Full House

This book is for my fans

Nicholas Kaharchek surveyed his seven new polo students moving across the sandy practice field. He grinned as he watched an especially entertaining female named Billie Pearce.

In the four years since Nick had started the polo school, he'd seen his share of companionable stable bunnies and eager polo groupies, but he'd never seen anything like Billie Pearce. She was neither a stable bunny, nor a polo groupie, nor a rider, by any stretch of the imagination. From what he could determine during their brief conversation following the classroom part of the program, she was a housewife, smelling like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and looking good enough to eat in her brand-new black riding boots and cream-colored pants. A woman like that could make a man forget all his troubles. Well, almost.

She had "girl-next-door" written all over her, what with those large hazel eyes and a mouth that was a smidgen too wide for her face. She wasn't wearing a ring; he'd noticed that much right away. But she had an aura of well-rounded maturity and general satisfaction that he associated with a happy homemaker and motherhood. Not that he considered himself an expert on women, although, by God, he did his best.

Nicholas Kaharchek knew
horses.
It was said he'd inherited his horse sense from his Cossack ancestry. It was also rumored that the Cossack blood ran hot beneath the calm exterior of his personality

Two hours later Nick turned into Billie's subdivision: a small cluster of fairly new, large brick colonials on the outskirts of Purcellville. The houses sat on quarter-acre, nicely landscaped lots. Each yard contained its share of flowering dogwood, cherry, and crabapple trees. The nether parts of the houses were cloaked in azalea, boxwood, spreading juniper, and holly. Silver-dollar-sized cedar chips kept order around the trees and where beds of impatiens, phlox, and begonia grew.

Everything looked neat and orderly, Nick thought. So normal. Quite fitting for a woman like Billie Pearce.

She pointed to a house nestled in the cul-de-sac. "That's mine."

Nick parked the minivan in the driveway and, ice pack in one hand, helped Billie hobble to the door on a single crutch that she'd insisted she hadn't needed but now seemed grateful for. X-rays had not detected any broken bones, but the foot would be sore for a few days. It was badly swollen and tinted a bilious green and purple.

"You'll need to call for a ride home," Billie said, standing aside as Nick unlocked her front door. She was glad she'd straightened the kitchen before she left. There would be clutter; there was always clutter in a house where children lived, but at least the place was presentable.

Nick nodded. He did need to call for a ride, but he wasn't in a hurry. Sheridan had probably already phoned by now, and he wasn't eager for the conversation that awaited. He almost preferred having Max and Deedee run amok than facing his ex-fiancee. Besides, he and Billie had spent the past couple of hours at the hospital together, and he hadn't once mentioned she try another hobby. He wanted to do it in a way that wouldn't hurt her feelings.

Who was he fooling?

He was suddenly curious to see how Billie Pearce lived. It didn't matter that he could almost see the words "hands off" stamped across her forehead, or that she was the complete opposite of what he wanted in a woman; there was an alluring side of her that made him want to take a closer peek.

He turned the knob and pushed the door open wide enough for her to enter. "I'll bet you have a dog with floppy ears, and a cat that sleeps curled up in a wing-back chair all day," he said.

"Um, well, she doesn't sleep there
all
day." Billie stepped inside and he followed. "The phone is in the kitchen. Would you like a cup of coffee?" Now why had she gone and done that? she asked herself.

He saw the doubt in her eyes and knew she had offered the coffee more out of a sense of politeness than a need for him to hang around. That made it all the more desirable to accept.

"Sure." He closed the front door behind him and, once again, followed her, this time into a large country kitchen with an old-fashioned round oak table and four upholstered chairs. It was situated in front of a large bay window that overlooked the backyard, where a vegetable garden had been planted. The room looked inviting. He grinned at the sight of a little-bear cookie jar.

"Just as I thought," he said and lifted the lid. It was filled with chocolate-chip cookies.

"Help yourself," Billie said.

Munching his cookie, Nick glanced at the rest of the house. Her carpet, a mushroom color, had been chosen out of practicality, to accommodate children and pets running about, just as her beige walls would not show handprints as easily as white ones. She had added color in comfortable-looking overstuffed furniture of plaids and prints and bright throw pillows. Tasteful watercolors adorned the walls, as well as pictures of her children in various stages of growth.

"I like your place."

Billie headed for the coffeemaker, taking care with her foot. "It feels empty with my children gone. I can't seem to get used to being alone." She put in a fresh filter and reached for her coffee canister.

Nick helped himself to another cookie. "Off at camp?"

"Off with their father," she said, giving a disparaging frown. "He took them to Disney World."

Nick pondered it while she put the coffee on to brew. He was being nosy, but he didn't care. He noted the look on her face and wanted to learn more. "Unfriendly divorce?"

Billie slouched into a chair at the kitchen table and propped her injured foot on the one beside it. "The divorce has been great. It was the marriage that had problems." Now, why had she gone and told him that? she wondered. She almost never spoke ill of her ex, especially in front of the children. She was feeling sorry for herself, that's all.

