Bringing Up Baby New Year & Frisky Business Read online

“No. I have news.”

  “You saw them together?”

  “No, but I have a tape of a very interesting phone conversation.”

  There was silence on the other end. “I’m switching phones,” Trudy said. After a couple of clicks, she was back. “Okay, I’m in the bedroom. Bart Senior was right there next to me in the kitchen. Madge, what do you mean, a tape? Have you broken in and bugged the phone?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Good heavens, no! But how did you get a tape?”

  Madge couldn’t keep the smugness out of her voice. “Oh, with this nifty little device that attaches to my sewing-room window and picks up what’s going on in the house across the street.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I don’t have all the bugs out of it yet. I got the economy version and maybe I should have ordered the deluxe. But I picked up enough to prove that a connection was made.”

  “This feels…unethical.”

  Madge was crushed. “Then—”

  “Deliciously unethical. Tell me everything.”

  Madge’s spirits lifted like one of her prized soufflés. “Well, the thing didn’t pick up everything he said, but I gathered he’d like her to do a certain something every week. Just use your imagination.”

  Trudy made an impatient noise. “That could be something like cleaning out the refrigerator.”

  “I don’t think so. He mentioned tulips. I heard the words sexy and inviting. Does that sound like cleaning out the refrigerator to you?”

  “No, it does not.” Trudy’s voice rang with excitement. “It definitely does not. We’re onto something Madge.”

  “And how about this? He talked about pollination.”

  “Oh, my God. That’s blatant.”

  Madge felt as if she was tossing down trump card after trump card. “He also mentioned jungle drums.”

  Trudy gasped. “Jungle drums? Darcie is not the jungle-drum type!”

  “Maybe the house sitter is, and she’s learning.”

  “Oh, Madge, you simply have to order the deluxe version. We need every word, every syllable, every… thing.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “And Madge, you’ll be getting a visit from the Tannenbaum Board of Directors tomorrow. They want you for the chair of the festival committee.”

  Madge’s chest expanded with pride. Hard work and effort were rewarded after all. “That’s good to hear, Trudy. Very good to hear.”

  JOE TOSSED AROUND most of that night, afraid that he’d started something he wouldn’t have the sexual sophistication to finish. The French Maid was obviously very hot, but she might be out of his league.

  There had definitely been jungle drums in the background when she hung up, but they didn’t sound like something on television. They sounded as if they were right there in the room with her, and he’d heard some strange grunts and squeals, too. Maybe she’d made up the part about the baby show on TV and she’d invited some primitive jungle type over for an evening of fun and games.

  Joe’s experience didn’t stretch to tribal rituals. And that’s what he suspected was going on at her place with the crushed flowers and the drums. Maybe she cleaned house for someone from Africa or South America. Maybe she had all kinds of international connections. She’d had a tough time sticking with one language when they talked. Joe’s good old American lovemaking would probably seem pretty tame to a woman who’d been exposed to all kinds of exotic techniques.

  Still, he was fascinated, and curious as hell. Not to mention very, very turned on. All that talk about pistils. He’d looked it up and the pistil was technically the female part of the flower. But so what? He’d known exactly what she meant, and he’d reacted. Oh, how he’d reacted. He’d used up a lot of cold water getting over that reaction.

  She might be too much woman for him, but he was tempted to find out. At any rate, he didn’t have to do anything until the tulips, complete with their erect pistils, arrived on Wednesday. Then it would be his move, and he could decide whether to pursue this or back out before he showed himself up.

  EVERYBODY SHE CLEANED FOR would get carnations this week, Darcie decided as she plunked down an unholy amount of money for red tulips the following Wednesday morning. But she had to get the tulips to find out what Joe would do next. So long as she never had to meet him, she could continue this harmless but very exciting flirtation. It took her mind off her financial difficulties.

  Once at Joe’s house, she set up Gus’s folding playpen and put him in it with some soft toys and his teething ring. Then she headed upstairs to strip the bed and gather up the towels, her heart pounding in anticipation of another note on the pillow.

