Arrogant Devil(31)
Still, I am a little bit curious about her. Call it boredom, but I’ve been imagining what she’ll be like all day, and I nearly jump for joy when I hear a car pull up out on the gravel drive.
“Christine’s here!” Edith calls from the living room.
I’m moving clothes from the washer to the dryer when the front door opens and she strolls in. I’m so anxious to see her that I stuff everything in as quick as I can and dash into the kitchen just as Jack greets her in the front hall. They hug instead of kiss, which I find interesting. Christine seems distant, offering Edith a polite nod, but nothing more. They obviously have bad blood.
She’s beautiful—though, I obviously expected nothing less. Her light blonde hair is cropped short near her chin. She’s wearing a white dress and sandals that tie up around her ankles. Dainty gold necklaces are layered around her neck, and I’m immediately envious of how put-together she looks. It’s been easy to forget about comparing myself to other women when the only one I’ve seen for a week is more than twice my age.
I’m still staring at her outfit when she rolls her suitcase into the room, bringing a trail of mud along with it. Dammit. I just mopped that floor this morning. The farther into the house she goes, the messier it gets.
“Oh, oh! Hold on, looks like you have something on your wheels.”
I rush forward with a rag I grabbed from the kitchen counter and make quick work of the mud. When I finish, I push off my knees to stand and smile. There, no more mud streaking my wood floors.
All three of them are staring at me like I’m crazy.
“Meredith, aren’t you off the clock?” Edith quips.
I point back to the kitchen. “I was just finishing up some laundry, didn’t want to leave it in the washer all weekend.”
“Laundry?” Christine frowns, glancing from me to Jack and then back again. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
She’s looking at me like I don’t belong. It’s the exact same look I give the fauna in the shack, but it doesn’t faze them. If anything, they’ve invited even more of their friends. Come on! Tell Jerry and the other spiders we’re throwing a barbecue later! Yup, havin’ flies again!
“Meredith is helping out around the house for a little while,” Jack explains simply.
Christine isn’t satisfied, so I smile and hold out my clean hand. “I’m the new housekeeper. Pleased to meet you.”
In a flash, her expression softens. Apparently, my job as Jack’s housekeeper immediately whisks away whatever jealousy might have been building inside her. It’s as if I held up a sign that read, Don’t worry, you’re better than me—on the inside and out.
Still, she can’t help but size me up. Her gaze scans over me quickly, clearly assessing as she goes. I wish I’d put on a little more makeup this morning. She’s decked out like a blogger at fashion week. Meanwhile, I look like I’ve been hauled out of the ocean after a year alone on a deserted island. I should be the least threatening female she’s ever met. Still, when she scans down to my jeans, her eyes go wide with wonder. “Are those the new distressed skinnies from J Brand?”
I glance down. “Oh, umm…I don’t—”
She walks around me so she can see the back pockets. “They are!” She jerks back around to face me, gripping my shoulders in her hands, shaking me gently. My brain rattles in my head. “Where did you get these?! They’ve been on backorder on every website I search.”
I laugh, slightly embarrassed, slightly aware of the emphasis she put on the “you” of that question. “I got them back in California, actually.” Truthfully, they were just one of a dozen designer pairs hanging in my closet. I didn’t think much of them and now I feel slightly guilty that I wore them all week while scrubbing toilets. She’s so impressed, I think she’d rip them off me if she could. “I’d let you have them, but they’re kind of all I have at the moment.”
She laughs and finally releases me. I breathe a sigh of relief.
“I know what you mean,” she says while flipping her hair. “When you find the perfect pair of jeans, it feels like you can’t wear anything else.”
Edith opens her mouth to inform her she misunderstood, to tell her these are actually the only pair of pants I own, but I beat her to it.
“Preach it, sister.”
She beams and I smile back.
“California, huh?” she asks. “What are you doing in this hellhole?”
Jack scowls behind her, but I do my best to ignore him.
“It’s kind of a long story.”
Her manicured brows arch with interest. “Well, I’m dying to hear it.”
12
Jack
Christine won’t stop talking about Meredith. We left the ranch thirty minutes ago and we’re supposed to be on a date, talking about us and our future. Instead, she’s going on and on about my new housekeeper. Don’t get me wrong, I love most any excuse to avoid talking about our relationship, just not this one.
“Is it weird that I have a girl crush on her?”
Not that weird considering every ranch hand on my property has an actual crush on her.
“She’s really pretty,” she continues, a little too airily.