He dragged his mind from a place it shouldn’t be. If he wanted to keep the nanny he’d just hired instead of sending her running when things didn’t work out between them, he needed to keep his hands off. He knew enough about himself to know he wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship, and that didn’t always work so well with women.
“If you think it’s a good idea,” he said before going over to the door to unlock it and step inside. She was still standing on the sidewalk when he turned back to her. “Do you want to see where you’ll be sleeping before we go next door?”
She hesitated. And then she walked up the steps. “Sure,” she said. “I’d love to.”
Chapter Five
Jenna still couldn’t believe she was here. In Noah’s house, getting ready to eat pizza and become the primary caregiver to a toddler. She looked at her reflection in the mirror over the dresser in the room he’d given her and shook her head slightly.
“What have you done?” she whispered to herself.
She should have left town. Last night, after her shift, Allison had called her into the office and held out a check. She hadn’t even waited until morning. Jenna had known it was coming, even though she’d tried to prove her worth and change Allison’s mind.
But the new girl had been working last night, and she’d basically run circles around everyone. She’d been so efficient, and she was friendly and funny. The customers liked her. They liked Jenna too, but Brenda had the ability to make them feel as if they’d been friends for ages while also not getting caught up in the stories and chit chat. Jenna had never mastered that. If someone wanted to show her pictures of their grandson in his first baseball game, she’d look at them all.
Not that being friendly was the problem, really. It was her. Allison had never warmed up to her because she wasn’t a local and because she often pointed out the unreasonableness of Allison’s thinking. She’d known the woman held grudges. She should have quit saying anything while she was ahead.
On the other hand, did she really want to be at the Early Bird, tiptoeing around Allison and hating the fact the woman was always watching her and waiting for a screwup?
No, she didn’t. And while she probably should have climbed into Lola and moved on, she’d taken the lifeline that Noah offered. She could still leave if she had to. She didn’t want to, though. Not yet. She didn’t want to live in Lola and scrounge for work and feel like her life was shit anymore.
She left the room and went to join Noah and Alice. The house wasn’t huge, but it was nice with an eat-in kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a den and half bath, and an upstairs with three bedrooms and two full baths.
There were pizza boxes on the kitchen counter, and Alice was in her high chair, banging a plastic dinosaur on the tray. Noah turned as she walked in, smiling at her. She felt the power of that smile all the way to her toes.
He was hot, and while she’d always been just a little enamored of him at the diner, being in a room with him now was like turning up the volume to the highest setting. He overwhelmed her, but she wasn’t about to let him know it.
“Hey. You ready to eat?” he asked.
“Definitely.”
“Cheese or supreme?”
“Cheese.”
He put a couple of slices on a plate and handed it to her. “I’m cutting up a small slice of the cheese for Alice,” he said. “I googled and it said she could have pizza. I blew on it to cool it first.” He touched the top of the pizza and nodded. “Yep, not too hot.”
He set the small paper plate onto the high chair. Alice picked up a piece and put it in her mouth as he watched.
“Did I cut it small enough?” he asked.
“I believe you did,” Jenna said. “She’s not having trouble. How many months old is she? I know you said two years, but months matter a lot at this stage.”
“She’s not quite twenty-four months. Twenty-three and a few days, actually.”
“Okay, that’s good to know. There are developmental milestones that are tied to months, so it’s helpful to know where she lands.”
“Her medical records indicate she’s on target—or was,” he said. He grabbed a plate for himself and put a couple of large slices of supreme on it before taking a seat at the table. “I’ve googled a lot about how to take care of her this past week. It’s pretty exhausting to be responsible for a child, especially a small one.”
“You’ve done an admirable job,” Jenna said, taking a bite of cheese pizza.
“You don’t know that. I might have screwed it all up.”
She laughed. “She’s alive, Noah. Healthy. You didn’t screw up.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. Thanks for the perspective.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Is that room going to be good for you, or would you rather trade with Alice?”
She shook her head. “It’s fine. Even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t uproot her like that. She’s had enough change in her life recently.”
“Yeah,” he said, a touch of sadness tinging his voice. “Do you need help going back to get your things?”
Jenna blinked. “Going back?”
“To the place you shared with your roommate. For your furniture and stuff.”
Heat flooded her. “Everything’s in Lola. I don’t have furniture.”
“Lola?”
“My car. Lola the Corolla. It’s stupid, I know.”
His face cracked in a smile. “No, it’s cute. I like it.”
She still felt warm. “Thanks. I don’t have a lot of stuff. When I decided to travel, I got rid of everything.”
That was one way of putting it. The other was that she’d walked away from everything and left it for the landlord to deal with. She’d taken the important stuff—pictures of her parents and old photo albums—and left everything else. Stuff was unimportant. You could replace stuff. You couldn’t come back to life if the Flanagans decided to take you out, too.
“I can get it out of the car for you when we’re finished eating. You can do whatever you want to that room. Paint, wallpaper—anything you like.”
She must have looked at him quizzically because he said, “It’s my house. We don’t need permission from anyone else.”
“That’s really nice of you. I think it’s fine, though.”
He shrugged. “If you ever want to personalize it, I don’t mind.”
She didn’t tell him that she wasn’t sure how long she’d be in it. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Thank you.”
“Look, I really don’t know how this is supposed to work,” he said after he polished off a slice of pizza. “I’m just grateful you’re here to help. I think Alice needs the stability, and I’ll feel better knowing she can be with the same person and stay in one place instead of being shuffled among sitters.”
“Stability is probably a good thing after what she’s been through.” She hesitated. “Do you know anything else about what happened? Was Alice with your sister?”