The Nanny's Secret Baby--A Fresh-Start Family Romance Page 3

  “He might just not be very expressive,” Arianna said, feeling defensive for Sammy. “Kids with autism don’t always smile a lot.” How had this turned into a coaching session for a woman more than twice her age?

  And what if the coaching didn’t work and the woman decided to quit?

  “To think, I’m sitting here in the park and getting in trouble for a chat I have with an acquaintance.” The woman waved off in the direction of the woman who’d left with her baby. “You know what? I’ve had enough. You’re his aunt, you say?”

  Arianna nodded. She was getting a very bad feeling.

  “He obviously knows and likes you. Better than he likes me.” The woman stood and plunked the diaper bag into Arianna’s lap. “Here,” she said. “You take care of him. His father will be here in half an hour. Tell him he can mail me my last paycheck.”

  “But...but...”

  It was no use. The woman left, and there was Arianna, literally left holding the bag.

  The bag, and her secret son.

  Chapter Three

  Jack’s last Saturday appointment was with a longtime patient: Mr. McCrady’s Irish setter, Cider. He ran his fingers over the dog’s hunched haunches and manipulated her legs, noticing when the stoic creature gave a little flinch. “Her arthritis is bothering her more?”

  “Hers and mine, both.” Mr. McCrady’s forehead wrinkled as he stroked his dog’s ears. “She has trouble getting out of her bed some mornings. Can we get her on pain meds?”

  “Absolutely.” Jack finished the exam and then scratched Cider’s chest, glad to note that her plume of a tail wagged. “There are risks to her kidneys that come with that type of medication, so we’ll want to keep up with her bloodwork. But I think she’s earned some pain relief.”

  “That she has,” Mr. McCrady said. “She’s been my best friend since my wife died. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  The dog panted, seeming to smile up at her owner. Her white face and warm brown eyes communicated pure, uncomplicated love. Jack had really come to appreciate senior dogs since he’d been working at Redemption Ranch.

  He got Mr. McCrady and Cider set with a prescription and an appointment for a follow-up visit and then stepped into his office to check messages.

  He skimmed past seven he could handle later, and then his fingers froze.

  Why was Arianna messaging him?

  Problem with your sitter. I have Sammy and he’s fine. Come to my aunt’s house, 30 Maple Ave. ASAP

  A problem with his sitter? He scrolled on through but didn’t see a message from Mrs. Jennings.

  “Gotta run,” he said to his receptionist, who was gathering up her things. “There’s an issue with Sammy. Can you and Thomas close up?”

  “Sure thing, Doc. Hope everything’s okay.”

  Jack drove the four blocks to Maple Avenue without his usual pauses to enjoy the town’s Saturday bustle and then hurried up the front sidewalk to Arianna’s aunt’s house. He’d been here a couple of times in the early days of his marriage, but Chloe hadn’t gotten along with her aunt and uncle—hadn’t gotten along with a lot of people, including Arianna—so he didn’t know them well.

  When he rang the doorbell, Arianna’s aunt Justine answered. “Hey, Dr. Jack, you sure you want to come into the craziness?”

  “I got a message that my son’s here,” he said.

  “In the kitchen.” She gestured behind her. “Come on in.”

  Jack’s eyes widened at the stacks of magazines and newspapers that allowed only a narrow path through the hallway.

  “I don’t want any more people in here!” came a bellow from the other end of the house.

  “It’s just Dr. Jack,” Aunt Justine yelled back. “He’s here to get his baby.”

  “Well, send him on his way.”

  She gave Jack an apologetic shrug. “Go on in and see Arianna and Sammy. He—” she gestured in the direction from which her husband’s shout had come “—he’s embarrassed about how the house looks. I just have to calm him down.” Justine turned and hurried toward the back of the house.

  Jack picked his way through the mess, his uneasiness growing.

  When he got to the kitchen, his focus immediately went to Sammy. His son sat straight-legged on a clean blanket next to Arianna, who was talking at a computer screen.

