CHAPTER 5

"Oh-oh,look-ut Harry did...."

At the sound of Tiara's voice, Meg stopped putting clothes in a dresser drawer and glanced around to find that the puppy had gone into the apartment's bathroom, grabbed the end of the toilet paper and unrolled it all the way out into the living room.

"Harry, not again!" Meghan complained because it was the third time the puppy had done that.

Despite the repeat performance, Tiara thought it was hilarious. And as much of a nuisance as the mess was, the fact that it delighted the three-year old made it worth it to Meghan. That kind of simple joy was part of why she was there - it was actually part of what she was hoping to find in this job that was her self-prescribed therapy.

Tia knew the drill by then - she grabbed Harry to keep him from running wild and unrolling even more of the paper while Meghan tore off what he'd slobbered on, threw it away and rerolled the rest. By the time she'd done that and come out of the bathroom- again leaving the door open to accommodate Tia's instant dashes there when she decided at the last minute that she needed to use the facilities - a giggling Tia was sitting on the floor with Max licking her face.

Meghan could have left the puppies in the house while she and Tia were at the garage apartment unpacking. But where Tiara went, the puppies wanted to go too and Meg hadn't had the heart to separate them. Still,it had made settling in a slow process and by later Monday afternoon - after spending the entire day trying to empty her suitcases and the boxes she'd taken from the trunk of her car- she was still only about half finished.

"Are we done yet?" Tiara asked when Max and Harry began to wrestle with each other and we ignore her.

"Just a little while longer and then it will be time to go back to the house to get ready for dinner. I have a present for you though, since you've been so good today and let me get some of my work done."

"A present?" Tiara repeated.

She sounded wide-eyed but Meghan couldn't actually see the little girl's eyes because they were covered with a pair of old sunglasses Meghan had let her have. They completed the dress up ensemble that included one of Meghan's scarves and two of her belts wrapped around Tiara's T-shirt and short, a pair of Meghan's tong panties worn like a backpack with Tiara's shoulders through the leg openings. Meghan had no idea what Tiara thought the panties were, but since the three-year old had devised her own use for them and not asked about their real purpose, Meghan had not offered the information.

"What kind of present?" Tiara asked coyly.

This particular present was one of Meghan's favourite tools and she was surprised that Tiara had been distracted and entertained with other things for so long that it had taken until now for Meghan to bring it out. Ordinarily, with the kids she worked with, she needed to use the tools at her disposal immediately.

She was also thrilled that it hadn't taken more than today for Tiara to become comfortable with her- she was accustomed to kids who were so disabled, fearful, phobic, angry, upset or just plain leery of strangers that it took far longer to win then over.

"It's kind of a big present." Meghan answered her charge's question in a tone intended to intrigue.

"How big?" Tiara inquired, going for the bait.

"Pretty big" Meghan said as she went to the bed. She'd hidden the gift under it when she'd taken it out of her trunk last night after having brought her car around to park it nearer to the apartment - something Hadley had come across the yard to suggest after Lucas had left, making Meghan wonder why he hadn't come back himself.

Not that it mattered.....

"It's too big a present to wrap," she warned Tiara as she got down on her knees and pulled out a mini trampoline.

"What is it?" Tiara asked when she saw it

Meghan positioned it next to the bed so that the mattress could act as a guardrail. "It's called a trampoline"

"What d'ya do with it?"

Meghan stepped onto it and demonstrated "You jump on it."

This time, Tia's awe was more apparent because her mouth opened wide.

"Le'me do it!" Tiara demanded, jumping up and down on the floor in an excited mimicry of Meghan's demonstration on the trampoline. And again, Meghan appreciated the fact that it was to easy to interest Tiara,to excite her, and that she was so willing to plunge right into even new things.

Meghan stepped off the trampoline and before she could offer any assistance, Tiara climbed into it.

"First, let's get some of this stuff off you- you could trip on the ends of the belts and the scarf,and the sunglasses will go flying," she explained.

"But not my pitty cape," Tiara said, patting one of the thong's straps at her shoulder.

"Not your pretty cape" Meghan agreed. "You can keep that on as long as we're up here but it will have to stay in the apartment when we leave." Because there was no wan in the world she was taking Tia to dinner wearing her flowered thong...

