Maid for the Single Dad Read online

  Mac chalked it up to the fact that Jim was a professional bodyguard. And neither Mac nor his children could see past that. It was almost as if hiring Jim would be like saying they expected more trouble. Mac did anticipate trouble. But he also had Phil and his various teams. His hiring a nanny who was also a bodyguard would have driven Ellie crazy.

  He told himself not to think about Ellie, to stop filtering his decisions through the question of what she’d do. Not only did he need to get over her, but also she had never once tried to contact him. Even Liz Nestor hadn’t made good on her threat to “find” him if he hurt Ellie. So his only logical guess was Ellie was fine without him.

  He thanked Jim for coming in and told him that they would get back to him.

  The second interview went only slightly better than the first. Mrs. Regina Olson was a widow. She adored children, had raised three of her own, and needed the income. Only in her forties she expected to work until she was sixty-five and would have been blessedly pleased if she could work for the same family that entire time. Especially a family with two gorgeous children.

  Unfortunately, she tweaked Lacy’s cheeks and Lacy howled in pain. Mac knew Regina hadn’t hurt Lacy, but Lacy had not appreciated the tweak. Panicked, Mrs. Olson insisted she hadn’t tweaked that hard, but Lacy only cried all the more.

  Ms. Nancy Turner was a tall blonde around Ellie’s age. Lacy approached her carefully and stood by her chair while Mac tried to ask questions without calling attention to the fact that his six-year-old daughter was staring at her.

  Finally, Mac said, “Lacy, come sit on Daddy’s lap.”

  She walked around the desk slowly, backward, not taking her eyes off Nancy Turner.

  “So you’ve been a nanny before?”

  “I worked in New York City.” She laughed lightly. “Last winter I decided I hated snow. Really hated snow,” she emphasized, laughing again. “And here I am.” She reached into her purse. “Mrs. Davis has my references, but here they are again.”

  She handed him a sheet with the names of two prominent Wall Street investors, both of whom were personal friends of Mac’s. He could see why she’d wanted him to take special note of that.

  “That’s very good.”

  “Are you Ellie’s sister?”

  Nancy smiled at Lacy. “I don’t have any sisters.” Then she glanced at Mac. “Who is Ellie?”

  “Ellie was our last nanny. You sort of look like her.”

  “I see.”

  “The children were quite fond of her.”

  “Of course.” She gave Lacy a soft smile. “You can tell me all the things you liked about Ellie, all the things you liked to do with her and I’m sure we can do a lot of those things.”

  He tried to picture Nancy Turner with a sheet wrapped around her for a make-believe ball gown and couldn’t. She looked enough like Ellie that she really could have been her sister. She also had a pleasant disposition, great references and seemed to genuinely like Lacy.

  But there was something off. Something wrong.

  Nancy unexpectedly rose. She extended her hand to shake Mac’s. “I’m sorry, but I scheduled another interview for immediately after this one.” She smiled engagingly. “Have to keep all my options open, you know.”

  Hoisting Lacy with him, Mac rose too. “Of course.” He shifted Lacy to sit on his hip. “We’ll call you when we’ve made a decision.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  With that she turned and left. Lacy looked up at him and said, “What are options?”

  “She wants to make sure she gets a job, so we’re not the only people she’s talking to.”

  Lacy simply said, “Oh,” then scooted down and returned to the play area Phil had set up in the corner of his office.

  Mac buzzed Mrs. Davis. She stepped into the room a few minutes later. “Hello, Lacy.”

  Lacy said, “Hello, Mrs. Davis.”

  Pride rose up in him at not just how polite Lacy was, but more than that how she was no longer shy, and Mac instantly remembered that he owed Ellie for that.

  She’d told Lacy fairy tales, taught her to shop, told her the value of being good.

  And he suddenly knew why none of the nannies had seemed right. None of them was Ellie.

  But that was wrong. She didn’t belong with them. She had a life. Mac had given it back to her. And she’d never tried to contact him. Not even through her friends. She hadn’t really loved him. Didn’t want him.

