Читать книгу Naughty Or Nice - Sherri Browning Erwin - Страница 9

The next morning, Kate came down to breakfast wearing a relaxed smile. I’d stayed up with Ellie so that she could get some sleep. It wasn’t much of a hardship. I was wide awake worried about my Lexus, my son in lipstick, and my employment possibilities.

According to Kate, her daughter always rose with the first rays of the sun, a fact she attributed to her being named Eliana, Greek for “daughter of the sun.” Considering that Ellie was also up for hours after sunset, I wasn’t convinced that the name had relevance, but it hardly mattered. I was a morning person, too.

I had coffee brewing, my pugs, Bert and Ernie, out in the fenced yard for their morning business, and Ellie fed by the time Kate found her way downstairs. She was in a good mood, or so it looked, and all the better for me. I needed her help, not her scorn.

“I paid your car bill last night while you were rocking Ellie. Three months behind. I set your account to pay it automatically. After I made a deposit, of course. You were overdrawn.” She said it with a smile, as if this bit of news had no impact on her good mood.

“Hmm. I wonder how that happened.” I shook a toy in front of Ellie in her baby Exersaucer. Ellie’s brown eyes shone like little suns. Maybe there was something to her name, after all.

“Probably the three-hundred-dollar blouse from Neiman Marcus,” she said, a trace of sarcasm sucking the cheery out of her tone.

“Was it that much? I guess I didn’t look at the price tag.” I stifled a sigh of relief that last night’s boot purchase hadn’t shown up yet. “I’ll have to be more careful.”

“You think?”

“Christmas shopping.” I sighed and worked up a good pout. “I bought it for you, but I guess the surprise is ruined.”

I peeked from beneath my lashes to see if she believed me, but I wasn’t so sure. I wouldn’t believe me. I had no idea my shopping habit had gotten so out of hand. It was time to stop using the excuse of retail therapy as a form of grief counseling.

“No problem.” She poured coffee. Casual. Avoiding eye contact. She didn’t believe me. “Take it back. You know I don’t need fancy presents.”

I nodded, but I’d already brought it to the dry cleaner to remove a small stain on the cuff. Kate set down her coffee and leaned over to say hello to her daughter, lifting her from the seat to cuddle.

“She’s had her bottle,” I said, glad for the change of subject.

I refused to use the opportunity to criticize Kate for switching to formula so early in Ellie’s life. Everyone knew breast milk was best, but pumping took time, something busy Kate could hardly spare. The same woman who would agonize for hours over fabric swatches to find the right shade between eggshell and ecru couldn’t take an extra twenty minutes to pump. To her credit, it probably wasn’t easy running a business and being a mom. I’d never had to juggle motherhood and a career, but maybe I would learn.

“Who’s a happy girl? Wook at da big smile.” Kate lapsed into baby talk.

My smile was bigger than Ellie’s at catching Kate’s slip. Aha! Perfect? I think not. “She’s had a good morning.”

“I have to hand it to you, Bennie, you always know just what she needs. You’re a whiz with her.” She looked wistful, almost sad, as she settled Ellie into the crook of her arm.

“I’ve got years of experience. You’ll catch on. After you’ve done it awhile, it’s a piece of cake.”

“I guess. You make it look so easy.”

I could practically feel the swagger in my step as I crossed the floor to refill my coffee. Then I turned around in time for my ego to make a crashing fall back to earth. Spencer stood in the kitchen door, head to toe in black. His beautiful blond hair was dyed jet-black, which matched his kohl-rimmed eyes. His skin looked extraordinarily pale in contrast to the black and his slash-red mouth. Lipstick. I guessed he must have raided my makeup drawer again, and settled on my L’Oreal Cherry Red, something I picked up on sale and had worn only once because it looked cheaper than the sale price.

“Yeah,” I repeated, gesturing to the doorway. “Piece of cake.”

Kate nearly jumped out of her chair. “Are you auditioning for The Cure?”

“The who?” Spence asked.

“No, The Cure,” I said, desperate to keep my cool. “The Who still tours with the original lineup. Except for the bassist. He died. The Cure’s the band with the wild singer in trademark red lipstick. I thought we agreed black was more your color.”

“Seemed a bit much with the outfit.” Spence, charming as ever, winked on his way to the fridge. “I needed to break up the black with a hint of color.”

“Smudged liner really brings out the blue in your eyes,” I said, looking for the bright side.

“You think?” Spence asked before reaching for the juice.

“Definitely. She’ll notice.”

“She?” Kate looked stunned, looking from Spencer, to me, and back again.

