“There's always a birthday card,” he was saying. His eyes were shimmering with humor and his soft laugh sent warning shivers dancing down her spine. “I get it,” he murmured happily. “I'm supposed to search you for it. Right?”
She stared at him, suddenly realizing what this was about. The man thought she was part of some sort of gag gift or something. And he was out of his mind. She'd expected anger, maybe, or at least annoyance—but a body frisk she hadn't counted on!
“Wrong!” she answered quickly as he reached for her, putting up her hands to fend him off. “Hold it mister. You’ve got this all wrong.”
He paused in mid reach, blinking at her. “What do you mean?”
At least he stopped. She had to give him credit for that. She’d been working in an industry where predatory men didn’t usually stop advances like this until you got their attention with a large rock to the head. Or at least the threat of jail time.
“I think there’s been a big misunderstanding,” she began, but he was already grimacing and he pulled back regretfully.
“You’re absolutely right,” he said, looking sad. “This was a great idea. Very inventive. But it isn’t going to work.”
She frowned, more confused than ever. What did he mean? Her being a butler? Nothing he said seemed to connect with anything she was thinking, but she knew she had to defend her position as quickly and thoroughly as possible—just to be sure.
“How can you know that? You don’t know anything about me yet. How can you say it isn’t going to work?”
His grin was endearingly lopsided. “You come with special talents, I’m sure,” he said with casual appreciation. “Unfortunately, it’s all for naught. You’re going to have to go.”
“What?” Outrage filled her eyes.
“My kids are coming.” He shrugged, just this side of apologetic. “And I’m actually trying to be a good dad. So pretty young female playmates are out. Even if they are birthday presents.” He shrugged again. “Sorry.”
Female playmates? No, he still had the wrong idea about what was going on here. She had to get this straight before he dumped her into the street.
She frowned, shaking her head, trying to come across very earnest and honest. Eager to please, anxious to work. Not someone to be tossed aside so lightly.
“Listen, I wasn’t sent here by anyone named Johnny. I don’t know who Johnny is. I…” She drew in a long breath. “You see, I…I work here.”
He blinked. “You what?”
She raised her head and tried to gather in some sense of dignity, but it was tough, considering. “I’m the new butler.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then he laughed aloud. “Oh come on. I’m starting to sense Johnny’s influence again.”
“No. Really. I have a contract.”
“Baloney. What you have is a great imagination.” He glanced around the closet as though looking for something. “You didn’t bring me a cake or anything?”
She blinked. “A cake?”
“For my birthday.”
“Oh.” He still thought she was a gift from his dopey friend. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize… You see, I thought it was going to be your grandfather I was basically here for and….”
“My grandfather! He’s 92 years old.” He made a face. “Lucky I got here first. You would have killed him.”
“No…” She threw up her hands in exasperation. There was no getting through to this man. Then she frowned. “But this is still his house. Isn’t it? He is planning to live here again?”
She knew her father was under the impression that old man Calvin Carrington was returning to the home he loved after a long confinement in a nursing home. That was the whole point—to have the butler who had been so close to him back again to take care of him. The only problem had been—her father had fallen and broken his shoulder—he couldn’t make it. Not yet. So she had come to take his place, just for a month or so.
“Sure,” Rick was saying. “But he hasn’t lived here for ten years.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here. I thought I was preparing the place for him to come back to.”
“In the closet?” His gaze darkened and his eyes narrowed. “Fishy, I’d say. More like a story to cover up something else. What were you really doing in here?”
At least it seemed he was finally ready to accept that she hadn’t been sent by “Johnny”. She sighed. Was she going to tell him the truth? How was she going to explain that she’d been in here hiding from him? No. Too humiliating.
“Just…uh…looking for hangers,” she said, grabbing a few off the clothes pole and waving them at him. “See?”
“Right.” His frown had turned much cooler. “Searching for the safe is more like it,” he said softly.
“No. Oh, no!”
Now he thought she was a thief. She had to do something quickly or he'd have her arrested before she had a chance to explain. How could she put this in a way that he could buy into?
“I'm here to work for your family, Mr. Carrington. Really! I'm your new butler. My name is Yardley.”
That was what employers always called her father, and since she was going to work as a butler, maybe he'd better call her that too.
But Rick didn't seem to think that was such a good idea. He put a hand to his forehead and squinted his eyes as though he felt a migraine coming on.
“I remember a butler named Yardley. Martin Yardley. He worked here for my grandfather when I was a kid.” He squinted at her. “He was a tall man. Sort of skinny. Definitely flat-chested.” He shook his head sadly, looking her up and down. “Didn't look a thing like you. You'd better try again.”
CHAPTER TWO:
The Kids Are Coming!
Now Terry really regretted not having business cards to thrust at him. How did you prove you were a butler without them?
“I ... I am Yardley,” she stuttered, trying to be as convincing as possible. “Terry Yardley. Martin is my father.”
“Ah.” He nodded as though it was all clear to him now. “Of course. That explains everything.”
“Does it?” She was naively hopeful.
