Buch lesen: «Husband Needed»

One

Someone was trying to break into his place!

Jack Elliott heard the doorknob to his apartment rattle again, ever so slightly. He’d already gotten robbed once since moving up to the north side of Chicago, he wasn’t about to have it happen twice.

Sure, the building had a doorman as a security measure, but that hadn’t prevented the last robbery—probably because Ernie the Doorman had the IQ of a snail.

The doorknob rattled once more and then turned slowly. There wasn’t time to call the police. There wasn’t time to think, just to act.

Unfortunately, his broken leg prevented Jack from acting very quickly. Despite a life often spent living at the edge, this was the first time Jack had ever broken a bone and he was not a happy camper. He’d been swearing at his crutches all morning, but now they looked like they might come in handy.

Standing up and hanging on to the bookcase beside the door with one hand, Jack raised one of the wooden crutches over his head, ready to bash whoever walked through his front door. A man had a right to protect his own property.

The door opened slowly, furtively...

Giving a war cry that would have done a warlord proud, Jack brought the crutch down...only to belatedly realize the burglar was a woman with a kid! Their ensuing screams were even noisier than his had been.

Swearing loudly and succinctly, Jack somehow managed to avoid hitting either one of them. Instead he swung his crutch to the far right, poking a hole clear through the wallboard next to the door. He’d suspected the walls in this place were paper thin, now he knew it to be a fact.

“Are you crazy?” the female intruder screeched at him even as she scooped up her little girl and protectively held her close. “You could have killed us!”

“You bring a kid along with you to break into my apartment and you have the nerve to call me crazy?” Jack yelled back at her, hanging on to the bookcase for balance. He hated being at a physical disadvantage this way, and his mobility was even further hampered by the fact that one of his crutches was now imbedded in his apartment wall.

“See what you’ve done? You’ve upset my daughter,” the woman said with an accusing glare.

“Upset? Upset?” Jack repeated in disbelief. “You better answer my questions and answer them fast or I’ll show you upset! Who are you and why the hell were you breaking in here?”

“I didn’t break in, I have a key,” the woman retorted, having soothed her daughter into silence while continuing to shield the little one with her own body.

Now that the kid had stopped her ear-splitting screams, Jack could finally think. The woman didn’t look like a thief, with her big blue eyes and curtain of honey brown hair that fell around her shoulders like waves of silk. But then looks could be deceiving.

“Where did you get a key?” he demanded.

“From your uncle, Ralph Enteman.”

Jack frowned. Now that he thought about it, his uncle had called him yesterday afternoon and said something about sending over a surprise.

“I’m assuming you are Jack Elliott?” the woman continued.

“That’s right. And you are?”

“Kayla White.”

“Am I supposed to know you?”

“Your uncle hired me.”

“Great,” Jack groaned, remembering the last person his uncle had hired for him, an “exotic dancer” he’d sent over on Jack’s last birthday. “Tell him thanks, but I’m not interested,” he said wearily. “You can just head right back where you came from.”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s the door. I want you on the other side of it.”

“I don’t think you understand...” she began, when he interrupted her.

“Look, honey, it’s nothing personal, although I can’t believe a girl like you would bring your kid with you when you’re on a job like this. But hey, that’s your business.”

“You have a problem with me bringing my daughter with me?” Kayla repeated. “And what do you mean by ‘a girl like me’? I’m a woman, Mr. Elliott, not a girl.”

“I noticed. Look, I’m just not in the mood, okay?”

Kayla frowned at him. “In the mood for what?”

“For—” remembering there was a kid present, Jack substituted, “—fun and games.”

Her look became tinged with suspicion. “Just what is it that you think I’m here for?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” he countered.

“As I said, your uncle hired my company...”

Jack interrupted her again. “You own a company that does this kind of thing?”

Actually she co-owned it with her best friend, Diane, but Kayla saw no purpose in going into details like that at this point. So instead she merely said, “That’s right.”

“So you must have a lot of...experience?”

“You could say that.”

“Do you go out a lot on jobs like this?”

“Every day.”

After giving her a head-to-toe once-over, Jack wondered if maybe he was being a little hasty here. She might not be as busty as he liked his women, but she wasn’t half-bad. The plaid skirt she wore stopped above her knees, and the black tights clinging to her legs accentuated their shapely length. She was almost dressed like a preppie college coed, probably a popular costume in her line of work. College coeds and nurses were big—that last exotic dancer had been dressed as a nurse. The only thing out of place was the little girl Kayla was holding.

