Remodeling the Bachelor
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Helen Conrad, my bridge over troubled waters.

Thank you.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

“When are you going to get that cracked sink fixed?” Beau de la Croix asked good-naturedly as he slid back into his place at the poker table.

The question was addressed to Philippe Zabelle, his cousin and the host of their weekly poker game. Beau and several other friends and relatives showed up here at Philippe’s to talk, eat and bet toothpicks on the whimsical turn of the cards. They used colored toothpicks instead of chips or money because those were the house rules and Philippe, easygoing about so many things, was very strict about that.

Philippe’s dark eyebrows rose slightly above his light green eyes at the innocent but still irritating query. Beau had hit a sore spot. Everyone at the circular table was aware of that.

“When I get around to it,” Philippe replied evenly.

“Better hope that’s not soon,” Georges Armand, Philippe’s half brother commented, battling the grin that begged to break out across his tanned face. “If Philippe puts his hand to it, that’s the end of the sink.”

Philippe, the oldest of famed artist Lily Moreau’s three sons, shifted his steely gaze toward Georges, his junior by two years. “Are you saying that I’m not handy?”

Alain Dulac, Philippe’s other half brother, as blond as Philippe was dark, bent over with laughter at the very idea of his older brother holding an actual tool in his hand. “Oh God, Philippe, you’re so far from handy that if handy were Los Angeles, you’d be somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Drowning,” Alain finally managed, holding his sides because they hurt.

Georges discarded two cards and momentarily frowned at the rest of his hand. “Two,” he decided out loud, then looked over to his right and Philippe. “Everyone knows you’ve got lots of talents, Philippe, but being handy is just not one of them.”

Philippe tried not to take offense, but it bothered him nonetheless. For the most part, he considered himself a free thinker, a person who believed that no one should be expected to fit into a given slot or pigeonholed because of gender or race. With the flamboyant and outspoken Lily Moreau as his mother, a woman who made the fictional Auntie Mame come off like a cloistered nun, he couldn’t help but have an open mind.

Even so, it got under his skin that he barely knew the difference between a Phillips-head screwdriver and a flat-head one. Men were supposed to know these things, it was a given, written in some giant book of man-rules somewhere.

The fact that he not only couldn’t rebuild an automobile engine but was pretty stumped if one refused to start, didn’t bother him. Lots of men were ignorant about what went on under the hoods of things housed in their garage.

But not being handy around the house, well, that was another story entirely.

Still, he had no natural ability, nor even a fostered one. He’d always been too busy either studying or being both mother and father to his brothers because his mother had once more taken off with a show, or, just as likely, with a man. Growing up, he’d found himself taking on the role of buffer, placing himself between the endless parade of nannies and his two younger brothers. Once out of their rebellious teens, Georges and Alain had both acknowledged that even though they loved their mother dearly, Philippe was the only reason they had turned out normal. Or at least reasonably so.

That didn’t stop them from teasing him whenever the opportunity arose. Their affection for the man they considered the head of the family actually seemed to promote it.

“One,” Alain requested, throwing down his card first. After glancing at the new addition, he looked up at Philippe. He put on the face that Philippe knew was the undoing of every fluttering female heart at the university Alain was currently attending. A university whose tuition bill found its way into his mailbox twice a year and which he promptly and willingly paid. “Too late to change my mind and get the old one back?”

There wasn’t even a hint of humor on Philippe’s face. “After insulting me?”

“Wasn’t an insult, Philippe,” his cousin Remy assured him. Remy, a geologist, was closer to Alain in age than Philippe. “Alain was only telling it the way it is. Hey,” he added quickly, forestalling any fallout from the man they all admired, “we all love you, Philippe, but you know you’ll never be the first one any of us call if we find that we’ve got a clogged drain.”

“Or a cabinet door that won’t close right,” Vincent Mirabeau called over from the far side of the kitchen. “Like this one.” To illustrate his point, Vincent, another one of Philippe’s cousins and Lily’s godson, went through elaborate motions to close the closet door. Creaking, it returned to its place, approximately an inch and a half away from its mate, just hanging in midspace. “I think you should bite the bullet and hire someone to remodel this place.”

Remy put in his two cents. “Or at least the bathroom and the kitchen.”

Philippe folded his hand and placed it face down on the table, his eyes sweeping over his brothers and cousins.

“What’s wrong with this place?” he asked.

He’d bought the house with the first money he’d managed to save up after opening up his own software design company. The moment he’d seen it, he’d known that the unique structure was for him. To the passing eye, the house where he received his mail appeared to be a giant estate. It was only when the passing eye stopped passing and moved closer that the perception changed. His house was just one of three houses, carefully designed to look like one. There was one door in the center, leading to his house. Other doors located on either end of the structure opened the other two houses. Thanks to his initial down payment, Georges and Alain lived in those. They all had their privacy but were within shouting distance if a quick family meeting was needed. Because Lily was their mother, the need for one of these was not as rare for them as it was for some families.

“Nothing’s wrong with this place,” Beau was quick to say. They all knew how attached to the house Philippe was. “At least, nothing a good handyman couldn’t fix.”

Philippe’s expression remained uncharacteristically stony. “C’mon, Philippe,” Remy urged, “every time you turn on the faucet in the kitchen, it sounds like you’re listening to the first five bars of ‘When the Saints Come Marching In.’”

Before Philippe could protest, Remy turned the handle toward the left. Hot water slowly emerged, but a strange echoing rattling noise in the pipes preceded the appearance of any liquid.

Philippe sighed. There was no point in pretending he would get around to fixing that, either. He didn’t even know where to start. When it came to the faucet, his ability began and ended with turning the spigots on or off.

Tossing a bright pink toothpick onto the pile of red, blue, green and yellow, Philippe asked, “Anyone else want to bet?”

Vincent shook his head, throwing in his cards. “Too rich for my blood.”

“Count me out.” Remy followed suit.

But Beau grinned. “I’ll see your pink toothpick,” he tossed one in, “and raise you a green one.”

Picking up a green toothpick from his dwindling pile, Philippe debated. Green represented five cents; he rarely went higher than that on a single bet. His father, Jon Zabelle, had been a charming incurable gambler. The man had single-handedly almost brought them down and was responsible for Lily Moreau’s brief and unfortunate flirtation with frightening poverty. That period of time, long in his past and no more than three months in length, had left an indelible mark on Philippe. It also allowed him to recognize the occasional craving to bet as a potential problem.

Forewarned, Philippe treated any obstacle head on. Since he liked to play cards and he liked to gamble, he made sure that it would never result in his losing anything more a handful of colorful toothpicks. The big loser at his table wound up doing chores to make payment, not going to an ATM machine.

“I call,” Philippe announced, tossing in the green toothpick to match his cousin’s.

“Three of a kind,” Beau told him, spreading out two black nines with a red one in between.

“Me, too,” Philippe countered, setting down three fours, one by one. And then he added, “Oh, and I’ve also got two of a kind.” The fours were joined by a pair of queens.

Beau huffed, staring down at the winning hand. “Full house, you damn lucky son of a gun.” He pushed the “pot,” with its assorted array of toothpicks, toward his oldest cousin.

