From Boss to Bridegroom

by Victoria Pade

  “Rand Colton’s office,” she said into the receiver as soon as she picked it up.

  A client was on the other end, wanting to make an appointment. Lucy accommodated him, then hung up and heard her name called from down the hall somewhere in a voice that sounded like Rand’s but different. Strained. Tight. Tense.

  She took off her coat, laid it across her chair for the moment and went to see where he was.

  Not in his office, not in the conference room, not in the copy/coffee room.

  “Rand?” she called as she headed for the library at the very end of the corridor.

  Her only answer was a combination growl and groan.

  She poked her head into the library but still didn’t see him. “Rand?” she repeated.

  “I’m down behind the table,” he answered through what sounded like clenched teeth.

  Lucy went around the oval table and found him lying flat on his back, stiff and so immobile he looked frozen.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I just thought I’d grab a little nap,” he ground out facetiously, definitely through clenched teeth. “I lost my footing on the damn ladder and fell off. Wrenched the hell out of an old college football injury in my back. I can’t move,” he explained irately.

  “Uh-oh,” she said. “What do you want me to do? Do you have medication of some kind you can take or is there a way for me to help you up?”

  “Don’t touch me!” he said as if she’d made a move to when she hadn’t. “Call 911. I’ll need an ambulance to take me to the hospital. My orthopedist’s number is in the computer directory. Call him and tell him to meet us at D.C. General.”

  “Will you be okay just lying there while I’m gone?”

  “No choice. If the disk has slipped, I could do damage by moving. Just hurry the hell up,” he grumbled, clearly miserable.

  Lucy didn’t waste any time. She rushed out of the library and back to her desk where she made the calls he’d ordered her to make. “Help’s on the way,” she called to Rand when she was finished.

  “Pack up the laptop and my cell phone and bring them with us to the hospital,” he called back. “You’ll have to get somebody to sub for me in court this afternoon. Try Spencer or White. Tell them to ask for continuances.”

  Lucy was in the process of doing what she was told when the ambulance and emergency medical technicians arrived ten minutes later. Their assessment of Rand’s injury and carefully relaying him to a stretcher were the only interruptions to his clipped instructions to Lucy. Instructions that continued in the ambulance all the way to the hospital.

  The doctor Lucy had called on Rand’s behalf met them in the emergency room and took over from there, leaving Lucy in the waiting room to work while Rand was sent to X ray.

  That set the course for the entire day. In between X rays that determined that the disk had only slipped slightly, consultations with doctors, and treatments by physical therapists to manipulate the disk back into place, Lucy was by Rand’s side doing his bidding, making necessary phone calls to cancel his appointments and rearrange his schedule and basically taking care of everything that needed to be taken care of.

  It was only late in the day, when he was finally pumped full of painkillers and muscle relaxants, that things slowed down.

  “You got a variance on the Clift case and the continuances you wanted on the others,” Lucy said, giving him the wrap-up. “The Murphy brief is finished and ready to be printed out, the Kellog and Stanislov motions are filed, all the subpoenas on the Harris suit are set to be delivered tomorrow, I’ve cleared your calendar for the next couple of days and the doctor says I can take you home as soon as the release papers are signed.”

  “You’re taking me home with you?” Rand asked with a devilish twinkle in his eye.

  “I’m taking you home to your house,” Lucy qualified. “Is that all you got out of what I just said?”

  “That and you’re a whiz kid.”

  Lucy fought a laugh. He was so relaxed he was lying in the hospital bed with a silly, contented smile on his face.

  “I’m a whiz kid and you’re high as a kite,” she said.

  “No pain, though.”

  “That’s one good thing.”

  “So you’re going to take me to my house?”

  “I thought I’d call Frank to bring the car and get you set up there, yes. Unless you’d rather I have someone else meet you at home for that. I can always take the Metro back to Georgetown.”

  “Someone else?” he repeated dimly.

  “One of your women friends.”

  “Women friends? Do people really use that phrase?” he asked with a giddy chuckle. Then he said, “No women friends. Just you. But what about Max?”

  That “just you” had come out in a curiously affectionate tone but Lucy wrote it off to the daze he was in. “I’ve already called Sadie. She’ll keep him at her place until I get there. She sends her sympathies, by the way, and said you should have known better than to climb that library ladder.”

  “Needed a book. Couldn’t wait for you,” he explained. “Thought I was being careful.”

  Which was something Lucy knew she needed to be because he was so sweet and silly and appealing in this state that she was having even more trouble than usual not falling victim to his charms.

  A male nurse came in with the release papers and Lucy left the room so the nurse could help Rand into his clothes again.

  When she got outside the room she telephoned Frank, who was there with the car by the time the nurse pushed Rand out in a wheelchair.

  Getting him into the car was no easy task but they managed, and Rand promptly rested his head against the back of the seat and fell asleep for the ride home.

  It left Lucy in a quandary.

  There was more work she could have done but she didn’t have any inclination to do it. Instead her gaze kept straying to Rand.

  There was no doubt about it, he was a very appealing sight.

