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

by Lee Tobin McClain

  Arianna flushed. “Oh, just here and there.” No need to tell Penny about how unsettled the past couple of years had been, and how she hadn’t been able to commit to anything since giving up her son. “Two days ago I was out of a job and practically out of a home, and now I have both.” She bit her lip and shot up a prayer of thanks. “God’s so good.”

  Even as she spoke, worry crept in. Penny was wise and saw a lot. Would she guess the truth about Sammy? Would Jack?

  They worked together hauling boxes down the stairs and throwing them into the ranch foreman’s truck. “Finn said once it’s full, he’ll drive it over to the dump,” Penny said.

  “Just look at the floor,” Arianna commented once a big square of it was cleared. “With a bright rug and a polish, these plank floors will come to life.”

  “You’re so positive,” Penny said. “You’re going to be good for Jack.” She hesitated, then added, “In a way your sister wasn’t.”

  “Oh!” Color rose in Arianna’s face. “It’s not the same at all. I’m just the temporary nanny.” Jack had made that very clear. He’d sent her a text after their conversation just to confirm that she understood that.

  Penny didn’t seem to have heard her. “His parents were so rigid. His mom’s passed, rest her soul, but his dad seems to have gotten even more... What? Judgmental? Tense? Your sister had some of those same qualities.” Penny smiled at her. “It strikes me that you don’t.”

  Yes, true, to her detriment. She’d been the one to get pregnant without being married and disgrace the family. While poor Chloe, always such a perfectionist—and so perfect—hadn’t been able to have the one thing that meant everything to her: a baby.

  “Anyone home?” came a call from downstairs.

  “We’re up here, Willie.” Penny brushed the back of her hand over her sweaty forehead and gestured toward a door Arianna hadn’t seen before. “This is where the downstairs connects. You can lock the door for privacy or come down to use the laundry machines whenever you want.”

  A short, rotund but muscular man with a long gray ponytail huffed up the steps. “There you are,” he said, sweeping off his Vietnam veterans hat. He gave Arianna a quick nod, but his eyes were fixed on Penny. “Can I offer you lovely ladies some help? Before I offer to take you to lunch?” he added to Penny.

  Color rose in Penny’s cheeks. “Willie, have you met Arianna? She’s going to be living here and working as a nanny for Jack.”

  Willie smiled at her, his face breaking into a million creases. “I’m pleased to meet you,” he said. “That Jack works hard. He could use some help.” He turned back toward Penny. “Now, what about that lunch?”

  Penny gestured at her dusty work clothes. “Look at me. I can’t possibly go out. And we wouldn’t ask you to do our grunt work.”

  “I was a grunt in the service,” Willie said with a wink at Arianna. “The company’s a lot better here.”

  “No, thanks, Willie,” Penny said. “Another time.”

  “Maybe tomorrow night?” he asked. “I’ve got a gift card for the Cold Creek Inn. You could wear that red dress you have.”

  Penny’s cheeks went pink. “I... We’ll see,” she said and turned back to the box she’d been sorting through.

  “Talk her into it, will you?” he asked Arianna. “You know where to find me,” he added to Penny and then descended the stairs.

  “Looks like you have an admirer,” Arianna said, waggling her eyebrows at Penny.

  “Oh, he’s just lonely because his friend Long John is off on his honeymoon,” Penny said. “Those two have been best friends forever and lived next door in the ranch cabins until just recently. Long John married a woman from town, Beatrice Patton, just as soon as her chemo treatments ended. I think they kind of bonded over their health issues, since Long John has Parkinson’s.”

  “Wow.” The older woman’s matter-of-fact words put Arianna’s own problems into perspective.

  “Anyway,” Penny continued, “Long John getting married and moving down to town is an adjustment for Willie.”

  “I don’t know if the invitation is all about missing his friend,” Arianna teased. “I doubt he’d want Long John to wear a red dress to lunch.”

  “Oh, stop it!” Penny said, laughing a little. “Willie’s a nice man, but...”

  “He’s older than you are. By kind of a lot.”

