The Marrying Man (6 page)

Cat placed everything on a huge tray then headed for the dining room.

Cindy was leaning as close to McKendrick as the law would allow and Cat found herself wondering if breast implants were tax deductible. Not that it was any of her concern. She certainly didn't have any designs on him herself, even if he was easily the most beautiful hunk of man she'd ever seen in her entire life.

Cindy could have him. Granted he was beautiful but he would probably end up alphabetizing her bras by cup size.

Max made room for the tray on the sideboard. He was grinning like the proverbial cat that ate the canary.

"What's up?" she asked, noting that all eyes were on her.

Max's grin widened. "There's big bucks riding on this, Cat: did you actually forget the cranberry sauce or were you making a neo-classicist culinary statement?"

"Come on, Cat!" Her next-door neighbor John chimed in. "I've got five dollars riding on it."

"Five dollars?" Kate Lawson, town librarian, laughed. "This is a sure thing. I'll up the ante to ten."

"Not even Cat could forget cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving Day," said Cindy in her sweetest voice. "Cat, I wouldn't insult you by making a bet."

She glanced toward McKendrick who watched her with wide, innocent eyes. If he'd said one word to Cindy about the cranberries, then murder by drumstick would be too good for him.

"How much are you in for?" she challenged him. "Ten dollars? Fifty? Don't be shy, Mr. McKendrick. Speak right up. Everyone else is."

McKendrick aimed those green eyes right at her but said nothing.

"Your reputation precedes you, Cat," called out another of the guests. "Most of us were here last year when you showed up dressed as Princess Jasmine for the town's centennial bash."

"It was late October," Cat protested. "I thought it was a Halloween party."

"Come on, Riley," said Mary McGregor. "Are you on Cat's side or the side of the missing cranberries?"

Jenny picked that moment to stroll into the room. "I can't believe you told them about the cranberries," she said to Cat. "I figured once we made it to dessert, we'd be safe."

Everyone present broke into laughter and Cat watched, infuriated, as McKendrick and Max exchanged high fives.

"Very funny, all of you. I hope you had a good laugh at my expense."

"Admit it," said Max, getting that look in his eye that she knew too well. "You and Jenny are hanging on by a thread."

"Don't drag me into this, Maxwell Bernstein!" Jenny's tone was the same one she used on the kids when they wouldn't turn out the lights. "I'm just an employee here."

"Jenny!" Cat was appalled by her friend's treachery.

"You know what I'm talking about," Jenny said, meeting Cat's eyes. "It's your house, Cat. I just follow orders."

"Jenny's right." Riley McKendrick's voice cut through the laughter and bickering. "You own the house. You set the rules. The buck stops with you."

"I don't know what's happening here," Cat said. "We're talking cranberries, not war crimes."

"The cranberries are just a symptom," Max said solemnly.

"Oh for God's sake," Jenny muttered. "Why don't you stick a sock in it, Max?"

"My thoughts exactly. Why is it the people with the least experience are the ones most eager to offer advice?" Cat glanced toward McKendrick who was watching her with undisguised interest. "Are you married, Mr. McKendrick?"

His thick dark brows slid toward the bridge of his nose in a scowl. "No."

"Do you have any kids?"

"No, but--"

"I rest my case." She folded her arms across her chest and smiled. "How would you know what it takes to run a home? This isn't a corporation. Real people live here, or haven't you noticed?"

Scooter chose that moment to bound through the dining room with Sara's favorite Barbie doll clamped between his slobbery jaws and Sara in close pursuit.

"I noticed," said McKendrick as everyone in the room once again erupted into laughter.

"Six kids, Mr. McKendrick. Six cats, four kittens, three dogs, and a litter of puppies. We have enough variables to throw IBM's finest computer into a terminal tailspin. Who has the time to work out a new routine? We barely have time to breathe."

McKendrick leaned back in his chair, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "You creative types--all you do is complain about how busy you are. If you'd apply some sound business techniques to the house, you'd"

"I'll tell you what you can do with your sound business techniques." Her son Jack appeared in the doorway and she took a deep breath and struggled to rein in her temper. "We both know you'd rather be anywhere than here. Why did you accept my invitation?

"Why did you invite me when you didn't want to?" he countered.

"Max said you were going to be alone for Thanksgiving."

"And you have this thing about taking in strays."

She glanced down at the kittens nipping at her ankles. "You could say that."

"I'm not big on family celebrations." The glint in his eyes turned to ice. "And I don't put a lot of store in holidays."

"Which is probably why you were going to be by yourself on Thanksgiving." There it was again, that look of loneliness she'd noticed yesterday, the same look that had tugged at her heartstrings. She wasn't going to fall for that a second time. He could look lonelier than the Maytag repairman for all she cared. She wasn't buying it. "If you think dinner was a prelude to a business contract, you're dead wrong. You have nothing I need. Absolutely nothing."

