What a Woman Needs (2 page)

B
ETH
H
amilton tripped over a big, yellow, hard-as-all-get-out toy truck, banged her shin on the coffee table, slipped on a page of shiny stickers, and landed butt-first in a basket of dirty laundry.

Again.

It’d be hysterical if it weren’t so common.

She was constantly tripping over things. Constantly swerving one way to avoid an incoming wet dog or the twins chasing each other with lightsabers, only to end up on her butt anyway.

The sad part was, she had enough padding there that the falls didn’t do a lot of damage to her body—not like the extra padding did to her self-esteem.

But then, what widowed mother of five could afford self-esteem? Especially when one of the five had attained teenager status, another was fast approaching, and the twins came up with daily nicknames for her from their favorite sci-fi movies—Princess Leia not being among them. No, she got stuck with names like Frodo, Chewy, and the ever-popular Voldemort. At least they hadn’t gone for Barney. Yet.

Thank God for Maggie. The five-year-old still thought Mom could do anything.

If only she could.

The clock on the mantel chimed ten. Great. The cleaning service was going to be here any second and her house looked like a tornado had hit it. Tornado Hamilton. It came through on a daily basis. Sometimes twice just for kicks.

She needed help.

“Jason, did you finish straightening up your room?” She picked his remote-control helicopter off the hardwood floor where he’d crash-landed it, wincing at the nick the rotor blades had made. They’d probably done the same thing to her shin.

“Uh-huh.” Jason muttered from somewhere beneath the mop of hair he called
cool
, but which she called a bowl cut. If she’d given him that hairstyle as a toddler, she’d never hear the end of it whenever she pulled out baby pictures, yet he’d actually
wanted
her to pay someone to do that to him.
Teenagers
.

“Your laundry is put away and the bed made?” Yes, she knew it was silly to clean up before the cleaning service arrived, but if the woman got a look at her house now, she’d either take off or double her fee. Maybe even triple it.

“Uh-huh.”

Odds were Jason’s
uh-huh
should be
nuh-uh
, but Beth had too much to do down here to run up the stairs to check out his story.

And Jason knew it, too.

Beth sighed. It’d been two years since Mike’s death and while the kids had seemed to sprout right before her eyes, every day of those two years seemed to last longer than their allotted twenty-four hours.

What she wouldn’t give for Prince Charming to ring her doorbell.

 • • • 

B
RYAN
ran his finger under the collar of the golf shirt and adjusted his hold on the bucket of cleaning products while he seriously contemplated not ringing the doorbell of Mrs. Beth Hamilton’s home.

He was a freaking maid. A
maid
!

He checked over his shoulder. No one had seen him yet, unless the tabloids had sent out a slew of covert reporters—and the likelihood of that was on par with those alien abduction stories they wrote about. No, those people were like dogs with a bone and they traveled in packs. He’d never miss them.

Still, he tapped the rim of the baseball cap down another half inch. Not technically part of the Manley Maids mint green polyester nightmare of a uniform, but he didn’t care. His face and build were recognizable enough; he needed some protection from prying eyes—

Like the ones staring at him from behind the sheer curtain on the sidelight beside the door.

Snagged
.

Taking a deep breath and straightening his shoulders, Bryan bit the bullet and rang the bell.

Instantly a chorus of barks, shrieks, and a couple of “
Expelliarmus!
” spells erupted, followed by a nasty crash and some muttered cursing.

Then
she
opened the door.

For a moment, Bryan just stared.

Then his PR training kicked in and he ramped up the Charmer smile that was not only his signature look, but one that came naturally around beautiful women.

And
she
was stunning. From her artfully messy, wavy brown hair, to the curves just hinted at beneath the open neckline of the misbuttoned blouse, to the yoga pants that hugged shapely legs that went on forever, the woman was almost as tall as he was and built like a woman should be, rounded in all the right places with just enough to hold on to for the ride of a lifetime.

Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a bad gig after all.

Then the kids hit the scene, heads popping out behind her like some dance number in a musical.

And they didn’t
stop
popping. Three. Four. Five. She had her own basketball team.

Bryan reined in the smile. He didn’t hit on married women, and he didn’t hit on moms.

He especially didn’t hit on married moms.

Of five.

“Who are you?” Kid number two, or maybe three, asked.

“Honestly, Kelsey, that’s no way to greet someone.” The woman rolled her gorgeous coffee-colored eyes as she flicked her finger under the girl’s chin, then she wiped away her annoyed look and smiled at him.

This time his Charmer smile appeared of its own volition. Bryan couldn’t help it. When she smiled, she was beyond stunning, and it made him glad he was a man—but annoyed she was married.

And a mom.

