Читать книгу The Bridal Quest - Jennifer Mikels - Страница 12

By the flash of humor in Jessica Scott’s eyes, Sam guessed he looked as stunned as he felt.

“Thank you, but I couldn’t,” she said, rescuing him.

Annie’s brows pinched together. “But—”

“Annie, we’ll ask around for her. See if someone is looking for help.” He touched his daughter’s shoulder. He would not let a six-year-old maneuver him into a corner. Before the conversation reverted back to her choice for a nanny, he urged her toward the diner. “Come on. We need to join your sister.”

“Why can’t Jesse be our new nanny?” She repeated that question at least five times during their dinner.

Aware of strength in numbers, Casey joined in. “Why can’t she, Daddy?”

“We like her.”

“Uh-huh.” Casey nibbled on a French fry. “We like her. Don’t you?”

“This isn’t about liking her.” Everyone knew nannies had gray hair and orthopedic shoes. “I don’t even think she’d want the job.”

Questioningly Casey tipped her head. “Why wouldn’t she?”

How innocent they were. Sam ran a finger down her nose to make her giggle. Not everyone thought they were angels like he did. “Drink your soda.”

“Who’s going to take care of us then?” Annie cut in.

Good question, Sam mused. The whole incident with Arlene could have been worse if Jess hadn’t helped. Jess. So he thought of her that way. Wasn’t that warning enough? He would be asking for trouble if he hired her. Only a dumb man willingly brought a woman into his house who stirred more feeling in him than any woman had in almost two years.

But she really was good with the girls. Oh, hell. He could stifle whatever attraction was simmering for her. More important was getting someone for his daughters.

Despite their certainty that she’d be perfect for them, he needed to know more about her than her name. “I’ll be right back.” He left them, scoffing down a favorite dessert, chocolate cream pie, and crossed to Herb.

Herb told him that he liked her. That’s what everyone said. After he asked Cory a few questions, Sam called the motel owner from Herb’s office phone. According to Josie Colten, Jess hadn’t charged the room on a credit card. Sam deduced that meant she believed in paying cash for everything, or she’d filed bankruptcy and had no credit. Who knew if she’d suffered hard times?

Herb believed she needed money but she’d refused when Cory had offered her some. Sam figured she was proud. He considered that a good trait. He believed if a person had one good trait they possessed others. He wasn’t naive, but he was a fair lawman, one who never judged everything in terms of black or white. To be too rigid was just plain stupid.

Both girls angled expectant looks at him when he returned to the booth.

“I’ll ask her,” he told them.

“Yippee!” Casey bounced up and down on the booth seat.

“We’ll try her.” He’d already listed reasons to offer her the job. Besides showing common sense for the girls as well as Arlene, he’d seen a gentleness in her touch with Casey. He considered himself a good judge of character, and felt the girls would be safe with her. They certainly liked her. And she needed the job. “Remember. She might not work out,” he reminded his daughters.

“Yes, she will,” Annie insisted.

“We’ll see.”

With no room, no money, and no job, for privacy Jessica strolled to the nearby gas station and the public phone instead of using the phone inside Herb’s Diner. She hated to admit defeat, but she had no choice. She had to call home.

Inside the phone booth, she left the door open and fished in her shoulder bag for coins. How much would she need for a long-distance phone call?

“Jesse, Jesse.” She heard the sweet little voices a second before Annie and Casey appeared at the door.

Through the glass, Jessica observed their father’s approach.

Casey squeezed into the booth as if needing to get closer. “Jesse, will you be our nanny?”

“Will you, Jesse?” Annie asked, crowding in, too.

Standing behind them now, their father gave her that killer smile again. “Girls, let me talk to her.”

Casey whirled around, inched out of the booth behind her sister. Halting beside him, she tugged on his hand, forced him to bend over. “Make her, Daddy,” she said in a low whisper.

“I’ll do my best,” he whispered back. “We’re serious,” he said when the girls stepped away. “We’d like to offer you the nanny job. It’s full-time. Live-in.”

Jessica’s heart galloped. He was suggesting all she wanted. A job, a place to stay, another chance. “I have no qualifications for the job.”

“You like kids.”

“I love them, Sheriff.”

“Sam,” he corrected. “And my girls like you. Look, I’m a widower, so like I said, we need a live-in.”

She wanted to search his eyes for grief, but he looked away to check on his daughters. When he looked back, she saw curiosity in his eyes. “You’re not married or—”

“I’m not,” she cut in before he could finish. Inwardly she tensed. What else would he ask? “But I have worked with children from disadvantaged homes,” she said, hoping a little information would keep him from asking questions she didn’t want to answer. “It wasn’t a job. Volunteer work,” she added.

