Falling for the Heiress

Dustcovers concealed much of the furniture. Lamps were dark. The drapes were all closed. Yet what he noticed most was the heavy stillness that indicated an empty house.

With the sudden and unwelcome feeling that this particular assignment might not be as straightforward as he’d thought, he followed her toward a narrow butler’s door camouflaged by the paneling beneath one staircase and into a long equally dim hall.

They were clearly in the servants’ wing. The white hallway and the utilitarian rooms off it had an infinitely more practical feel to them than the areas furnished with the velvet side chairs he’d noticed in the formal dining room or the ornate bombé chest in the foyer.

After passing two rooms with twin beds, she opened one that held a neatly made double bed and a dresser at one end and a desk and small seating area at the other. Lowering her son to the mauve tweed sofa, she pulled a brightly knit afghan off its back and settled it over him. Her motions seemed almost unconscious as she pulled off his shoes, tucked the afghan over his feet when he stirred, then gently touched his head as if to reassure him before slipping back into the hall.

Considering how totally unmaternal Parker would have expected her to be, her easy affection for her son surprised him. Or maybe, he thought, it was protectiveness he sensed in her. Whatever it was, he found himself far more interested in why her smile seemed so uneasy when she moved past him and into the huge—and deserted—kitchen.

He was wondering where the devil everyone was when she flipped on the overhead lights and illuminated a room filled with what looked like miles of counters and glass-fronted white birch cabinetry. Stacks of dishes gleamed through the glass panes. Copper pots glinted from the rack high above a white-tiled center island the size of a boardroom conference table.

“You can stay in the room where I put Mikey. It belongs to the head housekeeper,” she said, her expression polite, her voice still low. “Rose is with my parents in the Hamptons for the summer. The rest of the staff is on vacation, too. Except for the stable master and his wife. They live above the stables. And the groundskeeper is in the cottage near the lake. Rose’s room has its own bath, and you’re welcome to use the pool and the exercise room downstairs if you’d like.”

Tess watched a frown pinch the dark slashes of Parker’s eyebrows as he glanced from her to the office alcove and the window above a table in the far corner where the staff took their meals. The man was difficult to read, a trait his profession seemed to demand, but he appeared far more interested in what surrounded him than in his personal accommodations.

In the space of seconds, it seemed to Tess that her paid protector had absorbed who was on the property, managed to take in the details of his immediate surroundings and just as thoroughly searched her. He’d no sooner noted the utility room leading to the back door than his scrutiny moved from the top of her head to the toes of her pumps. She could swear he’d missed nothing in between.

Had it not been for her brother’s recommendation, she would have felt far more uncomfortable than she already did at that unapologetic appraisal. Those arresting features gave away nothing of his impressions.

Feeling totally disadvantaged, nerves ruined the cultured poise she constantly strove to achieve. That poise seemed to come as naturally as breathing to her mom and her older sister, but neither of them had been cursed with the inner energy she constantly battled to tame. Even fighting fatigue from a week’s worth of sleepless nights stressing over her trip home, it was either pace or fidget. Since pacing seemed more dignified, she turned away to do just that. All that mute and massive muscle unnerved her, too.

“I assume you’ve done your homework,” she began, hating the position she was in, knowing no other way to address it. “So I imagine you’re aware of what was being said about me before I left.”

She turned back, met his too-blue eyes. He stood ramrod-straight in the arch of the hallway, one hand clasping the opposite wrist. “The majority of it,” he conceded.

Not caring to imagine what he thought of all that dirt, she tipped her chin, only to immediately check the motion. She couldn’t allow herself to get defensive with him. She needed him on her side. More important than that, she desperately needed an ally.

It seemed a true indication of how much she’d lost that she’d had to hire one.

At the dispiriting thought, she resumed her pacing. “You’ve worked for my brother,” she reminded him, arms crossed as she made her way up one side of the island, “so you know that people distort things to serve their own purpose. And you know that the press has a definite tendency to exaggerate.” Among other transgressions, real and imagined, her brother had been sued for support for a child that wasn’t his and blamed for a nightclub brawl that started after he’d left. If she remembered correctly, Parker had been with him that particular night. “I hope you’ve kept that in mind with anything you’ve heard or read about me.

