the waiting room.
A minute later, he heard a timid knock on the door. The woman who stepped in wasn’t what he expected, not at all like the other applicants. She couldn’t be more than thirty, but her face looked old with worry. She was tall, or at least not short. Her sedate dress was clean but wrinkled, and her blond hair hung limply around her shoulders…
Hadn’t he said the same thing to himself about some other woman recently? Yes, she was the woman he’d seen at the church, the one whose little boy had made friends with Nick.
She hadn’t seen him there, he thought, so he wouldn’t mention it. He stood and held out his hand. “Daniel Foster,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, shaking his hand, “Lilah Jamison.”
Her hand was damp, and she was trembling. “Good of you to come by,” Daniel said. “Have a seat. So you’re new in town?”
“Yes.” Her voice grew firmer. “My husband died, and my son and I needed a fresh start.”
He nodded. “You have references?”
She flushed, but she looked him straight in the eye. “I’m afraid not. I’ve never worked as a housekeeper but I’ve always kept a spotless house, even though I worked full-time.” She stared him down as if she expected him to say, Sure you did.
“What sort of work did you do?”
When she told him she’d been a nurse doing home care, it occurred to him that it wouldn’t be bad having a nurse in the house to deal with four risk-taking boys. But his attention was distracted by how desperate she looked.
She wasn’t merely thin, but haggard. The half-moons under her eyes, which were dark blue, indicated sleep deprivation and worry; lusterless hair suggested a poor diet. A modest sundress showed off arms that were too thin. Ivory skin that might once have been beautiful was now dry and lifeless. Her husband’s death must have thrown her a knockout punch. Either he had been much older than she, or he’d died tragically young.
And she had a little boy. His blood suddenly ran cold. How could she take care of a child in her condition?
This was hitting him too close to home. The boy—what kind of life was he living? Nick had liked him. Nick was scared of his own shadow, so her son couldn’t be a bully or a troublemaker. But still, Daniel was looking for a housekeeper for his kids and he was taking no chances.
“Why didn’t you take a nursing job?” he asked, keeping his voice gentle. “The Churchill hospital is—”
“Filled with nurses already.” He saw her face tighten, but she didn’t sound bitter.
“I understand,” he said, and he did. “Nepotism” wasn’t in the local vocabulary. It was simply understood that jobs were passed down from generation to generation. “You seem like a pleasant person, which is important to me, since you’d be keeping house for four foster children. But without references—”
She seemed to sag in her chair.
“Tell you what,” he said, starting to think that perhaps because this woman needed help so badly he could trust her to do the job well. “Give me your address and phone number and I’ll call you with my final decision. I’ve had several applicants,” dreadful ones, he reminded himself, “and I need to think things over.”
“As you said, we’re new here. No phone service yet.” He could tell she was trying to be matter-of-fact, but he could also see the pain in her eyes. “I’ll come by the clinic in a few days. You could leave a message with your assistant.”
She stood up, too, and just as Daniel held out his hand to shake hers again, he heard a familiar sound, one of the boys coming to tell him about some wonderful—or terrible—thing that had just happened.
“Daniel!”
“Mom!”
His job applicant rushed toward the boy who’d yelled, “Mom,” and said, “Honey, you were supposed to stay outside…”
But Nick drowned her out. “This is Jonathan, the one I was telling you about. I saw him in his car, and he said he had a present for me. Look what his mom made!”
Daniel, not as rattled as he had been about the snake but close to it, moved around his desk to stare at the weird thing Nick held in his hand. It could be a voodoo doll. No voodoo in his house. Or it might be a Satanic totem.
A Satanic totem that looked like a Red Sox baseball player?
He tried to clear his head. “That was kind of you,” he said to the mysterious Lilah Jamison, who had an arm around her son. “What is it?”
“A dreamcatcher,” she answered for Nick. Then she relaxed her hold on Jonathan and turned her attention to Nick, her voice soft and musical. “It captures bad dreams before you dream them. You told Jonathan you have nightmares, but if you really and truly believe in it, we’re sure this dreamcatcher will bring an end to them.”
“I do believe in it,” Nick said reverently. “Jonathan told me it worked for him. Look at it, Daniel,” Nick said. “It even has a catcher’s mitt on its left hand!”
Daniel admired this thing they called a dreamcatcher, then gazed at Lilah’s son. He was a little taller than Nick, with his mother’s blond hair and deep-blue eyes. But he didn’t have his mother’s look of despair. Whatever had befallen them, Jonathan was a happy child.
His gaze moved toward Lilah, and she must have had that feeling of being watched, because she looked up at him at once. “I think you’ve just provided your reference,” he said, ruffling Jonathan’s hair, “and he’s an excellent one.”
Her eyes widened. “Thank you,” she said.
He’d decided he could trust her to be good with the boys. Even if she wasn’t a perfect housekeeper, any assistance would be an improvement. He needed help, she needed help—they could help each other and everybody would be better off.
“I’d like the rest of the family to meet you before I make a final decision, and you should meet them so you know what you’d be getting into,” he said. “Stay for dinner. It’s the best way to catch them all at once.”
He saw Jonathan’s gaze turn on her, but she gave him a quick glance and said, “Oh, I’m not sure we should…”
“It’s some kind of chicken stew, it smells great, and there’s apple pie for dessert.”
“Mom?” The look in Jonathan’s eyes was a dead giveaway.
“Well, I…” She was wavering.
Then she turned to Daniel. Her determined expression made him sure she’d say no, but she surprised him. “Thank you for your invitation,” she said formally. “We accept.”
Nick and Jonathan sped away, cheering. Lilah looked limp. “Thank you for seeing me,” she said. “I know you’re busy, so I’ll just wait outside.”
“Look around, if you want to,” Daniel said. “I’m warning you. It’s a big place.” He opened the back door of the clinic, which led
