Major Nanny

Chapter Seven

She looked tired, Harlan thought. Not just tired like a woman who’d had a long day but tired like a woman who’d had a long and stressful life. And he was more than a little surprised when the first words out of her mouth were an apology.

“Nothing to be sorry for.” Rising from his desk chair, Harlan waved at the armless chair in front of his desk that was, temporarily at least, the only other seating accommodation he could offer. “Where’s Zachary?”

“I took him to visit Miguel and Rhonda-Miguel’s the groundskeeper.”

“I’ve met him. Nice guy.”

“Their youngest grandson is autistic.”

Heat burned Harlan’s neck. “Sorry about what happened with Zachary. I looked up Asperger’s syndrome, like you suggested.”

“I overreacted. I’m just a mama bear where my son’s concerned. I should have explained instead of getting angry. It’s just-he’s going to have problems ahead of him, no matter what I do. Therapy only goes so far.” She hunched forward as if the world was heavy on her back. “Sooner or later, kids will start making fun of him because he’s different. He’s not going to have any kind of defense against it. And it’s worse for him because it’s not immediately obvious he has a problem.”

“He has an amazing vocabulary for his age. I understand that’s a symptom?”

“Or a blessing,” she said with a sad half smile that made Harlan’s chest hurt. “I’m luckier than a lot of mothers with special needs children. My son talks to me. He communicates pretty well. If he’s in the mood, he’ll hug me.”

“But he doesn’t respond to most of your overtures, right?”

“Reading social cues is beyond him. He doesn’t know that when I frown at him when he’s making a pest of himself, it means he should stop. He doesn’t understand that not everybody loves horses as much as he does.”

“How long has he been obsessed with horses?”

“Since his first rocking horse. When I took him for riding lessons, that was that. It’s all he talks about these days.” Her smile was wider this time, less bittersweet. “When he was three, he was obsessed with his father’s cell phone. He’d sneak it out of Anthony’s briefcase and play with it. He made God knows how many calls to people on Anthony’s list of contacts.” Her smile faded. “Anthony got so angry. He thought Zachary was acting up and that if he disciplined him, he’d behave.”

Harlan’s heart sank. “And when you saw me pick him up and try to make him stop bothering you-”

She nodded. “Anthony didn’t know, either. Not then.”

“He must have felt bad about how he behaved once you figured out something was different about Zachary.” Harlan had felt like a complete lowlife, himself. He couldn’t imagine how the boy’s father must have reacted.

“He felt bad that he had a defective son.” The bitterness in her voice came as a bit of a surprise. “He didn’t stick around long after that.”

Harlan frowned. “He just left?”

Stacy’s cheeks went pink. She stood up, already turning toward the door. “I didn’t come here to talk about my marriage. I just wanted to say I was sorry and I hope we can work together without letting what happened tonight get in the way.”

He rose with her. “We can do that. How about we start fresh in the morning? Eight o’clock?”

“Eight it is.” She managed another tentative smile. “I’d better go get Zachary before he makes Miguel and Rhonda regret they said they’d watch him.”

Harlan walked her to the door of his office. “Be careful going back to your house.”

She shot him a wry look. “This place is crawling with security. I’ve never been safer in my life.”

Watching her walk down the hall toward the exit, he fervently hoped she was right. But he wasn’t sure anyone on the ranch was safe at the moment, no matter how many checkpoints he’d set up. For earlier that day, before he met Stacy for dinner, he’d gone over the security summaries from the event at the capitol, and something had struck him as highly significant.

Nobody on the staff at the capitol had known what the governor had planned until the evening before it happened. They’d worked overnight to set up the dais and the sound system for the announcement. To get the event set up on time, the governor had to send her own staffers from the ranch-both office staff and ranch staff-to aid with the setup.

About the only way the bomber could have known to set the bomb when and where he did was if he’d had prior notice. Which meant the culprit almost certainly was a member of the governor’s staff, which had known about the event at least a day and a half before the staff at the capitol. Whoever had planted the bombs had to be part of the governor’s staff in Freedom.

