Husband on Demand Read online

  "We're not going to have an affair, Jake."

  Jake's mouth drifted across the line of Cassie's jaw to nibble at her earlobe. "We already are having an affair. We just haven't gotten as far as the bedroom yet."

  "I see." Cassie tried to keep her voice light. "Well, that must explain why I don't recall sleeping with you. I thought surely it couldn't have just slipped my mind, but -"

  "Oh, you'll remember it, all right," Jake said gruffly. "I'll guarantee it."

  Three single women, one home-help agency - and three professional bachelors in need of... a wife?

  ·Are you a busy executive with a demanding career?

  ·Do you need help with those time-consuming everyday errands?

  ·Ever wished you could hire a house-sitter, caterer... or even a glamorous partner for that special social occasion?

  Meet Cassie, Sabrina and Paige - three independent women who've formed a business taking care of those troublesome domestic crises.

  And meet the three gorgeous bachelors who are simply looking for a little help.. .and instead discover they've hired Ms. Right!

  Enjoy bestselling author Leigh Michaels's new trilogy:

  Husband on Demand - On sale April 2000

  Bride on Loan - On sale May 2000

  Wife on Approval - On sale June 2000

  Husband on Demand

  Leigh Michaels

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE key was right where Peggy always left it, under the pot of bright yellow mums beside the front door of the townhouse. But this time, instead of putting it back as soon as she'd unlocked the door, Cassie dropped the key into the pocket of her tweed jacket and bent to pick up her tote bag and suitcase.

  Just inside the painfully silent foyer, with the door pushed closed behind her, she stopped to look around.

  Which was silly, of course, for it wasn't as if she didn't know almost every inch of Peggy Abbott's house. Cassie couldn't count the times she'd been there, putting away the dry cleaning in the master-bedroom closets, or picking up a shopping list from Peggy's desk in the tiny study. Last Christmas she'd spent a whole day in the kitchen, wrapping gifts and baking cookies for the Abbotts' holiday open house.

  Sometimes Peggy was there when Cassie stopped by, more often she wasn't. But this time was different. This time Cassie wasn't simply running an errand but actually moving in. And this time the townhouse seemed watchful and wary, instead of warm and welcoming.

  Cassie shook her head a little and smiled at her own fancy. It wasn't as if she didn't have Peggy's permission, after all. In fact, Peggy had almost begged her to make herself at home.

  "With my luck," she'd said, "I'll be gone for two endless weeks on this abominable camping trip of Roger's and come home to find the contractor hasn't even shown up, much less installed my new whirlpool tub like he promised to do. And if that happens after I've spent an eternity in a tent in the woods light-years from civilization, I'll slit my wrists."

  "You can't," Cassie had told her, "because serious wrist-slitting requires a bathtub to sit in while you do it. And in any case, I couldn't allow you to eliminate one of Rent-a-Wife's best clients."

  "Then you'll come and stay in my house and keep an eye on the contractor," Peggy announced. "If you're actually living right on the spot, he won't be able to make excuses."

  Cassie hadn't been so sure; in her experience, workmen could be just as inventive on a daily basis as they could after the fact. But house-sitting was one of the services Rent-A-Wife had offered from the beginning, as was waiting for repairmen to show up so the person whose television or washing machine or furnace was misbehaving didn't have to take time off work. Peggy was really just asking for both services rolled into one - and flexibility in meeting the client's needs had been Rent-a-Wife's business credo from the very beginning. So Cassie was moving in for the duration.

  Besides, she admitted, there were certain perks in having Peggy's townhouse all to herself - except, of course, for the workmen - for a couple of weeks. Terrace Square was neither the newest nor the most upscale development in the city, but it made Cassie's apartment complex look like the projects. Peggy's townhouse, with its high ceilings, sweeping curved staircase, and fancy glass, was a palace next to Cassie's efficiency apartment. And it wasn't just elegant, it was well built; Peggy could turn up her stereo system at any hour of the day or night without the worry of disturbing the neighbors. The idea of music at any hour and at any volume was, for Cassie, a sizeable inducement all by itself.

