01_Gift from the Heart

by Irene Hannon

  The back door closed behind Clare, shutting with a gentle click as she walked into the darkness. Silence fell at the kitchen table as Nicole finished her brownie and then quickly exited, leaving him alone. Yearning for more. Desperately wishing he knew how to open the shutters on his heart and share the warmth he held inside, instead of always holding back.

  Slowly he rose and poured a cup of coffee, then propped his hip against the counter as he took a sip. He heard the door to Nicole’s room close, and looked out the window toward Clare’s garage apartment. The shades were drawn, masking what was within.

  Kind of like the three of us, he thought wistfully.

  “Adele, where do you keep the soup containers?” Clare asked.

  The older woman bustled over to a large cabinet, opened the door and surveyed the contents with her hands on her hips. “Hmm. They should be in here. Marlene, are we out of those little round containers?”

  A middle-aged woman looked up from the cake she was cutting. “I think a new shipment came in. Let me look downstairs.”

  Adele walked over to where Clare was stirring a large pot of chicken noodle soup. “Smells good.”

  “Well, I’ve never cooked in such large quantities before. I hope it tastes okay.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine. And our clients will be grateful. I sometimes wonder what all those people did before we started the Feed the Hungry program.”

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Several years. If we can get more volunteers, we might be able to provide a main meal more than two days a week. But people are so busy these days. I’m just glad we recruited you.”

  Clare shrugged. “My mornings are mostly free. I’m happy to help. It’s good work.”

  “Yes, it is. So how is everything going with the nanny job?”

  “Well, it’s only been two weeks. But so far, so good.”

  Adele wiped her hands on her voluminous apron. “That’s nice to hear. I’m sure Adam is very grateful to have you. Trying to juggle a demanding career with the challenge of raising a young daughter alone must have been very stressful for him.”

  “I’m sure it was,” Clare agreed as she began ladling the soup into the containers that Marlene set beside her, thinking about the fine lines around Adam’s eyes. They spoke of stress and a deep-seated weariness that seemed to reach right into his soul.

  “Well, I’m certainly glad he found you,” Adele said. “I’ve already noticed your influence on Nicole’s clothes at Sunday services. There have been some subtle changes that are definitely a step in the right direction.”

  Clare shook her head. “I suspect that balancing my ideas of fashion with Nicole’s will be an on ongoing challenge. How to be trendy yet tasteful. I can’t believe what young girls wear these days.”

  “Your work is definitely cut out for you,” Adele agreed. “Well, I’m heading out. I have bridge club this afternoon and I have to get ready. Will I see you at church on Sunday?” At Clare’s nod, Adele patted her arm. “Good. Don’t work too hard, now.”

  Clare absently stirred the soup as she watched the older woman circle the room, speaking a few words of thanks and encouragement to the other volunteers before she left. She did intend to resume weekly church attendance. Though her faith had been shaken in the past couple of years, and her church attendance had lapsed, she knew deep inside that the core of her faith was still there. She just needed to find her way back to it. One step on that journey was attending Sunday services. And it was an opportunity to support Adam in reinforcing the importance of church attendance with Nicole. Apparently he’d been fighting that battle every week with his daughter. Clare understood his insistence, because the foundation of her own faith had been established in childhood, when weekly church attendance had been mandatory.

  She also saw it as another opportunity to act as a mediator between Adam and Nicole. Aside from dinner, it was one of the few occasions during the week when they spent time together. Adam was always gone in the morning before she arrived to get Nicole off to school, and he generally got home just in time for the evening meal. Afterward Nicole retreated to her room while Clare briefed Adam on the day, then he generally disappeared into his office. She did her best to get a conversation going between father and daughter at dinner, and she knew Adam was trying. But Nicole wasn’t. So Sunday gave her one more chance to try and make some inroads.

  But deep in her heart, she acknowledged that as much as she wanted to bring father and daughter together, attending church with them also gave her one more chance to spend time with the elusive doctor who seemed so alone.

  “What’s this?” Clare picked up a sheet of paper that Nicole had tossed on the table.

  Nicole helped herself to two oatmeal cookies from the new cookie jar on the counter before she answered. “Just a dumb school project. They need volunteers to help. You can throw it away.”

  Clare scanned the sheet. The class was going to construct gingerbread houses for Christmas, and the teacher was looking for a few people to help coordinate the activity. The sheet was dated the week before, and the activity was in two days.

  “This sounds like fun,” Clare said. “My mom made a gingerbread house every Christmas, and my sisters and I always helped. Although my mother might have used a different word to describe our contributions, since we ate most of the candy she was planning to use for decorations,” she amended with a chuckle. “Don’t you want to make one?”

  Nicole shrugged. “It sounds like kid stuff.”

  “Kid stuff is sometimes the most fun. Do they still need help?”

  “I guess. The teacher said today she needed a couple more moms.”

  So Nicole’s careless toss of the flyer hadn’t been so careless after all.

  “Would a nanny do?” Clare asked.

  Nicole sent her a cautious look, but Clare could see a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “You don’t have to do it. I don’t think this kind of stuff is part of your job.”

