Hired by Her Husband by Anne McAllister Page A

convince her thatshe was absolutely doing the right thing by going along—provided he didn’t see sense and stay home in the meantime.
    “I’ll make some breakfast,” she said. “Gunnar’s been out once. Shall I walk him?”
    “If you want. I usually take him to the park in the morning,” George told her. “Dogs are allowed off-leash in Central Park until nine. But it’s okay if he misses a day or two. You can take him this evening…”
    At least he didn’t entertain the notion that he was going to be able to do that.
    “Come on, then,” Sophy said to Gunnar. “We’ll take a quick run now. Then we’ll fix breakfast. Maybe your master will have seen sense by the time we get back.” Gunnar began to bounce eagerly, obviously understanding every word she said.
    George snorted and went back to shaving.
    But Sophy had seen how heavily he was leaning against the sink, and she knew he was bullheaded enough to fall over before he would sit down and rest while she was standing there.
    “Men are idiots,” she said to Gunnar as they went down the stairs together.
    The dog didn’t disagree.
    They went for a fifteen-minute run. When they got back, she fixed scrambled eggs and toast and put out cereal as well, not sure what George would want, just using what he had in the refrigerator.
    She’d been back nearly half an hour and had the table set in the dining room by the time George came downstairs As she worked, she told herself it was just like the early days of Rent-a-Wife when she didn’t just do the administration but actually went out into houses and performed wifely duties as required.
    Though most of her meal preparation had been dinners, more than a few times she’d been called into a house with anew baby where she’d been in charge of taking care of getting breakfast ready and the older kids off to school.
    “It’s just like that,” she told Gunnar, feeling calm and professional.
    But the minute George appeared in the doorway to the dining room things weren’t businesslike and impersonal anymore.
    And seeing him now, leaning heavily on his crutches, his smooth-shaven jaw nicked here and there with tiny razor cuts, his dark brows drawn down, the normally healthy-looking color in his cheeks now pale and strained, Sophy felt a desperate urge to run to him, to touch him, to fuss over him.
    Good thing she would have had to leap the kitchen bar between them to do anything so foolish.
    Clutching the edge of the countertop to anchor herself right where she stood, Sophy pasted a smile on her face. “Ah, you made it. Good. Breakfast is ready.” She gestured toward the table where she’d set a place for him.
    She imagined he usually ate at the bar separating the modern kitchen from the rather more formal dining area. But she didn’t want him looming over her from the bar while she was working in the kitchen.
    “I don’t eat there,” he said brusquely.
    “You do today.”
    He shook his head. “No. It’s much easier to get up and down from a bar stool than a chair at a table.”
    Sophy scowled, studied the situation, then sighed, annoyed that he was right. So she moved his place setting to the bar and relaid it all out for him. “All right now?” she said shortly.
    “Yes, thanks.” And damned if he didn’t give her a smile.
    George was not normally a smiler. He was far too serious, too intense. His usual expression was grave and made it hard to imagine a lighter-hearted, swoon-worthy George.
    So when he did smile, it was very nearly heart-stopping. At least it always had been to Sophy.
    She remembered how serious he had been when the nurse had first placed tiny minutes-old Lily in his arms. He’d looked somewhere between wooden and terrified. But then Lily had looked up at him—had tried to focus her eyes on him—and instinctively her tiny fingers had wrapped around one of his. And George had smiled such a smile!
    No! Sophy spun away from the memory and jerked open the refrigerator door.
    “Do you