by Jennie Adams
Jess didn’t want to tell Dan any more. She wanted to stick with ‘I think I can help you’, be Mary Poppins for him, Jess style, and they’d both benefit.
Instead, she drew a breath. ‘There are two women older than me with grown-up children of their own who’ve recently become unemployed because the meatworks outside of town downsized. They haven’t been in childcare professionally before but they’re great women. I’m looking for more work, but I saw from the noticeboard at the supermarket that they’re both looking for work in that line, too, or a combination of that and housekeeping. So you’ve got some choice and I too would be happy to help out with housekeeping duties.’
‘If you have training with children… Are you saying you’re available?’ Dan’s gaze seemed to travel over each feature on her face.
When his gaze rested briefly on her mouth, her lips wanted to soften. Instead, she forced a bright smile. He was probably just thinking she was way too young for the job. ‘What exactly is it that you need for your children, Dan?’
He seemed to drag his gaze from her mouth and his brows drew together.
Dan Frazier was a little attracted to her. And from that look, he didn’t want to be.
Well, there you were. Jess didn’t want that, either. They were on the same page, even if she didn’t know his reasons for that fact.
He was heaps older than her, a widower and father of five and a potential employer. Did he even have to have any other reasons? Jess didn’t need any other reasons to stifle her consciousness of him out of existence than those she’d just listed. And that was without mentioning Peter.
‘I need someone to watch the children up to five days a week at my home for somewhere between the next three to six weeks or so. It would help a lot if that person could also take care of laundry and meals and some other basic housekeeping.’ Dan drew a breath. ‘This work I have to do is going to mean long hours at home for a while for me. As well there’ll be trips to Sydney maybe up to three days a week until it’s sorted.’ His hand rose to rub briefly at his breastbone before he dropped it back to his side.
In three to six weeks, working five days a week for Dan Frazier, Jess could really earn some money to help towards those repayment instalments. The money wouldn’t pay the debt off but it might convince Councillor Fielder that Jess could get the money to keep making decent-sized instalments.
Surely if she made some regular payments the man would have to give her more time to pay the debt off? Ella’s father should never have gone behind Jess’s back in the first place, but that was typical of Peter Rosche.
And she could work from Dan’s home. Of course she could.
‘I’d like to help you.’ Jess’s fingers tightened around the handles of the stroller. ‘I have some other children on Tuesdays and Saturdays, but I’d be willing to come to you the five other days, if you felt that could work for you. Ella would come with me, and I could give you a list of character referees.’
Not any family ones because Jess was alone in the world aside from Ella.
Her daughter started to fret in the stroller. ‘Du, du, du-u-u!’
Jess leaned forward to unstrap her daughter and lift her out for a cuddle. ‘Yes, sweetheart, we’ll see the ducks now.’
Dan watched Jess cuddling Ella, and then he looked at his children and he lifted his youngest into his arms and started towards the duck pond. ‘I could work around your Tuesdays and Saturdays.’
Dan told her how much he’d pay her per day. It was generous, even when he added, ‘For that amount, I’d be asking you to remain there until I got home late some nights, but you and your daughter would have all your meals at my home.’
‘It sounds very reasonable. I wouldn’t mind doing that for you.’ It sounded like a good way to save some money on her food bill, and Jess could drive the short distance back to her house at whatever time suited.
‘Come and meet the children. That will be a good start, and…thank you. For approaching me and asking if I needed help.’
‘You’re welcome. It’s nice to be able to help others.’ Jess dropped a kiss onto Ella’s head to hide the hope that wanted to force its way onto her face. Dan hadn’t said he’d employ her yet.
But maybe he would. Maybe Jess would be able to help Dan while the money he paid her would help Jess.
Maybe Jess would be able to stop worrying, just a bit, and have enough money to stave off the wolves until she figured out something better for the longer term. Like tracking down Ella’s father and making him take responsibility for setting her up for this fall?
