As she twisted her hair into a chignon, the creak of the back door opening drifted up the stairs, followed by a brusque call. “It’s me, Ms. Barone,” Mathilda Martin, Lynda’s housekeeper, said loudly.
Inserting pins in her hair as she went, Lynda walked as far as the landing at the top of the back stairs. “I have a man coming out to start work on the house this morning. Could you put on a pot of coffee, Mrs. Martin?”
“Yes’m.”
Back in the bathroom, she did her makeup, spritzed herself with perfume, and stepped into her heels before studying her reflection in the mirror. She looked the way she always did, she assured herself—professional, no-nonsense, definitely not someone to underestimate merely because of her gender.
Fastening a watch around her wrist, she headed for the kitchen via the back stairs. “Mrs. Martin, this man that I’ve hired to work on the house—” She took the last step into the kitchen and came to an abrupt halt.
“Is sitting at your kitchen table,” Ben finished for her.
She hadn’t heard the intercom buzz, or Mrs. Martin ask for his name, or the back door’s creak. His unexpected presence put her off balance. She’d thought she would have time for a cup of coffee and to review her notes on the repairs, but he was early, nearly ten minutes so, leaving her unprepared and irrationally annoyed.
As she slowly moved farther into the room, he stood. For a born-and-bred hell-raiser, he had better manners than most men she came into contact with. Her parents, who had insisted on all the social niceties from her and her brother, would be impressed.
Not that it mattered, of course. Not that they would ever even meet him to know.
“We’ll take our coffee in the offi—” She broke off as Mrs. Martin thunked a cup of steaming brew and a plate of sticky buns onto the table across from Ben, and smiled uneasily. “Or right here will be fine. Mrs. Martin, did you bake these rolls?”
“No’m.” Picking up a plastic tote filled with cleaning supplies, the woman left the kitchen.
“She’s a woman of few words,” Ben remarked with a grin. “I got a ‘G’morning’ and ‘Sit there’ from her, but that was all.”
Lynda slid into a worn, smooth chair, took a moment to sweeten her coffee, then drew a breath and looked up. “I don’t have the contract from Legal yet. It was mid-afternoon by the time I asked, and no one could fit it into his schedule. They like to go home by six.”
“Slackers.”
The corners of her mouth twitched with a smile she barely managed to restrain. “I apologize for the delay. They’ll have it ready for me today. As I told you yesterday, the first priority is the roof. I assume that’s one of the jobs you’ll need an assistant for. Frankly, I don’t know where you’ll be able to find anyone with experience, but—”
“I already hired someone, but we didn’t discuss salary. I figured I’d see how good she is first.”
Lynda blinked. “She? You hired a woman?”
“A kid by the name of Sophy Jones. She’s about twenty, twenty-two. She says she has experience.”
“Did you check with her last employer?”
He broke one of the buns into pieces, then popped a chunk into his mouth. “Not as good as my grandmother’s,” he said when he swallowed, “but good enough. No, I didn’t check with her last boss, ask for references or a social security number or fingerprints or a vial of blood for DNA testing. I just hired her. And if she doesn’t work out, I’ll fire her.”
Lynda opened her mouth to protest, saw the muscles in his jaw tighten, and closed it again. She might be the client paying the bills, but he was the boss. He had to get the work done, and if he wanted to do it with a twenty-year-old woman he knew nothing about—except, no doubt, that she was pretty—that was his prerogative.
Which didn’t stop her from politely asking, “Did you make certain she doesn’t have a fiancé to watch out for?”
A hint of bronze crept across his cheeks. “She’s ten or twelve years too young for me to care. But”—his expression turned wicked, his voice silky—“I forgot to ask whether you have one. You know, someone who might come home, not expecting me to be here.”
“No, I don’t.” She had to swallow to get the words out, which made her sound stiff, even when she got the conversation back on track. “There’s a garage out back you can turn into a workshop or storage area or whatever. I presume you’ll need to buy and/or rent tools and equipment. There’s a place called A-1 Rentals on the west side of town. Anything you can’t get at Mr. Fitzgerald’s you can probably pick up there. How do you want to handle expenses?”
“More than likely you can set up an account at the hardware store, and I can just charge whatever I need.”
She nodded once in agreement, then awkwardly gestured. “Do you want to take a look around?”
“Sure.”
She led the way out the back door onto the wraparound porch. The rotted boards were to the left of the door. She’d gotten into the habit of laying her briefcase and shoulder bag on a bench there while she unlocked the door, and one day last week they’d given way beneath her. Need to lose a few pounds? Melina had teased. Glad my bruised and scraped leg amuses you, Lynda had retorted. I’d hate to get hurt for no reason.
Ben glanced at the hole, stepped over it, and walked the length of the porch. She followed, watching as he tested the railing and made it wobble precariously, circled the corner and did it again, then reached the front section of the porch, where brick steps stretched from one end to the other. Chunks of mortar were missing, and in places entire bricks were gone. When he went down the half-dozen steps and across the grass, Lynda waited. She might give up her heels for a fling with this man, but she wasn’t wearing them in wet grass.
