a week, I like to write here to get a different view of the world. Often I’m surrounded by business meetings. Occasionally, I witness either sweet or disastrous first dates. But this coffee shop also gets a steady stream of people in uniform, especially paramedics. It’s not unusual for me to pop my head up and ask them random questions like, “Who gets to fly the helicopter?” or “What tools do you have on your belt?” I’m extremely thankful for their patience! All creative mistakes in this book are my doing, not theirs.
Thank you again to all the amazing readers who’ve got in touch with your thoughts, questions and suggestions. I really enjoy hearing from you! I’m sorry I’ve got behind in responding to physical letters, but I’ll take a trip to the post office as soon as this book is done. You can find me on Twitter at @MaggieKBlack or at www.maggiekblack.com.
Thank you all for sharing this journey with me,
Maggie
For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
—Isaiah 25:4
Thanks as always to my agent Melissa Jeglinski, my editor Emily Rodmell and the rest of the Love Inspired team who encourage authors like me and bring stories like these to life.
Contents
Daisy Hayward brushed a kiss over nine-month-old Fitz Pearce’s tender head and gently lowered him into the crib, just as a deafening crash sounded through the darkened country house below. The baby’s eyes shot open. Fitz’s lip quivered. Tears filled his anxious gaze. Instantly, Daisy plucked her tiny charge from the crib and held him to her chest to rock him back to sleep. He nestled against her. The pervasive anxiety that seemed to fill little Fitz’s unhappy home tightened around her heart like a vise.
Lord, I feel so trapped in this miserable place. Sometimes, I don’t know how much I can take.
In the eight and a half months since she’d become Fitz’s nanny, there’d been moments when she’d almost felt like a prisoner in the remote Quebec countryside estate. Endless days of long, uncomfortable tension stretched whenever Gerald Pearce was away on business, only to then erupt into angry shouts and paranoid accusations between him and his young second wife, Anna, whenever he came home.
For Daisy, growing up in a small English village where jobs were scarce, being hired to care for the son of a wealthy Canadian computer developer had felt like a dream come true. It wasn’t until she’d arrived in Canada that she’d discovered the truth. Fitz’s mother, Jane Pearce, had died in childbirth. A hasty wedding to Anna, one of Pearce Enterprises’s lead graphic designers and almost thirty years Gerald’s junior, had followed. But despite being newlyweds, their relationship was fraught with shouted accusations and slamming doors, and even one late night visit from two police officers. None of which was helped by Daisy’s suspicions that Gerald’s paranoid and scattered mind was slipping.
She could hear things breaking now, as if Anna and Gerald had given up on shouting and decided instead to trash their expensive home. Fitz’s pudgy hand grabbed a fistful of her long blond hair and held it tightly. She slid a finger between his gums and felt the telltale bump of a new tooth getting ready to come through. He was teething.
Daisy
