Читать книгу Falling for the Heiress - Christine Flynn, Christine Flynn, Mary J. Forbes - Страница 9

The rattle of a key in the lock preceded the thud of the utility room door hitting the wall and the sharp bang of the screen door behind it.

Before Tess could begin to imagine who would be in such a hurry to get in, she found her view of the doorway entirely blocked by her bodyguard. It barely occurred to her that the man’s silence and speed were more unnerving than the commotion when a startled feminine yelp joined the thump of something hitting the floor.

With his broad back to her, Parker signaled for her to stay put. Ignoring him, Tess glanced around his side to see an apple roll through the doorway.

Ina Yeager, her mom’s dark-haired, late-thirty-something maid, had gone as still as Lot’s wife. Her right hand lay splayed over her chest. In her left arm she clutched the bag of groceries she hadn’t dropped as if it might somehow shield her lean frame from the unexpected presence that had nearly stopped her heart.

Tess quickly stepped around the small mountain in navy worsted. “It’s all right. Both of you. Ina, this is Mr. Parker. He’s my driver and bodyguard,” she explained, terribly conscious of him herself. “He’ll be staying for a couple of weeks.

“Parker,” she continued, expecting him to stand down now that he knew he didn’t have to whisk her to safety. The man was only doing what he’d been trained to do, but at some point she obviously needed to explain to him that she was as safe here as she was anywhere. It was beyond the estate she was concerned about. “Ina is one of mom’s housekeeping staff.” With a smile for the woman with the deep dimples and long French braid, she snatched the still-rolling apple off the floor. “Her husband is the stable master.”

Seeing Tess reach for a head of lettuce and a red onion that had also rolled from the dropped sack, the clearly rattled maid bent to pick up the vegetables herself.

“I’m so sorry, Tess,” she began, adding the onion to her bag. “I didn’t think you’d be here. In the kitchen, I mean. Eddy went out front to help with your luggage,” she told her, speaking of her husband. “I thought you’d be in the foyer directing him where to put it.”

“He can just leave it there.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Ina glanced up as she spoke, taking in Parker’s big, shiny black shoes, his long, powerful legs, his impossibly broad shoulders. Stopping short of the strong line of his jaw, she grabbed the only remaining item—a bunch of bananas—and looked to Tess with another apology.

“Your mother called to tell me you and your son will be staying here for a while and asked me to stock the refrigerator. I’d meant to be here before you arrived and have everything put away. I bought enough for your dinner and breakfast, and there’s scones for tea, if you’d like.”

The squeak of her tennis shoes sounded like chattering mice as she hurried to set the vegetables by the sink and grab a bowl from a cabinet. “I remembered some of your preferences but not all,” she rushed on, filling an Italian ceramic bowl with the fruit before unloading milk, butter, bread and eggs. “If you’ll give me your menu for the week, I’ll go back to the market tomorrow.”

The woman easily ten years her senior looked terribly self-conscious as she moved between the pantry and the built-in refrigerator. Tess figured part of the reason for that awkwardness stemmed from being out of uniform. Members of the estate’s staff, everyone from the butler to the cook, maids and gardeners, wore their respective uniforms when on duty. Rarely did any employee appear in or around the main house dressed in anything else. Wearing a cotton shirt and denim capris, Ina seemed painfully conscious of her casual attire. From her furtive glances toward the splendid specimen of masculinity in his uniform of tailored suit and tie, she seemed just as aware of Parker silently watching her every move.

Or so Tess was thinking before she realized that some of those darting glances were aimed at her. She was the daughter who had caused so much gossip and speculation among her parents’ staff. She didn’t doubt for a moment that the maid was more than a little curious about her and her return.

She could only imagine the rumors that had flowed among the staff. At least right now, talk would be kept to a minimum. With most of the staff gone, there were blessedly few people to generate it.

“I’ll prepare your meals for you since Olivia is with your parents. Will you be staying in your old bedroom?”

“Mikey and I both will.” But I’ll take care of it, she would have said, except Ina was already talking.

“Then I’ll freshen it up as soon as I’m finished here.” With a quick and diplomatic glance toward where Tess’s bodyguard remained, wrist clasped, waiting for her to conclude, she dropped her voice and hurried on. “Which room do you want Mr. Parker in? There’s only one extra in the servants’ quarters, but it’s not very big.”