“Certainly.” Sarcasm threaded neatly through his tone. “All the servants send their children up to straighten my hangers. Happens every day. I do make such a mess of them.” His eyes glinted and the ghost of a smile turned up the corners of his mouth.
Once again she was thankful he had a sense of humor.
“If you remember my father—” she began to explain, but he shook his head, interrupting her.
“I don't remember him well, actually. I didn't live here then—just some visits. But I believe you if you say you're his daughter.” He raised an eyebrow, wondering how she’d thought she could get away with it. “What I don't believe is your claim that you're a butler.”
A butler. He looked her over once more. It was too ridiculous. She opened her mouth to protest and he waved at her impatiently. “Enough. Let’s put it this way. I don’t care if you’re a butler or not. You’re not going to be a butler here.”
Her eyes flashed angrily and he had to look away. If he didn’t, he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist smiling at her and ruining his firm statement. She was completely adorable and pretty sexy in her tiny white shorts and miniscule shirt, but he was going to go against the grain of his usual impulses. He wasn’t going to let himself give in to her just to keep her around.
It couldn’t be done—not this time. His kids were coming.
He sank down onto the bed and leaned back against the pillows, closing his eyes. He felt like hell. Of course, that was his own fault, and he was definitely going to quit drinking—for sure this time. But there was more, a sense of impending doom hanging over him, as though something very bad was about to happen.
Oh yeah. His kids were coming.
He opened his eyes. She was still there, looking down at him with her own eyes narrowed fiercely and her lower lip caught in her teeth, as though she was thinking up ways to tie h
im up and put him in the basement while she got on about the business of taking over the place. That made him grin.
“Oh hell, are you're sure you don't have a birthday card on you somewhere?”
She glared and he gestured for her to sit on the bed, too. He might as well. He knew for sure she wasn’t anywhere near done with this fight.
She sat very gingerly on the edge of the bed, just out of reach. “I don't usually carry spare birthday cards with me,” she said crisply. “Do most people you meet?”
He managed a wan smile. “No. But tomorrow is my birthday. And every year my cousin Johnny thinks of a more surprising way to deliver my card.” He shrugged. “When I saw you in my closet I was sure you were his latest idea. It seemed to fit the pattern.”
She flashed him a look. “Does he often use strange women?”
He cocked his head, considering. “I wouldn't call you strange exactly. Well, a little odd, perhaps. Hanging out in closets is a bit bizarre.”
Terry looked at him, trying to hold on to anger and feeling it slip away. Rick Carrington was not turning out to be what she'd anticipated. She’d expected a more superior attitude, but that didn’t seem to be his style. Looking deeply into his eyes, she thought she saw a restlessness, a hint of pain, and maybe dissatisfaction. But at the same time, she felt a warmth in him, something terribly appealing.
All the same, she knew she wasn’t supposed to like him, necessarily. Just work for him. That was all that counted.
“If you ask me, the strange one seems to be this Johnny person,” she said dryly.
He laughed. “There's nothing strange about Johnny. But he does have good birthday ideas.” A look of bliss crept over his face. “Last year he hired a magazine centerfold to bring me my greeting. When I went up to my room I found her in my bed, stark naked, with 'Happy Birthday' written across her nubile body in edible ink.”
In spite of herself, Terry choked. “Edible ink?” she gasped when she could catch her breath. “What on earth is edible ink?”
“I don't know,” he answered wistfully, stretching his arms out, “but it sure tasted great.”
He was making it up. She was sure of it. She wanted to laugh, but she didn't dare. After all, she wasn't the man's friend, she was his employee, and it was time she acted the part.
“I'm sure it did, sir,” she said in her best butler voice. She would play the part to the hilt as long as there was still a chance at it. “Have you come home now? Will you be staying? If so, I'd like to make an appointment to go over the plans with you, to make sure I'm setting up the house to your satisfaction—”
“Wait a minute.” He held up a hand to stop the flow of her words. “I told you this cock-and-bull story about your being a butler just won't fly.”
She drew herself up with all her worldly dignity. “I may not look like the butlers you're accustomed to, Mr. Carrington, but I assure you, I can work just as well as—”
“You're a woman. Butlers are men.” He sighed. “I can give you a job as a maid, if you'd like.”
She didn't appreciate the patronizing sound of that statement and the thread of steel in his voice gave ample evidence that his good humor had its limits. But so did hers.
He was laying down the law as though he was used to it. And he probably was. But he didn’t know how important this job was to her. After all her father had been through, she had to save this job for him if she could. It would break his heart to lose this opportunity.
Her father had always been so proud of his job at the Carrington estate. He had been more than a butler to Calvin Carrington, almost a confidant in the old days. He'd left only after the Carrington family had decided Calvin needed a change and a warmer climate and had taken him off to their estate in the Bahamas to live for the next ten years.
Since leaving the Carringtons, her father had worked as the manager of housekeeping services for a large Malibu hotel. But recently he’d been let go, told he was just too old for the job. That experience had crushed him. Terry had really thought he might just give up—until the call had come from the Carringtons. Suddenly he’d had a reason to live again.
