The Nanny

Giggles drifted across the garden. She whirled and saw the three Ingalls children peeking at her through the cornstalks. Peeking, laughing, pointing—and holding a slingshot.

“You shot me!” she exclaimed.

The boy raised the slingshot, taking aim at her again. Anger zipped through Annie. She threw down her hoe, yanked off her gloves and took off after them. The children—completely taken by surprise—squealed and raced away.

They were small and quick, but Annie was mad. She chased them down the rows until they broke free into the meadow. Easily she passed the youngest child, left behind by the older two. Arms and legs churning, Annie pursued them down the hill to the edge of the woods.

She caught them both by the backs of their shirts and yanked them to a stop. The girl screamed. The boy tried to dart away, but Annie scooped him up under her arm and grabbed the girl’s wrist.

“Be still!” Annie commanded.

They didn’t, of course. A new cry joined their wails. Annie saw the youngest girl standing nearby, unsure of what to do.

“Run, Cassie, run!” the oldest girl shouted. “Run and hide!”

“Come over here!” Annie told her.

“No! Don’t!” the boy called, squirming. “Run away! Run fast!”

Annie gave him a shake. “Be still! All of you!”

The children stared up at her, their eyes wide and their mouths open. This, surely, was not the response they’d expected when they’d picked Annie for slingshot target practice. They quieted.

“All right, that’s better. Now, come here.” Annie led the oldest girl to the shade of the trees. “Sit.” When she did, Annie dropped the boy beside her. The youngest girl darted to her brother and sister and squeezed between them.

Annie stood over the three children, catching her breath. All had brown eyes and dark hair, the girls with long braids, the boy with bangs that would need trimming soon. Dirt smudged their faces. The girls’ dresses were soiled; the boy’s skinny knee showed through a rip in his trousers.

Grimy, disheveled, unkempt. Still, they were beautiful children. It would have been hard to be angry at them if Annie’s backside didn’t hurt so much.

She bent down and yanked the slingshot from the boy’s hand. “What’s your name?”

His bottom lip poked out. “Drew.”

“This is dangerous,” Annie said, shaking the slingshot at him. “It’s not a play toy. Why did you shoot me with it?”

He shrugged his little shoulders and looked away. “I don’t know.”

Annie turned to the oldest girl. “What’s your name?”

“Ginny,” she told her, looking her straight in the eye. “And we did it because we wanted to. That’s why. Because we wanted to.”

“Well, you can’t do that,” Annie declared.

Little Cassie whimpered and snuggled closer to Ginny, ducking her head.

“Don’t yell,” Ginny told Annie as she looped her arm around her little sister. “Cassie gets scared when people yell.”

Annie shoved the slingshot into her back pocket, beginning to feel like a brute towering over the children. Seated quietly on the ground, gazing up at her attentively, they looked like innocent little angels. Annie’s anger faded.

“Well, all right, no real harm done, I suppose,” she said. “But you’re not to shoot at any living thing ever again. Not people, animals or birds. Nothing. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they chimed together.

“Good. Now—”

Hoofbeats pounded the ground behind her. Seeing the approaching rider, all three children scrambled to their feet. Cassie squealed and climbed straight up Annie’s leg into her arms. Annie spun around, pulling Ginny and Drew behind her, her heart racing. She was sure, from the looks on the children’s faces, that they were all about to be murdered.

The lone rider pulled his horse to a stop. The stallion tossed its head and pawed the ground.

“What’s going on here?” the man demanded.

Annie gulped. Good Lord, the man was huge—tall, with broad shoulders and a big chest. Seated atop the horse, he seemed to tower over them. Brown hair touched his collar. Dark eyes glared at her from beneath the brim of his hat.

“Well?” he demanded again. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

Cassie squeezed Annie’s neck tighter. The other two children crowded closer behind her. Annie’s own fear turned to anger.

“I might ask you the same,” Annie declared, glaring up at him. “What business is it of yours?”

“I know,” Cassie whispered in her ear.

The man’s frown deepened.

Annie pushed her chin higher. “You’ve no business charging up like that, frightening the children. Who do you think you are?”

“I know,” Cassie said. “He’s our papa.”

Chapter Two

“He’s your…?”

“Papa,” Cassie said again.

Annie looked down at Ginny and Drew, who were peeking around her. They nodded.

She dared turn to the man again, withering beneath his harsh gaze. “You’re their…father?”

“I am.”

“Then that would make you…”

“Josh Ingalls.”

“Oh, dear.” Josh Ingalls. Her employer.

“What’s your name?” Josh demanded.

She gulped. “Annie. Annie Martin. I work here, tending the gardens.”