Major Nanny

Chapter Six

“He really likes horses, huh?” Harlan asked Stacy, watching Zachary pretend to feed pieces of apple to the toy horses sitting next to him at the kitchen table.

“He’s single-minded about subjects that interest him.” She spoke carefully when discussing her son, Harlan noticed. That caution probably explained her stealth this afternoon at the stables. Though she was clearly a good mom-Zachary was as smart as a whip and relatively well-behaved-she seemed determined to act, on the job at least, as if she weren’t a mother at all.

He had served with women in Iraq, mothers who’d been forced to leave their kids home with family or their husbands while they served their country in a war zone, never sure they’d make it back alive. He understood the pressures women were under when the demands of their jobs clashed with the interests of their families. Nobody really won in that kind of situation.

“I’ve made just about all the calls I needed to make, and I’m going to ask the ad agency to do a rush job on getting the invitations to our donor list set up and ready to go by Friday,” Stacy said to fill the silence that had fallen between them. “They’ll drop Friday and most should be in home by Wednesday or Thursday, which means they’ll have a little over a week to get back to us with their RSVPs.”

“That sounds good.” He wasn’t really worried about the vagaries of direct mail. He was more interested in whether or not she agreed with his solidifying belief that the bomb at the capitol was an inside job. “Stacy, has the governor hired anyone new in the last few weeks?”

Her eyebrows lifted at the question. “Not in the office staff. I’m not sure about the ranch hands-they come and go more regularly than the political staff do, and I don’t have anything to do with the hiring, so I wouldn’t know.”

“The ranch staff wouldn’t know much about the governor’s comings and goings, would they?”

“Not day to day, no.”

“But they know about some of the comings and goings?”

“Well, sure,” she said. “If the governor’s having people to visit, they’ll know. If she’s going to be away from the ranch overnight, some of them, at least, would know.”

“Harlan, will you go riding with me?” Zachary asked, looking up at Harlan with curious blue eyes.

Stacy glanced at Harlan. “Mr. McClain,” she gently corrected. “And Mr. McClain is going to be really busy for a while. In fact, I’m going to be busy, too. But I promise we’ll make up the riding lessons if we miss any. Okay?”

Zachary’s dark brows met in the middle. “We can’t miss any riding lessons, Mommy. The horses depend on seeing me.”

She laughed softly, though she darted another quick look at Harlan. “I’m sure they will have plenty of people to keep them entertained until you can get back to them. But in the meantime, I have a job I have to do, and I need you to be a big boy and help me out. Can you do that?”

“Help you out how?”

“Just by being a sweet boy and understanding that sometimes, you’ll have to play by yourself while I’m working.”

Zachary fell silent again.

“Must be hard keeping up with him and your job at the same time,” Harlan murmured.

Stacy’s dark eyebrows met in a V, as Zachary’s had. “I manage,” she said shortly.

Great. He’d said the wrong thing again.

Zachary broke the tense silence. “Can you get me another book about horses, Mommy? I’ve read the one I have five times.”

Stacy released a soft breath. “I can get you another book on horses, Zachary. But maybe you should try reading one of the other books I bought you for your birthday first. How about the book about trains?”

“But I want to read about horses.”

The kid was single-minded, Harlan thought. “Locomotive trains were once called iron horses,” he told the little boy. “Did you know that?”

Zachary looked skeptical. “Trains don’t eat apples. And they don’t have manes. And horses don’t have engines.”

“I think it’s because trains took the place of horses for travel back in the days before cars and trucks and airplanes.” Stacy smiled, but Harlan saw a hint of sadness behind the smile, as if the conversation was causing her pain. “And since locomotives were made of iron, they called them iron horses.”

“Why didn’t they just call them trains?” Zachary asked.

“I’m sure they did that, too,” Harlan interjected. “It was like a nickname. You know what a nickname is, don’t you?”

“Miss Charlotte at school calls the girl who sits next to me Patricia, but we all call her Patty. She says it’s her nickname. I think Miss Charlotte should call her Patty, too, if that’s what she wants to be called. Don’t you?”

Harlan looked up at Stacy. “How old is he?”

“Five.” She gave him a look that seemed almost wary before she added, “And a half.”

