A Small Fortune

by Marie Ferrarella

  He’d been putting off interviewing babysitters and nannies because of his previous less-than-successful experiences. Between his divorce and the caregivers who had not walked but run from his employ, not to mention his son, he felt that he no longer had the ability to make a good judgment call as far as the fairer sex went.

  “All right.” What he was telling her, she thought, was that although he did need someone to watch his son, he wasn’t about to make a commitment to anyone just yet. Fair enough, she thought. “Why don’t we just take it one step at a time here?” Marnie suggested tactfully.

  He couldn’t very well argue with something that sounded so reasonable.

  “Okay,” he agreed tentatively. “So, is this what you do for a living?” he wanted to know. “Babysit? Or I guess the proper term for that is being a nanny.” There was a difference. For one thing, nannies were paid more and all but lived with the child.

  If she actually was a nanny and he hired her, that would mean she’d be moving in....

  Asher realized that he was allowing his mind to drift into uncharted waters, and he quickly reeled it in.

  “In a manner of speaking, but not full-time,” she began to explain.

  He guessed at what she was about to say. “Business bad?”

  “No.” On the contrary, she’d actually had to turn down several offers. She’d come here not because of anything Marcos had said to her but because there was something about Asher that had told her he needed help. She was a complete sucker when it came to things like that. “That’s what I do on the side mostly. I actually started babysitting as a favor for friends....” She paused, grinning. “I guess in a way I’m still doing that.”

  “If you just do it on the side, what do you do the rest of the time?” he asked, curious. The next second, he realized how intrusive that had to sound. He backed off instantly, raising his hands as if in surrender. “Sorry, none of my business.”

  She laughed. She’d been subjected to far worse than what he’d just asked. “That’s okay. It’s not like I’m a spy or anything like that.”

  Jace’s eyes grew huge. With a child’s brand of selective hearing, he only heard what he wanted to. And he had heard that.

  “A spy?” he echoed in what had to be the loudest whisper she’d heard in a long time. “You’re a real spy?”

  “No, sweetie, I’m a real riding instructor. I teach kids how to ride. I love horses—and kids,” she explained, ruffling his hair, “so teaching kids how to ride just seemed like the natural thing for me to do.”

  “Me, too!” Jace declared.

  “You, too?” There wasn’t so much as the hint of a smile on her lips as Marnie asked the boy, “You teach kids how to ride?”

  “No, silly.” Jace giggled, waving his hand at her. “I love horses, too.”

  “Oh, well,” she said slowly, mulling over the next words she was about to say, “maybe your dad can bring you by someday and I’ll give you a lesson—on the house,” she added in case Asher thought she was just trying to make more money.

  “I don’t want to ride a house,” Jace protested, “I want to ride a horse.”

  “That, too,” she said, this time not bothering to suppress her smile.

  Asher caught himself staring at it, and at her. It was an exceedingly captivating smile, he thought. The kind of smile that didn’t just register with a person in passing, but registered with that person’s soul. In this case, that would be him. He found that it was an infectious smile, that caused whoever saw it to smile, as well.

  Widely.

  Marnie deliberately broke eye contact first. She was starting to feel something unsettling taking hold and there was no time for something like that. Her schedule was much too full.

  Turning her attention to the small boy standing between them, she said, “Jace, how would you like to show me around your new house?” She saw the boy light up like the proverbial Christmas tree. “I’d love to see it.”

  “Sure!” Jace agreed with the kind of enthusiasm befitting a child who had never been intimidated by anything. Taking her hand in his small one, Jace quickly tightened his fingers around it—in case she changed her mind about the tour. “Wanna see my room first?” he asked her.

  “I would love to see your room first,” she told him, mimicking his enthusiastic tone.

  Jace’s eyes all but sparkled as he tugged on her hand, ready to pull her out of the room if need be. “Then c’mon!”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Asher just before she and Jace disappeared around the corner. “We’ll be gone for a while,” she promised.

  “Sure, take your time,” he urged. He could use all the time she gave him. Getting all the shards picked up, he judged, was going to take more than just a few minutes.

  * * *

  He’d cleaned up the mess that Jace had accidentally created and had even managed to unpack, as well as put away, the contents of four boxes before Jace and the guest he continued to have a firm grip on returned to the family room.

  Keenly aware of the amount of time that had passed—a good ninety minutes—Asher looked up at them as his son, the tour guide, and Marnie walked toward him.

  “About time you got back,” he said to Jace, deliberately keeping a straight face as he pretended to be stern with the boy. “I was just about to send out a search party.”

  Jace’s light eyebrows furrowed together over his forehead. “What would they be searching for, Daddy?”

  Asher laughed. “You, of course.”

  “But I knew where I was,” Jace protested, confused why his father would need help finding him. “I was right here. With Marnie. I mean Miss—” Jace stumbled verbally as he tried to recall the name his father wanted him to use when he was talking about the lady with the nice smile.

  “That’s okay, Jace,” Marnie interrupted, aware of what the little boy was attempting to do. “You can call me Marnie, remember? I said it was okay with me—and your dad,” she deliberately added since that was the part that was supposed to carry weight with the boy.

