Ready for Romance

by Debbie Macomber

  “Jessica and I are on our way out to lunch,” Evan explained. “Do you need me for anything?”

  “No. You two go on ahead. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Damian nodded, and it was all Jessica could do not to blurt out that this lunch date hadn’t been her idea, but there wasn’t the opportunity and she doubted it was necessary anyway. Damian must have known she hadn’t invited herself out to lunch. Nevertheless, she didn’t want him to think ill of her.

  “We’ll probably be late getting back,” Evan said to his brother, guiding Jessica out of the office.

  They arrived at the restaurant by taxi and were seated immediately. The ambience was formal, with soft chamber music playing unobtrusively in the background. The waiters, who dressed like diplomats, were attentive, the tables were well spaced, and the meal was served with a good deal of ceremony.

  Evan seemed disinclined to talk about himself, asking her a series of questions about school, her friends and activities. He appeared attentive, but she suspected his thoughts were far removed from her and their lunch. At least he didn’t dredge up the past and her infatuation with him. She could have kissed him for that.

  After their dishes were cleared away, Evan took out a pad and pen. “I’m going to be working on a civil suit that’ll demand a fair amount of research,” he told Jessica. His eyes were bright with an enthusiasm she hadn’t seen before. “The case involves Earl Kress—you might remember reading about him.”

  “Of course.” The unusual details of the case had filled the local news for weeks. The twenty-year-old former athlete was suing the Spring Valley School District for his education.

  Jessica wished she’d brought along a pad and pen herself. She listened, enthralled, as Evan explained the details of the suit. It seemed Earl was a gifted athlete and the key figure in three of the school’s biggest sports—football, basketball and track. In order for him to participate in these sports he had to maintain a C average. Unfortunately Earl had a learning disability and had never mastered reading skills. Although he’d graduated from high school and been awarded a full scholarship, he was functionally illiterate.

  Evan explained that the school district had pressured Earl’s teachers, and they’d been forced to give him passing grades. After he graduated from high school, he went on to college, but a severe knee injury suffered during football training camp effectively ended his career. And within the first two months of school, Earl flunked out.

  “That’s so unfair,” Jessica said when Evan finished. If Damian was concerned about his brother, she thought, then offering Evan this groundbreaking case was sure to take his mind off other things. It would give Evan purpose, a reason to come to work in the morning, the necessary incentive to look past his personal problems.

  “There’ve been a number of similar suits filed in other parts of the country,” Evan continued. “I’m going to need you to do extensive research on the outcome of the cases previously tried.”

  “I’ll be happy to help in any way I can.”

  Evan grinned his appreciation. “I knew I could count on you.”

  So this was the real reason for their lunch. The case clearly meant a good deal to Evan, and consequently to Jessica. She was grateful for the opportunity to prove herself.

  By the time they returned to the office, their lunch hour had stretched to three. It seemed everyone in the office was staring at them, and Jessica felt decidedly uncomfortable.

  She walked directly to her desk, keeping her face averted when she passed Damian’s office. His door was open, and when he saw her walk by he stood up, called her name and then glanced pointedly at his watch. It was all Jessica could do not to tell him it had been a business lunch.

  Damian had made it painfully clear that he expected her to do her job. He wasn’t paying her to romance his brother during three-hour lunches, and Jessica didn’t want him to have that impression. She longed to explain, but she’d look ridiculous doing so in front of Evan. The only thing she could do was stay late that evening in an effort to make up for the time spent over lunch.

  Although it was after seven when she started out of the office, a number of others were still there. With her sweater draped over her arm, she was on her way down the long corridor when Damian stopped her.

  “Jessica.”

  “Hello, Damian,” she said. He was standing just outside his office.

  He relaxed, crossed his arms and asked, “How’d your lunch go with my brother?”

  “Very well, but…”

  “Yes?” he prompted when she didn’t immediately finish.

  “I want you to know it was a working lunch,” she said, rushing the words in her eagerness to explain. “We discussed the Earl Kress case. I didn’t want you to think we’d spent three hours socializing.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “But it does!” she insisted fervently. “The lawsuit was the reason Evan asked me out. He wasn’t interested in renewing an old friendship.”

  Damian’s frown was thoughtful. “Did he seem pleased with the assignment?”

  “Very much so,” Jessica recalled Mrs. Sterling’s saying that “things just haven’t been the same around here for quite a while,” implying Evan hadn’t been the same. She wondered if Damian realized the extent of his brother’s unhappiness.

  Damian grinned; Jessica had the feeling he didn’t do that often, which was a shame. The grooves in his cheeks and the sparkle in his gray eyes were very attractive. “I thought he might need a change of pace. Did you two have a chance to talk about old times?”

  This was a casual way of asking if she’d noticed the changes in his brother, Jessica guessed. “A little. Evan really was hurt, wasn’t he?”

  Damian nodded. “Generally he disguises it, but I wondered if you’d detect the changes in him.”

  “I couldn’t help noticing.” She’d seen it almost from the first moment. Even though she hadn’t seen Evan for years she could see how hard he was struggling to hide his misery. No wonder his parents and brother were so concerned.

