Maid to Fit

by Rebecca Avery

  Wanted: One Household Hero

  Single mom Kayla Clark is ready to wave the white flag. Between a demanding career, caring for her elderly mother and raising a teenager, she needs help! A housekeeper is the answer—but Kayla doesn’t expect the former army sergeant she hires through Man Maid to be young, fit and sexy….

  Ronnie Brown hasn’t yet adjusted to civilian life, and he welcomes the normality of whipping Kayla’s home into shape. Flirting with her is just a perk. But when he realizes just how much Kayla and her daughter need him, he quickly takes charge of a lot more than scrubbing floors. As he becomes more and more a part of the family fabric, soon he can’t imagine his life without the two of them in it.

  Now Ronnie just has to convince his beautiful boss she can trust him to take care of all her needs….

  Maid to Fit

  Rebecca M. Avery

  Harlequin E Contemporary Romance

  Thanks to my loving husband, Derek, and ornery children, Harley and Kevin, who never miss an opportunity to laugh at me while I’m dancing in my chair, headphones on and happily typing away, lost in my own imagination…you guys are great! My sincere appreciation to the real Rhawnie and her overgrown German shepherd dog, Moses, for being such an inspiration and allowing me to twist things into a whole new reality. For taking a chance on an unknown author with absolutely no clue what she’s doing but who always has a story to tell, a special thanks to my editor Stacy.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to my world of what ifs and maybe just maybe. This book is a combination of personalities, memories and life experiences that I shoved into a bag, shook up with all my might, then pulled out the result and combined it with my overactive imagination. I sincerely hope you get as caught up in reading this little bit of folly as I did when I wrote it and that you’ll see a little bit of yourself in one or more of these characters.

  I am truly amazed at how I can fall asleep within minutes while watching a television show or movie, even in a theater or with the surround sound on, but I can’t sleep through my own dreams. While I might be able to take or leave a film, the images a good book provokes in my mind stick with me for years. Those thoughts, ideas and feelings a story can provide feed my soul and I sincerely hope that this story does just a little bit of that for you.

  The characters in my head have been there my whole life and they call out to me in the dark of night asking me to tell their stories. In the case of this series the characters are a tight bunch of friends finding their way in life and love. Fear kept me from letting them leave my head and make their own way in the world. Now that I am releasing them by writing down their adventures I find that I haven’t lost them at all—I’ve just made room for more.

  Leave your world for a little while and enjoy mine.

  Rebecca M. Avery

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Master Sergeant Russell “Rusty” Hawkins needed a game plan.

  He sat in his recliner facing three men from his unit who were lounging on his sofa. Only, they weren’t really in his unit anymore. Now all four of them were just regular guys…civilians.

  These men had served under him during their last deployment to Afghanistan, which had ended a few months ago, but Rusty was no longer in charge; now he was just their friend. Yet somehow they still expected him to push them in the right direction. The problem was that the only thing he could suggest to them right now was to start taking college courses to prepare themselves for the workforce.

  “You should take the money Uncle Sam gave you for school and use it wisely,” he said, eyeing each of them.

  “I plan on it, sir. But at night, when the fresh-out-of-high-school students are out partying. I’m not real big on the idea of being the weird old guy in the class,” Sergeant First Class Ronald “Ronnie” Brown said.

  Ronnie was built like a tank. He was also a handsome man with a strong jaw, brown hair and blue eyes, and Rusty had noticed that Ronnie often caught women’s attention. Unlike some of the rowdy characters who had been under Rusty’s command in the United States Army, Ronnie was different—quiet and serious. Rusty understood where Ronnie was coming from, but these guys needed college degrees. They had no training for civilian jobs—unless shooting an M-16 or sniffing out insurgents happened to be listed as required skills for job applicants.

  “I was hoping for a little fun before hitting the books myself. I was thinking of an easy job with nights and weekends off,” Sergeant First Class Seth Lewis chimed in. “After being on the clock every second of every day, I could use a break.”

  Of course he wanted plenty of free time. Seth was a horny bastard with a face that seemed to leave women blushing and giggling. The guys in the unit had nicknamed him “Pole” to remind him of his roots as a former exotic dancer. Getting Seth to think with the head containing his brain was often easier said than done.

  “You could always give dance lessons, Pole,” Staff Sergeant Ian Hamilton said, then snickered.

  Ian was the clown of the group, always quick with a joke. He could pull off pranks worthy of a medal. He was also the youngest of the group and even bigger than Ronnie. He was effectively an overgrown ten-year-old, but his heart was always in the right place. He tended to be the therapist of the group.

  This crew needed direction—that was all there was to it. Being tired and burned out, they all wanted to be as far away from war and the potential of violence as possible. Their last deployment had been an experience that was forever burned into their minds. It was one none of them wanted to repeat. Killing was never pleasant, but after the mission that nearly cost them all their lives, none of them wanted to carry a weapon anytime soon, if ever.

