Something About Joe (3 page)

He turned
and caught her staring. “I don’t seem like a
schoolteacher?”

She hadn’t been thinking about his teaching
qualifications at all. Too lost in admiration of his
well-proportioned body with its wide shoulders and narrow hips. So
different from her thin, wiry ex.

“
Uh, I
haven’t been in a classroom for quite some time,” she said. Joe’s
clothes, his hair, his earring, his motorbike—who would blame her
for not taking him for a schoolteacher? “You...uh...you
just...I...”

“
You judge
people by appearances?”

“Of course I don’t. It’s just you—”

He laughed aside her attempt at justifying
herself, and she realized he was aware of her discomfiture. Had he
caught her ogling him? Lord knows it wasn’t something she made a
habit of. It had been a long time since she’d been aware of any
man’s sexual appeal. Too long, maybe.

Deftly, Joe wiped Mitchell’s mouth clean of
cereal with paper towel and Allison followed the movement of his
lean brown fingers. From nowhere flashed the thought of how they
might feel on her body, stroking, caressing...

Her flush
deepened. Dear heaven she hoped he couldn’t read minds.

Thankfully, he didn’t look up from his
task.

“
If it would
make you happier, I could take Mitchell somewhere else for the
day,” he said. “A relative’s house, maybe?”

“I don’t have relatives in Sydney.”

Her mother
was long dead. Her father had remarried and lived in Boston. Not
that he would help her. She hadn’t seen him for years, had given up
trying to keep in touch when he made it obvious he wasn’t
interested.

She’d met
Peter when they’d worked for the same bank in New York City. When
he wanted to go home to Australia she’d gone with him, in love and
excited about making a new start in a new country. She liked Sydney
but all the old, special friends she could call on for help lived
back in the States. She was Mitchell’s sole support. Paid
babysitters and nannies like Joe were her only help.

“Mitchell usually goes to playgroup
today.”

“
So I’ll
take him. Just write down the details for me.”

Allison scribbled the time and address of
the playgroup on the notepad by the phone. She glanced again at the
clock. If she didn’t get a move on she’d still be at home when
playgroup started.

She pulled a big, blue folder from the
shelf. “This is the Mitchell manual. All the stuff about his food
and routine are in here. Doctor’s details, my contact numbers,
everything you might need.”

Joe
unstrapped Mitchell from his highchair. “Then maybe you should be
getting dressed,” he said in that distinctive, husky Aussie drawl.
“Remember, you told your boss you were just about to leave. Time’s
running out.”

As if she
needed reminding. “You look after Mitchell. I can look after
myself.”

She fled the
room rather too quickly for dignity, glad to escape those blue eyes
that, she felt sure, could see right through her
robe.

J
oe found it hard to keep his
eyes from Allison’s shapely, retreating rear end. But at least
those magnificent breasts weren’t tantalizing him through that
almost transparent robe. Every time she’d moved he’d expected a
nipple to pop into view. He’d had to look down at her feet—but even
they were pretty with delicate, pink-edged toenails.

This woman was hot. She had just the kind of
lush, curvy body that turned him on.

Or would
have, if she wasn’t a client.

When he’d
started working for Help From Above, he’d made it a strict rule to
keep his hands off the women who employed him. Not that any of the
others had given him the instant jolt of attraction he’d felt for
Allison Bradley.

He picked up
a beaker and poured some juice for Mitchell, guiding it carefully
so juice didn’t follow cereal onto the baby’s T-shirt. “Good boy,”
he murmured as Mitchell drained the beaker.

What a cute
little kid he was, with his merry, nutmeg-brown eyes and the ginger
hair standing straight up from his head like a miniature mohawk. He
must get his coloring from his father, not his green-eyed,
platinum-haired mother.

Joe glanced
over at the wedding photo displayed prominently on the dresser.
Yep, except for the eye colour, the man standing next to a smiling,
younger Allison was definitely an older version of
Mitchell.

