“Hmm?”
“Grandfather—”
“Don’t take that tone with me. I taught you that tone, boy,” Grandfather grumbled. “She’s only there helping air out the property and clean the rooms, unless you’d rather tend to those things while you’re there?”
“It hardly needs a deep clean.”
“Of course it does, especially after the chickens got loose in the hall.”
Brock frowned. “Since when did the chickens get loose?”
“New Years’.” Grandfather chuckled. “To be fair, we weren’t actually betting on the cocks, but you know how parties tend to get out of control.”
Hunh?
“Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “She’ll stay mostly out of the way, and I hardly think she’ll be a distraction, all things considered. I mean, you’re practically family!”
Brock froze, gripping the phone with his hand so tightly he was afraid it was going to break in half. “Come again?”
“Family,” Grandfather said in a painfully slow voice. “God knows she could be.”
“What!” Brock seriously hoped this was another of his grandfather’s more senile moments.
Grandfather burst out laughing. “I recognized her last name when I was looking to hire out a cleaning company and did some digging. I knew her grandmother—gorgeous lady, just like her granddaughter. At any rate, she’d been left a widow in her prime and we had several one-night stands. Glorious one-night stands. All before your grandmother, of course, rest her soul.”
“All right then.” Brock tried to stop the flow of information from his grandfather but the old man wouldn’t stop talking.
“The things she could do with that body of hers,” Grandfather sighed longingly. “Such a shame, such a shame.”
“I hope you’re done traumatizing me now.”
Grandfather coughed. “Never.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“The point I’m trying to make is, she shouldn’t be a temptation. I’m sure she’s a pretty girl, but like her grandmother, quite completely out of our league.”
“I think you mean we’re out of her league,” Brock corrected him.
“No.” Grandfather sighed. “I said it correctly. Now, make sure the cock stays in the barn and the ass has enough food and water.”
Brock groaned. “That’s what the ranch hand is for—”
“Oh, I sent him on vacation; didn’t I tell you?”
Brock froze and then wheezed out a choked cough. “What?”
“You need to get used to taking care of the animals. After all, it’s your house, or will be soon. If you can’t manage a few cocks in the henhouse, you truly have no business getting married in the first place, am I right?”
“Please stop saying ‘cock’.”
Grandfather made a weird clicking noise with his tongue, sneezed, then uttered a curse before mumbling. “Cock.”
“Are you day drinking again?” Brock asked.
“Of course not.” Grandfather sounded offended. “Though I may still be drunk from last night. Bentley had another one of his parties and what type of guardian would I be if I didn’t attend and keep my eye on him?”
“The normal kind,” Brock said with an irritated edge. “Don’t tell me I’m going to have to keep your ass out of the newspapers now as well.”
Grandfather laughed out loud. “Silly boy, when have you ever needed to watch out for me?”
Groaning, Brock had a brief vision of slamming his cell phone against the nearest wall and following it with his fist, then his head.
“Now then, make sure to check in on those animals. It would be a shame if they died because you were too busy flirting with Jane. Remember, out of your league.”
With that, the conversation ended. Brock was met with silence as a stab of irritation hit him square in the chest.
“Did he just hang up on me?” Brock stared at his cell then glared at himself in the mirror.
Could it really be a coincidence that his grandfather had just happened to hire Jane and her company? It had to be. There was no damn name on the list when he’d checked. He let out a frustrated sigh.
Regardless. It didn’t matter.
He walked into the living room and nearly groaned aloud when the Grandfather clock chimed nine at night—just another reminder that he was literally his own ticking time bomb. He opened his mouth to say something to Jane—anything that would put them back on even ground rather than the shaky as hell situation that had him ready to ram his fist through a wall.
What he’d expected to find was a woman doing her job.
What he found instead?
A woman on her hands and knees cleaning the very same floor that his mother used to clean. In the exact same position. Only there was nothing familial about Jane.
Raw lust pounded through his system as she moved her hands back and forth over the wood. And then, his gaze lifted to the side table where a few vases and pictures lined the wall.
One of the vases was missing.
There were always three.
Always.
And then he noticed a piece of crystal on the ground. “What happened here?”
Jane’s hands jerked on the rag she was using for the floor. “Sorry, I bumped into the table.”
“Sorry doesn’t bring back the vase,” he heard himself saying.
“I can replace it.” She looked up at him with wide eyes. “It was an accident. I was moving some of the pictures.”