His eyes sharpened, filled with questions, but he steered the conversation down a different path. “Herb said good things about you.”

“How could he?” She couldn’t help but laugh as she thought of how often she’d goofed. “I nearly broke all of his dishes.”

“He said that, but he also said you were honest, never touched others’ tips.”

Honest. Tension clenched her stomach. “Did he say anything else?” Like her name was really Walker.

“Don’t frown. He said nothing bad. He told me you were a good employee. Willing to help. Friendly to everyone.”

She blushed. “That was nice of him.”

“Those are good reasons to hire someone.”

This couldn’t be so easy. She glanced toward the girls who were standing by the bench. Would he really hire her based on a few things someone said about her?

“It’s been difficult finding a nanny who works well with us,” he said suddenly.

Now that made no sense to her. She spoke her thoughts. “Why? Your daughters are adorable.”

“I think so. I’m glad you do. I’d prefer to hire someone who sees all of my daughters’ fine qualities, and not their faults.” The laughter in his voice died with his next words. “But I should explain. We lost the first nanny because Annie was missing her mommy and wanted no substitute of any kind. The next nanny failed to pass Casey’s test.”

“Her test?”

“Casey’s her own person. Some people don’t understand that. One nanny called my youngest weird. The one who worked for me before Arlene was annoyed that I came home so late. No explanation mattered. She didn’t want to hear one. I’m a sheriff. Sometimes I can’t leave. She didn’t understand. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No.” She wanted to hug him for solving her problems. “But I have to be fair. If I get the job, it would only be temporary. I can’t stay for long.” She expected questions now, and worried he would consider that a good reason not to hire her. “I want the job,” she added on a rush. “I need the job.” Slowly he grinned and Jessica saw then why he really had a reputation for curling toes. A rush of warmth swept through her.

“And we need you.”

How could everything be so wrong one minute and so right the next? she wondered.

He braced a shoulder against the opened folding door. “Want to know anything about me, about us?”

Cory and several other servers had informed her about one of Thunder Lake’s most eligible males. He was honest and hardworking, and would do anything for his daughters. He was also considered a real catch by most single women in town. They’d claimed he was fair and compassionate. He was well-liked, well-respected, but could be tough when necessary.

And he was brave, Cory had assured her, then had gone on to tell a story about how he’d single-handedly brought in an escaped convict who’d been hiding in an abandoned farmhouse outside of town. “I already know all about you.” She felt a blush sweep over her face. When had she become such a motormouth?

He made no comment about what she’d said, but a smile twitched up the corners of his lips. “Give me an hour to delegate a few jobs to my deputy, then I’ll meet you at my house, show you your room and you can settle in.” He withdrew a pad of paper from his front shirt pocket, yanked a sheet of paper from it. Using the frame of the phone booth for a writing surface, he scribbled down the address.

Peripherally Jessica saw the girls inching closer.

So had he. He paused in writing. “She said yes.”

“She said yes!” Annie repeated.

Displaying typical four-year-old exuberance, Casey jumped up and down. “Yippee!”

“As you can see, they’re happy.” He handed her the paper with the address. “On their behalf, thank you.”

Jessica felt as if she should be saying that. She stepped out of the booth, dropped the coins for the phone call back in her shoulder bag and watched him slip his hand around Casey’s.

Over her shoulder, Casey looked back and waved.

Annie gave a look back, too, and sent Jessica one of her hundred-watt smiles.

In that second, she knew that she didn’t want to lose this job. She almost felt guilty about getting paid for it. She read the address first, then pocketed the paper.

All seemed perfect, but she’d need different clothes, wouldn’t she? She’d never fool him if she wore designer T-shirts and jeans. She crossed the street to browse through a thrift shop. Lucky for her it was open this one evening of the week. Using part of the thirty-three dollars and seventy-five cents that she’d collected in lunch and dinner tips, she purchased several T-shirts and another pair of jeans.

She stuffed the new items into her suitcase, then started walking toward his house. She’d been so thrilled to get a job that nothing else had mattered. She hadn’t asked what he would expect her to do. She’d assumed she would watch the girls. Would he want her to do more? Housekeeping? Oh, how difficult could it be to run a vacuum cleaner? Sounds good, she mused. Keep convincing yourself you can handle this. All she’d have to do is learn which buttons to push on the dishwasher and washing machine, how hard could that be?

