The Bachelor Boss

by Judy Baer

  “She was until Danny came home. Now they’re cloistered up there and won’t let me in. I heard giggling through the door, but they chased me away. Danny said Lily told him she had something planned, something secret.”

  “Uh-oh. I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “What kind of trouble can a little boy and an old woman get into?”

  “Plenty. I grew up with her, remember? We used to drive Gramps crazy with Gram’s schemes.”

  “She’s older now and doesn’t have so much energy,” Hannah assured him.

  He looked at her with a doubtful smile and grazed her cheekbone with the back of his finger. “I think you’re underestimating her, but you’ll find out for yourself sooner or later.”

  “Fine. I will. Now why don’t you go upstairs and bring our troublemakers down for dinner?”

  * * *

  It was nice to come home to the aromas of dinner cooking and the sound of someone moving around the kitchen, Tyler thought, as he headed up the stairs. Irene usually left something in the refrigerator to heat up, but that wasn’t quite the same. In her day, Lily had been quite a cook, but she’d grown less and less interested as she’d aged. Seeing Hannah there, wrapped in one of Lily’s old aprons, made him nostalgic. And Hannah smelled even better than the delicious aromas in the room—lilacs? Or was it lavender again?

  Shaking off the wistfulness, Tyler knocked on the bedroom door.

  “Who is it?” Lily called, sounding suspicious.

  “Who do you think it is?”

  “Oh, Tyler, it’s you. You’re home early.”

  It used to be that he could never get home early enough for his grandmother. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “Hannah says dinner is ready. Do you want to come downstairs or have me bring a tray upstairs?”

  He could hear whispered muttering and then the door flew open. Danny was on the other side, standing like a gatekeeper between Ty and his grandmother.

  “I’ll take a tray in my room. I’m very tired tonight. Danny, go tell your mother.”

  The child nodded sharply, although Ty had a hunch he’d considered saluting. Whatever these two were hatching was going to be played out with military precision. Heaven help us, Tyler thought.

  “Feeling better, Grandmother?”

  “Good as can be expected, considering the circumstances. I’m just sick about Clara, but Danny is good medicine.”

  “He told Hannah you had something planned. You aren’t going to get him into trouble, are you?”

  Her eyes narrowed and a crafty look spread across her features. “Never you mind, Tyler.”

  “You got me in trouble more than once when I was a kid.”

  “I was younger then, silly. Now I’m wise and mature.” She gave a throaty sound. “Too mature, I think.”

  She sat silently for a moment before she spoke again. “We have to help my friend, Ty. I’m practically helpless right now, so you will have to be the one to do it.”

  He sighed and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll think about it, Gram, but I don’t know what I can do.”

  “Hannah is smart. She can help you.”

  “I hired her to take care of you.”

  “That will be taking care of me, Ty. Helping Clara will be good for my heart.”

  He met Hannah on the stairs. She was carrying a tray with Lily’s food, flatware, a pot of tea and a single flower.

  “Careful. You’re setting a new standard. She won’t get flowers after you leave, I’m afraid.”

  She smiled at him. “Then I’ll train Irene to do it. Women love flowers. You’d be remiss if you didn’t bring her a flower on her tray.”

  He looked amused. “What’s your favorite flower, Hannah?”

  She was about to say roses because Steve had always brought her roses. He’d called them “our flower.” But she wanted to hold that information close to her heart. Sometimes she couldn’t even quite remember Steve’s features that she’d once so loved.

  “Irises, daffodils, orchids, daisies, geraniums and pansies.” That should cover all the bases.

  “That would make quite a bouquet.”

  She smiled shyly and changed the subject. “I’ll be right down to dish up for the rest of us.”

  As he went toward the kitchen, Ty marveled at how quickly he’d become accustomed to her and Danny living here. It was cozy, welcoming and full of life with her here. Ty could easily get used to this.

