Undercover Nanny

With the goal of entering the Lotorto home uppermost in her mind, Daisy had to thank her lucky stars for what happened next.

A tiny girl not much higher than Max’s knee, ran in from the lounge. The area all around her lips was stained red from something she’d eaten. Since she’d come from the bar, D.J. guessed she’d been filling up on maraschino cherries. There were tears in her eyes as she clung to Max’s leg, and her bright red lips quivered.

“Sean says I ate Free Willy! I don’t want to eat a whale!”

The tiny person let loose a torrent of sobs worthy of a Broad way star. Her hollering apparently drew the three other children. Even before Max could admonish the boys for goading their sister, they began to heatedly defend themselves while the elder girl patted the little one—maybe a bit too hard—on the back. As the little one cried, spurts of tears arced from her eyes as if they were tiny fountains. Then she leaned forward and barfed on Max’s shoes.

Max looked down then up, locking gazes with D.J. “Get your suitcase and meet me back here at three. You’re hired.”

“And this is the master bedroom,” Maxwell said, concluding an abbreviated tour of the rustic, ranch-style house set on two un-landscaped acres along Sardine Creek Road in Gold Hill, Oregon. “I haven’t had time to move all my things out yet, but make yourself at home.”

He’d rushed D.J. through the kitchen, living and dining areas and hadn’t shown her the kids’ rooms yet at all. For good reason, too, D.J. guessed. The house looked like a family of monkeys inhabited it. Obviously, Max had made a quick trip home earlier in the day to arrange the endless stacks of papers, books and games into some approximation of order; but riotous piles of loose things, and garbage pails overflowing with paper cups, cereal boxes and who knew what else, wouldn’t win the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. The brief—very brief—glimpse he’d allowed her of the kitchen had almost made her call Loretta to quit.

Turning to Max, she plastered a game smile over her misgivings. She was no coward. If she had to, she could suck it up and restore order to this pigsty. “Thanks. I’m sorry to be kicking you out of your room.”

Behind the fatigue, a flash of wry humor lit his light eyes. “I’d sleep in the backyard on a bed of nails if it’d help get this household on track.”

“When did it go off track?” D.J. punctuated her question by swinging her suitcase onto the well-made bed. Clearly Max had taken more trouble with this room than with the others. If there’d been any reminders of the children’s mother—photos, clothing—it was all gone now.

D.J. knew her curiosity was a tad more than professional. Aside from being big and strong and darkly gorgeous, Max appeared to have boundless patience with his kids. He really enjoyed them, which made D.J. endlessly curious about the woman whose absence was forcing him to secure child care. Where was she? Was she coming back?

Unfortunately, D.J. sensed already that Max was not a spill-his-guts-on-the-first-date kind of guy, so she would keep everything casual for the next day or so. It wasn’t going to be easy. Protective of her own information, D.J. nonetheless had a natural curiosity about other people—how they’d been raised, what their families were like, how they lived. In high school she’d frequently been in trouble for talking too much, and in one of her first jobs, as a cashier, she’d almost been canned for interrogating her customers. She’d developed more subtlety since then.

To convey a relaxed attitude, she unsnapped her suitcase, intending to unpack while she spoke. “So are you completely on your own with the kids?”

“Yeah.” Max had hesitated a second before he answered.

Taking a chance, she pressed just a bit. “Has it been that way for long?”

Max hovered near the door. He spotted some loose change lying on the dresser, scooped it up and put it in his pocket. D.J. sensed he was stalling. “It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in later. Right now I’ve got to get back to the tavern. My lead bartender fell off a damn roof and broke his ankle this morning, so I’ve got the night shift until he can work or I can find someone to cover.”

“You’re leaving?” The rush of pure fear that shot through her veins amazed D.J. Not being able to question Max further didn’t bother her nearly as much as the thought of being left alone with the kids so soon. “Uh, I’d hoped you could stick around, acquaint me with the routine.”

“You’ve probably gathered by now that there isn’t one.” He smiled, and for a moment the one-sided quirk of his lips completely distracted her. “Besides, with your background, you’ll be able to teach me a thing or two. Thirteen brothers and sisters.” Max whistled softly. “I was an only child, so to me four kids is the equivalent of a preschool. I was able to get hold of your former employers, by the way. They gave you glowing recommendations. Said you’re a crackerjack waitress. Very organized and good with people. I’d say those are excellent qualities to apply to child care.”

