“Looking forward to it,” Sam grumbled.
Ryan piped up then. “Sylvia asked Ms. Walters to write out a schedule of sorts for you. Of course, you don’t need to follow it to the letter. One of the points of the show is to improve on the other’s routine. That can mean using time or money better than the other person.”
“Efficiency is one of my specialties.” Sam sent Kelli a superior look that set her teeth on edge.
She enjoyed watching his smug smile falter a bit when she handed him a dozen single-spaced, typed pages of instructions, most of them having to do exclusively with her children.
“Pages one through three deal with the basics, like dinner menus, bed and bath times, what books we’ve been reading before going to bed. Sitter information. That kind of thing.”
Just for good measure she asked, “You know how to change a diaper, right?”
“I think I can figure it out.”
“I go grocery shopping on Monday evenings after class because the lines are shorter and Mr. Kennedy, he’s the butcher, gives me a good deal on the meat that’s getting near its sell-by date.”
When he raised an eyebrow, she reminded him, “My bank account is a lot more limited than yours and that’s what you’ll be living on for the next month.”
“Fine. So you shop on Mondays when the meat is cheap and near spoiling.”
Pride had her lifting her chin. “That’s right. I also try to cook for the week that night after coming home from class. You can get two meals, sometimes three, from a whole chicken if you do it right. Of course, you’re a bigger eater than any of us. There might not be much meat left for your soup.”
“It comes in a can, you know.”
“I like it homemade. Besides, this is cheaper and more nutritious. A sliced up stalk of celery, diced carrots and onion, and you’ve got a meal at half the cost. I add dried basil to the broth for extra flavor.”
“Anything else, Emeril?” he asked snidely.
“Katie’s allergic to peanuts. It’s a serious allergy, so you have to read all food packaging carefully. Sometimes different batches of the same product can be cooked in peanut oil. If you eat out, not that I expect you will be doing much of that on my budget, stress to the waitress the importance of nothing with peanuts or peanut oil coming into contact with her food.”
“What will happen if it does? Hives?”
“She could die, Mr. Maxwell,” Kelli said bluntly, and watched his expression turn sober. It was just the reaction she was hoping for. He needed to be well aware of the seriousness of this matter.
“Her throat will swell, constricting her air passage. I keep an emergency hypodermic of medicine in the apartment as well as one in my purse. You probably should carry one as well.”
He straightened in his seat. “I’d have to give her a shot?”
Kelli nodded. “And quickly. You can’t just call 911 and hope paramedics make it here in time to perform an emergency tracheotomy. I’ll show you how to give it. You can practice on an orange if you’d like.” She paused, her tone deadly serious when she asked, “Can you handle this?”
The enormity of what she was asking him to do struck Sam with the charged force of a lightning bolt. Kelli quite literally was entrusting him with her children’s lives.
Trading places had seemed relatively uncomplicated until this point, even with the two of them sleeping under one roof. Making meals, reading bedtime stories, he wasn’t looking forward to spending time with children, but one didn’t need a PhD to handle that. Deadly allergic reactions, however, were a whole other matter.
For the past six years, Sam had studiously avoided thinking about what kind of father he would make—would have made had things turned out differently. His own father had been firm and somewhat distant, paying the bills and offering his approval on rare occasions. Sam’s mother, a nanny and the teachers at his boarding school had seen to the details.
But when he stepped into Kelli Walters’s single-parent shoes, there would be no one else to whom he could relegate those details. It would all come down to him for an entire month.
“Yes or no?” she asked.
She was sitting next to him on the couch, her gaze unwavering. He didn’t realize he’d reached for her hand until he felt her fingers grip his.
“Yes.” He squeezed hers in return as he added the phrase he had not uttered to a woman in more than six years. “I promise you.”
With some regret, Kelli left her girls with the sitter Saturday morning and hustled not to be late for her hair and makeover appointment. If nothing else, she mused, she would get a much-needed haircut and highlights out of this experience. Not to mention some great clothes.
The show had tried to talk her into going to a chic salon and some of the designer shops on Chicago’s famed Michigan Avenue. But Kelli had held firm in her conviction that as the acting vice president of Danbury’s Department Stores, she would use the people, the products and the clothing available there.
It was her first decision as acting vice president and CEO, and she believed it set the tone for her brief tenure. She wanted to ensure that consumers who normally did not shop at Danbury’s would give the store a second glance after watching the show.
A camera crew filmed her transformation from the first snip of hair and stroke of mascara to the point when, sleekly coifed, she stepped into a pair of stylish leather heels that cost nearly as much as two weeks’ worth of groceries.
She barely recognized the image that stared back at her from the dressing room’s large tri-fold mirror. Her hair had been highlighted and cut even with her chin, managing to look professional despite the sassy little flip it did at its ends.
Her makeup was slightly more dramatic than if she had applied it herself, but the effect brought out her high cheekbones and gave her eyes an almost exotic quality.
And her clothes…
She smiled and did a little turn to admire them from all angles. She’d opted for something a little trendier than classic. The short peach skirt with its flirty, ruffled hem wasn’t exactly her style, but she liked the tank-style tangerine sweater that had been paired with it, as well as its matching cardigan. She decided if she went too conservative, she might give younger viewers the impression that Danbury’s was still their grandparents’ department store, not the place they could go for fun outfits and accessories.
A consultant from the television show helped Kelli pick out a couple dozen different outfits for work and day wear as well as three evening gowns and a couple of cocktail dresses. She’d balked at first. Did she really need so much? But after some persuading and with someone else picking up the tab, she finally got into playing Cinderella.
An hour after the last of her purchases had been boxed up for delivery, she found herself—in a limo no less—being whisked to Sam’s home in a gated community in the suburbs of Chicago that boasted its own exclusive golf course.
The house was as big as she had imagined it would be and looked recently built, judging from the size of the shrubs and staked trees that dotted the landscape. The house was what was called a story-and-a-half, with a tall, pitched roof and lots of big fancy windows that screamed high energy bills. She’d bet her paycheck it was at least 4,500 square feet of living space.
Sam answered the door himself and Kelli had the satisfaction of watching his mouth drop open when he saw her new look.
“Something the matter?” she asked, unable to keep her smug smile in check.
“I haven’t decided.”
“Indecisive? You? Hmm. I thought you had everything