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“Wonderful. Send her by early next week so we can discuss the menu.”
To Linc’s relief, Dolly announced lunch a few minutes later. He could tell that the wheels were spinning in his mother’s head. As the food was being served, Bettina demanded pen and paper so she could write down the list of appropriate women she intended to introduce to him.
Linc sipped tomato bisque soup and devoured curried shrimp and egg salad sandwiches in silence while his mother remarked over each woman she intended to include. Bettina made it sound as if they were candidates for him to choose from, but he knew the truth: the party would be one big husband hunt, with him, the unlucky prey.
The situation wasn’t unfamiliar. Since high school, women had been throwing themselves at him. And once he’d started playing pro baseball, he couldn’t turn around without a beautiful woman hitting on him. But those women weren’t usually of a sort he took seriously. After a one-night stand or a brief hookup, they drifted out of his life.
This was different. His mother intended to toss him into a pit with a voracious group of marriage-minded females. He doubted he’d come out intact.
So Linc started making his own list of eligible guy friends whom he could persuade to attend to take some of the focus off him. He knew twenty who fit the bill, but the question remained: How many could he convince to attend? They had to realize what his mother was up to.
Over dessert, his mother turned her attention to gossiping about her neighbors and the antics of her former in-laws. There was little new or surprising in what she had to impart, and Linc let the white noise of her voice flow over him while he wondered if Claire had found the earrings and if she liked them.
The unique asymmetrical style wouldn’t have suited most of the women he knew, but Claire would appreciate them. She had a quirky Bohemian style, a product of her growing up in California. He hoped she liked the interesting shapes and blue-green color of the stones. Would she guess that remembering turquoise was her favorite color had prompted him to choose this particular pair? Doubtful. He’d been doing a good job hiding his interest in her.
“I’m thinking about getting remarried.” His mother’s abrupt declaration jolted Linc out of his musings.
“Remarried?” he echoed dumbly, his thoughts scrambling to catch up. “I didn’t realize you were seeing anyone.”
“I’m not. At least, not exclusively.”
Linc frowned. What did that mean? He narrowed his eyes and focused all his attention on his mother. “So you’re seeing several men?”
He couldn’t reconcile this with his mother’s behavior after her husband went to jail, was released and then abruptly filed for divorce. After years of devoted support, Bettina had been blindsided, causing Linc to sever all contact with his father. Ever since, she’d kept a low profile and hadn’t really dated, at least as far as Linc knew.
“Not in the way you’re implying.” His mother’s tone sharpened. “I entertain gentlemen from time to time. They come by for lunch or cocktails. Sometimes dinner.”
“Where do you meet these men?”
Bettina preened, obviously appreciating her son’s alarm. “Is that concern I hear in your voice?”
“Of course it’s concern. You can’t just drop something like this on me.” Linc shook his head. Today’s lunch was certainly eventful. “Are you sure they’re interested in you and not just—”
“I suggest you don’t finish that statement,” his mother said, eyes narrowing. “I’m an attractive woman.”
“Yes, you are,” he murmured.
Bettina rolled on as if he hadn’t spoken. “With needs.”
“Please, no more,” he begged, cringing away from thoughts of his mother having any sort of sex life.
Bettina continued, either oblivious to or not concerned about her son’s sensibilities. “You’ve been so busy with your life that you haven’t paid all that much attention to what’s going on with me or your sister.” His mother paused for a beat. “Did you know she’s been seeing someone?”
Linc shook his head, struck dumb by the twists and turns the conversation was taking. “Anyone I know?”
Bettina shook her head. “You know she doesn’t tell me anything about her personal life.”
Sawyer had learned that lesson watching their mother meddle in his life.
“Then how do you know?” he asked.
“A mother knows when her children are up to something, and Sawyer is definitely acting like she has a secret.”
As the implication of Bettina’s words hung in the air, Linc hoped that wasn’t true, because the last thing he needed was for his mother to find out about his feelings for Claire.
* * *
Claire stood in the middle of The Market on Market and gaped at the woman who’d just issued such a provocative statement. With her brain short-circuited as the implications sank in, her entire body remained frozen. But as she watched Everly’s gaze flick to Honey and narrow as if assessing the toddler from a fresh perspective, Claire regained her wits.
“Me?” she burst out, half laughing, half in irritation. “And Linc Thurston? That’s absolutely ridiculous.”
While Claire wasn’t surprised the woman knew all about Linc’s severed relationship with London, she was stunned to be thought of as the reason for the breakup.
Everly’s perfectly arched eyebrows rose. “Is it?”