  “It’s not that. It’s that I’m not ready.” Penny sighed. “Truth is, when my husband left me, he took that part of me that used to trust people. Or trust men anyway.”

  “I can understand that.” Arianna hadn’t dated anyone since Sammy’s father for that very reason. But while her own loneliness felt well deserved, Penny’s made her sad. “Sounds like he just wants to take you to dinner. Maybe you should go.”

  “I don’t want him to spend his gift card on me. He’d think it means more than it does, and I don’t want to hurt anyone, but especially someone who lives on the ranch. We have to be able to coexist.”

  Coexist. That was what she and Jack had to learn to do, too. But it was hard to look at it so impersonally when there was a child involved.

  His child. Her child.

  The sound of footsteps trotting up the steps interrupted their conversation. There was a tap on the door, and Jack’s face appeared in the glass. “Need any help?” he asked.

  Yes, Arianna wanted to say. Can you help me make my heart stop pounding?

  “Absolutely,” Penny said. “We have a bunch of boxes that need to be moved down to Finn’s truck. You look like just the man for the job.”

  “It’s good to be needed,” Jack said. “Sammy’s TSS kicked me out. She said I was hovering.”

  “Is Sammy okay being alone with her?” Arianna stood and looked out the window toward Jack’s house.

  “For now, yes,” he said. “She has me on speed dial, and I’m to stay within shouting distance. She and Sammy were doing work with his vocalizing and I was distracting him, apparently.”

  “Do they know what caused his autism?” The question seemed to burst out of her. She hadn’t even known she was wondering that. But she must’ve spoken intensely, because the other two stared at her.

  “No one knows for sure,” Jack said. “There’s definitely a genetic component, and there’s a lot about Sammy’s background we don’t know, given that it was a closed adoption. There’s supposed to be a work-around if he develops any health problems, so maybe...” He trailed off.

  Arianna’s stomach roiled. She couldn’t talk about Sammy’s genetics with Jack. She couldn’t hold it together, couldn’t keep him from guessing the truth. At the same time, she wanted to do anything she could to help her son. “Would it make a difference if his genetics were known?” She tried hard to keep the question casual.

  “I don’t think so. We’re still diving into the same type of intervention, and as early as possible. As you’ll find out, the more you’re around him and his therapists.”

  “I’m looking forward to working with him.” And she should change the subject. She pointed toward the corner of the room. “Those boxes over there need carrying down.”

  Had she pulled it off? Or did both Penny and Jack think she was acting weird?

  Fortunately, her worries were interrupted by another knock, this one on the downstairs door.

  Penny rolled her eyes. “I can go weeks without anyone ever coming to visit, but today, when I’m trying to get something done, it’s Grand Central Station.” She headed down the stairs.

  That left Arianna alone when Jack trotted back up the steps. “Ready for another load,” he said.

  Arianna indicated a stack of three boxes. “You take two. I’ll take one,” she said, trying for a businesslike tone.

  But as she watched him pick up both boxes with ease, noticed his muscles straining the sleeves of his T-shirt, Arianna felt anything but detached.
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br />   Moving here, living here, spending time with Sammy... Was it a huge mistake? She’d promised Chloe never to reveal the truth, had reiterated that promise when Chloe was dying. How could she go back on it?

  Besides, revealing the truth might very well erase her new, tentative relationship with her son. If Jack knew about the huge secret she’d kept from him, he’d be furious. He might consider her character fatally flawed and refuse to let her see Sammy anymore. Which was his right; he was Sammy’s father by adoption and by law.

  But now that she’d gotten a taste of spending time with her son, she couldn’t imagine giving up the privilege. More important than her own feelings, Sammy needed the help she could offer.

  She just had to make sure to keep her distance from Jack. She liked him too much, but she didn’t dare start to confide in him, to get close. No sense torturing herself.

  They carried several more boxes and then paused at the same time, surveying the attic apartment. What to do next wasn’t clear.

  “Are you going to be okay living here? Looks like there’s a lot of work to be done.” Jack frowned at the remaining mess. “It would drive me crazy.”

