Winning the Nanny's Heart

by Shirley Jump

  “She’s inside. She said she had to make a call.”

  He’d had a feeling Charity wasn’t going to last long when he hired her, but he’d hoped she would at least make it until he found a suitable replacement. He’d have to talk to her about taking personal calls when he was paying her to watch his kids. “Did the kids dip her in paint and mud, too?”

  “No. That was all my doing.” Katie laughed. “After Libby and I finished working on her math, I got them the paints because they were complaining that they were bored, and I didn’t want to just park them in front of the television. I asked Charity, and she said she thought it was a good idea to do a craft. Except I’m not exactly the crafty type.” Katie gave him a sheepish grin. “Libby got paint on her hands and wanted to clean it off, but I didn’t think you’d want her to do that in the bathroom sink, so I turned on the hose and...” She waved at the yard and grimaced.

  Sam could read that look of being overwhelmed from a mile away. How many times had he felt totally over his head when it came to the kids? He’d been so used to putting it all into Wendy’s hands, into letting her take the lead while he worked too many hours. When his wife was gone and the family who had hovered over him for the first two weeks after she died had left, Sam was left floundering, beleaguered and clueless.

  A lot like Katie looked right now. Actually, she looked kind of cute with the mud and paint peppered all over her shirt and skirt. She’d kicked off the heels, and there was something about her bare feet on the grass that just seemed...sweet. A part of him wanted to just draw her against his chest and kiss that spot of paint right above her brow.

  “Come on,” he said to Katie, waving toward the door. “Why don’t you go inside and clean up? I’ll corral the wild beasts and then we’ll all get some lunch.”

  “Are you sure? I can clean up this mess out here first.”

  “I can handle it. Don’t worry.”

  Katie gave him a grateful smile, then headed inside. Sam watched her go for a moment, then dragged his gaze away from the intriguing woman crossing his yard.

  The guilt washed over him again. He shouldn’t be concentrating on anything other than his kids and his job right now. The kids needed him—needed a parent who kept his crap together, not one who got distracted by a pretty woman with mud on her face.

  He headed for the kids, reached out and took the hose from Libby just before she turned it on her brother again. Both kids were dripping wet, sodden messes from head to toe. He was about to chastise them, when he looked down and realized something else.

  Both kids were happy. Goofy grins filled their eyes and brightened their cheeks. “We had fun!” Libby said. “Can we do that again?”

  Beside her, Henry nodded. His face was a blur of paint, half of it smeared by the water and now running crimson into his orange T-shirt. There was no trace of the somber, withdrawn boy who had appeared the day Sam had sat on the sofa and hugged his kids to him and told them Mommy was never coming home again.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the house. It was amazing what a few hours of Katie in their lives could do. And that was a very good thing.

  * * *

  When the pain hit her, it hit her hard and fast.

  For three days, Katie had been coming to Sam’s house for an hour or two at a time after school, to work with Libby. They had slowly winnowed down the pile of papers her teacher had sent home and she had nearly mastered her times tables. Then, when they were done with schoolwork, Katie would draw with both kids, a break Charity seemed to welcome, because the nanny immersed herself in her phone the second Katie appeared. Maybe because Charity was there a longer portion of the day, picking up Henry from storytime at the community center and watching him until Libby got home from school.

  The kids had kept clamoring for more finger painting, so Katie had finally caved today. This time without the need to hose off in the yard.

  Everything had been going fine until Charity announced she was quitting. She said she’d gotten a call back from a job at the mall, and was done being a nanny. She was gone two minutes later, leaving a stunned Katie alone with the kids for a half hour until Sam came home.

  It was in that thirty minutes that things had changed. Maybe it was because it was just the three of them, or maybe the kids were starting to bond with Katie, but just as she was helping Libby mix up some purple paint, Henry had leaned in and put his head on Katie’s arm.

  A simple movement, really. She’d looked down and seen this little boy curving into her like he’d known her all his life. Then Libby turned to Katie and said, “Our mommy used to draw with us. I’m glad you do, too.” A pause, then Libby’s eyes met hers, wide and serious. “Are you gonna stay, Katie?”

  Katie glanced up and saw Sam standing there, his face filled with a mixture of surprise and something unreadable.

  Katie had scrambled out of the seat, made up an excuse about needing to clean up, then barreled toward the bathroom. One second she was soaping up her hands, and the next, a sharp fissure pierced her chest. Her breathing tightened, her heart crumpled into a fist and tears rushed into her eyes. She braced her still dirty hands on either side of the sink, heedless of the soapy, purplish drops puddling on the tile below.

  She glimpsed her face in the mirror, looking harried and messy and so out of her normal buttoned-up world. This is what a mom looks like, her mind whispered, and these are the kinds of things a mom does.

  Wham, the pain had hit her.

  She wasn’t a mom. She might never be a mom. The one chance she’d had to be a mother, her body had failed...no, she had failed. She’d lost the baby and all those hopes and dreams she’d had. What had made her think she could be here, around these kids, and not be reminded of that fact? Maybe she should tell Sam she couldn’t tutor Libby. Or maybe she should just keep working here, because maybe it would force her to confront all those things she had run from.