  If it killed him to live without her, and it just might, he would.

  Even if the next weeks were the hardest of his life, he would push through them.

  The first Monday in September, Mac was at the end of his rope. Lacy was back to waking at four, but now she also refused breakfast. For some reason or another, today, she also didn’t want lunch. At four, even knowing dinner wasn’t until six, she refused a snack.

  Mac had hired a fifty-something grandmother named Blanche to be the nanny. Though she wasn’t Ellie, she was more than qualified to care for his kids. As Mac’s phone rang, she stooped beside the table tempting Lacy with crackers.

  “Please. We’ll put cheese on them.”

  Mac extracted his ringing phone from his jean’s pocket and barked, “Yes?”

  “Mac?”

  Hearing Phil’s voice, Mac squeezed his eyes shut. He’d barked at the one person who consistently supported him. He had to get over losing Ellie or he’d alienate everybody in his world. “Sorry. What’s up?”

  “There’s a van here. Woman inside says you told her she could have a picnic here with thirty of her friends. ID says she’s Ava Munroe.”

  Mac’s eyes popped open. “Oh, my gosh. What day is it?”

  “Monday…Labor Day.”

  He groaned. “That’s the A Friend Indeed group. I did tell them they could have a picnic here.”

  “Actually, I’m looking at the files in my laptop. You had me check them out a few months ago. And they all cleared. Every person on the guest list.”

  “And we haven’t changed the list.”

  Mac heard Ava’s unmistakable voice coming from somewhere near Phil and sucked in a breath.

  “The only people I brought were those you cleared.”

  Every memory he had of Ava also included Ellie, and pain ricocheted through him. Weeks had passed and he was no closer to getting over her than he had been the day he asked her to leave.

  Worse, today, the bomb threat that caused Mac to enact the protocols and procedures to keep him and his children safe seemed so far away. And nothing, absolutely nothing even slightly dangerous had happened in weeks. He and the kids were back to living in a prison and with thirty happy people sitting at his gate, thirty people about to have a picnic, oodles of kids who could potentially make his daughter happy, that prison suddenly seemed oh so unnecessary.

  Still, he’d lost Ellie because of the danger in his world. Because he had to erect barriers. Because he couldn’t be too careful. If he changed his mind now, if he loosened his restrictions, losing her would be for nothing.

  “Tell Ava that I’m sorry. My staff should have called her and told her that with the new security procedures—”

  “Give me that phone!”

  Mac heard Ava’s voice again. Two seconds later her voice, not Phil’s, came through his cell phone. “Mac?”

  “Hello, Ava.”

  “You cannot tell a woman with a vanload of kids that she can’t use your pool. You promised.”

  “I know, but—”

  “No buts! You promised. Besides, I miss your kids.” Her voice softened. “Please? I’d love to see Lacy and Henry.”

  His gaze slid over to Lacy. She sat with her elbows on the table, her lips turned down in a frown, her eyes clouded in misery.

  “I heard your guy say that he checked us out,” Ava said, sounding angry now. “And there are six guards here. If you’re really that afraid of us, leave while we’re here and lock your house. All we need is your pool and gazebo anyway.”


  Realizing how ridiculous he seemed, Mac sighed. He did have six guards. And this was a charity. And it was Ava he was talking with, not Ellie.

  He swallowed, wondering why he’d harbored the hope that she’d come. That he’d get to see her. At least he didn’t have to worry that he’d see her and melt into a puddle of need at her feet.

  “Okay.”

  Snapping his phone closed, he turned to see Blanche smiling at him. “Okay, what?”

  “A friend works for a charity. I promised her that she and some of the kids from the charity could swim in the pool.”

  Lacy’s eyes widened. “Ellie?”

  “No, Ellie isn’t coming, but Ava is.”

  Lacy’s pretty face fell again. “Oh.”

  “Hey,” Mac said, walking over to her. “You get to swim with some kids. They’re going to barbecue. Ava specifically asked to see you.”