“Anyway,” Kayla continued, “your uncle told me that you needed some help temporarily, what with your broken leg. He assured me he’d already spoken to you about all this.”

“He lied,” Jack said.

“He didn’t tell you I was coming over?”

“My uncle told me that he had a surprise for me, but that’s all he said.” Jack belatedly registered that she’d mentioned something about his needing help, which got him to wondering exactly what kind of help she was talking about. The possibilities were erotic and endless. But the woman had a kid with her. This was one of the strangest setups he’d seen. “I can’t believe he gave you a key to get in.”

“He wasn’t sure if you’d be home.”

“Where else am I gonna be with a busted leg?”

“The doorman downstairs told me that you’d gone out.”

“Yeah, well, Ernie is several cards short of a full deck,” Jack retorted. “So tell me, what exactly is it that you do? I mean, you really don’t find it inhibiting to have your daughter with you on jobs like this?”

“No. Why should I?”

“Hey, far be it from me to cast the first stone, but I would have thought...I mean...it kind of breaks the mood, you know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t have a clue what you mean,” she replied. “Do you have something against kids?”

“There’s a time and a place for everything and I don’t think this is the time or the place for a kid to be watching her mother...do...whatever it is you do. Just how exotic do you get?”

“Exotic?”

“Isn’t that the politically correct term for what you do? Exotic dancing, instead of stripping?”

Kayla’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open before she icily stated, “I am not an exotic dancer!”

“What would you call what you do?”

“Running errands. I own a company called Errands Unlimited. We do a variety of things, Mr. Elliott, but dancing and/or stripping is not one of them!”

“Hey, it was a natural mistake for me to make.” Jack held out a hand, before remembering that he needed that hand to hang on to the bookcase. He only narrowly saved himself from falling flat on his face.

But Kayla seemed unmoved by his difficulty. She was too busy spitting fire at him, her voice sizzling with anger. “A natural mistake? Really? I’d love to hear how you figure that.”

“The last surprise my uncle sent over was an exotic dancer for my birthday. So naturally I thought...”

“You thought wrong.”

The haughty look Kayla gave Jack made him feel like something that had crawled out from under a rock. It was January and the weather outside was beyond chilly, it was downright frigid—but even so, the expression in Kayla’s blue eyes lowered the already cool temperature in his apartment by about twenty degrees. She had classy features, icy eyes and a passionate voice, not to mention pretty damn good legs. She was fire, coated with ice, and she didn’t seem the least bit impressed with him; that alone made her stand out among the women he knew.

Okay, so he wasn’t exactly looking his best, but at least his gray running shorts accommodated the cast on his right leg. His sweatshirt had Northwestern University Wildcats emblazoned across the chest, bracketed by the spaghetti sauce he’d spilled on it when he’d tried carrying a plate of spaghetti from the kitchen to the living room earlier. Should he tell her that he looked better cleaned up?

As he watched her, Kayla efficiently disengaged the wooden crutch from the wall and handed it to him. “Here. I think you might need this.”

The crutch seemed to mock him, underscoring his temporary lack of independence. Irritably taking it from her, he demanded, “So why did you bring your kid with you?”

The kid—who, after her first ear-piercing screams, had been remarkably quiet up to this point—promptly burst into tears again and hid her face in the crook of her mother’s neck, making Jack feel like an even worse heel.

“All I did was ask a simple question—” he began.

“You’s mean!” the little girl shouted from the safety of her mother’s arms.

“Shhh, sweetie, it’ll be okay,” Kayla murmured in a soothing voice. “This is Mr. Elliott, and he’s not as bad as he seems.”

“Gee, thanks,” Jack muttered.

“If you’ll just give me the list, Mr. Elliott, I’ll get to work,” Kayla briskly stated.

Jack stared at her blankly. “The list?”

“The list of errands you want me to run.”

He took exception to her maternal tone of voice. “Listen, I already have a mother, I don’t need—”

“It’s my understanding that you’ve already driven your mother to distraction,” she interrupted him to say. “That’s why your uncle hired me.”

Jack glared at her. “Okay, so I don’t like people fussing over me.”

“I’ll remember that. Your uncle felt that you would prefer someone objective assisting you rather than being ‘fussed over’ as you put it.”

