Heiress for Hire (Cuttersville #2)(21)
Author: Erin McCarthy

It was time to get serious. It was time to find a job—and keep it this time—and scrape together some money. It was time to see if she could stand on her own two feet, or topple off them.

"But I’m staying." And not because it would be the last thing her father would be expecting, but because she needed to prove to herself that she could.

Right as the words left her mouth, she looked up and saw Danny Tucker crossing the street, Piper’s hand in his.

A father and his daughter.

And it made her think that maybe there really was such a thing as hope buried deep inside her, hidden under the layers of disappointment and the calluses around her heart.

Chapter 7

Danny hoped he didn’t look desperate as he led Piper over to where Amanda was holding down a bench in front of Harriet’s hair salon.

But he was feeling a little desperate.

He wanted to do this right, raising his daughter, and didn’t want anyone thinking he couldn’t handle it. But Piper wouldn’t leave his side. And while that thrilled him on the one hand, after a solid week of carting her around the farm, and her showing no signs of ever being willing to let him out of her sight, he was starting to get concerned.

There was work to do, and not all of it could be done with an eight-year-old girl standing next to him.

Part of him wished he could just blow off the work and hang out with Piper. He liked her quiet company and was enjoying get-ting to know her. She was a smart little thing and eager for love. He was eager to give it.

But the reality was that while a crop could grow on its own, it needed a human hand to harvest it. The corn in the north field was ready to be brought in, and he just couldn’t see having Piper around heavy equipment. He’d taken a few weeks off from his part-time construction job, but eventually he’d need to go back, especially with the added expenses of Piper’s needs.

He wished none of it were the case—that he could stay with his daughter day in, day out for a good, solid year or two to make up for lost time, but life didn’t work that way.

"There’s Amanda." Piper pointed and waved, a broken smile crossing her face.

Danny thought there was something cruelly ironic that the one person Piper had said she’d be willing to stay with was Amanda Delmar, probably the least likely candidate for a baby-sitter in all of Cuttersville.

Seeing her sitting there with Brady only confirmed it. She was wearing white pants and a sleeveless clingy beige top. And the requisite heels, of course. Not exactly nanny-wear. And no one on a farm wore white unless they were getting married.

But Piper seemed to have formed an attachment to Amanda, probably because her first night in Cuttersville’they had gone shopping with her. Like when animals bonded with the first creature they saw upon hatching, Piper liked Amanda.

Whatever the reason, Amanda was the only person Piper was willing to stay with, and Danny had to figure out how exactly to ask an heiress to baby-sit his daughter.

"She must be on a break from working at the hair salon. You can run on over and say hi." Danny had told Piper they were coming to town so he could get a haircut. Which was true, he did need a little trim. He usually went to the barber, not Harriet’s, but he had been hoping to accost Amanda and beg her for mercy and baby-sitting.

Now that he was three feet in front of her, he wasn’t sure he could go through with it. Begging Amanda for anything was a bit too carnal for comfort.

Amanda was smiling at his daughter and patting the bench next to her for Piper to sit down. "Hi, Piper."

Then her eyes slid up to his. "Hi, Danny," she said in totally different tone of voice than the one she’d used for Piper. That had been friendly, cheerful. The way she said his name was… sexy.

Which made what he was going to ask her even harder. Why couldn’t Piper feel comfortable with his mother, or even a matronly middle-age woman with a fanny pack full of healthy snacks? He couldn’t handle a sexy baby-sitter. He just couldn’t. He needed to feel comfortable with the situation, and he had never once felt comfortable around Amanda Delmar.

He usually felt more like his skin was too tight and his pants were too small, which was not the least bit comfortable.

"Hey, Amanda. Brady. What happened to your leg?"

"I broke it two days ago. Playing basketball."

Amanda snorted and draped her arm around Piper’s shoulders. "What are you two up to? Is your dad taking you for ice cream? The place across the street has fabulous twist cones."

Piper sucked in her breath and looked at him with beseeching eyes. "Are we getting ice cream?"

"Sure, baby girl, we can get ice cream." That was the closest Piper had ever come to asking him for anything, and there was no way he could deny her. Even though he suspected Amanda had set him up, given the unholy grin on her face.

"Do you work here?" Piper asked Amanda, pointing to the hair salon. "Do you cut hair and paint nails and stuff?"

The interest in the question made Danny stiffen. Was Piper about to go girly on him? He kind of liked her scuffed and dusty, wiping her hands on her jean shorts after she ate each meal. While he thought he was adjusting pretty darn well to fatherhood, he wasn’t quite up for painting nails and doing hair clips yet.

But then Amanda said, "No, I don’t work here anymore. I got fired for dropping my coffee in some old lady’s lap by accident. Know anyone who is hiring, kiddo?"

She nudged Piper with her hip, and Danny couldn’t believe his good fortune. Or misfortune, however you wanted to look at it. Amanda didn’t have a job. He had one he could offer her.

And he was almost desperate.

Piper shrugged. "I don’t know anybody but you and my dad and Shelby and Boston and my grandma and grandpa."

"You going back to Chicago, Amanda?" Danny held his breath as the three of them became distracted by Brady pulling out a pack of gum.

First, the pack had to be passed around. Then everyone unwrapped, started chewing, and the foil wrappers were collected by Amanda, who stood up and dropped them in the trash outside the door to Harriet’s.

"No, I’m not going back to Chicago."

Danny moved fast, sliding up behind her, blocking her from returning to the bench. He had to keep Piper from hearing what he had to say. If Amanda said no, he didn’t want Piper to hear.

Plus he didn’t want Piper to hear her father begging Amanda to reconsider.

Amanda jerked back and hit the trash can with her butt. Jesus, she hadn’t expected him to be right behind her like that.

Danny was completely in her personal space. And when a man like Danny moved into your space, there wasn’t any air left to even breathe. Nor could she see the sky any longer, given that his shoulders were blocking out the sun.