  In fact, she decided, as soon as she got her things settled in the guest room she intended to try out Peggy's baby grand piano. Once the contractor started work, she'd no doubt have to keep the piano covered most of the time, to protect it from airborne dust, so she'd better enjoy it while she could.

  She was hanging the last of her tailored pants outfits in the guest closet when the cell phone clipped to her belt cheeped. "Rent-a-Wife," she said absent-mindedly.

  "It's eight in the evening, Cassie. You're not officially on duty anymore," said one of her partners.

  "Hi, Paige. It's habit, that's all."

  "Are you getting settled in?"

  "Oh, yes. Peggy may have to blast me out when she comes home. The thought of all this space - " Cassie caught at a jacket as it slipped off the hanger, and almost dropped the phone. "What were you saying, Paige?"

  "I was asking if you could handle incoming calls tomorrow. Sabrina's going to Fort Collins to pick up a client's kid from a basketball training camp, and my mother has a doctor's appointment."

  "Sure. I'll be right here, either waiting for the contractor to show up or standing over the crew while they work."

  "Did Peggy really put that tight a restriction on you? Two weeks of it sounds a bit like a prison sentence."

  "Oh, it won't be that bad. Once the work is started, I'll be able to keep an eye on the workers and still manage my regular schedule. When you forward the calls, Paige, would you use Peggy's number? My cell phone hasn't been holding a charge very well lately, and if I get swamped with calls... "

  "We should be so lucky. It's the slow season, remember?"

  And that, Cassie reminded herself, was an even better reason for taking on Peggy's project - because Peggy never quibbled about the bills, and this job would be a welcome bit of cash flow in a sluggish business period. "I know. If I was really smart I'd put up my Christmas tree now, because in a few months I'll be too busy dealing with customers' holiday needs to have time or energy for my own decorating."

  "Precisely," Paige agreed. "And now that you mention holidays, maybe we should run a special. Maybe half-price on addressing Christmas cards if we can have them done before Halloween."

  "Not a bad idea. But you'll have to wait till next year," Cassie warned, "so we can buy the cards this Christmas, when they're actually available. Is your mother all right?''

  "It's just a checkup, but you know how long those can take. If everybody else is having an emergency, the routine patients wait. I'll switch the phone over to you first thing in the morning."

  Cassie clipped her cell phone back on her belt, stashed her empty suitcases under the guest bed, and went downstairs to the big living room at the back of the townhouse.

  Darkness had settled while she was upstairs, and the lower level of the house was dim, lit only by the glow of the antique-looking street lamps which lined the little playground park at the center of the townhouse complex. The beveled glass panels beside the front door sliced and shattered the light, until nothing seemed to stay firmly in place in the silently shifting shadows. Even the stair balusters felt less than solid under her hand. Cassie shivered a little and hurried across the foyer.

  Though the living room was open to the foyer, it had a much warmer feel; thi
ck pile carpet and deep, inviting upholstery formed a comforting contrast to the stark marble floors and hard edges of the foyer. The polished black surface of the baby grand gleamed even in the dimness, and Cassie ran a gentle hand over its glass-smooth beauty before she lifted the cover and tentatively touched a key.

  Her fingers were stiff, but that was no surprise, for she hadn't played regularly in more than a year. Still, it felt surprisingly good to run a set of perfectly tuned scales, and it wasn't long before her hands seemed to have regained their command of the keys, finding their way almost instinctively to the next chord and the next and the next.

  Cassie had never been a great pianist, for she'd managed only scattered lessons through the years, but she'd always enjoyed escaping into music. Though other instruments were too expensive to rent and too difficult to borrow, there was usually a piano to be found - at school, at church, in a friend's home, in the practice studios on campus - and so the piano had become her solace.