“He’s very bright. You must spend a lot of time reading to him.” Harlan ventured a smile, a little taken aback at how nervous she seemed with him now. Just a few days earlier, in Austin, she’d seemed confident and strong, nothing like the woman on edge facing him now.

“I can read,” Zachary piped up. “I read the book about horses all by myself.”

Harlan looked at Stacy for confirmation. She gave a slight nod and tried a smile back at him, but it looked forced.

“How’s that hamburger, Zachary?” he asked her son, noticing that the boy had barely touched his food.

“It has mustard,” Zachary said bluntly. “I hate mustard.”

“I’m sorry-he tends to say what he thinks without worrying how it sounds.” Stacy reached across the table for the hamburger. “Zachary, you could have told me it had mustard on it. I would have scraped it off for you.”

“It gets all in the bread. It never stops tasting like mustard,” the boy said flatly. “Can I have a cookie now?”

Stacy frowned. “Let me open you some soup first. You know you have to eat dinner before you eat dessert.”

“I’m sorry,” Harlan asked, feeling like an idiot. “I should have thought to ask what he’d want on it.”

“It’s okay,” Stacy assured him quickly, digging in her cabinet for a can of soup. “If you don’t have children, you don’t know to anticipate things like that.”

“I’ll have to make a Zachary list, then.” Harlan grinned at the boy, who looked back at him with a blank-looking stare. “Likes horses, knows how to read, doesn’t like mustard.”

“I also like cookies,” Zachary added.

“Noted.”

Stacy was in the middle of heating the bowl of soup in the microwave when her cell phone rang. She looked at the display and frowned. “It’s Greg Merritt. I’ll have to get this.”

She moved into the living room, seeking privacy, but the guesthouse was too small to afford her much. From her end of the conversation, it sounded as if the governor’s campaign manager wanted an instant update on the invitation list Stacy had been working on.

The microwave oven beeped, signaling it was finished cooking Zachary’s soup. Neither Stacy nor Zachary seemed to notice.

Harlan got up and retrieved the soup from the microwave oven, snagging the spoon Stacy had left on the counter on the way back to the table. He set the soup in front of Zachary. “Mmm, chicken and noodles. I used to love that when I was a kid.”

Zachary picked up his spoon. “Why don’t you love it now?”

“Well, I suppose I’d still love it now. I just don’t eat a lot of soup anymore.”

“But if you loved it before and you love it now, why don’t you eat it anymore?” Zachary’s forehead furrowed, making him look like a confused cherub.

“I eat other things.”

“Horses eat carrots as well as apples.” Zachary turned his attention back to the toy horse. “Do you have a horse?”

“I live in a small apartment, so I can’t have a horse there. If I lived somewhere else, maybe I would.” His family had been too poor to own horses when he was a kid, but he had learned to ride thanks to a schoolmate whose family owned a stable with several Tennessee walking horses.

Across the room, Stacy’s voice rose. “Greg, I can’t get a whole new group of names added to the list before tomorrow morning. You’re just going to have to reschedule.”

“Mommy, we don’t live in a small apartment. Can we have a horse?” Zachary slipped down from his chair and crossed to Stacy, tugging at her blouse. “Mommy, we can have a horse because we don’t live in a small apartment.”

Stacy made a shushing sound, stroking her son’s head. “Yes, I know we’re under the gun-”

“Mommy, we can have a horse! Harlan said so!”

Stacy shot Harlan a questioning look.

Harlan hurried over, gently steering Zachary back to the table. “Zachary, let’s go back and eat your soup.”

“You can have it,” Zachary said dismissively, wriggling out of Harlan’s grasp and returning to his mother. “Mommy, can we go get our horse now?”

“Zachary, your mama’s on the phone. Come back and eat your soup,” Harlan said, keeping his voice as low as possible.

Zachary ignored him. “Mommy-”

Stacy put her hand over the phone receiver. “Just a second, Zachary- Yes, Greg, I’m still listening to you-”

Harlan reached down and picked Zachary up, carrying him toward the kitchen. Immediately, he realized he’d done exactly the wrong thing. Zachary started struggling as if Harlan were trying to abduct him, his hands flapping wildly and his head rolling. Stacy shot Harlan a look of sheer disbelief.

