver from Allison’s
hand. “Yes, she is,” he said. “She wants to ask you to get her
another nanny.”

Allison
snatched it back. “No, I don’t.” She glared at the man who seemed
to take up so much room in her tiny kitchen. Joe glared right back,
no longer smiling.

Mitchell started to whimper. Joe reached out
and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, little fella,” he
murmured. Mitchell quietened immediately.

Allison
swallowed hard. It seemed she was upsetting every male in the room.
She hadn’t meant to seem aggressive; she was just starting to
succumb to heart-thumping panic. She took a deep breath to calm
herself. Then looked at Mitchell smiling up at Joe in delight. She
weighed up the balance sheet of the situation. “Sandy, I don’t have
a choice. I’ll keep Joe Martin for today. But please get me a
female nanny for tomorrow.”

She slammed the receiver down so hard in its
cradle it jarred her arm. Then bit hard on her lower lip. But she
didn’t dare show her pain in front of Joe Martin. She needed to
seem completely in command.

Joe Martin
held her gaze for a long, thoughtful moment. “You do have a choice.
If you’re so concerned about me, you could stay at home and look
after Mitchell yourself.”

“
Excuse me?”
Did she hear right? It seemed the nanny was challenging her.
Couldn’t he see how desperate she was to get to
work? How could anyone think she’d put herself through this kind of
torture if she didn’t have to?

He couldn’t
be expected to know the details of her personal life; why she had
to work full-time in a demanding job whether she liked it or not.
But what right did he, a stranger, have to question her?

It had been like leaving part of her heart
behind the first day she’d left three-month old Mitchell with a
nanny to go back to work. She’d wept all the way to the office,
nauseous with terror that Katie—the first and best nanny she’d
had—might not look after him as well as she should.

It had
gotten easier. Mitchell had thrived, happy with his carer. Allison
loved her job—welcoming its stimulation as well as the pay, though
she would have preferred to work fewer hours. But always the guilt
simmered away under the surface. Guilt that she wasn’t giving
enough of herself to her child.

It was only
this guilt, and her habit of justifying herself to people critical
of women in her situation, which made her even attempt to answer
Joe Martin’s question.

“Surely you realise I’d be at home more with
Mitchell if I could? Who else would pay the bills if I didn’t
work?”

His eyes narrowed. “Mitchell’s father?”

“Huh. That’s a joke and a half.”

“You’re American, right? So Mitchell’s dad
is back home?”

“No. He’s Australian and right here in
Sydney.”

Allison couldn’t suppress the bitterness in
her voice. Apart from living expenses, she was saddled with her
ex-husband Peter’s gambling debts. She’d had no idea of the extent
of his addiction until after he’d left her—or how cleverly he’d
ensured her shared liability for his debts. He’d been as cunning as
he’d been dishonest. And now she was legally as well as honor-bound
to pay off their creditors.

Peter paid
only minuscule child support. Although he had a good job as a
financial consultant, he and his wily lawyer had made him look
practically a pauper on paper for the family law court. As a
result, Mitchell’s future education and welfare rested entirely
with her. And she wanted him to have every opportunity. “Look, Mr.
Martin—”

“Joe,” he said.

“Joe,” she said, uncomfortable at the
intimacy using his name implied. It seemed too close, too friendly,
when she wanted to keep her distance—though she never called her
female nannies anything other than their first names.

“I’m not going to justify my job to you. If
I’m not at work in twenty minutes I might not have a job.”

“
I get
that,” he said, spooning fresh cereal into Mitchell’s mouth.
Unbelievably, Mitchell was swallowing it without complaint.
Whatever she might feel about Joe Martin’s suitability, her son had
taken to him immediately.

“
I guess
I’ve started off on the wrong foot with you. But I agreed to employ
you and I’m grateful you’re here to help me out.”

Joe turned
to face her. “It’s what I do.”

She
swallowed hard against a sudden rush of anguish. Leaving her
precious child for the first time with a stranger never got any
easier. “That said, if...if you do anything to harm my son,
I...I’ll kill you. I swear I will.”

She had no
idea how ferociously her green eyes gleamed or how her face had
tightened like a mother cat snarling in defense of her
kitten.

It was over
the top. She knew it as soon as the words left her
mouth.

“I’m sorry. I—”

“
Don’t
apologize. If I had a child I would expect his mother to be as
passionate as you are about his safety. I promise I will look after
Mitchell.” As Joe spoke, he moved behind her child’s highchair in a
protective stance. “I’m the oldest of six children and have looked
after young kids for most of my life.” He then added, almost as an
aside, “I’m also a schoolteacher trained in early childhood
education.”

She couldn’t
mask her surprise. “You’re a schoolteacher?”

Schoolteachers hadn’t come packaged like this in her
day—six foot two hunks clad in denim and leather. She doubted there
would have been any truancy problems at her school if they
had.

Joe Martin
shrugged off his leather jacket and flung it over a kitchen chair.
Allison caught her breath. His tanned arms were defined by hard
muscle, his pecs buff under the white T-shirt.
Oh my
. If a teacher at
her school had looked like this, the girls would have been lining
up for detention. Fabricating any opportunity to be in hottie Mr.
Martin’s classroom.