A Soft Place to Fall

by Barbara Bretton

  "Most people drink coffee for the caffeine."

  "I drink it for the taste."

  "No taste in decaf."

  "That's why the cream and sugar."

  "That's illogical."

  "So sue me."

  Max mumbled something then vanished in search of refreshments. Cat considered the wisdom of following hard on his heels but the cowboy barred the way.

  "So what exactly do you have against organization?" McKendrick asked, bracing an arm against the doorjamb.

  In for a penny, in for a pound. "Organization is anathema to the creative spirit." Anathema, she thought with a grin. Let him chew on that for a while.

  He didn't bat an eye. Was it possible, brawn and brains? Dangerous combination. "I've seen your office," he said. "Your creative spirit better come with a road map."

  "What do you mean, you've seen my office?"

  "Max sent me pictures."

  "Max will need a road map of the intensive care ward if he doesn't stop doing things like that."

  "Don't blame Max." The guy had a smile that could light up a movie screen. "I asked him for one."

  "Someone should have asked me."

  "Someone should've sent in a wrecking crew."

  Max hustled back in, balancing three mugs of coffee and a plate of bagels. "Now this is what I call synergy. Two people at the top of their respective fields, coming together for mutual benefit."

  "Sorry, pal." McKendrick shook his head. "No deal."

  Cat glared at him. "What do you mean, there's no deal? That's not for you to say." She turned to Max. "There's no deal."

  "Don't be hasty," Max said, looking from Cat to McKendrick. "We can--"

  "Forget it, Max," McKendrick broke in. "She doesn't want my help.""

  "Hold on just a minute!" Cat's voice rose in annoyance. "I don't need your help." A small but vital difference.

  "Yes, you do," said Max, setting the coffee mugs and bagels down on the table. "You need a lot of help, Cat."

  She was aware of McKendrick's eyes on her and she had to remind herself it was professional interest on his part, not personal. Not that she wanted it to be personal but there was something thrilling about being the focus of such undivided male attention.

  Cat forced a laugh. "You're becoming very melodramatic, Max. Next thing I know you'll tell me this is a planned intervention for the hopelessly disorganized. It just so happens that I thrive on chaos."

  "Your last two manuscripts were late."

  "Jack had a tonsillectomy when I was finishing The Kindergarten Caper and we found termites right at the climax of Dead Cowboys Never Talk." She smiled sweetly at McKendrick. "No offense."

  "None taken." His grin told her he knew otherwise.

  She met Max's eyes. "A tonsillectomy is an act of God, right?"

  "Only when it's your tonsillectomy."

  "It was my son's. That's the same thing, isn't it?"

  "Not to Global Publishing."

  Max sighed longingly. "I know one author who finished up a book longhand in a storm cellar while a tornado ripped apart his house."

  McKendrick helped himself to a mug of coffee. "I know of a writer who broke both arms and still made his deadline."

  You would, she thought. "Those people need serious therapy. No one is that disciplined." Or that demented.

  "Wrong," said McKendrick. "A hell of a lot of people are that disciplined." He paused for effect. "And that organized."

  She shuddered. "What a frightening thought."

  "Want to hear a really frightening thought?" Max volunteered, handing her a mug of coffee. "No more extensions on your deadline, Catherine. I know chaos and you're heading straight for it."

  "I love you dearly, Max, but you're a bachelor. Your idea of chaos is misplacing your copy of the Sunday Times Book Review." She put down the coffee mug and gathered up her belongings. "Thanksgiving's tomorrow and I have a million things to do. Stuffing, turnips, the pies...."

  "Tomorrow's Thanksgiving?" asked McKendrick.

  "Didn't those cardboard pilgrims in the lobby tell you something?" Cat turned to Max. Some time management specialist. He didn't even know tomorrow was a national holiday.

  Max cleared his throat. "Riley's been in Tokyo the last few months," he said, as if that could explain away McKendrick's appalling lapse of memory.

  "Pleasure?" asked Cat.

  "Business," said McKendrick.

