What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel)

by Fennell, Judi

  “You’ll have to try it and see. But when you do, you’re going to think twice about ever drinking soda again.”

  “Cool! I love soda!”

  “Me, too!”

  “So can we get some, Bryan? Please? It’s in aisle number twelve.”

  Livvy stood up. “How about you guys pick up the display you knocked down with your swords and I’ll talk to Bryan about your soda.”

  “Really? You’re cool!”

  “Yeah, much cooler than Mom.”

  Sean just shook his head. At least he couldn’t blame himself for the effect she had on him; she had it on every member of the male species, young and old alike.

  Livvy ruffled one of the twins’ hair. “That’s because she’s your mom. Moms have to be tough, so they can’t be cool. But she loves you, you know.”

  “That’s what Bryan says.”

  “That’s because she’s the only one who could love them,” Bryan muttered.

  Sean hid his grin. All in all, it sounded as if Bry had gotten the worse deal of all of them. Sean would take bird droppings and alpaca sperm over sword-fighting eight-year-olds any day.

  The boys ran to the end of the aisle to restack the food they’d knocked down.

  “Soda’s not on their mother’s list,” said Bryan. “She’s not going to be happy if I come home with it.”

  “Trust me. You do that experiment and I guarantee you they’ll never want to drink soda again.”

  “Why? What happens?”

  “Twenty-four hours will make the eggshells thinner and turn brown. The correlation, of course, being their teeth. It erodes enamel. If you leave the egg in longer, it dissolves the shell. I haven’t had a soda since ninth grade when we did this on the first day. By the last week of class, I was off soda for good.”

  “Wow. Beauty and brains. You free for dinner?” Bryan gave her the patented Bryan Manley smolder.

  And Sean wanted to give him the Manley Brother back-the-fuck-off punch.

  “That’s awfully nice of you to ask, but Sean and I are on a deadline. We can’t have dinner with you.”

  And he’d like to kiss her for including him in the invite.

  Especially when Bryan scowled.

  “Yeah, Bry. We’ve got plans.” Let his brother make of that what he would.

  Then Sean wanted to smack himself. Seriously. How old were they? Twelve? Fighting over a girl . . .

  Bry raised an eyebrow. “Plans, huh? Well then. I guess I’ll leave you to ’em. What are they again?”

  “Plans.” Bry could stick his innuendo.

  “I’m baking and Sean’s going to help.”

  Sean knew the smirk would be on Bryan’s face before it actually was.

  “Don’t.” He held up his hand to stop the dumb-ass question he knew Bry would ask—just because he could—but Bry wasn’t reading the same playbook.

  “You’re going to be cooking in the kitchen together?”

  He did love Livvy’s blushes, though. Especially since they actually had been cooking in the kitchen.

  “Don’t you have twins to take care of or something?” Sean pointed to where the boys were restacking the boxes, only this time in the shape of a fort. Around themselves.

  “Oh, hell.” Bryan sighed. “Nice meeting you, Olivia.” He headed toward the rambunctious pair. “Boys! This isn’t a playground.”

  Sean laughed. Bryan sounded like Gran.

  “Looks like your brother’s got his hands full. I didn’t know he had kids. Is this his weekend or something?”

  That made Sean laugh louder. “Bry? A dad? That’ll be the day.” As in never. Bry had been vowing for years he’d never have kids; it really was Karma that he’d gotten the assignment with them. “No. They’re, uh, a friend’s.”

  Sean wasn’t too keen on mentioning the poker bet. Livvy had to believe in him as a professional housekeeper. She had to believe that Mac was sending out her best, and he wasn’t going to be the one to burst that bubble.

  “Yeah, I can relate. I mean, they’re cute and all, but raising them? So not me.”

  She headed off in the opposite direction while Sean replayed what she’d just said. What she’d revealed. He did want kids some day. When he could provide for them. The way he and his siblings had grown up made him want stability. A home to call his own and the means to pay for it. Which was the reason this business had to succeed. He had to remember they wanted different things out of life . . .

