McKnight in Shining Armor (7 page)

“Men!” Kelsie muttered under her breath. Their minds seemed to have a completely foreign mode of operation. “I haven’t had time to do any
kind of housework for a week. What is this woman going to think of me?”

Alec shook his head and smiled. “She’ll think you’re a lady with two jobs and two kids to take care of. It’s not as if she’s never come into a household in that situation before. It’s not as if she’s going to think you’re a slob or anything.”

He peeled Kelsie away from the door and let himself in, mentally eating his words. A basket of laundry had been dumped on the couch in the living room. Some kind of dangerous-looking electronic monsters were scattered on the floor. A messy stack of stuffed manila file folders was piled on a coffee table thick with dust. There were five pair of shoes abandoned behind a recliner in front of him and a mound of Naughty Nighties lingerie on the seat of an old rocker across the room. Near the TV a small magazine rack had been overturned.

Trying to overcome the sudden dizziness the sight of a horrendous mess always brought on, Alec leaned back against a table cluttered with mail. A gray cat bolted from under the far end of
the table, upending a sorry-looking potted plant. Dirt scattered across the tan carpet as the plant keeled over. From its cage in the dining room, an enormous blue parrot shrieked and said, “Damn!”

Kelsie could have died of embarrassment, not so much because of the state of her house—her house was usually a mess—but because Alec was seeing it. Only very good friends and door-to-door salespeople saw her house in its natural state. Alec didn’t fall into either category.

Just what category did he fit in, Kelsie asked herself.
Dangerous
was the word that came to mind, though she wasn’t certain why. Just because he wanted to go out with her didn’t make him a candidate for the ten-most-wanted list.

How about the
one
-most-wanted list?

Before she could blush at the thought, she forced herself to wonder where he found so many clothes that exactly matched the incredible deep blue shade of his eyes. Did he choose them for that reason, or was it unconscious?

“Alice Bigelow,” came a voice from beside her.

Kelsie looked down at the woman, startled and
dismayed. She wished a hole would magically appear that she could disappear into, but smiled valiantly. “Kelsie Connors.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alice said, coming farther into the room armed with a bucket full of the tools of her trade. She held up a bowl brush as she headed down the hall. “I like to start with the bathroom.”

“Alec,” Kelsie said under her breath. “I can’t believe you brought a cleaning woman to my house. You hardly know me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said pleasantly, having recovered from his initial shock. “I know that’s something most guys don’t try until the third or fourth date, but I was afraid we wouldn’t even have a
first
date—”

“You got that right,” she said, bending down to right her ailing dieffenbachia. She scooped dirt off the carpet and patted it around the base of the plant. “I can’t go out with you, Alec.”

“Ah!” He held up one finger. “You said you were too busy to go out with me. If all your housework gets done, you won’t be too busy.”

She gave him a smug look as she shoved the
pile of shoes under the recliner. “I still can’t go out with you. My daughter has a baby sitting job tonight, and my son isn’t old enough to stay home alone.”

Alec shrugged. “So get a sitter.”

“Ha! That shows how much you know.” Kelsie shook her head as she rounded up Jeffrey’s Transformers. “It is a proven fact that baby sitters cannot be had for a Saturday night with less than forty-eight hours’ notice.”

He frowned. “They’re that hard to come by?”

“They’re practically on the endangered species list.” Even as she told him this, her traitorous mind was rattling off options. Jeff could spend the evening with their neighbor, Thor, who loved kids. Or he could possibly stay with his best friend, Brent, if Brent’s mother didn’t mind.

Alec briefly considered the possibility of taking Kelsie’s son along, but dismissed it. The company of a nine-year-old boy was not likely to make for a fun date. He wanted Kelsie all to himself anyway.

She thought she’d won the battle. He could see it in her eyes. Kelsie was just going to have to
learn Alec McKnight did not give up easily. He’d been described as having the determination and drive of a bulldozer, qualities he never hesitated to use—supplemented with a generous dose of charm—to get what he wanted.

“Can I use your phone?” he asked, trying to look perfectly innocent.

“Sure. It’s somewhere behind you, under the mail.” Kelsie tipped up the magazine rack, stuffing three months’ worth of magazines into it, keeping one eye on Alec as he made his call.