Ina apparently couldn’t picture him in a twin bed, either.

“I’ve already shown him which room he can use. I think Rose’s is best.” It was the largest. The room that belonged to the head housekeeper was also the only one in the servants’ quarters with a double bed.

Considering his sizable frame, even that would be small.

If Ina had any reservations about putting another employee in her immediate boss’s space, she dutifully kept them to herself. “I’ll put fresh towels in his bathroom.”

“Just tell me where they are. I’ll take care of it.”

Ina opened her mouth, closed it again. The faint frown creasing her brow made it look as if she couldn’t possibly have heard correctly. “I need to freshen all the rooms. Nothing has been done in here since your parents left last month. I need to vacuum, dust. You’ll want fresh flowers….”

Tess was already shaking her head. “Don’t worry about any of it. You don’t need to use your vacation time to wait on me. Go on with whatever plans you have and just pretend we aren’t even here. And please,” she requested, old anxieties never far from the surface, “don’t mention to anyone that I’ve returned. No one off the property, I mean. You didn’t say anything to anyone at the market, did you?”

“Not a word,” Ina replied, looking puzzled. “Your mother already asked for our discretion about your presence. I passed on her request to Eddy and to Jackson,” she said, speaking of the groundskeeper. Puzzlement shifted to consternation. “But she specifically asked that I be available to you and her grandson….”

“And I’m asking that you forget we’re here.”

The woman clearly didn’t want to upset her employer. Tess didn’t want to cause problems for Ina either, but having staff wait on her in any way was not part of the plan she’d devised for herself to get on with her life. She had gone from being the protected baby of the family to the wife of a man who’d turned out to be a master at control and manipulation. She’d spent years having people take over, take care of and take charge and done next to nothing to stop the slow erosion of her personal freedom.

It had taken years, the past few in particular, but she had finally realized how much independence all that acquiescence had cost her. It was time she learned to take care of herself and her son on her own.

Preparing to do just that, she gamely offered the only reason she could think of that might override her mother’s orders and ease Ina’s mind.

“I just need time alone. Just me and my son. If I do find I need your help, I’ll call you. I’ll explain to my mother if she says anything,” she promised. “All right?”

Ina looked doubtful. “If you’re sure…”

“I’m positive. Really. Enjoy your time off.”

It was hard to tell which had the firmer hold on the maid at that moment—skepticism at leaving her employer’s daughter to fend for herself or gratitude that her vacation wouldn’t be further interrupted. She glanced uncertainly around the kitchen, looking as if she wanted to be positive there wasn’t something else she should do. Apparently she found nothing.

“Well,” she murmured, “it would be nice to finish redoing our son’s room. He joined the Navy when he graduated from high school a couple of months ago, so I’m turning it into a sewing room. With your mother’s permission, of course.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll call if you need anything at all?”

Tess mentally crossed her fingers. “I will.”

“Well, if that’s the case, I guess I’ll go tell Eddy just to leave your luggage in the foyer.” She hesitated. “We can carry it up if you’d like.”

“It’s fine, Ina. Really. Just tell me where I’ll find clean towels for Mr. Parker’s bathroom.”

The clearly baffled maid showed her a large linen closet inside an even larger laundry room, then disappeared through the door that led to the family breakfast room, which led to the formal dining room and into the foyer. As far back as Tess was in the house, it was impossible for her to hear movements or conversation in those areas, but within a minute she saw both Ina and her rangy husband walk beneath the kitchen windows and cross the cobblestones between the house and the garage on their way back to the stables.

“Can you trust her?”

Tess turned from the window to open one of the drawers beneath a long expanse of counter.

“I hope so. Probably,” she amended, closing that drawer with the clatter of cutlery to open the next one. “Ina has been with the family for at least ten years. I’ve never heard of her saying anything she shouldn’t.” Unlike certain people who used to work for me, she thought. “My mother tends to inspire loyalty better than I do.”

She looked distracted to Parker as she closed that drawer and opened another. She also sounded like a woman who had been betrayed somehow, he thought, only to remind himself again that her personal business was none of his. Not unless it impacted his ability to do his job. He was more interested at the moment in what she was doing, anyway.

