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Momentarily, Reed’s gaze slid to Ellen. “That much is obvious. Do you want to tell me what’s going on here, little brother?”
“It’s not as bad is it looks.”
“Right now it doesn’t look particularly good.”
“I can explain everything.”
“I hope so.”
Nervously swinging her arms, Ellen stepped forward. “If you two will excuse me, I’ll be up in my room.” The last thing she wanted was to find herself stuck between the two brothers while they settled their differences.
“No, don’t go,” Derek said quickly. His dark eyes pleaded with her to stay.
Almost involuntarily Ellen glanced at Reed for guidance.
“By all means, stay.” But his expression wasn’t encouraging.
A growing sense of resentment made her arch her back and thrust out her chin defiantly. Who was this...this man to burst into their tranquil lives and raise havoc? The four of them lived congenially together, all doing their parts in the smooth running of the household.
“Are you charging rent?” Reed asked.
Briefly Derek’s eyes met Ellen’s. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? This big old house has practically as many bedrooms as a dorm. I didn’t think it would hurt.” He swallowed. “I mean, with you being in the Middle East and all. The house was...so empty.”
“How much are you paying?” Reed directed the question at Ellen. That sarcastic look was back and Ellen hesitated.
“How much?” Reed repeated.
Ellen knew from the way Derek’s eyes widened that they were entering into dangerous territory.
“It’s different with Ellen,” Derek hurried to explain. “She does all the shopping and the cooking, so the rest of us—”
“Are you sure that’s all she provides?” Reed interrupted harshly.
Ellen’s gaze didn’t waver. “I pay thirty dollars a week, but believe me, I earn my keep.” The second the words slipped out, Ellen wanted to take them back.
“I’m sure you do.”
Ellen was too furious and outraged to speak. How dared he barge into this house and immediately assume the worst? All right, she’d been walking around half-naked, but she hadn’t exactly been expecting company.
Angrily Derek stepped forward. “It’s not like that, Reed.”
“I discovered her prancing around the kitchen in her bra. What else am I supposed to think?”
Derek groaned and cast an accusing look at Ellen. “I just ran down to get the pie out of the oven,” she said in her own defence.
“Let me assure you,” Derek said, his voice quavering with righteousness. “You’ve got this all wrong.” He glared indignantly at his older brother. “Ellen isn’t that kind of woman. I resent the implication. You owe us both an apology.”
From the stunned look on Reed’s face, Ellen surmised that this could well be the first time Derek had stood up to his domineering brother. Her impulse was to clap her hands and shout: “Attaboy!” With immense effort she restrained herself.
Reed wiped a hand over his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Perhaps I do.”
The front door opened and closed again. “Anyone here?” Monte’s eager voice rang from the living room. The slam of his books hitting the stairs echoed through the hallway that led to the kitchen. “Something smells good.” Skidding to an abrupt halt just inside the room, the tall student looked around at the somber faces. “What’s up? You three look like you’re about to attend a funeral.”
“Are you Pat?” Reed asked.
“No, Monte.”
Reed closed his eyes and wearily rubbed the back of his neck. “Just how many bedrooms have you rented out?”
Derek lowered his gaze to his hands. “Three.”
“My room?” Reed asked.
“Yes, well, Ellen needed a place and it seemed logical to give her that one. You were supposed to be gone for a year. What happened?”
“I came home early.”
Stepping forward, her fingers nervously laced together, Ellen broke into the tense interchange. “I’ll move up a floor. I don’t mind.” No one was using the third floor of the house, which had at one time been reserved for the servants. The rooms were small and airless, but sleeping there was preferable to suffering the wrath of Derek’s brother. Or worse, having to find somewhere else to live.
Reed responded with a dismissive gesture of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Until things are straightened out, I’ll sleep up there. Once I’ve taken a long, hot shower and gotten some rest I might be able to make sense out of this mess.”
“No, please,” Ellen persisted. “If I’m in your room, then I should move.”
