MARIE FERRARELLA, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA ® Award-winning author, has written over one hundred and fifty novels for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

Playboy Bachelors
Remodeling the Bachelor
Taming the Playboy
Capturing the Millionaire

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Remodelling the Bachelor

Dedication

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

Taming the Playboy

Dedication

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

Capturing the Millionaire

Dedication

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

Copyright

Remodelling The Bachelor

To Helen Conrad, my bridge over troubled waters.

Thank you.

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 cashflow 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.

“You mean as in scribbling?”

“No,” she said firmly, “I mean as in drawing.”

He laughed softly, pulling out a chair for her. “Spoken like a true doting mother.”

Janice took mild offense. Not for herself, but for Kelli. Her daughter deserved better than that. “I’ll show you.”

“You carry around her portfolio?” he asked incredulously. When he saw her reaching into the battered briefcase that contained the contracts she’d brought with her for him to sign, Philippe realized that only one of them thought that what he’d just said was a joke. She snapped open the locks and lifted the lid. “You’re kidding.”

Janice didn’t bother answering him. A picture, as they said, is worth a thousand words. She could protest that Kelli was as talented as they come, but he needed to see for himself. So, lifting up several manila folders and her trusty laptop, she took Kelli’s latest drawing out of the case. It was of a white stallion from Kelli’s favorite cartoon show.

Very carefully, she placed the drawing on top of her briefcase and then turned it toward him.

Philippe’s eyes widened. “You’re not kidding,” he murmured.

As he admired the drawing, he shook his head. There was no way the bouncy little thing he’d met two nights ago had done this. He sincerely doubted that she could sit still long enough to finish it.

He made contact with J.D. “You did that.”

She laughed softly. “I wish. My ability doesn’t go beyond drawing rectangles and squares. I can do blueprints,” she concluded. “I can’t do horses.”

Zabelle took the drawing from her. She curled her fingers into her hand to keep from grabbing it back. She was very protective of Kelli and that protectiveness extended to her daughter’s things and her talent. It was a trait she would have to rein in if Kelli was ever going to grow up to be an independent adult.

Philippe gave her one last chance to withdraw her statement. “She really drew this.”

“She really drew that,” Janice told him proudly.

For the first half of his life, when his mother wasn’t immersed in the creation of her own work or either nurturing along a new relationship or burying an old one, she had tried her very best to get him to follow in her footsteps. While he shared her talent to a degree, he had rebelled and steadfastly refused.

His reasons were simple. Art was her domain, he wasn’t going to venture into it. Nor was he ready to stand in her shadow, struggling to be his own person. He needed a medium, a venue that belonged to him alone. A path apart from hers.

But that didn’t keep him from admiring someone else’s gift. “Can I hang onto this for a little while?” he asked abruptly.

The request caught Janice by surprise. “Why?”

The man just didn’t strike her as the post-it-on-the-refrigerator type, which was where this had been until, on a whim, she’d packed it in with her contracts. She’d told herself that it would act as a good luck talisman.

“I’d like to show this to my mother the next time she flies in here.”

“Your mother’s out of state?” she asked, a little confused.

“No.” He pulled out a chair and straddled it, resting his arms on the back. “She’s right here in Bedford, California. My mother’s a little larger than life and she gives the impression of flying whenever she enters a room.”

“Oh, I see.” She found herself wanting to meet this dynamo. Her own mother had left a long time ago, before she ever really established a relationship with her. She just remembered a tall, thin woman with light blond hair and an air of impatience about her. Eventually that impatience had led her out the door, a note on the kitchen table left in her wake. “Well, then I guess it’s all right. If she asks me about it, I’ll just tell Kelli that the lady who painted the landscape in your living room is going to look at her drawing.”

“Why not just tell her that I have it? Why give her this longer version?”

She could see he hadn’t dealt much with children. “Would you like a short person laying siege to your house?” she deadpanned. “The minute I tell her that you have it, that you thought it was good, there will be no peace,” she amended, her eyes on his. “Kelli will want to know what your mother thought of it, if she liked it. She’ll want to know what your mother thought was good about it. And that’s only after she quizzes me about your reaction to her work. Trust me, my way is better.”

She sounded as if she was speaking about an adult, a thoughtful adult. The woman was giving her daughter way too much credit. And yet…

Philippe looked down at the drawing again. He had to admit he was in awe. “I don’t know all that much about kids, but your daughter seems like one very unusual little girl.”

Janice laughed. Now there was an understatement. “That she is.”

Reaching for her briefcase again, this time to take the contracts out, she accidentally knocked the case off the table. Half the papers flew out. They both bent down at the same time to retrieve what had fallen; they both reached for the case and folders at the exact same moment. Which was how their fingers managed to brush against each other’s.

It was, at best, a scene from a grade-B romantic movie, circa 1950. There was absolutely no reason to feel a jolt, electrifying or otherwise. And yet, there it was. Jolting. Electrifying. Fleeting, granted, but still very much there. Completely unexpected and zipping its way along the skin of her arms and simultaneously swirling up along the back of her neck.

Janice caught her breath, trying to make her pulse slow down. The last time she’d been with a man was three years ago. That even had been a terrible mistake, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

But this, this was deeply seated in deprivation, not anything else. Deprivation, because she’d been leading the kind of life that would have made a crusty nun proud. But this small, accidental encounter had definitely rattled her cage.

She did her best to appear unaffected, as if, for a moment, her insides hadn’t just turned to jelly.

“Thanks.” Straightening, she picked up the contracts—one for each room—and placed them on the table. “Let’s go over these, shall we?” she asked, her throat feeling uncomfortably tight. “I want to make sure I’ve got everything right. I don’t want you finding that you’re in for any surprises.”

Too late, he thought. Because his reaction to her had already more than surprised him. But he put a lid on his thoughts and smiled at her. “Don’t you like surprises?”

“I do, but my clients don’t—not when it comes to cost, at any rate.”

He rose, crossing to the refrigerator. “Would you like something to drink?” he asked.

The room—the house from what she could see—looked exactly the same as it did the other day. The man really was rather neat. Or had he found that housekeeper he’d mistaken her for?

“Diet soda—if you have any.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He’d gone to the store earlier today and picked up a six pack. He had no idea what possessed him to do that because neither he nor his brothers nor any of his friends drank diet soda.

Maybe he’d just anticipated J.D., he decided, returning to the table with a can of diet soda. He placed a glass next to it.

Janice popped open the can and, ignoring the glass, took a long sip before speaking. “The hunt for a housekeeper, did you find one?” She set the can back down, wrapping her hands around it.

Philippe shrugged, straddling the chair again and pulling it closer to the table. “I decided to pull the ad.”

“Oh?” she tried to sound casual. “Why?”

“Well, if the house is going to look like the site of the next demolition derby, that kind of negates the need for a housekeeper right now.” A beer, he needed a beer. If he was going to go on staring into eyes the color of sky, he was going to need something to fortify him. Philippe made his way back to the refrigerator. “I’ll hire one once things are back to normal.”

Whatever that is, he added silently.

Chapter Five

He hadn’t called.

Janice sighed, staring at the calendar on the kitchen wall depicting various breeds of puppies. Philippe Zabelle hadn’t called—not on her land line, not on her cell. There were no messages waiting for her. She’d checked. Frequently.

Damn.

It’d been a little more than a week since the man had signed the contracts to have work done on his house. At the time, she’d noted he took the quotes in stride, not quibbling over any of the charges for demolition, cleanup and construction.

Maybe the reason Zabelle hadn’t bothered quibbling was because he’d had no intentions of seeing the project move any further beyond his signing the contracts for each of his bathrooms and kitchen.

Eight days.

She’d finished the room extension she’d been doing for the Gilhooleys in Tustin. Faced with spare time, she’d gone to St. Cecelia’s and done some handiwork there, replacing a window at the school, refitting a door at the priest’s residence and fixing the hole in the roof where four tiles had blown away in the last storm. She’d finished that two days ago.

Right now, she was between jobs and at very loose ends. Janice had never done leisure well, never learned how to sit still for long, especially not when there were bills to pay.

And Gordon wasn’t helping any, she thought, glancing over toward him accusingly. Her big brother was part of the problem, definitely not part of the solution. At the moment, he was lying on her sofa, dozing in front of the TV set. There was a baseball game droning on in the background. The Dodgers were losing.

Welcome to the club.

She sighed. The only one being productive around here at the moment was Kelli, who had spread out her paint set on the dining room table and was painting a woodland scene.

She needed to get that girl an easel, Janice thought. As soon as there was money for things like that.

Frustrated, she walked over to the sofa and shook Gordon’s shoulder. It had no effect. Her brother went right on sleeping. Subtlety was obviously not working, so she doubled up her fist and punched him in the arm.

Gordon jolted awake.

“Hey!” he cried in protest, grabbing his arm where she’d made contact.

Gordon had never been one to endure pain stoically. “I hardly tapped you.”

“You have a punch like a welterweight champion,” he complained, looking at his arm as if he expected it to fall off. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Everything. Look, Gordon.” She sank down on the arm on the far end of the sofa. “I know you’re going through a rough patch right now,” she acknowledged charitably, “but you’re going to have to help out here a little.”

“I do,” he protested indignantly. When she looked at him, mystified, he nodded over toward Kelli. “I watch the pip-squeak.”

Janice pressed her lips together, struggling not to point out that their financial difficulties were largely because of him. “I meant help out with the expenses.”

His eyebrows drew together over the bridge of his nose. “How?”

Wow, was it really that hard for him to connect the dots? “Get a job, Gordon. Get a job.”

He sighed, as if that was a goal he aspired to, but wasn’t quite able to reach just yet. “I’m still trying to find myself, J.D.”

“Good news,” she declared. “I found you. You’re on the sofa. Now get off it and get yourself a damn job, Gordon.”

“And do what?” he challenged.

She threw up her hands. “Sell ties at a major department store, wait on tables at Indigo’s, become a bank teller. Anything.” When Gordon made no response, she added through gritted teeth, “The way I did when you torpedoed Wyatt Construction right out from under me.”

The look he gave her said she’d severely wounded him by bringing the past up. “I don’t want to take just anything, J.D.”

Easy for him to say. He had never hustled for a job. On those occasions when she landed a remodeling assignment that required more than just one person, she hired him on to help and, for the most part, things worked out. But the rest of the time, he seemed content to be “looking for himself” and doing absolutely nothing. Well, it couldn’t continue.

Getting up, she crossed to him and lowered her face so that it was level to his. “You like to eat, don’t you? Have a roof over your head? Shower daily? News flash, big brother. The best things in life aren’t free.”

He ignored the fact that she was now in his face. “When did you get so mercenary?”

“When you abdicated the position of adult and became my other child,” she retorted. If anything, she thought of him as being younger than Kelli.

“Ouch.” Gordon cringed dramatically, as if ducking a blow. “Just because you’re not working, don’t take it out on me.”

“I’m not taking it out on you,” she countered, her patience dangerously low. “I just want you to pull your load. I just—” Exasperated, she waved her hand at him. “Oh, never mind.”

“Okay then—” he settled back against the pillow, stretching his legs out before him “—maybe if I try hard, I can get back to the dream you so rudely terminated for me.”

The temptation to smother him with his pillow was tremendous. She struggled to calm herself down. Janice knew her brother didn’t mean anything by this and he really was having a rough time of it. Gordon seemed to fail at everything he tried, but she was bound and determined to keep him from sliding into some sort of black hole and dwelling there for the remainder of his life. He needed to stand up on his own two feet—the very minute he took them out of a certain part of his posterior.

And she supposed he was right in his own strange way. She was taking out her frustration over her forced inactivity on him. She had a perfectly good job lined up with some very nice additions, but she was stuck in first gear until Zabelle called her.

Or she found out what the holdup was.

The best way to do that was to beard the lion in his den. And she knew where the lion lived.

Janice abruptly made her way over to her daughter. “Sweetie,” she called out. After taking another stroke the little girl stopped and glanced up at her. “I’ve got to go out for a while. Keep an eye on your Uncle Gordon for me, okay?”

Her request was met with a sunny smile. “You can count on me, Mama.”

“I know.” She kissed the top of Kelli’s head. “More than on him,” Janice added under her breath as she left the room.

She briefly thought about changing, but then decided that there was no point. This was the way she looked when she was working and, besides, she wasn’t trying to impress Zabelle with her looks, just with her talent and her ability to get the job done in record time. Which she couldn’t do if she didn’t get started, she thought angrily.

This was why contractors took on more than one job at a time, she decided, getting behind the wheel of her 4x4. So that they wouldn’t have to waste precious days with any downtime, some contractors would sign on for two, three jobs concurrently. But that had never been the way she operated. She believed in giving each job her complete, undivided attention from start to finish, finishing it and then moving on, not playing musical houses and going from one job to another as if they were all part of some kind of life-size round-robin.

She’d developed all the skills needed for this kind of work—all except for the tough hide. Ignoring the needs and requirements of others to satisfy her own just wasn’t her style.

Janice knew, for instance, that she should be harder on Gordon, that maybe what he needed was a swift kick in the seat to get him moving and to make him repentant for losing the company, but she couldn’t get herself to do it. Besides, she didn’t see how making him feel guilty about losing the company would help since it would all be after the fact and it wouldn’t accomplish anything. It certainly wouldn’t get the company back.

