His Cinderella Housekeeper 3-in-1

by Various

  “Did you—”

  “Phillip, did you memorize your old list—”

  “I know what I wrote down—”

  This was bad.

  Cocking her head saucily, she’d shaken her yellow curls. To gain time she’d fluffed them around her shoulders. “Of course, I didn’t do those silly things on your silly list. There were way too many. If you knew anything—you’d know no woman could have done all that in one day—”

  “Of course you didn’t? What kind of employee are you?”

  “The same kind of boss you are. A good boss would praise me for making the kitchen look so wonderful. I rearranged—”

  “You hid everything. I couldn’t even find a spoon.”

  “It’s called finding a place for things and putting them where they belong. I even dusted behind the canisters and…and I bleached the sink.”

  He’d glared at her.

  “That wasn’t on my list.”

  “The porcelain was all yellow and stained.” She’d smiled.

  “Don’t forget this is my house. You work for me.”

  “I wouldn’t have to if you’d help me get a real job.”

  He’d jabbed at his eggplant. Then he’d begun to eat in silence. When he helped himself to seconds, she’d beamed. “How’s the eggplant Provençale by the way?”

  “Eggplant? I don’t eat eggplant!”

  “Then why is yours all gone?”

  He’d eyed his clean plate with amazement. “Because…because I was starving, that’s why!”

  “Because you liked it,” she’d amended gently.

  “I wrote steak at the top of my list.”

  “Have you been listening to me at all? I didn’t read your stupid list. I don’t do lists.”

  “I wanted steak.”

  “Hardening of the arteries,” she’d murmured. “Ever hear of that?”

  “What?”

  “Men in this country eat way too much red meat. You probably eat too much steak. At your age—”

  “You work for me.”

  “Aye. Aye.” She’d saluted him with her left hand.

  Before he thought, he’d almost saluted her. Then he’d clenched his fingers into a fist and slammed it on the table. “You haven’t done one single thing I wrote down today.”

  “Because you’re not a housekeeper or a cook. You don’t think about your health. In short, you don’t think like a woman…”

  “Thank God!”

  “You don’t have the least idea what to put on my list. You write down all these silly things that no woman in her right mind would ever do.”

  “Don’t be absurd. You work for me—a man, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Oh….” She’d slanted her long-lashed eyes his way. Then she’d batted them and given him a seductive smile. “Oh, I see. This isn’t about your list. You’re just sulking because I don’t want to share your bedroom.”

  “The hell I am.”

  “Then fire me.”

  “And you’d go?”

  “All you have to do is get me a real job.” She’d flashed him her most brilliant smile. “But if you won’t get me a real job, as a tiny concession…because you’re so stubborn, we’ll have steak tomorrow.”

  “I’m stubborn?”

  She’d giggled. “But no more than five ounces of red meat.”

  “You’re impossible.” But he’d grinned back at her.

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “You’ll really cook steak?”

  Over dessert, which was strawberries and fat-free, sugar-free vanilla ice cream, she’d said,

  “Since you’re not going to fire me…”

  “It doesn’t take much for you to get cocky—”

  “Which is a trait I share with you.”

  She knew she shouldn’t tease him. It made her remember how wonderful loving him had been. To break the spell, she’d sat up straighter and said, “Phillip, I need money.”

  “I knew it.”

  “Could I have an advance against my paycheck?”

  “An advance? Already?”

  “It’s important…or I wouldn’t ask.”

  “How much?”

  She’d named the exact amount she needed to pay Cole Yardley.

  Phillip had given her a sharp look, but he hadn’t asked what the money was for.

  “I owe somebody,” she’d blurted, on the defensive because she could tell he was suspicious.

  “That’s all.”

  “All right. We’ll leave it at that.”

  The next morning, she’d gone to the bank and the post office and sent Mr. Yardley a five-hundred-dollar money order.

  In a month, Phillip calmed down. He stopped writing lists. Maybe she’d worn him down. Or maybe he liked the way she did things more than he would admit. She wasn’t sure. When there were no more dead cows, she quit worrying that The Pope and Nero had discovered her hiding place.

  Growing up in so many homes, she’d learned there were lots of ways to run a household, and if she was going to be the woman of this house, especially when Phillip was a rancher and could pop in at any time, she had to do things her way. No woman in her right mind would let the man have the upper hand in such a situation.

  Last night he’d almost said he preferred her menus to his—before he’d caught himself. She cooked lots of vegetables. If she’d left things to him, he would have eaten steak and potatoes every night.

  Once things were easier between them, and she’d taught him she wasn’t some grunt he could boss around, new tensions, or maybe the same old tensions, began to build inside her. When they were in the same room, and he followed her with his eyes, she would feel the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She would blush and smile at him shyly, and he would look away too quickly.

  To avoid such scenes, she kept away from him. When he watched television in the living room, she stayed in the kitchen and read by herself. Not that she could totally ignore him even there. He’d laugh and she’d look up from her woman’s magazine and think about him in those ways she didn’t want to think about him.

