by Anna Jeffrey
Yep, no one could embellish a story like my mother could. Lisa, on the other hand, was a liar of convenience.
A tic began to twitch in my right eye. I walked back toward the entrance. “I don’t know, Lisa. I’ll have to see how much I’ve got to spare. Like I said, it’ll be Monday before I get it in the mail, okay? If you’re that desperate, maybe you can return some of the Dr. Pepper for a refund.”
“Well, duh-uh. I have to be able to drive the car to do that. And the gas tank’s empty, remember?”
I wanted to curl up in a corner and howl. Then, I glimpsed Gabe and the two cops Drake had hired as security striding toward the front door. Gabe was ready to open for business. “I need to go,” I said quickly. “I’m working.”
I disconnected before Lisa could say anything else. More words were unnecessary. We had covered the reason for her call. I had a too-vivid picture of the situation. As soon as this Skyline weekend was over, I had to get to West Texas.
I quickstepped back to the table and shoved my phone back into my bag. Calling up my game face, I scrabbled for an upbeat attitude. Life with my mother hadn’t done much for me, but it had trained me to be an expert at quick recovery.
“Everything okay?” Gabe asked as I caught up with him.
“No problem. Just my little sister keeping me tuned in to what the family’s up to.”
Through the afternoon, we were busy. We showed the condo units and the building to dozens of people, but my mind was never on what I was doing. Lisa, my mother and Harvey Tackett all bounced around inside my head, each one vying for my attention. I already knew what I had to do about Mom and Lisa, but Mr. Tackett was a sexy, intriguing daydream. I couldn’t erase the vision of his long, lean body without clothes. Was it as solid and chiseled as it looked? What might sex with him be like?
Every time my thoughts ventured into that erotic territory, my inner voice nagged me. You’ve lost your mind. You’ll never see him again.…You know what? You’ve gone without for too long.…You need to find a boyfriend.
But I’m too busy for a boyfriend, I argued. What’s wrong with fantasizing?
The open house was planned to end at six. By five, traffic had dwindled to nothing. Gabe was feverishly texting with someone and stalking around as if he had ants in his pants. Having written two sales contracts that totaled five million dollars, he was stoked. If both deals closed, his commissions and bonuses would be enormous. He tried to put up a gallant front, but I could tell he could hardly wait to escape. He probably intended to celebrate his profitable day with a hot date.
Part of me envied him. Not only the money he made, but the social life he had. I hadn’t had a Saturday night date in months. Since the breakup with Donald, I had channeled most of my time and energy into Gala. The extra effort had resulted in a workload that was almost too much for one person. Having only a part-time assistant, I worked almost every weekend nowadays. When I wasn’t working, I spent Saturday nights letting down with a book or blanking out in front of TV.
And when loneliness and yearning got the best of me, sometimes, in the dark of my bedroom, I called on BOB, my battery-operated boyfriend. The gel device had been a gift from my friends.
I had graduated from high school in Roundup, Texas, a virgin. In school, I’d had almost no friends and I hadn’t once had a boyfriend. With Mom’s mood swings and unpredictable behavior, made more so by alcohol, and various men passing through as if our house had a revolving door, life had been way too complicated for simple social activities like girlfriends, boyfriends and dates. Not that I hadn’t ever been invited on a date, but to have gone would have been more than I could have managed back then.
I could sing. And in my isolation and as an escape, I had taught myself to play an old guitar that had belonged to my grandpa. My grandmother was convinced that I was another Carrie Underwood. With her help, I entered the contest for Miss Roundup. No one was more amazed than I when I won, singing a country song.
My grandmother had been beyond excited. She bought me a new guitar and pushed me to go on to Miss Redfield County, then a tri-county contest and finally, I became a contestant in the Miss Texas pageant. I didn’t win in that one, but I became a finalist. I received money and a partial college scholarship. A new world opened to me and a goal took root in my psyche.