  Yeah, and considering how often in her life she’d confronted any of the things that bothered her, those chances were pretty slim.

  A light rap sounded on the door. “You okay in there?” Sam’s voice, warm and concerned. Just four words, but they seemed to ease the tightness in her chest.

  Katie released her grip on the porcelain, drew in a breath, then nodded at her reflection. Another breath, then she could speak. “Yeah, just cleaning up.”

  “Okay. Just checking. I was afraid you might have climbed out the window and run off, especially since Charity quit.”

  That made her laugh. “Nope, I haven’t left. Not yet.”

  “That’s good.”

  She paused, sensing Sam lingering outside the door. A moment later, she heard the fading sound of footsteps as he headed back down the hall. She finished rinsing and drying her hands, then emerged from the bathroom. In the kitchen, Sam was bent down, Libby standing before him, with one of the pictures she had painted that day in her hands. Libby’s face held a hushed hesitancy.

  Katie’s chest squeezed. In a split second, she was eight years old again, standing in front of her mother with a test she’d brought home from school. Her first A in math class, decorated with a giant smiley face sticker. She’d wanted her mother to be as proud as Mrs. Walker had been, wanted to hear those same words you did it, kiddo.

  “This is awesome, Libby Bear,” Sam said to his daughter, taking the picture and pointing at the center. “I love the rainbow. And the flower.”

  Libby frowned. “I thought the flower was kinda messy.”

  Sam cupped his daughter’s cheek. “It’s not messy. It’s perfect.”

  Katie waited for that echoing grin of pride to appear on Libby’s face, for her to acknowledge she’d heard the words she wanted to. The you did it, kiddo.

  Instead, Libby shook her head and stepped back. “It’s not! It’s messy!”

  She yanked the picture out of her
father’s hand and dashed out of the kitchen. The screen door closed behind her with a hard slap. Sam watched her go, then let out a long sigh and slowly straightened.

  He turned and saw Katie. “Sorry about that. Sometimes Libby is...” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

  “She’s a great kid,” Katie said. Because she didn’t know what else to say. How to explain Libby’s reaction to what seemed like a regular conversation between a father and daughter. A part of Katie wanted to run after Libby and tell her that parents who made a big deal out of every painted rainbow and hand-drawn flower weren’t as common as she thought. That perfection wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  “Yeah, she is.” Sam pivoted back to the bay window, watching his daughter through the glass. She toed back and forth on the swing, one foot dragging listlessly against the worn oval in the grass. The picture lay in a crumpled ball beneath her. “But she’s been going through a lot and there are days...”

  Katie’s heart went out to him. He was so clearly worried about his children and desperate to reestablish a connection with them. It was as if there was this invisible wall between Sam and his children, one none of them knew how to scale. Katie was no expert in these matters, but she knew what it felt like to be on one side of that wall.

  Before she could think about it, she put a hand on his shoulder. He was solid and warm beneath her palm. “She’ll come around. You’re a great dad.”

  “I’m trying to be a great dad,” he said. “That’s not the same thing.”

  Katie’s hand dropped as she thought of her own mother. A woman too self-involved to be any kind of parent. Colton had shouldered most of that responsibility, an older brother thrust into a role he’d never asked for. Maybe it was because Katie had been the second surprise baby, an unwelcome intrusion into a life already strained by the birth of Colton a few years earlier. Her mother had never married, never made more than just enough to keep a roof over her head. “When it comes to kids, trying is important. And noticed.”

  He studied her for a moment. “Sounds like you have some experience with that.”

  Katie shrugged. “I had a mother who was...busy a lot.”

  “Back in Atlanta?” He crossed to the sink, filled two glasses with water and returned to hand one to her. “Did you grow up there?”

  The past three days, their conversations had centered entirely around the kids. How Libby had done with her homework, whether they’d finished the book she had to read for reading class, things like that. The personal question threw Katie for a bit of a loop. “I’ve never really lived anywhere else, or had a chance to travel anywhere. Until now.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t know if I’d call Stone Gap a destination city.”

  “It is for some people,” she said quietly. Her brother, after all, had found happiness here. A life.

  “I always vowed I was going to leave town when I grew up. But then I met Wendy and...” His gaze strayed to Libby. “Anyway, it’s a great place to raise kids.”

  “I can see that,” Katie said. “It has that Mayberry feel to it.”

  He laughed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  She arched a brow.

  He leaned against the wall and faced her. “Okay, yes, living in a small town does mean that everyone knows everything you do on any given day. But it also means that people are there when you need them, people like Della, who has been a huge help in the last year and a half.”

  Katie thought of the cold, sometimes scary neighborhoods where she’d grown up. There were years when they had moved so often she didn’t know a single neighbor. “I bet that was nice.”

  “When I was a kid, there was this little old lady who lived next door to me. Mrs. Hanratty. She’d sit on her porch and watch the neighborhood kids walk to school, and on hot days, she’d be out there after school, giving us all ice-cold Popsicles. On really cold winter mornings, she’d have little cups of hot chocolate for us. She never had any kids of her own, and I think she kinda felt like all the kids around her were hers.”