  Sure enough, a piece of paper lay in the indentation left by Joe’s head. She picked it up and put off reading the note while she leaned down to sniff the fragrance of his aftershave on the pillow. The spicy scent was fast becoming her favorite brand. She ran a hand over the bottom sheet and imagined him lying there in all his glory, a Chippendale calendar boy, for sure.

  She finally allowed herself the pleasure of reading the note.

  Dear Darcie,

  I can’t stop thinking of you. I want to meet you. How about Saturday night? I would be glad to cook dinner for you here, although maybe, being French, you’d rather cook for me. Just tell me what ingredients you’d like and I will provide anything you want. Anything.

  Au revoir,

  Joe

  Darcie pressed the piece of paper to her chest and tried to get her racing pulse under control. Now that she’d heard his voice she could imagine him talking to her as she read the note. Talking and promising that he would provide anything she wanted. Anything.

  And he wanted to see her Saturday night. Not her, though—and there was the weasel in the potato bin, as her da would say. He wanted to see the French Maid. Even if she decided to hire a sitter for Gus, she couldn’t manage the French Maid disguise in person. Not with red hair, green eyes, freckles and a tendency to slip into Irish speech patterns she’d never quite got rid of even though she hadn’t set foot on Irish sod for sixteen years.

  But what was she thinking? Even if she looked very French, even if she happened to be very French, she couldn’t get romantically involved with a man unless he knew all about Gus. Unless he came to love Gus as passionately as she did. Her fun little frolic with Joe Northwood would have to come to an end. Somehow. Before she left the house today, she’d come up with a plan to free herself from this sticky problem.

  In the meantime, she had a house to clean. She pulled the sheets from the bed and tried not to think about the lovely and available man who had slept on them. While taking the towels from the racks, she worked to ignore the image of a tall, dark-haired man rubbing that towel all over his magnificent, Black Irish body. Her arms full of laundry, she went downstairs and out to the garage to start the washer.

  An hour later, she returned to the garage and gasped in horror. Her preoccupation with Joe must have caused her to dump too much detergent in the washing machine. The washer was foaming at the mouth, and a stream of water and suds had soaked a cardboard box sitting nearby.

  She raced over to wrestle the large box out of the way and the soggy cardboard came apart in her hands. With a groan she stared at the ruined contents. She’d just drowned Santa, his elves, his reindeer and Rudolph. As if she didn’t have enough financial worries, now she’d have to replace Edgar DeWitt’s entire Christmas yard display.

  THE STORE INTERCOM BEEPED. “Joe Northwood, line two.”

  Joe left the pile of two-by-tens he’d been stacking in a bin and walked over to the lumber department’s wall phone. He took off his gloves, picked up the receiver and punched the second button. “Northwood.”

  There was a muffled groan on the other end of the line.

  “Hello? Listen, do you need 9-1-1? I could—”

  “Not 9-1-1, but if you happen to have a miracle around, I could use that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Whoeve
r was on the line heaved a large sigh. “Joe, it’s…Darcie.”

  “Darcie? The French Maid? You don’t sound French.”

  “I’m too upset to sound French right now. To begin with, Santa Claus is a wee bit…oh, Joe, Santa Claus looks like he’s…he’s been on a…three-day toot!” With that, the French Maid sniffed and then sniffed again, as if she could hardly keep from crying.

  It was way too much for Joe. This woman he’d hoped to have a hot date with on Saturday night had been either inhaling the paste wax or liberally sampling DeWitt’s brandy. In any case, she’d switched nationalities and now had a decidedly Irish accent. And unless he was mistaken, she had somehow participated in some kind of binge with Santa Claus.

  At least she had a conscience and had called to notify him, but apparently she was much wilder than he’d thought. With any luck, this alleged Santa Claus hadn’t done any damage to the house, and Darcie only needed help getting the boozed-up guy out of the place.

  Joe kept forgetting it was December because the daytime temperature was still in the eighties in Scottsdale. But the calendar said it was the Christmas season, and guys in red suits were everywhere. Maybe the French Maid had decided to invite one of them in for a drink. Or twenty.

