Marrying the Northbridge Nanny by Victoria Pade Page B

surprised. “Wow, you remembered that. And put it together with this.” But now that he had, now that she was being honest with him, she might as well let him know that he was right. “Yes, it does tie into this,” she said. “Since the stabbing I’ve been jumpier, more fearful—”
    “That seems reasonable.”
    “If it stays within reason. But I started to find myself needing absolute control over situations—if my playgroups got a little wild or noisy I started to get panicky. An accidentally dropped toy was sending me jumping as high as if somebody shot off a gun. I was way too stressed-out dealing with volatile parents and rather than being diplomatic I’d hear myself being more dictatorial. I was finding myself holding back when I knew I should have been doing some therapeutic provocation or confrontation…”
    She hesitated but by then she thought that she’d already gone this far, she might as well go the whole way.
    “I started to worry that if I didn’t nip this in the bud I might turn more into my grandfather than I want to be—all uptight and rigid all the time.” Not that some things didn’t need to be controlled—like what being with Logan stirred in her.
    Meg shook her head. “I haven’t told anyone this last part. I’m not sure why I’m telling you—you’re probably going to think I’m crazy.”
    “I’d think you were crazy if you didn’t come away from being stabbed feeling on edge and needing to get back some sense of control. But it seems to me that deciding to get away for a while and regroup—which is really what this nannying thing is, isn’t it—”
    “It is,” she agreed, grateful that he was taking that view of it, that he was understanding while not blowing it out of proportion.
    “Well, it seems to me that getting away, relaxing, regrouping before it’s too late and you end up like the Reverend, is a smart thing to do. It seems therapeutic, ” he finished, making a joke by using her terminology.
    It made Meg grin and marvel at how much better she felt suddenly. “So you’re okay with my using your daughter as my self-prescribed therapy to loosen up?”
    “Sure. I think you’re more worried about being wound too tight than actually wound too tight. I haven’t seen anything about the way you are with Tia to think that you’re acting like your grandfather around her. In fact, I heard some stories about root beer floats after her bath and letting her fall asleep in front of the television while I was gone—that doesn’t sound like anything the Reverend would approve of.”
    Meg laughed. “The Reverend definitely wouldn’t have approved. But kids need a little flexibility when they’re sick.”
    “I just hope the fact that you could be flexible didn’t convince you that you’re cured and make you want to go back to your other work.”
    “You want me to stay a basket case?”
    “I just want you to stay.”
    Oh…
    He was still looking at her in the dim glow of the lights that trailed up the side of the garage to the apartment door and Meg’s eyes met his, basking in the warmth in them, unable not to feel as if all was right with the world again now that he was home.
    Then, without any warning at all and for no reason Meg could figure out, he leaned forward, over that arm still braced on his knee, and kissed her.
    It was the same way he’d kissed her on the Wednesday night before he’d left—soft, barely there. But just when Meg was afraid he was going to end it again in a hurry—like he had that other kiss—he deepened it instead.
    He pressed his lips more firmly to hers and they parted in a way that prompted hers to part, too. And there was movement—a sensual, soothing, mesmerizing movement—to go with it.
    The entire week he’d been gone she’d thought about that other kiss, she’d wondered what it would be like for him to kiss her again. She’d wanted him to so badly she’d even dreamed that he had. And now he was. And even if it was