“Gonna cash in this time and spend all your ‘winnings’ on renovating the house?” Remy teased as Philippe sorted out the different colors and placed them in their appropriate piles.

Philippe didn’t bother looking at his cousin. “I don’t have the time to start hunting for a decent contractor.”

Vincent’s grin went from ear to ear. He stuck his hand into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Just so happens, I have the name of a contractor right here in my wallet.”

Philippe stopped sorting, feeling like a man who’d been set up. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Somebody named J. D. Wyatt,” Vincent told him. “Friend of mine had some work done on his place. Said it was fast and the bid was way below anything the other contractors he’d contacted had come through with.”

Which could be good, or could be bad, Philippe thought. The contractor could be hungry for work or he could be using sub-grade material. If he decided to hire this J.D., he was going to have to stay on top of him.

Philippe thought for a moment. He knew his brothers and cousins were going to keep on ribbing him until he gave in. In all fairness, he knew the place could stand to have some work done. He just hated the hassle of having someone else do it.

Better that than the hassle of you pretending you know what you’re doing and messing up, big time, a small voice in his head whispered.

For better or for worse, he made up his mind. He’d give it a go. After all, he wasn’t an unreasonable man and the place did look like it was waiting to get on the disaster-area list.

He could always cancel if it didn’t work out. “This J.D. have a phone number where I could reach him?”

Vincent was already ahead of him. “Just so happens,” he plucked the card out of his wallet and held it out to his cousin, “I’ve got it right here.”

“Serendipity,” Remy declared, grinning as Philippe looked at him quizzically. “Can’t mess with serendipity.”

“Since when?” Philippe snorted.

Remy had an answer for everything. “Since it’ll interfere with your karma.”

Philippe snorted even louder. He didn’t believe in any of that nonsense. That was his mother’s domain. Karma, tarot cards, tea leaves, mediums, everything and anything that pretended to link her up with the past. Although he loved the woman dearly and would do anything for her, he’d spent most of his life trying to be as different from his mother as humanly possible—from both his parents.

That was why he’d turned his back on the artistic ability that he’d so obviously inherited. Because he didn’t want to go his mother’s route.

Lily Moreau had coaxed her first born to pick up a paintbrush in his hand even before she’d encouraged him to pick up a toothbrush and brush his teeth. If he made it as an artist, he could always buy new teeth, she’d informed him cheerfully.

But he had dug in his heels and been extremely stubborn. He refused to draw or paint anything either under her watchful eye or away from it. Only when he was absently killing time, most likely on hold on the phone, did he catch himself doodling some elaborate figure in pencil.

He was always quick to destroy any and all evidence. He was his mother’s son, as well as his father’s, but there was no earthly reason that he could see to admit to either, at least not when it came to laboring under their shadows.

He wanted to make his own way in the world, be his own person, make his own mistakes and have his own triumphs. And this was one of the reasons it really bothered him that he wasn’t up to the task of fixing things in his own place. Neither his father, now dead, nor his mother, alive enough for both of them, could claim to be even remotely handy. If Philippe were handy, he would be even more different from his parents.

But for that to ever happen, he was going to need lessons. Intense lessons. He glanced down at the card in his hand. Maybe this would turn out all right after all.

“Okay,” he nodded, tucking the card into the back pocket of his jeans, “I’ll call this J.D. when I get a chance.”

“Before the bathroom sink breaks in half?” Georges asked.

Philippe nodded. “Before the bathroom sink breaks in half,” he promised. He picked up the deck of cards again and looked around. “Now, do you guys want to play poker or do you just want to sit around, complaining about my house?”

“All in favor of complaining about Philippe’s house,” Georges declared, raising his hand in the air as he looked around the table, “raise your hand.”

Every hand around him shot up, but Philippe focused his attention exclusively on his brother. Grabbing a handful of chips—the crunchy kind—he threw them at Georges. Laughing, Georges responded in kind.

Which was how the poker game devolved into a food fight that lasted until all the remaining edible material—and the toothpicks—and been commandeered and pressed into service.

The result was a huge mess and a great deal of laughter, punctuated by a stream of colorful words that didn’t begin to describe what had gone on.

Hours later, after he had gotten them to all lend a hand and clean up, the gathering finally broke up and they all went their separate ways. Alain returned to his law books and Georges declared that he had a late date waiting for him, one that, he’d whispered confidentially, held a great deal of promise. Which only meant that Georges thought he was going to get lucky.

Remy, Vincent and Beau went back to whatever it was that occupied them in their off-hours. Trouble, mostly, Philippe thought fondly. Probably instigated by Henri and Joseph, first cousins and two of the more silent members of the weekly poker game.

It was still early by his old standards. But his old standards hadn’t had to cope with deadlines and program bugs that insisted on manifesting themselves despite his diligent attempts to squash them. Program bugs he needed to iron out of his latest software package before he submitted it to Lyon Enterprises, his software publisher. The deadline was breathing down his neck.

He didn’t have to work this hard. He chose to work this hard. Philippe had made his fortune on a software package that he’d designed five years ago, a package that had become indispensable to the advertising industry. Streamlined and efficient, it was now considered the standard by which all other such programs were measured. There was no need for him to keep hours that would have only gladdened the heart of a Tibetan monk, but, unlike his late father, he had never believed in coasting. He liked being kept busy, liked creating, liked having a schedule to adhere to and something tangible to shoot for every day. He wasn’t the idle type.

His mother’s second husband, Georges’s father, had been a self-made millionaire, owing his fortune to a delicate scent that lured scores of women with far too much money on their hands. André Armand was a man who slept late and partied into the wee hours of the morning. It was because of André that they had the lifestyle they now enjoyed.

Even before André had married his mother, the man had taken to him. The moment the vows were uttered, he’d taken him under his wing, viewing him as a protégé. But Philippe quickly learned that although he really liked the man, the life André led was not one that appealed to him at all, even as an adolescent. It was because of André that Philippe had come to the conclusion that no matter how rich he was, a man needed a purpose.

He’d never forgotten it, nor let either one of his brothers forget it. He’d made sure that his brothers did their lessons and excelled in school, even when they said they didn’t need to.

“You need to make a difference in this world,” he’d told them over and over again, “no matter how small. Or else all you are is a large mound of dust, just passing through.”

As he slipped his hands into his back pockets, the tips of the fingers of his right hand came in contact with what felt like a piece of paper. Drawing it out, Philippe stared for a second before he recalled where he’d gotten it and why.

The contractor.

Right.

Well, if he didn’t make the call right now, he knew he wouldn’t. Life had a habit of overwhelming him at times, especially whenever his mother was in town and rumor had it Hurricane Lily was due in soon. Details tended to get buried and lost if he didn’t attend to them immediately.

Do it now or let it go, Philippe thought with a half smile.

Making his way to the nearest phone, Philippe glanced at his watch to make sure it wasn’t too late to call. It was a little before ten. Still early, he thought as he began to tap out the embossed hunter-green numbers on the card.

The phone on the other end rang three times. No one picked up.