She’d turned to the upper cabinets behind her, going through them much as she had the drawers. The way she moved about the room made him think she was looking for something in particular. Or maybe trying to acquaint herself with an unfamiliar space.

“So,” she prefaced, “are you going to help me?”

Parker’s sense of practicality jerked into place. He was already committed to being her driver and bodyguard. Considering that he’d be driving her wherever she wanted to go, he wouldn’t spend any more time looking at houses with her than he would otherwise. Making a few phone calls wouldn’t take that much time either.

“I don’t babysit.”

Her fingers tightened around the knob of a cabinet as she looked toward him. “That means you’ll help me with the house?”

“I’ll make calls,” he agreed.

“And the car?”

One of the things he had in common with her brother was that they both appreciated pretty much anything with wheels and an engine. Helping her buy a car wouldn’t exactly be a hardship.

“Tell me what you want and I’ll help you get it.”

For a moment she looked hesitant, as if she was afraid to believe he’d agreed so easily.

“Thank you,” she murmured, sounding as relieved as she looked. “Thank you very much.”

As if she knew he could see how desperately she’d hoped for his help and how grateful she was for it, she looked away. Preoccupation settled over her again as she continued her search. But it was only when she set a pot on the stove on the island and disappeared into the deep, shelf-lined pantry that he realized what she was doing. It also seemed a good bet from the consternation in her pretty profile that she wasn’t all that certain how to do it.

The way she studied the cooking directions on a box of dried linguine made it look as if the process was a total mystery to her.

He was now confused himself. “Do you mind if I ask why you didn’t let your help cook for you?”

“Because it’s time I learned how to do it myself.” The delicate arches of her eyebrows drew inward. “What do you suppose goes into marinara sauce? It’s Mikey’s favorite.” She clutched the box as she searched the fairly well-stocked shelves, the desperation he’d glimpsed in her overridden by purpose. “If I can figure it out, that’s what we’ll have.”

He offered the obvious. “You need tomatoes.”

She reached for a can. “Like these?”

Taking a step forward, he scanned the label. “Those have chilies in them. You want plain.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, continuing her search. “It’s only five miles into Camelot. You’ll probably be safer trying one of the restaurants there, but you’re welcome to join us if you’re up for an experiment.” She picked up another can. “These?”

Parker wasn’t sure which threw him more just then—her easy invitation for him to join her and her son or her obviously newborn attempt at self-sufficiency. Wondering what he’d gotten himself into, knowing it was too late to get out of it, he gave her a cautious nod.

“Have you ever cooked anything before?”

“I’ve never had to learn,” she admitted. “When I was growing up, Mom always had a cook. In college and after I married, I lived where there were good restaurants, takeout or staff. It wasn’t anything I was interested in pursuing.”

Until now, she might have said.

Parker didn’t ask why she’d chosen to develop the interest on his watch. Her totally matter-of-fact reply resurrected the unflattering impression he had of her before he’d met her—that she was an indulged and discontented socialite who handled boredom however she chose.

Wondering if it was boredom pushing her now and afraid to wonder what else she didn’t know how to do, he stepped back to resume his stance at the end of the island. She was already down a personal assistant and a nanny. No way in Hades would he be her cook.

“You can probably find a recipe in a cookbook,” he informed her, thinking now as good a time as any to get on with what he’d been hired to do. “In the meantime, I’d like to do a security check of the outside of the house. Where’s the main security alarm located?”

Pure apology entered her tone. “I’m sorry. I was only thinking about feeding Mikey,” she replied, setting her ingredients by the pot. “I meant to tell you not to worry about us while we’re here. It’s only when we’re in public that you need to watch out for us.”

“So you have security on-site?”

“There’s the alarm,” she offered, thinking back to when she’d lived there. “It goes to a security service in Camelot. Or maybe,” she said, reconsidering, “it goes right to the police.”

As if calculating how long it would take for a patrol car to arrive from five miles away, Parker narrowed his eyes toward the window. “Any regular security patrols? Any dogs?”

“I don’t know about patrols.” She’d been aware of people in the background of her life as she’d grown up there, but she had no idea who her parents might have contracted with locally since she’d married and moved out. “Mom and Dad have an Irish setter, but Cooper is with them.” The dog she’d grown up with was gone now. But the thought of how much she still missed that old setter was pushed aside when she remembered another resident canine. “Eddy and Ina have a German shepherd.”

