The boy glared at him suspiciously, then went back to stacking pots and pans in the bottom cabinet of the large kitchen island. The kitchen itself was gleaming and immaculate, as if a herd of housecleaners had swept through it with their magic brooms.
Not magic. Just Paisley and her incredible stamina.
“Dang,” he said, at a loss for words.
“We thought we’d earn our keep.” Her radiant smile melted one sharp edge of his frozen heart.
“Okaaay.” He didn’t like the idea of them getting too comfortable here. The last thing he needed was a roommate with children. God, he didn’t even like kids, despite having a rep of being a nice guy who generously donated his time to various children’s charities. That was his public face. The real Zeke didn’t like much of anything.
Hell, he didn’t like himself.
“I can take you back to your car so you can get it fixed and be on your way.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “Oh, I can’t leave you with the place like this and the season starting and all.”
“Uh, I…” He what? Wanted them to get the hell out of his life and leave him alone. He liked his privacy. A lot. He was a loner. He didn’t need anyone. He had himself and his few trusted friends, like Fernando, who also played for the Skookums and was one of the few bright spots in his trade to Seattle.
Having Paisley’s cute little ass here was bad enough, but three kids? He couldn’t even remember their names and didn’t care. They wouldn’t be around long enough to learn them.
“I have references. I’ve done this type of work before.”
“This type of work?”
“Yes.” Her sunny smile both irritated and enticed him.
Why did he get the distinct impression she was padding her experience?
“Even better. I can start today. No charge for what I’ve done so far. Consider it a free trial.” She beamed with the enthusiasm of an eight-figure lottery winner. Her perky personality got under his skin. She smiled wider.
Sally Sunshine was so not the type he chose. He liked his women tall, elegant, not clingy, and with a little attitude. Attitude gave him a guilt-free reason to break it off after a few dates. Nobody blamed a guy for ditching a bitch; they applauded it.
Like a hummingbird on crack, Paisley flitted around with boundless energy and a positive outlook on life that he’d been robbed of at an early age, except when it came to his career. He had a handle on that. And his good-guy public image, yeah, he had a handle on that one, too. But his personal life careened around corners on two wheels, barely escaping a series of rollover accidents.
“I don’t think I need to employ someone in your line of—of work.” Whatever the hell that was.
She swept a hand expansively around the space. “Look at these boxes. Are you going to unpack them?”
“Someday.” He shrugged.
“No need to wait. I’m on it. You concentrate on baseball. I’ll handle the household. Once we tackle the unpacking, we’ll work on the yard, and of course the remodel. You’ll need to give me an idea of budget and your style, and I’ll be off and running.”
Yeah, he bet she would. Getting Sally Sunshine and her three munchkins out of his house was proving harder than he’d imagined.
He met her gaze. The twinkle left her eyes, revealing a bone-crushing fear so deep it struck a chord inside him. As if she realized she’d slipped up, she plastered that radiant smile back on her face.
He pursed his lips, trying to find a way out of this while struggling with whether or not he wanted a way out. He needed his stuff unpacked and the house organized. He sure as hell didn’t have the time to do it, and he didn’t know anyone in Seattle.
“If you would have my car towed and repaired, you could take it out of my salary.” Her hopeful expression burrowed past his usually strong resistance.
“Okay.” He heard himself say against his better judgment. “But I don’t need anyone—”
“Would you like to run a background check on me?” she volunteered.
“Uh, I don’t—” He stopped in midsentence and attempted to force his errant thoughts into neat little rows of good soldiers. Only they weren’t obeying orders.
He made the fatal error of looking into her eyes. Her gaze reminded him of his childhood neighbor’s beagle. That dog had conned him out of more sandwiches than he could recall just by sucking him in with those big, soulful brown eyes. Once the sandwich was devoured, the little bastard would bite him every time. Zeke never learned. He kept going back for more.
“Thank you so much, Zeke. You won’t be sorry.” She turned to the kids. “We’re staying. Isn’t that great?”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He didn’t remember hiring her.
One of the girls squealed with delight while the other sneaked peeks at him through lowered lashes. The boy narrowed his eyes and regarded him skeptically.
“My agent will be talking to you.” Zeke didn’t like being the bad guy. In fact, he avoided it like he avoided Brussels sprouts. Al would handle this. Al reveled in playing the bad guy. He’d get rid of her. Zeke relaxed a little as she swept him along in the tsunami that he was coming to learn was Paisley.
She grinned widely and did a dance around the room. The one girl joined her, displaying the boundless energy and joy all children should be allowed to have.
Zeke liked making Paisley smile, even though he hated it at the same time.
When their little dance stopped and the girl returned to her coloring, he spoke. “Your, uh, children, what are their names again?” Her face was flushed from the exertion, and he pictured her underneath him with that same flushed face. Shit. Double shit.
“My nieces and nephew,” she corrected. “The chatterbox is Sophie. Sadie is the quiet one. They’re twins and five years old. Brayden is eight. He’s the self-appointed guardian of the group.”