D.J. smiled a little weakly. “I’d say so.”

Max leaned a shoulder onto the door frame. “Don’t worry about anything. The kids seemed to like you.”

Au contraire. The kids had stared at her with big eyes and distinct doubt when he’d introduced her as their nanny. She couldn’t show fear, trembling and trepidation, though. Not after the song and dance she’d given him.

“Okay. Yeah, we’ll have a great time. Hope your bartender’s better soon.”

Still seated on Max’s bed a full ten minutes after he’d left the house, D.J. clasped her hands on her knees, back rigid as a steel girder. She felt as though she was waiting outside the principal’s office. She couldn’t seem to get the information from her head to her gut that from here on in she was the principal.

Max had started a video for the kids, who were still in the living room and still quiet, but she knew she had to get out there soon. For one thing, she’d conned him into believing her housekeeping skills were on a par with her child care abilities. Which they were.

Unfortunately.

Slapping her knees, D.J. stood and shook the nerves from her body. Time to sally forth and set a few precedents for running this house; she couldn’t spend all her time corralling children. Matter of fact, she’d have to come up with a few clean-up projects to keep the kids busy so she could focus on Max when he was home.

Cracking her neck and rolling her shoulders to loosen up, D.J. commanded her feet to move toward the door. She’d work in a quiet yoga session later, but now it was time to get out there.

Wishing she’d thought to buy a couple of toys, utterly willing to resort to bribery right off the bat, she walked sprightly down the hall, clapping her hands as she neared the living room. “Okay, kiddos, ready to have some fun? I… Ah!” The sight that greeted D.J. stopped her dead in her tracks and elicited a swear word before she could censor herself.

Four children and one can of whipped topping had wreaked havoc on the already disrupted living room. Ribbons and clouds of the stuff covered the coffee table, sofa, windowsills. “What are you doing?” Heaven help her, but she swore again.

One of the twins responded. “You said a baddie.”

Yes, she had. And now she was speechless.

“She sa-id—” The other curly headed brother began a singsong recounting of her indiscretion, using the word several times in succession.

“James, stop that,” D.J. ordered.

“I’m Sean! And you sa-id—”

The youngest child, Livie, sat on the sofa with a huge teddy bear at her feet, clumsily ladling ice cream out of a half-gallon container. Both the bear and the child, D.J. noticed, had ice cream mustaches. “She said a baddie, she said a baddie…” Livie chanted, kicking her feet.

“All right, everybody stop saying that.” All she needed was for Max to come home the first day to find that his kids had increased their vocabulary by one colorful curse.

Anabel, the older girl, sat in a chair, her eyes glued to the TV. One of the twins, the one who wasn’t Sean, started squirting the table again.

“Hey!” D.J. sprang into action, hopping over assorted toys to grab the offending item from James’s hand. “What is this?” She turned the plastic container over in her hands. “Squeezable mayonnaise?”

“We ranned out of whip cream.”

“All right, give me anything edible.” They stared at her dumbly. “Fork over the food!” She held out her hands and motioned to the little dears. “All of it. Right now.” Collecting the can of whipped cream from Sean and the ice cream from Livie, whose lower lip started to quiver sadly, D.J. said, “There will be no more gourmet art as long as I’m here. Food belongs in bellies, not on tables or any other furniture. Is that understood?”

She received no response, other than big-eyed stares from the three younger children. Anabel continued to watch the TV. “Excuse me,” D.J. said, stepping into her line of vision. “You seem somewhat normal. May I ask what you were doing while your brothers and sisters were destroying the living room?”

Brown eyes, large and beautiful behind a pair of silver-rimmed glasses, and dramatically more solemn than the dancing blue eyes of the other children, gazed at D.J. “I was waiting for you to come out of the bedroom.”

Right. Anabel: one. D.J.: zero. “Well, I’m out now, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to clean up this living room. Then—”

“I’m hungry,” James said.

Sean echoed immediately, “Me, too. I’m starving.”