Well, hell, Harlan thought, feeling about as stupid as he ever had. But might as well make the most of his screwup. He carried Zachary into the kitchen and planted him on the chair in front of his bowl of soup.

“Mommy!” Zachary wailed. He kept flapping his hands frantically.

Harlan gently caught the boy’s hands to hold them still. “I’m sorry I scared you, but you need to let your mama finish her business. Can’t you wait until she’s done?”

Zachary went silent, staring at Harlan with blue eyes full of accusation. “You touched me.”

Harlan dropped his hands away. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Mommy says I should never let someone else touch me. Only Mommy. I’m telling.”

Oh, great. Now the kid thought he was some sort of pervert. “I think your mama already knows. And I’m sorry, Zachary. Your mama’s right-you shouldn’t let anybody touch you but her without your permission. But your mama-”

“Can take care of my own son without your interference,” Stacy finished for him.

He turned his head to find her only a couple of feet away, her hands on her hips. Her dark eyes blazed at him.

He held up his hands in surrender. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just-I see a situation developing, I try to fix it. But I had no right.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“I can see it was a mistake to try to meet for dinner,” Harlan looked down at Zachary, who had apparently gotten over the trauma of being picked up and hauled to the table. He was eating his soup again, one hand closed over a toy horse, making it trot circles around his bowl.

“I think so, too.”

Her short, angry replies were beginning to bring out a little of his own ire. What crime had he committed to deserve Stacy Giordano’s cold fury? Picking up her kid? He didn’t hurt Zachary, and the kid was acting like a brat, anyway. Maybe if she spent a little more time with him…

“I’ll check in with you in the morning. We have a lot to go over,” he said brusquely, crossing to the closet where she’d hung his coat.

She caught up with him. “I’ll do whatever you ask me to do to make this fundraiser happen safely. But keep your hands off my son.”

His control snapped. “What the hell is your problem? I didn’t hurt your kid. I was trying to insert a little discipline into a situation that was getting completely out of control-”

“It’s not your place to discipline my son.”

“I just tried to get him to be quiet so you could do your job,” Harlan threw back at her. “The kid could talk paint off a wall, and he has no sense of control over his impulses. Do you let him just do whatever he wants whenever he wants?”

“He has impulse control issues because he has Asperger’s syndrome,” Stacy snapped back. “Ever heard of it?”

Harlan shook his head.

Stacy shoved his coat at him. “Look it up. And if you can’t deal with what you find, stay far away from my son.”

He stepped out into the cool October evening, wincing at the sound of the door shutting firmly behind him the second he stepped through the opening.

“That went well, don’t you think?” he asked the waxing moon rising over the cottonwood trees to the east.

The moon remained silent.

He glanced at his watch. Just a little after seven-thirty. And he’d barely touched his burger.

Yeah, a spectacularly successful night all the way around.

Maybe he could coax the cook at the ranch house to make him a sandwich. He could eat it in the office the governor had set up for him down the hall from her own.

Anything was preferable to going to his lonely, sparsely furnished apartment and trying to pretend it felt like home.

Or that he didn’t feel like a complete idiot.

“ARE WE GOING to get a horse?” Zachary asked.

Stacy’s head was pounding, but she tried not to let her son see how much stress she was feeling. “Zachary, we don’t actually own this house. Ms. Lila just lets us live here, so we can’t bring a horse onto her property. She has her own horses and you get to ride them sometimes, don’t you?”

“Only sometimes,” Zachary complained. “I want a horse I can ride all the time. And I can feed it apples and carrots and give it a name I pick. I think I would name him Zachary’s Horse. Because he’d be mine. And a horse.”

Stacy let out a soft chuckle, feeling a bit of her tension beginning to ease away. “Zachary, we’re going to be staying here with the governor for a long while more.” At least, she hoped they were, although if Harlan McClain was the vindictive sort, he could be making trouble for her even as they spoke.

She pushed the bleak thought aside. “We’re just going to have to ride Ms. Lila’s horses for now. If we ever get our own place, though, and we have enough room and it’s not against the law, we’ll talk about getting our own horse. I promise.”

Zachary looked as if he were inclined to argue some more, but Stacy couldn’t spend the rest of her evening treading the same rhetorical ground with her son when her job might be dangling by a very thin thread.

