by Judi Fennell
OKAY, maybe a woman could be Cinderella twice in one lifetime because Prince Charming had definitely walked through her door.
Prince Bryan Manley Charming, local boy turned Hollywood heartthrob. And he’d just walked through her door to clean her toilets?
Beth pinched herself. This was insane. It had to be a gag. Was someone punking him? But shouldn’t she be in on the joke if they were?
She waved him in and looked around outside. No cameras. But they had to be there.
She stuck a hand up to her hair. Figures. The one day she didn’t take the time to do her hair was the day she was going to show up on national television. Again.
She ran a hand down the front of her shirt and found a wet spot that she hoped was just Sherman’s wet snout mark and not a stain. Knowing the dog, however, she wouldn’t be surprised if it was both.
She looked down and groaned. Her shirt wasn’t buttoned properly. God, she was a mess. Looked like her friends were right; she did need help around the house.
Well, of course she did—of the permanent kind—but this splurge the girls had gone in on to hire a housekeeper seemed to be just the thing in the interim.
Especially since they’d somehow finagled Bryan Manley for the job.
“Aren’t maids thupposed to be girls?” Maggie slurped around her thumb. Beth had tried to break her of the habit before Mike’s accident, but afterward . . . well, it’d just seemed cruel. The little girl needed whatever comfort she could get.
Brian hunkered down to Maggie’s level. “Boys can be maids, too. Just like girls can be doctors and lawyers and even truck drivers.”
“Or pilots. My daddy was a pilot and he told me I can be one when I grow up.”
Beth winced at the past tense in that sentence. And at the thought of Maggie dying like Mike had. To this day, the thought of getting on a plane gave her an anxiety attack.
“You definitely can be a pilot when you grow up. Or how about an astronaut?” Bryan stood up and Beth caught his quick glance to her left hand.
She knew what he’d see: nothing. Her ring mark was finally gone. She’d taken it off on the two-year anniversary of the crash, finally facing the fact that Mike wasn’t coming back and nothing would be the same again. None of the kids had commented on it, though she’d caught Kelsey looking at her empty finger more than once.
She sighed, preparing herself for the questions. Divorced? was usually their first question, accompanied by a commiserating smile that wavered when she answered, Widowed, and completely disappeared when she added in the bit about five kids. No surprise there wasn’t a new ring on her finger.
“I guess,” Maggie said, her thumb migrating to her belt loop. That was the quickest Beth had ever seen her daughter lose the comfort mechanism around someone new. “But the moon’s kinda boring. All gray and rocky and stuff. I wanna be a teacher. Like my mommy.”
A wet hand slid into Beth’s. The trust that small gesture implied never failed to humble her.
“What do you teach?” Bryan asked as he stood up, and there was no doubt in her mind what had made this guy a movie star. Wavy chestnut hair just begging for her fingers to run through it and gorgeous green eyes that made her forget her hair was a mess, or that she had a stain and a cockeyed shirt, or that there were five children, a dog, and two hamsters running around the place—oh, crap. The hamsters were still in their rolling balls somewhere around here. If Sherman got wind of them . . .
Beth lost her smile really fast. “I’m sorry. Will you excuse me?” She knelt down to whisper to Maggie about the hamsters.
Her daughter shrieked then ran away, which sent Sherman howling after her.
Those hamsters would be lucky to make it until dinner—and not be dinner.
She brushed a hank of hair back off her forehead. So much for having a movie star in her house. He was probably wondering what he’d gotten himself into. “I’m sorry. Trying to ward off a catastrophe.” Number seven for the day. A new low. But the day wasn’t over yet. “I’m Beth Hamilton.”
She held out her hand and had to keep from swooning when he shook it. Charisma radiated off this guy like smoke from a campfire on a cool crisp night. Though there was nothing cool about his touch. It lit a fire under Beth’s skin that she’d almost forgotten existed.
