“So why didn’t you just put that down on the card?”he asked.“You realizethat’s false advertising.”
“My mama’s not false!”Kelli piped up indignantly, moving between her mother andhim.
“Kelli, hush,”J.D. soothed.“It’s okay.”And then she looked at him and hersunny expression faded.“There’s nothing false about it. Those are my initials.”
“You know what I mean. By using them, you make people think that they’re hiringa man.” That was the whole point, she thought. This man might look drop-dead gorgeous,but he was as dumb as a shoe—and probably had the soul to match. She spelled itout for him.
“People do not call someone named Janice Diane to fix their running toilets orrenovate their flagstone fireplaces. They do, however, call someone named J.D. to do the same work. This world runs on preconceived notions, Mr. Zabelle. Oneof those notions is that men are handy, women are not. Your reaction just provedmy point. You thought I was here to clean your house, not to renovate it.”
She was right and he didn’t like it, but he couldn’t come up with a facesavingrebuttal.“Well, I—”
It wouldn’t have mattered if he had, she wouldn’t let him finish. “I’ve been around tools all my life and I know what to do with them.”She foldedher arms before her.“Now, are you going to let your prejudice keep you fromhiring the best handy-person you’re ever going to come across in your life—atany price—or are you going to be a modern man and show me what exactly you needdone around here?”It was a challenge, pure and simple. One she hoped he wouldrise to.
Out of the corner of her eye, Janice saw Kelli mimic her actions perfectly,folding her small arms before her.
Mother and daughter stood united, waiting for a reply.
Chapter 3
For what felt like an endless moment, two different reactions warred withinPhilippe, each striving for the upper hand. Ever since he could remember, he’d had it drummed into his head—and had come totruly believe—that the only difference between men and women were that women hadsofter skin. Usually. His mother had enthusiastically maintained over and overagain that women could do anything a man could except go to the bathroomstanding up. And even there, she had declared smugly, women had the bettermethod. At the very least, it was neater.
But there was another, equally strong reaction that beat within his chest. Itwas based on the deep-seated philosophy that men were the doers, the protectorsin this dance of life. This notion had evolved very early in his life and hadcome from the fact that he’d been the responsible one in the family, thesteadfast one. His mother flittered in and out of relationships, fell in and outof love, while he held down the fort, making sure that his brothers stayed outof trouble and went to school. And occasionally, when there was a need for it,his was the shoulder on which his mother would cry or vent.
He grew up believing that there were certain things that men did. They might bepartners with women on a daily basis, but in times of crisis, the partnershiptended to go from fifty-fifty to seventy-thirty, with the man taking up theslack.
And under that heading, but in a much looser sense, came the concept of beinghandy. Women weren’t supposed to be handy, at least, not handier than the men ofthe species. Women were not the guardians of the tool belt, they were thenurturers.
Right now, as he vacillated between giving in to his pride and being fair,Philippe could almost hear his mother whispering in his ear. “Damn it, Philippe, I raised you better than this. Give the girl a chance. Shehas a child, for heaven’s sake. Besides, she’s very easy on the eye. Not a badlittle number to have around.”
At the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to have J.D. give him an estimate. If hedidn’t like it, that would be the end of that. Mentally, he crossed his fingers.
With a barely suppressed sigh, he nodded.“All right. Let me show you thebathroom.”
Philippe began leading the way to the rear of the house, past the kitchen.
Somehow, Kelli managed to wiggle in front of him just as they came to thebathroom that had begun it all, the one with the cracked sink. Hands on either side of the doorjamb, Kelli peered into the room before hermother could stop her, then declared in a very adult, very disappointed voice,“Oh, it’s not pretty.”Turning around, she looked up at him with a smile thatpromised everything was going to be all right.“But don’t worry, Mama can makeit pretty for you. She’s very good.”
Philippe raised an eyebrow.“She your press agent?”he asked, amused despitehimself as he nodded toward the little girl.
For the first time, he saw the woman in the well-fitting faded jeans smile.
Janice ruffled her daughter’s silky blond hair with pure affection.“More likemy own personal cheering section.”
