But when she had put it on and undone the top button, the sheer dotted swiss cotton underlay seemed enticing. Just the sort of thing she needed.
It also seemed scandalous and made her self-conscious.
When she did up all the buttons, she felt a little like an extra on The Sound of Music.
All her buttons were buttoned.
She wasn’t ready for scandalous.
But Pappa seemed way ahead of her.
“Dress like that means something special. Right, men?”
The three farmers at the table nodded solemnly.
“You are looking pretty fancy, Stacy,” the eldest said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not wearing jeans or overalls. Not outside of church.”
“Is your gentleman the one Mrs. Pincham was talking about last month?” another asked.
“What did Mrs. Pincham have to say about me?” Adam asked.
The farmers huddled.
“Uh, nothing much,” they lied uncomfortably. “No, nothing much at all.”
“But Pappa, I don’t think you want to encourage any dating activity,” the elder one offered.
“Bah!” Pappa said. “I’ve always thought Stacy needed to live a little.”
“This is just dinner!” Stacy exclaimed. But nobody was buying that. The farmers nudged each other. Adam said he thought they should go. Karen asked how Pappa could do that trick with the coin.
Pappa dialed the phone, murmured quietly into the receiver and hung up.
“They already have you down for five-thirty,” he said. He held out a candy bar to Karen. “Here, little angel, this will tide you over until dinner. Keep an eye on them.”
“But this isn’t a date!” Stacy wailed.
“We’re closed,” Pappa said. He took off his apron, threw it on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest.
I dare you, he said without a word. I just dare you to ask for a burger.
“WE WERE MEANT to have dinner here,” Adam chided mildly, looking around the Tanglewood dining room, which was done up to look like a Tyrolean village. “You should have said yes right from the start.”
“I’m really sorry about Burger Joint,” Stacy said, as the maitre d’ silently offered her a menu. “I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know what got into Pappa. I mean, Mr. Pappadapoulos. He’s…eccentric.”
“He’s entitled to his opinion,” Adam said.
He glanced at Karen who was lingering at the doorway; when she had told the maitre d’ that Pappa had pulled a quarter from behind her ear, the maitre d’ had sniffed and said he had a much better trick to show her. The maitre d’ had sauntered to the front desk. From the corner booth, it appeared the trick involved several linen napkins, a water glass and required four busboys to stand in attendance. The busboys and waiters looked as if they were having as much fun as Karen.
Adam figured it was time to clear the air, and to get his baby-sitter/housekeeper onboard.
“Stacy, I should tell you—”
“No, no, I know what you’re going to say.”
“It’s not like knowing what everyone’s doing in Deerhorn—”
“But it’s close. I know that you’re going to tell me that you’re not looking for a relationship.”
“Well, yeah, I am. I mean, I’m not. I mean that I’ve had a lot of relationships on the road. But they’ve been just that—relationships on the road. I’m not looking for more. And in fact, I’m not looking for anything because this town is small enough that I wouldn’t be able to kiss you goodnight without everyone knowing. Including my daughter Karen.”
“Well, I’m not looking either,” she said, adding quickly, “no, really, I’m not. I’m too old for that sort of thing.”
Adam remembered the conversation with Betty Carbol.
“You’re not that old. Twenty-eight isn’t too old to get married. If, in fact, that’s what you want. Most women in the big cities are still single at your age. You could move to—”
“I’m not moving and I’m not in the market,” she said hotly. “And I know what my options are. I’m staying here. And I’m staying single.”
“I’m sorry, I was being too personal,” he said. “I have no right to an opinion on the subject. I’m only spending two months here, three if the weather doesn’t cooperate and then I’m outta here. But during that time, I’m going to need help with Karen.”
“Karen goes with you wherever you go?”
“She hasn’t in the past. But she will. I’m learning how to manage. I’m going to remember that most states require two Institute Days during the school year. And that pancakes can’t be left alone.”
“But you’re definitely leaving?”
He nodded.
“Town’s too small?”
“Well, yeah, if you take a wrong turn anywhere, you’re out of town in three blocks.”
“Not enough cultural advantages?”
He thought of Amber’s derision. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t building a school,” he said.
“And the people are too intrusive?” she asked hopefully.
Again, Betty Carbol came to mind. He nodded. He was used to being anonymous—or, at least, feeling that way.
“And besides, you’ve never been the kind of man to settle down before?”
“Now that you put it that way, no, I haven’t. I’ve never been married. I like to move around. I like to travel.”
“I see.”
Stacy was raised with good manners, even if her mother had died before she reached primary school. Her father had been firm—no elbows on the table, no pointing at others, don’t reach across the table to get the saltshaker, say best wishes to a bride but never congratulations. And Stacy had turned out well.
So well, in fact, that her next actions were utterly un-Stacy-like.
She put her elbows on the table, rested her chin in her hand and stared. Simply stared, scarcely noticing Adam’s puzzlement at why he was suddenly the subject of such intense scrutiny. He jogged his tie. Flicked a piece of dust from his suit-jacket lapel.