Philippe was about to hang up when he heard the receiver suddenly coming to life.

And then, the most melodic voice he’d ever heard proceeded to tell him: “You’ve reached J. D. Wyatt’s office. I’m sorry we missed you call. Please leave your number and a detailed message as to what you want done and we’ll get back to you.”

Obviously this was either Wyatt’s secretary or, more likely, his wife. The sensual sound of her voice planted thoughts in his head and made him want to request having “things done” that had nothing to do with renovating parts of his house and everything to do with renovating parts of him. Or his soul, he silently amended.

He was currently in between encounters. Encounters, not relationships, because they weren’t that. Relationships took time, effort, emotional investment; all of which he’d seen come to naught, especially in his mother’s life. There’d been some keepers in his mother’s lot, most notably Alain’s father and a man named Alexander Walters. But as much as his mother loved being in a relationship, loved having a man around, she had always been the restless kind. No matter how good a relationship was, eventually his mother felt the need to leave it, to shed it like a skin she’d outgrown. She’d left all three of her husbands, divorcing them before they’d died. Remained friends with all of the men she’d loved even years after she’d moved on.

His mother couldn’t seem to function without a relationship in her life, especially when it was in its birthing stages. She loved being in love. He had never seen the need for that, the need for garnering the pain involved in ending something. He’d never wanted to be in that position, so he wasn’t. It was as simple as that.

Feelings couldn’t be hurt if they weren’t invested—on either side. After a while, it seemed natural to have female company only on the most cursory level. To enjoy an encounter without promising anything beyond tonight and then moving on.

He didn’t know any other way.

The beep he heard on the other end of the line roused him, bringing him back from his momentary revelry. “Um, this is Philippe Zabelle.” He rattled off his telephone number. “I got your name from a friend of a friend. I need some remodeling work done on two of my bathrooms. I thought you might come by my place at around seven tomorrow night if that’s convenient for you.” He recited his address slowly. “If I don’t get a call from you, I’ll be expecting you tomorrow at seven. See you then.”

Philippe hung up. He absolutely hated talking to machines, even ones with sexy voices. As he went up the stairs to his bedroom, he thought about how people were far too isolated and dependent on machines to do their work for them.

And then he smiled to himself. It was a rather ironic thought, given the nature of what he did for a living. His smile widened. The world was a strange place.

Chapter Two

The next morning, Philippe hit the ground running.

Usually reliable, his inner alarm clock had decided to go on strike. Instead of six-thirty, the time he normally woke up during the work week, Philippe rolled over and stared in disbelief at the digital clock beside the bed.

Burning in bright, bold red shone the numbers 7:46 a.m.

The second his brain registered the discrepancy between the time he intended to get up and the actual hour, Philippe tumbled out of bed. He then proceeded to race through his shower and decide not to bother shaving. He was down in the kitchen at exactly one minute before eight o’clock.

He would have made himself toast and scrambled eggs if he’d had bread. Or eggs. Instead breakfast consisted of the last of his coffee and a couple of close-to-stale pieces of Swiss cheese, the latter being part of what he’d served last night along with beer, junk food and conversation.

Leaning a hip against the counter as he finished the last of the unexceptional cheese, he shook his head. It was time to surrender and give in to the inevitable: he needed a housekeeper. Someone who stopped by maybe once a week, did the grocery shopping and gave the house a fast once-over. That was all that was really necessary. As the oldest and the one who often was left in charge, Philippe had learned to run a fairly tight, not to mention neat, ship. The only thing in utter disarray was the desk in his home office.

Actually, if he was being honest with himself, most of the office looked that way, what with books left open to pertinent sections and a ton of paper scattered in all four corners of the room, covering most of the available flat surfaces. He supposed, in a way, it was a statement about the way his life operated. His private affairs were neatly organized while his work looked as if he’d recently been entertaining a grade four hurricane on the premises.

Finished eating, Philippe wiped his fingers on the back of his jeans and made his way over to the telephone. Ten minutes later, he’d placed an ad in the local paper as well as on the newspaper’s Internet site for an experienced housekeeper to do light housekeeping once a week.

He frowned as he hung up.

Hiring someone to invade his space, even briefly, wasn’t a choice he was happy about, but he had to face it. It was a necessary evil. Business was very good and the demand on his time was high. Aside from the weekly poker games, of late he seemed to be spending all of his time working. That left no time for the minor essentials—like the procurement of foodstuff. He needed someone to do that for him.

He could have advertised for an assistant, Philippe thought as he made his way to the back of the house and the organized chaos that was his home office, but that would have meant a big invasion. He knew himself better than that. No, a housekeeper was the better way to go, he decided.

Planting the opened can of flat soda he’d discovered sitting in the back of his all-but-barren refrigerator on the first space he unearthed by his computer, Philippe flipped on the radio that resided on the bookcase beside his desk. Classical music filled the air as he sat down and got to work. Within seconds, he was enmeshed in programming language and completely oblivious to such things as time and space and earthly surroundings.

During the course of the day, when his brain begged for a break and his stomach upbraided him for abuse, Philippe made his way to the kitchen to forage for food. Lunch had consisted of pretzels, made slightly soggy by being left out overnight. Dinner had been more of the same with a handful of assorted nuts downed as a chaser. But the food hardly mattered.

It was his work that was important and it was progressing well. He’d gotten further along on the new software than he’d expected and that always gave him a sense of satisfaction, as did the fact that he handled everything by himself. He created the programs, designed the artwork and developed the tutorial and self-help features, something that was taking on more and more importance with each software package he created.

With a heartfelt sigh, Philippe closed down his computer. Rising to his feet, he went to the kitchen to get himself the last bottle of beer to celebrate a very productive, if exhausting, day.

He had just opened the refrigerator door to see if perhaps he’d missed something edible in his prior forages when he heard the doorbell. Releasing the refrigerator door again, he glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock. Both his brothers and his friends knew that he generally knocked off around seven. One of them had obviously decided to visit.

Good, he could use a little company right about now. Maybe he and whoever was at his door could go out for a bite to eat.

His stomach rumbled again.

Several bites, Philippe amended, striding toward the door.

“Hi,” he said cheerfully as he swung open the door.

It took him less than half a second to realize he’d just uttered the greeting to a complete stranger. A very attractive complete stranger wearing a blue pullover sweater and a pair of light-colored faded jeans that adhered in such a way as to drive the stock of jeans everywhere sky-high. The blonde was holding the hand of a little girl who, for all intents and purposes, was an exact miniature of her.

Like the woman whose hand she was holding, the little girl was slight and petite and very, very blond. He guessed that she had to be about five or so, although he was on shaky ground when it came to anything to do with kids.

Philippe looked back to the woman with the heart-shaped face. He had to clear his throat before he asked, “Can I help you?”

Eyes the color of cornflowers in bloom washed over him slowly, as if she was taking his measure. It was then that he remembered he was barefoot and wearing the first T-shirt he’d laid his eyes on this morning, the one that had shrunk in the wash. And that when he worked, he had a habit of running his hands through his hair, making it pretty unruly by the end of the day. That, along with his day-old stubble and worn clothes probably made him look one step removed from a homeless person.

