veered, spying the worn path leading down the embankment toward the river. Her footing was steady, though the path was steep. All the while her eyes methodically searched the silted bank below.
“Spencer!” she shouted, quickening her steps.
Nate pounded behind her, slipping often on the eroded bank, before catching his footing. He skidded to the bottom and saw the boy, standing near the water, kicking at an old tire that had lodged in some reeds. Nate held up at the bottom of the path, but Annie made a beeline for the boy.
Spencer turned his head and grinned. “Look what I found, Annie. A tire. We can make a swing like Tony made in the book.”
Annie scooped him up and gave him a tight squeeze.
“Ow! Stop it, Annie.” Spencer squirmed, kicking his legs.
“I ought to paddle your behind, Spencer Keene,” Annie said, setting the boy on the bank away from the river. “You’ve nearly given your mother a heart attack.”
He wrinkled his nose. “What’s a heart attack? And I don’t want to get a paddle. Why would I get a paddle?”
The nanny sighed and sent her pretty eyes heavenward, mouthing something. Was she counting? Then she dropped to her knees and cupped Spencer’s chin.
“Hey, who’s he?” the boy asked, trying to rip his face from Annie’s hand. He pointed a chubby finger toward Nate.
“That’s not important now. I want your eyes to meet mine. Now.” Her voice was firm. Very firm.
Spencer stopped struggling, his gaze moving to Annie’s, the first inkling of uh-oh in his eyes.
“Don’t you ever, ever, go somewhere by yourself without asking first. Ever.” Annie’s voice shook and at that moment, Nate knew that however the woman had first appeared to him, she’d been frightened for her charge. Or maybe she was overcome with anger.
What he could see of Spencer’s chin started to wobble. “I wanted to see the alligators. You said I could.”
“That’s no excuse. You did not have permission to come here by yourself. Do you know how dangerous this is? We’ve talked about this. About how you aren’t allowed to go anywhere alone.”
A fat tear plopped onto Annie’s wrist. “Don’t be mad at me, Annie. I just wanted to see the alligators—”
Annie shook her head. “No. I am mad at you because you could have been hurt. Badly. Don’t ever do that again.”
Nate started to intervene. They needed to alert everyone at the house, Spencer had been located and was safe, but as he watched Annie tug Spencer into her arms, saw the small boy cry on her shoulder, something stayed him. Annie wrapped her arms about the boy and rocked him slightly, before lifting and carrying the child toward him.
“Here,” she said, shoving the boy into his arms. “Carry him up the hill. He’s too heavy for me.”
Nate flinched as the child wriggled. So much for tenderness. Spencer cocked his head back and stared at him with big brown tear-filled eyes. “Who are you?”
Annie started scrabbling up the hill, not bothering to look back at where Nate stood holding the child. “Obviously, I’m her minion.”
“Oh,” the child said, pursing his lips into an O. “What’s a minion?”
Nate sighed and walked toward the little-used path that would take him back to Beau Soleil. “Someone who has to follow the directives of a master.”
“What’s diwectives?”
Nate smiled. “What she tells me to do.”
“Oh. Then I’m a minion, too,” Spencer declared. “I want down. I can climb good.”
Nate set the child down because his calves screamed and his back didn’t feel much better.
Spencer dropped to his hands and knees and made like a monkey scrambling up an incline. The child’s bottom wagged in the air, and he started making monkey sounds. Nate almost smiled because he’d forgotten the silliness of children, but he remembered the seriousness of the situation and recalled Annie’s face as she passed him, handing off the boy. She’d been too emotional to deal with the child.
A twinge of something unknown plinked in his chest. Odd, and not comforting, was the knowledge he’d become fascinated by the plucky nanny in such a short time, almost from the moment he’d first spotted her behind the wheel of the rented Chevrolet. Some primal urge inside him wanted to crack her veneer and dig beneath her mask of supreme capability to the sweet vulnerability he’d just glimpsed.
Hell. Not what he needed. A prickling awareness for someone obviously not interested in him. For someone staying a few weeks at the most. For someone hiding something. His instincts told him so, and if there was one thing Nate could claim about himself, it was having good instincts. Something was off about the nanny.
By the time he emerged from the path, Annie had Spencer by the hand and people were bearing down on them, including the director and his wife.
Catastrophe averted.
But something told Nate things were just starting to heat up. Or maybe that was his blood. He never thought of himself as a Mary Poppins man, but that nanny was doing weird things to him. And he didn’t like it.
* * *
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, after a supper of Creole fried chicken and a summer salad, Annie sat in the wood-paneled den of Beau Soleil, watching as Tawny balanced a teacup on her knee and stroked Spencer’s head. He sat on the floor putting puzzles together while his mother read a fashion magazine and occasionally chatted with Picou about psychics, mediums and the truthfulness in séances. For once, Spencer seemed content with the task, biting his lip as he tried to force pieces where they couldn’t possibly fit.
Annie knew how that felt. She’d been living a giant jigsaw puzzle for the past year. Not fitting no matter how much she tried to shove the pieces in.
Like this job.
First, she was less than good in her nanny undercover role. She’d probably screw the kid up before she finished the assignment. And second, she had no leads on the perpetrator. Zip. Zero. Nada.
This afternoon had scared her. Putting her in as the nanny hadn’t been fair to Spencer. Prime example—alligators. Why hadn’t she explained to him how dangerous alligators were? Or the truth about animals with sharp teeth? Why hadn’t she gone over rules with him about where he could go at the old mansion, and who he could go with? She should have briefed him on what to expect at Beau Soleil.
But she hadn’t. She’d been too tired. Wanted a shower. And had been more than happy to hand the child over to his mother.
She’d have never done something so sloppy when she’d been with the Bureau. Of course, she’d never been in charge of a kid. Never had to go undercover. But it had proven to her yet again she wasn’t cut out for raising children. She didn’t have the knack. Her failed almost-marriage to a man with a daughter had proven as much. She and Mallory had been oil and water.
Spencer
