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Her throat tightened, and she coughed harshly as she hurried to her car. She didn’t deserve to cry.
Didn’t deserve a job. Didn’t deserve to spend time with Sammy. Didn’t deserve any kind of warmth from her former brother-in-law, Jack.
She drove carefully down to the ranch’s entrance, glanced back to make sure she was out of sight of Jack’s new house, and then pulled off the road.
She drew deep breaths, trying to get calm, but it was impossible.
She’d just spent time—botched her time, really—with precious Sammy.
Her adopted nephew.
And, unknown to anyone on this earth but her and Sammy’s adoption agency, her own biological son.
Chapter Two (#ua2df74c1-3254-5bf4-9655-a59c3e7e5894)
The next Thursday, Jack walked out onto his porch with nanny candidate number four, Sammy in his arms. His son’s wails died to a hiccup.
“Aw, he’s such a cute peanut,” the nineteen-year-old said, flicking a long lime-green fingernail under Sammy’s chin, which made him cry again. “Just give me a call about when to start, okay?”
“Um, Mandy,” Jack said to her retreating back. “I don’t think this is going to work out.”
She turned back in the process of extracting a cigarette from her purse. “What do you mean?”
“Sammy didn’t seem to connect with you,” he said. In the course of four nanny interviews, he’d learned to be blunt.
The teenager gave him a disbelieving stare. “He’s autistic,” she said, enunciating the word as if Jack were hard of hearing. “He’s not gonna connect with people.”
“Thanks for your time,” he said, “but I won’t be hiring you.”
She lit her cigarette, inhaled deeply and blew out a lungful of smoke. “What a waste coming up here. I told my mom I didn’t like babysitting.”
Jack blew out a breath as he watched her drive off and then sank down into one of the rockers on the porch, Sammy in his lap. “We dodged a bullet,” he informed his son.
Sammy looked at him solemnly but made no answering sounds, and worry bloomed anew in Jack’s chest. They needed to get started with treatment, but how could he find the time to interview nannies and therapeutic support staffers? He’d already maxed out Mrs. Jennings, his main caregiver in Esperanza Springs; although she’d assured him before that she’d be glad to continue babysitting Sammy after he moved, she’d quickly discovered she didn’t like driving ten miles on mountain roads to get here. And Penny had been sweet, taking care of Sammy twice, but he couldn’t continue asking that of the owner of Redemption Ranch.
From the newly renovated activities center, the sound of laughter made him turn his head. Four men emerged, one of them Carson Blair, his pastor, and another a veteran Jack knew a little. The other two were new to the ranch.
At their center was Arianna.
Before he knew it, he was on his feet, walking over.
“Everything okay here?” he asked. When the conversation abruptly died, he realized he must have sounded harsh.
Carson lifted an eyebrow. “We’re fine over here, Jack. Something up with you?”
I don’t like seeing Arianna surrounded by men, and I don’t know why. “No, everything’s fine,” he said.
Arianna seemed oblivious to any undercurrents. “Oh, hey,” she said to Jack. “What’s up with the little man?” She held out her arms for Sammy, and Jack was about to tell her not to bother, Sammy was upset. But his son considered her offer and then lifted his arms for her to pluck him from his father’s hold.
Immediately, Sammy quieted down. Arianna nuzzled her cheek against his, looking blissful.
Gabe Smith, the veteran Jack had met a few times, greeted him with a friendly handshake. “Hey, Doc, I hate to ask it of you, but could you take a look at Rufus?” He gestured to the porch of the activities center, where a large gray-muzzled dog sprawled. “He’s got a raw spot on his leg.”
“Sure. I’ll get my bag.” And pull myself together.
He had no right to care what his sister-in-law—former sister-in-law—was up to. He had to focus on getting help for Sammy. Another nanny candidate was arriving soon, hopefully better than the last.
He brought out his bag, glanced over to make sure Sammy was still content with Arianna, and then joined Gabe on the porch. Examining Rufus would ground him. Dogs were so straightforward compared to people, and Rufus was a steady, respectable senior dog.
“Where’s Bruiser?” he asked, and as if in answer, an elderly Chihuahua rushed out onto the porch, yipping. He postured stiff-legged in front of Rufus, teeth bared, growling at Jack.
“Hey, whoa, little buddy. I’m not gonna hurt your friend.” He moved closer, sideways, not making eye contact, so as not to threaten the pint-size protector.
“Bruiser!” Gabe scolded. “Quit that.” He picked up the little dog and sat down on the porch step, holding him.
Jack examined the hot spot Gabe was worried about and bandaged it. “We don’t want it to get infected. If he can just go a couple of days without licking it, it’ll heal.”
“Does he have to wear a collar of shame?” Gabe asked. “He hates it.”