“I…I, uh, see.” The kids ignored him. All the better. He briefly wondered why the kids would need a guardian. That was the parents’ job, if they were good parents. Something sour settled in his gut. His oldest brother Isaac had assumed that role—until he’d left and never looked back.
“This is only temporary,” he said, fighting for some semblance of control, while suspecting she had most of it. “A week at the most.”
“Of course. How do you like your eggs?”
“Huh?”
“Your eggs?” She opened the refrigerator and took out some eggs.
Obviously his agent had thought to have someone stock the refrigerator, knowing what an idiot Zeke was about that type of stuff. He should’ve known. His old team had complained countless times that he lost too much weight during the season, so Al had made it his mission to force Zeke to eat properly.
“Eggs?” she asked again, still cheerful.
“Over easy.”
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
She had no fucking idea. His phone rang, and he looked at it, frowning.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” She watched him as if she were figuring out all of his weaknesses.
“No, I’m not,” he said. “About your kids, I’m a private person. I can’t have all of you underfoot.”
“Oh, we won’t be any trouble at all. You won’t even know we’re here. It’s a big house. The bottom floor is a daylight basement and has a couple bedrooms and a bathroom.”
“No pets, and that’s not negotiable.”
“You don’t like pets?”
“No, I do not. They’re messy and noisy, and I just don’t like them.”
“I mean it. No animals.”
“Not even a fish or a turtle?”
He nodded, one hundred percent serious.
“I promise. No pets.” She saluted him and clicked her heels together, ignoring his scowl. “If you could help us move the mattress, we’ll stay downstairs.”
“Yeah, sure.” He wanted to smack himself. He’d just agreed to let them stay in his house. He liked his privacy. Loved it, actually. “But only
temporarily.”
“Certainly.”
“Can I ask you something?”
She nodded. Her smile wavered slightly, and wariness filled her eyes.
“What are you doing in Seattle with no money, nowhere to go, and three kids who aren’t yours?”
“It’s quite simple really. I’m their guardian. We came to Seattle from Idaho to get a fresh start. We were going to stay with my cousin, but when we arrived late last night, he wasn’t there, and his girlfriend told us to leave.”
“You didn’t know that ahead of time?”
“No.”
“When will he be back?”
“I don’t know. He’s in jail for petty theft, I guess.”
“Oh.” What the hell had he gotten himself into? He’d better call Al and get him on this situation before this woman took him to the cleaners.
Paisley pushed a few boxes out of the way and set a plate heaping with bacon, eggs, and hash browns on the table. “Here you go.”
His stomach rumbled, reminding him those three little piglets had eaten most of his pizza last night. He sat down and dug in. It was good. Damn good.
Paisley disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a wrinkled piece of paper. She held it out to him. “My résumé.”
He glanced at it briefly and looked for his phone in this mess. As soon as he found it, he’d take a photo and send it to Al.
Maybe he really did need someone to handle his household duties. It was a big house, and big houses took work—lots of work—which he hadn’t exactly considered when he’d created his wish list for his Seattle house. His last place had been an ultramodern condo. This time he’d wanted a big, old house that screamed “old money built this.” He wanted to look established. He wanted his brothers to know little brother did just fine without them. He’d never invite the bastards over, but people talked. They’d know. Just like he knew they were both settled down with nice women and had become best buddies.
Whatever. The thought of those two bastards made him want to puke.
“So you’ve been a short-order cook, a barista, and a housekeeper?”
She nodded, lighting up the room once again with her smile. “Yes, and I’m damn good at every one of those jobs.”
He pointed at his empty plate with his fork. “I can vouch for the cooking part. This is delicious.”
“Been eating out or cooking for yourself too much, haven’t you?”
“Eating out. I don’t cook.”
“You poor thing. I’ll make sure you eat like you should.”
If breakfast was any example, he’d eat like a pig. He’d probably put on weight, but he was a little on the thin side.
He liked her, and he didn’t want to like her. The sooner she was out of his life, the better, even if he had to toss a little cash in her direction.
But…
He quashed the thought before it ever formed. She wasn’t anyone to him, and he wasn’t anyone to her other than a meal ticket or a savior. He wasn’t anyone’s savior, especially not a woman with three little kids. That almost sounded like family, which was a four-letter word to him. Family sucked. Family hurt you more than anyone else could. Family stabbed the knife in deep and twisted it until your insides turned rotten and black.
Yeah, in his skewed view of life, all family was good for was pain and suffering.
Besides, he didn’t like kids. He faked it well with all his carefully planned and orchestrated visits to children’s hospitals and charity functions. Everyone thought he was a good guy, never getting into trouble, never doing anything wrong, always doing the right thing. Even though being the good guy had never served him well as a kid, and it hadn’t saved him from the worst fate known to baseball—
Being traded to Seattle.
God help him.
