5 Minutes to Marriage Read online

  She might not think much of Jack Cortland as a person, but he had a low, deep voice that could weaken the knees of a soldier. After talking to him on the phone that morning, it had taken her several minutes to get that sexy voice out of her head.

  The farmhouse came into view, and as she pulled up front and parked, she saw a towheaded tot wearing only a diaper racing across the grass and heading toward a large barn in the distance.

  Marisa turned off her engine and expected at any moment some adult to come running out of the house to collect the child. When that didn’t immediately happen, she jumped out of her car and hurried toward the little tot.

  “Hi,” she said when she caught up with him.

  He stopped and smiled at her, and her heart crunched in her chest. He looked like a little angel with his pale hair and bright blue eyes. “Hi,” he replied.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “David.” He glanced toward the barn, as if eager to be on his way.

  “I’m Marisa. You want to play a game?” His eyes lit up and he nodded. “Do you know how to jump on one foot?” He nodded again and began to jump up and down. “Let’s see who can jump on one foot all the way to the house.”

  He took off, alternately hopping and running. Marisa followed after him, silently seething over the fact that a baby was outside alone with no adult supervision in sight.

  David’s laughter rang in the air as he hurried toward the house with Marisa at his heels. They had just reached the porch when the front door exploded open and Jack Cortland flew outside.

  His gray eyes were wide with alarm as he took the stairs of the porch two at a time. “David! Thank God.” He grabbed the boy up in his arms, then stared at Marisa, panic still gleaming in his eyes.

  She said nothing, merely stood drinking in the sight of the infamous Jack. She’d expected a man who looked dissipated, a man with sallow skin and the lines of debauchery slashed deep in his face. Instead his dark hair gleamed richly in the overhead sunshine. He sported a healthy tan and arm muscles that looked as if he wasn’t a stranger to hard work.

  He was hot…and for just a few seconds, Marisa forgot what she was doing here. It was only when David squealed in protest and struggled to get out of his father’s arms that her brain reengaged.

  “I’d say you have a problem with basic safety issues,” she said.

  “He’s Houdini reincarnated,” Jack said with obvious frustration. “I assume you’re Marisa?” She gave him a brief nod, and he gestured her toward the front door. “Welcome to the zoo.”

  “I need to get some things from my car,” she said. “I jumped out when I saw David racing across the grass and no adult in sight.” She couldn’t keep the thick disapproval from her voice.

  “I didn’t know he’d escaped,” he replied with a grimace. “Get whatever you need and come on in.” He didn’t wait for her reply, but instead disappeared into the house.

  Marisa headed back to her car and tried to still the crazy butterflies that had gone dancing in her stomach at the sight of him. She couldn’t remember when just looking at a man had caused such a visceral reaction. Certainly when she’d first met Patrick she hadn’t felt the burst of heat that the sight of Jack had evoked.

  The man was a mess, she reminded herself as she grabbed her purse and briefcase from the passenger seat.

  Still, as she headed toward the front door she steeled herself against his obvious attractiveness. She was here to contemplate a job and nothing more. She had a boyfriend, her life was on track and the last thing she needed was for some thirty-year-old drummer with a disastrous history rocking her world.

  She swept through the front door and into a small entry and then into a large living room that was obviously the heart of the house.

  Jack stood in the center of the room, which was littered with toys and kids’ clothes and had the faint scent of a dirty diaper. The boys were wrestling on the floor, and as Jack looked at her, once again his soft gray eyes held an appeal. “I need help.”

  She felt her resolve not to get involved fading away. He looked so utterly helpless in the midst of the chaos. “Is there someplace we can sit and chat?” she asked.

  “Boys, why don’t you go to your room and play,” Jack said.

  David jumped up and smiled at Marisa. “Watch,” he said, then hopped on one foot down the hallway. The other boy followed his brother, and the two of them disappeared from view.

  Jack swept a handful of blocks and toy trucks off the sofa and gestured her to have a seat. Then he sat in the chair opposite the sofa.

  “I’ve had the boys in my custody for almost four months,” he said. “They came to me undisciplined and wild, and as you can see, I haven’t managed to change things much in the time that I’ve had them.”

  “Exactly what are you looking for from me, Mr. Cortland?” she asked.

  “Jack, please make it Jack.” He smiled, but the gesture didn’t quite erase the worry from his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious that I need somebody to train the boys and to teach them how to behave?”

  Marisa didn’t think Jack was ready to hear that. In her experience it was usually the parents who needed training, not the children.

  At the moment she saw nothing of the hard-rock star. What she saw was a concerned father worried about his sons. She held on to her heart. There was something about Jack Cortland that made her think that if she allowed it, it would take about five minutes for her to fall crazy in love with him.

  But of course she wouldn’t allow it. She wasn’t even sure she was going to take this job. Just because Jack had beautiful gray eyes fringed with sinfully long lashes, just because he had lips that looked as if they could drive a woman wild didn’t mean she was eager to work as a nanny for him.

  She opened her briefcase and pulled out a sheath of papers. “Here are my credentials and references,” she said as she held them out toward him.

