Gabby crossed the room and picked up the comb. “You’ll get in big trouble for saying bad words. Daddy said you done had all the chances he’s givin’ you. We got to be good today so Annie Rose will stay more than two days. I like her, Lily. She looks like she could be our mama and she’s sweet. Damian is wrong. Mamas aren’t worse than nannies.”
Lily smiled. “Maybe if we help her, then she’ll remember that she did marry our daddy. And that Damian is a jackass who don’t know shit from mud, Gabby. Don’t you dare tell on me for cussin’ either, because you would have said it if you’d thought of it.”
Gabby nodded seriously. “Yes, I would have. He is that mean, but how are we going to help her remember?”
Lily shut her eyes tightly. After a few seconds, an angelic smile appeared and her eyelids slid open. “We’ll make her a how-to book. You know, like that one that Kenna has got that teaches how to make them pretty hair braids. Only we’ll make her a How to Remember book. Get out the paper and stickers. If she does what it says for her to do, then she might even remember by party time and Daddy will let her stay forever.”
***
Mason leaned back in the recliner and threw his forearm over his eyes. What in the hell had he done? He couldn’t hire a nanny for the girls without a background check, especially one who’d just showed up on his porch in a wedding dress and with no memory. Worse yet, one that he could scarcely look in the eye without his heart throwing in an extra flutter or two. Dammit! Life had been going along absolutely fine, even with a set of twins so ornery that the folks at the nanny service shuddered when they saw his phone number. And then in the matter of a few seconds, it had been turned upside down.
He removed his hand and stared at the ceiling as one question after another flooded through his mind. Had she gotten married and then run away from her husband on the way to the honeymoon? Was she one of those runaway brides like in that old movie? Was she trying to find a way onto his ranch to make him the butt of an elaborate scam? Surely to God this wasn’t a joke his poker buddies were playing on him, was it?
A nanny had to take the girls to and from story hour, to dental appointments, had to be responsible for them around the pool, and had to be sure that they didn’t get into too much trouble during the day when he was running the ranch. Was she trustworthy enough for him to allow her to put his girls in the truck and drive off with them? He couldn’t deny Holly anything when she was alive, and he had even less power when it came to telling the twins “no,” so how was he going to dodge this bullet?
Mason’s gut said he absolutely could not hire the woman, but his heart said he couldn’t tell her to leave. He’d never seen his girls take to anyone like they did her. Maybe it was the wedding dress or the fact that they really did want a mother more than anything in the world.
The distance from his bedroom, through the bathroom, and to the old nursery door was longer than the length of the Sahara Desert. Knocking would have made better sense, but if Gabby and Lily heard it, they’d come out of their room to see what was going on.
He eased it open a crack and without even looking inside, he said softly, “Hello.”
“Come in. I want to talk to you, so I’m glad you are here,” she said.
She was sitting in the old comfortable rocking chair that had been used so frequently when the girls were babies that it had his body’s imprint in the cushions. And there was the big yellow tomcat, O’Malley, right there in her lap, purring away loudly as she stroked his fur.
Folks said that it was impossible to fool kids and dogs. Did it also work with cats and kids? The twins fell in love with her at first glance, and now O’Malley, who hated everyone but the girls, had adopted her.
“I’d like a word without the girls around,” he said.
She motioned him inside. “So would I.”
The nursery didn’t feel right with a strange woman in it, as if he’d wronged Holly somehow. She tucked an errant strand of blond hair behind her ear, and the gesture reminded him of the way Holly used to do the same thing. Then she looked up at him, chin out like Holly did when she was about to tell him something that she really wanted him to hear, even though she hated telling it. Everything was awkward and felt eerie like the sky right before a tornado struck.
“Please sit, and you talk first,” she said.
He propped a shoulder against the doorjamb, looking at her with an intensity that made her squirm, and not because she was nervous. “You go first.”