  He was so big and broad-chested and tanned. And his mouth. Oh, dear. That warm, gorgeous, delicious- looking mouth of his. Just the thought of his mouth tickling her skin made her knot her hands in her lap and made her body get hot all over. Yes, even in the kitchen all by herself, knowing he was nearby made her edgy and restless and somehow unfulfilled. Before, he’d been affectionate all through the day. Seven years ago he used to come up behind her without warning and she’d feel his fingers at her nape and then his lips.

  Now, nights when he didn’t come home at his usual hour, she would run to the front door or watch the phone, waiting for it to ring. And all the time an ache in her stomach would worsen as she wondered where he was.

  She’d worry herself into a headache. Maybe he’d had an accident and had forgotten to put on his seat belt again. Maybe he’d fallen off the tractor or been gored. Maybe whoever had killed that cow had attacked Phillip. Not that Phillip ever told her his plans. Not that his whereabouts were any of her business. After all, they weren’t married. They weren’t even lovers. All they were was boss and employee. And as the weeks passed, both were more determined than ever that the other understood that. It was as if they’d drawn lines in the sand and dared one another not to step across. But she worried about him. She couldn’t stop herself. And she thought about him constantly. She even sang about him.

  When her chores were done, and she had nothing to do, she would go to her bedroom or sit on the front porch with her guitar and write songs. The best ones were always about Phillip.

  How could that be when he was her boss?

  What was she doing here? Was she crazy?

  When Phillip was away, she taped the songs and mailed them with a letter to a hot new producer, Greg Furman, in Nashville. Not that Furman ever wrote her back. Even so, she always felt a little guilty, as though she was going behind Phillip’s back, as though she should share
everything in her heart and soul with him.

  But her career was none of his business. What were they to each other, really? She was his maid and that was hardly the career she’d had in mind. Constantly, she had to work to remind herself that this wasn’t her home, that Phillip wasn’t her husband or even her lover, and that he never would be. But she thought about him when she was in bed, and she dreamed about him when she slept.

  She would wake up and tell herself she owed him nothing. Nothing but her friendship! She would tell herself that the next night she would refuse to think about him or dream about him, that she was her own person, and as such, she had to get her career back on track—as soon as possible. And yet…

  And yet the very next night, when she was alone in her narrow little bed again and he was such a short distance down the hall in his big double bed they’d shared and made passionate love in, staying in his house even for a few months would seem like a big mistake. A board would creak outside her room and she’d nearly jump out of her skin, thinking it might be Phillip at her door. Hoping it was, her heart would beat faster. She’d imagine his hand on her doorknob, and a bolt of heat would course through her. She’d sit up shivering expectantly.

  Then she’d realize he wasn’t there. She’d wrap her arms around herself and remember how it used to be when they’d lain in bed in each other’s arms.

  Even when they hadn’t been making love, they’d never kept to their own side of the bed.

  He’d held her close all night. Lying like that in his arms, she’d never felt so safe and so protected, at least, not since her mother had died and left her alone.

  “Oh, Phillip, Phillip, you drive me so crazy! What is wrong with me?” The harder she fought not to care about him, the more involved she became.

  One day when Celeste was out in the rocking chair, playing her guitar and singing on the porch, Phillip, who was supposed to be out in some far-flung pasture, stalked around the back of the house in a freshly starched white shirt and a pair of pressed jeans. He appeared so suddenly, he caught her singing about him.

  “I didn’t know I was on the road to nowhere when I left you…”

  Rocks spun from under his big boots as he came to a standstill in the gravel beside the back porch. “Celeste…”

  Instantly she stopped singing, the last word tumbling out of its phrase as if into a deep pool of clear green water. “You-u-u….”

  “You singing about me, girl?”

  For no reason at all, she couldn’t let go of his silver gaze. She wasn’t sure she’d ever noticed before that his pale gray irises were ringed with black.

  “Go on,” he whispered, looking up at her. “You’re great.”

  She plucked a guitar string, nervous at the thought of him listening. For a tough guy, he sure had pretty eyes.

  “Go on—please. You have a beautiful voice.”

  She leaned back in the rocker and resumed playing. “The lights ahead were so bright, they blinded me…”

  He seemed to hold his breath as he looked up at her and listened without comment.

  “I couldn’t see that fame and fortune weren’t enough/that without you, I’m on the road to nowhere.”

  “Did you write that?” he whispered.

  She nodded.

  “You still want to be a star?”

  “This star crashed and burned.”

  “What happened to you in Vegas?” He moved toward the porch.

  “I don’t want to go there. Please don’t ask.” Just the thought of Nero and The Pope still scared her to death.

  She averted her eyes, so Phillip wouldn’t see the guilt she felt for putting him in danger.

  “You’re a wonderful singer and a wonderful writer,” he said softly, placing a booted foot on the first step.

  “I was a one-song wonder, remember?” She bit her lip and shut her eyes.

  “Celeste—don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t have to be.”

  “What are you saying?” She couldn’t believe he was encouraging her. “Dinner’s ready,” she said.

  “I don’t give a damn about dinner.”

  He sprang up the stairs to the porch two at a time and sank down on his knees beside her rocking chair. She began to shake a little. Did he have to come so close? Did he know what he did to her?

