It was all Parker could do to remember he shouldn’t be kissing Tess Kendrick at all.

He’d never intended to act on the pull he’d felt toward the woman playing utter havoc on his nervous system. When he’d reached for her, he honestly hadn’t been thinking of how badly he’d wanted to do exactly what he was doing now. Yet one touch of her lips to his, one taste of her and his thoughts had moved straight from offering comfort to how incredible she felt beneath his hands.

She would feel even more amazing in his bed.

The thought made him groan. Or maybe it was the feel of her perfectly molded to the length of him that pulled the sound from his chest. All he knew for certain was that wanting her threatened to overtake his common sense. His job was to protect her.

From himself if necessary.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever wished you were rich and famous? Have you ever wished you were a celebrity? Or royalty? Have you ever considered how you would handle being followed by paparazzi, or having everything you say and do scrutinized by the public? I’ve been fascinated by royalty for as long as I can remember; by their sense of duty, their intrigues, their lives of privilege. (When I was ten, I desperately wanted to be a princess. After all, no princess I’d read about then ever had to do housework.) I’d just never truly considered the invasion of privacy certain people must deal with until I started writing about the Kendricks. I’d still like to be rich. I’d like us all to be. But I think there’s a lot to be said for being anonymous enough that our mistakes don’t make the evening news.

Here’s to your wishes!

Christine

Falling for the Heiress
Christine Flynn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHRISTINE FLYNN

admits to being interested in just about everything, which is why she considers herself fortunate to have turned her interest in writing into a career. She feels that a writer gets to explore it all and, to her, exploring relationships—especially the intense, bittersweet or even lighthearted relationships between men and women—is fascinating.

For Tracy Horowitz,

my ever-so-organized cousin,

with thanks for a fabulous family reunion!

Just remember, what happens in Las Vegas,

stays in Las Vegas…

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter One

Tess Kendrick balanced her three-year-old son on her hip and descended the steps from her grandmother’s private jet. A hot summer breeze whipped the whine of aircraft engines around her, causing little Mikey to bury his head against her shoulder at the noise.

At the base of the stairs, a member of her grandmother’s elite security service gave her a deferential nod while a uniformed steward quickly moved her luggage from the cargo bay to the trunk of a waiting black Lincoln SUV.

It had been over a year since the bottom had fallen from her world, a year since the scandal of her divorce had forced her into exile. Granted, that exile had been in a royal palace on the Mediterranean and her maternal grandmother, the queen of the tiny jewel-like kingdom of Luzandria, had been most gracious offering Tess and Mikey accommodation, but Tess couldn’t continue to live in those gilded confines.

Isolation, homesickness and a desperate need to get on with her life had finally brought her back to Camelot, Virginia. The family estate outside the picturesque little town was where she had been born and raised. It was where her parents still lived, for part of the year, anyway. But most important of all, it was home.

“Do you require help with the child, ma’am?”

“Thank you, but I have him.” She hoisted the towheaded boy clinging to her neck a little higher, adjusted the oversize bag hanging over her other shoulder. A massive case of nerves remained hidden by her soft smile. “And thank you for the escort. You’ve all been most kind.”

The solemn soldier with the heavy French accent dipped his head in a deferential bow. “It was our pleasure to be of service, madam.” He motioned her ahead of him. “I will see you to the car.”

He hadn’t smiled back. It was almost as if it were against the rules, the code or whatever it was the men trained to serve Her Majesty followed. Even as a child on summer visits to her grandmother with her siblings, it had seemed to Tess that smiles were allowed only by personnel in closest service to the royal family and their guests. Even then, any expression of friendliness had seemed subdued.

As much as she loved her grandmother, the formality of the palace was one of the reasons she’d become so restless to return. Though her basic nature yearned for less structure, she’d learned to live with propriety. Her energetic and endlessly curious little boy didn’t need to suffer such constraints, though. His enthusiasm had been suppressed enough before they’d more or less been forced to leave the country. His father—her now ex-husband—had not only preferred that the child not be heard, most of the time he hadn’t wanted him in his sight.

She hugged her precious son more tightly, her narrow heels clicking on the tarmac as she moved quickly toward the waiting vehicle. Her prince had turned into a frog, her charmed life into a nightmare and her personal reputation had been totally destroyed in the process, but there wasn’t a thing she could do to change that harrowing bit of history. She could only remind herself of the phoenix that rose from the ashes and hope that her singed wings would be strong enough to lift her back up. All she wanted was to forget the past few years, to buy a house and to go back to work on her project for the Kendrick Foundation.

If she’d had any idea how to restore her reputation, that would have been on her to-do list, too, but she couldn’t figure out how to counter all the lies told about her without causing greater problems. The best she could do on that score was hope that people would remember her as they had known her, not as her ex and her silence had portrayed her to be, and that time would have healed the worst of the damage.

Certain time would never heal some wounds, she picked up her pace.

What people didn’t know was that her marriage to Bradley Michael Ashworth III had disintegrated within the first year and that the fairy-tale life she’d appeared to be living had been a sham. Because she’d been raised to never say anything to anyone that might get passed on and wind up in print, she hadn’t confided the difficulties in her marriage to any of her friends. Even her family didn’t know how abusive the relationship had been. They knew only that Brad had promised a protracted and embarrassingly public divorce if she didn’t take full blame for the demise of their marriage.

