“Good night, Bart,” Lucy said to the teddy bear, kissing its forehead the way she had her son’s. “And good night to you, Mr. Max. I love you. Sleep tight.”
As always Max was nearly asleep by the time she got to the door and turned out his light. And, as always, Lucy paused a moment to look back at him and revel in the peaceful sight of the little boy dropping off into dreamland. Then she closed the door halfway and left him to it.
As she passed by the bathroom next to Max’s room, though, she hesitated. She had an inordinate urge to take a moment to check the mirror.
She shouldn’t, she knew. It wasn’t as if she were going back downstairs to a date. She was going back downstairs to work.
But she was powerless to stop herself and before she was even finished mentally listing all the reasons she shouldn’t do it, there she was in front of the bathroom mirror, taking stock.
Her hair was caught in back by a clip and lifted into a geyser of curls at her crown just as she’d combed it that morning. But the curls had wilted slightly so she picked at them with practiced fingers to fluff them up again.
Her cheeks were still rosy, although she had a suspicion that was due more to the company waiting for her in the dining room than to the blush she’d applied before dawn. But her lips were dry and she reached for the remedy.
Lipstick or lip balm?
Lip balm was all she needed. Plain and simple. But what she grabbed from the medicine cabinet was the lipstick.
Don’t analyze it and read more into it than is actually there, she advised herself, trying to believe that the fact that Rand was an extremely appealing man didn’t have anything to do with her choice. But deep down she knew better.
Once she’d used the lipstick she took a quick glance at what she was wearing. The navy blue slacks and matching sweater she’d put on when she’d arrived home at the end of the day were still holding up. Not that she would have changed clothes if they weren’t. But it was good to see she hadn’t spilled anything on herself at dinner.
Then, as if the lipstick wasn’t bad enough, she caught sight of her favorite bottle of perfume on the vanity beside the sink.
Oh no, I couldn’t, she thought.
But her hand reached for the bottle anyway.
This is crazy. Inappropriate. Dangerous…
And worse than that, what if Rand noticed she’d come back downstairs wearing fresh lipstick and perfume?
That thought stopped her cold and she replaced the bottle on the counter. No way would she do anything that made it seem as if she were trying to seduce him. Because she wasn’t. Seduction was the last thing on her mind.
So get back downstairs, finish your work and get him out of here, she ordered herself.
Though she might not be thinking about seducing him, she wasn’t thrilled with the thought of him leaving.
She didn’t want to admit it but she’d been looking forward to tonight. To being in the more relaxed atmosphere with him again. To this moment when Max would be off to bed and she and Rand would be alone…
Oh no, she definitely didn’t want to admit that.
But it was true nonetheless.
“Just cool it,” she whispered to her reflection in the mirror.
And she meant it, too. It was one thing to be hungry for adult company and indulge in a little of that. But anything beyond that was off the course she’d set for herself. Too far off the course for her to venture.
Even if she had been tormented since the previous evening, wondering if Rand really had been on the verge of kissing her.
Those thoughts evaporated when Lucy returned to the dining room where she and Rand had papers spread out all over the oak pedestal table. Like several other times during the day and evening, she found him staring into space, apparently lost in thought.
So lost in thought he didn’t even notice she was back.
For a moment she stood in the doorway watching him. He looked terrific dressed in a pair of khaki slacks and a plain cocoa-colored sport shirt. His hair was only slightly mussed from some roughhousing he’d done with Max but it was every bit as attractive as when it was combed perfectly. Maybe even slightly more attractive because it gave him such a casual, approachable look.
But still his clean-shaven face was lined with what appeared to be worry and she couldn’t help wondering what had caused it. What had been causing that same expression all day whenever he was left alone for a few minutes.
Several times that day she’d caught him making mistakes. Not to mention that he’d asked her to do the same things two and three times—even after she’d already done them—without realizing he was repeating himself.
It just wasn’t like him. Something was on his mind, she decided, something that was distracting him. Maybe it was time she tried to find out what it was.
“Don’t tell me. You’re completely preoccupied with curiosity about the love life of the brachiosaurus,” she joked to let him know she was there and to bring him out of his reverie.
He smiled, focusing his attention on her, but it was a weak smile. “I’m not much good today, am I?”
It was nice that he could acknowledge it, that he wasn’t the kind of person to blame someone else when he was having a bad day.
“Seems as if you have something on your mind is all,” Lucy answered, taking the seat she’d occupied most of the evening only a few inches to his right.
“Family problems,” he said.
It surprised Lucy that he’d even confide that much and she thought it was an indication of just how troubled he was. But she couldn’t be sure where to go from there. Should she accept that and let the subject drop? Or should she offer him the opportunity to get it off his chest?
“We don’t have to work anymore if you aren’t up to it,” she said, tiptoeing through the trenches. “What’s left here I can take care of while you’re in court tomorrow.”