He shoved back his chair and stood up, all six feet plus of rippling, ticked-off male pulchritude towering over the assembled group. "You're a coward, Zaslow. You don't have the guts to change your ways."

"And you're a blowhard, McKendrick. All talk and no action."

"You want action?" He strode off with Cat right behind him. "You need a demolition crew in here, not a housekeeper."

"The foyer?" she said, skidding to a stop behind him. "What's wrong with the foyer?" She'd never paid much attention to the foyer before except to race through it on her way out the door.

Okay, so it wasn't
House Beautiful.
Two card tables were pushed together with folding chairs arranged around them. Chunks of turkey and stuffing littered the floor. Big deal. It was Thanksgiving. You had to expect chaos on family holidays.

"It was the only place we could put the kids," she said by way of explanation
not
apology. "What should I do, have them eat outside?" Then she noticed the pile of galoshes stacked near the front door, right beside a tangle of tube socks and a pink ballet slipper. A basketball was balanced on the bottom step and enough Disney figurines to populate a condo were strewn across the desk. Red and yellow plastic blocks, a skateboard, and a vintage bright purple Barney doll were scattered like breadcrumbs across the tile floor that had been shiny and pristine just hours before.

As if that wasn't bad enough, she watched in horror as he reached for the door to the coat closet. Adrenaline flooded her body as he closed his hand around the knob.

"Open that door," Cat warned, "and it'll be the last thing you ever do." She wondered what would happen if she leaped for his throat and tried to wrestle him to the ground.

"What the hell do you have in there, dead bodies?"

"Dead time management experts and there's room for one more."

"I'll bet there isn't room for a dead gnat in this closet, Zaslow."

"I suppose you think I should be thankful you'd even consider whipping my humble abode into shape. I can just imagine the sob story Max laid on you." She brushed her hair off her face with a quick, angry gesture. "Frazzled widow with five kids, living on the ragged edge of disaster, waiting for Mr. Wonderful to ride in on a white horse and save them all."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Zaslow, but the only reason I said yes was because Max called in a marker. I usually don't waste my time on small domestic jobs."

"Small domestic jobs?" She almost crowed with delight. "There
are
no small domestic jobs, McKendrick. Only small experts who can't stand the heat."

"I whipped the White House staff into shape in two weeks, Zaslow. There's nothing you can throw at me that could be any worse."

You haven't seen the inside of that closet yet, cowboy
.
"You're a typical man, McKendrick. Real life sends you running for cover."

"I'm not running."

"You want to," she said. "You know you've met your match and it's scaring you to death."

He moved toward her, all menace and male indignation.
 
"Forty-eight hours," he said, his voice as close to a growl as a human being's could be. "That's all I need."

"You'd never last that long."

"Try me."

The breath left her body in a loud whoosh as a vivid series of erotic vignettes danced before her eyes, all of which featured McKendrick in various stages of undress. She must be losing her mind. Good grief, she didn't even
like
him.

Did she?

"Max told me what you charge," she said, struggling to regain her composure. "If you ask me, you're overpaid."

"No charge," he shot back. "All I want is forty-eight hours."

"What's in it for you?"

"Satisfaction." He grinned. "I want to see you eat your words."

"Then you're going to have a long wait, because I'd rather eat ground worms." She poked him in the stomach with her forefinger. Or tried to. The man had abs like steel beams. "You can have your forty-eight hours, McKendrick, but when they're over I expect an apology."

He glanced at his watch. "The forty-eight hours begin now?"

"They begin now." Smiling, she reached for the closet doorknob. Victory would be swift.

And very, very sweet.

Chapter Four

Around eight o'clock the guests began to say goodnight. Riley shook hands with a lot of friendly people who laughed even as they wished him luck.

"Fortitude, old man," said one of Cat's neighbors by way of goodbye. "It's always darkest before the dawn."

"What the hell does that mean?" Riley turned toward Max as the man hurried out the front door. "Isn't that what they say before you go off to war?"

At eight o'clock he didn't know what that meant, but by nine-thirty he understood.

Riley might have whipped the White House staff into shape but he'd never been faced with six kids all under the age of twelve, a housekeeper whose idea of organization involved empty cereal boxes and lots of new Tupperware, and a woman who made her living murdering people for fun and profit.

It was enough to make a man yearn for political egos and governmental interference.

"Problems?" Cat asked sweetly as she passed through the living room en route to the kitchen with a tray of dirty glasses.

He gave her his best you've-got-to-be-kidding look. "Everything's under control. I'm surveying the scene."

"Sure you are," she said, then laughed her way into the kitchen.
 

She didn't know how funny it was. When it came to home and family, Riley hadn't a clue. He understood productivity and the bottom line; he understood efficiency and economy of motion, two concepts that hadn't found their way to Cat Zaslow's Connecticut farmhouse. What was it about some people that made them buck like an unbroken mare at the thought of organization?