Three blocks away from the town’s business district, she turned down a street of huge pines and silver oaks. Unlike the ranch-style homes near the edge of the town, the sheriff and his daughters lived in a house reminiscent of a 19th-century farmhouse with two French-pane windows upstairs, and four on the first floor. It was painted brownish-red with a white door and white trim around the windows. A cobblestone walkway led to the three front steps and the front door. Several huge pines shaded the house from the late afternoon sun.

Jessica leaned against the white wood railing to wait. It wasn’t long. Within minutes, a vehicle zipped around the corner and pulled onto the driveway.

“Jesse, Jesse,” Casey yelled when she opened the vehicle’s door. Wearing a baseball cap, khaki pants, a blue-and-white striped top, and sneakers, she bounded toward the house. Jessica smiled at the wallet-sized, red shoulder bag hanging from Casey’s shoulder. She’d definitely set her own style.

“We hurried home,” Annie informed her, coming in second in the race with Casey. “We’d have been here sooner, but Daddy had to give Humphrey a ride home. He’s Mrs. Olsen’s dog.”

Sam strolled up, shaking his head. “If you let her, she’ll tell you about every person in town.”

“Daddy says I like to talk.” All innocence, Annie grinned up at him. “Don’t you, Daddy?”

His knuckles stroked her cheek lovingly. “I hope you haven’t been waiting here too long.”

“Hardly at all,” Jessica assured him.

“Good.” Sam stepped up to the door. “Let’s go in.”

The front door opened to a short foyer and the staircase to the second floor. To her right was the living room with a comfy-looking sofa in a deep blue color and several chairs in a blue-and-maroon pattern.

“It needs a little picking up.” He skirted the coffee table to snatch up the newspaper that was strewn across the sofa cushions, then gestured to his right. “The kitchen is this way.”

Jessica nodded and traced his steps through a formal dining room with a highly polished cherrywood table and chairs and a breakfront. A collection of china cups, a crystal decanter and wineglasses occupied the shelves. A few steps behind him, she entered the kitchen to see him plugging in the coffee brewer.

Done in oak, the kitchen was a large, sunny room, the result of French doors that led to the backyard. A round oak table and cane chairs rested on a multi-colored braided rug.

“I’ll show you your room,” Annie volunteered.

“I will,” Casey insisted.

Sam ran interference. “You both can.”

Together they went upstairs. Feeling a touch uneasy in her new surroundings, Jessica hoped that once she could call someplace home, even temporarily, she’d begin to relax.

Casey’s chattering about her favorite cartoon movie, the one about ants, helped. Noticing her small hand’s possessive hold on the purse, Jessica assumed it was a treasured item. “I like your purse.”

“She carries it everywhere,” Annie said from behind them.

A little huffily, Casey raised her chin. “I like it.”

Jessica sensed the start of an argument. “Will you show me your rooms first?” she asked to sidetrack them from their dispute.

At the landing, Annie pointed to her left. “My room is that way.” Eagerly she steered her toward a feminine room done in purple and white with a white canopy bed and a collection of dolls at center stage on shelves lining one wall.

Casey’s room contained the usual four-year-old toys, but it was done in mostly green, and a giant picture of a black-and-yellow butterfly adorned one wall. A baseball mitt and cap were tossed in a corner of oversized pillows, and propped nearby was an oversized stuffed animal, a green ant.

“Do you like mine?” Casey asked.

She chose an answer that would prevent hurt feelings. “I like both of them.” A hand on their backs, she urged them into the hallway. Noticing Sam waiting by a door halfway down the hall, she hurried there.

He opened the door for her, and flicked on a wall switch. “Everything was redecorated by Trudy after Christina, my wife, died.”

Jessica stepped in. Had he sought change to forget what had been?

“If you knew Trudy, you’d be amazed how well it looks. Everything is so normal-looking.”

“I met Trudy,” she said, taking in the room. It was homey and clean-looking with a mahogany chest of drawers, and a small, mahogany writing desk. Near the window was a pale wood and hunter-green chair. A print of a Monet adorned the wall above the bed with its white bedskirt and a green, white and pink basket quilt. “She said that she worked for you. Is she the one who makes coffee that tastes like motor oil?”

A laugh clung to his voice. “She’s the one.”

“She takes a personal interest in you.”

Sam groaned and sent her a knowing look. “Did she ask you if your intentions were honorable about me?”

He knew the woman well. “Sort of.”

“She figures she has a right since she’s family. Christina’s aunt.”

Jessica matched his smile. “The room is lovely.”

