least, that was what he told himself as he approached the front porch Friday evening, his stomach already growling in anticipation. When he came in for the evening after the outside work was done, she was usually gone and the food was warming in the oven.
It was like having a wife. With none of the drawbacks and none of the perks.
But considering he could get those perks from a woman who wasn’t in his house more than forty hours a week, he would take this happily.
He stomped up the front steps, kicking his boots off before he went inside. He’d been walking through sludge in one of the far pastures and he didn’t want to track in mud. His housekeeper didn’t come until later in the week.
The corner of his mouth lifted as he processed that thought. He had a housekeeper. He didn’t have to get on his hands and knees and scrub floors anymore. Which he had done. More times than he would care to recount. Most of the time the house he and Rebecca had shared while growing up had been messy.
It was small, and their belongings—basic though they were—created a lot of clutter. Plus, teenage boys weren’t the best at keeping things deep cleaned. Especially not when they also had full-time jobs and were trying to finish high school. But when he knew child services would be by, he did his best.
He didn’t now. He paid somebody else to do it. For a long time, adding those kinds of expenses had made both pride and anxiety burn in his gut. Adjusting to living at a new income level was not seamless. And since things had grown exponentially and so quickly, the adjustments had come even harder. Often in a million ways he couldn’t anticipate. But he was working on it. Hiring a housekeeper. Hiring Hayley.
Pretty soon, he would give in and buy himself a new pair of boots.
He drew nearer to the kitchen, smelling something good. And then he heard footsteps, the clattering of dishes.
He braced his arms on either side of the doorway. Clearly, she hadn’t heard him approach. She was bending down to pull something out of the oven, her sweet ass outlined to perfection by that prim little skirt.
There was absolutely nothing provocative about it. It fell down past her knees, and when she stood straight it didn’t display any curves whatsoever.
For a moment, he just admired his own commitment to being a dick. She could not be dressed more appropriately, and still his eyes were glued to her butt. And damn, his body liked what he saw.
“You’re still here,” he said, pushing away from the door and walking into the room. He had to break the tension stretching tight inside him. Step one was breaking the silence and making his presence known. Step two was going to be calling up one of the women he had associations with off and on.
Because he had to do something to take the edge off. Clearly, it had been too long since he’d gotten laid.
“Sorry,” she said, wiping her hands on a dishcloth and making a few frantic movements. As though she wanted to look industrious, but didn’t exactly have a specific task. “The roast took longer than I thought it would. But I did a little more paperwork while I waited. And I called the county to track down that permit.”
“You don’t have to justify all your time. Everything has gotten done this week. Plus, inefficient meat preparation was not on my list of reasons I might fire you.”
She shrugged. “I thought you reserved the right to revise that list at any time.”
“I do. But not today.”
“I should be out of your hair soon.” She walked around the counter and he saw she was barefoot. Earlier, he had been far too distracted by her backside to notice.
“Pretty sure that’s a health code violation,” he said.
She turned pink all the way up to her scalp. “Sorry. My feet hurt.”
He thought of those low, sensible heels she always wore and he had to wonder what the point was to wearing shoes that ugly if they weren’t even comfortable. The kind of women he usually went out with wore the kinds of shoes made for sitting. Or dancing on a pole.
But Hayley didn’t look like she even knew what pole dancing was, let alone like she would jump up there and give it a try. She was... Well, she was damn near sweet.
Which was all wrong for him, in every way. He wasn’t sweet.
He was successful. He was driven.
But he was temporary at best. And frankly, almost everyone in his life seemed grateful for that fact. No one stayed. Not his mother, not his father. Even his sister was off living her own life now.
So why he should spend even one moment looking at Hayley the way he’d been looking at her, he didn’t know. He didn’t have time for subtlety. He never had. He had always liked obvious women. Women who asked for what they wanted without any game-playing or shame.
He didn’t want a wife. He didn’t even want a serious girlfriend. Hell, he didn’t want a casual girlfriend. When he went out it was with the express intention of hooking up. When it came to women, he didn’t like a challenge.
His whole damned life was a challenge, and always had been. When he’d been raising his sister he couldn’t bring anyone back to his place, which meant he needed someone with a place of their own, or someone willing to get busy in the back of a pickup truck.
Someone who understood he had only a couple free hours, and he wouldn’t be sharing their bed all night.
Basically, his taste ran toward women who were all the things Hayley wasn’t.
Cute ass or not.
None of those thoughts did anything to ease the tension in his stomach. No matter how succinctly they broke down just why he shouldn’t find Hayley hot.
He nearly scoffed. She wasn’t hot. She was... She would not be out of place as the wholesome face on a baking mix. Much more Little Debbie than Debbie Does Dallas.
“It’s fine. I don’t want you going lame on me.”
She grinned. “No. Then you’d have to put me down.”
“True. And if I lose more than one personal assistant that way people will start asking questions.”
He could tell she wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not. For a second, she looked downright concerned.
“I have not sent, nor do I intend to send, any of my employees—present or former—to the glue factory. Don’t look at me like that.”
She bit her lower lip, and that forced him to spend a moment examining just how lush it was. He didn’t like that. She needed to stop bending over, and to do nothing that would draw attention to her mouth. Maybe, when he revised the list of things he might fire her for, he would add drawing attention to attractive body parts to the list.
“I can never tell when you’re joking.”
“Me, either,” he said.
That time she did laugh. “You know,” she said, “you could smile.”
“Takes too much energy.”
The timer went off and she bustled back to the stove. “Okay,” she said, “it should be ready now.” She pulled a little pan out of the oven and took the lid off. It was full of roast and potatoes, carrots and onions. The kind of home-cooked meal he imagined a lot of kids grew up on.
For him, traditional fare had been more along the lines of flour tortillas with cheese or ramen noodles. Something cheap, easy and full of carbs. Just enough to keep you going.
His stomach growled in appreciation, and that was the kind of hunger associated with Hayley that he could accept.
“I should go,” she said, starting to walk toward the kitchen door.
“Stay.”
As soon as he made the offer Jonathan wanted to bite his tongue off.