Of five.

“Can I help you?”

Let me count the ways.
Bryan caught himself before he started spouting sonnets. “I’m here to clean your toilet.”

Way to go, idiot. Brilliant opening line.

“I beg your pardon?”

She could beg for whatever she wanted, and he’d give her every single thing.

Bryan cleared his throat. “I’m a Manley Maid.”

The shaggy kid snorted before he walked away, the picture of utter teenage disinterest.

Bryan rephrased his intro. “I mean, I’m Bryan. I work for Manley Maids. You hired us to clean for you?”

“
You’re
the maid?” The little girl tugging on her mom’s shirttails had no idea she was in danger of popping Mom’s button and giving Bry a glimpse of something that, in any other circumstance, he’d be thrilled to see. And Bryan wasn’t about to educate the kid.

But
she
was married.

And a mom.

Of five.

The other teenager lost interest and the younger two—twins from the look of them—took their crooked wands back into the den, leaving him and Mrs. Beth Hamilton alone with a preschooler.

Where was
Mr
. Beth Hamilton?

Bryan put his game face on. He’d dated dozens of beautiful women. Had slept with a lot of them. Beautiful women were a dime a dozen in his world.

But he wasn’t in his world anymore. He was in Mac’s and Mrs. Beth Hamilton’s, and he better play the part before she either cited him for sexual harassment or failure to deliver. Either one would do more damage to his public image than being caught in a maid’s outfit would.

He’d like to see her in a maid’s outfit—

“Yes, I am the maid.” He tapped the little girl’s nose. “Do you need something cleaned?”

Big brown eyes blinked up at him. Solemn and serious. “Uh-huh. My castle. Mrs. Beecham made a mess.”

Bryan looked toward Mrs. Beth Hamilton for translation.

“Our cat likes to take naps in Maggie’s dollhouse and tends to leave enough fur to weave a rug, but we haven’t read Rapunzel yet, so that’s not happening.”

Rapunzel. Wasn’t she the one with the hair and the tower—an image Bryan did not need as he looked at Mrs. Beth Hamilton’s shoulder-length, windblown hair.

He liked it like that, not fake, photo-shoot windblown hair. Mrs. Hamilton had come by her messy hair naturally and there was something about that kind of unselfconsciousness and abandon that just screamed
sexy
to Bryan.

To Mr. Beth Hamilton, too, if the guy had an ounce of red blood in his veins and, considering there were five little Hamiltons running around, apparently he did. And unfortunately for Bryan, that guy had every right to fantasize about everything Bryan did not.

It was going to be a long four weeks.

O
KAY,
maybe a woman
could
be Cinderella twice in one lifetime because Prince Charming had definitely walked through her door.

Prince
Bryan Manley
Charming, local boy turned Hollywood heartthrob. And he’d just walked through her door to clean her toilets?

Beth pinched herself. This was insane. It had to be a gag. Was someone punking him? But shouldn’t she be in on the joke if they were?

She waved him in and looked around outside. No cameras. But they had to be there.

She stuck a hand up to her hair. Figures. The one day she didn’t take the time to do her hair was the day she was going to show up on national television. Again.

She ran a hand down the front of her shirt and found a wet spot that she hoped was just Sherman’s wet snout mark and not a stain. Knowing the dog, however, she wouldn’t be surprised if it was both.

She looked down and groaned. Her shirt wasn’t buttoned properly. God, she was a mess. Looked like her friends were right; she
did
need help around the house.

Well, of
course
she did—of the permanent kind—but this splurge the girls had gone in on to hire a housekeeper seemed to be just the thing in the interim.

Especially since they’d somehow finagled
Bryan Manley
for the job.

“Aren’t maids thupposed to be girls?” Maggie slurped around her thumb. Beth had tried to break her of the habit before Mike’s accident, but afterward . . . well, it’d just seemed cruel. The little girl needed whatever comfort she could get.

Brian hunkered down to Maggie’s level. “Boys can be maids, too. Just like girls can be doctors and lawyers and even truck drivers.”

“Or pilots. My daddy was a pilot and he told me I can be one when I grow up.”

Beth winced at the past tense in that sentence. And at the thought of Maggie dying like Mike had. To this day, the thought of getting on a plane gave her an anxiety attack.

“You definitely can be a pilot when you grow up. Or how about an astronaut?” Bryan stood up and Beth caught his quick glance to her left hand.

She knew what he’d see: nothing. Her ring mark was finally gone. She’d taken it off on the two-year anniversary of the crash, finally facing the fact that Mike wasn’t coming back and nothing would be the same again. None of the kids had commented on it, though she’d caught Kelsey looking at her empty finger more than once.

