Cookies for Courting (3 page)

Whistling, he packed up his portfolio and a set of his favorite drawing pencils. He wanted to be able to do a quick sketch if the girl had any ideas. The quicker he started, the faster he’d be paid.

For all he knew, his little client might have completely different ideas about what she wanted than the adult in her life. This was his first time dealing with a child client. The only children’s murals Pace had done in the past had been for nurseries, so the child hadn’t voiced an opinion. Pace hoped to calm down before he met with Alice. Kids could sense nervous adults like sharks could find blood in the water. Neither event ended well for the injured.

A quick Internet search revealed Marshall’s condo was only a block from a bus stop. Perfect. Pace didn’t keep a car. With everything he needed located within a few streets, he took the bus to get around or rented a car the few times he had to travel outside his usual route.

The tall steel skyscraper oozed money, from its marble columns to its gold-lettered doors. Pace thought of it as the kind of luxurious accommodations that housed newly rich bachelors and old-money retirees.

He was more than a little surprised when no one tried to stop him from entering the building. The doorman merely bowed and opened the entry door to allow Pace inside.

“Can I help you, sir?” a guard asked him two steps into the building.

Ah, there’s the security.

“Yes, I’m supposed to meet Alice Hunter. I’m Pace Barlow.” Technically, he was meeting Joyce, but the purpose of him coming over was to talk to his smallest client.

The guard consulted his list. “You are expected. Please go right up, Mr. Barlow.”

“Thank you.” Pace headed toward the bank of elevators the guard pointed him to. He dreaded these kinds of places. His father had just bought the top floor of a building similar to this one. It was very modern and soulless. Pace hated visiting him at home. He usually made an excuse and met his father at a restaurant.

Pace entered the elevator and pressed the button for the twenty-fourth floor. The car zipped up faster than the office elevator he’d ridden in the day before. Still, one of the reasons he enjoyed his small apartment was it didn’t have an elevator and neither did his studio. Being trapped in a metal box hundreds of feet in the air wasn’t his idea of a good time.

When the elevator stopped, he stepped off. From what he could see, there were only four doors on this floor. Considering the size of the building, the units must be enormous. He’d find out soon enough.

Pace knocked on the one he’d been given the address to.

A woman with dark hair traced with gray gave him a friendly smile. She wore a black-and-white uniform and had a scattering of flour across her nose. That spot reminded Pace of the paint he’d had on his cheek yesterday.

He grinned at her. “I’m Pace, I believe I’m expected.”

“Yes, the artist. Joyce and Alice are waiting for you. Come in. I am Ilona, the housekeeper,” she said in a heavily accented voice. Pace thought she sounded Hungarian, but he didn’t know a lot about accents.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

Ilona bobbed her head and stepped back to allow him inside. “Would you like something to drink? I have tea, coffee, water.”

“No. I’m fine, thank you.”

“Then follow me, please.”

Pace looked around as he walked. The place was just what he expected. Sleek modern furniture decorated the condo with a cold, untouchable appeal. Only the box of crayons on the dining room table and the teddy bear on the couch revealed the presence of a child.

Joyce stood from the couch when he entered. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Barlow.”

“Please, call me Pace,” he said, shaking her outstretched hand.

“And call me Joyce, since we’ll be working together to get Alice the room of her dreams. Once you finish the mural, I’m going to bring in an interior designer to help match your theme.”

Pace grinned. “That sounds great. Do you have someone lined up?”

“Not yet.”

“I can recommend a few people I’ve worked with in the past if you’d like.”

Joyce smiled. “Thank you. That would save me some time.”

“I’ll e-mail them to you as soon as I get home.” He knew a couple people who would fit the bill and were looking for work. Creative people seemed to be perpetually jobless. Pace liked to help out whenever he could, and he knew his friends would return the favor.

“Excellent, I appreciate the help. Ready to meet Alice?”

Pace took a deep breath and let it out again. He couldn’t believe how stressed meeting one eight-year-old was making him. “Yes.”

Well, as ready as he would get without an IV of Valium.