  “Think where I’ve been staying,” she said. “At least this mess is clean-up-able.”

  “You have a good attitude,” he said, nodding approval.

  It was the same thing Penny had said, and it shouldn’t have warmed her as much as it did.

  They carried one more load down. Penny stood beside an expensive sedan, talking to a man in a suit. They seemed to be arguing, and within a few seconds, the man threw up his hands, climbed into the car and drove away. Penny watched him go, then turned back toward the house. When she saw them, she shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I think I’m going to have to get out of here for a little bit,” she said. “These men are driving me crazy.”

  “Is Branson Howe bugging you for a date?” Jack asked.

  “Now, why would you say that?” Penny looked irritated.

  “Because I think he’s been trying to get up the courage to do that for a long time. You didn’t shut him down, did you?”

  “Yes, I did. I shut everyone down.”

  “You’re breaking their hearts,” Jack said.

  “Don’t you start.” Penny bustled inside and came back with her purse and keys. “I’m serious. I’m leaving. I’m going to go see a woman friend, got that? A woman. Because women are a lot more sensible than men.” She climbed into her truck and drove off in a flurry of gravel.

  Jack winced as he looked at Arianna. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that all the men in town talk about Penny. They’re all thinking that it’s been over a year since her divorce, and they can approach her now.”

  Arianna felt a stab of pain. Penny could start over, but she couldn’t. Instead, she was living in a shabby, dirty place, as shabby and empty as her own life. Because she might have a good attitude in front of others, but in her heart, she knew an educated woman in her late twenties should have been doing a lot better.

  There was a sound on the porch, a low whine. Arianna looked at Jack. “Did you hear that?”

  “What’s over there?”

  They both hurried over and discovered a box, lined with a towel and holding one sad-looking, crying, cream-colored puppy. Arianna sank to her knees. “Oh, little guy, who left you here?”

  Jack frowned in the direction that Branson’s, and then Penny’s, car had gone. “Could Branson have brought it?”

  “I don’t know him. Could he have?”

  “He doesn’t seem the type,” Jack said. “More like the type who would arrange everything carefully.”

  “I wonder how long it’s been here?” Gently, Arianna pulled the puppy out of the box and cuddled it close. Its little pink tongue licked her arm, and her heart melted. She looked up at Jack. “You know, this might be just what I need to make my house a home.”

  “No.” He shook his head, hands on hips. “Animals aren’t accessories.”

  “Well, I know that, silly,” Arianna said. “But dogs are companions, and I’d take good care of it.”

  Jack sighed. “Let me run and check on Sammy, and then I’ll take a look at him,” he said. “He looks kind of young to be away from his mama.”

  “That’s not good, right?” Arianna had heard that dogs needed to be with their mothers for the first eight weeks to learn good dog manners and be socialized properly.

  “Right,” Jack said. “There is a new mama out in the barn. In fact, she only has one pup, and he’s about this one’s age. Want to help me?” He smiled at her, and his whole face lit up, and Arianna’s heart melted.

  Which it shouldn’t be doing. She needed to focus her affection on Sammy, and maybe a puppy. Not on Jack. Definitely not on Jack.

  Chapter Five

  After making sure the puppy was in no immediate distress, Jack hurried over to his house, caught the tail end of Sammy’s session with his TSS and got instructions for following up. Then he grabbed Sammy and two bags of supplies—one for his son and one for the puppy.

  As he carried Sammy over toward Penny’s front porch, magpies scolded and mountain bluebirds twittered and swooped. The late-afternoon sun warmed his shoulders, and the weight of his son in his arms felt good and right.

  Finally, he was starting to manage Sammy’s condition, get him help and get their lives back on track.

  Arianna sat on the top porch step, her auburn curls glowing like fire. She cradled the small, cream-colored puppy in her arms, talking softly to it.

  The sight of Arianna’s nurturing side tugged at his heart, and when she heard them coming and looked up, the warm glow in her eyes melted something inside him.

  “I really want to keep him,” she said.

