His Cinderella Housekeeper by Sharon Kendrick & Ann Major & Lucy Monroe

Author:Sharon Kendrick & Ann Major & Lucy Monroe [Kendrick, Sharon & Major, Ann & Monroe, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Short Stories
ISBN: 9780263873979
Publisher: Harlequin Mills & Boon
Published: 2010-07-14T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

The honeymoon was over. After a sleepless night worrying about Yardley, and being scared about the second dead cow, and sick that she and Phillip had quarreled, Celeste got up in the dark several hours before 0600. It upset her that Phillip, Mr. Big Macho Marine, could sleep like a baby even when she ran the vacuum down the hall.

She didn’t hear a peep from his bedroom until well after ten. When she finally heard him in the shower, she was on the way to the utility room, her arms aching under the weight of a third, huge load of laundry.

There was a lot of dirt on a ranch, at least in dry south Texas. When Phillip came in from a hard day’s work in some distant pasture, his carved face would be streaked with mud because he’d perspired so much that the blowing dust had stuck to him. His clothes and hair would be caked with grit. The dirt seeped under doors and through cracks and crannies of the window frames. Dusting had to be done every single day.

That gloomy morning after the dance, Celeste made herself two pots of coffee. Wired from so much caffeine and exhausted from no sleep and the hours of housework, the blissful six days of their marathon lovemaking in Phillip’s bed seemed like a long-ago dream. So did her ambition to be a star.

Maybe it was for the best that Mercado, Yardley, rumors about dangerous gunrunners, and the dead cow had turned up to burst her little romantic bubble. Phillip and she were as different as two people could be. Maybe she lusted after him and ached for his sweet smiles and praise. Maybe they really did love each other in their way, but how long could passion alone sustain them? Her failures in the music world had taught her that making it in the real world was an everyday matter. So was love and marriage.

She didn’t want to be married to a soldier who left her and went off to war while she stayed home to panic at every phone call because she was so afraid somebody would phone to say he was dead and she’d lose everything again. And did he want a girl who couldn’t give up her impractical dreams of being a country-western star?

Mercado had him figured. In between adventures like chasing gunrunners, Phillip needed some nice society, church girl, one of those rich, proper beauties from the country club who dressed like a lady. Someone who was content to be a stay-at-home wife while he was gone.

Celeste was different. She had a voice and a need to be more than she was. Only when she sang did she lose the awful feeling that she was an invisible little nothing. If she dressed flashy and sang her heart out, it was because she craved attention and love. A girl didn’t just have talent. Talent had the girl.

When she’d been a kid, all the other kids had had real mothers and daddies to go home to.

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