Infatuation and Independence

by Jennifer Becton

  Fortunately, Mike hosted house sitters so frequently that he had an envelope of emergency information prepared. Kitty found it stuck to the fridge on a magnetic clip. According to the papers inside, she was supposed to use a local repair website called Project Partners where Mike had an account.

  Even better!

  Kitty booted up her laptop and found the Project Partners site, which was not to be what she expected. It wasn’t a single company, but rather a matchmaking website that connected the right local contractor to a complementary job. Each contractor had been vetted, background checked, and insured. It was all very efficient. All she had to do was describe her problem and the website matched her with a contractor who would arrive within the hour.

  That done, Kitty sat back, feeling proud of herself. Now, she just had to wait for the repairman to arrive, and she might as well do that under the gentle mountain sunshine on the other side of the back deck. Surely the whole floor wouldn’t give way if the hot tub crashed through one end.

  She hoped.

  Safely on her side of the deck, Kitty looked out over the mountain laurel and considered the distant treetops. Oaks, long-leaf pines, and evergreens covered the mountainsides in a quilt of varying shades of green. Clouds floated by on a canvas of blue. Birds called to each other, and butterflies danced on the soft breeze.

  Kitty ought to feel peaceful here. How could one feel out of sorts in surroundings like these? Her effervescent sister Lydia would hate it all, but she wasn’t Lydia. Kitty usually enjoyed the solitude of nature, but she never felt truly peaceful.

  So why would she expect to feel any different now? All her life, Kitty felt slightly out of sorts, different from the other children. She coughed her way through childhood asthma. Once she outgrew that trouble, others found her. Her mother was right. She just seemed prone to it.

  She shifted on the lounge chair, adjusting her cover up. She should be able to absorb the mountain’s peace. Kitty Bennet, the inept follower, had already overcome so much. She had survived for weeks on her own and was soon to avert two more crises all by herself. The hot tub would soon be fixed, and Georgie would have a budget to follow out of debt.

  But what good would that do her? Other than proving that she could hire a repairman and do math, not much.

  Kitty was supposed to be finding herself. By now, she ought to be well on her way to figuring out what to do with the rest of her life. So far, she was no closer to a decision than she’d been when she first arrived.

  She needed a nudge in the right direction. She could hear Mary’s suggestion now.

  Psychology and science could help her choose her career based on her own character traits. A personality assessment test should help guide her in the right direction. It sounded reasonable. So Kitty picked up her tablet and worked through a lengthy online personality assessment. Upon giving her last response, she waited impatiently for the verdict.

  She skimmed the summary of her personality traits, which seemed fairly accurate. It indicated that people like Kitty cared about helping other people. And though she was good at reading other people’s feelings, she had trouble assessing and sharing her own. That was probably why she followed everyone else’s advice and why she was having trouble finding herself now.

  Great. Her tendency to follow made sense based on her dominant personality traits, but the assessment didn’t tell her how to overcome this weakness.

  Sighing, Kitty went on to read the list of potential careers. Apparently, her degree in business was totally wrong for her personality! There wasn’t anything remotely business related in the whole list. Was she going to have to go back to school to be a—she scanned the list again—dentist?

  Ick! No. She didn’t want to work in people’s mouths all day.

  Clinical psychologist?

  Guidance counselor?

  She shoved aside the tablet. That stupid test was supposed to help her, but it seemed to point her in the opposite direction from where she’d been heading. This was hopeless. She didn’t want to go back to school. Maybe she should just take the job with Uncle Edward and be done with it. Maybe she was just destined to be a follower.

  “What a waste of half an hour,” she told no one.

  The doorbell chimed.

  Georgie must have arrived.

  Pleased to have an excuse to stop thinking about that stupid personality un-assessment, Kitty hurried to the door and flung it open.

  But Georgie wasn’t on the other side.

  The good-looking man from the roadside stood there. Kitty had been trying not to think about him for weeks now. Was she going crazy? Had her traitorous mind conjured him on her doorstep in Georgie’s place?