Jess had tried to find Peter, just after Ella came along. He’d already disappeared by then.
Jess stuck her chin up. She could only try to sort things out, and she’d try with all her might. ‘Righto, Dan. Take me to meet your children!’
CHAPTER TWO
‘KIDS, THERE’S SOMEONE I’d like you all to meet.’ Dan led Jess Baker to the duck pond where his children had been pretending not to watch him talking with Jess after Luke chipped them about their whispers.
The children were quite off the mark with their speculations. Jessica Baker was a great deal younger than him, not to mention those kinds of relationships should be kept out of the workplace.
Dan frowned. He simply wasn’t interested in Jess. He might have noticed she was an attractive young woman, noticed her heart-shaped face, her slim straight nose, her honey-blond hair, those soft grey eyes, but he was not attracted to her.
And what mattered right now was that he needed to tell his brood that they’d be with a carer while he dealt with this business in Sydney. Deserting them when they’d only just arrived was the last thing Dan wanted to do, but he was going to have to do it.
Dan had a good business, but he was still a man with five children. He’d rented a house in Sydney and worked hard to save enough so they could buy their home out here, where things were cheaper and they could all enjoy a quieter lifestyle.
Jess Baker had told him her umbrella had bent bits, but something about the set of her chin suggested she might be a godsend, just the same.
‘Luke, Rob, Daisy, Mary, this is Jess Baker.’ Dan glanced at the child in the young woman’s arms. He couldn’t remember if Jess had said her daughter’s name, yet he had no difficulty at all remembering the soft touch of Jess’s fingers on his arm. He was…curious about her.
No. Dan wasn’t curious. He was a father on his own with five children and eighteen years of memories of the one love of his life, and Jess was a very young woman and potential employee. Dan forced his gaze to Jess’s daughter. ‘And this is—’
‘Ella.’ Jess filled in the blank for him with a smile that transformed her face.
Rather than focus on that transformation, Dan gestured to the child in his arms. ‘This is Annapolly. Her name’s Pollyanna, but we started saying it the other way around and it stuck.’
Dan would simply push the confusing thoughts about Jess Baker away. And how could he think about reacting with awareness to this young woman anyway, when he hadn’t done that about any woman at all for the last four years?
There’d been Rebecca for Dan since they were childhood sweethearts. They’d married, had the first four children. Partway through Rebecca’s pregnancy with Annapolly, the doctors had discovered Rebecca had cancer. Rebecca had died a month after Annapolly’s birth. Dan had just stopped with all that when he lost Rebecca.
‘Hello.’ Jess offered a uniform smile as her gaze shifted from one child to the next.
Rob responded with a curious, ‘Hullo.’
‘We saw you speaking with our father,’ Daisy observed.
Mary asked hopefully, ‘Are you gonna feed the ducks?’
‘Yes.’ Jess nodded. ‘I am.’
Jess Baker was young, and she would come with her baby in tow, but Dan’s instincts said Jess would be committed about the work. Those were the only instincts he needed to consider.
He pushed his thoughts into business mode. ‘We’ll have lunch at ou
r new house. It’s a big farm-style home on a ten-acre allotment on the northern edge of town.’ To his children he added, ‘I’ll explain what’s happened with my work and how Jess has offered to help us on the way back to the house.’
Throw Jess into the middle. Let Dan see how she managed among the stacks of half-unpacked boxes and the children.
‘Straight after the ducks,’ Jess agreed, and handed out pieces of bread.
Dan’s younger children gathered around. Luke and Rob didn’t. They’d fallen into a whispered conversation. No doubt they had questions. Dan would answer them when he had everyone in the van, and hopefully there wouldn’t be too much of an explosion when he told them they’d be in childcare for a fair chunk of their holidays.
Maybe they’d accept Jess’s care easily. Maybe this would be all right. Maybe Dan’s sea change for the children wasn’t about to turn into a premature disaster before they even had a chance to give it a go.
Maybe?