The divorce had been humiliatingly public anyway. But her family had no idea that had she not complied with Brad’s wishes, he would have gone to the press with photographs he’d taken of her father with another woman. He’d even shown her some of the photos that would have sent the media into a frenzy scavenging for more dirt and completely broken her mother’s heart.

The breeze loosened strands of her hair from the clip at her nape and blew them across her face. Smiling at her son as he pushed them back for her, she tried not to think of her father and reminded herself that the business with Brad was behind her. He now managed his family’s property investments in Florida, so the chances of running into him were as remote as a sudden snowstorm in the Sahara. Same for most of the country-club set, which included his parents and other former friends. Most everyone she knew vacationed during the summer, so avoiding them shouldn’t be a problem. Avoiding the public, however, was another matter entirely.

The steward from the plane hurried past, pushing Mikey’s backpack and a half dozen suitcases on a rolling cart. As her escort joined him to load her luggage into the back of the SUV, her attention shifted to the six-feet three-inches of brawn and testosterone opening the back passenger door. Broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, he wore his dark suit and tie with an air of quiet power and watchful authority. Behind his dark sunglasses, she knew he was looking for potential trouble, which meant he was looking everywhere but at her.

He was her bodyguard from Bennington’s, the exclusive security service her family had used for years. The female she’d requested—the former Secret Service agent who’d shadowed her through college—was on an assignment for the next two weeks. The no-nonsense mountain of muscle with the shaved head and the shoulders of a linebacker had been recommended by her brother, Cord.

She had never met Jeffrey Parker, but she recognized him from the photograph that had been e-mailed to her so she’d know he was indeed the man she’d hired and not an imposter bent on grabbing headlines or a slice of her family’s fortune by holding her and her son for ransom. When she’d first seen his unsmiling image, he’d struck her as surprisingly handsome—in a formidably male, serious and decidedly ex-military sort of way. Now, other than to think him even more imposing than she’d anticipated, she was simply grateful for his presence. She and her siblings had been followed by paparazzi off and on all their lives. But she’d never been hounded as mercilessly by them as she had before she’d left last year. In that time, she had learned to truly appreciate a good bodyguard’s ability to evade and avoid.

Cord had assured her that the man he’d referred to as “Bull” was the best.

He moved behind her as she reached the car, blocking her from view as she slid inside and lowered Mikey into the child seat he’d had installed. It seemed he’d no sooner closed her door behind her than he opened the door opposite and reached in to assist with her son.

His big frame filled the space as she reached to secure Mikey’s shoulder straps. Her bodyguard had aimed for the same strap, too. With her hand suddenly trapped beneath his, her glance shot up.

His dark sunglasses had been pushed back so he could see inside the vehicle. The information sheet she’d been sent on him had indicated that his eyes were blue. There had been nothing in that dry recitation of facts, however, to describe the depth of that startling, clear color or to prepare her for their unnerving intensity as they easily held her own.

“We can do this,” she assured him.

“I’ll do it, ma’am.”

“Really, we’re fine….”

“We’re not going anywhere until I know myself that the child is secured. You said you wanted your arrival to be as unobtrusive as possible. The sooner you let me do my job, the quicker I can get you out of here.”

He hadn’t moved his hand. Since it appeared he had no intention of moving at all, at least not until she did, she slipped her fingers from beneath his and edged herself back.

She hadn’t been able to go anywhere before she’d left without a camera following her. That was why she had specifically requested that he make her arrival as efficient and discreet as possible. That he was only doing what she’d asked of him, however, did nothing to explain the wholly unexpected and unfamiliar jolt of heat she’d felt at the contact of his very capable-looking hands.

More than willing to blame that disconcerting reaction on her already jumpy nerves, she watched him smile at her wide-eyed son.

“How does that feel, buddy?” he asked. “Too tight?”

Eyeing him cautiously, Mikey shook his head.

The man looked capable of snapping body parts, but his smile just then seemed incredibly kind. The unexpected expression did interesting things to the aristocratic lines of his face, made them more arresting, more compelling. Though his hair was shaved so close it was impossible to tell its color, the heavy slashes of his eyebrows were dark, his lashes sooty and thick. The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled, taking the coolness from that intense blue and allowing her son to see something that somehow invited a hesitant smile back.

Mikey rarely warmed to strangers. Especially large strangers like the guards around the palace who had ignored him, anyway.

Clips clicked into place. A quick check of the restraints’ fit against Mikey’s shoulders and the man’s smile vanished. Within seconds, he’d backed out the door, shoved in the suitcases that wouldn’t fit in back and closed the door with a thud.

Getting her out of public view and her son secured clearly had been his first priority. Only after he’d settled his big frame behind the wheel did he bother with the preliminaries.

He glanced into the rearview mirror. “I’m Jeff Parker, Miss Kendrick. But ‘Parker’ works just fine. My instructions say you want to go directly to your family’s estate. Is that still your plan?”

Pure professionalism had replaced the unexpected bit of warmth she’d seen when he’d smiled at her son. Thinking that her brother was right, that the man could, indeed, appear pretty intimidating, she offered a determined smile of her own. “Do you know how to get there?”

Assuring her that he did, Parker turned his attention to the runway attendant waving them toward the gate. He not only had directions to the estate just outside the little town of Camelot, he had pulled as much information as he could find about Theresa Amelia Kendrick, once Theresa Amelia Kendrick Ashworth, off the Internet and from Bennington’s files. He always made it a point to know who he was protecting. Just as he made it a point to research his surroundings.

