Read Online Jane by April Lindner - Free Book Online

happened,” Linda said. “Don’t you sometimes think about what it would be like? You’re alone with him in this enormous house one afternoon, and he’s feeling kind of lonely…”
    “Lonely? Don’t you mean
horny?
”
    I had reached the bottom of the page but didn’t turn it for fear of alerting them to my presence. I doubted very much that they would like me to be overhearing their conversation. At least I took care of my own room, so I didn’t have to worry that they would open the door and find me there listening.
    “You never daydream about it?” Linda asked.
    Amber snorted. “No thanks. I like men who work for a living.”
    “As if you wouldn’t. If he asked you, I mean. Sleep with him. You know you would.”
    “I’d sleep with his money,” Amber replied with a laugh. And then, as if they’d finally realized they might be overheard, their voices fell to a whisper as the laundry cart creaked forward.
    Perhaps they felt free to speak indiscriminately because Mr. Rathburn’s travels through the house were so circumscribed. Since his first night home, I’d only seen him on the first floor — never up on my wing. Still, I couldn’t help but think Mr. Rathburn would be enraged if he had heard them just now. Despite the way Lucia had talked him up as a nice, ordinary guy, he didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor or much patience with his employees, or anyone else for that matter, from what I had seen. Since that first evening, he hadn’t really spent time with Maddy, which seemed a bit strange to me; he seemed much too busy noodling around in his music room, working out, or going over strategy with Mitch.Though he would kiss his daughter warmly whenever she ran into the room he was in, he would soon shoo her away to play with me, and I would lure her outside to her swings or the playroom full of her spectacular collection of toys — a playhouse full of cunning, child-sized appliances, a rocking horse and a teddy bear as big as I was.
    Then one night — his fourth night home — he surprised me. Maddy was directing me to build a castle out of blocks for her collection of princess figurines, and an impossibly high tower had just come crashing down when Mr. Rathburn walked into the playroom.
    “Daddy!” Maddy looked up from the line of princesses she had put in careful order. “Come see what Miss Jane and I are building.”
    “It looks to me as though Miss Jane is doing all of the building.” Mr. Rathburn stood for a moment, then sank into the rocking chair — the room’s one adult-sized piece of furniture — as though he had every intention of joining us for a while.
    Was he there to spend time with Maddy? He didn’t approach her but instead sat back, observing our interactions. Maybe he’d come to get a sense of how I was getting along with his daughter. I willed myself to ignore his gaze — which was fixed intensely on the two of us — and concentrated on the tower I was rebuilding.
    “Sleeping Beauty’s going to live in there,” Maddy said, half to her father and half to herself. “That’s where she’s gonna prick her finger and fall down dead.”
    “She only falls asleep,” I reminded her. “The prince wakes her up.”
    Maddy nodded solemnly. “Don’t knock it down,” she said.
    “I’ll do my best, but no promises. This is a
very
tall tower.”
    Though my hands were shaking a little, I completed the tower without incident. And though Maddy would boss me around if I allowed it, ordering me to make matching towers for each of her princess figurines, I let her know that she needed to sit beside me and do half the building herself. Mr. Rathburn watched us for a full hour before he stood and, without a word, left the room.
    I heard nothing more from him until later that evening. I’d just kissed Maddy good night and was shutting her bedroom door quietly behind me when he approached me from the other end of the hall. In his jeans and rumpled T-shirt, he looked like many