The Bachelor Boss (3 page)

“It does not. It winds you up like a clock. I have to go to work early in the morning, Grams. I can’t be up half the night playing games.” He was so tired already that his vision was blurring.

“Well,” she huffed. “I’m sorry I’m such an
imposition.
Just the tea, then. I apologize for breaking my foot and becoming such a
burden
to you.”

She was trying to guilt him into staying up half the night with her. He wouldn’t fall for it this time, he told himself.

“I’m sure you didn’t.” He smiled a little. As much as his often manipulative, occasionally cantankerous grandmother drove him crazy sometimes, he loved her with all his heart. If only...

“...if only,” she said, as if she’d read his mind, “that lovely woman you’d hired to help me hadn’t left. Then you wouldn’t have had to do everything for me. Did I ever tell you about the time...”

Lily Matthews was off and running. Tyler was too tired to listen.

The woman his grandmother was referring to hadn’t
left,
exactly. It was more like she’d run away. Like the one before her. And the one before that. They’d all stayed a while, tending to his grandmother, hopping to her orders. Then they always resigned for the same reason—Lily was too much. She slept little, chatted constantly and was, although she’d never admit it, often imperious and demanding. She thought nothing of waking someone during the night to watch QVC with her or send her breakfast back to be remade two or three times because the poached eggs weren’t quite to her liking. And taking her pills...that could be like World War III for a woman who was mentally somewhere in her thirties but trapped in the body of a ninety-year-old. Lily hated getting old.

She reminded him of a beautiful Ferrari with a purring engine whose wheels had been removed so the vehicle had been put up on blocks. Lily still had the engine but not the mobility.

It wasn’t all Lily’s fault, Tyler knew. His grandfather had spoiled her outrageously over the years and had never once complained about her strong personality or over-the-top demands. Lily was behaving just like she always had.

The difference was that Ty was not his grandfather. He didn’t have a staff of servants or a business manager and a massive team of people to run TDM Imports and Exports. After his grandfather had died and Ty had taken over his business, he’d trimmed much of the fat both personally and in the organization. Keeping it lean and trim had allowed him to be successful, even in the economic downturn. But he hadn’t counted on Lily breaking her foot and insisting that she move into his house to be cared for. Nor had he expected her to demand that he bestow the attention on her that his grandfather once had.

Running the business, traveling and watching out for Lily, with no one but an infrequent home health care nurse and an occasional cleaning lady to help, wore him out. It didn’t help that Lily was a night owl.

Still, he loved his grandmother. It was his turn now to take care of Lily. Honor your father and your mother—or your grandmother—had become his mantra, the thing he told himself when Lily was particularly irascible. It was all about her frustration at being unable to be as active as she once had, he reminded himself.

When he returned to his grandmother with the tea, she’d already dumped the Scrabble tiles onto the small table in front of her and she gave him that
surely you don’t mean to deny me
look. She took the cup, tasted it and smiled sadly. “Just a little warmer, dear. Do you mind terribly?”

Warmer, colder, higher, lower, deeper, wider. It was always something with Lily. A wave of tiredness spread through him. It was going to be another of those short, short nights of sleep. He would call the number Dr. Harvey had given him first thing in the morning. He’d ask the woman if she could start tomorrow.

Chapter Three

H
annah pulled into the circular drive in front of the massive two-story brick home. As she did so, the butterflies in her stomach multiplied. This interview simply mattered too much. She was on the ropes and had no where else to go. Tyler Matthews had called her first thing this morning and she’d immediately agreed to a ten o’clock appointment with him.

“Lord,” she whispered. “Please let this be the place.”

She rang the bell and held her breath as the door swung open to reveal a dark cavern of rich cherrywood and parquet flooring. A round table that looked old and valuable sat in the center of the foyer with a flower arrangement on it that was at least four feet high, the kind she’d seen in the reception areas of fancy hotels. Those flowers alone would have paid her phone bill for six months.

She reached out her hand to the gentleman at the door and said, “Hello, I’m Hannah St. James. You called me to...” Then she looked into his face and a single word slipped out. “You!”