“I also hope my brother is right about you,” she continued before he could ask why she hadn’t defended herself if what he’d heard wasn’t true. “Cord said I could trust you. I don’t know anyone outside my family that I can trust anymore,” she stressed softly, “so I had to rely on his judgment. That’s why I asked for you. That and a comment he made about you being up for just about anything.”

She turned again to face the man filling the space with his powerful presence, saw the faint lift of one dark eyebrow.

“I didn’t want to indicate my plans over the phone or the Internet, but aside from you being my driver and keeping me clear of paparazzi, there are some other things I need you to do for me. I hope you won’t mind.”

Parker had spent years learning to anticipate people and situations. Little caught him unprepared. Since he inevitably prepared for the worst, even less surprised him. He had not, however, expected the open candor of the woman giving him a cautious, almost hopeful smile or the isolation he sensed about her as she stood waiting for him to confirm or deny what her brother had claimed. He recognized that sense of separation, that sense of no longer being a part of the whole, only because in the past year he’d felt it so much himself.

Dismissing that unwanted thought, not appreciating the reminder, he studied her even more closely.

“You can believe your brother. You and your plans are secure with me.” He was nothing if not honorable. “But he may have misled you on just what I’d be willing to do.” He rarely objected to having a good time, situation permitting. He had the feeling Cord’s little sister wasn’t looking for a good poker game, though, or an escort to the local clubs. He hadn’t read a single report about her doing the party circuit or getting wild and crazy in some trendy hot spot. “I play by the book, Miss Kendrick. I might bend rules, but I won’t break the law.”

Her lovely eyes widened. “I’d never ask you to do that. What I want is perfectly legal.”

“Then what is it exactly that you want me to do?”

“Just set up some appointments.” She replied quickly, as if she wanted her request to sound as if it were nothing of any import at all. “And run errands. And maybe watch Mikey for me. But only for a few minutes at a time,” she hurried to explain, “and only if absolutely necessary.”

Parker stifled a mental groan. He was a bodyguard. Not a personal slave. He most definitely was not a babysitter.

“Due respect, Miss Kendrick, but my duties are laid out in your family’s contract with Bennington’s. I’ll provide surveillance, protection and evacuation if the latter is necessary. But if you need a personal assistant, you’ll have to hire one. Same goes for a nanny.”

His glance shot over the hair she’d smoothed back into place, over her perfectly made-up face, down the buttoned silk jacket that allowed that tantalizing glimpse of soft-looking skin between her breasts.

He would be willing to bet his tickets to the next New England Patriots game that Tess Kendrick was accustomed to getting everything she wanted. And to getting rid of whatever she did not, he reminded himself, thinking of how she’d shed a husband. If she was even half as spoiled as he’d read, he figured he was about to face major attitude.

Yet, rather than offense, all he saw enter her expression was something that looked almost like an apology.

“That’s my problem,” she murmured, pacing again. “Even if I knew who to hire…who I could trust,” she emphasized, “I don’t want more people around. The fewer people who know I’m here, the less the chance of the press finding out that I’m back. It’s taken forever for all talk and speculation to die down, and if they find out I’m here, it’ll just start up again.”

Something pleading crossed the delicate lines of her face. “All I’m asking is for help buying a house. I need you to make appointments under another name,” she explained, because her own would be too easily recognized, “then maybe act as if you’re the one buying when we look at the properties. When I find something that will work for Mikey and me, I’ll turn it over to our lawyers and they can take it from there. And a car,” she said, faint lines of concentration forming in her brow as she checked off items on her mental list. “I need to buy a car, too. I lost mine in the divorce.”

She’d lost everything, actually, except for some personal items, her clothes and Mikey’s things, most of which were stored in her parents’ attic. She didn’t mention that, though. Partly because she desperately wanted to forget the past few years. Mostly because the big man silently considering her wouldn’t be interested in her need to rebuild a life for herself and her son. Or in how ill-equipped she felt to be doing it on her own.