  Lacy nodded. Mac sucked in a breath. He knew exactly what Lacy was feeling but worse. She might adore Ellie, but Mac had loved her. He’d had the promise of a whole new life with her and he’d had to walk away from it.

  The sound of cars pulling up the driveway filled the kitchen. The garage door opened and Phil walked up the butler’s pantry. They exchanged a look and Mac turned to Blanche. “Why don’t you take the kids upstairs? Lacy can get into her swimsuit.”

  When Blanche and the kids were gone, Phil said, “Seriously, Mac, they’re fine. As Ava pointed out I have six guards. We’ll be discreet. The kids will have a good time.”

  Mac said, “Okay,” then dismissed Phil. He didn’t really want to be a bad host, but, then again, he wasn’t really the host of this party. A Friend Indeed was. He could disappear and let Blanche stay with Lacy at the pool.

  Lacy came skipping into the kitchen with Blanche on her heels. She was happy because she was finally going to see people other than him and Henry. How could he not let her enjoy this?

  He stooped to her height. “All set to have some fun?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not going to swim, but I’ll watch from the sidelines.”

  Lacy nodded eagerly and Mac rose and led them to the French doors.

  They walked outside to a yard full of people. As Ava introduced Mac to a string of adults who carried coolers and bags of groceries past them to his gazebo, Lacy jumped into the pool with the kids who must have gone straight from the van to the water.

  Their noisy laughter filled the air and something inside of Mac shifted, relaxed. He loved that his property was getting some real use. Loved that Lacy was finally smiling. He could handle this.

  Then he saw Ellie.

  Dressed in white shorts and a pink T-shirt, with her long blond hair floating around her, and wearing big black sunglasses, she made her way from the driveway, carrying a green cooler. She looked soft, happy, so touchable, so kissable.

  When she reached him, she stopped. “Hey.”

  Desire stuttered through him. He couldn’t see her eyes, but the smile she gave him was genuine and something tripped in his heart. He wanted to swing her into his arms and welcome her home, but he couldn’t do that. He might have relaxed his regulations enough to keep a promise and let a charity hold a party on his grounds. But his life was a trap. A prison. She deserved better.

  “Hey.”

  “So how have you been?”

  Miserable. Sad. Lonely. Desperate for you.

  “Okay.”

  “Me too.”

  She shuffled the cooler she was holding and Mac immediately took it from her hands. “Let me take that to the gazebo.”

  He expected her to argue, remembered the day she arrived when she’d told him she wanted to carry her own suitcase, but he wouldn’t let her. Even then he’d known she was special.

  They started walking toward the gazebo. “How are the kids doing?”

  “Better.”

  She pulled the sunglasses down her nose and peeked over the top at him. “They were bad at some point?”

  “They don’t like the new situation.”

  “Really? I’m shocked.”

  He stopped. “Don’t. Don’t make fun of what I think I have to do.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?” She shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. I know you need a certain amount of protection. The protection isn’t the issue. It’s how you handle it that is. You’ve got bodyguards. Big deal. Lots of people do. You have a fence. So what? Most people do. I’ll bet you have alarms and cameras too. Again, what does it matter? A person can’t go into a convenience store these days or stop at an ATM without getting his picture taken.” She met his gaze. “Precautions aren’t the issue. It’s accepting them. And being realistic.”

  Her answer unexpectedly angered him and when she would have turned and walked away, he dropped the cooler and caught her arm. “And you’re the expert?”

  But rather than be angry that he’d confronted her, she smiled her brilliant smile again and Mac’s heart melted. “I am. I had to learn how to stop being overprotective. How to live.” She met his gaze with a world of love shining out of her eyes. “If you’d let me, I’d help you.”

  He swallowed. Everything inside of him screamed that he should take her help. Instead, he stood frozen. Torn between what was good for her and what was good for him.