  The fact that they’d all managed to make it out without a scratch was fate’s way of offering up something different for their lives…but what?

  Security work wasn’t appealing because it involved guns and the possibility of having to use them. These men needed jobs that would utilize the other skills they’d learned in the military.

  Rusty had run a well-oiled unit and each of these men had impressed him. They followed orders, kept their barracks and living areas up to his standards and could multitask and then some. If only there were jobs for those skills.

  He’d thought of one option, but he wasn’t sure how the guys would react.

  Along with the little house he now lived in, Rusty’s grandfather had also left him a small commercial cleaning business. There was enough work to keep Rusty, and possibly one other person, employed now that his grandfather was gone and the woman who had worked for him had retired. There wasn’t much money in the business, but cleaning offices was mundane and easy. If he expanded the business to include residential services, maybe he could keep these guys going for a while, until they decided what they wanted to do with their lives.

  Did people hire men to clean?

  He would put any of these three men up against a professional cleaning crew any day of the week. Rusty was meticulous about inspections of both the soldier and the soldier’s personal living space, and none of these guys had ever disappointed him. He could offer it up as an option and let each man decide for himself. “How about cleaning houses?” he asked the group of men.

  “You mean like a maid?” Ronnie asked in shock.

  “Do you have a better option, Sergeant? Yo
u are welcome to see what kind of job you can find on your own—all three of you should start job hunting—but if you’re interested in making a little money in the meantime, I could make some changes to my grandpa’s cleaning business and you all could work for me. Startup costs would be minimal, as would overhead expenses,” Rusty explained.

  “Might want to dust off those cute little maid outfits of yours, Seth,” Ian said with a laugh.

  “Kiss my ass, you oversized troll,” Seth said, punching Ian on the arm. “Count me in, that sounds perfect. Flexible work during the day…evenings and weekends free.”

  Ian brushed off Seth’s punch as though shooing away a fly, laughed and said, “I’m in, too.”

  “What about you, Ronnie?” Rusty asked.

  “I’m in. At least until I can find something else or start school,” Ronnie replied, his hand falling to the German Shepherd at his side. “You sure you don’t mind Buck staying with you for a while? I talked to the landlord again and he said no way.”

  Buck was a ninety-pound service dog who had earned his place in their squad by saving them from a roadside bomb when a routine mission had suddenly gone all wrong. Rusty forced the memories of that horrible day to the back of his mind and concentrated on what they were going to do about Buck.

  The dog wasn’t as young as he used to be. He’d been retired, but the guys had been unable to give him up after they’d all opted not to reenlist at the end of this last tour of duty and followed Rusty to his hometown of Beavercreek, Ohio. Ronnie had adopted Buck before he’d settled into his current apartment with Seth and Ian, which didn’t allow pets. Rusty owned the small house that his grandfather had left to him when he’d passed away, which meant he was the only one with the ability to house Buck at the moment.

  He didn’t mind hosting Buck. All of his guys could have gone their separate ways once they were out of the service, but surviving what they had endured together had somehow made them more than just brothers in arms…it had made them family—Buck included.

  As the surrogate patriarch of this group of misfits, Rusty was in charge, even though he was no longer their commanding officer. Now, instead of looking to him for military orders, they were looking to him for instructions on what to do with their lives. Hell, he didn’t know what to do with his own life.

  Expanding his grandfather’s cleaning service was the best he could come up with at this point.

  “Give me a week or two to do a little research on the industry, come up with some prices and do a little advertising. For now, we’ll all split the work that the business already has. It’s not much, but I’ll let you know when I have something more for you,” he said with more confidence than he felt.

  * * *

  The guys weren’t going to like their paychecks.

  Over the past month, Rusty had managed to scrape and scrounge and even call in a few favors to get each man one or two additional cleaning jobs. They hadn’t done a bad job; a good 90 percent of the customers had scheduled weekly cleanings. However, unless business significantly picked up, this just wasn’t going to pan out.

  “Well, if you thought military wages were lousy, just wait until you get a load of these paychecks,” Rusty said, handing each of them a check for two weeks’ worth of work.

  “What the hell?” Ronnie said, glancing at his check. “Where is the rest of it?”

  Rusty handed each of them a printout that showed how he had broken down the business expenses, keeping only what was needed to restock cleaning supplies, print flyers and run an ad in the local newspaper.

  “You didn’t even pay yourself, did you, sir?” Ronnie asked after reviewing the document.

  Rusty shook his head no. There was barely enough to pay them. He’d split the money from the jobs three ways. He had some money in savings, and he knew they most likely did not. If he’d taken out a percentage to pay himself, they would have been making next to nothing.

  After the guys had a chance to scan their pitiful checks he said, “We got a call today for a possible job that pays pretty well, but it involves playing chauffeur to a teenager. Anyone interested?”

  “Not a chance,” Seth replied quickly.

