Traded by Lisa Suzanne

CHAPTER 4

“Miss Kate!” Kennedy screeches when I walk into her kindergarten classroom armed with the boxes of donuts.

I grin as she runs over to me. “I saved you one of the special strawberry ones with sprinkles just in case you weren’t first in line.” I tap her nose, and she wraps her little arms around my legs.

“Whoa, Kate, that’s a lot of donuts,” Shannon says as she saunters up behind me and surveys everything I brought.

I shrug. “I figured they wouldn’t go to waste in the faculty lounge. I have three carafes of coffee in the car, too, plus the one I brought for you.”

“You didn’t have to go to all that trouble.” She takes out some paper plates and napkins while her aide starts to get the kids lined up.

“It’s Kennedy’s last day. She deserves some special treatment. And boy do I have a story for you.” I’ll fill her in later. She’s literally the only human being alive who knows I had a one-night stand with Jack Dalton, and she happens to be my best friend.

She narrows her eyes at me, and I just smile and pretend to zip my lips. She laughs as she shakes her head.

The kids get their donuts, and I hang around while they eat them so I can help clean up. And then I head out so they can finish their school day. I pick up the almost two-year-old from his morning daycare and get him home for his nap, and just as he starts to wake, it’s time to go pick up Kennedy.

I’ve managed to get the perfect routine down, and it only took me two years of being a live-in nanny for this family to do it.

And now they’re moving from Vegas all the way across the country to Hartford, Connecticut, which means I’m kind of out of a job. But Shannon has offered me a place to stay on the couch she shares with her fiancé, Kevin, while I regroup and find a new job, so while I’m sad about one door closing, I’m excited about the potential new doors. I’m nothing if not a glass-half-full kind of girl.

The Van Astors treat me to a decadent salmon dinner courtesy of their cook along with a glass of Mrs. Van Astor’s favorite wine for each of us, and then I help get the kids down to sleep for my final night with them. Mr. and Mrs. Van Astor have work to do, but they both wish me well as I go to bed for the last time in the room I’ve lived in as I’ve taken care of their children.

We say our tearful goodbyes in the morning, and they promise to keep in touch, and I promise to write, and that’s it.

I hop into my little Kia with two large duffel bags and three large suitcases, pretty much the sum of my belongings since I sold all my furniture before I started this job, and I head toward Shannon’s apartment.

I call my mom on the way.

“All done?” she answers.

“Yeah,” I say, my tone subdued.

“You could come back home to Kansas,” she says.

I bite back a laugh. No way in hell I’m going back to the small town my parents still call home. “And leave the palm trees and sunshine behind? Not on your life.”

It’s only a small part of why I didn’t want to go to Hartford. Snow and clouds and rain and slush and scraping windshields...no thanks. I’ll keep my independence and stick to the desert paradise of Las Vegas, thank you very much.

“Will you go back to psychology?” she asks.

I know she’s hopeful since she and my dad paid for my degree, but working as a psychologist just wasn’t a good fit for me. When I read about how live-in nannies had the opportunity to make bank, I gave up my job for a nanny position, and it only took a few weeks of living with the Van Astors to realize where my true passions lie.

And no, it’s not in being a nanny, though I actually loved working with Kennedy and Miles.

My passion is in interior design.

It’s in colors and light and textures and piecing them all together into some cohesive, aesthetically pleasing whole.

And so I’m slowly working toward a second degree. With just two online classes on my load per semester since that was all I had time for while nannying full-time, I feel like I might never finish. According to my advisor, though, I should be done in another eighteen months at this pace.

I basically got an apprenticeship by watching Mrs. Van Astor run her business. I learned about the reality of interior design, which is actually firmly based in architecture rather than in home décor, though I have to admit that home décor is a close second to my passion for design. Who doesn’t love binging House Hunters and all those house flipping shows?

I’d like to go to school full time and finish my degree faster, but my ultimate dream is to open my own design firm, and I need a bankroll to do that. Nannying provides that bankroll. My salary from the Van Astors went entirely to my savings account since my room, board, and bills were taken care of. My only expenses were the necessities, my own entertainment, school, and my phone.

I’m working hard to set up the sort of future I want for myself, and I won’t let anything get in my way.

“I’m not planning on it,” I say to my mom, and I keep talking as not to give her a chance to try to convince me to use my degree. “I’m on my way to Shannon’s now, and as soon as I get my laptop fired up, I’m going to search for new nanny positions.”

“New nanny positions? Not back to being a school psychologist?” she presses.

I thought I’d be helping kids in my role as a school psychologist. Instead, I was chasing paperwork and helping the counselors with their overflow work, which meant during the end of the school year I was scheduling kids for the next year, double checking class sizes, and calling parents to let them know why their kid didn’t get into the honors program.

To be fair, I did help a lot of kids. It just turned out working in a school wasn’t for me.

I sigh. “I’m using my degree every single day with the kids in my charge, Mom. It’s just not in the traditional sort of way. And I make way more money doing this.”

“As long as you’re happy,” she says.

“I am. You know how much I love Vegas.”

And I am.

For the most part.

I have a good friend in Shannon. I have money in the bank. I’m working toward my goals.

But...

As my mom would say, it’s not all peaches and carrot cake.

I’m hopelessly single. My last boyfriend turned out to be a real dick. I haven’t been with a man since Halloween, and we all know how that turned out.

I’m out of a job.

I really just need something for the next eighteen months or so where I can live in somebody else’s house to do my job so I don’t have to pay rent. Would working in interior design be a better fit than being a nanny? Probably. But the paychecks would be smaller, and I’d have to find a place to live, which would mean far more expenses.

Being a live-in nanny isn’t easy since you’re living where you’re working, but I established a routine and ran the Van Astor house like a machine. It helps that I’m good with kids, obviously, but dealing with parents is a different beast entirely. I was lucky with my former employers, and I’d still be with them if they weren’t relocating.

My parents told me I could choose any college I wanted when I was a senior in high school, and something about Las Vegas always called to me. So I moved to start college at the University of Nevada Las Vegas at the ripe age of eighteen, and seven years later I’m not planning on leaving...not even for the Van Astors.

I’ll find something. Mrs. Van Astor told me she’d leave me a glowing recommendation with the agency they found me through, and I have faith I’ll get another job.

Fingers crossed it’s sooner rather than later.

“I do, honey. And maybe I don’t say it enough, but I’m proud of you for following your dreams. I wish I had the guts to do that when I was your age.”

I’m surprised and a little touched by her words. “It’s never too late,” I say. I can’t help but wonder what her dreams are. She and my dad run the diner that’s been in my dad’s family for generations, and I always just assumed that was her dream.

Her only reply is a soft sigh, and then I’m pulling into Shannon’s complex.

“I better run, but we’ll talk soon, okay?” I say.

“Love you, Katie bug.”

“Love you, too, Mama bug.”

She chuckles and I cut the call, and then I use the key Shannon gave me yesterday to let myself into her place.

I lug my suitcases and duffel bags into her family room, where I’ll be living for the (hopefully short) foreseeable future, and then I plop on the couch and open my laptop to start my new job search.