beyond the grassy backyard was the canal where a bright white yacht was docked.
“Ellie?”
She glanced at the pool again. Mac Carmichael was swimming with a little girl of around six, probably his daughter.
She edged toward them. Trying to sound confident, she said, “Hi.”
The little blonde wearing water wings waved shyly.
Mac wiped both hands down his face and headed for the ladder in the shallow water on the far side of the pool. “I’ll be right with you.”
She wanted to say, “Take your time,” or “Don’t get out on my account. I’ll find my way to the kitchen,” but the sight of Mac pulling himself onto the ladder stopped her cold. His dark swimming trunks clung wetly to his firm behind. Water pulled them down, causing them to slip as he climbed the ladder. By the time he got out of the pool his trunks clung precariously to his lean hips. He walked to a beige-and-white-flowered chaise and grabbed a huge towel.
“You got here quickly.”
She stared. With the blue skies of Florida as a backdrop, his eyes turned a color closer to topaz. Water ran in rivulets down the black hair on his chest. His still-dripping swimming trunks hung on to his hips for dear life.
“I…um…” She cleared her throat as attraction rumbled through her. It had been so long that she’d been overwhelmingly attracted to a man that she’d missed the symptoms. But here they were. Sweaty palms. Stuttering heart. Inability to form a coherent sentence.
Now she knew why her intuition wouldn’t let her allow Mac to leave the Happy Maids office. It wasn’t because of Cain. It was because she was attracted to Mac.
Telling herself not to panic, she could handle one little attraction, she smiled. Her intuition might have brought her here for a frivolous reason, but once Ava had told her about Cain wanting an “in” with Mac, she knew she couldn’t back out. Liz had saved her when she desperately needed someone. Now she finally had a chance to repay the favor. This was a mission. “I just had to run home to put on jeans and pack a bag.”
He motioned to the steps. “You go on up. It’s too hot for you to stand out here in this heat in those jeans. As soon as I get Lacy from the pool I’ll be in.”
This time she could say, “No hurry. I’ll be fine,” because she seriously needed a minute alone to compose herself. How did one man get so lucky as to not only be rich and live in a house that took her breath away, but also be so good-looking he rivaled the pristine Florida sky?
“Just go up the stairs and turn left, into the kitchen. We’ll be there in a minute.”
She nodded and started up the steps, feeling as if she were walking the stairs to a museum or some other prestigious building rather than someone’s residence. Of course, she wasn’t exactly well versed in what a “normal” home should look like. She’d grown up in foster homes until she was seventeen when she ran away. Then she’d slept on the streets and fought tooth and nail just to find something to eat each day until she met Sam. She’d stayed with him, enduring increasing verbal and emotional abuse until the night the abuse became physical. Then she’d run. A Friend Indeed couldn’t take her in because they were a charity chartered to care for women with children, but Liz had offered her her couch and ultimately a job. After four years with Happy Maids, interacting with Liz and the friends she’d made through A Friend Indeed, she was only now coming to understand what normal relationships were.
So, she could forgive herself for being a tad awestruck by this house. She might clean for Miami’s elite but this guy was in a class by himself, and from the outside, his house absolutely looked like a museum.
Pushing open the second door of the four French doors lining the back wall of the house, she found herself standing between a huge kitchen on the left and a comfy family room on the right. Decorated with an overstuffed brown leather sofa and chairs with shiny cherrywood end tables and a huge flat-screen TV between bookcases that ran along the entire back wall, that part of the open floor plan appeared to be where the family did most of their living.
That she liked.
But only a few steps into the kitchen, she swallowed hard. The stove had eight burners. The refrigerator was actually hidden behind panels of the same cherrywood as the cabinets. Copper pots and pans hung from a rack above the stove. Pale salmon-colored granite countertops accented the rich cabinets. A sink with a tall copper faucet sat in the middle of the center island and another sat in a counter along a far wall. Crystal gleamed behind the glass doors of all the cabinets on the right wall.
She looked around in awe. She’d been in kitchens almost as elaborate as this one. She did, after all, clean for some fairly wealthy people. But men in Mac’s caliber weren’t wealthy. They were beyond wealthy. They didn’t hire weekly cleaning services. They had full-time employees and gourmet kitchens big enough to cook food for parties attended by hundreds of people. As a Happy Maid she only cleaned, didn’t cook for any of her clients.
She glanced around again, her mouth slightly open, fear tightening her chest.
She grabbed the cell phone she had stashed in her jeans pocket and hit a speed dial number.
“Ava, I think I’m gonna need a cook book.”
Chapter Two
A FEW minutes later, Mac and Lacy entered the kitchen. “Lacy, this is Ellie.”
Ellie smiled at the wet-haired little girl wrapped in a bright blue towel. “Nice to meet you.”
Lacy glanced down shyly. “Nice to meet you too.”
“Ellie’s going to be staying with us while we look for a replacement for Mrs. Devlin.”
Lacy nodded.
“So why don’t you go upstairs and change out of your swimsuit?”
“I could help her,” Ellie suggested, eager to do a good job more than to get out of the kitchen. She no longer had a problem being alone with Mac. He was definitely good-looking, and everything female inside of her had absolutely taken notice of his ropey muscles and firm butt in his swim trunks. But being attracted to him was wildly inappropriate. People in his tax bracket didn’t mingle with the help. And people in her tax bracket would be foolish to drool or harbor crushes. She’d be safe with him.
Mac shook his head. “Lacy’s fine on her own. I’d like to show you to your room and talk about the job a bit while Henry’s still napping.”
“Henry is your son?”
“Yes.” Mac winced. “He’s only nine months old. I hope that’s not a problem.”
Spending a few weeks with a baby a problem? Ellie nearly laughed. She didn’t have brothers and sisters. The foster homes she’d lived in only took children, not babies. And after Sam she’d vowed she’d never have another “serious” relationship, which put kids out of reach for her. She’d babysat a time or two for new mothers who lived in A Friend Indeed houses, so she knew how to care for a baby. But she’d never be a mother herself. Having such a lovely block of time with a baby would be pure joy.
“Actually, it’s kind of a thrill for me to take care of a baby.”
Her