She sighed, preparing herself for the questions.
Divorced?
was usually their first question, accompanied by a commiserating smile that wavered when she answered,
Widowed,
and completely disappeared when she added in the bit about five kids. No surprise there wasn’t a new ring on her finger.

“I guess,” Maggie said, her thumb migrating to her belt loop. That was the quickest Beth had ever seen her daughter lose the comfort mechanism around someone new. “But the moon’s kinda boring. All gray and rocky and stuff. I wanna be a teacher. Like my mommy.”

A wet hand slid into Beth’s. The trust that small gesture implied never failed to humble her.

“What do you teach?” Bryan asked as he stood up, and there was no doubt in her mind what had made this guy a movie star. Wavy chestnut hair just begging for her fingers to run through it and gorgeous green eyes that made her forget her hair was a mess, or that she had a stain and a cockeyed shirt, or that there were five children, a dog, and two hamsters running around the place—oh, crap. The hamsters were still in their rolling balls somewhere around here. If Sherman got wind of them . . .

Beth lost her smile really fast. “I’m sorry. Will you excuse me?” She knelt down to whisper to Maggie about the hamsters.

Her daughter shrieked then ran away, which sent Sherman howling after her.

Those hamsters would be lucky to make it until dinner—and not
be
dinner.

She brushed a hank of hair back off her forehead. So much for having a movie star in her house. He was probably wondering what he’d gotten himself into. “I’m sorry. Trying to ward off a catastrophe.” Number seven for the day. A new low. But the day wasn’t over yet. “I’m Beth Hamilton.”

She held out her hand and had to keep from swooning when he shook it. Charisma radiated off this guy like smoke from a campfire on a cool crisp night. Though there was nothing cool about his touch. It lit a fire under Beth’s skin that she’d almost forgotten existed.

She yanked her hand away. She might have removed her wedding band, but she wasn’t ready for
that
yet. Of course, could she really be blamed? He was, after all,
Bryan Manley
. The next Sexiest Man Alive if the magazine covers bearing his photo in the supermarket checkout lines were any indication.

“I’m Bryan, uh, Man—”

“I know who you are.” Who didn’t? “My question is, what are you doing here?”

He held up a bucket of cleaning supplies. “You hired a maid, right? I’m here to do your bidding.”

Oh the smile that accompanied that statement. The man was a natural flirt.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?”

He arched an eyebrow. She’d seen that look in his last movie right before the love interest had fallen for him. Beth had understood why the moment it’d happened on screen, but here, in the flesh . . .

Zero to full-out fantasy mode in under two seconds.

“Hey, it’s like I told your daughter. Guys can clean just as good as women.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, are you sure you’re up for
this
?” She swept a hand toward the family room.

Sherman had run through the clothesline again and dragged it in from outside. It was a favorite trick of his to jump up, grab hold of the lowest-hanging article, twist midair, and bring the whole thing floating down around him, then drag it all around the yard. Of
course
today would be the day he decided to drag it through the house for the first time.

Mike had wanted a Jack Russell terrier. She’d wanted a basset hound. But the dog had been his idea to give the kids for Christmas, and with all the energy the kids had, it’d seemed fitting at the time to give them a high-energy dog. Now?
Notsomuch.

“Uh . . . Did you guys have a flood or something? Tornado?” Bryan Manley’s sexy, flirty look turned perplexed real quick.

Beth smiled and walked over to the sofa to shove her panties behind a pillow. From now on, they were going in the dryer or hanging in her bathroom to dry. “Tornado Hamilton. It happens at least once a day here.”

“Mom!” Mark came barreling into the room, his lightsaber leading the charge. “Tommy’s cheating!”

“I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“D2!” Bryan dodged the swinging blades and somehow managed to pluck them from their hands.

“Huh?” the twins asked in tandem as they often did.

“R2-D2.” Brian set the plastic swords on the bookshelf behind him. “Don’t tell me you guys are fighting with lightsabers and don’t know who R2-D2 is.”

“Of course we do,” said Tommy. “He’s Luke’s servant.”

“He is?” Bryan put a hand behind the boys’ shoulders and led them away from the shelf. “I thought he was his friend.”

“Well,” said Mark, “he started out his servant but ended up as his friend.”

“And why is that do you suppose?”

“’Cause Luke needed him lots of times and R2 came through for him,” answered Tommy.

They weren’t finishing each other’s sentences yet, but the consecutive answers were a sign they were back on the same side and the bickering was over.

“Ah.” Bryan kicked a pillow out of the way and one of the hamster balls rolled with it. Beth scooped it up and set it in the planter before Sherman got a whiff. “I bet you guys have that happen with you, huh? One of you gets in trouble and the other helps him out?”