Nick looked at her expectantly.

Billie saw the look and shrugged. She'd probably never see the man after today, so what did it matter? "An early midlife crisis," she said, waving her hand in the air as though to make light of it. As though it hadn't mattered, when, in fact, it had mattered very much. "He hit thirty and took a nosedive. I should have suspected something was amiss when he got a membership to a tanning salon."

"And after he got a tan, he got a sports car and a girlfriend?"

"Something like that." Billie sighed. In retrospect, the marriage had never been that wonderful. She'd married a man who wasn't ready for monogamy. He'd made an effort in the early years, but as time passed, he'd felt more and more confined, restless. She had blamed herself. Perhaps she could have done more. After having been divorced for four years, she found that time had dulled the trauma of rejection. Still, it hadn't completely erased the occasional pang of guilt.

She straightened her shoulders. She was not one to dwell on the past, but she had certainly learned from it. She might not have been the world's greatest wife, although she knew in her heart she'd given it her best shot, but she was a terrific mother. And she was a good teacher

Billie sat at her breakfast table, drinking coffee, wondering what had gone wrong. She hadn't intended to rent out a room. She hadn't intended to get spooked by all that talk about alarm systems. And she definitely hadn't intended to give in to Nick's soft brown eyes and thousand-watt smile. But she had. Somehow, he'd conned her into doing exactly what he'd wanted, and now she was sitting there, waiting for her boarder to arrive and dreading the thought.

It had to have been the pain pills; it was the only excuse she could come up with for taking a perfect stranger into her home. In fact, she only vaguely remembered agreeing to the whole ridiculous notion.

Having dispensed with her bothersome crutch, Billie hobbled to the door when she heard a vehicle pull into her driveway. She had a morbid desire to see the woman she would be living with for the next two weeks. She peered through the tiny window in the door.

A whirlwind of a woman hurled from the cab of a pickup truck and slammed the door. She was a tall redhead with milk-white porcelain skin and a model's figure that was emphasized in her spandex shorts and halter. Billie could hear the string of expletives pouring from the woman's mouth; they seemed to be centered around the fact she'd had to rise before noon. Billie didn't know which annoyed her most: the fact that the woman cursed like a truck driver or that she looked so good in spandex.

Either way, Billie wasn't happy to see her.

She swallowed hard and opened her front door to Nick, who was balancing three packing boxes in his arms.

He eased his cargo through the door and smiled warmly at Billie. "Good morning. How's the foot?"

Billie responded with a frown. She'd been had. He looked too happy, almost euphoric. In contrast to his passenger, who stood, arms folded across her ample chest, tapping her foot and glaring at him.

Nick made the introductions. "Billie, this is my cousin Deedee Holt. Deedee, this is Billie Pearce."

Deedee made an acknowledging noise that seemed to emanate from the back of her throat. The best Billie could manage was a nod.

"Well, I can see you two are going to get along just fine," Nick said, backing toward the door.

"Not so fast," Billie said, then smiled prettily at Deedee. "I'd like to have a word with Nick. Would you excuse us?"

Deedee shrugged, headed for the sofa, and curled up, tucking the longest legs Billie had ever seen beneath her. "I need a nap anyway."

Billie shoved Nick outside. "We need to talk."

"Deedee is really very sweet," he whispered.

"Which is why you're in such an all-fired hurry to get rid of her."

"I've already explained everything. Trust me, you'll love her. Right now, she needs coffee. She's not used to getting up this early. Once she tosses back a couple of cups of caffeine she can charm the skin off a snake."

Billie recognized the man from the stable unloading the pickup. He wore the same disgruntled look as before, only this time she couldn't blame him. Two trunks, seven garment bags, thirteen cartons, and twelve pieces of matching luggage were efficiently stacked in Billie's foyer. He gave a grunt of disgust before making his way wordlessly toward the truck.

"Your stable hand is obviously having another bad day," she said.

Nick glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah, he's definitely got an attitude problem. Guess I need to talk to him. This would probably be a good time to do it."

"After
you explain the meaning of all this." Billie pointed to the mountain of luggage.

"Deedee isn't what you'd call a light traveler," Nick said. "We'll bring the rest over tomorrow."

"The rest?"

"Only a few more things. Mostly shoes. My cousin is a bit of a clotheshorse." He checked his wristwatch. "Oops, got to run."

He was gone. Billie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them slowly. She went inside and regarded the woman on the sofa, who opened her eyes and gave a semblance of a smile.

"I guess you're stuck with me, huh? But don't worry, I can afford to pay my share. I'm rich, and I have a rich fiance as well."

Deedee's voice was high-pitched and squeaky, making Billie think of Betty Boop. "Well, that certainly works to your advantage," she said, wondering if the woman had ever held a job. "Would you like some coffee?"

"I'd kill a Boy Scout for coffee."

Billie believed it. She hurried into the kitchen with Deedee on her heels. As she filled a mug, she searched her brain for innocent conversation. "Nick said you're cousins?"