  She picked up the cooler. “In fact, I think you know that I could help you navigate this part of your life. I think the truth is you ran scared. Your ex-wife did such a number on you that you’re afraid to try again. I think seeing her on TV reminded you of that, and the bomb scare gave you a legitimate excuse to push me away.”

  With that she walked away, disappearing into the gazebo, and though Mac wanted to sputter protests that she was wrong—he was protecting her from his life, not afraid—he glanced around, actually considering what she’d said. He had bodyguards. But they were discreet. His yard was fenced in. There were alarms and cameras everywhere. But, again, a person couldn’t go to an ATM without getting his face on a camera.

  Dear God. Was she right? Had he panicked not because of the bomb scare but because seeing Pamela scared him?

  Was he punishing Ellie for sins Pamela had committed?

  Ellie watched Mac walk away, back to the house, and her spirit deflated. She hadn’t intended to harbor the hope that when he saw her he’d realize what he’d lost—what they’d lost—and change his mind.

  But she had.

  When that hope hadn’t materialized, she’d tried shaming him into admitting he’d made a mistake. She’d prayed that his pride would bluster to the surface, and as he argued that he wasn’t running scared he’d admit he loved her and wanted her back before his common sense could kick in.

  That hadn’t happened either.

  Now he was leaving. He opened the French doors and in a few seconds was gone from sight. Ellie stared at the door.

  She couldn’t believe he’d forgotten everything they had. Yet, no matter how strong their feelings, they weren’t strong enough for him to take a risk with her.

  “Ms. Swanson?”

  Ellie glanced to the right to see Phil standing at attention in front of her, wire in his ear, sunglasses reflecting her surprised expression back at her.

  He caught her arm. “Would you come with me please?”

  “He’s kicking me off his property?” Ellie sputtered, remembering how Phil guided her out of the hotel.

  Phil said nothing, simply directed her up the steps to the kitchen and from the kitchen back to a hall and from the hall up a set of stairs.

  “Everybody at that party saw you take me,” Ellie said. “In a few minutes everybody’s going to wonder where I am—”

  “Then let me suggest you hurry so you can get back out before they do.”

  Ellie whipped her head around to see Mac following them. “Why? What do you want?”

  Mac laughed. “A little privacy.”

  As if he’d just heard a secret word or code, Phil dropped her arm and walked away. Mac opened the door to an off
ice and motioned her inside.

  “After you.”

  Her heart stuttered then leaped into overdrive. Privacy could mean that he’d thought about what she’d said and agreed with her and didn’t want to kiss her in front of thirty strangers. Still, she wouldn’t let herself get her hopes up. Not only had he passed on two really good opportunities to tell her he was sorry out by the pool, but his methods for getting her into his house were a bit high-handed.

  “You can’t keep me here.”

  “That’s been my point all along with us.” He sucked in a breath, closing the door behind them. “I wanted to keep you here.” He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “Hell, I did a great job of actually keeping you here for over two months.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that you’re right. I panicked.”

  He looked too calm, too normal, to be accepting what she’d said. “Panicked?”

  “As long as we were playing boss and maid, I sort of had you locked in.”

  She frowned. “You let me leave anytime I wanted to. How did you have me locked in?”

  “Because I knew you’d come back.” He sighed heavily. “But when we really got serious and my life sort of imploded, I realized I loved you and there was absolutely no reason for you to stay.”

  She gaped at him. “You think I had more reason to stay as a maid than a woman who loved you?”

  “So I asked you to leave before you could leave me.”

  “You are a silly man.”

  Suddenly Mac’s face changed. His expression shifted. His eyes narrowed. “Did you just say you loved me?”

  “Of course, I did.”

  “But you hardly had time to know me. I have a crazy ex-wife, two kids who need a mother, a house that will probably be perpetually surrounded by bodyguards.”

  “Which makes you really lucky that you found someone who can handle it.”

  He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “Are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

  She shook her head. “You have really got to work on your romantic lines. Right about now, you should be saying, ‘I love you too’ and sweeping me off my feet.”