  Danny was particularly chatty at the table. He said the table prayer and then just kept talking. He told Ty about Bert and Ernestine, about a scuffle on the playground and about the girls who’d been bugging him lately. Hannah was silent.

  When she sent Danny upstairs to take a shower before bed, Ty stayed at the table. “More coffee or dessert?” she asked.

  “Sure. And a little conversation about Lily and Clara.” She nodded and he noticed her relax. Sometimes Hannah reminded him of a deer—beautiful, skittish and shy. Until she felt secure, then, look out.

  “I want to go back. I’ve prepared food for her.”

  “Should I come along?” He could hear Lily’s mandate ringing in his ears.

  “If John is there, you might be able to distract him so I could talk to Clara privately. Lily has some questions she wants me to ask her.”

  They stayed at the table, not speaking, for some time. It was a contented silence, Ty noted. He hadn’t experienced a comfortable silence with a woman for a long time, he thought with some irony. And when he found it, it was with his employee, his grandmother’s nurse.

  Chapter Twelve

  At midnight Hannah dialed Trisha’s cell phone number again. It was still off. She’d been trying all day, and she was getting angry. She’d left messages with Emma and Jane on the home phone and several on Trisha’s cell in the past week and a half and she’d never called back. This newfound freedom had apparently gone to Trisha’s head. She knew Trisha was healthy and attending school—her roommates had assured Hannah of that. Still, she considered it the ultimate in rudeness to not acknowledge a call or message, and Trisha knew it. She’d been at the Matthews home for nearly a month and had only talked to her sister a couple times.

  She turned off her own phone and the bedside lamp and settled into the downy softness of her pillows. She had a bad feeling about this, but she wasn’t sure why. She also had concerns about the relationship between her and her new boss.

  They were being thrown together so much that it was difficult to keep a professional distance, especially when she felt about him as she did. And how was that? She refused to actually consider what might sum it up best. Attraction. Infatuation. It would be easy to fall in love with a man like Ty.

  She slept restlessly and woke up early feeling like she hadn’t shut her eyes all night. Hannah stumbled, head down, into the kitchen in her sweats and bare feet looking for coffee and ran face-first into Ty. His shirt smelled of soap, starch and shaving lotion. That woke her up faster than a double shot of espresso. She turned quickly, avoiding his eyes, as if her thoughts of last night were somehow written there.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going. I was just following my nose to the coffee.” She felt herself blush.

  “I peeked in on my grandmother. She’s not up yet.”

  “I’ll go up after my run.” She scraped her fingers through her hair, a little embarrassed to be caught in her oldest sweats, with her hair looking as if it had been stirred with a hand mixer.

  “I carved out some time today to go on those trivial errands Lily’s been thinking up. We can also stop at Clara’s.”

  Lily had been peculiar lately, asking the two of them to run strange errands—like asking Hannah to pick up fresh fruit from the garden center and, oh, yes, please take Ty with her, so he could bring home a few sacks of potting soil while they were at it. Or insisting she needed a certain book that only Hannah could pick out at the warehouse store—and insisting Ty accompany her to bring home a fifty-pound bag of rice.

 
; Danny had been odd, too. He’d begun setting the dinner table with place cards, making sure that Hannah and Ty always sat next to each other at the table.

  Of course, Hannah thought that she’d been no prize either lately, worrying about Trisha. What had happened to her reliance on that verse in Matthew? Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life.

  God was handling it. She was just uneasy because she didn’t know what He was going to do next.

  “How about I pick you up at three?” Ty said before he left for work. “Sorry I have to go in early today.” They’d begun having coffee after their run, something that Hannah looked forward to every day. “Irene will stay with Lily and Danny while we pick up Lily’s weird list. I wonder what she’s up to.”

  Lily was throwing them together at every opportunity, Hannah thought. Danny, too, come to think of it.