And that put Stacy and her son right in the crosshairs.

“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS.” Stacy stared at Harlan with a mixture of disbelief and growing horror the next morning, when they met for their first orientation meeting. “Why on earth would anyone here want to hurt Lila?”

“Maybe she said the wrong thing to the wrong person.” Harlan shrugged. “People go off for all kinds of reasons.”

“Not this staff,” Stacy disagreed. “People here would open a vein for Lila. She’s the kind of honest, straightforward and sensible person this nation needs, and we’d never do anything to sabotage her, much less hurt her.”

“And she pays well.”

Heat rose in Stacy’s face. “That’s not the reason I took this job. I’ve been following the governor’s career since I was a teenager in Arkansas. I knew even then she was going to be big news. That’s the way almost all of us who work for her feel. I don’t know how much you know about working in politics, but it’s not the kind of job you do just because you want to bring home a nice paycheck.”

“Fair enough,” Harlan conceded, looking pleased with her answer. “But what about the ranch staff? Could it have been one of them?”

“Lila doesn’t exactly include them in her event planning,” Stacy pointed out.

But she didn’t exactly treat them as potential leaks, either, Stacy had to admit. She’d warned the governor more than once that she should be a little more discreet about talking government business in the stables, at least. Stacy would concede that the house staff were loyal employees whom the governor treated like beloved family. But only the most senior of ranch hands were long-timers. Most of the junior stable grooms and a lot of the cowboys were relatively recent hires, as the jobs could be dirty, grueling and physically demanding. There was a lot of turnover.

“What is it?” Harlan’s eyes narrowed. Apparently he’d noticed her hesitation.

“The governor spends a lot of time out of her office when she’s here. She loves this ranch, and she likes to be hands-on about how it’s run when she gets the chance.”

“And it’s possible she might have said something about the announcement event in Austin within the hearing of one of the ranch hands?”

“Maybe. You’ll have to ask the governor if she said anything to anyone about the event within earshot of the ranch staff. I don’t remember any particular incident, but she tries to oversee ranch business three or four times a week when she’s here in Freedom, so there could have been ample opportunity.”

“I’ll definitely ask her.” Harlan nodded. “Meanwhile, when you get a chance in between your phone calls, will you get me a list of the ranch hands? The governor only gave me names of the office staff for my background checks, but I reckon now I need to go a little deeper.”

“You’re doing background checks?” Stacy blurted, then realized it was a stupid question. Of course he was doing background checks. It would be a foolish breach of security protocol not to. “I just mean-we were all screened before we took jobs with the governor.”

“I know, but those screeners were looking for different things than I am. And they didn’t know what I know now.”

“That you think one of us could be a bomber?”

He flashed her a wry smile. “It does add a new wrinkle.”

Stacy dragged her gaze away from the dimple that had formed in Harlan’s cheek when he smiled and made a note on her BlackBerry to get the list of ranch staff for Harlan.

“I’ll also want to see your event plans each step of the way,” Harlan added.

She looked up in surprise. “By each step, do you mean-”

“I mean I want to know everything you’ve done each day toward throwing this shindig. Is that a problem?”

She frowned. “It’s a little control-freakish,” she blurted before she could stop herself.

Harlan’s lips curved again. “Maybe. But if I find security loopholes at this stage, it’ll be a lot easier to fix them than if we wait until the party’s half-planned, right?”

She couldn’t quibble with that. “I work from home in the afternoons, unless Zachary has a riding lesson. Then I work from wherever I am. But I can check back in near the end of the day.” Her mind was already racing to figure out what she could do with Zachary during the time she was supposed to be meeting with Harlan. Charlotte, Zachary’s preschool special ed teacher, was often happy to help out, but Stacy would never ask her to babysit every afternoon.

“You know you can bring Zachary here if you need to,” Harlan said quietly.

She looked up and found him watching her with a look of sympathy that made her feel like a helpless idiot. “That’s kind of you, but-”

“But you’d rather scramble around every day finding someone to watch him?”

