What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel) (17 page)

“Talk about what?” She busied herself with picking the hay off the wall dividing the pens.

“Livvy.”

It took a good ten seconds before she stopped and looked up at him. “I’m okay, Sean. Thank you, but there’s no need. I learned a long time ago to depend only on myself. Sure, I’m angry at Merriweather, but in the end, anger benefits no one. It sucks you dry. Moving forward, focusing on the next step, the big goal, what you need to do to get there . . .
that’s
productive. Dwelling on might-have-beens is counterproductive.”

They both noticed that word.
Counter
.

He took a step toward her. Saw her lean in just a bit. It’d be so easy to pull her into his arms and finish what they’d started earlier.

But her words replayed like a loop in his head.
They don’t let you down.

Like he was going to do.

He had to crunch the numbers again.
Had
to figure out some way to make this project work for both of them.

So he stepped back. Didn’t act on the temptation. On the knowledge that she wouldn’t refuse him.

It was probably the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.

T
RYING
to fall asleep last night had been one of the hardest things Livvy had ever done. Her body had still been on “burn” from being with Sean and she couldn’t understand why he’d backed away. She’d made her intentions—desires, wants, preferences—pretty damn available last night. And
in the kitchen before Kerry and Sher had interrupted—

Oh crud. Kerry and Sher.

Livvy leapt out of bed, jostling Georgia, who’d decided that Livvy’s head was the perfect thing to rest her warm full belly against, so she grumbled when it was taken away.

The pug rolled down into the depression Livvy left behind, her back legs kicking Petra in the shoulder. Which caused Petra to whine, and John to growl, which woke up Mike, who rolled over with a yawn, practically squishing Davy in the process.

Within minutes, the entire group was awake and demanding to be fed and let out. And not necessarily in that order.

She rubbed her eyes after setting them free in the backyard and turned on her iPod. Maroon 5’s “
One More Night”
was a sufficiently danceable start for a day spent in the kitchen. She bebopped over to the Sub-Zero for a glass of OJ. No caffeine for her; she’d told those boys in the supermarket the truth. One twenty-four-hour period of the soda/egg experiment had been enough to convince her to stay away from the stuff; the full year of shell-dissolving had solidified that resolution.

The eggs were there. The eggs she and Sean had bought yesterday at the store. The ones they were going to use to bake her signature scones with today. Together.

She took a deep breath, not surprised to feel a flutter in her stomach at the prospect. She’d been doing a lot of stomach-fluttering in the last few days. And skin-shivering. And then there was the blushing.

But not nearly enough kissing.

She felt the heat travel up her chest and into her cheeks again, but not due to any blush this time. Sean was just . . . well, he was pretty darn near amazing. Perfect almost, if such a thing existed. Smart, funny, good-looking, a good sport, tolerant, willing to pitch in . . .

She sounded like she was advertising for farm help instead of listing the qualities of the man she . . . what? What was Sean to her?

“Is that what all the best-dressed chefs are wearing these days?”

Speak of the devil; he showed up in her kitchen looking deliciously sinful in a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops.

Lusted after
. Yeah, that was as good a term as any. And a lot safer than some.

She stopped dancing mid-bebop and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Um, good morning. No uniform today?” It was a definite improvement.

He shrugged and helped himself to the pomegranate juice she’d bought. Maybe he wasn’t as opposed to anti-high-fructose-corn-syrupy food as he’d let on.

“I figured since we were going to be in a hot kitchen all day, I ought to dress for it.”

Or undress . . .

Livvy licked her lips that had suddenly gone dry and looked down at her attire: white camisole, and Capri-length silk pajama bottoms. “Well I’ll be wearing my apron, so it doesn’t really matter what I wear.”

He raised an eyebrow again. “If you say so.”

Pitbull’s “
Give Me Everything Tonight”
segued onto the iPod. Yeah, not really the song she wanted right now.

Livvy jerked the apron off its hook and busied herself filling the eight dog bowls with breakfast, trying not to listen to the song’s lyrics. Then she pulled out the baking sheets, mixing bowls, and cooling racks they’d need for scone baking.