  He had to do something. As the house sitter for DeWitt’s expensive home, it was his duty to check out the situation.

  “Calm down, Darcie,” he said. “I’m due for a lunch break. I’ll be there in ten minutes. We’ll get rid of Santa Claus.”

  “No! You needn’t come home! I’ll dispose of Santa Claus if that’s what you want.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that at all. “He might be difficult.”

  “No problem. I’ll throw him into the Dumpster. You’ll never have to lay eyes on him.”

  This woman was crazed. “Darcie, I’m coming home.”

  “You don’t have to. I can manage.” She sniffed. “I only wanted to warn you about Santa Claus. And the elves. They’re out on the lawn drying out.”

  Great. More drunk people hanging around DeWitt’s house. She must have thrown a hell of a party. Maybe it started at her place and spilled over to DeWitt’s this morning. “Darcie, don’t do—”

  “I’ll pay for everything.” She sniffed again. “Don’t worry about that. But I didn’t want you to drive up, see the elves and wonder if a tidal wave had hit.”

  “A tidal wave? You’re scaring me, Darcie.”

  “Oh, dear. I was afraid you’d be upset about Santa and the elves. You may as well know about Rudolph, too.”

  “Are we talking about a reindeer?”

  “Well, he was a reindeer. But now you can’t really tell what he was.”

  Oh, God. They’d slaughtered an animal as part of the revelry. “I’m coming home.”

  “No! I’ll throw Rudolph in the Dumpster, too! Really, I can manage. You don’t have to—”

  “Oh, I most definitely do need to, Darcie babe.” Joe slammed down the phone, visions of lawsuits swirling in his head as he punched out on the time clock. He headed out the service door and leaped into the cab of his truck. Checking for cops, he gunned the engine as he screeched out of the parking lot.

  3

  JOE COULDN’T HELP BLAMING himself a little for this disaster. He’d encouraged the French Maid to think of him as somebody besides a client, and now she thought she could hold orgies in the house he was responsible for. Well, he’d put a stop to that kind of thinking once and for all, but if she’d caused any damage to the house, Joe figured he’d be the one who should pay for it instead of filing an insurance claim.

  He didn’t really want an orgy with Santa Claus and the French Maid to be on the record where DeWitt could read it. That could start a whole line of questioning he didn’t relish. If DeWitt confronted the French Maid, she might tell him that Joe had come on to her, which he had, no question. And there would go Joe’s references if he ever wanted to house-sit again.

  If only the damage could be minimal. He winced at the idea of dipping into his savings account and putting the cabinet shop even further out of reach.

  But the reindeer. That was the topper. He didn’t know anyone twisted enough to take a reindeer into the suburbs and barbecue it. Good thing this had happened before their date Saturday night. He’d have been in way over his head.

  As he whipped into the driveway, he noticed that some neighbors were already gathered there. No wonder, considering what Darcie and her friends had been up to inside. They couldn’t have been particularly quiet about it. Fortunately, she must have shuttled all the drunks inside because nobody was passed out in the front yard anymore.

  The garage door was open, and a dilapidated heap of a car was parked in the garage—probably belonging to that right jolly old elf with a taste for the juice of the grape. In the driveway stood the middle-aged couple from across the street—the Eiderdowns or something like that. DeWitt had warned him they were a pain in the butt, so he’d taken care to avoid them.

  They were talking with a short redhead with generous breasts and a baby on her hip. All of them were probably wondering whether to call the police. He hoped they’d held off.

  He got out of his truck and approached the group carefully, not wanting them to think he was especially worried. The middle-aged couple—maybe their name was Evenrude—looked grim, and on them grim didn’t look so hot. Mr. Evenrude/Eiderdown was on the short and scrawny side, while the missus was at least a head taller than he was and looked like she could take her husband two out of three falls. And had, judging from his hangdog expression.

