Page 21 of Her Summer Hope
Especially not someone with a phone voice that turned her legs to jelly.
But it was still nice and confidence-boosting to know that she was attractive in some way to the opposite sex and that she wasn’t going into the dreaded downhill spiral just yet.
She’d been a mother so long that sometimes she forgot she was a woman too. It got buried beneath the diaper changes, the meals, the homeschooling, the working, and the worrying.
Kyle’s voice just kind of brought it all back for her…which was stupid, because everyone knew the jokes about the radio host with the large voice and vice versa.
He was probably the exact opposite of how she imagined him to be.
“What time are you supposed to be there?”
“Four-thirty to tour the kitchen and start the meal. He said that if everything went well tonight, they’d hire me.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?! Let’s go find you something to wear, and I’ll dig out my mother’s bread pudding recipe for good measure. It’s easy, fast, and everybody loves it.”
Madison let herself be dragged along by the spry old woman. She just hoped she wouldn’t regret it.
“You had better try to pump some too, just in case you’re gone longer than expected. You know how much Emmie-bug loves her milk. Look at those thighs, aren’t they precious?!” Helen said, pausing every now and then to make faces at the baby and play peekaboo.
“She’s a tub of butter,” Jackson hollered. “That’s what James said earlier.”
“A cute one, Jack. I said a cute one, dummy!” James interrupted.
∞∞∞
At four-thirty on the dot, she parked Helen’s old Lincoln Town Car in the newly-paved circular drive of the luxury cabin that was only a few miles from her own house. The place was huge and no expense had been spared.
She felt more like a fraud than ever.
She pulled her purse into her lap and got out, smoothing the black leggings and the long blouse she’d paired with it. It was professional enough to work in, but not formal. It was a little small still, and the buttons across her chest would strain if she ever decided to breathe again.
She was just going to have to wait to breathe until she got home.
Her brown hair was braided neatly down her back, something she usually didn’t do and it felt weird. It seemed appropriate to contain it if she was going to be cooking meals for other people.
It left her face unusually exposed to scrutiny.
Which was why she’d added a touch of makeup, though she’d drawn the line at Helen’s suggestion of a bold red lipstick.
The door opened as she was lifting her hand to knock, and suddenly her vision was filled with a desperately handsome man who gave her a blazingly white, panty-melting grin.
He scanned her up and down and she felt more naked and exposed than ever, though she detected no real sleaziness in his gaze. It felt a little contrived to her, but she couldn’t help but be disappointed that Kyle was obviously into eyeballing strange women.
With that voice, she should have known.
“Kyle? I’m Madison,” she said, sticking out her hand.
The man raised an eyebrow and took it, holding it far longer than was appropriate for a potential boss. She jerked it out of his grasp and considered making a run for it when another voice broke the uncomfortable mood.
“Evans, go help Murdock,” the newcomer ordered harshly, glaring at him.
She watched the man called Evans—not Kyle, thank God!—as he sauntered away.
“Sorry about him. We tried to housebreak him, but he’s a hopeless case,” the familiar, but somehow more intense voice rumbled from the doorway.
The man came out of the shadowy hall beyond the large room and the only thing she could think was that if any man would match the perfect voice on the phone, then it would be this one.
He was a dream of hard planes and angles, of a shadowed strong jaw, and gentle eyes that saw everything. His scent wafted toward her as he prowled closer—surely he was doing that on purpose!—and offered her his hand.