  Max lowered his voice conspiratorially. "The Japanese government," he said. "This guy taught the Japanese something about organization."

  "Wow," said Cat, who wasn't the slightest bit impressed.

  She could almost see the lightbulb flash on over Max's head as he turned to McKendrick. "You'll be on your own tomorrow, Riley?"

  "Looks like," said McKendrick.

  Oh no, Cat thought. Don't do this, Max. Not with him....

  "How long's it been since you had a homemade Thanksgiving dinner?" Max continued.

  Was it her imagination or did a look of sadness flicker across McKendrick's movie star face? "Couldn't tell you, Max."

  "That long?" Max asked.

  "That long," said McKendrick.

  Don't pay any attention to them. McKendrick's a grown man. This is a big city. Somewhere out there is a turkey with his name on it and he's smart enough to find it.

  Max was a rat and a traitor. He knew she was a sucker for strays, especially around the holidays, and he was doing his best to manipulate her into issuing an invitation.

  She'd choke before she uttered anything that even remotely resembled a dinner invitiation.

  "Flannery's on East 47th has a pretty good spread," Max went on, "or you might want to try Stein's Deli near Rock Center. They have a restaurant in the back and the best turkey in the city."

  "Thought I might drive on up to Boston," the cowboy drawled. "Celebrate Thanksgiving where it started."

  "It started in Plymouth," Max said. "Why don't you--"

  "--come to my house." It sounded like her voice but she had the insane urge to look over her shoulder for her Evil Twin.

  Max beamed at her. Why not? She'd played right into his hands like the lily-livered, soft-hearted dope she was. Could she take it back? She struggled to find a way to erase her foolhardy words.

  She needn't have bothered. McKendrick wasn't interested.

  "Thanks for the invitation," he said. He probably practiced that sexy drawl into a tape recorder every night. "I'm not much for family celebrations."

  "You'll be alone." He didn't want to come to her house. She didn't want him there. She should be relieved, but no. The words were out before she could stop them. "Nobody should be alone on Thanksgiving."

  Max's smile widened. "Cat has this thing about strays during the holidays, Riley. She'll hound you until you say yes."

  "Been alone most of my life," said McKendrick. "It's the way I like it."

  If Cat had a nickel for every time she'd heard macho statements like that, she could singlehandedly pay off the national debt. But it was different this time.He means it, she thought, and it struck her as a terrible shame. There was something shadowy in his gaze, something bittersweet and lonely, and despite her better judgment Cat felt herself melting.

  "Mr. McKendrick?" She sounded cool and collected, amazing when you considered the strange rush of emotion that filled her heart. "You'll come for Thanksgiving dinner, won't you?"

  He nodded.

  She smiled.

  He met her eyes and for a moment she thought she saw them years from now, looking back at this moment as the one that changed their lives. She drew in a deep breath, trying to regain her equilibrium in a world that was shifting more rapidly than she could handle. She'd never understood the concept of love-at-first-sight. Everyone knew love grew slowly, cautiously, built on a foundation of friendship and respect. This was lust. Nothing more than lust. She had to remember that.

  "So it's on?" Max asked.

  McKendrick held her gaze. "It's on."

  Max b
arely restrained a whoop of excitement. So did Cat. She had to make her escape before she made an absolute fool of herself.

  "Three o'clock," she tossed over her shoulder as she raced for the door. "Max will give you directions."

  And then she ran for her life.

  #

  Riley McKendrick whistled low. Tall, willowy, with sleek golden brown hair that brushed her shoulders like a caress. He'd been expecting a frumpy writer who spent her life in fantasyland, not a flesh-and-blood woman who looked as if she'd like to take a juicy bite out of life. "Thanks a lot, Max," he muttered after Cat Zaslow disappeared down the hallway. "You might've mentioned she was a knockout."

  Max stared at him as if he was speaking Greek. "Cat? A knockout? Never noticed."

  "Time to get your glasses checked," Riley said with a laugh. "That is one helluva woman."

  "Cat's not a woman," Max said, in what had to be the single dumbest statement of the year. "She's a client." Riley shook his head, trying to banish the memory of the way her hips had swayed beneath her short black wool skirt. "You sure she has five kids?"