  “I had a neighbor like that once,” Katie said. “For a few months. Then we moved again.”

  “That had to be tough on you when you were growing up.”

  She shook her head, as if it hadn’t been. “I had Colton. And I turned out okay.”

  “Maybe kids are more resilient than we think.”

  His gaze had gone to his daughter again, still drifting back and forth in the swing. Katie wanted to stay, wanted to help, but she was starting to feel those panicky feelings again. The ones that told her she had no business trying to be anything other than the tutor. “I should probably get going.”

  “Wait.” Sam turned toward her. “I...uh, wanted to thank you.”

  She picked up her purse from the counter and hung it over her shoulder. “Thank me? For what?”

  “For...everything.” He waved a hand in a circle. “The house looks amazing, and I know Charity didn’t do it, not unless I was paying her extra. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the kitchen this clean. The whole house looks...cheery.”

  She shrugged and placed her hand on his arm. “It wasn’t a big deal. I finished up with Libby, then decided to stay and clean up a little before we did the painting, which turned out to be a good thing, since Charity ended up quitting. Chalk it up to my CPA brain. I like things organized.”

  “It was a big deal. Everything you’ve done over these last few days has been.” He shifted toward her, and Katie’s hand dropped away. He was wearing a pale yellow button-down shirt and a dark green tie. A part of her wondered what it would be like to run that silky material between her fingers.

  “You’re really great with both kids,” Sam went on. “You’ve got them learning, and doing art projects, and as soon as you leave, you’re all they talk about. Libby told me she likes you, and she’s never said that about any of the nannies I’ve hired. I know I hired you to be Libby’s tutor, but would you consider—” he put up a hand, warding off her objections before she could voice them “—being the nanny? Just until I have time to find someone permanent, because I know you aren’t staying here for very long. My schedule is flexible, Libby has school, Henry has storytime and sometimes other activities at the community center, so it will really only be for a few hours a day. Heck, you’ve been here that long almost every day, and done more than Charity did in a month.”

  She flashed back to that moment in the bathroom. Of how being around these kids, seeing how attached they were getting to her, had hurt, deep in her chest. Could she deal with this all day? Every day?

  Then she looked out the window at Libby, a sad little girl drifting back and forth in the swing, and she saw...

  Herself.

  What if someone had stepped in when Katie was little, in all those hours she’d sat at home on the sofa, waiting for Colton to get home from softball practice or her mother to come home from work? What if someone had been there to bake cookies and spill finger paints and fix broken teddy bears? What if someone had been there to say that A on the math test was amazing? Would it have made a difference?

  “I don’t have much experience,” Katie said.

  “You’ve been here every day for three days, and even Charity told me you’ve been great. I know the kids can be...overwhelming sometimes. Especially when they’re armed with finger paints and a hose.” He grinned.

  Sam’s smile was a little lopsided, with a slight dimple in his left cheek. She liked his smile. Liked it a lot. Wouldn’t mind seeing it more often. And if he was going to be popping in throughout the day to help with the kids...

  Was she seriously considering this job?

  She didn’t have anything to rush back to, no fire in her belly to get back to Atlanta. “I could maybe extend my time here,” she said. “So the kids don’t have a lot of change in a short period of
time.”

  “So you’ll take the job?” Sam asked. “And be the nanny?”

  Her gaze traveled again to Libby, then to Henry, dwarfed by an oversize chair in the living room. He had a stuffed dog clutched to his chest, and his knees drawn up against him, while he watched TV. There was a smudge of finger paint on his cheek, like a royal blue fingerprint.

  That smudge tugged at something deep inside Katie, something she hadn’t even been sure existed until she walked into this house and met these children. This man.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

  Chapter Five

  Sam noticed the flowers first. The window boxes, neglected for a long, long time, now bloomed with pink and white geraniums. A slight breeze moved the petals back and forth, almost as if they were waving. The terra-cotta planters that flanked the front porch had also been refilled, with more of the same kind of flowers cascading over the edges.

  Sam fingered one of the flowers, thinking it had been ages since he’d seen anything growing in his yard. The flowers looked happy, bright. Hopeful.

  He’d spent six frenzied hours at work today, zipping from client to client, answering calls and sending emails in the snippets of time he had between meetings. He’d had three showings to potential renters for the mall property, but none of them had made an offer. Since it was Katie’s first day as nanny, Sam cut out early and grabbed some take-out Chinese food on his way home.

  He’d never expected to see flowers. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that kind of thing until he saw the geraniums. They were a change. A good change.

  Then the guilt hit him, coming from left field like a rogue wave. Should he be enjoying the flowers another woman had planted on Wendy’s porch? When his late wife would undoubtedly rather he worry about the kids, his job, everything else?

  Or was it just that he was finding himself more and more drawn to Katie, and the guilt over having feelings for another woman was eating away at him? He had loved Wendy, Lord knew he had loved her, and he didn’t want to tarnish the memory of a good wife and good mother by moving on too soon.