It had taken her a while to come to grips with the loss. But, as always, she’d rallied and told herself that the company was not something that the bank held a deed to, the company was her—and Gordon when she could light a fire under him and get him to help.

At the time of her father’s death, the company had included eight other men, men who had since gone on to work for other contractors, or left the area or even the business. But they were just the craftsmen. She was the heart of it, she was the blood that pumped through its veins.

And she wasn’t going anywhere.

“You’re not kidding,” she murmured to herself as the irony of the phrase hit her. She turned her truck down Zabelle’s street. She’d never get anywhere if jobs kept drying up on her.

Well, she wasn’t about to let this one dry up, at least not without knowing the reason why. He owed her that much.

The house where Philippe Zabelle resided was located on a through street. It was part of a community of townhomes made to resemble well-spaced single dwellings that had lawns like lush green carpets. Bedford was considered to be one of the more upscale cities within Southern California. None of the neighborhoods were allowed to run down. Everything looked new or at least lovingly cared for. There was an abundance of pride within the city that kept its homes neat and looking their best.

Parking her car by the curb, Janice marched up the dozen or so white cement stairs that led up to the front door and knocked. First once, then twice and then a third time.

Nothing.

Maybe she should have called first, she thought. But if she had called and Zabelle had told her not to come, she would have lost the advantage of talking to him face to face. She always did better in person than over the phone.

Janice raised her hand to knock one more time.

“Looking for Philippe?”

Startled, her hand still raised, she swung around and found a tall, good-looking, dark-haired man with an easy smile and kind eyes standing to her left. She hadn’t even heard him approach. Belatedly, she dropped her hand, realizing that, had he been standing any closer to her, she would have wound up punching him.

“Yes,” she said when she regained possession of her voice. “I guess he’s not home.”

“Oh, he’s in there,” the man assured her. “He just tends to slip into another world when he’s working. Doesn’t see or hear anything else but what’s on the screen in front of him.”

“Dedicated,” she commented.

The man smiled, amused. “One way of looking at it.” Taking out a key, he unlocked the front door, pushed it open, then stood back. “Go ahead,” he urged, gesturing toward the inside of the house.

She hung back. “I don’t know if I should just walk in.”

“I do it all the time.” A grin flashed as he pocketed the key and he extended his hand to her. “Hi, I’m Georges. Philippe’s brother,” he added.

“Oh.” Realizing that she was standing there like a bump on a log, Janice slipped her hand into his and shook it.

Georges’s dark blue eyes were bright with curiosity as they swept over her. There was something unobtrusive about the way he did it. She took no offense. “And you are?”

“J. D. Wyatt,” she told him, then added, “I’m supposed to do some work on your brother’s house.”

Recognition entered his eyes. “Oh, right, you’re the one Vincent mentioned.” And then, as his own words registered, he seemed to do a mental double take. “You’re J.D.?”

She smiled, removing her hand from his. This was the reaction she was accustomed to. “Not exactly what you expected, right?”

Rather than look embarrassed, he grinned. The man was charming, she thought. His brother could probably stand to pick up a few pointers—not that that mattered in the scheme of things, she reminded herself.

“Only in my better dreams,” he told her. “Philippe didn’t mention that he actually hired anyone, only that he was thinking about it.”

That didn’t bode well, Janice thought. Had Zabelle changed his mind after all? He’d signed contracts, but there was always a way around that if a person was clever and she didn’t have the money for a lawyer to fight him on this anyway. Served her right from not insisting on getting a check right up front, right after Zabelle had signed on the dotted lines.

“But then,” Georges added quickly, “Philippe doesn’t say that much of anything, especially when he’s in the middle of a project.”

She had a feeling that Zabelle’s brother was just trying to make her feel better. She examined him more closely. As brothers, they were more different than alike, she decided. “What does he do, your brother?”

“A little bit of everything.” There was no missing the pride in the man’s voice. “But officially, Philippe’s a computer programmer. Right now, he’s designing software packages for online advertisers.”

She glanced toward the opened door. They still had not gone inside. “And he works at home?”

Georges nodded. “Turns into a regular hermit when he’s in the middle of designing something.” He walked in, then turned when she didn’t follow him. “C’mon, let’s track him down.”

When she’d gotten behind the wheel, she had been completely fired up. But on the way over, some of that fire had dissipated. It was one thing to confront the man at his door and read him an abbreviated version of the riot act about wasting her time, it was another to go from room to room, looking for him and running the risk of possibly catching him in a way he wouldn’t want to be caught. God knew she wouldn’t have appreciated having someone skulking around her house, looking for her.

She forced a smile to her lips. “Why don’t you find him for me?” she suggested. Because he was looking at her expectantly, she ventured a few steps into the house, then indicated the living room. “I’ll be right here, waiting for you.”

The smile on his lips washed over her, leaving no part untouched. She really, really had to start dating again. Either that or begin working out rigorously—which she’d be doing if she were working, she silently insisted, bringing the argument full circle.

“Have it your way,” Georges said. Turning, he faced the rear of the house and called out, “Hey, Philippe, where’re you hiding?”

Still standing, Janice knotted her fingers together, feeling incredibly awkward. She closed her eyes for a second, trying to frame her first words to Zabelle under the present circumstances.

Georges had no sooner left the area than Philippe walked in from the kitchen. He stopped abruptly when he saw that there was a woman standing in the living room. The math equations that he’d been mentally grappling with receded as recognition set in.

J.D.

That still didn’t answer what she was doing here. Or how she’d gotten in. He was damn certain he’d locked the front door. “Did I miss seeing cat burglar on your résumé?”

Her eyes flew open. Surprise and embarrassment took equal possession of her features. The resulting color was rather intriguing.

“I knocked,” Janice protested.

He was pretty sure he hadn’t heard anyone knocking, but he gave her the benefit of the doubt. Because of where his office was located, he probably wouldn’t have heard the approach of the Four Horsemen, either.

“And then broke in?” he guessed.

“No,” she protested quickly. The color in her cheeks rose up another notch. “Your brother let me in.”

Both of his brothers were a bit too free about coming and going from his place, but then, he supposed he should count himself lucky. It could have been his mother and there would have been no end to her questions. To J.D.

“Which one?” he asked mildly.

“He said his name was Georges.” Curiosity got the better of her. “You have more than one?”

The shrug was careless. He wasn’t about to be sidetracked. “I like having a spare. What are you doing here?”

She heard the slight tone of irritation in his voice. Any apology she was about to tender vanished. He was on the offensive? He didn’t have the right to take the offensive. If anything, he was supposed to be on the defensive, explaining why he’d kept her dangling the way he had.

Janice forgot about being uncomfortable and invading the man’s space, and thought about being made to play hide and seek with her ever-growing stack of bills.

“I’m here to find out why you’re welching,” she said without preamble.

He stared at her, dumbfounded. “Welching?”

Okay, maybe that was a tad too harsh. She rephrased. “We had a deal, remember?”

“Yes, of course I remember. Frankly, I was wondering why you hadn’t gotten started.” He’d been too bogged down with a glitch in the program to notice during the day, but at night it would hit him that she hadn’t called or shown up. By the time it registered, it was always too late for him to call and investigate.

She stared at him incredulously. He was serious. Either that or playing her for a fool. For the moment, she ignored the latter and began to talk to him as if he were mentally challenged. “I can’t get started until you tell me what you picked out.”

His response told her that she’d guessed correctly. The man had no clue. “Picked out?”

“The tile,” she prompted. “Picked out the tile.” She didn’t see a light dawning in his eyes. How could he be that obtuse?

Again, Philippe shrugged. The mundane had little hold on him. “I don’t know. I thought you were supposed to handle all that. I was okay with the drawings,” he reminded her.

That was for the redesign of the kitchen and the bathrooms. That didn’t take any of the materials into account.

“Yes, you were,” she enunciated each word slowly, “but I don’t know what color you want. What kind of cabinets you’d like to put in or even what kind of tile you want me to use.”

He looked at her for a long moment, as if the words were slipping into his brain one at a time and he was processing them. “Tile comes in kinds?”

Having dealt with this world all of her life, it was impossible for Janice to imagine that anyone was ignorant of this sort of thing. Especially anyone who appeared to be intelligent. “Have you even been to a tile store?”

“No.”

“Okay, baby steps,” she murmured, more to herself. She made a spur of the moment decision. “All right, I’ll take you.” She just needed to call home and make sure that Gordon wasn’t about to run off somewhere and forget that he had a niece to watch over.

Zabelle still didn’t seem to be following her. “Take me where?”

“To a tile store.”

Or two or three, she added silently, keeping that to herself. She guessed that if the man were told that this was a process that took most people several afternoons, he would balk and make excuses why he couldn’t go.

His eyes narrowed. It didn’t look encouraging. “When?”

“Now.” It was half a query, half a direct order.

He shook his head. “I can’t go now. I’m in the middle of something.”

“How long before you’re not in the middle of something?” she asked.

Philippe thought for a second. The deadline had been moved just yesterday. He’d never been comfortable about rushing through a project. That was his name on the cover and his reputation meant a great deal to him. “End of November.”

Janice looked at him, stunned. November was three months away. She couldn’t stretch things out until then. “Look, if you’re trying to break the contracts—”

“Go with the lady,” Georges said, picking that moment to walk in. “A few hours away from the drawing board might recharge your batteries.”

Philippe began to protest that Georges didn’t know what he was talking about. Georges was a doctor, not a designer. He had no idea what was involved in the process. But then he shrugged. The sooner he agreed and got this over with, the sooner the woman would be busy working and out of his hair.

He looked at J.D. “How fast can you get me there?” he wanted to know.

He’d done a one-eighty so fast, she felt as if she’d just sustained a severe case of whiplash. “Fast,” she volunteered. Then, because she sensed he’d appreciate it, added, “But I’ll try not to break any speed limits.” As she spoke, she reached for her car keys and headed toward the front door. Turning, she nodded at Georges, silently thanking him.

He winked at her in reply.

Definitely less family resemblance than more, she decided.

Chapter Six

Janice drove him to an area in Anaheim known among contractors as tile row. As far as the eye could see was store after endless store offering every kind of tile.

She had just assumed the lead since this encompassed her territory. But the short journey across the freeway, for once not hopelessly congested, had her rethinking her decision. Zabelle sat beside her now, wrapped in silence since she’d announced, “I’ll drive,” and gestured him into the passenger seat of her truck.

It wasn’t the kind of comfortable silence of two old friends who momentarily had run out of things to say. This was the kind of silence bound up by tension. At least, for her it was.

As she got off the freeway and turned down the first of the streets leading to their destination, Janice felt she couldn’t take the oppressive silence any longer.

“Anything wrong?” she asked. When Zabelle didn’t answer, she repeated the question, her voice more forceful. This time, she managed to penetrate the haze.

“Hmm? Oh, no.” And then Philippe looked at her for a moment before changing his reply. “Well, yes.”

The light was red. “All right, what is it?”

Since she’d asked, he gave her an honest answer. “I’m not used to sitting in the passenger seat.”

Janice wasn’t sure she followed him. “Excuse me?”

“I’m usually the one driving.”

Funny, if asked, she wouldn’t have said he had an ego thing going. Apparently she was getting to be a worse judge of character than she thought. “But you don’t know where we’re going,” she pointed out.

“I understand that,” Philippe answered. “It’s just that I guess I’m not comfortable having anyone else behind the wheel.”

Well, that was pretty honest, she thought. Most men would have said something about being natural pathfinders and being the better driver right out of the box. “I’m a safe driver,” she told him.

He shook his head. “It’s not that.”

Making a left turn, she kept her eyes on the road. “You like being in control,” she guessed.

That sounded obsessive, Philippe thought and he’d never pictured himself that way. His mother had elements of obsessive-compulsive in her makeup, not him.

“No.” The denial didn’t taste quite right on his lips. And if he were being completely honest, if only with himself, maybe there was this one small streak that leaned toward control. “Well, maybe,” he allowed, adding, “to some degree.”

Janice had a feeling it was more than just that, but she wasn’t about to push. Besides, they’d arrived at the first shop. She’d never come here herself, but some of the other contractors told her that the store had some very decent inventory.

“Lucky for you, we’re here.” With a smooth turn of her wrist, she pulled into what she believed would be the first of many parking lots that afternoon.

Instead of bolting out of the truck the way she’d expected him to, Zabelle sat on his side, eyeing the front of the store. The sign advertising the place was made completely out of black onyx. There were no windows in front. “This is the place?”

She got out, closing the door with finality, hoping that he’d take the hint. “This is one of them.”

“One of them,” he repeated. Slowly, without taking his eyes off the store, he got out of the truck. “How many are you planning on going to?”

She could almost hear him saying dragging me to in place of the words he’d used. “As many as it takes for you to find something you like.” She gestured toward the other stores that lined both sides of the street. “I’ve never actually counted, but there are probably at least thirty or so stores along here.”

“Thirty,” he repeated incredulously.

“Or so,” she added as a reminder.

