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  “You still want my farmhouse?” Duncan asked.

  She had to think for a second, to clear her head of this moment, and get back to the other. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “Then be at my house in an hour. I have a proposition for you.”

  She hung up the phone, then began wrapping up the chicken.

  One mess at a time.

  Chapter 12

  Duncan paced the front room of the house he had lived in all his life, twice, three times, the wait agonizing.

  Finally, there was a crunch of gravel, the purr of an engine. He sent a glance up the stairs, but Katie had either gone to sleep or back to not talking to him after he told her he’d hired a new caretaker.

  But not before also telling him where he could put his new hire. Katie’s constant watching of HBO had clearly expanded her vocabulary.

  Before Allie reached the door, Duncan opened it and stepped onto the porch. “You came.”

  “You said you had an offer I couldn’t refuse.” She grinned. “That’s the kind I like.”

  Now that the moment had arrived, Duncan hesitated. He hadn’t shared Katie’s situation with anyone outside of Mrs. Loman and the medical team in Indianapolis. Even the visiting nurses, who came whenever Mrs. Loman couldn’t, were brought in from outside the area, at a hefty expense to Duncan, because Katie had demanded her privacy, and Duncan had given it to her.

  He had no other choice. He had to work. Katie needed a caretaker. And that meant he needed Allie.

  “Let’s have a seat.” He gestured toward a white wicker porch set, lowering himself to the loveseat while she took the chair opposite. He clasped his hands together in his lap. He hesitated. Was Allie the right person for the job? What if things went wrong? What if Allie got hurt—or worse, what if Katie did?

  Could Duncan live with that? He looked toward the empty, tomblike house, most of the furniture long ago sold off, the antiques carted off by a dealer. He had little left, except a sister who needed round-the-clock care.

  “You mentioned some kind of deal…?” Allie said, breaking the near oppressive silence that seemed to extend outward from the massive house, draping over the landscaping, causing even the roses that ringed the porch to droop in a listless funk.

  He nodded, cleared his throat. “I’ll sign the paperwork for Chicken Flicks to use the farm, but in exchange, I need help and I need it now, because I have a forecast to deliver in thirty minutes.”

  “Just like that, you’ve changed your mind.” Her gaze narrowed. “What do you need help with?”

  “My sister. She was in a car accident and she’s…” He drew in a breath. The words had never been easy to say. “She’s paralyzed.”

  “Oh, Duncan, I’m so sorry.” Allie reached forward, her hand linking with his. The unexpected comfort surrounded him with warmth and added a dynamic he hadn’t expected—

  A connection.

  He rose, brushing off the touch before it could affect him further. He didn’t have time for a relationship, particularly with a woman who would go back to California soon. Business only, that was his intent.

  Yeah, if that was the case, then what was all that back at Aunt Mae’s farmhouse a few days ago?

  “I need someone who can care for Katie while I’m at work,” Duncan explained, clearing his throat, forcing off the feeling of connection before it invaded his heart, “just until I find another nurse to take over for Mrs. Loman. She was…injured yesterday. I tried a temp today, but that didn’t work out so well. Katie has this thing about, ah, throwing stoneware when she gets upset.” Duncan cringed at the thought of the poor young woman who had left in tears a few minutes ago. Allie, however, didn’t flinch or seem to be upset by that, so he went on. “Visiting nurses will be in and out for Katie’s medical needs, but she really needs someone to…” He paused. “Well, frankly, baby-sit her. Right now, I can’t take any time from work to watch her.”

  “Why not hire a private nurse from the outset?”

  “Katie can be…difficult. The last time Mrs. Loman went on vacation, I had to interview fifteen people before I found one willing to take her on.”

  “Oh, she can’t be that bad,” Allie said, but her smile wavered. “Can she?”

  From inside the house, he heard the sound of his name being called, then cursed in the same breath. “Maybe you better meet her and see. You may change your mind.”

  Allie’s eyebrows arched, but she followed Duncan into the house and up the stairs. Katie’s swearing and listing of Duncan’s worst attributes gained in volume with each step.

