2
“YOUR KIDS?” Tracy repeated, her eyes glued to the empty flour canister still drunkenly spinning on the floor.
“You knew I had kids, right?” Zane said in a defensive voice.
She nodded slowly, still unable to comprehend how so much damage could be done in such a short time by a pair of little kids. “Aunt Maeve told me that you had two adorable and incredibly well-behaved children. I’m getting the feeling that she may have been exaggerating just a bit.” To put it mildly, Tracy thought as she gazed around the kitchen. The place may have been messy before, but now it looked as if it would qualify for disaster aid.
Zane’s kids obviously weren’t the demure quiet kind and Aunt Maeve clearly hadn’t told her the whole story about this gig as a housekeeper. Her aunt had omitted a few important items—like the fact that Zane was sexy and his kids totally wild.
“Lucky!” Zane bellowed, making Tracy jump in surprise. “Lucky is my daughter’s name,” Zane added before the kitchen’s swinging door whipped open, almost smacking Tracy in the face as a flourcoated child, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt, galloped into the room, skidding to a halt in front of Zane.
Not sure what to do, Tracy said, “How are you, Lucky?” and automatically held out her hand, more accustomed to meeting business associates than children.
“This is my son, Rusty,” Zane said, his voice filled with paternal outrage.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell.” Indeed, the little boy looked almost identical to the other child who’d just raced into the room. Both had short brown hair dusted white with flour, while each wore T-shirts and jeans spattered with egg.
“They’re not identical twins,” Zane told her. “It’s not that hard to tell them apart.”
Twins? He had twins. She’d seen the movie The Parent Trap so she knew how much trouble twins could be. The kitchen was proof that two kids could do the damage of five. “How old are they?”
“Seven,” Zane answered.
“And a half,” Lucky said. Or was it Rusty? No, it was Lucky. She could tell because Zane had his hands on his son’s shoulders and the comment had come from the other one.
“We don’t need anyone to take care of us,” the boyish-looking little girl added with a belligerent thrust of her chin.
“I can see that,” Tracy replied with a wry look at the mess they’d made in the kitchen. She’d felt bad at the havoc she’d created while cooking, but it was nothing compared to what they’d done, and in such a short time, too. “You appear capable of taking care of things pretty well all on your own.” Returning her attention to the twins, she said, “My name is Tracy and I’m the new housekeeper. I’m here to take care of the house and the cooking.”
“Grandpa said your cooking was awful,” Lucky said.
“Be nice,” Zane warned.
“I was being nice,” Lucky protested with an innocent look in her blue eyes. “I didn’t even kick her or anything.”
Kicking? They kicked? Tracy took a cautious step backward just in case.
Seeing her retreat, Rusty laughed. “She’s scared,” he said in a voice that held a remarkable amount of disdain for a seven-year-old. Or even a seven-and-a-half-year-old.
“Behave,” Zane said, his look reprimanding. “And apologize to Ms. Campbell for making a mess in here.”
“It was already a mess in here,” Rusty pointed out.
Zane’s look was stern. “You two made it worse. Now, say you’re sorry.”
“We’re sorry,” the two children said in unison.
Tracy could tell from the devilish gleam in their matching blue eyes that they felt no remorse for their actions. Instead, she detected a clear hostility toward her.
Not the best way to start off her first day of work. But then that’s how her luck had been going lately.
“And you’re going to help Ms. Campbell clean up in here,” Zane added.
“Oh, Pa,” both children groaned in dismay.
“After you go on upstairs and get cleaned up first.” Only after they’d galloped out the door and up the stairs, leaving a trail of flour-studded footsteps behind them, did Zane admit, “Sending them upstairs may not have been the brightest idea.”
“That’s okay. Kids are kids.” Whatever that meant. She didn’t know what else to say. She was beginning to feel at a complete loss here. “When does their babysitter get here to take care of them?” she asked hopefully.
“Babysitter?” He gave her a startled look. “There is no babysitter.”
She frowned. “I’m no expert, but they seem a little young to be unsupervised. Or does your father look after them?”
“Sometimes he does. But watching them is part of the housekeeper’s job. Your job.”