  She blinked, trying to clear her vision. But it was really him.

  “You!” Kitty blurted, automatically tucking her cover-up tighter over her bathing suit. “What are you doing here? Did you follow me home or something?”

  The man—Josh P-something—looked just as surprised as she felt, and Kitty calmed a bit. He wasn’t expecting to see her anymore than she had been expecting him.

  “I got a project request for a leaky hot tub from…a Mike Fitzwilliam at this address. You aren’t Mike Fitzwilliam,” he said, looking down at the tablet he held. Then, his blue eyes returned to her face in question. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam?”

  “Um, no. Mike is my brother-in-law’s cousin. I’m house sitting.” Kitty narrowed her eyes at him. “I do have a leaky hot tub, but I used a website called Project Partners. I certainly didn’t call you!”

  “I’m with Project Partners,” he said, showing her his credentials. “The website matches independent contractors with jobs. The site matched us up.”

  Thinking of his invitation for a date, Kitty felt a tingle of attraction start low in her belly. He was right. The website had matched them. And she’d been unable to get him out of her head for weeks. Maybe this was fate.

  Looking away from the paperwork, she glanced at Josh through her lashes. She found him looking at her with open admiration in his gaze.

  In response, Kitty flushed, and the little tingle of attraction intensified. “The site matched your skills to my job.” She cleared her throat. “That’s all.”

  “Whatever you say, Miss—” He raised a brow at her. “I didn’t get your name last time.”

  “Bennet,” she admitted, meeting his eyes. “Kitty Bennet.”

  Clearly pleased with himself, Josh grinned at her. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Bennet.”

  Josh extended his hand, and when Kitty’s palm met his, something passed between them. What had been a small tingle of attraction morphed into a full-fledged jolt of interest.

  If the ardent look in his eyes were any indication, Josh was still interested in her too.

  Kitty blushed and barely contained the nervous giggle that welled up in her chest. Josh’s gaze heated.

  Realizing the direction of her thoughts, Kitty slid her hand from his grasp and looked away from his blue eyes.

  The timing really was unfortunate. Kitty was supposed to be getting to know herself, not getting to know the local repairman.

  Besides, she was only in Rosings Park for the summer. There was no point in indulging her fledgling desires for a man who lived here permanently. It would never work out.

  “Um,” she said, desperately trying to gather her wits about her. “Come in.”

  He walked into the foyer, and Kitty shut the door behind him. When she turned to face him, she found Josh admiring her once more. Still painfully aware that she was standing in front of him in her bikini with only her sheer top to cover her, she pointed him toward the back deck.

  “The hot tub is out there,” she said. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  With that, Kitty fled to her bedroom to dress with only a quick glance over her shoulder just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of Josh’s tight backside as he went through the french door.

  Just one more image of Josh that Kitty would have to force herself to forget.
r />   Or maybe not.

  By the time Kitty changed into jeans and a T-shirt, she had almost decided to give in to the temptation to pull a full-on Lydia and indulge herself with Josh Parrish. Knowing he was on the deck made Kitty feel as carefree and giddy as a teenager at her first boy-girl party.

  It didn’t help that Kitty could hear Lydia’s advice echoing through her head: never deny yourself the pleasure of a good-looking man.

  And for the first time in a long while, Kitty wanted to indulge.

  Poised to go straight to the deck and flirt shamelessly with Josh, Kitty grimaced when the doorbell rang again.

  Torn between disappointment and relief, Kitty bypassed the deck and headed toward the front door instead.

  It was probably a good thing that Georgie had arrived. Kitty needed her as a buffer because she obviously wasn’t as immune to handsome gentlemen as she liked to think. After only two short meetings with Josh, Kitty had nearly forgotten why she was in Rosings in the first place. Was she no better than Lydia or the Queen Mum?

  She might be attracted to Josh, but unlike impulsive Lydia, she was going to take time to think about that development before acting on it.

