Housekeeper at His Beck and Call. Susan Stephens

some iodine in that drawer over there.’

      ‘Iodine…’ A sharp sting would soon bring him into line.

      She felt Cade’s keen-eyed stare following her across the kitchen. He was lean and wired, his body-hugging top revealing a band of rock-hard belly. She might be determined to keep this on a business footing, but there was no denying Cade Grant was a feast of wicked thoughts rolled into one hot man. ‘This drawer?’ Opening it, she slammed it shut again on several boxes of condoms.

      Now she was flustered. Now a pink stain had appeared on her cheeks. He was enjoying this. ‘Okay, not that drawer, the one next to it.’

      Typical man—he didn’t have a clue where anything was. She found the iodine, closed the drawer and turned round to face him. ‘And the plasters are here.’ She reached for the tin, which he could now see was hidden behind the taps.

      ‘Well, I’ll be…’ He could only be impressed by her swift recovery—though he did wonder at the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath the fine silk slip. ‘So that’s where they got to.’ He acted innocent as she gave him a reprimanding look.

      CHAPTER TWO

      LIV tried to make a start on the CV, but it was impossible to concentrate while a rugged army officer prowled about the kitchen watching her. ‘If you could just sit down, I might be able to concentrate.’

      ‘That’s a very bossy instruction coming from a woman with bare feet dressed in her underwear.’

      Liv’s short-lived confidence drained away. Practical matters she could deal with, but when the spotlight was turned on her sexuality…She rallied determinedly. ‘Do you want me to apply for this job, or not?’ Her gaze was drawn to Cade’s lips…to his scarred, firm, mobile lips. She forced herself to look away. She could not allow him to guess how badly she needed this job, or how insanely she wanted him to kiss her. ‘Just keep still for a minute or two, please.’ She could feel his gaze warming her face as she bent her head back to the task.

      ‘Any more instructions?’

      ‘Not as yet.’

      ‘Perhaps I should bring up your obsession with discipline at your interview.’

      She didn’t dare look up. ‘You should cover everything you think relevant.’

      ‘Don’t worry, I intend to…’

      While her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest, Cade narrowed his steel-grey eyes to stare at her. He had incredible eyes that seemed to reach deep inside her. He was an incredible man. She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d hammered on his door, but it wasn’t this hard man with muscles and a tan, and shoulders wide enough to hoist an ox…a man who smelled so good she had to fight the urge to forget the CV and simply close her eyes and inhale deeply…

      ‘You don’t seem to have made much progress,’ he observed, glancing at the blank sheet in front of her.

      ‘I’m forming the phrases in my head first.’ When I’m not imagining how it would feel to have your stubble rasping against my neck…

      ‘You are going to write something down?’ Cade prompted.

      Pulling herself together, Liv ran through the possibilities in her mind. School results: average. Golf handicap: nonexistent. Cooking skills: A+, thanks to a term at Miss Smythson’s finishing school for young ladies. Hobbies? Reading romance and watching RomCom films. Hardly Cade’s cup of tea, Liv thought with a glance at his impassive face, but, guessing he could do with a little warmth in his life, she wrote them down anyway. She wrote faster when it came to her nursing qualifications; she was really proud of them. Thirty seconds later she handed Cade the completed sheet.

      He couldn’t stop staring at Liv and wondering at the strange tricks fate played. There had been no other applicants, and she was a nurse. Could anything have suited him better? He exchanged an old army sweater for the sheet of paper she handed him, registering huge relief when she slipped it on. The dun colour drained her and it was so big she wore it like a shapeless dress. It went some way to concealing her slender form, but not far enough…even with a mud-streaked face, she looked beautiful.

      ‘Aren’t you going to read it?’

      He refocused on the piece of paper in his hand, registering the important bits like age: 22; marital status: single. ‘Well, that all seems in order,’ he said, handing it back. ‘I take it you can start right away?’

      ‘That’s it?’ Her jaw dropped.

      ‘That’s it,’ he confirmed distractedly. ‘You’re hired.’

      ‘I am?’ She sprang up. ‘You’re sure you’re not joking?’

      ‘I never joke,’ he assured her. ‘We’ll talk money later. All I’m agreeing to for now is a short trial this weekend.’

      ‘Oh…’ Nothing was settled, then. She would just have to make sure she excelled at everything he threw her way.

      ‘It’s going to be a particularly taxing weekend. Do you think you can cope?’

      ‘Yes…’ Her mother had always told her she would amount to nothing, and that she would never survive in the real world. Even when the cottage hospital had closed and she’d lost her job it had somehow been turned around to make it her fault. Something told her that Cade’s world was all too real and the trials he would put her through would be similarly demanding. Was her mother right? Should she have settled for marriage as quickly as possible, and to an undemanding man like Horace? No! ‘Yes,’ she said again, this time with feeling. She brushed off her misgivings. If she didn’t try to make something of herself she’d never know what she was capable of, would she?

      ‘Good. If you survive the weekend we’ll talk money. For now I suggest you get out of those clothes—’

      ‘You do?’ Liv swallowed hard, remembering the condoms in the drawer. This was all moving way too fast.

      ‘I’ll show you to your room.’

      ‘Not yet,’ she said, buying time. ‘I mean, I’d like to clear up in here first.’

      ‘All right…’ He seemed impressed. ‘I suppose there’s no time like the present to make a start…’

      Why was Cade looking at her like that? It was making all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention.

      He rather liked the idea of Liv washing his dishes in a satin slip, rough woolly jumper and bare feet. She was a prim little thing, and shy, but her full lips were a give-away, likewise her darkening eyes too, and as for the tender swell of her breasts—

      ‘Rubber gloves?’

      ‘What?’ That caught him out. ‘Uh, no…sorry.’

      ‘Never mind, I can do without them this once…’ Liv plunged her arms up to the elbows in the washing-up water with relief. She could feel the chemistry between them and didn’t know what to do about it. She had dreamed of something like this all her life, and now it was happening she hadn’t a clue. Could Cade feel it too? She hoped not. She wanted this job, and if he made a move she wouldn’t know what to do, what to say, how to handle him…She could only be a disappointment. Just as her mother said she had to forget the opportunities open to other women and concentrate on the few things she was good at—like washing dishes.

      His face brightened. He had been wrong thinking fate had brought him a nurse; fate had brought him an angel. She was going to transform the suppurating pit he had returned to into a nice clean house. It had been so long since he’d properly smiled, his facial muscles creaked.

      ‘Aren’t you going to help?’ The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. But anything was better than Cade watching her with that narrowed wolf gleam in his eyes. ‘Don’t you have any clean tea towels?’ Maybe that was the reason he was holding back. ‘Look—there’s one here,’