“You have it all wrong. I’m his housekeeper.” Not to mention she was the furthest thing from Linc’s type.
He was attracted to beautiful, elegant women with money and social graces. A man of his wealth and social position needed an accomplished hostess at his side, someone of equal standing in Charleston. His mother would demand nothing less.
“You think it’s unusual for a man to have an affair with his hired help?” Everly asked, her voice sly and full of salacious undertones.
Claire considered all the scandals that had arisen surrounding famous men and their female staff. From nannies to assistants to housekeepers. She supposed it made sense for the woman to jump to the wrong conclusion about her.
“Linc is not like that,” she said with mounting dismay.
Why was she bothering to defend herself and Linc when this woman was so far off track, not to mention completely out of line?
“You’re female. And you’re pretty. I’m sure you can understand how it looks.”
The woman’s insistence made Claire ponder her interactions with Linc. Sure, they had an occasional flirtatious exchange, such as the one this morning about her skinny-dipping in his pool. Sudden heat flooded Claire’s cheeks as she thought about how it could’ve been misinterpreted.
“He’s never been anything but professional with me.”
“Of course.” But Everly didn’t sound at all convinced.
Claire was on the verge of letting it go when she remembered that in Charleston’s tight community even a whiff of scandal could be damaging. She sucked in a breath for one final clarification.
“Linc is surrounded by beautiful, interesting women all the time,” Claire said evenly, keeping her features composed as she hit the woman with a final double-barreled shot. “I clean his toilets. There’s nothing beautiful or interesting about that.” Then, barely giving the woman a chance to let that sink in, she added, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my shopping.”
Claire pushed the cart forward. To her dismay, the woman wasn’t giving up. Everly’s heels clicked on the tile floor as she moved to intercept Claire once again. She snagged the shopping cart with one manicured hand and Claire noticed how she appeared contrite.
“I’m sorry. I was out of line to say what I did. Let me take you to lunch to apologize.”
The urge to laugh almost overpowered Claire. She imagined how out of place she and Honey would be sitting down to a meal with Everly in one of the sophisticated restaurants that the elegant woman no doubt frequented.
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I feel terrible. Let me make it up to you.”
The whiplash of the woman’s abrupt turnaround left Claire feeling off balance. “I don’t think so.”
“Let me give you my card. You can call me when you have some free time.”
With Everly’s business card burning in her pocket, Claire finished her shopping. It had been easier to accept the card and agree to call the attractive blonde woman than to continue to put her off.
Anxiety had eased its grip on Claire once she got in line to pay for her groceries. Really, it was almost funny that anyone could imagine she was attractive enough to catch Linc’s attention. The idea was absurd. By the time Claire exited the grocery store, with a small bag of items on one hip and her daughter on the other, she’d chalked up her encounter with Everly to one of the pitfalls of working for someone in the public eye.
Claire stored the groceries in her trunk before settling Honey into her safety seat in the back seat of her ten-year-old gray Saab. The car had taken her from California to Charleston when she fled with her daughter after Jasper’s parents started threatening her with a custody suit. To obscure her trail and make it hard for them to know where she’d gone, Claire had sold her former car and paid cash for the Saab. A friend had helped by registering the car in his name. Claire probably should’ve ditched the Saab when she reached Charleston, but she felt unaccountably secure after she reached the city.
In an odd way, when she’d exited I-26 and driven south on Market Street all the way into historic downtown Charleston, she’d been overwhelmed by a sense of coming home. Which was ridiculous, because until a little over a year ago, the farthest east she’d ever been was Las Vegas.
During the short drive back to Linc’s house, she shook off the eerie feeling from the odd encounter with Everly. In a town like Charleston, it made sense that most people would feel as if they had some connection to Linc and speculate on the reason behind his abrupt breakup with London.
He was a media darling. Not only was he a famous baseball player, handsome, wealthy and from one of Charleston’s older families, but he was also an active philanthropist, offering his personal and financial support to numerous charities. His innate charisma dominated whatever room he walked into. In short, Linc was a colossal celebrity.
“People make up all sorts of absurd things,” she remarked to her daughter as she unbuckled Honey from her seat and lifted her out.
As soon as Honey’s sandal-covered feet touched the brick pavers of Linc’s driveway, the toddler made a beeline for the kitchen door, leaving her mother to follow more slowly after collecting her bags. In addition to grocery shopping, Claire had purchased flowers and containers for centerpieces. She intended to make those up this afternoon because tomorrow would be reserved for cooking.
“Mama!” Honey’s excited call pulled Claire away from the refrigerator, where she’d been putting food away.
“What, baby?”
