LITMIR.BIZ

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“Dollhouses?”

      Miserably, she nodded. “They were known as baby houses in Victorian times when furniture makers and decorators used them to show off their skills, and women displayed collections of valuable miniatures in them, long before they became children’s toys.”

      “Now I understand why you didn’t know about Maree from the story in the local paper,” he said coldly. “This isn’t about her, or about any kind of family history, is it?”

      Bethany’s look went to the baby playing with a set of brightly colored plastic cups, oblivious of the storm breaking around her. “In a way, what I want to write does concern your family history. I want to do a story about the Frakes Baby House.”

      His breath escaped in a whistling sound of annoyance. “If you know about that, then you must know I’m not interested in having it on public show. So your little scheme to get around me by pretending to be something you’re not was a waste of time.”

      She had been prepared for the switch from friendliness to hostility as soon as he found out what she wanted, but his callous attack on her integrity made her see red. She didn’t stop to consider whether she would be less angry if he hadn’t charmed her so completely to begin with. “Now just a minute. I wrote to you on my business letterhead, asking for an interview. You were the one who jumped to the wrong conclusions.”

      “And it never crossed your mind that I would?”

      “Of course it did. But I hoped once we met and I explained to you what I wanted, you would see reason.”

      He crossed his arms, towering over her in a blatant invasion of her space. “So you think it’s unreasonable of me to want to maintain my privacy?”

      She stood her ground, determined not to back away and reveal how disturbing she found his closeness. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all. But my story doesn’t have to be an invasion of your privacy. If you don’t want me to, I won’t even mention your name.”

      His eyes glittered ferally. “You’ll just refer to it as the Brand X Baby House?”

      She couldn’t and he knew it. All she could do was retreat as gracefully as possible. She only wished it didn’t hurt so much. He hadn’t even given her a chance to explain what she wanted to do, and she still had no idea why he hated the idea of giving any publicity to the dollhouse that had been in his family for generations.

      Nor did she understand why it mattered so much to her—not the story, although without it she had almost no chance of saving her journal—but why his good opinion was so important to her that it hurt to be on the receiving end of his derision. She had enjoyed being called a miracle worker and a fairy godmother, but there was more. She had enjoyed the appreciative way he looked at her, even the enthusiasm with which he ate the one thing she cooked well.

      Pity help her, she had even enjoyed doing his cleaning and laundry.

      For a couple of hours she had felt like a normal, functioning woman, she realized with a heavy heart. After the way Alexander had dumped her because she couldn’t have his children, it had felt good to be appreciated by a man, even one who didn’t really know her. In the guise of helping Nicholas out, she had been playing house, and now it had to stop.

      “Thanks for your time. I’ll see myself out,” she said, picking up her bag. This time he didn’t try to stop her, and she was thankful the security door opened easily from the inside. She didn’t fancy having to retrace her steps past the kitchen and out through his bedroom. As she made her way slowly back to her car, which was parked in the shade of a golden wattle tree, she heard Maree start to cry. Bethany’s footsteps faltered but she made herself keep walking.

      

      “Women. You can’t trust ‘em as far as you can throw ’em,” Nicholas seethed, hearing the sound of the security door swing shut. He aimed a kick at a cupboard door and winced as the pain jarred all the way up his leg. “Damn. I should have known she was up to something. Baby house, indeed. She probably thought all she had to do was cook a meal and wash my laundry, and I’d be putty in her hands. Well it didn’t work, did it, Maree? We told her where to get off, didn’t we?”

      Hearing her name, the baby looked up, but at the sight of his furious expression, she screwed up her face and dissolved into tears and started banging a plastic cup disconsolately against the bars of her playpen, the sound keeping time with her wails.

      Despair coiled through Nicholas. Now look what the wretched woman had done, he thought. She’d managed to upset the baby, just when he’d gotten her quiet and happy. He leaned over the side of the pen, reaching for the child. “Come here, little darling. Don’t cry. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at Bethany.”

      At the sound of the name, Maree’s tear-filled eyes widened and she began to beat at Nicholas’s chest. “Ah, ah, ah,” she screamed, punctuating the sounds with blows.

      He regarded the baby curiously. “Bethany? You’re telling me you like Bethany?”

      Every time he said the name, there was a fresh gurgle of “ah, ah, ah” sounds.

      He shook his head. “Trust me, we’re better off without her. Just because she happens to be damnably attractive—” He broke off as Bethany’s image filled his mind. She was attractive, he realized. He couldn’t recall seeing hair that exact shade of gold before, as if it was perpetually in sunlight. She had nice eyes, too, now he came to think about it. They reminded him of the sky on a summer day. Odd that all the comparisons he could think of related to sunshine.

      Her voice was unusual, too, faintly musical and pitched in the lower register, which appealed to his trained ear. When she laughed he could hear wind chimes. He wouldn’t mind recording and analyzing her voice. He was willing to bet even the wavelengths would be picturesque.

      “Not that I have any such intentions,” he told Maree severely, annoyed with himself for letting his thoughts run away with him. “The woman’s devious and manipulative. All her schmoozing with you was to get around me. She probably doesn’t even like babies.”

      Even as he said it he knew it wasn’t true. All he had to do was compare Bethany’s behavior toward Maree with Lana’s. They were like chalk and cheese. Anything Lana did for Maree was on sufferance and she didn’t care who knew it. If she could have held the child at arm’s length like a piece of soiled clothing she would have done so. Bethany had shown no such aversion, even pitching in to do the laundry without a second thought.

      Why hadn’t she simply told him what she wanted instead of sneaking around pretending to be a child care expert?

      Because she was right—if she was honest she wouldn’t have gotten to first base with him because of his stupid hang-up about that blasted dollhouse. She couldn’t know why he was so averse to letting the thing see the light of day, and he was in no hurry to explain himself to her. It was probably foolish, but a man had a right to his own kinds of foolishness.

      What he didn’t have a right to do was treat her as badly as he had. “You’re right,” he said to the baby in his arms. “What you and I have to do is apologize to Bethany for the way we acted. It’s the least we can do before she leaves.”

      The baby bounced up and down in his grasp, grabbing and pulling at strands of his hair. “Ah, ah, ah.”

      He gave a yelp of pain but got her message. “Okay, I have to apologize. You got along with her like a house on fire. Come on then, let’s go eat humble pie. But I should warn you, it tastes worse than pureed spinach.”

      

      Bethany was fumbling in her bag for her car keys when the crunch of footsteps on the gravel surface of the driveway made her look up. Nicholas came toward her carrying Maree in his arms, and the baby’s face lit up at the sight of her new friend.

      Bethany tried to harden her heart with little success. It was small consolation that she had won a convert in the Frakes family, when it wasn’t the one who could help her. She lifted her head and met Nicholas’s eyes

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