She yanked her hand away. She might have removed her wedding band, but she wasn’t ready for that yet. Of course, could she really be blamed? He was, after all, Bryan Manley. The next Sexiest Man Alive if the magazine covers bearing his photo in the supermarket checkout lines were any indication.
“I’m Bryan, uh, Man—”
“I know who you are.” Who didn’t? “My question is, what are you doing here?”
He held up a bucket of cleaning supplies. “You hired a maid, right? I’m here to do your bidding.”
Oh the smile that accompanied that statement. The man was a natural flirt.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?”
He arched an eyebrow. She’d seen that look in his last movie right before the love interest had fallen for him. Beth had understood why the moment it’d happened on screen, but here, in the flesh . . .
Zero to full-out fantasy mode in under two seconds.
“Hey, it’s like I told your daughter. Guys can clean just as good as women.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, are you sure you’re up for this?” She swept a hand toward the family room.
Sherman had run through the clothesline again and dragged it in from outside. It was a favorite trick of his to jump up, grab hold of the lowest-hanging article, twist midair, and bring the whole thing floating down around him, then drag it all around the yard. Of course today would be the day he decided to drag it through the house for the first time.
Mike had wanted a Jack Russell terrier. She’d wanted a basset hound. But the dog had been his idea to give the kids for Christmas, and with all the energy the kids had, it’d seemed fitting at the time to give them a high-energy dog. Now? Notsomuch.
“Uh . . . Did you guys have a flood or something? Tornado?” Bryan Manley’s sexy, flirty look turned perplexed real quick.
Beth smiled and walked over to the sofa to shove her panties behind a pillow. From now on, they were going in the dryer or hanging in her bathroom to dry. “Tornado Hamilton. It happens at least once a day here.”
“Mom!” Mark came barreling into the room, his lightsaber leading the charge. “Tommy’s cheating!”
“I am not!”
“Are too!”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“D2!” Bryan dodged the swinging blades and somehow managed to pluck them from their hands.
“Huh?” the twins asked in tandem as they often did.
“R2-D2.” Brian set the plastic swords on the bookshelf behind him. “Don’t tell me you guys are fighting with lightsabers and don’t know who R2-D2 is.”
“Of course we do,” said Tommy. “He’s Luke’s servant.”
“He is?” Bryan put a hand behind the boys’ shoulders and led them away from the shelf. “I thought he was his friend.”
“Well,” said Mark, “he started out his servant but ended up as his friend.”
“And why is that do you suppose?”
“’Cause Luke needed him lots of times and R2 came through for him,” answered Tommy.
They weren’t finishing each other’s sentences yet, but the consecutive answers were a sign they were back on the same side and the bickering was over.
“Ah.” Bryan kicked a pillow out of the way and one of the hamster balls rolled with it. Beth scooped it up and set it in the planter before Sherman got a whiff. “I bet you guys have that happen with you, huh? One of you gets in trouble and the other helps him out?”
“Tommy’s always getting in trouble.” Mark crossed his arms and nodded smugly.
So much for the end of the bickering.
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am—�
�
“Guys. Hang on.” Bryan took off his hat, cleared three T-shirts off the sofa, then steered the boys onto it. Then he handed Beth the semi-frozen, half-empty ice cream tub from the coffee table and sat on the edge across from them. Good thing the table was made of sturdy oak; she didn’t want to have Bryan Manley sprawled all over her family room.
Her bedroom on the other hand—
Beth’s mouth almost fell open. What was she thinking?
Well, okay, she knew what she was thinking, but the question was why was she thinking it? With all the dates her friends had set her up with over the last few months, she hadn’t wanted to even think about kissing one of the men, much less have them sprawled across her—
Yes, there it was. That image. The one from the first movie she’d ever seen Bryan in, all slick and wet, coming out of the ocean with his camo shorts hanging below a killer set of abs.
She forced herself to pay attention to what he was telling her boys. What kind of mother was she to let an essential stranger work out her sons’ daily midmorning argument while she drooled over him as he did it?
