LITMIR.BIZ

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Ardelle was banging away on the piano keys, and Hadley stuck her head in the parlor, meaning to yell hello over the notes.

      Wood sat on the bench beside the white-haired woman, holding the pages of the sheet music in place.

      Hadley hovered, unnoticed in the doorway until Mrs. Ardelle finished with a flourish and dimpled at Wood. “Do you play?”

      He lifted a shoulder. “Badly. Blame six years of enforced lessons. No—” he waved Mrs. Ardelle back in place on the bench when she made to move so he could take her spot “—you keep playing. My ego would roll over and die if I made an attempt at it.”

      Mrs. Ardelle laughed gaily, clearly taken with Wood’s deprecatory drawl. Hadley smiled herself as she tiptoed back to the kitchen without disturbing the two.

      Fortunately, lunch was easy, requiring little of her thoughts, which were definitely preoccupied again with her unexpected guest. Chicken salad, broccoli soup and pecan tarts. When everything was ready she set it all out on the buffet in the dining room using special containers that would keep the dishes hot or cold, and rang the dinner bell. They’d come by and eat when it suited them over the next hour.

      Wood escorted Mrs. Ardelle into the dining room before Hadley escaped to spend her lunchtime as she usually did—squirreled away in her room for an uninterrupted hour of writing. But she surprised everyone, including herself, by fixing herself a serving and sitting down at the table.

      Mrs. Ardelle’s bright eyes skipped from Wood to her as she chattered about the latest gossip going around Lucius, and Hadley had the suspicion that she’d just given the elderly woman a new topic to gossip about.

      The presence of Wood Tolliver at Tiff’s.

      Vince Jeffries ambled in. Next to Wood, who didn’t really count, Vince was her newest boarder. Typically quiet, the thirty-something balding man sat at the end of the table, barely nodding a greeting at the rest. Even Joanie came in after a fashion, keeping a wide berth between herself and Wood, as if he had been barking at her for the room mix-up when nothing could have been further from the truth.

      Hadley couldn’t help wondering what he thought of his lunch companions and was no closer to a conclusion when the pecan tarts had all been eaten and the dining room was clear again, save the dirty dishes, her and Wood.

      She tried waving him back when he began helping her clear the table, but he paid no heed, and in less than half the time it usually took, she had the dining room restored to order and the kitchen sink was full of soapy water.

      “A lot of service you’re providing for a boardinghouse,” Wood observed.

      She gave up protesting his help. The man seemed set on it regardless of what she said. “You’re pretty determined to do whatever you want, aren’t you?” She looked pointedly at the dish towel he’d picked up.

      “Pretty much,” he allowed smoothly.

      She smiled despite herself and shoved her hands back in the hot, soapy water. “So, what do you do back in Indiana?”

      He dried a plate and carefully stacked it on top of the others. “This and that. What time is your special guest coming this afternoon?”

      Hadley glanced up at the clock, dismayed to see how quickly the time was slipping past. “A few hours yet. She said to expect her around four. She’s coming up from Wyoming.”

      He lifted his eyebrows at that, and Hadley shrugged. “From one snowy place to another. I know. But it’s business, and believe me, if I turn it away, I’ll hear about it from my sister, Evie. She’s on my case enough as it is for being too, well, too—”

      “Soft?”

      She looked sideways at him and felt her heart skid around in her chest again when their gazes met. “Yes.”

      Steely blue roved over her and she felt it like a physical thing. “Soft isn’t necessarily bad,” he murmured.

      Her face felt warm, and blaming it on the sudsy water would be an outright lie. “Well.” Her voice was even more breathless. “It is when the profit margin around here is as minimal as it is. She’d have this place listed on one of those Best of shows on television, if she were in charge, and never let any rooms go empty for long.”

      He slipped the forgotten plate out of her fingers and ran it through the rinse water. “But you don’t run Tiff’s for the profit, do you.”

       She blinked, trying to gather her scattered wits, few as they seemed. “When my mother died, my father and brothers wanted me to take over Tiff’s. Nobody could bear to sell it off. Evie was already married with her own responsibilities, and there was nobody left but me.”

      “And what did you want?”

      “To run Tiff’s, of course,” she said after a tiny hesitation that she assured herself wasn’t noticeable.

      He looked back at the dishes he was drying, and she had to resist the impulse to gasp in a breath of air. The man had a serious impact on people. She wondered if he knew.

      From beneath her lowered lashes, she watched his movements. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his casual shirt to his elbows and she might not know the names of the latest Paris designers, but she did know silk when she saw it. And the heavy watch circling his corded brown wrist looked like something that never needed an advertisement.

      Who was she kidding? Of course he knew his own effect.

      “So what’s Joanie’s problem?” he whispered.

      Hadley’s tone turned tart. “Other than being eight months pregnant by a good-for-nothing liar who made sure he beat down whatever self-confidence she had left after her father had already stomped out most of it?”

      Then, because she was in no mood to let Joanie’s ex-boyfriend sour her afternoon, she shook her head and grabbed the last of the bowls. “Sorry. I just cannot abide liars. Anyway, you certainly charmed

      Mrs. Ardelle. I haven’t seen her smile so much since she moved in here last year after her husband passed away.”

      Dane listened to Hadley’s determinedly cheerful voice. She couldn’t abide liars. Ordinarily he’d have said the same. “And Vince Jeffries?”

      “He’s been here a few months. He’s looking for work.”

      “You take in strays.”

      Her head swiveled around to look at him, her soft lips parted.

      Soft-looking lips. Soft woman.

      His fingers strangled the dish towel for a minute. Had it not been for Marlene, the Rutherford family housekeeper, he wouldn’t have known one towel from another, much less what to do with it around a pile of dishes. But Marlene hadn’t cared that he was Roth Rutherford’s heir and had assigned chores whenever it suited her.

      “Everybody needs a place to call home,” Hadley said after a moment. With a quick jerk, she pulled the plug and the soapy water gurgled down the drain. “If Tiff’s provides that, then I’m happy.” She wiped down the counters, rinsed her hands and plucked the dish towel out of Dane’s hands. She stood close enough that he could smell the fragrance of her shampoo. It was clean and soft.

      Just like she was.

      “Come on,” she said. “We’ll get you settled in your new room.”

      There was a touch of huskiness in her voice that he was smart enough to take as a warning. She might be useful for his purposes right now, but he didn’t tangle with innocent women.

      They were too easily hurt.

      He nodded and followed her past the staircase and around to the far side of the house. “I’m afraid you’ll have to share a bathroom,” she said as she pushed open a door and went inside. She picked up an old-fashioned key from the dresser and handed it to him as he entered. “And believe me, considering how nice you’ve been about

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