His client’s landing at the small regional airport near Camelot had caused none of the hassles that would have been created landing at Richmond International thirty miles away. Without masses of people watching runways from panoramic terminal windows, the arrival of a private jet went virtually unnoticed. Private jets and small craft were all that ever landed there. The royal-blue crest of Luzandria plastered on the jet’s tail didn’t do much for anonymity, however. Nearly everyone in America knew Luzandria was the country Katherine Kendrick would have someday ruled had she not given up her crown to marry then-Senator William Kendrick years ago. But the plane wouldn’t be there long enough to attract much attention. It was already being refueled and readied for its turnaround back to Europe.

The member of the security team who’d handed over the Kendrick woman to him had told him that the jet flew with two full crews. That meant no layover was required for the inbound pilot and copilot to rest. The plane would be gone before anyone who noticed it could do much more than speculate about which member of the Kendrick family had arrived or departed. As quickly as the transfer from plane to SUV had been made, Parker felt certain his client’s identity remained secure.

With his initial objective accomplished, he left the small airport by a back access road and glanced into the rearview mirror.

Tess Kendrick was stroking her son’s pale hair, murmuring something to him that had the child giving her a tired nod.

She was taller than he’d thought she’d be. Thinner, too, in a willowy, waiflike sort of way, and even more striking than she’d appeared in photographs. Mostly she looked more delicate to him than he had expected. More…fragile, somehow. But he knew looks could be deceiving, especially among the rich and pampered. And pampered she clearly was. With shades of gold and platinum woven through her sable hair, her French manicure and the white, undoubtedly designer pantsuit that seemed totally impractical for a transatlantic flight with a small child, she practically screamed high-maintenance. And quiet sensuality.

She’d secured her shimmering hair back from the classic lines of her face, exposing the delicate lobes of her ears, the long line of her neck. The low cut of her jacket ended at the buttons between her breasts. An arrow of bare skin adorned with varying lengths of gold chains beckoned between the lapels. The longest of those shiny strands rested against a hint of cleavage.

Ignoring the tightening sensation low in his groin, he jerked his glance back to the road. He would admit that she was incredibly easy on the eyes, and the heat he’d felt at the contact of her impossibly soft skin when he’d found her hand beneath his had definitely caught him off guard, but he dismissed his body’s primitive response as nothing more than a normal red-blooded male’s reaction to a beautiful woman. A spoiled, childish woman ten years younger than his own hardened thirty-six years, he reminded himself.

Other than for her physical appeal, he wasn’t impressed with his new client at all.

From what he’d heard, her bewildered husband had been as shocked as the rest of the world when she’d suddenly asked him for a divorce, taken his son and left the country. Bradley-Something-Ashworth-the-Whatever apparently hadn’t had a clue there’d been any sort of problem. Even her friends—women she’d known since before college—had indicated nothing more substantive than that she hadn’t seemed as happy as she once had. For her part, Tess had publicly refused to say why she’d wanted out. The press had found no clues in the couples’ no-fault divorce petition, either. She’d left all the explanations up to her ex.

In his review of old news videos a few days ago, Parker had watched her yacht-club-type husband reluctantly confess to a barrage of reporters outside a courthouse that she had finally told him marriage bored her and that she didn’t think she could ever be happy with just one man.

A guy had to feel for any man who’d married a woman like that.

Parker had a healthy respect for the state of matrimony—for everyone but himself. He was wedded to his work, and what he did for a living wasn’t a job for a married man. Especially a married man with kids. It was his unfaltering belief that kids deserved to have their dad around, and he never knew where he’d find himself next. But the woman now resting her hand on her son’s knee while she gazed out the tinted window beside her had made a promise when she’d married. A promise she’d broken because she’d been bored, he reminded himself with a mental shake of his head. Taking a guy’s son and leaving him to deal with the public humiliation of her decision on his own was pretty low in his book, too.

The GPS on the dashboard gave a low ding, pulling his attention to the navigation system directing him to a turn up ahead. It wasn’t his job to like her, he reminded himself. His job until the bodyguard she’d requested became available was to act as her driver and to protect her and her son from any of the public or paparazzi who might attempt to encroach upon her privacy. In his spare time, he would stay in touch by computer and cell phone with the tactical team he’d been promoted to oversee.

With everything else he had to do, he wouldn’t have taken this additional assignment at all had her brother, Cord, not had her ask for him. He liked Cord, though. The man was a good client. He’d been his bodyguard on a few decidedly wild gambling jaunts to Las Vegas and Monte Carlo and one memorable trip to Cannes. He’d gotten to know the internationally infamous playboy over hands of poker in various hotel suites when Cord hadn’t felt like hitting the clubs or playing high-stakes games with the other whales. He had even once provided protection for his ladylike sister, Ashley, and for Madison, the woman Cord had just married.

Having watched out for the other women in his client’s life and being nothing if not loyal to those loyal to him, he would have felt a certain obligation to protect the man’s kid sister even if his boss hadn’t pretty much insisted that he take the assignment. The Kendricks were some of the firm’s oldest and best customers. Since declining wouldn’t have been the politically correct thing to do, that left him to do his regular job and keep up with the logistics for security surrounding an upcoming judicial conference in his downtime.