Philippe slowly let out a long breath, as if bracing himself for an ordeal. He then squared his shoulders like a man going into battle and opened the front door. Stepping to the side, he held it for her, then glanced at her with a silent query.

For once, she could read him. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to bite your head off for holding the door for me. I actually like that kind of thing.”

Philippe responded to the warm smile on her lips. Given the line of work she was in, he wasn’t sure if holding a door for her would somehow offend her sense of independence. Life in his mother’s world had taught him to take nothing for granted about women’s reactions to things.

“Good to know,” he murmured.

The store looked deceptively small on the outside. Inside it was divided into fifteen or so sections, each showcasing a different kind of tile intended for every single foot of the house. Tile for the fireplace, for the pool area, for bathrooms, the kitchen and so on. There was so much to see that it was overwhelming.

Standing to the side, Janice could see that this was definitely a great deal more than Philippe had expected. Time for her to step in and be the tour guide, she thought.

Once she got started, she had a tendency to talk fast. This time Janice deliberately curbed her impulse. “I know that this can be a little mind-boggling at first. There are different grades of marble and granite, ceramic and glass—”

He seemed not to be listening. And then, just as she got warmed up to her subject, he pointed to a royal blue piece. “That one.”

Janice blinked, and then looked at it. “That one what?”

“I pick that one. For the tile,” he added since she was still staring at him as if he’d lapsed into an unknown dialect of pig Latin. “You can use that one for the tile.” He glanced toward the door like a prisoner looking longingly at the gates leading to the freedom that was denied to him. “Can we go now?”

Janice remained speechless for exactly ten seconds before she regained possession of her tongue. “No, we can’t go now,” she answered in a tone she might have used on Kelli if she’d had a willful child instead of the one she’d been blessed with. “This is only the first place we’ve been to, Philippe, and just the first display you’ve seen. You have no idea what’s out there,” she insisted. “You might see something you like better.”

It occurred to him, after the fact, that this was the first time she’d addressed him by his first name. It made the whole process seem more intimate somehow, like going out with a friend instead of an employee.

The thought had come shooting out of nowhere. He sent it back to the same place. He was here to get this tile thing over with, not challenge himself with mental puzzles.

“I don’t think so,” he countered. He believed that it was entirely possible to find something he liked immediately instead of having to wade through a sea of candidates. “I don’t have to see every single piece of tile to know what I like.”

She’d bet anything that Zabelle was doing this because he didn’t want to waste time going from store to store. Another contractor would have gone along with this, happy to have the ordeal over with. But she didn’t operate that way. She liked leaving her clients satisfied with their renovations. That was what it was all about to her, matching the person to the changes, not just slapping any old thing together in order to collect her fee.

“I don’t—” Janice got no further.

“If I were my mother,” Philippe continued patiently, “you might have to wait six months for a decision. But I’m not like that.”

Something else was going on here, she thought. But as of yet, she didn’t have a clue so she could only tilt with the windmill she saw. “You can’t go with the first tile you see.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s so much out there that you haven’t seen, that you don’t know about, that you might really fall in love with,” she added with feeling.

He looked at her for a long moment. So long that she felt something inside her tighten in anticipation, although she hadn’t a clue what it was.

And then, whatever it was that was going on, lessened and he said, “That sounds like my mother’s philosophy about men.”

She felt a little like someone who had just stepped in through the looking glass. “Excuse me?”

Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have said that. Of the three of them, he was the most closed-mouth of Lily’s sons. But somehow, around this little dynamo, words just seemed to slip out. “She moves from relationship to relationship, never staying long even if she falls in love.” Especially when she falls in love, he added silently.

For the moment, Janice forgot about the tile. This was more interesting. “Why?”

It seemed ironic that his mother’s reasoning seemed to align itself so readily with what J.D. had said about tile. “Because she feels that maybe she’s settling, that maybe there’s something even more spectacular out there and she’s missing out.” He raised his eyes to hers. “This one,” he repeated. “I’ll take this one.”

So in some odd way, he was rebelling from behavior he’d witnessed as a child, she thought. Rebelling or not, she didn’t want his bathrooms to suffer.

“You’re sure you’re not settling?” she prodded. An odd look came into his eyes, but she pushed forward. “Look, I realize that you’re not marrying the tile, I just want you to like the finished product.”

“I already told you, I like it. You can order however much you need. Can we go home now?” He repeated the question as if this time around it was rhetorical.

Philippe was surprised when she gave him an answer that was different from the one he’d assumed he would be receiving.

“No.”

“No?” he echoed incredulously. How could the answer be no? “But I just did what you wanted,” Philippe pointed out. “I picked a tile.”

This was definitely not going to be her easiest assignment, despite the fact that the man claimed to be easy to please. She didn’t want this to be something to get over with, she wanted it to leave a lasting impression on him, to catch his eye and dazzle him every time he walked into one of the bathrooms—or the kitchen for that matter.

“For the bathroom,” she told him. “I won’t go with the obvious, that there are three bathrooms to be remodeled—”

He cut in with a wave of his hand. “Same tile for all of them.”

Janice pushed forward, pretending she hadn’t heard that. “You still have to choose a slab for the kitchen counter, a backsplash, tile for all the floors, cabinets for the kitchen and bathrooms, fixtures, a tub for one, showers for the other two—”

“Wait,” he cried, raising his hands as if he were physically trying to stuff a profusion of things back into a box that had exploded before him, a box that was not allowing him to repack it. “Wait.”

Temporarily out of steam, she paused to take a breath. “Yes?”

“What the hell is a backsplash?”

She grinned. “It’s the area of the wall that runs along the back of the—”

His hand was up again, dismissing the explanation before it was completed. There was a bigger issue here. “I have to pick all those things out?”

“Well, yes.” She’d shown him the blueprints. Hadn’t any of this registered? Exactly how did he think this was all going to happen? “Oh, plus appliances for the kitchen.”

Philippe stared at her, trying to process what she was saying and what it would cost him, not in the monetary sense but in man-hours. The latter was in short supply and he couldn’t really spare what he did have available to him. At the outset, when he’d agreed to come with her, he’d expected the whole ordeal to last maybe an hour. Less if he could hurry her along. But what she was proposing would take days, days he didn’t have.

This wasn’t going to work out.

His first impulse was to tell her he’d changed his mind about having the rooms remodeled and pay her whatever penalty went with terminating the contract between them. An alternate plan was to postpone the work indefinitely, or at least until his own work was finished. Debating between them, he did neither.

For the same reason.

Instinct told him that J. D. Wyatt needed the money this job would bring in. So he chose another course, one that made complete sense to him. “You do it.”

He couldn’t mean what she thought me meant. “Excuse me?”

“You do it,” he repeated.

A couple had come in with two children, the older of whom seemed to be around three and in excellent voice. He was exercising the latter and could be heard emitting a high-pitched scream from the far end of the store.

Unable to hear what Philippe was saying, Janice moved closer to her client. “Do what?”

“Pick for me,” he told her simply.

“You want me to pick out your appliances.” It wasn’t a question so much as a stunned repetition.

“Yes. And all those other things you mentioned, too,” he added.

“You have no idea what my taste is like.”

He shrugged, fingering the tile he’d just selected and nodding at it as if it was privy to his thoughts. “Match it to my taste.”

It took everything for her not to throw up her hands. Was he being difficult on purpose? “I don’t know what your taste is like,” she protested with feeling. “Other than bland.”

He grinned, the corner of his eyes crinkling. “There you go.”

Again, something stirred inside her, responding to the man and the moment. Stop that, she upbraided herself silently. “The idea is to get away from bland,” she reminded him.

“I’ve got a contract deadline that I’m not going to make if I’m standing here in a tile store. Now it’s either my way or we postpone this until I have some free time.”

And that wouldn’t be until November, based on what he’d said earlier. The easiest thing was to do as he said. But doing what he suggested went against her grain. Stuck, she thought for a second.

“How about this. I bring you samples and pictures of the things I picked out.” She’d make sure he had a selection to choose from. She didn’t mind being the go-between. It took longer, but that was part of her job and came under a heading related to hand-holding.

The thought of holding his hand created a warm wave inside her and increased her pulse rate.

Janice pushed it down and moved on. “That way you at least know you don’t hate my choices.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He would have agreed to anything that would get him out of the store and on his way home again.

“May I help you?”

A salesman materialized behind them. Happy to see someone he assumed would bring this all to an end, Philippe pointed to the royal blue ceramic tile he’d initially selected. “We want that tile.”

The man beamed as he nodded. “Excellent choice, sir.” Philippe had a feeling the man would have declared his selection “excellent” even if he had chosen something out of chewing gum. “And how much tile will you be requiring?”

Philippe shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “J.D., you’re on.” He gave every indication of retreating.

“That’s what I like to see,” the salesman declared. “A husband who lets his wife make the decisions. I’m sure you’ve done your homework, little lady.”

Philippe stopped retreating. He didn’t have to be his mother’s son to know that J.D. had to find that tone offensive. He slanted a glance toward her, waiting to see her reaction.

“I have,” she replied gamely, giving no indication that she would have enjoyed giving the man a swift kick for his patronizing manner. “And I’m not his wife, I’m his contractor.”

The clerk seemed taken aback for a moment, but then, to his credit, he rallied. “Even better.”

She was tempted to ask him why just to hear his answer. But that would be argumentative and she just wanted to move on, for Zabelle’s sake. So instead, she put out her hand.

“Let me have your card,” she requested easily. “We’re not quite ready to order yet. I need to take some measurements first and then I’ll get back to you.”

It was obvious that the man felt once they were out the door, he stood a good chance of losing the sale. “We could have one of our men come by, double-check the numbers—”

“Won’t be necessary,” Janice assured him with a wide smile. Taking Philippe’s arm, she hustled him out of the store and into the parking lot.

Bemused, Philippe looked at her as the door closed behind them. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought you already had the measurements.”

So he did pay attention, she thought. She inclined her head. “I do.”

“Then why all that double-talk back there?” Although he had a feeling he already had the answer.

She led the way to her truck, intent on a quick getaway in case the salesman decided to follow them out to the parking lot out to make one last pitch. “I didn’t like his attitude.”

He struggled to keep his mouth from curving. “Is attitude that important?”

“It is in my line of work.” She unlocked the truck from her side. The double click indicated that his side was open, too. “Don’t worry, I saw who the manufacturer was. We can order that tile from any one of the stores I deal with on a regular basis,” she promised. About to get in, she saw that he was still standing outside the passenger side. She took a guess. “You want to drive?”

That wasn’t why he waited. He was watching the way a sunbeam was glinting in her hair, turning it a light shade of gold.

“No.”

She thought he was just embarrassed because he was behaving so predictably. Rounding the hood, she came to his side.

“Go ahead,” she urged, holding out the keys to him. “We’re not going that far.” The next store was only a few yards away.

After a moment’s hesitation, he took the keys from her and crossed to the driver’s side. Getting in, he asked, “Where’s your favorite place to order tile?”

There were a couple of places she liked to frequent. Both were more than fair in price and reliability. Because there was so much competition, she liked to send business their way whenever possible.

She chose the one closest to where they were. “Orlando’s. It’s about a mile up the road.”

“Good.” Putting the key in the ignition, he started up the truck. “We’ll go there.”

She smiled to herself, shaking her head as she buckled up. “You just want to get this over with.”

“Not that I don’t find the company pleasing,” he qualified, “but yes, I do.”

Well, the man certainly didn’t believe in beating around the bush. And she could sympathize with deadlines and the need to get a project done by a specified time; when she’d worked for her father’s company and dealt with major businesses, there’d been penalties for going over the allotted time.

She wondered if that applied to his work as well. “Make a left out of the lot,” she instructed, pointing to the open road.

“Yes, ma’am.”

In the end, they went with the tile he’d first selected. But not before she managed to get him to look at a few other pieces. She convinced him to get something slightly different for each of the three bathrooms. And just before they left the store, he’d wound up picking out the material for the kitchen counter: an impressive slab of granite known as blue pearl. It was almost black with veins of glimmering blue throughout.

“Damn,” he murmured, a little stunned as he automatically got in behind the wheel more than an hour later. “I had no idea that there were that many different kinds of tile.” She laughed and he caught himself thinking that it was a very peaceful yet arousing sound. “What?”

Her laughter had entered her eyes. “You didn’t even begin to scratch the surface,” she told him.

Philippe looked at her, a little stunned, wondering if that applied to her as well.

Chapter Seven

The noise didn’t register until after the fact.

Somewhere, a door had closed. Someone was in the house. The next moment, he didn’t have to speculate if it was one of his brothers.

One other person had the key to his house and it was that voice he heard now. Low and full-bodied like brandy being poured over ice, it filled the air, preceding her and coming at him without so much as a greeting or a preamble.

“And what is this I hear about you having the house remodeled?”

He glanced up from his computer to see her standing in his doorway. Lily Moreau was given to dramatic entrances, even with her own family. By all accounts, she was a dramatic woman. From the top of her deep black hair, shot through with captivating streaks of gray, to the tips of her toes, polished, manicured and encased in the Italian designer shoes she favored, Lily Moreau, renowned artist, woman of passion and world traveler was the very personification of drama.