Standing in the middle of the front lawn, he studied the house, turned once to take in the view of the town in the valley below, then faced her again. “Nice house.”
That wasn’t most people’s first response. The real estate agent hadn’t even wanted to show the place to her. The man who’d inspected it told her it had once been a great old house and she really should buy one of the new houses going up in town. Ross had suggested the same.
It wasn’t that there was anything terribly wrong with the house. It was old and needed a great deal of work. It was, according to Ross, much too big for a woman living alone—according to the real estate agent, much too isolated and lonely for a woman alone. It would require regular maintenance and upkeep. It would be a burden.
But she had more than enough money to make most burdens go away. And she’d wanted the house from the moment she’d seen it. It was going to be her home—not a place to live, as every other residence she’d ever maintained had been, but home.
“Along with the repairs to the roof, you have some rafters up in the attic that need replacing,” Ben said. “See the way the roof dips?”
She glanced at the grass, then her lovely, soft, buttery leather shoes, and stayed on the top step. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“The fascia boards are rotted, too. If I’m going to climb up there, I may as well replace them at the same time.” He returned to the porch, leaving wet footprints on each step. “You need to get some landscaping guys out here and see what they can do about the drainage. Your yard’s holding way too much water for no more rain than we had, and that can cause problems with your foundation. You said you wanted some windows replaced. What’s wrong with them?”
“They don’t open.”
“You mean they’re stuck.”
“If I’d meant they were stuck—” Lynda caught herself. He didn’t know her well enough to know that she said exactly what she meant. “No, I mean they’re not made to open. I want windows I can open in nice weather.”
“Not a problem.” He said it in such a bland, emotionless way that she wondered if he thought she was a silly woman, wanting to replace perfectly good windows just so she could open them. Not that it mattered what he thought. It was her perfect home, or would be when he was fin
ished with it.
He took another long look around, then asked, “Are there any restrictions on what we do? Is the place on the National Register, or is the local historical society going to kick up a fuss?”
“No, but I don’t want to make sweeping changes. I like the house the way it is. I just want it fixed.”
“What kind of budget are you looking at?”
The question amused Lynda. People rarely thought of her and the word budget in the same sentence. Her personal resources were virtually limitless, especially when something was important to her, as this project was. “Money’s not a problem.”
“For me it is, if you expect top-quality work on a nickel-and-dime budget.”
She rephrased. “Money’s not a consideration. I’ll pay whatever it takes.”
He gave her a look that started at the top of her head and slowly eased toward her toes. She wasn’t accustomed to such scrutiny and resisted the urge to squirm under the weight of his green gaze. But when he was finished looking, all he did was murmur, “Must be nice,” then continue around the porch.
At the back of the house, he leaned against the railing, then rested his hands on the flaking paint. He looked supremely comfortable and at ease. She didn’t know what to do with her hands.
“I’ll do the roof, the rafters, and the fascia boards first. I’ll need to get into the attic.”
“Mrs. Martin will be here until five. I’ll instruct her to prepare lunch for you and your … assistant.”
“Sophy,” he said absently. “You can call her by her name.”
She would rather not, Lynda thought, unwilling to consider why every thought she had of the woman was snide. She didn’t have a jealous bone in her body. Even if she were going to be jealous, it would be over someone she had at least a hint of a relationship with. “I’ll stop by Mr. Fitzgerald’s and A-1 Rentals and set up accounts at both on my way to the office. And you’ll …?”
“Get started.” He offered his hand, belatedly solving the problem of what to do with hers. She took his.
And held it too long.
And enjoyed it too much.
Chapter Five
It’s quite a view, isn’t it?”
Ben knew better than to startle when sitting fifty feet in the air with nothing to break a fall but the unforgiving ground. Still, Sophy’s question had caught him off guard. He’d thought she was leaving with Mrs. Martin.
“It reminds me of the town in north Georgia where my grandmother was born,” he said. “In the summer, everything was green and overgrown, all hills and valleys like this with a roof here, a steeple there.”
Sophy sat cross-legged beside him at the roof peak. “It’s been a good week, hasn’t it?”
He shrugged, though truth was, it had. They had accumulated a small fortune in tools and supplies and were well on their way to getting the old roof repaired. They’d put in three solid days of work, and it had felt good. He’d seen Alanna again, coming out of the police station Thursday afternoon with her uncle, and that had felt good, too, in an odd way.
But he hadn’t seen Lynda at all. No matter how early he got to work, she left earlier. The night before he’d stayed until seven o’clock, doing piddling little jobs like organizing the garage workshop, but she’d stayed away longer.
He wasn’t egotistical enough to believe she was avoiding him. He figured she worked long hours routinely and wondered why, if money wasn’t a consideration. He’d never known anyone so fortunate, although he considered himself lucky enough. He was never going to get rich, but he’d always had enough for his needs.
Of course, he’d lived alone and accepted no responsibility for anyone but himself. Now he had a daughter, and even if he never tried to be a part of her life, he owed her something.
“Do you miss Georgia?”
He glanced at Sophy. “Why do you ask?”
“You’d gotten so quiet that I thought maybe you were still in that little town where your grandmother was born. Do you miss it?”
