Something's Gotta Give

Chapter 17

After a few more heated kisses Sam left Penny to continue with her cleaning, saying that he had to go pick Regan up at the airport. She rushed to make up the lost time and was just finishing the bathroom when Celeste returned.

"What are you still doing up here? You should have finished this floor hours ago."

Penny wanted to tell Celeste that Sam had come home and they had had a quick make-out session, but she didn't think that that would help Sam, so she just smiled and played dumb.

"I'm really going to have to talk to Sam about your continued employment here." Celeste looked around the room and couldn't find anything to critique so she settled for shooting Penny a disgusted look. "Go get cleaned up and meet me in the living room. We have to discuss tomorrow's party." Then she spun around on her heel and left.

Penny sighed deeply as she stored the stepladder then gathered her cleaning supplies and headed to her room to get 'cleaned up'. She took her time and met Celeste half an hour later.

"About time. You don't rush to do anything do you?"

"I do when it matters," Penny said, and had the satisfaction of watching Celeste flush in anger. She had brought a dust rag with her in hopes that it would distract her from attempting to do bodily harm to the woman who had ruined Sam's life.

When she thought of what she had put Sam through it angered her and it was amazing to her that she could feel so deeply about someone other than herself. She would have to be careful to guard her tongue and her thoughts. Sam still had a battle ahead and she didn't know what it was yet so she didn't want to put her foot in it and mess it up for him.

"Are you listening to me Penny?" Celeste asked, breaking Penny out of her thoughts of Sam.

"No, I'm sorry, I wasn't, what did you say?" Penny started to dust around the mantle taking her time with the family photographs and the old photos of the house from the turn of the twentieth century.

"If I didn't need you tomorrow I would make you pack your bags and leave right now."

"Regan and Dr. Evers hired me, and I'll only be dismissed by one of them," Penny insisted as she polished a spot on the mirror. She had noticed once, during her cleaning, that some long ago Evers children had carved their names in the base of the pediment for the mantle and she squatted down and wiped the dust away from there as well.

"You really do love this house, don't you?" Celeste asked.

Something in her tone made Penny turn to stare at her. "Yes, I do."

Celeste's smile grew vicious at her admission.

"It's a beautiful house that has had generations of Everses living in it. To have that much history in one house, to be able to pass it down to a child, is a remarkable thing," Penny insisted.

"You really are in love with him aren't you?" Celeste looked at her with pity. "How trite, the little maid in love with the master, at least the story is fitting for the house." She poured herself another drink then walked over to the window to look out at the street below, flicking the thick curtains with disinterest.

Penny remained silent as she waited.

"It's a shame really, it was all going so well until Jason had to mess it up with his little display of anger. He's an amateur with control issues."

"How do you know Jason?" Penny asked, finally realizing that she had had more to do with that afternoon's scene in the square than Penny had realized. Jason had said 'she' and she had been too upset to connect the dots, but Sam must have.