On the Move (7 page)

Now Scott wanted Vicky to look at his nanny quarters? Was the man serious?

“Damn,” he said again.

Obviously Scott had been serious. If Brandon wasn’t mistaken, that was Vicky coming down his driveway. He moved closer to the window.

Sure enough, that was her. Already.

“Damn,” he muttered again. Now what?

He watched as she got out of the car and looked around. He knew what she would see—and it wasn’t much. No palatial estate. No landscaped lawn. No sparkling lake in the background like most of the other drivers on the circuit. His home was a tiny, run-down farmhouse nestled atop a small hill near the outskirts of Statesville. Nothing but a couple dozen acres and a big red barn behind the two-bedroom house.

He ran a hand through his hair, then turned away from the window. A few moments later, she knocked on the front door. He stood there for a moment contemplating what to do. He’d never felt so out of sorts. After his dad had made a wreck of his finances, he’d been careful to keep his secret destitution exactly that—a secret. And he’d succeeded, too. No one bothered him way out here, mostly because no one cared about Brandon Burke, ex-Indy driver.

She knocked again.

“Hang on,” he said, reminding himself he had nothing to worry about. If she made a comment about the way he lived, he’d tell her it was just temporary.

“Where’s the nanny quarters?” she asked the moment the door opened.

“Yeah, about the nanny quarters. Bad idea.”

Her hair was loose today, no bun. She wore jeans, too.

Vicky VanCleef looked
good
in jeans.

“I couldn’t agree more, but Scott says I should go look at them, so let me go look.”

“Why’d you tell Scott you didn’t want any time off?”

She looked momentarily pained, but she hid her expression quickly. “Because I’m a big girl,” she said. “And no man’s going to chase me away from a job I worked hard to obtain.”

Good for you,
he almost said. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m glad you didn’t resign.”

She looked even more pained. “It’s not. Now, if you could just point the way…?”

“No need,” he said. “Just tell Scott you took a peek and the nanny quarters don’t suit. Frankly, it’s a dumb idea and I resent the fact that Scott thinks I need a live-in babysitter.”

“I couldn’t agree more, about the dumb idea, but if there’s one thing I know about Scott, he’ll ask me a million questions about your place in order to convince himself I really did as he asked.”

“I’ll just describe them to you. He’ll never know.”

“Just let me go take a peek, that way I can look him in the eyes. Are the quarters above the barn? Is that where they are?” She turned away and headed in the barn’s direction.

Brandon rushed after her. “Look, Vicky. I’ll call Scott. Tell him how much I resent the hell out of him sending you here.”

“Fine, you do that.” She stopped suddenly, Brandon nearly crashing into her. “Is that where you want to put the boys’ ranch?” she asked, pointing to a low-slung valley out behind his barn. A long time ago the fencing that delineated the property line had been painted white, now it was a sort of muddy gray.

“Yeah,” he said. “Not too far away from the main barn. Out in that meadow there between the trees.”

“That’ll be nice.”

“Yeah,” he said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “It will.”

“I really respect how humbly you live.”

Oh, man…he wished she’d quit looking at him like that with compassion. He was starting to think she might actually like him and that troubled him greatly because the truth was, he’d begun to like her, too.

“Yeah, well, it’s just temporary,” he said. “One day I’ll remodel the house.”

“Yeah, but I bet you won’t tear it down.”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m just going to add a second story, maybe some dormers. Turn it into more of a contemporary ranch house.”

“That would look nice,” she said with a smile.

She headed toward the barn again. “By the way, you can try and call Scott. But you know how it is, once he gets an idea, he’s like a dog with a bone…and he thinks the idea of me living with you is absolutely brilliant, even though we both know there’s not a chance in hell it’ll ever happen. But go ahead…call.” From her back pocket, she produced a phone which she flipped open.

“No, that’s okay,” he said, because he suddenly realized that she was headed for his barn.

His barn.

“Here,” she said, handing him the phone. “It’s ringing.”

Brandon panicked because he needed to stop her from going up there to the nanny quarters.

“Vicky, babe!” he heard his agent say. “I was just about to call you. Our boy Brandon doesn’t like the idea of you living in his nanny quarters, so you’ll need to work on him—”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Brandon interrupted. “But it’s ‘your boy’ on the phone and I very definitely don’t want Vicky living here.”