  The mother with the baby looked…quite nice, to be honest. Her curly hair wouldn’t stay in the clip she’d used to hold it and it formed a red-gold frame around her freckled face. Joe felt a zing of sexual awareness, which was weird because this baby-toting earth mother wasn’t his type at all. He liked tall, slender women. Women without babies.

  He’d had his fill of babies. The year he turned fourteen his mother had produced triplets, and Joe had changed enough diapers in the next couple of years to last him the rest of his life.

  The redhead looked nervous, probably wondering if this neighborhood was wholesome enough for her baby. The kid was the spitting image of her—same reddish-gold hair and uptilted little nose. And although Joe wasn’t drawn to babies, he recognized that modeling studios would lick their chops over this little leprechaun. Cute as hell.

  “Good morning, folks,” he said evenly. “I heard there was a little problem here, so I came by to check things out. I’m Joe Northwood, the house sitter.”

  “So we finally meet the elusive house sitter.” Mrs. Eiderdown eyed him with a gleam in her eye.

  Mr. Eiderdown stuck out his hand. “Joe, I’m Herman Elderhorn, and this is my wife, Madge. We came about the elves.”

  Elderhorn. That was it. Joe shook the little man’s hand and hoped maybe the damage could be contained. “Yes, I’m here to handle the elf situation.” Although the neighbors had seen drunks wearing tights and pointy shoes passed out on the lawn, maybe they didn’t know anything about a blitzed Santa and a barbecued Rudolph.

  Madge Elderhorn drew herself up until she looked twice the size of her husband. “As chair of the Tannenbaum Christmas Festival and Good Cheer Committee this year, I must object to those elves.”

  “I understand,” Joe said. It didn’t sound as if anybody had called the police yet, which was a relief. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I took them inside,” the baby’s mother said.

  “You?” Joe gazed at her with respect. She looked soft and even voluptuous, but she had nerves of steel if she’d faced a bunch of drunk guys by herself. And she had amazing green eyes. Looking into them made him think of spring and budding leaves and tender new grass. She’d be great to lie in the grass with.

  “I thought you’d appreciate it.”

  “I do.” There was something familiar about that voice, he thought. As he continued to study her eyes, he noticed they were a little red-rimmed, as if she had
allergies or had been crying recently. Crying. A niggling thought started working on him.

  He glanced away from her to allow himself to concentrate on that niggling thought and discovered Madge studying him closely. Too closely. With something resembling a smirk. Something was definitely up. He hoped he wasn’t the star of some Candid Camera episode.

  Finally, Madge spoke. “Considering that the elves are done for, I wondered what you had planned.”

  “I think we can handle this discreetly, Mrs. Eiderdown.”

  “Elderhorn.”

  “Right. Sorry. Mrs. Elderhorn. I can have the elves out of here before you know it.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Madge said. “But the question is, are you planning to replace them?”

  Joe stared at her in shock. “I wasn’t planning to hurt them, just remove them from the neighborhood.”

  “Well, somebody might make use of them, sweet cheeks, once they’ve dried out,” Herman said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Herman. You saw what shape they were in. Someone would have to be desperate to want to use those elves. They’re warped. I say get rid of them.” She looked at Joe. “Want me to do it?”

  “No! I’ll take care of everything, Mrs. Elderberry.”

  “Elderhorn.”

  “Right. Elderhorn. Maybe I can find a rehab facility that will take them.” Joe wasn’t sure exactly what Marge meant to do with those elves, but he wasn’t willing to find out. Even warped drunks deserved a second chance.

  “So what are you going to put in their place?” Madge asked. “You have to come up with something.”

  Joe had completely lost his place in this conversation. He shook his head in bewilderment. “I have no idea what you mean. I wasn’t aware the elves were serving any function.”

  The redhead spoke up. “Mrs. Elderhorn, I don’t believe Mr. Northwood knows about Tannenbaum’s Christmas display.”

  He whipped around to face her. That voice. That Irish lilt. He knew where he’d last heard it.

  Her green gaze pleaded with him, as if she feared he would make a scene in front of the neighbors. “You see, Mr. Northwood, each home is required to put up a yard decoration every year. I guess Mr. DeWitt—”