The Holiday Nanny

by Lois Richer

  “This first Sunday in Advent, we talk about the hope of God’s gift to us, the birth of Christ and its meaning for us.”

  Connie sneaked a glance at Wade. He seemed focused on the minister.

  “The hopes of those who knew what God had planned was reinforced by the prophets. But most folks wouldn’t or couldn’t understand that God would send his son as a tiny helpless baby. That was not the answer they wanted.”

  A missing father was not the answer Connie wanted either. But nothing she’d learned so far suggested her father had stayed in the Tucson area after receiving his treatments for the cancer that had racked his body. Yet no one seemed to know his whereabouts. It was unthinkable that he might have passed away. Connie was getting frustrated with her search.

  Why, God?

  “As the nation of Israel suffered and waited for their Messiah, they must have asked God ‘why’ many times. And God’s answer—wait.”

  So perhaps that was her answer, too. There seemed little she could do but wait and hope that God would show her another path that would take her to her father. Mariah Martens, her foster mother, had given good advice.

  “You won’t get anywhere in understanding God, Connie, unless you embrace His promises and continue to believe that one day you will have answers to your years of questions.” Mariah’s voice softened to that tenderness Connie loved to hear. “You have to believe that God had a reason for letting it all happen, no matter what you learn.”

  Which meant Connie had to trust that leaving her without a home or a father wasn’t just a cruel joke or a twist of fate. Not an easy feat when her search was continually frustrated by dead ends.

  She focused back on the sermon and the reminder that God had not sent the promised Messiah until many years had passed after the prophecies. But He had kept His promise.

  When the closing notes of a familiar carol faded away, Silver had not yet returned from the children’s program. Connie rose, feeling awkward as Wade rose, too. She wasn’t sure how he’d been impacted by the sermon and didn’t want to spoil it if he needed time to mull things over. Thankfully David and his sister Darla came over to talk.

  “Davy’s taking me out to lunch,” Darla told her, face beaming with happiness. “Do you want to come, Connie?”

  “That’s very nice of you, Darla,” Connie said, squeezing the hand that had grasped hers. She remembered Silver’s talk about a skiing accident. Obviously it had left Darla with brain damage. A conversation with Darla was almost like talking to Silver. “We can’t today. Silver has a practice for the Christmas Eve service.”

  “I know. I’m going to sing,” Darla said, her grin huge.

  “She sings good,” Silver said, bells on her belt tinkling as she slipped into place beside Connie. They walked out of the sanctuary. “She sings well,” Connie corrected.

  They were quickly surrounded by a throng of people who welcomed Wade back to church.

  Silver fell into conversation with Darla.

  Connie noticed that Wade smiled, shook hands and accepted good wishes but made few comments, his usual reserve firmly in place.

  What would Wade Abbot be like without that guard?

  None of your business.

  Connie blushed at her own thoughts. These little side trips of curiosity about her boss were happening far too often. She was here to work, not to daydream about her employer like the other silly girl he’d hired.

  Connie grasped Silver’s hand after the three of them waved goodbye to David and his sister. Then she pointed.

  “I thought we could sit under that red pistache tree. With the leaves gone, we’ll still get some sunshine,” she said.

  “Okay.” Wade fetched their cooler, picnic basket and a thick blanket from the car. “Not a lot of people know its name,” he said, leaning back to look into the tree. “You must be studying up.”

  “Connie knows about hummingbirds,” Silver said. “She put up feeders. We fill them lots.”

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, embarrassed that she hadn’t asked permission before hanging the feeders.

  “Why would I? Who could dislike a hummingbird?” he wondered.

  “I like to learn about the area where I’m living,” she said, forcing herself not to look at him as she unpacked their lunch. “Especially hummingbirds in winter. Everything here is so different from up north.”

  “Including the lack of snow at Christmas, I’m sure.” He smiled. “Do you miss it?”

