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Gregory took the brush and started tugging it through her snarled hair. He came to a knot and left the brush stuck there. Tapping Melissa’s résumé, he asked, “You’ve held a variety of jobs, but none remotely connected to child care. Plus there’s a big gap in your work history. Were you on holiday for the whole ten months?”
“Come here, honey,” Melissa called to Alice Ann. She straightened the girl’s skirt, then extricated the brush and gently worked through the tangles, strand by strand. She glanced at Gregory, knowing her explanation wasn’t going to sound good. “I was traveling with the Cirque du Soleil.”
“You ran away and joined the circus?” he asked skeptically.
“Were there lion tamers?” Alice Ann made claws with her fingers and roared at Melissa.
“No, it’s not that kind of circus,” she said, laughing. “My former boyfriend is a highwire artist,” she replied. “Our relationship didn’t work out so I came back.”
“You up and ran off for ten months,” Gregory mused. “That suggests a certain lack of stability on your part.
“Or adventurousness.” Melissa finished combing out the tangles. She picked a pair of sparkly purple hair clips from the handful Alice Ann had brought and pinned them on either side of her head.
Gregory studied her through narrowed eyes, then dropped his gaze to his notes. Finally he looked up. “Why do you want to be a nanny?”
Melissa opened her mouth, but no brilliant lies came out. Finally she settled on the truth, or as close to the truth as she could get without giving Diane away. “I want to do Something Big.”
“Something Big?” His eyebrows lifted, as if her answer surprised him. “Something Big,” he repeated thoughtfully, and his expression softened. “You believe looking after children is that important?”
Melissa nodded. She did, actually, although in all honesty she hadn’t imagined herself doing it until about twelve hours ago. Gregory seemed impressed, though, so she just smiled and tried to look like a competent, caring mother substitute.
“I’ll have to think it over and get back to you.” He got up, indicating the interview was over, and held out his hand. “Thank you for coming by.”
“Thank you.” She wasn’t expecting the pulse of warmth as their palms clasped, or the jolt when his eyes met hers. “I—I’ll need that résumé back, if you don’t mind.”
Gregory scribbled down her phone number on his legal pad and handed her the sheets. “Your good copy, is it?”
Ignoring his comment, Melissa crouched to say goodbye to Alice Ann and drew the girl into a hug. “If I don’t see you again, take care. You’re just perfect. Don’t let anyone turn you into a mouse, or anything else you’re not.”
Alice Ann nodded, eyes wide. “I’ll watch out for that mean old witch. I’ll turn her into a bat!”
Melissa rose to her feet and started down the steps of the veranda. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”
Yeah, right, she thought as she walked back to her car. When pigs fly! What a disaster. She gave a last smile and a wave to Gregory and Alice Ann, then put her car in gear and set off. He was probably calling Mrs. Blundstone right now. Soon Alice Ann would be reading at a fourth-grade level. Melissa would wind up selling time-shares in the Simpson Desert over the phone to little old ladies. Diane and her kids would be found and sent back to her abusive husband. And Gregory would believe he’d done the right thing and wonder why he was still lonely.
Melissa drew up with a start. Gregory, lonely? Where had that come from? He was a successful lawyer, a handsome man. He most likely had heaps of friends, not to mention women hanging around. But there was something in his eyes that said he was looking for more. Maybe like her, he didn’t even know what that something was. Or who. Okay, now she was getting fanciful.
Her mobile phone rang just as she was about to turn out of his driveway onto Balderdash Road. “Hello?”
“The job is yours.” Gregory’s voice sounded deeper over the phone.
Melissa slammed on the brakes and the car slewed sideways in the gravel. “You mean it?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Can you move in tomorrow?”
“I’ll move in tonight!”
“You are keen.” Gregory chuckled. “Okay, then. Come for dinner at six.” He paused. “I did mention, didn’t I, that I would also expect you to help out with the pigs occasionally?”
“The pigs?” she repeated slowly.
“Yes,” Gregory said. “Is that a problem?”
Melissa swallowed. “No, not at all. I love pigs.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“YOUR ROOM IS HERE, across the hall from Alice Ann’s. Mine is at the end of the corridor, past the bathroom.” Gregory stepped back, allowing Melissa to go in first.
“This is lovely.” She dropped her purse and overnight bag on the floor and slowly looked around.
