Chapter 10

10

Fletcher’s blood pressure skyrocketed. Like it had countless times over the last week. The woman got beneath his skin and irritated like a burr. And then she’d say something completely out there, off the wall, and he wouldn’t know what to think or say.

But this ?

That wasn’t a shirt. He’d seen bras on women bigger than that thing she wore now. It was solid green, and it was a tank top of some sort and tight. That stopped two inches above her navel. Her smooth, pale, flat stomach was right there.

Nothing more scandalous than a swimsuit, he realized. But something about that green cotton set his teeth on edge. “Will you stop with that? We both know you are a real woman.”

Soft, pale, creamy skin taunted him—just making a man’s fingers itch to touch.

“Nope. Not. At least not like Charlotte or Marin are. Definitely not sexy earth queen like Darcey or Dusty either. Or even sweet and cute like Meyra and Daisy. I think Dorie is going to end up a lot like Darcey and Dusty in that regard. Which concerns me. Dork guys are already coming around her at the diner, you know. Lots of them. Marin chases them away. Something about threatening them with fried chicken through the air? I just don’t know. I think I am mostly the so annoying a guy runs the other direction type.” She shrugged. Sending the flesh beneath that tank top shifting.

Dylan obviously wasn’t wearing a bra.

Hell. Dylan had breasts, real ones. Why hadn’t he noticed before?

Not a real woman? What had he been thinking back then? Fletcher’s hands burned. To touch that soft-looking skin right there. To run his fingers under the top of that shirt, to just touch.

He almost choked.

Fletcher wasn’t going to get turned on by his housekeeper. He just wasn’t. He still had months to go until she was out of his house forever. He wasn’t going to complicate that eternity with wanting her.

She was still talking. No surprise.

Dylan Brown Talley, or whatever she was calling herself this week, never stopped talking. Ever.

“Devaney and Dahlia, though, I think they are a cross between sexy Darcey and sweet Daisy. Which is really weird, right? I have also now been told I am the eternally cute version of Marin. I mean, sheesh. If I have to have the weird color hair, couldn’t it be long and straight and actually gorgeous like Marin’s? Like I said, nothing real woman about me. Still, at least I’ll always have Quade.”

Quade.

A man Fletcher had once thought was a friend.

Until two nights ago when he’d shown up at Fletcher’s front door to get his date for the evening. He hadn’t brought her back until late—too late, in Fletcher’s opinion.

Fletcher gritted his teeth. Before he said something stupid. “Whatever. I am going to shower. What exactly are you doing?”

“Besides my laundry? I am making that grocery list. And Truckie, there is beef stew in the slow cooker there. You should probably eat something. You are going to waste away.”

Every thought of Quade Davis flew out of his head. For one reason only.

Dylan had just bent down in front of him to grab the pad of paper she’d dropped and then stood back up. The shirt gaped. Perfectly. He was sure he saw perfect little nipples. Perfect breasts. The woman had utterly perfect breasts. Breasts he wanted to cup in his hands and?—

Oh, shit.

The woman— and there was no denying that was exactly what she was—just didn’t know what she was doing.

She just didn’t.

Fletcher was ninety-nine percent certain of that. She hadn’t looked at him like he was a man at all in the six days she had been living in his damned house. Not even once.

For the first time, that just pissed him off more than anything else. Was he completely sexless in her eyes? What would it take?

“Fletcher?” She waved a hand in front of his face. “Are you in there? Anyway, there is the stew for your dinner tonight, but it is ready now if you want some. Then, I have to hit the grocery store. You are going to have to pay for some actual groceries, okay?”

“Why?” He rarely even bothered with keeping groceries. He had a freezer full of beef, and he’d traded some of that for pork and turkey and chicken and venison with some of his uncles. But he never bothered to actually cook anything. It was faster and more efficient to go to the inn or the diner. When his cousin Chandler’s restaurant just at the end of Fletcher’s property line opened, he’d probably just go there. And didn’t she get free food at the diner or inn whenever she worked? He was certain all the Talleys did. Of course, she didn’t work there every day. Just almost every day, apparently.

