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  Outstanding praise for the novels of Holly Chamberlin!

  THE SEASON OF US

  “A warm and witty tale. This heartfelt and emotional story will appeal to members of the Sandwich Generation or anyone who has had to set aside long-buried childhood resentments for the well-being of an aging parent. Fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Wendy Wax will adore this genuine exploration of family bonds, personal growth, and acceptance.”

  —Booklist

  “Chamberlin successfully portrays a family at their best and worst as they struggle through their first holiday without a beloved husband and father and have to redefine their relationships.”

  —Library Journal

  THE BEACH QUILT

  “Particularly compelling.”—The Pilot

  SUMMER FRIENDS

  “A thoughtful novel.”—ShelfAwareness

  “A great summer read.”—Fresh Fiction

  “A novel rich in drama and insights into what factors bring people together and, just as fatefully, tear them apart.”

  —The Portland Press Herald

  THE FAMILY BEACH HOUSE

  “Explores questions about the meaning of home, family dynamics and tolerance.”

  —The Bangor Daily News

  “An enjoyable summer read, but it’s more. It is a novel for all seasons that adds to the enduring excitement of Ogunquit.”

  —The Maine Sunday Telegram

  “It does the trick as a beach book and provides a touristy taste of Maine’s seasonal attractions.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Books by Holly Chamberlin

  LIVING SINGLE

  THE SUMMER OF US

  BABYLAND

  BACK IN THE GAME

  THE FRIENDS WE KEEP

  TUSCAN HOLIDAY

  ONE WEEK IN DECEMBER

  THE FAMILY BEACH HOUSE

  SUMMER FRIENDS

  LAST SUMMER

  THE SUMMER EVERYTHING CHANGED

  THE BEACH QUILT

  SUMMER WITH MY SISTERS

  SEASHELL SEASON

  THE SEASON OF US

  HOME FOR THE SUMMER

  HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

  THE SUMMER NANNY

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  The Summer Nanny

  Holly Chamberlin

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by Elise Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0157-2

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-0157-7

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: July 2018

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-0156-5

  As always, for Stephen

  And this time also for Kimberly and Colleen

  Acknowledgments

  My sincere thanks yet again to John Scognamiglio for his wise and unflagging support. And to all of the nurses at Brigham and Women’s, as well as at Maine Medical Center, my thanks for their kind and good care of Stephen and me.


  Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.

  Only through experiences of trial and suffering

  can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared,

  ambition inspired and success achieved.

  —Helen Keller

  Chapter 1

  Beautiful spring weather came late to southern Maine and now, when it had finally made its appearance in mid-April, Leda Latimer was taking full advantage by opening all the windows in her studio to let in fresh air for the first time since the windows had been shut tight the previous October. Just the week before, the vibrant yellow forsythia bushes had mellowed into lush green. The first and then the second robin had been sighted, and the ubiquitous muck of mud season had begun to dry out, leaving ruts in the driveway and along the path around the side of the house. Ruts Leda could handle. Wallowing in wet ground she could not.

  Leda was a lifelong resident of Yorktide. She wore her dark hair in a ponytail or in a casual updo. At forty she didn’t yet need reading glasses, though she suspected she would need them before long. Doing the sort of work she did put a strain on the eyes, for Leda was a craftswoman, as her mother had been before her. In fact, Leda had learned all of the basic skills she knew from her mother, and while making a living by crafting was a bit laborious, Leda could imagine no other way of spending her time. She would have liked her daughter to express an interest in craftwork, too, but Amy had less than no interest. Many years before, Leda had tried to teach Amy how to sew a button on a blouse. Blood had been spilled. Leda’s blood.

  Leda was proficient at a variety of skills, from rug hooking to embroidery, from beading to sewing. She made particular clothing items for Amy and made alterations to her own clothes, both of which cut down considerably the cost of maintaining their wardrobes. As for work that paid the bills, there were two main categories—what Leda called the custom and the commercial.

  The custom work itself could be divided into two categories: work produced from Leda’s original designs and that skillfully copied from famous works of art. When a customer wanted a particular item and couldn’t find it in a brick-and-mortar or an online store, she came to Leda’s studio and browsed through her ready-made designs or worked along with Leda to get the vision in her head onto paper. This process could be anything from exhilarating to frustrating, but in the end the results were almost always gratifying for both Leda and her client.

  The second part of Leda’s custom work was the reproduction of popular works of fiber art, from designs produced by William Morris in the nineteenth century, to works dating much further back in history. For example, people were mad for the famous Unicorn Tapestries. The originals, created between 1495 and 1505, were masterpieces of needle and thread, color and design, and Leda never tired of the challenge of re-creating the beautiful and poignant scenes depicted in the seven works. She and her clients were particularly interested in images pulled from The Unicorn Is Found, The Unicorn in Captivity, and the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. Because of the time, effort, and artistry that went into each of these meticulous re-creations, Leda was able to charge a healthy price for each of them.

  On occasion, interesting commission work led to more commercial enterprises. For a local woman who was proud to trace her ancestors to Scotland, Leda had copied several of the surviving bits of embroidery stitched by Mary, Queen of Scots, during her long incarceration in England. Once word had gotten around that Leda could produce such small masterpieces without the aid of a kit, orders came flooding in. The most popular of the images were without a doubt the ones that featured animals. The Catte, Jupiter (one of Mary’s pet dogs), Delphin (a dolphin), Frogge, and Eape were clear favorites.