“Perfect,” she murmured. “You’re just so perfect for what I’ve got in mind.”
“You are, too,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “You’re perfect.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t know. What are you thinking?”
Karen slid into the booth, snuggled up next to Stacy and announced that the maitre d’ had pulled an entire dollar out from behind her ear and had promised her four cherries in her Shirley Temple if she was a good girl.
DURING A DELICIOUS MEAL of roasted chicken, Stacy listened eagerly to Adam’s anecdotes about his previous jobs: building a department store in São Paolo, Brazil, a skyscraper in Winnipeg, Canada, a casino on a reservation in rural New York.
Adam was a troubleshooter, usually brought into a project when it was bogged down in red tape, worker disputes or uncooperative weather.
He spoke Spanish, Portuguese and French with a decidedly Québécois accent. He knew when or whether and how to bribe a city official to hasten the issuance of a building permit. He knew which geological conditions were worth worrying about, which were fatal to a project and which didn’t matter in the slightest. He knew how and why employees would become dissatisfied enough to protest, and while the home office would sometimes grouse about how generously he resolved those issues, they were always happy when he finished his projects under deadline.
There was something he liked about stepping off a plane with a backpack, a set of draftsmen’s plans and a job to do.
It was the life he had lived, pretty much uninterrupted, since getting a degree in architecture that was simply an add-on to the many years he had worked on jobs for Lasser & Thomas.
“This time you brought me and Mugs with the backpack and the plans,” Karen pointed out.
“Glad you came,” Adam’s gray eyes met Stacy’s. “I met Karen’s mother in Miami when I built a dormitory complex for an of
f-shore oil rig. She’s…doing other things now.”
“She doesn’t visit me at all,” Karen said.
“My mother died when I was young,” Stacy said, reaching out to squeeze Karen’s hand. Karen smiled gratefully. “So I know you can miss having a mother. But my father was a good man who did his best to be both mother and father.”
“Did you get lonely?”
“Yes. But you’ll find friends here in Deerhorn.”
“We already have. Right, Karen?” Adam asked lightly.
Karen looked at her father and then at Stacy. “Yes, we have,” she agreed.
“Now tell us everything we need to know about Deerhorn,” Adam asked.
“It’s small and everybody knows everybody else.”
“And everyone’s so friendly,” Karen added. “Look at the people.”
She waved in the direction of the kitchen and the staff, who had gathered behind the swinging kitchen doors. They stared and, when caught, ducked. Karen slipped out of her chair, saying she would like to ask the bartender for more cherries for her kiddie cocktail.
“Deerhorn neighbors like to keep up with what’s happening,” Stacy said.
“I can see that,” Adam said. He smiled tentatively at the kitchen staff, who had crept around the door for another peek. “Will this be on the front page of the local paper?”
“It would if there actually was a newspaper,” Stacy said. “But we use the telephone. Most people will know the three of us went to dinner by tomorrow morning.”
After dinner, Adam drove them back to the house. Karen had fallen asleep in the back seat and Stacy helped him get her settled into bed.
“I’ll walk you home,” he said.
She didn’t protest, didn’t explain that up until three months ago, as Mr. Gustav Peterson had declined, she had walked back and forth at all hours—keeping Mr. Peterson fed and his plants watered, filling out his insurance forms and doing his laundry when his own daughter couldn’t get time off to help.
Instead, as she unbuttoned the top button of her sundress and fluffed the white underbodice, she gathered her courage.
And her intentions.
They walked along the flagstone path to her house.
“Adam, I think you need a little help taking care of Karen.”
“I’ll say I do. I can’t get a nanny from the service in Chicago who’s willing to stay up over weekends, and there doesn’t seem to be anybody in town who needs a job.”
“Everyone needs a job.”
“But you’re good at housekeeping and child-caring. The things I need. I was going to ask you—”
“I do.”
“You do need a job? Because you’re—”
“Sort of.”
“You’re hired.”
“Good.”
He stared.
“You might not want me when you hear what I want in return,” Stacy said.
“Money isn’t a problem. Name your price.”
“I don’t want money. I want something else.”
“What?”
She took a quick breath for courage. “Sex.”
Chapter Seven
He stared at the half of her face illuminated by the porch light. Her unblinking amber eyes had not a smidgen of come-hither. Although the top button of her sundress was undone, the dress was modestly cut with a fluff of white cotton covering the swell of her breasts. A man couldn’t even get a good look at her ankles without some effort, luck or a good breeze.
She was just the sort of woman you’d expect to find in Wisconsin and never, no never, on the cover of a lingerie catalog.
And nothing had changed in the past two seconds—she hadn’t suddenly sprouted a bed-ready hairdo, dragon-lady talons, her scent was still soap and talc. Hardly the stuff to give a man the wrong idea or the right idea or any kind of idea at all.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I could have sworn that just now you said—”
“Sex,” she repeated.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. And then stared. But she didn’t make it easier for him. Just quietly waited for his answer. Yes or no. Sex or no sex.