“What about your brothers?”

“Gabe doesn’t have any spare time. Buying a car is the kind of thing he’d staff out anyway.”

Her oldest brother was governor of the state. Yet, more than the demands of the job on his time kept her from seeking his help. He and his press people hadn’t been too happy with her for what the publicity surrounding her divorce had done to his family-values platform. Under the circumstances, asking a favor of him would take more nerve than she wanted to spare right now.

She could only conquer one mountain of ashes at a time.

“Cord knows real estate. And he’s into cars. What about him?”

“He and his wife are in the Florida Keys. Sailing,” she added, to prove just how inaccessible he was for the tasks. “I’d ask Ashley to help me look for a house, but she lives an hour away and is really busy with her kids. The two of us together would attract too much attention anyway.”

Two Kendrick sisters together truly would be like waving a red flag at the press. Even if that hadn’t been the case, Tess wanted to avoid Ashley right now. Long before her ex-husband had started pointing out how miserably Tess had failed to live up to her older sister’s accomplishments, Tess had been aware of how Ashley had always done everything so well, so flawlessly. At least it had seemed so to the little sister who’d followed in her footsteps.

Because of Tess’s place in the hierarchy as the baby of the family, she’d had none of the first-son or-daughter pressure to perform thrust upon her. For as far back as she could remember, everyone had insisted on watching out for her, doing for her, and nothing had been expected of her other than to maintain the integrity of the family name.

Image and integrity were paramount to their parents. The actions of one Kendrick inevitably affected them all. Having a brother who’d possessed an unfortunate tendency to draw embarrassing headlines had proved that often enough.

She hated that the one big choice she’d made on her own had turned out to be an error in judgment that had not only screwed up her own life but done an even more spectacular job than her once-prodigal brother of tainting the family’s good name.

“What I want won’t take long,” she promised, trying desperately to push past feelings of failure and helplessness. “I need to be in my new home before my parents return.” They would arrive right after Labor Day. That gave her roughly six weeks.

Skepticism slashed his broad brow.

“Do you know how long it can take to buy and move into a house?”

“Actually, no,” she admitted. She hadn’t a clue. She’d never had to deal with that particular detail before. “But I can’t let it take long. It will be too uncomfortable living here with Mom and Dad.” Her voice dropped. “Especially with my father. If I have to, I’ll rent or lease something until I find what I want. I’d rather not move Mikey around that much, but I’ll do it if I have to.”

Thoughts of her father put a new face on her pacing. She wasn’t ready to be around William Kendrick yet. She hadn’t dealt well at all with the pictures Brad had shown her.

She didn’t know which had the firmer hold—the disappointment she felt in her dad or her anger over his betrayal of her mom. Both were there, demanding to be dealt with. She just didn’t know how. With no one to confide in, all she could do was jam down the emotions the same way she had the anxiety of everything else she’d had to cope with and force that energy into moving past her…past.

Parker remained discouragingly silent.

“I’ll pay you whatever you ask.”

It wasn’t what she’d requested of him that kept Parker quiet. It was the tension in her body as she spoke and the faint anxiety running just beneath the surface of her practiced composure. Knowing how upset the senior Kendrick had been over Cord’s indiscretions on occasion, he didn’t doubt for a moment that the famously powerful head of the Kendricks’ massive corporate and philanthropic holdings had been less than pleased with the unflattering publicity his daughter had brought. Yet, when she’d mentioned her father, he’d seen more than the embarrassment or discomfort he would have expected. He’d seen hurt.

He didn’t want the bit of empathy that hit him just then. It was simply there as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his slacks, buying himself time as he considered what she wanted. He knew what it was to have lost the approval of a parent. Since he’d left the Marines five years ago, his own father had barely spoken to him. But then, his father was a three-star general and the military was, always had been and always would be his life. The only time the man had ever had time for him was when Parker had been in the military himself.

