Heiress for Hire (3 page)
But the relationship between Boston and Shelby seemed to work. Well. They seemed to balance each other out and had a love so strong it was palpable in the room whenever they were together. Generally speaking, it made Amanda equal parts jealous and nauseous.
"Okay, you work at McDonald's," Amanda said. "I'll suspend all reality for a minute and accept that you would ever do that."
Boston
held out his hand and pointed to the right. "And I work the drive-thru window."
Shelby
grinned. "Do you wear one of those hats? You know, with the visors?"
He just stared at her until she wiped the smile off her face. Or hid it behind her hand, really. "Sorry, go ahead."
"Thank you. So I work the drive thru, and that's all I do." He pointed to the left. "Then there are cashiers and burger flippers and a fry girl. So say a friend of mine comes to the counter. I can't leave the drive-thru to go flip her a special request burger just because she's my friend. We all have a certain job to do, and mine is the drive-thru."
Amanda was temporarily amused out of her panic. Crossing her legs and smoothing her Ralph Lauren tennis skirt, she raised her eyebrows. "What the hell are you talking about? Am I supposed to be a fry girl or a cashier or what? You've completely lost me."
"I'm saying I can't hire you. That's not my job."
She was saved from voicing something she would probably regret by the front door being thrown open.
"Shel, honey? Shelby?"
Amanda knew that voice. It belonged to the big, brawny farmer, Danny Tucker, who looked like he could take a woman for a really wild ride on his tractor. She had tossed some light flirtation his way, only to have him smile politely and not take the hint. It had stung a bit to have him reject her, but she wouldn't admit that for all the Harry Winston diamonds on Oscar night.
"Shelby, I thought you were going to talk to him about that." Boston's voice was low, urgent. "He is your ex-husband. E-X. That means he shouldn't be just walking into our house without knocking, and he shouldn't be calling you 'honey.' "
The jealousy from Boston was kind of cute. Definitely amusing. Amanda looked to Shelby for her reaction.
"Ex is right, so stop making a mountain out of a molehill." She rolled her eyes at her husband and called, "We're in the parlor, Danny!"
When Boston would have protested further, she slid her hand across his chest. "Who am I in bed with every night, hmm? Who am I so in love with I want to be naked all the time?"
Hands began to roam and a really loud, wet kiss commenced.
"Third party here," Amanda called, hoping to stave off a make-out session. She was already hungry and flat busted broke. She didn't need to be reminded that it had been many, many long and lonely months since she'd had an orgasm. With a man present, anyway. "You're corrupting my innocent dog."
"Your dog just knocked a glass of lemonade over onto my floor," Boston said, jerking his mouth off Shelby's and looking around wildly, like a towel might materialize out of nowhere. "Shel, use your T-shirt to clean it up. The wood will be ruined."
"My T-shirt? Use your shirt!" But Shelby headed toward the kitchen.
Amanda forced herself to sit up. There was a mess of spreading liquid puddling on the wood floor with her dog plopped butt-down in the middle of it. "Baby! Sorry, Boston, I didn't even know she was strong enough to knock that over. But you know, it was probably the shock of seeing you two groping each other. I'm single, and Baby isn't used to depravity. Except when I have on Bravo. It probably scared her and she jumped."
Pushing her poodle out of the wet spot, Amanda winced. "Look at your fur… you have to realize we're poor now, Baby. I can't pay the groomer to shampoo you."
"You're poor?" Danny Tucker asked in disbelief.
Amanda looked up and saw the farmer standing in the doorway to Shelby and Boston's minute floral parlor. He filled the whole doorframe with muscular man. Completely filled it, entirely from one side to the other, and Amanda felt a tingling in her breasts that was not the aftereffects of surgery. At twenty-one she had gotten breast implants as a college graduation present to herself. At twenty-five, she'd gotten them removed, having decided that breasts didn't make the woman.
Clothes did.
And she liked her body to be completely her own, with no embellishments, although unfortunately right now her au naturel body was choosing to be sexually stimulated by the mere sight of Danny Tucker standing in a doorway.
She did not understand her attraction to him. She'd never been one for the brawny type—the outdoors, work-with-his-hands manly man. To her, they had muscles—sure, that was good—but manual laborers were also just sweaty and dirty, something that so did not appeal to her. Yet Danny Tucker brought out primal female urges in her—in what she had determined was the instinctive need to mate with the strongest in the herd.
It was sociological, really, that was all. Evolution at its best, and had nothing whatsoever to do with her actually liking a smalltown farmer. Because that would be ludicrous for any number of reasons, starting with dirt and ending with bugs. She wasn't fond of either one, so she couldn't actually like Danny Tucker.
Yet after her last relationship, which had been akin to swimming in moral sewage, Danny Tucker was really appealing.
"Yes, I'm poor. I've been cut off. Stranded. Abandoned." She was about to wax enthusiastic on the cruelty of fathers rearing socialite daughters only to abandon them to the tender mercies of poverty when she realized there was a child standing behind Danny.
So did Shelby, who dropped the towel in her hand on top of the lemonade puddle, sending Baby scurrying out of the way.
"Who's your friend, Danny?" Shelby asked.