“Oh, hey, Brandon,” Scott said without missing a beat. “How you doin’, buddy?”

“Fine except Vicky’s here to check out my nanny quarters,” Brandon said, rushing to catch up to her. Damn it. She was just about to go up the steps that led to the second level of the barn.

“Terrific. I’m glad she did as I asked. When do you think she can move in?”

Brandon felt his hackles rise. “That’s just it,” he said, covering the phone for a second and whispering, “Vicky, wait.” He spoke into the phone one more time. “I was kidding when I mentioned it to her yesterday and I think we both agree it’s a bad idea.”

“And I think it’s terrific,” Scott said.

“The space isn’t habitable,” Brandon said, glad to see that Vicky had stopped at the base of the steps. She stood there, arms crossed.

“No? Then why’d you invite me to stay with you before?”

Good question. “Actually,” Brandon said, thinking quickly, “I was assuming you’d stay in my house.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, if your nanny quarters are uninhabitable…SSI will hire someone to fix it up. You can reimburse us for the repairs later.”

“Reimburse?”

“Yeah. Once you have some income rolling in. In the interim, I’ll have one of my administrative assistants look into contractors down there.”

“No, Scott…that’s not the point. I’m not going for it. Period.”

“You sure?” Scott drawled. “Because I’ve got to tell you, Vicky’s about the most easygoing gal I’ve never met. And if you have her nearby, she’ll give you all the personal attention you need…and deserve, buddy. Have her look over the place. She can call later and give one of the assistants a list of what has to be done. I’ll have ’em get right on it.”

“But—”

“Gotta go, Brandon.”

“Scott!” But Brandon heard the distinct sound of a line being cut.

Damn that man. If he didn’t need his services so desperately, he’d fire the jerk.

“He can be a bit of a bully,” Vicky said.

“You think?” Brandon asked. “Where’s the Redial?”

“Here,” Vicky said, holding out her hand to show him.

When he tried Scott’s line again, it went right to voicemail.

“Let me just go look at the place,” Vicky said, holding out her hand for her phone again. “You can call him later and tell him we both decided it was a lost cause.” She turned back to the barn.

“Vicky,” he said. “I think the place is locked. I’ll have to go back to the house to get the key.”

“Go ahead,” she said, walking up the steps.

“Wait. The treads are unstable.”

“They look fine,” she said.

“Damn it,” he muttered. Maybe if he went up ahead of her, he’d have time to hide his study books. He bolted forward, saying, “Let me go first…just in case.”

“Okay.” But she didn’t immediately follow. Her eyes were on the stable, or what was left of the barn. At one time it’d probably been nice. Wide aisles. Stall doors with tarnished brass latches that, now, were covered with cobwebs. Metal grills across the front would have kept the horses’ heads from sticking out—if he’d had any.

“I always wanted a horse,” he heard her mumble.

“Really?” Good. Distract her with conversation.

She nodded, beginning to climb the stairs again. “My mom thought they stank, although given how big she is on society, I’m surprised she didn’t encourage me to ride to the hounds.”

“Do they still do that sort of thing?”

Maybe he should distract her with another kiss, he thought.

“They do,” she said. “In the country.”

They reached the landing and Brandon said, “Before you go in, you should stop at the top of the stairs. There’s a little porch up there with a table and chairs. You can sit down and stare out at the view while I go in and clean up a bit.”

Her brows squished together. “Brandon, is there something wrong? Some reason why you don’t want me to go in ahead of you?”

“I told you, the place is a mess,” he said quickly.

“You’re making me think you might have a drug problem, and that maybe you’re manufacturing those drugs in there.”

“What? No way.”

She bolted past him. He tried to stop her with two more steps left to go.

“Just sit outside while I go clean up.”

“Let me pass,” she said, and he could see suspicion in her eyes.

“Don’t you want to sit outside for a moment and enjoy the view?”

She brushed past him again.

“Guess not,” he muttered.

She didn’t even pause when she reached the ten-by-ten porch. The door opened beneath her touch. She shot him a look that was laced with disappointment, then shook her head. “Where are the drugs?”

“I told you. There aren’t any drugs.”

She ignored the books on the table and went straight for the drawers in a nearby desk. She didn’t even comment on the rooms being not so dirty after all.

“If you’re abusing a substance I need to know,” she said, yanking on a drawer handle.

