Hero In Disguise

“Well, what do you think?” David asked, surprised at how much he wanted her to say yes.

“How long do you think it will be before we find the right place for the boys? And will the authorities let us keep them until we do?”

“I can take care of all the legal matters. That’s no problem. We’ll just have to wait and see what an investigator turns up and then decide our next step.” He smiled. “Maybe I ought to give you time to think about it.”

“I don’t see any better solution at the moment,” she said honestly. Eric and Richie deserved to live in a nice place for a change. Some of things they said about being hungry and cold when they were homeless made her grateful that they’d have the chance to live in a nice home and play outside in the beautiful Colorado summer weather.

“All right.” She was taking a leap of faith that she was doing the right thing. “We’ll consider it a nanny job with no pay except board and room for the three of us,” she said firmly. She’d spent one summer as a hired companion to a disabled little girl, and this situation wouldn’t be much different—if David Ardell kept his distance as promised. “I’ll stay at your house with the children until your investigator locates some relatives and we find a proper home for them.”

“Good. It’s a deal,” he said. “When do you want to move in?”

“Tomorrow morning. I’ll need the rest of the day to make arrangements for the move.”

“Fine.” He suddenly realized that having her around would be a definite boost to his lonely life—then he caught himself. He’d promised her that he would make himself scarce if she moved into the house. Now, as he looked into her soft blue eyes and at her appealing smile, he realized that it might be the hardest promise he’d ever had to keep.

Chapter Two

Melissa’s heart sank as she viewed the spacious white brick mansion and beautifully landscaped grounds set back from the road. What business did she and two rambunctious youngsters have living in a place like that?

“Are we lost?” Eric asked with childish anxiety as he sat stiffly beside her in the front seat. The large brown eyes in his thin, pinched face were filled with apprehension. He was a small-boned child and terribly underweight. Wiry sandy hair hung longish over his ears and narrow forehead, and freckles dotted his slender nose.

“No, we’re not lost,” she quickly assured him as she turned into the curved driveway that led to the front of the house. The upheavals of Eric’s young life had already left its mark. He had just begun to trust Melissa and was opening up a little to her. Guarded and solemn, the young boy was the protector of his little brother, who was sitting in the back seat happily munching a fruit bar.

“This is Mr. Ardell’s house. It’s pretty, isn’t it?” she said brightly as she braked in front of marble steps leading up to a terraced veranda and double wooden doors with etched glass windows.

“Are we going to stay here a long time?”

A long time? She knew what Eric was really asking. Is this home? She hated to think about how many times the small boys had moved around before they ended up at the homeless shelter.

“We’re going to stay here until we find someone in your mommy’s or daddy’s family who want you two lovely boys to come and live with them,” she said brightly. “Then you won’t have to move anymore.”

“What if we don’t find anybody?”

“We will. You wait and see.” Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find. Never had the scripture seemed more reassuring than it did in this situation. The grandmother who had raised Melissa had lived by that promise, and her faith in God’s guidance had been instilled in Melissa from an early age.

“But what if they don’t like us?” Eric insisted with childish pugnaciousness. “Some people don’t like kids.”

“Maybe not, but I know they would love you and Richie.” Impulsively, Melissa gave him a quick hug, and was rewarded with a weak smile. “Now, let’s unload our stuff and see what the inside of this place looks like. I bet you guys won’t have to sleep on the floor anymore. How about that?”

“Goody,” Richie said with a four-year-old’s enthusiasm. He had a mop of dark brown hair, a bone structure that was heavier than his sandy-haired brother’s and the same large dark eyes. “I want a bed—a big, big bed.” Then he giggled as if a thought tickled him. “And I’m going to jump up and down on it lots.”

“No, you’re not,” Melissa corrected quickly, trying to blot out a picture of two playful boys turning some elegant bed into a trampoline. “There’ll be a nice backyard for you to play in. Now, let’s get out of the car and take a look at this place.”

She hoped they couldn’t see her nervousness as they unloaded the trunk and set the luggage on the front step. The pile included only two small suitcases, her laptop computer and a brown sack containing a book and old baseball that Eric wouldn’t let out of his sight.

