Mother in Training Read online

  This girl was definitely going to go far, Zooey decided. If Emily was this observant now, there was no telling how astute and aware of things she was going to be when she grew up. Emily was also bright enough to disregard the excuse Zooey had given earlier about Jack attempting to cheer her up. There was no pulling the wool over this kid’s eyes.

  “Mommies and daddies kiss,” Emily was saying, driving her point home. “I see it in the school yard sometimes.”

  For just the tiniest moment, Zooey entertained the idea. What would it be like, being Emily’s mother? There were times when she felt she was more than halfway there. All that was missing from the picture was Emily’s father.

  Zooey’s mouth curved. Not exactly a small point. “People kiss, Emily. If they like each other and the moment is right, they kiss.”

  Emily was very receptive to that explanation. It just helped to further her own version of things. “Is that what happened?” she demanded eagerly. “Do you like my daddy?”

  Uh-oh. Quicksand dead ahead. Zooey deliberately chose an evasive way out. “Your daddy’s a very nice man, Emily.”

  She was not about to be put off with vague answers. “Does my daddy like you?”

  If that kiss is any indication of the way he feels, then yes, he likes me.

  Again, Zooey remained nebulous. “He thinks I’m a good nanny.” Opening the pantry, she took out the sack of potatoes and placed it on the counter before undoing the tie at the top.

  Emily’s small face scrunched up as she debated the merits of that endorsement. For now, she appeared to settle for what she could get. At least this meant Zooey would get to stay.

  “Good. Because he didn’t like the other nannies and they went away.” She lowered her voice, like one adult confiding in another, and kept her eyes on her brother to make sure he wasn’t listening. “I didn’t like the other nannies, either. But I like you.”

  Moved, Zooey hugged Emily to her with one hand, while counting out potatoes on the counter with the other. “And I like you.” She paused to kiss the top of Emily’s head. “A lot.”

  “Me, too?” Jackie abandoned the truck he’d been making sound effects for, and wiggled in between them.

  Annoyed, Emily began to push her brother away. Zooey stopped counting potatoes and knelt down between the two warring siblings, separating them and draping an arm around each child. She hugged them to her and tried hard not to notice the maternal stirrings that insisted on rising up within her.

  “Yes, Jackie, you, too. I like both of you.” She listened to herself. Since when had she been this careful? “I love both of you,” she exclaimed.

  With a small cry, Emily threw her arms around her, hugging her hard.

  It was one of those nights when sleep absolutely refused to come or even make a token appearance.

  Ordinarily, Zooey only had to get ready for bed and then crawl into it. Once there, she’d close her eyes and within seconds be dead to the world.

  The last time she’d tossed and turned this much she’d been searching for the right way to tell her parents that she was dropping out of school. Dropping out of their plans for what amounted to the rest of her life.

  Sighing, Zooey stared up at the ceiling and thought about today and how well things had gone.

  Up to a point.

  The shopping trip had turned out to be even better than she’d hoped. Emily and Olivia had bonded in that special little-girls-discovering-fashion-and-their-budding-power sort of way. The two really liked one another.

  And Zooey and Megan had had a good time as well. Before today, she’d only exchanged a few words with Olivia’s aunt. She’d discovered that Megan was a very nice person, not at all like some of the rumors claimed—that she was a home wrecker and worse. The woman was fun, loved her niece and was easy to talk to. It seemed as if Emily hadn’t been the only one who had made a new friend today.

  The personal highlight of Zooey’s day, of course, had been the stop she’d made at her parents’ house before the shopping trip began. She hadn’t really looked forward to that. In fact, she’d been dreading it. She and her father hadn’t exchanged a single word since she’d dropped out of college. She was sure today would only be more of the same.

  She was wrong.

  Oh, there’d been a frosted moment or two when her mother had ushered her into her father’s workshop, and the two of them had just stood there, looking at each other. Two statues with pulses.