  “I called Trisha earlier and made her promise to be at the house at four-thirty. I need to talk to that girl.” Though she’d never told him the whole scoop, Ty had probably put two and two together by now—that she was deeply concerned about her sister’s behavior.

  “Then we’ll stop there, too. I have got some traveling coming up. We might as well get everything done now while we can.”

  “Will you be gone long?”

  “A couple days, probably.”

  She would miss him, she realized. Their relationship had become important to her.

  At a little after three, she found herself in the local discount warehouse store tagging after Ty.

  “What does Lily want with fifty pounds of rice and huge bags of potting soil?” Ty asked.

  “I could have taken care of everything on this list, except for those heavy things.” Hannah appeared rueful. “I’m sorry to bother you with this.”

  “That’s probably what she wanted—a reason for us to go shopping together. She’s brewing something up.” Ty sounded resigned. “As long as we’re out, do you mind if I stop at the men’s store and pick up a couple shirts for my next trip?”

  “Sure. Why not?” It would bring back memories. She hadn’t been in a men’s store since her husband died seven years ago. Steven had been a bit of a clotheshorse and she knew everything that those type of stores exuded—the smells of new fabric and the warm, familiar odor of freshly pressed clothing, the long racks of men’s suits, jackets and trousers, the tables of vivid ties and the masculinity.

  Maybe it was time to face the memories she’d avoided for so long. She really didn’t understand why she’d waited so long to confront these small things. Her head felt clogged with them and they crowded her heart and mind just when she needed both to be open to change, to the future. She was a different woman now, stronger, more independent than she’d been back then. All her troubles hadn’t cowed her. They’d nearly knocked her to her knees a few times, but she’d kept getting up.

  When they reached the store that afternoon, she raised her chin, thrust it forward and marched in.

  Ty, seeming to notice the physical shift in her, reached out and took her arm as if to give her internal strength. Sometimes she wondered if he could read her mind.

  “I need a couple of ties, too,” Ty said. “Do you mind picking some out for me? Whatever you think is best.”

  “Me?”

  “You have good taste, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Then use it to pick out the ties.” He gave her an encouraging grin, took her shoulders and turned her until she pointed toward the ties. Then he walked off in another direction.

  She knew exactly what he needed. Her hand went immediately to a tie with the vivid blue color of his eyes swirled into the contemporary design. The second tie she chose was a more traditional repeating pattern, but it also had a touch of that remarkable blue. She ran a finger across the fine silk. It felt good. It made her feel like a wife again.

  Quashing that thought, she brought them to the counter as Ty was conversing with the salesman.

  “How about these?” She laid them out before him.

  Ty stared at them silently.

  It was the clerk who spoke. “Perfect! Absolutely perfect! I wouldn’t have done any better. Your girlfriend has excellent taste.”

  Girlfriend? She rather liked the sound of it. Rather than correct him, they played along.

  As they neared the exit door, Ty put his arm around Hannah’s shoulder. “Let me escort you to the door, girlfriend,” he said good-humoredly.

  As he touched her, she felt something shimmer through her body, a feeling she hadn’t experienced in years—attraction, magnetism. Hannah had thought she was long past that powerful yearning, that it had died with Steve. She was flummoxed to realize that it was alive and well and radiating between her and Ty.

  * * *

  “One more stop,” Hannah said. “If Trisha isn’t home, I plan to track her down if it takes all night.”

  “You didn’t mention that when we started out,” he said mildly.

  “If she’s not there, I’ll have you take me home to get my car,” she assured him. “I’m just not going to let her avoid me any longer.”

  As they pulled up to the front of Hannah’s house Jane walked outside. When she saw them, her face registered an odd expression.

  “She doesn’t look very happy to see us,” Ty commented.

  “Too bad. I’ve decided those girls are helping Trisha hide something. I’m having no pity on any of them today.” She waved Jane over before she had time to duck into the house and warn Trisha.

  “Hi, Hannah. We weren’t expecting you,” Jane said uneasily.

