The Nanny's Secret Baby

Chapter Three (#ua2df74c1-3254-5bf4-9655-a59c3e7e5894)

Jack’s last Saturday appointment was with a longtime patient: Mr. McCrady’s Irish setter, Cider. He ran his fingers over the dog’s hunched haunches and manipulated her legs, noticing when the stoic creature gave a little flinch. “Her arthritis is bothering her more?”

“Hers and mine, both.” Mr. McCrady’s forehead wrinkled as he stroked his dog’s ears. “She has trouble getting out of her bed some mornings. Can we get her on pain meds?”

“Absolutely.” Jack finished the exam and then scratched Cider’s chest, glad to note that her plume of a tail wagged. “There are risks to her kidneys that come with that type of medication, so we’ll want to keep up with her bloodwork. But I think she’s earned some pain relief.”

“That she has,” Mr. McCrady said. “She’s been my best friend since my wife died. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

The dog panted, seeming to smile up at her owner. Her white face and warm brown eyes communicated pure, uncomplicated love. Jack had really come to appreciate senior dogs since he’d been working at Redemption Ranch.

He got Mr. McCrady and Cider set with a prescription and an appointment for a follow-up visit and then stepped into his office to check messages.

He skimmed past seven he could handle later, and then his fingers froze.

Why was Arianna messaging him?

Problem with your sitter. I have Sammy and he’s fine. Come to my aunt’s house, 30 Maple Ave. ASAP

A problem with his sitter? He scrolled on through but didn’t see a message from Mrs. Jennings.

“Gotta run,” he said to his receptionist, who was gathering up her things. “There’s an issue with Sammy. Can you and Thomas close up?”

“Sure thing, Doc. Hope everything’s okay.”

Jack drove the four blocks to Maple Avenue without his usual pauses to enjoy the town’s Saturday bustle and then hurried up the front sidewalk to Arianna’s aunt’s house. He’d been here a couple of times in the early days of his marriage, but Chloe hadn’t gotten along with her aunt and uncle—hadn’t gotten along with a lot of people, including Arianna—so he didn’t know them well.

When he rang the doorbell, Arianna’s aunt Justine answered. “Hey, Dr. Jack, you sure you want to come into the craziness?”

“I got a message that my son’s here,” he said.

“In the kitchen.” She gestured behind her. “Come on in.”

Jack’s eyes widened at the stacks of magazines and newspapers that allowed only a narrow path through the hallway.

“I don’t want any more people in here!” came a bellow from the other end of the house.

“It’s just Dr. Jack,” Aunt Justine yelled back. “He’s here to get his baby.”

“Well, send him on his way.”

She gave Jack an apologetic shrug. “Go on in and see Arianna and Sammy. He—” she gestured in the direction from which her husband’s shout had come “—he’s embarrassed about how the house looks. I just have to calm him down.” Justine turned and hurried toward the back of the house.

Jack picked his way through the mess, his uneasiness growing.

When he got to the kitchen, his focus immediately went to Sammy. His son sat straight-legged on a clean blanket next to Arianna, who was talking at a computer screen.

Sammy held a wooden spoon and was tapping it against a plastic bowl with intense concentration.

“I have experience with teenagers, yes,” Arianna was saying to the screen. Her wild curls were pulled back into a neat bun, and her peach-colored shirt was more tailored and buttoned-up than what she usually wore.

She also had a streak of what looked like blueberry jam across her cheek that matched the streaks on Sammy’s shirt. Oops.

“I’m staying with relatives in Esperanza Springs right now,” she said, apparently in answer to an interview question. “But I’m able to relocate for the right job.”

She was doing a Skype interview and, for whatever reason, she was also taking care of his son.

And she was thinking about relocating? Jack’s chest tightened.

But he didn’t have time to wonder what that was about. “Come here, buddy,” he said quietly, holding out his hands to pick up Sammy. The steady banging noise his son was making couldn’t help Arianna’s cause.

Sammy noticed him for the first time and pumped his little arms. Jack’s heart lifted, and he swung Sammy up.

But not before Sammy’s flailing feet made a stack of plastic containers clatter to the ground. The noise startled Sammy, and he began to cry.

Jack glanced at Arianna in time to see her slight cringe. The person doing the interview, blurry on the screen, frowned.

“I can send you reference letters or give you phone numbers,” Arianna said over the din.

She turned up the sound and Jack heard the fatal words: “We’ll be in touch.”

He carried Sammy out of the room, waved to Justine, who stood at the end of a hallway arguing with her husband, and went out the front door. He started toward his truck, then paused. He needed to get Sammy home, but first, he’d better wait and find out from Arianna what was going on. And apologize for disrupting her job interview.

Putting Sammy down on his blanket, he showed him a smooth stick. True to form, Sammy found it fascinating and began to bang it on the ground.

It wasn’t three minutes before Arianna came out. “Hey,” she said when she saw him.

“How’d your job interview go?” he asked. “I’m sorry for all the noise.”

She shrugged. “What will be will be,” she said. “I was just hoping... It’s my only semilocal opportunity.” Her words were casual, but her eyes were upset. She was fingering her necklace, and Jack saw that it was a cross.

Yeah, he’d heard she’d come to the faith in a big way.

“So what happened with Sammy?”

She sighed. “It’s my fault.”

“What’s your fault?” Arianna meant well, but chaos followed her wherever she went. Chloe had always said as much.

“The sitter was talking about his autism in the park, where everyone could hear,” she said. “I sort of got upset and told her she shouldn’t share his diagnosis—which wasn’t my business, and I’m sorry—and she ended up dumping him and all his stuff on me.”

“She was talking about his diagnosis? At the park?”

“She didn’t mean any harm. I think she was just trying to figure out how to cope.”

That sounded like Mrs. Jennings.

Sammy looked up, and Jack sat down to be closer, rubbing his son’s back. How was he going to do right by Sammy? The child needed careful, consistent care, and he’d known for a while that Mrs. Jennings couldn’t fit the bill, even before they’d gotten the diagnosis. But now, his interviews with so-called serious sitters weren’t going any better. He’d even tried Skyping with a couple of women from out of state, but he’d not gotten a warm feeling from any of them.