  “He’s a cute little guy. Let me take a look.” He set down his bags and took the puppy from her, carefully, and she held out her arms for Sammy.

  They worked well together. An automatic trade without words.

  The puppy whined a little as Jack examined it, and Sammy turned his head to stare at the dog.

  “He really noticed that.” She patted Sammy’s back. “See the puppy?”

  “He notices animals more than he notices people,” Jack said, and then he wished he hadn’t.

  Arianna looked up quickly. “That must be hard to deal with.”

  He nodded. “I’m used to it, but it makes me sad.” He held up the puppy so Sammy could see it. “Dog,” he said.

  “See the dog?” Arianna added.

  Sammy looked thoughtful but didn’t speak.

  “Does he know the word?”

  “He used to,” Jack said, and pain twisted his heart.

  He met Arianna’s eyes and saw a matching sorrow in hers.

  The intimacy of their shared emotion felt too raw, and he looked away, focusing on the puppy. He examined eyes, ears, tail and paws. “He’s healthy,” he told her, “just too young to be left alone. That’s why he’s crying.”

  “Poor thing. I wonder what his story is.”

  Jack shook his head. “There are all kinds of reasons why a mother can’t raise her pup,” he said.

  Arianna drew in a sharp breath, and when he looked up, her eyes glittered with unshed tears. Funny, he hadn’t realized she was so sensitive. He put a hand on hers. “We’ll find him a new mama,” he reassured her.

  She swallowed hard and nodded, and then Sammy started to fuss and the moment was over.

  Half an hour later, at the barn, Jack inhaled the clean, lemony smell and smiled. “The volunteers keep this place really clean.”

  “It’s staffed by volunteers? I thought the veterans cared for the dogs.”

  “It takes a village,” Jack said. “Sometimes we don’t have as many veterans, or they’re working off-ranch, and then the community steps in to help.”

  The dogs started th
eir usual uproar, and Sammy clapped his hands over his ears and started to cry.

  “They’ll quiet down in a minute,” Jack told Arianna over the din. “Just bounce him, kind of hard.” When she fumbled, he held out the puppy and they traded again.

  Soon enough, the dogs quieted down and Sammy did, too. They walked down the aisle, and he could have predicted Arianna’s reaction.

  Puppy in hand, she knelt beside first one pen, then the next. She talked softly to the senior dogs, rubbed grizzled snouts, read the little cards on the front of each enclosure that told the dog’s age, gender and something about them.

  “Oh, look, Jack. This one’s been here for over a year!” She studied the pit bull–rottweiler mix. “Why hasn’t anyone adopted him?”

  “We’re not really so much about adoption, although we’re thrilled when it happens,” Jack said. “The veterans who stay here each pick out a dog to care for. Max is big, and he needs medication every morning and evening. He’s a lot for anyone to handle, let alone a struggling veteran.” Even as he said it, he knelt and reached into the pen to scratch behind the big black dog’s ears. Normally he didn’t let himself think too much about how long the dogs spent here or what their lives were like. As a veterinarian, he had to maintain some detachment.

  Around Arianna, detachment was harder and harder to come by.

  In Arianna’s arms, the puppy started whining louder, causing Sammy to stare. Jack stood. “Come on, Buster,” he said, spontaneously naming the pup. “Let’s find you a mama, or at least, a mama for now.”

  The dog he’d been thinking of was at the end of the left-hand row of crates, and he hurried Arianna past the rest of the dogs on the line and knelt in front of the last pen. “Hey, Millie,” he said gently.

  The large beagle mix looked out at him with soulful eyes, her tail thumping.

  “How’s your pup doing, huh?” He opened the pen’s door with one hand, still holding Sammy in the other. Millie was gentle beyond words and wouldn’t dream of escaping or hurting anyone.

  “Why does she only have one pup?” Arianna asked, kneeling beside the dog.

  “Lots of possible reasons. She’s old to be breeding, and she’s had a lot of litters. That’s why she was dropped off here. No use as a breeder anymore, and the owners were disgusted that she just had one pup.”