“I might have one of the new soft kind in the truck. It’ll be more comfortable for him.” He rubbed Rufus’s big head and ears, and the dog lolled onto his back, panting.
Jack massaged the dog, enjoying the cool mountain breeze on his face. Despite his problems, he had a good life. New friends like Gabe, old friends like Penny, a healthy son, work he loved. And an environment where God’s grandeur was continually on display.
When Arianna approached, Sammy in her arms, he was surprised to see the warm expression on her face.
He gave her a smile in return, and their eyes linked and stayed for a second longer than was polite. Heat washed over him.
A black PT Cruiser chugged up the road then, breaking the mood. It stopped in front of his place, and a woman stepped out. She looked to be a few years older than Jack and was dressed in black slacks and an old-fashioned white blouse. Her hair was caught back in a tight bun. She marched up to his front door and knocked.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “Looks like Sammy and I have an appointment. Gabe, I’ll dig out one of those collars for Rufus and bring it over later. You going to be home?” He waved a hand toward Gabe’s cabin a short distance down the ranch’s main road.
“Sure thing, we’ll be around all day.”
The nanny pounded on his door again and then returned to her car with visible exasperation. She got in and leaned on the horn.
A drop of rain fell, then another. The clouds that had been coming in clustered over them.
The prospective nanny got out of her car, snapped open a black umbrella and marched toward the cabin’s porch again.
“You said you wanted Mary Poppins,” Arianna murmured, a smile tugging at her mouth.
“So I did,” he said with a sigh.
None of this was going to be as easy as he’d hoped.
* * *
“Thanks for letting me stay with you, Aunt Justine,” Arianna said the next morning as she dodged stacks of magazines and newspapers to get their breakfast dishes to the kitchen sink.
“You’re as welcome as can be,” her aunt said. “I just wish the place were in better shape for visitors.” She looked toward the hallway that led back to the bedrooms. “He won’t let me throw anything away, and his stuff is filling up the whole house.”
“I know how hard you try.” Arianna submerged the dishes in soapy water and started to scrub. “I’m either going to find a job and a place to stay within the week, or I’ll have to move back to Chicago.”
“Don’t do that!” Aunt Justine sounded horrified. “You should have settled down here like your sister did, not in that soulless city, when your parents moved overseas. I never could figure out why you chose to live there. I thought you loved it here, especially when you spent that one whole summer here during college.”
Arianna rinsed the dishes and dunked a couple of dirty pans from the counter into the soapy water. It was good that Aunt Justine had never figured out the reason for Arianna’s abrupt departure. Almost no one had known about the mistakes that had led to a surprise pregnancy. That was what had allowed Chloe to adopt Arianna’s baby with no one the wiser.
Including Jack. Arianna sighed. She’d been adamantly opposed to Chloe keeping the truth from her husband. But Chloe had been as embarrassed about her infertility as Arianna was about her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Somehow, adopting her sister’s baby, and having people know it, made everything worse for Chloe.
And given how sensitive Chloe was, Arianna had given in. It was what she’d been raised to do. Take care of your sister. She’s not strong like you. Don’t upset her.
She pushed thoughts of her younger days out of her mind and asked Aunt Justine about her vegetable garden and the cat that had shown up on the doorstep yesterday. They had a nice chat while Arianna finished the washing up.
“There. That’s better, at least.” Arianna surveyed the empty sink and two feet of clear counter space with satisfaction. “Now, I’m going to go out and sell myself as an art therapist.”
“Thank you for cleaning up, hon. I’ll keep praying for a wonderful job for you.”
Arianna strolled through the town of Esperanza Springs, inhaling the fresh scents of pine and sage that blew down from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, watching a black-and-white magpie land on someone’s fence post to scold the pedestrians walking by. From the Mountain High Bakery, the cinnamon scent was so powerful that Arianna was sorely tempted to pop in for a scone, even though she’d just had breakfast. But she didn’t need to outgrow her summer clothes, so she walked resolutely past the bakery. She waved at the woman washing the windows of La Boca Feliz Mexican restaurant, and peeked in the hardware store window, then focused on her destination: the children’s summer program housed in a local church. She was hoping they’d jump at the chance to have a real art therapist visit with the kids each week for the rest of the summer.
It had been a long shot, and she’d known it, but she was still disappointed at the firm no she got. Disappointed enough that she stopped in the town park to look out at the mountains, breathe in the fresh air and regroup.
She hadn’t expected to land in a bed of roses when she’d come back to Esperanza Springs. She’d known the market for art therapists would be tiny; this town was about the basics, not the luxuries, and art therapy was considered a luxury by most of the folks around here.
The exception was up at Redemption Ranch. Penny and her staff were forward thinking; they knew that it took various types of therapy to reach veterans, to help them work through PTSD and other mental health issues related to their wartime service.
