“We’re following the clues. Tomorrow we’re chasing down baby cradles.”
Liam arched an eyebrow. “You realize that’s a dangerous line of thought around any woman, right?”
Sean ignored the stirring in his dick. “Trust me; it’s not an issue.”
“Famous last words.” Liam exhaled. “Come on. Let’s get this torture over with.”
And torture it was. Sean found himself looking at Livvy’s backside more than he did the ball. And Liam, for all his disgusted attitude with the tall, pink, frothy milkshake that was his client, was just as easily distracted, missing the return to Livvy’s serve.
“Woo hoo! Score one for me!” Livvy came bouncing over to Sean to high five him in all her bouncy glory.
Good lord, to hell with the cup he should have worn; she needed a sports bra. Several of them. Because the one she had on might as well not even have been there, and that’s if she even had one on. He could see her nipples beneath her shirt.
“Sean?”
He shook his head. “Yeah?”
“Aren’t you excited?”
Like she wouldn’t believe. “Sorry?”
“We’re winning.”
“Oh. Right.” He smacked her palm with his. “But it’s still a long way to go to fifteen.”
“And don’t get too comfortable with a one-point lead. Cass and I will have you eating our dust,” Liam grumbled as he tossed Sean the ball.
“Cass-i-dy, Liam. I don’t like Cass.” Ms. Davenport tucked her already tucked-in, figure-hugging, baby-pink T-shirt into her white shorts. She ought to be more concerned with the rhinestones ringing the neckline because Sean could just see them bouncing all over the floor if someone ran into her.
The look on Liam’s face as she corrected him said Lee might actually do that. “Serve, Sean,” he said between gritted teeth.
Yeah, it was going to be a long game.
A sweaty one, too. The girls were, for all their inappropriate clothing, pretty athletic. Livvy made those beads bounce and sway as she covered the court, returning the rally before there was a second bounce. He was suitably—and surprisingly—impressed.
“You need a break, yet, Cass?” Liam had been using that nickname ever since Cassidy said she didn’t like it. Sean could have told her that would happen. Cassidy was the exact type Liam had learned to not appreciate, and shame on Mac for pairing him up with her. His last serious girlfriend had been just like Cassidy: a woman who’d looked to the men in her life to take care of her. They’d all wondered why Liam had been so whipped but hadn’t said anything to him. It was the Bro-Code. Unless they caught a girlfriend cheating or something equally as awful, they supported their brother’s choice. So when she’d turned out to actually have someone on the side that they all hadn’t realized, it’d come as a huge blow to Lee, and he’d sworn off women ever since. It was just cruel of Mac to give him the most high-maintenance client she had.
“Sean, you gonna serve it or stare at it? I don’t have all night, you know.”
Liam was lunging from side to side and twirling his racket handle in his palm as if this were a high-stakes game.
“Come on, Sean. I’m ready.” Livvy smiled at him and Sean wanted to show her just how ready he was—
Okay, so maybe there were some pretty high stakes.
She looked so damn adorable. And sexy as hell. And that combination was guaranteed to suck his brain out through his—
He served.
And fell short.
“One more, Sean,” Lee growled triumphantly behind him. “You lose the serve, you can kiss this game good-bye.”
Sean didn’t, managing to get his head in the game just enough, and he and Livvy scored another two points before the serve changed teams.
“Ladies first.” Liam swept his arm wide toward Cassidy and bounced her the ball. “Let’s show these two how it’s done, Cass.”
She glared at him through her rhinestone-studded—of course—protective glasses.
But she had a wicked serve and Sean had to concentrate on returning it. Then Liam got in on the act and suddenly the game became cutthroat. Sean might have been amazed the girls were keeping up if he had time to be amazed. The rally came at him fast and furious. Cassidy was no slouch in the racquetball department, but poor Livvy was out of her league.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered as she cost them their fourth consecutive point. “I guess I’m a lot rustier than I thought.”