  “It can be if I want it to be. I’d like to come, unless you don’t want me to.”

  Nicole chewed on her cookie. “I guess it would be okay. At least I’d have someone to talk to.”

  Clare took a cookie herself, poured each of them a glass of milk and sat at the table. Despite her careful questions about the social aspect of school, so far she hadn’t learned much from Nicole. But the girl seemed more willing to talk today. “Aren’t the girls friendly?”

  Nicole lifted one shoulder. “They already have their cliques. I don’t fit in. But I don’t care, anyway.”

  Her defiant posture was directly at odds with the hurt look in her eyes.

  “It’s hard to break into an established group,” Clare sympathized. “That’s true even when you’re an adult. When I got married, my husband and I moved to Kansas City. I didn’t know a soul. And all the teachers at the school where I taught had worked there for years. I don’t think they meant to be unkind, but I still felt like an outsider. I was too new to understand their inside jokes, and a lot of them were single and hung out with each other after work while I went home to my husband. It took me quite a while to feel at home there.”

  Nicole eased into the chair next to Clare. “So did you do something to…you know, make them like you?”

  “Well, it’s hard to make people like you,” Clare said gently. “But most of the time, if you let people get to know you, then they decide on their own to like you. I finally figured that out, after about three months. So I made it a point to ask them questions about their lives, and to tell them about mine. Then I invited all the teachers to our house for a barbecue.”

  “Did they come?”

  “Mmm-hmm. And after that, things got a lot better.”

  Nicole frowned and played with the crumbs of the cookie that had fallen on the table. “The girls at school think I’m a snob.”

  “Why would they think that?”

  Spots of color appeared on Nicole’s cheeks and she kept her eyes downcast. “I might h
ave called them hicks once.”

  “I can see where that could be a problem. I’m sure that hurt their feelings.”

  “Yeah.”

  The disheartened tone of Nicole’s voice tugged at Clare’s heart, and she reached over and took the young girl’s hand. “But I bet there’s a way to make things right.”

  “Yeah?” Nicole looked up hopefully.

  “Let me think about it, okay? And in the meantime, how about we make some gingerbread houses?”

  Nicole was right. The girls in her class did snub her. Most of the time she was alone, her shoulders stiff and hunched, her back to the rest of her classmates as she worked on her gingerbread house. Clare’s heart went out to her. She knew the girl desperately wanted to make friends, but her body language said Keep Out—a message the rest of the class definitely heeded. The other girls were clustered in small groups, giggling and laughing as they admired each other’s handiwork, oblivious to Nicole’s misery—or just ignoring it.

  It didn’t take Clare long to pinpoint a blond-haired girl named Candace as one of the class leaders. She flitted from group to group, a born organizer and trendsetter. Many of the girls seemed to take their cues from her. So that was where she needed to start, Clare decided. She picked up the paper containers of candy she’d parceled out for decorations and slowly made her way toward Candace, giving out candy as she went. When she reached the blond-haired girl, she paused and smiled at Candace’s creation.

  “That looks great!” Clare said. “I like how you used the peppermints for stepping stones.”

  The girl turned to her and giggled. “Thanks. But I think I ate too many of them. See, I ran out.” She pointed to the abrupt end of the path.

  “Well, we can fix that.” Clare took a paper cup with several peppermints in it and set it beside Candace. “There’s even a couple extra if you’re still hungry,” she said with a wink.

  “Great!” Candace glanced toward Nicole, then gave Clare a curious look. “So are you really her nanny?”

  “Yes.”

  “That must be hard.”

  “Why?”

  Candace shrugged. “Nicole’s kind of…well, prickly, you know? She always seems mad. Nobody likes her.”

  “That’s too bad. She’s had a really hard time, so she could use some friends.”

  After strategically placing a gumdrop on her house, Candace turned to her inquisitively. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, her mom and dad got divorced a few years ago, and she lived with her mother. Then her mom was killed in an accident just before last Christmas. I bet it was a really sad holiday for her.” Clare paused and glanced toward Nicole, then looked back at Candace. “Anyway, after that she went to live with her dad. But he decided to move here, so she had to leave all her friends behind. That’s an awful lot of stuff to deal with. Enough to make anybody mad, don’t you think? And sad, too.”

  Candace frowned and looked uncertainly toward Nicole. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “So what are you going to do with your gingerbread house?” Clare asked.

  Candace continued to look at Nicole, and when she spoke her voice was more subdued. “I’m going to give it to my mom for Christmas.”

  “Well, I’m sure she’ll like it very much. I’m going to check and see how Nicole is doing on hers, but let me know if you need any more candy, okay?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Clare made her way toward Nicole, sending Candace a surreptitious glance as she admired her charge’s handiwork. The other girl was still watching them, a troubled expression on her face.

  Mission accomplished, Clare thought.

  Chapter Five

  “I thought I’d decorate the house tomorrow. Where do you keep your Christmas things?” Clare asked as she sliced a carrot cake for dessert.