Maybe she could talk Penny into giving her more work than just the single class per week that she’d offered. And maybe one of the cabins was empty. If she could live rent-free...
It was another long shot, but at least it was worth trying. For the chance to live near her son, it was definitely worth a try. None of her attempts to put the past behind her and get on with her life had worked, so she hoped being near Sammy would help to settle her soul. That was the real reason she’d come back to Colorado.
Although, if Jack found out the truth, he’d be furious. Understandably so. She and Chloe should never have kept something so important from him.
What if he got angry enough to keep her away from Sammy? Could he do that? Would he?
And what about Sammy, when he got old enough to wonder about his adoption and his birth parents?
She shook her head to try to shake off the circling thoughts and tuned back in to the world around her.
“That poor little thing,” a woman was saying. She was on a bench behind Arianna, facing the playground. “They have no idea where he came from.”
Idly, Arianna turned to see who the ladies were talking about.
And then she sucked in a breath. There was Sammy on the playground, just a few feet away from the women, toddling from the slide to the climbing structure, where a set of chimes was available for the kids to bang on.
“Turns out he has autism,” the same woman said to a younger mom seated beside her, who was nursing a baby. “And now that I think about it, look how he just stands there banging on one thing over and over. I should have guessed.”
“What’s Dr. Jack gonna do? He’s a widower, right?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not as young as I used to be. And I didn’t bargain for babysitting an autistic kid.”
Arianna didn’t know how she got to Sammy, but she found herself beside him, facing the two women on the bench. “Look,” she said to the white-haired one, who’d been talking, “he’s a child first. And he might not like to have his condition broadcast to everyone in the park.”
“Who are you?” the white-haired woman asked.
That made Arianna pause, because she couldn’t tell the whole truth, obviously. “I’m his aunt.”
The woman pursed her lips. “I wasn’t expecting to be eavesdropped on and criticized when I took this job,” she said. “I’ve been planning to tell Dr. Jack I’m through. Maybe I’ll just do it today. I don’t need this.”
Arianna studied her and saw tears behind the angry expression. “Look, maybe I spoke too harshly. I just feel like a child’s medical condition is private.”
“No, you’re right, I’m a terrible babysitter.” She sighed and held out a hand toward Sammy, who looked at her and then turned back to the chimes. “I talk too much, don’t I, sugar? And you don’t talk at all.”
The other woman finished nursing her baby, packed up and hurried away with her little one.
“I shouldn’t have said anything, maybe,” Arianna said to Sammy’s babysitter. “I just... Well, I was thinking, it’s not other people’s business what condition little Sammy has. Strangers, I mean. Like her.” She gestured toward the rapidly departing young mother.
“I suppose,” the woman said. “But honestly, I have to talk to someone. I can’t deal with all the things this child is going to need. Dr. Jack is lovely, but he brought up supervising therapists and having people come to the home to work with him each day... I didn’t sign up for that. I’m retired. We didn’t even have autism when I was growing up.”
Well, they’d had it, they just hadn’t diagnosed it, but whatever. “I’m sure it can all be worked out. Jack and Sammy really need the help.”
“I’m overwhelmed,” the woman admitted. “I’m also a grandma, and I’m not sure whether my grandkids should be around him. Oh, not that he’ll hurt them or anything, but they might be too rough or tease him. It’s just all so complicated.”
“I’m sure Jack will help,” she said soothingly, watching Sammy. Did he really act autistic? Was he banging for an unusually long time on those chimes?
Maybe he was exhibiting musical talent. How could you even tell the difference?
Just then Sammy saw them watching and toddled over, arms extended toward Arianna.
“See, and he never comes to me. And he doesn’t speak. He’s a difficult child to work with.”
Arianna picked Sammy up and held him loosely against her. “Do you have one of his toys?”
The woman fumbled through her bag, but she was obviously more intent on venting her feelings as she absentmindedly handed Arianna a cloth block that jingled when shaken. “I don’t think he likes me,” she said.
“He might just not be very expressive,” Arianna said, feeling defensive for Sammy. “Kids with autism don’t always smile a lot.” How had this turned into a coaching session for a woman more than twice her age?
And what if the coaching didn’t work and the woman decided to quit?
“To think, I’m sitting here in the park and getting in trouble for a chat I have with an acquaintance.” The woman waved off in the direction of the woman who’d left with her baby. “You know what? I’ve had enough. You’re his aunt, you say?”
Arianna nodded. She was getting a very bad feeling.
“He obviously knows and likes you. Better than he likes me.” The woman stood and plunked the diaper bag into Arianna’s lap. “Here,” she said. “You take care of him. His father will be here in half an hour. Tell him he can mail me my last paycheck.”
“But...but...”
It was no use. The woman left, and there was Arianna, literally left holding the bag.
The bag, and her secret son.