“Hey,” he said, batting her hand away.

She ignored him. There was nothing in there, at least not that he could see. Good. So then those tapes must be in the other drawer.

“I’m not on drugs,” he said again, glancing at the workbook on the desktop. He tried to shove it out of the way so she couldn’t read the title.

“That’s what they all say,” she said, pushing past him, moving toward the other drawer on the opposite side of the desk.

“No,” he said. “Don’t.”

“This is where you’re hiding it, huh?” She thrust the cassettes inside the drawer aside.

Please don’t let her read the titles,
he thought.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you—”

He knew by the way she suddenly went quiet that she’d read at least one.

Reading Made Easy.

He watched her gaze dart to the desktop, to the workbooks he’d tried to move aside.

Reading Made Easy: Workbook One.

He had to listen to the lessons on tape because what else could he do when he couldn’t understand the learning material? The software program he owned only read back documents he scanned in. It couldn’t
teach
him words.

“Oh, my gosh,” she muttered. Her green gaze collided with his own. “That’s what you’re trying to hide. You can’t read, can you?”

“Seriously, Vicky. I can read just fine. And now that you’re done searching for my ‘paraphernalia,’ maybe we can leave. I’m sure you’ve seen enough. This place is a mess.”

That wasn’t true
at all.
In fact, she’d been pleasantly surprised by how clean and spacious the place was. Stretching from one end of the barn’s attic to the other, it was bigger than her shared apartment in Brooklyn. Windows dotted the wall—four on each side. They weren’t that big, but they allowed light to filter through and to illuminate the dust motes that zigged and zagged in the air. At the far end sat a private room, obviously where the occupant slept. There was even a tiny kitchenette to her left.

She turned to the workbook, opened it up to a random page, and said, “Read this to me.”

He batted the book away with his hand. “No.”

“Because you’re being an ass? Or because you can’t?”

“Let’s go,” he said, turning away from her.

“That’s why you haven’t read your contract, isn’t it?” she asked. “You can’t review them on your own.”

“I can read just fine.”

“And I bet that’s part of the reason why you’re so sympathetic to underprivileged children. You know what it’s like to live life at a disadvantage.”

He was almost to the door, and ignoring her. “You can call Scott later and tell him yourself that the place is a wreck,” he said.

“But it’s not a wreck, is it, Brandon?” she said, rushing to catch up to him. He was already out the door and down the steps. “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

At last he stopped, and she could tell he wasn’t happy. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” he said, and she could hear the venom in his words all the way from where she was standing at the top of the steps.

That gave her pause for a moment. She hadn’t seen this side of him since the first day they met.

“You couldn’t read my note in that meeting, could you? The notes I wrote yesterday. That’s why you ignored them. Not because you were being a jerk.”

He crossed his arms in front of him. They were at eye level now. Vicky stopped, liking the way he couldn’t look down at her.

“It’s why you turned down that television show,
Racer to Racer,
too. Not because of time constraints. Or scheduling conflicts. But because you can’t read.”

He turned his back to her. She darted around him, stopping him with a hand on his chest.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

“No,” she said. “Not until I get a straight answer. And I’ll bully it out of you if I have to, Brandon. One bug in Scott’s ear and you’ll never hear the end of it. He’ll send you straight to a reading specialist. Makes you more valuable. You’d take a gig like
Racer to Racer
if you could read.” She straightened suddenly. “God, how did you get through all those years of sponsor obligations? Or shooting commercials? Didn’t you have to read from a script?”

Silence settled around them.

Vicky’s hand moved from his chest to his arm. “It must have been hard. I’m surprised you made it.”

“Just leave me alone.”

She had her confirmation then that he indeed couldn’t read. He hadn’t bothered to deny it. Hadn’t tried to dissuade her with yet another flimsy argument. She’d seen the answer in his eyes.

And he knew it.

Brandon Burke couldn’t read.

She didn’t know what to say. When he walked away, she hung back. A few seconds later, she heard his front door slam.

Now what?

Leave, Vicky. You’ve seen the inside of the nanny quarters. Scott will be appeased. True, Brandon will undoubtedly try and get you out of his life now. By the end of the day, you’ll be on your way back to New York…without having to quit because Brandon will tell Scott to send you home.

She’d be damned if she let him do it.