Where was Daddy now? Joe’s mouth tightened
in a grim line. Since he’d been nannying he’d seen more fatherless
kids than he ever wanted to see. And, shocking to him, too many
mothers more interested in their careers and social life than their
children.

It was a
slice of a particular strata of middle-class life revealed that he
didn’t particularly care for. And it made him resolve that when he
eventually settled down—some day far, far in the future—he’d be
damn sure to be there for his kids as a father should. Marriage and
children, for Joe Martin, were lifetime commitments.

For now, he
hoped he brought something positive into the lives of those
children living in a dad-free zone, and nannying gave him the
flexibility and income he needed to chase his dream.

Allison
Bradley’s marital situation was none of his concern. And it had
been out of order of him to say anything about her caring for
Mitchell herself. He was just there to look after her kid to the
best of his ability for the hours he was paid for.

He went to
lift Mitchell out of his highchair. The scent greeting his nose
made him recoil. Where in heck was the change table? This part was
definitely the downside of the job.

A
llison’s cell phone rang as she
whirled through the kitchen to pick up her briefcase. “I’m stuck in
traffic,” she fibbed to Clive. She didn’t dare admit she was still
at home, even though she was finally dressed and ready to go. She
hung up and turned to Joe. “Please, if the office calls, tell them
I left ages ago.”

Joe turned
away from the highchair. Allison stopped, aware of his slow,
thorough appraisal of her appearance. His gaze travelled up from
her mid-heeled court shoes, to the trim, tight skirt of her navy
suit, to her hair now brushed away from her face into a
business-like pleat.

She realized
she was being thoroughly checked out in a sexual, man-woman way—and
not being found at all wanting. She was surprised and, despite
herself, flattered. She willed herself not to blush.

“So,” he drawled, “a boss lady.”

“
Y
ou judge by appearances, too?”
she couldn’t resist retorting.

“
Doesn’t
everyone?” he replied. “Your appearance says executive—and you work
somewhere where they’d rather you were a man.”

Her eyes widened. “How did you know
that?”

“
I just
guessed the second bit.” Then he shrugged. “The agency told me you
were a bigwig at a bank.”

Allison
smiled. “Big
wig” or not—and she was
really more of a not-so-bigwig—this would be the last big deal
she’d ever have the opportunity to work on if she didn’t get to the
office pronto. They’d never take her seriously again.

Her heart twisted painfully as it did every
morning she had to say good-bye to Mitchell. She turned to where he
sat in his highchair. The first thing Joe Martin needed to do was
change that cereal-encrusted T-shirt. She wrinkled her nose as she
got within kissing distance of her son. No, the second thing.

“
I know,”
said Joe Martin. “I need to ask you where—”

“
Diaper
changing station. His bedroom. First on the right at the top of the
stairs,” she replied. “Sorry I haven’t got time to do it
myself.”

In spite of her tension, she found herself
suppressing a giggle. This was one of the advantages of having a
nanny—someone to share diaper-changing duties.

Allison
ruffled Mitchell’s hair and kissed one smooth cheek and then the
other. “Be a good boy for Joe.” She risked a big cuddle; the cereal
must surely be dried by now. “Goodbye, my precious.”

“
Bye bye,
momma,” her son replied, waving his plump little hand. “See
ya.”

Allison
looked over her son’s head and up at Joe, struggling to be the boss
lady but knowing only the imploring mother was showing in her eyes.
“Please, look after him,” she said, unable to prevent the slight
break in her voice.

“
I will,” he
replied.
“I promise you.” She relaxed at
the depth of understanding in his voice.

His obvious sincerity went a long way to
reassuring her about Mitchell’s safety. But that didn’t stop her
from vowing as she ran out of the door, wiping the cereal from her
jacket, that she would somehow find another nanny today and sack
Joe Martin the second she got home this evening.

CHAPTER TWO

Allison
was appalled to realise
it was nearly lunchtime and she still hadn’t had a chance to phone
any childcare agencies to arrange Joe Martin’s replacement. The
early morning meeting had gone on and on and on. Eventually it
broke for lunch and she made a feeble excuse to the others and
dashed into her office.

