LITMIR.BIZ

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a tall, thin woman with light blond hair and an air of impatience about her. Eventually that impatience had led her out the door, a note on the kitchen table left in her wake. “Well, then I guess it’s all right. If she asks me about it, I’ll just tell Kelli that the lady who painted the landscape in your living room is going to look at her drawing.”

      “Why not just tell her that I have it? Why give her this longer version?”

      She could see he hadn’t dealt much with children. “Would you like a short person laying siege to your house?” she deadpanned. “The minute I tell her that you have it, that you thought it was good, there will be no peace,” she amended, her eyes on his. “Kelli will want to know what your mother thought of it, if she liked it. She’ll want to know what your mother thought was good about it. And that’s only after she quizzes me about your reaction to her work. Trust me, my way is better.”

      She sounded as if she was speaking about an adult, a thoughtful adult. The woman was giving her daughter way too much credit. And yet…

      Philippe looked down at the drawing again. He had to admit he was in awe. “I don’t know all that much about kids, but your daughter seems like one very unusual little girl.”

      Janice laughed. Now there was an understatement. “That she is.”

      Reaching for her briefcase again, this time to take the contracts out, she accidentally knocked the case off the table. Half the papers flew out. They both bent down at the same time to retrieve what had fallen; they both reached for the case and folders at the exact same moment. Which was how their fingers managed to brush against each other’s.

      It was, at best, a scene from a grade-B romantic movie, circa 1950. There was absolutely no reason to feel a jolt, electrifying or otherwise. And yet, there it was. Jolting. Electrifying. Fleeting, granted, but still very much there. Completely unexpected and zipping its way along the skin of her arms and simultaneously swirling up along the back of her neck.

      Janice caught her breath, trying to make her pulse slow down. The last time she’d been with a man was three years ago. That even had been a terrible mistake, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

      But this, this was deeply seated in deprivation, not anything else. Deprivation, because she’d been leading the kind of life that would have made a crusty nun proud. But this small, accidental encounter had definitely rattled her cage.

      She did her best to appear unaffected, as if, for a moment, her insides hadn’t just turned to jelly.

      “Thanks.” Straightening, she picked up the contracts—one for each room—and placed them on the table. “Let’s go over these, shall we?” she asked, her throat feeling uncomfortably tight. “I want to make sure I’ve got everything right. I don’t want you finding that you’re in for any surprises.”

      Too late, he thought. Because his reaction to her had already more than surprised him. But he put a lid on his thoughts and smiled at her. “Don’t you like surprises?”

      “I do, but my clients don’t—not when it comes to cost, at any rate.”

      He rose, crossing to the refrigerator. “Would you like something to drink?” he asked.

      The room—the house from what she could see—looked exactly the same as it did the other day. The man really was rather neat. Or had he found that housekeeper he’d mistaken her for?

      “Diet soda—if you have any.”

      “As a matter of fact, I do.” He’d gone to the store earlier today and picked up a six pack. He had no idea what possessed him to do that because neither he nor his brothers nor any of his friends drank diet soda.

      Maybe he’d just anticipated J.D., he decided, returning to the table with a can of diet soda. He placed a glass next to it.

      Janice popped open the can and, ignoring the glass, took a long sip before speaking. “The hunt for a housekeeper, did you find one?” She set the can back down, wrapping her hands around it.

      Philippe shrugged, straddling the chair again and pulling it closer to the table. “I decided to pull the ad.”

      “Oh?” she tried to sound casual. “Why?”

      “Well, if the house is going to look like the site of the next demolition derby, that kind of negates the need for a housekeeper right now.” A beer, he needed a beer. If he was going to go on staring into eyes the color of sky, he was going to need something to fortify him. Philippe made his way back to the refrigerator. “I’ll hire one once things are back to normal.”

      Whatever that is, he added silently.

       Chapter Five

      He hadn’t called.

      Janice sighed, staring at the calendar on the kitchen wall depicting various breeds of puppies. Philippe Zabelle hadn’t called—not on her land line, not on her cell. There were no messages waiting for her. She’d checked. Frequently.

      Damn.

      It’d been a little more than a week since the man had signed the contracts to have work done on his house. At the time, she’d noted he took the quotes in stride, not quibbling over any of the charges for demolition, cleanup and construction.

      Maybe the reason Zabelle hadn’t bothered quibbling was because he’d had no intentions of seeing the project move any further beyond his signing the contracts for each of his bathrooms and kitchen.

      Eight days.

      She’d finished the room extension she’d been doing for the Gilhooleys in Tustin. Faced with spare time, she’d gone to St. Cecelia’s and done some handiwork there, replacing a window at the school, refitting a door at the priest’s residence and fixing the hole in the roof where four tiles had blown away in the last storm. She’d finished that two days ago.

      Right now, she was between jobs and at very loose ends. Janice had never done leisure well, never learned how to sit still for long, especially not when there were bills to pay.

      And Gordon wasn’t helping any, she thought, glancing over toward him accusingly. Her big brother was part of the problem, definitely not part of the solution. At the moment, he was lying on her sofa, dozing in front of the TV set. There was a baseball game droning on in the background. The Dodgers were losing.

      Welcome to the club.

      She sighed. The only one being productive around here at the moment was Kelli, who had spread out her paint set on the dining room table and was painting a woodland scene.

      She needed to get that girl an easel, Janice thought. As soon as there was money for things like that.

      Frustrated, she walked over to the sofa and shook Gordon’s shoulder. It had no effect. Her brother went right on sleeping. Subtlety was obviously not working, so she doubled up her fist and punched him in the arm.

      Gordon jolted awake.

      “Hey!” he cried in protest, grabbing his arm where she’d made contact.

      Gordon had never been one to endure pain stoically. “I hardly tapped you.”

      “You have a punch like a welterweight champion,” he complained, looking at his arm as if he expected it to fall off. “What’s wrong with you?”

      “Everything. Look, Gordon.” She sank down on the arm on the far end of the sofa. “I know you’re going through a rough patch right now,” she acknowledged charitably, “but you’re going to have to help out here a little.”

      “I do,” he protested indignantly. When she looked at him, mystified, he nodded over toward Kelli. “I watch the pip-squeak.”

      Janice pressed her lips together, struggling not to point out that their financial difficulties

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