He glanced at the work in front of them and seemed to make a quick decision. “Great. You’ll probably do better without me dragging on you anyway.”
But did that mean he was leaving? Lucy felt a twinge of regret that she’d even planted the thought in his head.
“You don’t have to go,” she heard herself say before she’d thought about it. Then, trying to cover her tracks, she added, “There’s still some of that pie you brought and if it would help to talk about what’s on your mind, I’ve been told I’m a pretty fair listener.”
She didn’t know if she was being too transparent, or if Rand had so much on his mind that he wouldn’t notice.
For a moment he seemed to consider the pros and cons of her offer, and while he was at it, she fretted over the possibility that he’d realized some of the more personal things that had been flashing through her mind about him, that he might recognize the raw hunger in her for his company.
Then suddenly he said, “I think I could use another piece of pie. I’ll straighten up this mess while you do that and meet you in the living room.”
He sounded so pleased by the prospect.
Lucy’s heart took wing despite telling herself to keep things in perspective, that it was probably just the pie he was really interested in.
But she didn’t waste any time. She got up and went into the kitchen, joining Rand in her living room only moments later.
He was sitting on the couch and she thought it might seem standoffish if she sat on the chair instead, so she handed him a dessert plate with a healthy-size slice of key lime pie and then took her own smaller piece with her to the other end of the sofa.
“Did something happen back home in California between when you left last night and this morning?” she asked then, in keeping with her initial intention to listen to his problems so he wouldn’t guess she had also been rooting around for an excuse to extend his visit.
“It’s a long story,” he warned.
“It’s early yet and I don’t have any other plans,” she assured.
“I guess things really started in ‘92.”
“It must be a long story if starts that far back,” Lucy said with a laugh, settling into the corner of the couch so she could see Rand as he talked and trying not to notice the way his big hands dwarfed the small plate and fork he held. Trying not to think about the power leashed in them. Trying not to wonder what they would feel like on her skin…
“You’re sure you want to hear it all?” Rand asked.
“Positive,” she said too effusively, kicking off her shoes and curling her legs underneath her to prove she was committed to however much time it took.
“Okay. Well, when my adopted sister, Emily, was eleven, she and my mother were in a car accident. There were some minor injuries but the trauma was what really caused problems.”
Rand went on to tell her about Emily’s claim to have seen two mommies at the scene, about her continuing insistence that the woman everyone knew as his mother was an imposter, and about Emily’s disappearance in September, ending with the phone call he’d received that morning.
“Could she be right?” Lucy asked when he was finished. “About your mother, I mean. It seems strange to me that she’s stayed so steadfast all these years. It makes me wonder if she has some basis to believe it.”
“I’ll admit that that accident marked a big change in my mother,” Rand conceded. “Everyone has seen that over the years. In many ways she isn’t the same person she was.”
“How so?”
“Before the accident she was about the sweetest person you’d ever want to meet. Thoughtful, kind, caring, generous, selfless. But since…well, since the accident she just hasn’t been like that anymore. She’s… I’m not sure how to put this. She’s more intense. Material things mean more to her. She thinks more about herself than she ever did before. So there was unquestionably a personality change—maybe from a head injury during the accident. Obviously Emily sees that just as we all do. Only in her mind, coupled with the illusion or double vision or whatever it was she suffered herself in the accident, she’s concluded that there really were two different people and the bad mother replaced the good.”
“So you think your sister took just that personality change in your mother too literally?”
“That’s what I think, yes. Not that I want to diminish how frightening the accident was for Emily. And I don’t doubt that something happened to her in September either. I just doubt that my mother had anything to do with it. But one way or another now I’m actually going to have to look into Emily’s claims somehow.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t really know. Maybe if I could get some background information on my mother, on her family. She’s never talked a lot about it. Maybe that would at least give me a place to start. I just don’t know what Emily wants from me.”
“I could probably do some of that on the Internet,” Lucy said, thinking out loud more than anything.
Rand paused with his fork in midair. “You could?”
“I’m good at research, remember? Not only legal research. I’ve had some experience doing background research into people, too. I have a cousin who was adopted—an open adoption so her adoptive parents knew who her birth parents were but had long since lost touch with them. For health reasons my cousin needed to know as much as she could about her history, so I did some exploring on the Internet and managed to locate the information she needed as well as her birth parents. I think I can look into your mother’s past without too much trouble.”
“Would you be willing to do that for me?”
“I don’t know why not. It would be fun. You’d be surprised at what interesting things you can find out.”
He laughed and sighed at once, as if she’d just taken a huge burden off his shoulders. “A great secretary and an Internet sleuth all rolled into one. Are there any of my problems you can’t solve?”
She didn’t know about his problems but there were a few of her own she wasn’t having much luck with. Like getting her eyes to stop wandering to his broad shoulders. Like getting her hands to stop craving the feel of biceps that seemed to fill his shirtsleeves to the brim. Like curing the urge to slide across the sofa and press herself up against the hard wall of man that was Rand Colton.
