A Little Moonlighting. Raye Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ nodded wisely, showing he understood. “Are you gonna take care of us, Aun’ Amy?” he asked her, his blue eyes hopeful.

      “Of course,” she told them, smiling warmly. “I’ll stay with you until your mother comes home. I promise.”

      Deedee sighed happily and cuddled in close, while Scamp pulled back, seeming to suddenly remember that he had his young male pride to consider.

      “I’m really glad you’re going to be able to do this,” Paul told her, smiling down at the picture she made with the little dark-haired girl in her arms. “I’ve got a sales trip to Omaha tomorrow and I won’t be back for three or four days. Otherwise, I would have been glad to take over for Tim and Meg.”

      “Oh, no,” Amy said quickly. “They’re my family. I’ll take care of them.” She hugged Deedee closer, then put her on her little feet. “Run get your things, kids. I’m going to take you home.”

      She rose, waiting for the children to leave the room before saying quietly to Paul, “I really haven’t heard all the details yet. Where were they when the accident happened? And where were Meg and Tim going? Do you know?”

      Paul nodded. He was a pleasant-looking man with slightly thinning blond hair and a nice smile. “They were going to lunch to celebrate Tim’s promotion. Did you know his law firm just made him a partner?”

      “No,” she said softly, feeling again a sense of having been woefully inattentive to what was going on in her sister’s life. “How great for him.” She swallowed. “So the kids were at home?”

      “Yes. Cheryl Park, an older lady from down the street, was sitting with them. But she had to get home, so I took over and brought them over here.”

      “Thank you so much,” she said earnestly, holding out a hand to shake his. “I—we all appreciate it. You’ve been a big help.”

      “Any time,” he said, holding her hand a little too long and beaming at her significantly. “As soon as I get back from Omaha, I’ll be able to help a lot more.”

      Her smile wavered as she witnessed the intensity of his and she pulled her hand away.

      “Yes,” she said quickly. “Well…” She turned, looking toward where the baby slept in a travel chair. “I guess I’d better get them home. It must be way past their bedtime by now.”

      “Yes, of course.” He looked pleased with something and she wasn’t sure why.

      Deedee and Scamp came running up, ready to go home. Amy helped Deedee into her sweater.

      “’Bye, Pooky,” Scamp called back at the huge orange-colored cat sitting on a pillow in the far corner of the room. “See ya tomorrow.”

      “’Bye, ’bye,” Deedee said, copying her brother and waving at the animal.

      The cat blinked its golden eyes and lashed its tiger-striped tail and didn’t say a thing.

      “I’ll come with you,” Paul offered. “I’ll help you carry the baby, help you get the other two to bed.” He gave Amy a comforting smile. “You’ll need help, all right. They are a handful.”

      “Are they?” Suddenly her confidence began to show some wear around the edges. Was she going to be up to this job? She’d never taken care of children before, never even baby-sat as a teenager. She was always too busy entering competitions and running for class office to have time for things like that.

      And she hadn’t visited with Meg and her crew often enough to get a feel for it. Whenever she was over, Meg was a whirlwind of activity, usually ordering Amy just to sit and talk to her, tell her everything about what it was like to live in the fast-paced business world.

      “Oh, sure,” Paul said happily as he headed out on the porch, baby in tow. “They’re not bad kids, mind you, but they are very, very active. But don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it right away.”

      “Will I?” she had whispered to herself as she followed with the older children. “And what happens if I don’t?”

      Snapping out of her reverie, Amy willed herself to drift off to sleep. She knew she’d need all her energy to face another day.

      Chapter Three

      You’ll get the hang of it, Amy told herself encouragingly as she watched the morning sun begin to form a light pattern on the bedroom wall. Just give it some time.

      But there was no more time—the baby was stirring. She could hear the little murmurs that would soon grow into a full-throated cry. For just a moment she longed for her usual mornings, awakening to her clock radio, lingering over coffee and the newspaper, dressing in something sharp and business-like and arriving at the office in time to get a morning glance, along with a cynical comment or two, from a suave and debonair Carter.

      Carter. She felt an ache of regret that twisted inside her. Instead of that grown-up, sophisticated way to start her day, she had to share a bedroom with a noisy white mouse. There had been a time when she’d dreamed of sharing such a room with Carter.

      But the baby’s noises were getting more insistent. No time for nostalgia. Sighing, she threw back the covers and rolled out of bed. Time to start the day.

      “Carter, we really have to get the final numbers on the Milan estimate. They’ve been calling all week and I put them off because you were in France, but they know you’re back and…”

      Carter looked up from the papers he’d been staring at and frowned at Delia, his secretary. Middle-aged and motherly, she ran the office with a fine efficiency and attention to detail; she liked her boss a lot, but didn’t necessarily approve of everything he did.

      “I don’t have those numbers,” he told her. “Pendleton was working on those.”

      “I’ve looked through her desk, but I can’t find them.” Delia waited expectantly, her large brown eyes earnest.

      He hesitated, then shrugged impatiently. “Give her a call,” he suggested.

      Delia set her lips and put her hands on her hips. “Mr. James, I will not bother her with office business. She doesn’t work here anymore. We have to do this without her.”

      Carter stared out across the room at the desk where his administrative associate was supposed to be. There was an interloper sitting in her chair. A short, eager young woman with a head of bouncing red curls sat looking through files where Pendleton ought to be. He had an impulse to growl like a guard dog seeing an intruder, but he reined it in and managed to speak calmly to his secretary.

      “I’ll work on the Milan figures later,” he told Delia. He held up a piece of onionskin-thin paper. “Right now I need someone to interpret what this letter from the Lee Group in Singapore is all about.”

      “Well, give it to Martha. If she’s going to be your associate, she’s going to have to learn to do these things.”

      He gazed at Delia as though she’d advised him to call in a palm reader.

      “She won’t have a clue,” he told her scornfully. “Pendleton was the only СКАЧАТЬ