Philippe glanced at the little girl. Rather than look frightened, she was grinning up at him. But the woman holding her hand appeared somewhat skeptical as she continued to regard him. She and the child remained firmly planted on the front step.

He was about to repeat his question when she suddenly answered it—and added to his initial confusion. “I came about the job.”

“The job?” he echoed, momentarily lost. And then it hit him. The woman with the perfect mouth and translucent complexion was referring to the housekeeping position he’d called the paper about this morning. Boy, that was fast.

“Oh, the job,” he repeated with feeling, glad that was finally cleared up. Beautiful women did not just appear on his doorstep for no reason, not unless they were looking for Georges. “Right. Sure. C’mon in,” he invited, gesturing into the house.

Philippe stepped back in order to allow both the woman and the little girl with her to come inside.

The woman still seemed just the slightest bit hesitant. Then, winding her left hand more tightly around her purse, she entered. Her right hand was firmly attached to the little girl. Philippe found himself vaguely curious as to what the woman had in her purse that seemed to give her courage. Mace? A gun? He decided maybe it was better that he didn’t know.

“My name’s Kelli, what’s yours?” The question came not from the woman but from the child, uttered in a strong voice that seemed completely out of harmony with her small body.

He wondered if Kelli would grow into her voice. “Philippe,” he told her.

The girl nodded, as if she approved of the name. It amused him that she didn’t find his name odd or funny because of the French pronunciation. She had old eyes, he noted.

The personification of curiosity, Kelli scanned her surroundings. Had she not been tethered to the woman’s hand, he had the impression that Kelli would have taken off to go exploring.

Her eyes were as blue as her mother’s. “Is this your house?” the girl asked.

He felt the corners of his mouth curving. There was something infectious about Kelli’s inquisitive manner. “Yes.”

She raised her eyes up the stairs to the second floor. “It looks big.”

Philippe wondered if all this was spontaneous, or if the woman had coached her daughter to ask certain questions for her. Children’s innocent inquiries were hard to ignore.

Deciding to assume that Kelli was her mother’s shill, he addressed his answer to the woman instead of the child.

“It’s not, really,” he assured the blonde. “It looks a great deal bigger on the outside, but mine is just the middle house.” He spread his hands wide to encompass the area. “This is actually three houses made to look like one.”

The information created a tiny furrow on the woman’s forehead, right between her eyes. She looked as if his words had annoyed her. “I’m familiar with the type,” the woman replied softly.

“Good.”

The lone word hung in midair between them like a damp curtain.

He’d never had a housekeeper before. As a matter of fact, he’d never interviewed anyone for any sort of position before and hadn’t the slightest idea how to go about it now without sounding like a complete novice. Or worse, a complete idiot. The image didn’t please him.

Clearing his throat again, Philippe pushed on. “Then you know there won’t be much work involved.”

The woman smiled as if she was sharing some secret joke with herself. She had a nice smile. Otherwise, he might have taken offense.

“No disrespect, Mr. Zabelle,” she said as she appeared to slowly take stock of his living room and what she could see beyond it, “but I’ll be the judge of that.” She turned to face him. “Once you tell me exactly what it is you have in mind.”

He had no idea why that would cause him to almost swallow his tongue. Maybe it was the way she looked at him or, more likely, the way she’d uttered that phrase. She certainly didn’t remind him of any housekeeper he’d ever come across while living at his mother’s house.

“Have you done this before?” he asked. In his experience, housekeepers were usually older women, more likely than not somewhat maternal looking. This one was neither and if there was one thing he wanted, it was someone experienced. But he was a fair man and willing to be convinced.

She looked at him as if he’d just insulted her. “Yes,” she replied with more than a little feeling. “I have references. I can show them to you once we finish talking about the basics here.”

He nodded at the information, although when he’d find the time to check her references was beyond him. Maybe he could get Alain or Remy to do it for him. Both had more free time than he did.

She was obviously waiting for him to define the requirements. He gave it his best shot. “Well, I won’t be asking you to do anything you haven’t done before.”

That didn’t come out quite right, he realized the minute he’d said it.

The blonde reinforced his impression. Blinking, she asked, “Excuse me?”

He must have said something wrong but hadn’t the slightest idea what. There was no clue forthcoming from the woman’s daughter either. Kelli seemed amused by the whole exchange. Maybe she wasn’t a little girl after all, just a very short adult. Her face was certainly expressive enough to qualify.

Philippe tried again. “I mean, it’ll be the usual. Some light dusting.” He shrugged, thinking. “Shopping once a week.”

The woman’s mouth dropped open. And still managed to look damn sensual. It belatedly occurred to him that he still didn’t even know her name. “I don’t—”

“Do windows?” he completed her sentence. “That’s okay, I have a service that comes by twice a year to wash my windows.” There was no way he could reach the upper portion of some of them even if he did have the time, which he didn’t. “I just need someone to clean up—nothing major,” he assured her quickly, “because most of the time, I’m holed up in my office.” He jerked a thumb toward the rear of the house. “And I’d rather you didn’t come in there.”

The woman shook her head, as if put off. “Mr. Zabelle, I think there’s been some mistake.”

He didn’t want there to be some mistake. He wanted her to take the job. He couldn’t see himself going through this process over and over again.

Philippe took a stab at the reason for her comment. “You’re full-time, right?”

“When I work, yes.”

Philippe paused, thinking. “I really don’t need anyone fulltime.”

“I think what you need is an interpreter.” Her response confused him, but before he could tell her as much, she was saying, “When I start a job, Mr. Zabelle, I finish it.”

Well, that was a good trait, he thought, but he still wasn’t going to hire her full-time. “That’s very admirable, but like I said, I’m only going to need someone once a week.”

Rather than accept that, he saw her put her hands on her waist. “And why is that?”

Maybe this was a mistake after all. He could have gone to the store and back in the amount of time he’d spent verbally dancing around with this woman. “Because there won’t be enough to keep you occupied,” he told her tersely. “I’m pretty neat.”

She shook her head as if to clear it. “What does your being neat have to do with it?”

“I realize you probably charge the same whether you’re working for a slob or someone who’s relatively neat—”

She cut him off before he could finish. “I charge according to what the client requests, Mr. Zabelle, not based on whether they’re sloppy or neat.”

That sounded a hell of a lot more personal than just cleaning his house.

Their eyes met and Philippe watched her for a long moment. The more he did, the less she looked like a housekeeper. Just what section had his ad landed in? And if it was what he was thinking, what was she doing bringing her daughter along on this so-called job interview?

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Did you get my number from the personals?”

He watched as her mouth formed as close to a perfect O as he had ever seen. He saw her hand tightened around Kelli’s.

“Mommy, you’re squishing my fingers,” the little girl protested.

“Sorry,” she murmured, never taking her eyes off his face. She was looking at him as if she thought that perhaps she should be backing away. Quickly. “I got your number from my machine, Mr. Zabelle,” she told him, her voice both angry and distant now.

Okay, he was officially lost. “Your machine?” That made no sense to him. “I called the newspaper this morning.”