  Damian glanced at his watch and arched his brows. “It’s late. We’ll talk again some other time. Good night, Jessica.”

  “Good night, Damian.”

  As she waited for a train in the subway station, Jessica at last understood what Damian had meant when he’d told her that everyone needed to be looked at with wide worshipful eyes sometimes. It made perfect sense now that she thought about it. Damian still viewed her as that teenage girl infatuated with his younger brother. If ever there was a time that Evan needed a woman to idolize him, it was now. She’d been hired, not for her legal skills, but to help his brother forget the woman he’d loved and lost. Damian was looking to her to heal Evan’s pain.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING around ten, Evan, his smile bright enough to rival the sun, breezed into the office and presented Jessica with a bouquet of a dozen bloodred roses. Their perfume filled the room.

  Jessica was speechless. “For me?” The flowers took her completely by surprise. Mrs. Sterling, too, from the look the secretary cast her.

  “I need a favor,” Evan said, leaning against the edge of her desk, his face scant inches from her own.

  “Of course.” She was holding the flowers against her like a beauty queen, inhaling their heavenly scent.

  Evan reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a folded sheet of yellow paper. “I need you to do some last-minute research for me.”

  “Certainly.”

  “There’re some statutes I need you to look up and report back to me on as soon as possible. This stuff is as dry as old bones—I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Jessica looked at the items Evan wanted her to research and her heart sank at the number. “How soon do you need this?”

  “Yesterday,” was his frank reply.

  Mrs. Sterling made a small tsk-tsk sound in the background, which made Jessica smile. Evan’s eyes twinkled and he whispered, “There’s nothing worse tha
n a woman who can’t let ‘I told you so’ pass. Remember that, Jessica.”

  “I will,” she said with a small laugh. “I’d best get started. I’ll have the information for you before I leave tonight.”

  “Good girl.”

  Mrs. Sterling produced a vase for the roses, and after setting them on the edge of her desk Jessica got down to work. She ensconced herself in the library and kept at her research straight through the lunch hour. She didn’t notice the time until it was after three, when her stomach rumbled in protest. Even then she didn’t take the time to sit down to eat, but grabbed an apple and munched on it while she continued to search for the required data.

  The next time she looked up, the clock on the wall said seven forty-five. She’d heard the others leave, but that seemed like only minutes ago. She stood up and, placing her hand at the base of her spine, arched her stiff back and breathed in deeply.

  Her eyes felt tired and her back sore as she carried her paperwork into the office. She stopped, surprised to find the room dark. She flicked on the lights and looked around, certain Evan had left a note for her.

  He hadn’t.

  Picking up one of the roses, she held it to her nose and closed her eyes as she tried to battle down the weariness—and the disappointment.

  “Jessica, what are you doing here?”

  “Damian.” She could ask the same question of him.

  “It’s nearly eight o’clock.”

  “I know.” She rotated her overworked shoulders. “I guess time got away from me.”

  “So I see. I had some reading I was catching up on, but I assumed I was here alone. There was no reason for you to stay this late.”

  She glanced toward Evan’s office. “What time did Evan leave?” she asked casually, not wanting him to know how abused she felt.

  “A couple of hours ago. Why?”

  “He said he needed this information right away.” She’d been in a frenzy attempting to finish the task as quickly as possible. She’d assumed he would wait until she’d collected the data he seemed to need so desperately.

  “I believe he had a dinner engagement,” Damian explained.

  “I see,” she muttered. In other words, he’d cheerfully abandoned her.

  “You sound angry,” Damian said.

  “I am. I worked through my lunch hour getting this stuff for him.” And dinner hour, too, she thought, feeling even angrier. She realized too late that she probably also sounded jealous.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica.”

  Evan’s thoughtlessness wasn’t Damian’s fault and she said so, then asked bluntly, “Is there anything to eat around here?” She blinked back unexpected tears. Hunger always had a strange effect on her emotions, but it was embarrassing, and she tried not to let Damian see.

  “You mean you haven’t eaten since lunch?”

  “Not since breakfast, unless you count an apple, and if I don’t eat soon I’m going to cry and you really wouldn’t want to witness that.” The words rushed out and she felt a sniffle coming on. “Never mind,” she muttered, turning away from him. She wiped her nose with her forearm and returned to the library. Several ponderous law volumes were spread open across the tables. She closed them and began lugging them back to the shelves.

  “I found a package of soda crackers,” Damian said, coming into the room.

  “Thanks,” she said, ripping away the clear plastic wrapper and sniffling again. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to act like this.” She ate a cracker quickly and managed to hold back a sob. “Don’t look so concerned. I just needed to eat.”

  “Let me take you to dinner.” Damian lifted a couple of the volumes and replaced them for her.

  “That isn’t necessary.” A second cracker had made its way into her mouth and she was beginning to feel more like herself.

  “We owe you that much,” Damian countered. “Besides, I’m half-starved myself.”

  “The least he could have done was waited,” Jessica fumed.

  Ignoring her comment Damian suggested a popular seafood restaurant nearby.