The drive from the little airport took less than ten minutes. Miles of open fields planted with peanuts and corn led to land that had been left forested to seclude the mansions and more modest residences of the local gentry. Like many of those homes, the Kendrick estate wasn’t visible at all from the two-lane country road. A double iron gate suspended between stone pillars blocked the driveway itself.

Parker pulled to a stop beside the pillar concealing the entry keypad.

Tess leaned forward. “Twenty-four, sixteen, fifty-seven.”

Aware of her settling back to cross her long legs, he punched in the security code, waited for the gates to swing open and pulled onto the long drive. The late-afternoon sun slanted through the trees lining the way, their leaves joined at the tops like the arches of a cathedral. With his window still down, he felt the change in the air, the coolness of the shadows, heard the distant whinny of a horse. The manse itself, all three gabled and mullioned stories of it, came into view as the road curved to the left.

The trees opened to a sweep of manicured lawns, a bubbling fountain in front of a wide portico and a view of enough windows to keep a Manhattan window-washer busy for the rest of his life.

A man didn’t do what Parker did for a living without being exposed to a certain amount of extravagance. He’d protected clientele on yachts, in the world’s finest hotels, on estates that rambled on forever. What impressed him about them all was the amount of staff it took, invisible for the most part, to keep the places running.

He fully expected to see staff now as he pulled beneath the portico, climbed from the driver’s seat and opened the back door for his passengers.

The mansion’s massive double doors stayed closed as he leaned forward to take the now-sleeping child from the woman who’d already unfastened and lifted him from the child seat.

“I’ll carry him and his backpack,” she said, “if you’ll get the rest of the luggage. Here’s my key.” With the boy’s head resting on her shoulder, she dangled a small gem-encrusted key ring toward him. “It’s the silver one.”

Thinking it odd that she didn’t expect a butler or maid to unlock the door for her, he ignored her intention to slide out on her own and cupped her elbow as she rose. The slenderness of supple muscle beneath white silk barely registered before she thanked him, headed for the back of the vehicle and stood there waiting for him to lift the tailgate.

Her little boy hadn’t moved. The child lay limply against her, drooling on the shoulder of her jacket. Fine blond lashes formed crescents against his pink cheeks.

Struck by how oblivious she was to the drool and still expecting someone to show up and help, he handed her a bright blue Harry Potter backpack and started hauling out enough designer luggage to stock a small boutique. Not quite sure how to tell her that playing butler wasn’t part of the service, he grabbed four of the suitcases—one under each arm and one in each hand—and followed her up the rounded and sweeping stairs to the massive double doors.

Using the key she’d given him, he opened one door, picked up the luggage again and followed her inside.

“Just leave the bags here in the foyer,” she said, “and come with me, please.”

Her voice was hushed in deference to the sleeping child. She clearly didn’t want to disturb him. Or wait for Parker’s response. The tap of her heels echoed on white marble as she crossed the edge of the malachite-and-onyx sunburst tiled into the floor and passed the circular table in the middle of it holding an empty urn.

In the dim light, his glance left her back to skim the curved arms of double staircases, the crystal chandelier centered two stories above the table and the various and vast rooms visible through the open doorways.

Dustcovers concealed much of the furniture. Lamps were dark. The drapes were all closed. Yet what he noticed most was the heavy stillness that indicated an empty house.

With the sudden and unwelcome feeling that this particular assignment might not be as straightforward as he’d thought, he followed her toward a narrow butler’s door camouflaged by the paneling beneath one staircase and into a long equally dim hall.

They were clearly in the servants’ wing. The white hallway and the utilitarian rooms off it had an infinitely more practical feel to them than the areas furnished with the velvet side chairs he’d noticed in the formal dining room or the ornate bombé chest in the foyer.

After passing two rooms with twin beds, she opened one that held a neatly made double bed and a dresser at one end and a desk and small seating area at the other. Lowering her son to the mauve tweed sofa, she pulled a brightly knit afghan off its back and settled it over him. Her motions seemed almost unconscious as she pulled off his shoes, tucked the afghan over his feet when he stirred, then gently touched his head as if to reassure him before slipping back into the hall.

Considering how totally unmaternal Parker would have expected her to be, her easy affection for her son surprised him. Or maybe, he thought, it was protectiveness he sensed in her. Whatever it was, he found himself far more interested in why her smile seemed so uneasy when she moved past him and into the huge—and deserted—kitchen.

He was wondering where the devil everyone was when she flipped on the overhead lights and illuminated a room filled with what looked like miles of counters and glass-fronted white birch cabinetry. Stacks of dishes gleamed through the glass panes. Copper pots glinted from the rack high above a white-tiled center island the size of a boardroom conference table.

“You can stay in the room where I put Mikey. It belongs to the head housekeeper,” she said, her expression polite, her voice still low. “Rose is with my parents in the Hamptons for the summer. The rest of the staff is on vacation, too. Except for the stable master and his wife. They live above the stables. And the groundskeeper is in the cottage near the lake. Rose’s room has its own bath, and you’re welcome to use the pool and the exercise room downstairs if you’d like.”

Tess watched a frown pinch the dark slashes of Parker’s eyebrows as he glanced from her to the office alcove and the window above a table in the far corner where the staff took their meals. The man was difficult to read, a trait his profession seemed to demand, but he appeared far more interested in what surrounded him than in his personal accommodations.

In the space of seconds, it seemed to Tess that her paid protector had absorbed who was on the property, managed to take in the details of his immediate surroundings and just as thoroughly searched her. He’d no sooner noted the utility room leading to the back door than his scrutiny moved from the top of her head to the toes of her pumps. She could swear he’d missed nothing in between.