She cocked her head, as if that could help her make sense of all this somehow. “About?”

“The ad,” he said, annoyed. Had she lost the thread of the conversation already? What kind of an attention span did she have?

“What ad?” she demanded. She sounded like someone on the verge of losing her temper.

Taking a breath, Philippe enunciated each word slowly, carefully, the way he would if he were talking to someone who was mentally challenged. “The…one…you’re…here…about.”

Her voice went up several levels. “I’m not here about any ad.”

Suddenly, something unlocked in a distant part of his brain. Her voice was very familiar. He’d heard it before. Recently.

Philippe held up his hand, stopping her. “Hold it. Back up.” He peered at her face intently, trying to jog his memory. Nothing. “Who are you, lady?”

A loud huff of air preceded the reply. When she spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “I’m J. D. Wyatt. You called me about remodeling your bathrooms.”

And then it hit him. Like a ton of bricks. He knew where he’d heard that voice before—on the phone, last night. “You’re J. D. Wyatt?”

J.D. drew herself up. He had the impression she’d been through this kind of thing before—and had no patience with it. “Yes.”

He wanted to be perfectly clear in his understanding of the situation. “You’re not here about the housekeeping job?”

“The housekeep—” Oh God, now it made sense. The weekly shopping, the cleaning. He’d made a natural mistake—and one that irked her. “No, I’m not here about the housekeeping job. I’m a contractor.”

He thought back to what Vincent had said when he’d given him the card. “I thought I was calling a handyman.”

J.D. shrugged. She’d lived in a man’s world all of her life and spent most of her time struggling to gain acceptance. “A handy-person,” she corrected.

The discomfort he’d been feeling grew. It was bad enough not being handy and feeling inferior to another man. Aesthetically speaking, all men might have been created equal, but not when it came to wielding a hacksaw. Feeling inferior to a woman with a tool belt? Well, that was a whole different matter. He wasn’t sure he could handle it.

It felt like he’d been deceived. “What does the J.D. stand for?”

She eyed him for a long moment, as if debating whether or not to tell him. And then she did. “Janice Diane.”

“So why didn’t you just put that down on the card?” he asked. “You realize that’s false advertising.”

“My mama’s not false!” Kelli piped up indignantly, moving between her mother and him.

“Kelli, hush,” J.D. soothed. “It’s okay.” And then she looked at him and her sunny expression faded. “There’s nothing false about it. Those are my initials.”

“You know what I mean. By using them, you make people think that they’re hiring a man.”

That was the whole point, she thought. This man might look drop-dead gorgeous, but he was as dumb as a shoe—and probably had the soul to match. She spelled it out for him.

“People do not call someone named Janice Diane to fix their running toilets or renovate their flagstone fireplaces. They do, however, call someone named J.D. to do the same work. This world runs on preconceived notions, Mr. Zabelle. One of those notions is that men are handy, women are not. Your reaction just proved my point. You thought I was here to clean your house, not to renovate it.”

She was right and he didn’t like it, but he couldn’t come up with a face-saving rebuttal. “Well, I—”

It wouldn’t have mattered if he had, she wouldn’t let him finish.

“I’ve been around tools all my life and I know what to do with them.” She folded her arms before her. “Now, are you going to let your prejudice keep you from hiring the best handy-person you’re ever going to come across in your life—at any price—or are you going to be a modern man and show me what exactly you need done around here?” It was a challenge, pure and simple. One she hoped he would rise to.

Out of the corner of her eye, Janice saw Kelli mimic her actions perfectly, folding her small arms before her.

Mother and daughter stood united, waiting for a reply.

Chapter Three

For what felt like an endless moment, two different reactions warred within Philippe, each striving for the upper hand.

Ever since he could remember, he’d had it drummed into his head—and had come to truly believe—that the only difference between men and women were that women had softer skin. Usually. His mother had enthusiastically maintained over and over again that women could do anything a man could except go to the bathroom standing up. And even there, she had declared smugly, women had the better method. At the very least, it was neater.

But there was another, equally strong reaction that beat within his chest. It was based on the deep-seated philosophy that men were the doers, the protectors in this dance of life. This notion had evolved very early in his life and had come from the fact that he’d been the responsible one in the family, the steadfast one. His mother flittered in and out of relationships, fell in and out of love, while he held down the fort, making sure that his brothers stayed out of trouble and went to school. And occasionally, when there was a need for it, his was the shoulder on which his mother would cry or vent.

He grew up believing that there were certain things that men did. They might be partners with women on a daily basis, but in times of crisis, the partnership tended to go from fifty-fifty to seventy-thirty, with the man taking up the slack.

And under that heading, but in a much looser sense, came the concept of being handy. Women weren’t supposed to be handy, at least, not handier than the men of the species. Women were not the guardians of the tool belt, they were the nurturers.

Right now, as he vacillated between giving in to his pride and being fair, Philippe could almost hear his mother whispering in his ear.

“Damn it, Philippe, I raised you better than this. Give the girl a chance. She has a child, for heaven’s sake. Besides, she’s very easy on the eye. Not a bad little number to have around.”

At the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to have J.D. give him an estimate. If he didn’t like it, that would be the end of that. Mentally, he crossed his fingers.

With a barely suppressed sigh, he nodded. “All right. Let me show you the bathroom.”

Philippe began leading the way to the rear of the house, past the kitchen. Somehow, Kelli managed to wiggle in front of him just as they came to the bathroom that had begun it all, the one with the cracked sink.

Hands on either side of the doorjamb, Kelli peered into the room before her mother could stop her, then declared in a very adult, very disappointed voice, “Oh, it’s not pretty.” Turning around, she looked up at him with a smile that promised everything was going to be all right. “But don’t worry, Mama can make it pretty for you. She’s very good.”

Philippe raised an eyebrow. “She your press agent?” he asked, amused despite himself as he nodded toward the little girl.

For the first time, he saw the woman in the well-fitting faded jeans smile. Janice ruffled her daughter’s silky blond hair with pure affection. “More like my own personal cheering section.”

An identical smile was mirrored on Kelli’s lips. The resemblance was uncanny.

Stepping back to grab her mother’s hand, Kelli proceeded to tug her into the small rectangular slightly musty room. “C’mon, Mommy, tell him what you’re gonna do to make it look pretty.”

Janice glanced over her shoulder toward the man she hoped was going to hire her and allow her to make this month’s mortgage payment. “I don’t think pretty is what Mr. Zabelle has in mind, honey.”

Kelli pursed her lips together, clearly mulling over her mother’s words. And then she raised her bright blue eyes up to look at his face, studying him intently as if she was trying to decide just what sort of creature he was.

“Everyone likes pretty,” she finally declared with the firm conviction of the very young.

Philippe’s experience with children was extremely limited. It really didn’t go beyond his own rather adult childhood and the brothers he’d all but raised. All of that now residing in the distant past.

Too distant for him to really recall with any amount of clarity.

But since Kelli made decrees like a short adult, he treated her as such and said, “That all depends on what you mean by pretty.”

