CHAPTER TWO

Day two is hotter than day one. The temperature gauge on the dash of the work van says ninety-five. It feels about ten degrees hotter than that.

I sigh and step out of the van to start work on the next house on my list. The client today is Vivian Chase. I don't really know why it matters that I know their names, but Best Pool Cleaners is insistent that I do. They want me to smile and show excellent customer service. That would make sense if our clients were middle-class people who desperately needed working-class people to defer to them so they could feel superior, but to the people of Laurel Heights, I'm not even a person. I'm a servant. The thought that I would do anything but defer to them never even crosses their minds. Do you have to ask a car if it's going to defer to you? No, you just drive it.

I laugh at that. I doubt anyone here drives their own cars. Anyway, whether the clients appreciate my attempts at politeness or ignore it, that's what my employer expects, and since I need this job, and it's one of the few jobs that fits my needs, I put a smile on my face and knock on the door with enthusiasm.

The door opens, and my enthusiasm changes to something else.

Vivian Chase is nothing like I expect her to be.

I have an image of the women in this neighborhood and others like it of all being in their forties and fifties with bad plastic surgery, fake tans and attitudes ranging from overly promiscuous to haughty and perpetually disgusted. I figure they're all the worst version of the California bleach blonde stereotype.

I don't count on meeting anyone as beautiful as Vivian.

She looks to be about twenty years older than me, give or take. That puts her near the age range I expect.

Everything else is different. The slight wrinkles on her face and the fact that her lips are the size of a human's and not massively stretched and plumped out of proportion tells me that she's not had any plastic surgery. Her skin is lightly tanned, but it's the healthy tan of someone who spends time in the sun, not the tan that costs five hundred dollars at Beach Dolls ‘R Us.

When she smiles, it's plenty seductive, but I don't think a woman who looks like her could smile any other way. She's about five foot seven, which makes her six inches shorter than me. She has long hair that is blonde, but a natural darker blonde and not the frosted straw-color dyed look. The hair frames her face and draws my eyes down to another part of her body that I can tell is just as natural as the rest of her.

No surprises there. With natural assets that look like the ones she has, there's no need for implants.

My eyes fall to her hips, which curve gently over long, toned legs. When I catch myself looking up and down her body, I snap my eyes back up to her face.

That doesn't help. Remember those perfectly sized lips I talk about earlier? Well, they're soft and sweet and just slightly parted at the moment, and they rest under gray eyes that look like the sky the morning after a winter storm.

She's beautiful.

"You must be Nate," she says, and damned if her voice isn't as perfect as the rest of her.

Today might be a good day after all.

"Yes," I say. "That's me. Nathan Harlow, Best Pool Cleaners."

She smiles slightly and extends a hand. "Vivian Chase, divorcee."

And she's single. Part of me wishes she wasn't. It's going to be hard enough to keep the fantasies at bay without knowing that there's a chance I could fulfill them.

Get a grip, Nate. This is real life, not Real Housewives.

I take her hand and shake it professionally, then release it. "Nice to meet you. Is now a good time?"

"Now's a great time. Do you want to come inside?"

She tilts her head a little when she says that, and it takes more effort than I care to admit to keep my eyes focused on hers. "I would love to come inside."

She laughs, and waves her fingers, indicating for me to follow her. As she walks, I notice that there's another part of her body that's all natural and perfectly shaped.

"The pool's out back," she says. "Surprising, I know. It's in fairly good shape. I had it cleaned a month ago, but since the weather's warm now, I figured I should get it cleaned one more time before I spend all day lounging in front of it in a two-piece."

Thank you for that image.

"I'm happy to help."

She looks over her shoulder, and I feel a flush as her eyes move up and down over me. "I'll bet you are."

We walk into her backyard, and it's then I realize that I have no idea what the inside of her house looks like. I usually at least take a peek at the lifestyles of the rich and famous people of Autumn Downs. I might despise them, but that doesn't mean there's no part of me that wishes I could live like them.

But I'm too focused on Vivian to give much of a crap about the size of her tv or whether she has marble or granite floors.

"Here we are."

She gestures at the pool, and I see—with some relief—that it really isn't all that bad. There are some leaves, and a thin transparent film of gunk across the top, but it's not a swamp like the other houses I went to yesterday.

The pool itself is maybe four hundred square feet. That's fairly large, but as far as houses here go, it's on the low end of average. I should have this done in a couple of hours.

