by Bird, Peggy
Her smile faded as the man glowered at her. He probably thought the smile was for him, that she was flirting. She would never flirt with a businessman, for heaven’s sake. That was the last thing she needed, a businessman butting into her life. It was enough to talk to her accountant once a year at tax time and him she had fully trained.
“Take a look,” she said, indicating the book. “You don’t have to trust me.” She switched on the reading lamp, and gestured toward the chair.
“I don’t have time,” he said again, turning to the middle of the book. He stopped talking and began reading. Sadie shifted her attention and bestowed a smile on the first mate, who wasn’t going to misunderstand a friendly gesture and think she was trying to shipwreck him on the rocks. He looked cold and woebegone, but maybe that was how he always looked. Aunt Gertrude had once owned a dog like that.
“Cup of coffee?” she asked him.
“We don’t have time,” the pirate captain said, clapping the book shut. “I’ll take it.”
She’d known he would. It was just a matter of when he’d know. She moved toward the counter and said, “Would you like me to put you on our mailing list?” She asked every newcomer to the shop the same question, even though she was quite sure what his answer would be.
“No,” he said.
She smiled brilliantly at him, not caring if he misunderstood and thought she was flirting with him. Businessmen could never get her down, no matter how repressive they were. Eventually they had to leave the shop. That was the key. In the meantime, she’d developed an excellent method for dealing with them, which was to smile as much as possible and never disagree. Never sign anything, either.
She rang up the sale and told him the total. The first mate handed over a platinum credit card. What did the British call the man who carried the wallet for the royalty? The equerry? She would have to look it up later. She gave the first mate another smile, more genuine than the one she’d given the pirate. This time instead of just standing there, blinking at her, he smiled back, tentatively, as if he were a little rusty at the skill. Working for the pirate left little time for laughing, she supposed. She glanced at the name on the card as she ran it through the reader. Jordan Blaise. Why did the name seem so familiar to her?
She handed the pirate a pen to sign the receipt, then gave the first mate the card back, along with a copy of the receipt once Captain Blaise was finished. She tucked the book in a bright blue bag emblazoned with the shop’s name in gold script. Gramps had been very proud of the bags, which he had designed all those years ago, and Sadie had never had the heart to change them. She gave the bag to the first mate. Then they were almost out the door and she could go back to dreaming about the adventure that was probably just around the corner, maybe even as soon as the rain let up.
The pirate had his hand on the door. It looked safe enough. She pulled the Caterina’s Closet catalog closer and then he turned and said, “I need your help.”
• • •
Jordan couldn’t believe he’d actually said it out loud. Neither, apparently, could Peter, who gave him a startled glance and a raised eyebrow. His driver prided himself on never showing any kind of emotion — not amusement or frustration or surprise — so Jordan knew immediately how out of character he was acting.
He’d come in here for the book of poetry, and while it would make a nice gift, it wasn’t the kind of thing that would encourage his mother to find the will to fight again or make her believe that Jordan was going to get his happily ever after.
And here was a woman — unattached, he presumed from the lack of jewelry on her hands and from the sixth sense he’d developed over the years — who would do perfectly for what his mother wanted. So he’d spoken from his heart before his brain could catch up, which hardly happened anymore. He hated it when it did. The intuitive jumps were key to his success but he’d learned to temper them with a bit of reflection before acting. He wasn’t that impulsive boy anymore, getting slapped down by his stepfather, trying not to see his mother’s pained expression. Think before you speak, darling.
The saleswoman was standing there with her mouth hanging open. So was Peter. A quick, calculating glance told him what he’d already guessed: she wasn’t his type at all. Short and plump, wearing a pretty but by no means hip or stylish dress. The travel brochure peeking out from under the dictionary gave him a clue as to what she’d been doing before he’d come in. She’d probably spent the morning staring dreamily out the window at the rain, hoping, fantasizing. Not planning. Not acting.
He, in contrast, was a doer. So she was not at all his type, though he could readily admit there was something appealing about her. The same way there was something appealing about apple pie and vanilla ice cream, something comforting and predictable. It would always taste good, but it would always be apple pie and vanilla ice cream. It wasn’t anything he, Jordan, personally wanted or needed. But she was exactly what his mother wanted for him. Easy to please, he’d once scoffed, and his mother had corrected him: open and not jaded.
“I beg your pardon?” the saleswoman asked after the silence had stretched on for a while and someone had to say something.
He could say, “Never mind,” and leave, and he probably should. He hadn’t surrendered to impulse in a long time. And yet —
A week or two. Three at the outside. Whatever it was, a small price to pay to please his mother, to give her hope.
He made the decision. He might not ordinarily yield to his impulses but he was always a quick decision maker.
“How much do you make?” he asked, turning away from the door and coming toward the saleswoman. Her brows shot up and she said, “What?” in disbelief, then stepped back, putting the counter between them, her hand reaching for the phone on the wall. Ready to dial 9-1-1, no doubt.
