Chapter One

      “Mrs. Parnell? This is Steve Holder,” the deep male voice on the other end of the phone said.

      Celia recognized the name. Steve was one of her sporadic clients, making use of her services whenever he suddenly found himself without a housekeeper. Although she didn’t remember all her clients, she remembered the ones who were special, and Steve Holder’s case was. A widower, he was struggling to raise a preteen daughter on his own.

      And Celia had just been thinking of him.

      “Steve,” she said with pleasure. “How is everything?”

      “Not good, I’m afraid,” he replied honestly. “It happened again.”

      Celia didn’t have to guess what he was talking about. The young aerospace engineer wouldn’t be calling her just to shoot the breeze or talk aimlessly. He was far too conscientious about how he used his time—and hers—for that.

      “I take it that you’ve had another housekeeper quit?” There was no judgment in Celia’s voice, only sympathy. She knew Steve to be a very personable man. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, the housekeepers he employed seemed to have no staying power. She suspected that it had to do with his daughter. Incredibly intelligent, the ten-year-old was becoming increasingly difficult to handle.

      She heard Steve sighing as he answered, “Yes.”

      Since she needed the information to update her files, Celia tactfully asked, “May I ask what happened?”

      Steve had to admit that at least this housekeeper, who had lasted longer than the others, had a viable excuse for leaving. “Mrs. Pritchett’s daughter just had a baby and Mrs. Pritchett is moving to Seattle to help her take care of the new addition. She already told me that she didn’t think she’d be coming back,” he added.

      “Was it a girl or boy?” Celia asked.

      He wasn’t a people person and had to pause and think for a minute before he could answer the question. “Girl,” he finally said.

      “That’s lovely,” Celia said with genuine feeling. “But that does leave you in an immediate bind, doesn’t it, dear?”

      He appreciated how direct the woman was. No polite beating around the bush. He restated his position. “Well, I can have you and your company clean my house once every two weeks, and Stevi’s going to school right now, but I do need someone to cover the hours when she’s home and I’m still at work.”

      “She’s going to school?” Celia repeated, surprised. “But it’s summer.”

      “I know. Stevi’s going to summer school. She wanted to take some classes so she could get ahead. It was her idea, not mine,” he added quickly, before Mrs. Parnell could accuse him of robbing his daughter of her childhood. He was pleased she wanted to learn, but had to admit that he was really beginning to miss his little “buddy.” Stevi had begun to change on him in the last few months.

      “My daughter’s suddenly gone serious on me, Mrs. Parnell,” he confessed. “She doesn’t even want to be called ‘Stevi’ anymore. She’s ‘Stephanie’ now. And I’ve got this feeling that those fishing trips we used to take might just be a thing of the past.”

      Steve took his work very seriously. These outings he used to take with his daughter were what he’d looked forward to, a way to wind down. And now it appeared that this might be changing.

      “Not necessarily, Steve. Your daughter could just be broadening her base, not shifting her focus,” Celia pointed out. “Ten-year-olds have been known to change their minds a great deal at this age.”

      He could only hope, Steve thought. “Could I talk you into becoming my housekeeper?” he asked wistfully.

      Steve knew it wasn’t possible, but if it were, having the woman as his housekeeper would be an ideal solution.

      If he could put in an order for the perfect grandmother, it would be Mrs. Parnell. He was beginning to feel as if he knew his daughter less and less these days, but he was fairly certain that Stevi—Stephanie, he amended—would get along very well with her.

      “I would if I could, Steve,” Celia answered kindly. “But I’m afraid my company keeps me very busy these days. Otherwise—”

      “I know,” Steve said, cutting her short. He didn’t want the woman feeling that he was serious. “I just thought I’d give it a shot.”

      Celia knew he was attempting to politely extricate himself from the conversation, but she detected an underlying note of bewilderment and even sadness, now that she listened carefully. She didn’t think she remembered ever hearing him sound down before.

      “Steve, I wouldn’t give up on the idea of finding a decent housekeeper just yet.” She recalled the visit she’d had with Bonnie Reynolds the other day. An idea began to form. “I just might have the perfect person for you. Let me get back to you—”

      “Wait, there’s more,” he said, wanting to tell her something before she hung up. “I mean, I do need a housekeeper, but she’ll need to be more, as well.”

      “Oh?” Celia wasn’t altogether certain where this conversation was going and if she’d be able to help once it got there. She waited patiently for him to continue.

      Steve hesitated. “I don’t know how to put this, really.”

      “Words might be useful, Steve. Just start talking. I’ll do my best to try to figure it out,” she promised.

      An intelligent man, he wasn’t accustomed to being out of his element. But he definitely was now. Taking a breath, he started doing exactly as she suggested.

      “Well, as you know, it’s been Stevi—Stephanie and I for the last six years. Despite the demands of my job, I’ve been able to manage finding a lot of quality time with my daughter. We’ve done everything together. Everything from fishing to tea parties to baseball games and ‘Aliens and Astronauts’—”

      “‘Aliens and Astronauts’?” Celia questioned, puzzled. As the grandmother of three, including one teenage boy, she made an effort to keep up on the latest trends in games, but this was a new one.

      “It’s a video game,” Steve explained. “It’s Stevi’s—Stephanie’s favorite. I am having a really hard time remembering to call her that,” he complained. “Anyway, suddenly, without any warning, she’s switching gears on me.”

      “By asking you to call her Stephanie,” Celia said knowingly.

      “That’s part of it,” Steve admitted. “The other part—the bigger one—is that she suddenly seems to be growing up right in front of my eyes.”

      “They have a habit of doing that,” Celia told him wryly. “I think it might have something to do with the daily watering,” she added, tongue in cheek.

      Distressed over what was going on in his life, he barely realized she was trying to lighten the mood.

      “What I’m trying to get at is that all of a sudden, Stevi’s got these questions I don’t know the answers to. I mean, I know the answers, but I just can’t—I just can’t...” He trailed off helplessly.

      “I understand, Steve,” Celia told him kindly. “Your daughter’s at a crossroads in her life. It’s an admittedly delicate area and sometimes a young girl just needs to talk to another woman, no matter how close she is to her father.”

      “Yes!” Steve cried, relieved that she understood what he was attempting to clumsily put into words. “I need someone who knows how to cook, who’s neat, and most