An identical smile was mirrored on Kelli’s lips. The resemblance was uncanny. Stepping back to grab her mother’s hand, Kelli proceeded to tug her into thesmall rectangular slightly musty room.“C’mon, Mommy, tell him what you’re gonnado to make it look pretty.”
Janice glanced over her shoulder toward the man she hoped was going to hire herand allow her to make this month’s mortgage payment.“I don’t think pretty iswhat Mr. Zabelle has in mind, honey.”
Kelli pursed her lips together, clearly mulling over her mother’s words. Andthen she raised her bright blue eyes up to look at his face, studying himintently as if she was trying to decide just what sort of creature he was.
“Everyone likes pretty,”she finally declared with the firm conviction of thevery young. Philippe’s experience with children was extremely limited. It really didn’t gobeyond his own rather adult childhood and the brothers he’d all but raised. Allof that now residing in the distant past.
Too distant for him to really recall with any amount of clarity.
But since Kelli made decrees like a short adult, he treated her as such andsaid,“That all depends on what you mean by pretty.” The smile on the rosebud mouth was back, spreading along it generously andbanishing her momentary serious expression. This time, she looked up at hermother and giggled.“He’s funny, Mommy.”
Janice slipped her hand around Kelli’s shoulders, stooping down to do so.“He’sthe client, Kel, and we don’t talk about him as if he’s not in the room whenhe’s standing right beside us.”
“Good rule to remember,”Philippe approved, then decided to ask a question ofhis own.“You always bring your daughter along on interviews?” Interviews. Janice had gotten to dislike the word. It made her feel as if shewas being scrutinized. As if someone was passing judgment on her. There had beenmore than enough of that when she’d been growing up. Her father was alwaysjudging her—and finding her lacking. Besides, she took exception to Zabelle’squestion. It wasn’t any of his business if Kelli came along or not as long aseverything else was conducted professionally.
Without meaning to, she squared her shoulders.“My sitter had a date.”
Philippe supposed that was a reasonable excuse, although the woman could haverescheduled.“Good for her.”
“Him,”she corrected.“Good for him,”she added when he looked at herquizzically.“My sitter’s my brother, Gordon.” Mentally, Philippe came to an abrupt halt. He was getting far more informationthan he either needed or wanted. If he did wind up hiring this woman to tinkerand fix the couple of things that needed fixing, he wanted to keep theirexchanges strictly to a business level.
But that wasn’t going to be easy, he realized in the next moment when the littlegirl took his hand in hers and brightly informed him,“I don’t have a brother.
Do you have one?” He expected Kelli’s mother to step in and admonish the little girl for talkingso freely to a stranger. But there was nothing forthcoming from J.D. and Kelliwas apparently waiting for him to give her an answer.
“Yes,”he finally said.“Two.”
“Do they live here, too?”Kelli asked. She seemed ready to go off in search ofthem.
He shifted his eyes toward the so-called handy-person.“Don’t you think youshould teach her not to be so friendly
with strangers?” Janice had never liked being told what to do. She struggled now to keep herannoyance out of her voice. The man probably meant well and he was, after all, apotential client.
But who the hell did he think he was, telling her how to raise her daughter? She took a breath before answering, trying her best to sound calm. She wasdealing with residual anxiety, as always when Gordon went out on a date. He hada very bad tendency to overdo things and shower his companions with gifts hecouldn’t afford.
When she finally spoke, it was in a low voice, the same voice he’d heard on theanswering machine.“I don’t see the need to make her paranoid if I’m around towatch her. Kelli knows enough not to talk to someone she doesn’t know if she’salone—which she never is,”Janice added firmly.“Besides,”she continued,“Kelli’s a very good judge of character.”
Now that he found hard to believe.“And she’s how old?” He was mocking her, Janice thought. Probably thought she was one of those dotingmothers who thought their kid walked on water. But Kelli seemed to have a radarwhen it came to nice people. She turned very shy around the other type.