The smile on the rosebud mouth was back, spreading along it generously and banishing her momentary serious expression. This time, she looked up at her mother and giggled. “He’s funny, Mommy.”

Janice slipped her hand around Kelli’s shoulders, stooping down to do so. “He’s the client, Kel, and we don’t talk about him as if he’s not in the room when he’s standing right beside us.”

“Good rule to remember,” Philippe approved, then decided to ask a question of his own. “You always bring your daughter along on interviews?”

Interviews. Janice had gotten to dislike the word. It made her feel as if she was being scrutinized. As if someone was passing judgment on her. There had been more than enough of that when she’d been growing up. Her father was always judging her—and finding her lacking. Besides, she took exception to Zabelle’s question. It wasn’t any of his business if Kelli came along or not as long as everything else was conducted professionally.

Without meaning to, she squared her shoulders. “My sitter had a date.”

Philippe supposed that was a reasonable excuse, although the woman could have rescheduled. “Good for her.”

“Him,” she corrected. “Good for him,” she added when he looked at her quizzically. “My sitter’s my brother, Gordon.”

Mentally, Philippe came to an abrupt halt. He was getting far more information than he either needed or wanted. If he did wind up hiring this woman to tinker and fix the couple of things that needed fixing, he wanted to keep their exchanges strictly to a business level.

But that wasn’t going to be easy, he realized in the next moment when the little girl took his hand in hers and brightly informed him, “I don’t have a brother. Do you have one?”

He expected Kelli’s mother to step in and admonish the little girl for talking so freely to a stranger. But there was nothing forthcoming from J.D. and Kelli was apparently waiting for him to give her an answer.

“Yes,” he finally said. “Two.”

“Do they live here, too?” Kelli asked. She seemed ready to go off in search of them.

He shifted his eyes toward the so-called handy-person. “Don’t you think you should teach her not to be so friendly with strangers?”

Janice had never liked being told what to do. She struggled now to keep her annoyance out of her voice. The man probably meant well and he was, after all, a potential client.

But who the hell did he think he was, telling her how to raise her daughter?

She took a breath before answering, trying her best to sound calm. She was dealing with residual anxiety, as always when Gordon went out on a date. He had a very bad tendency to overdo things and shower his companions with gifts he couldn’t afford.

When she finally spoke, it was in a low voice, the same voice he’d heard on the answering machine. “I don’t see the need to make her paranoid if I’m around to watch her. Kelli knows enough not to talk to someone she doesn’t know if she’s alone—which she never is,” Janice added firmly. “Besides,” she continued, “Kelli’s a very good judge of character.”

Now that he found hard to believe. “And she’s how old?”

He was mocking her, Janice thought. Probably thought she was one of those doting mothers who thought their kid walked on water. But Kelli seemed to have a radar when it came to nice people. She turned very shy around the other type.

“Age doesn’t always matter,” she told Zabelle. Gordon, for instance, had the impaired judgment of a two-month-old Labrador puppy. Everyone was his friend—until proven otherwise. The later happened far too often. He had a V on his forehead for victim and self-serving women could hone in on it from a fifty-mile radius. “Sometimes all it takes are good instincts.” Something Gordon didn’t seem to possess when it came to women. He fell prey to one gold digger after another. The sad part was that he never caught on. And if she said anything, her brother felt she was being a shrew.

It was hard to believe that he was the older one.

Because he’d asked and her mother hadn’t answered, Kelli held up four fingers and bent her thumb to illustrate what she was about to say. “I’m four and three-quarters.” She dropped her hand and then added in a stage whisper that would have made a Shakespearean actor proud, “Mama says I’m going on forty.”

The unassuming remark made him laugh. “I can believe that.”

“Why don’t we get down to business?” Janice suggested. She wanted to wrap this up as quickly as possible, especially if it didn’t lead anywhere. She hadn’t had a chance to prepare dinner yet. That had been Gordon’s job, but then Sheila, the latest keeper of his heart, had called and he’d forgotten everything else. When she’d come home from wrapping up a job, he’d all but run over her in his haste to leave the house.

“Good, you’re finally home. Gotta run.” And he did. Literally.

“Dinner?” she’d called after him.

“Yeah,” he’d tossed over her shoulder. “I’m taking her out. Seems she’s free after all.”

Which had meant that whoever Sheila had planned to go out with had cancelled.

There’d been no time for Janice to prepare dinner before her appointment, so she’d tossed an apple to Kelli, strapped her into her car seat and driven over to the address she’d copied down. But now her stomach was making her pay for it by rumbling. She wished she’d grabbed an apple for herself.

“Fine with me,” Philippe told her. He gestured toward the sink. Running the length of the sink from one end to the other, the crack was hard to miss. “I need that replaced.”

Instead of looking at the sink, Janice slowly examined the bathroom, taking in details and cataloguing them in her head. Judging by appearances, no one had done anything to the oversized powder room with the undersized shower in about thirty years.

The dead giveaway was the carpet on the floor. It was very 1970s.

Finished assessing, she turned to him. “Looks to me as if you could stand to have the whole bathroom replaced.”

He hadn’t given any serious thought to any large-scale renovations, but he knew he wouldn’t want them handled by a wisp of a woman. “Oh?”

She nodded as if he’d just agreed with her. “The tile is very bland,” she pointed to the wall. “It dates the room, as does the carpet. And you’re missing grout in several places.” She indicated just where. “My guess is that it was probably scrubbed out over the years.” She based her assumption on the fact that there didn’t appear to be any visible mold. Left to their own devices, most men had bathrooms that doubled as giant petri dishes, growing several different strains of mold and fungus. “Whoever’s been cleaning your bathroom has been doing an excellent job, but scrubbing does take its toll on tile and grout after a while.”

He wasn’t sure if she was giving him a compliment or trying to get him to volunteer more information about his personal life. In either case, he shrugged. “I just find things to spray on it—whenever I remember,” he added, thinking of the last time he’d had the opportunity to go to the grocery store.

The tiny snippet of information impressed her. “A man who cleans his own bathroom.” She said it the way someone might announce they’d just discovered a unicorn. “I’ll have to have my brother come meet you.”

That was the last thing he wanted—unless her brother was part of her crew. The second he had the thought, he realized she had somehow subtly gotten him to consider the idea of renovations rather than a simple replacement.

Still, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. He looked at her in silence for a minute, then decided to ask a hypothetical question. “Okay, pure speculation.”

“Yes?” she returned gamely, mentally crossing her fingers.

“If I were to do this bathroom over.” And now that he thought of it, it did look pretty washed out and lifeless. “What would something like that run?”

There was no easy answer. She was surprised that he expected one—was he the type that liked having everything neatly pigeonholed? “That depends on what you’d want done.”

Nothing until five minutes ago, he thought. “Nothing fancy,” he said aloud. “Just replacing what’s here with newer fixtures.”

She glanced down at the worn short-shag carpeting that went from one wall to another. Why would anyone have ever considered that acceptable? “And tile for the floor.”

That surprised him. J.D. had hit on the one thing he’d been toying with having done—when he got around to it. He’d never cared for having a carpet in the bathroom. It got way too soggy from wet feet.