He really wasn’t handsome, she thought, contradicting her earlier impression. He was… appealing … interesting… dangerous. There was that word again. The sunlight coming through the picture window fell on his dark brown hair, bringing out deep red highlights.

“Hello, Natalie?” He grinned, looking down, absently sorting Kelsie’s mail into neat stacks. Kelsie had the fanciful idea as she watched him that his flash of white teeth could affect a woman even over the phone lines. “It’s your dear, devoted cousin, Alec. Remember that
huge
favor you owe me?”

Kelsie’s jaw dropped. He was getting a babysitter!
Now
what was she supposed to do?

Before he could ask the big question, she dashed across the room and made a grab for the phone. With two fingers, Alec lifted the chunky white instrument out of her reach as he returned the smug look she’d shot him moments before.

Disgusted, Kelsie leaned back against the brown tweed recliner, glowering at Alec as he made the arrangements for his cousin to sit with Jeffrey for the evening. When he hung up, she asked, “Did it ever occur to you that I just may not want to go out with you?”

Alec shook his head as he advanced on her, his gaze holding her motionless as a smile made his lips twitch. “Nope,” he said, corralling her against the chair with an arm on either side of her. “Not once. But then, I’m an optimist. Can you look me in the eye and tell me you really don’t want to go out with me?”

Was that supposed to be a joke? She could hardly look into his direct, warm, blue velvet gaze without promising she’d follow him to the ends of the earth! And, darn him, he knew it. He was
using his best asset to an unfair advantage. She wanted to wipe that charming smile off his face by denying any attraction to him, but, when it came right down to it, she couldn’t.

“You don’t play fair,” she muttered.

Alec gave her a slow, Cheshire cat smile. “How do you feel about Chinese?”

She swallowed hard as she glanced down. His body was deliciously close to pressing against hers. How many times in the past two days had she felt her own body reacting to this man’s nearness? More than was safe to recall.

“Chinese?” she echoed. “As a language or a cuisine?”

   “Ouch! Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Kelsie winced as she gingerly applied makeup to the discolored area around her left eye. “How’s this look, honey?” she asked her son, who stood scowling in the bathroom doorway.

“Looks like a black eye with a lot of goop on it.”

Kelsie checked the mirror again. He was right.
She hadn’t managed to hide the problem, and if she added another layer of cover-up, she was going to look like a geisha girl. Disgusted, she grabbed a tissue and started wiping the stuff off. “Ouch! Ouch, ouch, ouch!”

“Why don’t you just stay home?” Jeff suggested.

Kelsie felt a stab of guilt at her son’s remark. It wasn’t the first stab of guilt she’d felt since she’d given in to Alec’s dinner invitation, and it wouldn’t be the last. With her workweeks so hectic, she always made a special effort to save time on the weekends for the kids. She especially tried to spend time with Jeff after an outing with his father, because he often came home moody.

She tossed her tissue into the trash and bent over to kiss her son’s cheek. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I can’t get out of this.”

Liar, her conscience responded, you don’t
want
to get out of this.

“What do you say to renting that
Star Trek
movie tomorrow night, and we’ll have a little party of our own?”

He shrugged, still frowning. “Can we have pizza?”

“You’re having pizza tonight.”

“Can we have it again?”

“We’ll see,” she said, returning to the mirror above the vanity to give her cheeks a quick dusting of blusher.

As far as she was concerned, she looked like death and felt very near it. She was cold all over, shaking, and her stomach was in knots. Lord, how she hated the idea of dating. It was almost a phobia. No, it
was
a phobia. In any ordinary business or social situation she could meet a man, have a normal conversation, be reasonably charming, but label that situation with the word
date
and she was reduced to a quivering, babbling, pathetic shell of a person.

“And they say war is hell,” she muttered to herself, fumbling with the thin black ribbon tie at the throat of her blouse.

It probably had something to do with her upbringing. She’d grown up on a farm, with only her little sister Danielle for company. Their nearest neighbor had been a mile away and no one in the
area had had children Kelsie’s age. She’d grown up terribly shy and a little insecure, making her sister and her pets her best friends. Boys had seemed alien to her. Somehow, the concept of dating brought all those old feelings back to her.

