Maid for the Single Dad

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“Hey! I’m at the gate. Now what?”

Ellie glanced around. Not only did she not know how to open the gate, but Mac wasn’t here to show her. She couldn’t even attempt to please this privileged family on her limited knowledge of cooking. She had to get that cookbook. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to open the gate and I can’t ask Mac because he just took the kids out on his boat.”

“Well, all I have is the cookbook. Why don’t you come to me and I’ll pass it through the gate to you?”

Ellie sighed with relief. “Good idea.”

Feeling like a criminal, she snuck out the front door of the echoing mansion, raced down the front yard and reached through the gate bars to get the cookbook from Ava.

“Thanks.”

Cain Nestor’s fifty-five-year-old assistant peered over her black frame glasses at Ellie. “Tell me I’ll be able to get through the gate tonight when we have to debrief about Happy Maids.”

“You will. I swear,” Ellie said, walking backward up the grassy front yard to return to the house.

“Good. I’ll see you tonight,” Ava called, but Ellie was already running toward the door. Cookbook under her arm, she tiptoed up the silent hall to the kitchen even though she knew she was alone in the house. Mac had said he and his children would be gone the entire afternoon, yet she still felt as if she was doing something wrong.

But she wasn’t. She could cook. She simply hadn’t memorized recipes for anything beyond burgers and spaghetti. All she had to do was find a recipe, prepare the food, and serve it like a good maid, then Cain and Liz would both get the recommendations they needed.

Sitting at the weathered table by the French doors, she took the cookbook out of the plastic bookstore bag. Easy Main Dishes in Under An Hour. Ellie laughed. Ava was nothing if not perceptive! This should be a cinch.

She perused the recipes, with one eye on the canal so she would see the Carmichael family if they returned unexpectedly. Spotting a recipe she liked—penne pasta with portabella mushrooms and red and yellow peppers—she took the book with her as she walked around the kitchen, checking for supplies.

The well-stocked refrigerator had both red and yellow peppers and portabella mushrooms. The cabinet held penne pasta. Next she found the ingredients for the Alfredo sauce. Interestingly, in the last cabinet on the row closest to the door leading to the stairway, she also found the controls for the gate, including a small computer monitor that displayed the feed from the video camera. One button said “Open gate.” One said “Close gate.” A system couldn’t get any simpler than that.

Because the meal would only take an hour to prepare, she decided to do laundry and some light cleaning while Mac and the kids were out on the ocean.

She found baskets of dirty clothes in each of the kids’ bathrooms, but she stopped at the master suite. Mac hadn’t even opened the door to let her peek in as he’d done with Lacy’s room. A bedroom was such a private space, it felt like an invasion to even look inside. Forget about walking in. She’d feel like an interloper. She’d already had to talk herself out of being suspicious of this guy. She didn’t want to give her free-wheeling imagination any more grist for the mill!

Maybe tomorrow she’d be adjusted enough to collect his laundry, but she’d handled enough for today.

After sorting the kids’ clothes, she put a load into the washer then returned downstairs, this time using the fancy curved cherrywood stairway.

She walked past the living room with shiny marble floor, heavy tapestry drapes and ultramodern furniture with glass tables. Not exactly her taste, but in keeping with the rest of the museum-like décor. The room wasn’t even in need of a light dusting. So she checked the dining room, playroom, sitting room and den and found them all in the same spotless condition. She walked to the kitchen where she grabbed the notepad on which she’d made the list of everything that needed to be done as Mac had suggested, and began arranging things in the best order for cleaning. Whether the rooms “needed” dusting or not, she would begin a rotation that maintained the spotless condition of this home.

By the time the yacht returned, she had a schedule developed that would assure the entire house would be kept spotless, the laundry would be done and three meals would be prepared.

Chopping the peppers, she watched out the window as Mac carried Henry on his arm and led his daughter up the dock to the backyard and toward the house. She fought the suspicion again that something was wrong with this picture because she didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t something she could see or something she’d heard, only a sense she had. If she just had something substantial to base the feeling on, she’d know how to handle it. Instead, she had only an unhappy imagination that was making her crazy.

Annoyed with herself for not dropping this, she waited for them to enter the kitchen, but after fifteen minutes she realized they had probably come in through another door. Two seconds later, Mac walked into the kitchen wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

“Everything okay?”

Trying to behave like a normal maid, not an overly suspicious idiot, she smiled shakily at him. “Great. I spent the afternoon creating a cleaning schedule, so I can hit the ground running tomorrow.”

“There’s no rush.” Mac opened the refrigerator and snagged an apple. “The place is immaculate. It can go a day or two without being dusted. I want you to get accustomed to the house and the cleaning end of things these next few days so that when I go back to work, the kids can be your priority.” He caught her gaze. “I also want this time for the kids to get accustomed to seeing you around the house. To get to know you before you’re their primary caregiver.”

Okay. See? He had a good explanation for having her around the kids, but not actually interacting with them. He was giving her time to get accustomed to the house and giving the kids time to get accustomed to her. That made more sense than to think something was wrong with him.