  Again, Kitty opened the door, and this time, she found Georgie on the stoop, dressed from head to toe in designer fashion with her classic Mercedes in the driveway behind the old work truck. Georgie was a lucky young woman to have been given so much. When Georgie raised her dark head, her deep brown eyes were full of contrition.

  “I’m so sorry to bring my troubles literally to your doorstep,” Georgie said, handing her a huge folder of papers. “I don’t know how to fix this. I’m going to disappoint Will big time, and that’s the last thing I want to do.”

  Kitty took the folder and ushered Georgie inside, shutting the door behind them. Sensing that Georgie was truly feeling the burden of her bad choices in a way that Lydia never did, Kitty enveloped the slight girl in a hug. “Will has a right to be upset at first, but it’s going to be fine in the end,” Kitty assured her as she led her to the kitchen table.

  Georgie made a noise that was somewhere between misery and doubt.

  “He’ll see that you have a plan to pay this off. That will help him to see that you’re growing up and taking responsibility for your own actions.”

  Georgie flopped onto a chair, and Kitty decided to give her a minute to regroup. She poured two glasses of sweet tea and set them on the table.

  “Who’s that?” Georgie asked, nodding out the window.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Josh, who was assessing the damage to the hot tub. “Repairman. He’s here to fix the hot tub. It’s leaking.”

  “Oh. That must be his truck in the driveway,” Georgie said. Then, she leaned in to whisper. “He’s cute.”

  Kitty glanced out the window too, wondering if Josh could hear their conversation. She could hear him clanking around out there, so he probably could. At least Georgie had the good sense to whisper her opinion of his looks.

  Georgie obviously had good taste in men. Kitty grinned at her.

  “He’s not bad,” Kitty agreed in a whisper. “But we’re not here to talk about cute boys. Let’s see what you’ve got here.”

  A few hours later, Kitty and Georgie had banged out a plan for paying her debts. In the meantime, Josh came and went for some hot tub tools or parts or something. But for the most part, Kitty forgot he was there while she figured up a new budget for Georgie.

  Much to the girl’s chagrin, it involved after-school employment and absolutely no more shopping trips—with or without Caroline Bingley. Kitty had prioritized the cards in the order they ought to be paid off and recommended which accounts should be closed after their balance was paid off.

  “Do you have any idea what kind of job you might get?” Kitty asked, looking at Georgie over the laptop she had been using to create the budget.

  “At first, I thought it might be fun to work at the mall, but that’s probably a bad idea.” She gestured at the pile of bills on the table. “A bunch of my friends work at the Lambton Restaurant, and they make a ton in tips during the summer tourist season. I figure I can’t get into as much trouble waiting tables or being a hostess.”

  “Very sensible,” Kitty agreed, impressed with how easily Georgie made a decision. That would have taken Kitty a month—or more—to come up with.

  “Unless I start eating everything in sight, then I’ll have to make a change.”

  Kitty considered Georgie’s slim form. She was the sort of fortunate individual who seemed to be able to eat whatever she wanted without gaining an ounce. She might not be able to control herself at the mall, but she would be fine surrounded by food all day.

  “I doubt that’ll be a problem,” Kitty assured her. “You have the metabolism of a marathon runner.”

  “The fastest metabolism in the world won’t do much good when I confess this mess to Will.” She cocked her head to the side. “Are you sure I have to?”

  “He’s going to find out anyway,” Kitty pointed out. “It’s better if it comes from you. Just say what needs to be said, and get straight to the point.”

  Georgie put her head in her hands. “I feel so stupid and ungrateful. I mean, Will always makes sure I have everything I need, and yet…here I am. Overspending. He should be disappointed in me. I’m disappointed in me.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes, Georgie. You’re showing real maturity by coming to me for help. The only reason anyone should be truly disappointed is if you didn’t learn from this.”

  “Still, Will’s going to be so upset with me….”