“If they do, it isn’t a guard dog. It was nowhere in sight when we drove in.”

“Maybe he was out by the lake.”

“This place is how many acres?”

“Twenty-five or so.”

“And how many rooms in the house?”

“Including bathrooms and the rooms back here?” She shrugged. “Maybe thirty-five.”

“That’s a lot of space to be alone in,” he informed her flatly. “I know you don’t want anyone to find out you’re here, but if someone does, it won’t be long before the press and the paparazzi show up. There could be breaches.”

As anxious as she had been to return, Tess had considered only how safe she’d always felt in and around Camelot. But with his cool, detached conclusion, Parker had just forced her to remember that there had been occasions when the estate’s privacy had indeed been breached. She discounted the time paparazzi had scaled the walls to take pictures of her wedding and the enterprising photographer who’d rented a hot-air balloon to fly over Ashley’s sweet-sixteen party simply because the events were the sort that attracted such intrusions.

There had been unexpected invasions, though, like the time her brother Gabe had been photographed by the lake inches from a kiss with the head housekeeper’s daughter. He and Addie were married now, but the press had had a field day with that one.

Like nearly every security person she’d ever encountered, Parker’s expression remained as matter-of-fact as his voice. “I just want to make sure you’re as secure as you think you are.”

He was doing what he was trained to do, what she’d paid him to do. Yet she didn’t care at all for the way he’d just robbed her of what little bit of security she’d finally felt.

Suddenly feeling vulnerable, she lifted her hand toward the hallway.

“The security system is behind one of the panels in the furnace room. The stairs to the basement are at the end of the hall.”

“And the monitor for the front gate and perimeter cameras?”

“By the computer. Over there,” she said, nodding toward the alcove by the utility room.

“Is that the only one?”

“The stable master has a monitor, too. There’s one there because someone always has to be here with the horses.”

He moved to the alcove where the head housekeeper apparently attended the duties of the household. Above the desk that held a state-of-the-art computer, a built-in television screen displayed rotating views from the various security cameras situated around the property. Integrated into the wall beside it was an intercom connected, presumably, to the front gate and possibly to the stables.

A shot of a lake came into view on the screen, followed by a view of tennis courts, expanses of lawns and gardens, horses grazing, a Roman pool. Then came a series of shots showing nothing but stone walls and foliage. Those were of the property’s perimeter, she told him.

“There’s no one on the property other than Ina, Eddy and…what’s the groundskeeper’s name?”

“Jackson. And no. There’s no one.”

“I need to know what they look like in case they show up on the monitors.”

“I’ll call down and ask Ina to introduce you.”

Parker watched her move past him to pick up the phone on the desk. As she did, the softness of her perfume, something subtle, warm and as elusive as the woman herself, drifted in her wake.

He had first become aware of that disturbing scent when they’d both reached to strap her son into his seat in the car. He’d thought then that the tightening low in his gut had been caused by the purely feminine softness of her skin brushing his. He knew now that he didn’t have to touch her for that unsettling sensation to take hold.

He needed to move.

“She’ll meet you by the hedge arch,” she said, giving him the excuse he needed to head for the door. “Just follow the stones across the lawn.”

“I’ll check out the interior when I get back.”

Tess started to tell him he didn’t need to worry about the inside of the house, only to remember that she’d never been alone in the big and rambling mansion before. When she’d lived there, even with both parents gone for a weekend and all her siblings having moved out, the cook, the head housekeeper, at least one maid and her dad’s butler had been in their respective quarters.

Tonight it would just be her and her son—and the no-nonsense bodyguard who walked out the door as if desperate for fresh air.

Tess leaned past the computer, watching his powerful strides carry him across the expansive deck and along the stone path by the flower beds.

It wasn’t air he was after, she thought. He’d just wanted to use his cell phone.

“I’m sort of in the middle of nowhere at the moment. But it won’t be a problem to keep up from here.”

Parker held the small cell phone to his ear as he angled for the gap in the hedges some twenty yards ahead. The logistics of juggling two jobs at once came easily to him. The admission that Tess Kendrick had a definite effect on him did not.