  Leda’s bread-and-butter work, however, was making originally designed rugs, pillows, chair pads, table linens, and accessories like eyeglass cases and change purses. These she sold locally at home-decorating shops such as Wainscoting and Windowseats, owned by her friend Phil Morse. Leda also sold her work at The Busy Bee quilt shop and a few of the tourist stores in the area. She did have a website—LatimerCreations.com—though it didn’t get significant traffic. Leda wasn’t exactly good at self-promotion. In fact, she had set up the website only at her daughter’s urging. “Everyone has an online presence these days, Mom,” Amy had argued. “You’ll be totally left behind if you don’t have a website.”

  “Left behind what?” Leda had been tempted to ask, but she knew what her daughter meant. Only weeks earlier she had learned the meaning of FOMO; Vera, her closest friend, had explained it in context of an article she was reading about current trends in the food industry. “It means fear of missing out. It pertains to those people who need to be tuned in to media of all sorts 24/7.” Leda had laughed. “I live to miss out,” she exclaimed, to which reply Vera had given her a look Leda found disconcerting. Maybe keeping one’s head in the sand wasn’t always the smartest thing.

  Still, Leda did all right. It didn’t hurt that her mortgage was small, as her parents, Anne and Paul Gleeson, had paid off most of it before they died; when Amy was seven, the little house on Hawthorne Lane came to Leda in their will. The house suited Leda’s and Amy’s needs perfectly. There were three bedrooms and a full bathroom on the second floor. Amy had the largest of the bedrooms, Leda the second largest, and the smallest was kept as a guest room. The first floor comprised a cozy kitchen, big enough for a table at which to eat meals; a living room; and Leda’s studio. Three of the studio’s walls were mostly windows, allowing for plenty of light.

  An ear-piercing scream of the feline sort caused Leda to jump. The noise had come from Winston Churchill, though it might equally have come from Harry, aka Henry 8th. Both were large and grumpy and demanded constant attention. They were suspicious of visitors, even ones they knew, which was probably why Winston had let out a warning.

  Indeed, a moment later Leda heard the back door, the one that led from the small hall off the studio into the yard, open and shut with a bang. Vera Cecil had a way with doors. A moment later Leda’s assumption was confirmed when Vera appeared in the doorway of the studio. Her short, dark hair was sticking up like a rooster’s coxcomb, and she was wearing an old plaid shirt Leda knew for a fact she often wore to bed.

  “Well,” Vera announced, throwing her hands in the air. “It’s over. Another relationship bites the dust.”

  “What happened?” Leda asked, putting down her embroidery hoop. “I thought things were going really well for you two.”

  “So did I,” Vera admitted. She strode into the room and flopped into the armchair on which one of Leda’s hand-stitched quilts was draped. She was no sooner seated than Harry was on her lap. “You’ll read about it in the paper tomorrow, but I might as well tell you now. The charming Kitty Doyle is a bank robber. Well, she was a bank robber, back when she was known as Katie Dunn.”

  “Wait,” Leda said. “What?”

  “You heard me. The police turned up at the door first thing this morning with an arrest warrant. You can imagine my surprise. I hadn’t even had my first cup of coffee. It wasn’t until after ten o’clock, three hours after the cops dragged my girlfriend off to the slammer, that it sunk in. I’d been harboring a criminal without knowing it.”

  “A bank robber? Really?” Leda shook her head. “Where do you find these people? Wait. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I hope the police believe that you had no knowledge of Kitty’s past.”

  Vera rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. “They seemed to,” she said, “but my lawyer will press the point.”

  “It’s kind of too bad really,” Leda said thoughtfully. “I liked Kitty. True, she had that slightly freaky way of watching people out of the corner of her eye, but now that habit is explained.”

  Vera sighed and gave Harry a stroke. “She made a mean beef stroganoff. I’m going to miss that beef stroganoff.”

  “You’ll meet someone else,” Leda said soothingly. “You always do.”

  “Nope,” Vera said. “After this latest debacle, I’m res
igning myself to being an old maid. I have spectacularly bad taste in women, and I can’t see that changing no matter how many self-help books I read.”

  “You’ve been reading self-help books?” Leda asked.

  “For years,” Vera admitted. “It’s been my dirty little secret, but I’m dumping them all now. Fat lot of good they did me.”

  “Maybe you should let a friend set you up,” Leda suggested. “That way at least you’ll know the person is halfway sane. Well, assuming you trust the friend.”

  “Nope. I’m done.” Vera suddenly got up from the armchair, sending Harry flying. He landed on his feet. “I don’t know why I’m so bad at meeting normal people. I had a perfectly fine childhood. My parents loved me. They even spoiled me, and maybe that somehow made my judgment go bad, assuming my judgment was ever good. It’s a mystery for the ages.”

  “A mystery I wish I could solve for you.”

  “If wishes were horses . . . Well, I’m off. Just wanted to give you the big news.” Vera came to a sudden stop and turned around. “It just dawned on me. What am I going to do with Kitty’s stuff? Even if she gets out on bail, she ain’t living with me.”

  “Send it to her family?” Leda suggested.

  “That would be a great idea if I knew anything about her family, and I don’t. What a mess!”