He moved farther into the room. The TV was off, but lights were on. Jill lay curled up asleep at one end of the sofa. All around her were piles of clean, folded laundry. He didn’t know whether to wake her up or leave her in peace. He’d never thought of the sofa as particularly comfy, but she was a lot smaller than he.
Before he could decide, she turned her head toward him and opened her eyes. The bright green color surprised him. He’d forgotten the intensity of her gaze. Then she smiled. His body reacted with all the subtlety of a freight train crashing into a brick wall. Blood flowed hot and fast. His breathing increased and an almost unfamiliar pressure swelled in his groin.
“You’re home,” she said, her voice low and husky. “I wondered if you would be. I almost called the station, but I didn’t want to bother you. Is everything okay?”
“Fine.” He motioned to the folded laundry. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you do all this work. I really was going to call a service.”
“You still are.” She sat up and stretched. The hem of her sweatshirt rode up, exposing the barest sliver of bare belly before descending and hiding all from view. “I don’t mind doing the laundry and cooking, but I’m scared to go into the boys’ bathroom. I think they’ve invented some new fungus, and I don’t want to have to battle it.”
“I’ll call on Monday,” he promised.
She shifted so she was leaning against the arm of the sofa and rested her chin on the back. “I already did. They’ll be here at ten. Are you hungry?”
His stomach rumbled at the question. “I guess I am. Come to think of it, I didn’t have time to eat today.”
She rose to her feet. She must have been asleep for a while. Her hair was all spiky, and it reminded him of their encounter that morning. When she’d been in her robe…and nothing else.
The mental image did nothing to alleviate his now-painful condition. Nor did he want it to. It had been far too long since he’d desired a woman. He didn’t have to do anything about it with Jill. In a way it was enough to still be able to feel something.
“Don’t be too impressed,” she said, leading the way into the kitchen. “It’s just pizza. There isn’t much here, but I didn’t want to go grocery shopping without talking to you first.”
“I’m sorry about that, too. I just took off and dumped everything on you. I’d meant to discuss some things, but I had to go in and…” He gave her a halfhearted smile and rubbed the back of his neck. The pain there was pretty constant, the sort of nagging ache brought on by too much stress and too little of everything else.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. She opened a box on the counter and slid three slices of thin-crust pizza with everything onto a plate. Then she put it into the microwave oven to heat and opened the refrigerator. “Water, milk, soda or beer?”
“Beer.”
She took the bottle and untwisted the cap. “Have a seat,” she said, handing him the drink and motioning to the kitchen table. She poured a glass of water for herself.
He stared at it for a moment. “I’m trying to remember the last time I saw this kitchen so clean.”
“Judging from the number of dishes we put through the dishwasher, I would say some time last Christmas.” She held up her hand before he could speak. “Don’t apologize again. I understand. But we do have a few details to work out.”
He settled in the seat at the head of the table and gratefully drank his beer. She pulled the pizza out of the oven and gave it to him, then took the chair opposite his. While he ate, they discussed her salary, the grocery budget, the kids’ schedules for school and sports.
“Danny and C.J. need to be picked up but Ben takes the bus,” he said, then bit into the third piece of pizza.
She sat cross-legged on the kitchen chair. Just looking at her folded legs made his knees throb. She’d run her hands through her hair, but there were still spiky tufts sticking up. Most of the lights in the house were off. Only the lamp in the family room and a small light over the stove illuminated the kitchen. In the dim room, her pupils were huge, nearly covering her irises, and her eyes looked black against her pale skin.
Her small hands fluttered gracefully as she moved. She made notes on a yellow pad, detailing where to pick up whom and what foods made the boys gag.
“I’m not a fancy cook, but pretty much everything I put together is edible,” she said.
“That’s all we require.”
She glanced at him. “This has been hard on you, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He took a swallow of beer and set the bottle on the table. “Since Mrs. Miller left there’s been four different women in here. I guess she spoiled us. I didn’t think it would be that difficult to replace her, but I was wrong.”
“Well, you’ve got another five weeks until you have to think about that.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What happened to our one-week trial?”
She shrugged. “I spent the day with the boys, and I think I can handle it. Unless they don’t like me, I can’t think of a reason why I can’t stay the agreed time. At least it will save you from having to look for someone instantly.”
“I think I’ve interviewed nearly every nanny in a fifty-mile radius.”
He supposed he could have put the boys in some kind of day-care program and then just hired sitters for the weekends, but that never seemed to work out. He had to coordinate meals, cleaning, food shopping. It was easier to find one person to do it all. He was fortunate enough to have the money to pay for outside help. Every day he saw people who survived on much less.
“Now you get a break,” Jill said. “Besides, staying here gives me some time, too. When Kim and her husband come home from their honeymoon, the last thing they’ll want is a houseguest. I was going to have to look for my own place anyway. I haven’t decided if I want to stay here or go back to San Clemente.” She looked at him and smiled. “Now I don’t have to.”
Intellectually he knew his boys were sleeping upstairs. There were neighbors across the street and next door. He and Jill were hardly alone. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of the world having been reduced to just the two of them. In the brief silences of their conversation he could hear the soft sound of her breathing. Despite his best effort to keep his attention above her shoulders, his gaze was drawn again and again to her chest. Not just to stare at her breasts, although they stirred his imagination, but also to watch her breathe. She wasn’t like any woman he’d ever dated. Of course, he was getting old and there was a chance he couldn’t remember back that far.
He studied her hands on the glass. Her slender fingers made random patterns in the condensation. Her nails were short and unpainted, but still feminine. He couldn’t get over how small she was, every part of her perfectly proportioned, but little. Krystal had been tall, nearly five-nine. Most of the women he’d dated had been tall, as well.
“I didn’t know how you wanted to handle discipline with the boys,” she said.
“Ben’s already been a problem?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Why assume it was him?”
“C.J. is very charming and fun-loving. Like my brother Kyle. He prefers to get his way by cajoling. Danny is going to be shy for the first couple of days, which leaves only Ben.”
Ben had also been a problem in the past. Craig grimaced as he remembered the reports from Ben’s teachers. The boy was sullen and uncooperative. His grades continued to be good, but he didn’t participate in group activities.
“I did convince him to behave,” she said, then stared down at the table. “But I’m not sure you’ll approve of the method.” She glanced up, her gaze sheepish. “I didn’t know if you did time-outs or sent the boys