  Connie deliberated over her answer while she settled Silver with a sandwich and some juice.

  “I talked to my mother last night. They’ve just received three feet of snow and are in the process of digging out,” she said. “Dad got stuck and had to walk home to get the tractor.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Snow isn’t all bad.” She grinned. “We used to have lots of fun when we got snowed in and couldn’t go to school. Dad always made those times so great.”

  Wade ate for a few moments, obviously deep in thought. But his glance kept returning to her.

  “Why don’t you just go ahead and ask whatever it is that’s bothering you?” Connie murmured, struggling to quiet the rapid beat of her heart.

  “I don’t want to be rude, and it’s really none of my business.”

  “That never stopped me.” She ignored his gurgle of laughter, wiped Silver’s hands and face and handed her a cookie. “Go ahead, ask.”

  “Does he mind?” Wade waited to ask the question until Silver had risen and wandered over to peer at the broad-billed hummingbird hovering over a nearby bush.

  “Dad, you mean?” Connie set down the rest of her sandwich and studied her boss. “Mind what?”

  “That you’re here, looking for your birth father.” The words spilled out in a rush. Wade looked sheepish.

  “Actually, he’s the one who encouraged me to come. He said I’d always wonder if I didn’t at least try to find out the truth.” She smiled, remembering the conversation. “In the eleven years I stayed with my foster parents, he laid down a good foundation of what a father should be. I hope my dad is like that. That’s how I remember him anyway.”

  “And your foster father doesn’t care that you still love your birth father?” he probed.

  At first Connie couldn’t understand why he kept asking. But then she realized that Wade was comparing her situation to his with Silver.

  “No. But then my foster father is a very unusual man. He genuinely loves every kid who comes to their home, regardless of how they respond to him.” She offered him a cookie before pouring two cups of steaming coffee. “I asked him about that once. He said he knew what it was like to need unconditional love, and he knew what it was to get it. He was once a foster child himself, you see.”

  “Um.” Wade crunched on his cookie, waited for her to continue.

  “Dad says love is the one thing that is both the easiest and most difficult to receive.” Wade kept looking at her. His pensive stare unnerved her, but she couldn’t stop now. “The thing about love is that you determine how it affects you. By accepting it, you become indebted to the one who loves you. By reciprocating, you create a bond between the two of you. By rejecting it, you throw away a chance to grow a relationship that could enrich both of you, and maybe you forfeit future relationships. Whatever your choice, love has consequences.”

  Wade didn’t say anything, but his eyes had narrowed to mere slits.

  “At least that’s how my birth father sees it.” She sipped her coffee and waited.

  “Will you still call him Dad—your birth father? When you find him, I mean?” Wade’s inscrutable gaze sought and held hers.

  “Of course.” What was he getting at?

  “Even though he dumped you? Even though you already call another man ‘Dad’?” A hint of anger underlay his question.

  “The two are not mutually exclusive, Wade.” She kept her voice soft. “One dad gave me life, nurtured me for eleven years. Another dad saw me through the years that followed. B
oth of them have a place in my life.”

  “I don’t understand that.” He watched Silver spread the crumbs of her cookie for a brilliant red northern cardinal to sample.

  “Why?” Connie touched his arm to get his attention.

  “Do you think it’s wrong to love both of them, to treat them both as fathers?”

  “He abandoned you, Connie.” The words grated out between his teeth. His lips pinched together, wrinkling his mustache and emphasizing a cleft in his chin. “Anything could have happened to you. What kind of a father—” He clamped his lips together, shutting off the words of condemnation.

  She’d held in all her questions for too long. Suddenly Wade’s comments brought everything to the forefront, and Connie couldn’t hold back her frustrations any longer.

  “I don’t know what kind of father would do that,” she spat out angrily. “Do you think I don’t want to know, that I don’t want to ask him myself? Do you think I’m so stupid, so naive and gullible that I’ve just accepted what he did?”