  “She’s got quite the vocabulary,” Allie said. “Does she get that from you?”

  “She watches a lot of Wheel of Fortune.”

  Allie laughed. “I had no idea Vanna and Pat had moved into such colorful territory. No wonder their ratings are still high.”

  Duncan paused on the last step and glanced over at Allie, who seemed to be taking the entire thing in perfect stride. Maybe this would work after all. Then he thought of Mrs. Loman, who had loved and known Katie all her life. Even she’d been driven away in the end. “You can always change your mind.”

  “Duncan, I can’t find that goddamned remote!” Katie’s voice echoed off the walls, bounced off the wood floors. “Get in here and change the channel.”

  Duncan hesitated at the first door on the right, his hand on the knob. “She’s a little, ah, demanding.” Understatement—his new skill.

  Rather than turn away, Allie grinned. “Has she ever worked in Hollywood?”

  Duncan chuckled. “No, but she’s working on a resume in diva.”

  Allie smiled, then gestured toward the door. “Trust me, there’s nothing she can throw at me that I haven’t heard already from a leading actress.”

  “Okay.” Duncan pushed open the door while at the same time wanting to close it, to protect his sister from the inevitable questions and stares.

  To protect her from being hurt again. He couldn’t abide the pain in her eyes. Or worse, the knowledge that he had caused it.

  He turned to Allie, to say he’d changed his mind, when Katie’s voice cut in. “Who the hell is she?”

  Damn. As much as he’d hoped otherwise, Katie was drunk. Darla must have been by again this afternoon, while he’d been delivering the noon forecast. There were days when Duncan swore his sister had a Camel backpack of rum stashed between the mattress and the box spring.

  “Katie, don’t—”

  But Allie had already skirted around him and into the bedroom. “Hi, Katie. I’m Allie.”

  Katie crossed her arms over her chest. “You his girlfriend or something?”

  “Yeah, right.” Allie laughed. “You know your brother. Would you be his girlfriend?”

  To Duncan’s complete amazement, a smile curved across Katie’s face. “He’s not exactly boyfriend material, is he?”

  “Doesn’t matter. He’s not my type anyway.” Allie moved closer to the bed. “I’m here to help you and keep you company.”

  “So how’d he talk you into the pity case? Did he tell you all about me?” For proof, she ripped back the blanket, exposing her paralysis.

  Allie paused, her gaze drifting over those legs, taking in the pale sticklike appearance. Duncan’s heart clutched and he took a half step forward to cover Katie up, but Allie put out a hand to stop him.

  “Pity case, huh?” Allie put her hands on her hips. “To me you’re just another wannabe hard-ass with a bad attitude and a hell of a hangover.”

  Duncan sucked in a breath, did a quick scan for breakable dishes. This had been a bad idea. A very bad idea.

  Katie blinked. “You’re not like the others, are you?”

  “No, and I don’t play games, nor do I hold bourbon parties. So if this is going to work, you’re going to have to stay sober.”

  “Go to hell. I’ll stay sober when you live five friggin’ years in my bed.” Katie turned away, her gaze going to the wall, shutting down, blocking them out.

  This was w
hen most sane people left, before the stoneware hit the fan. But Allie remained. In fact, she took another step forward. “I already did, except mine was more like eighteen years.”

  “Bullshit. You’re not paralyzed.”

  “You don’t have to be paralyzed to lock yourself in a prison, Katie.” Allie’s voice spoke of a shared world. Duncan glanced at her, but couldn’t imagine this beautiful woman ever battling self-imprisonment.

  Katie’s head swiveled back toward Allie. She stared at her, openmouthed, for several long seconds.

  Duncan suspected his sister was gearing up for a long diatribe and raised his hand, hoping to head her off at the pass. “Katie, I don’t think this is going to—”

  “Where are you from?” Katie asked, as normal as apple pie, ignoring her brother.

  “Los Angeles.”