  Adam’s face went from placid to troubled at the question. Other than an artificial tree, he didn’t have any holiday decorations. Elaine had always handled the decorating, and she’d taken all the expensive goo-gaws with her when they’d separated. He’d never bothered to replace them. It didn’t make much sense to waste a lot of time decorating when he’d lived alone and spent most of his time at the office, anyway. Then when Nicole had come to live with him shortly before the holidays last year, he’d had other things on his mind. Now, in retrospect, he realized that he should have made more of an effort to celebrate the holiday. Their Christmas last year had been a pretty dismal affair. He had tried to roast a turkey breast so they had some semblance of a holiday meal, but it had come out dry and overcooked. In the end, he’d sent for pizza from a local joint that was the only place open.

  “Adam?” Clare prodded when he didn’t respond.

  “We don’t have any,” Nicole said, shooting Adam a resentful look. “Except for a dumb fake tree that’s in the basement.”

  His neck reddened at his daughter’s indictment, and Adam expected to see censure in Clare’s eyes, as well. But when he finally had the courage to look at her, there was only sympathy and compassion reflected in their deep-blue depths.

  “Well, I think we can fix that. Assuming your dad agrees.”

  “Absolutely,” he concurred. “Get whatever you think we need.”

  “How about you and I go shopping on Saturday?” Clare said to Nicole.

  “Cool!”

  “And I definitely think we should have a real tree,” Clare added, a plan taking shape in her mind. “There’s an Elks lot at the edge of town that seems to have a good selection. And I saw in the paper that there’s going to be a holiday festival downtown on Sunday, with carolers and roasted chestnuts and all the trimmings. What do you think, Adam?”

  She supposed she should have discussed it first with him privately, in case he didn’t like the idea. But Clare didn’t want to give him the option of saying no. He and Nicole needed to spend time together in family activities or they’d never develop any kind of rapport. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to object.

  “That sounds good. In fact, let’s make a whole day of it. We can stop after church and have breakfast, then we’ll come home and change before we head out to pick a tree.”

  Nicole eyed him warily. “You never do stuff like that.” He gazed at her steadily. “Maybe it’s time I started.”

  Nicole didn’t respond. But before she turned her attention to the generous wedge of carrot cake that Clare placed before her, Adam saw the barest flicker of something in her eyes. Something he couldn’t quite identify, but for a brief moment, it seemed a little bit like hope.

  When he looked over to Clare, he saw different messages in her eyes. Approval. Gratitude. And something more. Something even less identifiable than the emotion in his daughter’s eyes. But just as potent.

  With a hand that wasn’t quite steady, Adam picked up his coffee cup and took a sip as Clare reached down to place his cake in front of him. And as her arm brushed his shoulder and her faint, pleasing scent invaded his nostrils, he suddenly felt warm.

  And it wasn’t from the coffee.

  They had shopped till they were ready to drop. Or at least Clare was ready to drop. Nicole seemed to have plenty of energy left, Clare thought with a wry grin as she watched her young charge veer off to check out yet another clothing display.

  They’d finished their shopping for affordable decorations at the Wal-Mart on the edge of town, then Clare had suggested they head for the nearest mall—which, much to her surprise, turned out to be nearly thirty miles away, just outside of Asheville—on the pretense of helping Nicole find a Christmas present for her father. But Clare’s real agenda was broader than that. She also wanted to supplement Nicole’s wardrobe with a few more age-appropriate items of clothing. She’d discussed it with Adam, and he had totally agreed that Nicole’s clothing left something to be desired. But he’d had no clue how to guide her. So he’d basically ended up letting her buy whatever she wanted, only to disapprove of it when he actually saw it on her. Clare hoped to begin rectifying that situation today.

  �
��Ooh, look at this cool top!” Nicole called, holding up an orange knit sweater that looked as if it had shrunk.

  Clare tried not to shudder as she pictured it on Nicole—skin-tight and midriff baring. But she knew that if she wanted to make any inroads on the youngster’s taste she needed to temper her response and use as much tact as she could muster.

  Clare joined Nicole and reached out to finger the top. “I like the material,” she said, keeping her tone conversational. Then she tilted her head and studied Nicole’s face. “I’m not sure about the color, though. You have such beautiful deep-green eyes…let’s see.” She glanced around the junior department, then walked over to a display table and selected a longer crew-neck cotton sweater in forest green. “Take a look at this, just for the color,” she said, positioning Nicole in front of a convenient mirror and holding the garment in front of her. The shade of green was almost a perfect match for the girl’s eyes, and the effect was startling. Her French braid highlighted the developing classic bone structure of her face, and the sweater put the focus on her best asset—her large green eyes.

  “Wow!” Nicole said.

  “Yeah. Wow!” Clare agreed with a grin.

  Nicole studied her image, then frowned as she fingered the sweater. “Too bad it’s so long.”

  “I don’t think it will look quite as long when it’s on,” Clare said. “Why don’t you try it? And it would look great with a pair of black pants. Let’s see what we can find.”

  Half an hour later, they left the store with not only the sweater and black pants, but a modestly short plaid skirt and black turtleneck. As well as a tie for Adam.

  “Do you think my dad will mind that we bought all these clothes?” Nicole asked anxiously as they made their way toward the car.