  In spite of her determination, tears escaped her tightly squeezed lids and trickled down to her chin. She scrubbed them away with her fists.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “I’ve thought about little else for eleven long years. That’s why I’m trying to find my father.” She jerked away from his outstretched hand. “I love him,” she whispered fiercely, “but sometimes I think I hate him, too. And I have no right to do that.”

  “Why not?” Wade demanded, his voice unsympathetic.

  “After what he did—”

  “But that’s exactly it,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what he did. A man I spoke to said my father insisted he’d made arrangements for me. That I wasn’t simply abandoned.” She cleared her throat, met his skeptical glance. “The man said my father repeated over and over that I would be cared for.”

  “Sure he said that. After the fact. To ease his guilt.”

  “No.” She peered at him through her lashes. “My father told me something before he kissed me goodbye. He said, ‘Wait here. Someone will come for you.’ And they did.” Connie blinked, remembering the moments after he’d left with a clarity that had previously eluded her. “At the time I thought I waited forever, but I remember a clock on a nearby building chiming ‘Joy to The World.’ The song wasn’t finished when a couple showed up for me, Wade. I couldn’t have waited that long.”

  Connie sat silent and let the movie in her mind play through from the moment her father had kissed her goodbye and set her suitcase at her feet, to the arrival of the couple who’d picked her up.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “He said people named Tom and Tanya would be there to take me to a safe place,” she whispered as the long-hidden memories burst into the clear light of day. “And they were, before the song was finished.”

  “It could have been a coincidence,” Wade said.

  “No. I wasn’t abandoned. He had everything arranged.” The memory still left Connie confused, but somehow the pain of that long ago Christmas morning had diminished.

  “Other kids are going into the church now, Connie.” Silver pressed on her shoulder, her voice anxious. “Isn’t it time for me to practice?”

  “I think so.” Connie closed off everything but the immediacy of the moment and her job. Later. She’d think about it later. She packed up the lunch and rose, waiting while Wade folded the blanket they’d sat on and picked up the basket. “Oh,” she murmured, suddenly aware that if he came inside to wait for them and saw the practice, it would spoil Silver’s Christmas Eve debut. “I’m sure you don’t want to hang around for this.”

  “I have an errand to run. I’ll be back to pick you up in—” he checked his watch “—forty-five minutes?”

  “Better make it an hour,” Connie said and smiled. “It’s the first practice.”

  “Okay.” He accepted his daughter’s hug then watched her race to the main door.

  Connie turned toward the church and began walking.

  “Connie?”

  “Yes.” Puzzled by the odd tone of his voice, she paused, twisted her head to study him. Wade was staring at her the way he’d stared at Cora’s chocolate cake on his first evening back in Tucson.

  “Thank you for sharing your private life with me. I know it wasn’t easy.” He twiddled his keys in his fingers for a moment, then lifted his head and met her gaze. “I think both of your fathers should be proud to have a daughter like you.”

  Connie wanted to say thank you, but Wade was gone, his long-legged stride carrying him to his car before she could get the words out. For the next hour, she sat in the pew and pretended to watch Silver while she puzzled over the look on Wade’s face as he said those words. Sadness, a kind of yearning? Sympathy? What did it mean?

  Certainly not that he cared about the nanny, Connie chided herself. She was old enough to know Silver’s Cinderella fairy tale of happily ever after didn’t come true.

  But no matter how hard Connie tried to force her attention back on the stage, she couldn’t quite erase the memory of Wade’s dark brown eyes softening while they rested on her.

  Chapter Eight

  On Monday evening, Wade checked his inbox.

  Report on Joseph Eduardo Silva, aka José, adopted son of Emma and Eduardo Silva of Brazil, deceased with Bella Abbot. See below for further info.

  A shudder of revulsion had Wade closing the email from his private investigator without looking any further. He didn’t want to reread the details of his wife’s transgressions or face his own stupidity about it. The shame, the embarrassment, the betrayal—he’d left all that in the past. Or tried to.

