hot food all around tugged at her will, hooking her by the nose like a finger-shaped wraith straight out of Saturday-morning cartoons. Food, her personal demon, always beckoned when she was nervous or upset. Right now, she was both.
“Dieting?”
“No.” Her two-day binge aside, there was no way she’d ever put herself into the position where she’d have to do that again. Not after she’d done so much hard work. She shook her head to underscore her denial.
He accepted it without question, and offered, almost irrelevantly, “My wife used to diet all the time.” That was when she noticed the simple, ridged gold band on his wedding finger. He was married? Someone put up with him 24/7? She hadn’t heard anything about that in all the breathless conversations about him and his indisputable gorgeousness back at the office. She was sure her colleagues would have noticed a ring. Maybe she was just odd woman out. Or hard of hearing.
He cajoled. “Come on, you’ve got to be hungry. It’s way past lunchtime.”
Food. Food! She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
Patiently, he explained, “Hey, I’m starving, but my mother didn’t raise me to eat in front of a lady, if she isn’t having anything. So please, it’s almost two o’ clock, and I haven’t had breakfast. Pick something, or I’ll do it for you.”
All she could do was sit in dumb incredulity.
He took that as a cue to proceed, and summoned the redhead again. “We’ll both be having the mutton.”
She spent the rest of the meal struggling with the disorienting sensation that she was having lunch with Trey Hammond’s good twin, or at least the pod person that had replaced him somewhere between the steps of Farrar-Chase and the front door of the Blarney Stone. Her lunch companion was urbane, almost friendly, making small talk about the travel business and asking her opinion about a deal he was exploring. She answered where applicable, hearing her own voice as though it were coming from underwater, but couldn’t scrape up the gumption to initiate a train of conversation herself. The food was delicious, a comforting place to hide. She drew the line at his offer of desert, so they sipped Irish coffee to round off the meal.
He steered the conversation around to her personal life with the suddenness of a rally driver at the Paris-Brest-Paris. “Are you from around here?”
“Where?” she asked stupidly, irrationally looking about the room.
He laughed. The sound was foreign to her ears. “I wasn’t enquiring as to whether you were born under the salad bar. I meant, are you originally from Santa Amata?”
“No, not exactly. I’ve only been here for a couple years or so. I’m originally from Gary.”
“Indiana?”
“Yeah.” She paused to allow him to insert the obligatory Michael Jackson reference, but was disappointed.
“And what brought you out east?”
What, indeed. Getting into too many details about her past would have meant digging up the flat-footed, ugly duckling self she’d tried to escape, and Kendra was never keen on that. She was deliberately vague. “I guess I needed a fresh start.” And she’d made one, a good one, until she’d gone and messed it up.
“So you went to college, stayed in Indiana for a few years, then moved here. And you worked with Shel ever since?”
“Yes. He hired me because of my travel-and-tourism and hospitality courses. This was my first real full-time job. Not much tourism in Gary. I felt like I found my niche here.”
“Wet behind the ears, huh?” The irony couldn’t possibly be lost on him, but he chose not to rub it in. Instead, he finished his coffee and set the spoon in the saucer, next to the cup. He folded his hands on the table, and tilted his head to one side, examining her contemplatively. Calculatingly. Slowly.
Lord, she wondered, what next?
Finally he spoke. “Did you mean what you said?”
“What part?”
“The part about working your fingers to the bone to pay me back.”
“I did. I’m going to pay you back, no matter how long it takes. I don’t know how I’ll get a job in the travel business, considering how small the community is. They must all be talking about me. And it’s not like….” She looked at him, then glanced away. “It’s not like I’m leaving Wanderlust with a glowing recommendation.” In spite of the grimness of the situation, she laughed ruefully. “So I guess I need a whole new career.”
“People have short memories. It’ll blow over faster than you think.”
Easy for him to say. “It might, or it might not. But I will pay you back. I promise.”
Tired from the events of the day, he took a deep breath, as if he were drawing on inner courage to say what he had to say next. “You could pay it off in kind.”
“ What? ” For a second, she wondered if she could get away with throwing her glass in his face. He’d been forbearing so far about siccing the police on her. Would such a gesture of feminine outrage end with her in the slammer?
The shock on her face brought a short, amused laugh to his lips. “Don’t jump to conclusions. That wasn’t what I meant, but I’m flattered you think I’m capable of such a sophomoric idea. I was more in the market for a housekeeper.”
A housekeeper? “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, I’m not. I’ve been living out of a hotel for the past few months, and I’ve only just settled on a house. I’ve had my stuff delivered but it’s still all in boxes, and the place’s gonna need a little elbow grease….”
“You want me to unpack your stuff and clean your house?”
“Pretty much. It’d go a whole lot faster if two people tackle the job.”
“Two people? What about your wife? Isn’t she helping?”
“My wife is dead.” Briefly, the chill in his eyes was back, but it was gone so fast, she could have imagined it.
Oops . I’ll have a side of fries with that mouthful of my own foot, please. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
She contemplated his incredible offer. Was he tripping, or was she? On what planet could such a proposition possibly make sense?
He leaned forward, looking at her levelly, challenging. “Too demeaning for you? Afraid to get scuff marks on your Manolos?”
He couldn’t resist that, could he? “You leave my wardrobe out of this.”
He lifted his shoulders. “I was just thinking we could help each other out. You need money, and I need help. I certainly don’t condone what you did, but I’m in need. I’d pay eighteen dollars an hour, that’s above standard rates around here, I’m told. You could get half in cash, and the other half I put toward your debt to me.” He added, “When you get another job, you can feel free to take it up.
