Small-Town Nanny

Buck nodded, his eyes darkening. “Sam didn’t use to be quite so...driven. Losing a wife is hard on a guy.”

Sympathy twisted Susan’s heart. Buck knew what he was talking about; he’d lost not only his wife, but their baby as well. That was what had pushed him toward drinking too much, according to Lacey.

“You giving this gal a hard time?” The voice belonged to Rescue River’s tall, dark-skinned police chief. He clapped Buck on the shoulder in a friendly way, but his eyes were watchful. Chief Dion Coleman had probably had a number of encounters with Buck that weren’t so friendly.

“He’s trying to tell me Sam Hinton is really a nice guy, since I’m going to work for him,” Susan explained.

Dion let out a hearty laugh. “You’re going to work for Sam? Doing what?”

“Summer nanny for Mindy.”

“Is that right? My, my.” Dion shook his head, still chuckling. “I tell you what, I think Mr. Sam Hinton might have finally met his match.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Susan asked, indignant.

“Nothing, nothing.” He clapped Buck’s shoulder again. “Come on, man, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee if you’ve got half an hour to spare. Got something to run by you.”

Buck was about to get gently evangelized, if Susan knew Dion. He headed up a men’s prayer group at their church and was unstoppable in his efforts to get the hurting men of Rescue River on the right path. According to Daisy, he’d done wonders with her brother Troy.

As Buck and Dion headed toward the Chatterbox Café, Lacey came out to hug her goodbye. “You’ll be fine. This is going to be an adventure!” She lowered her voice. “At least, let’s hope so.”

An odd, uncomfortable chill tickled Susan’s spine as she climbed into her car and headed to her new job, her new life.

Chapter Four (#ulink_6db08d7e-356f-5c3d-a304-b47689784501)

Sam paced back and forth in the driveway, checking his watch periodically. Where was she?

Small beach shoes clacked along the walkway from the back deck, and he turned around just in time to catch Mindy in his arms. He lifted her and gave her a loud kiss on the cheek, making her giggle.

And then she struggled down. “Daddy, Miss Lou Ann says I can play in the pool if it’s okay with you. Can I?”

Lou Ann Miller, who’d worked for his family back in the day and had helped to raise Sam, Troy and Daisy, followed her young charge out into the driveway. “She’s very excited. It would be a nice way for her to cool off.” She winked at him. “Nice for you if she’d burn off some extra energy, too.”

Sam hesitated. Lou Ann was an amazing woman, but she was in her upper seventies. “If she stays in the shallow end,” he decided. “And Mindy, you listen to Miss Lou Ann.”

“Of course she will,” Lou Ann said. “Run and change into your suit, sweetie.” As soon as Mindy disappeared inside, Lou Ann put a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow at Sam. “I was the county synchronized swimming champion eight years running,” she said. “And I still swim every morning. I can get Mindy out of any trouble she might get into.”

“Of course!” Sam felt himself reddening and reminded himself not to stereotype.

He just wanted to keep Mindy safe and get her home environment as close to what Marie had made as was humanly possible. Get things at home back to running like a well-organized company, one he could lead with confidence and authority.

The moving truck chugged around the corner and up to the house, and Sam rubbed his hands together. Here was one step...he hoped. If Susan worked out.

He gestured them toward the easiest unloading point and helped open the back of the truck as Susan pulled up in her old subcompact, its slightly-too-dark exhaust and more-than-slightly-too-loud engine announcing that the car was on its last legs. He’d have to do something about that.

As the college boys he’d hired started moving her few possessions out, she approached. Her clothes were relaxed—a loose gauzy shirt, flip flops and cut-off shorts revealing long, slender, golden-bronzed legs—but her face looked pinched with stress. “Hey,” she said, following his glance back to her car. “Don’t worry, I’ll pull it behind the garage as soon as the truck’s out of the way.”

“I didn’t say—”

“You didn’t have to.” She grabbed a box off the truck and headed up the stairs.

He helped the guys unload a heavy, overstuffed chair and then followed them up the stairs with an armload of boxes.

There was Susan, staring around the apartment, hands on hips.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it suitable? Too small? We can work something out—”

“It’s fine,” she said, patting his arm. “It’s beautiful. I’m just trying to decide where to put things.”

“Good.” There was something about Susan that seemed a little volatile, as if she might morph into a butterfly and disappear. “Well, you need to put the desk in that corner,” he said, gesturing the movers to the part of the living room that was alcoved off, “and the armchair over there.”

“Wait. Put the desk under the window. I like to look out while I work.”

The young guys looked at him, tacitly asking his permission.

Susan raised her eyebrows, looking from the movers to Sam. There was another moment of silence.

“Of course, of course! Whatever the lady wants.” But when they got the desk, a crooked and ill-finished thing, into the light under the window, he frowned. “I might have an extra desk you can use, if you like.”

“I’m fine with that one.”

He understood pride, but he hated to see a teacher with such a ratty desk. “Really?”

“Yes.” She waited while the young movers went down to get another load, then spun on him. “Don’t you have something else to do, other than comment about my stuff?”

“I’m sorry.” He was controlling and he knew it, but it was with the goal of making other people’s lives better. “I just thought...are you sure you wouldn’t rather have something less...lopsided? The money’s not a problem.”