“The best thing to do is send them to the FedEx office in Camelot, Virginia,” he continued, grateful for the diversion from her. “I’ll pick them up there. Give me a couple of days to compare them to the diagrams we already have and I’ll get back to you.”

On the other end of the line, his counterpart at the U.S. Marshal’s service told him he’d have the blueprints they’d been waiting for by noon. Those blueprints of a hotel they were securing for a high-risk conference would indicate everything from the public and restricted areas to ductwork, access ports, elevator shafts and any other place someone bent on mayhem or sending a message might hide in, slither through or plant devices of varying degrees of destruction.

After a quick briefing on the status of surveillance equipment being installed at the hotel and an even quicker “Thanks,” Parker flipped the phone closed and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

In the past year he’d coordinated security for rock concerts in Central Park, Los Angeles and London. He’d worked with the security teams for the Oscars. He would begin consultant work on the Emmys and a film festival in Cannes within the next month. Presently he was coordinating individual protection and exit strategies with the Marshal’s Service and existing hotel security for a judicial conference in Minneapolis next month. Because judges could be targets for retaliation from those who didn’t agree with their sentences or judgments, the government spared no expense on protection.

Considering how seriously he took his obligations, Parker spared nothing of his expertise. That expertise was considerable and current. He’d been Special Ops in the Marines and still remained on call as part of a special training group. He loved the tactical end of the business. Unlike his father, he just didn’t want the military to be his whole life.

He could easily live without the mayhem he’d encountered—and caused—in clandestine operations in certain Third World countries. But his heart and soul would always crave a challenge. That was why he hadn’t thought twice about taking the job with Bennington’s at its headquarters in Baltimore. Or about taking the promotion he’d been offered a couple of years later to coordinate the firm’s high-profile tactical projects. When he’d first signed on with the company, the novelty of the job, the varied and exotic locations and the firm’s exclusive clientele had been enough to keep him intrigued. Yet it hadn’t been long before he’d begun to miss using his psychological and technical skills. He missed strategizing. Mostly he missed the challenges that came with the bigger projects.

The whinny of horses drifted on the early-evening breeze. Up ahead, emerging through the break in the high hedge, Ina waved to him.

Seeing the maid Tess had dismissed reminded him that, for all practical purposes, he was her only employee. That alone warned him that challenges on this particular job wouldn’t be in short supply.

His client’s unanticipated decision to attempt self-sufficiency was no longer on his mind when he returned to the house a half an hour later. Now that he had a general idea of the property’s layout, he remained totally preoccupied with his visual inspection of the back of the house as he approached it. The bad news was the number of balconies and French doors overlooking the admittedly beautiful grounds. Every one was a potential photography or entry point. The good news was that anyone trying to get up or down from them would probably break a body part if they fell.

He walked in the back entrance, catching the screen door before it banged shut so he wouldn’t make noise if the boy was still asleep. Even before he’d cleared the utility room, with its walls of cabinets, he could see Tess at the island in the big kitchen.

She’d raided the cook’s stash of cookbooks from the open bookcase in the hallway. The sizable collection sat in stacks on either side of where she leaned with her forearms on the white tile studying one of them.

She looked up when he stopped in the doorway. The overhead lights caught shades of pale gold in the depths of the hair clasped at her nape. Pushing back the strands that had escaped in the breeze at the airport, she straightened.

It was then he noticed that she’d kicked off her heels. Bright coral toenails peeked from beneath the hem of her slim white slacks. The gold chains she’d worn sat in a gleaming pool near a stack of three blue pottery plates topped by silverware wrapped in cloth napkins.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Seems to be. Ed said there are no alarms on the perimeter of the property because of the wildlife, but the intrusion alarm for the main house and the garage goes off in his quarters and at the security company. He thinks it can take anywhere from two to ten minutes for the Camelot police to get here, depending on where their patrol cars are.”

“Did he say something to make you think we’d need the police?”

“If you mean has he seen paparazzi hanging around, no. Everything’s been quiet here this summer.”

Her slender shoulders lowered with the breath she quietly exhaled.

“Mind if I look around inside now?”

Knowing the layout of the interior was essential to his work. He especially wanted to know the location of doors or any other possible points of access or egress. He wasn’t aware of any threats against any of the Kendricks, and according to Bennington’s files there had been no incidents involving kidnapping for ransom, revenge or recognition for someone seeking their fifteen minutes of fame. But as with others with wealth, high-profile or celebrity status, kidnapping was always a possibility. The children were especially vulnerable.