“It’s much easier to look in front of you than behind you, so if you stay loyal to each other, you’ll never have to watch your back because your brother will be doing it for you while you’re doing it for him.”
“Just like you and your brothers do,” the boys said in tandem.
“Exactly.” He ruffled their hair and Beth could see their shoulders straighten. Their posture get a little taller. The smiles spread across their faces.
It’d been a while since anyone—any man—had talked with them like this. Mike’s father hadn’t dealt well with his son’s death, electing to almost pretend it’d never happened, and her family . . . well, her stepfather wasn’t exactly the role model she wanted her sons to emulate. Bryan’s five minutes in her house showed her just how much the boys needed a man in their life.
Bryan met her gaze and winked. “So, guys, now that you’re watching out for each other, you know who else you have to watch out for?”
“Our teacher?”
“Sherman?”
“Johnny Tyler,” said Tommy. “He’s a bully.”
“No, Janey Weston. She’s gross.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Janey’s gross.”
Bryan stood up, put his hands on the boys’ heads, and swiveled them her way. “No, boys. You have to watch out for your sisters and your mom. It’s a guy’s job to take care of the women he loves.”
Thank God Beth had something cold in her hand or she just might have melted on the spot.
• • •
SHE wasn’t saying anything.
Bryan hoped that was a good thing, but in his experience, when a woman said nothing, it spoke louder than if she yelled at him. Or Fine’d him. He’d come to dread that word from a woman. Yet here he was, giving her boys life advice as if he had every right.
Where the hell was Mr. Beth Hamilton and why wasn’t Mrs. Beth Hamilton wearing a ring?
“Yo, Beth, I—whoa.” The shaggy-haired kid did a double take and skidded to a stop, his sneakers leaving skid marks on the hardwood floor.
God, now Bryan was even sounding like a maid.
“Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t you—”
“Yeah, I am, and she’s your mom, not Beth.” Kid ought to be grateful he had someone around to call Mom.
“Bryan, it’s okay—”
“No, it’s not.” Bryan ran a hand through his hair. Shit. He should have stayed out of this. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business, but I was raised to treat a woman—especially one’s mom—with respect. I get teenage rebellion with the . . .” He waved at the kid’s hair and three-sizes-too-big jeans that were barely staying on with the no-belt-or-hip thing happening. “It was an automatic response. Your kid, your rules.”
Beth had the best smile. Soft and sweet, it wasn’t all toothy, flashy, look-at-me, but held genuine happiness that reached her eyes—and reached out to him, landing somewhere in the middle of his stomach with a big ol’ thud.
Holy hell. When’s the last time that’d happened?
“Thank you, Bryan. Those are my rules as well.” She looked at her son. “Was there something you wanted, Jason?”
“I uh . . .” Jason glanced at him through a gap in his shag. “Kev’s gonna take me to the mall.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Aw, Mom—”
“Jason, you’re fourteen. You are not going to be parading around the mall with a bunch of guys. Security looks for kids your age. I don’t need to get a phone call.”
“You won’t.”
“That’s right. I won’t. Because you’re not going. You’re staying here to do your room.”
“Aw, Mom!” Proving he was only fourteen, Jason stomped his foot. “Isn’t that what he’s here for?” The hair swung Bryan’s way.
Bryan arched an eyebrow at the kid. “Sorry, but I didn’t pull hazmat duty.” He’d been a teenage boy once; he knew what was in the kid’s room. He hadn’t liked cleaning his own disgusting mess, no way was he doing this one’s.
“Aren’t you, like, a big movie star or something?” The kid swept the hair off his forehead. It fell right back. “What are you doing here?”
Bryan called on all the acting ability he’d developed over the years because he wasn’t about to admit how he’d gotten here. His publicist would be so proud of him. “I’m helping out my sister. She owns Manley Maids and my brothers and I are lending a hand.” An indentured one, but still . . .
“Just write her a check, dude. That outfit is lame.”
Dude? Who said dude anymore? Last Bryan had heard, no one was remaking Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Pity because that sleeper had a huge cult following and he wouldn’t mind loyal fans like that.