  "Last time I counted."

  "How many husbands?"

  "She's a widow." Max seemed puzzled. "You really think she's good-looking?"

  "You don't?"

  "I never thought about it." Max was quiet for a moment. "Since when do you like skinny women?"

  "I don't," Riley said. He liked his women soft, with big breasts and sweet dispositions. Cat Zaslow had a tongue like a double-edged razor blade and her breasts--

  Riley stopped, galvanized by the thought of her breasts. High and round, surprisingly full for so slender a woman. He wondered if she'd been wearing a bra or one of those lacy things made to come off. He already knew she had the legs for it, wickedly long with thighs made for welcoming a man between them.

  His blood shifted south and he forced the image from his mind.

  "I dated her housekeeper for a few weeks," Max said. "Damn near gave me a nervous breakdown." He made to drag a hand through his perfect hair then apparently thought better of it. "Diapers, barking dogs, McDonald's Happy Meals--hell. Cat lives at the edge of disaster. Gimme Lutece any day."

  "So what was her husband like?"

  "I hear he was a nice guy."

  "You never met him?"

  "Cat started writing after David died."

  Riley started to ask another question then caught himself. She loved him enough to have five kids with him. That was all he needed to know.

  Max looked at him with open curiosity. "You're not interested in her as a woman, are you?"

  He thought about the long, lovely length of her legs, that beautiful face...then he thought about reality. "Five kids, a housekeeper, the housekeeper's kid, and an in-home zoo?" He threw back his head and laughed out loud. "Not me, Max. Not in this lifetime."

  #

  Cat pushed open the heavy glass doors at 575 Madison and stepped out into the brilliant late autumn sunshine. She stood there, motionless, on the sidewalk and waited for the chilly wind whipping down the street to snap her back to normal. Whatever normal was. She wasn't sure she remembered. It had been a long time since she'd felt this way, a very long time since lust had reared its lovely head and beckoned her toward--

  "Hey, lady." One of New York City's finest stopped next to her. "You okay?"

  She blinked then managed to nod at the policeman.

  "Why don't I hail a cab for you?" the cop offered, raising a burly arm in the air. "You don't look too good to me."

  "No," she said, regaining her powers of speech. "I--I have a car." She glanced toward the corner and saw the familiar Chevy waiting for her. "But thank you."

  She drew a steadying breath into her lungs then marched off toward the vehicle. The driver saw her coming and leaped out to open the door. Alec Marton owned the one and only car service in her small Connecticut town. The Chevy had served as wedding car, delivery room, and taxi cab for most of the citizens of Danville at one time or another.

  "You don't look so good," Alec said as she climbed into the front seat next to him. "Maybe you should lie down in the back."

  She shook her head. "I'm fine, Alec." She managed a smile. "You know me. Not only can't I drive in the city, I can't even think."

  He looked no more convinced than the policeman had and no wonder. She wasn't fine. The truth was she felt as if the real Cat Zaslow had been taken over by aliens. Sixteen year old aliens, at that. She was aglow with excitement, alive with possibilities, and all for a man she didn't know and was reasonably certain she wouldn't like if she did.

  Her knees had gone weak when his eyes met hers and it was a wonder she hadn't swooned at his cowboy-booted feet.

  She'd lost her mind, that's what. All Riley McKendrick did was walk into Max's office and Cat's brain cells had decided to go on vacation. How humiliating. She had five wonderful children, a beautiful home, good friends, and a terrific career. She didn't need a man.

  Truth was, her infrequent experiments in dating all had been less than successful. Men were either intimidated by her success, her kids, or the fact that she liked her life exactly the way it was and made no bones about it.

  "You just haven't met the right man," Jenny liked to say whenever she got the chance.

  "Yes, I have," Cat always said. David Zaslow was a tough act to follow. Any man looking to fill his shoes would have a lot to live up to.

  He could do it, Cat. Maybe that cowboy is the one.