“I need to know where you and your boy will be sleeping, too,” he told her, watching the toes of one foot disappear into a three-inch-high pump.

She slipped on the other, reaching back to tug the back strap over her heel as her glance darted toward the back hallway.

“Do you mind if we wait a while? I need to stay here until Mikey wakes up. He won’t remember this house and he’ll be scared if I’m not here.” Her concern shifted uncertainly to the cookbook. “I need to figure out how to get this going, too. He’s going to be hungry.”

Parker had been gone half an hour. “You haven’t found a recipe?”

“I’ve found several. They just all seem…complicated.”

One of the cookbooks she’d selected bore the title The Chef’s’ Book of Sauces, from Artichoke to Zabaglione. Another, Creative Italian Cuisine. The Art of Pasta sat atop Mastering Mediterranean Cooking.

What she needed was Cooking 101.

He nodded to the book open in front of her. “May I see that?”

She handed it to him. The page she’d been so diligently studying held a recipe for Bolognese sauce and the marinara she’d been looking for.

He indicated the latter. “What’s wrong with this one?”

Her expression mirrored his. “I’m not exactly sure how to ‘sauté’ or ‘reduce.’”

He hadn’t really noticed the faint shadows beneath her eyes before now or how tired she looked beneath her faintly frustrated smile. But then, he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge much of anything about her that didn’t directly affect the reason he was there. He considered himself a fair man, though, and to be fair, he had to admit that she didn’t seem much like the woman he’d expected. She was young, to be certain, and there was no mistaking that she knew privilege. Yet she hadn’t once acted spoiled, selfish, difficult or demanding. A little needy maybe, though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was about her that made him think so. But so far she didn’t appear to be anything like the diva the press had portrayed.

With hints of her fatigue staring him in the face, impressed by how intent she seemed to disregard it, he felt his priorities take a subtle shift. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning in the country she’d just left. The woman was probably dead on her feet.

Telling himself he was only taking pity on the boy, he ignored his earlier insistence that he wouldn’t be her cook and handed her back the book.

“They aren’t that complicated,” he told her, slipping off his tie. “But you shouldn’t practice on an unsuspecting child. I’ll make it.”

Tess blinked in disbelief. “I can’t ask you do that.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“What I mean is that you don’t have to do it. I can manage this.”

His response was the challenging arch of one dark eyebrow as he shrugged off his jacket.

“Well, I can if you’ll tell me how,” she qualified.

“It’ll be faster to just do it myself.” The jacket was dropped over the back of a chair at the staff’s table. “The pot by the stove will work for the pasta,” he said, rolling up the sleeves of his starched white shirt. “But I’ll need a small one for the sauce. Mind if I look in the pantry?” he asked, already heading for it. “All I need is garlic, olive oil, salt and basil. Fresh is best if there’s any growing outside, but dried will do.”

Tess opened her mouth, closed it again. She didn’t know if her bodyguard wanted to speed up the dinner project so she could show him around as soon as Mikey woke up or if he thought her incapable of the task herself. The latter thought stung, especially since she already had the feeling he thought of her as either naive, young, helpless or some unflattering combination of all three. But whatever his rationale, she couldn’t allow him or anyone else to defeat her purpose.

The man was accustomed to taking charge. He’d already found the olive oil and had removed a bottle of something green and flaky from a shelf when she stepped into the pantry herself.

She’d been around big men before. A couple of her grandmother’s sentries had been built like tanks, and her own brothers were over six feet. But Parker’s body seemed to dwarf hers, and she wasn’t a short woman by any means. Barefoot, she stood an easy five foot seven inches. In heels, five ten. Even at that, she barely reached his broad shoulders.

Terribly conscious of the scents of clean soap and warm male, she took the ingredients from him.

“You don’t need to do this,” she repeated more firmly. “But I would appreciate it if you would tell me how.”

She stood too close to look up without bending back her neck. Ahead, all she could see was the solid expanse of his chest. A woman would feel very safe held there.

The unexpected thought brought a flush of heat, caused her to turn away. “Please.”