  Sammy held a wooden spoon and was tapping it against a plastic bowl with intense concentration.

  “I have experience with teenagers, yes,” Arianna was saying to the screen. Her wild curls were pulled back into a neat bun, and her peach-colored shirt was more tailored and buttoned-up than what she usually wore.

  She also had a streak of what looked like blueberry jam across her cheek that matched the streaks on Sammy’s shirt. Oops.

  “I’m staying with relatives in Esperanza Springs right now,” she said, apparently in answer to an interview question. “But I’m able to relocate for the right job.”

  She was doing a Skype interview and, for whatever reason, she was also taking care of his son.

  And she was thinking about relocating? Jack’s chest tightened.

  But he didn’t have time to wonder what that was about. “Come here, buddy,” he said quietly, holding out his hands to pick up Sammy. The steady banging noise his son was making couldn’t help Arianna’s cause.

  Sammy noticed him for the first time and pumped his little arms. Jack’s heart lifted, and he swung Sammy up.

  But not before Sammy’s flailing feet made a stack of plastic containers clatter to the ground. The noise startled Sammy, and he began to cry.

  Jack glanced at Arianna in time to see her slight cringe. The person doing the interview, blurry on the screen, frowned.

  “I can send you reference letters or give you phone numbers,” Arianna said over the din.

  She turned up the sound and Jack heard the fatal words: “We’ll be in touch.”

  He carried Sammy out of the room, waved to Justine, who stood at the end of a hallway arguing with her husband, and went out the front door. He started toward his truck, then paused. He needed to get Sammy home, but first, he’d better wait and find out from Arianna what was going on. And apologize for disrupting her job interview.

  Putting Sammy down on his blanket, he showed him a smooth stick. True to form, Sammy found it fascinating and began to bang it on the ground.

  It wasn’t three minutes before Arianna came out. “Hey,” she said when she saw him.

  “How’d your job interview go?” he asked. “I’m sorry for all the noise.”

  She shrugged. “What will be will be,” she said. “I was just hoping... It’s my only semilocal opportunity.” Her words were casual, but her eyes were upset. She was fingering her necklace, and Jack saw that it was a cross.

  Yeah, he’d heard she’d come to the faith in a big way.

  “So what happened with Sammy?”

  She sighed. “It’s my fault.”

  “What’s your fault?” Arianna meant well, but chaos followed her wherever she went. Chloe had always said as much.

  “The sitter was talking about his autism in the park, where everyone could hear,” she said. “I sort of got upset and told her she shouldn’t share his diagnosis—which wasn’t my business, and I’m sorry—and she ended up dumping him and all his stuff on me.”

  “She was talking about his diagnosis? At the park?”

  “She didn’t mean any harm. I think she was just trying to figure out how to cope.”

  That sounded like Mrs. Jennings.

  Sammy looked up, and Jack sat down to be closer, rubbing his son’s back. How was he going to do right by Sammy? The child needed careful, consistent care, and he’d known for a while that Mrs. Jennings couldn’t fit the bill, even before they’d gotten the diagnosis. But now, his interviews with so-called serious sitters weren’t going
any better. He’d even tried Skyping with a couple of women from out of state, but he’d not gotten a warm feeling from any of them.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said. Right now, he felt like just a struggling dad and was glad to have a relative to vent to, someone who seemed to care about Sammy almost as much as he did.

  She tilted her head to one side. “This could be a God thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I need a job,” she said slowly. “And you need a nanny.”

  He saw where she was going and let his eyes close. “Look, Arianna, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But I just don’t think—”

  “Don’t think, then,” she said.

  “But I’m responsible for—”

  “Don’t think—pray.” She stood smoothly, leaned down and ran a finger across Sammy’s shoulders—which he normally hated, but accepted from Arianna with just an upward glance—and then walked toward her car.

  “Arianna...”