This came as news to her. Another little detail her aunt had omitted. She’d told Tracy about the kids, but not that she’d be expected to take care of them. “Wait a second here. I thought housekeepers just took care of the house and the cooking.”
“You thought wrong.”
Tracy sank down onto a rickety kitchen chair, more than a little overwhelmed by this latest bit of information. “And your previous housekeeper did all this?”
“Yes. No problem.”
“Then you won’t have a problem getting someone else to do this job,” she said with a sigh. “I’m not sure I’m the right person for it.”
“I’m not sure either,” he muttered. “But you’re all I’ve got.”
She recognized desperation when she heard it. Giving him a suspicious look, she said, “Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on around here?” On a hunch, she added, “How many housekeepers have you had?”
“Since when?” he hedged.
“How about in the past year?” she asked, her confidence returning.
“Several.”
“How many is several? More than six, less than twelve?”
“That’s right.”
“And may I ask why they left?”
“For various reasons,” he said.
“Named Rusty and Lucky?” she astutely guessed.
He shifted uncomfortably. “Look, maybe I should have told you more about my kids when you first came last night, but then you haven’t exactly been completely honest with me, either.” Lifting his head, he gave her a direct look, his blue eyes just a tad accusatory. “Telling me you can cook when it’s obvious that you can’t.”
He had her there. “Okay,” she admitted, “so I may not have tons of experience at this sort of thing but I’m willing to learn.”
“That’s what I’m counting on. Just for the summer. In September the kids are back in school and my dad can handle them after class. But I need you to promise that you’ll at least stay the summer.”
Tracy realized she was in no position to criticize Zane for not elaborating about what he expected from a housekeeper. Even if he had given her a detailed job description last night, she’d been too tired to have paid much attention.
He was right. She hadn’t been completely honest with him. She’d been so eager to get away from Chicago and experience life on a ranch that she’d glossed over her own shortcomings and hadn’t bothered checking out the details of the position herself, leaving it to her aunt to phone and say she’d take the job.
But she was an intelligent woman. She could learn how to cook. It was simply a matter of following instructions, right? How different could it be from setting up a new program on her laptop computer? All she had to do was simply follow the instructions. And she’d brought enough cookbooks and cooking paraphernalia to choke a horse. She could manage this. She would manage this.
Because the bottom line was she wasn’t about to fail here. Not after failing where her engagement was concerned.
And while she was no expert regarding kids, even she could tell that the twins could benefit from a woman’s touch instead of being allowed to run wild. Especially Lucky. Growing up in an all-male environment had left the little girl looking and acting like a tomboy.
Tracy had worked on an ad campaign for a line of girls’ clothing last year and worked with kids for that campaign. Lucky would look adorable in the B. Me clothing line—petite denim dresses and colorful hair bows. More importantly, Tracy was responsible for the ad campaign for Tyke Bikes, making them the hottest item on children’s Christmas lists two years ago.
Everything she knew about kids she’d learned from those two campaigns, the only two she’d worked that had involved children. The rest of her accounts had covered the spectrum from wine to nuts—Spring Hill Winery to Pete’s Pistachios, to be specific—from bigticket items like motorcycles to small specialty items like a line of aromatherapy candles. She’d enjoyed the diversity and the new challenges.
Diversity and new challenges. Well, the job of housekeeper on Zane’s ranch certainly was sure to provide both of those things in spades.
While working on the B. Me and Tyke Bike accounts, she’d spent several weekends with focus groups of kids. Granted, most of them had been a little older, and a whole lot more civilized, than the two hellions who’d blown through the kitchen. But that was just a minor glitch. She’d use her marketing experience to sell herself to his kids. And to sell them on behaving themselves.
With a nod, Tracy got to her feet. “Okay, you’ve got a deal. I’ll stay for the summer.”
The flash of relief on Zane’s face would have been easy to miss if Tracy hadn’t been watching him closely. But she had been watching him. It was all too easy to do so because he was the kind of man who demanded attention—not by anything he said or did but by his mere presence.