  “Not really interested either, sir,” Ian said.

  “Ronnie?” he asked.

  Ronnie looked at his check again. “I need more money than this. I like to eat and I need a place to sleep. And you need to make something out of all this, too, sir. So sign me up.” Ronnie squared his shoulders. “So it’s cleaning the house and driving the kid around…how bad can it be?”

  Chapter One

  The craziness had become pretty bad and was getting worse daily. It had to stop.

  “Addie! Come on, honey, we’re going to be late!” Kayla Clark hollered up the stairwell.

  “I’m almost done. Go on out and start the car, I’ll be right there!” Her teenage daughter yelled back.

  Pulling on her overcoat, Kayla picked up her purse and dug around in the bottom looking for her car keys. Great… She must have laid them down somewhere.

  She looked on the small entry table near the front door with no luck. Heading back down the hallway, she looked on the messy coffee table in the living room. As she walked into the kitchen, she noticed that she had completely forgotten to load the dishwasher after dinner the night before.

  After a stop by the nursing facility to visit with her mother, Kayla hadn’t arrived home until 7:30 last night. By the time she had fed herself and Addison and started on the sketches of her ideas for the campaign meeting scheduled for today with a potential new client, she hadn’t felt like tackling housework. At least she had a good start on the design for the upcoming marketing promotion, and she had combed through several jingle ideas for radio spots. Landing this client was a big deal, not only for Kayla but also for the whole firm. She knew the extra hours in the office would be worth it, but lately it felt like all she did was work.

  When her mother had lived with them, the long work hours hadn’t been so bad. They all chipped in and made the best of things. After her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, though, things had gradually worsened, and Kayla had been forced to do more and more on her own.

  Kayla sighed in frustration at the sight of a nearly full loaf of bread that had not been properly tied up and was probably stale already, then glanced at the dishes in the sink and the bills and papers spread out on the breakfast table.

  Something had to give, and soon. The ten- and twelve-hour days were taking their toll on her and Addie—and on her household, by the look of things.

  Please, please let Man Maid Cleaning respond today.

  She had her resume in for a new position with a couple of other competing ad agencies. A raise wasn’t what she was looking for in a new job…a life outside of the office was what she needed. But that was at least a month away, or more, and wouldn’t help her out right now.

  The here and now entailed a full ten hours in the office followed by a quick stop at the nursing home for a brief and usually disturbing visit with her mother, her only surviving parent, and then a rush to get home to feed Addie and herself before she picked work back up again until midnight, only to get up the next day and do it all over again. Even weekends were crazy and sometimes included stopping by the office while out running errands. At this point, a housekeeper was starting to sound not only pretty nice, but also necessary.

  “Mom! What are you doing? We have to go, remember?” Addie yelled from near the front door.

  Finally spying the keys laying on the counter, Kayla snatched them up and nearly sprinted for the front door. As she got in the driver’s seat and buckled up she noticed the piece of paper Addie was holding out to her.

  “I need you to sign the permission slip for the varsity football cheer squad and the competition cheer squad. I have to turn it in today or I can’t participate,” Addie said, pulling a pen out of her purse.

  Grabbing the piece of paper and the pen, Kayla scanned the form quickly and signed on the bo
ttom line. Perhaps she would get lucky and have both a housekeeper and someone to pick up Addie from cheer practice by the end of the week. It wasn’t fair to Addie not to let her participate because Kayla didn’t have time to pick her up from practices or drop her off for games.

  “I’m sorry I forgot to sign this earlier, sweetie. Things are just crazy at work right now with this new potential account. It will slow down soon, and I will make it up to you,” she heard herself say. “I promise.”

  “It’s fine, Mom.” Addie sighed, looking out the passenger-side window.

  Kayla backed her car out of the driveway and headed to the high school.

  Hearing the disappointment in her daughter’s voice was more hurtful than the unspoken words. It wasn’t as if Kayla didn’t want to be there for Addie. She’d taken this job because it allowed her to provide the same kind of opportunities as any two-parent environment would. Addie deserved that…after all, it wasn’t her daughter’s fault she was being raised by a single parent.

  When Addie was little, there had been more balance in their lives. Kayla’s mom had helped out with child care and housework when she could. But now…

  Much like when Addie had taken her first steps, spoken her first words and started kindergarten, Kayla would once again have to hear about it secondhand. But it couldn’t be helped…especially not right now.

  A part of her was proud that she’d put herself through college and found a good job making decent money even after getting pregnant during her senior year of high school. Starting out as a mother so young had made everything seem twice as hard, but at least her own mother had been there to help with Addie while Kayla had been working and in school. After Kayla’s father had passed away, her mother had moved in with her and Addie. Their life as a threesome had been good—until her mother had become ill.

  Now it was Kayla’s turn to care for her mother. Good nursing-home care wasn’t cheap, though, and Kayla had been thankful time and again that this job had allowed her to provide for the people in her life whom she loved.