He stared back at her, obviously equally surprised. “From Dr. Harvey’s parking lot? I had no idea...”

Of course not. There’d been no way to make such a connection. Dr. Harvey must have gone right into the next examination room and told these people about her. “Neither did I.” He’d never let her take care of his grandmother after what she’d done to his brand-new car.

“I was there looking for work,” she managed shakily.

“And he suggested we call you,” Tyler said, seemingly staggered that she’d turned up on his doorstep.

A faint bell chimed upstairs and they both glanced in that direction.

“My grandmother. I’ll be right back.”

“I could come and say hello,” Hannah offered, hoping to revise his first impression of her.

“Not yet. My office is to the left. We have to talk first.”

* * *

Feeling uncomfortable and tongue-tied, Hannah feared she wasn’t making a very good impression. What’s more, Matthews kept looking at her strangely as she sat at his desk in the chair across from him. Perhaps he expected her to do something silly...again. Still, there’d been a coffee service on the corner of the desk and he’d offered her a cup. The man had manners when one wasn’t crashing into his fender.

“I need someone who is willing to move in and live here in this house,” Tyler was saying.

“I can’t, Mr. Matthews. I own a home. I live with my sister and eight-year-old son. It wouldn’t be right to leave them.”

“No husband then?”

The next words out of his mouth startled her so that her jaw dropped.

“Bring your son along. He can live here with you. Your sister, too, if you like. My grandmother enjoys children. They could entertain each other.”

“My sister is in college. She’s old enough to live on her own, but Danny...you’d really permit that?”

Tyler sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Here’s the deal, Mrs. St. James.”

“Hannah.”

“Very well, Hannah. My grandmother is a spitfire. She has energy that some forty-year-olds don’t have. She’s not accustomed to being confined to a wheelchair and the lack of mobility makes her irritable. I have an import and export business that needs my immediate attention. I love my grandmother with all my heart, but I can’t make her happy and still run my business. I need someone to live in the house, be available to her 24/7 and to keep her busy. It isn’t an easy job. Frankly, I’m getting desperate.”

So desperate that he’d hire even her? Was that why he hadn’t turned her away at the door when he recognized her?

“That’s asking a lot.”

“You’ll have your freedom and time off, but you’ll need to work around my schedule. I want someone here for Grams if she gets into mischief. Grandmother doesn’t normally
get
into trouble, of course. She usually
creates
it.”

She studied him closely. He looked tired. Huge stacks of papers and files littered his desk. What’s more, she understood what he was saying about his grandmother. As people aged, their hours passed more slowly, and they craved contact with others and ways to fill those empty spaces. Lily would probably prefer that Tyler never leave her side at all except to sleep—and then for as few hours a night as possible.

“Frankly, Mr. Matthews, I’m surprised you’re even talking to me. After all, I’m the one who ran into your new car. You must think I’m irresponsible, yet you’re willing to hire me?”

His eyebrows rose and his blue eyes widened. A smile crept across his face. “Frantic is what I am. I wouldn’t let you drive Lily to the clinic, but if you stayed inside the house...”

Hannah couldn’t help smiling. If he could make a joke of it, so could she.

“There is one rather large problem, however.”

Her heart sank a little. “Oh?”

“Yes. I’d like you to start immediately. You can move in this evening. I realize you’ll have to go home and pack. Maybe you can bring what you need for the week and then take your time getting the rest.”

He was asking her to leave her home, move in with virtual strangers and raise her son in an unfamiliar place—all in a matter of hours? It didn’t even sound rational. Was the Matthews home in a different school district? She didn’t know. She didn’t have gas money to be driving Danny back and forth to school.

“I need time to think.”

“I’m afraid I need an answer now.”

Hannah opened her mouth to protest, but instead “I’ll take it” popped out.

* * *

“Good. I want to let Lily know you’re here before she sees you. Then I’ll show you the house.”

He left Hannah in his office while he mounted the stairs to Lily’s room.

She was sitting in her rocking chair, knitting. Her white hair was a tumble of tight curls. She looked practically angelic in her pale pink velour outfit.