“Can I get a tarantula?” Jeffrey asked, sensing this might be the time to get his mother to agree to what she might otherwise think were unreasonable demands. Before she could reply, the doorbell rang. He dashed off to answer it.

He swung the door open and glowered up at Alec. “Who are you?” he demanded, hands on hips, barring the entrance to the house as best he could.

Alec looked down at the boy, knowing instantly he had his work cut out to win over this little ruffian. He held out his hand, thinking the manly gesture might break the ice. “I’m Alec McKnight. I helped with the goats this morning.”

“So?” Jeff said, ignoring the offered hand.

Alec stuck his hand in his pocket, clearing his throat. He looked at his cousin Natalie and raised his brows. “This is Natalie. She’s going to stay with you while your mom and I go out.”

Jeff glared at the pretty, dark-haired young woman. “I don’t need a sitter.”

“Gee, I guess not; you’re a big guy,” Natalie said, unperturbed. “But I’m here, so would you mind if I just stayed? I’ve got a lot of studying to do. I’m a law student.”

The boy looked her up and down, considering, obviously leaning toward saying no.

“I brought fudge ripple ice cream.”

“Okay.” Jeff nodded, motioning her in. “I’ll show you where to put it.” He headed for the kitchen with Natalie behind him.

Cheeks pink, Kelsie emerged from the hall with a wry smile. “My son the pit bull. I’m sorry, Alec.”

Alec shrugged it off. “You look great.”

She had tamed her blond hair back into a ponytail and wore a snug black wool skirt and a roomy tan blouse with narrow black vertical stripes. A black ribbon was tied in a bow at her throat. Letting his eyes roam back down to her skirt, he noted she had great legs—long and shapely and breathtakingly sexy in dark, silky stockings. He wondered if she was also wearing any of those delicious
little underthings she sold. He’d had the most erotic dream about her showing up at his office wearing nothing but the black waist cincher he’d found behind his couch.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, her eyes darting all around the room. She tried to get a look at him without making eye contact. That was the secret to saving herself. Eye contact was the key to his high-powered magnetism. She caught a glimpse of a black and gray print casual shirt, dark gray pleated trousers, a stylish pair of shoes, Cheevers getting ready to pounce—she scooped up the fat orange cat, holding him away from her body so he wouldn’t shed on her. “Sorry. He was about to leap on your shoe. He has a thing for feet. Jeffrey! Come and get Cheevers!” She paused, watching Alec sneeze repeatedly into a monogrammed handkerchief. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine.” He managed to smile as his eyes watered. Jeffrey gave him a derisive look as he slung the cat over his shoulder and retreated to the kitchen. “Just a little allergy. I can’t get within three feet of a cat.”

Kelsie frowned. She abruptly ducked, calling,
“Kitty, kitty, kitty.” With no sign of a cat forthcoming, she straightened and tried to smile at Alec’s bewildered look. “My other cat likes to hide under the library table. I didn’t want him to sneak up on you.”

He was saved from having to comment when Natalie entered the room. After the introductions had been made, Kelsie started for the kitchen to show Natalie where key items were located, leaving her son and her date eyeing each other.

“Jeff, why don’t you show Pirate to Mr. McKnight?” she called over her shoulder.

Jeffrey made a disgusted face and motioned Alec to follow him to the dining room, where a macaw that had to be three feet long to the tip of its tail feathers perched inside an antique-looking cage in one corner of the room. The bird was cobalt blue with a strip of yellow under its jaw, and unblinking brown eyes.

“That’s Pirate,” Jeffrey said flatly. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked as bored as was humanly possible.

“Is he tame?” Alec asked, hoping to generate
some sort of conversation that would last until Kelsie came back.

“Sure,” Jeff said, glancing at the bird to hide the shrewd look that had come into his eyes. He reached into a drawer in the oak buffet that sat along the back wall of the room. “Here, you can feed him a palm nut…” he said, handing the nut to Alec.

Alec held the palm nut between two fingers. He slipped them gingerly inside the cage. The parrot shrieked and bit him.

“Ouch!” he yelled, biting his tongue on the string of curses that were ready to tumble out. He yanked his hand back from the cage and sucked on his wounded finger.