“It’s a uniform. I’m required to wear it on the job.” But he got what the kid was talking about. This thing was a disaster. Pants that looked as if they’d come from the seventies—the color of a pistachio and just as nutty. He couldn’t believe Mac had found golf shirts in the same color. And the black utility shoes . . . Hell, he could tell Mac that a better way to improve her profile in this town, rather than having the three of them cleaning for her, was to lose the stupid uniform.
He smiled. Well, yeah, naked male house cleaners would go over pretty well.
“And some people don’t want handouts. My sister, for one. She’s building a business and I’m giving her a hand. Speaking of . . . any chance you want to give your mom one and get to work on your room? That way, I can actually clean it.”
Bryan glanced at Beth out of the corner of his eye to make sure he wasn’t overstepping his bounds.
She was looking at her son expectantly.
Jason sighed. Seriously, the kid ought to go into acting. “Fine.”
Bryan liked that word even less from teenagers than from women.
“Mom, can Maddy come over? We want to, um, look over our schedules for next year.” The older daughter swung her head out of what Bryan presumed was the kitchen, her words directed at her mom, but her gaze directed at him.
Oh hell. He’d seen that look before. At every event he did. Teenage puppy lust. That could be a problem.
“Class schedules, huh? That’s definitely important to go over during summer vacation.” Beth glanced at him with a twinkle in her eye. “Are you up for that?” she asked. “You had to know this would happen when you ventured out among your adoring public.”
For the first time, Bryan didn’t like that term. It was what he’d always wanted, what he’d aspired to—adoring fans could make a career—but coming from Beth . . . No. Definitely didn’t like it.
Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it. There were certain necessities that went along with fame, and being accessible to the people who paid good, hard-earned money to see his work was one of them.
“It’s no bother. Your house, your rules.”
She cocked her head, losing a hint of the smile,
that twinkle being replaced by something . . . Thoughtfulness? Admiration?
He wouldn’t mind it being the latter.
Seriously. Where the hell was Mr. Beth Hamilton?
“Mom?” Her daughter switched her focus to Beth. Finally.
“Just Maddy,” Beth answered. “I don’t need a house full of teenagers today, Kels.”
Kels—Kelsey—smiled and, whoa, Mr. Beth Hamilton was going to have issues when that one got older. She had the beginnings of the same sort of beauty her mother had.
And still he envied the guy.
“But Alyson’s in our classes, too. She should be here.”
Bryan coughed and turned away. Teenage girls . . . Maybe he didn’t envy Mr. Beth Hamilton.
But then Kelsey was off with a dazzling smile and Beth turned a more reined-in one his direction. It had the same wattage and lit a slow burn inside him.
He ran a finger under the collar of the stupid shirt. Besides the fact that she was married—and a mom of five—he didn’t do suburbia. The only reason he’d gotten roped into this gig was because of the monthly poker game with his brothers, the one that he made a hell of an effort to get to no matter where on the planet he was. If he could get off the set for a few days, he made it back for the game. With his star power rising, his agent said that time off might now be a negotiable item. But if future games ended up with him pulling maid duty, he was going to have to rethink that clause.
The poker game was the only reason he came back to town. It gave him a chance to see Gran, Mac, and his brothers, but he’d take the glitz and glamour of the South of France or LA or, hell, any location that didn’t remind him of the hand-me-downs and the small run-down house where their grandmother raised them and that his sister still lived in. No, if it weren’t for his family, he’d never come back to this town again.
Unless I had someone like Mrs. Beth Hamilton waiting for me.
Where the hell had that thought come from? She was married. And a mom. Of five. Married. He’d never hit on a married woman in his life and, gorgeous as she was, he wasn’t going to start now.
And even if she wasn’t married, beauty wasn’t enough to get him to chuck the high life and his hard-earned success to wallow in the drudgery of mowing lawns and little league games with the occasional block party tossed in. God save him from suburbia.