  “L.A.?” Katie’s eyes widened. “I always wanted to go there. Blow this lousy ass town and be something.” Wistfulness, sliced with anger, washed over her features. “But shit happened.”

  “Trust me, L.A.’s not all that different from Tempest. There’s as much cat crap there as you find here. At least in Tempest the cats use a litter box.”

  Katie laughed. Duncan rocked back on his heels, stunned by the sound. The smile on his little sister’s face. “You can get out now.” Katie waved at her brother. “She’ll do.”

  Still, Duncan hesitated. Allie barely knew Katie. Not to mention, Allie wasn’t wearing body armor or a helmet to deflect stoneware tantrums. But his sister had already gone back to talking to Allie, the conversation sounding so normal, that for a few minutes, Duncan could believe he had the old Katie back.

  Before he walked out the door, Duncan looked back at Allie, at this stranger who had dropped into his life. He heard Katie giggle and wondered if maybe there was a possibility of happiness for all of them.

  Or if he was imagining a future that didn’t exist.

  After several hours of talking and watching a movie, Katie had fallen asleep, leaving Allie free to wander the faded, empty grandeur of Duncan’s house. And marvel at the irony of it all, of how her world had been turned inside out. Duncan’s house, now empty of the wealth it had had years ago. Katie, the belle of the ball, confined to bed, while Allie, the former reclusive wallflower, was now the one getting second looks from men and enjoying her days in the sun.

  At first, she’d been worried she’d have nothing to talk about with the defiant, argumentative Katie, but she’d soon found she shared a common denominator with the girl who had once been social and was now restricted by her body, just as Allie had been.

  The difference was that Allie had the tools to change her situation, while Katie’s paralysis was permanent. She’d asked Katie about the possibilities of rehab or an operation, and Katie’s eyes had welled up. After that, the young girl had been snappish until Allie suggested a good comedy, complete with air-popped popcorn, to change the mood. Allie hadn’t brought up the topic again and after Julia Roberts had rescued Richard Gere on the fire escape, Katie’s eyes closed.

  Allie had popped out the DVD of Pretty Woman, wondering at the irony of them watching a movie about the transformation of a woman’s looks, when most of the people around her still saw her as the streetwalker. Everyone except the hero in the end. Allie shook off the thoughts then switched the channel, and landed on the local Tempest station. Duncan Henry appeared on the screen, even more handsome, if that were possible, on-screen.

  She didn’t hear the predicted temperature. Couldn’t have cared less if a blizzard was on its way into town. All she saw was him.

  And the fantasies conjured up by his smile. Not to mention that little laser pointer in his hands.

  A small anniversary clock on a hall table chimed once for six-thirty. Duncan’s house seemed barely lived in, as if nothing had changed since the days when John Henry and his wife Matilda had lived in the spacious mausoleum he’d built her after they’d married.

  Built in the Victorian Italianate style, it was an ice-cream sundae of yellow columns and peach balustraded balconies. Hooded moldings hung heavy dark peach eyebrows over the tall double-paned windows.

  The house was large, especially by Tempest standards, but empty of the grandeur John Henry had boasted of around town. The rare paintings were gone, leaving only lighter spots on the wall where they had once hung. The furniture—ordered from Italy, she’d heard—had clearly been pared down to the minimum, and she saw none of the crystal and antiques the Tempest gossip mill had mentioned existing in Henry’s possession.

  “If you’re looking for the silver, there isn’t any,” Duncan said from behind her.

  She pivoted, to find him grinning at her. He wore the dark blue suit he’d had on earlier, still neat and pressed as it had been on TV, only he’d loosened the maroon tie and undone the top button of his blue shirt. He looked tired—and incredibly sexy. The distance imposed by the television screen was gone. He stood before her, touchable and real. The space she’d meant to impose—the emotional space she’d vowed to keep since she’d arrived in Tempest—disappeared. “Hi.”

  “Hi yourself. How’d it go today?”

  “Great. Katie talked my ear off, then we watched a chick flick, and she fell asleep about an hour ago.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “Not so much as a Dixie cup flying at my head.”