His smile was automatic. She was probably the most trying, infuriating woman in the world—she was at least in the top five—but he loved her dearly. “Hello, Mother, how are you?”

She took possession of the room and moved around like a force of nature, searching for a place to touch down, however briefly. Swirls of turquoise, at her wrists, ears and neck and along her torso, marked her path. Turquoise was one of her two favorite colors.

“Confused,” she responded, pivoting to face him on the three-inch heels that rendered her five-foot-five. “My firstborn, the most stable child of the litter, has ventured into my territory without so much as a single request for input.” She flounced down on the sofa, clouds of turquoise floating about her still trim hips and softly coming to rest in a circle around her. “I’d say I was more than confused. I’d say I was hurt.”

Accustomed to these performances whenever his mother was in town, Philippe hardly looked away from his monitor and the equation that troubled him. “No reason to be hurt, Mother. And as for your ‘territory,’ since when have you been moonlighting as a handyman?”

“Handyman?” Frowning, Lily moved forward on the sofa. “I thought you were having the house redone.” Although she strongly maintained that of the three of them, Philippe had inherited her artistic bent, he had always been determined to bury it. By now his flair was so far from the surface, it would have taken a crane to be resurrected. She liked being consulted on matters, liked being in the thick of things. Color schemes, textures, room dynamics, these all came under her purview.

“Not quite.” He had a strong hunch he knew where his mother had gotten her information. Georges had been the one to let J.D. in the other day when she had dragged him off to those damn stores. “Tell Georges to get his facts straight.”

“It wasn’t Georges,” she informed him, on her feet again and moving about. She stopped to finger a plant she had given him the last time she’d visited. It was two steps removed from death. On an errand of mercy, she walked into the hall, her destination the kitchen. “It was Alain.”

“Tell Alain to get his facts straight next time,” he called after her.

Philippe didn’t bother asking how his other brother had gotten into this. He imagined it was like the old fashioned game of telephone, where Georges had taken his own interpretation of the events and told them to Alain who then put his own spin on it before telling their mother. He was actually surprised they didn’t have him buying a villa in the south of France or some equally improbable scenario.

She was back with a cup full of water. Lily poured it slowly into the pot, then tried to arrange the drooping, drying leaves. “And the facts are?”

Philippe glanced at his mother. He should have known that she would want in on this. She was the one he should have sent with J.D., not gotten roped into traipsing around after the woman from store to store, selecting things that held little to no interest for him. All he’d wanted was to have a cracked sink replaced.

But to say anything on that subject would get him sucked into a conversation he didn’t want. “That you don’t come by enough for me to see you with a scowl on your face.”

“Scowl?” The plant was completely forgotten. Lily reached for her purse and the compact mirror inside. “I’m scowling? I can’t scowl, I’ll get wrinkles before my big show.” Mirror opened, she reviewed her appearance from several different angles, then decided that she was fine. Not twenty-two-year-old fine, but fine nonetheless.

Philippe caught the magic word. “Another big show?”

“Always another big show,” she declared with gusto. It was what she thrived on, that and the men in her life. “If I can’t paint, I’ll just lie down and they can throw dirt over me.” She tossed her head, dark ends flirting with the tops of her shoulders. “I’ll be as good as dead.”

She certainly had a way of phrasing things, he thought. “They throw enough dirt over you, you will be.” One of the first things he’d ever learned about his mother was that, barring some crisis, there was nothing she liked to talk about more than her paintings, so he gave her a gentle nudge in that direction. “So, where and when is this big show?”

“Three weeks from Saturday at the Sunset Galleries on Lido Isle.” She recited the information as if it had been prerecorded. And then she gave him a deep, penetrating look. “You’ll be there?”

Turning in his chair so that he faced her instead of the computer, he grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

She took hold of his hands as if that was all she needed to discern whether or not he was telling her the truth. Fingers wound tightly around his palms.

“No, really, you’ll be there?” She nodded absently toward the screen. “You know how you get when you get involved in your work.”

“I’ll be there,” he promised, wiping any trace of a smile from either his voice or his face.

Lily sighed, as if getting him to agree had been an ordeal. “Good. I want you to meet him.”

“Him?” Philippe eyed his mother warily. “There’s another him?” He should have known there would be. It had been, what, five months since the last one had been sent packing? That was a long dry spell for his mother.

“Yes,” Lily replied joyously. She’d moved on to the rear of the room to gaze out at the backyard it faced. All three houses shared it as if it was one large yard instead of the culmination of three. “You need a gazebo, Philippe,” she decided and then, glancing back at him, she waved her hand. “Get that look off your face, I know what you’re thinking.”

He made it a point to be as laid-back as she was dramatic. “I sincerely doubt that.”

She was not his mother for nothing. “You’re thinking, here we go again.”

He laughed, impressed. “Very good. I guess I’m getting too predictable.”

She didn’t waste words on defending her past choices. She was a woman who had always believed in moving forward. “This time, it’s different.”

And where had he heard that before? Philippe mused. He went back to focusing on his work, uttering a tolerant, “Of course it is.”

“It is,” she insisted, crossing to his desk and presenting herself behind his monitor so that he was forced to look at her. She clasped her hands together and resembled a schoolgirl in the throes of her first major crush. “Kyle is everything I’ve been looking for in a man. Funny, smart, youthful and vigorous—”

Philippe shot his hand up in the air to halt the flow of words. “If that word doesn’t apply to the way he polishes your silverware, Mother, I really don’t want to hear about it.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh Philippe, you know what your trouble is?”

Yes, he had a mother who had never grown up. “I’m sure you’ll tell me,” he replied patiently.

She took his chin in her hand, lowering her face to his. “You’re not at all like your father.”

Moving his chair back, he eyed his mother. “I thought that was a good thing. You left my father because he gambled away the floor from under your feet,” he reminded her.

She refused to dwell on the bad. It was one of her attributes. “But first he swept me off those feet, Philippe. He had this zest for life—”

“Otherwise known as Texas hold ’em.”

“Oh Philippe,” she sighed mightily, “you were born old.”

He didn’t see it as a failing. If anything, it kept him from making his mother’s mistakes and leading with his heart instead of his head. “One of us had to be and someone had to be there for the boys.”

The hurricane stopped moving. Lily’s expression turned serious. “Was having me as a mother so terrible?”

He wouldn’t allow his mind to stray to the hundred and one shortcomings his mother possessed. The bottom line was that she meant well in her own way and she did love them. Of that he was certain. So he smiled at her and said, “You had your moments.”

“I had my hours, Philippe, my days,” she corrected majestically. “And I always loved all you boys to distraction.” Long, slender fingers touched his cheek the way she did when he was small and needed her comforting. “I still do.”

“I know that.”

She dropped her hand to her side. The movement was accompanied by the sound of gold bracelets greeting one another. “I’m a passionate woman, Philippe. I need passion for my art. I use passion,” she insisted.

This was a conversation they’d had before. Several times. “I know that, too, Mother.”

She kissed his cheek, then rubbed away the streak of vivid red from his skin. Any minor disagreement that might have arisen was terminated before it had a chance to form. “Is there a reason for this handiwork you’re having done?”

“Yes,” he replied simply, “the bathroom sink is cracked.”

“Oh.” She looked exceptionally disappointed. “I was hoping that it was being done because you were finally settling down.”

Philippe addressed the phrase in its strictest sense. “I’m the most settled out of the three of us,” he reminded her.

The drama returned as Lily sighed and resumed her restless patrol of the small converted bedroom. “With a woman, Philippe, settling down with a woman.” She retraced her steps and presented herself before him again. “Have you been seeing anyone?”

“Only you when I’m lucky.”

Lily closed her eyes and sighed. “Use that charm on someone else, Philippe. Someone who matters.”

Momentarily surrendering, he rose to his feet. He just wasn’t going to get any work done with his mother here, bombarding him with questions. He might as well enjoy this visit.

“You always matter, Mother. Want some coffee?” he suggested.

She looked as if she was going to say yes, then surprised him by shaking her head.

“I don’t want to take you away from what you’re doing.” She took exactly one step toward the threshold before she continued talking. “Just wanted to invite you to the show and to see if you had any women stashed here.” The expression on her face told him that she hoped he’d do better on her next unexpected visit. “Your father always had women stashed here and there.”

There wasn’t very much he remembered about his parents’ union when it had been official, although his mother had taken his father back for a short time between her second and third husbands. But they hadn’t been married then. “Before you got engaged?”

Lily moved a stray hair from her cheek. “No, after we were married. After gambling and family, women were your father’s primary addiction.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if it had no impact on her whatsoever. Lily might have been a cauldron of emotion, but she was never judgmental.

Philippe blew out a breath. “Not much of a prize,” he commented.

But his mother’s eyes were shining like two bright jewels. “Vigorous, Philippe. He, too, was very vigorous.”

It was going to take him days to get the image she’d planted out of his head, Philippe thought. If he were still at a young and impressionable age, that just might have scarred him for life.

But then, if his mother’s actual lifestyle hadn’t done it while he was growing up, he sincerely doubted that anything at this stage possibly could. Flamboyant, eccentric and completely unorthodox were all terms that were synonymous with the name Lily Moreau and he’d survived his childhood to become a relatively well-adjusted, successful man. If his house was a little empty at times, well, everyone paid some kind of price in life. Being alone was his.

Besides, it was a great deal more preferable than constantly making the wrong choices.

His mother still hovered over him. “I worry about you most of all, Philippe.”

That was the last thing he wanted. For her to worry or, worse, to do something about that worry.

He had only one response for that. “Don’t.”

She sniffed, taking offense. “I may not be Norman Rockwell’s idea of the perfect mother, but I’m still a mother.”

He knew she meant well. Philippe softened. “Norman Rockwell’s been gone for a long time, I don’t think you need to worry about him. And I appreciate the concern, Mother, but I am a grown man. We march to different drummers. You taught me that, remember?”

“Yes, but sometimes the music is the same.” She pressed full lips together, thinking. And then her eyes widened the way they did when she’d been struck by an idea she liked. “Kyle has a sister—”

For a second, the name escaped him. “Kyle?”

“Yes, the reason for the smile on my face. You’re not paying attention, Philippe,” she admonished with a trace of impatience.

His mother’s boyfriend’s sister. Oh God. That was all he needed, to be coupled with a woman old enough to be his mother. That little tidbit would finally send him into therapy.

He put his hands on her shoulders, as if that could somehow push all the wild ideas she had back into her head. “Mother,” his tone was firm, “Don’t worry about it. Now, I do have work to do, so…”

She took her dismissal graciously enough and picked up the purse she’d dropped onto the sofa upon entry. “I’ll let myself out, I know the way.” She hesitated for a second. “You won’t forget about the show?”

“I won’t forget.”

She nodded, taking him at his word. “And see if you can bring someone,” she coaxed, then added with emphasis, “Someone female.”

“I’ll see what I can find on Amazon.com,” he dead-panned.

Lily sighed. “Some things never change.” Raising herself up on her toes, she kissed his cheek again. “But I love you anyway.”

He smiled as she left the room. “Nice to know, Mother.”

Sitting down, within moments Philippe was lost again in the details of the knotty programming problem he’d run up against.

And then he was roused out of its midst again.

“Philippe?”

He closed his eyes, summoning strength. He didn’t often get impatient with his mother, there was no point. But he could get impatient at the loss of an afternoon’s work, especially since he’d sacrificed an afternoon just the other day.

Taking a deep breath, he released it again before saying, “Yes, Mother?”

“You are a sneaky devil.”

The single sentence, hanging in the air without preamble, begged for questions, for an explanation. He pushed away from his desk and rose to his feet, resigned to getting both.

“Why, Mother?”

There was no answer. He was about to follow the sound of his mother’s voice when the need was abruptly vanquished. Lily made a reentrance.

She wasn’t alone.

His mother’s ring-encrusted fingers were delicately wrapped around the small hand of J.D.’s daughter. J.D. was right behind them, bringing up the rear.

Philippe felt like the beach at Normandy on D-day.

“Where have you been hiding these two?” his mother asked with the air of someone who felt she had the right to know everything that transpired in the world of her sons.

“We’re not hiding,” Kelli informed her before he could find his own tongue. “We’re right here.”

J.D. seemed a little overwhelmed by his mother. Welcome to the club, he thought.

“Did we have a date I forgot about?” he asked. The second the word was out of his mouth, he realized his mistake. His colossal mistake.

“Date?” Lily echoed, vibrating with both curiosity and joy.

“I came for the check,” J.D. explained. She was sure she’d mentioned it to him.

Lily’s eyes widened. “He’s paying you? Oh, Philippe—”

Janice had no idea what was going on but she just pushed ahead, hoping that somehow everything would straighten itself out if she just hung on to her part of the truth. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I brought Kelli with me again.” She tried to take Kelli’s hand, but the woman in turquoise was in her way. “She really wanted to see you.”

“He is charming, my son,” Lily agreed and turned to the woman she assumed was the child’s mother. “I’m Lily Moreau. It’s very nice to meet you.”

The next thing Janice knew, she found herself enfolded in an enthusiastic one-armed hug. Although she hugged Kelli at every opportunity, she came from a family that was light-years removed from anything demonstrative. She wasn’t sure how to respond to this strange woman’s embrace.

