It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in mid June when Meghan arrived at the home of Lucas Macaulay. Sunny, warm and quiet - the day had a lazy feel to it. Yet, Meg felt anything but the kind of laid-back, calm composure that should have gone with a day like that. She was wound up and fighting butterflies in her stomach as she stopped her car engine.

She took a deep breath and a quick glance at herself in her rearview mirror, trying to chase away some of those butterflies.

She'd pulled her wavy hair back into a professional looking French twist. She had used only a slight dusting of blush to give her pale skin some colour, a few swipes of mascara so her green eyes didn't look washed out, and a pale lipgloss just as a finishing touch.

Presentable, not flashy- that had been her goal and she was satisfied that she had accomplished it. But it still didn't help her unwind.

Analyzing her tension, she didn't think it should have come from meeting-new-people-jitters since she knew the Macaulay family. At least, she knew them the way everyone in her small town of Northbridge,Montana knew people they were not close to- she knew of them. Or she had, ten years ago before she left Northbridge to go to College. But they didn't seem to qualify as strangers, so meeting them shouldn't have been causing her stress.

The butterflies in her stomach also shouldn't have come from feeling on edge about the job interview she was there for when the discuss was only to confirm the terms of her employment as nanny to Lucas' three-year old daughter. A position Lucas' sister; Hadley had essentially hired her for on the phone because Meghan's credentials were far and away more than any nanny needed - she had a PhD in Child psychology and was on sabbatical from Children's Hospital in Denver after four years of work that had been considerably more complicated than nannying.

But the butterflies were flitting around anyway and she supposed they were just another part of the residual effects of The Incident - or what everyone referred to as The Incident. She had been easy to rattle since then. Which was part of why she was there....

She got out of the car and brushed the lines out of her beige linen slacks, making sure her cream coloured camp shirt was tucked in. Then, she headed for the two- storey farmhouse that was sporting a fresh coat of yellow paint trimmed in white.

As she climbed the steps onto the wide front porch, she could see through the screen that the front door was open. But there were no signs of life inside,so she pushed the button for the doorbell. It didn't make a sound. Maybe she hadn't pushed it hard enough. She tried again. But again, no sound.

She was five minutes early, but she knew Lucas and Hadley were expecting her.

She tried the doorbell a third time.

"It dudn't work" came a quiet little voice just before two puppies appeared from behind the open front door inside.

Meghan glanced downward to discover a very small child barely peeking at her from behind that same door.

Big brown eyes peered at her warily and beyond those, a pair of Spiderman swim goggles that the child was wearing on her forehead, the little girl was hidden behind the door.

"Hi" Meghan greeted in her most inviting tone of voice.

"I'm Meghan. I'll bet you're Tiara". The three-year old she was to be Nanny to.

The little girls only response was a timid nod of her head of curly blond hair. It was cut short and caplike but not so short that the curls didn't bounce with the nod.

"Are you swimming today?" Meg asked because of the goggles, thinking maybe a pool had bern added to the old Ludwig farm at some point and that maybe that was where Lucas and Hadley were.

But Tia have a negative shake of her head in answer to that, offering nothing more and ducking coyly behind the door, completely out of sight.

The dogs were wrestling with each other in the doorway, growling playfully. Meg hunkered down as if they were what she was really interested in, knowing that while a three-year old was naturally shy with strangers, they didn't like sharing the spotlight and that might draw Tiara out again.

"Oh, aren't you two the cutest things. Come over here and see me...."

The puppies stopped their wrestling and comes noses first to the screen,tails wagging, eager for her attention.

"Hello. Hello, you little sweethearts", she cooked to them.

As Meghan anticipated, Tia appeared from behind the door, even coming farther out than she'd been before. Far enough for Meghan to see her round,rosy cheeks and the long eyelashes that fanned her big brown eyes. Far enough for Meghan to see she was wearing a Spiderman costume to go with the Goggles.

"These are my dogs, Max and Harry", She said.

"Max and Harry", Meghan repeated. Still focusing on the puppies. "I don't know what kind of dogs you are, Max and Harry, but you're just babies, aren't you?" she cooed some more.

"Max is a doodle and Harry is a re-doodle" Tiara informed her, still timidly but with some authority, finally coming to stand in the doorway with the dogs.

Meghan wasn't sure what Doodles were, let alone re-doodles. But the information was coming from a three-year old, so she doubted it was reliable.

"And you are Spiderman today", Meghan said, aiming her attention at Tiara again, who seemed more ready to accept it.

"I am Spidergirl" Tiara corrected.

Meg nodded. "Now that I look again, I can see that. Spidergirl -of course. Well, Spidergirl, I'm here to talk to your dad and Aunt Hadley". She told Tiara. "Could you get one of them for me?"

"Tia? Where are you and what are you up to?" came a woman's voice just then. A split second later, the woman herself appeared at the opposite end of the hallway that ran from the front door alongside a staircase leading to the upper level, to the kitchen in the rear of the house.

"Oh, we didn't know someone was here", the woman said when she spotted Meghan. "Is that you, Meg?", she asked as she hurried to the door .

"It is" Meghan confirmed.

Because the hallway was dim and there was brought sunshine in the kitchen, the woman was in silhouette until she reached the entry. But even then, Meghan didn't recognize her. She hadn't be Lucas' ot Hadley Macaulay's contemporary growing up. At twenty-nine, Meghan was sux years younger than Lucas and four years younger than Hadley, and auth an age gap like that, none of them had any reason to take notice of each other. Add to the facts that Meghan hadn't been close friends with any of Lucas' and Hadley's younger half siblings, that both Lucas and Hadley had left Northbridge when they graduated High School, and that they were virtual strangers except that Meghan and Hadley had recently spoken on the telephone about the Nanny position.

So, when the other woman reached the front door, Meghan said "And you must be Hadley", to make sure. Besides, not only had she abd Hadley Macaulay not been friends, not only had more than a decade gone by since they had even seen each other, but the Hadley Meg had any recollection of at all was very heavy and the woman who came to the door was anything but.

"Yes, it's me", Hadley answered with a laugh. "I know, I'm half the woman I used to be - almost literally. I lost a hundred pounds."

"That's quite an accomplishment", Meg marveled.

Hadley pulled the puppies out of the way and opened the door as Tiara looked in from the sidelines again. "Come on in. We didn't know you were here"

"The doorbell....."

"Oh, I know, it needs to be replaced. I should have warned you but I forgot about it"

Meg went into the entryway and Hadley latched the screen door behind her. Then, to her niece, Hadley said "Tia, your daddy is in the backyard. Go get him and tell him Meghan is here."

"I'm Spidergirl" Tia insisted.

"Okay, Spidergirl, go get your dad" Hadley amended.

Very seriously, as if she were about to take flight, Tiara lowered the goggles over her eyes and then ran down the hallway Hadley had come from. But at the same moment Tiara reached the opposite end of it, a tall man appeared there too, and the three-year old crashed into him.