“No,” Reed grumbled on his way out the door, waving aside her offer. “It’s only my house. I’ll sleep in the servants’ quarters.”
Before Ellen could argue further, Reed was out of the kitchen and halfway up the stairs.
“Is there a problem?” Monte asked, opening the refrigerator. He didn’t seem very concerned, but then he rarely worried about anything unless it directly affected his stomach. Ellen didn’t know how any one person could eat so much. He never seemed to gain weight, but if it were up to him he’d feed himself exclusively on pizza and french fries.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Ellen pressed Derek, feeling guilty but not quite knowing why. “I assumed your family owned the house.”
“Well...sort of.” He sank slowly into one of the kitchen chairs.
“It’s the sort of that worries me.” She pulled out the chair across from Derek and looked at him sternly.
“Reed is family.”
“But he didn’t know you were renting out the bedrooms?”
“He told me this job would last nine months to a year. I couldn’t see any harm in it. Everywhere I looked there were ads for students wanting rooms to rent. It didn’t seem right to live alone in this house with all these bedrooms.”
“Maybe I should try to find someplace else to live,” Ellen said reluctantly. The more she thought about it, the harder it was to see any other solution now that Reed had returned.
“Not before dinner,” Monte protested, bringing a loaf of bread and assorted sandwich makings to the table.
“There’s no need for anyone to leave,” Derek said with defiant bravado. “Reed will probably only be around for a couple of weeks before he goes away on another assignment.”
“Assignment?” Ellen asked, her curiosity piqued.
“Yeah. He travels all over the place—we hardly ever see him. And from what I hear, I don’t think Danielle likes him being gone so much, either.”
“Danielle?”
“They’ve been practically engaged for ages and... I don’t know the whole story, but apparently Reed’s put off tying the knot because he does so much traveling.”
“Danielle must really love him if she’s willing to wait.” Ellen watched as Monte spread several layers of smoked ham over the inch-thick slice of Swiss cheese. She knew better than to warn her housemate that he’d ruin his dinner. After his triple-decker sandwich, Monte could sit down to a five-course meal—and then ask about dessert.
“I guess,” Derek answered nonchalantly. “Reed’s perfect for her. You’d have to meet Danielle to understand.” Reaching into the teddy-bear-shaped cookie jar and helping himself to a handful, Derek continued. “Reed didn’t mean to snap at everyone. Usually, he’s a great brother. And Danielle’s all right,” he added without enthusiasm.
“It takes a special kind of woman to stick by a man that long without a commitment.”
Derek shrugged. “I suppose. Danielle’s got her own reasons, if you know what I mean.”
Ellen didn’t, but she let it go. “What does Reed do?”
“He’s an aeronautical engineer for Boeing. He travels around the world working on different projects. This last one was somewhere in Saudi Arabia.”
“What about the house?”
“Well, that’s his, an inheritance from his mother’s family, but he’s gone so much of the time that he asked me if I’d live here and look after the place.”
“What about us?” Monte asked. “Will big brother want us to move out?”
“I don’t think so. Tomorrow morning I’ll ask him. I can’t see me all alone in this huge old place. It’s not like I’m trying to make a fortune by collecting a lot of rent.”
“If Reed wants us to leave, I’m sure something can be arranged.” Already Ellen was considering different options. She didn’t want her fate to be determined by a whim of Derek’s brother.
“Let’s not do anything drastic. I doubt he’ll mind once he has a chance to think it through,” Derek murmured with a thoughtful frown. “At least, I hope he won’t.”
Later that night as Ellen slipped between the crisply laundered sheets, she wondered about the man whose bed she occupied. Tucking the thick quilt around her shoulders, she fought back a wave of anxiety. Everything had worked out so perfectly that she should’ve expected something to go wrong. If anyone voiced objections to her being in Reed’s house, it would probably be his almost-fiancée. Ellen sighed apprehensively. She had to admit that if the positions were reversed, she wouldn’t want the man she loved sharing his house with another woman. Tomorrow she’d check around to see if she could find a new place to live.