Amanda mopped at the floor while Baby tried to take in a few last frantic licks of the sweet liquid.
"This is Piper." Danny's hand went on the kid's shoulder. "She's my daughter."
Amanda hadn't seen that one coming. She let go of the towel and sat up, taking a closer look at the kid, astonished. Danny Tucker just didn't seem like the kind to have a child nobody knew about.
But given the fact that a Mini Cooper could drive into Shelby's gaping mouth with no trouble whatsoever, no one knew about this one.
"Excuse me?" Shelby asked, her voice tight.
Boston
shot her a nervous look.
The little girl, who was scruffy at best, dirty at worst, took a tentative step forward, her eyes on Amanda's dog.
Picking up Baby and grimacing at the stickiness of her coat, Amanda held her out. "Did you want to see her? She's a teacup poodle, and two pounds of terror."
The little girl glanced up at Danny reluctantly, then over to the dog with longing. She shook her head.
"Go on," Danny told her. "It's alright. She's a cute little puppy, isn't she?" He gave the girl a nudge, and she took two steps, dragging her feet.
Amanda heard the gentleness in his voice, but she also saw the pain on his face. Saw the way his hand shook just a little. It did something to her chest, made it tighten, made her feel an uncomfortable sort of something for him that was completely unrelated to sexual attraction.
She smiled at the girl but listened to Danny murmur to Shelby, "I didn't know anything about her. Her stepfather just dumped her on my doorstep."
Oh, wow, that was rough. Amanda could say a lot of things about her father, but he'd never been out and out cruel. Neglectful, yes. Judgmental, yes. Incapable of being pleased, oh yeah. But never cruel. It made her realize that in the grand scheme of things, she didn't have a whole lot to complain about.
Danny's words had Amanda's smile going brighter, as she held out her dog for the little girl, hoping to distract her. Not that she knew a damn thing about kids, but everyone liked puppies, and God, she wanted this kid to feel better. She knew the pain of rejection. This kid's must be a thousand times worse. "Her name is Baby. What's your name again?"
"Piper." The voice was quiet, wavering. Her hand came out and tentatively touched the top of Baby's head before she jerked it back.
"Who's her mother?" Shelby asked in a low voice, and Amanda couldn't mistake the jealousy there in her voice. Hell, who could blame her? She realized Shelby must have been married to Danny at the time of Piper's conception.
Amanda would have thought that he was better than that, Danny Tucker, and her own naivete made her want to laugh. God, how stupid could she be? When would she ever learn that men just did what they wanted, when they wanted. Coming to the country in a quest for a better male specimen was doomed to failure.
Not that she had done that. Please. But if she had been hoping that somehow the men of Cuttersville were truer, better, more honest, then clearly she would have been wrong. Men were all alike. Different dick, but still the same prick.
"She likes it when you scratch behind her ears," she told Piper, disgruntled at her disappointment that Danny was just another ordinary, selfish man like all the ones she had met before. He could hide it behind a smile and a polite good ol' boy charm, but if he had cheated on his wife, he was a jerk, plain and simple. She should be glad he hadn't responded to her flirting.
Danny's voice was low, so Amanda had to strain to hear him. "Uh, Nina Schwartz, a girl from Xenia I met at the county fair. It was just that one time, Shel, and it was that summer we were split up, remember? That summer you dated Eric White, the football player."
Amanda watched Shelby pull a face. "Eric was an idiot."
"So was I apparently." Danny paced back and forth. "The step-dad says Nina died. She never told me there was a baby, Shel, not even a hint. She never even asked for my phone number or to see me again." His voice rose. "How was I supposed to know?"
And how was Amanda supposed to stay irritated with him when he went and showed he wasn't a complete and total asshole? And why did his distress and confusion make her feel so flipping happy?
Because she wanted to believe Danny Tucker to be the nice guy she'd thought him to be. She wanted to shed some of the cynicism that coated her like a spray-on tan.
Which meant it was time for a mental eye roll. Mea culpa, she was becoming an Oprah Book Club Pick. Maudlin, yet hopeful.
Poverty was making her insane, and it had only been four hours.
Shelby
put her finger to her lip. "Shh, keep it down." Her head jerked toward Piper.
Amanda couldn't hear their words after that, but she saw Shelby reach out and take Danny's hand and squeeze it. Saw Boston huddle together with the two of them, Danny casting worried glances at Piper. His daughter.
Piper was petting Baby's head, the kid's tongue pushed out between her lips in concentration. Amanda took Piper's arm and rested it under Baby. "Here, you hold her for me."
Piper's mouth went wide, and she tensed up. "What if I drop her?"
"I've dropped her before, and she always lands on her feet. No biggie. But you look reliable."
The little girl bit her lip, anxious, undecided. Amanda moved her hand back so Piper was holding Baby on her own.
Piper sucked in her breath, but a slight smile tipped up the corner of her mouth. Amanda tried not to breathe at all. The kid smelled. Oy vey. Taking minute drags of oxygen through her lips, Amanda concentrated on preventing air from going up her nostrils. Piper needed a bath. A rank odor was floating off of her, reminding Amanda of when her father had inadvertently kicked a peeled banana under his desk then headed to