“What wasn’t so hard?” he asked, unclear as to what she meant.
“Telling me what you like—or in this case, what you don’t like. That’s all I need,” she reiterated. “Just a few well-placed words. Hints, if you will. I’ll bring you photographs tomorrow.”
He was about to tell her that he had no interest in seeing any photographs, that as long as the furniture was functional and above all, new, that was all he required. But if it made her happy to think she had to show him photographs, so be it. There was a far more important detail to discuss.
In the background, Edna sneezed three times in succession, as if to underscore what he was about to ask and the urgency with which it needed to be regarded. “How early can you be here tomorrow?”
Kennon had no difficulty in putting two and two together quickly. Okay, so he didn’t want her for her decorating talent—something he actually hadn’t seen for himself yet—he wanted her for her other attributes. She could live with that. It was something to build on. Every relationship she had with a client was different and unique, and this definitely went straight to the head of the line.
Instead of giving Simon a direct answer, her reply told him that she understood his dilemma and would take care of it. “I can take the girls to school again for you if you like.”
Simon didn’t like being second-guessed, especially not so accurately. But since Kennon Cassidy was making herself available to him in ways that went above and beyond her job description, he decided it was a small price to pay in exchange for bailing him out. “Good,” he said. “Thank you.”
Just then, she caught her new client looking at her the way a man didn’t look at his decorator. As if she was affecting things that were far from cerebral. Something inside of her responded and suddenly felt extremely warm.
She recognized the sensation. She’d had it before. She didn’t want it again.
She needed, Kennon thought, to take precautions so that it didn’t happen again.
“Don’t mention it,” she murmured. “I’ll see you tomorrow at eight.” With that, Kennon turned abruptly away before this warm feeing inside her could multiply and spread—like any typical disease.
“Right. Thanks,” he called after her even as he wondered if he was taking the first step in a direction he shouldn’t be going. A direction he might very well live to regret eventually.
He couldn’t put his finger on it. He wasn’t the kind of man who put any faith in so-called gut feelings because, to his recollection, he’d never experienced any that had actually panned out.
But an unsettled feeling undulated through him right now as he watched the woman walking away. It gave him more than a little pause.
He’d actually noticed her. Not as an entity, not as just another human being sharing a given space on this planet with him, but as a woman. An exceedingly compelling, enthusiastic, beautiful woman.
He wasn’t comfortable with that.
Wasn’t happy that traits such as attractiveness or sensuality, both of which she seemed to have in spades, were slowly, insidiously, seeping into his world, making themselves known. Bringing colors into his current black-and-white life.
As he did with most things that disturbed him, Simon shut the thoughts away and went back to working, this time on his paper.
In the morning, he might be able to see things differently, placing them in their proper perspective.
It was something to hope for, even if he didn’t really place any stock in hope.
* * *
Almost a week had gone by.
Five whole days and she was no closer to understanding the enigma that was Dr. Simon Sheffield than she’d been that first morning when she’d rung his doorbell.
Granted, they had gotten around to working out the terms of the fee for her services, but those services involved decorating, not ferrying the girls to and from school or sticking around to help them with their homework or whipping up dinner for them and Edna.
Not that she would have charged him for that, but they hadn’t gotten around to her doing anything that he would be paying her for. That had to change.
She made up her mind to talk to the reclusive surgeon when he came home that evening. With that in mind, she gathered the girls to her and got to work. There was a dinner to make—and a cheering section to employ.
“You know, if I’d wanted to be a housekeeper, I would have applied for that job,” Kennon told Simon the moment he walked in and shut the front door behind him.
Taking her literally, Simon said, “There wasn’t anything to apply for. I wasn’t looking for a housekeeper.” Guessing that this might be about money and her concern that she hadn’t done anything “professional” to earn it, he took out his checkbook. “How much do I owe you?”
This was coming out of left field. “For what?” she asked, mystified.
“For your time,” he said, feeling as if he was stating the obvious.
“I charge by the hour,” she informed him. They’d been all through this earlier this week. “When I’m decorating, not when I’m grating cheese.”
What did grating cheese have to do with it? “Come again?”
She smiled. Kennon had a feeling that he liked to focus on one thing at a time. “Dinner is chicken parmesan,” she told him.
The patient list he’d acquired from the retiring partner in the medical firm had proven to be heavy. He’d skipped lunch to catch up on extraneous work, organizing things his way. The mention of food had his stomach all but sitting up and begging. He nodded, tempted to ask how soon before dinner would be on the table.
“Sounds good.”
Back to the point, she thought. A point she obviously was going to have to hit him over the head with. “Doctor, I’d like to begin working on your house.”
“Then go ahead,” he told her with a wave of his hand. Since she was making no reference to the check, he slipped his checkbook back into his pocket. “I’ve already told you that you have the job.”
“And you really won’t accompany me to any of the furniture stores?” Rather than answer, he gave her a look that told her what he thought of spending time shopping for anything, much less furniture. “Not even one store?” she pressed, holding up a single finger in front of him.
Her index finger was so close to his face that he reacted instinctively, wrapping his hand around it to move the digit away. He’d intended to push her finger down. Instead, something strange, fast and hot seemed to zip through him, not unlike an electric current, the moment his hand touched hers.
A beat later, he recovered himself, pushed her hand down and shook his head. “I don’t have the time,” he informed her.
Kennon looked over her shoulder and fell back on her secret weapon. She cleared her throat, and suddenly Madelyn and Meghan came running into the room to greet him.
Meghan, the live wire of the duo, grabbed her father’s hand, tugged on it and immediately begged, “Please, Daddy, come with us.”
“Come with you where?” he asked, confused.
He loved them both—how could he not? But he had never been a demonstrative kind of man, nor was he really very vocal. With nothing to fall back on as an example and no one to defer to, Simon hadn’t a clue how to really relate to either one of his daughters. They were little people, visitors from a world he was completely unfamiliar with. His own childhood