She pressed her lips into a flat line. “I don’t want you to accommodate me. I don’t need special favors.”

“You need to give yourself a break,” Harlan said flatly. “And if it matters, I need you working at full attention, and you won’t be doing that if you’re worrying about your son.”

“I suppose that’s your way of saying you don’t think I can do both? Work this job and be a mother to my son?”

Harlan shot her a frowning look. “I don’t talk in riddles. I say what I mean.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “And thank you.”

His frown faded. “I need to check in with some of my associates, so go ahead and make the calls you need to make this morning, and we can regroup after you pick up your son from school. What time will that be?”

“I pick him up around noon. I usually get him fed and settled down and then go back to work.”

“Perfect. We’ll regroup after lunch.” He gave a nod that she took as a dismissal. With a tiny sigh, she headed out of Harlan’s office and returned to her own, where a long to-do list taunted her from her desk blotter.

Nine in the morning and her head was already starting to pound from the stress. How long was she going to be able to keep juggling her job and her son’s overwhelming needs?

And what would be left of her by the end?

LILA LOCKHART DROPPED BY Harlan’s office around ten-thirty to check on how his first full day at work was going. “Is there anything more you need from me?”

Harlan smiled at the governor. “I think it’s just a matter of getting everything done at this point. Thanks for the files on your staff. It helped to have access to what background checks had already been run.”

“You didn’t find any problems, did you?”

He shook his head. “No. You have good instincts about the people on your political staff. Do you also hire your ranch staff personally?”

“Not all of them. I hired the foreman, and the head groom, Cory, has been with my family for years. Why do you ask?”

“Stacy said you don’t always restrict your political discussions to your office and the main house.”

“That’s true. I don’t,” the governor conceded. “Feel free to have Stacy round up a list of our ranch staff if you think they need to be investigated, as well. I’ll warn them what’s coming so they don’t become alarmed.”

“No, don’t do that,” Harlan said. “I don’t want to tip off someone if he or she is behind the bombing.”

He could tell she didn’t like the idea of screening the ranch staff behind their backs, but she finally gave a reluctant nod. “Speaking of Stacy, how are you two getting along?”

“Fine,” he said, wishing he believed the assurance himself. They’d started off well enough, thanks to the bombing, which had forced them to work together smoothly or else. But real life had blown that camaraderie to bits, and short of another crisis, he wasn’t sure when they’d be on solid footing again.

Damned shame, really. She was the first woman he’d met in a long time who didn’t remind him the least bit of his ex-wife. Alexis wanted nothing to do with kids, for one thing.

Like a fool, he’d thought she’d change her mind.

“Stacy’s an interesting woman.” Lila settled into the chair across from his desk. “Have you read her file?”

It had been the first he’d picked up. He’d told himself that, as Lila’s most trusted aide, she was the biggest potential threat if she was a traitor. But that was total bunk.

He’d just wanted to know more about her. What made her tick. What made her vulnerable.

What made her smile.

“What her husband did to her and that sweet boy is unconscionable.”

Harlan agreed. Maybe Stacy’s husband had other reasons for walking out of the marriage, but that was no excuse to cut himself out of his son’s life. Beyond the court-ordered child support he paid like clockwork, he’d had nothing to do with his son in over a year, if the background check on Stacy was to be believed. The assessor had made a note that Stacy merited close monitoring-not because there was any question about her integrity but because as a mother of a special needs child, she would be particularly susceptible to outside pressures.

In other words, someone might try to use her son against her in order to get to Lila.

It wasn’t an unfounded suggestion. He thought it might be a damned good idea to keep a close eye on Stacy himself, even if his motives weren’t strictly professional.

And now that they were working closely together, he’d have a built-in reason to do so.

“WHO IS HARLAN and why does Zachary talk about him non-stop?” Charlotte asked Stacy when Zachary’s kindergarten class let out at noon that day.

