by Debra Dixon
An instinctive reluctance to enter the melee held them both rooted in place. Finally Sam stepped into the kitchen and bent to scoop up Slick. “Hold on, partner. I’ll get you.”
Slick hissed and whipped his tail, but he allowed Sam to pick him up after one reproachful meow at Clare, who turned and headed for the bathroom. Sam wasn’t sure whether she was going to be ill or if she was getting a warm washcloth for Slick’s feet. Gingerly picking his way, he left the kitchen and stood uncomfortably in the hallway. He held Slick slightly away from his body and said, “Thanks a lot, pal. I may have turned on the heat, but you’ve managed to finish cooking my goose.”
When Clare emerged from the bathroom, her mouth was set in a grim line, and she carried a teal-colored washcloth. Immediately, Sam shifted the cat and presented his paws to Clare, who bent her head and gently began to clean. For some reason, the top of her head made Sam feel guilty. “This isn’t as bad as it looks. We can fix the wall.”
Looking up at him without raising her head, Clare gave him some valuable advice. “Quit while you’re behind, Tucker.”
“The name’s Sam, and you’ve got to loosen up, Clare. This is one of those slices of life that creates an unforgettable memory. There are public speakers all across the country who would kill for an anecdote like this.”
“Would they kill you specifically?” asked Clare sweetly.
“Why does your house have to be perfect, Clare? Why do you have to be perfect, for that matter? Are you ashamed of how you live?”
Clare finished Slick’s paws and rubbed his pelt down with the cloth. “I’m not ashamed. I don’t want more for me,” she said quietly, and took the cat from him. “They—my aunt and uncle and Ellie—want more for me. They don’t understand how anyone could be happy without a country estate and gobs of servants.”
Instinctively, Sam knew Clare was about to give him the piece of the puzzle he’d been trying to find for weeks. She hugged the cat and was silent for a moment before continuing.
“You never had to be grateful for anything. At least not for the roof over your head, the clothes you wore, even the food you ate.” Clare set Slick down and watched him race upstairs. “You never had to be poor Clare. Well, I did. And I hated it. I never meant to lie to my aunt and uncle. I said one thing, and they assumed another.”
Clare took aim and sent the washcloth arrowing toward the kitchen sink before continuing. “What they assumed made them happy. They didn’t have to be responsible for poor Clare anymore. She was doing fine, wonderful in fact. I can just hear what they say when their friends ask about me: “Why, she’d bought the kind of house one furnishes in antiques! Little Clare is a hotshot with some big automotive company.” I didn’t correct them because it felt so good not to be poor Clare anymore. I didn’t see the need to tell them when the automotive company was barely turning a profit.”
Once again Sam was forced to put his hands in his pockets for fear that he’d grab her to kiss the hurt away. “Surely you didn’t think you could keep up the charade?”
Clare laughed hollowly and looked up at him. “Why not? My aunt’s health keeps her from traveling. My uncle won’t leave her, and Ellie’s always busy in Europe with the jet-setting.”
“Not anymore,” Sam noted gently.
“Not anymore,” Clare echoed, and dragged a hand through her hair. “And unless I can convince Ellie I’m doing great, my uncle will start trying to send money again. Do you have any idea what it feels like to take their money? They don’t love me; they throw money just to ease the guilt. They don’t understand that I like living here.”
“And you thought cleaning up the place would fool your cousin? Darlin’, to convince Ellie, you need a real house, or you’ll go back to being poor Clare.” Abruptly, Clare fixed him with an intent gaze. Sam could actually see the lightbulb switch on over her head, and he took a step away. “Wait a minute—”
“No, don’t you see!” Clare advanced on him, suddenly a woman with a purpose. “That’s the answer—all I need is a house like yours. Exactly like yours. It’ll be for only a few days. A week at the most. I’ll pay you.”
