Heiress for Hire (Cuttersville #2)(23)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"Can you draw the ghosts?"

Every head turned to stare at her. "What ghosts?" Danny asked.

"The ones who live in Shelby and Boston’s house." Piper readjusted her baseball hat. Amanda couldn’t believe Danny was still letting her wear that nasty thing.

But Piper’s next words ripped her thoughts off dirty headwear.

"I’ve seen them, you know. And I think they would like it if you drew their picture, Brady."

While they were all staring at her blankly, digesting this, she added, "They told me no one pays them any mind, and it hurts their feelings."

Amanda thought this was an interesting twist to her life. Not only was it completely and utterly unbelievable that she was going to be a nanny, she was going to be responsible for a female Haley Joel Osment.

"She sees dead people," she told Danny. "Somehow I’m guessing she didn’t inherit that from you."

Danny looked about as here-and-now, rock-solid real as any man was capable of.

He made Michelangelo’s David look like a femme.

And she’d bet her last forty-three dollars he didn’t see ghosts, in mirrors or otherwise.

"I don’t suppose she did. But it makes her way more interesting than I am."

Amanda wasn’t having any problem finding him interesting. Which was a disaster.

If she was going to take this job and prove to herself, her father, the world, that she was capable of earning a wage, then she couldn’t be dallying with her boss like a nineteenth-century British chambermaid.

Not that Danny looked like dallying. He looked like he had far more important things on his mind. Like his daughter and his dinner.

But if he did dally, she’d be damned if she’d dally back.

So maybe the dead people thing was a positive, actually. Dead people would probably serve as a great sexual inhibitor.

God, she needed another cup of coffee.

Chapter 8

"Geez, this house is dusty. You should get someone in here to clean it."

For a long second, Danny really thought Amanda was joking. A cute little witticism that seemed right in line with her sense of humor.

But as she continued to survey his living room like she had discovered a three-thousand-strong army of cockroaches marching through a cloud of chemicals, he realized that she was perfectly serious.

Which confirmed that he was out of his ever-lovin’ mind to think this could work.

"That’s why I hired you, Amanda. To clean the house and keep an eye on Piper." He watched her eyes go wide with astonishment.

"But I thought you said housekeeping. I’m positive that’s what you said."

Suddenly, he wanted to laugh. "I did. What did you think housekeeping meant? It means cleaning the house."

Piper had scampered off to her room, so they were alone in the living room, though Amanda’s gigantic purse took up two feet between them. Amanda was clutching it, her eyes narrowed, her head tilted slightly like she just wasn’t getting it.

"I thought you meant I was going to be your housekeeper, and the housekeeper’s job is to hire the people who do the gross stuff. The housekeeper doesn’t actually do the gross stuff. You know, like Gosford Park."

Now he did laugh. She looked so confused, and so deliciously sexy standing there in her fancy striped top and her spotless white pencil-shaped pants, he couldn’t help but tease her a little. "Princess, maybe that’s what a housekeeper does in Gosford Park or in Chicago, but here in Cuttersville, a housekeeper cleans the toilets."

"Oh my God," she said, her cheeks bleaching white under her tan. "You want me to clean the toilets?"

"Well, there’s only one. It’s a small house."

"But you… use the toilet!"

He grinned. "That’s kind of the reason it gets dirty. We use it."

Then he realized maybe his teasing hadn’t had the right effect. She looked like she might faint or throw up. "Are you okay?"

"No. I’m seeing spots and the room keeps fading in and out." She clutched her bag like it was the only thing keeping her from sliding to the ground.

"Jesus, I’m sorry, I was kidding, Amanda." He reached out and grabbed her forearms so she wouldn’t hit the carpet. "I don’t expect you to clean the toilets. Just dust, vacuum, wash the dishes. That sort of thing. Light housekeeping."

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay. Dust, vacuum, wash the dishes. I can do that. And I would have cleaned the toilets, that’s not what made me dizzy."

With a stubborn lift of her head, she told him, "I didn’t eat lunch, that’s all. I could clean the hell out of any toilet. I’d be so good at it that the next time that toilet saw me, it would just clean itself out of fear."

Only by coughing into his hand did he keep from laughing. He could just picture Amanda ordering that toilet to clean itself. "Why didn’t you eat lunch?"

"I just didn’t get around to it." She waved his question off and dropped her purse onto the coffee table. "Okay, so where’s like a rag or something? I’ll dust this room, then I’m going to check out Piper’s room. She and I can hang while I make like Cinderella."

Amanda’s cheeks still looked a little white, and Danny had the sudden sinking feeling that she hadn’t eaten because she was out of money. Only he suspected she would never admit that. "Are you trying to impress me? I can give you a tour of everything first."

She snorted. "Just doing my job. It’s what you’re paying me for. Bring on the dirt."

Though Danny had some real reservations that he’d be getting his money’s worth out of this, he went to the coat closet by the front door and pulled out a blue milk crate filled with cleaning supplies. "Here." He plunked it at her feet, still tilted at an unnatural angle in high heels. "Rags, furniture polish, Windex, paper towels. The vacuum is in the closet. I figure it shouldn’t take you more than an hour every day to keep the house picked up and clean—I want your focus to be on playing with Piper."

Though he thought things were going well for the most part, it stuck in his craw that Piper still seemed to think living with him was temporary. She didn’t want to unpack her clothes into the dresser, and she showed no interest in meeting other kids. It was ridiculous for him to expect her to just move on in with him after eight years—never having met him—and be ready to trust him, but damn it, he wanted it to be that way.

He wanted her to love him right now. He wanted her to throw herself into his arms, not out of fear, but out of joy.

He wanted to turn back time and have her from day one, and give her a proper home, with a family who cared.

Instead, he was giving her Amanda Delmar for a nanny.