  He waved his hand in the air. “Trust me, I’ve already checked you out, Ms. Perez. I wasn’t about to allow just anyone into my home with my boys.” He shot her a level gaze. “You graduated from college with a degree in early childhood education. You’re twenty-seven years old, live alone and you’re particularly close to your aunt Rita, who has worked as an FBI agent for the last twenty years.”

  Marisa raised an eyebrow. “Please, call me Marisa,” she said, impressed by the fact that he’d done his homework where she was concerned. “How many other people do you have working for you here in the home?” she asked. “I need to know who the children interact with on a daily basis.”

  “I have a cook who comes in the morning and leaves right after she fixes the evening meal. Other than that, it’s pretty much just me. The nanny Candace had used for the boys got another job.”

  “No housekeeper?” she asked.

  One corner of his mouth turned up in a rueful grin as he looked pointedly around the room. “If I had a housekeeper, I would have definitely fired her by now.”

  “You understand this would be a live-in position,” she said.

  “There’s a spare bedroom across from the boys’ room. You’d have your own private bath and of course free access to the rest of the house.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Tell me you’ll take the job, Marisa. You have no idea how important this is to me.”

  But she did see how important it was to him. A frantic desperation shone from his eyes, something that looked remarkably like fear.

  There was more going on here than just his need for her to teach the boys to be well-behaved. She was definitely intrigued.

  The fee she collected from this job would put the final dollars in her bank account that she needed to start her business, but she had no idea how far Jack had come from the bad-boy rocker he had once been. Was this really a man she wanted to work for?

  “Okay,” she heard herself saying before she even knew she’d made a conscious decision. “But I have a condition.”

  “Just name it,” he exclaimed.

&nbs
p; “We agree to a weeklong probationary period. If at the end of that week you wish to terminate me, or I decide to leave, then you pay me for the week and I’m on my way. At the end of that week if we’re both agreeable, then I have a contract to sign that will assure me two months here.”

  “Just two months?” he asked.

  “I’m a troubleshooter. I only work temporary positions. If you’re looking for somebody for long-term, then when I finish my two months I’ll help you hire somebody for a permanent position.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me. When can you start?”

  “Tomorrow morning around nine?”

  “Perfect,” he said with a sigh of relief. She stood and so did he.

  She was far too aware of him just behind her as she walked back to the front door. She turned back to him, finding him standing ridiculously close to her. The scent of him washed over her, a clean scent coupled with the faint remnants of a spicy cologne.

  She stepped back, her breath catching in her chest as that crazy surge of heat swept through her. He held out his hand, and she stared at it for a long moment, almost afraid to touch him, afraid of how that touch might make her feel.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said as he awkwardly dropped his hand to his side. She flew out the door and hurried toward her car.

  Dear God, what was wrong with her? She was acting like some silly, empty-headed fan—and she hadn’t even liked his music or his band.

  She was doing this strictly for the kids. It was obvious they needed some loving attention and a firm hand. Still, as she thought about moving into Jack Cortland’s home the next morning, she couldn’t help feeling that it might just be the biggest mistake she’d ever made in her life.

  Chapter 2

  “What’s he like?” Marisa’s aunt Rita asked. Rita had invited Marisa and Marisa’s current boyfriend, Patrick Moore, for dinner that evening. They were all seated around the dining table in Rita’s apartment.

  Marisa picked up her glass of ice water, as if needing the cold against her skin as she talked about Jack Cortland. “Desperate,” she replied. “The little boys are a mess and from all appearances are the ones running things.”

  “I still don’t like it,” Patrick exclaimed. “That man has a terrible reputation. I don’t like the idea of you living in that house with him.”

  Marisa smiled at the handsome man across from her at the table. “Initially it’s just for a week. If I see behavior that makes me uncomfortable, then after that week I’ll be done.”

  There were times she thought Patrick was too good to be true. Not only was he incredibly handsome and charming but he also had a good job as an accountant and seemed to have fallen head over heels in love with her.

  They’d been dating only a couple of weeks, but Patrick had already made it clear that he believed she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  Although Marisa liked him a great deal, she wasn’t about to fall into a hot, passionate affair with a man she’d been dating only a brief time. She’d done that once before in her life, and the results had been devastating.

  She took a sip of her water and wondered why thoughts of a hot affair automatically brought a vision of Jack to her mind.

  “I was a fan of Jack’s band for a while,” Patrick said. “Creation did some awesome songs, but once he married Candace Rothchild the band seemed to go straight downhill.”

  “Such a shame about her,” Marisa said. She looked at her aunt. “You were working that murder case for a while, weren’t you?”

  “Still am,” Rita replied. “Unfortunately, there aren’t many leads to follow.” Rita shook her head. “I can’t imagine having to bury a child, even a child who was thirty years old at the time of her murder.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have slowed down her father. What’s he on now—his third or fourth wife?” Patrick asked.

  “Third wife,” Rita replied. “This current one is a former showgirl considerably younger than him. Rumor has it that the thrill is gone and the marriage is in trouble.”

  “I’m sorry that Harold lost a daughter, but I’m even sorrier that David and Mick lost their mother,” Marisa said.

