be nice to you, even though she thinks you’re a jerk.” Her eyes grew wide and he waited for her apology, but she said, “Don’t tell her I said that, okay. I’m not allowed to say jerk.”
Sam coughed. The girl was indeed her mother’s daughter.
“We’ll keep it between the two of us then.”
Katie motioned for him to come inside. The apartment was small, but tidy, and just this side of blast-furnace hot. He’d hoped, prayed actually, that the ride up in the elevator had been an aberration. But the fact became plain. The building did not have air-conditioning, and neither did this small apartment. It was mid-August, which meant it could be a good month before the weather turned cool.
Then Kelli Walters walked into the room, and he would have sworn the already ungodly temperature inside the apartment notched up another dozen degrees. Sam had been sure this bizarre and unsuitable attraction had run its course, but clearly it hadn’t.
What was it about her?
Her hair was pulled back in a simple and youthful ponytail; her skin was dewy with moisture. She wore a yellow tank top and tan cotton skirt that stopped a good three inches above her knees. There was nothing overtly sexy about the casual outfit and he supposed it made sense given the heat, but Sam wished she’d worn slacks. The woman had some nice legs—as slender as a model’s and yet as toned as an athlete’s. He tugged at his tie and unbuttoned his collar.
“You might want to slip off your jacket before you pass out,” she said wryly. “It’s a bit warm in here.”
He dragged his gaze away from her legs. “Warm? Oh, no. Hot. Extremely hot.”
Awareness seemed to hum between them for a moment before she said, “No air-conditioning, sorry.”
She pushed a stray lock of hair off her damp forehead, looking not the least bit apologetic. “Can I get you something to drink? I’ve got iced tea.”
“Anything cold would be fine.”
As Sam said it, he felt a tug on his pant leg. He looked down into the messy, orange face of a grinning toddler.
“I remember you,” Sam murmured, thinking about his last run-in with the baby. He’d had to send his jacket out for spot removal. If her hands were as messy as her face, it looked like he could count on another dry-cleaning bill.
Kelli glanced down as well and then gasped. “Chloe!”
She transferred her sheepish gaze to Sam. “I’m sorry, Mr. Maxwell. I was so busy wiping up the mess she made on the floor I never got around to her hands and face. She’s become a regular Houdini lately. Even when I buckle her into the high chair, she can manage to slip out.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at the streaks around his right knee, succeeding only in making a larger smear.
Kelli had just managed to clean up the toddler when the doorbell rang again. She ushered all of her guests into the cramped living room and, after ensuring that the girls were settled in their bedroom with a video, she returned with a tray of glasses and a pitcher of iced tea.
The only available seat was on the couch next to Sam. Their knees bumped as she settled onto the half of a cushion that remained.
“Excuse me,” they both said at the same time.
Kelli crossed her legs in the hope of making herself somehow smaller, but she only succeeded in making her skirt smaller. The hem hiked up to the middle of her thighs. As she tried to discreetly tug it back down, Sam reached for his iced tea, nearly draining the glass before putting it back on the tray she’d set on the coffee table.
“Can I get you something else?”
He responded with a curiously tight, “No.”
For the next half hour, Joe Whaley, the main cameraman who would be assigned to Sam, explained what he would and would not film. After a quick tour of the apartment and a brief introduction to Kelli’s girls, he decided where remote cameras would be positioned.
He was a big burly man, with shaggy dark eyebrows and a tattoo of a dragon on one bicep. Yet, he’d gotten down on one knee to shake hands with Katie and had even managed to delight a laugh out of Chloe with his impression of Donald Duck.
After he stood, he asked his young assistant, “What do you think, Nic? How many remotes do you figure this job will take?”
“Four? No, five, Dad.”
He gave her ponytail an affectionate yank and winked at Kelli and Sam.
“She’s a chip off the old block,” he said with obvious pride.
Any concerns Kelli had about leaving her kids with Sam while under this man’s watchful eye evaporated. Joe was a father, and her gut instinct told Kelli that tattoos or not, he was a good one.
Back in the living room, Joe explained to Sam, “While at work and outside the apartment, one or two cameramen will follow you, but I’ll be your main man.”
“Looking forward to it,” Sam grumbled.
Ryan piped up then. “Sylvia asked Ms. Walters to write out a schedule of sorts for you. Of course, you don’t need to follow it to the letter. One of the points of the show is to improve on the other’s routine. That can mean using time or money better than the other person.”
“Efficiency is one of my specialties.” Sam sent Kelli a superior look that set her teeth on edge.
She enjoyed watching his smug smile falter a bit when she handed him a dozen single-spaced, typed pages of instructions, most of them having to do exclusively with her children.
“Pages one through three deal with the basics, like dinner menus, bed and bath times, what books we’ve been reading before going to bed. Sitter information. That kind of thing.”
Just for good measure she asked, “You know how to change a diaper, right?”
“I think I can figure it out.”
“I go grocery shopping on Monday evenings after class because the lines are shorter and Mr. Kennedy, he’s the butcher, gives me a good deal on the meat that’s getting near its sell-by date.”
When he raised an eyebrow, she reminded him, “My bank account is a lot more limited than yours and that’s what you’ll be living on for the next month.”
“Fine. So you shop on Mondays when the meat is cheap and near spoiling.”
Pride had her lifting her chin. “That’s right. I also try to cook for the week that night after coming home from class. You can get two meals, sometimes three, from a whole chicken if you do it right. Of course, you’re a bigger eater than any of us. There might not be much meat left for your soup.”
“It comes in a can, you know.”
“I like it homemade. Besides, this is cheaper and more nutritious. A sliced up stalk of celery, diced carrots and onion, and you’ve got a meal at half the cost. I add dried