Frowning at the thought, he dismissed the old resentment that came with the memory as irrelevant. He didn’t appreciate her reminding him of it. He didn’t appreciate the way she’d distracted him either. It wasn’t like him to get sidetracked. Yet, in less than a minute, the woman who’d gone still waiting for him to respond had reminded him of the isolation he’d felt since he’d lost his sister and the father neither one of them had ever really had.

He’d just reminded himself that neither had a thing to do with the requests she’d just made when the pounding of footsteps on the veranda outside had him jerking toward the back door an instant before it flew open.

Chapter Two

The rattle of a key in the lock preceded the thud of the utility room door hitting the wall and the sharp bang of the screen door behind it.

Before Tess could begin to imagine who would be in such a hurry to get in, she found her view of the doorway entirely blocked by her bodyguard. It barely occurred to her that the man’s silence and speed were more unnerving than the commotion when a startled feminine yelp joined the thump of something hitting the floor.

With his broad back to her, Parker signaled for her to stay put. Ignoring him, Tess glanced around his side to see an apple roll through the doorway.

Ina Yeager, her mom’s dark-haired, late-thirty-something maid, had gone as still as Lot’s wife. Her right hand lay splayed over her chest. In her left arm she clutched the bag of groceries she hadn’t dropped as if it might somehow shield her lean frame from the unexpected presence that had nearly stopped her heart.

Tess quickly stepped around the small mountain in navy worsted. “It’s all right. Both of you. Ina, this is Mr. Parker. He’s my driver and bodyguard,” she explained, terribly conscious of him herself. “He’ll be staying for a couple of weeks.

“Parker,” she continued, expecting him to stand down now that he knew he didn’t have to whisk her to safety. The man was only doing what he’d been trained to do, but at some point she obviously needed to explain to him that she was as safe here as she was anywhere. It was beyond the estate she was concerned about. “Ina is one of mom’s housekeeping staff.” With a smile for the woman with the deep dimples and long French braid, she snatched the still-rolling apple off the floor. “Her husband is the stable master.”

Seeing Tess reach for a head of lettuce and a red onion that had also rolled from the dropped sack, the clearly rattled maid bent to pick up the vegetables herself.

“I’m so sorry, Tess,” she began, adding the onion to her bag. “I didn’t think you’d be here. In the kitchen, I mean. Eddy went out front to help with your luggage,” she told her, speaking of her husband. “I thought you’d be in the foyer directing him where to put it.”

“He can just leave it there.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Ina glanced up as she spoke, taking in Parker’s big, shiny black shoes, his long, powerful legs, his impossibly broad shoulders. Stopping short of the strong line of his jaw, she grabbed the only remaining item—a bunch of bananas—and looked to Tess with another apology.

“Your mother called to tell me you and your son will be staying here for a while and asked me to stock the refrigerator. I’d meant to be here before you arrived and have everything put away. I bought enough for your dinner and breakfast, and there’s scones for tea, if you’d like.”

The squeak of her tennis shoes sounded like chattering mice as she hurried to set the vegetables by the sink and grab a bowl from a cabinet. “I remembered some of your preferences but not all,” she rushed on, filling an Italian ceramic bowl with the fruit before unloading milk, butter, bread and eggs. “If you’ll give me your menu for the week, I’ll go back to the market tomorrow.”

The woman easily ten years her senior looked terribly self-conscious as she moved between the pantry and the built-in refrigerator. Tess figured part of the reason for that awkwardness stemmed from being out of uniform. Members of the estate’s staff, everyone from the butler to the cook, maids and gardeners, wore their respective uniforms when on duty. Rarely did any employee appear in or around the main house dressed in anything else. Wearing a cotton shirt and denim capris, Ina seemed painfully conscious of her casual attire. From her furtive glances toward the splendid specimen of masculinity in his uniform of tailored suit and tie, she seemed just as aware of Parker silently watching her every move.

Or so Tess was thinking before she realized that some of those darting glances were aimed at her. She was the daughter who had caused so much gossip and speculation among her parents’ staff. She didn’t doubt for a moment that the maid was more than a little curious about her and her return.

She could only imagine the rumors that had flowed among the staff. At least right now, talk would be kept to a minimum. With most of the staff gone, there were blessedly few people to generate it.