Livie said plaintively, “Is it time for dinner yet?”

D.J. stared. Were they joking? You could start a burger franchise with what they’d spread on the coffee table. “Didn’t you eat anything while you were doing that?” She pointed to what looked like a model of Mt. Everest.

Sean shook his head. “That was for Livie’s bear. It’s his birthday.”

The little girl nodded hard. “He wanted to play ice cream parlor.”

With a heavy sigh and a shake of her exotically dark head, Anabel slid off her chair to approach D.J. “I’ll take these things to the kitchen,” she said, removing the ice cream and other weapons of living room destruction from D.J.’s arms. “You’d better get the kids something to eat before they have a major meltdown.”

The girl trooped off to the kitchen, and D.J. felt a ridiculous urge to call out, “Don’t leave me!” despite the fact that Anabel, too, was only a child. But at least she seemed to know what she was doing. Taking a deep breath, D.J. said, “All right. We’ll clean up here, and then we’ll eat some dinner. Okay?”

Ending with a question was her first mistake. Sean leaped up. “Jamie’s starving,” he informed in a sudden show of brotherly support.

“So’s Livie.” Jamie jumped up, too.

Swinging her legs, Livie picked up her previous chant. “You said a baddie…you said a baddie….”

D.J. wanted Max to come back. Right now. In the restaurant he had juggled all four kids, kept his sense of humor and managed to appear relatively sane. Of course, he’d had practice at this. He’d given her his cell phone number; she could call him for a little five-minute-advice session. She could imagine him responding in that half-wry, half-soothing tone he had and felt better already.

Unfortunately, she could also imagine him wondering what kind of wimp he had hired, and that did not sit well at all.

Whipped cream and mayonnaise slipped in glops from the table to the carpet. Livie’s bear dripped ice cream onto the sofa.

The boys joined their sister’s chant.

And D.J. realized she wasn’t nearly as tough as she’d thought.

Chapter Three

Sunshine spilled across the green hills like drizzles of honey, sweetening the earth, kissing the children’s skin as they romped and laughed in the afternoon rays. Daisy grinned at the children’s antics.

“Anabel! Sean, James, Livie!” she called, waving them over. “Time for your music lesson.”

Picking up her guitar, she lowered herself gracefully to the warm grass. Immediately the children scampered over. They looked so darling in the outfits she’d made for them. And you could hardly tell that the jumpers used to be a set of curtains hanging in her bedroom.

Positioning her fingers behind the frets, Daisy strummed a few chords from the children’s favorite song. “You know this one, so I’ll begin and then you join in. James, remember the line is ’jam and bread’ not ’yam and bread.’” James flushed, but giggled along with the others. “All right, here we go.”

Strumming the intro and nodding in time to the music, Daisy lifted her voice. “’Doh, a deer, a female deer…’”

Sitting upright on the couch, D.J. heard herself gasp as she came fully awake. Dazed, she looked around. The living room lights were still on, and the TV screen glowed with the image of Maria and Captain Von Trapp joining their family onstage for a patriotic rendition of “Edelweiss.” Swinging her feet to the floor, D.J. calmed her labored breath.

Oh, dear God.

She’d popped The Sound of Music into the VCR after the kids had lost the bedtime battle, and the living and dining rooms had been restored—through a heroic effort of her own blood, sweat and tears—partially to order. Recalling that the lead character in The Sound of Music was a nanny, she’d hoped to pick up a few pointers. Her night had been torture.

After the kids started screaming for food, D.J. had discovered that there wasn’t any. A few slices of bread, two eggs, a mostly empty box of corn flakes and a jar of peanut butter was all she’d had to work with. Her cooking skills were more practical than creative, so a trip to the market had been unavoidable.

And that was when the real trouble began. D.J. never again wanted to visit a market with anyone under six foot two. Never. Making the dinner, however, had made the nightmare of shopping seem like a stroll down a country lane.

No two kids had wanted the same thing. Their choices had ranged from chicken nuggets to French toast to corn dogs and tater tots. Anabel had thought they should have a roast, mashed potatoes and two vegetables because then all the food groups would be represented. D.J. had settled the dilemma by buying hot dogs with buns, frozen tater tots, chicken strips from the hot deli and a bag of carrots and celery sticks as a nod to the food pyramid.