He glanced up to find Paisley staring at him with those luminous beagle eyes of hers. She smiled. He smiled back, even as he tried to resist. He couldn’t resist. She had this genuine, loving-life smile, which made him feel a like a dick for his attitude and his fake good-boy image.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
His stomach dipped a little. His sister used to say that to him with the same concerned tone that was in Paisley’s voice. He swallowed hard and dragged his gaze away from hers. She saw too deeply into the blackness. He didn’t let anyone see the blackness. Fuck, he didn’t even dwell deeply enough inside his head to see the blackness. In truth, the blackness scared the crap out of him.
Zeke pretended he hadn’t a care in the world, because he shouldn’t. He was young and healthy. He had more money than he could spend, a talent for baseball that few others had, and a bright future, even if it happened to be in Seattle.
Most of the time, he buried the bad stuff and pretended to love his life. Only Paisley dredged up stuff he didn’t want to surface. On some deeper level, they connected. He didn’t understand it, but there it was.
“I’ll have your Internet and TV cable connected on Monday. Is there anything else you’d like?” She looked at him, and he had the distinct feeling she’d said more than the last two sentences he’d caught.
“I, uh, that’s not necessary. My agent can handle all that. He’s in town for the season opener.”
She shrugged. “I can understand why you don’t trust me. You don’t know me. I’ll give you a strict accounting of every penny I spend and get your approval first.”
He nodded slowly. His eyes locked in on those glossy pink lips forming a perfect bow. Several strands of hair fell over her forehead, and she pushed them back with a hand.
She was the cutest little thing he’d seen in years, and oddly he did trust her. He shouldn’t, because he rarely took anyone at face value unless they’d earned it over the years. She’d taken minutes.
Even so, he refused to be an idiot and follow his instincts. “Look, my agent handles all this stuff.”
“Sounds good. Can we talk salary? And if I could get an advance—”
He stared at her with his mouth hanging open and couldn’t formulate a response.
She was a nervy one, but he liked her spunk. Perhaps more than he should.
Chapter 3—Base Hit
Begging for money was worse than a root canal. Paisley hated both with equal passion, even if she wasn’t asking for a handout. She was asking for an advance on an imaginary salary.
Zeke blinked at her several times and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Five hundred dollars will do it.”
He hesitated, as if exploring his options. “You’re not going to take my money and run, are you?” he asked hopefully.
She laughed. “Run away in what?”
He smiled. He was even more gorgeous when he smiled, and she almost preferred dark and brooding over sunny and happy. The man seemed to be both, weaved into some complex personality web.
“Let me call my agent. He’s in town and staying only a few minutes away.”
Paisley nodded and swallowed. The dreaded agent. Damn. She’d have to get through both of them now, just when she’d been on the verge of convincing Zeke to hire her.
Zeke walked to the breakfast nook window, keeping his back to her, and spoke in low tones on his cell. Mesmerized, she watched the play of muscles across his back and imagined running her fingers over those very muscles as he thrust inside her over and over and—
Oh, good Lord. Did she ever learn? This guy was unattainable and as wrong for her as her former loser boyfriends had been, even if for different reasons.
“He’ll be right here.” Zeke turned quickly, catching her completely off guard. “He was actually already on his way, probably with five cops on his tail as he leads them on a high-speed chase.” Relief relaxed the lines on his face, but she didn’t have a clue what he had to be relieved about.
“A high-speed chase?” She didn’t understand.
“You’ll get it when you meet him. Like most good agents, he’s a ruthless tornado who operates at warp speed twenty-four-seven and eats na
ils for lunch.”
“Is he a superhero?” Brayden asked, looking up from his careful unwrapping of dishes.
“More like a super villain.” Zeke grinned at her nephew, who merely stared back as if Zeke were an interesting bug to be examined.
A ring of the door chimes caught his attention. “Told you so. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be here.”
She heard male voices, Zeke’s and another man’s, but couldn’t make them out. They spoke in low tones in the entryway. Footsteps rang on the hardwood floors. Paisley took a deep breath, let it out, and plastered her cheeriest smile back on her face.
A wiry man with dark hair and glasses rushed into the room in a whirlwind of energy that put her to shame. His clothes were rumpled, as if he’d slept in them and hadn’t taken the time to change. He was everywhere at once, studying the pictures the girls had colored, commenting on Brayden’s unpacking of dishes, and running a finger over the spotless counters. He turned his incredibly intense gray eyes on Paisley and stuck out his hand. “Al Greenburg,” he said with an abruptness, which meant nothing and everything. She didn’t take him personally. She had a go-getter aunt just like him.
The man was a shark, she could tell, but she liked sharks as long as she didn’t have to swim in their waters. She’d rather not have a chunk taken out of her ass.
“Paisley Madison. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Greenburg.”
“Al,” he replied distractedly as he turned his back on her. “Did you clean this mess up?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
He pivoted on his heel to face her again. “Don’t call me sir or Mr. Greenburg. Al will do.”
He snapped his eagle’s gaze to Zeke. “Sorry, man, I hired a cleaning crew, but they never showed up. It’s hard to get good help anymore.”
Zeke nodded warily, giving Paisley the impression something wasn’t going according to plan.
Bottom of the Ninth: Seattle Skookums Baseball (Game On in Seattle Book 6) Page 3