And maybe Dan would be able to shove aside the way he’d reacted to Jess. He certainly wouldn’t let it happen again. Dan failed to notice that, in thinking that, he had admitted to himself there was a reaction in the first place.
‘Jess, I wonder if you’d mind sorting out lunch while I see to things with Roy, here?’
The Internet technician had arrived in his van as Jess Baker drove up in her small, older-model hatchback.
Dan spoke the words as he, the children, Jess, and the Internet technician trooped into the house. Dan had taken his moment to explain the childcare need to his children on the drive back here.
To allow them to moan and groan and then to make it clear there was no choice.
Now all Dan could do was see if Jess could manage. He’d made it clear he expected cooperation from the children with that.
‘Of course, Dan. That’s what I’m here for.’ Jess’s gaze darted this way and that. The kitchen was farther into the house, to the left through the open-plan living room. Jess spotted it and asked, ‘Do any of the children have food allergies?’
‘No.’ Dan was lucky in that respect.
‘Great.’ The bow atop Jess’s soft hair bobbed as she nodded her head.
Her clothes were bright and cheerful, and there were enough wooden bangles making their way up her arm that she could use them to start a small fire if she needed to.
Something about the combination of puckish face, bright clothing and the determined set of Jess’s chin told Dan she might have lived more life than her youthful age suggested.
Right now she stood straight as an arrow with her baby perched on her hip while she looked around at the chaos inside the house. At least she didn’t turn and walk right out again.
Dan didn’t want her to go. He wanted a chance to get to know her.
What you want is a chance for her to look after the family while you’re dealing with this work situation.
And if he tried to get to know her he might as well be getting to know an alien species. Jess Baker was a whole generation away.
‘If you’ll come this way with me.’ Dan gestured the technician forward.
As they walked away Dan heard Jess say to his two eldest, ‘How are your muscles? Do you think you could push those boxes into a line so they block that half of the kitchen? That way Ella will be safe while I make lunch.’
‘Looks like you and the little lady have some chaos happening here.’ The technician flipped the comment Dan’s way as they walked into the den.
‘It’s to be expected.’ With another part of his mind Dan heard the first volley of questions from his curious younger offspring, and Jess’s calm answers and the open and shut of cupboard doors as she looked inside. She wouldn’t find much.
He had grossly overestimated how much unpacking one man and five excited children could get through in an evening and the following day. Dan had taken them into town to the park hoping to calm them down so he could come back and finish the work. Or at least get halfway there with it. ‘Things are under control. Let’s get this Internet connection sorted out.’
Roy set to work. A few minutes later he turned to Dan. ‘There you go. The problem was this component.’ Roy showed Dan the small box. ‘I’ve replaced it. You won’t be charged for this. I’ll just send this one back.’
With that issue sorted, and Dan therefore connected once again to his working world via his computer, he thanked the man and let him out of the side door. Dan quickly jumped on to check his emails. There was just enough room to sit with the boxes shoved aside and stacked up.
‘Lunch is ready, Dan. There’s enough for an extra person—’ Jess broke off as she glanced into the den.
She’d looked quite serious at first. Dan would even have said there were worried shadows in the backs of her eyes. Had those been there when they first met? Had he been too busy thinking about his own problems to notice? Were they related to caring for his brood?
Somehow he didn’t think so, though that could prove to be challenge enough for her.
As Dan asked himself these questions those shadows were overshadowed by a teasing grin.
‘Has the technician left,’ she quipped, ‘or did the boxes eat him?’
‘I’m fairly sure he left. You managed something for lunch for everyone already?’ Dan dragged his gaze from her smile. It was generous, open, and, yes, there were shadows in the backs of her eyes now that Dan took notice.
Dan cleared his throat. ‘Was it really that long?’
‘Ten minutes.’ Jess shrugged her shoulders. ‘The children pitched in.’
Utilise the troops. If Jess could settle them down a bit, even for a while, Dan would be grateful.