Honey’s bare feet slapped the kitchen’s wood floor as she brought her mother a small flat box of a size perfect for earrings. “Blue.”
“Yes, it is. Where did you find that?”
Honey pointed to the center island. Claire glanced over and spied a white envelope. She took the present from her daughter’s hand and carried it back to where Honey had found it. She set the box on the envelope and her daughter immediately protested.
“No!”
“That’s not ours to play with.”
“Mama.” Another thing Honey had inherited from her father was stubbornness. The toddler marched back to the island, climbed up on the nearest chair and once again reached for the present. “Mine.”
As quick as her daughter could be, Claire had learned to be quicker. She scooped up the envelope and present, depositing them into the upper cupboard that held everyday dishes. Honey set her hands on her hips and scowled her displeasure.
Lips twitching, Claire turned her back to her daughter and began making her lunch. It was almost one and her errands had taken longer than she’d expected. Not until Honey sat at the kitchen table with turkey, cheese and apple slices did the two-year-old’s sour expression ease. With her daughter occupied, Claire focused on the centerpiece arrangements. During the two-year period in her life when she’d been attending culinary school, to make ends meet Claire had gone to work for a florist, first as a delivery driver and then as an arranger.
“Nice flowers,” she heard Linc say from the back door.
Claire looked up from her project and spied him entering the kitchen. Her heart gave a foolish little jump. He looked handsome in his navy blazer with the delphinium-blue pocket square that matched his eyes.
“Thank you, but the arrangement is far from done.”
“I like the colors you picked out.” He approached the center island where she was working and selected a stem of pale gold freesia. Setting the horn-shaped flowers to his nose, he inhaled. “This one smells good.”
“I thought the color and shape would go nice with the Golden Forest china. What do you think?”
Although Claire doubted Linc cared which of his three sets of dishes she chose, talking—or babbling, in this case—kept her from doing something foolish, like blurting out the story of her encounter with Everly.
“And the Waterford, of course,” she continued. “Your mother would approve. What do you think?”
She clamped her lips together to shut down the flow of words, all too aware that Linc was eyeing her. Damn that woman in the grocery store for filling her head with thoughts of being in a steamy affair with Linc.
“Sounds like you have everything in hand.” He glanced at the spot where Honey had found the jewelry box and envelope and then surveyed the rest of the kitchen.
When his brows drew together, Claire realized what he must be looking for. “I put it in the cabinet,” she explained, wiping her hands on a dish towel before crossing to where she’d secured the present. “Honey was all over it. We’ve been working on her colors and she noticed the box was blue.”
“Blue,” Honey chortled from the kitchen table, clapping her hands enthusiastically. “Mama. Down.”
“Finish your lunch, baby.” Claire retrieved the box and envelope and extended it to Linc.
“You didn’t open it?” he asked in surprise.
“No.” Claire gave her head a vigorous shake. She’d never step across the line like that. Was that what he’d made of her bout of awkward chattiness earlier? That she’d snooped and felt guilty about it? She placed the gift on the counter in front of him and returned to her flower arranging. “I’d never do something like that.”
“Mama. Down.”
A weird buzzing filled Claire’s ears, distorting her daughter’s voice, as a lazy smile played over Linc’s lips. He set his hand on the counter and leaned in her direction.
“Did you even look at the envelope?”
A lock of blond hair fell across his forehead, lending a boyish charm to his already overwhelming handsomeness. She realized his effect on her had grown stronger lately.
What would it be like to have him close his arms around her and kiss her hard and deep? Just the thought of being crushed between his ripped body and the unyielding kitchen cabinets made her blood heat. She reflexively clamped down on the rose stem she was holding and winced as a thorn pricked her thumb.
“No,” she said, sticking the injured thumb in her mouth. “Should I have?”
“Mama!” Honey was rocking in her booster seat, demanding that Claire release her.
“It’s for you.”
Her stomach dropped to her toes at his sly grin. He’d bought her a gift? Why would he have done that? From his triumphant expression, he was obviously pleased with himself. Despite her lingering discomfort from Everly’s scandalous assumptions, Claire found herself smiling back at Linc with no clear understanding why.
“For me?” In her bewilderment, she sounded like a complete chowderhead.
“Your name is on the envelope, isn’t it?”
“It is?” Her pulse jerked in an erratic rhythm as she shifted her gaze to the small box and envelope.
He tapped the center of the paper where Claire was scrawled in Linc’s familiar handwriting. “It is.”
“I don’t understand.” The jewelry box felt heavy in her hand.
“You’ve been working for me for a year. I bought you something to celebrate your anniversary.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” But she was thrilled that he had and more than a little relieved that was all there was to it.