“And tile for the floor,” he echoed, agreeing.

Well, at least they were beginning on the same page. “Different quality fixtures affect the total sum,” she maintained.

“Ballpark figure,” he requested, then amended it by saying, “what you’d charge for your labor, since I’m guessing the materials would cost me the same as you if I went and got them myself.”

“More,” she corrected. He looked at her quizzically. “Unless you just happen to have a contractor’s license in your pocket.”

He patted either pocket, causing Kelli to giggle. He realized he liked the sound of that. “Fresh out.” He hooked his thumbs in the corners of his front pockets. “So I get a break hiring you?”

She didn’t want to come across as pushy. People who applied too much pressure wound up losing their potential customers. It was the one thing she’d learned by watching her father. “Or any contractor.”

He couldn’t ask what the materials would come to until he decided on the materials. But he could ask her about her fee. He’d never liked flying blind. “Okay, what’s your bottom line?”

This time the giggle needed two hands to keep it restrained—and still it came through. “Mama doesn’t have a line on her bottom,” Kelli piped up, her eyes dancing with amusement.

For a second, as he stared down into the eyes of the improbable woman behind the initials, he’d almost lost his train of thought. He’d definitely forgotten that her daughter was there.

Philippe laughed now at the serious expression that had slipped over what had been an incredibly sunny little face. “I didn’t mean—”

“The bottom line means what things will cost,” Janice explained to her daughter, speaking as if Kelli were a business associate being trained on the job.

Maybe she was, he thought, then dismissed the idea as ridiculous. It was way too soon to be training that little girl to do anything but enjoy life to the fullest and he had a sneaking suspicion those lessons had already been given.

“Oh,” was all he trusted himself to say.

Janice turned toward him and after pausing a moment to take things in again and, doing a few mental calculations in her head, she gave him a quote.

He stared at her incredulously. “You’re serious,” he asked.

“Yes, why?”

The why was because she’d given him a bid that sounded much too low, even if it did only include her labor and not the cost of materials. “How do you stay in business with fees like that?”

She breathed a silent sigh of relief. He wasn’t one of those tightwads who thought everything had to be haggled down.

“Low overhead,” Janice quipped without hesitation. She ventured a little further. Once people got their feet wet, they usually decided they wanted something else done. She began with the logical choice. “Is this the only bathroom you want renovated?”

“I didn’t even want this one renovated,” he informed her, then abruptly stopped. The quote she’d given him was more than reasonable, coming in far lower than he would have expected. He wasn’t up on the price of bathroom renovations, per se, but one of the people who marketed his software packages had just had a bathroom redone. The man had proudly given him a quote that had taken his breath away. Philippe remembered thinking that his maternal grandfather had paid less for his house when he’d bought it forty years ago than the man had paid to have his bathroom upgraded. “The other two are upstairs.”

“You have three bathrooms?” Kelli asked gleefully, her eyes huge.

He had no idea why the little girl would find that a source of wonder. “Yes.”

“We only have two,” she confided, then leaned into him and added, “And Uncle Gordon is always in one.”

Janice saw Zabelle raise his eyes and look at her quizzically. She didn’t want him thinking that Gordon was strange. “My brother is staying with us while he gets back on his feet.”

Kelli’s silken blond curls fairly bounced as she turned her head around to face her. “Uncle Gordon gets on his feet every day, Mama.”

It was an expression, but she didn’t feel like trying to explain that to Kelli right now. Instead, she stroked Kelli’s hair and said, “Only for short periods of time, baby.”

Instinctively, Janice glanced at the man whose house they were in. She recognized curiosity when she saw it, even though she had her doubts that the man even knew the expression had registered on his face. She felt obligated to defend her brother against what she guessed this man had to be thinking.

“My brother’s had a tough time of it lately.” Lately encompassed the period from his birth up to the present day, she added silently.

Zabelle seemed to take the information in stride. “At least he has family.”

The comment took her by surprise. Janice hadn’t expected the man to say that. It was by all accounts a sensitive observation.

Maybe the man wasn’t half bad after all.

“Yes,” she agreed with a note of enthusiasm in her voice as she came to the landing, “he does. By the way,” she said, leaning outside the bathroom wall and looking at him, “I noticed your kitchen.”

This time, he thought, he was ready for her. Ready to put a firm lid on this before it escalated into something that necessitated his moving out of the house for several weeks. “And?”

“Could stand to have a bit of a face-lift as well.”

“This was about a cracked sink,” Philippe reminded her.

It was never just about a cracked sink. By the time that stage was reached, other things were in need of fixing and replacing as well. “I thought that the oldest son of Lily Moreau would be more open to productive suggestions—even if they do come from a woman who owns a tool belt.” She saw the surprise in his eyes grow. “I have access to the Internet,” she pointed out glibly. “And I try to learn as much as I can about potential clients before I meet with them.”

He noticed that she said the word potential as if it was to be discarded while the word client had a healthy amount of enthusiasm associated with it. The woman was obviously very sure of herself.

Even so, he didn’t like having his mind made up for him.

Chapter Four

“So, are you going to do his bathrooms, Mama?” Kelli piped up as they finally drove away from Philippe Zabelle’s house.

Easing her foot on the brake as she approached a red light, Janice glanced up into the rearview mirror. Kelli sat directly behind her in her car seat, something she suffered with grace. Car seats were required for the four and under set, something she insisted she no longer was inasmuch as she was four and three-quarters.

Kelli was waving her feet at just a barely lesser tempo than a hummingbird flapped its wings. Any second now, her daughter would lift off, seat and all.

Energy really was wasted on the young. “Yes. I’ll be redoing them.”

“And the kitchen, too?” There was excitement in Kelli’s voice.

It never failed to amaze her just how closely Kelli paid attention. Another child wouldn’t have even noticed what was going on. Too bad Kelli couldn’t give Gordon lessons.

“Yes, the kitchen, too.”

That had been touch and go for a bit, but then she’d managed to convince Zabelle there were wonderful possibilities available to him. She wasn’t trying to line her pockets so much as she felt a loyalty to give her client the benefit of her expertise and creative eye.

In actuality, the whole house could do with a makeover, but she was content to have gotten this far. Three bathrooms and a kitchen. Now all she needed was to get to her computer and start sketching.

“And what else?” Kelli wanted to know.

God, but the little girl sounded so grown up at times, Janice thought. Her foot on the accelerator, she drove through the intersection and made a right at the next corner. “That’s it for now, honey.”

Despite the fact that she was a good craftsperson and she had a contractor’s license, obtained in the days when there’d been an actual decent-sized company to work for—her father’s—Janice knew she worked at a definite disadvantage. Philippe Zabelle was not the only man skeptical about hiring a woman to handle his renovations. Her own father had been like that, even though she’d proven herself to him over and over again.

He always favored Gordon over her.

She supposed she was partially to blame for that. Because she loved him, she always covered up for Gordon when he messed up, doing his work for him so that he wouldn’t have to endure their father’s wrath.

Even now, the memory of that wrath made her involuntarily shiver.

