Maybe she was a little in love with him, but that was as harmless as infatuation.Wasn’t it? It wasn’t as if she was planning the rest of her life around him, or with him.

God, why couldn’t she just relax and keep it simple?

“How’s that coming for you, Malcolm?” Mrs. Grady walked back in, winked at Parker.

“I think I’ve got it.”

“Well, once you’ve got that thing back together, you wash up. You can have some cookies and milk.”

He glanced back at her, grinned. “Okay.”

“It’s nice having a handyman around the house.We’ve been a household of women for some time now. Not that we don’t muddle through, but the next time one of the washers gives me grief, I know who to call.”

“One of the washers?”

“We’ve a utility room with a set on every floor.”

“Convenient.” He cocked a brow at Parker. “And efficient.”

“It is that. I’m going out with some of the girls tonight. I’ll see to your pizza before I leave,” she said to Parker.

“We can just throw something together,” Parker began. “Just go have fun.”

“I plan to, but I can do both. I’ll be seeing your mother tonight, Mal.”

“Yeah? She’s going?”

“A bite to eat, plenty of gossip.Then who knows what trouble we’ll get into.”

“I’ll make your bail.”

Mrs. Grady laughed in delight.“I’ll hold you to it.” Lips pursed she walked to the table. “Look how you’ve shined up those innards.”

“Needed some adjusting, some cleaning, and the indispensable WD-40. How many of these do you have?”

“Only one like that. It’s an old one, but it’s handy for my rooms. Otherwise Parker’s brought in a fleet of new, spiffy ones so I don’t have to haul a machine up and down the steps if I want to do the floors between cleaning crews. Oh, I ran into Margie Winston. She told me you breathed new life into that rattletrap she drives.”

“That old girl’s got a hundred and eighty-five thousand miles on her.The Pontiac, not Mrs.Winston.”

Parker listened to them talk, easy conversation, as he put the machine back together. That was another point in his favor, she mused, the easy conversation, the way he knew and obviously interacted with his client base.

And the way, when he plugged in the vacuum, tested the suction, he grinned. “She sucks.”

“Would you look at that! And it doesn’t sound likes it’s grinding metal while it’s at it.”

“She should be good for a few more miles.”

“Thank you, Malcolm. You’ve earned the milk and cookies. Just let me put this away.”

“I’ll do it.” He crouched to wrap the cord. “Where do you want it?”

“Just in the utility room there, first closet on the left.”

Mrs. Grady shook her head as he carried the vacuum out. “If I were thirty years younger, I wouldn’t let that one slip away. Hell, I’d settle for twenty and try my hand at being a cougar.”

Parker nearly choked on her wine. “I didn’t hear that.”

“I can say it louder.”

Shaking her head, Parker caught her breath. “You’re smitten.” “Something’s wrong with you if you’re not.”

“Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Mrs. Grady said as she started putting tools back in the trim silver toolbox.

“I’ll get those.You promised your sweetheart cookies and milk.”

“I’ll see to that, then, and top off your wine. You keep him company awhile.”

She set out a plate piled with cookies, a tall, cold glass of milk while Malcolm came back to wash his hands.“Drink that milk, and I’ll tell your mother you’ve been a good boy.”

“She won’t believe you.”

After Parker stowed the toolbox, she found him alone in the kitchen.

“She said she had some things to do, and you’re supposed to keep me company. So what does the Quartet do after pizza when the guys are away?”

She sat across from him, took a sip of wine. “Oh, we have slow-motion pillow fights in our underwear.”

“Another fantasy come true.Want a cookie?”

“Definitely not,” she said, thinking of the petit fours.

“You’re missing out.We’ve been here before.”

She smiled. “Yes. But this time I’m not annoyed with you.Yet. Are you feeling lucky? Poker,” she said in mock scold when his grin flashed.

“Feeling lucky can make you sloppy. It’s better to be lucky.”

“All right. Here’s to being lucky.” She tapped her glass to his.

“While you have homemade pizza and sexy pillow fights.What’s a guy have to do to get invited to one of those events?”

“Not be a guy would be requirement one.Though we can arrange for the homemade pizza at some point.”

“I could settle. Listen, speaking of invites, my mother wants you to come to dinner Sunday.”

She’d lifted her glass halfway to her mouth, and now set it down again. “Dinner at your mother’s. Sunday? This Sunday?” It was odd to feel the tickle of panic, however slight, in her throat. “Oh, but we have an event, and—”

“She’ll work around it. I told her you had a work deal, but she knows it’s a day thing.” He shifted a bit, studied his cookie.“I think she and Mrs. Grady have started talking a lot, or hanging out or something.”

“Hmm,” Parker said, watching him.

“Anyway, Ma’s dug in on it. I think she’s got the idea that I . . . I’ve been spending a lot of time here, scrounging meals, and she should, you know, reciprocate.”

“Uh-huh.” Not what you were going to say, she reflected. And if she had felt a little tickle, she’d have to say Malcolm felt a deep scraping.

Wasn’t that interesting?

“So, she’s dug in, and believe me, there’s no budging her. I can tell her you can’t make it, but she’ll just keep at it until you do.”

Not just panicked, she decided. Considerably worried. He’d been maneuvered into bringing a woman home to his mother’s for dinner. And she had a feeling he hadn’t quite figured out how that worked.