  “Oh, yeah,” he recalled. Never one to blatantly be disrespectful, Jace turned around to look at his father to confirm the permission he’d just been reminded about. “Is it still okay, Daddy?” he asked politely.

  Asher was just too tired to offer any arguments to the contrary even if he wanted to. “It is with me if it is with Miss McCafferty,” he told his son.

  Like two tiny tennis balls being lobbed over the net at the exact same time, Jace shifted his eyes to look at Marnie, silently asking if it was still okay with her since his dad had left the decision up to her. He had just made up his mind that he wanted Marnie to be his new mom, and he didn’t want to do or say anything that would make her go away.

  “Absolutely,” she responded. “Besides, McCafferty is a pretty big mouthful to say, isn’t it?” Jace bobbed his head up and down. She got the feeling that he would agree with anything she had to say. “I wouldn’t want you choking on that,” she told him solemnly.

  Jace took her words as gospel, the way he seemed to take everything that came out of Marnie’s mouth, Asher noticed. The next moment he realized that he could very well be looking at the woman who had inspired his son’s very first case of puppy love.

  The boy, he caught himself thinking, had very good taste.

  The next moment, Asher brushed the thought quickly away.

  Marnie glanced at her watch. She still had some time left before she was due at Coventry Stables to teach her afternoon students.

  “You men hungry?” she asked.

  “Yes!” Jace instantly answered.

  “He’s always hungry,” Asher told her, looking at his son with an affectionate smile.

  “That’s understandable,” Marnie said. “He’s a growing boy. He needs fuel to grow.”

 
Jace looked at her uncertainly. “I don’t eat fuel,” he protested. “I eat food.”

  “I know, but food turns into fuel in your body,” she explained.

  He was having difficulty processing the information. “Like in a car?” he asked, amazed.

  Marnie smiled at him, humor crinkling her eyes. The boy was nothing short of adorable.

  “In a way,” she agreed. “Anyway, we’re getting off the subject. It’s almost lunchtime. I thought I’d make you two something to eat before I left.”

  Jace’s face fell. He had obviously not thought about her having anywhere to go. “You’re leaving?”

  “Uh-huh. After I make you something to eat,” she repeated. “I’ve got students to teach. Can’t have them just sitting around on their horses, not going anywhere, can we?”

  Jace shook his head. “No,” he said because he could tell that was the answer Marnie wanted him to give.

  Knowing that the best way to get the boy to smile again was to make him feel useful, she asked, “You want to help me make lunch?”

  She was right. Jace broke out in a huge smile as he loudly declared, “Yes!” and immediately put his hand in hers.

  “You won’t find much in the refrigerator,” Asher warned, calling after her.

  Sarah-Jane, Wyatt’s fiancée, had been nice enough to put a few things into his refrigerator to tide them over, but that had been a few days ago and there wasn’t much left. He hadn’t gotten a chance to get to the grocery store yet.

  “That’s okay, I know how to make do,” she assured him.

  * * *

  And she did.

  Returning twenty minutes later—enough time for him to unpack yet another box completely and begin unpacking a sixth—Marnie came in carrying two plates, one in each hand.

  What looked to be two tostada shells—one per plate—had been filled to the brim with a potpourri of ingredients she had located both in the refrigerator and the pantry.

  When Asher looked more closely, he saw that there were bits of shredded romaine lettuce, diced tomatoes, some finely shredded cheese—cheddar, from the color—black beans, green onions, from the smell of them, and it looked as if she’d put the last piece of leftover roast chicken to use by dicing it up and sprinkling that, too, inside the crisp shell. It was all topped off with the last of the salsa she’d apparently located.

  Asher hadn’t realized he’d had half the things she’d come up with. Marnie was good, he couldn’t help thinking.

  The moment he got to see the results of her efforts, he realized just how hungry he really was.

  His stomach actually growled. He hadn’t bothered to eat breakfast this morning, putting off making something for himself for one reason and then another until he just completely forgot about the meal altogether.

  Until now.

  What Marnie had come up with looked a good deal better than anything he could have thrown together for breakfast, Asher thought. He wasn’t much for cooking.

  “I had all that in the kitchen?” he asked incredulously.

  “Just took a little looking,” she answered, “but yes, you did. I cleaned almost everything out, though,” she admitted. “So you’re going to have to go to the supermarket to replenish everything. Soon,” she emphasized when he didn’t say anything in response.

  Asher wasn’t aware that he was frowning—grocery shopping did not number among his favorite pursuits—but Marnie noticed immediately as she turned the coffee table into a makeshift dining area for Asher and his son.

  “I could take care of that for you if you like,” she offered. “Go grocery shopping,” she clarified in case he wasn’t following her. “As long as you give me a list of what you want me to buy.”

  He stopped eating and looked at her in complete surprise. “You’d do that?”

  He made it sound like such a big deal, she thought, when it really wasn’t. She raised and lowered her shoulders in a casual shrug. “Sure. I can do it at the same time I do mine. No big deal.”

  Asher couldn’t help asking the next question that rose to his lips. Having been burned by a person he trusted so much, he had become naturally suspicious of seemingly selfless offers of help. He just wasn’t accustomed to Good Samaritans.

