eyed her with misgiving. “I don’t want to be rude, Ms. Doyle, but I don’t want you staying here.”
Her smile was sunny. “My name is Shannon and I promise not to get in your way. I’ll be happy to prepare your meals, and do a little housework for you. You have a lovely place here. It will be a pleasure.”
“Look, if you need money for a hotel room, I can probably help you out there.”
“That’s so kind of you to offer, but this will do just fine. You go on about your routine. Just pretend I’m not here, okay?”
With that she bounced out of her chair and efficiently gathered up their dishes. Dan could feel his jaw drop in astonishment.
Granted, he didn’t know much about women, but surely this one was being more than a little brazen.
“Do you expect me to sleep with you?” he asked coldly.
She spun around and stared at him for a moment before offering him a jaunty smile. “Oh, no. That wasn’t part of the agreement.”
“Then maybe you’d better explain the agreement.”
“I’m going to be your housekeeper until you’re ready to go back to Austin.”
“You must be out of your mind,” he muttered. “I don’t need a housekeeper.”
She patted his hand. “Well, let’s see how it goes for the next few days, all right?”
“No! It isn’t all right. I came down here to be alone. Being alone would preclude having a housekeeper.”
“Don’t worry. You won’t even know I’m around.”
“Oh, right,” he replied, heavy on the sarcasm.
“What do you usually do at this time of day, Dan?”
Did she have to sound so blasted reasonable? He was feeling anything but reasonable at the moment. He made himself pause and get a grip on his rapidly escalating temper before he spoke.
Finally, he said, “I’m usually asleep at this time of day,” he said through a clenched jaw.
She smiled. “Well, now that you know what you’ve been missing, you should be thankful I got you up. How about a walk on the beach at dawn tomorrow? That’s my favorite time of day on the island. You’ll love it.”
“My God, haven’t you heard anything I’ve said? I don’t want you here!”
She finished loading the dishwasher before she turned around and faced him. “Don’t worry. I’ll grow on you. Eventually.” Then she had the absolute nerve to walk out of the room humming.
He sat there, seething.
All right, enough already. He’d call security and have them get her out of here.
Oh, that would look good. Order security to remove a woman who was scarcely tall enough to come to his shoulder. As though she were some kind of threat to him.
Actually, she was a threat to his peace of mind. He didn’t need the aggravation. He stomped into the living room and went out onto the balcony. Actually, the day looked quite pleasant. Not many people on the beach.
Maybe he’d go down for a swim. He hadn’t bothered to get out much since he’d arrived. Hell, the first week he’d been here all he’d done was sleep, almost around the clock.
The trial had taken its toll on him, that was certain. Helping to convict his long-time friend and business partner for stealing from their own company had been an exhausting nightmare. But it was over now and he had the rest of his life ahead of him. It was no one’s fault that his life no longer seemed to have any direction.
Nor did he particularly care.
He went back inside and marched down the hall to his bedroom. Shannon met him in the doorway with her arms full of linens and towels. She gave him a nod and a smile and eased past him.
All right, so maybe he did need to get some chores done. Laundry hadn’t been a priority for him. He changed into swim trunks, found a lone towel in the cabinet and took it. Without comment he left the condo, went downstairs and outside.
Chairs conveniently tucked beneath umbrellas clustered the beach in front of the high-rise building. He found an empty one, tossed the towel on it, then stalked to the water and waded in. He forced himself to keep going, despite the shock of the temperature to his warm body. At the moment, it was just what he needed—to cool off and to figure out what the hell he was going to do about his unwanted guest.
Meanwhile, Shannon was upstairs on the phone with Mandy.
“You made him angry?” his sister repeated worriedly.
“I worked hard at it and I believe my efforts were successful.”
“I suppose that’s better than the apathy he’s been going through.”
“It would help if I understood what was going on with him,” Shannon said. “You told me that he’d had some business setbacks, and yet the company seems to be growing.”
“Oh, I forgot you haven’t been here for the past few years. There was this huge investigation going on about the company. It started a couple of years ago. It seems that Dan’s partner, James Williams, was secretly taking microprocessor chips from the company, reporting them stolen, then helping to smuggle them out of the country so they could be sold to some Middle Eastern countries with whom the U.S. is no longer doing business of any kind.”
“Oh, my.”
“Yes. And when he finally got caught—thanks to Rafe’s sleuthing, by the way—James had set it up to look as if Dan was the one responsible for the thefts. He’d even arranged for the stuff to be picked up here on the ranch. Things really looked bad for Dan for a while. Since Rafe knew there was no way Dan could be involved, he just kept digging until he found out the truth. But it was really hard on Dan. He’d been friends with James for years. And of course he trusted him implicitly. So this has been really tough on him.”
“Well, that does explain a few things. He’s probably suffering from a form of burnout.”
“That’s what Rafe says. He says we should just leave him alone until he’s ready to face the daily grind again.”
“Does Rafe know I’m down here?”
“Oh, no. I mean, he knows you came in for an interview. In fact, I think you met him when you were in the office, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I remembered him from school. I had no idea the two of you had gotten married, though, until he happened to mention being related to Dan through marriage.”
Mandy laughed. “I think