Then she spent a good couple of minutes searching for a walnut crusher, and lined all the dry ingredients up nicely on the baking prep counter before finally running out of things to do besides look at him. Which was what she’d wanted to do all along anyhow.

Leaning against the sink, he had his arms crossed over that amazing chest and one foot crossed over the other in such a masculine pose that it made her mouth water.

Sean
Manley
. There’d never been a more perfect name.

“So would you like to eat before we start, or are only the dogs getting lucky today?” he asked.

He could get lucky anytime he wanted— “Um, sure. I can whip something up.” She nodded at the items he’d accumulated on the counter while she’d been searching for what she’d need.

He pushed off from the sink as Jay Sean’s “
Down
” started playing. “I wasn’t asking for you to make it. I was asking if you wanted it. I’m more than capable of rustling up some breakfast for us, you know.”

“No, actually, I didn’t.”

He grabbed a skillet from the overhead wagon wheel and turned on the burner. “Hmm, I guess you’re right. You haven’t really seen me in action in the kitchen.”

Oh. yes she had
,
and she used five of the song’s downbeats to remember it.

So, apparently, did Sean, since he dropped the pan onto the flame with a clatter, then fumbled with tossing a couple of slices of multi-grain bread into the toaster. “So, uh, why don’t you take a seat and I’ll throw something together. You bought extra eggs, right? And did I see pork roll or something?”

“Pork roll?” Livvy shuddered. “Hardly. Reggie would never forgive me.”

“I thought elephants were the ones with long-term memories.” He flicked some butter into the pan, where it started to sizzle.

Just like Livvy was doing. The guy was
hot
. “Pigs are smart, too. If I were to go anywhere near Reggie smelling like one of his relatives, he’d never forgive me.” She’d done it once. The pig had stayed in his bed for a day and no amount of dog biscuits would coax him from it. He’d even turned up his snout at her when she’d tried to pat him.

“Your diet must be very limited if you don’t eat any of your animals’ relatives.”

“Only Reggie is sensitive. I eat chicken and eggs all the time. Though I do try not to eat them around Orwell.”

“Speaking of which . . . where is the little one-bird wrecking crew?”

The forty-five minutes it’d taken them to finagle the bird off the curtain rods last night hadn’t been fun, so this was a welcome respite. She loved Orwell, but he was a lot of work. “Sleeping. He isn’t an early riser.”

“Must be nice,” said Sean, cracking two eggs in one hand simultaneously over the skillet.

“Pretty neat trick.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“That. The thing you did with the eggs. How’d you learn it?”

“Growing up with two brothers and no video games, you learn to amuse yourself. We used to have contests to see how many we could do without getting shells in the pan.”

“You won?”

Sean smiled and it took her breath away. The guy was flat-out gorgeous.

“Yeah, I kicked their—butts. I did five once.”

“You must have really big hands.”

It wasn’t a blush that roared over her skin. It was a full-on scarlet cloak, and she ought to wrap herself in it and die of embarrassment because they were both
thinking of what hand size supposedly correlated to.

She looked at his hands. They weren’t too big. Just the right size with just the right shaped nails and just the right amount of hair on them, and just the right amount of strength and muscle and OMG, was she really describing his hand to herself? “What can I do to help?”

Wrong question to ask. His eyes darkened, and the look he gave her pierced right through to her belly, igniting a fire there that had nothing to do with what was happening on the stove.

“Nothing. I’m good.”

Yup. He was.

“Is there something you need to get ready for baking?”

She shook her head, both as an answer and as a
Get-Over-It-Livvy
mechanism. Scones had to be made individually. At least hers did to achieve the perfect amount of flakiness. If she let the dough sit too long, the scones would fail. With the amount she was planning to make today, she needed to get her head into the project.

Sean pulled the bread from the toaster, slathered it with the apple butter she’d bought, poured two more glasses of pomegranate juice into a pair of ornate wine glasses from a shelf she couldn’t even see into let alone reach, then plated the eggs as if he were a chef.

