complained. “It digs. It eats my socks. It ate my favorite pair of shoes, makes all sorts of noise at all hours and generally makes a nuisance of itself. I’m afraid it hasn’t been successfully housetrained, either.”
Audrey nodded, hopefully giving the situation the proper gravity he thought it deserved. “I assume you’ve tried dog trainers with no success?”
He gave her a pained look. “Three.”
And they’d all just annoyed him and wasted his time, as had the poor, unfortunate, would-be landscapers. She wondered how Simon Collier acted when he was truly annoyed. If the earth literally shook or something?
“Again, I really don’t have any formal training in…training animals,” Audrey began.
He shot her a look that said 1) he obviously knew this. 2) they’d covered this point before, and he’d pronounced already that he didn’t care about formal training, and 3) he didn’t care to repeat himself.
“Okay,” Audrey said. “I’m to train the dog.”
He nodded, no doubt satisfied that he hadn’t had to repeat himself further and she hadn’t wasted any more of his time.
“Just so you know, it eats bushes, too.” He pointed to an unfortunate azalea, which she assumed was the dog’s latest victim. “It eats vines, flowers, everything. The dog eats it, chews it enough to kill it or pulls it out and drags it around the yard, in addition to digging in unexpected spots. Something else you’ll have to contend with.”
“Does the dog have a name?” Audrey asked.
“I call it any number of things,” he said, dry as could be, but amusement flashing beneath the surface.
Audrey was sure of it.
And she wondered for a second, in that flash of humor, if he was even younger.
Thirty-eight?
Thirty-six?
She suddenly felt ancient, envying him the utter confidence, the air of power, the obvious wealth and all the security she imagined it would bring, that he didn’t depend on anyone to secure his own future except himself. The kind of security that could not be taken away.
How would it feel to have that and know that no one could take it away?
“What does your daughter call the dog?” Audrey tried.
He made a face, distaste obvious, and reluctantly admitted, “Tinker Bell is its formal name.”
Audrey made a choking sound as she tried as hard as she could not to laugh, then covered her mouth and coughed—she hoped realistically—and then finally managed pure silence.
It was hard, but she managed it.
His mouth settled into a hard, straight line. “We’ve settled on Tink for short. It’s the most dignified thing we could come up with, given what we had to work with.”
Audrey nodded, afraid to even try to speak.
“I suppose I’ll be forced to introduce the two of you before you agree to take this on,” he said, then waited and waited.
Hoping she’d say she didn’t have to actually meet the dog first?
Should she agree to that?
Did she want the job that badly?
Audrey feared she did.
Then he saved her by saying, “But my business experience tells me to do everything I can to sell you on the job before you meet the dog. Shall I show you the living quarters?”
“Please,” Audrey said.
He lifted his arm, gesturing for her to head back the way they had come. “And on the way, I’ll tell you my third problem. My housekeeper, Ms. Bee. I adore her.”
“Really?”
He liked someone.
What a surprise.
“Yes,” he said, one end of his mouth actually curling up just a bit, as if he’d actually thought of smiling. “People may tell you that I’m…difficult. Demanding. Unreasonable. That there isn’t a woman alive who could live happily with me. It simply isn’t true. Ms. Bee and I get along beautifully.”
Chapter Two
So people talked about Simon Collier, too, and he obviously didn’t like it. Audrey thought about telling him she understood and wouldn’t listen to the gossip.
Except in all of the ten minutes she’d spent with him, she was fairly certain no woman would have an easy time living with him. She’d figured out all on her own that he was certainly demanding, precise to the point of perfectionism, and that from his youngest days, probably wouldn’t have gotten the little check mark in the box titled Plays Well with Others.
Women included.
Of course not. He’d have all the power, and they’d have none.
Audrey had been in a relationship like that, and look how badly it had tuned out.
But this was about him and his Ms. Bee.
“I’m very happy for the two of you,” Audrey said.
He gave her a wry smile. “We’ve been together for ten years. Our relationship has lasted much longer than my marriage, and we understand each other perfectly. She’s precise, careful, orderly. Runs my house like a machine. Anything inside those walls is her domain. You are not to interfere in the least or question her or bother her, because I can’t imagine living without her. I don’t want to.”
“Okay,” Audrey said.
But what did she have to do with his love for his housekeeper?
“Unfortunately Ms. Bee—that’s Peyton’s name for her—hates the dog, if possible even more than I do,” he said.
“Oh.” Audrey got it.
“She threatened to leave me if I didn’t get rid of the dog. I confess, I considered telling Peyton it ran away and that I couldn’t find it or that it got hit by a car. But then she’d cry, and I hate it when my daughter cries. But I refuse to live without Ms. Bee, either.”
“I understand.”
“I promised her I would find someone to fix the dog, that she would never have to have anything to do with it again. It’s the only way I could get her to stay. Which is where you come in. You’re to see that the dog never bothers Ms. Bee, which is why I need someone to live on the premises.”
They reached the side of the garage, and he led her up a set of stairs on the side of the building that led to the second floor and a door; he unlocked it and stepped back, letting her go inside first.
It was an open, L-shaped space, tastefully, if sparsely, furnished, a living room,
