She moved to the door. "I'll put it by your bed, okay? Do you need me to read Green Eggs and Ham to you again?"
He shook his head, turning blue-green eyes up at Landon. "Will you read it, Uncle Landon?"
He smiled down at the boy swimming in what must have been one of Evan's T-shirts. Black Sabbath. Interesting choice for a six-year-old. "You bet."
"In that case, I'm going to go to bed." Kimber hesitated with one hand on the door frame. "Thanks for the drink," she told Landon. She flicked her gaze to Lyon, told him to sleep tight, and blew him a kiss.
When she pulled her palm away from her pursed lips and her gaze fettered to Landon's, he swore a whisper of wind brushed along his cheek a second before she disappeared down the hall.
CHAPTER SIX
Kimber lifted her cell phone to her ear in time to hear it ring. She'd hung up on her employee, Neil, mid-conversation when she'd attempted to rest the cell on her shoulder while making Lyon a sandwich.
"You there?" she said when he answered.
"Here," Neil said. "I can't believe you were that close to a millionaire and didn't kiss him."
"I can. That would have been stupid." And fun. And terrifying. The mere idea of her lips against Landon Downey's had fear pooling in her stomach like an overfilling ditch. Only there wouldn't be anything mere if she were to kiss him. It would be epic. Massive.
Overwhelming.
"Hang on," she told Neil. Poking her head out of the kitchen, she found Lyon in the living room where she'd left him. "Lyon! Sandwich!"
He ignored her, as he'd done all morning, and continued swinging his plastic sword while wearing a Superman costume. Why the conflicting wardrobe and weaponry bothered her, she didn't know. Maybe she was a purist. She dipped her voice low. "Lyon."
Her "mom" voice. Who knew she had one of those?
"Are you going to count to three, next, darling?" her employee-slash-smart-aleck friend asked merrily.
She walked into the living room and caught the sword with one hand. "Lunch," she said to the boy who was too cute for his own good. "Go eat and I'll let you watch Man of Steel before bed."
That worked. He ran into the kitchen and climbed dutifully into his chair, swinging his feet as he bit into a peanut butter sandwich.
"Color you Mary Poppins," Neil chimed.
"Have you ever heard of a kid who didn't like jelly?" she asked distractedly as she put the peanut butter back in the cabinet and brushed crumbs from the counter.
"Never."
"Right?" She wiped down the counter and tossed the dishcloth in the sink. "You have a question about the store," she prompted. Neil's first words to her when she'd answered had been "Mick said to call you" as if he was apologizing for interrupting. Little did Neil know his call was as welcome as the housekeeper that had arrived at eight a.m. today to clean the six bathrooms in Landon's penthouse. In a word, very.
Kimber missed Hobo Chic. Not just the store, but working-having a sense of purpose. She missed her morning habits she'd since abandoned to come and live in enviable luxury. Whether she was scheduled to work in the store or not, every morning she made her coffee and came down the stairs of her attached loft and into Hobo Chic. She'd sit on the for-decoration-only settee and turn on an elegant Tiffany lamp she refused to sell and take in her surroundings. She'd admire her handiwork: the clothing she'd procured at a recent estate sale or thrift shop, or a rescued piece she'd carefully mended the night before. Or sometimes she'd craft her homemade price tags, trimming squares of burlap, inserting gold eyelets, and threading pink silk ribbons to loop over the hangers.
Having something of her own made her feel proud. Proud in a way that living and going to school in New York, as lush as that had been, hadn't been able to match. Maybe because she'd gone on her parents' dime. They'd long since forgiven her for abandoning her major, and in her eyes, she was still very much in the fashion industry. Instead of forging ahead to the future, she was cleaning up remnants of the past, she thought with a smile. She wouldn't have it any other way.
"And then there is this rack of shirts and skirts off to the side without prices," Neil was saying.
Crap. She would bet she'd rushed off and left the pile of tags in her apartment.
