Free Nanny Behaving Badly by Judy Jarvie Page B

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Chapter Six

    With her attention firmly focused on Josh, Friday came quickly and with it Josh’s playdate. When Maddie picked Josh up from nursery, he and his friend Lewis were kite-high with excitement, thrilled at the prospect of playtime fun.
    Lewis was a sweet boy. Easy to please and he seemed to keep Josh’s vivacious enthusiasm at a gentler tone. There had been minimal toy squabbles, and their time together passed quickly. Perhaps, she mused, this was because she’d prepped a space theme. Making astronaut men from dough and silver painted space rockets had kept them completely enthralled. It wasn’t exactly original, considering she’d once worked at Junior Play Space Station. She’d simply customised cardboard tubes and cereal boxes. Before she knew it the familiar sound of keys in the lock told her Lyle was home from work.
    ‘Wow,’ he remarked, when his dark head and heart-stopper smile appeared around the door frame. He watched her sitting on the floor of the playroom with the boys. ‘I hadn’t pegged you as a rocket scientist, Maddie. The hidden accomplishments just keep stacking up. I can see you’ve all had a blast.’
    ‘By blast, I take it you mean one that causes extreme mess.’ Maddie chuckled and collected the debris together. ‘No comparison to NASA. Or winning rally awards or opening cafés to great acclaim.’
    He shook his head and semi-amused grey eyes bored into hers. ‘I think you could probably turn your hand to anything. You were pretty great at café work. I just chose to redirect your talents quite selfishly – the café’s loss is my gain.’
    Maddie pretended to bat off the compliment. ‘I liked working there. But I enjoy this too, it’s what I’m trained for.’
    ‘Couldn’t train me up to rival your skills, could you?’
    Just as the boys had finished their scale model creations of spaceships and were about to ‘zoom’ around the house at rocket launcher speed, the doorbell sounded.
    ‘That’ll be Lewis’s mother,’ Maddie stated, rising from picking up all the craft materials strewn about the floor. ‘I’ll get it.’
    Lyle put a stalling hand on her elbow. Tiny jolts of heat radiated and jumped from the contact point on her skin. She gulped at the awareness of their proximity, her heated skin prickled just from feeling his breathing close by. Moments like this did everything to emphasise that she had to maintain distance. Lyle’s tone was gentle, intimate. ‘I’ll get the door, you’ve done plenty. I’m pretty indebted for your efforts. Technically you clock off tonight. Tomorrow’s your free day, remember?’
    Maddie busied herself gathering together Lewis’s things: jacket, shoes, assorted craft creations. She could hear Lyle greeting Lewis’s mom, welcoming her into the house.
    ‘He’s had a great time, eaten all his supper. They’ve run off steam and played really well,’ she heard him confide.
    But when she walked through into the hallway, the smile of satisfaction at how things had gone was short-lived. Maddie felt her ego crumple and her heart fill with hard, cold iron.
    Her first instinct was to run, hide. Protect herself from the raw reality, instead she stood stock still and everything inside fisted hard.
    ‘Hello,’ said a familiar female voice. A voice that made Maddie start. A voice that caused assaulted emotions. A voice that belonged to a woman as opposed to a chance encounter as she was.
    Nadia Gordon: the woman who’d caused her furious walkout from her last job. The voice of her ex-boyfriend’s lover.
    As her pulse reached crescendo in her ears Maddie forced a reply. ‘I wasn’t expecting a reunion so soon.’ Even her hands shook as she handed over Lewis’s backpack. Maddie forced a neutral expression but all her features clammed rigid.
    Nadia didn’t maintain eye contact. ‘I’d no idea this was your new job.’
    The evidence that Nadia was a mother was almost as big a bombshell as the encounter. But then