  She shook her head, ignoring Alec's curious glance in the rearview mirror. A clockwatcher. That gorgeous hunk of man was a clockwatcher. What a waste of natural resources.

  Alec maneuvered the Chevy into traffic. "Just getting out in time," he said as they headed crosstown. "Gonna be a zoo in another hour, everyone trying to get out early for Thanksgiving."

  She met his eyes in the mirror. "Alec, do you think I'm disorganized?"

  "Sure," he said, "but I'd never hold it against you. You got a career and five kids. Who wouldn't be behind the eight-ball now and again?"

  She sighed loudly.

  "Not my business," Alec said, "but you asked."

  "You and Sarah have three kids. How do you manage?"

  "Sarah's got everyone on a schedule," Alec said not without a touch of pride. "Even put it on computer."

  Cat suppressed a shudder. "Really?"

  Alec nodded. "You bet. Even Annie's on there."

  Her eyes widened. "Annie's four years old, Alec."

  "Never too soon to start. That's what Sarah says. How else you gonna keep their lessons and doctor's appointments and everything straight?"

  "Isn't that why God made refrigerator magnets?" Was it possible that the rest of the world operated with the efficiency of a Swiss watch while she was a sundial on a cloudy day?

  Which, of course, brought her right back to Riley McKendrick, who made a living putting people's lives into order.

  Had she lost her mind or just the part of it that governed the libido? It wasn't like there'd been any chemistry between them. Everybody knew one-way chemistry was a physical impossibility. He probably hadn't even realized she was a woman. So what if she'd noticed he was tall, dark, and handsome with a voice that could undress a woman without even trying. He couldn't help the effect he'd had on her, any more than she could help the heated fantasies dancing behind her eyeballs.

  She heard Max's voice, crystal clear, inside her head. "An hour with Riley McKendrick will change your life forever." Max couldn't be right. She didn't want her life changed. She liked her life the way it was. She had a home, she had a family, she had memories of a man she'd loved once and would never forget. So what if romance was a thing of the past. She could live without romance.

  At least she thought she could until today.

  She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the car window. "Oh, Max," she murmured. "What have you done to me?"

  Riley McKendrick was everything she didn't want in a man and she was afraid he was exactly what she n
eeded.

  I Do, I Do . . . Again - a novella

  Chapter One

  They say a man never forgets his first love, the first woman to claim his heart. Maybe that was why the sign in the art gallery window caught Robert's eye on that sunny April afternoon. Grand Opening, it read in bold deco print. Sunny invites you to a wine-and-cheese Open House to celebrate the opening of Gallery One.

  Sunny.

  The name alone was enough to summon up the memory of warm summer nights and youthful dreams. Lately he'd found himself thinking about his ex-wife at the oddest times. The scent of Shalimar...a woman with eyes the color of a green meadow...the nagging feeling that if they'd tried harder or loved each other more their marriage might have worked out.

  The odds of bumping into her after so many years were probably a million to one. There had to be more than one woman named Sunny in the state of Pennsylvania, he reasoned as he opened the door then stepped inside the gallery.

  "Hi," said a middle-aged woman dressed in white. "Help yourself to wine and cheese." He was about to thank her when she gave him a closer look. "Are you the guy from the bank? Mr. Daniels said he was--"

  "That's what I get for wearing a suit to an art gallery," he said with an easy laugh. "I'm just taking a look around."

  She shrugged. "Well, enjoy yourself. And make sure you have some wine."

  He glanced around the crowded gallery. The women in the room were either too old, too young, too tall, or too average to be Sunny.

  He'd been looking for a curvy slip of a woman with a fiery personality to match her wild mane of red curls. She could be a blonde now. She could have tamed both her disposition and her hair and turned into someone he wouldn't recognize without a name tag. Nothing stayed the same, no matter how much you wished it would.

  The thought of Sunny trading in her dreams for a stock portfolio was enough to ruin his day.

  A man's first love was meant to live on in his memory forever, beautiful and perfect, untouched by time. This had been a lousy idea and the thing to do now was get out while the getting was good and his memories were still intact.