“Likewise,” she murmured from within the embrace.

Letting go, Lily turned to her son again. “Philippe, out with it. Who is this lovely creature?”

“She’s my contractor, Mother.”

Lily laughed dryly. “You have your father’s sense of humor. I would find him alone with all sorts of beautiful women. He always referred to them as his clients. Even in the dead of night when I came back from a tour and discovered him indisposed, so to speak.” There was no malice, no hurt in her voice. She was simply recounting something from the past that had occurred in her life.

Still, Philippe couldn’t believe she was saying this in front of a stranger. “Mother,” he said sharply, glancing at J.D.

“I really am his contractor,” Janice told her. “I need a check from you to make a down payment on the materials we decided on,” she told him.

Kelli tugged on the woman’s hand. “I’m Kelli,” she informed her. And then proceeded to blow her away by asking, “Are you the lady who painted the pretty picture over there?”

Lily seemed stunned and then immensely pleased. “Why, yes, I am.” She bent down to Kelli’s level. “Do you like it?”

Kelli’s hair bounced about her face as she nodded. “Very much.” And then she added in a very grown-up voice, “I paint, too.”

Lily smiled warmly. “Do you, now?” There was genuine interest in her voice, not just the sound of forced tolerance.

“Yes, she does. Very well.”

The confirmation with its comment came not from Kelli or even J.D., but from Philippe. His mother looked at him with an interested expression that immediately told him he should have kept that comment to himself.

But since he hadn’t, he might as well back up what he’d said. He looked at J.D. “Why don’t you show my mother the drawing you carry around with you?”

Janice paused. It was one thing to show the drawing to a person she was talking to, it was another to show it to a woman who had had her paintings on display in galleries in Paris.

But Kelli gazed up at her so eagerly, there was nothing else she could do. Taking out her wallet, Janice carefully unfolded the drawing she kept tucked away there, then handed it to Lily.

Lily studied the drawing with great interest. “You did this?” There wasn’t a hint of a patronization in her voice.

Kelli nodded. “Uh-huh.”

Lily’s smile crinkled into her eyes. “Really?”

“Really,” Kelli echoed, then crossed her heart with childish fingers.

Lily looked up in Janice’s direction. “This is very, very good.”

Janice already knew that, but it was nice to hear a professional agree. “Thank you.”

Lily studied the drawing again. It looked better to her with each pass. “Have you thought of getting your daughter some professional training?”

It was one of her cherished hopes, but it was something to address in the future, not now. “She’s a little young for that.”

“How old is she?” Lily asked.

Kelli responded instantly. “I’m four and three-quarters.”

“Oh, four and three-quarters,” Lily parroted, suppressing a smile. She glanced up at Janice. “Mozart was four when he wrote his first concerto.”

“Well, he ultimately didn’t wind up very well, did he?” Janice countered. She didn’t want anyone treating Kelli like some oddity.

“Well-read, too.” Lily nodded, looking back at her son. Her comment, clearly about J.D., was for Philippe’s benefit. “You’ve given me hope, Philippe.”

“Remodeling, Mother, she’s remodeling a couple of rooms for me.”

“Four,” Janice corrected. “I’m remodeling four rooms for you.”

“Very promising,” Lily commented. Philippe could almost see his mother’s thoughts racing off to the finish line. Any protest he might offer would only make the woman believe the very opposite. This was a case of discretion being the better part of valor.

So for the time being, he kept his silence and hoped for the best. He’d survived Hurricane Lily before.

Chapter Eight

Like most people, Philippe had a temper. However, unless one of his own was being threatened, it took a great deal to nudge that particular part of his personality awake. He usually took things in stride. Being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic didn’t faze him. But deadlines that came and went, his deadlines, made him uneasy. Because he felt responsible for the failure to meet this particular deadline, he’d become progressively more irritated.

And God knew, the noise wasn’t helping.

Philippe looked accusingly at the closed door. He’d been in his office for the last three hours and it was just getting worse.

This was definitely not what he had bargained for.

Afraid of losing his work, he saved it, assigning the program’s temporary name yet another number to differentiate it from previous versions. He laced his fingers together behind his head and leaned back in his chair.

When he’d agreed to have work done on his house, he’d forgotten to consider one important thing.

The noise factor.

Right now, the house abounded with it. How could one woman create this much noise? It seeped into every crevice of the house, taking his office prisoner.

It didn’t matter if his door was open or closed. He was still very much aware of it. Sometimes the noise was loud, sometimes almost deceptively soft, making him think that perhaps he’d weathered the worst. But then it would start again. And continue.

At its best, the noise could be likened to an erratic heartbeat. At its worst, it was like the circus setting up winter quarters outside his door—with a herd of less-than-tame elephants in charge of doing all of the hammering.

It had been like this for three days.

Philippe dragged his fingers through his hair and counted to ten. And then ten again. It didn’t help. His long dormant temper had gone short-fuse on him.

Abandoning his computer and its multitude of crashes, Philippe went out into the hallway and made his way to the kitchen, the source of all this ungodly noise.

He was ready to do whatever it took to get some peace.

Wearing safety goggles and wielding a sledgehammer, J.D. didn’t seem to see him at first. For a second, despite the irritation that was close to the boiling point within his chest, he hung back, just watching her.

She swung that sledgehammer like a pro. Tirelessly. Splintering cabinets she’d already crowbarred from the wall.

He found the rhythmic movement oddly hypnotic. J.D. wore faded jeans that seemed to lovingly adhere to her every curve and a gray T-shirt that was damp in several places, obviously with her sweat.

Construction had never looked so good.

Something inside him stirred as he continued to watch her work.

One final swing and she broke apart the last of the cabinets. Now the mess just needed to be hauled away. The kitchen was gutted, barren, like the aftermath of a hurricane. He assumed the rebuilding would begin tomorrow. He’d never gotten around to picking out his new appliances. He’d left that entirely up to J.D. A small part of him couldn’t help wondering if perhaps that had been a mistake.

She had muscles, he realized as he stared at the way they moved and flexed.

Damn, he was turned on. What was that all about? Yes, she was an attractive woman, but this went beyond just acknowledgement of that fact.

He was working too hard, he told himself. And his brain was tired.

Janice sensed his presence a moment before she retired the sledgehammer. Every single muscle in her body ached from exhaustion. One more swing and she would have dropped the hammer. Her hands couldn’t hold on to the handle for another second.

She glanced up in his direction just as she wiped more perspiration from her brow with the back of her wrist. He was looking at the rubble.

“Pretty awful, isn’t it?” she commented, guessing at what had to be going through his brain. Right about now, Zabelle probably couldn’t envision that this chaos would, in the end, give way to something really nice.

Philippe nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I’m here.”

She didn’t follow him and wondered if eccentricity ran in the family. His mother had all but commandeered her last week when they’d first met, absorbing much of her afternoon. The woman seemed absolutely taken with her daughter and since both Kelli and Lily shared a love of art, she had seen that as a good thing.

But there was no denying that Lily Moreau was not your ordinary woman by any stretch of the imagination. She took getting used to. And indulging.

She wouldn’t have said that about Philippe, but then, she really didn’t know him that well. One prolonged shopping trip did not exactly make her privy to his soul.

“All right,” Janice replied, drawing out the words and hoping that Philippe would fill in the blanks.

He picked up a kitchen towel that was tossed on the table. Rather than offer it to her, he wiped away the line of perspiration that had plastered her hair to her forehead.

His hand moved in short, sure strokes along her forehead.

Their eyes met. He took a breath, realizing that his brain had vacated the premises. “I think I made a mistake.”

“On your work?” she guessed. Having him this close was scrambling her insides. Either that or there was a sudden lack of air in the room.

He moved his head slowly from side to side, still gazing into her eyes. They were almost a hypnotic blue, he thought. “On yours.”

“You might find you need to write in code, but talking in it is wasted on me. You’re going to have to explain what you just said.”

He seemed surprised. Belatedly, he dropped his hand and the towel to his side. “You know about binary code?”

She didn’t see what the big deal was. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d just solved the space/time continuum problem.

“I’ve got three-quarters of a B.A.,” she reminded him, although she really didn’t expect him to remember. Her educational background had been on her résumé and references.

To her surprise, Philippe did remember. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, how does someone get just three-quarters of a degree?”

That was a sore point for her, but one she needed to face. “You do it by dropping out in your senior year before taking any tests.”

So near and yet so far, he thought, shaking his head. “If you were that close, why didn’t you stay?” It made no sense to him. He went to lean against a counter and stopped himself just in time. Another second and he would have been sitting on the floor—beside the rubble she had created.

“Because I was going to be that big.” Fingers almost touching, she held them out as far as she could before her very thin, very flat stomach. “I was pregnant at the time with Kelli.”

“Why didn’t you go back once she was born?”

She managed to hold at bay the sadness that always came whenever she thought of that period of her life. “Because by then, I was a widow and Kelli needed to live somewhere other than inside a cardboard box.” She took a breath. This didn’t have anything to do with the reason she was hired. She had no idea why she was playing true confessions with this man.

“Still, I think you should go back and get your degree.”

“I intend to one day, when life gets a little more comfortable.”

He wondered at her definition of comfortable. Philippe reminded himself of the reason he’d come in search of her and scanned the gutted room. From where he stood, it looked close to hopeless. “How much longer?”

She took off her gloves and flexed her hands. Her palms still ached from gripping the sledgehammer. “Until what?”

Philippe turned back to look at her. “Until you’re done.”

“With the kitchen?” She refrained from reminding him that everything had already been spelled out in the contract, including dates. She watched him shifting his weight from foot to foot. He seemed restless.

That made two of them.

“No, done done,” he emphasized. “With everything,” he added when she didn’t answer.

Because she loved her job, Janice worked fast but there was only so much she could do alone. Besides, the job was dependent on other people as well, people who had to get back to her with the necessary items she ordered, like the rock quarry that was going to be delivering the granite slab Philippe had ordered. She couldn’t move ahead and install the sink until the counter arrived. As for the maple cabinets she’d ordered for him, they were due at the beginning of next week. She crossed her fingers mentally, hoping he would approve of them.

“Well, barring any mishaps, if all conditions are a go, I’d say you could have your house back in as little as six to eight weeks.”

Philippe shook his head. “That’s not going to work.”

Uh-oh, here comes trouble. Well, nothing in her life had ever been easy, why start now? She drew herself up and challenged, “Why?”

“Because I can’t work with all this noise. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

A lot of times, people moved into a hotel when she worked on their house. But he looked unreceptive when she made the suggestion. “You could try ear plugs,” she told him. “Or you could try working when I knock off for the day.”

So far, she’d arrived each morning at seven and left by three-thirty. He wasn’t about to set his alarm for three in the morning to work before she arrived and then start again after she left.

He shook his head. “I do my best in the morning.” Janice smiled. So they had that in common. “So do I.”

Philippe thought for a moment. “Can’t you work any faster?”

“I could. If I were twins.” She paused, thinking. There was a way, but it involved a complication. “I could get my brother to work with me.”

As he recalled, she used her brother as a babysitter. “Does he do this kind of thing?”

“Yes.” It was probably his imagination, but she seemed to answer the question a little too quickly, as if she didn’t want to give herself any time to think about it.

“Then get him.” He saw a hesitant look pass over her face. “What? If it’s a matter of more money, I’m sure we can arrive at a figure that’s mutually satisfying.”

“No, it’s not that.” She’d quoted a price and she was going to stand by it. With Gordon helping, the job would get done faster so that balanced things out. “Gordon’s my babysitter. If he’s working here with me, I’m going to have to bring Kelli along as well, at least until I can find someone else.”

It was a little unusual, but then, nothing about J. D. Wyatt was usual. “So?”

She looked at him for a long moment, trying to discern if he was pulling her leg. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“No. She seemed like a nice enough, quiet little girl.” He thought of Kelli’s love for painting. “We could set something up for her in the family room—the part that hasn’t been invaded with groceries, dishes and small appliances,” he qualified.

“All right, then—” Janice began to pivot on her heel.

“But I’m just curious about one thing.”

She stopped in her tracks, waiting for the shoe to drop. “Go ahead.”

“Why isn’t she in preschool, or nursery school, or whatever it is that they call it these days?”

Janice had her own philosophy about that. She believed that the first few years of life should be spent around the people who love you. She’d been farmed out when she was Kelli’s age. Her father couldn’t deal with raising children so she and Gordon had been sent off to day care and left with people before and after school. She’d always promised herself that her own child would be raised differently, that her daughter would never waste a single moment of her life wondering if her parents loved her.

“Kelli’s going into kindergarten this fall. I just wanted to keep her around for as long as possible. She has friends on the block and there’s nothing she could learn in preschool that I can’t cover.”

He nodded, getting the feeling that he’d intruded. “Fair enough.” He regrouped. “All right then, why don’t you knock it off for today and then come back tomorrow with reinforcements?”

“You’re the boss.” The tone she used had him sincerely doubting she believed that. “You going to go back in there and work now?” she guessed.

It was getting close to noon. “After I go out to get something to eat since you’ve taken away my stove.” He looked at the barren area where his stove had once stood. She hadn’t asked him for help, the way he’d assumed she would. “How did you manage that, anyway?”

