Page 1 of Marrying the Nanny

Chapter One

Emma Wright was used to being ignored and preferred it, but it was hard to go unnoticed while escorting the aptly named “Storm.”

Storm exercised her healthy lungs, earning them hostile glares as they were shown through the litigious hallways of Who’s-It and What’s-His-Nuts. The receptionist left them in a small boardroom, giving an eyeroll that Emma caught through the window as the woman closed the door.

How dare the bellows of a fussy baby disturb the paralegals doing important probate work for dead people? Emma was only responsible for the survival of this tiny live human, but whatever.

With a grateful sigh, Emma let the nappy bag slide off her shoulder, then unstrapped Storm from the car seat clipped to the pram. She snuggled Storm against her shoulder, trying to placate her with the flannel of her blankie against her cheek. She used a soft voice and put a gentle bounce in her step, but Storm remained a knotted bundle of fury. Her little body quivered in rage, and each of her rasping wails could have stripped the paint off the walls.

Emma’s heart locked up with helplessness. Until Wilf and Tiffany’s departure five days ago, Storm had been cuter than a bug’s bum, alert and full of smiles, offering angelic blinks of her big blue eyes framed in downy blond lashes. She was getting the hang of sitting up and was quick to grab anything and shove it into her toothless mouth.

Anything but a dummy, of course. The fact she wouldn’t take a pacifier was proving highly inconvenient, especially now that things had taken such a dark turn. For both of them.

Emma paced anxiously to the window and rubbed Storm’s back, swaying her hips and promising everything would be okay.

Storm wouldn’t be lied to. She tangled a few of Emma’s stray hairs in her clenched fist, causing a sting that brought tears to Emma’s eyes.

“You’re right, you’re right,” Emma soothed, prying her hair loose and smoothing it back toward her ponytail. She lifted her gaze to the bleak day, so different from the fine blues and greens she would have seen back home.

It was the first of April. Her anniversary.

Or would have been.

That’s what you get for marrying on April Fool’s Day. Angry humiliation washed over her afresh, but Storm didn’t allow her to wallow in self-pity. She paused to catch her breath, lifting her head to give Emma a forsaken frown.

“I know, love.” Emma tightened her arms around her and whispered into her hair. “Do you see the plane? It’s taking off.”

Storm looked out the window for about one second, then drooped her head against Emma’s neck and began to sob again, heavy as a sack of wet laundry.

Emma didn’t blame her. Storm had lost her parents in one of those small planes two days ago. She wasn’t old enough to understand it, but Emma was certain that, deep down, Storm knew they weren’t coming back.

That’s why Emma was fine with holding this stone’s worth of wretchedness even though her arms ached and her ears rang.

Maybe she was even clinging to the baby for the same reason Storm clung so tightly to her. Trepidation had dug its claws into Emma’s vitals the moment she had heard the news. Now she’d been summoned out of Raven’s Cove. Where would she go if not back there with Storm?

Where would Storm go? A foster home?

Emma’s heart juddered as she searched the rain-washed streets, not encouraged by the sturdy brick façades, wrought-iron gates, and cheery hanging baskets struggling to push out early blooms. Storm belonged with her. Surely she could convince them of that, whoever “they” were.

She would stay in Canada if that’s what it took. Happily. In many ways, BC reminded her of home, especially here in Victoria with its stamp of English colonialism. The city was perched on the bottom of Vancouver Island, not unlike her hometown of Nelson on the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island.

She didn’t mind that she was in upside-down world here, where the sea was slate, not turquoise, and the trees were needle sharp instead of lush and frondy.

Where she had a baby and no husband instead of a husband and no baby.

For how long, though?

The door opened.

Emma turned and tried to find a weak smile for the middle-aged man who entered.

Storm stopped crying, tears on her cheeks, while she studied the new arrival. Not who she wanted. She dropped her head onto Emma’s shoulder hard enough for the tonk to reverberate through Emma’s collarbone.

“Oh, Storm.” Emma almost started crying herself. She rubbed her thumb on Storm’s brow where she thought they’d connected while Storm bellowed in fresh pain.

“Dennis Listle.” The man introduced himself with a pained smile. “Wilf’s lawyer.”

Emma knew that tense look. Control that baby.

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