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“Yes. I’m the only other employee who lives at the house. I’ve been there for years.” She grinned, her dentures very big and white in her small, wizened face. “I’d like to say affectionate things about him, but the man is insufferable. I love him like a son, but he needs a smack in the head sometimes.”
“Got it.”
She shook her head. “I’m hiring you instead of a man, so don’t be surprised if he brings it up. He always thinks he wants a male handler, but he fires them as fast as I can hire them. Time to try something new. Female, young, pretty. He won’t know what to do.”
That didn’t bode well, but she had student loans that wouldn’t be ignored. Ms. Sutton gathered her purse and coat.
Shit. She wasn’t sure if she’d managed to charm the woman yet. She couldn’t leave.
“When will you be deciding?” she asked, walking the woman to the door in the hopes of winning her over before she made it back to her red Mustang GT. Definitely not the type of car she expected a sweet little old lady to drive, but Minnow seriously approved.
“Oh, I’ll send Churchill around for you tomorrow. Pack for a week, to start, and if you last that long we’ll send someone for the rest of your things.”
Wow. Okay.
“Is there a uniform? A dress code?”
“Just pack whatever you’re comfortable in. The house is out in the middle of nowhere, and we rarely leave.”
*
A day wasn’t enough time to organize her affairs, but luckily Leduc’s estate wasn’t far from town – only an hour by car. A lot of things would need to wait anyway, at least until it didn’t seem like he’d fire her. For all she knew, she’d be back at her apartment later today.
Her front door buzzer went off promptly at eight AM, and she descended the stairs with her small second-hand suitcase, trying to look organized and composed.
Churchill, or Church, the driver of the SUV, was a tall African American man, with wide shoulders, a wide smile, and an easy manner – he was hot, charming, expensively dressed, and she guessed about thirty. Unfortunately, the sneeze guard between the front and back seats kept her from making conversation. She wouldn’t have been at her best anyway, worrying about all the things she’d left undone at home.
The dishes were all clean, the garbage taken out, and she’d quit her job at the Coffee Emporium, although she still felt bad about leaving Henry, the owner, scrambling to cover her shifts. As Churchill pulled onto the highway, she realized she’d forgotten a pair of pants she’d meant to bring. And... Had she unplugged the iron?
The city became the countryside. Trees flashed past, a blur of verdant serenity after the bustle and crowding she was used to. No more coffee shop. No more aching feet. Maybe she’d have time to read more. Maybe, after a few months and after paying off some bills, she’d finally be able to afford an e-reader.
When she’d gone back to school, she’d thought personal support worker training would land her a decent job – something above minimum wage – but with the economy the way it was, no one was hiring. She’d been lucky to get the job at the coffee shop.
Minnow pulled out the paperback she’d been reading, but couldn’t concentrate long, and soon she was staring out the window again, the trees a wall between her and the hungry life she hoped to leave behind.
After what seemed like eternity, Church turned off the highway onto a private road, then onto another, stopping when they reached a walled estate with a breathtaking wrought iron gate.
The gate opened for them, and they moved up the tree-lined drive to a sprawling house. The place looked like someone had stolen a museum from Europe and dumped it in the middle of Nowheresville, New York.
It was...intimidating.
Surrounded by the type of landscaping she’d only ever seen on television, the house was massive and elegant. Yeah, the jeans she packed weren’t going to cut it, no matter what Sutton had said. This was definitely, at least, a pretty day dress sort of position.
A grand stone stairway led up to the arched set of doors, but the driveway curved around the back of the house. They didn’t have to go through the front? Excellent.
In the back, Church stopped and came around to open her door for her. As soon as she stepped out, the strange sound that had reached her in the SUV became much louder.
“What is that?” she asked, scanning the grounds. The noise must be coming from a large garage that stood, door wide, far removed from the house. The building was across the extensive lawn, past a huge pool, and a tennis court. Lights flickered in the open doorway of the garage, and smoke came from the chimney. The noise stopped.
“That?” Church blinked, then shrugged. “That’s the forge. You’ll get used to it.” He said the latter in a way that implied he didn’t even notice the banging anymore. It was hard to imagine getting used to that kind of racket.
“So the help goes in through this door?” Best to get questions like this out of the way early.
“There aren’t any fancy divisions like that here. We all use this door.” He grinned. “The whole house is at your disposal. Feel free to use the pool, library, entertainment equipment – whatever you want. There aren’t any servant stairwells or anything, and we all eat dinner together.”
“Who the fuck is this?” a gravelly voice asked, so low that Minnow was pretty sure her toes kept vibrating after the words stopped coming.
She turned and saw a man stalking toward them. Man wasn’t really the right term. He was more like a...she didn’t even know what. Dirty, sweat-slicked, shirtless, wearing old ratty jeans and a pair of steel-toed boots, the man could star in his own blue-collar calendar and be every damned month.
