Staring dispassionately at his sandwich as the cold meat flopped lifelessly over the plain, white bread, he tried to imagine it was warm, country cobbler. He tossed the half-eaten sandwich onto the napkin and returned to his work.
Did Skylar bake? She smelled like cookies. Had she ever made cobbler? Why was he thinking about her at one in the morning?
Shaking his head, he pondered Erin’s earlier comment about the McCulloughs being crazy. The older generation founded the lumberyard, which employed almost eighty percent of Jasper Falls. They didn’t strike him as foolish. It struck him as smart. But he supposed big mountains came with big secrets, and anything could happen that far off the grid.
The screen switched to Facebook and he typed in the last name. Hundreds of McCulloughs populated the search engine. Then he deleted the name and replaced it with Marcelli.
Three women he recognized as Vincenzo’s daughters appeared and then he saw Skylar, smiling against a field of sunflowers. It seemed criminal for any woman to be that pretty. She probably had some punk boyfriend who didn’t have a clue how out of his league she was.
Since she would be taking care of his daughter, he took a few minutes to search her profile. Somehow he ended up on her Instagram.
Damn, she had a great smile. Dark brown hair and deep olive skin and the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, swirled with radiant shocks of gold and evergreen. He couldn’t find her age, but guessed she was in her early twenties.
Hoped—because if she wasn’t, that made him the filthiest letch around.
“You’re such a creeper,” he mumbled, scrolling further down the grid of her pictures.
It was research. His own personal background check. She was his new employee, and it seemed logical to get a feel for the woman who would be spending her days with his daughter. He was doing this for Addison.
He rolled his eyes, trying not to slip on his own bullshit.
There was nothing startling about her social media. Compared to some, hers seemed rather tame.
He paused and smiled when he spotted a cute picture of her in a wool cap, holding a cup of coffee from the café in two hands covered in copper gloves.
Her caption read, “Dear gourd! Orange you happy it’s fall, ya’ll? If you don’t like autumn puns, you better leaf now, because I’m about to get as cliché as pun-king pie under a harvest moon sky!”
He chuckled, reading through a dozen clever autumn hashtags. His favorite was maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s maple leaf.
His mouth tightened around a smile. She was funny. He read her cleverness as a sign of intelligence.
She had a lot of pictures with smaller children which further bolstered his confidence about hiring her. All in all, she seemed like a sweet young woman. But he reminded himself that social media only showed the best—often times artificial—sides of people.
No one was sweet all the time. Like everyone else, she probably had a side that wasn’t so nice, and maybe she even had a side that hid a little spice.
His brain raced somewhere he had no business trespassing and he shut his laptop. Best not to think of her that way. She was the last hope as far as local childcare went, and he really needed this to work out—for Addison’s sake.
Jasper Falls had a daycare issue that needed to be addressed. He’d tried to get the funding to open a pre-K, but a public pre-school wasn’t in the budget. Until that changed, he was stuck looking for private help like everyone else with children under age five.
Shoving aside his forgotten sandwich, he flipped open his portfolio. Erin typically left a print out of his schedule for the next day and any notes he might need to prepare for meetings. His gaze snagged on a handwritten message.
* * *
Adel’s landlord called again. She still hasn’t paid November’s rent and December’s is now overdue.
* * *
He sighed. It never ended.
Returning to his laptop, he directed an email back to Erin—subject line: PRIORITY.
* * *
Get a rundown of what Adel owes and see if you can get her on the phone. I need to find out what’s going on. I also don’t want to pay anything unless everything is working properly at the apartment. Make sure the heater’s been inspected and that all the porch lights have working bulbs. And put together another grocery order for her. Make it a generous one. The holidays are coming. Use my personal card.
* * *
He sent the message then cursed, opening up a second email to his assistant—subject line: ALSO…
* * *
The new nanny starts today. I’d like you to pop in on her whenever you can, just to see that everything is running smoothly and answer any questions she might have. With the election coming, I can’t afford to lose this one. I want her to feel at home and as comfortable as possible in her new position.