he thought of any of the kids being separated from each other or from him—Max felt an overwhelming need to shove his fist through the wall.
Daisy Holden didn’t know it yet, but she was their last hope. Two days ago they’d been falling apart faster than a house of cards. Last night he’d come home to a stocked refrigerator and a house that looked more like a home than it had in months. Nanny Holden might not be professionally trained, but she had experience; if he could keep her around, the threat hanging over them might very well be solved.
Pushing away from the wall, Max pressed on toward the dining room. He had a goal and he had a plan. The goal: to secure a commitment from Daisy Holden. Max wanted her signature on a year-long contract.
The plan: send the kids outside so he could have a little time and a little privacy to woo the nanny into staying.
Chapter Four
Ohmigod, the man can make pancakes. If he’d thrown a few sausages on the plate, D.J. would have followed him anywhere. Drawing her fork lazily through the remaining puddle of maple syrup on her plate, she watched his bottom while he cleaned the skillet.
Focus, Daisy, focus! she commanded herself. Ogling her employer’s tush when she was supposed to be watching his children was not the rip-roaring start she’d intended today. Gamely, she reached for sticky plates.
“I’ll take these,” she said to the children.
One plate clattered to the table when Sean practically screamed, “I’m not finished yet!”
D.J. jumped back, surprised by his vehemence. Not finished? All he’d done was draw squiggles in the syrup for the past ten minutes. She wasn’t sure how to respond. The only irascible children she’d ever spent time with were herself and a couple of foster siblings who made the cousin in Harry Potter look like Beaver Cleaver.
Fortunately, Max intervened. One good glare from over his shoulder was enough to make Sean lower his chin to his chest. “Apologize to Daisy for using that tone. We don’t scream at each other in this house. At least not much,” he added, winking at Daisy.
While Sean apologized, D.J. nodded and faked a brief coughing fit into her napkin to hide the blush creeping up her neck. Yes, she actually felt her face heating from the single wink Max tossed her. It was upsetting. She wasn’t a virgin, for heaven’s sake, and she wasn’t here to date him. But there was something disturbingly intimate about sitting at his breakfast table.
She’d never lived with a man or come close to marriage. She’d never dated anyone with kids. As a child, she’d bounced from one home to the next and had occasionally woken up wondering if she was having Raisin Bran with the Meltons that day or eggs and toast with the Donleavys. It wasn’t until she’d moved in with the Thompsons that there was any continuity in her life. They had become her eighth and final set of foster parents.
Perhaps because she’d moved so much in her life, sharing a table with a family had always seemed like an intimate experience to D.J., one that subtly highlighted who truly belonged and who was just visiting.
“Bring me your plates,” Max instructed the kids. “Then I want you to put all the toys that are in the backyard onto the patio so I can water the lawn.” A few grumbles greeted his request. He silenced them with a raised hand. “Toys on the patio,” he repeated. “Or no bike ride, no picnic, no swimming pool and no Game Boy. Now move it. Move it!”
D.J. felt a surge of foreboding—and quite possibly the pancakes—rise to her throat. Bike ride, picnic and swimming pool? She might know squat about the care and feeding of children, but sheer gut instinct told her those activities required supervision. More than that, they required an ability to corral children while performing physical feats. How was she going to do all those things and search the house for information on Max? Besides…
She couldn’t swim.
While the children scrambled off their chairs with their breakfast plates and then hustled out the kitchen door, D.J. wondered how she was going to investigate Max when he decided to fire her.
Setting the plates to soak in the sink, he grabbed a towel and turned toward her. “I figured getting rid of the munchkins for a while would give us a chance to talk.” He nodded toward her dish. “How was breakfast?”
“Terrific.” She hopped up, plate in hand. “You’re a good cook.”
Taking the plate from her, he slipped it into the sink. “I like cooking for someone with a good appetite,” he told her, his cloud-colored eyes and bourbon voice turning the comment into a skin-shivering compliment. “The kids play with more food than they eat.” A lopsided grin tugged his lips. “Although you look a little kidlike yourself right now.” Wiping his hand on a dish towel, he pointed to the corner of her mouth. “You’ve got a little chocolate there.”
“I do?” Embarrassed, D.J. automatically sent her tongue in search of the smudge.
Max watched her efforts, but shook his head. “You’re missing it. Here.” Leaning in, he licked his own thumb then touched it to the corner of her mouth and rubbed. It was exactly what he might have done for one of the kids. And it was nothing like what he might have done for one of the kids. Tingles zigged down D.J.’s spine then zagged back up again. “Got it,” he said, examining the spot that was now transferred to his thumb. “Hmm. Chocolate and maple syrup.” He put the tip of his thumb in his mouth and sucked it clean. “Not bad.”
Ohmigod.
The kitchen door banged open, nearly making D.J. jump in the air. Sean…or James…barreled in. “We found a snake!” He raced to a cupboard. “I need a jar.”
Max caught the boy before he could begin his jar search. The elder Lotorto shifted gears a lot more easily than D.J. could. She was still vacillating between hyperventilation and not inhaling at all. “I don’t think so, partner. No more pets. Besides, you’re supposed to be cleaning up.” Over the boy’s fervent protests, Max guided him to the door.
“But he’ll be gone if we don’t get him now. James is holdin’him.”
“Tell James to put the snake down, so he can pick up some toys.”
“Awww, Uncle Max…”
“Sean, if I have to come out there—”
Uncle Max?
Max shoved Sean out the door, walked to the refrigerator and swigged orange juice from the carton as if it were a shot of something far more soothing. Midswig, he caught himself and swore. “Sorry.” Setting the juice on the counter, he got a glass. “I lived alone so long, I’ve still got a lot of bad habits.”
Uncle Max? Uncle? “You’re not married?” D.J. blurted, realizing immediately she was going to have to work on subtlety. “I mean, I thought…I assumed you were married to the children’s mother. That you were their father.”
Max drank half a glass of juice then set it aside and frowned. “Their mother was my cousin.” He smiled. “You thought I was their father? That makes sense. I suppose I was so relieved to hire you, the little facts slipped my mind.”
“Little facts? Mr. Lotorto, that is not a little fact.” Questions raced through D.J.’s brain faster than she could sort them.
Laughing, Max reached for her elbow. “Mr. Lotorto? You can’t be that angry about an oversight.” Holding her arm, he guided her calmly toward the living room. “Come on, let’s sit down while we have the chance. Not even 9:00 a.m., and I’m beat already.” His smile was tired as he pointed her toward the sofa and settled himself on a large chenille-covered easy chair. “Embarking on fatherhood and a new business at the same time isn’t exactly what I’d planned.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t the children’s father?”
Facing her, he wiped the smile from his face and said, “I just didn’t think about it. Honest. Does it make that big a difference?”
D.J.