It should have been easy. But the water for the hot dogs had boiled over, the tater tots had turned into tater rocks in the microwave, and Livie had pronounced the coating on the chicken strips “yucky,” upon which she’d proceeded to peel off the crumbs, dropping them onto the already abused carpet. D.J. didn’t even want to think about the damage four children and a bottle of squeezable ketchup had done.

Checking her watch, she gasped.

Midnight. For pity’s sake! She’d spent her whole evening cleaning to establish her fake identity as a twenty-first-century Mary Poppins. Then she’d snoozed when she should have snooped.

Pushing herself off the couch, she turned off the TV and went to check on the kids. Relieved to see that they were still sleeping soundly, she decided to search the hall closets first, hoping to find photos, files, anything that might interest Loretta and tell her something about her grandson’s potential as heir apparent and future CEO of the Mallory Superstores dynasty. The chaos D.J. had witnessed so far in his home life wasn’t a plus, but she’d bet the mere fact he had children would tickle Loretta’s fancy.

D.J. tried to picture the surprise and the smiles when Loretta realized she was a great-granny four times over and Max realized he’d never have to worry about finances again.

Opening the closet door, she scanned piles of hastily folded linens and towels, but nothing of real interest. She was stretching to peek at the top shelf when she heard the click of the front door.

Given the late hour, she shouldn’t have been surprised by Max’s arrival, but the sense that she was doing something wrong made her heart skip. When the living room door creaked, she reacted automatically. Shutting the closet door as quietly as she could, she ran on tiptoe to her bedroom. Standing in the dark with her ear to the closed door, she listened to the approach of Max’s footsteps and waited for her runaway pulse to calm down. The closer the footsteps, the more nervous she became.

Uncertainty washed through her. Uncertainty and doubt and a sudden desire to run. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d felt this nervous.

Bill Thompson, owner and founder of Thompson Investigations—and the man whose future she was currently trying to save—would read her the riot act if he knew she was “undercover.” He’d always insisted on taking straightforward missing-persons cases, tracking down deadbeat dads or surveying cheating spouses. He’d taught D.J. it was possible to make a good living and do a good service at the same time without endangering oneself or others. D.J. used to tease him that he liked surveillance because it enabled him to make a living drinking coffee and eating his wife’s homemade doughnuts while he sat in his car.

Now she wished she’d at least talked to him about this case before she’d taken it. But lately Bill seemed so distracted.

Bill and his wife, Eileen, had been her foster parents for eleven years—until she’d turned eighteen—and they’d been the only consistent family she had ever known. Nearly a year ago now, Eileen had lost her battle with cancer, and since then Bill spent most of his time traipsing off to visit distant relatives he’d never before mentioned and taking leisurely side trips to tiny towns with even tinier tourist attractions. He hadn’t once mentioned their precarious financial situation to D.J. or that the rent was in arrears.

The somewhat scary, somewhat exhilarating truth was that she was on her own this time, and though D.J. trusted herself, she did wonder whether she’d seen a few too many Charlie’s Angels reruns, because there had to be, oh, a zillion better ways to get the information Loretta wanted and to collect the big bucks than to move into her grandson’s home under false pretenses. If the money wasn’t so important right now, she might truly turn back. Maybe she’d slip Loretta’s phone number to Max and tell him, “Listen, you look like you could use a nice inheritance. Go call your granny. I won’t mention the TV dinner I found under the couch.”

Another surge of anxiety pumped through her. The fact was she did need this money: she wanted Bill’s business to be there, alive and kicking, so that things could go back to normal when he felt more like himself again.

So much had changed since Eileen died, but grief didn’t last forever. Some day Bill would be ready to work again, and D.J.’s life would settle back into the routine she had come to know and trust. Working alongside Bill had grounded her, given her a focus and purpose that replaced the loneliness she had once believed might be her constant companion.

No, D.J. wasn’t going to turn back from this job. It didn’t matter whether Max was a decent guy or Attila the Hun; Loretta was going to get the most honest and detailed report as D.J. could give her.

Slowly, quietly, she turned the knob and opened the door…just a hair…to peek out.