As soon as Sam heard the proposition, his libido was screaming, Yes! Just where I want her! In my house! The newly acquired sparkle in her eyes was enticing, but he knew better than to give in to his lust. Sharing a house with Clare would be a disaster. He’d forget every promise he ever made to himself about taking the relationship slowly. If he could want her the way she looked now, what on earth was he going to do when she was tousled and sleepy across the breakfast table?
Sam backed up another step. “No. Using my house is a bad idea. This scheme will blow up in your face, Clare. Besides, you and I don’t have any business cohabiting unless you’re willing to risk the repercussions.”
Waving off his reasoning, Clare clarified her plan. “We won’t be cohabiting. You won’t be there. Ellie has to think this is my house.”
Miffed at being summarily dismissed, Sam asked sourly, “Where am I supposed to live?”
“The carriage house. You said it had a bedroom. You’ve stayed there before! Remember, the porch light goes out at midnight.”
Sam’s back came up hard against the door, and he tried to pinpoint the exact moment he’d lost control of the conversation. “This will never work. She’ll figure it out. What about your phone number?”
Wiggling her eyebrows, Clare said, “Call forwarding.”
“Unless she’s incredibly stupid, she’s going to notice the address is wrong.”
Clare waved that objection away. “Ellie never sends any of her own mail. She’s got a personal assistant for that.”
“And she won’t be the least bit suspicious about some strange man skulking about in your carriage house?”
“You can play the role of the old-fashioned boarder. You get three squares and a cot. We need to work on the Japanese proposal anyway. Come on, Sam.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink. “Where’s your sense of adventure? This will be … fun. And aren’t you the one who’s always telling me to have fun?”
Sam counted to ten.
“What could possibly go wrong?” she prodded.
“This,” Sam answered, and pulled her against his chest, covering her mouth with his.
Tenderness had no place in this kiss. Sam wanted to show her that playing with fire could burn her. He was tired of her ignoring what simmered between them. Her mouth was hot and smooth as he slid his tongue home. He felt her body tense, relax, and then tense again as his hands cupped the curve of her bottom. Cradling her between his thighs, he held her close enough to feel the strength of his arousal before sliding his hands to the small of her back and beneath the waistband of her pants. Beneath her panties.
For Clare, shock gave way to the knowledge that she wanted to feel his hands on her. His touch created a dangerous throbbing between her legs. The rough texture of his fingers excited her as he leisurely explored the contours of her hips. His tongue was just as slow exploring her mouth. Vaguely, Clare was aware that the bones of her legs had melted and that the support of Sam’s embrace was the only thing that kept her upright.
Suddenly, Sam pushed her away and said, “That’s what can go wrong.”
The respite from the sensations cascading through her was so abrupt that Clare felt like a fire blown out with an explosion. The heat lingered, but the flames were gone. Every fiber in her body was in an angry uproar at being awakened and then ignored.
Numbly, she said, “That’s why you’re staying in the carriage house.”
“You think a few hundred feet will make a difference? Clare, that kiss wasn’t a friendly peck on the cheek. For either of us.”
“I know that!” Clare snapped. “I have been kissed before.”
“If you borrow my house, you’ll probably be kissed again.”
Clare sucked in a breath at Sam’s point-blank warning. If she went through with her plan, she took another step into a relationship with Sam. He’d make sure of that. If she
didn’t borrow his house, Ellie would know she’d lied, and she’d be poor Clare again. The checks would start coming again.
“This isn’t about us. All I want is your house, Sam.”
Exasperated, Sam banged the back of his heel against the door. “You want a helluva lot more than you’re willing to admit.”
“I want the house, Sam. Just the house.” She hated to beg, but she needed his house to save face with Ellie. Belatedly, she realized that with his knowledge of the East, he was more likely to understand about saving face than anyone she knew. “Don’t make me go back to being poor Clare.”
His resolve weakening, Sam cursed beneath his breath and rubbed the back of his neck. Each time he saw her, she cut a little deeper into his heart. Why Clare? She was so wrong for him. She wanted the job security and success that didn’t matter to him anymore. She was obsessed with outrunning her childhood. Afraid to lose control.