“Zachary, would you like to go see Chico?” she asked, taking her son by the hand. Chico was the half-Siamese cat that belonged to the governor’s groundskeeper, Miguel. The cat seemed to disdain most visitors, but for some reason, he loved Stacy’s young son.

They walked along the dark path to the original ranch house, where the ranch staff now worked, and dutifully checked in with the guard at the checkpoint. Miguel and his wife, Rhonda, greeted her and Zachary with delight, and almost immediately, Chico wound himself around Zachary’s ankles, purring audibly.

“Rhonda, I’m so sorry to ask this of you, but can you keep an eye on Zachary for a few minutes? I need to speak to the governor for a little while.”

“Of course, we’ll watch him,” Rhonda said immediately, smiling her understanding. Rhonda and Miguel had become her immediate allies here on the ranch, as they had a grandson with autism and understood the challenges their own daughter and son-in-law were now facing.

Stacy was very lucky to be surrounded with so many people who were willing and eager to help her out with her son. She just had to make sure she still had this job come morning.

As she walked back to the main house, she spotted Harlan McClain’s shiny black truck parked in the side parking area, near the governor’s office and the smaller office the governor had set up for him earlier that day.

So he’d gone from her house straight to see the governor. That couldn’t be good.

Tamping down her dread, she signed in with the man standing guard at the side entrance and entered, heading straight to the governor’s office. She expected to find her deep in discussion with Harlan, but to her surprise, the governor was alone.

“I’m surprised to see you here so late, Stacy.” Lila slipped her glasses off and waved at the empty chair in front of her desk. “Have you hit a snag with the fundraiser?”

“No, I- No. Everything’s going surprisingly well. I was able to reach more people on the first call than I expected.”

“Perhaps my recent brush with death has made people feel more inclined to take your calls,” Lila said with a wry smile. “In case it’s their last chance to do business with me.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Stacy said, her stomach aching with the memory of just how close they’d both come to dying only a couple of days earlier.

“Sorry. Sometimes the only way to deal with a bad memory is to laugh at it.” Lila leaned back in her chair. “So, if you’re not here with a work problem, it must be something personal. Is your ex giving you trouble?”

“No, I haven’t heard from Anthony in a couple of months.” Stacy started to get up, realizing she’d made a mistake coming here. She wanted to hide her troubles from the governor, not lay them at the woman’s feet.

“Sit. Spill.”

Stacy resumed her seat. Before she knew it, she’d told the governor everything about her disastrous reaction to Harlan McClain’s attempt to discipline her son. “I know he meant well, but I didn’t take it well. You know how defensive I can be when it comes to Zachary-”

“And you thought he’d come here and tell on you?”

Stacy nodded. “I guess that was stupid, huh?”

“Not stupid, but I have to tell you, if you were worried that I’d sack you just because some big strappin’ hunk of a fellow came in here telling tales, you don’t know me very well. A man who’d tattle like a grade-schooler about something so petty isn’t the sort of man I’d want guarding my rose garden, much less my life.”

Stacy smiled. “So he hasn’t even spoken to you tonight?”

“He dropped by a few minutes ago to make sure it was okay for him to stay late and do a little work. He didn’t mention seeing you.”

Stacy felt a sliver of guilt dig into the center of her chest. Here she’d been expecting the worst from him, and he hadn’t even mentioned seeing her at all, much less spilled all her deep, dark secrets. “I guess I’d better go apologize for snapping at him.”

“Might be a good idea,” Lila agreed. “You know where to find him.”

Stacy left the governor’s office and walked down the long hallway, past her own office, to the office she and the governor had helped set up earlier that morning. The door was open a few inches, but Stacy knocked anyway. “Mr. McClain?”

He looked up as she entered, his expression wary. He filled the small office, not just with his muscular chest and broad shoulders but also the intensity of personality burning in his dark eyes.

He gave her a brief, businesslike nod. “Ms. Giordano.”

“Mr. McClain.” She paused where she stood a few feet away from him, trying to figure out what to say next. She could explain herself a little more directly, tell him why her salary was so important, how it paid for the therapies that gave her son half a chance at a more normal life. She could tell him how she hadn’t anticipated being left alone to deal with her son’s problems without his father’s help.

But when she opened her mouth to speak, only one word came out. “Sorry,” she said.

And realized he’d just said the exact same thing.