“You could sit on the futon or I’ll move so you can have the chair,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he told her. Yes, he certainly was fine. She shook her head—where did that thought come from? She definitely should not be ogling this man when surely all he cared about was whether she could handle his two adorable spitfire girls until he could get a legitimate nanny brought in.
She dropped her chin and focused on the cat. “I’m sorry I lied to you out there on the porch. I do not have amnesia. I was shocked and startled when I awoke on your porch with those little girls bouncing around and squealing. I grasped at the first thing I could think of and pretended I couldn’t remember, so I wouldn’t have to explain, especially in front of them. They were so excited that I couldn’t disappoint them. They must really want a mother, badly, to take one that looked like I did.”
He sat down on the futon and crossed one leg over the other, ankle on knee in a masculine gesture that she caught in her peripheral vision.
“Go on,” he said in a low Southern drawl.
“I would like to have the nanny job, but you should know the truth before you officially hire me. My name really is Annie Rose Boudreau. I was raised on a ranch near Beaumont, Texas. I had a nursing degree by the time my parents died and left me a small ranch, which I sold.”
“And?” he asked softly when she paused. He didn’t seem angry, or like he was going to fly off the handle. He was listening, paying attention, and he was refreshingly calm.
“Right after I sold it, a man came into the emergency room after a minor fender bender. He was charming and I was very vulnerable. I fell in love with the wrong man, plain and simple.”
“Until last night, and then you ran away from him, right?” Mason said in a tone she couldn’t read.
“No, until he turned out to be a control freak who liked to use his fists when he was angry, which was pretty often. I tried to break up with him, but that didn’t work. He was a violent man with a wicked temper, and there was no way out of the relationship with him. So I disappeared. It took a while to put everything in place, but when I walked out of his house, it was pretty smooth sailing. I dropped the first name and became Rose Boudreau and moved to West Texas. Got a job in a library in a different town from where I lived. Yesterday we were having a bridal-dress show for a fundraiser at our library, and he showed up.” Even in her own ears, Annie Rose’s voice sounded hollow, like it was coming out of a long tunnel.
Mason listened, but the story sure sounded far-fetched. His heart felt like he could believe her; his head wasn’t convinced yet. “And you became a runaway bride?”
She nodded. “I was wearing a bridal gown, but I wasn’t a bride. Believe me, I’m not sure I’ll ever wear one of those for real. When I disappeared the first time, I planned ahead, so that if I ever had to do it again, it wouldn’t be so difficult or scary. I drove straight to my storage unit and picked up my suitcase. When I got to the Sherman exit, I noticed a black SUV and thought it was following me. So I turned off at the next exit, went through a little town called Savoy, and the SUV kept right behind me. Then he turned off into a driveway and a woman ran out the door to greet him and I knew it had been a case of paranoia.”
“Where is your car?” Mason asked.
He was still unsure, but her face seemed to open and she was looking right into his eyes as she told her story. She looked sad, too, adrift, and he knew that feeling all too we
ll.
“There’s a lot of curves in this part of the state. I didn’t make one and had an up-close and personal talk with a big old tree about a quarter of a mile back up the road. The one right close to a nice deep farm pond.”
“That’s my property.” He nodded, still suspending judgment. She could be a fantastic liar or a damn good actor.
“Well, my car is at the bottom of that pond. I hit the tree, veered off to one side, and barely had time to bail out and grab my purse and my suitcase from the backseat before my car went into the water. I only meant to rest a little while on your porch, but your girls found me before I woke up,” she said.
“What is his name? The stalker? I have a right to know that if I’m going to hire you,” Mason said.
“Nicholas Trahan.”
Mason shook his head. “Nicky Trahan is well known all over Texas and Louisiana. Everyone knows he’s got a temper, and his family calls themselves the Cajun mob. How in the hell did you get mixed up with him?”