“Age doesn’t always matter,”she told Zabelle. Gordon, for instance, had theimpaired judgment of a two-month-oldLabrador puppy. Everyone was hisfriend— until proven otherwise. The later happened far too often. He had a V onhis forehead for victim and self-serving women could hone in on it from afifty-mile radius.“Sometimes all it takes are good instincts.”Something Gordondidn’t seem to possess when it came to women. He fell prey to one gold diggerafter another. The sad part was that he never caught on. And if she saidanything, her brother felt she was being a shrew.
It was hard to believe that he was the older one.
Because he’d asked and her mother hadn’t answered, Kelli held up four fingersand bent her thumb to illustrate what she was about to say.“I’m four andthreequarters.”She dropped her hand and then added in a stage whisper thatwould have made a Shakespearean actor proud,“Mama says I’m going on forty.”
The unassuming remark made him laugh.“I can believe that.” “Why don’t we get down to business?”Janice suggested. She wanted to wrap thisup as quickly as possible, especially if it didn’t lead anywhere. She hadn’t hada chance to prepare dinner yet. That had been Gordon’s job, but then Sheila, thelatest keeper of his heart, had called and he’d forgotten everything else. Whenshe’d come home from wrapping up a job, he’d all but run over her in his hasteto leave the house.
“Good, you’re finally home. Gotta run.”And he did. Literally.
“Dinner?”she’d called after him.
“Yeah,”he’d tossed over her shoulder.“I’m taking her out. Seems she’s freeafter all.”
Which had meant that whoever Sheila had planned to go out with had cancelled. There’d been no time for Janice to prepare dinner before her appointment, soshe’d tossed an apple to Kelli, strapped her into her car seat and driven overto the address she’d copied down. But now her stomach was making her pay for itby rumbling. She wished she’d grabbed an apple for herself.
“Fine with me,”Philippe told her. He gestured toward the sink. Running thelength of the sink from one end to the other, the crack was hard to miss.“Ineed that replaced.”
Instead of looking at the sink, Janice slowly examined the bathroom, taking indetails and cataloguing them in her head. Judging by appearances, no one haddone anything to the oversized powder room with the undersized shower in aboutthirty years.
The dead giveaway was the carpet on the floor. It was very 1970s.
Finished assessing, she turned to him.“Looks to me as if you could stand tohave the whole bathroom replaced.”
He hadn’t given any serious thought to any large-scale renovations, but he knewhe wouldn’t want them handled by a wisp of a woman.“Oh?” She nodded as if he’d just agreed with her.“The tile is very bland,”shepointed to the wall.“It dates the room, as does the carpet. And you’re missinggrout in several places.”She indicated just where.“My guess is that it wasprobably scrubbed out over the years.”She based her assumption on the fact thatthere didn’t appear to be any visible mold. Left to their own devices, most menhad bathrooms that doubled as giant petri dishes, growing several differentstrains of mold and fungus.“Whoever’s been cleaning your bathroom has beendoing an excellent job, but scrubbing does take its toll on tile and grout aftera while.”
He wasn’t sure if she was giving him a compliment or trying to get him tovolunteer more information about his personal life. In either case, he shrugged.
“I just find things to spray on it—whenever I remember,”he added, thinking ofthe last time he’d had the opportunity to go to the grocery store. The tiny snippet of information impressed her.“A man who cleans his ownbathroom.”She said it the way someone might announce they’d just discovered aunicorn.“I’ll have to have my brother come meet you.”
That was the last thing he wanted—unless her brother was part of her crew. Thesecond he had the thought, he realized she had somehow subtly gotten him toconsider the idea of renovations rather than a simple replacement.
Still, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. He looked at her in silence fora minute, then decided to ask a hypothetical question.“Okay, pure speculation.”
“Yes?”she returned gamely, mentally crossing her fingers.
“If I were to do this bathroom over.”And now that he thought of it, it did lookpretty washed out and lifeless.“What would something like that run?” There was no easy answer. She was surprised that he expected one—was he the typethat liked having everything neatly pigeonholed?“That depends on what you’dwant done.”
Nothing until five minutes ago, he thought.“Nothing fancy,”he said aloud.