“I’m glad you like it.” His lips curved in a pleased smile. “After you get settled, come downstairs. I’ll give you coffee.”

“I’ll come now.” Jessica trailed him out of the room. “I don’t have much to unpack.”

On her way to the kitchen, she scanned rooms, noted photographs of the girls, a piano in the corner of the living room, shelves of books, mostly mysteries. The house was cozy, welcoming.

In the kitchen, she spotted a small plant on the kitchen windowsill. School papers held with magnets clung to the refrigerator. “Annie got a gold star,” she said about one of the papers.

“She works hard for them.” His back to her, he removed two blue mugs from a mug tree. “She’s a good student.”

“I’d have guessed that.”

“Sometimes she’s six going on thirty,” he said while pouring their coffee. “She has been more affected by all the different nannies than Casey. But like I said, it’s hard finding someone. What we need most is someone who’ll stick around.”

Jessica quickly reminded him, “I explained that I’d only take this job for a little while.”

“I know. I appreciate your honesty.”

His words made her cringe. She wasn’t honest, not at all. And though she wasn’t sure how long she’d stay, she knew she couldn’t offer the girls the stability he was looking for in their nanny. Actually she had no definite plans and had given her future little thought. She’d hoped her leaving home would make her mother and grandfather believe that she was serious about not marrying Ryan Noble. She’d believed if they really cared about her, then they’d want her happy.

“Want milk or sugar?”

She shook her head. Until she was sure her family understood she meant business, she needed the job. But she realized how unfair that was to Sam and the girls. “I’ll try to stay until the end of May. Would that help you?” A month or so was the best she could give him.

“It might.” He handed her one of the mugs. “By then, some of the college kids will be home for the summer.” Cautiously he sipped his coffee. “Have you had dinner?”

His question sparked one of her own. “Do you want me to cook? Will that be part of my job?”

While she stayed by the table, he braced his backside against the kitchen counter. “I’d hoped—do you cook?”

She loved to, but at home her mother would have been aghast if she spent even a few hours in the kitchen. “Yes. Do you?”

He pulled a face. “Grudgingly. If you haven’t eaten, you’re welcome to dig in and have whatever you want.”

She wandered to the windowsill, stared at the pot of soil and the little sprout. “I’m not really hungry,” she answered, but she eyed an apple and a banana in a wicker basket of fruit in the center of the table. “Do I have other duties?”

“What about cleaning and laundry? Will you do them?”

Of course he’d suggest that. She’d told Herb that she’d done “this and that, been a sales clerk, an elderly woman’s companion, a maid.”

“If you don’t want to, it’s all right, Jess.”

She liked the way he’d said her name—smooth, easy and with a friendliness that bordered on affectionate.

“But—” A wry smile curved his mouth. “It would help me a lot. I can’t be a good daddy, a good sheriff and handle those jobs, too.” Jessica heard a trace of guilt in his voice, and quickly concluded he wouldn’t have felt that if he wasn’t so loving, so caring. “I need help. And you’re it.”

Poor man. He had no idea that he was about to rely on someone who had no idea how to operate a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner or a dishwasher. She wasn’t dumb, she had degrees in anthropology and medieval history, but just no practical life experience. “I’ll do whatever I can to make things easier for you.” She hadn’t exactly lied. She would try. That didn’t mean she would succeed.

“I’m usually home at the girls’ bedtime.”

“When is that?”

He grimaced as if uncomfortable with his answer. “When I get home. Schedules aren’t set in stone around here. Anyway I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot, but I might as well get this out in the open now. I hired one nanny who tried to take over. The girls are mine. I raise them.”

Jessica couldn’t find fault with his responsible attitude toward his daughters. “It seems you’ve done a great job.”

“Thanks. But I’ve been permissive while trying to fill the gap left by the absence of their mother, and as you probably noticed, their rooms look like toy stores. When my wife died, the town became our family. Women brought over dinner every night, gifts were given to the girls. Everyone spoiled them—us,” he said on a laugh. “Until I said, ‘no more.”’

Looking down, he shoved back his shirt cuff and eyed his watch. “I have to leave. I asked one of my deputies to stay late so I could be here and get you settled in.”

Jessica listened and nodded while he discussed salary and days off.

“Will you be okay?” he questioned as he lifted the jacket to his uniform from the back of a kitchen chair.

She nodded again. “Oh, we’ll be fine.” She really believed that. She watched him leave the room, then snagged an apple. What she wanted most was quiet time to enjoy her sudden good luck.

Sam kept thinking about them. Though not worried, he wondered if he was nuts. He was trusting her with his children and he hardly knew her.