“Sam.” This time Clare’s voice was soft, hopeful.
His resistance was draining away like hourglass sand. He didn’t want to say no, but yes was an invitation to trouble. Already he’d begun to imagine her in his bed. Trouble. Clare might be ready physically to return his passion, but she was a long way from being emotionally and mentally ready to accept more than friendship. He wanted her to lose control, and she wasn’t ready. Nor was he prepared to torture himself with thoughts of her in his big four-poster, stretching like a cat, one strap of her gown slipping down a shoulder as she slid from the bed, the soft light streaming in the window revealing every soft, rounded curve—
Think, he told himself. Think. He couldn’t have Clare staying at the house. Clare wouldn’t thank him for sliding beneath her barriers or the sheets. Not yet anyway. No, having her at the house would be too dangerous. She’d tempt him to want to care about security and success again because they were important to her. And that he couldn’t do.
The only sane response was a firm, nonnegotiable no. But it would also erase all the hope and trust he saw in her face just then.
Sighing, Sam opened his mouth to refuse when inspiration struck. He didn’t have to be the one to say no. Someone else could do the job for him. “You can borrow the house. On one condition.”
Elated, Clare agreed instantly, “Name it.”
Sam schooled his features into a serious mask. “William has to agree. I won’t ask him to lie. He makes his own decisions.”
Doubt crept into Clare’s voice. “Do you think he’ll agree?”
In a pig’s eye, Sam thought to himself before saying, “Are you sure this is what you want to do, Clare? Tangled webs have a way of snaring the people that weave them.”
“Careless people maybe. Not me.”
The kitchen table was half covered in newspapers. William sat in one of the cane-back chairs, humming and tapping his foot to an imaginary piece of music. He hadn’t looked up upon their arrival and continued with the job at hand. Deftly, he snapped the stem and tip from a green bean and tossed it on the newspaper. A few more snaps created plump green sections which he tossed into an enormous old ceramic bowl decorated with faded French roses.
As William reached into the bushel basket beside the chair, Sam cleared his throat. “I need a favor.”
The butler snapped the tip from another bean and then fixed Sam with a jaundiced eye. “Why else would you be standing in my kitchen and stubbing your toe on the linoleum as though you were twelve and wanting another cookie?”
“Actually, I’m the one who needs a—” Clare stepped forward to explain, but stopped as she breathed in the pungent green aroma that triggered a sense memory. “God, fresh snap beans. I haven’t had those in ages. Not since I was a kid. My uncle loved them.” She reached toward the bowl and waited for William’s approval.
“Well, hurry it up! And don’t paw all of them,” he ordered with asperity, but his expression softened the sharp words.
“I used to sneak into the kitchen and help the cook snap them,” Clare confessed before she popped the bean into her mouth to relish the crisp, garden-fresh taste.
Asking for a vegetable sample was more than a trip down memory lane. Clare was stalling for time, and she knew it. For some reason, facing William with her dilemma made her feel dishonest. The man’s entire demeanor created an image of old-fashioned values: truth, justice, and the American way. Sam might be sure of William’s reaction, but she wasn’t. What would the stern may say when she asked him to pretend to be her butler? Swallowing, she smiled what she hoped was a charming smile and searched for words, wondering how she could have forgotten her carefully planned explanation.
The awkward silence grew as William got up, scraping the wooden chair legs against the floor. Efficiently, he gathered up the newspapers covered with stems and damaged beans and threw the neatly folded bundle in the garbage. When he turned back to Clare, a smile split his lips as if he knew a secret. “It’s been a long time since a young lady asked this old man for help. You better stop chewing on the words and ask me quick, so I can say yes before I remember how much trouble favors can be.”