With his chiseled cheekbones and lean build he was just too dam easy on the eyes. It was a good thing she’d sworn off men for the time being. Her life was complicated enough right now without falling for a sexy rancher with an attitude.
She’d come out west to escape and do something completely different. She needed to rethink her life. She needed to clear her thoughts. She didn’t need to develop a thing for her employer.
Studying her surroundings, instead of Zane, she decided she’d feel better once she’d restored some order to the place. The remains of scrambled egg were already congealing in the breakfast dishes. “Where’s your dishwasher?”
“I’m looking at her,” Zane replied, with a pointed look in her direction.
“So you’ve got a broken stove, no dishwasher, and—just a wild guess here—no garbage disposal, I suppose?”
“We’ve got a hog named Beauty. She’s the garbage disposal.”
A hog? They were big, weren’t they? Not small and cute like the little pig in the movie Babe.
“Don’t worry,” Zane added. “Feeding Beauty isn’t part of your job.”
“Thank heavens for small favors,” she muttered.
“And the stove isn’t broken. It’s just old. There’s no pilot light, so you have to turn the gas on and light it with a match. Immediately. Otherwise the place fills with gas.”
“And you don’t have a stove with a pilot light, or own a dishwasher because...?”
This time he was the one who muttered. “Because I don’t have the time or the inclination to get new stuff.”
She translated that to mean he hated shopping, a common male affliction she was accustomed to. In the world of advertising, her job was to make people want to buy things. “What if I did the shopping for you?”
“I’m not made out of money,” he warned her.
“I realize that. But if I could get you a good deal on some new appliances it would certainly make life easier. For all of us.” She nodded toward the sign on the wall that read “If the Cook Ain’t Happy, No One Ain’t Happy.” She wondered which of the string of departed housekeepers had left that little memento behind.
“This isn’t Chicago,” he reminded her. “We don’t have lots of stores out here. In fact, there’s only one place in Bliss that sells appliances, and even then it’s out of a catalog.”
“Bliss?”
“The closest town.”
“Right. I wasn’t exactly paying attention to the road signs last night. I was just relieved to get here in one piece.”
“Whose cool car is outside?” Rusty demanded as he and Lucky burst into the kitchen. He skidded to a stop a few inches from his father while Lucky slid on a slippery spot on the black-and-white-checked linoleum. Cleaning the slick egg white from the floor was clearly high up on the agenda, Tracy decided. Zane had already picked up the broken shards of the bowl and thrown them away.
“If you’re referring to the red car, then it’s mine,” Tracy replied, grabbing a bunch of paper towels and blotting up the worst of the egg mess on the floor before dumping the dripping paper towels in the trash.
“I don’t like it,” Rusty said, even though his voice had been eager with excitement a few seconds before. Now it was sullen, as was his expression. And he had his father’s stubborn chin.
Well, Tracy could be just as stubborn. “I’m staying.”
The twins didn’t look at all pleased with her declaration. In fact, they looked so downright dismayed that she almost felt guilty. Trying to make it up to them, she spoke to Rusty. “After we clear things up around here, maybe we could drive into Bliss and you and your sister could show me around town.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Zane inserted.
“Why not?” Tracy asked. “I thought we agreed that ordering new appliances would be the thing to do.”
“Only if you can find them for under five hundred dollars. For both the stove and dishwasher. Including delivery. And no weird colors. White or black only.”
“Done,” she promptly said, knowing she had connections in the business. “But first we need to clean up the kitchen.”
“Good idea. The twins will help you. I’ll leave you to it then.” A moment later he was gone, leaving Tracy alone in the kitchen with two very militant munchkins.
“Well,” Tracy began and then didn’t know what to say next. How did one approach hostile children? Cautiously, that was for sure. Yet, she couldn’t afford to let them get the upper hand.
Think about how you deal with difficult clients, she told herself, recalling how she’d sometimes likened some of them to stubborn children. And she’d won over those clients in the end. She could do the same with these two.
She knew practical techniques to defuse confrontations. Granted, she hadn’t used them on Dennis when she’d gone to his apartment to tell him she was having second thoughts about their engagement, only to find him in bed with another woman. But then she hadn’t wanted to defuse that situation, she’d wanted to hightail out of it. And she had. By running off to Colorado, cappuccino machine in hand, to become a rancher’s housekeeper.
