He leaned in to her. “What’s your idea?”
“You. Fix. It.” She punctuated each word with a smack on the table.
Wait. What? “I hire April a housekeeper?”
Kitty pursed her lips. “Here I thought you were a smart one.” She gave him a once-over that made him shiver. “No, gumdrop,you’regoing to have to do it. Because lord knows she won’t let me do it. Or Simone. Or any of the others who have offered to help. You might be just the man to get away with it. You’ve got to be sly. Can you be sly?”
He grinned. “I can be sly.”
Especially when it made things work in his favor.
“Build her confidence slowly,” Kitty stretched out the word. “So she doesn’t even know it’s happening.”
He grinned. “I like the way you think.”
“Have you ever cooked a lobster?” she asked, totally serious, tilting her head to the side.
Nope. And he was not sure what that had to do with laundry and messes, but this was Kitty, so he let that slide. “No.”
“You turn up the heat just a little every so often until it’s ready for supper.” She nodded firmly, her hair bouncing with the motion. “The thing never even knows it got cooked.” She, again, tapped out each word with her fingernail on the table. “Can you believe that? He’s just in there one minute having a spa day and the next he’s ready for the main course.”
“Kitty.” He speared her with a glance. “I have no idea what that means for April.”
“Youjust turn up the heat a puny trace at a time so she gets her confidence back and then, boom.” She smacked her hands together with a good deal of force.
He jumped.
“She’s that calm mom thingy again. The one she’s always going on about.” She barely took a breath, but she made a come-here motion with her index finger. “Tell you a secret.”
He nodded but did not lean forward.
“She’s not very calm anymore.” She looked around the totally wrecked kitchen. Yeah, the kids were like a hurricane at breakfast. There were only three of them, but they made enough noise for an entire elementary school cafeteria. And the mess. Dear God, the mess. He shuddered.
“I think you have some work to do.” Kitty raised her eyebrows.
“Can I at least send out the laundry to be done?” he asked. That’s what he did in L.A. The service was great—dirty clothes left, clean clothes came back, folded and pressed and ready to go.
Kitty scowled. “Not smart at all. This guy.”
“Fine.” He could fold the hell out of some laundry. How hard could it be? He used to do it all the time back when he’d been in business school. He’d worked a second job at Mervyn’s in the menswear section, and he used to be decent at folding those collared shirts for the displays. He was sure he still had it.
Probably still had it.
She held out her pinky. “No sending the laundry away and no housekeepers, pinky swear?”
What were they, ten years old? Apparently, this was a Denver thing. He didn’t leave her hanging, though, he linked his pinky with hers. That got him a massive Kitty purr. Saying nothing else, she sauntered to the front door and let herself right out, leaving him to stare at her barely touched coffee cup.
Kitty was truly out there, but she wasn’t wrong. And her plan wasn’t bad. If he added it to his current multipoint plan, it might actually make things easier.
He’d been chewing on the fact that he’d probably have to stick around longer than a few days—more like at least through herPractical Parentingappearance. He couldn’t really spare two weeks away, but he’d make it work.
Mayonnaise lifted an eyelid when he glanced at her.
“This is not a bad idea,” he said to the dog.
The dog did not respond.
“It’s actually a good idea,” he continued.