  “Don’t answer now. Pray about it,” she called over her shoulder. “See you at church tomorrow.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Arianna thought about how much she loved art. One reason was the way it distracted you from your problems. It had distracted little Suzy Li from missing her mom, right here in the second-grade Sunday school class, and it had distracted Arianna from thinking about her own ridiculous offer to Jack DeMoise the day before.

  “I’m sorry Suzy got a little paint on her shirt,” she said to Mrs. Li as Suzy tugged her mom’s hand, pulling her over to look at the picture she’d painted, now drying on a clothesline with the rest of the primary kids’ paintings.

  “I’m just thrilled she made it through the whole class,” Mrs. Li said in between hugging Suzy and admiring her picture. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to stay for a whole church service. What a big girl you were, Suzy!”

  “I missed you, Mommy.” Suzy wrapped her arms around her mother. “But Miss Arianna said I was brave.”

  Mrs. Li smiled at Arianna. Thank you, she mouthed.

  Arianna was glad she’d helped, but she felt a pang; she couldn’t deny it. It was fun and rewarding to get her kid fix through helping with Sunday school, but in the end, those precious little ones wanted their own mommies. In the end, Arianna went home alone.

  Fortunately, there was no time to dwell on what she didn’t have. Sunny and Skye, the pastor’s twins, needed their hands washed before heading out with their mom, who introduced herself as Lily. “Don’t worry about it,” Lily said as Arianna tried to scrub off the paint that had inexplicably splattered both twins’ arms. “As long as they’re happy, it’s fine.”

  “That’s what I said.” Kayla, the main teacher of the primary-age kids and the mother of one of them, Leo, came over, and she and Lily hugged. “Kids are supposed to get messy and have fun.”

  Yeah, they were right about kids, Arianna thought, but what about her? When was she going to grow up and stop getting messy? She wet a paper towel and used it to wipe the biggest smudge from her cheek. The green streak in her hair was probably there to stay, at least until she could get back to her temporary home and shower.

  “Hey, Dr. D,” Kayla said and went to the door to greet Jack, who was leaning in with Sammy parked on his hip. Arianna sucked in a breath. He was good-looking to begin with, but when he smiled, he was breathtaking.

  Finn Gallagher, Kayla’s husband, showed up and sidled past Jack into the classroom. He reached out to Kayla and gently rubbed her shoulders, his eyes crinkling. She smiled up at him, love and happiness written all over her face.

  Arianna’s chest tugged. What would it be like to have someone touch you as if you were infinitely precious? Someone with whom to share your deepest thoughts, your hopes and dreams, your secrets?

  But she couldn’t tell anyone her deepest secrets, not and have them look at her the way Finn looked at Kayla. An out-of-wedlock pregnancy wasn’t that uncommon, and there were plenty of people who took it in stride, raised the child and got on with their lives. Arianna wished she was that person, but she wasn’t. Not given her family and the way she was raised.

  As a result, she’d given away her child...and lied about it.

  Jack was still standing at the half door. “Are you coming to the church lunch?” he asked her abruptly.

  She hesitated. The church had a lunch after services every Sunday, for members and anyone in the community who needed a free meal or fellowship. She should go, since she was trying to make some kind of a life here. “Um, I guess.”

  “Good. I’ll see you there.” And he was off.

  What did that mean? That he wanted to see her, have lunch with her, hang out, accept her offer of helping with Sammy? Or that he wanted to let her down easy?

  She blew out a sigh as she wiped down the tables where the kids had been painting. Thanks to an abundance of newspapers, cleanup wasn’t that difficult, but she found herself lingering, carefully putting things away in a most uncharacteristic way.

  She knew why she was stalling: she didn’t want to go to the lunch and face Jack. Not after she’d made such a ridiculous offer.

  Why had she suggested—again—that she could serve as Sammy’s nanny when Jack clearly didn’t want her to? Had she turned into one of those desperate women who couldn’t take no for an answer?