The boys had few clothes, and they were wearing the one new outfit of jeans and summer shirts that Melissa had bought them. She’d return to her place to pick up things for herself if their stay lasted more than a week.

When she’d talked to David last night and arranged to arrive about ten o’clock in the morning, he told her that Inga and Hans Erickson would help them settle in. He also assured her that an excellent investigator in Denver had agreed to conduct a search. The man expected to have something to report within ten days.

Ten days.

As they stood at the elegant front door and waited for someone to answer the bell, Melissa had the feeling that ten days could be a lifetime.

“Maybe nobody’s home,” Eric said with his usual worried expression. Before Melissa could stop Richie, he reached up and pushed the button a half-dozen times.

“Don’t, Richie.” She pulled his hand away, just as the door swung open. David stood there, a slight frown on his handsome face.

“The doorbell works,” he said wryly.

“I’m sorry, Richie got carried away,” she apologized. Great, she thought. Off to a great start. David was obviously on his way out, in a beige business suit that did great things for his dark blond hair and tanned complexion.

“Usually Inga answers the door, but she’s busy in the kitchen and I was just leaving,” he explained. “Come on in. Hans will bring your luggage.” He opened the door wide and stepped back.

Melissa motioned the boys to go in ahead of her. Richie bounced through the door with his usual childish eagerness, and Eric followed more slowly, hugging a brown paper sack as if it were his only anchor in a threatening world.

“Say hello to Mr. Ardell, boys,” Melissa prompted, but when neither responded, she said quickly, “This is Eric.”

David smiled at him. “I’m glad to meet you, Eric.” The solemn-faced little boy only nodded slightly.

“Richie, say hello to Mr. Ardell,” Melissa said, but a black glass fountain in the middle of the spacious foyer had already caught the little boy’s attention.

Ignoring everyone, Richie bounding over to it, squatted down and stared into the pool of water. Then he looked up at David with a frown. “No fish?”

“No fish,” David echoed.

“Did you already eat them?”

The humor in the innocent question was tempered by the child’s honest bewilderment, and David held back a laugh as he shook his head. “No. I don’t think real fish would like a little pond like that.”

“Not like a big, big lake,” Richie agreed solemnly, and then, before Melissa could react, his little hand picked up one of the colorful pebbles decorating the fountain display. He threw the rock so hard that it made a resounding splash in the water against the glass bottom.

“Richie!” Melissa gasped.

Dear God, no. They had been in the house less than five minutes, and already…disaster.

David grabbed Richie’s arm before he could pick up another pebble. He jerked the boy back from the fountain and said harshly, “No! Don’t throw rocks. Understand?”

Richie let out a frightened whimper, and Eric’s normal passiveness shattered. Fiery color rose in his freckled face, and he threw himself at David. His little fists pounded David. “Let my brother go!”

“Eric! Eric, stop it.” Melissa pulled him back and held his arms firmly. “No one’s going to hurt Richie.”

At that moment, she felt cold water easing into her open-toed summer sandals and knew her worst fear was realized. The rock had cracked the glass pool, and water was leaking out on the foyer floor.

She heard someone in the doorway behind her draw in a breath. Melissa turned and saw a large-boned woman with a round face, yellow hair braided in a coronet around the top of her head and blue eyes widened in disbelief. “What is going on?” she demanded with a slight Swedish accent.

Richie wiggled away from David and ran to Melissa. She stood there with both boys hugging her, not knowing what to say to David or the housekeeper.

“The fountain is leaking,” David said shortly. “Get Hans.”

The woman nodded, gave one last look at the growing pool of water in the middle of the foyer, turned on her heel and left, muttering something under her breath.

“I am so sorry,” Melissa said. “Richie didn’t mean any harm.”

David started to say something, but seeing her standing there, defensive and ready to meet his anger with the protectiveness of a mother bear defending her cubs, and two boys glaring at him as if he were some kind of ogre, he couldn’t find the right words. He swallowed back the urge to launch into a lecture about proper behavior while under his roof. At the moment, he would rather have addressed a belligerent jury than his houseguests. He finally settled for a brisk, “We’ll talk tonight.”