  It ought to be a relief, but instead, it made him sad. For her. What her childhood must have been like growing up. On the outside, it looked great: She’d had the boarding school and Martinson money behind her. But inside it . . . she’d had no one to love her. He’d had just the opposite and he’d been richer for it.

  IT was late when they got home, even later once he’d helped her feed and water the menagerie. And muck out the stalls.

  “Tell me why you want to do this day after day,” he said, dodging the gonad-seeking ram to hang her pitchfork on a hook on the wall that looked more like a trophy case than a place to store farm instruments. Someone had even decorated it with crown molding and other non-barnlike plaques and stuff. Livvy was right; the Martinsons were pretentious.

  “All sorts of reasons. The alpaca wool is an investment because of the price it can bring, and the sheep’s wool is our daily bread and butter. Then there’s the milk from the goats and eggs from the fowl. All things I can use or sell.”

  “And Reggie?”

  She smiled when Reggie snorted at hearing his name. “Reggie is just for companionship. A guy had been trying to sell him for bacon. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Of course not.”

  He could see her being horrified at that and picking up the little pig, cuddling him to her like a baby, crooning that he was safe with her. Her. The woman who didn’t want kids.

  She had more maternal instinct than she knew what to do with.

  “Plus, I sell off the pullets and lambs for more income. I’d love to keep them all, but it’s not possible. Although, once I sell this place, I can build a bigger barn and keep more of them.”

  “Which means more mucking out.”

  She shrugged, a stray curl falling over her shoulder to disappear inside her camisole . . .

  What was it with her and camisoles? At least she had a shirt on over it this time, but those things hugged her curves in a way that wasn’t fair to the male population.

  “Mucking out their stalls is a small price to pay for the companionship, love, and acceptance they give me.”

  “Acceptance?”

  Livvy tucked that stray curl behind her ear. Again. One of these days he was going to do it for her.

  “Animals don’t judge you. If you take care of them, fulfill the promise you made to them, they’ll be your best friends. They even cut you some slack if you fall down on the caregiving so long as you aren’t cruel to them. People could learn a lot from animals.”

  There was a century’s worth of pain laced through her words. He propped the pitchfork against the goat’s pen. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Talk about what?” She busied herself with picking the hay off the wall dividing the pens.

  “Livvy.”

  It took a good ten seconds before she stopped and looked up at him. “I’m okay, Sean. Thank you, but there’s no need. I learned a long time ago to depend only on myself. Sure, I’m angry at Merriweather, but in the end, anger benefits no one. It sucks you dry. Moving forward, focusing on the next step, the big goal, what you need to do to get there . . . that’s productive. Dwelling on might-have-beens is counterproductive.”

  They both noticed that word. Counter.

  He took a step toward her. Saw her lean in just a bit. It’d be so easy to pull her into his arms and finish what they’d started earlier.


  But her words replayed like a loop in his head. They don’t let you down.

  Like he was going to do.

  He had to crunch the numbers again. Had to figure out some way to make this project work for both of them.

  So he stepped back. Didn’t act on the temptation. On the knowledge that she wouldn’t refuse him.

  It was probably the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  TRYING to fall asleep last night had been one of the hardest things Livvy had ever done. Her body had still been on “burn” from being with Sean and she couldn’t understand why he’d backed away. She’d made her intentions—desires, wants, preferences—pretty damn available last night. And in the kitchen before Kerry and Sher had interrupted—

  Oh crud. Kerry and Sher.

  Livvy leapt out of bed, jostling Georgia, who’d decided that Livvy’s head was the perfect thing to rest her warm full belly against, so she grumbled when it was taken away.

  The pug rolled down into the depression Livvy left behind, her back legs kicking Petra in the shoulder. Which caused Petra to whine, and John to growl, which woke up Mike, who rolled over with a yawn, practically squishing Davy in the process.