Actually what Jack’s uncle had said was “My nephew is impossible! If you can handle him, you can manage anything and I can assure you that I’ll throw more work your way than you’ll know what to do with.” As a member of the Chicago Board of Trade, Mr. Enteman could throw a lot of work her way with other traders who were too busy to handle the details of their daily lives. This could be the break she and Diane were waiting for, their first big account.

Meanwhile, Jack was reconsidering his position. He supposed there were worse things than being waited on hand and foot by a beautiful woman like Kayla. He’d noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Which meant what? That she was divorced? Available?

“We got off on the wrong foot here, no pun intended,” he said, fitting the padded handle of the crutch under his arm. “What do you say we start over again? How about telling me your daughter’s name?”

“It’s Ashley.”

“Hey, Ashley, I’m sorry I was yelling before,” Jack said in his most charming voice, the one he’d been told on more than one occasion could charm the wings off an angel.

But his charm apparently didn’t work on little girls, since Ashley refused to even look at him, just burrowing her face even further into her mother’s shoulder.

Not that Jack should complain, since the kid’s actions did manage to shift the neckline of the black angora sweater Kayla was wearing so that it displayed the intriguing hollows of her collarbone and the soft curve of a shoulder. A flickering flame of awareness teased his senses and warmed his appetite.

His gaze leisurely traveled upward, from the creamy skin of her throat over a chin that looked like it could be stubborn, to her lips.... Very nice lips. Her cheeks were flushed, with anger or attraction? When his eyes finally reached hers, he got his answer—she met his perusal head-on. She was looking at him as if he were a low-life and she a queen. Jack wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or intrigued.

Women had always found him attractive—he wasn’t conceited about it, he was simply accustomed to it. He had gray eyes and a way with women; both were mere facts. Over the years there were plenty of women who’d found him to be irresistible.

But not this one. This one was eyeing him with complete indifference and just a twinge of impatience. Jack saw no hint of attraction in Kayla’s blue eyes, not a smidgen of sympathy at his being laid up with a broken leg. Maybe it was time to bring up the fact that he was a firefighter—that usually got women’s attention.

“Did my uncle tell you that I was injured in the line of duty?” Jack asked her.

“No.”

Didn’t the woman have any curiosity? he irritably wondered. “I’m a firefighter.”

“That’s nice.”

Nice? Nice?! That’s it? Okay, so swinging his crutch at her had not made the best of first impressions. But he could make up for that. “Look, why don’t you and your daughter sit down while I write up the list. As you can see, it takes me a while to get around.” He’d never had to use the sympathy angle before, but hey—if it worked...

It didn’t.

“You moved fast enough swinging that crutch of yours,” Kayla replied.

Ah, so she wasn’t going to make this easy on him, was she? Okay. That was fine by Jack. He hadn’t had a challenge like this in years. Well, actually, he’d never had a challenge quite like this, but he was man enough to rise to the occasion.

And the way her angora sweater clung to her curves did indeed make a certain part of his anatomy rise. She was tall, only about four or five inches shorter than his own six feet. And she wasn’t wearing heels. In fact, she was wearing practical-looking black flats.

“In those clothes, you don’t look old enough to have a daughter,” he murmured.

Kayla narrowed her eyes at him. She knew damn well he was practicing his charm on her. She also knew that he was aggravated it wasn’t working. Good. It served him right—for scaring the heck out of her, swinging his crutch at her and nearly decapitating her.

It didn’t matter that he had the most intriguing eyes she’d ever seen—a blend of blue and gray. They were like smoke. In contrast, his dark lashes and eyebrows were a commanding combination. His hair was equally dark and somewhat on the wild side, which she had a feeling matched his own personality. Somewhat on the wild side.

He had the powerful build of a man who was used to physical activity. His shoulders were exceptionally broad, straining against the sweatshirt he wore. And the running shorts displayed his muscular legs, the calf muscles well developed. All of him was well developed, for that matter.

But if he thought she was going to melt, now that he’d turned on the sex appeal—the heated looks from those smoky eyes, the devilish grin from lips a sculptor would have loved—he was sadly mistaken. She’d already been put through the grinder by a pro. Her ex-husband, Bruce, had been as good-looking as they came. She’d fallen in love with him at first sight and had scarcely been able to believe her luck when he’d finally asked her out. It had been her first month at college. By the end of the year, she’d dropped out and they’d gotten married. The next five years had flown by as she’d been busy working to put her husband through medical school—only to have him dump her when he’d finished his internship.