“Like I said, he was in the hospital where I worked. He’s a smooth talker and a hard hitter, and I had no idea who he was or what he was until it was too late. Nobody leaves Nicky and lives to brag about it. So that’s my story, and I was thinking maybe Doc could go ahead and give me a ride to the bus station in Sherman when he comes to the party this afternoon. I’ve been enough bother to you, and I understand if you don’t want me to stay, even for two days.”
Mason wasn’t afraid of Nicky Trahan. Most men who used their fists on women wouldn’t think of raising them to a man, but still he had to think about his girls. He didn’t have to make a decision right then. He had a couple of days, and he did know a man who was pretty handy at checking things out. He wanted to believe this woman, who was looking down at her hands. He wanted to protect her and take care of her, and he sure as hell hadn’t had that feeling about anyone but his girls since Holly died.
When he didn’t say anything, Annie Rose went on, “You can check it all out. Annie Boudreau worked as a nurse in Baptist Hospital in Beaumont. Rose worked as a librarian’s assistant in Odessa, Texas. Annie Rose, which is what my daddy called me, will be a nanny if you want her to be. But I understand if you want me to leave. I’m not so sure I’d hire me if I was on the other side of this conversation.”
“Do you have a driver’s license?”
She picked up her purse, pulled out a small wallet, and handed a valid Texas license to him. “It’s really me. Picture, fingerprint, and name. Address is still the one in Beaumont. I started to change my name, but…” She shrugged.
“I will check this out, and you are welcome to stay here until I do. I’ve never seen my girls take to anyone like they did you. If you’re lying to me, I’ll take you up to the bus station in Sherman after the party myself. If not, you have a job for a couple of days or until the girls drive you crazy like they’ve done to all their nannies. If Nicky Trahan shows up here, I expect you to call me immediately. We might not be a big city like Odessa, but by damn, we’ve got a police force here that can slam him back into a cell so fast that it’ll make his head swim.”
He wasn’t sure where the words came from. They weren’t what he expected to come out of his mouth, but he couldn’t ruin his girls’ birthday. One day wouldn’t hurt, and he really did have a contact to check on her story.
“O’Malley likes you.” He stood up.
“He’s a sweet old tomcat.” She smiled. “I like cats, but it’s a good thing I didn’t let my guard down and get one or else he’d be starving in a pretty bare apartment out in West Texas.”
***
She set O’Malley in the chair and stretched out on the futon. Her eyelids felt like they had twenty-pound weights attached to them, but she still couldn’t sleep. Everything about the day before kept playing through her mind as if it was on a constantly rewinding reel. Had Nicky been so busy with his phone call that he hadn’t even seen her? That would be asking for a hell of a lot, but an amazing force seemed to be watching out for her, so maybe, just maybe, she’d gotten away without him even realizing she was ever there. O’Malley left the chair and jumped up on the bed, turned around a couple of times, and curled up beside her.
“Mama-Nanny,” Lily’s whisper filtered through the door. “Are you awake?”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and opened the door to find the girls with their hair in neat ponytails.
“We want you to have this before you go to sleep. We think it might help you, and we want you to remember getting married to our daddy, even if he didn’t let us go to the wedding. Do what it says, okay?” Lily said.
Gabby handed her a homemade booklet like the ones she and her little friends made when they were children.
“Thank you. I promise I’ll sit down right now and read every word, and I will do exactly what it says. You’ll wake me up when the pizza gets here, right?”
“Yes, we will,” Lily said seriously. “And we’ll help you remember where things are until the book works.”
Then they were both gone.
She sat down in the rocking chair and looked at the booklet. They’d taken a sheet of notebook paper, cut it into four ragged-edged pieces, and stapled them together. The title, How to Remember, was written on the outside in bright red marker and had several cat stickers attached to it.
She opened it and read the steps.
Number 1: Lay down on your bed with your head on the pillow.
Number 2: Shut your eyes real, real tight and don’t open them.
Number 3: Now put your fingers in your ears so you can’t hear anything.
Number 4: Think real, real hard.
