Mountain Daddy's Nanny Read online

  Trent looked at her as if surely, she must be joking, but he didn’t laugh, he just shook his head and reached into a drawer before he pulled out a stack of menus.

  “Take out,” he said. “But thanks for the offer.”

  Morgan felt her face flush red and she had to look away to stop him from seeing.

  “Daddy can’t cook,” Emma said. “So, we have menus for everywhere in town.”

  Trent cleared his throat and spread all the menus out on the counter.

  “What are you thinking, kiddo?” he called over Morgan’s head to Emma. “Pizza? Thai?”

  “Always pizza,” Emma said with a wry smile. “You know that.”

  “Is pizza okay with you?” Trent asked, but Morgan could tell it wouldn’t matter what her answer was, she was clearly going to be getting it anyway.

  “Sure,” she smiled. “Who doesn’t love pizza?” She grinned at Emma and Emma high-fived her.

  “That’s exactly what I always say,” Emma said smugly and then she shot a knowing look at her dad.

  “Okay,” Trent smiled. “I’ll call it in and go out and get it.”

  “I’ll set the table while you’re gone?” Morgan smiled as she stepped closer toward the kitchen and he looked at her as if she were crazy again.

  “Sure,” he said suspiciously, as if he couldn’t believe she was being so helpful. “Emma can show you where everything is.”

  Morgan smiled and watched as he walked casually toward the door and turned back to look at Emma before he went.

  As soon as he left and the door closed behind him, Morgan found herself sucking in a lungful of air and closing her eyes.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Emma said as if she were reading her mind. “He’ll loosen up eventually.”

  Morgan looked back to Emma with an amused smirk.

  “What do you mean?” she asked her as Emma got to her feet and came into the kitchen and started to open up the cupboards and shakily lift out the plates.

  “He’s not used to things like this,” Emma said. “And I once heard him say he doesn’t trust women.”

  The statement was so bold and completely out of the blue that it took Morgan completely off guard.

  “Oh,” she said as she tried to pick her jaw up from the floor. “He said that? To you?”

  “No, he didn’t say it to me,” Emma said with a shake of her head, as if Morgan was super silly for suggesting it. “He said it to one of his friends back in our old town. He said that most women are trouble and he was swearing them off for good.”

  “Oh,” Morgan had to hide her grin as she bent down to help Emma with the plates. “Well, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to that.”

  “Don’t worry,” Emma said. “I really don’t.”

  They looked at each other and laughed, and then Emma pointed up high to one of the cupboards she couldn’t reach.

  “The glasses are in there,” she said. “If you could help me get them down?”

  Morgan opened it up and got three out, and they took them over to the table and started to set it all together. Morgan couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t anything really homely and comforting there, they didn’t have any placemats and there wasn’t a tablecloth in sight.

  She made a mental note to look for some the next time they were in town.

  “We never sit at the table,” Emma said as she pulled out a chair and sat at it eagerly. “Dad always lets us eat in front of the TV.”

  Well, no wonder he looked at me as if I’m insane, Morgan thought. I’ve waltzed in here and already I’m changing everything up.

  “I like sitting at the table,” Emma said as she looked at their handy work and gave it an approving nod.

  “Good,” Morgan smiled. “So do I.”

  When Trent returned, the girls were already sitting patiently at the table, flicking through some of Emma’s homework and drinking big glasses of orange juice.

  Morgan turned to him and smiled and got to her feet.

  “Here,” she said. “Why don’t you sit down, I can plate this up.”

  Trent shot her one of his stares and then he dropped the pizza boxes down on the table.

  “We don’t need plates,” he said as he opened up the cardboard boxes and gave her a wink. “Straight from here is fine.”

  He shrugged off his jacket and threw it down onto the couch before he moved back into the kitchen and opened up the refrigerator. He pulled out a beer and snapped the top of it open before he took a swig and then joined them at the table.

  Morgan tried not to watch him, but she was fascinated.

  He was like no one she had ever met before, and it he was intriguing. She just couldn’t figure him out. One moment, he was welcoming, and the next, he was cold and rude and acting like a complete jerk. He lifted a slice of pizza and helped Emma get it onto her plate before he went back to the box and took one for himself.

  “Best pizza in Wakestone Pines,” he said as he slid the box across the table to Morgan. “Do you know it?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “I sure do,” she said. “Although, I’m more of a Luigi’s kind of girl.”

  “Oh my goodness, so am I!” Emma grinned as she looked wide eyed from her dad and then back to Morgan. “I love Luigi’s! Especially when we go and sit in there and to have their meatballs on the side!”

  “Okay, okay,” Trent said as he looked sadly at the pizza in front of them. “Don’t be too mean, you’ll hurt its feelings.”

  Emma burst out laughing and he looked down at his daughter so warmly that it made Morgan feel full already.

  “So, I guess I’m going to be overruled from now on,” Trent said with a shrug. “Two against one, who can argue with that?”

  Morgan laughed, and Emma leaned in and high-fived her again.