  “He made it sound like it was a matter of life and death, and then he doesn’t even bother to tell me he’s leaving,” she continued to fume. “You’re right,” she said as Damian cupped her elbow and led her out the door. “Evan has changed.”

  Damian didn’t respond to this comment either.

  They walked the three blocks to the restaurant. It wasn’t too crowded, and they were given immediate seating at a wooden table near one of the windows. Even better, the waitress brought hot bread and chowder no more than a minute after it was ordered. Damian must be a regular here to get such service, Jessica thought, her good mood restored now that her stomach had something warm and filling.

  “This is excellent,” she said. “Thank you.” She sighed in contentment as she spooned up the last of her chowder.

  Grinning, he finished his own soup, then reached for another piece of bread.

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded. How like a man to keep something humorous to himself and then feel superior about it.

  “I think I might just have averted a lawsuit. Can’t you hear it? ‘Woman Sues Boss over Lost Meals.”’

  “I’d get a huge settlement.” The corners of her mouth twitched with a smile. Her eyes met Damian’s and soon their amusement had blossomed into full-blown grins.

  He had very nice eyes, Jessica mused. They were a dark gray and revealed his keen intelligence, his sharp insight. She wanted to clear away any lingering misconception he had about her and Evan, but she couldn’t think of a way to do it without sounding as if she was jealous of whatever person Evan spent his personal time with.

  Jessica wondered what Damian saw when he looked at her. Did he see the woman she’d become, or did he view her as the pesky kid next door who’d adamantly declared that his younger brother was her destiny?

  The waitress arrived then with their main courses. Damian had ordered oysters and Jessica baked cod, which was delicious. By the time they’d finished, she felt completely restored.

  “I said some things I shouldn’t have back at the office,” Jessica began, feeling self-conscious now but eager to explain. “You see—”

  “You’d worked far longer than necessary and were starving to boot,” he interrupted. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I just wanted to be sure I hadn’t provoked you into firing me.”

  “It’ll take more than a demand for food to do that,” he assured her, hardly disguising his amusement.

  The June sky was dark and overcast and the temperature cooler as they came down the stairs and into the street. “It looks like rain,” Damian said. No sooner had he spoken when fat raindrops began to fall. Taking Jessica by the elbow, he raced across the street. Neither had thought to bring an umbrella.

  “Here,” Damian said, running toward an alcove in front of a bookstore. The business had closed hours earlier, but the covered entrance was a good place to wait out the cloudburst. Jessica was breathless by the time they stopped. A chill raced over her and she rubbed her arms vigorously.

  Damian’s much larger hands replaced hers, then he stopped and peeled off his jacket, draping it over her shoulders.

  “Damian, I’m fine,” she protested, fearing he’d catch a chill himself.

  “You’re shivering.”

  The warmth of his coat was more welcome than she cared to admit. No doubt about it, Damian was a gentleman to the very core.

  The downpour lasted a good ten minutes. Jessica was surprised at how quickly the time passed. When the storm dwindled to a drizzle and eventually stopped, Jessica discovered she was almost sorry. She was talking books with Damian and discovered they both shared an interest in murder mysteries. Damian was as well-read as she was, and they tossed titles and authors’ names back and forth without a pause.

  “Did you drive to work this morning?” he asked.

  She shook her head. She’d taken the subway.

  “I’ll give you a lift home,
then.”

  “Really, Damian, that isn’t necessary. I don’t mind using public transit.”

  “I mind,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument. “It’s too late for you to be out on the streets alone.”

  How sweet of him to worry about her, she thought. “But I already have enough to thank you for.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was just thinking—I seem to be continually in your debt. You’ve got a heart of gold.”

  He chuckled. “Hardly, little Jessica.”

  “You hired me without any real job experience, then you fed me dinner, and now you’re driving me home.”

  “It’s the least I can do.”

  They returned to the office building, walking directly to the underground parking garage. Damian opened the car door for her and she nestled back in the leather seat.

  One thing she’d learned during their time together was the fact that Damian was protective of his younger brother, though she doubted Evan appreciated that.

  “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?” she asked, without clarifying her question. Damian knew who she was talking about.

  “Yeah,” he admitted.

  “Evan’s the real reason you hired me, isn’t he? You think I might be able to help him through this…difficult time.” It wasn’t a responsibility she welcomed or wanted. She was about to explain that when she noticed the way his mouth quirked into an amused smile.

  Instead, she told him sharply, “I’m not a silly fourteen-year-old infatuated with an older man. What I felt for your brother was just a crush. It was over years ago.” That was the simple truth.

  His shrug was noncommittal.

  “Nevertheless,” she forged on, “you hired me because of Evan?”

  It took Damian a long time to answer. “Sometimes I wonder,” he finally said. “Sometimes I wonder.”

  Three

  Jessica arrived early the following morning, hoping to have an opportunity to thank Damian again for dinner and more importantly to let him know how much she’d enjoyed the time they’d shared. But when she passed his office, the door was closed and his secretary was searching urgently through a file drawer. It didn’t look like the time to pop in unannounced.