“Just replacing what’s here with newer fixtures.” She glanced down at the worn short-shag carpeting that went from one wall toanother. Why would anyone have ever considered that acceptable?“And tile forthe floor.”
That surprised him. J.D. had hit on the one thing he’d been toying with havingdone—when he got around to it. He’d never cared for having a carpet in thebathroom. It got way too soggy from wet feet.
“And tile for the floor,”he echoed, agreeing. Well, at least they were beginning on the same page.“Different quality fixturesaffect the total sum,”she maintained. “Ballpark figure,”he requested, then amended it by saying,“what you’d chargefor your labor, since I’m guessing the materials would cost me the same as youif I went and got them myself.”
“More,”she corrected. He looked at her quizzically.“Unless you just happen tohave a contractor’s license in your pocket.”
He patted either pocket, causing Kelli to giggle. He realized he liked the soundof that.“Fresh out.”He hooked his thumbs in the corners of his front pockets.
“So I get a break hiring you?” She didn’t want to come across as pushy. People who applied too much pressurewound up losing their potential customers. It was the one thing she’d learned bywatching her father.“Or any contractor.”
He couldn’t ask what the materials would come to until he decided on thematerials. But he could ask her about her fee. He’d never liked flying blind.
“Okay, what’s your bottom line?” This time the giggle needed two hands to keep it restrained—and still it camethrough.“Mama doesn’t have a line on her bottom,”Kelli piped up, her eyesdancing with amusement.
For a second, as he stared down into the eyes of the improbable woman behind theinitials, he’d almost lost his train of thought. He’d definitely forgotten thather daughter was there.
Philippe laughed now at the serious expression that had slipped over what hadbeen an incredibly sunny little face.“I didn’t mean—”
“The bottom line means what things will cost,”Janice explained to her daughter,speaking as if Kelli were a business associate being trained on the job. Maybe she was, he thought, then dismissed the idea as ridiculous. It was way toosoon to be training that little girl to do anything but enjoy life to thefullest and he had a sneak
ing suspicion those lessons had already been given.
“Oh,”was all he trusted himself to say.
Janice turned toward him and after pausing a moment to take things in again and,doing a few mental calculations in her head, she gave him a quote.
He stared at her incredulously.“You’re serious,”he asked.
“Yes, why?” The why was because she’d given him a bid that sounded much too low, even if itdid only include her labor and not the cost of materials.“How do you stay inbusiness with fees like that?”
She breathed a silent sigh of relief. He wasn’t one of those tightwads whothought everything had to be haggled down. “Low overhead,”Janice quipped without hesitation. She ventured a littlefurther. Once people got their feet wet, they usually decided they wantedsomething else done. She began with the logical choice.“Is this the onlybathroom you want renovated?”
“I didn’t even want this one renovated,”he informed her, then abruptly stopped.
The quote she’d given him was more than reasonable, coming in far lower than hewould have expected. He wasn’t up on the price of bathroom renovations, per se,but one of the people who marketed his software packages had just had a bathroomredone. The man had proudly given him a quote that had taken his breath away.
Philippe remembered thinking that his maternal grandfather had paid less for hishouse when he’d bought it forty years ago than the man had paid to have hisbathroom upgraded.“The other two are upstairs.”
“You have three bathrooms?”Kelli asked gleefully, her eyes huge.
He had no idea why the little girl would find that a source of wonder.“Yes.”
“We only have two,”she confided, then leaned into him and added,“And UncleGordon is always in one.” Janice saw Zabelle raise his eyes and look at her quizzically. She didn’t wanthim thinking that Gordon was strange.“My brother is staying with us while hegets back on his feet.”
Kelli’s silken blond curls fairly bounced as she turned her head around to faceher.“Uncle Gordon gets on his feet every day, Mama.” It was an expression, but she didn’t feel like trying to explain that to Kelliright now. Instead, she stroked Kelli’s hair and said,“Only for short periodsof time, baby.”
[The Sons of Lily Moreau 01] - Remodeling the Bachelor Page 3