  When Morgan looked up, she caught Trent watching her, and for the briefest of moments, she was sure he was looking at her as warmly as he had been at Emma. He quickly looked away and took a sip of his beer.

  “So,” he said as he turned back toward the table. “School in the morning, which means bedtime as soon as we’ve had this.”

  “Aww, dad, please let me stay up with Morgan!” Emma pleaded.

  “Nope,” he said. “You’ve got to be up early, and I need to show Morgan around the house. Plus, it’s her first night here, she needs to settle in and we need to talk about what she’s going to be doing here.”

  She felt a rush of relief when he said it, because already, she was starting to feel as if every single suggestion she was making was wrong and that she was stepping on his toes.

  “Okay,” Emma said with a sigh. “But only because Morgan is the best and I want her to stay.”

  Trent and Morgan looked at each other and he raised his eyebrows before he took another sip of his beer, and then the three of them continued eating their pizza in silence.

  After Emma was fast asleep, Trent and Morgan sat in the main living area and he opened another beer. As she watched him, she could tell he was rough around the edges, but there was something hidden deep within him. She could tell he had hidden depths and he was clearly recovering from something. She couldn’t help but feel as if it had to be a broken heart.

  “I can cook,” she said suddenly to break the silence. “I know you guys are used to take out, but I honestly don’t mind making a meal for you every evening, in fact, I would be honored to do it.”

  Trent stared up at her and looked her up and down for a moment. He curled his lip into a suspicious smile, as if he doubted what she was saying very highly.

  “I hired a nanny,” he said. “And I don’t even really know what one of those is…” he half-laughed.

  “Well, let’s make it up as we go along then,” Morgan offered. “You concentrate on your work and let me take care of Emma and the house?” She felt nervous when she suggested it, but she had already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to spend her time there treading on eggshells. They needed to decide what she
was and wasn’t allowed to do, and fast.

  “Take care of the house?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll cook, clean, do the grocery shopping, get Emma to and from school, I can even run errands for you if you like?” She shrugged and waited for him to answer.

  He paused for a moment, as if he had no idea why she was offering to be so good to them.

  “I mean, Emma is out at school all day,” she shrugged. “What else am I going to do?”

  He considered what she had said and then he nodded.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Why not… But I don’t want all of that other stuff getting in the way of Emma’s care.”

  “Of course, it won’t,” she said. “In fact, I think it’ll help us all bond.”

  He rolled his eyes as if couldn’t even bare to hear the suggestion, and as he was getting used to her being there, she could sense that he was getting cockier by the minute.

  Morgan smiled and took a sip of her glass of water she had been cradling in her hand for so long it had started to go warm.

  “I’m here in the morning,” he said sternly. “For the first few days at least, I should show you how things go, what time we leave to get down the mountain and so she’s in school on time, and then I’ll probably gradually start to pick up some more hours at my office.”

  Morgan nodded as he rose to his feet and stepped toward the hallway that led up to the main staircase.

  “Stay in here as long as you want,” he said as he waited and looked as if he wanted to say something else. When the moment passed, he cleared his throat and scratched the stubble on his chin with his knuckles.

  “Good night,” she said with a weak smile.

  Trent looked back at her and nodded his head, but he didn’t say a word. He disappeared up the stairs and she was left alone, before she turned out all the lights and went back to her room.

  She had clearly found herself in a rugged mountain man’s home who had no idea how to share his space with a woman. But she was sure it would all be alright in the end. He was going to have to get used to it if he wanted help with Emma. And being as feisty as she was, Morgan knew she was the right girl for the job.

  6.

  Her first few days on the mountain passed relatively quickly and without incident. Trent kept his distance from her, and he let her settle into their way of life without giving her too much trouble. Morgan was surprised at how at home she felt when she let herself relax, and Emma seemed to adore having her around.

  They rose at seven a.m. each morning, and for the first week, Trent was there with them, as he said he would be, making sure things went to plan. Morgan would help Emma with her outfit for the day, then she would brush her hair, wash her face, and braid her hair however she wanted. When they had finished getting ready, they would head downstairs and have breakfast together, Trent would check in with them, but he was always absent, and he seemed to take the opportunity to grab a quick shower.

  As she and Emma ate their toast and cereal downstairs, Morgan could hear the sound of the shower in the rooms above and she couldn’t help but imagine what Trent would look like without his clothes. She had kept her mind out of the gutter, especially considering how rude and arrogant he had been with her, but it was something she always did, and she couldn’t help but daydream.

  When Emma was all set for school, he would come down, and Morgan regularly found her breath catching in her throat. For a man so much older than her, he really did rock the look well.

  His hair was always slicked back in just the right way that still left it looking wild and untamed, he wore battered jeans, old tshirts and vintage leather, and his stubble was always just the right length to cause a shadow but to not look scruffy. He was rugged, but the well put together kind… as if it was just how he was supposed to look without making any effort whatsoever.

  He would let Morgan drive and would sit in the front with her while Emma would sit in the back.

  “You need to get used to the roads this early,” he’d said sternly. “In fact, I think you may need a truck rather than this old tin can.” He slapped the dashboard and then leaned back in his seat.