“I’ll be fine with the kids.” That she could say with complete confidence. “Helping some friends—” She almost said the women living in A Friend Indeed houses, but thought the better of it. She didn’t really know Mac and most of the charity’s work was confidential to protect the identities of the women seeking shelter. “I’ve babysat, played board games and gone to the beach more times than I can count.”

He crunched a bite of the apple, chewed then swallowed and said, “Great.” He paused for a second before he added, “This job won’t last long. My assistant is working with two employment agencies now, looking for a replacement for Mrs. Devlin. She’ll do initial interviews. I’ll do the second interview.”

“So you should have a replacement in three weeks?” Ellie asked hopefully.

He winced. “More like four.”

Liz’s entire honeymoon.

“I’m sorry that I sort of strong-armed you into this. But my kids are important to me and I don’t want just anybody around them.”

Surprised, but pleased that he’d apologized—once again confirming that he was a nice guy and she had to stop looking for bad things about him—she nodded. “I get that. We’ll be fine.”

“And there’s one other thing I forgot to mention. I’d prefer that you not tell anyone where you’re working.”

She winced. “I’m sorry but I already told Ava. She’s helping me with Happy Maids. But you don’t have to worry,” she hastily added, not wanting to anger him unnecessarily. “Ava works for Cain. He owns five businesses. She knows how to be discreet.”

“Okay.” He turned to leave the room, but suddenly faced her again. “What are you making for dinner?”

“Penne pasta with red and yellow peppers.” She glanced up at him. “I never asked what time you’d like to eat.”

“I eat with Lacy, which means we always eat before six.”

“Okay.” That gave her forty minutes. “I better get a move on then.”

Henry’s soft cries poured from the baby monitor and Ellie froze. Already her impulse was to drop everything and rush to get the baby when he cried. But she waited to see what Mac wanted her to do.

He said, “I’ll get him,” and headed for the back stairway. “As I said, when I’m here, I take care of the kids.”

This time his doing her job didn’t bother her. He’d explained that he wanted her to get accustomed to things…the house, the cleaning schedule…All that was good. It even made more sense from the perspective of his wanting to give the kids a chance to get accustomed to her.

She had nothing to worry about.

She gathered the items from the recipe and began preparing the sauce. Her eyes on the list of ingredients, she measured and poured milk, cheese and butter into the pan. Stirring the sauce as it heated, she tried to keep her mind on her cooking, but couldn’t.

The instincts she kept trying to ignore tiptoed into her conscious, whispering that Mac wasn’t being nice. He was keeping his kids away from her because he didn’t really trust her. Sure, he’d apologized about strong-arming her, and, yes, he had a good explanation about why he was doing her job…but there was something in the air in this house. Something that didn’t quite fit.

Something…

The sauce in the pot bubbled over and Ellie jumped back out of the way with a squeak as she snapped off the gas burner.

She heard the sound of Mac racing down the stairs and quickly placed her body in front of the stove to hide the mess.

“Everything okay?” he asked, walking into the kitchen with Henry on his arm.

“Great.”

“I thought I heard a squeal.”

The odd feeling returned again. He had every right to investigate a squeal, but the tone of his voice just didn’t sit right.

Of course, she might be overanalyzing because she was nervous about having just burned a big part of his dinner!

“I…Um…” She swallowed to gather her courage. “My sauce just boiled over.”

“Oh. Okay, if everything’s under control the kids and I are going to take a short walk.”

He took it so casually that Ellie blinked in surprise as Mac turned away. Sam would have screamed at her for hours for ruining dinner, proving Mac wasn’t a full-fledged grouch or even really a control freak. So what the heck was going on here?

As Mac called, “Lacy!” Ellie noticed Henry had on a straw hat and a lightweight one-piece pajama that covered his entire body to protect him from the sun. Ellie didn’t criticize Mac’s diligence. But it did further the theory that he was very protective of his children and she’d better do the absolute best job she could do when she was alone with them—

Ah! Now she got it.

The parents of the kids she typically babysat for trusted her. This guy didn’t know her. So how could he trust her? He couldn’t! That was why he seemed to be keeping the kids from her. Until he got to know her he’d probably huddle over Henry and Lacy rather than let her alone with them…and probably also question her every move. His distrust could even be the “odd” thing she sensed in the air of this house.

Lacy ran into the room. She also wore a straw hat to protect her from the sun. “I’m ready, Daddy.”

Mac said, “Let’s go.” Then he and the kids trooped out of the kitchen.

Ellie spun around and looked at the milk-covered burner on the stove with a groan. She grabbed her cell phone from her jeans pocket.

“Ava, can you get a jar of store-bought Alfredo sauce here in twenty minutes?”

Ava laughed. “Ellie, you’re going to wear me out.”

“This time I can let you in the gate.”

“Great. I’ll fill you in on the Happy Maids stuff while I’m there.”

Twenty minutes later, Ava arrived with two jars of Alfredo sauce and the maids’ time sheets to be signed for payroll. As Ellie poured the penne pasta, portabella mushrooms and red and yellow peppers into a casserole dish and then covered them with Alfredo sauce and popped them into the oven, Ava briefed her on Happy Maids’ day.