Sean patted her on the shoulder. “Buck up. We’re only two points down.”
“Yeah, but we were up four.”
“We’ll come back.”
“If you say so.”
He tried to get them within a point or two, but Liam-on-a-mission and country-club-racquetball-team-member Cassidy barely gave up the serve. The third time they did, Sean could swear a look passed between them—and it wasn’t the antagonistic ones they’d started out with.
“Come on, Liv, perk up,” he whispered as he walked behind her to take his spot on the backcourt. “You’re doing great.”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “I’d hate to see your definition of bad if you think this is great.”
He had to hand it to her, though; she didn’t give up. She kept running all over that court, taking a couple of shoulders to the wall when her momentum kept her moving forward. She was going to have some nasty bruises.
And he wanted to kiss each one.
“Score!” Liam raised his arms and whooped it up when Sean missed the rally. Cassidy was jumping up and down, something he’d normally enjoy if a) he wasn’t losing, b) Liam wasn’t looking so interested in that jumping, and c) Livvy weren’t so down about their point count.
He dropped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Liv, we can do this. Think back to what we did at the beginning. We were on top. Let’s go back to whatever it was we were doing then and turn this thing around. I know we can.”
She looked up at him under her lashes and Sean was struck by how long they were. And that they weren’t brown like he’d thought, but more of a rust color. No, not rust. Wine. Yes, that’s it. They were wine colored. Just like her hair. It wasn’t your typical shade of red; it had some brown and some orange and maybe even some blonde through it. It looked like a shimmery mass of wine-colored curls pulled back into a ponytail with a few errant ones that escaped to twist damply against her jaw. Her throat. The back of her neck . . .
“Can we do it, Sean?”
They could do it and whatever else she wanted anytime she wanted—
“Uh, yeah.” He dropped his arm. “We can beat them.” Right. Them. Cassidy and Liam. The other team. In the game. Racquetball. “We just have to focus.”
On the game. On the racquet. On the ball. Nothing more.
“You’re going down, Sean.” Liam had a wicked gleam in his eye and a cocky grin on his face. “Ready to cry like a baby?”
“Bring it on, bro.” He braced his feet apart, put some bend in his knees, and waited for Liam’s serve.
It was fast and it was powerful and Sean relished the chance to smash something. He drove the ball into the back wall with enough force to shoot it between Liam and Cassidy with so much momentum that he was glad one of them hadn’t been in its path.
Cassidy hit it after the bounce with just enough power to almost put it out of Livvy’s reach.
Livvy lunged, saving the rally at the last second as she took a dive to the floor.
Sean wanted to run over at her oomph, but Liam wasn’t backing down. Of course, none of the brothers ever did when it came to sports, but Lee seemed to have forgotten that they were playing with women this time, and spiked that ball so hard, it whistled as it flew toward him.
Sean took the shot, feeling the power reverberate up his arm despite the give in the racket and the absorption of his glove.
The
n it was Cassidy’s turn and once again, she returned it smoothly. Even looked good doing it. Did they teach that at boarding school or finishing school or wherever it was that girls like her went to learn the nonessential things in life like flower arranging and dinner table setting?
Livvy lunged again, this time her palms smacking the floor when she landed. Sean winced, trying to make sure she was okay out of the corner of his eye while still trying to watch Liam.
Liam wasn’t giving anything away. He smashed the ball again. Sean had to make a quick half turn to get into position, losing the momentum behind his swing, but luckily managed to get it back to the wall for Cassidy’s turn.
She lobbed it beautifully. Classic swing . . . if she were playing golf, one leg on-point, knee turned in, back gracefully arched.
Poor Livvy reminded him of Reggie after that storm: soaked hair clinging to a face that was red with exhaustion, her nose even redder from where she must have smacked it on the floor on one of her lunges, her clothing askew and sticking to her in sweaty patches, the hem of that ridiculous skirt cockeyed, the beads clacking loudly.
