like five kinds of a fool, Mac said, “You can have a two-week trial. Then we’ll see. And I should warn you that I don’t know how long the job will last. Sheila could return next week or next year, but I suspect she’ll be gone for a while. We’ll start with two weeks.”
Relief and joy flooded her face, brightening her eyes. “You won’t regret it, Mr. Weston.”
He already did. Then to make sure she knew he was boss, he repeated it. “Two-week trial. That’s all. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll end it right there, no hard feelings on either side.”
She smiled as if he’d handed her a gift. All her other smiles had been designed to charm him and get what she wanted. He was used to that kind. This one was pure pleasure and gratitude as if he’d done a great thing and was a heck of a nice guy.
Mac couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at him like that, if anyone ever had. Again, he felt that odd softening going on in his gut and he scowled to fight it off.
“Two weeks,” Paris said, obviously trying to hide her glee and appear professional. “That sounds perfectly fair.” She gave Simon a hug. “Why don’t I get started as soon as I finish this book?”
CHAPTER TWO
AND get started she had. She had taken the money he’d given her and started out to stock up the pantry. He’d headed her off before she left.
“Go into Alban. It’s fifteen miles down the highway.”
Paris, busy double-checking her shopping list, looked up in surprise. “I can go to Cliffside. It’s much closer.”
“And prices are higher. Go to Alban. There’s a supermarket there.”
She started to protest again, but he held up his hand. “While you’re gone, I’ll check your references.”
Her expression told him she wanted to argue, but she kept a lid on it. He hadn’t meant to make it sound like coercion, but if it would get her to do as he asked without having to go into detailed explanations, he would let her think what she liked.
Finally, her lips pinched together and she nodded. “All right.”
He could tell she was put out, though he wasn’t sure if it was directed at him for being so insistent, or herself for giving in so easily. He saw a small war waging in her as if she was battling to keep her thoughts to herself. He had to admire that, but he didn’t want to because it would make her too real to him, too much a person.
He’d known her less than an hour, and he didn’t intend to get to know her much better. After all, she was an employee and he’d learned the hard way that employer/employee familiarity was to be avoided at all costs. In spite of that resolution, he found himself offering the use of his truck for her trip to Alban.
“Is that it?” she asked, nodding toward the ten-year-old battle-scarred extended cab pickup truck parked in the driveway.
“Yes. You’ll need space for all the items on that list.”
The annoyance he’d seen in her eyes was replaced by amusement. “No thanks. I don’t like driving unfamiliar vehicles. I’ll take my own car.” She hesitated, then pushed her unruly hair back from her face and met his gaze. “I just brought in one suitcase. Since I’m going to be staying, I might as well bring in everything to make room for the groceries in my car.”
With that, she whirled out the door and left him to trail along in her wake battling his own irritation that she’d turned the tables on him. Still, he felt another spurt of grudging admiration at the way she’d done it.
They unloaded her car and he carried everything inside while she’d roared away in the small compact that sounded as if it badly needed a tune-up. As he placed her things in the room she’d chosen next to the children’s then went to check on Elly and Simon, Mac speculated that, given her resume, she’d probably been accustomed to a better car but she’d obviously fallen on hard times. Or hard times had fallen on her.
That made two of them. He’d had a fancy, fully-loaded sport utility vehicle that had impressed the heck out of the neighborhood, as well as a midnight-blue sports car that had been his pride, but he’d sold them both without a qualm when he’d needed money. Funny how little either of those had mattered when weighed against his good name.
Now as he stared out at the ocean, Mac, who hadn’t been curious about much of anything for more than a year now, wondered what she’d given up, and why, to be where she was now—a nanny and housekeeper to a lonely man and two abandoned kids.
Paris quietly pulled the bedroom door almost closed behind her, leaving it open just enough to provide a night light for the children and enable her to hear them if they cried out. After peeking down the long, bare hall to make sure she was alone, she allowed her shoulders to slump wearily as she headed for her own room next door.
She was grateful that Elly and Simon had been tired enough to go right to sleep. Though she didn’t know very much about children, she fully understood what it was like to have the world turn upside down and land on top of her and that’s exactly what Elly and Simon had experienced. She’d known them less than fourteen hours, but she wanted to try and make things easier for them. It broke her heart to see sturdy little Elly’s stoic acceptance of her circumstances and her protectiveness toward Simon. Elly had warmed toward Paris during the course of the day and they had made a cautious start toward being friends. When Simon had lost some of his shyness and begun to talk to Paris, Elly had interpreted his baby talk. Still, Paris wondered if the little girl would call out in the night if she was frightened. Hoping she would, and that Paris herself would waken if she was needed, she turned her thoughts to her own situation.
Sheer nerve and desperation had carried her through the day and she was bone-tired. Rubbing her knuckles across her forehead, she sank onto the side of the bed and asked herself what in the world she’d gotten into.
The newspaper ad had seemed like a wonderful gift when she’d first seen it; work she knew she could do in an out-of-the way place where no one knew or cared about her, but this…
Dismayed, she looked around at the stark place. A bed, a table, and a lamp were the entire furnishings, the bleakness of it almost identical to the children’s room which held only a baby playpen and a single bed. Every item looked as though it had been recently purchased at a rummage sale. Elly’s bed still had a little yellow stick-on tag with the price printed by hand. Paris wondered if Mac had run out to scavenge whatever he could as soon as he knew he had to keep the children. She admired that, even as she knew he probably only saw it as doing his duty.
The saddest thing she’d seen among the children’s belongings, though, was the lack of toys and clothes in the closet, as if their mother couldn’t be bothered to bring all they might need or want. She’d wanted to cry at the sight. Her horror at the way they’d been abandoned had been matched by her distress over their uncle’s ineptitude. Truthfully though, she couldn’t say he didn’t care about them. Mac, at least, had some sense of responsibility, certainly more than his sister had.
The sight of the imposing glass-and-cedar home had given her pause when she had first sighted it that morning, but it was so beautiful, and so perfectly positioned on the cliff overlooking the Pacific, she had decided to at least ask about the job. The closer she’d come to the door, the more she had tightened up on her courage until even the sight of the imposing man