Helplessly, Sam listened to the tolerant chuckle in William’s voice and realized his mistake. Grinding his teeth produced a grimace, but he managed to hold back the expletive that rose to his lips. He’d been counting on William’s ingrained sense of propriety. He’d been counting on William to give Clare a lecture on honesty and facing up to life. But he’d forgotten that his butler had taken a fancy to Clare the first time he met her. He’d forgotten that Clare had a knack for handling the older man. And he sure as hell hadn’t expected William to agree before he even heard the request!
“Don’t you think you ought to listen to what Clare has to ask before you blindly agree?” Sam asked, unwilling to believe that William would go along with Clare’s scam once he understood what would be expected of him.
Bristling visibly, William drew himself to his full height. “Miss Clare is a lady.”
“And how would you know?” Exasperation deepened Sam’s voice. “You’ve met her only a few times! For God’s sake, William, she wants to borrow the house for the next two weeks and pretend she owns it to impress her supermodel cousin. You’re supposed to be her butler, and I’m supposed to be the poor, struggling boarder who rents a room over the carriage house! Are you going to put up with that kind of foolishness?”
William raised an eyebrow, and Clare closed her mouth which had dropped open during the flurry of words. On the wall behind the stove, an old round-face clock ticked loudly into the silence. To Sam, the ticks sounded a lot like accusations—jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk.
Breaking the clock’s rhythm, William said, “If I catch our boarder raiding my refrigerator, I expect I’ll be laying a baseball bat upside his head.”
“You’re going to do this!” Sam huffed in disbelief and threw up his hands. The impossible situation he feared had become a reality. “You’ve both lost your minds. You deserve each other. Now, if you don’t object, I’ll go pack a few essentials while you and Ms. McGuire iron out the details of renting my house to her.”
After Sam made his ungracious exit, Clare expelled the breath in her lungs in one long whoosh. As she held out her hand, she noted that her handshake was steady at least, even if her emotions were shaky. “Thank you, William. I appreciate this. My reasons are a little more complicated than Sam’s explanation.”
“Are they now?” William asked with a knowing look, and then tilted his head as he shook her hand. “Doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t mind?”
Chuckling, William dumped his beans into a colander. “Mind? I suspect life is about to get interesting around here. You’re going to bother that boy a darn sight more than name tags in his shorts.”
Clare leaned against the counter and hugged her midriff with her arms. “It’ll only be for a couple of weeks. Maybe less. And you’ll like Ellie. Everyone does.”
“Do they now?”
“Always. You’ll see when you meet her tomorrow.”
&n
bsp; “Tomorrow!” William fairly shouted the words as he dropped the colander in the double sink. “Child, why didn’t you say so sooner!
“Tomorrow,” William mumbled, unrolled his sleeves, and reached for a gray Windbreaker that hung on a peg beside the back door. “Lord. Company’s coming tomorrow and nothing but leftovers in my refrigerator.”
“But—” Clare began, trying to slow William down before he stormed out the door.
“But nothing. I’d best get to the store. If Rebecca gets here to cook in the morning and finds out we’re expecting company and there’s no food in the house—” William shuddered. “Well … she’ll be mad as a cat in an alley full of hound dogs.”
The slam of the door reverberated through the kitchen, and in a few moments Clare heard the sound of a car engine. Finally, the ticking pulse of the old clock replaced the noise of William’s departure and reminded Clare that she was alone in the house with Sam. Nervously, she poked her head into the dining room, half expecting to see Sam striding toward her, ready to change his mind about the house regardless of William’s approval.
When he didn’t materialize, she wandered through the rest of the downstairs, wincing at the occasional squeak of her tennis shoes on the hardwood floor. Skulking about the house and waiting for Sam made her feel uncomfortable. Guilty. Dammit! If Sam hadn’t wanted her there, why hadn’t he simply said so instead of relying on William to do his dirty work? If he wasn’t happy, it was his own fault. She refused to feel guilty because his little plot failed. With a deep breath to fortify her courage, she climbed the staircase.
Only one door along the upstairs hallway was closed. Tapping lightly, Clare waited for permission to enter. When none came, she called, “Sam?”
“What?” The question was sharp, even cross in tone.