  “Trust me,” Kitty said, patting her hand. “He’ll get over it. Show Will the plan we came up with, and if he has questions, he can call me.”

  Georgie leapt up and wrapped her arms around Kitty. “Thank you, Kitty,” she said, giving her an extra squeeze. “You’re really good at this.”

  Kitty considered her words. They reflected much of what Kitty felt. “Too bad I can’t make a living helping wayward young women get control of their finances,” she lamented.

  “Why couldn’t you?” Georgie asked, flopping back to her seat. “It’s a great idea. I can’t be the only person who ever went a little nuts with their credit cards. You could help a lot of people.”

  “That’s true, but if I sent you a bill for my services, how would you pay me?”

  “Oh, right. Good point,” Georgie said, pouting a bit. “But it’s really too bad. You have a gift for this stuff.”

  It was too bad because Kitty truly liked the idea of helping people with money problems. Sometimes, people needed someone to help them out of debt. But Kitty couldn’t help them for free. It was a total catch-22.

  When Georgie headed back to Pemberley to confess her circumstances to Will, Kitty had to stop ignoring Josh Parrish. She sidled onto the porch to find Josh crouched beside the open side panel of the hot tub. She was only a little distracted by the way his biceps stretched the material of his shirt as he worked.

  “Everything going okay?” she asked, forcing herself to look away from his athletic body and focus on the work he was doing. The water level in the spa was back to normal, and the jets were running.

  “I think you’re good to go,” Josh said, standing and brushing his wet hands on his jeans. He rounded the hot tub and showed her a cracked piece of clear hose. “I replaced this leaky hose and resealed the connections. I haven’t seen any other leaks yet.”

  “Great,” Kitty said, heading around the side of the tub to peek into the open panel. She didn’t see any leaks either. “And the water didn’t damage the deck?”

  “No,” he replied without any sign that he thought the question foolish. In fact, he leaned down and traced one large palm along the deck floor. “I think you caught the problem fairly early. There wasn’t enough time to do damage to the wood below.”

  Kitty breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t damaged Mike’s property, and there was no danger of her falling through herself. She cleared her thro
at. “How do I pay you?”

  “It’s all done through the website,” Josh said. He reached down and picked up her tablet, which she’d left on the chair. “All you have to do is say the job was done to your satisfaction, and the credit card on file will be billed.”

  As he handed her the tablet, the screen came on, and he glanced down at it.

  Kitty felt a moment of embarrassment when she realized that her personality assessment results were now visible to him. She met his gaze over the tablet.

  “Been taking personality tests?” he asked, again without a trace of derision in his tone. He relinquished the tablet. “I took one in college. It said I should be an entrepreneur or a garbage collector.”

  “I got dentist,” Kitty said with a laugh. “Or guidance counselor. Which is a good joke since I have no idea what kind of life I want for myself. I can’t very well provide guidance for young people.”

  He laughed a little too hard at that.

  She glared at him. “It wasn’t that funny.”

  “It’s just….” He paused and gave her a considering look. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem like someone who doesn’t know what you want out of life. You’re one of the most sure-of-herself females I’ve ever met.”

  Surprised, Kitty automatically objected. “That’s not true. I have no idea what I’m doing half the time.”

  “I don’t buy it.” Josh shook his head. “You’re the kind of woman who would nearly crash into a bed in the middle of the road and get a flat tire—”

  “That hardly means I’m sure of myself.”

  “Yet, you refused my offer of help because you knew you could change the tire yourself.” His blue eyes turned admiring. “I like a woman who can handle herself.”

  “Handle myself?” Kitty scoffed, even though his praise made her feel things for him that she shouldn’t. “Tell that to my family. They think I’m an accident waiting to happen.”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes those closest to us have the hardest time seeing us clearly.”

  Kitty pondered his words. Could that be true? Maybe. After all, her mother was blind to Lydia’s faults to this very day. Maybe she was wrong about Kitty too.