“Tommy’s always getting in trouble.” Mark crossed his arms and nodded smugly.

So much for the end of the bickering.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am—”

“Guys. Hang on.” Bryan took off his hat, cleared three T-shirts off the sofa, then steered the boys onto it. Then he handed Beth the semi-frozen, half-empty ice cream tub from the coffee table and sat on the edge across from them. Good thing the table was made of sturdy oak; she didn’t want to have Bryan Manley sprawled all over her family room.

Her bedroom on the other hand—

Beth’s mouth almost fell open.
What
was she thinking?

Well, okay, she knew what she was thinking, but the question was
why
was she thinking it? With all the dates her friends had set her up with over the last few months, she hadn’t wanted to even think about
kissing
one of the men, much less have them sprawled across her—

Yes, there it was. That image. The one from the first movie she’d ever seen Bryan in, all slick and wet, coming out of the ocean with his camo shorts hanging below a killer set of abs.

She forced herself to pay attention to what he was telling her boys. What kind of mother was she to let an essential stranger work out her sons’ daily midmorning argument while she drooled over him as he did it?

“It’s much easier to look in front of you than behind you, so if you stay loyal to each other, you’ll never have to watch your back because your brother will be doing it for you while you’re doing it for him.”

“Just like you and your brothers do,” the boys said in tandem.

“Exactly.” He ruffled their hair and Beth could see their shoulders straighten. Their posture get a little taller. The smiles spread across their faces.

It’d been a while since anyone—any
man—
had talked with them like this. Mike’s father hadn’t dealt well with his son’s death, electing to almost pretend it’d never happened, and her family . . . well, her stepfather wasn’t exactly the role model she wanted her sons to emulate. Bryan’s five minutes in her house showed her just how much the boys needed a man in their life.

Bryan met her gaze and winked. “So, guys, now that you’re watching out for each other, you know who else you have to watch out for?”

“Our teacher?”

“Sherman?”

“Johnny Tyler,” said Tommy. “He’s a bully.”

“No, Janey Weston. She’s gross.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Janey’s gross.”

Bryan stood up, put his hands on the boys’ heads, and swiveled them her way. “No, boys. You have to watch out for your sisters and your mom. It’s a guy’s job to take care of the women he loves.”

Thank God Beth had something cold in her hand or she just might have melted on the spot.

 • • • 

S
HE
wasn’t saying anything.

Bryan hoped that was a good thing, but in his experience, when a woman said nothing, it spoke louder than if she yelled at him. Or
Fine
’d him. He’d come to dread that word from a woman. Yet here he was, giving her boys life advice as if he had every right.

Where the hell was Mr. Beth Hamilton and why wasn’t
Mrs. Beth Hamilton
wearing a ring?

“Yo, Beth, I—
whoa
.” The shaggy-haired kid did a double take and skidded to a stop, his sneakers leaving skid marks on the hardwood floor.

God, now Bryan was even
sounding
like a maid.

“Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t you—”

“Yeah, I am, and she’s your
mom
, not
Beth
.” Kid ought to be grateful he had someone around to call
Mom
.

“Bryan, it’s okay—”

“No, it’s not.” Bryan ran a hand through his hair. Shit. He should have stayed out of this. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business, but I was raised to treat a woman—especially one’s mom—with respect. I get teenage rebellion with the . . .” He waved at the kid’s hair and three-sizes-too-big jeans that were barely staying on with the no-belt-or-hip thing happening. “It was an automatic response. Your kid, your rules.”

Beth had the best smile. Soft and sweet, it wasn’t all toothy, flashy, look-at-me, but held genuine happiness that reached her eyes—and reached out to him, landing somewhere in the middle of his stomach with a big ol’
thud.

Holy hell. When’s the last time that’d happened?

“Thank you, Bryan. Those are my rules as well.” She looked at her son. “Was there something you wanted, Jason?”

“I uh . . .” Jason glanced at him through a gap in his shag. “Kev’s gonna take me to the mall.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Aw, Mom—”

“Jason, you’re fourteen. You are not going to be parading around the mall with a bunch of guys. Security looks for kids your age. I don’t need to get a phone call.”

“You won’t.”

“That’s right. I won’t. Because you’re not going. You’re staying here to do your room.”

“Aw, Mom!” Proving he
was
only fourteen, Jason stomped his foot. “Isn’t that what
he’s
here for?” The hair swung Bryan’s way.

Bryan arched an eyebrow at the kid. “Sorry, but I didn’t pull hazmat duty.” He’d been a teenage boy once; he knew what was in the kid’s room. He hadn’t liked cleaning his own disgusting mess, no way was he doing this one’s.