“He’s going Goth for a girl,” I said, trying to match Spencer’s casual mood. Freaking out would be the surest way to drive him more solidly into the look. Humor was the only response I could rely on. If I couldn’t make me laugh, I was going to cry. Spencer’s beautiful blond hair! Hair grows, I reminded myself. “Bold move, don’t you think?”

“More like insane. You’re not letting him go to school like that, are you?”

“If he’s willing, I’m willing. As long as he conforms to the school decency standards, why not? Don’t you remember your Madonna phase?”

Kate wasn’t far enough along in the parenting game to understand. “That was different. It was the eighties.”

“So was The Cure.” I shrugged. “Everything old is new again. Spencer’s going Goth to win a little witch’s heart.”

“Mom’s not insulting her,” Spencer explained, taking a seat. “Shelley Miles wants to be a witch. She found an old spell book and everything.”

“Where, exactly, does one find a spell book?” Kate asked, raising a brow. Or tried to, anyway. She never quite got the gesture down, but she had been trying for years.

“EBay,” Spencer said, sparing his aunt the extra “duh” that he usually added to punctuate.

“Be careful,” Kate warned. “You never know what you may be getting into with that occult stuff.”

Kate liked to joke that Ellie’s father was the devil, now absent because of his return to rule in hell. Personally, I agreed that Owen Glendower, whom she fell head over heels for, might have been the devil. In fact, I’d even warned her. But it seemed far more likely that business took precedence over his personal life. He was probably too busy building new empires in Europe to live up to his paternal responsibilities. Jerk.

“Spencer’s got a good head on his shoulders. I’m sure he’ll do the right thing.”

Spencer smiled and I could almost see my son’s freckled splendor under the ghostly pallor.

An hour later, we dropped the kids off at school and were on our way to the impound lot, armed with the computer printout receipt of my now-paid bill. Ellie, snug in her car seat, slept soundly. Kate was strangely quiet, probably dying to offer more criticism or advice but too afraid to wake her baby.

We pulled in to the single available space outside the lot, a fenced-in dump so jam-packed with cars that it was a wonder any remained out in the general population. ’Tis the season. Christmas must have been their prime time.

“You can stay in the car.” A knot formed in my stomach as I looked at the trailer labeled OFFICES. I could do this. I could do it all on my own. “I’ll just take a few minutes. No need to risk waking Eliana.”

“No freaking way.” Kate shut the car off. Apparently, not even the fear of waking the screamer would deter Fix-it Kate. She got out and grabbed Ellie’s seat.

Together, we stepped onto the crumbling pavement and headed for the trailer. Inside, it was as dingy and pathetic as I’d imagined, complete with stale tobacco smell and vinyl chairs, most likely salvaged from the Goodwill down the street. Determined to bail me out, she handed me Ellie and charged right ahead with my receipts balled in her fist.

A dead ringer for Danny DeVito’s Louie in Taxi stepped up to the Plexiglas window, only to tell Kate there was an extra fee, the per diem lot charge for parking. What a racket! After Kate paid the fee, he told her that all agents were out for the day and we would have to come back Monday—Monday!—to pick up my Lexus.

“But—I need it now,” I said, tired of hanging back to let Kate straighten it out.

He looked around Kate right at me. “I’m sure you do, princess, but we got rules. Can’t release the car without an agent to check her out of the lot. It’s a busy day. I’m short a few agents.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Kate demanded, stepping in front of me again. “So you can suck another thirty dollars a day in parking fees out to cover the weekend?”

I sidestepped her in time to see his shrug in response. “I have to man the desk.”

“When do you expect an agent back in?” she asked, steel in her tone. “We’ll wait.”

Kate’s modus operandi was to push back. Mine was to size Louie up, and my guess was that he was not the type to cave to pressure or demands. So what would work?

As if on cue, my charming baby niece startled awake and launched into a full-blown wail. There was my girl.

“You’re out of luck for the weekend,” Louie, unmoved, shouted over the din.

“It’s right near the exit. I can pull it out on my own.” Kate’s words bordered on a threat, as if she fully intended to just do it, wheel-popping spikes in the road be damned.

“No one drives cars on the lot but my agents. Liability issues.” He had no problem making himself heard over Ellie’s din, and he seemed entirely unmoved. I wasn’t deterred. Every man had his Achilles’ heel. What could get to a tough little lump of Boston attitude like Louie?

I handed the baby to Kate. “Take her outside. I’ll handle it.”

She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

“Seriously. Let me talk to the man.”

Clearly skeptical, Kate took Ellie and headed for the door. “I’m going to quiet her down and be right back.”