Melissa nodded, and her hands tightened on the boys’ shoulders in a reassuring squeeze. She could feel the tremors in their little bodies as they hugged her sides.

“Inga will help you get settled. She’s prepared two adjoining bedrooms on the second floor, and there’s a small lady’s parlor off the breakfast room that you can use as a working office. If the arrangements are not satisfactory, let me know and we’ll work out something else.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” she answered in the same businesslike tone, trying to ignore the widening spread of water about to reach his expensive, polished shoes.

“Well, then, I have to get to the office.” He glanced once more at the draining pool, wondering how many more catastrophes two little boys could create in the space of a few days.

Melissa saw his frown. “I’ll keep a close rein on the boys,” she promised.

As he nodded and turned toward the door, his shoes squeaked wetly with each step, and she wondered if the governor’s counselor was going to work with damp socks. Melissa put a hand up to her mouth and suppressed a giggle.

When Inga returned with Hans and his mopping equipment, she indicated that they were to follow her, and led the way into a spacious front hall. It was obvious that the house was a decorator’s dream, a fact that Inga didn’t hesitate to point out. “This house is filled with nice things. Very nice things.”

“It is lovely,” Melissa agreed as she glimpsed beautifully furnished rooms opening off the main corridor. She felt as if she were someone viewing a showcase home, instead of someone who was about to be a resident in such luxurious surroundings.

Holding tightly to the boys’ hands, she followed the housekeeper up a wide central staircase. A massive grandfather clock on the landing chimed the hour just as they passed it. Startled, both Eric and Richie missed the next step, stopped and stared at the clock in wonder.

Melissa smiled at their wide, rounded eyes. Obviously the boys had never heard anything like the resonant Westminster chimes. They begged to wait and hear the clock again, but Melissa shook her head, promising that it would chime many more times while they were there.

“Mr. David said to put you in the front bedrooms,” Inga said in a tone that indicated it wouldn’t have been her choice for the temporary houseguests.

Nor mine, Melissa thought as they accompanied Inga down the hall to the front of the house. The size and fashionable decor of the two front bedrooms made ready for her and the boys was unbelievable. Her room alone had more living space than her small studio apartment, and the boys’ bedroom was only slightly smaller. Even Eric and Richie were subdued by surroundings that were completely alien to their experience. Both boys stayed close to Melissa as if she were some kind of life preserver, as they walked through the bedrooms and peeked into the large adjoining bathroom.

“Very nice,” Melissa said, nodding her approval. She wasn’t about to show any uneasiness or awkwardness, but she knew that Inga was wondering why a temporary nanny was being given one of the best rooms in the house. Melissa couldn’t help but wonder the same thing. She would have been much more comfortable with accommodations in line with those of Inga and Hans.

The housekeeper’s manners had softened when she realized the little boys weren’t going to turn into hooligans. “Mr. David said you are to use his mother’s sitting room for your work,” Inga told Melissa. “He didn’t say what kind of work.”

“I’m a writer for a magazine, and I can set up my small computer anywhere. I really don’t need a special room.” She glanced around the bedroom and failed to see anything that might serve as a desk, but she wasn’t about to ask Inga or Hans to start moving in furniture. “Thank you, Mrs. Erickson, for your help—”

“Inga,” she corrected.

Melissa held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Inga. And I’m Melissa.”

A softness touched the woman’s blue eyes. “Melissa. Pretty name. Mr. David says it is a nice thing you are doing, taking care of the children. You are a good lady.” Then she eyed Richie and Eric. “And they are good boys, ya?”

“Yes, they are very good boys,” Melissa echoed, smiling at the obvious combination of question and warning in Inga’s tone.

Just then, her husband came in with the small suitcases and Melissa’s computer. Hans Erickson was a broad-faced man with huge shoulders, thick arms and brown hair lightly highlighted with gray. He just nodded at Melissa when she thanked him for bringing up the luggage.

“I’m sorry about the fountain,” she told him. “It was just an accident. Richie didn’t mean to break it.”