  But this is for Silver, a small inner voice chided. Wade had to ensure her real family was all right, that she would be fine with them. To let her go without doing that was unthinkable. So he drew in a breath, prayed for strength and clicked on the email tab once more. Better to find out what he had to deal with up front. He read the details once, twice and then a third time before his thinking processes froze. How could he have been so gullible?

  “Oh. Excuse me.”

  His misery almost overwhelming him, Wade blinked and looked up. Connie stood in the doorway, her face a mix of emotions he couldn’t decipher.

  “Sorry?”

  “I didn’t realize you were in here. I’ll come back.” She’d said it hesitantly, as if it was the last thing she wanted to do.

  “You need the computer?” he guessed. He roused, clicked Print and waited while the report slid out and then closed his email. “I’m finished.”

  “I can come back,” she repeated.

  “No reason. It’s all yours.” He saw her expression and knew something was going on. Her eyes swirled with all the shades of gray found in a piece of Arizona silver. “Anything new on the father front—that you want to share, I mean?”

  He wasn’t trying to intrude. The past four days Wade had sensed that something was off-kilter in Connie’s world, but it was difficult to tell what. Since he’d started paying attention to the nanny, he’d realized Connie was a private person who generally kept her problems to herself while focusing on helping others. Knowing that honed his desire to learn more about the woman behind the nanny facade.

  “I’m sure you have plenty of your own difficulties,” she murmured.

  “Don’t we all? But sometimes it helps to share.” He waited, preparing to walk away when the silence stretched on. Suddenly Connie spoke.

  “The other day, at Silver’s party, I had a phone call from the man I met that day you were at the center.” She licked her lips and continued. “He said my father had cancer and that it had cost him both legs.”

  “I’m very sorry.” Wade knew there was more. He could see it in the way Connie held herself—erect, taut, as if she was bracing for what was to come.

  “The thing is—this man hinted that my father may have died from his treatment.” She said the words slowly, as if she couldn’t quite absorb them.


  “You didn’t believe him?”

  “I don’t know what to believe.” She shook her head like someone in a daze. “Ben, my contact at the center, just phoned. A man my dad helped get his high school diploma heard I was searching for my father. He wants to meet me. Tonight. I was so startled I said I’d go.” She swallowed, brushed several straggling curls off her forehead. “I have to let the center know I can’t make it.”

  “Why can’t you?” Wade noted the way she fidgeted. Connie was not a fidgeter. Something had her scared. A surge of compassion filled him as uncertainty washed over her face. “What’s the problem?”

  “Tonight’s not my night off.”

  “Oh, right.” He debated the wisdom of telling her to go anyway but held his tongue. He had no idea of her feelings regarding this new information, and he didn’t want to rush her, especially if she was going to hear bad news. “Well, the computer’s all yours.” He rose.

  “Thanks.” Was that relief, or did she think he didn’t care?

  As Wade moved from behind the desk, Connie eased past him. He caught a whiff of the tangy orange scent of her shampoo, and in a flash, he was reminded of all the intimate little things he missed by not having someone special in his life. But most of all, Connie’s scent highlighted the loss of closeness a husband and wife shared, the one-ness that Wade had thought he and Bella shared.

  For Wade, that bond had been irrevocably shattered that day in Brazil. Ever since then, he’d felt horribly alone. He’d stayed that way by choice, but tonight he realized that the lonely nature of his life was growing less appealing.

  Wade had learned to live without all the feminine niceties because he wasn’t going to let himself get hurt like that ever again. But Connie was becoming a friend. And she was nothing like Bella had been. He couldn’t imagine Connie even planning such a betrayal. She was open and honest, not at all like that other nanny.

  You don’t really know Connie, his subconscious re minded.

  But I want to.

  Danger, screamed his brain. Refocus.