All he knew about her, he’d learned from Cory. Thunder Lake’s newest resident was twenty-six. Born in Nevada. Where? Cory hadn’t known. Somewhere near Reno, she thought. Jess never mentioned family, claimed she had no brothers or sisters.

According to Cory, among the tidbits of information Jess had told her, she jogged every morning. She loved pecan pie. Cory had thought some man had broken her heart. Nothing revealed why she’d come to Thunder Lake. Since she’d told no one, he figured she was low on trust.

But he’d get answers. A patient man, he was willing to wait awhile. When working on the police force in Las Vegas, he’d once kept a file open long after his captain had told him to consider the case unsolved.

He didn’t give up on anything easily. He would learn what her story was. In the meantime, he would keep a close eye on her. It was part of his job to look out for the welfare of others.

Jessica truly liked being around children. She might never have realized that if she hadn’t volunteered to help with children from disadvantaged homes. Because of her background, she’d thought she would never relate. But she’d found that her love of kids bridged the differences. It wasn’t always easy. Often they rebuffed kindness or attention. Jessica developed thick skin. She understood they’d been rejected so many times they lacked trust. But the two little girls she was with now carried none of the same burdens. They were loved.

She spent the first hour asking about their routines, trying to become familiar with schedules, and discovered they had none. Though wake-up was a specific time, their daddy allowed them a lot of leeway about their bedtime.

She assumed he had a hard time playing disciplinarian when they were all still handling grief. At least, he was. Annie had admitted she could hardly remember her mommy except that she’d smelled nice and had sung a song about sunshine to her. When Casey left the room, Annie whispered that Casey was too young to remember any of that. That left Jessica with the conclusion that Sam, not they, still needed healing from the loss.

As the clock neared nine, Jessica urged them to take baths and put on their pajamas. She finished buttoning Casey’s pajamas while Annie brushed her hair. “Time to brush teeth.”

“We have to floss, too. Daddy won’t let us go to bed unless we do,” Annie told her between scrubbing the brush across her teeth.

With rituals done, she settled with them in the living room. She perused the television guide for a few minutes, then chose a movie-length cartoon.

In fifteen minutes, Casey gave in and slumped to her left side, using Jessica’s lap for a pillow. A night-owl, Annie fought sleep. Head bobbing, she finally dozed off at eleven o’clock and slid down on the sofa cushion.

“They need a bedtime,” Jessica muttered.

“I know,” a masculine voice said unexpectedly from the doorway.

Her head snapped up. She’d had no warning he was near, had heard no footsteps, no opening and closing of the door. “You are quiet.” Embarrassed at being caught talking to herself, she felt heat in her cheeks.

“I practice so I can catch my deputies sleeping.” Sam shrugged out of his jacket and glanced at his sleeping daughters.

“They didn’t make it,” Jessica said the obvious as she eased out from under Casey and off the sofa. Bending over the table, she scooped up several of Annie’s books to stack them.

“They often don’t. I had to stay late. There was a call at the lake about someone fooling with the boats. It was a false alarm, one of the owner’s grandsons forgot his sweater in the boat and went back for it.”

Straightening, she gave him a sleepy smile.

“You look tired.”

So did he. But he also looked more relaxed. “A little. Annie read a few books to us,” she said quietly. “And we watched the cartoon about the Dalmatians.”

“It’s a favorite of Annie’s,” he said equally low so he wouldn’t wake the girls.

Jessica smiled easily. She hoped they’d do this often, meet during the quiet moments to talk after the girls had gone to sleep. “I’ll help you carry them to bed,” she said, moving to Casey.

“You don’t have to—”

Jessica already had Casey in her arms.

For a brief second, a look had darted across his face. She didn’t know him well enough to read what it meant. But she’d felt as if she’d stepped out of bounds when she’d picked up his daughter. “Is it okay? If you don’t want me to—”

The look passed as quickly as it formed. “It’s okay. Thanks,” he said, gathering up Annie.

Jessica cradled Casey’s head close to her breast, then followed him up the steps. Possibly she’d read him wrong.

While he carried Annie into her room, she took Casey into hers. Within seconds, he came in, bent over the bed and kissed his daughter’s forehead.

It was such a touching moment. Jessica couldn’t recall such a display of tenderness in her family, ever.

She stood near the end of the bed, waited, watched his large hand stroke Casey’s forehead, gently brush back a few strands of her pale hair from her cheek. When he turned, she expected him to lead the way out of the room. Instead, he paused near the doorway, stood inches from her, facing her.