Number 5: Lily says that if that don’t work, say, “Well, shit!” and to start all over again. It worked when she couldn’t remember where she put her favorite bracelet.
Annie Rose giggled, and it felt so good that it turned into laughter. She held the booklet to her heart for several minutes before she put it in the secret compartment of her suitcase. Someday she wanted a set of little blond-haired girls exactly like those two.
***
Twenty kids jumped in and out of the pool, traipsing water all over the deck, eating hot dogs by the dozens, and downing enough soda pop to put them on a weeklong sugar high. Girls giggled in groups. Boys bowed up to each other like cocky little banty roosters.
Annie Rose sat with her back to the sliding-glass doors into the house and remembered her ninth birthday party. That was the first one Gina Lou came to, and they’d formed a friendship that lasted through school, college, and right up until the day that she ran away from Nicky. She’d missed her friend the past two years, but they both knew that Nicky had the resources to locate her through Gina Lou, so they’d made a clean break.
A tall red-haired woman pulled up a lawn chair close to her and sat down. “So you are the new nanny? Are you nuts or do you have rocks for brains?”
“I hope neither. Do you know something I don’t?” Annie Rose asked.
“Honey, those two girls have been nightmare children since they were born. I had them in first grade. Worst year in my teaching experience. I went home every day cussing and swearing that I wouldn’t go back the next morning,” she said.
“That bad, huh?” Annie Rose asked. No wonder Mason hadn’t tossed her out on her ear.
“Those girls would drive a saint to the asylum. I’m Dinah Miller, by the way. I understand your name is Annie Rose?”
Annie Rose nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Dinah. Does one of the children in the pool belong to you?”
“That little red-haired boy in the blue bathing suit. He’s got a crush on Doc Emerson’s granddaughter, Kenna. I can’t get ready for nine-year-old kids to talk about going out with each other. But at least he doesn’t like Lily or Gabby. For that I can be thankful,” she said.
“I thought they all hated each other, the way the boys are al
l jumping in and out of the pool and the girls are all grouped up, giggling,” Annie Rose said.
“I’m a school teacher, so we see this all the time. The boys are posturing for them, and the girls are giggling because of the boys,” Dinah said.
Lily came running up to Annie Rose’s side, holding out a hair ribbon. “Mama, Mama, can you put this back? Matty untied it, and it fell out.”
“Mama?” Dinah asked.
“Daddy says she’s our nanny, but we’ve decided that she’s our new mama. We found her on the porch this morning. She was asleep on the swing like Sleeping Beauty, but she was wearing a wedding dress,” Lily said.
Annie Rose tied the ribbon around the ponytail in a perfect bow. “There you go, sweetie. Go have fun. Your daddy says that you are opening gifts inside the gazebo at four, and that’s only fifteen minutes from now.”
Dinah laughed. “Kids sure have an imagination, don’t they? Nannies don’t show up in wedding dresses.”
Mason pulled up a chair and sat down beside Annie Rose, giving her a quick wink that kicked up her pulse a notch. Hopefully, Mason and Dinah would think her red-hot cheeks were the result of the hot summer sun, but she knew better.
He chuckled and said, “Oh, yeah, they do. On this ranch, all nannies have to wear costumes. In case you didn’t know, Annie Rose wears a ball gown to do housework and a bikini to cook supper and the paparazzi goes crazy when I attend the Oscars.”
Dinah nodded toward him. “Hello, Mason. Nice party. The kids always love a pool party. Did you know that Doc bought them real goats for their birthday? And I’ll be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that those two insist on taking them in the house like pets instead of barn animals. Oh, I must go talk to Mrs. Emerson about Kenna. See y’all later.” She was up in a flash and making her way across the patio before Annie Rose found her voice.
“Goats?” Annie Rose asked.
“I’ll get even with him, damn his old black soul. Just wait until his granddaughter has a birthday,” Mason groaned. “Dinah is right. They’ll want to make house pets out of them.”
How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides) Page 3