What a Woman Gets (9 page)

Liam nodded. “Koi. I have a few that are over a foot long.”

“Wow. I'm impressed. Koi need just the right touch to live so long.”

Seemed to be a metaphor for her life.

Liam drove over a narrow arched stone bridge, then circled around to the left, going behind the A-frame cabin-like structure with a front wall of windows that reminded her of the penthouse. The difference was (a) it wasn't owned by her father and (b) it was in the middle of nature, not above it. She'd always wondered about people who liked to live above nature. Who thought looking down on it was so much better than living within it. After all, a patio-sized waterfall couldn't even begin to compare to the beauty of Liam's oasis and its gurgling water pump, or the butterflies flitting among the flowers, and the dragonflies hovering just above the surface of the pond with their wings humming in the silence.

It was so peaceful. So beautiful. A place where someone could go to escape the stresses of the day and just relax.

“Something wrong?” Liam's voice had a sharp edge to it. “I know it's not the Ritz or the Hilton or anything like that, and the water's dirty, and the bugs are buzzing around, but this place suits me. I like sitting on the bench and watching the air bubbles on the surface from the fish, or the frogs jumping to catch the insects flying by. Or the occasional plop as one jumps in.”

“Sounds peaceful.”

“It is. Sometimes there's nothing better than a little solitude in nature.”

It was a hell of a lot better than solitude in her gilded cage. She was going to like it here.

Titania squirmed around in her lap, put her paws on the door by the window, and started yipping.

“Aw, look. She wants to play.”

“She's not going to keep up all that yapping, is she? She does go to sleep at some point, right?”

“Of course she does. She's just excited right now.”

“What about accidents? I spent too much money on the flooring to be her potty-training service.”

“Titania's been housebroken since the day after I got her. You don't have to worry about a mess.”

“Oh, I wasn't worried, since you'll be cleaning it up.”

“Well, of course I will. She's my dog. I clean up after her.”

Liam pulled into the garage and was around to help her out of the passenger side before she'd gathered Titania and the rest of her things.

“Put her down. She might as well learn the place from the get-go.” Liam set Titania on the floor. It was so strange to see her little dainty dog in Liam's large, strong hands. It reminded her of an Ann Geddes photo with a baby cradled in its father's hands.

Whoa. She was being way too fanciful here. Liam was just trying to help and she was the one weirding the situation out with her stupid imagination.

Save it for the artwork, Cassidy.

Exactly—Uh oh. Her art. The furniture. It was in the warehouse that she—fortunately—had leased in her own name. The rent was paid up to the end of the month, but if Dad found out about it before then . . .

She needed to get all the pieces out of there.

Thank God Liam had a two-car garage. Now hopefully he'll be amenable to letting her furniture move in for a few days as well.

She followed him through the garage to the laundry room where the heater, laundry tub, and a contraption of pipes that might be a tank-less water heater greeted her.

“Leave your shoes here in the mudroom,” he said, taking his own off.

Really? The man took off his shoes in his own home?

“I try to keep the mess to a minimum so I don't have to clean a lot.”

“I guess you don't want to after doing it all day for your job, huh?” Made sense. She slipped off her flip-flops and put them on the shelves in the closet along the back wall.

“Here's where I keep all the cleaning supplies.” Liam pointed to the shelves on the left. “Broom, dust mop, a wand for the blinds.” He pointed to the things lined up on the pegboard along the far side of the closet. “The attachments for the central vac system are in here.” He opened a cabinet. “I also have a hand-held vac, and the bags and attachments are here.” He flicked a hanging black vinyl pouch thing. “Extension rod and gripper for the light bulbs, which are up here.” He opened a cabinet within the closet to show her various types of light bulbs and a couple of big batteries and flashlights. “Trash bags, batteries, duct tape, some tools . . . This is where you'll find everything.”

Because she was going to need duct tape and hammers why?

Titania scratched at the door leading to what Cassidy presumed was the rest of the house.

