A Nanny Named Nick. Miranda Lee

      ‘And the baby’s father?’ Nick asked, intrigued. No wonder Dave was worried about his sister. Being an unmarried mother was not uncommon these days, but it was still not an ideal situation.

      Madge tut-tutted. ‘Now that’s a sad story. The baby’s father was killed—blown up by a land-mine in Cambodia. Linda was with him at the time. She’s a journalist, you know, and he was a very famous photographer. They went everywhere together. They simply lived for each other.’

      Madge suddenly became a little teary. ‘Poor thing. She didn’t even know she was pregnant when the accident happened. Not only that, they’d been finally going to get married when they came home.’

      Nick’s heart contracted. What a bloody rotten world it was. He shook his head sadly. ‘What terrible luck.’

      ‘Yes. I don’t know how Linda’s coped, I really don’t. But she’s a very brave lady. We’ve been neigh-bours for ages, you know, but, strangely, I didn’t get to know her till some time after Gordon was killed. They bought the original house together some years back, then had it done up. Actually, they were as good as married. I used to think they were. Of course, they weren’t here all that much. Always flitting around the world on some assignment or other, those two. He’d take the photographs and she’d write the stories.’

      Nick didn’t say a word for fear of stopping the woman’s flow of gossip.

      ‘Anyway, one day late in her pregnancy Linda appeared on my doorstep and asked if she might come in for a cup of tea and a chat. She was so lonely, the poor love. As I said, that brother of hers is useless. And her parents have passed on, so she has no mother to turn to.

      ‘After that she used to visit me nearly every day and we became firm friends. When Rory was born and she had so much trouble with him it was me she turned to for advice. Quite desperate she would get some days. I did all I could to help her, but, quite frankly, Linda’s just not one of those girls who took to motherhood and staying at home all the time. It drove her crazy.’

      ‘It can’t be easy with no father te-help,’ Nick murmured sympathetically.

      ‘Yes, you’re quite right. Still, with a bit of luck Linda will find someone else to marry her eventually, and to be a father to Rory. She’s a good-looking girl. Meanwhile, I was only too happy to come in and mind Rory when she went back to work,’ Madge raved on. ‘Though he’s a bit of a devil at times. High-spirited, like his mother. Oh, goodness, listen to me, gossiping away and probably boring you to death. I’d better check on Rory, and you’d better get on with mowing that lawn!’

      Nick did just that, but his mind remained with Linda’s story. It was really tragic, he thought. Dave’s sister didn’t sound as if she was coping all that well. But he didn’t think the answer was for her to race out and marry again. He’d seen some disasters with unsuitable stepfathers who didn’t have it in them to love and care for another man’s child.

      Still, it wasn’t any of his business, was it? He was only here to mow the lawn.

      It only took him fifteen minutes to complete the job. When he stopped the mower and wheeled it back into the garage, the muffled sound of a baby crying filtered through the door which led back inside the house.

      Nick sighed his regret at waking the child, but there was nothing he could have done about it. Mowing lawns was a noisy occupation. It was also a hot one. Even in that short space of time, beads of perspiration had pooled all over his upper body, and the T-shirt was clinging to his back. He decided to take up Madge’s offer of a cool drink before he got back on his bike and headed home to the convent.

      The baby’s crying seemed to grow louder and more frantic in the minute it took Nick to return the mower to its place in the corner of the garage then pull down the rolling door. When he opened the door which led into the interior of the house, his ears were blasted with high-pitched cries which alternated between shrieks and sobs.

      Why in God’s name didn’t Madge go and see to the child?

      Nick frowned as he strode across the living-room floor. He did not approve of the idea of letting a baby cry itself back to sleep—not when that crying had gone beyond crying to hysteria.

      The unexpected sight of a very still Madge lying at the bottom of the stairs was self-explanatory. Nick sucked in a shocked breath then raced to see to the inert figure’s plight.

      A pulse reassured him she was still alive. Her colour wasn’t good, however. He wondered if she’d had a fall or a coronary. He was about to start resuscitation procedures when Madge groaned, her eyelids fluttering open.

      ‘What happened?’ Nick asked swiftly.

      Her eyes closed for a moment, then opened painfully again.

      ‘Fell,’ she rasped. ‘Dizzy. My side hurts. I think I might have broken something.’

      ‘I’ll call an ambulance straight away,’ he said, glancing around. ‘Where’s the phone? Right, I see it. Hang on, Madge. We’ll have you in hospital before you can say lickety split.’

      ‘Rory,’ she croaked weakly as the baby’s cries heightened even further, if that were possible.

      ‘Is he in a cot?’

      ‘Uh-huh.’

      ‘Then he’ll live. You come first, Madge. After I’ve rung the ambulance I’ll go get him.’

      ‘All right,’ she agreed, sighing.

      Nick dialled the emergency number and was assured an ambulance would be dispatched immediately. Then he dashed up the stairs, following the racket to a bedroom where a red-faced infant of perhaps twelve months was standing in his cot, screaming and shaking the sides as though the hounds of hell were after him. Nick took one look at the fury of the child’s tantrum, at his big liquid dark eyes and thick mop of black curls, and decided his father must have been in the Mafia.

      On sighting Nick, Rory stopped mid-scream for a split second, as though assessing this stranger who didn’t look at all like his mother or Madge. And then he found his second wind and began to bawl again, even more fortissimo than before.

      Nick shrugged, walked over and scooped him up, balancing him on his hip and ignoring his piercing protests.

      ‘Do shut up, Rory,’ he said sternly. ‘Madge is hurt and the last thing she needs is to listen to your infernal wailing.’

      Rory fell silent a second time, round eyes inspecting this person who knew his name and who spoke with such authority. Nick noticed there wasn’t a real tear in sight on his chubby cheeks.

      He smiled wryly. ‘You old faker, you.’

      Rory suddenly smiled back, a gloriously brilliant smile which showed the beginnings of a tooth just breaking through his gummy mouth.

      Nick felt something curl around his heart, then squeeze tight. The sensation shocked then annoyed him.

      ‘Not on your life, you little con man,’ he muttered as he carried the child from the room. ‘You can’t get round me as easily as that.’

      But it seemed he could.

      As could Madge.

      Nick found himself promising her all sorts of things—the main one being that he would stay and look after Rory till his mother got home.

      ‘If you think you can manage, that is,’ Madge added faintly.

      Unfortunately, Nick had already shown how well he could manage during the fifteen minutes it took the ambulance to arrive. In that short space of time he’d made Madge comfortable on the floor, changed Rory’s nappy and given him some orange juice. The child had really taken to him, too. Either that or he liked playing with his hair, which, though not really long, was a darned sight longer than Madge’s tight frizzy curls.

      Whatever, there was not a peep of further protest from his rosebud mouth, which was apparently unusual. Rory, Nick was beginning to appreciate,