Sisterly love ultimately caused her to be shut out. When he died, her father had left the company to Gordon. There wasn’t even a single provision about her—or her baby—in Jake Wyatt’s will.

It was a cold thing to do, she thought now, her hands tightening on the steering wheel as she eked through the next light.

Gordon had had as much interest in the company as a muskrat had in buying a winter coat from a major department store. Without their father around to cast his formidable shadow, Gordon became drunk on freedom. He turned his attention away from the business and toward the pursuit of his one true passion—women. A year and a half after their father died the company belonged to the bank because of the loans Gordon drew against Wyatt Construction, and she, a widow with a young child and three-quarters of a college degree, had to hustle in order to provide for herself and Kelli.

At first, she’d been desperate to take anything that came her way. She quickly discovered that she hated sales, hated being a waitress and the scores of other dead-end endeavors she undertook in order to pay the bills. Dying to get back to the one thing she knew she was good at and loved doing, she’d advertised in the local neighborhood paper, posted ads on any space she could find on community billboards and slowly, very slowly, got back into the game.

But every contracting job she eventually landed was preceded by a fair amount of hustling and verbal tap dancing to convince the client that she was every bit as good as the next contractor—and more than likely better because she’d been doing it for most of her life. She was the one, not Gordon, who liked to follow their father around, lugging a toolbox and mimicking his every move. Dolls held no interest for her, drill bits did.

“Mama,” the exasperated little voice behind her rose another octave as Kelli tried to get her attention, “I asked you a question.”

Their eyes met in the mirror. Janice did her best to look contrite. “Sorry, baby, I was thinking about something else for a second. What do you want to know?”

“Is he gonna want more?”

For a second, Janice had lost the thread of the conversation Kelli was conducting. “Who?”

She heard Kelli sigh mightily. She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh. Sometimes it almost felt as if their roles were reversed and Kelli was the mom while she was the kid.

“The man with the pretty painting, Mama.”

Now Janice really did draw a blank. “Painting?” she echoed, trying to remember if she’d noticed a painting anywhere. She came up empty.

“Yes. In the living room.” Kelli carefully enunciated every word, as if afraid she would lose her mother’s attention at any second. “There was a big blue lake and trees and—didn’t you see it, Mama?” Kelli asked impatiently.

“Apparently not.”

Art was definitely Kelli’s passion. The little girl had been drawing ever since she could hold a pencil in her hand. The swirls and stick figures that first emerged quickly gave way to recognizable shapes and characters at an amazingly young age. Beautiful characters that seemed to have personalities radiating from them. It was her fervent dream to send her daughter to a good art school and encourage the gift she had. Kelli was never going to go through what she had, wasn’t going to have her ability dismissed, devalued and ignored.

“I’ll have to go look at it the next time I’m there,” she told her daughter, then paused before asking, “You are talking about Mr. Zabelle’s house, right?”

Kelli sighed again. “Right.” And then she got back to what she’d said initially. “Maybe he’ll want you to do more when he sees how good you are.”

Bless her, Janice thought. “That would be nice.” To that end, she’d left the man with a battery of catalogues, some of which dealt with rooms other than the kitchen and the bath. A girl could always hope.

“If you do more, will we have enough for a pony?” Kelli asked.

Ah, the pony issue again. Another passion, but one that had far less chance of being realized. At least for the present. But she played along because it was easier that way than squelching Kelli’s hopes. “Not yet, honey. Ponies need a special place to stay and special food to eat, remember?”

The golden head bobbed up and down. “When will we have enough for a pony?”

“I’ll let you know,” Janice promised.

Making another turn, she looked down at her left hand. She still missed the rings that had been there. The ones she’d been forced to pawn in January to pay bills. January was always a slow month as far as business was concerned. The month that people focused on trying to pay off the debts they’d run up during the Christmas season. Room additions and renovation moved to the back of the line.

If there was any money leftover after the Zabelle job, she was going to put it toward getting her rings out of hock. The stone on the engagement ring wasn’t very large, but Gary had picked it out for her and she loved it.

A bittersweet feeling wafted over her. She and Gary had gotten engaged one week, then married two weeks later because he’d discovered that his unit was being sent clear across to the other side of the world to fight. He never returned under his own power.

She fought back against the feeling that threatened to overwhelm her. Five years and it was still there, waiting for an unguarded moment. Waiting to conquer her. Again.

But you did what you had to do in order to keep going. Pawning her rings had been her only option at the time. Bills needed to be paid. The rings didn’t mean very much if there wasn’t a roof over Kelli’s head. After Gordon had lost the business, she was very mindful of not putting her daughter and herself in jeopardy of losing the things that were most important to them. That meant not waiting until the last minute before taking measures to safeguard home and hearth.

“Can we go out to eat, Mama?”

Trust Kelli to ground her, she thought. She felt guilty about letting herself get sidetracked. “You bet, kid. You get to pick the place.”

That required absolutely no thought on Kelli’s part. “I wanna go to the pizza place.”

Pizza was by far her daughter’s favorite food. Janice laughed. “You are going to turn into a pizza someday, Kel.”

Her comment was met with a giggle. The sound warmed Janice’s heart.

“Where’s your cheering section?” Philippe asked two evenings later when he found only J.D. on his doorstep. He leaned over the threshold and looked around in case the little girl was hiding.

“Home,” she informed him. He stepped back to let her in. “My babysitter doesn’t have a date tonight.” When Gordon’s newest flame found out about his cash-flow problems—basically that it wasn’t even trickling, much less flowing—she quickly became history. When she’d left to come here, Kelli and Gordon were watching the Disney Channel together. “Kelli wanted to come along.” But this was going to involve long discussions of fees and she preferred not subjecting her daughter to that. “I think she likes you.”

Walking into the living room, Janice abruptly stopped before the framed twenty-four by thirty-six painting hanging on the wall.

My God, it was so large, how had she missed that the first time?

Because she was focusing on landing this job, she thought. She tended to have tunnel vision when it came to work, letting nothing else distract her. Although she had to admit that she had noticed Philippe Zabelle would never be cast as the frog in the Grimm Brothers’ “The Frog Prince.”

Janice redirected her attention to the painting. It was breath-taking. Kelli had an eye, all right. “I know she likes your painting.”

“My mother’s painting,” he corrected, in case she thought that he had painted it. “I’ll let my mother know she has a new fan. I know she’ll be delighted to hear that she’s finally cracked the under-ten set. Most kids don’t even notice painting unless they’re forcibly dragged to an art museum.”

Forcibly dragged. Zabelle sounded as if he was speaking from experience. Had his mother forced art on him, attempted to make him appreciate it before he was ready? She’d taken Kelli to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles when the little girl had still been in a stroller. Kelli had been enthralled.

“Most kids didn’t start drawing when they are barely three,” she countered.

He led the way to the kitchen table. She had paperwork for him, he surmised. He eyed her quizzically. “Drawing?”

Pride wiggled through her like a deep-seated flirtation. “Drawing.”

He assumed she was being loose with her terminology. He remembered his brothers trying to emulate their mother. Best efforts resembled the spiral trail left by the Tasmanian devil.

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