Max had passed her bedroom to enter the boys’ room. D.J. could neither see nor hear anything until he reemerged a minute later to check on the girls. Either Anabel or Livie must have stirred, because D.J. heard the soft sounds of an adult murmuring a child back to sleep. She closed her door as gently as she could, remaining very still, trying not even to breathe audibly.

Once more, Max passed her door without stopping. The hall closet opened and closed, then footsteps faded away. D.J. waited a moment or two. When she was absolutely certain Max had vacated the hallway, she dimmed her light all the way, opened the bedroom door and slipped out as silently as she could. Positioning herself so that she had a clear view of the living room without making her own presence known, she watched Max toss a thin blanket onto the sofa. Before he sat, he studied the room, noting the books that were now on the shelves. With something akin to awe, he ran a hand over the newly cleared coffee table.

You should have seen it when it was an ice cream sundae. D.J. smiled, surprisingly touched when she saw him shake his head and smile at the order she’d restored. The room was by no means perfect; domestic details were not her forte. But the improvement was obvious and clearly a godsend to the overworked dad.

And Max did look exhausted as he reached into his pocket to extract keys, a wallet and some spare change. The coins and keys he set on the coffee table. The wallet he opened before setting it, too, on the table.

Resting his elbows on his knees, he linked his fingers behind his neck as if it ached and stared at the open billfold.

He’s looking at a photo, D.J. concluded, certain she was correct when his features tightened and the muscles along his jaw tensed. She was on the verge of stepping forward—she wanted to see that picture!—when he sighed heavily and started to speak.

“I don’t know how to do this, Terry. I swear, I have no idea how to do this alone.” He rubbed his eyes. D.J. strained to hear the next whispered words. “The kids need you. I need you. Wherever you are, babe, you’ve gotta help us make this work.” He ran his hands through his hair, mussing the black waves. Then he leaned back with his arms behind his head. As he closed his eyes, D.J. thought she heard him swear.

She stood motionless several more seconds.

Terry.

Babe.

Moving into Max’s home had inspired a wealth of new questions, but so far no hard answers. If Terry was Max’s wife, the children’s mother, why weren’t there any pictures of her in the house?

Moving as carefully as she could, D.J. crept back to her room, shut the door and sat on the bed in the dark. Her foot nudged the purse she’d dropped on the floor. Fishing blindly through the bag, she found a stick of gum, unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth.

The kids need you….

It was too soon to draw conclusions, and any decent P.I. knew that assumptions weren’t worth the effort it took to come up with them, but D.J. would have bet her last stick of Juicy Fruit that Terry was the children’s mother, that she had died and that her passing had been recent.

I need you…

Since she was on a roll, D.J. made another conclusion: Max still loved Terry. Very much.

Bringing her thumb to her mouth, D.J. gnawed on a cuticle, the very habit she’d tried to replace with chewing gum and frequent manicures.

Terry must have been beautiful. The children certainly were, and Max—

Biting her thumb so hard it hurt, D.J. scowled and whipped her hand down to her lap.

Gritting her teeth, she shook the pain from her thumb. Something about the way Max looked at the photo in his wallet had distracted her. She needed to concentrate on the relationship between him and Loretta.

Clearly, being the sole provider for four children was taxing Max to the limit. So, why hadn’t he contacted his grandmother for help? He had to know that his mother’s family made Donald Trump look like a slacker. Even if he’d never known Loretta up close and personal, surely no one would fault him for approaching her now.

According to Loretta, she and her daughter—Maxwell’s mother—had been estranged for years before the younger woman’s death fifteen years prior. Loretta had offered no explanation for the estrangement and had made it clear to D.J. that the topic was not open for query.

Loretta had not seen her grandson since he was a restless, and according to Loretta, hot-tempered teenager. She wasn’t even aware that she was a great-grandmother. D.J. didn’t have all the details about Max that Loretta had requested, but so far he appeared to be a man that would make a granny proud. Gut instinct told D.J. that Max was a good person.

She, on the other hand, was in his house, lying with every breath she took.

Undressing in the dark, conscious that her muscles were already protesting all the bending and stretching she’d done during her cleaning spree, D.J. hoped her conscience would bother her less in the morning.