  Patrick smiled ruefully. “From all accounts, she wasn’t much of a mother.”

  “I know, but I still feel bad for those little boys,” Marisa replied.

  “Just don’t get too emotionally involved,” Rita said with a gentle smile.

  Marisa laughed. “Aunt Rita, I’ve been a nanny for quite some time now. I know how to separate myself from my little charges. I never lose track of the fact that I’m only in their lives temporarily.”

  Rita was the only person on the face of the earth who knew what had happened to Marisa in college. Eventually if she and Patrick decided to marry, she’d have to tell him before any vows were exchanged. But it was far too early in their relationship for deep, dark secrets to be exposed.

  The rest of the dinner was pleasant, and when they were finished Patrick excused himself from the table and disappeared down the hallway toward the bathroom while Marisa and Rita began to clear the table.

  “I like him,” Rita said as she rinsed off one of the dinner plates. This was only the second time Patrick and Rita had shared any real quality time together. Rita had entertained them over dinner a week earlier.

  “He is great, isn’t he?” Marisa handed her another plate. “He couldn’t wait to get to know you better. He knows how important you are to me.”

  Although Marisa’s parents were lovely people, they’d never really understood their daughter’s desire to make her own way in the world rather than follow them into the very lucrative family real estate business.

  Marisa had always been particularly close to her father’s sister, Rita. It had been Rita who Marisa had confided in when her world had fallen apart in college.

  “How are you doing?” Marisa asked and gestured to the bandage on the side of Rita’s head. She and Jenna Rothchild had been kidnapped, and Rita had suffered a gunshot wound to the head. It had rendered her unconscious, and although she and Jenna had managed to get away neither of them had been able to identify the man responsible or why they had been kidnapped in the first place.

  “I’m okay—a little headache now and then, but that’s all,” Rita replied. “You’re taking things slow with Patrick?”

  “Absolutely. I want to marry once in my life. I’m not about to jump into anything too intense too fast.”

  Rita smiled. “I think Patrick has other ideas. He seems quite smitten with you.”

  At that moment he walked back into the kitchen and any further conversation with him as the topic halted.

  After cleaning up the kitchen, the three of them moved into the living room where the conversation revolved around Las Vegas life, Patrick’s work and a new casino that had opened in town. Rita never discussed her work, but she was a charming hostess who kept the conversation flowing until Patrick and Marisa decided to call it a night.

  It was just after nine when Patrick pulled up in front of the small house Marisa rented. “I like your aunt,” he said.

  “She liked you, too,” Marisa replied.

  “What’s not to like?” He flashed her a bright smile.

  “I’d invite you in, but I really want to get a good night’s sleep before the morning,” she said as he parked the car.

  “Am I going to see you at all over the next week?” he asked.

  “Probably not,” Marisa admitted. “The first week in a new position is always pretty intense. But it’s just for a week, Patrick.” She opened the passenger door and got out.

  Patrick got out of the car as well and fell into step next to her. He grabbed her hand in his as they walked to her front porch. “And what happens after the first week? What if you take the position for the next couple months? Does that mean I won’t be able to see you the whole time?”

  She disentangled her hand from his to reach into her purse for her keys. “Not at all. If Jack Cortland
and I agree that he needs my services for that long, then I always make sure I have most weekends off.”

  She unlocked her door then turned back to face him. “Good night, Patrick.” She reached up and kissed him on his smooth cheek, but he quickly pulled her into his arms for a real kiss.

  It was pleasant, but it didn’t curl her toes or weaken her knees. When the kiss ended he reluctantly released her. “Then I guess I’ll see you in a week or so?”

  “I’ll call you and let you know how things are going,” she replied.

  “You know I’ll be waiting for your calls,” he replied.

  She watched as he walked back to his car. He was a man who could easily turn female heads. Tall and slim, with the dark features of his Hispanic heritage, he always dressed with an understated elegance and looked both handsome and successful.

  Minutes later as she undressed in her bedroom she thought of that kiss and Patrick. Maybe one of the reasons she was attracted to Patrick was because there weren’t wild fireworks when they kissed, there wasn’t that sizzle that came from a simple touch and the breathlessness of a mere glance.

  She’d experienced that crazy hot passion once in her life and never wanted it again. It had destroyed her life, and the thought of feeling that way again frightened her.

  She pulled her red silk nightgown over her head, turned out the light and crawled into bed. Maybe real love was just that faint warmth that filled her when Patrick smiled at her or the quiet friendship they were building together.

  She frowned as she thought of Jack Cortland. So what was it about him that had caused that sizzle inside her? Why did a man she had little respect for, given his past, fill her with a wild sense of anticipation at the very thought of seeing him again?

  Jack worked until almost three in the morning cleaning the house. The boys had finally fallen asleep around eleven. He’d moved them into their bedroom, then had tackled the living room with a vengeance.

  Toys went back into the boys’ room, dirty plates and cups carried back to the kitchen. He polished and washed and vacuumed until the room looked presentable. Then he went into the guest room that Marisa would call home and cleaned it as well.