  Within minutes, the entire group was awake and demanding to be fed and let out. And not necessarily in that order.

  She rubbed her eyes after setting them free in the backyard and turned on her iPod. Maroon 5’s “One More Night” was a sufficiently danceable start for a day spent in the kitchen. She bebopped over to the Sub-Zero for a glass of OJ. No caffeine for her; she’d told those boys in the supermarket the truth. One twenty-four-hour period of the soda/egg experiment had been enough to convince her to stay away from the stuff; the full year of shell-dissolving had solidified that resolution.

  The eggs were there. The eggs she and Sean had bought yesterday at the store. The ones they were going to use to bake her signature scones with today. Together.

  She took a deep breath, not surprised to feel a flutter in her stomach at the prospect. She’d been doing a lot of stomach-fluttering in the last few days. And skin-shivering. And then there was the blushing.

  But not nearly enough kissing.

  She felt the heat travel up her chest and into her cheeks again, but not due to any blush this time. Sean was just . . . well, he was pretty darn near amazing. Perfect almost, if such a thing existed. Smart, funny, good-looking, a good sport, tolerant, willing to pitch in . . .

  She sounded like she was advertising for farm help instead of listing the qualities of the man she . . . what? What was Sean to her?

  “Is that what all the best-dressed chefs are wearing these days?”

  Speak of the devil; he showed up in her kitchen looking deliciously sinful in a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops.

  Lusted after. Yeah, that was as good a term as any. And a lot safer than some.

  She stopped dancing mid-bebop and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Um, good morning. No uniform today?” It was a definite improvement.

  He shrugged and helped himself to the pomegranate juice she’d bought. Maybe he wasn’t as opposed to anti-high-fructose-corn-syrupy food as he’d let on.

  “I figured since we were going to be in a hot kitchen all day, I ought to dress for it.”

  Or undress . . .

  Livvy licked her lips that had suddenly gone dry and looked down at her attire: white camisole, and Capri-length silk pajama bottoms. “Well I’ll be wearing my apron, so it doesn’t really matter what I wear.”

  He raised an eyebrow again. “If you say so.”

  Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything Tonight” segued onto the iPod. Yeah, not really the song she wanted right now.

  Livvy jerked the apron off its hook and busied herself filling the eight dog bowls with breakfast, trying not to listen to the song’s lyrics. Then she pulled out the baking sheets, mixing bowls, and cooling racks they’d need for scone baking.

  Then she spent a good couple of minutes searching for a walnut crusher, and lined all the dry ingredients up nicely on the baking prep counter before finally running out of things to do besides look at him. Which was what she’d wanted to do all along anyhow.

  Leaning against the sink, he had his arms crossed over that amazing chest and one foot crossed over the other in such a masculine pose that it made her mouth water.

  Sean Manley. There’d never been a more perfect name.

  “So would you like to eat before we start, or are only the dogs getting lucky today?” he asked.

  He could get lucky anytime he wanted— “Um, sure. I can whip something up.” She nodded at the items he’d accumulated on the counter while she’d been searching for what she’d need.

  He pushed off from the sink as Jay Sean’s “Down” started playing. “I wasn’t asking for you to make it. I was asking if you wanted it. I’m more than capable of rustling up some breakfast for us, you know.”

  “No, actually, I didn’t.”

  He grabbed a skillet from the overhead wagon wheel and turned on the burner. “Hmm, I guess you’re right. You haven’t really seen me in action in the kitchen.”

  Oh. yes she had, and she used five of the song’s downbeats to remember it.

  So, apparently, did Sean, since he dropped the pan onto the flame with a clatter, then fumbled with tossing a couple of slices of multi-grain bread into the toaster. “So, uh, why don’t you take a seat and I’ll throw something together. You bought extra eggs, right? And did I see pork roll or something?”