Joyce’s expression turned serious. “I don’t know how much Mr. Hunter told you about his niece, but her mother died last month. She’s still in mourning. Her nanny is with her right now, but Mr. Hunter wanted my impressions of how Alice does with you. She has to be comfortable with the artist decorating her room.”

“Makes sense.” Pace hoped the butterflies in his stomach didn’t transform into sharks and gnaw their way through his lower intestines.

He tried to keep his expression impassive as he followed Joyce down the hall. Ilona offered him a reassuring smile, so he must not have been hiding his nerves as well as he thought. He clutched his portfolio tighter.

“Alice,” Joyce called out.

A girl with an unnatural shade of blonde hair popped out of the last bedroom in the hall. “What are you doing here, Joyce?” Her vibrant red lips twisted into a disapproving frown. Somewhere a clown was missing his lipstick.

“Georgia, I told you I was bringing the artist in to talk to Alice. Remember?” The edge in Joyce’s tone indicated she was completely out of patience.

“Oh, right.” Georgia turned her doe-brown eyes toward Pace. Her thick lashes intimidated Pace slightly. What if she batted them loose and they attacked?

“I’m Pace,” he said, not stepping an inch closer.

“I’m Georgia, Alice’s nanny.”

“Nice to meet you,” Pace lied. He wondered where Marshall had found the girl. Her tight jeans didn’t scream nanny to him. He doubted she could bend down enough to play with an eight-year-old or pick up a toy. He had a feeling Ilona did most of the work around there.

“Now if you’ll excuse us?” Joyce waved a hand at Georgia as if she could will the nanny to move or magically banish her to Siberia.

“Oh, sure. Do you need me to stick around?”

“No. Go do whatever it is you do,” Joyce said.

“I’m the nanny!” Georgia screeched. She stomped past them back the way they’d come.

“Is Mr. Hunter bisexual?” Pace asked.

Joyce snorted. “You’d think so looking at her, wouldn’t you? No, the nanny agency sent her, and Mr. Hunter was in a bind. Ilona isn’t young enough to keep up with Alice, and Mr. Hunter can’t stay home. We keep interviewing new people hoping to find a better one, but all the good nannies seem to be taken.”

“Too bad.”

“You don’t know anyone who watches kids, do you?”

“No, sorry.” Pace wished he could pull up a name, but his clubbing friends weren’t exactly babysitting material.

“Shame. Well, come along.” Joyce led the way to the door Georgia had just walked through.

Pace followed her.

Joyce knocked on the door. She must’ve heard someone telling her to come inside, but Pace didn’t hear anything.

“Alice?”

Pace entered the room and discovered a little girl sitting cross-legged on her bed. Her dark brown pigtails and serious expression reminded Pace of her uncle.

Alice didn’t say anything as they approached.

“Alice, this is Pace. He’s going to draw your castle on the wall. Remember you wanted a mural?”

“Mural?” Alice looked at him with interest.

Joyce nodded. “Pace is the one who is going to draw on your wall for you.”

“I can draw on the wall.” The stubborn tilt of her chin reminded Pace even more of her uncle. He wondered how often Marshall won battles between the two of them. He imagined not often.

“I’m sure you can draw quite well, but maybe I can help,” Pace said, trying to prevent the tantrum he could see hovering on the horizon.

“Really?” Her scowl brightened.

“Yes. I brought some drawings with me, want to see?”

Alice nodded, her pigtails swinging wildly.

Pace ignored Joyce and sat down on the floor. He didn’t want to tower over her.

He opened his portfolio folder and removed the sketches he’d created last night. A series of castles decorated the paper.

“Ooh, pretty!” Alice said in a quiet voice.

“Thank you. Is there one you like better than the others?” Pace spread them apart so she could get a better look at them.

“What do you think of my room?” she asked.

Pace took a careful examination of his surroundings.

Sterile.

That was the first word that came to Pace’s mind and the kindest he could think of. He struggled to figure out what to say.

“Um. It’s very nice.” The room was large, and there was a lot of space for one little girl. But although the bedding was pink and the scattering of toys revealed she had something to play with, it didn’t take away the cold feel.

“I hate it.” Alice wrinkled her nose. “I miss my home.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

Pace didn’t know what to do. He was ill equipped to handle a grieving child. “Um.”