She looked utterly beautiful to him.
And that’s when Sean missed the next rally.
“Winner!” Liam’s racket went clattering to the floor as he swept Cassidy up in his arms and twirled her around, their heads thrown back laughing. Gloating.
Sean rubbed his triceps. Damn ball hurt. He was going to have a bruise. Not that he was vain enough to care, but it’d linger—which meant Liam would draw out his crowing about the victory for at least that long, and the story he’d invent would become consecutively inversely proportional to the color of the bruising.
“Sorry.” Livvy brushed her shoulder against his other arm.
The sizzle that accompanied it hit him harder than the ball had. He ran his hand over her shoulder. “Hey, don’t take it so hard. It’s just a game.” If this had just been between him and Liam, he would have choked on those words.
“I know, but I wanted to win. You did, too.”
“We’ll get them the next time.” Oh, great. He’d just signed himself up for another round of torture.
Needing a distraction from that thought, Sean turned around. “So Lee, you and Cassidy want to—”
Sean shut up. Lee and Cassidy did want to if that long slow slide she did down his body was anything to go by. And Lee wasn’t letting go.
But then he was. Quickly. And so was Cassidy, practically stumbling to get away from Liam.
This wasn’t good. Liam had gotten burned once already by a woman like Cassidy Davenport.
“You guys want to go grab something to eat?” Sean asked. Forget the rematch; Liam driving Cassidy home alone right now was not in his brother’s best interests.
Surprisingly though, Liam did manage to tear his gaze away from the tall, sexy definition of a bad idea.
Good. Maybe he wasn’t as into her as it appeared.
“Thanks, but I have to go to the office.”
Lee did a hell of a good impersonation of someone not giving a damn—unless someone knew that someone. And Sean knew Liam.
Shit. This wasn’t good.
“Billing’s backing up with my assistant out on maternity leave, and if the bills don’t go out, money can’t come in.” Liam looked at Cassidy with more of the sneer that Sean was used to seeing. “That’s how businesses work.”
Pain slashed across Cassidy’s face for a second. “I’m well aware of how business works. I did work with my father you know.”
“How could I forget?”
“Okay, then.” Sean tossed Liam’s racket to him since the status quo had been reestablished. “Give me a call after you drop Cassidy off. I need to go over a few things with you.”
He’d come up with something—maybe get Lee’s perspective on where to start looking for odd-looking baby cradles so he could get the jump on Livvy—instead of jumping on Livvy—and to keep Lee from doing the same thing to Cassidy.
Yeah, it was going to be a long two weeks.
Chapter Eighteen
LIVVY stared at the baby cradle in the wing of the museum her grandmother had endowed. It was the same one as in the picture, and the plaque beside the cordon rope said that generations of Martinsons had used it.
Olivia Martinson was the last name on the list.
Olivia Martinson?
Livvy didn’t think so. That name wasn’t even on her birth certificate, and as for sleeping in that thing . . . When? As far as she knew, she hadn’t been under Martinson guardianship until she’d been five. Was this the old lady’s push for dynastic excellence?
Livvy stared at it, trying to imagine herself in that ridiculously overdone curlicue Victorian design. She’d probably had nightmares—nothing new when it came to her father’s family. Present scavenger hunt included.
Livvy shook off her bad mood. Water under the bridge, spilled milk, all the clichés. She was an adult, get over it already.
Right. So where was the next clue?
It had to be something on the plaque because the museum curator would surely have found any note or carving on the cradle itself, and her grandmother had to have known it’d be cordoned off from the public—including her.
Then again, why should she expect Merriweather to make this easy? She still didn’t get why the woman was making her jump through these hoops. Did she just want to be known for giving her prodigal granddaughter the opportunity? Or was it because she knew Livvy would fail and wanted to pay her back for having the audacity to be alive?
Livvy sat down on the bench beside the display. Would her grandmother have been so devious?
