Part-Time Fiance - Leigh Michaels Mills & Boon Cherish

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to be here this morning.”

      “Oh, it worked out better to reverse the deliveries,” the man said cheerfully.

      “Better for whom?” Delainey said under her breath. Not for Emma Ashford, that was certain. Poor woman, casually offering to do a good deed that she expected would take an hour or two at most, and then having to wait around all day….

      There was one good thing about it as far as Delainey was concerned, though. She wouldn’t have any trouble tracking Emma down to give her the flowers she’d brought as a thank-you gesture.

      She gathered up the sheaf of pink roses and her bulging briefcase and followed a pair of bedside tables up the sidewalk. Coming in out of the sunlight, she blinked in the sudden dimness inside the town house. For a minute all she could distinguish was movement in the kitchen.

      “Emma?” she called. “I can’t thank you enough for—”

      But as her eyes adjusted, she saw that it wasn’t Emma in the kitchen. It was the cretin-next-door, and he seemed to be making himself right at home.

      Sam Wagner looked up. “Flowers?” he said gently. “For me? Oh, honey—you shouldn’t have!”

      CHAPTER TWO

      DELAINEY stormed across the big room and set her briefcase on the breakfast bar. The magazines she’d stuffed inside slid out and cascaded across the counter and onto the floor. “What are you doing in my house?”

      “At the moment,” Sam said, “I’m wiring in a new outlet. But if you object, I can stop.”

      Her gaze dropped to his hands. His long fingers moved quickly and with a grace that surprised her, winding a pair of colored wires together and twisting a plastic cap over the joint.

      She’d forgotten all about the outlet. Emma must have told him it needed repairing—but why? “Are you an electrician?”

      “Not exactly, so don’t tell the union I’m fiddling with wires.” He fitted the outlet back into the box in the wall and reached for a screwdriver to fasten it in place.

      “Then…are you the maintenance man for the complex?” That made sense, Delainey thought. With a hundred units on the estate, it would certainly be a full-time job to keep up with minor repairs for all the residents. And having a handyman living right on site would be a good idea, too, because he’d be able to respond faster in an emergency.

      The use of a town house might be a part of his pay—and a job like that would certainly explain Sam Wagner’s faded jeans and sweatshirt and running shoes. A maintenance man never knew what messes his day might include. Though today, she noted, he was wearing khakis and a pullover sweater. He’s positively dressed up.

      “Not officially.”

      Delainey felt like stamping her foot. “Then what are you?”

      “You sound so suspicious that I’d rather not admit to anything.” Sam gave a last twist to the mounting screw and put the plastic protective plate back in place over the outlet. “There. It should be as good as new.” He gathered up bits of wire and insulation and dumped them in the trash can. “Well, now that you’re here to supervise the delivery team, I’ll just take my flowers home and get them into water.”

      Reminded of the roses, Delainey clutched the bouquet a little tighter. “Is Emma upstairs?”

      “No. Why? You’re afraid the deliverymen couldn’t set up the bed without her advice? Though it is quite a bed, I must say. Even the deliverymen must not see one like that very often.”

      “Of course you would have to go take a look,” she said irritably. “I hope you satisfied your curiosity.”

      Sam shrugged. “I wasn’t being nosy.”

      “Oh, no, of course not!”

      “I was just doing my job as a supervisor, keeping a close eye on things. I’d hate to have you come home and find out they’d put it together upside down or something.”

      “The real question is why you were supervising at all. What happened to Emma?”

      “Bridge club, every Tuesday afternoon at the mansion. When the delivery people didn’t show up on time, she saddled me with the job and went off to play cards.” He began gathering up tools. “You must have been sleeping on a futon for a long time to make you go all out like that when you bought a real bed.”

      Delainey willed herself not to blush. How she chose to furnish her bedroom was certainly none of his business. “She left you here alone?”

      “You’re complaining? She could have just put a note on the door telling the delivery people to try again tomorrow.”

      And since it wasn’t Emma’s bed, Delainey reminded herself, who would blame her for setting limits on her Good Samaritan offer? “I’m not complaining exactly. Just surprised, since she said she’d take care of it.”

      “I know.” Sam nodded thoughtfully. “You’d think by the time a woman hits seventy-five, she’d learn to be responsible for doing what she says she’s going to. On the other hand, now you have your outlet fixed too.” He opened a yellow plastic case and began to fit tools into the slots and crevices inside. “Maybe you should go up and make sure they’re doing things right.”

      Maybe she should, Delainey thought, because with any luck, he’d be gone by the time she came back down.

      “Don’t forget to stomp your feet on the stairs to warn them—just in case they’ve been trying on your lingerie up there.”

      She pretended not to hear him. “The outlet—what do I owe you for your work?”

      His eyes brightened. “You mean you’ll pay me as well as bring me flowers?”

      “I can’t imagine you wanting the flowers.” She opened the cabinet where her skimpy supply of dishes resided and got out a big, heavy glass mug. “I’ll stick them in water till Emma gets home. Which unit is hers?”

      “She didn’t tell you?”

      “She just said she lived around the corner.”

      “Well, she does, sort of. That corner.” He pointed.

      “What? That’s where you live. Wait a minute—you mean you and Emma—? No.”

      “If you’d like to be precise, she’s my maternal grandmother.”

      Delainey flipped a switch to turn on the light over the sink. Nothing happened. “Oh, great. You’ve messed up the rest of the wiring!”

      “No, I just pulled the breaker so I wouldn’t electrocute myself while I worked.”

      “More’s the pity,” she said under her breath. She filled the mug and with difficulty fitted in the bunch of stems.

      Sam casually shook a finger at her. “Just for that remark, I should make you turn the power back on yourself. No, on second thought, I’ll do it. Before you ever touch the electrical system, I want to be at a safe distance. Easter Island might be far enough.”

      Delainey wasn’t listening. “You live with your grandmother?”

      “Last time I looked, it wasn’t a crime.”

      “Aren’t you just a little old for that? And this is two days in a row you’ve been hanging around here in the afternoon…Are you on vacation or what?”

      “Extended,” he said crisply.

      There was something about his tone of voice that puzzled her for a moment. “Oh. You’ve been laid off? I’m sorry.”

      Sam nodded. “Downsized. Given the pink slip. Axed. Made redundant. Shown the door. Have you ever noticed how many ways we have to describe losing a job?”

      “Fired,”

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