"A beautiful career-esque woman, who would have probably gotten her promotion today if I sold her the shell tank top and vintage sage print skirt," he continued with a dramatic sigh, "was inquiring."
"Tell me you sold it to her," she pleaded. Why hadn't she remembered to price that rack? She was always forgetting some mundane, simple yet imperative detail.
"Can I have milk, Kimber?" Lyon asked, crumbs dotting his mouth.
"Chocolate or white?" she asked, moving to the fridge.
"Chocolate!"
Like she needed to ask. She pulled down two glasses with one hand and held the phone to her ear with the other, not repeating the mistake of face-ending the call with Neil.
"Of course I sold it to her," he said. "It brought out her cheekbones. What I need to know is how you want me to price the rest of these items; if you had something in mind."
"I did." But she'd forgotten. Had run off to her new gig and left her store in the hands of Neil; her near-useless ex, Mick; and a twenty-year-old girl who was fresh off the farmland of Indiana. "How is Ginny doing?"
"She keeps calling everything ‘neat,' " he said with a laugh. "She's precious. And flirting with me."
Kimber nearly choked on the glass of milk she'd poured for herself. "You're kidding."
"No. She has no idea I like men."
"Speaking of, how's Mick doing?"
Neil grunted. He didn't like Mick. Had made his distaste for her ex-boyfriend no secret. "Yesterday he spent most of the evening perched on a stool playing the guitar."
Mick's talents extended to nearly every area of art. From decoration to design to music to painting. It was one of the things she'd fallen for when they'd been dating. If he'd managed to hone any of those skills into a career, she'd likely still be with him. But he quit everything. Like he'd quit her. And like he wanted to quit Hobo Chic.
"I'll be back on Monday," she said.
"We'll be fine. Hobo Chic is fine. You work your nanny gig for a rich hottie and enjoy it, missy," Neil teased.
She smiled. He had a way with words. "I get a come-to-Jesus talk, too?"
"No charge."
Lyon cast her a curious frown. "What's ‘come to Jesus' mean?"
Great. With no graceful way to answer that question, she diverted his attention instead. "Use a napkin. You have peanut butter on your face." He swiped his face with the paper towel she gave him. "Finish your lunch and I'll give you a brownie." Once she baked some.
"So this is what you're doing this week? Bribing a six-year-old kid into doing what you need him to? Stuffing him full of brownies and ultra-violent movies?"
"Don't judge me. Get a notebook and go to the rack. Describe each piece and we'll talk pricing. I bet you're going to know how to price them anyway."
As they worked, Neil paused to ask her questions she couldn't answer freely within earshot of Lyon. "I'm thinking forty-nine dollars," he would say, followed by, "What color are your millionaire's eyes?" Or, "There's a tear in the sleeve, toss or repair?" then, "What's his butt like? Big, small, firm, flat?"
"It's delicious," she said without thinking. Lyon had moved to his room a few minutes ago, his bath-towel cape flapping behind him. At least he didn't have the sword any longer. She cleaned off the kitchen table and loaded his plate and glass into the dishwasher.
"Describe," Neil said.
She lowered her voice. She didn't have to-Lyon was roaring in the back of the house, appeased with his own imagination for the moment. Closing the dishwasher door, she leaned a hip against the counter. "He wears these suit pants that sort of … cup each cheek, you know?"
"Oh, I know. Keep talking, honey."
She grinned. This was fun. She turned around and rested on her elbows, toying with a knife in a block with her free hand. Surely snuggled in a corner at the back of Landon's massive kitchen, with Lyon several rooms away, she could speak without being overheard. She glanced at the baby monitor on the counter behind her. Lyon had plopped onto the bed to play a handheld game. Yeah. He was in the zone. She was safe.
"Landon's tall, so he has these incredibly long legs. But even though he's lean, his body looks strong."
"More," Neil instructed. She pictured him perched on the ottoman at the back of the store, his legs crossed.
"I can tell because of the way he fills out his clothes-"