  She played for a long while, softly wandering from one remembered favorite to another, stumbling now and then and having to work out a half-recalled passage. Only when she'd exhausted her repertoire did she look thoughtfully at the stack of music scores atop the cabinet next to the piano, wondering what treasures were buried there. Rent-a-Wife's unspoken ethical code meant that out of respect for a client, none of the partners would open any drawer or door unless she had been told to. But the music was right out in the open, and Peggy had told her to make herself at home....

  Cassie found the sheet music for an old march and settled back at the piano to try out its first crashing chords. How satisfying it was, she thought, to play whatever she liked, knowing that the thick walls between the townhouse units would prevent the neighbors from being disturbed.

  The march was a difficult one, and even with the help of a tiny spotlight atop the piano, the printed notes were faded and hard to read. Her first attempts at the opening chords were so dissonantly noisy that she didn't consciously hear the first heavy blow against the front door.

  The second impact sounded like a battering ram striking home. In stunned shock, Cassie lifted her hands from the keyboard and - eyes widening in horror - stared across the foyer to the misshapen shadow which loomed outside the beveled glass panels.

  A burglar, she thought in frozen terror. Someone who thought the house was not only dark but empty. Someone, perhaps, who knew that the Abbotts had gone camping....

  The third blow was the loudest of all - or perhaps it only seemed so because under its force the door frame splintered with an ear-piercing shriek. The door, torn halfway off its hinges, crashed against the foyer wall and rebounded, and suddenly the misshapen shadow resolved itself into the tallest, broadest-shouldered, and most threatening man Cassie had ever seen.

  The glow of the small lamp which illuminated the sheet music felt suddenly like a floodlight, exposing her mercilessly. Instantly he focused on her - his eyes narrowing, his body tensing.

  And then he spoke. His voice was deep, he sounded puzzled, and his question was the last thing she'd ever have expected a burglar to ask. "Just who the hell are you?"

  The key wasn't where Roger always left it, under the silly pot of shaggy yellow flowers beside the front door of the townhouse.

  What a surprise, Jake thought irritably. If his brother and sister-in-law insisted on using the most obvious hiding place ever invented, they ought to expect that someday an unauthorized person was likely to put their spare key to use.

  Not only their friends and co-workers but the whole townhouse complex must have known they were leaving today to go camping for two weeks in Manitoba, unreachable unless somebody called in the Mounties; it was anybody's guess which of those people might have decided to take advantage of a couple of weeks' head start and lift a few valuables. They hadn't wasted any time, either - he guessed Roger and Peggy couldn't have been gone for more than six hours, and he'd bet their jewelry and silver flatware had almost followed them out the door.

  Of course, it was simply Jake's bad luck that he'd be the one to find the key missing - and lord knew what other possessions as well.

  Just what I wanted to do with the rest of my evening, he thought. Instead of the hot shower and much-overdue night's sleep he'd been looking forward to, he would no doubt have the pleasure of meeting a dozen or so Denver cops and seeing how they handled a burglary investigation.

  Actually, he told himself, it would serve Roger and Peggy right if he just walked in and went straight to bed, ignoring until tomorrow morning whatever damage the burglar had done. Maybe, if the guy hadn't actually trashed the place, Jake could legitimately say that he'd been too tired to notice anything wrong, and so...

  His hand was actually on the doorknob when he sighed and stopped himself. In good conscience, he couldn't put off reporting a crime. So he'd have to walk across the park in the center of the townhouse development to the office, tell whoever was in charge about the missing key, and suggest he or she call the police to check things out.

  Besides, he realized abruptly, even if his principles would have let him sidestep the problem at least for the night, he couldn't just walk in - because the door was locked.

  That seemed a bit odd; in his experience, burglars weren't likely to be sensitive about protecting people's remaining property after they'd helped themselves to whatever took their fancy. Perhaps this burglar was simply being cautious not to leave any obvious signs of his intrusion. And of course if he still had the key, he could come back anytime, if he was so inclined, to mop up the rest of the valuables....