Since when do you need someone else to help? You spent the last two years turning your business into a work-from-home affair so you could do it all yourself. This shift is the final step, to give the kids the rural setting you talked about with Rebecca.
Dan had occasionally had to call on his sister Adele to help him out, but mostly he had his clients trained to understand that he worked from home and that was that. And his sister was travelling right now, taking time for her life.
Well, Dan wasn’t going to regret this move. It was for the children, but it was for Dan, too. Lately the city made him feel as if he couldn’t breathe. And his largest client undergoing an intensive pre-purchase examination wasn’t something Dan could have anticipated. He hadn’t even known they were thinking about a change of ownership!
He’d be fine, though. He shouldn’t need to ask Jess Baker for help for more than a month or so.
‘Thanks, Jess.’ Dan drew a breath that didn’t do a whole lot to ease the tight feeling that had formed in the centre of his chest as he started thinking ahead to leaving the children to get through most of their holidays without the fun and outings he’d planned for them. ‘I’m guessing the kids are all hungry. I admit I am, too.’
Did Jess Baker eat more than enough to keep a sparrow going? She was small, slender. As she turned about the bright black-and-orange skirt swirled against legs that were tanned and sturdy.
Slender, but strong, then.
Dan lifted his gaze from her legs, and rapidly lifted it past other parts of her that seemed to catch his eye. ‘I need to make those phone calls to your referees.’
More than that, he needed to stop noticing Jess in this way. He wanted Jess to work for him. And she was really young. And he…wasn’t. And he didn’t know a thing about her circumstances.
He had had his luck.
You haven’t got over losing Rebecca.
He had, though. It happened four years ago. They’d all grieved and moved on. There’d been no choice. It was just that Dan knew he’d had more than his share. It would be impossible to love like that twice.
Meanwhile, there was Jess Baker, and… Dan stepped into the kitchen.
There was Jess’s daughter playing with a set of plastic kitchen bowls in a makeshift playpen of packing boxes. There was Jess, handing out toasted cheese sandwiches and cho
colate milkshakes.
Most of all there were five Frazier children seated around the dining table, looking…at least relatively cooperative.
‘I cut up the apple pieces.’ Daisy gestured to a bowl in the middle of the table. ‘Jess said if she watched me, it would be okay.’
Rob grinned with a chocolate milk moustache. ‘I made the milkshakes.’
‘And Annapolly and Mary worked together to put the plastic plates on the table.’ Jess smiled and ruffled both little girls’ hair before she passed Dan a plate of cheese sandwiches and sat with one of her own. ‘We thought maybe after lunch we could try to get the kitchen and bathrooms sorted out.’
Right.
Dan drew a breath. ‘I’m sorry, kids, that I’ve had to change our plans and that I’ll be travelling to Sydney a bit for the next while and working long hours.’
‘Yeah, well, some of us are way too old for a babysitter.’ Luke muttered the words half beneath his breath.
But Dan still heard them and frowned, because they’d been over this in the car.
As Dan opened his mouth to chide his son, Jess spoke.
‘You’re quite right, Luke. I’m hoping I’ll be able to rely on you and Rob to guide me with some of what’s needed for the younger ones.’
Luke raised his gaze and for a moment seemed to fight himself before he unbent enough to allow: ‘We can do that. There’ll be heaps of stuff you don’t know about them.’
Jess gave the boy a gentle smile. ‘And maybe if we all work hard to get along and help your father be able to focus on his work, he’ll manage a small outing with you all here and there?’
‘Exactly what I’m hoping.’ It was what Dan had been thinking.
There was a silence for a minute, and then Luke said, ‘It’s not your fault that you have to do this, Dad. You work hard to look after all of us. We’ll just have to do things around here until you can do some stuff with us.’
Jess searched Luke’s face for a moment before her gaze shifted to Dan. ‘You must have been run off your feet since you got here, Dan. Probably everyone’s feeling a bit out of sorts one way and another.’