  Her palms grew damp and she wiped them on her jeans, but there was no way she could calm the giddy wildness that made her heart flutter.

  “If you’ve got talent the way you do, can you really get it out of your system?” he persisted gently. “Can a dream like that die?”

  “I don’t want to talk about…”

  “What will happen to you if you let it die?”

  “I can’t believe you’re…” She didn’t trust herself to go on. His sensitive questions as well as his concern shook her more than anything he could have done or said. “Marines don’t talk about dreams.”

  “Yeah. We’re natural-born killing machines.”

  “Look. You were Alpha Force.”

  “I know what I was. I’m other things, too.”

  “I—I didn’t mean…”

  “Yeah, you did—”

  “I’m thirty-two,” she said.

  “Dreams don’t die because you get to a certain age. Thirty-two is young.”

  “People grow up,” she whispered.

  “Do they?”

  “They’re supposed to.” Talking about her music made her uncomfortable. “Aren’t you still the Marine who wants to serve his country, and you don’t care who you have to kill or if you die doing it?”

  “I retired. My Marine buddies say I’ve gone through my nine lives, that I’d better find the right woman, a churchgoing woman and settle down.”

  His teasing smile gave her a warm buzz. Before she thought, she grinned, too.

  “Churchgoing, huh? That’s not me, is it?” She blushed. “They’re right, you know. You should.”

  “I don’t go to church much—especially since you came home.”

  Home. This isn’t home. Why was that so hard for her to remember?

  “What are you saying?” she whispered.

  “I’m wondering why you came back to me.”

  “Back to Texas,” she corrected. “Not back to you.”

  “You knew I was here. Admit it.”

  Suddenly she started rubbing her arms as if there was a chill in the air.

  “Let’s quit fooling ourselves,” he said, his eyes dark and hot.

  “Phillip—”

  She stood and set her guitar in the rocker before backing toward the kitchen door.

  He crisscrossed his muscular forearms. “Damn it, I’ve tried not to look at you.”

  “Me, too,” she whispered, her voice thready.

  “And I’ve tried to avoid you.”

  “Me, too.”

  He scowled at her. “But you consume me.”

  “I—I don’t want to talk about this, either.” Jerkily she grabbed at the screen door.

  “Good. I don’t want to talk—period.” His hand seized hers. “At night I lie awake,” he began, his voice rough and strange.

  So did she. Not that she could admit it.

  “Don’t,” she whispered even though all her senses were clamoring for him to keep talking.

  “I still want you,” he rasped, sliding his work-roughened palms up her bare arms and making her gasp.

  “Phillip, I…”

  “Why the hell do you write songs about me, if it’s really over for you?”

  “I… That song wasn’t really about you.”

  “Right.” He laughed harshly. “You never were much of a liar. That’s one of the things I liked about you. You used to tell me everything. About those homes you lived in. About feeling so loved on that stage with your mother. I wanted to make you feel that loved. I tried so damn hard.”

  “Oh, Phillip. I know you did, and I did feel loved.”

  He
sighed.

  She bit her lip. “Until you went away.”

  He’d made her feel so loved, so adored. Then he’d gotten that phone call in the middle of the night and he’d gone off to the Middle East and gotten himself captured. She stopped herself from reliving the past.

  Oh, dear. It was all such a long time ago. Why were her feelings about him still so intense?

  Why?

  Phillip seemed to sense her vulnerability and pressed closer. “Just one kiss,” he whispered, clutching her hand again, pulling her into his body. “Is that so much to ask? One kiss? Just to see if you still taste the same. I’ve got to know.”

  “Maybe ignorance is bliss.”

  “Ah—bliss.”

  His eyes were on her lips, and she was staring at his mouth, too.

  When he moved toward her with a predatory male gleam in his eyes, she didn’t back away.

  He let her hand drop and began to stroke her hair and neck soothingly. She was trembling from his touch, and he was on fire with need.

  His skin was so hot, she caught fire, too. He lowered his lips to her temple and rained hot nibbles in her hair that sent little jolts of fire all through her. Without thinking she buried her face in the hollow of his warm throat and weakly kissed his mad pulse beat. He threw back his head, his gray eyes dark and wild with desire.

  After a few moments, holding each other made them want more. So much more. Blindly his mouth sought hers.

  Blindly, she opened her lips to his. Their mouths clung; their tongues mated. He groaned. His large hands pressed into the small of her back, shaping her against his muscular torso. He was thick and hard against her thigh.

  She wanted to unfasten his belt buckle, to rip it out of the denim loops, to unzip him…to…to… And all the time as their lips devoured each other, their hunger grew until she could barely breathe.

  There. This. She sighed heedlessly as the tumult from kissing him and holding him possessed her utterly. This is what I want. What I’ve wanted every night when I’ve lain awake. This.

  You!

  “Oh, Phillip—”

  “You’re still a perfect fit,” he muttered raggedly, his scorching mouth against her hot cheek now.

  “So are you.”

  “Wrap your legs around me.”

  “Out here?” she murmured.