Lynsay Sands: One Lucky Vampire

“Right,” Nicole murmured, but thought she was still doing at least her whites herself. Most of her panties and bras were plain white cotton now. Pretty boring, she supposed, but then she’d dumped all the lacy naughties when she’d left Rodolfo. Sex was how he’d caught her—great sex, sweet words, and empty promises spoken in a sexy accent. She kind of had a thing against all that stuff now. The next man she hooked up with, if she ever bothered again, would be a nice, normal, down-to-earth Canadian boy. No accent, no exotic locales to aid in his romancing of her, no sexy negligees and no crazy monkey sex that blew her head off and left her a brainless twit and easy target.

Nicole emphasized that silent point by closing the washing machine door with a flourish. Unfortunately, thanks to that flourish, her elbow hit several of the dishes on the dryer next to the washer and sent them flying off onto the floor in a clattering crash of broken glass.

“Crap,” she muttered, as Pierina began squawking in her ear.

“What was that? Are you okay? What happened?”

“I’m fine,” she assured her on a sigh and then added dryly, “My glassware . . . not so much. I knocked two bowls and three glasses onto the floor. They shattered.”

“Oh, sweetie. See! If you’d left it for the housekeeper this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, but thought it also wouldn’t have happened if she’d dropped them off in the kitchen before coming in here, or if the phone hadn’t rung, or if she’d taken more care. Basically, if she’d used her head. The last point came shooting out of her mind, not in her voice, but a deep one with an Italian accent. Nice, she thought. A year of counseling and Rodolfo’s criticisms were still in her head.

Grinding her teeth, Nicole grabbed the garbage can beside the dryer, knelt in front of the mess, put the phone on speaker and set it on the floor to free her hands to clean up the mess.

“So, to what do I owe this call?” Nicole asked as she began carefully picking up the larger pieces of glass.

“I was just thinking of you . . . and Mom mentioned Marguerite went up there to sort through pictures of Christian and Carolyn to decide which one to use for the portrait and was staying overnight, so I thought I’d see how that is going.

Nicole smiled faintly. “It’s good. We picked a picture and I did a rough sketch,” she said, and then added, “Marguerite’s still trying to convince me I don’t need to stick to the timeline and do Christian and Carolyn right away, but I’d rather get it done and off my list of jobs to do.”

“She knows how busy you are, hon. She’s trying to ease your burden a little,” Pierina said gently.

“Yeah, but working keeps me from thinking too much and that’s a good thing right now. So I don’t mind the crazy schedule I have at the moment. However,” she added quickly as she sensed Pierina winding up for a lecture, “I am refusing a lot of future jobs so that I can get back to a more manageable schedule next year. I figure by then the divorce will be done, I should be over the worst of it, and socializing might come back into view as something I should do at least with female friends.”

“You should move back this way,” Pierina said solemnly. “I miss you and I could be dragging you out to movies and—”

“I might in the future, Pierina,” Nicole interrupted quietly. “But I need at least a year to get my head straight before I make any big decisions.”

“I understand,” Pierina said reluctantly.

“Besides, we should take advantage of my living here,” Nicole suggested. “You could come visit and we can . . .” She grimaced, unsure what they could do. She didn’t have a clue what there was to do in Ottawa. Her life had been pretty sheltered during her marriage. She’d worked and that was about it. “Well, I know there’s skating on the river in the winter,” she said finally, and then rushed on, “But we could do girls’ weekends. We could even have our mothers up for one. And invite Marguerite too, she’s really a sweetie.”

“Yeah, she is,” Pierina agreed. “I always liked Marguerite. She was always so nice to us when we were growing up and Mom brought us to her place.”

“She still is,” Nicole assured her. Finished with the larger pieces of glass, she started carefully on the smaller ones that she thought were still too big for the vacuum. “Marguerite was going to stay at a hotel tonight, but I said that was silly and she should stay here, and then I apologized for the mess and muttered that I need a cook/housekeeper, and— voila! —Marguerite was on the job, saying she thought she knew the perfect person, but would have to see if he was available on such short notice.”

“But he was, right?” Pierina asked.

“Yeah. She called half an hour ago and said she’d met with him, and his previous job ended today and he could start right away. He’s agreed to a two-week trial.”

“His previous job ended today?” Pierina asked with a laugh. “That makes it sound like he does short-term gigs here and there. I thought housekeepers were long term. Mom’s worked for Marguerite for . . . like . . . ever.”

“Yeah, I kind of wondered about that too,” Nicole admitted and said, “But I trust Marguerite. Maybe his last client died of old age or something and he’s been doing temp work while he waits to find a good situation. I don’t know. I’m sure Marguerite will explain.”

“Or I could.”

Nicole blinked at that deep voice and then glanced sharply over her shoulder, eyes widening as she stared at the man standing behind her. He was gorgeous, with sandy brown hair cut short, a well-trimmed and short beard and mustache, and the most amazing eyes. Perhaps it was just the lighting in the room and the angle she was seeing them from, but from where she knelt, his eyes were a beautiful teal color shot through with silver. Beautiful. He was also muscular and extremely tall . . . although the tall part might just be because he was standing and she was kneeling on the floor. It—

Dear God, she’d had her rump in the air a minute ago as she’d leaned down to pick up the glass, Nicole realized with dismay, and that had been his first view of her.

“Nicki? Who was that? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

Nicole’s gaze dropped to the phone at Pierina’s concerned squawks. It was only then that she realized she had no idea who the man was . . . or what he was doing in her home. Before she could panic, the man turned his head and called out, “I’ve found her, Marguerite. We’re in the walk-in closet.”

Nicole relaxed and answered Pierina with, “Uh, I think he might be the cook/housekeeper.”

“He doesn’t sound old,” Pierina said, interest in her voice.

“No, he’s not,” Nicole agreed, staring up at the man’s profile as he waited for Marguerite to respond or show up.

“He sounds hunky,” Pierina added.

“He is,” Nicole admitted and then realized what she’d said and flushed when he turned sharply to peer at her, eyebrows raised.

“Thanks,” he drawled with a slow grin and offered her his hand.

Nicole just blushed harder, but she accepted the offered hand and got to her feet, avoiding his eyes as she muttered an embarrassed, “Thank you.”

“Ohhhh,” Pierina chortled. “Leave it to Marguerite to find you a cook/housekeeper who’s eye candy too,” Her voice, squawking up from the floor, reminded Nicole that she’d left the phone there.

“Sorry,” Nicole said to the man on her friend’s behalf and quickly bent to snatch up the phone. Taking it off speakerphone, she chastised, “That’s sexual harassment, Pierina. The man isn’t eye candy, he’s—” She paused as her gaze slid back to him, and then Nicole turned and moved quickly to the opposite end of the seventeen-foot-long walk-in closet and whispered, “Okay, he’s eye candy, but you don’t say stuff like that so he can hear.”