“I know. He’s a good boy. I can tell that.” He smiled down at Richie. “Mr. David give you a bad time? You ask him about throwing a rock through the kitchen window, eh?” He winked at Melissa and then walked out of the room, chuckling.

“Boys,” Inga said with undisguised fondness in her smile. “They never grow up.”

Melissa laughed, suddenly feeling that Hans and Inga had given them a pardon for the fountain incident. Maybe David would have second thoughts about the whole thing, and they could start again on a harmonious footing.

It took all of ten minutes to “settle in.” The beds in the boys’ room were twins. Eric seemed satisfied, but Richie ignored the beds and immediately scrambled up in the middle of Melissa’s queen size bed.

“No jumping,” she warned him. From the sparkle in his eyes, she suspected the first time she turned her back, he’d get on his knees and bounce.

Her stomach tightened. How could she keep them corralled in this fashion-plate house? There wasn’t anything in the two bedrooms that would keep the boys occupied and happy, and the few things she’d brought like crayons and coloring books wouldn’t last for very long.

Somehow, in some way, she had to make the next few days a comforting and healing time for the boys.

“No doubt about it, you’re the governor’s fair-haired boy,” Stella Day told David with a pleased smile as they lunched at Denver’s fashionable Cherry Creek Country Club. “We all know he’s schooling you for big things. If you keep focused, you’ve got a wonderful future ahead of you, David.”

He was pleased with this optimistic projection from the governor’s executive assistant, but he knew he had a long way to go. “Right now, I’m just learning the ins and outs of government.”

“Well, your father and mother are going to be very proud of you one of these elections when you run for Colorado’s attorney general.”

David knew that his parents held high expectations of him. He was used to the pressure they’d put on him as he was growing up. As their only child, there was never any question about David following in their footsteps. His father had been a state senator until he retired, and his mother had been a political activist. It was clearly due to their influence that the governor was promoting David’s legal career, and they were expecting him to make his mark in politics.

“It’s a little premature to think anything like that,” he answered evenly, and turned the conversation back to the business that had brought them together. David was used to these working lunches. In fact, he couldn’t remember very many meals when he wasn’t conducting some kind of business for the governor.

Stella had an appointment waiting for her right after lunch, so she didn’t tarry. After she drove away in her car, David sat for a moment in his luxurious sedan, trying to make a decision about whether to drop by his house since he was so close, or head back to his office downtown.

He hated to admit it, but he hadn’t been able to put the morning’s fiasco out of his mind. A nagging sense of guilt plagued him when he remembered Richie’s frightened face and Melissa’s eyes sparking fire.

Better mend some fences, he decided as he drove out of the parking lot. Even though he’d probably be a little late for his afternoon appointments, he wanted to swing by the house for a few minutes and try to set things right. He didn’t want Melissa Chanley upset with him. Something about her steady, totally feminine, and yet uncompromising personality challenged him. Even dressed as she had been that morning in jeans and a simple white pullover, she could hold her own with any of the stylishly dressed women who had lunched at the club. She intrigued him, and he knew that if the boys didn’t accept him, it wasn’t likely that she would, either.

He parked his car at the house and was about to enter a side door, when squeals and laughter coming from the backyard stopped him. Curious, he walked down the narrow sidewalk, opened the gate and came around the back of the house.

Then he stopped short. “What in the world?”

Both boys and Melissa were on the ground, rolling over and over down a grassy incline that led away from a terraced patio. When they reached the bottom of the slope, they ran back to the top and, shouting and giggling, started rolling down again.

The boys always beat Melissa to the bottom and sat up, squealing, “You lose. You lose.”

Melissa laughed as she pulled dry grass from her tousled hair. “All right. I give up.” Then she glanced up and saw David standing a few feet away. The expression on his face was one of incredulity.

As she got to her feet, her first impulse was to give in to total embarrassment. Instead, she managed a smile and gave him an airy wave of her hand. “Hi, there. Would you like to enter our contest? The Best Roller Down the Hill?”