“This is your home now,” Joyce said. “Your uncle loves you and wants to help you make this place your own.”

“But it’s ugly. There’s no playground. There’s no one to play with.” Alice sniffed as she battled tears.

“Maybe you can talk to your uncle about having some friends over.”

“I don’t have any friends,” Alice said in a heartbroken voice.

“You’ll make some,” Pace said. A girl this adorable would find friends. “You just have to give it some time.”

“You think so?” Her hopeful expression twisted Pace’s heart.

He nodded. “It’s always hard being the new kid.”

After he said that, he realized he didn’t know if Alice’d had to move away to live here or not. He let out a breath when she nodded.

“It is,” Alice agreed.

Pace waved a hand to his sketches. “Do you want a fairy-tale castle, a princess castle, or a stone castle?” As he spoke, he pointed to his drawings of three different style castles.

“That one.” She pointed.

“Ahh, the Princess Castle.” The one the little girl had chosen had tall pointy turrets and gingerbread trim. “I can do that.”

“You’re very talented,” Joyce said, examining the sketches. “Did it take you long to draw these?”

“No but the finished product will take much longer,” Pace said. People generally underestimated how much time and effort went into making a mural. “Where are you going to want this?”

Joyce walked over to the far corner of the room. “I thought it could cover these two walls.”

“How much detail do you want? Just a castle, or do you want a village with horses and dragons? That will determine how long it’ll take.”

“Dragons?” Alice turned toward Joyce, her eyes big with excitement. “I want dragons!”

Joyce smiled. “I’ll leave the specifics for you two to plan. I’m just here to get a cost and time estimate and to make sure you’re happy with your artist.”

“What do you think, Alice? Do you think we can work together?” Pace asked.

Alice tapped her chin and appeared to be thinking it over, her little face wrinkled in concentration. After a period of time so long Pace’s heart just about stopped, she finally nodded. “Yes, I think you’ll do a good job.”

“I’ll do my best.” He tried to match her grave tone but couldn’t help grinning. She was too fucking adorable.

“My mom used to say that’s the most you can expect out of people.”

“She sounds like she was a smart lady,” Pace said.

Alice nodded. “She was.”

Pace cleared his throat, then slid his sketches to one side except the princess castle, that one he handed over to Alice. “You can keep this one.”

“Thank you,” Alice said. She took the picture and carried it over to a low, child-height table where she set it down and stared at it.

Pace climbed to his feet, then turned to Joyce. “I’ll e-mail an estimate. Mr. Marshall can contact me if he wishes to proceed.”

“That sounds fine,” Joyce said.

“But I want him to start now!” Alice yelled.

Oh crap!
Pace didn’t need a lot of experience with children to see the meltdown coming. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t start today, Alice. I have to order paints and get all the proper supplies to paint your castle.”

Tears filled Alice’s eyes. “Can you stay and play with me?”

Pace’s heart melted a bit.

Before he could speak, Joyce stepped in. “Sorry, honey, Pace hasn’t been hired yet so he can’t stay.”

“It was nice meeting you, Alice,” Pace said. “I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”

He didn’t want to promise anything else because he didn’t know if he had the job. For all he knew, once he gave a cost and time estimate, Marshall would decide Pace wasn’t worth that amount, or he might not want Pace around his niece if they were having an affair.

Alice went back to sit on her bed and curled up into a small ball.

Joyce patted Pace on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Ilona about luring Alice to the kitchen. She loves to help her measure things.”

“Okay.” It wasn’t like he had a choice. He couldn’t stay in Marshall’s home without an invitation.

He said his good-byes, then headed back to the bus stop.

M
ARSHALL
FINISHED
reviewing a business proposal, then made some notes in the margins. Josiah Brown, Marshall’s new apprentice, had some good ideas, but not all of them would be profitable. Marshall enjoyed nurturing young talent and made as many tips as he could about which investments wouldn’t work and why.

Just as Marshall finished up his evaluation, Joyce walked into the room.

“We might have a problem.”

“What?” Marshall didn’t like problems. He dealt with enough issues without adding to them. For once, he wanted a peaceful day.