Glynna Kaye - The Nanny Bargain

The crisp, pine-scented mountain air energized her as she made her way down the street, but as she approached Bealer’s Ice Cream Emporium her steps slowed. She’d seen an ad in the weekly paper that Pete Bealer was looking for a Saturday manager starting in May. That came too late to boost her finances enough to swing the co-op apartment, but maybe if she could line up several part-time jobs, she could afford a room somewhere.

When Pastor Garrett McCrae married Jodi Thorpe, he’d be moving out of the space he rented in the home of church members. But that wouldn’t be available until the first weekend in May, assuming they’d be willing to rent to her, too. In two weeks she could be living out of her car unless she applied for and got the childcare position.

But despite Sunshine’s encouragement when they’d talked last night, wouldn’t she feel like a dirty rotten sneak prying into the relationship some unsuspecting couple had with their grandsons? Sawyer seemed sincere enough, though, when insisting he had no intention of snatching the kids from them. In fact, Sunshine laughed when Tori had confessed that suspicion to her.

Sawyer Banks? she’d said, her eyes wide with disbelief. You think he’d willingly take little kids into his freewheeling bachelor life? Get real.

If only she had more options.

It is what it is, sweetheart. She could almost hear Grandma Eriksen’s chuckle. How many times had Gran reminded her that half the turmoil she put herself through revolved around pushing against reality and resisting a situation in which she wished she hadn’t found herself? Wasting time bemoaning rather than buckling down and digging out? If only Grandma were still here to talk to...

Great. There she went again. Denying reality.

With rekindled determination, she stepped inside the old-fashioned ice cream parlor, where she was brought up short by an earsplitting wail.

“I want my mommy!” a child gasped in what she guessed to be the middle of a crying jag.

A slightly familiar-looking man seated in a high-backed booth glanced at her apologetically. Then with renewed resolve, he refocused on the youngster she couldn’t see seated across from him.

“If you want me to take you home without ice cream, I can do that.” The gray-haired man’s voice remained low. Kind, but firm.

The child wailed again, louder, reinforcing that he wanted his mommy.

“We both know that’s impossible. Now sit up and act like the big boy that you are.”

“Mommy!”

The man glanced uncomfortably in the direction of Emporium owner Pete Bealer, who looked on with a pained expression. The couple he was serving shook their heads in commiseration. That was all it took to bring the older man to his feet as he pulled on his coat. Then he held out his hand to the unseen child.

“Come along, then.”

“Nooooo!”

The man finally leaned in to gently drag the resisting child out of the booth and set him on his feet. The boy, still turned away from her, stared down at the floor, his shoulders shaking with sobs. Poor little guy.

“Now settle down,” the older man admonished. “You know big boys don’t cry.”

A knee-buckling chill raced through Tori.

Stop it. Stop it right now, Victoria. You know big girls don’t cry.

If a bolt of lightning had crashed at her feet, it couldn’t have startled her more than the intrusion of her father’s voice as she mentally hurtled back in time.

I’m very disappointed in you, young lady.

Prying her away from him, her father had concluded his condemning statement with a rough shake, displeasure written on his youthful face. He had been leaving them. Leaving Mommy. Leaving her. And he was angry because she’d clung to him and cried as he headed to the door.

“Now stop it, Cubby.” The man’s voice jerked her back to the present.

Cubby?

Stunned, she looked to where the man she assumed to be the boy’s grandfather had gotten the sobbing child into his coat and lifted the boy into his arms. Gave him a hug.

The blond boy met her gaze with a plaintive, tear-stained face and bluer-than-blue eyes.

Eyes like his twin’s?

Like those of his older half brother?

Shaken, she offered him an encouraging smile, then watched as grandfather and grandson exited the ice cream shop.

“Miss?” the shop’s owner called out. “Sit anywhere you’d like, and I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“Um, no, thanks. I’ve changed my mind about...ice cream.”

She waved a distracted farewell, then stepped outside where snow now descended in earnest.

She had her answer.

It would only take a quick minute to phone the Selbys and express her interest in the caregiver position. Then if given the go-ahead to apply, tomorrow she’d submit a résumé and solicit letters of recommendation.

Pulling up her hood against the buffeting wind, Tori headed in the direction of her apartment, the broken-hearted sobs of a little boy—and a little girl—still echoing in her ears.

Chapter Two

“Welcome, Tori.” Ray Selby smiled as he opened the front door to the imposing two-story stone house at seven o’clock on a Thursday morning. Incredibly, it was only a week after she’d interviewed and been offered the job.

“You know, though,” he added drily as he motioned her inside the shadowed entryway, “you could use that key Therese gave you. You don’t have to ring the bell. You’re part of this household now.”

“I know, but I thought the first time I should at least announce myself. You know, before Grady and Luke Hunter come traipsing in behind me with furniture and the rest of my stuff.”

Ray glanced toward the street where her friend Sunshine’s new husband, Grady, and his older brother were waiting by Luke’s loaded crew-cab pickup. They and Sunshine had gone with her to Jerome yesterday to retrieve belongings stored in a friend’s garage. She’d enjoyed reliving highlights of last week’s wedding and hearing about the newlyweds’ stay at the Grand Canyon’s El Tovar Hotel, right on the rim. She’d appreciated, too, their support as she returned to the town she’d felt compelled to leave some months ago.

Thankfully, she hadn’t seen her ex-fiancé on the streets that were, by contrast to summer’s bustling tourist season, fairly deserted this time of year. How could she have been so mistaken as to have believed they’d be a good match?

Ray waved Luke and Grady forward and they leaped into action, lowering the tailgate and carefully unloading her grandmother’s blanket-swathed antique dresser.

The older man continued to smile at her as the others approached. “I can’t tell you how thankful Therese and I are that you said yes to our offer. Especially after the show Cubby and I treated you to at the Ice Cream Emporium. It was a relief that you didn’t scare easily.”

“It takes more than an unhappy little boy to run me off.”

On the contrary, it had won her over.

With Tori leading the way past a small library on one side of the spacious hallway and what she could only think of as a parlor on the other, she and the men skirted past a sweeping staircase and a darkened dining room. Another hall branched off, leading to a rear corner of the house and what had once been a cook-housekeeper’s apartment, and would now be her new home. At least for a few years anyway, if all went well.

“This is nice.” Luke sounded surprised as the brothers carefully lowered the dresser to the spot she indicated.

When given the grand tour following her interview she, too, had been pleasantly surprised to find the apartment featured a kitchenette, sleeping alcove, walk-in closet and its own bathroom. Lots of sunshine-filled windows, as well. Although the space was furnished, Ray had had the bed frame and dresser moved elsewhere so she could bring her grandmother’s antiques.