  “Why?”

  The question made her somewhat uncomfortable. Not because by asking that, he appeared not to trust her, but because the question made her remember her mother’s take on her good deeds. Her mother tended to think she went overboard when she tried to help.

  “Why not?” Marnie countered. There was a smile on her lips, but she had raised her chin slightly. “It’s called being neighborly.”

  What she didn’t add was something else that her mother had criticized her for. Something that was, ultimately, a fact of life in her case. There was no point in denying it. She had a weakness for strays and seemingly lost creatures, be they the human variety or the four-footed kind. She’d find her heart going out to them and she just couldn’t get herself to turn her back on the lost, needy look in their eyes.

  The same kind of look, she thought, that she saw in Asher’s eyes.

  “Can I go shopping with you when you go?” Jace asked excitedly, all but bouncing up and down on the sofa, his feet waving back and forth beneath the coffee table as he looked adoringly up at her.

  She knew that if the occasion did arise and Asher did ask her to do his grocery shopping, she would make far better time on her own without Jace. But she wasn’t about to disappoint the energetic little boy for the world. No matter what sort of reasoning she used or how gentle the explanation, all Jace would come away with would be the word no, which was why she told him, “I’m counting on it.”

  Jace’s grin nearly split his face in two.

  Chapter Six

  Watching his son interact with the woman whom Marcos had misguidedly sent his way, Asher couldn’t help marveling at the absolute joy he saw radiating on Jace’s face. He hadn’t seen the boy this happy since—

  He realized that he couldn’t actually remember a time when Jace had been this happy. Not since before Lynn had removed herself from the boy’s life.

  Certainly the boy hadn’t reacted this way to any of the nannies Asher had brought into their home back in Atlanta after Lynn’s abrupt departure.

  Despite the fact that all five of those women had been markedly different from one another, varying in age, experience and approach—some had been strict, some had been so lax they appeared to be almost disinterested—the one thing they’d all had in common was several weeks into the job, they had all handed in their resignation and then run for cover, going, he imagined, as far away from Jace as they could.

  Jace, they had all stated in one way or another, was just too much for them to handle.

  Asher supposed that it wasn’t really right to form a lasting opinion after only two hours into the relationship between his son and Marnie, but he had to admit that Jace’s positive reaction certainly helped tip the scales heavily in Marnie’s favor.

  So much so that when she got up to leave, he found himself feeling almost as disappointed as he sensed that Jace was. The fact that he did feel that way took Asher by surprise. He told himself he was only empathizing with his son, nothing more.

  “Do you hafta go?” the boy asked as he followed his new best friend to the front door.

  She turned from the door to face the boy. “I’m afraid so. I’ve got those students waiting for me, remember?”

  Jace’s lower lip stuck out in a sorrowful pout. “Can’t they wait a little longer?”

  Marnie smiled at him, touched by his obvious instant attachment. But she knew that she was walking along a very narrow ledge. She had to be careful not to encourage him to become even more attached to her. The goal was always to make any child she dealt with as independent as possible fo
r his own good.

  Cupping Jace’s chin in her hand, she smiled down at the small, puckered face as the boy’s eyes held hers. “You always have to remember to honor your commitments, Jace,” Marnie told him. “That means always keeping your word when you give it.”

  Jace sighed and nodded. “Okay. You gotta go,” he murmured, resigned.

  Since she was actually leaving, Asher wanted to settle up. He took his wallet out of his back pocket and extracted several large bills. He held them out to her. “How much do I owe you for today?” he wanted to know.

  Marnie gently pushed aside his hand. “Nothing,” she assured him.

  Asher frowned. He thought of last night. She hadn’t accepted any money from him then, either.

  “You realize that you’re never going to get ahead if you keep giving away your services for free,” he told her, then tried again. “Now, what do I owe you?”

  “Nothing,” she repeated, still smiling at him. “Really,” she insisted. “Marcos already took care of it for you. He said it was his treat.”

  He didn’t like being in debt to anyone, even if it was someone he liked, like Marcos. Asher made a mental note to have a talk with his cousin’s husband the first chance he got. Granted, Marcos was a successful businessman, but Asher wasn’t exactly a charity case here.

  “You’ll come back?” Jace was asking Marnie as she opened the front door.

  Rather than just make an empty promise to placate the boy, Marnie looked over Jace’s head at his father. “That depends on your dad,” she told him.

  “He wants you back,” Jace told her, then glanced at his father, waiting for him to agree. When he didn’t, Jace prodded, “Don’t you, Daddy?”

  Rather than use the word want in reference to the woman, something that felt much too personal, much too intimate—a result of the blow Lynn had dealt both his ego and his self-esteem—Asher said, “Jace certainly has taken a shine to you.”

  “The feeling,” she replied, smiling down into Jace’s upturned face again, “is definitely mutual.” She raised her eyes to Asher’s. She could see a hint of discomfort there and wondered what that was all about. The man had baggage, and she didn’t want to add to it. “See you around, Mr. Fortune,” she said just before she closed the door behind her.