What on earth was this woman thinking? Stephanie wasn’t equipped to work on that house. She was a high school girl, not acontractor!
She wasa high school girl, not some cheaplaborer.
“Fine.Ms. Nakano,” Stephanie said flatly. “And what do you mean bysupposedly?”
“It sounds very informal to me,” he said, backing off a little in the face of her expression. His daily goal was: no tears and no shouting… “And vague. That’s not really a good way to start a businessrelationship.”
“She’s going to pay me ten dollars an hour, and I’ll be working from three to four thirty Monday through Thursday. Fridays I don’t work because of pom, and then I work noon till four on Saturday. How is thatvague?”
That actually sounded pretty reasonable. But Declan was the father here, and though the last thing he wanted was a confrontation with his daughter—no way, no how—he still had a responsibility he was taking seriously. “We’llsee.”
“We’ll see? What does that mean?” Hands on the hips again. Now her eyes were flashing withfire.
“It means I need more information. Now, what sort of homework do you have tonight? And don’t you have pom practice tonightanyway?”
Pom. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that his daughter was a cheerleader—but, as he’d learned the hard way, shewasn’ta cheerleader, even though she wore a uniform that looked like that of a cheerleader, and had pompoms like a cheerleader, and stood on the sidelines at the football games and shouted and danced and did all the things cheerleadersdid…
What the hell was she if she wasn’t a cheerleader? Apparently there was some difference between cheerleaders and pom, though he sure as hell couldn’t figure it out. All Declan wanted was to be certain she wasn’t one ofthosecheerleaders who slept with half the football team like they’d done back when he was in highschool.
He happened to know about that from personalexperience.
“Yes, I have pom. That’s why I was getting something to eat. But now I have to go.” She looked darkly at the half-made sandwich in front of her, and Declan submerged a rush of guilt. He had taken herfood.
“Uh,” he said. “How about anapple?”
“It’s fine.” She spun and yanked open the pantry, rummaging around in there as he pulled the bread toward him and finished swiping peanut butter over it forher.
“Here. Can you eat it on the way? Am I driving you or issomeone—”
“Brooklyn’s picking me up. I told you that yesterday,” she said, emerging with one of those really expensive granola bars in her hand and another in her mouth. They were hardly bigger than two of his fingers and cost more than two dollars each. And with only five or so in a box, he winced every time he saw her down two or three in a row. Apples and bananas, peanut butter and jelly, were a lot less expensive. And people said teenaged boys would cost an arm and a leg to feedthem…
“Here,” he said, offering her thesandwich.
“I’m fine. I’ve got these.” She showed him two more granola bars and he sighedinwardly.
“All right. Well, we can talk more about this later,” he said as she snagged up her backpack, water bottle, and six dollars’ worth of dark chocolate and dried cherry granola bars—which was hardly a nutritious meal for a growinggirl.
“Whatever.” The door banged behind her, leaving Declan holding thesandwich.
He sighed, then took a bite as he headed to the bathroom to shower. He figured he better put himself to rights before he went to have a chat with Leslie Nakano, celebrityCEO.
Four
Every time Lesliewalked by the dismantled stair rail in the foyer, she was drawn to it. There was something about that slender, gaping channel that ran halfway up the side of the stairs that called to her. It needed to be cleaned up—all that insulation and dust lingering in that hole were releasing God knew what into the air; not to mention critters using it for nesting. Besides, she wanted to know what that mold or discoloration was fromanyway.
Not that she didn’t have a million other things to do—but thank goodness she’d found someone to help out with some of them. Stephanie Lillard had been eager, smart, and willing to jump in and help, and though Leslie had originally thought she might want to hire someone a little older, Stephanie had come highly recommended and Leslie decided to give her ashot.
It was into the evening before Leslie decided to tackle the project of the insides of the stair railing base. Between meetings all morning with contractors, then one with her bank, the late afternoon tea at Orbra’s, and an extended appointment with an interior designer to work on new window treatments for the entire house (Leslie didn’t even want to think aboutthatbill), she’d hardly had a moment to spare, and she’d hardly beenhome.
“It’s really not that important,” she told herself as she donned heavy gloves and located the broom and vacuum cleaner. Declan Zyler was just going to put the railing back the way it was; who cared if there was dust or debris insideit?
But something compelled her to poke around in the long, narrowhole.
“There could be rodents nesting in there,” she muttered to herself, and shined a flashlight down into the depths. The sun had nearly set, and the light in the front hall wasn’t as bright as it would eventually be, because two of the sconces had to berewired.
“I wish I could figure out what that rusty discoloration is.” Oh, damn—she needed to get a mold expert out here to check it out to make sure it wasn’t something she had to treat. “I knew I was forgetting something.” She made another mental note to call tomorrow. “Maybe I’ll send a sample off to one of the universities to see if they can identifyit.”
With her gloved hands, Leslie began to pull out debris from inside the railing base and tossed it onto a large tarp she’d spread on the foyer floor. As she removed a large piece of something that looked like pink insulation, she realized with a start that it wasn’t insulation atall.