  Relief flooded Duncan’s features. “Good. I half expected to come home and find a chalk outline of your body on the hall floor.”

  Allie laughed. “I made sure we ate off paper plates, just in case.”

  “Smart woman.”

  “Thanks.” The intensity of his gaze proved too much and Allie dropped her attention to the threadbare armchair in the corner. “Katie’s really had it rough, hasn’t she? I mean with all she’s gone through since the accident, that explains why she’s so…”

  “Complicated,” Duncan replied. “To put a nice spin on it.”

  “Beneath it all, though, she’s a nice girl.” Allie remembered the Katie who’d been a few years behind her in high school. She hadn’t known Duncan’s sister very well then, but today she’d found a vibrant young woman lurking under the bitterness, pain—and alcohol.

  “She used to be so different than she is now.” He sighed. “The accident changed her.”

  “And you,” Allie said quietly, knowing now what had put that tension in his shoulders. Why Earl Hickey had been so protective of Duncan.

  Could it be that her perception of Duncan was wrong? Could he have changed?

  Or could she just be wishing for a change? A big happy ending that she could take with her back to Hollywood? Hadn’t she already learned all happy endings were manufactured?

  He shrugged. “She’s my sister. Of course I had to take care of her.”

  Allie looked at Duncan Henry and realized her plan of loving and leaving him wasn’t going to go off without a hitch. Because she’d started to care. And that was dangerous. The first rule in her business—never, ever involve your heart. Get into bed with the actor, the producer, the screenwriter. But never fall in love with any of them.

  “We’ve all had a long day. I should go. Let you…get some sleep.” She moved toward the door.

  Duncan caught her hand. Warmth skated up her veins. “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do much, really. Just—”

  “You made her laugh today.” His voice cracked a little on the last word. “And I haven’t heard her laugh in…well, in a long time.”

  Duncan’s blue eyes captured hers. He reached up a hand to cup her jaw, the wide, solid strength of his palm so tender against her cheek. So tempting.

  Too tempting.

  “I should go.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Or, I could stay…” She raised a shoulder, let it drop, along with an implication.

  What was she doing? She needed to leave, to get away from his touch, his eyes. And most of all the thought that he wasn’t the man he used to be. The one who
’d fooled her into falling in love, then shattered her heart as easily as a fastball pitched into a plate glass window.

  “If I what?”

  “If you needed me…for anything else. Anything at all.”

  “I can muddle along from here. I’m not the best nursemaid, but Katie survives.” He gave her a smile, but it was one filled with exhaustion, from years of carrying a burden she’d barely tasted today. Sympathy ran through her.

  “Katie’s sleeping right now. Why don’t we walk the gardens? That way, you can hear her if she calls you. And you get some time out of the house.” Allie reached for Duncan’s hand before she could think twice, and went outside with him.

  Love him, leave him. Break his heart, just as he did yours.

  The words sounded, distant and soft, in the back of her head. She pushed them aside. Maybe it was the super-sugary chick flick.

  Whatever it was, something she refused to name had softened her stance toward Duncan Henry. At least long enough to get him to enjoy a sunset. As she twisted to the side to circumvent an overgrown vine, the papers in her jeans back pocket rustled.

  The agreement. His signature. That’s what she needed. Not him.

  Yeah, right, her body said, painting her a liar as surely as the setting sun painted the quiet, enclosed yard in hues of orange and red. The lingering warm rays settled on her shoulders, and Allie hesitated to grab the papers. For a moment, she’d enjoy the end of the day. This moment.

  She walked with him in silence, the comfortable quiet of two people who had known each other for years. Except she was the only one who knew that.

  Then her cell rang, playing the distinctive ringtone of “Take This Job and Shove It.”

  Jerry. Damn.

  “I’m sorry, Duncan, I have to get this.” She flipped open the phone and stepped to the side. “Hello?”

  “Unless you want to find yourself in the unemployment line with your ass getting groped by a newly paroled sex offender, get me my goddamned contract so I can film my movie.”