"Yeah, this shouldn't take too long. I'll go ahead and pour in the treatment now and let it sit while I replace your pool filter and clean out the leaves. That should take me an hour or two. Then I'll run the filter. You're going to want to give it twenty-four hours before you use it, but it'll be good as new by then. Who cleaned it last time?"

"A delightfully pleasant older woman named Maria. She was my cleaner for many years, but she has recently retired. That's why you're here."

"Well, I'm happy to be your new pool woman."

She laughs at the joke. I decide she must like me because that was a really bad joke.

Okay, time to get my mind out of the gutter. This is a job, not a date.

I sort of hope that Vivian will wait inside while I work, but she doesn't. Instead, she comes back out fifteen minutes later wearing that two piece she mentions earlier.

And God, it's unfair how good she looks in it.

I dated in high school. I mean, I don't know if you could call it dating, but I've had experience with girls. It's not like I'm a complete stranger to sex. Hell, even now, I can usually count on a few nights a month with one of the girls at school during the semester.

But Vivian is something else. She's not just beautiful. She's confident without being arrogant, poised without quite being regal, and mature without being… well, old.

I'm glad when I finish the job and I can get out of there. I'm treading dangerous ground right now. The last thing I need is to let hormones get me in the kind of trouble that could lose me my job and ruin my chance at getting out of Cudahy.

"All right, Miss Chase," I say.

"Vivian." She flashes me a smile that could melt Antarctica. "Please."

"Vivian. We're all set here. We have your credit card on file. No extra charges since this was pretty straightforward. You should get a receipt from us within twenty-four hours. Thank you for choosing—"

"Would you like a drink?"

I'd like a cold shower is what I'd like.

I hesitate before answering. I don't want to be rude, but I also don't think it's a good idea to drink around her.

"I have some lemonade in the fridge."

"Oh. I mean, yes. Yes, please."

Her smile widens, and she holds out her hand for me to help her up. My heart pounds, but I manage to keep from drooling as I lift her to her feet.

We walk into the kitchen, and she lifts herself onto her tiptoes to retrieve two glasses from the cabinet. I try not to think about what the movement does to the rest of her body.

Then she opens the fridge and bends over to get the lemonade, and yeah, there's no way to keep me from thinking about that.

She looks over at me while still in the fridge, and I quickly turn away, cheeks burning. She giggles, and my cheeks burn brighter now that I know she caught me.

"So how long have you been working here?" she asks.

"Um, this is my second day."

"Your second day," she repeats.

She hands me my glass and says, "Who have you seen already?'

I sip the lemonade. It"s cool and refreshing and a perfect balance of sweet and tart. "Um, the Patels, the Van Huycks, and the Chos yesterday. Today, it"s you and then the Kensington."

"Ah," she says, "The Kensington."

Her upper lip curls slightly when she says that. Because I'm an idiot who is at the moment mesmerized by her very presence, I ask, "You don't like them?"

Instead of answering my question directly, she laughs and says, "I think you'll come to appreciate Laurel Heights. I don't know if you'll like it, but I think you'll appreciate it. The deception here is refreshingly honest."

My brow furrows. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"You will be."

I decide to leave that alone. We fall silent a moment, and I notice her eyes travel over me again. She's not shy about showing that she appreciates what she sees, but I want to remain about as far from the conclusion of that thought process as I can, so I strike up conversation again. "So you don't like the new name?"

"Autumn Downs? For a place with exactly zero downs? No, I can't say I'm a fan."

"Exactly!" I say. "Downs are hills. There's not a single hill here."

"Astute observation, Nathan."

I can't tell if she's teasing me or not.

"Of course," she says. "There aren't any heights around here either. So maybe I'm just a hypocrite."

She looks me up and down one more time. I finish my lemonade and manage a smile. "Well, thank you for the lemonade, Miss Ch—Vivian. I um… I should get to the Kensington."

"Oh yes. We wouldn't want to keep them waiting."

"Right. Um, thank you."

I start for the door, then realize that I've left my equipment in the back. I head out to get it, trying to avoid Vivian's amused gaze. When I head back through the house, equipment in tow, she says, "I hope to see more of you, Nathan."

"I hope to see more of you too," I say before I can stop myself.

I manage to get to the van and I even manage to get inside of it and pull out of her driveway before I release the breath I'm holding.

"Holy shit," I whisper. "God, what a babe."

Despite that undeniable fact, my last thought as I pull away from her house isn't of how well she filled out that two-piece but the odd thing she said to me about Autumn Downs.

The deception here is refreshingly honest.

Then, when I told her I wasn't sure what she meant, You will be.