And now Terry had been given the chance to feel some of that pride her father had known. She had something to prove here. She might be a flop at her chosen career—trying to be an actress in Hollywood had not been a stellar choice, it seemed-- but she was darn well determined she was going to make a good butler—and she wasn't going to let Rick Carrington stand in her way.
“My father was hired by your grandfather,” she began staunchly. “I'm taking my father's place, but I know I can do the job. Your grandfather seemed to feel I could do it as well.”
“My grandfather never saw you face-to-face, did he?” Rick drawled. “I'm sure he made a mistake. He's got standards that date back to the Stone Age. He'd never have hired a girl like you deliberately.”
She could cheerfully have beaned him with a handy lamp for calling her a “girl” as much as anything, but the sad fact was, he was right. Mr. Calvin Carrington thought she was her father’s son. She’d heard her own father on the phone with him, and though neither of them had mentioned it, she knew her father had avoided the issue.
But too bad. Calvin Carrington had agreed to this. And here she was.
“I've got a contract,” she reminded him sweetly.
“I can break it,” he replied with easy tranquility.
A rush of panic flooded her. He just might. She was treading on thin ice, confronting him this way. Why couldn't she lower her tone and try a little sweet talk instead? She swallowed hard, trying to muster a seductive smile, but the effort died somewhere inside. She knew she could never make it that way. There seemed to be a reason she’d failed as an actress, wasn’t there?
“You're not being fair,” she said instead, her chin set stubbornly. “Give me a chance to prove myself.”
Rick's eyes were glimmering with amusement. “Just like that? You think you can come in here and begin 'butling' on the spur of the moment? You think you can jump right into a profession that has been developing into a fine art over the centuries?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “I have to admire your courage. Just wait until the Butlers United gets wind of this. They'll come around here with a lynch mob.”
“I know what I'm doing. I've been trained by the best.” Her father was the best she knew of. “I'm a good worker. You won't be disappointed.”
“Won't I?” he asked softly, and she sensed a break in the ice.
She knew she was looking so very eager, so very willing to work her little fingers to the bone. He gazed at her for a long moment. There was hesitation flashing in the misty golden-brown of his eyes, but she could see that he was a bit captivated by her.
“Why don’t we wait for your grandfather to arrive and see what he thinks,” she said. She had a feeling, no matter how hide-bound Calvin was, she was going to be able to charm him. Just give her a chance!
But Rick was shaking his head. “He won’t be coming. Not right away. He came down with the flu a few days ago. They don’t want to let him travel until they’re sure he’s all over that.”
“Oh.” So much for that idea. “But he is coming?”
“Oh yes. At least, we all hope so.”
She smiled. “I can hardly wait to see him again. He and my father were quite close in the old days.”
Rick grinned. “Meeting you, I can understand why.”
She was winning. She could feel it. She began to smile, awaiting confirmation.
“I think I like you, Terry Yardley,” Rick said at last, leaning back again. “There's something very appealing about those huge blue eyes of yours, and that mop of shiny dark hair.”
She smiled, waiting for him to tell her he approved.
He glanced over the slim brown line her legs made against the yellow bedspread, and she unconsciously drew her knees together. He chuckled. “As a butler, you'd make a terrific date. How about dinner tomorrow night?”
Terry's mouth was dry an
d she wasn't laughing. “You don't understand. I’ve got to have this job. I'll do it well. You have no reasonable grounds to deny me on.”
He watched her narrowly, sorry for a moment that she hadn't been one of Johnny's bright ideas. He liked the way her blue eyes sparkled. He also liked the way she filled out her skimpy outfit. He knew he would have enjoyed sharing some time with her under other circumstances.
But that only made it that much more reasonable that he send her away. If he let her work here, things could get complicated. He'd learned long ago not to mess with the help. It only led to misunderstandings all around. And his kids were coming…
“I don't have to hire you just because you want the job,” he told her bluntly.
“No, but ...” She searched his face for a hint of weakness. “Please do anyway,” she said softly, her eyes wide and pleading.
He groaned and threw his head back, staring at the ceiling to avoid her blue eyes. If she'd slipped down off the bed and gone on her knees before him, she couldn't have been more persuasive. There was something so vulnerable, yet so determinedly courageous about her.
He wanted to help her, but how could he? Women weren't butlers. Women were maids and housekeepers. That was the way it was—feminism be damned. The Carringtons weren't a family that challenged tradition.
He wanted everything perfect for his grandfather's arrival. It now looked as though that would take a month or two. The old man had to recover as much as possible and be basically mobile before they would let him move into his home again. And now that his own parents had bailed on the job, it was his responsibility to see to it that the house was ready for him.
His grandfather meant a lot to him. Rick knew he'd been something of a disappointment to Calvin in the past and he wanted to make amends. Female butlers didn't set the proper tone for the homecoming he had in mind.
But there was another element to consider. At this point, the one thing he needed more badly than a butler was a nanny. He looked at Terry skeptically, wondering if he could offer to hire her on to take care of his children for the weekend. But no, he could see from the determined line around her mouth, that wouldn't quite fill her purpose.
Promoted to Wife (Destiny Bay) Page 2