  “No? Good. My sister has been avoiding me. It’s time for me to find out why.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  Hannah cut her off. “Where is she?”

  “In her room, sleeping.”

  “At this time of day? She’ll be up all night.”

  Jane didn’t say anything.

  Ty trailed the two women into the house. They found Trisha coming down the stairs, tousled with bed head, her eyes puffy and wrinkled sheet marks embedded in the side of her face. She’d been sleeping hard.

  It didn’t seem to have done her much good, Hannah thought. Her sister looked dreadful. The bags under her eyes had bags. She’d lost weight and her color was slightly ashen. She didn’t look like she’d been having a good time partying since Hannah had left the house.

  “Honey, are you okay? Have you been sick? Is that why you haven’t called?”

  Trisha flushed. “No. I guess I’ve just been busy.”

  The sisters stared at each other, their expressions both challenging and unhappy.

  “It’s nice out today. I think I’ll just take this magazine and wait outside on the front porch,” Ty said calmly, “and let you two visit.”

  Hannah nodded and watched him escape before turning to her sister. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “Who says anything is going on?” Trisha retorted truculently.

  “I do. You’re avoiding me. You aren’t home early in the morning or late at night. Jane and Emma seem more and more vague about you every time I call. Either you have them lying for you or they don’t know what’s going on either. I’m not leaving here until I get an explanation for your behavior.”

  “I’ve been studying, okay? I’m getting straight As so far.”

  “Good for you. For the money and effort we’ve put into this, you should be.” Hannah rarely showed her temper, but Trisha had pushed her far enough. “But I doubt that even you could study that much. Where have you been? What’s going on? And who is Jason?”

  To Hannah’s surprise, Trisha’s expression seemed to melt from defensiveness to something closer to fear. What was going on in her little sis’s life?

  “I got a job. Okay? Is that so bad?”

  “A job doing what? I thought we’d decided that with your full load, you shouldn’t take on any more than your small part-time waitress work to be sure to keep your grades up?”

  “A cou
ple things, no big deal.”

  “It is to me. Don’t lie to me, Trisha. I’ve been worried about you. I can never get you on the phone and you never call me.”

  “I’m cleaning offices, that’s all. I can’t do them until after ten at night, so I just stay at the library until then and go to work before I come home. And you know that we have to turn off our cell phones in the library.”

  “There is such a setting as vibrate,” Hannah said dryly. “And why on Earth did you take on a job? You know we agreed that...”

  “Not a job, jobs,” Trisha corrected softly. “I have two jobs.”

  Now Hannah was truly dumbfounded.

  “I also work at another coffee shop near the campus. I’m the one who opens at 5:00 a.m. I’m done before classes start, so it works out perfectly.”

  “You call it working out perfectly when you work at one job until midnight, start another at 5:00 a.m., go to school all day and study all evening? That sounds more like torture to me! What are you thinking? And why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought I could work it out, that’s all. I didn’t want you to know.” Tears brimmed in Trisha’s eyes and her lips quivered. She suddenly looked like she was ten years old.

  Hannah softened. “Work out what, honey? What’s wrong?”

  To Hannah’s surprise, her sister dissolved into a flood of tears and weeping. Her shoulders shook, her body trembled and the sobs sounded as if they were coming from the very core of her. Hannah hurried to put her arms around the girl and held her tightly. When the crying waned, Hannah managed to lift her sister’s face to hers and look into her eyes. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I didn’t want you to know, Hannah, about how stupid and careless and irresponsible I’ve been!”

  “What did you do?”

  “Remember how you told me that I was in charge of the bills for the house now? That I should pay the mortgage, the water, electricity and all that?”

  “Perfectly. I left the bills on my desk.”

  “I must have let it go in one ear and out the other.” Trisha’s voice was small. “Because I forgot about it until I got bills for the next month and they all had previous balances. They’d doubled!”