  Jake was turning away from the door when he heard an odd, dissonant crash from inside, and the locked door abruptly took on a whole new meaning. This was a very careful burglar indeed - one who was taking his time and wanted to be sure he wouldn't be interrupted. Though, if he didn't want to be noticed, why was he playing the stereo? Was he testing its sound quality to be sure it was worth his while to carry it away?

  Adrenaline flooded through him, and without conscious decision Jake drew back, lowered his head, and in his best football-lineman style plunged his shoulder into the door.

  It shuddered, but it held - which was more than he could say for the shoulder. Wincing, Jake took a step back and with all the power of his muscular legs thrust the sole of his shoe against the weakest spot on the door, right near the lock. Something cracked, and as he kicked once more the frame splintered and the door opened so abruptly that it banged against the far wall and rebounded, almost catching him square on the nose.

  "So much for the element of surprise," he muttered and stepped across the threshold, alert for movement, for strange shadows, for anything which was out of place.

  What he saw in the faint glow of light from the living room took his breath away. The woman who faced him was young, white-faced, with a mop of curly red hair and the biggest eyes he'd ever seen. She had no flashlight, no mask, no dark clothes, no pry bar. She was wearing a tailored tweed jacket that would have fitted into any bank or board room in the city, and she was sitting bolt upright in front of Peggy's baby grand piano, her hands still arched above the keys.

  All in all, she was the most unlikely-looking burglar he'd ever seen.

  Which left him, Jake realized, with quite a problem.

  Cassie had to swallow hard before she could find her voice. "Who the hell am I? Who the hell are you? And I've got a lot better right to ask than you do, since I'm not the one making the unorthodox entry." She put her hands firmly on her hips, tentatively shifting her fingertips till she found the cell phone's keypad. Fortunately, she hadn't quite turned to face him, so even with the music light falling directly on her, he probably hadn't seen the phone still clipped to her belt. If, before he saw what she was doing, she could dial the emergency number by feel, then she could shout the address when a dispatcher answered....

  She managed the first number, but instead of its usual cheerful cheep the phone made only a feeble groan, the last gasp of a dying battery. Cassie
fumed and tried to remember where Peggy's nearest phone was located. Not that it mattered much, because whichever direction it was, the giant was between her and it.

  And he was getting closer. While she'd been distracted, he'd come halfway across the foyer. Close up he wasn't quite so tall or enormous as she'd thought at first; perhaps the wavering light behind him as he'd plunged through the doorway had magnified his physique. Still, he was plenty awe-inspiring.

  "I'm waiting for an explanation," she reminded.

  He reached for a panel of switches on the foyer wall and flipped them all. The living room's overhead lights glared, almost blinding her for a second, but as Cassie's eyes adjusted she got her first good look at him.

  He was tall, all right - a bit over six feet, she guessed, with the shoulders to match his height - but part of the bulk she'd seen was actually the garment bag he was carrying slung from a strap over his shoulder.

  That was hardly the sort of thing a burglar would choose to carry his tools, Cassie thought, and she felt her heartbeat slow a trifle.

  "My name's Abbott," he said tersely. "And I'd like an explanation myself."

  Cassie's eyes widened. She'd never met Roger Abbott, but judging from Peggy's occasional careless comments she'd never have expected him to be a cross between a major-league athlete and a dark-haired Greek god who lacked only an appropriate pedestal....

  Whoa, she told herself. This is your client's husband you're thinking about.

  Never judge an accountant by his job, she told herself. This one had probably worked his way through college as a bulldozer.

  "I guess Peggy didn't tell you she'd hired a house-sitter," she said. "But I thought you'd be halfway to Canada by now. What went wrong with the camping trip? And where's Peggy?"

  "With Roger, I presume." He set the garment bag down and flexed his shoulder.

  "Then you - " Cassie felt herself wavering. "What are you? A one-man SWAT team?"