that told him she’d pressed a whole chicken into service for this undertaking. These ingredients didn’t just magically appear.
“We didn’t have any of this in the refrigerator,” he said, indicating the wrapper and the carrot shavings. He knew that for a fact. He’d opened the refrigerator this morning, looking for the tin of coffee in order to properly kick-start a day that had already promised to go badly. The only thing in the refrigerator besides coffee, and milk for the girls, was one leftover container of Chinese food from last night’s take-out dinner.
“Yes, I know,” she told him, opening a drawer as she searched for a spoon. It took her two more tries before she located any silverware. She needed to sample the results of her efforts. Salting the soup was always tricky. She didn’t want it to be bland, but she definitely didn’t want it to be oversalted, either.
“You bought all this?” It was a rhetorical question, but he was nonetheless surprised.
She nodded, stirring the contents a little more. “It seemed easier than waiting for the supermarket fairy to make a drop.”
He made no comment, other than to think that she obviously favored sarcasm. He took out his wallet and pulled out several bills. “How much do I owe you?”
The ingredients had cost her little. She could certainly afford to spring for the tab. She waved her hand at his question.
“Why don’t we see if Edna likes the soup first before we talk about owing anything,” she suggested.
Opening the cupboard to the right of the stove, she found it all but bare. There were four dinner plates, four cups and four bowls all huddled together like the weary survivors of a shipwreck. Beyond that, there was nothing in the cupboards, not even dust.
“How long ago did you move in?” she asked him as she took down a bowl.
“A week ago,” he told her, dispensing the information rather grudgingly.
“Well, that explains why the house is so barren.” She placed the bowl on the counter beside the pot she was using. “How long before the moving van is supposed to get here?”
This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted. A conversation. Other than being completely rude and ignoring her, he saw no option open to him but to answer her question.
“It isn’t.”
She looked at him, confused. She couldn’t have heard right. “Excuse me?”
“There’s no moving van,” he said stoically. “At least not in the sense you mean. Some of the girls’ things are being shipped out and Edna has some things coming, as well.”
When he had first mentioned leaving everything behind, putting a few things in storage while donating the rest of the things to charities, the girls had been so upset he’d given in. But if he’d had his way, everything that reminded him of Nancy would be gone, or at the very least, stored out of sight until he could handle the memories. And the sorrow.
“The furniture is all going to be brand-new,” he informed her. “Which is where you come in.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, did you have a fire?” Kennon asked.
His face appeared to close down. “No,” he replied flatly, “I didn’t.”
If she was going to be of any use to this man, she needed to have the avenue of communication open, not sealed. He needed to talk to her.
“Then why—”
“And I do mind your asking,” he told her, answering what she’d assumed was the rhetorical portion of her question.
It took Kennon a second to collect herself. “Okay. Then I won’t ask,” Kennon replied gamely, moving on. “When are you free?”
It was his turn to look at her blankly. Just what was the woman asking him? “For what?”
“To come shopping with me.” She held her breath, waiting. Nothing was going to be easy with this man, was it?
He looked at her as if she’d just suggested that he go out for a run over hot coals while barefoot. “I’m not going shopping.”
“All right, then I’m going to have to ask you some questions.” A lot of questions. She resigned herself to the fact that it would probably be like pulling teeth. “Not about what happened to your things,” she clarified quickly in response to the sharp look he sent her way. “But about your tastes, what you have in mind, how you see a particular room, like, let’s say the family room.”
“I see it as empty,” he told her flatly. “I want to see it filled.” That wasn’t strictly true, so he amended his statement. “Actually, the girls and Edna want to have the rooms furnished. As for me, I don’t care,” his tone was devoid of any emotion, any feeling. “All I require is a bed, a table and some illumination at night in case I have some reading to do.”
She stared at him for a moment, the spoon she was using to stir the soup suddenly frozen in midmovement. He was serious, wasn’t he? “And nothing else? No sixty-inch HDTV set? No entertainment unit?”
Things like that had never been important to him. “No.”
She laughed softly in disbelief. “I’m surprised some museum hasn’t snatched you up and placed you under glass for viewing by the public. I’ve known men who’ve had to have their remote control surgically removed from their hand.”
When Nancy and he had been dating, he could remember the two of them curling up on a sagging sofa, watching TV together. He’d done it mainly because Nancy enjoyed the programs. Since she was gone, he’d lost all interest in being vicariously entertained. Occasionally, one of the girls would drag him over to the set and attempt to get him to watch a show. He’d pretend to watch because it obviously meant something to his daughters, but usually his mind was far away. If anything, it was his work that grounded him. His work and his obligation to his daughters.
Pressing the dinner plate into service as a large saucer, Kennon placed the bowl onto it and then gingerly carried it out of the kitchen to the living room, where Edna sat, waiting.
“Are you going to give me any hints as to what you want?” she asked the doctor before she reached the older woman.
“For you to do your job,” he replied simply. He saw the skeptical look in her eyes. “I promise I won’t be difficult to please.”
Too late for that, though she decided that it was wiser to keep the comment to herself. She did, however, want to set him straight about the job that was before her.
“Without a hint as to what direction your tastes run—country, modern, French provincial, eclectic, et cetera—my job is going to be pretty difficult.”
“I thought this was what decorators dreamed of, a client who gives them free rein to do what they want.”
The homes she decorated were extensions of her clients, not of herself.
“I have nothing to prove, Doctor, no ego to feed. My main objective is to please the clients, to have them walk into their house and feel as if they’d entered not just their sanctuary but their dream home. I can’t succeed in creating that kind of feeling unless I know exactly what you’d like—and what you don’t like,” she emphasized.
He came to the only conclusion he could from her statement. “So you’re turning down the assignment?” he asked.
“I never turn down work,” she informed him. “But this is going to be a huge challenge.” Not that she wasn’t up to challenges. She would just have to pick up hints from his behavior. And hopefully from his daughters and the nanny. “It’s a little like being asked to paint something beautiful on a canvas and then someone blindfolds you just before you begin.”
Feeling as if she’d ignored the housekeeper long enough, Kennon stopped talking about work and smiled at the woman