“Nothing out of the ordinary happened. The houses were cleaned as scheduled. The Maids have their jobs for tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Ava.”

“You’re welcome. Now, I have to get home. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon around this time.” Ava headed for the butler’s pantry, but stopped and grinned at Ellie. “Don’t hesitate to call me if you need something.”

Ellie shook her head in dismay. “I’m sorry but this guy is a serious control freak.” She’d finally decided to label him a control freak, if only because distrust was such an ugly word and she didn’t want Ava to realize she was uncomfortable. She might want Ellie to leave and she couldn’t. Cain and Liz needed for her to do a good job. “I didn’t dare risk a mistake.”

Ava laughed. “I was teasing. I don’t mind you calling me for help. You’re doing this as much for my boss as for yours. So we’re in this together.”

With that Ellie scooted out through the butler’s pantry and garage, leaving Ellie to prepare a salad in the twenty minutes it would take to heat the pasta and sauce.

She was just pulling dinner from the oven when Mac and the kids returned.

She greeted them with a smile. “You’re right on time.”

“Great. We’re starving.” He ambled to the door. “You may serve us in the formal dining room.”

Ellie smiled, breathing a silent sigh of relief that he’d told her what to do and quickly set the table. As she did that, Mac grabbed a jar of baby food, a baby dish and a tiny spoon.

She served the food while Mac fed Henry.

“That’ll be all, Ellie.”

Ellie nodded in acknowledgement and scurried back into the kitchen. But she opened the swinging door a crack and peeked into the dining room. Watching the happy little family, she amended her opinion of Mac once again. It seemed wrong to call him a control freak when he was looking out for his kids. In some circles that would make him a good dad.

Still, there was the matter of the missing wife. She couldn’t reconcile herself to thinking that any woman would give full custody of two adorable children to her husband. Had there been a custody battle? Were these two kids scarred for life?

Of course, his wife could be—Ellie swallowed—dead. Oh, dear. That would certainly raise a whole different set of issues! Including the curiosity of why he hadn’t told Ellie, if only to explain whether or not the kids were still dealing with that.

No. He would have told her if his wife were dead. As diligent as he was, he’d want her to be prepared about everything to do with his kids. His wife had to have left.

But where was she? And why had she gone, leaving her kids behind?

Telling herself it was none of her business and that she could handle not knowing for one month if it meant that Liz got the recommendations she needed and Cain got the contracts he wanted, Liz began scrubbing pots and wiping the kitchen counters.

When the Carmichaels were finished eating, Mac leaned into the kitchen. “We’re done. Lacy and I will be upstairs getting Henry ready for bed.”

“Okay.”

“Once you’ve cleaned up, you’re done for the day. You may do whatever you wish. It’s still hot out, so you might want to take a dip in the pool. The kids and I are in for the night, so it’s all yours if you wish. Good night, Ellie.”

He pulled out of the room without waiting for her reply and Ellie leaned against the counter with a sigh of relief.

Day one down!

After clearing the dining room and popping the dishes into the dishwasher, Ellie went to her room.

She wouldn’t mind a swim, but she hadn’t brought a suit. Plus, she needed to get up early the next morning. She set her alarm for four, so that she’d be ready for Lacy whatever time she awoke, then did a quick pirouette in the massive bedroom she’d be staying in for the next month. Her boss’s life might be a bit of a mystery. She might wonder what happened to the kids’ mom. And she absolutely had to get better at cooking. But spending a month in this suite could almost make up for that. It was the lap of luxury.

Running her hand up one of the black posts of the four-poster bed, she noticed the gold decorative rings at the top and sighed dreamily. What must it be like to have so much money that you could have everything you wanted, exactly as you wanted it?

Lifting her makeup bag from the black mirrored dresser, she turned and walked into the bathroom. Again, she stopped and stared in awe. Brown travertine tiles on the floor matched the brown tiles in the shower and surrounding the spa tub. This bathroom was as big as the kitchen in her and her roommate Mitzi’s apartment.

She set the makeup case on the counter of the double sink with black-and-gold granite countertops, then stripped to make good use of the spa tub. After a nice long soak, she stepped into lightweight pajamas, applied face cream and crawled into bed with a book. Cool silk sheets greeted her and she groaned. There was a definite difference between cleaning someone’s house once a week and staying in that house—even if it was as hired help. She certainly hoped she didn’t get used to this!

She read until about ten, then turned out the light of the brushed gold lamp on the bedside table and immediately fell asleep.

What seemed like only minutes later Henry’s loud crying woke her. Slightly disoriented, she bolted up in bed, wondering what the sound was. But the second burst of crying brought her to full alertness and got her to her feet.

“Henry!” she cried, not even sure if the little boy could hear her. “I’m coming, sweetie!”

Intending to change his diaper and take him downstairs while she warmed a bottle, she ran into the room. As her door opened on the left side of the nursery, Mac’s door on the right side of the nursery also opened. Both flew into the room and stopped dead in their tracks.

Her pajamas, though lightweight, were covering. His chest was bare above low-riding bottoms. His dark hair was mussed. His eyelids drooped sexily and his brilliant blue eyes were glazed over. He had the sleepy look of a man who cuddled after sex.