“I used a dolly and a ramp and I walked it across the floor.”

“How?”

She grinned. “You move each side one at a time. First right, then left, then right and so on until you’re across the room.”

He and his brothers had always subscribed to the brute force method. “How did you get it on the truck?” he asked.

That had been the simplest part. “I borrowed a friend’s truck. He’s got a hydraulic lift.”

It made sense, he supposed. It still bothered him a little that she was so much more adept at this kind of thing than he was. “Answer for everything, eh?”

The wide smile on her lips took him aback for a minute, as did the churning sensation in his stomach that came in response. “Including your lunch.”

“Come again?”

“I made you something.” Thinking he’d remain in his office the way he had the other three days, she’d planned on surprising him and having the meal ready on the dining room table by noon. The best laid plans of mice and men…

He stared at her incredulously. “You cook for your clients?”

This was a first, but then, Kelli had taken such a shine to him and she did feel as if she were invading his space just a little.

But in response to his question, Janice shrugged. “I made lasagna last night. I always make too much so I thought I’d bring some over.” She tossed him a smile over her shoulder as she walked out to her truck.

“But I don’t have a stove,” he reminded her.

“There’s a microwave buried on the sofa somewhere. Besides, it’s good cold,” she promised, leaving the room.

He was still staring at the jumbled mess on his sofa, trying to make out the shape of the microwave, when J.D. returned a few minutes later, carrying what appeared to be a large, rectangular blue and white chest made of hard plastic. It look unwieldy and he moved to take it from her.

When he did, he discovered that it was more than unwieldy, it was heavy. “You’re a lot stronger than you look,” he told her, bringing the chest over to the dining room table.

“I have to be,” she quipped.

Setting the box down on the table, he saw her raise one eyebrow in a silent question. “I’ve decided to have it cold.”

“Translation.” She laughed. “You can’t locate the microwave.”

“Beside the point,” he declared nonchalantly. He had, however, located two plates and he had one at each place setting now. “Join me?”

She was surprised he asked. “I thought I was being dismissed.”

He supposed he had sounded rather abrupt. But he hated being stumped and the program was driving him crazy. “Is that how it sounded?”

Taking her seat at his right, she noticed that Philippe hadn’t actually apologized. “You have a very authoritative voice.”

He laughed, taking a seat himself. “Comes from telling my brothers what to do.”

“You were a fledgling bully?” she asked. Because the lasagna was hers, she did the honors, cutting portions.

“I was the father figure. Or, I should say,” he amended, “the stable father figure since there were an abundance of other father figures milling around most of the time.” He stopped abruptly as his words echoed back to him. This wasn’t like him. “Why am I always spilling my guts to you?”

Her smile was encouraging, understanding. “I have the kind of face people talk to. I’m more or less invisible,” she explained. “They don’t feel that they’ll see me again once the job is over, but for the duration, they have invited me into their home and since I’m there, they come to regard me as someone they can talk to.” She grinned, sinking her fork into the piece she’d taken. “I’m like the family pet without the emotional investment.”

That definitely was not the way he saw her. “We never had a pet.”

“Not even goldfish?”

He shook his head. “For a while, Mother traveled around too much for us to have pets. And then when she finally bought the house and we stayed behind while she went on her tours, she made it clear she didn’t want anything with fur, feathers or fins finding its way to our mailing address.” Because he felt that he’d said too much again, he changed the subject. He nodded at his plate. “This is good.”

“Thank you.” His compliment pleased her more than she thought it might. Careful, J.D., you’ve slid down this path before and all you got for your trouble is skinned knees. “I wouldn’t have brought it if it was bad.”

The reply tickled him. “So, what other talents do you have?”

She didn’t have to stop to think. “That pretty much covers it.”

In his estimation, that was more than enough. She cooked like a house afire and could build a replacement if the need arose. “You ever think about starting your own restaurant?”

Not even for a moment. “Ninety-five percent of all restaurants fail in their first year. I need a sure thing and working with these—” she held up her hands “—is a sure thing.”

He could understand her reasoning, not that the world of contractors was all that stable. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”

“It was necessity.” She paused to take a bite herself. “After my mother left, it was either learn to cook or eat ready-made things out of a box.”

He curbed the desire to ask her about her mother. If she wanted him to know more, she’d tell him. As for preparing things out of a box, she’d just described the way he lived. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“Have you read what they put inside that stuff?”

He shrugged, then swallowed what was in his mouth before answering, “Food.”

“Food whose ingredients are guaranteed to give you high blood pressure and shut down your kidneys by the time you reach middle age.” Turning, she reached into the blue and white box and took out a small round bowl. “I brought you fruit for dessert.” She took off the cover. “Blueberries. They’re rich in antioxidants.”

He laughed, shaking his head as he looked at the offering. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re pushy?”

“Maybe once or twice,” she allowed.

He was willing to bet it was more than that.

Philippe glanced down at his plate. Somehow, he’d managed to eat the entire portion without realizing it. The blueberries, however, held no interest for him. He moved back from the table.

“Thanks, that was really good. But you don’t have to do this, you know.”

“I know.” She gathered up the dirty dishes, putting them back into the chest.

Philippe started to offer to do them for her and then realized that he couldn’t. She’d ripped out his sink that morning. With the chest between her hands, she began to make her way to the front door. He noticed that she was leaving her tools behind.

“Don’t you need to take anything else with you?”

She glanced back at the toolbox. “Why? You’re my only client.”

He took the chest from her, indicating that he was going to follow her out with it. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Why?”

“Well, it means that business is bad, right?”

She shook her head. “No, it means that I only do one client at a time.” She unlocked the door and took the chest from him, placing it behind the front seat of her truck. “I was serious about that. This way, it’ll get done faster.”

“And with your brother working with you, it’ll be even that much faster.”

She was going to have to keep after Gordon, she thought. He did good work—when he was working. But given half a chance, he’d take off for a few hours or catch a nap.

“Absolutely,” she promised.

Ten minutes later, J.D. had left and he was back at his desk. His appetite appeased, his brain cleared, Philippe was in a much better frame of mind to take another crack at the program.

Bathed in absolute quiet, after a few minutes, Philippe realized that he found the silence almost deafening.

With a resigned sigh, he shook his head and turned on the radio to fill up the empty spaces.

Chapter Nine

Somewhere between the time his alarm sounded and he toweled himself dry from his shower, it hit Philippe like a bullet right between the eyes.

He was looking forward to seeing J.D. Looking forward to seeing her even with the accompanying wall of noise. The realization caught him off guard. He tried not to dwell on it, tried not to attach any sort of deep meaning to it. He didn’t, by definition, dislike people and she was a person. The woman had turned out to be a decent sort, that was all. No big deal.

If it was no big deal, why did he feel compelled to convince himself of that? It should have just been a given.

Making a disgusted noise that drew into service a mangled French phrase, one of the few things he had learned from his father, he focused his mind on what was important. His work.

Philippe had forced himself up early, showering and shaving a good ninety minutes before he usually left the confines of his bed. With a stale piece of toast and marginal coffee, he sat before his computer, pondering the merit of a particular equation on his screen when he heard the doorbell.

Or thought he did.

It turned out to be a false alarm. Just his ears playing tricks on him.

There was no one at the door.

Glancing around, seeing only a jogger in the distance, Philippe experienced a smattering of disappointment. He retreated. Somehow, this was all wrong, although he couldn’t begin to untangle the reasons why. He had work to do.

Maybe he was working too hard. Rather than take his time or kick back, as was his cousin Beau’s habit, Philippe was always doggedly at his desk, working every available moment he had. Because he believed that all work and no play not only made Jack a dull boy but also helped contribute to the death of his brain cells, he had gone out of his way to institute his weekly poker game, making sure never to miss one.

But maybe that wasn’t enough. Maybe, like his mother had said to him time and again, he needed to get out of his shell. Needed to go out. With someone of the opposite gender.

Philippe frowned.

The fact that he was even thinking like this was proof that he needed to let up a little. To let go.

Right after this baby’s packed up, he promised himself.

Famous last words, he mocked. He’d thought somewhere along the same lines when he’d worked on the last program—and all he’d done was jump right into this one.

Just before he reached his office threshold, Philippe stopped abruptly. Cocking his head to the right, he listened intently.

No, this time the doorbell wasn’t his imagination. Retracing his steps back to the front door, he swung it open.

And smiled.

Kelli was clearly the one who had rung his doorbell. She was standing on her toes, stretching as far as she could, about to press her small finger to the white button again. When the door opened, she offered him a smile that he imagined angels looked to as a standard by which to measure their own smiles.

“I’m here,” she announced brightly.

He exchanged looks with J.D. who was standing beside her. A man in jeans and a T-shirt was behind them. His wheat-colored hair and fair complexion fairly shouted that he was related to both.

“So I see,” Philippe said, turning his attention back to Kelli. He hadn’t really intended to take the girl’s hand, but Kelli had other ideas. She slipped her small hand into his and then tugged him back into his house.

“I brought stuff to do,” she informed him. “So I won’t get in your way.”

How could someone so young sound so adult? He nodded in response. “Very thoughtful of you.”

She beamed. Then suddenly, as if she’d forgotten her manners, she turned around to look at the man behind her. “This is my Uncle Gordon. Mama says you want your house done faster.” A little pint-sized feminine pride slipped into her narrative. “Uncle Gordon is fast, but not as fast as Mama.”

Philippe caught himself wondering just how fast Mama was. Reining in his thoughts, he slanted a glance toward J.D.

Damn, but worn T-shirts never looked so good to him before. “I’ll bet,” he acknowledged.

Something in his tone had Janice struggling to tamp down a wave of warmth. She raised her chin a little, not certain if she should be defensive or not.

But she could be polite. She nodded at her daughter, her eyes on Philippe’s. “Thanks for letting me do this.”

“No problem.” He glanced at the man standing behind the little stick of dynamite who still had his hand. “I’m Philippe Zabelle.” He extended his other hand to Kelli’s uncle. “Nice to meet you.”

Gordon was nothing if not friendly. Grinning broadly, he shook the hand that was offered to him. “Yeah, likewise.” Walking toward the kitchen, he looked around as he passed. “Nice place you have here.”

Philippe’s laugh was dismissive. “For a bomb shelter.”

Gordon turned around. “No, I mean it. You’ve got a really great exterior.” He jerked his thumb toward the front of the house. “It gives the place a ritzy look.”

Philippe supposed so, but that had never been the draw for him. The fact that he and his brothers could all lead separate lives but still be in close proximity to one another was what had sold him on the house.

That, and that the fact that the outside was painted Wedgwood blue with white trim. Most of the other houses in the immediate vicinity were painted either in shades of rust or in some drab, strange color never to be found in nature. Blue had always been his favorite color.

The clock was ticking, Janice thought. Both for her and, probably more importantly, for Philippe. She broke up the impromptu meeting.

“C’mon, Kel, let’s get you settled in,” she said, taking the little girl’s free hand. In her other hand, Janice was carrying a large portfolio filled with several drawings and a painting that Kelli was currently working on. Pausing, she eyed Philippe hesitantly. “It is all right that we use your dining room table, isn’t it?” she asked, quickly adding, “I brought this tablecloth so that it doesn’t accidentally get dirty.”

“Actually,” Philippe cut in, “I’ve got a much better idea.”

Kelli watched him eagerly, a kernel of corn about to pop. Janice, hearing the same sentence, felt very protective of Kelli’s feelings. She didn’t want anything to diminish the girl’s zest. “Such as?”

He led the way to an alcove just off the living room. Yesterday, there had been a refrigerator shoved into the space. He’d moved it last night to the already overflowing family room. He had something different in mind for the space.

“I thought Kelli might like to use something else instead of just a flat surface.” Walking past the living room, he gestured over to the alcove. It was empty now—except for the small easel that stood in the center.

Kelli’s eyes became huge. “Look, Mama, it’s kid size,” she exclaimed, running over to it. She touched the easel reverently, as if afraid it would disappear once her fingers came in contact with it. And then she looked at him over her shoulder, joy tinged with a hint of hesitation. “This is for me?”

He came up to join her. It had taken him several hours to hunt this up. “This used to be mine,” he told her. “But it’s a little too small for me now and it’s been rather sad, sitting all alone in storage. So I’d take it as a personal favor if you used it.”

Excited, the girl shifted from foot to foot as if about to break into an impromptu game of hopscotch. “Where’s your new one?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t have one.”

“You don’t paint anymore?” Surprise was imprinted on every inch of the small heart-shaped face.

It was a long story, built on rebellion and not one to tell a child, even a child as stunningly intelligent as Kelli. The easel had never really been put to use and he was surprised he’d saved it. But to keep things simple, he merely said, “No.”

Surprise was replaced with sympathy. It was obvious Kelli felt that everyone should experience the joy of painting. Reclaiming her hand from her mother, she patted his. “Bet you could ask your mom to get you one and to give you lessons,” she told him.

It was an effort to retain a straight face. She was darling as well as intelligent and gifted. “She’s a very busy lady.”

Kelli nodded slowly, absorbing the excuse and its ramifications. And then suddenly, her head bobbed up, her eyes shining as she looked at him. “I could teach you.” Saying it out loud reinforced her enthusiasm and she clapped her hands together. “I could. It’d be fun.”