While Meghan divested Tiara of the rest of her playthings, the little girl could hardly contain herself. When she'd finished, Meghan said, "Now hold my hands and take little jumps at first,until you get the feel of it."

Tia didn't hesitate to do as she'd been told - anything to finally get to do what she was wiggling around in eager anticipation of. But the exact moment her tiny hands were securely in Meghan's,Tiara jumped. Tentatively at first, giggling,then jumping more.

"I yike it!" she proclaimed, venturing a higher jump, wobbling slightly on the landing but not enough to fall.

Then she got braver still and began to jump repeatedly- she was clearly a quick learner, and after a few minutes of that,she said "Le' me do it myself."

By then Meghan thought Tiara knew what she was doing and since the trampoline was barely a foot off the floor with nothing nearby that the little girl could fall into and hurt herself, Meghan allowed her to let go of her hands.

"Now,go back", Tiara ordered, her three-year old independence making her insist that Meghan not continue to hover.

But Meghan only went as far as to sit on the bed. She still wanted to keep an eye on the little girl until she was sure Tiara could manage the trampoline without incident, but she was also enjoying watching how much pleasure it was bringing the happy-go-lucky Tia. That was more important to her than unpacking.

This was exactly why she had taken the nanny job- to have a contact with an untroubled, carefree kid. A kid who experienced unfettered joy over things like the dog unraveling the toilet paper, who had no compunctions about innocently wearing a thong as a makeshift cape, who got the thrill out of jumping on a tiny trampoline.

Things like that were what made Meghan enjoy working with kids in the first place. Prior to taking in the job of dealing with the serious aspects of ill, disabled or abused children, being with kids had just been fun. It had been a way for her to get out of the she'll of her shy,reserved nature and behave more freely herself.

And that had been important to her. Especially since she was worried that her shy, reserved nature made her a little too much like her grandfather, the stuffy former town Reverend.

Not that she was in any way as judgemental it staunch or student or daunting as the Reverend was. But she did tend towards being a bit on the controlled side, and she had discovered early on that working with kids helped counteract that. And right now, she needed that more than she ever had.

In fact, if she didn't find a way to accomplish it, she wasn't sure she could go on doing her job as a psychologist anymore.

Intellectually, she knew what she was going through - it was a reaction to a traumatic event. But she was concerned that if she didn't do something to work through it in a hurry, her inhibited, reticent, shy nature might take over and she might not ever lose the jitters or the skittishness she had developed. The jitters and the skittishness that made her jump at even the smallest unexpected sound or every time one of her kids came near her without warning. She was worried this fearfulness might make her as suspicious and untrusting as her grandfather was, that she would end up distant and off-putting and untouchable.

Why did the image of Lucas Macaulay pop into her mind as she thought about how much she didn't want to be untouchable?

It wasn't as if she was there to be touched by any man, let alone her boss for that matter.

She had things to sort out. Things that out her at a critical juncture in her life, in her career. There was no way she needed the additional complication of romance with anyone, let alone someone who was employing her to take care of his daughter.

And his daughter was another component of that. Tiara could potentially be hurt by something like her Nanny having a fling with her father. It was one thing for the Macaulays to include Meghan and treat her like family, but it was another thing to play house and give Tiara a false sense of family that didn't really exist.

And yet, the thought that she wouldn't want Lucas to see her as untouchable lingered the same way his image and the strong sense of him had stayed with her since he'd left last night...

Maybe that lingering image and sense of him came from the fact that there was too much of him in this apartment. A sort of essence of him left in his handiwork and in the personal touches that almost seemed like a brand on the place. He'd built it, for crying out loud. And he not only had furnished it, he'd furnished it with pieces he'd designed himself,pieces he'd created himself.

Just then Tiara jumped too near the springs and lost her balance for a split second before she regained it and went on the way she'd been.

It seemed to Meghan that that was what she was going through herself - she had lost balance and now,she was back in Northbridge, working with Tiara, to regain her own equilibrium.

And regardless of how terrific looking Lucas was, how sexy, how appealing he could be when he was holding his daughter on his lap or reading to her or gently kissing her goodnight and tucking her in, appreciating him as a good dad was as far as anything was going to go for him.

Because nothing could be more unbalancing than a relationship with a man and that was the last thing she needed right now.