Emmie’s green eyes darkened. “Worse?”

I gritted my teeth, thinking about the life that my baby sister had to live until the death of our mother. I hadn’t even known that Lucy existed until I got a call from social services two years ago. “My mother wasn’t the best mom.”

She looked away, her jaw tense. “Yeah, okay. I understand that.” Her throat worked and she was quiet for a long moment. When she looked back at me her eyes were glassy. “The bedroom has a king sized bed, and the sofa in the living room is a hide-a-bed. Will you move in?”

“Yes. I can do that.”

“Good...” More scribbling on the pad. “Before we talk numbers I want to tell you what I expect.”

“Fair enough.”

“I want the downstairs to be your main priority. My office is in the back of the house, but I’ll take care of that. Please don’t go in there unless you talk to me first. The guys can take care of their rooms for the most part, but laundry is a hopeless chore for them. They will bring you their baskets when they need it done. I want the bedrooms vacuumed weekly. The toilets also… With the exception of one room. I need that one done every other day. I’ll show you.”

All of her expectation sounded reasonable. Emmie wanted me to cook breakfast and sometimes put lunch together. I was responsible for the grocery shopping and there would be a list of needs/wants. “Please. When you shop for this house, be sure to stock your own fridge while you are at it. Don’t you dare let me find out that you are paying for groceries out of your own pocket! That is unacceptable.”

“I…” How did I respond to that? I didn’t like taking handouts, but this woman didn’t make it sound like it was. “Okay.”

She smiled. “Good. Don’t ever argue with me on that. I’d hate to have to fire you because of it.”

I held up my hands in surrender. “I swear, I will not argue with you on that.”

She cocked her head to the side like she had when we first met. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t argue?” I shrugged and she laughed. “Good. I don’t want some meek little mouse scared of standing up to me.”

“Don’t worry. I’m nowhere close to meek.”

She was scribbling again on her notepad, and then she tore off a corner of the page and offered it to me. “This is a weekly number. If, after the first week, you decide that it isn’t enough… And really, I kind of expect that to happen so don’t be afraid to come to me and talk about it… We can revisit the numbers.”

I didn’t take the paper at first. I was curious as to why she would say that. “Why would I think that you aren’t paying me enough?” Fuck, she was providing me a place to live and food in my fridge. All my personal needs met.

She sighed. “Drake’s bathroom is… Well, just promise me that you will come to me if it gets to be too much, okay?” She waved her hand at me. “Please, take it.”

I finally took the piece of paper from her and glanced down at the number written across it. That was when I was positive that I was still home in bed. Fuck! I hadn’t made that kind of money in a month at my old job. And she wanted to pay me that a week? What kind of mess did Drake make if she was willing to pay me more?

“Do you accept?”

“I…I…” I clenched my jaw to stop the flow of stammering. Sucking in a deep breath I nodded. “I accept.”

Chapter 4

Jesse

My head was killing me by the time we got back to the house. I had spent the day pounding the same song out over and over on the drums to the point that my ears were ringing with the beat. I wanted a handful of ibuprofen and a shot of Patron with a desperation that I knew Drake felt too.

Shane pulled the Escalade into the driveway beside of a beaten up gray Corolla. The thing looked like a death trap, but I wasn’t going to judge. My first car had been missing the entire passenger floor boarding. I just hoped whoever Emmie had hired to help her out around the house had gone shopping because I wanted food that didn’t come out of a carton tonight.

I was the last one to enter the house. Drake took off straight for his room, probably to find one of his Jack Daniel bottles. Shane muttered something about a run to clear his head, and Nik was already yelling for Emmie. “Where are you?” he called out.

“Back here in the office.” I heard her yell back.

I took my time. The movers had done a good job setting all the furniture up that Emmie had chosen. The living room looked comfortable, cozy even. The long, dark brown sectional faced both the big screen hanging in the corner and the wall of glass that looked out onto the beach. I figured I wouldn’t be watching much television with that view to distract me. End tables with red lamps on them sat at each end of the sectional with a round, glass coffee table in front of it. The walls were bare, but Emmie wanted to hang up Demon’s Wings posters and all our awards over the years. She had probably been too busy to even care about the walls today.

I heard Emmie laughing and then someone else joinedin. The beat from today's song finally seemed to clear from my ears at the sound of that laugh. It was all husky and teased my ears with its sexiness. Without even realizing it, I started down the hall toward Emmie’s office. I had to see what went with that laugh.

Nik was standing in the doorway when I reached the office. Emmie was saying something, apologizing I think. It would have been something I would have gotten my phone out to record if I wasn’t so intent on finding the bearer of that sexy laugh. But Nik stood in my way, blocking my view of whoever was setting in front of the desk.

“I guess Rich is still blaming me for you guys canceling the winter tour,” Emmie was saying. “So… I’m sorry for being a bitch this morning when you had to go into the studio. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Nik shook his head. “I’m speechless.”

“That Rich would do something like that?”

“No. That you would actually admit that it wasn’t my fault…” He suddenly ducked and I was taken by surprise when a half empty bottle of water smacked me in the chest.

I grunted. “Good arm, Em.” I bent to pick up the bottle then pushed Nik out of my way so that I could enter the room.

I wasn’t expecting the woman sitting in the chair. In fact, I was so surprised I nearly stumbled at the sight of her. Her laugh had deceived me. That sexy laugh had absolutely nothing on the goddess sitting there with her long cinnamon hair flowing around her shoulders and those big chocolate eyes that melted me when they met mine. Even sitting down, I knew she wasn’t tall, maybe five and a half feet. Her white button down top was just a little snug across her breasts and I instantly wanted to taste them.