* * *
ELLEN WAS SCRAMBLING EGGS the next morning when Reed appeared, coming down the narrow stairs that led from the third floor to the kitchen. He’d shaved, which emphasized the chiseled look of his jaw. His handsome face was weathered and everything about him spoke of health and vitality. Ellen paused, her fork suspended with raw egg dripping from the tines. She wouldn’t call Reed Morgan handsome so much as striking. He had an unmistakable masculine appeal. Apparently the duties of an aeronautical engineer were more physically demanding than she’d suspected. Strength showed in the wide muscular shoulders and lean, hard build. He looked even more formidable this morning.
“Good morning,” she greeted him cheerfully, as she continued to beat the eggs. “I hope you slept well.”
Reed poured coffee into the same mug he’d used the day before. A creature of habit, Ellen mused. “Morning,” he responded somewhat gruffly.
“Can I fix you some eggs?”
“Derek and I have already talked. You can all stay.”
“Is that a yes or a no to the eggs?”
“I’m trying to tell you that you don’t need to worry about impressing me with your cooking.”
With a grunt of impatience, Ellen set the bowl aside and leaned forward, slapping her open palms on the countertop. “I’m scrambling eggs here. Whether you want some or not is entirely up to you. Believe me, if I was concerned about impressing you, I wouldn’t do it with eggs.”
For the first time, Ellen saw a hint of amusement touch those brilliant green eyes. “No, I don’t suppose you would.”
“Now that we’ve got that settled, would you like breakfast or not?”
“All right.”
His eyes boldly searched hers and for an instant Ellen found herself regretting that there was a Danielle. With an effort, she turned away and brought her concentration back to preparing breakfast.
“Do you do all the cooking?” Just the way he asked made it sound as though he was already criticizing their household arrangements. Ellen bit back a sarcastic reply and busied herself melting butter and putting bread in the toaster. She’d bide her time. If Derek was right, his brother would soon be away on another assignment.
“Most of it,” Ellen answered, pouring the eggs into the hot skillet.
“Who pays for the groceries?”
Ellen shrugged, hoping to give the appearance of nonchalance. “We all chip in.” She did the shopping and most of the cooking. In return, the boys did their share of the housework—now that she’d taught them how.
The bread popped up from the toaster and Ellen reached for the butter knife, doing her best to ignore the overpowering presence of Reed Morgan.
“What about the shopping?”
“I enjoy it,” she said simply, putting two more slices of bread in the toaster.
“I thought women all over America were fighting to get out of the kitchen.”
“When a replacement is found, I’ll be happy to step aside.” She wasn’t comfortable with the direction this conversation seemed to be taking. Reed was looking at her as though she was some kind of 1950s throwback.
Ellen liked to cook and as it turned out, the boys needed someone who knew her way around a kitchen, and she needed an inexpensive place to live. Everything had worked out perfectly....
She spooned the cooked eggs onto one plate and piled the toast on another, then carried it to the table, which gave her enough time to control her indignation. She was temporarily playing the role of surrogate mother to a bunch of college-age boys. All right, maybe that made her a little unusual these days, but she enjoyed living with Derek and the others. It helped her feel at home, and for now she needed that.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Reed stopped her on her way out of the kitchen.
“I’ll have something later. The only time I can count on the bathroom being free in the mornings is when the boys are having breakfast. That is, unless you were planning to use it?”
Reed’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “No.”
“What’s the matter? You’ve got that look on your face again.”
“What look?”
“The one where you pinch your lips together as if you aren’t pleased about something and you’re wondering just how much you should say.”
His tight expression relaxed into a slow, sensual grin. “Do you always read people this well?”
Ellen shook her head. “Not always. I just want to know what I’ve done this time.”
“Aren’t you concerned about living with three men?”
“No. Should I be?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorjamb, almost enjoying their conversation. The earlier antagonism had disappeared. She’d agree that her living arrangements were a bit unconventional, but they suited her. The situation was advantageous for her and the boys.