I made my way to the window and took a moment to breathe. “I’m sorry. For my sister. She’s—she’s used to getting her way.”

His eyes relaxed and he laughed. “I know the type.”

Laughter was a good sign, but my work was far from done. I sized him up.

Baby cries left him unmoved. He probably had a big family, lots of children, maybe a few grandkids, enough to have learned to tune out kid sounds. I pegged him as a younger child from a big family. I could picture plenty of bossy older sisters in his background, and maybe one or two younger ones if I was lucky. And perhaps a crabby wife. He hated it when she nagged, but more than anything, he could not stand to see her cry. Aha. Immune to baby cries perhaps, but a woman? Now, that was something.

I felt the tears start to burn at the back of my eyes. Not until I could feel the drops clinging to them would I lift my lashes, at just the right second. Ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille. “She’s—she’s only trying to help. My husband recently passed away. I haven’t been able to keep up with my bills.”

With every word, the tears came harder. My voice started to shake. I turned away from the window and fanned my face, as if I was trying so hard to stop.

“I’m sorry, lady.” His voice held an edge of impatience along with the barest trace of sympathy.

“My first Christmas without him. The kids still ask—” My voice broke. Perfect. I paused and sucked in a breath. “They still ask when Daddy’s coming home.”

The emotion wasn’t all that hard to fake. My nerves were frayed. My feelings had been close to the surface for months. Tears were never more than a minute away. Patrick would have understood. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Besides sob uncontrollably for dramatic effect before I pulled it together in the nick of time to ask for a tissue, apologize for taking up his time, and turn to leave.

“Just a sec,” he called with a sigh before I got to the door. “I’ll meet you outside.”

“How on earth did you get him to budge?” Kate asked once the Lexus was running in park outside the impound gates and Louie was headed back inside.

“I gave him a blow job,” I said, with a completely straight face.

“You did not!”

“Of course I did. Didn’t you see that smile on his face?”

“You played the widow card.” She nodded knowingly.

“Yes, I informed him of my sad personal situation. I guess it struck a chord.”

“Incredible.” But, for once, Kate chose not to criticize. Instead, she grinned and patted me on the back. “Good job! Now what? I’ve got to meet with clients, but it’s informal. I can take Ellie with me, unless you’re headed home?”

“No.” She wasn’t the only one on her way to work. “I’ve a busy day ahead.”

“Getting your nails done?” There wasn’t a trace of sarcasm in her voice, as if she had merely come to understand this as the way I lived my life.

Well, not anymore. I turned on my heel, started for the driver’s seat, then looked back and waved my perfectly French-tipped fingers. Manicure was last week, ha. “I have some appointments to keep.”

It was all I intended to say. And it wasn’t a lie. I’d been due to return to the Habitat for Humanity office for months to finish up on some volunteer fund-raising activities. If anyone could help me get a job, it was Leslie, the Habitat office manager, a twenty-something firecracker who knew everyone and everything in and around Boston.

When I arrived at the office, I was informed that Leslie was out working on a build site in Newton, close to home. I’d come all the way into the city for nothing. For a second, I considered giving up on the job search and putting my trip into Boston to good use: shopping. Instead, I asked for directions to the house under construction and headed right over. Progress!

The house was on Mill Street, near Boston College’s Newton campus, close enough to take advantage of the college’s library but far enough to be a comfortable family neighborhood. Like most of the Habitat sites I’d worked on, the house was a bright new breath of air on a stale, old street. It screamed hope and possibility, all the things I liked best about working with Habitat for Humanity. The whole “up with people” vibe always got me. Of course, I hadn’t done much more than help write a few fliers and tap some resources for funding. The one time I tried to help at a build site was an unmitigated disaster. At least, according to Josh Brandon, the site manager.

So I wasn’t the best builder. Yes, my nails never went in straight, and power tools weren’t exactly my thing. But the man needed to relax. What did he expect from untrained volunteers, anyway? If he’d let me paint, as I’d suggested, everything would have been just fine. I could accomplish amazing things with a brush or roller.

As I got out of the car, I caught sight of Josh across the site. Even though he had covered his shock of prematurely silver-gray hair with a hard hat, I could tell it was Josh by the way the flannel hugged his broad, construction worker shoulders. He was five feet ten inches of dense muscle, built as solid as any house he worked on. Though he annoyed me personally, he was an undisputed master of his profession. Even from a distance, he looked a lot calmer today than he had the last time I’d seen him.

Until he looked up and spotted me. Though his facial expression was hidden behind protective eyewear, his body flinched as if I’d sucker punched him in the abs.