But she didn’t say that. Instead she said, “Actually, when you were talking about hating that you couldn’t put your family’s mind to rest about your sister I had an idea about that, too.”
“Great. I’m open to anything at this point.”
“We could write an anonymous note saying that she hadn’t actually been kidnapped, that she was okay, that she’d be home soon. Then we could put the note in an envelope, address it, put that envelope into another one and send it to a friend of mine in Colorado. I’ll call her and tell her that when she gets it to just put the enclosed envelope in the mail. That way there won’t be a D.C. postmark to link it to you and it won’t be traceable to your foster sister, either.”
Rand laughed wryly. “That’s a pretty good idea.”
“You’d probably have thought of it yourself before too long.”
“I don’t know,” he said ruminatively, studying her as if he were seeing a whole new dimension.
Then he said, “You know, I feel like I’ve struck gold in you. I thought Sadie was a hard act to follow but you’re going to be impossible.”
For some reason that seemed to put their brainstorming on a different level for her, relegating it to work, and it took some of the wind out of her sails.
But she was quick to remind herself that that was what they were doing there tonight—working. Whether it was on legal briefs or solving Rand’s family problems, she was still just his secretary.
“Feel better?” she asked as if she were doing no more than he’d hired her for.
“Better than I have in a long, long while,” he assured her in a voice that had somehow changed. It was deeper, richer.
His eyes delved into hers and just as suddenly as she’d felt reminded that she was nothing more than his secretary a moment earlier, things between them seemed to turn more intimate.
Was she imagining it?
Maybe. Because just as she was wondering where it might go from there, where she wanted it to go from there, Rand set his plate on the coffee table and stood.
“I should get out of here so you can have a little time to yourself.”
What could she say to that? No, I’d rather have the time with you? Of course not.
So she stood, too, telling herself it was for the best that he leave before those unwelcome urges of hers got any more out of hand.
In the foyer she took his coat from the closet, trying not to notice that it smelled like his aftershave. She resisted the inclination to help him on with it, to put her hands on those big shoulders and smooth them down his back. Instead she merely handed it to him.
“I’ll send the car for you in the morning but I won’t be going in with you,” he said as he slipped the coat on without any knowledge whatsoever of what the sight of it did to her. “I have a conference call to London so I’m going in earlier to do that.”
“I’ll finish up tonight’s work on the way in then,” she said, hating that they were once again back to business even though she knew very well that was the way things should be.
Rand headed for the front door but once he got there he didn’t reach for the handle. He turned to look at her again with those cobalt-blue eyes that gave off enough heat to warm her as thoroughly as an electric blanket.
“Tonight was above and beyond the call of duty. It helped me to vent the family problems. I haven’t really talked to anyone about what’s been going on and it was nice to have some objective input. Not to mention your suggestions and offers to help.”
“It was nothing,” Lucy demurred. “I’m happy to do what I can.”
Rand’s eyes held hers, his handsome face angled down at her so the full impact of his masculine beauty was right there for her to see—sharply angular bones, straight nose, square brow and those sexy, sexy lips…
.
And then out of the blue he kissed her.
He just leaned forward and kissed her.
Only a brief peck that could have been out of gratitude as much as anything. A brief peck that was there and gone almost before she knew it. Definitely before she could enjoy it or savor it or return it.
Do it again! her mind screamed. Do it again, only longer this time!
But of course she didn’t say that.
“Thanks,” he murmured then, his voice even deeper, richer than before, almost raspy.
All Lucy could do was nod because she was so lost in the desire for a repeat of that kiss that she couldn’t find words to speak.
“See you tomorrow,” he added as he opened the door.
“Tomorrow,” she barely managed as he walked out to the silver Jaguar two-seater he had parked at the curb in front of her house.
Then he was in the car and gone, and she was still standing with the door open, staring outside and yearning inside.
Had that kiss only been out of gratitude? she couldn’t help asking herself.
It was probably better if it was. But oh, how she didn’t want that to be the case.
A man walking his dog sauntered past just then, looking in at her, and it finally occurred to her to close the door, that standing there with it open wasn’t going to bring Rand back.
If it could, she might stand there all night.
Because more than anything she wanted him back, wanted him to kiss her again.
How could she not when that spare, nothing-of-a-kiss had heated her blood to flash point?
Five
The phone was ringing when Lucy reached the office doors the next morning. She could hear it faintly through the heavy oak panels as she tried the handle, found it locked and dug the key out of her purse. It took several rings before she finally managed to unlock the doors and rush inside. She was surprised Rand hadn’t answered it himself by then. He didn’t ordinarily stand on ceremony when it came to that.
She knew he was there. Besides the fact that he’d told her he was going in early for an important call, Frank had let her know he’d dropped Rand off at the office just before returning to Georgetown for her. Plus the television in his office was on and she could hear a news report on the stock market.
From Boss to Bridegroom Page 7