  Morgan was nervous around him anyway, but when he was judging her driving skills, it only made her heart beat faster and she just longed for the journey to be over.

  “This car is fine,” she’d told him feistily, but he had snorted and shook his head as if she didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

  Once Emma was dropped off at school, Trent would either disappear into town, or he would give Morgan a list of errands and drive the car back while she got to work. Sometimes, he would come back to collect her a couple hours later, or sometimes, she would tell him not to worry until it was time to collect Emma from school in the afternoon.

  She knew the town well, and she wasn’t short of things to do, and on the days when he took the car back, she sometimes found herself walking along to her parents’ house and having a coffee with her mom.

  “Well, Emma sounds wonderful,” her mom had said.

  “She truly is,” Morgan had agreed. “And the house, well, it’s pretty nice too.”

  “At least you’re settling in,” her mom had smiled.

  And she did feel as if she was, but at the end of the day, she was still living in someone else’s home.

  By the time the first week had passed and they were into some kind of routine, Trent was picking up more hours down at his office on Main Street and Morgan was seeing less of him altogether. He tended to be out of the house before the girls even woke up, and when he returned in the evening, he liked to spend his quality time with Emma while Morgan found herself cleaning and tidying, or chilling in the annex.

  “I was going to start cooking for us,” Morgan said one afternoon when Trent had come back home, before she was about to go and collect Emma from school. “I know I haven’t as of yet, but I think it would be good for Emma to be used to the regularity of a hot meal being ready for her on the table when she gets home.”

  “And how are you going to manage that?” Trent asked cockily as he looked over at her with disdain. “If you’re out there collecting her?”

  “I have my ways,” Morgan said with a secret eyeroll. “Have you never heard of a slow cooker?”

  Trent stayed silent and leaned back on the counter and sighed. When Morgan looked over at him, she still couldn’t believe she was standing there with him sometimes. He was so unlike anyone she had ever met before. He was so full of testosterone and anger, but he also had a real quiet side to him. He always seemed to be lost in thought and contemplation, as if he was always trying to make sense of the world around him.

  “If you want to,” he said finally. “Then you go ahead.”

  “It might be nice for you to be around too if you can,” she offered and then instantly regretted saying it. He had hired her to look after Emma, not to demand that he left work to go and hang around with them as well.

  “I know I haven’t seen much of Emma this past week, but I was just getting stuff sorted out in the office,” he said as he looked up at her from beneath a hooded brow. “There’s a lot of crazy stuff happening in town, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I hadn’t, actually,” Morgan said with interest as she crossed the room to stand closer to him.

  Trent eyeballed her for a moment and then he cocked his head to the side.

  “You grew up here and you don’t know anything about this town?” he asked her, it was like he didn’t believe her.

  “It’s not that I don’t know anything,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve been busy with you guys… And I try to stay out of town gossip.”

  “This isn’t town gossip,” he assured her as he crossed his big, muscular and hairy arms over his chest. “This is a serious issue that needs to be stopped.”

  “What is?” she asked as she reached for the kettle and started to fill it with water before she put it on to boil.

  “Developers are trying to take
over Main Street,” he said as he ran his rough hands through his hair. “And I’m helping the locals try to stop them.”

  “Really?” she asked. She almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Why would a man like him, someone from practically out of town, want to be so involved in helping out the town’s folk of Wakestone Pines?

  “What are the developers doing? Why are they interested in here?”

  Trent sucked in a lungful of air and sighed.

  “I can only assume tourism,” he offered. “This place is quaint and small, it has an old-world charm and tons of independent stores. If the developers move in, there’ll be a goddam Starbucks on every corner and before we know it, a hotel will be going up, then another, and another, and the whole place will be overrun with summer camps, and skiers, and it won’t be Wakestone Pines anymore… It’ll just be another resort on another mountain.”

  It was a surprise to hear him talking that way, but Morgan couldn’t help but be inspired by his passion.

  “And this is why you need me?” she asked.

  “For now, yes,” he told her with a cold stare. “But I wouldn’t get too comfortable.”

  Morgan turned and rolled her eyes.

  “I mean, I’m doing what I can with the knowledge I have. I worked in construction and I know what these developers are offering is false. Something is off and I’m just trying to make sure as much of this town is preserved as it can.”

  “Well, that’s good of you,” Morgan smiled warmly.

  She did mean it, but she also hated the way he was speaking down to her. Memories of Mr. Sweeney flashed back in her mind and she wanted to scream.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll need to keep up extra hours. It’s not exactly like I’m earning anything by doing it, but I know I need to have the work and the interest. I’m the kind of guy who has to keep busy.”

  Morgan could tell that for sure.

  “If you rest, you rust,” he said to her with a cocky wink.

  “I’ve heard that before,” she smiled at him before she picked up the whistling kettle and started to fill two mugs with boiling water to make them both a coffee.

  “Anyway, I better go and get Emma,” she said as she took a hurried sip of her drink and pulled on her coat. “Maybe that will have cooled down by the time I get back.”