“Aww, Sean. I didn’t know you cared,” she said looking at him and the bird.
Oh, he cared. But not about the bird.
What he cared about was that she was on the bed with her arms over her head, gripping the headboard, her skirt hiked up over those amazing legs, and she was smiling at him as if she was damn glad to see him.
It was very obvious in these completely useless pants that he felt the same way.
And she noticed.
Her breathing changed. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted in a soft O that he wanted to taste.
“I’ll be watching you.” Orwell’s mimicry was perfectly timed.
Sean shook off his arousal as much as possible and tried to draw some clear, innocuous, safe thought into his head. “He uh . . .” He raised the hand that was Orwell’s perch. “Poo.”
She giggled. “I would’ve bet money you’d never have said that.”
“Why?” He winced as Orwell shifted on his fist. Those claws were sharp—and at this moment, very welcome.
“I don’t know. With how indignant you get about my animals, I would have thought such bodily functions were beneath you.”
There were some functions that he definitely wanted beneath him.
“Hey, I’ve been watching that dog all afternoon.” Georgia yipped at him as if it understood what he was saying. “And I’m concerned that parrot, er, droppings have enough acidity to peel the finish off the wood and he, you know . . . where you perched him.”
He grabbed the rag out of his back pocket—the one he was now going to keep in his waistband, draped over one area in particular—and started wiping away the offensive matter.
Which was enough to wobble the finial on the post.
Shit.
No pun intended.
“Is that loose?” Livvy sat up on the bed, her hair all mussed up, her skirt all hiked up, and his libido all jacked up.
“I wonder . . .” She walked across the bed on her knees and Sean mentally undressed her while she did so.
He was a dog. Worse than any of those snoozing in this very room. Why the hell couldn’t he focus on what was important?
You are.
Yeah, his conscience could go take a flying leap. Women were a dime a dozen; Livvy wasn’t so special. Certainly not worth giving up potential millions of dollars and his brothers’ faith, trust, and respect.
Keep telling yourself that.
Livvy wrapped her hand around the post, her fingers brushing his.
He was in so much freaking trouble because he couldn’t kid himself. There weren’t any other women like Livvy.
She unscrewed the finial.
“Oooh! Look!”
He was and it was a beautiful sight.
He didn’t mean the clue.
Livvy’s eyes lit up and her smile slid through him like sunshine on a spring day. She was everything good and light and right with the world.
And now he was sounding like Merriweather and her blasted poetry.
Livvy pulled out her grandmother’s latest installment. Sean stuck the rag into his waistband and pulled out his cell phone. He hit the microphone app. It’d save on translation time.
She read:
Lord William Martinson the first,
Lost three babes as if cursed
The last, yet another son,
He declared to be the one
To raise the profile of their family
From gentry to noble dynasty.
She folded the clue and tapped her lips with it, tilting her head to the side, exposing that soft curve of her neck that he hadn’t had nearly enough time to explore on the two short kisses they’d shared, and Sean could only imagine the hidden delights he’d find there—
“Watching you.” Orwell wasn’t one to let silence go to waste.
“So what’s it mean?” He hit the off button on his app and stuck his cell back in his pocket, more to give himself something to do so he wouldn’t stand there and moon over her.
“I don’t know, but it’s all so pretentious,” said Livvy. “Who cares, really? We’re not in feudal England anymore. The serfs now work at Microsoft and some of them earn more than a lot of the outdated royal houses these days. The American dream. Yet my grandmother persisted in perpetuating this monarchical ideal that she now wants to pass on to me. I don’t get it.”
“But do you get this?” Sean tapped the clue, trying to keep the focus on business, not how wistful she looked.
Livvy flicked the clue between her fingers. “I guess we have to find out who Lord Martinson’s fourth son was. Then figure out what he did that was so wonderful.”
She swung one leg off the bed, bobbling a bit as she gained her balance, using his arm to do so, and as far as Sean was concerned, the most wonderful thing William’s son had done was to keep the family tree going, right down the line to Livvy.
Chapter Fifteen
YOU’RE sure you’re not hungry? I can make you some lunch.” Livvy leaned against the back door in the kitchen after letting the dogs out and looked at Sean.
He looked really good. Too good.
And he’d thought the same thing about her.
Eyes above the waist, Carolla.
Right. She kept them firmly planted on his face—not that that was a hardship, but she’d seen his reaction upstairs in the bedroom. Kind of hard to miss, since she’d been practically eye level with it and those pants couldn’t keep a secret.
“No, I have to finish the last few stalls in the barn. The goats are a little too energetic for just one and Reggie has been bothering the geese, so he needs a place.”
“Yeah, but you have to eat something. And I did do all that food shopping.” She should stop begging. It wasn’t attractive—not that she was trying to be attractive. She wasn’t.
Was she?
Livvy bit her lip. He really was good-looking, and the chemistry between them . . . phew. Had Merriweather seen that coming when she’d put in this stupid stipulation? Surely, her grandmother couldn’t want her to mingle with the help? How de trop that would be . . .