“I’ll prepare your meals for you since Olivia is with your parents. Will you be staying in your old bedroom?”

“Mikey and I both will.” But I’ll take care of it, she would have said, except Ina was already talking.

“Then I’ll freshen it up as soon as I’m finished here.” With a quick and diplomatic glance toward where Tess’s bodyguard remained, wrist clasped, waiting for her to conclude, she dropped her voice and hurried on. “Which room do you want Mr. Parker in? There’s only one extra in the servants’ quarters, but it’s not very big.”

Ina apparently couldn’t picture him in a twin bed, either.

“I’ve already shown him which room he can use. I think Rose’s is best.” It was the largest. The room that belonged to the head housekeeper was also the only one in the servants’ quarters with a double bed.

Considering his sizable frame, even that would be small.

If Ina had any reservations about putting another employee in her immediate boss’s space, she dutifully kept them to herself. “I’ll put fresh towels in his bathroom.”

“Just tell me where they are. I’ll take care of it.”

Ina opened her mouth, closed it again. The faint frown creasing her brow made it look as if she couldn’t possibly have heard correctly. “I need to freshen all the rooms. Nothing has been done in here since your parents left last month. I need to vacuum, dust. You’ll want fresh flowers….”

Tess was already shaking her head. “Don’t worry about any of it. You don’t need to use your vacation time to wait on me. Go on with whatever plans you have and just pretend we aren’t even here. And please,” she requested, old anxieties never far from the surface, “don’t mention to anyone that I’ve returned. No one off the property, I mean. You didn’t say anything to anyone at the market, did you?”

“Not a word,” Ina replied, looking puzzled. “Your mother already asked for our discretion about your presence. I passed on her request to Eddy and to Jackson,” she said, speaking of the groundskeeper. Puzzlement shifted to consternation. “But she specifically asked that I be available to you and her grandson….”

“And I’m asking that you forget we’re here.”

The woman clearly didn’t want to upset her employer. Tess didn’t want to cause problems for Ina either, but having staff wait on her in any way was not part of the plan she’d devised for herself to get on with her life. She had gone from being the protected baby of the family to the wife of a man who’d turned out to be a master at control and manipulation. She’d spent years having people take over, take care of and take charge and done next to nothing to stop the slow erosion of her personal freedom.

It had taken years, the past few in particular, but she had finally realized how much independence all that acquiescence had cost her. It was time she learned to take care of herself and her son on her own.

Preparing to do just that, she gamely offered the only reason she could think of that might override her mother’s orders and ease Ina’s mind.

“I just need time alone. Just me and my son. If I do find I need your help, I’ll call you. I’ll explain to my mother if she says anything,” she promised. “All right?”

Ina looked doubtful. “If you’re sure…”

“I’m positive. Really. Enjoy your time off.”

It was hard to tell which had the firmer hold on the maid at that moment—skepticism at leaving her employer’s daughter to fend for herself or gratitude that her vacation wouldn’t be further interrupted. She glanced uncertainly around the kitchen, looking as if she wanted to be positive there wasn’t something else she should do. Apparently she found nothing.

“Well,” she murmured, “it would be nice to finish redoing our son’s room. He joined the Navy when he graduated from high school a couple of months ago, so I’m turning it into a sewing room. With your mother’s permission, of course.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll call if you need anything at all?”

Tess mentally crossed her fingers. “I will.”

“Well, if that’s the case, I guess I’ll go tell Eddy just to leave your luggage in the foyer.” She hesitated. “We can carry it up if you’d like.”

“It’s fine, Ina. Really. Just tell me where I’ll find clean towels for Mr. Parker’s bathroom.”

The clearly baffled maid showed her a large linen closet inside an even larger laundry room, then disappeared through the door that led to the family breakfast room, which led to the formal dining room and into the foyer. As far back as Tess was in the house, it was impossible for her to hear movements or conversation in those areas, but within a minute she saw both Ina and her rangy husband walk beneath the kitchen windows and cross the cobblestones between the house and the garage on their way back to the stables.