First she
wanted to check Joe had taken Mitchell to the playgroup. She called
the church hall where the group of mothers and nannies and their
charges met for playgroup twice a week. She’d forged links with
them while she’d been on maternity leave and had tried to keep up
the friendships for Mitchell’s sake.

Her neighbor
Diane answered. “Allison, where did you find Joe? We were all
petrified when he first walked in. We thought we were being raided
by a biker gang. But he put us all at ease at once.”
Uncharacteristically, Diane giggled. “Joe is wonderful, isn’t he?
And what a hunk.”

“
Is he?
Wonderful, I mean,” said Allison, taken aback by her conservative
neighbor’s reaction. Diane was married to a balding, bespectacled
attorney and judged a man’s desirability by his bank balance not
his biceps.

Diane
giggled again. “I can’t really call Joe a nanny, can I? He’s much
too macho for that. You know, I think I’ve seen him somewhere
before. How long have you had him?”

Allison kept
her voice low out of habit. She was expected to shuck her role as
mother the second she walked through the revolving door into the
bank’s plush offices, and become a one hundred percent corporate
being, utterly devoted to her job—just like her male colleagues
with stay-at-home wives.

“
It’s his
first day. Lia left me yesterday without any notice. Just packed
her bags and walked out to live with her boyfriend.”

“You haven’t had a good nanny since Katie
left to go backpacking.”

“It seems that way doesn’t it? But Katie was
exceptional. She’s a hard act to follow. Lia was okay until she met
that deadbeat boyfriend.”

She said
goodbye to Diane, smiling to herself as she did so. Joe Martin’s
arrival at playgroup would be a matter for discussion and
speculation for weeks. A male nanny was a novelty—especially when
he looked like he belonged in a jeans commercial.

But Diane hadn’t questioned his ability to
look after Mitchell. That was reassuring. Very reassuring. But not
reassuring enough for her to change her mind about Joe Martin. She
wanted a female looking after her son.

There was a quick knock on her office door
followed by Allison’s personal assistant, Rebecca, bearing coffee.
“You look like you need this,” Rebecca said as she placed the
coffee on Allison’s desk.

Allison shot her a grateful glance. “Thank
you,” she said, then downed the hot liquid so quickly she nearly
choked.

“
Can I
help?” asked Rebecca, as Allison got her breath back.

“Nanny problems. They’ve sent me a guy. I’ve
got to get someone else.”

Rebecca’s
eyebrows lifted inquiringly. “What’s he like?”

Allison
pulled a wry face, Rebecca was as bad as Sandy. “Not you, too. Yes,
he’s a hottie. No, I don’t want a man looking after Mitchell. Now
get on the computer will you, please, and start Googling. I’ve got
to try some other nanny agencies.”

“
How much of
a hottie?” asked Rebecca, as she sat down at the
keyboard.

Allison
looked up at her PA, amused in spite of her exasperation. “A
ten-out-of-ten. But that doesn’t mean I want him for a
nanny.”

Rebecca
quickly found her three agency numbers. Allison picked up the phone
then put it down as her boss, Clive, barged in.

“What’s keeping you? The guys are getting
hungry.”

Allison gritted her teeth, despairing at the
lost opportunity to call the agencies. She stood up. “Give me a few
more minutes. I’ve got some personal stuff to sort out that can’t
wait.”

Clive glared
at her. “What’s with you today? First you’re late this morning, and
now you’re holding up lunch.”

“Can’t you take them to the bar and get them
a drink and I’ll be there in twenty minutes?”

“No, I cannot. This is your deal, Allison,
your clients want you with them.”

“For heaven’s sake, Clive, they won’t miss
me for a few minutes. I’ve got to sort out a problem with—”

Clive cut
across her. “You knew the score when you took this job on. There
were some who thought you were too inexperienced to handle this
deal. You are expected to be there. Now.”