He stopped where he was and tried a disarming smile, which wasn’t in his usual repertoire, so he wasn’t sure how successful it was likely to be. “Sorry. I can be a little abrupt.”
“Uh huh,” she said, her hand still hovering near the phone. Her brows had dropped, neatly inverting, and now she was scowling at him.
“Peter will tell you.”
His driver gave him another surprised look, almost dropped the umbrella, then said to the saleswoman, “Yeah. Abrupt.”
A lot of help he was. “I have a job I think you’d be perfect for,” Jordan said, which was what he should have started with. Sometimes he got ahead of himself.
She folded her arms across her chest and gave him a look that said, Oh yeah? But at least she’d stopped reaching for the phone. Still, he wasn’t encouraged enough to move from where he was.
“This is hard to explain,” he said, which was some kind of understatement. It would also be easier if Peter weren’t staring at him as if he’d just grown a second head. How to put it?
“My mother is ill.” He winced as he said it, but okay, so far that didn’t sound completely crazy. He glanced over at Peter, who looked like he’d been carved from stone. A somewhat battered stone, but stone. Jordan turned back to the blonde, who had at least stopped scowling at him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, which he’d heard before, but she didn’t sound perfunctory. “I’m not sure what you need from me?”
Well, that was the hard part. He could stop now, before he committed himself to having to explain it.
“She’s been wanting him to settle down,” Peter said, and both Jordan and the saleswoman jumped, as if a decorative gargoyle on the garden wall had spoken.
Apparently that was Peter’s idea of giving him a hand. The saleswoman was glowering again, at both of them equally now.
“I’m not in a relationship where settling down is a possibility,” Jordan explained, though he recognized he wasn’t doing the explaining very well. But it was hard to put into words something that had come impulsively from his heart, and not sound completely insane while he did it. Still, he had to try. “It would reassure my mother if she could stop worrying about me.”
How could he explain a thing like that? It was what he and his mother did, they worried about each other.
But he’d read her wrong because after a moment her expression softened and she said, “And you want to ease her mind?”
“Exactly.” There. Was that enough for her to connect the dots? She was staring at him again. He frowned, not sure he’d provided enough of a roadmap. Was he going to have to spell it out? Probably. It wasn’t the kind of proposition he was used to offering or that anyone would expect to hear. He probably needed to clarify. “So I’d like to hire you to pretend — ”
“Wait.” She held up her hand. Jordan hoped she’d reached the conclusion he wanted her to reach and not some other faulty conclusion. Or maybe he would be better off if she didn’t understand at all and he and Peter just got the hell out of here.
“You want — ” she started, then tried again. “You think — ” She chewed her lip for a moment. Then she said, “You’re going to lie to your mother?” She sounded shocked. “To your ill mother? And you want me to help?”
You’d think he’d asked her to help him rob a bank. You’re going to lie to your mother? He hadn’t thought of it like that, and now that she pointed it out, he still didn’t. It was just giving his mother what she wanted, what she needed. Who could blame him for wanting to do that?
He realized he didn’t even know the saleswoman’s name. A quick glance at her chest showed she wore no name tag, but then he found his gaze lingering at the curve of her breast for a moment too long. He shook himself. He should have established her name first; the basic rule of negotiation and persuasion was to know with whom you were engaged. Then he could say, Look, Evangeline, it’s not that way it sounds. It’s actually compassionate. But he’d apparently forgotten everything he ever knew about negotiation. Even so, how hard could it be to go up against her? It wasn’t like she was one of the tough-minded adversaries he had to deal with on a regular basis. She reminded him of an angora cat. Not even a cat, a kitten. A sunny spot, a bit of kindness, that was all a little kitten wanted.
She was giving him what he guessed was supposed to be a hard look from her bright blue eyes but it wasn’t an effective hard look, considering her candy-box prettiness. Even the way she clamped her cupid’s-bow lips together advertised how plump and pretty they were instead of emphasizing her distrust.
So he’d do what he did so well. Show her why it would be to her advantage to throw in with him. People hardly ever turned him down when he helped them to see what was in it for them.
Which was why he was so surprised when he found himself telling her the story of why he wanted to make his mother happy.
Chapter Three
Sadie wanted to cover her ears so she wouldn’t have to listen to his story. He was a businessman, one of the breed she avoided with all her energy even if she did admire them from afar, and she didn’t like him sneaking under her defenses that way. She didn’t want to imagine the little dark-eyed boy he had once been, trying to make his mother happy.
That’s not your job, she wanted to tell him, looking at his serious face, but what drove him had been etched in his heart a long time ago, and nothing she could say to the man he was now would make any difference.
He was attractive. That was fine, he could star in her fantasies for a month. But it wasn’t fair to spring the vulnerability on her, too. The attractiveness she could resist. The vulnerability she wasn’t so sure.