Stacy managed a rueful laugh. “I was hoping he’d be over that by now.” She explained to Charlotte about Harlan McClain’s visit the night before, including the way things had gotten out of hand after Harlan tried to correct Zachary. “I really thought Zachary would have forgotten all about him after that, but I guess he got over the scare and remembered how interesting he thought Mr. McClain was.”

Charlotte walked with Stacy out to her car. “Is he? Interesting, I mean?”

“He’s different,” Stacy admitted carefully. “He’s from Georgia, so he has that accent.” The one that made her nerves quiver just a little every time she heard it. “He’s a former Marine, so he’s got that G.I. Joe thing going for him.”

“Mmm,” Charlotte said with a grin. “Married?”

She’d assumed not, since he’d invited himself to dinner and then spent the next hours after that working at the ranch house office, but what did she really know about him? “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Does it matter?”

“Well, let’s see. Zachary’s crazy about him, apparently, and you’ve been blushing since I brought up the name. So, yeah. It probably matters.”

“We work together. That’s all. You know why that’s all.” Of the people in town, only a handful knew the full story of her marriage breakup. Charlotte was one of them. She knew the way Anthony had let Stacy and Zachary down when they’d needed him most, and she knew that Stacy had no intention of ever letting a man do that to her or her child again.

It surprised her, a little, that she’d let as much slip to Harlan McClain as she had. There was just something about him that seemed trustworthy. Maybe that’s why the governor had chosen him to keep her safe. If anyone could ferret out a person’s deepest, darkest secrets…

“They’re not all like that, you know,” Charlotte said. “Sometimes the guy is the one who gets hurt. The guy who’s the one left behind to raise a kid with problems.”

Stacy gave her friend a questioning look. “Are we talking about someone specific?”

Charlotte chuckled. “The father of one of my students. Nice guy. His wife apparently never grew up, though. She had a bad habit of having three-martini lunches and driving buzzed with her kid in the car.”

Stacy winced. “What happened?”

“Killed herself and a family of three in an accident about three years ago. Only her daughter survived the crash, and she was left with a brain injury that required years of therapy. I had her in my kindergarten class last year-she was a lot better by then, but she still has some issues. She’s in first grade now, doing a lot better.”

“Poor baby.”

“Her dad was left to deal with her therapy and the lawsuit filed by the survivors of the other family that was killed in the crash. It was terrible for him.”

“Hey, you’re talking about Jeff Appleton, aren’t you?” Stacy realized. The deputy had done some moonlighting work for the governor’s security detail from time to time. She’d heard stories about his legal problems and the fact that he had a six-year-old daughter with special needs. The governor had suggested she should let Zachary meet Jeff’s daughter, but Stacy didn’t think her son was really ready for playdates yet.

“Yes. Nice guy. He’s under a lot of stress. Maybe you should get to know him. You have a lot in common.”

Stacy looked at her friend through narrowed eyes. The suggestion had seemed almost rote, as if Charlotte felt it was the polite thing to do, even though Stacy got the sense that Charlotte didn’t really want Stacy to see Jeff as a romantic possibility.

Did she have a crush on the deputy herself?

Before Stacy could pose that question, Charlotte’s eyes widened. She caught Stacy by the arm. “Stacy, where’s Zachary?”

Stacy looked down at her side, where she’d last seen her son. But he wasn’t there.

She looked around, certain she’d see him nearby, perhaps running laps around the day care’s front lawn. She’d drummed warnings about running off into his head since he was three, and he was usually very good about obeying that rule, since he had an older child’s understanding of the reasons behind it.

But Zachary was nowhere in sight. Nor had he gotten into the car without her realizing it.

He was just gone.

Fear gathered into a hard knot in the center of her chest. “Did you see him go anywhere?”

“No!” Charlotte’s look of rising terror amplified Stacy’s own level of anxiety. “I thought he was right there with you!”

A cold chill washed over her body, spreading gooseflesh along her arms and legs. The world around her seemed to have upended in the span of seconds, leaving her breathless and dizzy in an alien landscape where nothing seemed familiar.

Where was Zachary?