He had enjoyed the seductions of many women in his travels. In Colorado, he had returned to his hotel room late one evening to find a ravishing brunette rental-car agent in his bed—wearing a smile and a rose behind her ear. In Washington state, the woman who served his morning coffee at the café near the work site slipped him her phone number and an indecent but delicious suggestion on his receipt. On a twelve-hour flight into Buenos Aires, his seatmate had explained to him the membership rules for the mile-high club—and had proceeded to induct him in a very special and intimate ceremony. In fact, every trip out of Chicago had resulted in some kind of encounter—romantic, occasionally platonic or merely carnal, but always interesting.
But he had never had a woman just flat out ask him.
Sex!
“I’ve heard you’re good at it,” she said, with the same sort of tone one might use to indicate prowess at golf, bowling or double-entry bookkeeping. “One of the secretaries in your office explained your reputation to the mayor’s wife. Is it true about you? Are you really good at it?”
“Well, uh, it’s not like golf,” he said, tugging at his shirt that had suddenly seemed to shrink several inches at the collar. “There’s no system of handicapping. And nobody hands out medals.”
This mild-mannered maid had gotten the courage to ask for what she wanted, and now there was no stopping her. She probably used the same tone of voice to extract confessions of candy-snatching, wall-crayoning and other wrongdoing by kindergarteners.
“So are you?” she persisted.
“What, good at it? Sex isn’t really a skill. It’s more something that always depends on the chemistry between the two people.”
He noticed she was tapping her foot. Waiting for him to finish avoiding the question so she could repeat it. She wanted an answer, and aw, hell, answer it, he thought. He reared back his shoulders.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I am good at it. It’s not the kind of thing a man should admit to. Or even think about one way or another. But I’d say if you’re talking about a national average for men, I’m in the upper fifty percent.”
She didn’t look particularly impressed.
“Upper twenty-five percent,” he amended.
Three out of four men were not as good as him, but the corresponding fact was that one out of four were. She wasn’t the slightest bit impressed.
“Upper ten percent?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, worked his mouth as if he were thinking seriously about the matter, all the time wondering whether she was crazy or if perhaps all the residents of Deerhorn were a little off.
“Five percent is about right,” he said.
She looked out over the lawn, past her own fence to the houses across the street. One or two second-floor lights on, forgotten lawn sprinklers hissing, the insistently sharp smell of a barbecue which had been started with too much fluid.
“And you like doing it?”
“Sure,” he said. “Who doesn’t?”
“Don’t be annoyed. I’m just asking.”
“You’re asking a lot.”
“You’re feeling awkward because the bull is giving milk.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a Wisconsin phrase that means that things are the opposite of how they usually are.”
“How utterly charming,” Adam said dryly. “Now about baby-sitting…”
“I’ve still got some more questions.”
“Can’t you take cash like a normal babysitter?”
“You don’t want to,” she said flatly.
“I didn’t say that,” Adam protested. “I’m just a little confused by the offer. You’re saying you’ll baby-sit Karen for me if I have sex with you?”
“Yes. You’ll do for my purposes,” she said. “And I’m perfect for your purposes. I’ll even keep house and leave dinner for you every nigh
t. It’s tough to see a downside.”
She had him there. He looked her up and down. Sure, her dress covered everything that a man in his position would want to see before shaking hands. He would put her in a new dress—he had always been partial to something black, something low-cut. And he’d give her some heels because all women’s legs looked better with a bit of a lift. He’d get her a hairdo a shade more complicated than the black elastic band holding her curls in a ponytail. And he’d give her lipstick—red—perfume—Chanel still did it best—and a not-so-transactional approach.
Then he remembered himself.
“No way,” he said.
She looked surprised but not nearly disappointed enough.
“The people in this town don’t look like they’d take kindly to the idea of a trade-off like this,” he explained. “They’d think I was taking advantage of you.”
“I don’t intend for people in this town to know.”
“A total secret.”
“Cannot tell a soul. Even Karen. Especially Karen.”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes. That would be one of the conditions.”
“What are the others? Not that I’m saying yes, I’m just interested.”
“You’d have to understand there’s no future once you leave town.”
Excuse me, that was his line! One he delivered before a woman came to his bed. Although he tendered it more gently, even with a touch of regret. Stacy was blunt, no-nonsense and crossed her arms over her chest as if to say “Don’t even think of bargaining with me over this one, buddy.”
“I don’t want to be in your black book. I don’t want to hear from you later.”
“My black book?”
“It was on your kitchen table. I didn’t look past the As.”
“Any other conditions?”
“No weird stuff,” she said. “But I want to try everything. Everything within reason.”
He caught something subtle in her tone of voice. “Stacy, how many times have you done this?”
“Done what?” She said. She ducked her head so that the front-porch light couldn’t give away any secrets.
“Started an affair like this.”
One Sexy Daddy Page 5