  Jack was kind and he would be nice about it, but rejection was rejection. She wasn’t looking forward to it.

  But, oh, for the chance to take care of her son, even briefly! To get to know him, to help him, to watch him grow.

  No, said the stern voice in her head. She didn’t deserve it, and it wasn’t for her.

  She was tempted to just skip the lunch and go home, avoiding Jack altogether, except she didn’t have a home, not really. Aunt Justine and Uncle Steve had been kind to take her in, and hospitable, but trying to make space for another person in their crowded home was putting a strain on their relationship. She could see it. The more hours she could stay away the better.

  Which pointed to her other problem: she needed to make new living arrangements. It was just that she didn’t know whether to make them here or somewhere else.

  Meanwhile, she’d get her aunt and uncle take-out meals from the church lunch, she decided. It was so hard to cook anything in their kitchen, piled high with appliance boxes and recycling and newspapers. It wasn’t much, but a good meal from the church would be a small token of her gratitude to them.

  Penny caught up with her and walked alongside. “You doing okay? You look a little blue.”

  She couldn’t tell Penny the big reason, of course. “Just thinking about my living situation,” she said as they walked into the fellowship hall, where the meal was already being served. “I’m wearing out my welcome at my aunt and uncle’s place, but I’m on a tight budget until I find more work.”

  “Hmm, that’s tough.” And then Penny snapped her fingers and stared at her. “You know what? The pastor was right. With God all things are possible.”

  “Oh, I know that’s true—”

  Penny interrupted her. “No, seriously. I just got a brainstorm.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve got a mother-in-law apartment upstairs at my house on the ranch, and I’ve been meaning to clean it out and fix it up forever. You’re energetic and artsy. How would you like to stay there for the next few weeks? Rent-free, if you’ll clean it and fix it up nice, so I can rent it out at the end of the summer.”

  Arianna’s jaw dropped. “That would be so perfect!”

  And then the other ramifications of Penny’s offer rushed into her mind.

  She could live so close to Sammy. Across the lawn, basically.

  But how would Jack feel about that? Would she appear to be stalking him?

  Penny was studying her face and no doubt saw her mixed feelin
gs. “You think about it,” she said. “There’s no need to decide today.”

  “Thank you.” Arianna gripped Penny’s hand, her eyes filling with tears. “That’s such a kind, kind offer. I just...have to figure a few things out, but I’m incredibly grateful to you for suggesting it.”

  “I’d be getting as much out of it as you are,” Penny said. “Now, you’d better go grab a bite to eat while they’re still serving.”

  Arianna did just that, accepting a generous portion of enchiladas, rice and beans. She sat down next to an older woman who introduced herself as Florence, and they chatted a little while Arianna ate.

  The fellowship hall was just a big tile-floored room with a stage at one end and a kitchen at the other. Long tables covered with cheerful red-checked tablecloths and lined by metal folding chairs filled one half of the room. Only about half the seats were full now; Arianna had lingered in the kids’ room long enough that people were finishing up and heading home.

  All of a sudden, Florence’s eyes sharpened. “Would you look at that,” she said, nodding toward a woman who was settling her two children at the other end of the table. “Pregnant with kid number three and not a husband in sight.”

  Arianna registered the disapproval and was aware that she would have faced the same if she’d kept Sammy. But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the woman, smiling and tickling her toddler while a slightly older child clung to her leg.

  It would have been so wonderful to keep Sammy. And while she knew there had been many blessings in his adoption placement—not least his responsible, loving father, who was seated with Sammy at the far end of the room, where it was quieter—she couldn’t help but wish she’d found a way to keep her baby, to raise him herself.

  Then she wouldn’t be caught in this web of lies, trying to decide whether it would be possible to live next door to her son without revealing her true relationship to him.

  She barely realized she was staring dreamily into space until Florence waved a hand in front of her face. “I think Dr. Jack is trying to get your attention,” she said, her eyes alight with curiosity. “You’d better go talk to him.”