They had talked a lot in the past few days, but hadn’t said much. She wasn’t any more eager to share personal information than he was. He considered her too young to have any secrets … though he’d been about her age when Alanna was born. Old enough to create a child, but way too young to father one.
Rather than answer her question seriously, he grinned as he stood up, then offered her a hand. “Crank up the heat and humidity a few notches and learn how to talk right, and I’d feel right at home.”
“We do talk right. You’re the one with the funny accent.”
“Back home, people like this accent.”
“Especially the women, I bet,” called out a voice from below.
Ben approached the back edge of the roof with care and looked down to see a woman standing in the driveway next to a vintage Volkswagen Beetle convertible.
“You must be Ben. You’re awfully cute. I’d hire you to work on my house … if I had a house.”
Wondering how she knew his name, he made his way down the scaffolding, with Sophy right behind him. By the time they reached the ground, the woman was waiting, offering a handshake. “Hi. I’m Melina Dimitris, Lyn’s best friend.”
“Lyn?” Sophy echoed.
“Lynda Barone. The owner of this monstrosity? Your boss? A bit on the tall side, pretty, dresses as if the word casual were stricken from her vocabulary?”
“Ms. Barone,” Sophy said to Ben as if he’d been too slow to catch on.
Melina was a bit on the tall side herself—five eight, maybe five nine—with wildly curling black hair that reached halfway down her back. She was pretty, too, and dressed as if the word modest had been stricken from her vocabulary. She was slender, muscular, her skin a warm gold a few shades lighter than his own, and she had a healthy appreciation for men. He recognized it in her dark eyes.
“I take it Lynda’s not home yet. I knew I should have gone by her office and dragged her out. I swear, she’d work twenty-four hours a day if her body would just give up sleep for a while.”
“Hey, Ben, I’m gonna go,” Sophy said.
“Can I give you a ride?”
“Nah. I’ll catch one down the hill.”
He didn’t point out that it was nearly a mile down the hill to the electronic gate that kept the world out, or ask who was picking her up or where they were taking her. He’d learned already that she would merely smile and remind him that he was her boss—not her father, her brother, or her guardian angel. “I’ll see you Monday.”
She waved in acknowledgment, gave Melina Dimitris a nod, then started down the blacktop drive.
“Pretty girl,” Melina remarked as Sophy disappeared around the first curve. Then she turned her appreciative smile on him. “So, handsome, what time does Lynda get in?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been here as late as seven. She hasn’t.”
“It’s rude of her to leave her weekend guest unwelcomed like this. Of course, some might say it was rude of me to not tell her I was coming for the weekend.”
“Some might,” he agreed as he picked up an armload of tools and started for the garage. He was surprised when Melina grabbed the paint bucket filled with trays of fasteners and the circular saw and followed.
“Tell me something,” she said as they walked into the garage’s cool, shadowy interior. “Was buying this house the biggest mistake Lynda ever made?”
He looked back at the house, at the roof that no longer sagged, the rows of new shingles, and the unpainted fascia boards. “What was her biggest mistake before the house?”
Melina rolled her eyes. “Agreeing to marry this idiot lawyer back in Buffalo. They both worked twenty-hour days, they never saw each other, and—I’m not kidding—they actually had to pencil in their love-mak—um, their personal time—on their schedules or they never got together.”
An ambitious lawyer. Yes, that was the sort of man he could see Lynda with. Someone who thought contracts, negotiations, and profits were more important than her,
who would rather broker a corporate merger than spend a lazy afternoon working out his own merger with her.
Ben had never been ambitious, but he’d always known there were more important things in life. All the money in the world couldn’t make a person happy, or any less lonely, or any more loved.
He thought Lynda needed to be less lonely, and more loved.
“No,” he replied in response to her question. “Buying this house can’t begin to compete with that.” Then, after a moment, “Did she marry him?”
“No. He—” Abruptly she looked at him. “I probably shouldn’t be discussing this with you. Lynda doesn’t like being talked about.”
He could have guessed that. He could also guess that Melina wouldn’t mind it one bit. She liked being the center of attention.
Pulling his keys from his pocket, he started toward the GTO. “I’d let you in to wait, but I don’t have a key.”
“I have one. You want me to make a copy for you?”
“No, thanks.”
She leaned against the driver’s door, blocking his way. “Why don’t you stick around and have dinner with us? I promise, we’ll be much better company than going back to the motel alone.”
“How’d you know I’m staying at the motel? As far as that goes, how’d you know my name?”
After studying him for a minute, she opened the small bag slung bandolier-style across her chest, pulled out a business card, and offered it to him. Dimitris Investigations, it read in raised black letters. Underneath was her name, along with a Buffalo address and phone numbers.
“You’re a private detective.”
“We prefer investigator.”
Lynda high-power-super-conservative-businesswoman Barone’s best friend was a P.I. That was difficult to wrap his mind around. Lynda was so—stuffy? elegant?—and there was something inherently sleazy about the private detective business.
“And you investigate prospective employees for her. So you know pretty much all there is to know about me.”
Getting Lucky Page 7