To make matters worse, he was a businessman! If past experience was any guide, the first thing he’d do the moment she started weakening was try to change her. She liked herself just fine. And the store, too. But the minute you let down your guard with one of them —
“So that’s why I asked about your wages,” he said, like it all made perfect sense. Which maybe it did, if you were a pirate with a soft spot for your mother. “Miss — Miss — I’m sorry, but what is your name?”
“Sadie Perkins.”
The first mate smiled. He had a very nice smile for a gargoyle.
“Miss Perkins,” the pirate said. “You can see my situation.”
“I don’t think I can help you,” she said, squishing a twinge of compassion firmly. There were any number of people who deserved her compassion but Jordan Blaise wasn’t one of them. She’d remembered who he was; she’d read about him in the newspaper. He was working with the university to develop and support some sort of biochemical research facility. Elijah at the paper had run a series of highly critical editorials about the project.
Sadie herself was highly suspicious of businessmen who were doing things out of the kindness of their hearts, as were many of the residents of Cedar Valley, which was why he was having a tougher time of finalizing the deal than he’d probably expected to encounter. The chancellor had heard an earful from the residents at the last city council meeting.
She eyed Jordan, who looked tired. Well, she was tired, too, and he was going to leave and go back to New York, where it probably wasn’t raining, so if anyone deserved a little pity, it was Sadie.
“I’d pay a premium for your time,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her refusal. Of course, maybe he hadn’t. She had to admit she hadn’t been very forceful. Aunt Gertrude was always telling her that she had to make her no sound more like no and less like I could be convinced. But it was hard to be forceful when her heart wasn’t in it.
“Since you’d be on call during odd hours, I’d pay you for 24-hour days,” he added, as if they’d agreed in principle and were just working out the details.
She narrowed her eyes at him. On call during odd hours? What exactly did that mean?
“On call?” she said, instead of no. Really, Aunt Gertrude was so annoyingly right.
“We’d keep it strictly businesslike,” he said, obviously wanting to reassure her about his noble and good-hearted intentions. She wasn’t sure how he expected them to carry off the act if he planned to call her “Miss Perkins” the whole time but maybe it was possible. Or maybe his idea of “strictly businesslike” and hers were two different things. That was probably it.
She tapped her nails on the counter, then cut to the chase. “How much?”
He was ready for her. She’d like to see the day when a pirate like him could be caught off guard. He named a figure that made her blink. “That’s hourly?” she faltered, trying not to think of how many books she’d have to sell to make that kind of wage. It was ludicrous.
“Right. For the whole week. Maybe two or three. I’d be happy to talk to your employer about giving you the time off, if that’s a concern.”
“That’s not a problem,” she said absently, tapping, tapping. Unlike him, she didn’t make decisions quickly. She liked to think of all the possible outcomes. Life isn’t always about avoiding the worst-case scenario, Sadie. Well, what did Aunt Gertrude know.
Sadie reached under the counter and hauled out the calculator. She had no qualms about doing the math in front of him. If he was going to spring something like this on her with no warning, she was going to make sure she’d added it all up correctly and didn’t make a rash commitment based on a fallacy. Just because she didn’t let business decisions rule every aspect of her life didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of making them.
Pushing keys, she calculated the wages he was offering, then subtracted what she’d have to pay Katie to cover her hours for her.
She stared at the result. If she played along for a week, there’d be enough money left over to pay for Aunt Gertrude’s new roof, and without both of them having to scrimp and save for months to afford it. If the act went on longer than a week, there’d also be enough to cover any surprises that came up in the course of the re-roofing process, with maybe even a little left over for an upgrade or two around the shop.
She tapped h
er fingers against the countertop again and re-ran the numbers, aware that the pirate was watching her with some amusement, while the first mate looked like he’d been stuffed and mounted. Summer was a slow time at the shop, with most of the people affiliated with the university scattering across the country. She usually scheduled shortened operating hours in August anyway.
Was she really thinking about doing this? The total on the calculator said she was. Why?
Her gaze slid past the pirate’s shoulder to the rain that still sheeted down the window. It wasn’t going to let up any time soon. She returned her attention to the man in front of her, taking in his perfectly tailored Armani suit, his highly polished Magli shoes. Town car (even if it was a rental), driver, platinum card. It would be first class all of the way, that was for sure.
If she didn’t take the adventure when it walked in her door, she could never complain again about her life being too quiet. A week or two with the pirate and no doubt she would be begging desperately to return to her own life. So that would be a good thing. A change of pace, like Aunt Gertrude was always trying to encourage.
Wait a minute. She glanced over at the first mate. “You can vouch for him?” she asked, worker bee to worker bee.
His blank expression became even blanker. “Yes, ma’am. He is what he says he is.”
That wasn’t quite as reassuring as she might have liked. Still. Adventures didn’t come with money-back guarantees, did they? If Jordan Blaise was in the habit of kidnapping Midwestern women for nefarious purposes, surely that would have come out in all the brouhaha surrounding his proposed research lab. Everything else certainly had, probably including any number of things that weren’t actually true.
The overhead light flickered. The rain rained down. The Greek Isles probably weren’t an option.
