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“Hey, Nicole.” Duncan set his bag down.
Nicole? I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard of him knowing anyone with that name. For a minute, I wondered if she was his mother.
“Glad you two made it..”
“Thanks,” Duncan said, lifting his nose as if sniffing the air. “You’ve been busy. It smells amazing.”
Nicole beamed. “Pat and I wanted to have something ready when you both got here. We’ve got the fridge all stocked, just like you asked, and the other things you requested have been taken care of, too.”
“Sounds great.”
What was going on? This woman was happy. Happy to be here, happy to serve, to cook for him, to pick up his stuff? Even more amazingly, if I had to guess, I’d say she was happy to see Duncan.
And he was being NICE to her.
Maybe she’d just started working for him. He’d been like this to me at the start, after all. It was just that nice had quickly bubbled into nasty.
Duncan was being decent to this woman in a way I’d never seen before. And she was smiling athimin return.
“This is Rosabel,” Duncan said, gesturing to me.
Too late, I realized my mouth hung open and I was gaping at her like I’d never seen another person before. I snapped my jaw shut.
“I’m Nicole.” She offered me a hand, either not noticing my fish mouth or having too good of manners to mention as much. “I usually clean up after Duncan back at his house in Westville, but he likes me so much he couldn’t live without me here.”
She winked at him.
“You’re not wrong,” he said with a little laugh.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, still completely thrown.
She’d worked for him…before now?
I couldn’t grasp this at all. If someone had told me Duncan Hawthorne had staff, I never would have guessed he was nice to them. Or that they liked him back. I would have thought he was the grumbly order-giving miscreant he was around the office.
Duncan not only had staff that he trusted so much he’d brought them here with him?
So not what I’d expected.
“You two get settled in,” Nicole said. “Just leave your bags by the door if you want, Rosabel. I’ll see that they get to your rooms.”
Brushing aside my questions about this woman, I managed a few coherent words.
“Thanks, but I’m not sure where that is,” I said.
I gestured to the open living room and the upper level visible from the landing above.
Nicole laughed. “There’s plenty to choose from,” she said.
With his hands on his hips, Duncan gave the front room his inspection. He wasn’t frowning, so that said something.
“There are. Want to pick one?” he suggested.
I stared at him. “Seriously?”
He was going to let me choose?
“Sure,” he said. “Take a look. Pick the one you want. I’ll go find mine.”