Her request seemed to give him pause. Probably, she suspected, because he was accustomed to bulldozing ahead once he’d decided on a course of action and wasn’t used to anyone slowing him down.

She rather envied him that.

He finally muttered, “Fine,” as she set the ingredients by the tomatoes and pasta she’d left on the island. “Take off your jacket and get yourself an apron.”

“I’ll leave my jacket on.”

“You don’t want to ruin what you’re wearing.”

A white silk Armani wasn’t the most practical thing to wear for her first cooking lesson. She would, however, have to make do. She didn’t want to leave to change clothes. “It’s okay.”

Parker frowned at her slender back. Okay? he thought, absently watching her go through the drawers again. Okay because she could afford to stain two-thousand-dollar suits? Or okay because she was inherently stubborn and accustomed to getting her own way?

“Tomato sauce stains,” he warned.

An odd note of awkwardness slipped into her voice. “I don’t have anything on under it,” she explained, coming up with a white chef’s apron. “No blouse, I mean.”

His glance darted to the V of flesh exposed between her lapels as she held the white cotton apron by its inch-wide strings.

That was more information than he needed.

“Here.” Feeling chastised, he jerked his glance to what she held. He did not need to be imagining her standing there in a skimpy lace bra. “Turn around.”

Dutifully she did as he asked.

“Lift your hair.”

She did that, too, gathering the thick mane below the intricate clip already restraining it.

His fingers felt clumsy as he tied the strings behind her neck—quickly so he couldn’t think too much about the appealing curve of her shoulder, the baby-fine hairs below her nape. Her skin felt like warm satin to him, the brush of her hair against the back of his hand like strands of silk.

Her scent assaulted his remaining senses.

The tightness low in his gut seemed to make its way to his voice.

“The first thing you do is mince a clove of garlic.”

She dropped her hair as she turned. Stepping back, she met his oddly guarded eyes. “I don’t think Mikey will like garlic.”

“You can’t make a proper marinara without it.”

“Then, show me how to make an improper one.”

Tess could practically feel his eyes boring into her back as she hurried to gather a pen and notepad from the desk. “I need to write this down,” she explained. “I want to be able to do it again.”

She had the distinct impression that he was mentally shaking his head at her. At that moment, she really didn’t care. She would not have considered an ex-Marine who looked capable of bench-pressing her mom’s Mercedes to know his way around the kitchen. Since he did, she intended to take full advantage of his knowledge.

She also wanted to know how he’d acquired it.

“Where did you learn how to cook?”

“From my mom.”

“Is she a chef?”

“She’s first violin with the Philadelphia Symphony. You need to put a few tablespoons of olive oil in this,” he said, clearly changing the subject as he set a pot on the eight-burner stove in the middle of the island. “If we were doing this right, you’d put the garlic in next, then open the tomatoes and add them. Since we’re not, just add the tomatoes to the oil.”

“How much?”

“The whole can.”

“Oil, I mean.”

“A few tablespoons,” he repeated. “It’s a matter of taste. A little more or less won’t hurt.”

“Give me exact.”

With a pen poised above a notepad, she looked much as he imagined a young student might waiting for a teacher to proceed. Yet it wasn’t her expectation that struck him as he found measuring spoons for her and she dutifully wrote out his instructions before adding the ingredients precisely as he instructed. It was how young she looked each time she glanced up to make sure she’d done the step correctly or to ask what came next, how very innocent and how incredibly, unbelievably tempting.

The texture of her skin all but invited a man’s touch. Her lush lips fairly begged to be kissed. And a man would have to be dead not to notice the appealing concern in her lovely dark eyes when an uncertain, “Mommy?” had her abandoning everything to turn to the hallway.

“I’m right here,” she called. “Will that be all right?” she asked with a quick glance back at the pot.

He’d no sooner told her he would watch it than she headed for the sleepy-looking child who’d wandered toward the sound of her voice.

She scooped him up and turned, smiling, with him in her arms.

Parker had known beautiful women. They’d been arm candy for rich clients or the men’s daughters, wives or mistresses. He’d guarded female rock stars and models and on occasion found himself in the unenviable position of having to decline advances he wouldn’t have minded pursuing, on a purely recreational basis, had company policy not frowned on fraternization.

