Heiress for Hire (Cuttersville #2)(14)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"I never saw it." He vaguely had the notion it involved g*y men, but he could be wrong about that.

"Some day I’ll rent it, and we can watch it together. But right now I don’t have three bucks for a video, which is a shame, because it’s a perfect cheese-ball movie."

"Is your dad really going to stick to his no-money policy?" The whole idea of just cutting off his kid without a dime bothered Danny, but then he figured there was a whole lot to Amanda’s relationship with her father he didn’t know about.

"I guess. He’s never done this before, but he sounded determined. And he is a businessman, first and foremost. I think he’s decided I’m a bad investment. Not enough return on his capital."

Amanda’s back was to him as she opened her front door, but Danny could hear the tinge of bitterness in her voice.

"If you need anything, Amanda, you can call on me. I’ll help you out any way I can."

Her flaxen hair shone in the moonlight. Her porch light was blown, but the night was light enough that he could see the smile that played around her lips as she stared at him over her bare shoulder.

"You know, Danny Tucker, you really are a nice guy," she whispered. "Not many people would feel sorry for the poor rich girl."

Piper was still clutching him, leaning into his hip, so he couldn’t say what he really wanted to. Which was that the last thing in the world he felt was pity. That he felt a deep, gut wrenching, ball-busting attraction to her that had him antsy during the day and downright agonized at night.

So he just shook his head. "What I’m feeling for you isn’t pity."

Her mouth slid open, her tongue moistening that plump bottom lip. "Go home, Danny, before I say something that embarrasses me tomorrow."

He knew that there could never be anything between them. Certainly not a relationship. Definitely not an affair. He wasn’t looking for immediate gratification—he wanted the long haul. So he couldn’t even indulge in a kiss. Because one kiss would lead him to want that gratification, and they just couldn’t go there.

So he just brushed his knuckles across her arm. "Friends don’t need to be embarrassed around each other, ever."

Amanda studied him for a second, than smiled. "Maybe not in your world." She clapped her hand to her thigh. "Baby, come here, sweetie."

The dog came scurrying over, a blur of white fur. Amanda picked her up and pushed open the front door.

"Good night, Danny. Good night, Piper."

"Good night." When the door shut, Danny looked down at Piper. Unable to resist, he lifted her up into his arms until she was face-to-face with him. She looked startled but rested comfortably against him.

"Come on, baby girl. Let’s go home."

Amanda put Baby down on the wood floor in the foyer and tossed her handbag on the fussy little Victorian table standing next to the stairs. The table even had a little lace doily on it, and it wasn’t Amanda’s style at all. But she liked this house, despite feeling like she had to duck to get through the doorframes. The ceilings were only seven feet high.

Clearly in the nineteenth century, women weren’t six feet tall in stilettos.

The entire house seemed to have been built on a miniature scale. Rooms were tight, hallways narrow, the tub wedged under a gable so that the one time she’d tried to use it she’d had to limbo to climb in. Then when she’d settled in the water, her knees had scraped the ceiling.

She’d stuck to showers since then.

"What am I doing here, Baby?" she asked, turning on the lamp in the parlor. She had come to Cuttersville on a lark, bored out of her mind in Chicago. The usual parties and clubs had only emphasized to her how sterile and artificial her life was, how she had many acquaintances and party pals, but very few real friends.

Seeing her ex-boyfriend Logan one night, a barely legal skinny blonde on his lap, sucking back mojitos, had done her in. He was an ugly, painful reminder that she was needy, that she craved love and affection just like a dog did. That no matter how much she said it didn’t matter, she still wanted her father’s approval. She still wanted him to admit, just once, that he was pleased to have her as a daughter, even though she hadn’t been born with a penis.

Kiss, kiss, hug, hug, she had worked that club, letting Logan know she didn’t care, it didn’t matter, she was Amanda Margaret Delmar, heir to the Samson Plastics conglomerate and she was untouchable. As cool as the diamonds in her earlobes.

And the next morning, she had packed six suitcases, hopped a plane to the middle of f**king nowhere, and had rented herself this little gray house. Boston had told her the landlady had fleeced her on the rent, but she hadn’t cared. What did it matter when the money was never-ending? Boston had already been dating Shelby, but just the fact that she was in Cuttersville had irritated her father and left him pondering her next move. He seemed to think she was Napoleon in heels, planning her next capture of an unsuspecting, underarmed, rich man.

So here she was, with a dog and low ceilings.

"Let’s see what we have in the kitchen, Baby." She had gone to the grocery store when she had first moved in and bought several boxes of cereal, margarita mix, and tuna packets. Maybe inspiration would hit while she was nibbling Shredded Wheat.

It didn’t. And the cereal was stale.

Picking shreds back off her tongue, she got a glass out of the cabinet and turned the tap to cold. She hoped she could drink the water here straight out of the tap, because she didn’t have a whole lot of options. San Pellegrino wasn’t going to magically appear in her fridge.

First on the agenda was going back to the store and buying food to tide her over. Easy enough. She could grocery shop, had done it before. You just picked things out, put them in the cart, tossed them on the belt, and paid. No problem. She was so damn self-sufficient.

Then she had to find a job.

That one was a little trickier. Because she had no clue how to find a job.

People applied for jobs. They sent out resumes. They surfed job boards for positions. She knew all that. But how they applied, where they got resumes, what jobs they were qualified for—she had no clue. Her father had always smoothed the way for her with everything.

"Baby, this is damn depressing." She sipped her water, picked at her cereal straight out of the box, and looked down at her dog. "Maybe we should go home."

If she called a friend, she could bum the money. It wasn’t something she would be proud of, but it seemed like the smartest course of action available to her at the moment. Maybe with some begging she could ask her landlady, Mrs. Stritmeyer, to refund her August rent. Mrs. S was Shelby’s grandmother, and Shelby had offered to help. With that thousand bucks, she could get back home and work something out.