He thought of all the years in his past that he’d actively turned down every attempt his mother made to mate him with a paintbrush and a canvas. He had staunchly refused to enter her world, wanting one of his own to colonize and leave his mark on.

But with this small, eager little face looking up at him, all that melted away. “Maybe it would be,” he allowed. “I’ll see if I can find another easel for tomorrow.”

Kelli’s smile grew even wider. “Good.”

God, she sounded more adult that half the people he knew, Philippe thought, completely charmed. He noted that J.D. had placed all of her daughter’s jars of paint along the easel’s edge and mounted the painting against it.

“Call if you need me,” she instructed Kelli, then stepped away from the child. The slanted glance that came his way indicated that she wanted him to follow. When he did, she asked, “How much do I owe you?”

He’d followed her literally, but now she’d lost him. “For what?”

Her voice low, she was all but whispering. “The easel.”

What kind of a person did she think he was, pretending to give a child a gift only to have her mother pay for it under the table? Maybe she was used to strings being attached to things. So he set her straight. “What I told your daughter was true. That used to be my easel. There is no charge,” he informed her firmly.

She wasn’t comfortable about this, didn’t want him getting the wrong idea even though instinctively, part of her did like him for the gesture. Maybe that was the part that scared her. More than a little. “I know, but—”

“Just consider it a gift from me to Kelli.” His eyes met hers. He saw the wariness. “No strings attached.”

She took a breath, wondering if she was making a mistake, believing him. She had to work at keeping their relationship strictly professional.

Good luck with that, a voice in her head mocked. She’d already brought him food yesterday and brought her daughter along to work today. Not exactly proceeding according to strict professional guidelines here, are we, J.D?

She forced a smile to her lips, trying to quell the nervous feeling in her stomach. “That was a very nice thing you did.”

“I like seeing her smile,” Philippe told her honestly. He watched her mouth curve and could have sworn something tightened inside of him. “You have the same smile,” he observed.

Urges began to form, swarming over him out of nowhere. Or maybe, out of a somewhere he had no business visiting. Because something told him that J. D. Wyatt wasn’t just a casual date. J.D. was the kind of woman you made plans with. Solid plans. And there was nothing in his world to suggest he had a solid plan. Look at the examples he had to follow, the parents he’d had. The norm when he was growing up was here today, gone tomorrow.

He shoved his hands into his back pockets, curbing the very strong desire to touch her face, to trace his fingers along the curve of her mouth and commit it to memory.

Damn, where was this coming from?

He cleared his throat. “I guess I’d better get back to work.”

“Yeah.” The words tasted like powdered spackle. “Me, too,” she murmured.

Gordon reentered the room, bringing along his own set of long neglected tools. He glanced from his sister to Philippe, then watched as the latter left the room. Setting the toolbox down, Gordon crossed over to his sister. “Something going on between you two?” he asked mildly, in the same tone he might have used if he was asking about that day’s temperature projection.

The question startled Janice, throwing cold water on what might have been a moment’s worth of revelry. Groundless revelry, she insisted. Trust Gordon to be blunt.

“No.” She went into the kitchen. “What makes you think that?”

He laughed dryly. “Looked like a lot of chemistry and heat flashing back and forth from where I was standing.”

She looked down at his shoes. “Must be some loose wiring running under your feet,” she decided innocently. “Maybe you’d better examine it later just to be safe. Wouldn’t want this place going up, especially after all the work we’re going to put into it.”

“Guy doesn’t give a woman’s little girl an easel because there’s loose wiring in the floor,” he observed.

Janice sighed, refusing to entertain the thought of what Gordon was suggesting. Philippe was her client. If he liked the job she did for him, she had no doubt he would refer other people to her. There was nothing more to their relationship. Besides, she was not about to get involved with anyone. She’d never been able to get through to her father, never had that magical moment she’d waited for where he saw how much she loved him, how much she wanted him to be proud of her. And as for her husband, well that had never had a chance to go anywhere, so she would never know. She had been a wife and a widow within six months. That had had its own set of pain attached. She didn’t need to seek out more.

Besides, she had enough to keep her busy. She had Kelli and her work. There wasn’t space for more than that, certainly not for another pass at having her heart broken.

“Make yourself useful, Gordon.”

He grinned at her. “I thought I already was, since you can’t seem to see the forest for the trees—” He scratched his head. “Or is it the trees for the forest? I always get that confused.”

That wasn’t the only thing he got confused, she thought. “It’s the floor for the debris,” she declared, pointing to the very large pile of splintered wood veneer and plasterboard, the end results of her swinging her sledgehammer at the kitchen cabinets yesterday. Philippe had sent her home before she’d had a chance to remove the debris. “Clean it up.”

He could have taken exception to her tone. Once, when his father’s company had been his, he’d been her boss. And even when they’d worked with their father, he had supposedly always been the one in charge. It was only after the company went bankrupt and Janice began getting jobs on her own and throwing some of the business his way that she started issuing orders.

Gordon saluted her, his expression suddenly somber. “I’m on it.”

“Good to know,” she murmured. She didn’t want to repay Philippe’s kindness by appearing to take advantage of him.

Stooping down, she filled her arms with splintered plasterboard and got started.

He wasn’t in his office.

Janice glanced at her watch to check the time. It was close to eleven and she’d assumed that he’d be busy at his work. She’d deliberately gone out of her way to pass his office to talk to him.

Can’t talk to an empty chair.

Had he gone out and she’d missed hearing him leave? She’d begun work on gutting the downstairs powder room and wanted to have all her ducks in a row. Or at least swimming in the right direction.

She’d brought a color chart so that Philippe could decide what color he wanted her to paint the walls.

Shrugging, she tucked the chart under her arm and went back out again. It was getting close to lunchtime anyway. She might as well collect Kelli and her brother and get something to eat. Because this was their first day on a job together, she thought she’d take them both out to celebrate the occasion instead of just bringing lunch from home.

Janice moved around the corner. She didn’t have to look to know that Kelli would be completely captivated with her work. Painting always summoned this font of joy from within her, even when it wasn’t going well. With her sunny disposition, Kelli always managed to see the bright side of everything.

“Kelli, honey,” she called out, “we’re going to break for lunch. Would you like to be the one to pick the restaurant?”

It always made her daughter feel so grown up when she could choose where they would all go to eat. And then she laughed to herself. Before she knew it, Kelli would be an adult. God knew the little girl was growing up much too fast, doing ten years for every candle she blew out.

When she received no response, Janice quickened her pace and made her way through the dining room toward the alcove. The moment she came near the threshold, she could feel her heart thudding in her chest.

Could, unaccountably, feel a sting in her eyes.

Allergies, she told herself.

Philippe was standing behind Kelli, guiding her hand, giving her instructions in a low, patient voice. It was a father-daughter scene worthy of a holiday card.

Except that they weren’t a father and daughter.

So what? she demanded silently. Her own father had never been that patient on the rare occasions he explained something to her. Most of the time, he’d waved her back with that trite, archaic sentiment that “girls don’t need to know that.” She’d learned her trade by watching, by sneaking behind her father’s back to observe him in action.

Never once had he put a hammer or a screwdriver into her hand and shown her how to use it. No tips or secrets were passed to her the way they had been to Gordon. Except that Gordon wanted no part of it. He remained, pretending to listen, because he was afraid not to. But his mind was always preoccupied with the current flavor of the month he was squiring. He’d been there in body, but not in spirit.

She would have killed for a moment like this in her own life. And Kelli was obviously lapping it all up, she thought, watching the way her daughter beamed up at Philippe.

Greeting-card moment or not, she had to break this up. “Kel, we’re going out to lunch.”

But Kelli was completely focused on the images she was creating on the canvas and the technique Philippe was showing her. “In a minute, Mama.”

She knew better than to let herself be ignored. “Now, honey.”

Philippe removed his hand from Kelli’s and stepped back. “You’d better listen to your mother, Kelli.”

The resigned sigh was filled with disappointment. Kelli retired her brush. “Okay.” And then she looked at her mother hopefully. “Can Philippe come, too?”

She had to nip this in the bud, too. “His name is Mr. Zabelle, Kelli,” she reminded her daughter. “And I’m sure Mr. Zabelle has better things to do than come to eat with us.”

He was about to take the excuse she tendered. He’d already spent way too much time not doing his work. So no one was more surprised than he was to hear himself say, “Actually, I don’t.” He was looking at J.D. rather than the little girl. “Unless of course, you’d rather I didn’t come along.”

Her mouth felt like she’d been snacking on sandpaper since morning. Janice knew she should be blunt and say something about lunch being a family affair. The truth was she didn’t want him around her because he made her uncomfortable—but he only made her uncomfortable because she wanted to be around him. It was a conundrum, as her father had been fond of saying.

The simplest way to avoid all that, to avoid any explanations that would probably result in her turning redder than the color of the shoes that Kelli had insisted on wearing this morning, was to say, “No, by all means, the more the merrier. Of course you can join us for lunch.”

So, she did.

Chapter Ten

As it turned out, Philippe seemed to hit it off very well with Gordon and if one or the other paused to take a breath, there was Kelli, chatting like a little old lady, eager to fill in the dead air.

Consequently, Janice contributed very little to the conversation that took place over salads and seasoned chicken strips. Her exact words were: “Thank you,” uttered twice and neither time to the people sitting around her at the table. The words were addressed to the waitress who brought her beverage and then her lunch.

Content to observe and listen, both with a measure of awe, Janice assumed that no one noticed her silence. It amazed her that not only Kelli but Gordon seemed to be completely taken with Philippe. Their reasons, however, were obviously different. Kelli hung on the man’s every word because she was apparently caught up in a spate of hero-worship. As for Gordon, even though he and Philippe appeared to be worlds apart, the two had some things in common.

Would wonders never cease?

So as Gordon and Philippe talked about sports and action movies, and Kelli interjected enthusiastically from time to time, Janice took in the exchange and smiled to herself. And tried not to notice the feeling of contentment that wrapped itself around her.

“You didn’t talk much at lunch.”

Janice sucked in her breath, startled. Preoccupied with gathering her things together, she hadn’t heard Philippe come up behind her. Hadn’t seen him at all for the last four hours, not since they’re returned and she had gotten back to work.

Turning, she looked up into brilliant green eyes that took her breath away.

“You, Gordon and Kelli didn’t leave any openings to get a word in edgewise.” Her pulse was dancing, she noted. He was standing too close. “I’m surprised you even noticed.”

His mouth curved just the slightest bit. “Hard not to notice things about you.”

It wasn’t a line. He looked incapable of grinding out lines, she decided. Which made him completely different from her brother, Gordon, and probably his brother, Georges, too, she’d wager. From his manner, and the fact that he’d winked at her as she left, she had strong suspicions that Georges was much like her own brother.

She could feel Philippe’s eyes working their way along her face, studying her. Looking right into her.

Heat traveled up her body as a blush worked its way to the roots of her hair.

Now that had to be a sight, she thought disparagingly. A twenty-eight-year-old woman, widowed and a single mother to boot, who had, if not been around the block a few times, at least had gotten off the family stoop, blushing.

She caught herself wishing that the house didn’t catch too much of the afternoon sun. There was no way the man could miss the fact that she was blushing like some adolescent school girl.

“Thank you,” she murmured, acknowledging his compliment. “For everything.”

“Everything?”

She elaborated. “The easel, lunch.” Hiring me in the first place. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, debating her next words, but she didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.

“You know I didn’t invite you along with us to pay for it.”

A surge of desire rose out of nowhere, making him want to nibble on the same lip she’d carelessly taken prisoner. Did she have any idea how delectable she was?

“As I recall, you didn’t invite me at all,” he contradicted. “That was Kelli’s doing.”

He was right. Janice shrugged. “I thought you’d be uncomfortable.”

Although he wasn’t as outgoing as either one of his brothers, because of the kind of life he’d led with his mother during his childhood, he was able to fit into almost any situation.

“I wasn’t uncomfortable.” His eyes searched her face. “Were you?”

She had been, but it wasn’t the kind of uncomfortable he meant. It was the “uncomfortable” of realizing that feelings were being roused, feelings that could only lead to disappointment. But her thoughts were her own, not to be shared with someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger.

She lifted her chin defiantly. “Why should I be uncomfortable?”

“I don’t know.” He watched her, the soul of innocence. Innocence about to go awry. “I’m harmless enough.”

Had the man even looked in the mirror recently? She laughed shortly. “Not hardly.”

He could listen to the sound of her laughter all day, even when it was aimed at him. “Care to elaborate?”

She shook her head. Tiny pinpricks of panic assaulted her body. That was the trouble when you brought your brother and daughter with you, she thought. You couldn’t just beat a hasty retreat and drive away. You had to collect them first. “No.”

It was an effort to keep his hands at his sides. A stray hair along her cheek begged to be pushed back into place. “Then I was right, I do make you uncomfortable.”

He made her fidget inside. Made her restless.

Made her remember that there were other things besides two by fours to put her hand to. Small, nameless desires materialized out of the mists where they’d been banished. She yearned to touch this man, to feel his muscles beneath her fingertips, his stubble against her cheek in the morning. Yearned to catch a whiff of his scent on the pillow beside hers even after he was gone.