“Because, dearest, you can’t afford to keep eating out every time you get hungry. Or eating junk food constantly. I am worried about your longevity. There will come a time when you capture an unsuspecting townie or ranch girl, and she will need to keep you kicking for as long as possible so you can make more Tylers!” She nudged the box of snack cakes on the kitchen table. The look she gave him was so chiding he actually fought the urge to squirm. “Do you know how many preservatives are in these things?”

“I like them. And they are quick.”

“Quick now, stick around in your bod for a lifetime. I am sure of it. If you want oatmeal cream cookies, I will make you some. That is something a good little housekeeper does in this town, right? Make cookies?”

“You bake?” She cooked and cooked phenomenally well—he couldn’t deny that now. But cookies would be really good right now. Maybe cookies could distract him from that damned shirt. Or, rather, what was underneath it.

“Of course I bake, dear. I am a housekeeper now. Not as good as Meyra—that is another Talley that excels at what she does—but I can bake. Who do you think cooked and baked and cleaned for my fam all those years when Mom was having her struggles? I am very good at this keeping thing. Lifetime of experience.”

His house was spotless. He had clean laundry at all times. She cooked better than anyone he had ever met. She’d made him eat his words already on her abilities. No denying that.

But, hell, she was only twenty-three—how many years had she been caretaker for her younger sisters and her mother?

He was starting to suspect it was far too many.

“When did you take care of you ?” The words came out before he could stop them. But damn it, everything she said about her parents was painting him a picture. One he didn’t like. “When you were busy taking care of everybody else? Where was your damned father?”

“Working, dude. Working. Four kids are expensive, you know. Probably a good thing he didn’t keep the eight. They never could have afforded us all. But I learned how to stretch a dollar, no denying that. And how to keep a house. You are benefiting. Don’t know why you are complaining. Which…we are going to have to go to the grocery store very soon. Just so you know. Like tonight. Did you know you don’t have a single fresh vegetable in this place anywhere?”

She wasn’t going to stop. Fletcher knew that much about her. She would drive him crazy until he did exactly what she wanted. That was a battle he’d lost on day three when she’d started rearranging his mudroom to her liking so he’d be less likely to get mud on her clean floors. “Fine. I’ll shower. We’ll go in an hour. How does that sound?”

“Perfect. That will give me just enough time to get what we need. Then you can drop me off at the inn on your way home. I’ll get a ride back after I’m finished there.”

The inn? Again? “Why? It’s your night off.”

Normally, he wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but she had that look in those green eyes again. One that told him the inn was the last place she really wanted to be. He wasn’t an expert on Dylan or anything, but he was becoming more and more convinced that the inn was becoming more and more difficult for her every damned day right now. And he felt a little bit useless at fixing that.

The inn was her history, her heritage. Her legacy. It shouldn’t hurt her this much.

“Abby called off again. Someone has to cover the hours, and I’m trying to be a good extra little Talley and everything. You know, earn my place or something.”

She’d worked the last five days straight between the inn and diner. And had his place practically shining. Fletcher looked closer. She looked tired, damn it. “And one of your sisters or cousins couldn’t cover it for once?”

“It’s only four hours. Daisy would have, but she had parent-teacher conferences. So I told her I would. I have the time.”

Um, where? In her back pocket? “No, you don’t. How many hours did you work for the Talleys this week?”

Damn it. She’d worked enough.

“Around forty-five, I think. Don’t worry, I put in my twenty here too. It’s all good. You are getting your money’s worth. But…go shower. We really need staples in this place. Go. I am being a good extra little housekeeper and gently bossing you around—for your own good, you know.”

She actually shooed him.

Fletcher went.

Damn it, the woman was going to drive him insane. Nothing real woman about her? Bullshit. What had he been thinking?