What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

family bastion, reclaiming it for herself. She wasn’t going to leave for just any reason. And he had to be careful he didn’t get himself fired before the rest of his time was up.
    He had to become her new best friend. Charm her, befriend her, become her buddy. Play Working-Man to her Wronged-Heir. Us-Against-The-Family. Make them kindred spirits. Cajole her into thinking he had her best interests at heart. None of which would be a problem. The problem would be when he found out what those damned stipulations were and had to beat her at them.
    The idea hadn’t sounded bad about an hour ago. He wasn’t into losing his brothers’ money, but he hadn’t met her then. Now she was a living, breathing woman. With kids.
    Damn it all. Who would’ve thought Merriweather Martinson had a heart buried somewhere beneath the layers of starched collars and fur stoles?
    Sean unlocked the French doors and wheeled the ladder through. Maybe once he ran Livvy off and got this place up and profitable, he’d give her a monthly stipend. She’d have money to fix up that ramshackle farm she called home, and he’d feel less guilty for sending her and her kids away. A win-win for everyone.
    The eruption of barnyard sounds should have warned him it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Chapter Four

    S EAN spun around at the commotion, shocked to see an unruly crowd of birds and farm animals headed his way. With one boot-shod gypsy running alongside them.
    He stood there, disbelieving—and appreciating—until something hit him in the shin. Sonofabitch!
    Sean tore his gaze from the stampede to see a gray-horned head backing up for another shot at his leg. A goat?
    Feeling like an inept matador, Sean sidestepped the annoyance, managing to keep from tripping over the large white duck on his right, but getting a shoulder clipped by a llama.
    A llama.
    A llama that was running into—
    “No!” Sean twisted around and ran back into the room he’d just spent the better part of the last day and a half cleaning, only to find two goats on the white loveseat, another chewing the edge of the rug, and the stupid llama literally preening in front of the glass cabinet.
    And was that what he thought it was in front of the sideboard? Oh, God, it was. At least the duck had dropped that little “gift” on the marble, not the carpet—not that the goats would care.
    “Oh, no!” Livvy’s distress call was weaker than the one he wanted to utter.
    The furniture was going to have to be re-upholstered, and if that llama scratched its ridiculous neck on that cabinet one more time, it’d knock it over. And forget about the goats. The rug was a write-off in all of fifteen seconds.
    He turned around just in time to see the rest of Noah’s ark waddle through the doors. Including a pig.
    A pig. Who the hell had a pig?
    Well that was a no-brainer. Obviously it was the woman around whom the hounds—okay,
goats
—of Hell were congregating.
    “Rhett, stop that!” Livvy yelled, swatting at the llama.
Rhett
. It figured. “Dodger, get off that settee right this minute!” The goat looked up from the fringed pillow it was denuding with a flicker of its eyelashes, then went right back to munching. “Calliope! No! Outside!
Outside
!”
    Yeah, Calliope the goose wasn’t paying attention. Or didn’t care.
    Not that it mattered anymore. The rug was toast.
    Livvy ran onto the rug, shooing and kicking, her skirt flouncing all over the place.
    The animals just dodged her and found something else to ruin.
    Sean looked from the chaos to the ladder on the patio, and quickly came up with a plan.
    He ran outside, bypassing the ram that tried to nail him in the nuts, then dragged two wrought iron settees across the porch and butted the sides against the house. Then he maneuvered the ladder cart up against them and stuffed the cushions into the escape holes, creating a makeshift corral. All he had to do was get the Pied Piper to lead them out.
    “Livvy! This way,” he yelled over