  “Pork roll?” Livvy shuddered. “Hardly. Reggie would never forgive me.”

  “I thought elephants were the ones with long-term memories.” He flicked some butter into the pan, where it started to sizzle.

  Just like Livvy was doing. The guy was hot. “Pigs are smart, too. If I were to go anywhere near Reggie smelling like one of his relatives, he’d never forgive me.” She’d done it once. The pig had stayed in his bed for a day and no amount of dog biscuits would coax him from it. He’d even turned up his snout at her when she’d tried to pat him.

  “Your diet must be very limited if you don’t eat any of your animals’ relatives.”

  “Only Reggie is sensitive. I eat chicken and eggs all the time. Though I do try not to eat them around Orwell.”

  “Speaking of which . . . where is the little one-bird wrecking crew?”

  The forty-five minutes it’d taken them to finagle the bird off the curtain rods last night hadn’t been fun, so this was a welcome respite. She loved Orwell, but he was a lot of work. “Sleeping. He isn’t an early riser.”

  “Must be nice,” said Sean, cracking two eggs in one hand simultaneously over the skillet.

  “Pretty neat trick.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “That. The thing you did with the eggs. How’d you learn it?”

  “Growing up with two brothers and no video games, you learn to amuse yourself. We used to have contests to see how many we could do without getting shells in the pan.”

  “You won?”

  Sean smiled and it took her breath away. The guy was flat-out gorgeous.

  “Yeah, I kicked their—butts. I did five once.”

  “You must have really big hands.”

  It wasn’t a blush that roared over her skin. It was a full-on scarlet cloak, and she ought to wrap herself in it and die of embarrassment because they were both thinking of what hand size supposedly correlated to.

  She looked at his hands. They weren’t too big. Just the right size with just the right shaped nails and just the right amount of hair on them, and just the right amount of strength and muscle and OMG, was she really describing his hand to herself? “What can I do to help?”

  Wrong question to ask. His eyes darkened, and the look he gave her pierced right through to her belly, igniting a fire there that ha
d nothing to do with what was happening on the stove.

  “Nothing. I’m good.”

  Yup. He was.

  “Is there something you need to get ready for baking?”

  She shook her head, both as an answer and as a Get-Over-It-Livvy mechanism. Scones had to be made individually. At least hers did to achieve the perfect amount of flakiness. If she let the dough sit too long, the scones would fail. With the amount she was planning to make today, she needed to get her head into the project.

  Sean pulled the bread from the toaster, slathered it with the apple butter she’d bought, poured two more glasses of pomegranate juice into a pair of ornate wine glasses from a shelf she couldn’t even see into let alone reach, then plated the eggs as if he were a chef.

  “Did you ever think about becoming a personal chef instead of a maid? You’re really good at it.” She took the juice glasses from the counter and set them at the table, catty-corner to each other. She didn’t need him sitting beside her—too much temptation—but she didn’t want him sitting too far, either.

  Too much disappointment.

  He brought their plates to the table. The over-easy eggs were done to perfection, the toast was just the right amount of toasted and buttered, and the slices of orange he’d included were an added bonus.

  Just like him. An added bonus she never could have foreseen when she’d learned about her grandmother’s death.

  “How’s this going to work today?” he asked. “What do you need me to do?”

  So many things . . .

  She set her fork down, dabbing at her lips with the linen napkin he’d found in one of the drawers, and reined in her happy hormones.

  She made a mental note to turn off her iPod as yet another round of inappropriate lyrics filled the room.

  “I make each batch individually,” she said, trying to ignore the vocalist singing about not being able to keep his eyes off a woman. “To get enough layers in the bread, I have to knead the dough to the right consistency, which takes time. It can’t be done production-line style. But we can do that for the setup and cleanup. I’ll line up rows of bowls for several batches, then you can measure all the ingredients into them and I’ll come along after you, mixing them together one at a time. Work for you?”