Not Quite Married by Christine Rimmer

would show up at ten in the morning and then bustle around the kitchen.
    So she tiptoed out into the hallway and around the corner into the great room—and found a tall, slim middle-aged woman taking the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them away.
    The woman spotted her and beamed. “Ah. There you are, Ms. Bravo.” She frowned. “Did I wake you? I peeked in on you when I got here, and you were sleeping so peacefully...”
    Clara smoothed a sleep-tangled hank of hair out of her eyes. “Uh, I don’t know what woke me, really. But it’s fine. And you are...?”
    “Mrs. Scruggs, your new housekeeper.” The woman lifted a stack of plates from the dishwasher and set them on the counter. “I’m also quite good with children, so I told Mr. Ames I would be happy to step in as your new baby’s nanny when needed.”
    Clara grumbled, “Mr. Ames, huh?”
    Another beaming smile. “I came in Thursday afternoon to interview. And he called me Friday to say I’d been hired. I clean and I cook. I’ll be in five times a week. Full day on Monday. Afternoons on Tuesday through Friday. Those days, I’ll just be cooking.”
    Dalton . Of course. The man had a pair on him for sure.
    “Er...anything wrong, Ms. Bravo?”
    “Not a thing. Call me Clara—and I have a question.”
    “Of course, Clara.”
    “Last Thursday, when Dalton interviewed you, did you come here to the house?”
    “Yes. Yes, I did. Around two? I believe you might have been napping then, as well. Now that you’re awake, how about if I put some fresh sheets on your bed, tidy your room and get the vacuuming out of the way?”
    What could she say? The dust bunnies were piling up. No reason to jump all over Mrs. Scruggs, who was only doing what she’d been hired to do. It was Dalton she needed to have a little talk with. “Yes, of course. Carry on.”
    And Mrs. Scruggs did carry on. She vacuumed, made beds, dusted, did laundry and roasted a lovely leg of lamb with new potatoes and glazed carrots. She also whipped up a fresh and tasty-looking asparagus salad and a burnt-almond torte for dessert. Then she bustled on out the door at a little after four with a promise to return the next afternoon to make dinner again.
    Dalton got home at a quarter of six. Clara met him in the front hall. He wore one of his perfectly tailored, impossibly expensive suits and he carried a Lederer alligator briefcase that cost as much as a Subaru. In fact, he looked so handsome and pulled-together she wanted to sidle up nice and close, breathe in the scent of his aftershave—and kiss him hello.
    But of course, she did no such thing. Especially not right now, when she was seriously pissed off at him.
    He smiled at her. “Clara.” And then he sucked in a long breath through his nose. “It smells great in here.”
    “That would be the leg of lamb cooked by the housekeeper you hired on Friday.”
    “The impressive Mrs. Scruggs.”
    “The one and only.”
    “How’s she working out?”
    “She’s fabulous. But Mrs. Scruggs is not the issue.”
    Twin lines formed between his dark eyebrows. “There’s an issue?”
    “Dalton, you do not get to hire someone to take care of my house and to cook my meals—and apparently to play nanny to my baby when the time comes—without even mentioning it to me.”
    “Clara...” He said it in a chiding way. It was very attractive, the way he said it. It was fond and also a little bit intimate.
    And that pissed her off even more. “I had no idea she was coming. I woke up from a nap and found her putting the dishes away.”
    “She’s a housekeeper. She’s supposed to put the dishes away.”
    “You hired her without even consulting me. And then you didn’t bother to tell me she was coming.”
    “Even excellent takeout gets old. I’m tired of it. And I’m more than happy to pay someone to do the housework I don’t want to do—and you’re not supposed to do.”
    “Maybe I would be happy about hiring someone, too, if you’d