“Hide the power tools,” he called across the site.

His Boston accent was as thick as his soccer player thighs, so it sounded more like powah tools. He was a good ol’ Boston boy, the type that worked hahd and enjoyed a few beeahs aftah work. Just a few. His work ethic matched his build, rock solid.

Heads looked up, then down again when they saw nothing but a harmless little lady in a power suit. Donna Karan, navy pin-striped, fluted skirt, worn with some serious heels. Pilates had given me great calves. If it helped sway any executive decisions in my favor, so be it.

“Good morning to you, too, Mr. Brandon,” I said to show his little teasing had not unnerved me as I closed the distance, effortlessly stepping over wood beams and cords in my stilettos. I am woman, see me walk. Skill with power tools had nothing on the skill required to walk in heels.

From the corner of my eye, I spied Leslie waving at me from the top of a scaffold on the side of the house. I flashed a smirk at Josh and headed in Leslie’s direction.

“Hey, looking to sign up for our phone bank this weekend?” she said, obviously assuming I had come for volunteer purposes. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here.”

“Actually, it’s a social call. But I am looking for some advice.”

“Great. What can I do you for?” She climbed down and brushed dust from her hands.

“I need a job.” I forced confidence into my tone, as if I got great jobs all the time. Jedi mind trick, as Spencer would say. “Something light, easy, not very important, but it has to pay well.”

“If I knew where to find that job, I guarantee you it would be filled. By me! Hello.”

I resisted rolling my eyes. Leslie’s conversational quirks were one of the reasons I never sought Leslie on a social basis, even though I enjoyed her company at volunteer sites.

“Not that it isn’t a perfect description of what I do now at H for H.”

“Your job’s important,” I said, by way of defense. “What would all the families who need houses do without you?”

“Actually, you have great timing. I need to scale down my hours.”

“No way.”

“Way.” Leslie nodded. “My Web design company is taking off and I need to give it more attention. Besides, it pays more than H for H. I charge up to a hundred bucks an hour, and I end up getting it. Go figure.”

“Go figure.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love working here. But it’s too much. If I could cut my hours and give some of my duties over to an assistant—Interested?”

“In being your assistant?”

“More like codirector. It wouldn’t pay much. Probably my salary split in half. But it’s a start, right?”

“I don’t think I’m qualified. I don’t even have a résumé. Yet. But—”

“You’re plenty qualified. You practically raked in the funding for all of last year on your own just by tapping your trusty acquaintance list. All the board needs is my recommendation and you’re in. Plus, you’ll have me to show you the ropes. Eventually, who knows? Maybe you can take over and I can bow out.”

“Just like that?” It was true that I’d used my community contacts, numerous thanks to Patrick’s job in real estate, to drum up a lot of interest and money for the cause. I was a pretty good communicator, and a real people person. I was perfect for the job.

“Just like that. Consider yourself hired. I mean, as soon as I run it by the board and all.”

It couldn’t hurt that I was on a first-name basis with most of the board. The job was mine!

“Leslie, you’re incredible!” A weight lifted right off my chest. Really, it was amazing news. I didn’t have to look for a job. I didn’t need a résumé. No longer would I have to cry about being widowed and beg for mercy just to get an entry-level position doing who knew what? I was spared! “Thank you. Thanks so much.”

“Yeah, just come in on Monday dressed for work and we’ll get you started.”

“Monday? So soon?”

“I’ll get the board together and put it to a vote, but yeah. Pretty much. It may not be official right away, but close enough. The sooner you take over half my duties, the sooner I can scale back.”

“Okay. I’ll see you Monday.”

I turned, lost in thought, lost in excitement, lost in the process of deciding what to wear…and lost my footing. I felt my ankle twist at an awkward angle. I felt my body going down. I felt an unbelievable wrench of white-hot pain shooting through my leg. And then I didn’t feel a thing.

I must have blacked out a minute. When I opened my eyes, I was staring into the most incredible leaf-green gaze I’d ever seen. I was—off the ground, being held by a pair of incredibly strong arms.

“Let’s get you to my car, shall we?”

Foreign accent? British? French? I couldn’t make it out. The throbbing of my ankle distracted me. But nothing could take my mind off the fact that I was in the arms of a handsome stranger, being carted off to his car. Which, hello (to steal one of Leslie’s trademark phrases), was an enormous black Town Car, complete with a driver who came around to open the passenger-side rear door.

No doubt about it. I was still out cold, probably sprawled on the ground in an ungainly heap while caught up in this beautiful dream.