  His hair was mussed and gave her a glimpse of the way he must have looked as a boy. He had long, thick eyelashes—something she hadn’t noticed before—so long and thick they put most women’s lashes to shame.

  His beard had reappeared through the day and shadowed his sharp jaw, lending him a rough, rugged look that only accentuated just how much man he was. Even his ears were sexy, with lobes that brought nibbling to mind. Nibbling Lucy imagined herself doing as a prelude to kissing her way down the strong column of his neck, along the rise of his Adam’s apple to the dip just below it where a few coarse hairs peeked from his open shirt collar….

  “Here we are,” Frank said through the small window in the partition that separated the front seat from the back.

  Lucy jolted out of the fantasy she’d involuntarily slipped into, overcompensating by sitting up too straight.

  Rand opened only one eye and smiled a quirky smile that made her think he might not have been sleeping at all and might have known that she’d been taking a close look at him.

  “My place?” he asked with a note of lasciviousness to his voice.

  “Your place,” Lucy confirmed, sounding like a drill sergeant.

  She got out of the car in a hurry, rounding it from the back at the same time the driver rounded it from the front, and meeting him at Rand’s passenger door.

  Frank opened it and when he did Rand tossed Lucy his keys. “I’m the eighth floor. Go ahead and let yourself in. Have a look around while Frank gets me out of this car and I have a chat with the doorman before I come up.”

  Without comment Lucy turned to the building they were parked in front of, taking it in for the first time. It was a stately old eight-story brownstone and granite structure. Twin cantilevers wrapped around both corners almost like turrets, and a pillared archway led to the courtyard entrance.

  A uniformed doorman opened the glass doors as she approached, looking beyond her at Rand and asking no questions.

  The lobby was paneled in cherry wood and looked
more like the bar in an elite men’s club than a mere lobby. Lucy didn’t hesitate to cross to the brass elevator, taking it to the eighth floor where it opened to only a short hallway and one set of double doors. Apparently the entire eighth floor was Rand’s.

  The key worked on the lock and she opened both doors, leaving them that way as she went in. The apartment was minimalist. Modern, stark, simple, yet lavish. Either he had perfect taste or his decorator did.

  There was a five-foot sculpture in the entryway—a black-and-gray abstract piece that swung at the slightest touch like a pendulum between matching slabs of black marble.

  To the left was the living room where three black leather sofas and two leather-and-chrome chairs were positioned in a square around a coffee table that was a piece of glass atop two stone cubes with a huge dowel that reached from the center hole of one cube to the center hole of the other like an artist’s rendition of a barbell.

  The room was very formal; the walls were lined with abstract paintings and sculptures, along with a sleek, black wet bar in one corner.

  Beyond the living room was an equally formal dining room, this space done in browns, tans, golds and animal prints. It looked like a post-safari gathering place with an enormous oval table and twelve high-backed chairs.

  From there Lucy found the kitchen, a wide-open area of streamlined stainless steel appliances and white tile so pristine and bright it nearly hurt her eyes.

  Since that seemed to be it for that side of the apartment she retraced her path to the entryway and explored the opposite half, where Rand’s home office was the first room she encountered. Also stark and spare, also black, white, chrome and glass, it was fully equipped with two computers, a printer, a fax machine, a paper shredder, a multi-functional telephone, a copy machine and file cabinets.

  The master bedroom was just past that and since Rand had yet to come upstairs she went in without knocking. The room was slightly cozier, complete with an enormous king-size bed that sat low to the ground on a black Persian rug. There were two bureaus and a wall-length tropical fish tank, along with two more leather chairs and a large entertainment center that faced the bed.

  Rand arrived just as Lucy was turning down his bed so he could get right into it.

  “I have an electric razor in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. If you’d get it for me, please?” he said as he eased himself out of his coat. “I don’t think I’m going to get farther than the bed for now.”

  Clearly the trip from the hospital had taken its toll and Lucy wondered why he hadn’t had Frank come up to help him undress. She certainly hoped he didn’t expect her to perform that service.

  Then, as if reading her mind, he said, “I thought I could manage to get out of my own clothes so I sent Frank to pick up some food. I don’t know about you but I’m starving. I hope you like Chinese. Then he’ll wait downstairs to take you home when you’re ready.”

  “Yes, I like Chinese food, but couldn’t Frank join us? I hate to have him just waiting for me downstairs.”

  “I invited him but he’s bringing food for himself and the doorman, too. They have plans for a game of rummy.”

  Lucy nodded and then said, “The shaver,” to let him know she hadn’t forgotten.

  She was only too happy for the chance to go into the bathroom she’d barely glimpsed through the open door because even just that glimpse was enough to let her know it was spectacular. And it was. It was a large gray and white marble cove with a skylight for a ceiling. A free-standing sink stood below stair-step shelves of the marble that formed the shower, wainscoted the walls and provided four steps up to the sunken bathtub that nestled amid three stained glass windows that were works of abstract art all to themselves.