That had been nearly three years ago and the hurt was still there, if not the love. Kayla had used part of the divorce settlement she’d received to start up Errands Unlimited with Diane. After all, Kayla had been running Bruce’s errands throughout their marriage. Yet as a working mother, she knew how little time there was in a day, and had often wished she’d been able to afford to hire someone to do the million and one things that needed to be done in a day that had too few hours.

And now she had the chance to prove herself to Jack’s uncle, with the reward being her first big account. Yes, this job was an important one, not that Kayla intended to let Jack know that.

She intended to keep things strictly professional. She didn’t care how attractive the man was. Her ex-husband had been hunk material. On the outside. She’d discovered too late that he was just a jerk at heart.

“The list,” she reminded Jack.

“Right.”

As Kayla watched him struggle to maneuver himself over to the couch she had to steel herself against giving in to her immediate impulse to rush over and help him. It wasn’t in her nature to just stand by when someone needed assistance.

“Mommy, you’s huggin’ me too hard,” Ashley complained.

“Sorry, baby.” Kayla kissed her daughter’s forehead. “We’ll be going soon...”

A string of curses filled the air as Jack hit his big toe on the leg of the coffee table.

“Mr. Elliott, I’d appreciate it if you’d watch your language around my daughter!”

The outraged primness of Kayla’s voice made Jack want to...kiss her. She had the kind of mouth for it. Soft and full. Downright lush.

Shifting Ashley from one hip to the other, Kayla said, “If you can’t write up the list now, I’ll come back later....”

Not wanting her to leave yet, Jack said, “No, let’s do this now.” He sank onto the couch. Wondering why it was so lumpy, he tugged a pile of newspapers, several T-shirts, and an empty pizza carton out from under his thigh.

His apartment would never win any housekeeping awards on the best of days, which this was not. Shoving the pizza carton onto an already overladen coffee table, Jack said, “First off, I need food. There’s nothing in the kitchen except for a bag of lentils. I don’t know how the hell they got into my house. I hate lentils.”

“Then write up a grocery list and I’ll pick up some food for you. You’ll also have to give me the money.”

“That’s the second thing on my list. I don’t have any cash.” Jack ran an impatient hand through his hair, further ruffling the dark strands and intensifying his wild buccaneer look. “I have to go to the bank or an ATM. I mean, you’ll have to go to the bank or an ATM.”

“Why don’t you just make me out a check instead?”

“That’s number three on the list. I’m out of checks. I meant to order more from the bank, but I never got around to it....”

Kayla’s sigh threatened to set him off again. So did the way she was looking around his living room, as if expecting rats to come crawling out of the woodwork. He might be messy, but he was no slob. But before he could say so, she spoke first.

“I’ll advance you the money, but please be advised that this is a one-time occurrence. Your uncle is paying for my services, but not for the materials supplied—not for the groceries bought or the dry cleaning picked up....”

“Lady, I haven’t had anything dry cleaned since 1990,” Jack retorted, his anger rising at the sound of her long-suffering tone of voice. It made him feel like an idiot. She made him feel like an idiot. The problem was, she also intrigued him, tempted him and aroused him. A lot! More each time he looked at her.

“If you’re going to make a list, you’ll need something to write with,” she briskly said, coming closer to hand him a pen with her free hand.

As their fingers met, a spark sizzled. Given his earlier attraction to her, Jack was expecting it—but apparently Kayla wasn’t, because she shot him a startled look. He saw a glimpse of an answering awareness in her eyes. It was just a glimpse, but it was enough. For now. She wasn’t unmoved.

Jack smiled. Suddenly his immediate future was looking a lot brighter. Here he’d been feeling sorry for himself, moping around the place because of his busted leg and the projected four-week recovery period until he could return to work. But now it looked like there was a good chance that things could get real interesting in that time period. Really interesting, thanks to a woman with big blue eyes and a frosty manner.

Even given her unexpected presence, he still hated being laid up this way. It put a real crimp in his style, not to mention the fact that he had too much to do to be slowed down.

Jack didn’t realize he’d spoken that last thought aloud until Kayla said, “That’s what I’m here for. To help you.”

So why was it that Jack had the sudden feeling that Kayla would end up doing more harm than good to his bachelor life?