At first, he didn’t answer, then he surprised Melissa by returning her smile. “I might. What are the prizes?”

“There aren’t any,” Eric said flatly. Both boys had moved to Melissa’s side and were glaring at him as if he had no right to intrude upon their fun.

“Well, I guess I’ll pass, then,” David said. “Maybe I’ll join you in a different game sometime.”

“Nothing else to play.” Richie scowled at him.

“He doesn’t have kids’ stuff because he doesn’t like them,” Eric told his brother with his usual solemnity.

Melissa didn’t look at David’s face, and held back from saying anything. She hadn’t found anything in the house that would keep two lively boys happy and occupied. Now she sensed an instant tightening in David’s body as he stood beside her, but it wasn’t her place to correct the boys. Maybe Eric told the truth. Maybe David didn’t like kids. It was hard to tell about things like that, and his beautiful home and lifestyle didn’t give a clue. In fact, she hadn’t seen any evidence during her earlier tour of the house that the young boy he had once been had ever lived here.

“Maybe we can find some stuff for you, boys,” David said, ignoring the remark about his not liking kids. He’d been too busy in the world of lawyers and politicians to know whether the remark was closer to the truth than he was willing to admit.

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it, boys?” Melissa said, but their expressions didn’t change.

“Sorry, I have to run. I just dropped by to see if Inga and Hans were being helpful,” he lied. He knew the Swedish couple would rally to the cause, no matter how much extra work it created.

“Oh, yes, they’re wonderful. Inga fixed us a nice lunch, and the boys ate every bit of it.”

“Good. And you’ve found working space?”

“The small sitting room will be fine. It’s lovely with the windows overlooking the garden.” She knew the sitting room had been his mother’s, and Melissa was curious about the woman who had raised such a purposeful, solitary son.

“I have a late meeting tonight so I’ll have dinner in town. If you need to reach me, tell Inga and she’ll pass the message along.” He turned to say something to the boys, but his usually articulate tongue failed him. All he could come up with was a quick “So long. See you guys later.”

Later that afternoon, the boys were down for a nap when the delivery truck arrived with a bright red swing set, jungle gym and small merry-go-round.

Melissa was working in the sitting room when she saw Hans and another man setting up the playground equipment in the backyard. Who would believe it? David must have stopped at a store on his way back to the office, bought everything and paid extra to have it delivered that very afternoon.

She was delighted, and totally surprised. Maybe he was bent on hiding from everyone what a softy he really was.

She remembered how he’d smiled at her as she sat on the ground with blades of grass caught in her hair. Why had he come back to the house? He’d warned her that he would hardly ever be around, but he had been here when they arrived this morning and he had shown up again after lunch. Even though she was pleased by his attention, she wasn’t comfortable with it. Maybe this whole arrangement had been a big mistake, she thought—until she reminded herself that this was the perfect place for the boys until the right home was found for them. She knew that Eric and Richie would be ecstatic with the playground equipment, and she was relieved that the boys could play outside, while she worked and kept an eye on them through the sitting room windows. The only sad part about the gift was that it would never replace the male companionship David could have given them.

Chapter Three

“Burning the midnight oil, are you?” David teased later that evening as he leaned up against the door frame of the sitting room and smiled at her.

“Just a little.” She saw that his tie hung loosely, his white shirt was wrinkled, and he was carrying his summer jacket. “You look as if you’ve had a full day.”

“It’s been a long one. How did things go with you? Did the play stuff get here?” He walked over to the back window and squinted out into the night. Decorative patio floodlights spilled out into the yard, and she could tell that he was satisfied by what he saw.

“Yes, they’re great. The boys loved everything. Especially the jungle gym. You should have seen them. They looked like a couple of monkeys, climbing and swinging—and scaring the daylights out of me.” She laughed. “They’re working up some tricks to show you.”

The tired lines in his face eased. “Really? I mean, after that little episode this morning I thought I rated number one Grinch.”

“Children are very adaptive and forgiving, if you give them a chance.” She almost added that they were great teachers, too. She suspected that David could learn a lot about himself if he spent a little time with Eric and Richie while they were here.