“Did you ever think about becoming a personal chef instead of a maid? You’re really good at it.” She took the juice glasses from the counter and set them at the table, catty-corner to each other. She didn’t need him sitting beside her—too much temptation—but she didn’t want him sitting too far, either.

Too much disappointment.

He brought their plates to the table. The over-easy eggs were done to perfection, the toast was just the right amount of toasted and buttered, and the slices of orange he’d included were an added bonus.

Just like him. An added bonus she never could have foreseen when she’d learned about her grandmother’s death.

“How’s this going to work today?” he asked. “What do you need me to do?”

So many things . . .

She set her fork down, dabbing at her lips with the linen napkin he’d found in one of the drawers, and reined in her happy hormones.

She made a mental note to turn off her iPod as yet another round of inappropriate lyrics filled the room.

“I make each batch individually,” she said, trying to ignore the vocalist singing about not being able to keep his eyes off a woman. “To get enough layers in the bread, I have to knead the dough to the right consistency, which takes time. It can’t be done production-line style. But we can do that for the setup and cleanup. I’ll line up rows of bowls for several batches, then you can measure all the ingredients into them and I’ll come along after you, mixing them together one at a time. Work for you?”

“Sounds like a plan.” He raised a forkful of egg. “So? What do you think? Good enough for you?”

He was talking about the food he’d made, right, and not himself because, yeah, he was good enough for her. Too good actually. There had to be a catch. Sean couldn’t possibly be as good as he appeared. Good-looking, hardworking, loved his family, funny, kind, helpful, able to do pretty much anything—
and
clean—and he’d stopped complaining about her animals. Had even helped her take care of them.

For the first time in a long while, Livvy let hope trickle into her vocabulary.

“Livvy?”

“Oh, um, yes. Great. You really are amazing in the kitchen.”

She
so
did not just say that.

“Speaking of . . .” Sean set his fork down. “Not addressing it isn’t going to make it go away.” He covered her hand with his and forget the flames on the stove or the temperature of this room once they had all the ovens going today, or even how delicious he looked in something as nondescript as shorts and a T-shirt; nothing could compare to what Sean’s touch did to her.

Hope roared
back in, swirled around inside of her, touching every part, and, planted itself firmly into her soul, and suddenly the song lyrics were totally appropriate.

“Livvy, we can’t have a repeat of yesterday.”

Until Sean said that.

“It’s really not a good idea.”

“Okay. Fine.” There was only so much rejection she could take and, frankly, she was over her quota for that for, like,
ever
. She wasn’t about to beg. Nope. Not her. She hadn’t begged for anything from her grandmother, and she certainly wasn’t about to beg for anything from a guy who wasn’t smart enough to want her.

She crumpled her napkin and tossed it on top of the now-unable-to-be-eaten eggs, then gathered up her place setting and stood. “We ought to get started on the baking. I have a lot to make and, while the breakfast was nice, there really isn’t time to sit around and gab.” She slid the plate to the edge of the table, her napkin dragging the tea set’s sugar bowl with it.

“Livvy—” The lid clanged to the floor, but Sean managed to grab the bowl before it went after it, staring at it as if he didn’t know what it was.

“Can you let the dogs back in, please?” They’d started whining the minute she’d stood, and Livvy was never so glad for their demands as she was this minute. She needed time to compose herself from the electricity thrumming through her, the disappointment of yet another round of hope being dashed, and the embarrassment of him knowing how much she wanted him and being turned down.

And she’d had such hopes for today.

S
O
much for breakfast.

Sean gathered his plate, not really caring about the food as much as the conversation. He’d tossed and turned most of the night, desire keeping him awake as much as the guilt. Around four
A.M
. he’d resolved to put an end to it once and for all. Whatever
it
was. He needed to discuss it with her. Make her see that it wasn’t as cut-and-dried, let’s-sleep-together as she’d made it out to be. Not without telling her the true reason.

Or that there was a clue in the sugar bowl.

God, he was a shit. It was poetic justice, karmic law, the universe laughing at him, that he was turning her down. He wasn’t on Bry’s level when it came to getting women, although he’d never been a slouch in that department, but the one woman he wanted more than any other was the worst possible one for him to hook up with.