Which brought her back to the twins. “I’m sorry you’re not happy about having a housekeeper taking care of you. As you’ve guessed by now, I’ve never been a housekeeper before so I don’t exactly know what I’m supposed to do and not do.”
The twins’ expressions immediately went from combative to crafty. As they advanced on her, she could easily imagine them rubbing their hands with glee.
“You’re not supposed to make us do housework,” Rusty stated.
“Yeah, and you’re supposed to let us eat whatever we want, whenever we want,” Lucky said.
“No green vegetables,” Rusty declared. “A good housekeeper never serves green vegetables.”
By now they had Tracy backed against the rattling refrigerator. But still they kept coming, their words tumbling out.
“And always bakes chocolate cake every night,” Lucky said.
Rusty nodded. “Yeah, and doesn’t make us clean our rooms.”
“Or make our beds,” Lucky added.
“Or say we can’t eat in our rooms,” Rusty tacked on.
Tracy gazed at them with awe. Standing there in clean jeans and yellow T-shirts, they looked so angelic as they lied through their teeth. She was impressed.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, sliding away from the fridge and making a clean getaway. At least the twins were no longer glaring at her with daggers in their eyes. “But first we better do as your father said and clean things up in here. Where do you keep the mop?”
“In there.” Lucky pointed to a pantry door.
Feeling more confident that she was getting things under control, Tracy opened the pantry door only to have a small furry animal scurry out between her feet.
“It’s Joe! Get him, get him!” Lucky shrieked as she and Rusty both nosedived toward the streak of fur.
“That’s a mouse. Don’t touch it!” Tracy shrieked just as loudly. “Come back here!” She grabbed a handful of Rusty’s T-shirt only to have him wiggle out of it a second later.
Bare-chested now, he joined his sister who’d slid the hallway area rug into a pile near the front door as she did a right-angle turn into the living room.
“I got him,” Lucky yelled in relief a moment later, holding up her hands and cuddling the mouse to her nose.
Tracy shuddered. She hated mice. She’d had a thing about them ever since Lenny Bronkowski had dropped one down her shorts in the second grade.
Tracy knew she shouldn’t just stand there and let the twins hold a rodent to their noses, or even worse, to her nose. If she were a brave woman she’d just saunter over and toss that mouse right out on its skinny little behind. Too bad she’d used up all her gutsy moves getting out here to Colorado in the first place.
Salvation came in the form of Buck, who spoke from his seat in a leather recliner in the comer. “So you found Joe. He’s their pet mouse,” he added for Tracy’s benefit.
Lucky stopped cooing to her mouse long enough to say, “I was so afraid that Precious had gotten to Joe.”
“Precious?” Tracy asked, trying to tell herself that a pet mouse was better than a wild one, surely.
“Rusty’s pet snake,” Buck said.
Of course. She should have guessed as much. “What’s wrong with a dog or a cat as a pet?”
“Couldn’t get one to stick around,” Buck admitted. “They kept running off.”
Tracy suspected the twins’ hell-on-wheels ways had something to do with that.
Buck confirmed her hunch. “Mighta had something to do with the fact that the twins were practicing their ropin’ skills on them to the point where the animals were rope-shy and sleeping with one eye open. So we’re left with Joe and Precious,” Buck said. “They usually don’t stray very far. You better put Joe back in his cage, Lucky.”
“Oh, Grandpa.” It looked as if Lucky was going to say more when the older man fixed her with a nononsense look that stopped her protest.
Tracy took note and wondered if she’d ever be able to duplicate that look—part frown, pure disapproval. If she tried it, she’d probably end up getting wrinkles.
“Why are you running around with no shirt, boy?” Buck asked Rusty.
“She tore it off me.” Rusty pointed an accusing finger in Tracy’s direction.
When Buck turned his frowning disapproval toward her, Tracy couldn’t help getting defensive. “I was trying to stop him from running after the mouse. I didn’t know it was a pet.”