  The medicine cabinet was recessed into the wall above the sink and Lucy had no problem locating Rand’s electric razor. When she returned to the bedroom with it she found him struggling to remove his shirt, his face a grimace of pain before he realized she was there to watch. Then his expression just turned to stone.

  But it was too late for him to hide the agony he was in and Lucy couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen it. She also couldn’t stand by without offering aid.

  So much for not helping him undress.

  “Why don’t you let me help you with that,” she said, setting the razor on the black enamel table beside his bed.

  “Thanks.”

  Lucy went up behind him and slid the shirt free, trying as she did not to feast on the sight of his broad, straight back once it was exposed to her. But it wasn’t easy to overlook rippling muscles that narrowed to a compact waist, all encased in sleek, smooth skin. Especially when she had the inordinate urge to press her palms to the wide expanse and test the texture to see if it really was satin over steel the way it looked.

  “Can I persuade you to apply that ointment the hospital sent home with me? There’s no way I can do it myself,” he said, obviously unaware of what the sight of his incredible back was doing to her.

  “Why don’t we do that just before I leave?” she said, worrying that if she actually did touch him at that moment she might embarrass herself. She could only hope she might have more stamina later.

  “That’s probably a better idea anyway,” Rand conceded. “If it works the way it’s supposed to and numbs things, maybe it’ll help me get comfortable enough to sleep.”

  “Right,” she agreed as if that was what she’d been thinking all along.

  “I’ll go wait for Frank,” she announced then, retreating from the room without another glance at her boss and reminding herself that what she was feeling was totally inappropriate.

  Closing his bedroom door behind her, Lucy took a deep breath and exhaled it with gusto in an attempt to clear her head. She was there to help and nothing more, she lectured silently, and she’d better not forget it.

  With that in mind, she marched to the kitchen where she searched the cupboards until she found a pitcher for water, glasses and a tray to carry it all on.

  Frank arrived with the food just as she was headed back to the bedroom so by the time she got there she had everything in tow. She knocked on the door and waited for Rand’s “Come in” before she opened it.

  He had shaved and was sitting propped on pillows against the enameled black headboard. He’d changed into a pair of gray sweatpants and had on a silk bathrobe over them that covered most of his upper half. His eyes were closed as if he were sleeping again, although Lucy thought it was more likely against the pain the exertion had probably caused him.

  But when he heard her enter, he opened his eyes and his supple mouth stretched into a warm, welcoming smile.

  “Dinner’s here,” she announced. “And I brought water to keep by your bedside along with your pills so you won’t have to get up to take them during the night.”

  “Is there anything you don’t think of?” he asked as she set the tray on his ample nightstand and began to unload it.

  “Plates,” she said, only realizing at that moment that she hadn’t brought any.

  “Let’s eat out of the cartons,” he suggested as if he didn’t want her to leave again to get them.

  Lucy pulled one of the chairs to his bedside and settled there to eat once they’d explored each container and decided where to start.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked then.

  “Not as good as I did before we left the hospital but not bad. That is if I don’t try to move much.”

  “Will you be okay alone here tonight?”

  “I can ring for the doorman if I need help. That’s why I wanted to talk to him.” Rand smiled wickedly. “Unless you’re offering to spend the night…”

  “I wasn’t. I’ll make sure you’re fed and settled but then I’m going home.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Mmm,” she agreed.

  “We’ll have to work here until I can get around again,” he informed her then.

  “From the equipment I saw in the other room it doesn’t look like that will b
e a problem.”

  “It shouldn’t be. These computers link with the office so you can access anything.”

  “Okay. But you’re supposed to rest, you know. Maybe you should just tell me what you need done and not work yourself.”

  “I’d go out of my mind.”

  Lucy didn’t question that. She’d seen enough of his intensity and energy level to accept it as fact.

  “How did you hurt yourself originally?” she asked as they traded cartons of food.

  “A mean tackle my senior year. I spent three weeks in traction, barely managed not to have surgery. I’m still trying to avoid it if I can, but every now and then I do something dumb—like climbing on that ladder that’s really not big enough to hold me—and I get myself into trouble.”

  Rand asked if there was any fried rice left and once he had what he wanted, he said, “So tell me about yourself. I know you’re from California but I don’t know where in California.”

  “Sonoma Valley. I was born and raised there.”

  “Are your folks still there?”

  “No. My mother passed away last year and my father deserted us when I was seven. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

  “That must have been rough.”

  “Rough enough.”

  “Brothers or sisters?”

  “No. Just me, luckily. My mom had more than she could handle with only one kid.”

  Rand smiled that quirky smile again. “Are you telling me you were a handful?”

  “No,” she answered as if affronted by the very idea. “Well, I was a little mischievous but I didn’t get into any real trouble. It was just that my mother wasn’t equipped to support herself, let alone a child. And when it came to raising me, it wasn’t an easy thing to do when she was dealing with her own emotional problems.”

  “Emotional problems?” Rand repeated to urge her on.

  “After my father left she would go into deep depressions. She’d go to bed and not get back up again for weeks at a time.”

  “Would somebody else come in to look after you?”