Marrying the Northbridge Nanny by Victoria Pade Page A

since he’d turned off the engine, she got out of the SUV before he might have any inclination of how much she hated the news he’d just delivered. News that shouldn’t have caused her to feel anything whatsoever.
    Or if it did, the only feelings it should have caused were relief at the thought that for the next week she wouldn’t need to wrestle with her attraction to him, and hope that maybe by the time he got back she would have it conquered.
    But that wasn’t the case…
    He walked her to the stairs that led to her apartment and would probably have gone up them with her if she hadn’t half-blocked them to stop it. There was no reason for it other than that if he was going away, she wanted the cut to be quick and clean, to happen now, before she felt any worse—something that seemed to be happening the more it sank in that she wasn’t going to see him for a week…
    “Did you say you’re leaving tomorrow?” she asked, keeping her back very straight, her chin high, facing him as if she were unfazed.
    “At the crack of dawn. About the time Tia usually gets up, so I figure I’ll say goodbye to her and go. But Hadley is always up then, too, so she’ll be here—you don’t have to worry about coming over any earlier.”
    Meg nodded. “Well, have a good trip,” she said perfunctorily.
    Logan didn’t say anything. And he was looking so steadfastly at her, those penetrating eyes of his studying her face.
    Could he see how much this was bothering her? If he could he was probably as confused as she was about why that should be.
    Because it was confusing. Days—it had only been a matter of days since they’d actually met, how could she be so rocked by the thought of him going out of town? And only for a week—it just shouldn’t have been a big deal at all. It was crazy that it was.
    Then, in a quiet voice, he said, “You know, I wasn’t kidding earlier.”
    “About what?”
    “About my weakness for the nanny…” His eyebrows arched in a confusion that seemed all his own. “I keep telling myself to cut it out, but so far…” He smiled an endearingly sheepish smile and shook his head. “So far I’m not doing too well at that.”
    You fooled me, she thought even as her spirits lifted considerably at that admission and the knowledge that she wasn’t alone in whatever was happening between them.
    Logan’s smile tilted slightly. “I even tried to postpone this trip,” he said as if he couldn’t believe it himself.
    “Too bad you couldn’t…” Meg whispered, the most she could do in response to what he was saying, what she knew he shouldn’t be saying. What she shouldn’t be hearing because it only complicated things…
    “Yeah, too bad I couldn’t,” Logan whispered back just before he kissed her.
    It was a kiss that happened so fast Meg didn’t see it coming. A kiss so light it was almost as if their lips didn’t meet. A kiss that was over before she could enjoy it.
    Not at all the kind of kiss she’d been thinking about giving him last night.
    And yet there was still enough to it to send a mini-earthquake rippling through her…
    Then he took a step away from her and held up both palms as if in anticipation of her taking him to task. “I know, a relaxed family atmosphere was not supposed to mean kissing cousins,” he said, reiterating what she’d said that first day at her interview.
    “We aren’t cousins,” Meg said, repeating his wordsof that day because it was the only thing she could think of to let him know she wasn’t going to complain.
    “But I did promise no kissing.”
    She was on the verge of saying it was okay to kiss her when he took another step back and said, “I’ll see you in a week.”
    Then he pivoted on his heels and she was just left watching him walk away again with that swagger that was a turn-on all by itself.
    And what could she do? She couldn’t shout that he was welcome to kiss her again anytime. Especially when he shouldn’t be welcome to kiss her