  But all she’d had to say was, “Dad,” and suddenly, he was there, hugging her and saying it was all right.

  It was as if the silence of the last year and a half had never existed.

  Zooey smiled to herself now. All that was good. But none of those things, separately or together, would have kept her awake like this.

  It was waiting for Jack to come home that was doing that.

  Waiting to hear his key in the lock, to hear the door opening and then closing again, telling her that he had come home. Alone.

  Oh, God, what if he didn’t come home alone? What if he brought her with him?

  Or what if he’d decided to spend the night, or a good portion of it, at Rebecca’s house? Zooey sincerely doubted that they’d spend the entire night quietly sipping tea and discussing lawn fertilizer. Rebecca was much too much woman for that.

  Well, what was she? Zooey wondered. Chopped liver? He’d kissed her for God’s sake. In front of his children, or at least in front of his daughter. Not that he’d planned it, but that was the way it had turned out. Didn’t that mean anything?

  Zooey pressed her lips together. Sure, it meant something. It meant Jack was using her to warm up for the main event.

  Turning over on her belly, she dragged the pillow over her head in frustration. Damn it, she needed to get to sleep. She was going to be a wreck tomorrow. She had to stop driving herself crazy like this.

  There was nothing between her and Jack except her wishful thinking. End of story.

  Exasperated, Zooey sat up, throwing her pillow on the floor. She’d given up the larger room downstairs that Jack had initially told her was hers for a smaller one on the second floor. She’d wanted to be closer to Emily and Jackie so that she could hear them if they needed her during the night.

  That left her straining to hear sounds that could have been coming from downstairs.

  This was pathetic.

  She needed a book, she decided, something to put her to sleep, since she couldn’t seem to get there on her own power. Kicking the covers aside, she got up. The wooden floor felt cold against her feet. Zooey wiggled her toes into slippers, tugged on the robe she normally kept at the foot of the bed, and made her way downstairs.

  She didn’t bother tying the robe. Her mind wasn’t on details. It felt restless and disoriented. Like the rest of her.

  No sooner had she reached the bottom of the stairs than she heard the front door being unlocked. For a split second, she thought of running back up, but no matter how fast she moved, she knew that Jack would see her the moment the door opened.

  The alternative was to make a mad dash for the shelter of the kitchen, but that seemed cowardly to her. So Zooey remained exactly where she was, her hand tightly wrapped around the banister, half expecting to see Rebecca walking in with Jack, most likely hanging on his arm or half draped along his body.

  When he came in alone, Zooey’s heart began to beat again.

  Yes!

  Lost in thought, thinking how he had done smarter things in his time than what he’d done tonight, Jack didn’t realize he wasn’t alone when he first walked in.

  He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that caught his attention, but he looked up. And saw Zooey standing at the foot of the stairs. She was wearing a football jersey that should have been at least six inches longer, and a robe that should have been closed. For his sake if not for hers.

  Now there was irony for you. Rebecca had worn a dress that almost wasn’t there. And what there had been of it was as skintight as the laws of physics would all
ow. And yet seeing her like that hadn’t aroused him half as much as seeing Zooey in her damn football jersey, with her damn robe hanging open, offering no protection, no barrier.

  His mouth felt dry, as if he’d had an entire cup of sand to drink. He pocketed his key, attempting to distance himself from his thoughts, his reactions. He succeeded only marginally.

  “What are you still doing up? Something wrong?” He cleared his throat to keep from croaking.

  She shook her head. Movement was easy. Talking, or at least making sense, was the hard part. He wasn’t home early, but at least he was home. Without her. “I just came down looking for a book.”

  “A book?” He glanced over her head up the stairs, listening for the sound of one of his children calling or fussing. He heard nothing. “To read to the kids?”

  “To read to me,” she told him with a smile. Had the date gone badly? God, she hoped so. “I couldn’t sleep.” But even as she tendered her excuse, Zooey found herself stifling a yawn. Chagrined, she flashed a quick, embarrassed smile. “I guess maybe I’m more tired than I thought I was.”

