Page 10 of Taming the Boss

“We do have a community-wide online message board.”

“A message board?” I echoed dubiously. “Doesn’t sound very professional.” Somehow even less so than a Facebook group.

“Oh, you’d be surprised how many professional individuals we have in the Cove.”

Good thing Laken couldn’t see me rolling my eyes. “No kidding? Well, golly gee.” I couldn’t keep the caustic edge from my tone. Not that she seemed to notice.

“That kind of homespun setup works very well here,” she assured me. “I’m sure you could find what you’re looking for there with a brief post. And if someone contacts you, you could do your own vetting,” she added helpfully.

“There’s a fine idea,” I snapped. “How about this? I pay you and you field the replies to my posting. You should be able to source me someone I can use, since you told me—and I quote, ‘you have your finger on the pulse of everything in the Cove.’”

“Why, yes, I do, sir, but I’m not someone who hires nannies.”

“Do you have a preferred employment agency then? I want someone I can work with directly, not to hire an unknown individual through a group or a message board.”

I was still stunned these methods were used in a bustling employment environment. I felt as if I’d blinked and been thrust years into the past.

“Well, Cove Employment has a number of headhunters. They’ve been the industry leader here for many years.” At my silence, she sighed. “Or I can put out my feelers and see if I can find someone for you that could work. Would that be acceptable?”

“Yes. Now here’s what I need for my son?—”

Almost immediately, she began to backtrack. “At least I could do the initial legwork and you could follow-up if someone seems worthwhile. I should be able to find someone rather quickly,” she added as if she knew my irritation was growing. “There are many college students home for the summer, for example, though we’re already into the summer so they may not be as readily available.”

“College students?” I echoed. “I’d rather hire a professional nanny. Surely there should be some around here. Who do you use for your child?”

“My neighbor babysits her sometimes.” Her hesitance was loud and clear. “Beyond that, family helps fill in as they can. Pity you don’t have family to call on in the area.”

“I told you I’m new to the area.”

Despite my twisted roots in the Cove, they probably didn’t even know I existed. I’d only come here three years ago to try to scope them out without being detected. Which I’d done, before accidentally creating a child.

And creating my own roots here basically on a whim that had changed my entire life. Following my gut had worked very well.

But I wasn’t going to advertise my thorny family tree until I absolutely had no choice. I just needed to find a freaking nanny.

Surely there had to be a…pool of them somewhere. An upscale town like this had to have a ready assortment of young women and men who wanted to work and were good with kids. Or, hell, they didn’t need to be young.

As long as they were still ambulatory, that was fine with me.

“How about the local paper?” I asked finally, sighting a folded copy on the coffee table. I hadn’t signed up for it, but maybe Caro had picked it up for me. I enjoyed finding out how a town worked from the ground up, and the local paper was a good place to start.

Not that I had much choice in this case. The amount of workable leads available to me were exactly none.

Even Laken doing the legwork didn’t really work for me. She didn’t sound as if she had a much better read on the situation than I did—and I knew next to nothing about the people of Crescent Cove, other than a few of the members of my so-called family I’d done background assessments on and the couple of men I’d met by pure chance who had helped re-route the direction of my life.

“Oh, yes, good idea,” she said brightly. “The paper is run by Asher Wainwright, who actually might have a line on nannies for you. He also was a single father for some time.”

“Lovely. Does the paper have a classified section?”

“I thought you didn’t want to hire someone who was unknown?—”

“I do not. But it seems as if that’s just the way things are done around here, is it not?”

Also, I trusted my gut. Most of the time.

She mumbled a reply I couldn’t quite make out as I bobbled the phone while I grabbed the paper. Quickly, I flipped to the classified section and read through an assortment of ads for used tires and used patio furniture and used vehicles.

The employment section, however, was far more sparse. Other than a few open secretarial positions and some random positions at downtown Cove clothing retailers, there didn’t seem to be much.

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