right, then. Time to see if he’d retained his skill at smoothing things over during the past six months of rebuilding his life from the bottom up. Time to start the job, get it done…because he already knew there was no sense in delaying a blow.
“Lucy,” he said swiftly, “I’m sorry for whatever my brother told you, but if my family wanted a house-sitter they’d call an agency.” The stricken look in her eyes was all too familiar, but he’d delivered this kind of speech so many times that by now he knew better than to watch the woman receiving it. “I appreciate your looking after the place, but—”
“But it wasn’t a real job,” Lucy interrupted, “was it?”
That was different, Con realized with a flicker of surprise. One more intriguing contrast from the usual show ponies. Normally they protested that Kenny had to be telling the truth when he’d promised them a Porsche or invited them to Hawaii or talked about five-carat engagement rings, because no one had ever shared a love like theirs.
But this woman wasn’t asking for money….
“Well,” he answered, wondering what his brother had promised her, “it’s a real job, in a way.” After all, she had obviously kept the place clean, watered the plants, taken care of whatever the housekeeping service normally handled the day before anyone arrived. “But it’s my job now.” At least until his mother and Warren arrived in January. “So you and Emma can get back to—”
“Right,” she interrupted again, standing up and adjusting the baby’s blanket with a quick, decisive gesture. “Absolutely. We’ll be out of here in no time.”
“You’ve got somewhere else to go, right?” Of course she did, he realized as soon as he’d asked the question, because otherwise she wouldn’t be so ready to leave. Still, any house-sitter deserved more notice than she’d gotten…no matter what she’d already collected from Kenny. “You need any money? I mean, if you’ve been doing this for a while, I owe you—”
“No, you don’t,” Lucy said fiercely, heading for the dining room where a tall stack of envelopes rested against a printer’s box. “Kenny already paid me back in March, and I’ve been addressing envelopes for a temp service, besides. And last week I started the early shift at a diner downtown. They got a Code of Variance, so I can bring Emma. We just—”
“Lucy. Wait a minute.” She was speaking too swiftly, moving too rapidly, and he had the feeling she was balanced on a very thin edge of panic. But when she turned to meet his gaze, he saw nothing but determination in her coffee-brown eyes. “You sure you’re okay? If you need to make some calls, if you need any help—”
“I don’t need any help!” she snapped, shifting the baby from her right arm to her left with a touch as gentle as her posture was rigid. “I take care of myself. And Emma.”
And Emma, right. The baby he still wasn’t letting himself contemplate looked surprisingly small against Lucy’s trim yellow T-shirt, although he couldn’t remember exactly how big a baby was supposed to be. Had Bryan ever been so—
Don’t go there.
“All right, then,” Con answered her as well as himself. He had to stay focused on action, not on his son. “I’ve got some stuff to bring in, but let me know if you need any help, uh, lifting a suitcase or anything,” he concluded. “All right?”
Lucy fixed him with a steely glare. “Look, I don’t know how much clearer I can make this,” she said evenly, “but I am not taking anything, any help, from any Tarkingtons.”
From the fury with which she practically spit his name, Kenny must have really done a number on her. Which meant that, unlike the women who hinted about Porsches, she must have given her heart completely….
God, she must’ve loved him.
His brother had spent the past four years breaking hearts all over the PGA tour, but never the heart of a woman like this one. A woman who obviously wasn’t in it for the money, who wasn’t clamoring for some kind of reward. No, this naturally sensuous, vibrantly fascinating woman had loved Kenny Tarkington.
A fact which left Conner feeling curiously regretful.
“‘Feelings are our friends,’ remember?”
“I hear you,” he acknowledged, mentally shoving his therapist’s reminder aside. He didn’t need—or want—any feelings right now, not while dealing with yet another woman his brother had abandoned. A woman who, unlike the usual two-month girlfriends, must have believed Kenny’s glib promises of love…and who needed to know there was little chance of him returning anytime soon. “Last I heard, Kenny was playing the Asian tour.”
“Well, he can stay in Asia,” Lucy retorted, with a flush of color that seemed to light her entire body. “And you can stay, uh, here. In your house. Emma and I will be out in no time.” She whirled toward the table, picked up a stack of envelopes and shoved it into the box, then turned back to him with a final plea. “Just do like you said. Get your stuff, dump it on the floor, and…and go to bed. Okay?”
She wasn’t going to watch Conner Tarkington bring in whatever luggage he’d left in his million-dollar car. Or watch him unpack in the luxurious master bedroom she’d kept scrupulously untouched. No, Lucy vowed as she headed for the guest room, she was going to grab a change of clothes, Emma’s freshly washed diapers and her milk from the kitchen, then get out of here before the last fragile shreds of her pride collapsed.
Her friend Shawna had offered to make room on the couch for overnight guests, and Shawna’s husband Jeff could pick them up when he got off work at midnight. So all Lucy needed to do was pack whatever she could carry to the nearest all-night donut shop, and wrap the baby in enough sweaters to keep her warm during the walk…because she sure wasn’t going to wait around here.
Not after vowing to raise her daughter with the hard-won knowledge that accepting men’s favors was stupid.
But Conner Tarkington wasn’t making it easy to concentrate on packing. Maybe he wasn’t deliberately trying to distract her—he seemed intent on nothing but the trek indoors and out and back again, with a laptop computer and a series of airline-labeled file boxes—but in spite of his haggard face and crumpled executive shirt, the man looked incredibly good.
And she had no business thinking that way.
So the sooner she got out of here, the better. “We’re going to be fine,” Lucy told Emma, folding a dozen cloth diapers into her pink-plaid bag. She still hadn’t saved enough for a move-in deposit, and asking for help from Kenny’s brother was out of the question, but there was no sense in worrying her daughter. “Because Shawna—you remember her, she’s got those blond corn-row braids—will let us spend the night at her place, and tomorrow Mommy’s going to find another job.”
The diner had been perfect, because she could keep an eye on Emma while fixing sandwiches for businesspeople, but it didn’t pay as well as the upscale restaurant she’d worked at until February. She had quit waitressing when Kenny wanted to spend more time together, although she’d returned to work the day after his farewell message. But by then it was already too late to qualify for health insurance, which made it all the more frightening when she was ordered to stay in bed or lose the baby.
Still, with the rent taken care of, she’d been able to devote every envelope-addressing paycheck to the medical, grocery and utility bills—and