Had it not been for her brother’s recommendation, she would have felt far more uncomfortable than she already did at that unapologetic appraisal. Those arresting features gave away nothing of his impressions.

Feeling totally disadvantaged, nerves ruined the cultured poise she constantly strove to achieve. That poise seemed to come as naturally as breathing to her mom and her older sister, but neither of them had been cursed with the inner energy she constantly battled to tame. Even fighting fatigue from a week’s worth of sleepless nights stressing over her trip home, it was either pace or fidget. Since pacing seemed more dignified, she turned away to do just that. All that mute and massive muscle unnerved her, too.

“I assume you’ve done your homework,” she began, hating the position she was in, knowing no other way to address it. “So I imagine you’re aware of what was being said about me before I left.”

She turned back, met his too-blue eyes. He stood ramrod-straight in the arch of the hallway, one hand clasping the opposite wrist. “The majority of it,” he conceded.

Not caring to imagine what he thought of all that dirt, she tipped her chin, only to immediately check the motion. She couldn’t allow herself to get defensive with him. She needed him on her side. More important than that, she desperately needed an ally.

It seemed a true indication of how much she’d lost that she’d had to hire one.

At the dispiriting thought, she resumed her pacing. “You’ve worked for my brother,” she reminded him, arms crossed as she made her way up one side of the island, “so you know that people distort things to serve their own purpose. And you know that the press has a definite tendency to exaggerate.” Among other transgressions, real and imagined, her brother had been sued for support for a child that wasn’t his and blamed for a nightclub brawl that started after he’d left. If she remembered correctly, Parker had been with him that particular night. “I hope you’ve kept that in mind with anything you’ve heard or read about me.

“I also hope my brother is right about you,” she continued before he could ask why she hadn’t defended herself if what he’d heard wasn’t true. “Cord said I could trust you. I don’t know anyone outside my family that I can trust anymore,” she stressed softly, “so I had to rely on his judgment. That’s why I asked for you. That and a comment he made about you being up for just about anything.”

She turned again to face the man filling the space with his powerful presence, saw the faint lift of one dark eyebrow.

“I didn’t want to indicate my plans over the phone or the Internet, but aside from you being my driver and keeping me clear of paparazzi, there are some other things I need you to do for me. I hope you won’t mind.”

Parker had spent years learning to anticipate people and situations. Little caught him unprepared. Since he inevitably prepared for the worst, even less surprised him. He had not, however, expected the open candor of the woman giving him a cautious, almost hopeful smile or the isolation he sensed about her as she stood waiting for him to confirm or deny what her brother had claimed. He recognized that sense of separation, that sense of no longer being a part of the whole, only because in the past year he’d felt it so much himself.

Dismissing that unwanted thought, not appreciating the reminder, he studied her even more closely.

“You can believe your brother. You and your plans are secure with me.” He was nothing if not honorable. “But he may have misled you on just what I’d be willing to do.” He rarely objected to having a good time, situation permitting. He had the feeling Cord’s little sister wasn’t looking for a good poker game, though, or an escort to the local clubs. He hadn’t read a single report about her doing the party circuit or getting wild and crazy in some trendy hot spot. “I play by the book, Miss Kendrick. I might bend rules, but I won’t break the law.”

Her lovely eyes widened. “I’d never ask you to do that. What I want is perfectly legal.”

“Then what is it exactly that you want me to do?”

“Just set up some appointments.” She replied quickly, as if she wanted her request to sound as if it were nothing of any import at all. “And run errands. And maybe watch Mikey for me. But only for a few minutes at a time,” she hurried to explain, “and only if absolutely necessary.”

Parker stifled a mental groan. He was a bodyguard. Not a personal slave. He most definitely was not a babysitter.

“Due respect, Miss Kendrick, but my duties are laid out in your family’s contract with Bennington’s. I’ll provide surveillance, protection and evacuation if the latter is necessary. But if you need a personal assistant, you’ll have to hire one. Same goes for a nanny.”

His glance shot over the hair she’d smoothed back into place, over her perfectly made-up face, down the buttoned silk jacket that allowed that tantalizing glimpse of soft-looking skin between her breasts.

He would be willing to bet his tickets to the next New England Patriots game that Tess Kendrick was accustomed to getting everything she wanted. And to getting rid of whatever she did not, he reminded himself, thinking of how she’d shed a husband. If she was even half as spoiled as he’d read, he figured he was about to face major attitude.

Yet, rather than offense, all he saw enter her expression was something that looked almost like an apology.

“That’s my problem,” she murmured, pacing again. “Even if I knew who to hire…who I could trust,” she emphasized, “I don’t want more people around. The fewer people who know I’m here, the less the chance of the press finding out that I’m back. It’s taken forever for all talk and speculation to die down, and if they find out I’m here, it’ll just start up again.”

Something pleading crossed the delicate lines of her face. “All I’m asking is for help buying a house. I need you to make appointments under another name,” she explained, because her own would be too easily recognized, “then maybe act as if you’re the one buying when we look at the properties. When I find something that will work for Mikey and me, I’ll turn it over to our lawyers and they can take it from there. And a car,” she said, faint lines of concentration forming in her brow as she checked off items on her mental list. “I need to buy a car, too. I lost mine in the divorce.”

