island.”
It was the last thing he’d expected. Oh, he’d known she might turn down his proposal outright and that even if she’d accepted it, she might haggle about salary, hours, any number of other things. What he hadn’t once anticipated was that she might be leaving the Lower Mainland and going to live on Vancouver Island. “You’ve made your plans?”
“Everything’s settled. I’m going to stay with my mother till I find a place of my own.” She finished her tea, put down her mug. “Now…it’s very late…and you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“It doesn’t matter. Not now.” He rose from the table, put his mug on the counter. “I’ll be on my way.”
He was at the door, opening it, before she said, “Wait.”
He turned. She was standing still, her face very pale.
“You owe me an explanation,” she said. “You can’t come here in the middle of the night and not tell me why.”
He shrugged. “You won’t be here, so…what I wanted to ask you…doesn’t matter.”
“It was something about Mandy, wasn’t it? If there’s anything I can help with, please let me know. I realize it must be difficult for you to look after her—she has her own little ways, and if it’ll make it any easier for you, I’d be happy to sit down and go over them with you. For example, her hair gets tangled after it’s washed, and to keep her from fussing when you brush it, you have to…”
Her voice trailed away when she saw him drag a weary hand over his nape.
“What is it?” She took an urgent step toward him. “What’s wrong? You must tell me!”
“Mandy’s miserable. I’ve never seen a kid so unhappy.” Jordan wanted to go down on his knees and plead with her to stay but his pride wouldn’t let him. Instead, he gave another shrug—a deliberately careless shrug. “I just thought—at least, my sister Lacey suggested it, I was dead against the idea—Lacey suggested it might help if I were to offer you your old job back. For Mandy’s sake.”
Her lips parted in a round, soundless. “Oh.”
“But since you’re leaving, I’ll have to find someone else. It’s no big deal.” He turned his back on her and opened the door. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
He went out into the night and as he walked in the moonlight to his car, he felt as if the world and all its worries were pressing down on him from every side.
What the hell was he going to do now! He’d told Ms. Fairfax he’d find someone else.
There was no one else.
He kicked at a stone, and hissed out a word that would have made Lacey’s hair stand on end.
Wrenching open the car door, he was about to throw himself inside, when from behind him he heard someone call, “Mr. Maxwell! Wait!”
And when he turned around, Felicity Fairfax was running breathlessly toward him.
CHAPTER TWO
FELICITY thought her heart was going to burst.
What Jordan had said had stunned her. And then joy had exploded inside her, lending wings to her feet as she raced out of the apartment.
Now, catching up to him, she gasped, “Do you really mean it? You want me to look after Mandy again?”
“I don’t recall using exactly those words…but yes, that’s what I came here to ask.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“I was hoping you could start tomorrow. I’d planned—if you were available—to bring Mandy over here on my way to the office. But since you’re moving out of the area—”
“But I don’t have to move—I don’t want to move! If you could only wait till I find another place, there’s nothing in the world that I’d like more than to look after Mandy again.”
A car stopped, farther along the street. Its headlights illuminated Jordan’s face, and there was no mistaking his expression of relief. Then the vehicle turned into a driveway and once again his face was shadowed.
“I can’t wait,” he said. “I need you to start tomorrow.”
“But I have the movers coming on Tuesday. And I’ll have to find another place to live—”
“You’ll stay at Deerhaven.”
“At your house?”
“Right.” Impatience snapped in his voice. “You’ll come home with me now, and tomorrow you can change all your moving arrangements.”
Felicity felt her initial exultation give way to indignation. If he thought he could ride rough-shod over her, he had another think coming.
“I have not,” she snapped back, “even finished packing yet!”
“You can do that tomorrow night after I get home from work.” Restlessly, he shoved his hands in his pockets, to a jangling of keys or coins. “Now, if that’s all settled, I’ll give you a couple of minutes to pack a case with your immediate needs, and then we can—”
“I have a cat.”
“Ah, yes.” His tone was mocking. “The handsome beast. I’m not a cat lover myself. I don’t suppose you’d consider giving him up for adoption?”
“I most certainly would not!”
“Then he’ll be part of the package. Just keep him out of my way, or I won’t answer for the consequences.” He leaned back against the car. “Right, I’ll wait here.” He made a big play of looking at his watch. “I’ll give you twenty minutes to get ready.”
Felicity took thirty.
Oh, she was ready in twenty, but she sat in her darkened bedroom for an extra ten, letting her new employer cool his elegant heels outside.
Jordan was well aware that Felicity Fairfax had saved his job for him. And he knew he should be grateful to her. But as he drove his car up the narrow drive leading to his house, all he could feel was resentment—resentment that Fate had put him in the position of being beholden to her.
It made his blood boil.
Had Fate not dealt him a bad enough hand already, throwing his wife and Denny Fairfax together at that charity “do” last Christmas? His wife had always been an outrageous flirt, but at least she’d known which side her very expensive bread was buttered on and so she’d never become involved with anyone outside of their marriage…until she’d met Denny Fairfax—
“Who’s looking after Mandy just now?” Felicity asked.
He pulled to a halt in front of the house. “My sister. I believe you’ve met her.”
“Lacey.