White muslin curtains billowed at the open window next to the bed with its burgundy silk coverlet. Alice Ann had picked some dandelions from the yard and wild irises from the pond and placed them in a jar on the dresser.
Gregory followed her in, carrying one suitcase and an open box of books. The room seemed smaller with her in it. The faint scent of her perfume… Her bright hair, her soft laugh, her ultra femininity…it all made him wonder if he’d made a huge mistake. He wouldn’t have worried about Mrs. Blundstone keeping him awake at night. But Alice Ann had begged him to hire Melissa, and knowing he was soon going to upset his daughter about Benny, he’d given in.
He set the suitcase on the bed and lowered the box to the floor. A couple of volumes slid off the top. Picking them up, he glanced at the titles. “Emergency Medicine, Handbook of Alternative Medicine, First Aid for Dummies. Are you studying for a degree?”
“No, just personal interest.” Melissa took the books from him and slotted them into the bookshelf next to the bed.
“Right. Well, I’ll let you settle in,” he said as he backed out of the room. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”
Back in the kitchen, Gregory shifted stacks of papers and coloring books to the already overflowing sideboard. “Lie down, Maxie,” he growled as the dog followed him back and forth across the room. Maxie retired to her place beneath an old wooden armchair. “Alice Ann, pick up your toys before someone trips on them.”
“Okay, Daddy.” She scrambled to her feet and started to gather up her plastic barn and farm animals. “Did Melissa like the flowers?”
“I loved them,” Melissa said from the doorway. “Thank you.”
Gregory glanced up. “I apologize for the mess.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” She cleared a used coffee cup off the table and took it to the sink. “Where do you keep your plates?”
“I’ll show you.” Alice Ann dropped her toys back on the floor and ran to a cupboard. “In here. The spoons and stuff are in this drawer. And the glasses are up there.”
“Can you help me set the table?” Melissa asked, smiling. The girl nodded vigorously and took handfuls of cutlery from the drawer.
“I’m a very plain cook, I’m afraid. This is left over from yesterday.” Gregory drained spaghetti into a bowl and set the casserole dish of Bolognese sauce on the table. A double handful of mixed lettuce leaves constituted a salad. “I’m looking forward to your gourmet cooking.”
Melissa touched her dangly earring. “Yes, well, I like to keep it simple, too.” She cocked her head toward Alice Ann, who had taken her place at the table. “Kids don’t generally like fancy food.”
“Alice Ann is an exception to that rule,” Gregory said, gesturing for Melissa to be seated. “She eats anything.”
The child grinned. “I’m a little piggy. Oink, oink.”
“You’re skinny for a piggy,” Melissa said as she started to scoop noodles into the girl’s bowl. “Say when.”
“When!” Alice Ann shouted after two big forkfuls.
“She eats anything, just not much of it.” Gregory picked a lettuce leaf out of the salad bowl and dropped it on her plate.
Alice Ann ignored it and started twirling spaghetti around her fork. “How old are you, Melissa? Daddy was wondering.”
“I was not.” All he’d said was that Melissa looked awfully young. “It’s not polite to ask,” he told his daughter, adding to Melissa, “I beg your pardon.”
“I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m twenty-six.”
“Daddy’s eleventy-seven,” Alice Ann informed her.
“He’s aged well.” Melissa handed him the bowl of pasta. “You don’t look a day over eleventy-five.”
“Thirty-seven,” he corrected. “Alice Ann, tonight before bedtime we’ll review your numbers up to one hundred.”
Melissa frowned at him with a little shake of her head that set her feathery earrings fluttering. Was she saying he was too hard on his daughter? He tried to do the right thing, but there was nothing like attempting to understand a small girl to make a grown man feel inadequate. “Alice Ann’s starting school next year,” he explained. “I want her to be as prepared as possible.”
“So I guess you read to her a lot,” Melissa said, taking a bite of salad.
“Of course.” He shifted uncomfortably, recalling his recent battle of wills over Alice Ann’s choice of books.
“He won’t read Charlotte’s Web,” Alice Ann complained. “It was from Grandma Finch and he took it away.”
“You’re not quite old enough for that book,” Gregory said. Saving a pig was all very well in a children’s book, but this was real life, and Gregory didn’t want Alice Ann getting any crazy ideas. He turned to Melissa to change the subject. “How do you know Constance?”
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