She’d lost everything, actually, except for some personal items, her clothes and Mikey’s things, most of which were stored in her parents’ attic. She didn’t mention that, though. Partly because she desperately wanted to forget the past few years. Mostly because the big man silently considering her wouldn’t be interested in her need to rebuild a life for herself and her son. Or in how ill-equipped she felt to be doing it on her own.

“What about your brothers?”

“Gabe doesn’t have any spare time. Buying a car is the kind of thing he’d staff out anyway.”

Her oldest brother was governor of the state. Yet, more than the demands of the job on his time kept her from seeking his help. He and his press people hadn’t been too happy with her for what the publicity surrounding her divorce had done to his family-values platform. Under the circumstances, asking a favor of him would take more nerve than she wanted to spare right now.

She could only conquer one mountain of ashes at a time.

“Cord knows real estate. And he’s into cars. What about him?”

“He and his wife are in the Florida Keys. Sailing,” she added, to prove just how inaccessible he was for the tasks. “I’d ask Ashley to help me look for a house, but she lives an hour away and is really busy with her kids. The two of us together would attract too much attention anyway.”

Two Kendrick sisters together truly would be like waving a red flag at the press. Even if that hadn’t been the case, Tess wanted to avoid Ashley right now. Long before her ex-husband had started pointing out how miserably Tess had failed to live up to her older sister’s accomplishments, Tess had been aware of how Ashley had always done everything so well, so flawlessly. At least it had seemed so to the little sister who’d followed in her footsteps.

Because of Tess’s place in the hierarchy as the baby of the family, she’d had none of the first-son or-daughter pressure to perform thrust upon her. For as far back as she could remember, everyone had insisted on watching out for her, doing for her, and nothing had been expected of her other than to maintain the integrity of the family name.

Image and integrity were paramount to their parents. The actions of one Kendrick inevitably affected them all. Having a brother who’d possessed an unfortunate tendency to draw embarrassing headlines had proved that often enough.

She hated that the one big choice she’d made on her own had turned out to be an error in judgment that had not only screwed up her own life but done an even more spectacular job than her once-prodigal brother of tainting the family’s good name.

“What I want won’t take long,” she promised, trying desperately to push past feelings of failure and helplessness. “I need to be in my new home before my parents return.” They would arrive right after Labor Day. That gave her roughly six weeks.

Skepticism slashed his broad brow.

“Do you know how long it can take to buy and move into a house?”

“Actually, no,” she admitted. She hadn’t a clue. She’d never had to deal with that particular detail before. “But I can’t let it take long. It will be too uncomfortable living here with Mom and Dad.” Her voice dropped. “Especially with my father. If I have to, I’ll rent or lease something until I find what I want. I’d rather not move Mikey around that much, but I’ll do it if I have to.”

Thoughts of her father put a new face on her pacing. She wasn’t ready to be around William Kendrick yet. She hadn’t dealt well at all with the pictures Brad had shown her.

She didn’t know which had the firmer hold—the disappointment she felt in her dad or her anger over his betrayal of her mom. Both were there, demanding to be dealt with. She just didn’t know how. With no one to confide in, all she could do was jam down the emotions the same way she had the anxiety of everything else she’d had to cope with and force that energy into moving past her…past.

Parker remained discouragingly silent.

“I’ll pay you whatever you ask.”

It wasn’t what she’d requested of him that kept Parker quiet. It was the tension in her body as she spoke and the faint anxiety running just beneath the surface of her practiced composure. Knowing how upset the senior Kendrick had been over Cord’s indiscretions on occasion, he didn’t doubt for a moment that the famously powerful head of the Kendricks’ massive corporate and philanthropic holdings had been less than pleased with the unflattering publicity his daughter had brought. Yet, when she’d mentioned her father, he’d seen more than the embarrassment or discomfort he would have expected. He’d seen hurt.

He didn’t want the bit of empathy that hit him just then. It was simply there as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his slacks, buying himself time as he considered what she wanted. He knew what it was to have lost the approval of a parent. Since he’d left the Marines five years ago, his own father had barely spoken to him. But then, his father was a three-star general and the military was, always had been and always would be his life. The only time the man had ever had time for him was when Parker had been in the military himself.

Frowning at the thought, he dismissed the old resentment that came with the memory as irrelevant. He didn’t appreciate her reminding him of it. He didn’t appreciate the way she’d distracted him either. It wasn’t like him to get sidetracked. Yet, in less than a minute, the woman who’d gone still waiting for him to respond had reminded him of the isolation he’d felt since he’d lost his sister and the father neither one of them had ever really had.

He’d just reminded himself that neither had a thing to do with the requests she’d just made when the pounding of footsteps on the veranda outside had him jerking toward the back door an instant before it flew open.

Chapter Two

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.

Chapter Three

Tess was now officially exhausted. She’d lost nearly an entire night’s sleep to stress before she’d left Luzandria and she hadn’t slept on the plane at all. Having crossed multiple time zones, she wasn’t even sure how many hours she’d gone without rest. It didn’t matter. She was just hoping that Mikey’s hour-long nap before dinner wouldn’t keep him up past a bedtime story when her search for his pajamas was interrupted by three short raps on the door.

Leaving her son and the open suitcases on the daybed in her sitting room, she hurried past the king bed that had replaced her old twin, tossed a throw pillow from the floor onto the piles of powder-blue and cream pillows already covering it and pulled open the door.