  She knew she should either go get a book or turn around and head back upstairs. She did neither. Clearing her throat, Zooey crossed to him, her hands buried deep in the pockets of her robe. “So,” she began, trying to sound cheerful, “how was your date?”

  Now here was something he wasn’t prepared for—being quizzed by his children’s nanny about his evening out. “You know, I’d ask you if you were my mother—except that my mother never asked questions like that.”

  Zooey laughed softly. Memories, embarrassing ones, came flying back to her from all sides. “Lucky you. My mother always asked questions like that. No matter what time I got in.”

  She’d once gotten in at four in the morning, only to find her mother still waiting up. The woman had incredible tenacity. The last Zooey had heard from Kim, their mom was still at it.

  “Not so lucky,” he commented, surprising her. Was that a sad note in his voice? “At least your mother cared.”

  Zooey knew she had no right to ask, to probe, but it wasn’t in her nature to back away. It never had been. “Yours didn’t?”

  He slid the topcoat off, draping it on the coatrack, and shrugged in response to her question. “Not that I ever noticed.”

  Mothers cared, she thought. Most mothers cared too much, getting in their sons’ way. “Maybe she just wanted you to think she didn’t, while trying to give you your space.”

  He’d had space, all right. A whole continent of it. “She did that. Gave me my space from across the ocean.” He saw Zooey looking at him oddly, as if he’d lost her. “Most of my high school years, my mother was away ‘touring’ Europe.”

  There was a cynical expression on his face, Zooey noted. If she scraped the surface, she was certain she’d find anger. “As in performing?”

  He laughed at her question, but there was no real humor in the sound. “Who knows? Maybe.” His mother liked to associate with famous people, people with bloodlines and pedigrees. Maybe she’d slept with a few, as well. “But the official version was that she was ‘vacationing.’ My stepfather was away so much, I don’t know if he ever realized she wasn’t around.”

  That sounded absolutely awful to Zooey. But she kept her pity under wraps, knowing he wouldn’t appreciate it. “Not much of a home life.”

  She led the way to the kitchen. Because they were talking, Jack followed automatically. He shrugged in response to her comment. “The servants were cool. Sometimes.”

  Taking the pot from the coffeemaker, she poured water into it and transferred that into the urn. She didn’t bother with the filter or coffee; she was going to make him some herbal tea. He looked as if he needed to be soothed.

  “So that’s where you get it from,” she murmured. That explained a lot.

  Jack lowered his frame onto a stool at the counter, watching her. Watching the way the open robe moved and caught, allowing the outline of her body to take his imagination hostage.

  “Get what from?” he demanded. “Zooey, what are you talking about?”

  The coffeemaker began to make crackling, hissing sounds as the water found its way through the machine, heating in the process.

  “You’re imitating a pattern. The only one you’ve ever known. Your stepfather was a workaholic, so now you are, too.”

  Jack looked at her, annoyed, a stinging protest rising to his lips. But the words never emerged, because he realized she was right. Even though he’d hated his adolescent years, he was reliving them from the other side—doing the same thing to his children that his own parents had done to him. Getting lost in his own world, while mouthing platitudes that this was all for them. That he was working all these long hours for them.

  It was himself he was doing it for. To feel worthwhile. To feel as if he was in control of some small part of his life.

  Blowing out a breath, Jack ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t like the fact that she was right. But that didn’t change anything.

  He eyed Zooey as she reached up to get cups from the cabinet. Her short jersey rode higher, lighting a fire within him. He looked away, trying to maintain some semblance of decorum.

  “What was it you said your degree was in?” he murmured.

  “I didn’t.” Placing a tea bag in each cup, she took the pot and poured hot water into both. “And I don’t have a degree,” she corrected. “I dropped out during the last semester before graduation.”

  He winced as if he’d just received a physical blow. He knew how he would have felt if Emily pulled that kind of stunt on him. “I’ll bet that didn’t go over very well at home.”