It was possible. Merriweather had certainly never made the effort to welcome her into the family while she’d been alive; why should she be any different in death?
Livvy stood up, ready to leave. She was not going to dance to her grandmother’s tune any longer. She didn’t care what the next clue was or where it was or what it led to or anything. Let the old woman roll over in her grave, agonizing that Livvy wasn’t following her orders. Livvy didn’t care. She’d done well enough without this place while the woman had been alive and she’d do just as well now with her gone.
She turned to leave and banged into one of the poles holding up the ropes designed to keep the public out. And her. They were keeping her out. Just like Merriweather wanted.
Livvy fought off the sting of tears. Why hadn’t she been good enough for the woman? How could Merriweather have visited the sins of the parents on her, an innocent child? All her life, she’d kept a low profile, trying to keep from ruining the Martinson name because she’d never wanted to feel the full wrath of Merriweather.
Why? What had she done? What was wrong with her that her own grandmother hadn’t even wanted to know her?
Tears blurring her vision, Livvy knocked the pole yet again, this time making a mad scramble to keep it from hitting the floor. That’s all she’d need: to bring attention to herself right now while she was an emotional mess.
But shame on her. Shame on her for letting Merriweather’s inattentiveness get to her. She wasn’t a kid anymore. She knew the ways of the world and the workings of a nasty old woman’s small mind.
A slow burn started in the pit of her stomach. The woman wanted her to fail? Well, hell no. She was going to find these clues and inherit the mansion and enjoy every moment of selling it off to the highest bidder. Let Merriweather roll for that.
Livvy righted the pole, swiped the corners of her eyes, and rolled her shoulders back. She wasn’t about to let the old battle-axe win.
She reread the plaque. Generations of Martinson family members slept in this excellent representation of every child’s dream. The Victorian design was commissioned by Albert Martinson to coincide with several revisions he was having craftsmen make to the Martinson estate.
Every child’s dream
? It hadn’t been hers. The thing looked more like a nightmare. She certainly hadn’t dared to dream anything when it came to the Martinsons.
But now she was dreaming about the Martinson maid. Wouldn’t that get old Merriweather’s goat?
Goat. Oh, crud. She was supposed to stop at the feed store to pick up a special blend of grain products for Dodger and his brothers to counteract the wool fibers they’d recently added to their digestive tracts.
She reread the plaque once more, then took a picture to show it to Sean later to see what he made of it.
SEAN moved the sofa back into place in the third seating area on the upper floor in the west wing after vacuuming the rug beneath it. How many places had people needed to sit and chat in Merriweather’s day? And on the bedroom level? He shook his head. Who understood the super rich? But it was not his place to complain; he was just glad this little area and the others like it existed. His architect’s plans called for them to be converted into meeting rooms for another source of revenue.
Sean repositioned the coffee table in front of the sofa and replaced the ornate crystal knickknacks that’d taken him the better part of a half hour to dust. If he never saw another nook or cranny ever again it’d be too soon for him.
The grandfather clock in the niche behind him chimed. Noon. The dogs had woken him at five when Livvy had taken them out. So he’d gotten up and used the time to clean out the nursery on the third floor, though he’d really been searching for the next clue, even checking for loose floorboards for a hiding spot. If yesterday’s racquetball game had shown him anything, it was that Livvy didn’t give up and she hated to lose. They had that in common.
Among other things.
He shifted uncomfortably, remembering the torture that had been yesterday. Her silly froufrou skirt had kept him guessing what was beneath it; her shirt hadn’t—and those lips of hers had made him want to taste every curve of her smile. He really needed to keep his distance and stop kissing her.
The problem was he didn’t want to stop kissing her. Kissing Livvy was unlike kissing any other woman, and while he liked that—more than liked it—it also bothered the hell out of him. Why her? What was so special about her? If anything, this whole nightmare with her and the house and the money ought to have him so put off her that they could be naked in the same room and it wouldn’t have any effect on him.
What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel) Page 13