Parker filled her doorway. Even with his white shirt open at the collar and his sleeves rolled to just below his elbows, he looked much as he had when she’d seen him a while ago. Just as staid. Just as professional.

He held something small and black out to her.

“Use this if you need me at night. Just flip back this guard, punch this key and I’ll be here.”

She took what looked like a small pager.

“The doors are all locked and the alarm set. I’ll be in my room,” he continued, glancing to where Mikey peeked around the corner. A smile tugged at the sensual line of his mouth as he winked at her son. That smile and the ease in it was gone by the time he looked back to her. “I think that’s everything,” he concluded, “so I’ll say good night.”

Her hand shot out as he started to turn. “Wait,” she said, pulling back before she could overstep the employee-employer line and grab his muscular forearm. “Thank you for helping me tonight. With dinner,” she murmured, because she didn’t want him to think she hadn’t appreciated what he’d done. He hadn’t had to offer the assist.

Though his smile had died, she offered a weary one of her own. “And thanks for this.” She held up the device that would keep her linked to him while she slept. Peace of mind in the palm of her hand. “Rest well.”

For a moment he simply looked at her. Then, incredibly, she saw his facade crack. That fissure was pathetically slight. Yet, as his glance slowly skimmed her tired features, it was enough to allow a bit of warmth back into the cool blue of his eyes. “You rest well, too,” he said, sounding as if he knew how badly she needed sleep. With a nod he added, “See you in the morning,” and left her staring at his back.

The burgundy carpet with its Persian runner absorbed the sound of his footfall as he walked down the hall, past her brothers’ and sister’s old rooms, and headed down the curving stairs. Moments later the crystal chandelier lighting the foyer, the stairway and the first few yards of the long, wide hall went out.

Across from her, the buttery glow from the brass lamp on the credenza provided the hall’s only light. From below came the muffled sound of footsteps on marble and the click of the butler’s door as it closed.

Tess didn’t move. She just stood there, clutching what he’d given her and listening to the silence.

The enormous house suddenly felt as empty and lifeless as Tut’s tomb. Yet it wasn’t just the house that felt that way. Something about glimpsing a bit of warmth from a man who was a virtual stranger had somehow magnified what she’d felt for a long time now. Empty. Drained. And more lost than she would ever have thought possible.

She pulled a deep breath, pushed back her hair and turned to the room and the little boy now helping her by unpacking his suitcase himself.

She was just tired, she told herself, setting the pager on her nightstand before picking up the T-shirts that had fallen to the carpet. That was the only possible explanation for why she’d felt abandoned all over again when Parker had turned his back on her. He was her bodyguard. His job was to keep her from being harassed. It made no difference that he disturbed her in ways she couldn’t explain. It didn’t even matter that she’d sensed the disapproval he was so careful to mask. All that mattered was that with him around she felt…safe.

Mikey had no problem falling asleep. He awoke, however, at four o’clock the next morning. Since Tess was awake by then, too, she had him crawl into bed with her, where they cuddled and read their respective books until he complained of being hungry. By then it was five-fifteen and light outside, so she dressed herself, dressed him, and they both headed through the quiet house to the kitchen where she poured him a bowl of granola and a glass of milk and tried to figure out the coffeemaker.

At the palace, she could have rung for coffee and had it brought to her room or been served a cup from a silver pot on a terrace. Under normal circumstances at her parents’ home, in another hour or so she would have found a carafe of it on the sideboard in the family breakfast room. When she’d been married, the live-in help had made it or she’d gotten it from the Starbucks on the first floor of the building she’d lived in.

Never again would she take her morning coffee for granted.

Since staring at the machine with its levers and buttons provided few clues to its use, she searched the drawers in the hope of finding some sort of manual.

That exercise proved just as futile.

She knew she needed water and coffee, so she filled the glass carafe, found a bag of beans in the refrigerator and decided that she’d have to wait until Parker woke and ask him how to get the thing to work. In the meantime, with Mikey occupied on the kitchen floor with his robot that transformed into a tank, she would use the kitchen computer to check out the local real-estate market.

By six-thirty she’d found three houses she wanted Parker to call about, but even if he’d been up, it was too early for him to make an appointment with the Realtor.

By six thirty-five she’d entered the back hall to listen for some sign of life from the room he was using.

Mikey scrambled past her on his hands and knees, making motor noises as he pushed his tank. Turning around a few feet past Parker’s closed door, he stood up.

“What are you doing?” he wanted to know.

She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Listening to see if Mr. Parker is up yet.”

“Why?”

“Because I need his help with something.”

“Why?

“Because I can’t do it myself.”

At three, he had no trouble comprehending that rationale. “I’ll look,” he announced and reached for the door.

Tess’s eyes widened, but she’d barely opened her mouth to tell him that checking wasn’t necessary before he’d pulled down on the handle and pushed the door open.

Parker wasn’t there.

She dropped to her knees in front of her too-helpful little boy. “Honey, we don’t do that.” Relief at not having found her bodyguard in bed collided with puzzlement over where he might be. She knew she hadn’t heard him leave. She’d been listening for him. “This is Mr. Parker’s private space. We don’t open closed doors. Okay?”

“Then how do we get back in our bedroom?”

“That door is all right. We don’t open doors to other people’s rooms. Not without permission.” Rising, she took his hand. “Let’s see if we can find him.”