“Could have been worse,” Buck told her with a slow grin that added more lines to a weatherworn face. “My great-great-granddaddy, Jedidiah Best, brought a pet armadillo with him clear up from Texas. We still got it stuffed and on display in the den. You can take a gander at it if you’d like. Family legend has it that the armadillo brought him good luck.”
Speechless, Tracy just shook her head, indicating she’d take a pass on viewing the stuffed armadillo. She was still recovering from the mouse.
“That stuffed armadillo didn’t bring Cockeyed Curly Mahoney much luck, though,” Buck continued. “Not that he was family, exactly. More like a friend of the family. You ever heard the stories about Cockeyed Curly the bank robber?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Tracy replied.
“Legend has it that Cockeyed Curly hid the gold coins from his last heist in these parts. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter he choked on a piece of steak and died, taking the secret of his treasure’s hiding place with him. So you see what I mean about him not having very good luck in the end.”
“Grandpa knows lots of stories about Cockeyed Curly,” Rusty said.
“Of course the most famous story is the one about the treasure map,” Buck said. “My great-great granddaddy saved Curly’s hide in a barroom fight over in Leadville. To repay Jedidiah, Curly drew him a map supposedly showing where he’d buried his treasure. Then Curly went to eat that fateful steak dinner where he choked and died. But that map, if it ever existed, has long since disappeared.”
“Maybe it was written on invisible paper,” Rusty suggested.
Buck chortled at the idea before his expression turned serious. “I can tell you that some of that money would come in handy right about now. Family ranching isn’t exactly a booming operation these days. The little guy is fast becoming a thing of the past, just like the other legends of the west,” Buck noted with a brooding expression. “Doggone corporations are taking over the world.”
“Grandpa don’t like corporations. Don’t like city folks, neither,” Lucky added with a pointed look in Tracy’s direction.
“Doesn’t like city folks,” Tracy automatically corrected.
“That’s what I just said. You want to pet Joe before I put him in his cage?” The little girl held up the mouse and practically waved it underneath Tracy’s nose.
Tracy could feel the blood draining from her face even as she hid a shudder, imagining little mousy feet scuttling and scratching against her skin. “No, thank you.” Did her voice sound faint? She certainly hoped not. If the twins sniffed out her fear of mice they’d pounce on it in an instant. Or have the mouse pounce on her.
Everyone was allowed one weakness. It was just her luck that mice was hers.
“I thought I told you to get on upstairs and put Joe back in his cage,” Buck reminded Lucky. “Unless you want Precious to make a meal of him.”
“What kind of snake is Precious? And where is he or she?” Tracy quickly added, looking around the living room and only now realizing how messy the place was.
Last night she’d been so glad to have a roof over her head after the long drive and torrential rain that she hadn’t really been paying attention to the decor. Not that she could see much of the decor, what with the newspapers and toys strewn around the place.
There was no missing the huge fieldstone fireplace that filled most of one wall. A pair of matching green leather chairs faced each other like gunfighters at high noon, while a couch stood off to one side as if it were an uninterested bystander. Buck’s brown leather recliner had seen better days and appeared to be held together with duct tape. The carpeting may have once been green as well, but it was hard to tell as most of it was covered with papers, socks and an assortment of stuff. If there was a snake in the room, it would be hard-pressed to find an inch of wiggle room.
“The kids wanted a boa constrictor,” Buck said. “But I put my foot down and said no. So Precious is just a garden variety snake. And she’s kept in the kids’ room nowadays.”
Tracy picked up on that qualifier right away. “Nowadays?”
“Precious has gotten into the housekeeper’s bed a few times,” Lucky announced with a grin that wasn’t intended to do Tracy’s peace of mind any good.
“Yeah, but your pa made you promise that Precious wouldn’t do that ever again, remember?”
Lucky’s cockiness evaporated at the sound of Buck’s reprimanding voice. “Right, Grandpa. I remember.”
“Good.” Buck nodded. “Because it’s too plumb upsettin’ for the snake to be plunked down in strange places all the time.”
Too upsetting for the snake? What about the housekeeper? Tracy wondered. Apparently she was on her own in this Wild West Best household.