  He had the gift of understatement, she thought, setting the pot back on the burner. “That would be a bet you’d win.”

  Curiosity got the better of him. “Why did you drop out?”

  Ah, the million dollar question. Too bad she didn’t have a million dollar answer. Just a whole bunch of little ones that didn’t seem all that good when she said them out loud.

  “Because I could,” she told him. “Because I didn’t want to be dictated to, even by my family. Especially by my family,” she amended, remembering the period she’d been through. “Because I didn’t want to ‘conform.’ And maybe,” she concluded quietly, “because I was scared.”

  “Scared?” He said the word, but it really wasn’t registering. Jack couldn’t picture Zooey being afraid of anything. She struck him as being absolutely fearless, even when common sense would dictate caution. “You?” he scoffed. “Of what?”

  She set his cup of tea before him, knowing he didn’t care for cream or sugar. As far as she was concerned, the more cream and sugar, the better.

  “Of what was expected of me once I had that degree,” she told him, saying something she hadn’t even admitted to herself until this moment. “If I didn’t have the degree, they couldn’t expect me to be like them. Perfect.”

  “So, if I’m following you correctly, in order not to disappoint your parents, you decided to disappoint them big time.”

  He made it sound stupid. Hell, maybe it was at that, she thought.

  Zooey grinned with a dismissive shrug. “I don’t exactly do my best work when I’m feeling desperate.”

  He was still thinking about the unfinished degree. It seemed a shame to put in so much work, only to walk away from the finish line a second before the race was over. He took a sip of tea, his eyes never leaving her face. “Why don’t you go back and finish up? Get your degree,” he coaxed. “You know what they say. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

  “Maybe,” she allowed. “But as far as my going back to finish up my degree, I can’t. You see, I have this job I like, and the guy, he kind of depends on me to be there for his kids.”

  Jack laughed. He hadn’t forgotten about that part. It wasn’t as if he wanted her to leave. “There are always evening classes.”

  “The kids are there in the evenings, too,” she said with a perfectly straight face.
r />   His deadpan expression faded before hers did. “Yes, but the ‘guy’ could be, too.”

  Her eyes met his. This was new, she thought. Usually she had to beg him to put in an appearance once a night in the children’s rooms. “That would mean he’d have to make an effort to come home earlier.”

  Jack stopped being so vague. “I could make it home earlier than I have been.” He gazed into her eyes, even as he told himself to stop doing that. “For a worthy cause.”

  It was a struggle not to feel flattered. Zooey knew he didn’t mean it that way, but she still felt warm. And touched. “What about your cases?”

  He laughed. The woman certainly did know how to throw up obstacles. “Ever hear about bringing your work home with you?”

  She’d heard of it, but hadn’t expected him to do it. Not when he hadn’t before. She wondered if something was up, and told herself to stop being so suspicious.

  Sliding her cup beside his, she settled on the stool next to his. “You’d do that? For me?”

  God, but Zooey’s eyes were wide. And beautiful. He’d never noticed that before. It was difficult trying to focus on the conversation. Hard fending off this urge that had only gotten stronger since his date with Rebecca.

  “You had a good point. I should be spending more time with the kids,” he agreed. “And if I am home, there’s no reason why you couldn’t take a few classes until you satisfy your degree requirements.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. This had to be the last thing she’d ever expected to hear from him. “My mother would really like you. She’s already crazy about Jackie,” she added. Instead of being worn-out, her mother had been reluctant to give the boy up at the end of the day.

  Jack was looking at her quizzically, waiting for clarification. “I left Jackie with her today when I took Emily and Olivia shopping.”

  He nodded. He’d almost forgotten about the shopping spree. He took a sip of the tea she’d prepared for him, but it was going to take more than herbal tea to quell what was going on inside of him. Still, he appreciated the effort, even if he couldn’t say so out loud. “Emily seemed a lot happier than I’ve seen her in a long time.”