If there was anything she knew about the guards she’d encountered, body or otherwise, it was that they were incredibly fit. They didn’t get or stay that way without work. Considering the amount of muscle Parker needed to keep in condition, she figured he might be in one of three places: out jogging or running, in the pool doing laps or in the workout room her mom had had equipped for her dad and his trainer after his doctor told him to get more exercise or deal with rehab after he had a heart attack.

If Parker was running, she’d just have to wait until he returned. If he was swimming or working out, he could tell her how to make the coffee machine work and they could each get on with their morning.

He wasn’t in the pool.

He was, however, in the mirrored exercise room off the sauna—wearing nothing but baggy athletic shorts and running shoes.

The counterpart to the pager he’d given her lay on the floor by the machine he was using. She noticed it only because it wasn’t far from his feet, which was where her glance landed after moving the entire length of his hard, honed body.

The sculpted muscles of his shoulders and back gleamed with sweat as he slowly lowered the incredible amount of weight he’d loaded onto the machine.

With Mikey heading for a big blue exercise ball on a yoga mat, she watched Parker rise from the black bench seat. Concern slashed his features as he reached for the blue hand towel on the arm of the machine and wiped it over his face.

“Is there a problem?”

She was staring. She knew that as she ventured into the mirror-lined room that reflected him from every angle. Yet she couldn’t seem to help it. She’d seen statues of magnificently sculpted warriors and gods in Rome and Florence. Perfect male bodies immortalized in marble and bronze. She just wasn’t accustomed to such a blatantly masculine male in the flesh. At least not a nearly naked one.

From six feet away, she jerked her attention from his powerful thighs to his beautifully carved stomach and chest. Feeling strangely warm when she met his eyes, she swallowed and gave a small shake of her head.

“Just a minor one,” she began, hugely relieved that she sounded quite normal. “I’m not sure how to use the coffeemaker. We’ve been up for a couple of hours and I could really use some caffeine.”

“Jet lag?”

“Major,” she murmured, remembering the elusive bit of warmth he’d allowed when they’d said good night. Or maybe what she’d glimpsed had been sympathy. “When you’re finished, will you show me how to make the coffee?” she asked, torn between wishing she could again see whatever it had been and knowing she’d only feel worse when that warmth was gone. “Or just tell me now and you can get back to what you’re doing. That way it’ll be ready for you, too, when you’re finished. If you drink it,” she hurried on. “Maybe you don’t put things like caffeine into your body. You obviously take good…care of it.”

Seconds ago, her glance had moved from his stomach to his pecs. It now faltered and hit the floor.

“I don’t abuse it,” he allowed, a little surprised by how flustered she suddenly seemed. “But I do allow certain indulgences.”

She cleared her throat. “Like coffee.”

“Among other things.”

He couldn’t remember ever having seen a woman blush. But there was no mistaking the pink beneath the peach blusher on her cheeks. That provocative bit of innocence didn’t fit at all with her sophistication. Or her reputation. It seemed to him that a woman who claimed she could never be happy with just one man would be accustomed to variety at most or, at least, the sight of a bare chest.

He wasn’t an immodest man. Or a particularly modest one, for that matter. But he was now conscious himself of his state of undress. Especially with her looking every inch the lady of the manor in a cocoa-colored sleeveless turtleneck, matching capri pants and touches of gold on her ears, neck and low-riding chain belt. There was a certain decorum to maintain between them. There were boundaries. Less than twelve hours ago he’d made a point of drawing them himself.

Sweat trickled down his chest. Taking an absent swipe at it, he was about to tell her he’d be upstairs in a few minutes when he tossed the rectangle of terry cloth over the machine. It promptly slid to the floor.

Swearing to himself, he bent to snatch it up. So did she. Her fingers had barely skimmed the terry cloth when his shoulder hit hers, she flew back and his hands shot out to catch her.

With his fingers curled around her bare upper arms, he jerked her upright.

He’d hauled her to within inches of his chest when he thought he heard her breath hitch. He knew for certain that his own stalled somewhere behind his breastbone. The breath he’d drawn had brought her scent, that combination of innocence and seduction that moved from his lungs to his blood at the speed of light, taunting nerves every centimeter of the way.

Beneath his palms, her skin felt like velvet. Her slender muscles were as taut as bowstrings. But it was the confusion he sensed in her when his glance moved from the temptation of her lush mouth and his eyes met hers that told him she wasn’t immune to him, either.

That was dangerous knowledge to possess.

No longer fearing she’d wind up on her appealing little backside, he reminded himself of all the reasons he needed to keep his thoughts off her body and his hands to himself and slowly released his grip.

The pink blushing her cheeks seemed even deeper as she crossed her arms and stepped back.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m… Yes, of course,” she assured him. “I’m…fine.”

Seeing how her hands covered where his had been, his brow pinched. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. No,” Tess insisted, suddenly conscious of what had his attention.

Apparently aware that she was holding in his heat, she dropped her hands and picked up what neither of them had managed to get. As if utterly determined to appear composed, she rose with the rectangle of blue terry cloth. “You dropped this.”

Impressed by her aplomb but not at all fooled by it, he lifted the towel from her hand and hung it around his neck. She’d already put another arm’s length between them.

“Give me twenty minutes and we’ll deal with the coffee.” The job, he reminded himself. Just focus on the job. “What’s the agenda today? You said you want to look at houses. Do you prefer me in a suit or more casual?”

“Casual. Thank you,” she murmured, then turned to collect her son from where the boy had draped his little body over the ball and coaxed him out the door.

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