My Man Pendleton(39)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Nope. He wasn’t. Dammit.

That was definitely Kit McClellan gliding through the swinging door that connected kitchen to dining room, and she really was dressed like June Cleaver, right down to the high heels, the poufy skirt, the matching sweater set, and the pearl necklace. She strode toward him with a sweet smile, kissed his cheek, and extended a glass toward him.

Then she asked, “How was your day, dear?”

Okay, now this was just plain bizarre. It was one thing to have your house overrun, but when the woman overrunning it starting acting like this, well… In a word, ew. A shudder wound through him, and he snatched the martini out of her hand, downing it in one quick swallow.

Kit patted his arm. “I’m glad to see you, too, honey. Here, let me take your coat and briefcase. Your slippers and the newspaper are in your chair by the fireplace.”

Before he even realized what she was doing, Kit had his briefcase on the kitchen table, his coat draped over her arm, and she was refilling his glass from the cocktail shaker she was carrying in her other hand. It occurred to him then that not only did he not own a pair of slippers, but there was also no chair by his fireplace. Of course, until a moment ago, he would have sworn there was no table and chairs in his kitchen, either, and look how that turned out.

“Kit?”

“Yes, dear?”

“What have you done?”

She arched her eyebrows in a way that, judging by the golden age of television still broadcast regularly on cable, was endemic to all Eisenhower-era women. “What do you mean, dear?”

He opened his mouth to put voice to the thoughts jelling—more or less—in his head, but all that came out was, “Ummm…”

Then he was crossing the kitchen toward the door that connected with the dining room, shoving it open with far more intensity than was necessary. He knew that, because it immediately banged into something on the other side and came hurling back again, smashing right against his nose.

“Ouch.” The commentary came not from Pendleton, but from Kit, who stood behind him. “That had to hurt,” she added.

Without comment, he carefully pushed open the door, peeking around it into the other room to see what had caused its halt the first time. Imagine his surprise to discover a lovely dining room suite on the other side, complete with table, chairs, buffet, and china cabinet. A china cabinet that was half-stocked with what appeared, even to Pendleton’s untrained eye, to be pretty primo china.

“Wedgwood,” Kit clarified from behind him when she saw where his gaze had settled. “I got Louisville Stoneware for our everyday. Natch. I hope you don’t mind me picking out our patterns without consulting you. But the fact is you men simply do not have an eye for that kind of thing.”

He turned to look at her. “My, but haven’t you been a busy little bee today.”

She grinned. “Yes, I have, haven’t I?”

He said nothing in response, only gazed at the new furnishings that were nothing at all like what he’d planned to buy for himself. Kit’s tastes obviously ran along the lines of English antiques, where his own were more contemporary and less excessive. Maybe, he thought, if he was really nice to her, she’d let him pick the interior paint colors when the time came.

“I wasn’t sure who to call about the renovation work,” she added, almost as if she were reading his mind. She swept her hand toward one of numerous spots of crumbling plaster near the ceiling. “Call me old-fashioned, but I think that’s more a job for someone who has at least one Y chromosome, so I thought you could handle it.”

“I’ll handle it,” he said, feeling just so damned grateful that she allowed him some small say in the destiny of his own home.

Pushing past him, she strode alongside a half-dozen empty cartons filled with bubble-wrapped items Pendleton felt certain he was better off not knowing about. Then she made her way into the living room, where—would you look at that?—there was an oxblood leather chair sitting by the fireplace, where, incidentally, burned a lovely little fire, complete with a pair of plaid wool slippers and a copy of The Courier-Journal, all folded nice and neat for his enjoyment.

“What? No golden retriever?” he asked.

“It’s being delivered tomorrow,” she told him as she spun around to face him.

He nodded.

“As is the sofa-loveseat combination, the club chair, and the chaise.”

“I see.”

“Unfortunately, our new bedroom suite won’t be here until the day after.”

He sighed heavily. “Does this mean you’re planning to stay for some length of time?”

She waggled her head back and forth, then wrinkled her nose in thought. “Yeah.”

“And, may I ask what I did to deserve such a distinction?”

She shrugged. “You were nice to me, Pendleton.”

He hesitated before saying anything more, wondering just how serious she was about this. Then, when he realized she was, more than likely, pretty dead set on it, he asked, “Will your father really fire me if I throw you out?”

He could have sworn that, for just the briefest of moments, she looked as if he’d hurt her feelings by asking what he did. Then he decided he must have been mistaken, because she immediately appeared to be as cool, calm, and collected as always.

“Yeah, he probably would,” she said. “He’s done some pretty wacky things since Mama passed away. He used to only have four vice-presidents besides Holt, but he created all those new positions with huge, obscene salaries just so he could hire more potential life mates for me. And even at that, he’s fired and hired a whole mess of people over the last two years. He always has what sounds like legitimate reasons for letting people go, but he’s fired an awful lot of them when they didn’t, oh, hit it off with the boss’s daughter.”

“So everyone there now is a fairly recent hire?” Pendleton asked.

She nodded. “I don’t think any of the VPs have worked for Hensley’s for more than a year. That’s about how long Daddy gives them to make me marriage-minded. If you throw me out now, he’ll probably decide pretty quickly that you’re not vying for my affection and replace you with someone who will.”

“What about Carmichael?” Pendleton asked as a new thought struck him. “If your father only hires potential husbands for you, then why did he hire Carmichael, who is quite obviously a woman?”

“He hired Carmichael in one of his more desperate periods, when he thought maybe I just wasn’t, shall we say, interested in men.”