“She scratches? Dammit, I just finished painting the doors.”

Cassidy scooped the dog up. “She doesn't usually. I guess you have something that smells really great behind that door.”

“Dinner.” He opened the door. “I put salsa chicken in the Crock-Pot before I left.”

The scent of salsa filled the air. “That smells really good.”

“It is. Easy and good, too. Crock-Pot cooking is a godsend.”

Cassidy didn't mention that though she'd heard of a Crock-Pot she wasn't quite sure what one was or how to use it. Probably better to leave out that bit of info, since he was all “yes, Princess” this and “yes, Ms. Davenport” that. She didn't need to know how to use a Crock-Pot to survive on her own.

Or maybe she did. Cooking on a budget hadn't been included in any of her curriculum.
Cooking
hadn't, either. Menu-planning, on the other hand, and how to deal with staff, had.

Well, maybe cooking was something she could learn while she was here. Guys liked when women cooked for them, right? Surely Liam wouldn't mind. Most guys probably never set foot in their kitchen except to get beer and pizza from the fridge.

Apparently Liam did more in the kitchen than that. His was a mess.

“What happened here?” Cassidy set Titania down and surveyed the cardboard-box-covered quartz countertops.

Liam sighed and raked his hands through his hair. “My grandmother. She stops by every so often to restock my fridge, as she calls it. I guess today was that day.” He grabbed a box and started breaking it down. “We moved her to an assisted living facility and she misses cooking, so she borrows the facility's kitchen and cooks up a storm.” He opened the stainless steel fridge door. “See?” He stepped back. Plastic container after plastic container lined the shelves. “She thinks I'm going to eat all of this before it goes bad.”

He grabbed two of the containers and shifted them to the freezer—except he couldn't. It was stuffed to the gills, too.

“Looks like you're set for the apocalypse.”

“Well, I guess I can take cooking off your payback methods.” He looked her up and down. “You do know how to cook, right?”

She almost let him believe it, then decided she better not. Easiest way to get caught in a lie was to have to prove it. “Not really. Dad had chefs. They didn't like kids in their way.”

“And I'm sure coming up with menus is more important than learning to cook what's on them at those finishing schools.”

“I didn't have any say in my schooling, you know.”

He grabbed another box and broke it down, starting a stack on the island. “And you're how old?”

She sucked in a breath and was about to unleash a tirade but . . . didn't. What was the point? They could argue all they wanted, but the truth was, she didn't know how to cook and hadn't considered it a necessity for moving out on her own. That's what take-out was for.

“What does it matter anyway? Your grandmother has made my culinary skills”—or lack thereof—“a non-issue.”

“Okay, fine. So then you can move straight to straightening this place up.”

Say what?
“Your kitchen?”

“For a start. Then the living room, the bedrooms, and the bathrooms. There are two downstairs and one up.”

“There's an upstairs? Where?”

He pointed another box toward a spiral wrought-iron staircase. “Leads to the loft. Two bedrooms and a bath. Shouldn't take long.”

“Long to do what?”

“To clean, of course.”

She heard the words, but they weren't making sense. “Wait. What? You want me to clean your house?”

“Got it on the first try. Good. We shouldn't have any communication issues, then.”

She shook her head. “You want me to clean your house.”

“Didn't we just address that?”

“But why?”

He looked at her with an arched eyebrow. “Because the place is dirty?”

“But why me? Don't you have a Manley Maid to do it for you?”

“I do, but why pay someone when you said you were going to pay me to stay here?” He stacked another flattened box on the countertop.

She wasn't liking his logic. Or his payback method. “Why can't I pay you in cash?”

“Do you have any?”

“Well, no. But I will.”

“Then we'll discuss it when you do. In the meantime, you can save
me
some cash by doing it yourself.” He held out a box to her.

“But I don't know how to clean.”