God, but she missed being part of a twosome. She and Gary had had their problems, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t have been worked out in time. She’d married him to get out of her father’s house, where she felt unloved and ignored. All she’d wanted was to begin a life of her own, to matter to someone. That was her goal and she was willing to make all kinds of compromises to reach it.

But then Gary had gone and died on her. Leaving her just as her mother had. Just as her father had, in his own way, years before he died. With her parents, she’d endured emotional abandonment before they ever left her physically. With Gary, it had been physical, but this didn’t lessen the pain of the loss.

There were just so many times she could expose her heart. She no longer needed approval, she was her own person. And as for love, well, Kelli loved her and in his own confused way, so did Gordon. That was enough.

Oh God, he was touching her, his fingertips moving against her face. It took everything she had not to melt into Philippe’s hand, not to melt against him. Her breath backed up in her lungs.

“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, J.D.”

“Janice,” she whispered.

He leaned in a little closer, his lips so close to hers, she could almost feel them moving as he asked, “What?”

It was an effort to think, to speak. “You’ve hired me, that means you get the right to call me by my first name.”

“Janice.” He nodded, repeating the name. And then he smiled. “It suits you.”

“How so?” Damn it, was he ever going to drop his hand? She was having trouble thinking.

He didn’t know how much longer he could refrain from acting on the impulse that kept doubling in size every second. “Short, to the point, yet feminine.”

That made her laugh under her breath and she shook her head. “Been a long time since anyone called me feminine.”

Very slowly, he moved his thumb along her lower lip, enticing them both. “Don’t see why. You are. Under those jeans and that T-shirt, you are.”

What the hell was he doing? his conscience demanded. It was like having some kind of out-of-body experience. He’d somehow stepped outside of himself and now he watched this unfold. Watched himself flirt with a woman even though any relationship would be doomed from the start. He knew he wasn’t going to follow up on any of these feelings he was having, even if they were so strong they made it hard for him to breathe.

He was his mother’s son, which meant that no matter what he felt now, he was going to move on. Something always seemed to stop him, made him turn away, before he became even mildly serious. Janice didn’t deserve to have her life messed up like that.

He needed to stop, to walk away.

Now.

But he didn’t. And he was no longer just watching, he was acting. Acting on impulse, on whim, on a desire that seemed to be bigger than he was, acting like some kind of fool.

It didn’t change anything. He leaned over her trim, athletic body and brought his mouth down on hers.

Anticipation did not overshadow reality. If anything, it was the other way around. For a moment, he allowed himself to forget everything, just enjoy the moment.

Oh, my God. Everything around her, the room, the house, the world, everything faded to black and disappeared except for the incredible sensations shooting through her. Absorbing her. Breaking down from the mini-tower of strength she perceived herself to be and rebuilding a flesh and blood woman with needs and desires.

Without thinking, she rose up on her toes as far as she could, winding her arms around his neck and leaning into him, nerves jumping all up and down on her body. She’d never expected anything like this, never had her head turned completely around by a mere kiss.

No, not mere. Anything but mere.

“Mere” didn’t make her skin sizzle or her brain go careening. But as wondrous as it was, she felt unsettled. Unsettled because his kiss opened up floodgates she was terrified of having unlocked.

And yet—

This was delicious and she didn’t want it to stop. In a minute, but not now. Just a second longer and then she’d back away. She had to. No matter what her yearning was, she couldn’t act on it. Because she wasn’t alone.

Thank God she’d brought her brother and Kelli with her. Having them here forced her to remain on the straight and narrow path, something she strongly doubted she could have done on her own right now.

And then, as unexpectedly as it had begun, it was over.

Philippe drew his head back, his expression dazed. He took a breath, as if to steady himself. It was going to take more than a breath to do that for her, she thought.

“I’m not going to apologize,” he told her.

“All right.” She was fairly surprised she could actually talk. Her lips felt as if they had the consistency of warmed honey.

“Not for the kiss, anyway.”

She didn’t understand, but then, it would have taken her a minute to respond if someone had asked her her name. “Then for what?”

The smile was sad and burrowed into her heart before she could stop it. “For more things than I can begin to tell you.”

“You are a very complicated, mysterious man, Philippe Zabelle.”

The laugh was dry with only a touch of humor to it. “You don’t know the half of it.”

He made her wonder. About the sadness in his eyes, about him. Had there been anyone in his life? Someone who’d hurt him? Or someone he’d hurt that he felt guilty about?

“Maybe someday I will,” she replied.

Damn it, not your business, Janice. This wasn’t part of the job and that was all she needed to focus on. Abruptly, she raised her voice and called out to her daughter.

“Time to call it a day, kiddo.” While Mama still had knees that functioned.

She felt as if she’d just been dynamited off her comfortable perch. With effort she slowed her pace and left the room, trying very hard not to look as if she was hurrying away from him.

But she was.

As she carried in the laundry basket from the garage later that evening, she noticed that Gordon’s car wasn’t there. Still holding the basket, she passed by the window and glanced out.

The car wasn’t parked at the curb, either. “Kelli, where’s Uncle Gordon?”

The little girl looked up from the book of children’s drawings she was paging through. “He went out.”

Oh God, not on a date, Janice prayed. The only time Gordon didn’t say anything about leaving, didn’t call out a “see you later,” he was going off on a date with someone he knew he shouldn’t be seeing.

Janice set down the basket on the coffee table and sat down beside her daughter on the sofa. “Out? When?”

“A little while ago.” Kelli paused to think. “The seven o’clock news lady was on. He said I couldn’t go with him.”

The idea of Kelli out with Gordon on one of his dates horrified her. “Well, at least he has some grain of sense,” she murmured to herself, then looked at her daughter. Something wasn’t adding up. “Why would you want to go with him?”

“Because he’s going to Phili—Mr. Zabelle’s house,” Kelli amended, knowing that her mother didn’t like her calling grown-ups by their first names.

Janice stared at her daughter. Okay, the two men seemed to get along at lunch, but Gordon just wasn’t in Philippe’s league. Philippe had things together while Gordon was a loosely wound ball of yarn, ready to come apart at the slightest push. “Why would he be going there?”

“To play poker,” Kelli volunteered brightly.

Janice’s mouth dropped open. Poker? Had he gotten caught up in a new obsession? Gordon didn’t do things by half measures. If he started seeing someone, he was planning marriage by the end of the first date. She’d seen him through a number of dependencies, including food and alcohol. He didn’t know how to do anything in moderation—except work, she thought cynically. These days, she was working like a dog not only to pay her own bills, but to help Gordon meet his bankruptcy payments as well. The faster that was paid off, the sooner he’d be able to get on his own two feet.

A cold shiver went down her spine. That wasn’t going to happen if he’d taken up gambling.

She rose to her feet, putting her hand out to her daughter. “C’mon, honey.”

Kelli scooted off the sofa, taking her mother’s hand. “Where are we going?”

“Well, you’re going to Mrs. Addison.” A grandmother three times over, the woman had made it known that she was willing to babysit in the evenings, especially if there was an emergency. This definitely qualified. “I’m going to Mr. Zabelle’s house to bring back Uncle Gordon before he finds another pit to fall into.”

It was obvious that Kelli didn’t quite understand what she was talking about, but she’d latched onto the one thing that was clear to her. Her mother was going to see Philippe. “Mr. Zabelle? Why can’t I go with you?”

Janice grabbed her purse out of the closet. Slinging it over her shoulder, she headed for the front door with Kelli in tow. “Because Mama’s going to be using some grown-up words that you’re too young to hear.”

“I watch TV, Mama,” Kelli protested.

She locked the door behind her. “More grown-up than that,” Janice told her tersely.

Her tone was far from warm, but it wasn’t meant for Kelli. She was focused on Gordon, annoyed with him for blundering into yet another possible addiction. She wasn’t overly thrilled with Philippe either, even though the man had no way of knowing about her brother’s addictive personality.

But he would by the time the evening was through.

This was all she needed, Janice thought.

She struggled to keep her temper in-check. As she drove to Philippe’s, it was an effort to keep from pressing down on the accelerator and going over the speed limit.

For most of her adult life, she’d been bailing her brother out of one thing or another. His inability to recognize that he was being taken in by a series of women who only wanted what he could give them, had catapulted him into bankruptcy, which had led him into drinking and then overeating. She’d finally, finally gotten him to come around and be her assistant on these contracting jobs. And now he was sliding backward into something new.

She pressed her lips together, trying not to swear as she eased her foot off the gas. She was doing five miles over the speed limit.

Philippe was a bright man, couldn’t he see that Gordon had a weak, malleable personality?

Damn it, why did she have to be her brother’s keeper, anyway? She had enough to keep her busy.

Getting over that kiss, for instance.

The second she thought of it, of her involuntary reaction, Janice felt her skin tingling.

Get a grip, Janice. You’re supposed to be boiling mad, not a bowl of mush.

By the time she arrived at Philippe’s door, Janice was completely worked up. Instead of ringing the bell, she knocked. Pounded was more like it. The door had taken the place of her brother’s head.

Inside, Alain peered at his brother over a hand that would have gladdened the heart of a professional gambler.

Slim fingers folded the cards in his hand. Alain raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You expecting someone to come break down your door, Philippe?”

“Not tonight.” The pounding continued. He sighed, folded his cards and placed them facedown on the table. As he rose, he pointed to the hand. “Don’t anyone try to mess with that, I know what I have.”

“An unhealthy distrust of your relatives is what you have,” Georges commented. “Philippe’s blunt warning wasn’t meant for you,” he told Gordon. “He thinks we cheat. In reality, he’s not that hot a poker player.”

Gordon nodded, finding himself completely at ease in this company of men. It was a pleasant feeling, one he wasn’t accustomed to.

Philippe waved a hand at Georges. “I don’t cheat,” he declared as he opened the door. Turning, he was surprised and not a little pleased to see Janice standing there.

Her eyes were blazing. And there was something very stirring about the image she presented. “Did I forget something?”

“Yes,” she snapped, not waiting to be invited in. “Decency.”

He closed the door behind her. “No, I’m pretty sure I stocked up on that the last time I was at the store.” She wasn’t smiling. “What’s the matter?”

By now, she was no longer thinking rationally. God only knew how much Gordon could have lost. “How could you?” she demanded.

Philippe hadn’t a clue. “How could I what?”

She gritted her teeth. Without her experience of plucking Gordon out of precarious situations, she might have thought Philippe was innocent. “How could you invite my brother to your poker game?”

Philippe shoved his hands into his front pockets. Eventually this was going to make sense. He just had to be patient. “Pretty easily, actually. I said something like, ‘Gordon, want to come to a game I’m holding tonight?’ And he said yes.”

She struggled to keep her voice down. She didn’t want to embarrass her brother in front of other people, but she certainly didn’t want to have to bail him out any more than she was already doing.

“This isn’t funny, Zabelle,” she told him in a low, firm voice. “Gordon’s got an addictive personality. He doesn’t do anything in half measures.” She was rambling, she thought and reined herself in. “I can’t go into details, but this is really a very bad thing. You have to cut him off.”

Philippe still looked like the soul of innocence as he asked her, “You want me to cut off his colored toothpicks?”

About to shout “yes” she stopped and stared at him. “Colored toothpicks?”

He nodded, taking her arm. Thinking he was going to usher her out, she pulled it away. “That’s what we play for. Colored toothpicks.”

She wasn’t about to be distracted. There had to be more than that. “But they represent something, don’t they?”

Philippe nodded. “Well, yeah.”

To his credit, Zabelle didn’t even try to lie about it. Although that didn’t change the bottom line. “Gordon can’t afford it.”

Very complacently, Philippe placed his hands on her shoulders. That he was so calm only infuriated her further. “Janice, calm down. If he’s the big loser, he has to wash the big winner’s car or clean the big winner’s barbecue grill. Something along those lines.”

The fire went out of her eyes. “What? You don’t gamble for money?”

He shook his head. “We play for things, chores mostly. Playing relaxes us and it gives us a chance to get together.” He took a breath. Maybe she’d feel better if he explained a few things to her. Ordinarily, he didn’t like getting personal, but he made an exception. “My father was a professional gambler and he ‘professionally’ lost almost everything my mother worked for. I don’t even play the slot machines in Vegas. I don’t believe in real gambling, but this is just harmless fun, a way to knock off steam, get the adrenaline to kick in without any risk.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth, feeling somewhat foolish now. “Really?”

He laced his hand through hers. “Really.” He nodded toward the dining room. “Come see.”

“No, that’s okay,” she demurred. But he was already bringing her in.

Like a boy caught by his mother after curfew, Gordon looked both surprised and uneasy to see her. “What are you doing here?”

Before she could say anything, Philippe was quick to explain. “Janice thought she forgot one of her tools. I wanted to introduce her to you guys—in case any of you lugs has a remodeling job you want done.” Turning to her, he confided, “All of them are as handy as dried out paste.”

Georges merely laughed. “You should talk. At least I know what to do with pointy objects.”

Just standing there, listening to the exchange, she could feel the love in the room. It made her envious and long for a childhood she’d never had.

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