The perfect reason to mingle with him. If she needed another reason, that was.
He stood in the doorway to the kitchen after she walked in. “What did you have in mind?”
For a second, Livvy just stared at him. She ought to tell him what she had in mind.
“I am kind of hungry. Do you have anything, you know, normal?”
Oh. Food. Lunch. Right. Livvy got her brain back into this room and not the little trip down Sexy Lane it’d gone on.
“Normal? What, exactly, constitutes normal? ’Cause those phosphates and tri-whatever-o-cides aren’t normal. Those are man-made. What I make is organic. Good for you. As nature intended, not big pesticide companies.” She grabbed the grass-fed cow’s milk cheese she’d been thrilled to find, and a loaf of her favorite bread, some brown sugar, pecan mustard, the jar of organic pickles, a tomato, and a mango. “Sit. It won’t take me long. I guarantee you’ll love my grilled cheese.”
She loved watching him set the table. So much so that she almost burned the sandwich, all those muscles flexing and bunching and tightening . . .
A few things of her own were tightening.
She hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind all last night. That moment when they’d been in her grandmother’s bedroom earlier—on the bed—he’d looked at her that way. She’d known exactly what that look had meant and her blood had started to boil. Her nerve endings had gotten all tingly and her breathing had gone for a hike.
Livvy squirmed a bit as she carried the sandwiches over to the table.
He ran his tongue over his lips. “Wow, that looks good.”
He had noooo idea . . .
The dish rattled as she went to set it on the table. Luckily, Sean took it from her and
set it down gently. “What can I get you to drink?”
A bucket of ice water and pour it over me. “Um, the iced tea is fine. I steeped it overnight.” She’d liquefied the raw sugar crystals this morning and mixed them with some fresh-squeezed lemon, then added mint extract in her own secret ratio. A line of herbed teas was going to be her next venture.
Sean brought two glasses back to the table. “You even make it look nice,” he said, handing her her drink as he straddled the chair beside her.
“The presentation should be as good as the food.” She alternated the tomato slices with mango and pickle for a bit of sweet, a bit of tart, and a bit of spice, the perfect complement to the sharp cheese. “Bon appétit.”
She watched him take a bite. She loved watching people’s reactions to her food. Most were so ingrained in their normal rigmarole that they couldn’t see outside the box to appreciate what she’d come up with. But when they did, when they tried her creations, they were usually very pleasantly surprised.
She had a feeling Sean was one of those people, so into his daily routine, doing everything the way he’d always done it, that having her around rattled his cage a little.
It certainly rattled hers.
“My God, Livvy, this is amazing.”
So was the way he licked a spot of mustard off his bottom lip.
She wanted him.
Plain and simple, she wanted Sean. And if that rise in his pants earlier was anything to go by, he wanted her, too.
And what was wrong with that? Two consenting adults . . .
Though it wasn’t as if she could just lean across the table and plant one on him, then sweep everything to the floor and make mad, passionate love on this three-hundred-year-old oak table—
And why not?
“So,” said Sean, taking a bite, “I was thinking we ought to check the family bible again and see who this fourth son was. Maybe it will spark an idea of where she would have hidden the clue.”
Oh. Right. That’s why not. She was on a deadline.
“Livvy?”
“Thinking.” But not about the clues. “You’re right; the bible is probably a good place to start. Looks like anyone who’s anyone in the Martinson family is listed, so it should tell us something.”
“Is your name in there?” He took another bite and the muscles in his cheek clenched, giving him a very square jaw that was more than a little manly.
He was so well suited for this job. “My name? I doubt it. I’m not a Martinson.”
“On paper, no, but by blood you are. I would think Merriweather would have put your name in there, even if it was only after she wrote her will.”
Livvy picked up her sandwich and stared at the melted cheese oozing from beneath the crust. “You obviously didn’t know her well. I wouldn’t be surprised if they never served olives at any function here just so there’d be no chance my name would be uttered. I mean, did she ever mention me to you?”
“No.”
“And how long have you worked for her?”
“Uh . . .” He took a bite of his sandwich. Then a long drink of the tea. Then a few mango slices. Crunched on a pickle.
“Must have been quite the experience if you don’t want to talk about it,” she said, scooping a couple of her mango slices onto his plate.
“Definitely an experience knowing ol’ Merriweather.” He swirled the tea around in his glass. “This is really good. You ought to bottle it and sell it.”
“That’s the idea. But it’s a big start-up expense with all the bottling and the labeling and keeping it chilled, plus the tea is a bit pricey. But once I sell this place, I’ll have that money.”
Sean choked on the sip of tea he’d just taken. Nothing like making her feel guilty. “Oh, don’t worry, Sean. I’ll think of something to do with you when I do.”
Sean coughed. “Do with me?”
“Well, yeah, you know, if I sell, you could be out of a job. But I figure anyone who can afford my asking price is going to be able to afford the monthly operating expenses as well, so they can keep you on as a condition of the sale. Or, if you’d like, I’ll roll your salary for say, what, two years, into the asking price. That way you don’t have to worry. I know how hard it is having your income pulled out from under you.”
