FOREVER MINE(36)

All the babysitters he’d hired since Mrs. Summers hadn’t been dependable and he’d been toying with the decision of whether to send the girls back home to Detroit for his parents to take care of them. That was something he hadn’t wanted to do. Joya and LaToya were his life. Just a few days shy of celebrating their first birthday, their mother had gotten killed in a car accident. Even now he could remember that day three years go when he’d lost his wife and he’d been constantly battling both pain and loneliness since.

He glanced at his watch. He was away from the job site on his lunch break and he knew Rose had a good reason for asking to meet with him so he might as well let her have her say, although he figured he knew the reason. He had mentioned to her on yesterday about the phone call he’d gotten from Mrs. Summers. The older woman was to have returned to town next week, but had called to advise him of her decision not to return to Anchorage after all. She would remain in Florida with her sister.

Rose had volunteered to be his babysitter only temporarily, to help him out, until Mrs. Summers returned. He had hated telling her on yesterday that Mrs. Summers wouldn’t be returning and had asked if she would consider staying on for a while until he found a replacement for her.

Rose had told him that she would let him know today whether she could continue to work for him or not. He knew that he couldn’t expect her to keep his girls forever. When they had originally met eight months ago at a business meeting, she’d been earning a huge salary as an advertising consultant at a major marketing firm in Charlotte. She had resigned after she and a new boss couldn’t see eye to eye. It would be just a matter of time before she would leave Anchorage to return to Charlotte to begin interviewing for another job. And he doubted she would have a problem getting one. In the short while he’d known her he could tell she was smart, highly intelligent and very attractive.

Very attractive.

When considering all her attributes that was the one thing that always came to him regarding her. Rose Woods was a very attractive woman. He suddenly felt a stirring in his gut when she looked over her coffee at him. As usual, he found himself tensely aware of her, something he’d never been crazy about, and tried like heck to downplay the physical attraction whenever the two of them were alone together. During the three weeks she’d been the girls’ babysitter their relationship had remained professional. Even those few times she’d slept over because of bad weather.

“I’m glad you could take the time to meet with me, Parnell. I know how busy you are.”

Her words interrupted his thoughts and he took his own cup of coffee and moved over to the table to sit across from her. “No problem.” After taking a sip of coffee, he asked. “So what have you decided?”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. She was nervous about something. He could sense it. His stomach knotted with panic at the thought that perhaps she was getting ready to tell him that not only could she not continue to be the girls’ babysitter but that she couldn’t hang around while he found a replacement. If that were the case, he didn’t know what he would do. As building foreman for the Regency Corporation he had an important responsibility in making sure they met contract deadlines. He would be forced to send the girls back to his parents. The thought of doing that killed him inside. He loved his daughters and wanted them with him. He needed them with him. With Becky gone the girls were all that he had.

He inhaled deeply, thinking if Rose had bad news to deliver she might as well get it out. Then he would somehow come up with a plan to deal with it. “Rose?”

She placed her coffee cup down and met his gaze. “I have a proposal that I think would solve both of our problems.”

He lifted a brow. He knew he had a problem but hadn’t known she had one. He moved his gaze to his coffee cup when he asked. “And what’s your problem?”

He could see out the corner of his eye how she shifted around in her chair and wondered again just what had her so nervous. He was about to ask her about it when she began talking.

“My problem is that at twenty-eight I don’t know what I want to do in life. Granted, I’ve work at the Demark Group for a number of years earning a good income, but now I’m not sure if I want to go back into the advertising field. I’ve even thought about taking classes at a university somewhere to earn another degree, one for something other than in business.”

He lifted a brow. “A degree in what then?”

She shrugged. “Computer technology perhaps. I’ve discovered I’m good at computers.”

He could believe that since in just the short while she’d been there, she’d taught Joya and LaToya about them. It wasn’t uncommon to come home from work and find them taking turns playing educational games on his personal computer.

“So,” he said slowly. “Did you call this meeting to let me know that you’ve decided to leave Anchorage to go back to college some where?”

“No. Like I said, I called this meeting to present a proposal that I think will help the both of us. Again, I’m not sure returning to college is what I want to do, it’s just one of the options I’m considering.”

“Oh.” Now he was more confused than ever. “Then maybe you need to just come out and tell me what this proposal is about, Rose.”

He watched as she put aside her coffee cup and placed both hands on the table. He glanced down at them. Not for the first time he thought she had nice hands, smooth and soft looking. And he knew that to be true since he’d accidentally touched them one day while she’d been helping him give the girls a bath. It was a day they hadn’t liked the thought of their play time being cut short and had tried giving him a hard time.

“My proposal is this. . . ”

He moved his gaze from her hands back to her face and thought again it was very attractive. She had an oval face with shoulder length dark brown hair and skin the color of cocoa. Then there was her perky nose and a set of full lips that blended in well with her other features. What he always found captivating was her eyes. They were light brown with beautiful long lashes covering them. But then her lips were pretty sexy too, he thought, shifting his gaze from her eyelashes to her mouth.

“. . . And so, considering all of that . . . I think the best thing to do is get married.”

His gaze snapped from her mouth to her eyes upon hearing the M word. Evidently he’d missed something along the way. “Excuse me. Did you just say something about getting married?” he asked, hoping he had misunderstood the part he remembered hearing. Hell, he hadn’t known she had a boyfriend and here she was breaking the news to him that she was getting married.

She gave him a look that indicated he’d been caught not paying attention. Okay, he would admit that. He had been too busy checking her out for the umpteenth time. Already he had escalated her features from just being very attractive to simply gorgeous. The baby blue sweater she was wearing did something to her eyes. Made them even more beautiful.

When she was certain she had his attention, she said. “All right then, I’ll start over. My proposal is this. I’m not sure what I want to do with my future yet. However, the one thing I am sure about is that I’ve grown attached to your girls. In just three weeks, Joya and LaToya have come to mean a lot to me. They are so very precious.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And after what you told me yesterday, about your former babysitter not returning, I knew I had to come up with a plan; one that would benefit us all. So my plan is this.”

He watched her hesitate for a second and then she said, “I will agree to continue to be the girls’ babysitter as well as your housekeeper.”

He gave a relieved sigh but from the look on her face he figured there was more to it than that. Besides, she had yet to explain the part about her getting married. “And?” he asked.

“And I would like to make the position a permanent one. That way, no matter where your job might take you, you’ll never have to worry about finding someone to take care of the girls.”

He lifted a brow, not believing what she was saying. He’d already heard from Gabe Blackwell, one of the owners of the Regency Group, that the company’s next project would more than likely take him to California for about six months where they would be building a new mall. “You would travel with us?” he asked to make sure he had heard her correctly.

“Yes.”

“No matter where we go?”

“Yes. No matter where you go, I’ll be there for you and the girls,” she said. She took a sip of her coffee and then added. “I understand that because of your job you travel quite a bit. It’s important to keep in mind that in another year, the girls will need to start kindergarten. However, with your work schedule and since you travel around so much, getting them situated into anyone’s school system will be hard. I’ve checked into the possibility of home school for them. I would enjoy doing something like that since my minor in college was education.”

Parnell leaned back in his chair. Not knowing what to say. The thought that Rose was willing to do all that for him and the girls left him totally speechless and deeply touched. What she’d said was true. His job included travel, sometimes from one part of the country to the other. And more than anything he wanted his girls with him all the time. They would need to start school soon. He hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. In a way he’d been almost afraid to, not sure how things would pan out from job to job. His parents were more than happy to take care of the girls while he worked and traveled but they were his responsibility. They were his life.