hard work to keep clean,’ came Jake’s blunt comment as he shut the front door behind her.
‘I’m not afraid of hard work,’ she said, turning to look up at him.
Jake admired the flash of feistiness in her eyes.
It came to him then that he liked this girl. Really liked her.
‘Excellent,’ he said, knowing that he had found his housekeeper at last.
And if it bothered Jake that he also found Abby very desirable, then he determined to ignore it. But he also determined to put things in place so that he would hardly ever see her.
Out of sight was out of mind, after all!
Twelve months later…
ABBY WAS HUMMING happily as she locked up her neat little weatherboard cottage and headed off to work. She never suffered from Monday-itis. She liked her job. Liked looking after Jake Sanderson’s very beautiful house. And looking after Jake Sanderson himself, despite not liking him all that much.
Still, Abby would always be grateful to the man for hiring her when she had no current work experience or references.
Frankly, she still could not believe her luck at getting such a cushy position. Aside from the convenience of getting to work—East Balmain wasn’t too long a drive from Seven Hills—she was her own boss since Jake was never there when she was. She could do as she pleased; have breaks whenever she wanted; work at her own pace.
Not that she was a slacker. Abby was somewhat of a perfectionist when it came to keeping house. You could eat food off the floors in her own home. And off Jake’s by the time she left each day.
Admittedly, when she first arrived on Monday mornings, things could be on the extra messy side. Abby always knew when Jake had had company over the weekend, the kind who stayed the night and didn’t bother to lift a finger to pick up dirty wine glasses or load the dishwasher or do anything other than whatever it was his playmates did. The man who’d been voted most popular television personality earlier this year was reputed never to be short of female company.
Abby’s sister, Megan, who was addicted to Twitter and gossip magazines, kept Abby well informed about who her boss was currently dating. His latest squeeze was a newsreader from the same television channel that Jake’s show aired on. Her name was Olivia, a stunning brunette with big brown eyes and a figure to die for. A smile to die for as well.
There had been a time when Abby would have felt jealous of that smile.
But not any more.
Abby stopped humming abruptly as her tongue ran over her top teeth, still amazed at how fantastic they felt. Her bottom teeth too.
Of course, porcelain veneers came at a huge cost. Abby still hadn’t finished paying off the personal loan she’d taken out to have them done. But really, it had been a case of necessity rather than vanity.
‘You need confidence to go back into the workforce after all this time, hon,’ her sister had advised. ‘Which means you need to do something about your teeth!’
And Megan had been so right. Imagine showing up for an interview with Jake Sanderson the way she’d been. She suffered from fluorosis, a condition which involved an excess of fluoride, caused perhaps by eating fluoride laced toothpaste as a child. She’d loved the taste. Her fluorosis had worsened over the years, the brown stains darkening, pitting her teeth, especially the top ones. Wayne had said she was beautiful the way she was. But Abby had never believed him. So finally, when there’d been no Wayne to object, she’d taken Megan’s advice and gone to the dentist.
It had been the best thing she’d ever done, despite putting her into debt.
Not for much longer, though. Each week she saved every penny she could from her wages, not spending a cent on female fripperies like having her hair and nails done, or even clothes. She just made do with what she had. She also rarely ate out, or went out. If there were no further unexpected expenses—like having to pay for Timmy to have his tonsils out—she would be debt free by Christmas and able to finally start up her travel fund.
Abby had always wanted to see the world, dreams of one day travelling overseas sustaining her when she’d been an unhappy teenager. Okay, so those dreams had been replaced by other dreams when she’d married Wayne, her focus changing to creating a happy family life, the sort of family life that neither she nor Wayne had ever had.
But those dreams had failed to eventuate…
Abby swallowed hard for a few moments, pushing the awful memories aside and forcing herself to focus on dreams which were achievable. And which might make her forget. They did say time healed all wounds. Time, and hopefully travel.
Her dream holiday would encompass at least six months, seeing Europe, Asia and the Americas. There were so many places on her USA bucket list. Niagara Falls. The Grand Canyon. New York.
Which meant of course that one day she’d have to quit her job as Jake’s housekeeper.
Megan thought she was crazy to contemplate giving up her cushy job to go tripping around the world.
But Abby didn’t agree. She needed to have a dream which looked forward and not back. If she wanted to travel, then she would travel. And to hell with her job as Jake Sanderson’s housekeeper. He’d survive without her, and she’d certainly survive without him.
Shortly before nine-thirty, Abby turned into the street which led to Jake’s house. The road sloped gently down to the water, and the ferry terminal, most of the houses two-storey terraces which dated back to the early twentieth century. All of them had been renovated at some stage, Balmain being a very desirable address these days, a far cry from its working-class roots.
Jake’s house had once been a large corner shop which someone had bought and turned into a house, extending it up and out. Jake had bought it a few years ago. It had come fully furnished in the Balinese style and with everything else he wanted, including a no-lawn backyard, a lap pool with a relaxing water feature and an en suite guest bedroom downstairs.
Apparently, at the time of his purchase, he’d been suffering from some leg injury incurred whilst working overseas and hadn’t been capable of climbing stairs for a while. He’d told her all this on the day he’d given her the job, when he’d shown her through the place and explained what he expected her to do. Frankly, he’d spoken to her more that day than in the subsequent twelve months.
Megan was always asking Abby questions about her oh, so famous and handsome bachelor boss, not quite believing her sister when Abby said she still knew next to nothing about him other than the basics, which was that he’d once been a famous documentary maker and was now an equally famous television show host. She had recently learnt that he had a favourite uncle named Craig who was a fairly famous foreign correspondent. Abby only knew this because the man himself had recently come to stay for a while after he’d suffered a skiing mishap.
Megan probably knew a lot more about Abby’s boss since she avidly watched his programme every day. It was called Australia at Noon, a live one-and-a-half-hour programme