He choked on the next swallow of tea.
Livvy hopped to her feet and pounded him on the back until his airway cleared. “You okay?”
He coughed, then coughed again, then swiped a hand across his mouth. “Uh, yeah. I’m good.”
He certainly was.
Livvy sighed as she sat back down in her chair. There. She’d told him. Now to get potential buyers to agree.
“How’d you come to be in this line of work?”
Sean looked up. “What?”
“I asked how you came to work as a maid. Lose a bet or something?”
There he went with the choking again. He downed his tea, coughed a whole bunch, and stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth—probably not the best idea given all the choking, but he was still chewing as he stood up and carried his dishes over to the sink. “We really ought to get a look at that bible. I have a feeling this clue is going to take a lot more effort to figure out than the others.”
AS they headed back into the library, Sean tried not to be impressed. He tried not to like her. He tried to look away and put her out of his mind.
But he did none of those things.
Because, yeah, she impressed the hell out of him. She was so fiercely independent, so determinedly self-reliant, and so sweet to worry about him that he couldn’t help but admire her. As a human being.
As a woman . . . well, that was a whole other level of interest.
This was not going to end well. It couldn’t. By its very nature one of them would lose. Sean was torn between praying that, whichever way it shook out, he wasn’t the biggest loser, but that would mean Livvy would be and . . . shit.
The bible gave them a name—and, no, Livvy’s name wasn’t in there—but it didn’t give them anything else.
They pulled out a history book from her ancestor’s lifetime, but for the guy who was to raise the family to dynastic proportions, there was woefully little about him.
“So is there something on the property with his name on it?” Livvy asked as she set the book back on the shelf. “A statue or plaque or monument or something do you know?”
Sean had been over most of the grounds and the only statues he’d seen were of Greek or Roman gods. “Only thing I’ve seen honoring your ancestors is the hall of portraits. Maybe it’s there.”
So much for Livvy’s assertion that Merriweather didn’t want her to find the clue. This one was attached to the back of the portrait of Lawrence Martinson I, Livvy’s father’s namesake, whose only claim to fame was to have twelve children. Eleven of whom were girls.
“You’d think my grandmother wouldn’t have named her son after someone who’d let the family name down by not producing enough male offspring,” said Livvy, tapping the next clue that was sending her back to the public library again tomorrow. “But then, I guess she never expected him to fail the family so spectacularly by choosing my mother and, worse, producing me.”
As far as Sean was concerned, Livvy’s father ought to be commended for that. “The failure was Merriweather’s, Livvy. Maybe that’s why your father chose your mother. He wanted to live his life on his terms, not Merriweather’s. Just like you.”
He knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment it left his mouth. Livvy had worked too hard to establish herself without the backing of the Martinson name. To compare her to the epitome of what she didn’t want to be . . . Sean braced himself for a rant.
Instead, he got a straightened backbone, a pair of narrowed eyes, and the most clipped voice he’d ever heard.
“I am not like my father and I nev
er will be. I am not a Martinson.”
Chapter Sixteen
LIKE her father? Livvy was still stewing about that conversation the next morning in the barn while she mucked out the stalls, the analogy for her life a little too close for comfort. She was not like her father. She was as far from being a Martinson as . . . as . . . as Reggie was.
Who was also a little too close for comfort, butting her in the butt when she went into his stall.
“I know, Reg, but you can’t sleep in the house. Sean’s right. I can’t let you guys destroy it in a fit of pique. I want to get as much money as I can for the place. I’ll give you your own room when I redo our farm.” She petted his cheek. He liked that. He also liked her to scratch under his chin, too, but he was usually too “drool-y” and she didn’t have anything to wipe it off with. He purred as well as a pig could purr as he leaned into her hand.
Livvy had to sidestep to keep her balance. Reggie had gotten a lot stronger as he’d gotten bigger. This barn would be the perfect place for him. For all the animals. The peacocks apparently thought so. They’d even deigned to “accept” the chicken’s food.
Livvy shook her head as she shooed them away. She wasn’t staying. She had to get that out of her brain. Had Merriweather hoped the place would grow on her and she’d make it her home? Well, she had news for Merriweather Martinson, who, for all her money and her plans, didn’t get that timber and shingles didn’t make a home. Home was where she could feel safe. Rooted. It was her haven. Her spot in the world. This had never been and could never be that.
“Hello? Ms. Carolla?” A woman’s voice echoed through the barn accompanied by the excited snuffles of her so-not-watchdog dogs.
Livvy brushed her hands off. “Be right there.”
She hoisted the pitchfork onto a hook on the wall where Reggie couldn’t reach it and let herself out of his pen. A woman stood in the doorway, surrounded by the pack that were obviously willing to let her in with wagging tails. Livvy had always considered the dogs good judges of character. After what many of them had survived—neglect, cruelty, abandonment—they didn’t welcome strangers readily. It spoke well of this woman that they’d accepted her.
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