Looks could be deceiving, Ty thought wearily.

“You didn’t bring her up to meet me.”

“You
have
met her. She’s the woman who ran into us at the clinic.”

“With that dreadful little car? That sweet thing? Scoop her up.”

When Ty paused, Lily’s jaw hardened and her eyes turned flinty. “I liked that girl. If you can’t get her, then just toss me into the nursing home so you can tend to your business and get me completely out of your hair. Maybe I should just check myself in.”

Lily always threatened to check herself into some institution or another when things weren’t going her way. Ty’s grandfather had always considered Lily’s occasional petulance cute and bent over backward to fulfill his wife’s wishes. It had given him great pleasure, in fact, to spoil his Lily.

Tyler wasn’t like his grandfather, but he didn’t like to cross Lily any more than the older man had.

“I did hire her, Gram. I’ll bring her up. She has to go home to pack a few things, of course, but she’ll be back tonight.”

Lily’s face was suddenly wreathed with smiles. She reached out and patted his hand. “Darling boy.”

She looked so pleased that Ty couldn’t feel too badly about doing something so impulsive. He wanted only the best for his grandmother.

Lily had become forgetful lately. Dr. Harvey had casually said that it was likely a result of being upset about her fall and that he doubted that it was the early stages of dementia.
Dementia.
Ty had never before considered such a thing happening to Lily. It changed how he thought about his grandmother. Since that conversation, Ty had feared the worst and hoped for the best.

That’s when he’d decided that whatever Lily wanted, Lily would get.

* * *

“You’ll have the room next to Lily’s,” Tyler told Hannah as he began his tour of the house. “She insisted upon it. There’s a dressing room and bath between the two rooms, so you can use the adjoining door to get into her room if she needs you at night. If she isn’t feeling well, you might want to leave both doors open so you can hear her. Otherwise, there are monitors in each room you can turn on at night.”

His proximity was unnerving her. His cologne was crisp and masculine combined with the sharp sweet scent of soap. She closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the experience.

Her eyes sprung open. Enough of
that!

“Is she a restless sleeper?” she inquired, switching her thoughts from him to his grandmother.

“Not once you convince her to go to sleep. It usually takes me several games of Scrabble and begging for mercy before she agrees to go to bed.” He paused on the landing between the stairs that led to the second floor. “Lily’s a handful, Hannah. Like I’ve said before, my grandfather doted on her. He felt it was his purpose in life. She’s not accustomed to not having her own way.”

“We’ll be fine. I like a challenge,” Hannah said bravely.

“Then you should have a great deal of fun with my grandmother.”

* * *

Hannah’s new room was filled with sunshine. It had pale yellow walls, soft yellow sheers on the windows, a white coverlet decorated with yellow flowers and accents the color of tender green shoots peeking from the ground in early spring. It was larger than she’d expected, with room for not only the queen-size canopied bed, but also a love seat and chair, a desk and a small entertainment center hidden inside an armoire. The bathroom was equally pleasant with white subway tile, a claw-footed tub and a mirrored vanity for putting on makeup.

“This is lovely,” Hannah said softly. She was touched that he’d chosen such a room for her.

“It’s one of the larger bedrooms. I’m afraid that Danny’s room is quite a bit smaller.”

“Danny? He can stay in here with me. All we need is a cot or mattress.”

“Lily wouldn’t hear of that. Come. I’ll show you his room. Then you can say hello to Lily.”

She followed him down the hall to a room that was surely a little boy’s dream. Painted balsa wood airplanes of all types hung from the ceiling, flying over a double bed. In one corner was a foosball table and in another a towering stack of plastic bins filled with Lego.

“Danny will stay here? This looks like it was put together just for him.”

“It was, in a way.”

She cocked her head to look at him.

“This was my bedroom when I was Danny’s age. I put every one of those airplane kits together and convinced my grandfather to hang them. He liked Lego as much as I did, so we rarely went shopping without coming home with another kit. Danny can build the Capitol Building here in Denver, the Denver Art Museum and probably the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs with all those.”