Booties And The Beast. Valerie Parv

each other but they had completely different ways of managing their lives.

      Haley knew she took after her real father, who was the organized one in the family. Ellen had teased Haley about being able to put her hand on whatever she needed, while Ellen had inherited Greg’s talent for creating disorder. Haley had tried to help her sister get organized, but it had never worked for long. “Let’s face it, I take after my Dad and you take after yours,” Ellen had conceded, throwing up her hands.

      Haley had to agree. She’d seen little of her father while she was growing up but she had seen enough to know how finicky he was. In her teens, she had attempted to get to know him, but even she found his fussiness daunting. Arriving so much as five minutes late earned her his disapproval. She could only imagine his reaction if she had, say, spilled her food or used the wrong cutlery. She had been careful to do neither, but it hadn’t exactly made for relaxing parent-child interactions.

      To be fair, her father had tried to live up to her expectations, but their meetings always felt stilted and uncomfortable. It hurt to think her father knew more about Bess Tudor than Haley Glen and that he wasn’t going to change. It seemed their orderliness was about all they had in common.

      After one such outing, he had said, “I’m truly sorry I can’t give you what you want, or know what to say to you. I don’t know the first thing about being a good father. You’re better off without me.”

      She had cried for two days afterward, then decided to accept the situation and get on with her life. She was proud of what she’d achieved, putting a down-payment on a her own apartment and setting herself up as her own boss. But it didn’t stop the black moments, when she wondered what it was about her that her father had found so difficult to love, from coming. She wanted better for Joel, she thought fiercely. He wasn’t going to have the same black moments in his life if she could do something about it. Even if it meant taking Sam’s assignment herself.

      She had seen enough of him already to be fairly sure that his mind wasn’t easily changed once he had made it up. It sounded as if he wasn’t about to budge about having her as his house sitter. Since she couldn’t do much about it without letting Miranda down, she decided she might as well make the most of the chance to fulfill her mission. But first she needed to be sure that he wouldn’t consider any other option.

      “Can we at least go through the formalities?” she asked.

      He looked pleased with himself. “Go ahead, as long as the name at the foot of that impressive checklist turns out to be yours.”

      She started to ask questions and tick boxes, uncomfortably aware that she was as interested in him as much for herself as for her baby.

      When she closed the file, he grinned at her and she crumbled inside. It was easier to remember him as The Beast when he scowled at her. Then she didn’t have this strange sensation of being swept out of her depth by a king tide.

      “I was right, wasn’t I?” he asked.

      Her confusion was genuine. “About what?”

      “After filling in all those little boxes, you’re still perfect for the job.”

      “How can you possibly know? You know nothing about me.” And he wouldn’t, if she had anything to do with it. Her blood ran cold at the prospect of him linking her with Ellen and treating her—and her sister’s baby—as cruelly.

      “I don’t need to know any more. By the time you move in, I’ll be heading off on the tour. So we’ll only be together long enough for me to brief you on what needs doing, then you’ll have the place to yourself.”

      She could swear he sounded disappointed, but told herself the strain of the meeting was making her imagine things. “You don’t have a problem with a baby staying in your house.”

      His expression darkened. “My sister, Jessie, has two small children so the house is equipped for a baby. And in my line of work, I’m unlikely to have a problem with children.”

      Only with Joel, she thought, quelling her reaction. “I could refuse to take the assignment.”

      “But you won’t.”

      She met his penetrating blue gaze with an equally direct one of her own. “What makes you so sure?”

      “Because you don’t want to lose Miranda one of her best clients.”

      With sinking heart, Haley knew that he had won.

      Chapter Two

      As she drove between the gates to Sam’s house, a curious feeling of homecoming overcame Haley. She told herself it was because this was her second visit, but knew it had more to do with the suitcases packed around the baby seat. They made her feel as if she was staying longer than the couple of weeks Sam required.

      This time she didn’t get out of the car right away, but waited until Sam emerged and spoke to Dougal, although the dog was wagging its tail furiously, rather than barking a warning.

      “Good morning,” she said, annoyed at the heat she felt surge into her face at the sight of Sam. Dressed in dark blue pants and a white summer-weight sweater, he looked less like The Beast of her sister’s experience and more like the kind of man Haley herself could be attracted to if she was crazy enough to let it happen.

      He looked as uncomfortable as she felt. Maybe he just didn’t like babies, she thought as she unstrapped Joel from his baby seat. If so, he should have thought about that before getting Ellen pregnant.

      “You’re late,” he said.

      Haley frowned at him, stung by his tone. “I understood from Miranda that you don’t have to leave until this afternoon, so there’s plenty of time for you to brief me.” She was late because Joel had burbled strained turkey all over her best blouse, forcing her to change into a T-shirt before she could set off, but she didn’t say so. She felt unprofessional enough, arriving for a job with a baby and a mountain of possessions in tow, most of them to do with Joel’s care. “If you’ll show me my room, I’ll settle the baby down for a nap, then you can give me my instructions.”

      He bounded down the front steps and picked up her largest suitcase as if it weighed nothing at all, then loaded his other arm with an assortment of possessions. His eyebrows rose. “What do you pack when you’re going away for a month?”

      “Babies need a lot of things.”

      His smile vanished as if a lightbulb had been switched off. “I wouldn’t know,” he said shortly, and started back up the steps.

      She stared after his rigid back in consternation. What had she said? He couldn’t be upset because she’d arrived with the baby. He’d known from the beginning that they were a package, but he obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with Joel. He hadn’t even acknowledged the baby’s presence, she thought furiously. “He is a person, you know,” she snapped.

      Sam froze on the top step, regarding her with an expression like thunder. “Excuse me?”

      It was too late to close her fool mouth now, so she said, “Sam, this is Joel. Joel, this is Sam. Say hello to Joel, Sam.”

      He looked as if he would rather strip naked on the step, an image that startled her because of the vivid way it sprang into her mind. Not somewhere she had any business going, she told herself as he said through clenched teeth, “Hello, Joel.”

      “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

      Harder than she knew, Sam thought. Everything in him protested at the sight of the baby waving chubby arms at him, a living reminder of Sam’s own inadequacy. When he’d hired Haley, he’d been sure he could cope with her child living under his roof. He hadn’t expected the baby’s arrival to trigger a rush of paternal longing so strong it was like a physical pain.

      Suddenly Haley thrust the child at him. “Now you’ve been introduced, would you mind holding Joel while I fetch his favorite