But recalling company policy wasn’t necessary as he deliberately dismissed the sharp physical pull he felt toward Tess. It wasn’t even necessary to remind himself that she was Cord Kendrick’s little sister and that the only reason he’d recommended Parker was because he knew he could trust him.

Shifting his attention to the boy as she set him down and took his hand, all Parker had to do was remind himself that she had robbed the child of a relationship with his natural father.

That alone was enough to dampen the heat.

The little boy with the button nose and big brown eyes stared at him uneasily. A tuft of his cornsilk hair stuck up in back.

His mom smoothed it down.

Snagging his slacks above his knees, Parker crouched down to bring himself more or less to the child’s level.

“Great shirt,” he said, smiling at the logo above the tiny pocket. “Do you play soccer?”

Smashed against his mom’s leg, Mikey nodded. “I have a ball.”

“You do?”

Fine blond hair brushed his eyebrows as he gave a vigorous nod.

“You’ll have to show it to me sometime.”

Without moving from where his arm wrapped his mom’s leg, he tipped back his head and looked up at her. “Do I have my soccer ball?”

“It’s not unpacked yet.”

“Can I show it to him when it is?”

“If Mr. Parker wants to see it.”

Parker gave the boy a wink.

Mikey grinned.

Planting his hands on his knees, Parker rose to tower over them both.

“That can simmer for a while,” he said, nodding toward her creation. With the little boy looking a little less wary of him, Parker pulled his professionalism back into place. “Where do you plan to eat?”

“It’s so nice outside, I thought we’d eat out there. Unless you’d prefer the dining room,” she offered, much as she might to a guest.

He was not a guest. He was her employee. “I’ll eat at the staff table.” Distance seemed prudent. So did boundaries. “Why don’t you show me around the house now?”

The unexpected ease Tess had started to feel with him vanished like smoke in a stiff wind. She had just been quite pointedly reminded that there were certain distances to maintain. Certain protocols to follow. She had thought they would eat together simply because it was only the three of them and it hadn’t seemed right that he should eat alone. Especially since he’d shown her how to prepare the meal.

The reserve he had just pulled into place brought a tug of embarrassment. The way his manner changed so quickly almost made it seem as if he thought she’d been coming on to him. She wasn’t sure she’d know how to come on to a guy even if she wanted to. Despite what Brad had told the world about her supposed inability to settle for one man, she was nowhere near as experienced as he’d portrayed her to be. Certainly not as experienced as the press had assumed in its relentless attempt to discover her nonexistent lovers.

It hadn’t helped that one enterprising reporter claimed to have unearthed two of them, then gone on to explain that they had refused to go public out of respect for how special the relationships had been. It had been the sort of tabloid treachery that couldn’t be refuted without adding fuel to the fire but fed the gossip and scandal just the same.

Hating where her thoughts had gone, she straightened her shoulders, smiled politely and took her son by the hand. Reenergized, Mikey could inadvertently do serious damage to her mother’s Mings. The large, ornate vases flanking the foyer staircases had survived for over four hundred years. Not only her mother but museum directors and antique dealers all over the country would weep to discover that in his first couple of hours in the house a three-year-old whirlwind had caused a crack or a chip, much less destroyed one.

She really needed her own place.

Doing her best imitation of her sister’s cool poise, she moved through the swinging door leading to the family dining room. Mikey trotted along beside her, looking around to check out the man following them. She felt like a tour guide as she called off the names of the still and silent rooms they entered and left. The music salon, the living room that was seldom lived in at all and used mostly for entertaining, the library, her father’s study, her mother’s office. The sunroom. The atrium. The family room. The game room. And that was before Parker helped her carry up the luggage he’d brought in along with the bags Eddy had left beside them and they went through the two wings of bedroom suites upstairs

Parker said little as he lifted back drapes, checked out windows and doors and looked up at the ceiling in search of heaven only knew what. She had no idea how his mind worked. She knew only that it was with some relief that he disappeared to retrieve his own luggage from the SUV while she and Mikey dined on the first meal she’d ever made.

The fact that it was good—very good—filled her with a definite sort of relief.

At least her son wouldn’t starve.

She would have thanked Parker for that. She didn’t see him, though, until after she had dumped their dishes in the sink, too tired to tackle them that night, and he knocked on her bedroom door.