“Oh come on, Princess.” He shook the box when she didn't take it. “It's not that hard. I showed you where all the supplies are kept. You wipe up dust and vacuum up debris. A couple of chemicals in the bathroom. It's not rocket science. If you can figure out how to play pinochle, I'm sure you can clean a toilet.”

“How do you know I play pinochle?”

“Isn't that what all the finishing schools teach these days?”

“Well, yeah, but I never liked it.”

“But you know how to play it, don't you?”

Of course she did. She'd actually taken courses in bridge and pinochle and mahjong and a whole other assortment of pastimes considered suitable for the country club set.

God, how pretentious they all seemed now. Where was the practical experience like . . . well, cooking and cleaning and managing money?

And she was going to have to manage her money. When she got some, that was.

Liam set the box—intact—on top of the stack. “Look, I have to get back. Your dad wants me to get to work on the condo across from yours, er, your old one, because he wants to sell it. The photographer is coming this evening to take pictures.”

“Yeah, Dad's big on taking moonlight photos. He spends a fortune on tiny white lights for all his patio gardens and loves how they're reflected in the glass surfaces. Says it makes the place seem warm and inviting.”

“It does.”

“The outside maybe. Inside, it's cold, austere, and utterly devoid of any personality.”

Liam stared at her a heartbeat too long for her liking so she turned away. She probably shouldn't divulge her inner angst to the man who wasn't all that fond of her to begin with, but who, for whatever reason, had taken pity on her and taken her in.

God, she hated pity.

But it was all she had going for her right now because there was, literally, no one she could call. She hadn't been exaggerating earlier. No one was going to want to help her and risk getting on Mitchell's bad side. She knew it as surely as she was standing here.

But then she almost wasn't standing. The enormity of what Dad had done—
and
how she hadn't seen it coming—washed over her again and, this time, her knees did buckle. She grabbed hold of the breakfast bar to stop herself from collapsing and managed to wiggle her way onto a bar stool there. She just needed a few moments to regain her composure. She'd be fine. Really.

“You okay?” Liam walked around the bar, the concern on his face making her feel guilty because he'd already helped her more than he should have; she didn't want to add concern to the rest of what he was doing for her.

“Yes. Why?”

“Because you were as white as a ghost there for a second.”

“Probably because I didn't have breakfast.”

“Well help yourself to what you want. Gran, I'm sure, brought quite the assortment. She usually does. Doesn't want me to go hungry.” He patted his eight-pack. “As if that'd happen.”

Cassidy wished he hadn't slapped those rock-hard muscles. She didn't want to notice them. She didn't want to notice anything about him. Not when she'd be staying under his roof and feeling more grateful than was prudent.

“Okay, so I'm going back to finish the job and should be home by six at the latest. The chicken should be done by then. If you want to throw on some rice and a vegetable, I'd appreciate it.”

“Uh, sure.” Once she figured out
how
to cook rice, that was. She could probably manage some steamed broccoli.

If she knew how to steam something . . .

“Do you, uh, have a computer here that I could use since I don't have my smart phone anymore?”

“In the den. You can sign on under a guest account.” He walked over to the whiteboard above the desk area in the kitchen. “I don't have a house phone, but you can IM me through the computer.” He wrote on board. “Here's my cell. Holler if you get into trouble.”

“I should have been hollering all the way here then, shouldn't I?”

A sexy little smile crossed Liam's face and Cassidy so wished it hadn't. She was indebted to this guy. Being attracted to him was not a smart idea.

Tell that to her hormones and the stupid butterflies in her tummy that'd been dormant for months.

“You'll be fine for the next few days until something else comes along. Just get the place cleaned up and we'll go from there.” He brushed past her and darn if she didn't catch a really awesome scent of sandalwood and Liam. The man was a walking pheromone.

Yepper . . . Staying here ought to be
real
interesting.

*   *   *

H
AVING
Cassidy Davenport at his place was going to be
real
interesting. Liam just prayed he didn't strangle her.