Besides, she was a professional reporter. She’d interviewed presidents, prime ministers and kings, as well as rebels and terrorists. If she couldn’t handle asking a prospective nanny a few pointed questions, what kind of reporter was she?
“Very well. I’ll let you handle it, and then when you’re done, you can tell me whether you want to interview any other prospects.” Ellen left the room in a faint cloud of Chanel No. 5.
“Oh, wait—” Lacey began, but the door had already clicked shut behind the woman. “Damn it.”
She’d forgotten to ask for a résumé beforehand. She’d planned her early arrival so she could do a quick read through the potential nanny’s employment history so she could ask intelligent questions. No reporter liked to go into an interview blind.
“Oh well,” she murmured against Katie’s cheek. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough if we’ve found our own Mary Poppins.”
There was a quiet knock on the conference-room door.
“Come in,” Lacey said, taking a deep breath to calm her sudden rattle of nerves and pasting a smile on her face.
The door opened and Jim Mercer entered, a faint smile on his face. “Hello, again.”
“Oh. It’s you.” Her smile faded. “Did you forget something?”
“Actually, no.” He smiled at Katie, who reached out for him again. “Hey there, sweetie.”
Lacey tugged her niece closer. “I hate to seem rude, considering how you came to our rescue, but I don’t really have time to talk. I’m about to conduct a job interview.”
Jim pulled out the chair across from her and sat. “I know. I’m the one you’re interviewing.”
Lacey Miles stared at Jim a moment, her only reaction a slight narrowing of her eyes. Otherwise, she maintained a pretty impressive poker face. “I see.”
When she said nothing more, he asked, “Is that a problem? Ms. Taylor said you had specified that you had no issues with hiring a male caretaker.”
“I don’t,” she said bluntly in a tone that suggested just the opposite.
“You seem as if you’ve been blindsided.”
Her lips curved in a faint, perfunctory smile. “I guess I have been, in a way. I didn’t have a chance to look over your credentials or even get your name. I just wasn’t expecting a man.”
“Oh.”
“I’m in a hurry to make a hire, you see,” she added quickly, as if she realized what she’d just admitted made her sound ill prepared. “I haven’t had much luck since I sent my request to Ellen. In fact, you’re the first person who’s even applied for the job.”
He was pretty sure he knew why. The story about the car bomb that had been meant for her—the one that had killed her sister and brother-in-law instead—had made the national news. There weren’t a lot of wannabe nannies willing to walk into a situation like that.
“Anyway, best-laid plans and all that.” Lacey breathed a soft sigh. “So tell me about yourself.”
“I’m thirty-four years old. I spent a decade in the Marine Corps, and then over the next four years, I went to college and earned a degree in early-childhood education.”
“Really? First a Marine, now a nanny?” That piece of information seemed to pique her interest.
“I’d eventually like to run my own day-care center,” he said, wondering if she’d believe it.
“What sort of experience with child care do you have?”
“I raised my younger siblings from the age of fifteen. My father was a police officer who died in the line of duty, and my mother had to go back to work. I had three younger siblings, ages two through eleven. I was their full-time caregiver until my mother remarried shortly after I turned eighteen. At that time, I joined the Marine Corps.”
“That’s your most recent child-care experience?”
“After college, I worked a couple of years as a nanny for a family in Kentucky.” He slid his résumé across the table to her. “Their contact information is on my résumé.”
She set Katie on the floor and picked up the paper. After a few minutes silently reading what was written there, she put the paper down and looked up at him, her gray eyes narrowed. “Assuming your references check out, how quickly can you start work?”
“As soon as you hire me.”
“What about the family you were working for? You don’t need to give them any notice?”
“No. Mrs. Beckett decided she was missing too much of her children’s lives by working in an office, so she took a job that enables her to work from home. So I’m back in the job market.”
“I see.”
She fell silent again, her gaze wandering back to the résumé, as if she might find something new written in the words on the page. What was she looking for? Jim wondered. A reason to hire him?
Or a reason not to?
A tug on his pants leg drew his attention. Katie stood at his knee, her gray eyes gazing up at him with curiosity. When she saw him looking, her little face spread into a big grin.
“Hey there, Katiebug.”
At the sound of his voice, she lifted her arms.
“May I?” He looked at Lacey for permission to pick up the child.
“Sure.”
He picked up Katie and set her on his knee. She grew instantly intrigued by his blue-striped tie, her fingers playing with the fabric. He couldn’t hold back a smile, which she returned with a giggle.
She was at a very cute age, just a shade past two. Pretty steady on her feet, starting to build her vocabulary, curious about everything that crossed her path—she had probably already started becoming a handful before her parents suddenly and tragically disappeared from her life, leaving her in the care of her aunt.
Her aunt, who was a single woman with a high-powered, very public career. Earlier, he’d wondered just how much Lacey Miles knew about taking care of a small child. He was becoming more and more certain she was clueless. No wonder she was desperate to hire a nanny.
“Katie likes you,” she said. “A point in your favor.”
“Ms. Taylor said you needed a live-in nanny. Does that mean you’ll be going back to work soon?”
Lacey’s sandy brow notched upward. “What makes you think I haven’t been working?”
“I haven’t seen you on air. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you weren’t working behind the scenes.” It wouldn’t do for her to realize just how much he already knew about her. She was already on edge as it was, and the attack this afternoon had only made things worse for her.
It had been a brazen attack, during daylight and out in the open. Although, if he hadn’t happened to be walking down that alley when he had, it might have been very easy for her attacker to kill her outright or carry her and the child away in the van that had been waiting for him.
The big question was why. Why had someone gone after her today? Why had someone set a bomb under her car a couple of weeks ago?
Just how much danger were she and her niece really in?
“I guess you know why I have custody of my niece now. I’m all she has. Both sets of grandparents are dead, and Toby didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”
He nodded.