As soon as I graduated from high school, I moved to Fort Worth, got a job and made entering beauty pageants a mission. With numerous pageants behind me and enough money to start college, I enrolled. Oddly enough, I never once entertained the notion that I would become a professional singer. The prize I had my eye on was a college degree.
My newfound girlfriends in Fort Worth had soon learned that I was “socially underdeveloped” and spent untold hours and energy trying to fix me up with the right boy to deflower me. They failed. I found someone on my own, which had turned out to be a disappointment as well as a colossal mistake and turned me off of sex for quite a while.
My misadventures with boys, or young men, became a joke among my girlfriends and me. As a gag gift for my twenty-first birthday, they had pooled their money and bought me BOB.
Since those days, that sex toy had taken the edge off more than once during the long dry spells that were my life. And BOB had found a place inside me that not one of my former sex partners had ever touched or even attempted to find. I had begun to wonder if most men even knew where and what it was. I wasn’t sure myself, although I had done some scant research on YouTube and Wikipedia.
I was facing an idle evening, so I said to Gabe, “If you want to leave early, I’ll hang in here until six. If a buyer shows up, I can call you.”
He thanked me and rushed away.
Outside, the day was waning. My feet were numb and my ankles felt as if they were broken. I was in the mood to sue some shoe designer.
At 6:30, Paul, the concierge, dismissed the two cops who had stayed with us all day. After I killed the elevator music from the sound system, I found him at his desk in his office. “I’m ready to go home. Is someone supposed to go upstairs and lock everything?”
He looked up at me through thick lenses in his black-framed glasses. “Can you do it? I’ve still got to get some things done here and I need to get home. Some of my wife’s relatives are in town for the weekend.”
Crap. My intent had been to remind him, not volunteer to take on the chore myself. With dark coming on, I didn’t relish going back upstairs alone, but saying that to Paul might sound like whining. I wished he hadn’t already sent those cops on their way. With a mental sigh, I steeled myself for the task I was pegged to do. “Watch the elevators and be sure no one comes up behind me, okay?”
“Will do, Miss March.”
His reply made me want to grind my teeth. I hated when someone called me Miss March.
He made no attempt to leave his desk.
Resigned, I started for the elevators. I hadn’t taken three steps before, to my astonishment, Tack Tackett walked through the glass entryway. My heart slammed against my ribs.
What the hell? Had he forgotten something? I glanced around.
He walked straight toward me, those mysterious midnight eyes piercing me, his lips tipped up with that sexy one-sided smile. That scent that had lured me earlier in the elevator filled the air around me.
“You’re still here. I was afraid you’d be gone by now.”
He had come back to see me? Oh. My. God. My brain froze and I had to work to give an intelligible reply. “Uh, not yet, but… Well, the open house is over. I’m, uh…just going upstairs to lock up.”
“Alone?”
“Well….Yes,” I said at last.
“You shouldn’t do that alone. I’ll go with you. I’d like a second look anyway.”
I hesitated, gathering my wits. Apart from the personal safety issue, I reminded myself that I was holding two passkeys—one that gave me entry to every unit on the fifteenth floor and below and another that got me into every unit above. The pricier models had antiques, Aubusson rugs on
the floors, original art on the walls, one-of-a-kind bronze statuary, porcelain vases on tables here and there and other miscellaneous objects that might attract a thief. Unless accompanied by Gabe, the concierge or me, no one had been allowed alone upstairs all-day.
Oh, stop it, my inner voice grumbled. Didn’t Drake say he’s a good friend?
I was glad to have someone go with me. And Mr. Tackett had a dragon-slayer air about him that made me think I could trust him. So, I said, “Okay, then. Let’s go.
Chapter 4
By the time we reached the elevators, the fact that everything between Mr. Harvey Tackett and me had changed sank in. He was no longer an every woman’s unbelievably studly guy that I would never see again. He was now a sexy, good-looking predator who had returned to Skyline on the hunt. And the prey was me. My heart began to flutter.
As the elevator doors glided closed, I leaned against the back wall, a death grip on the key ring. Making conversation was a dozen times more difficult than earlier. In the confines of the elevator car, my pulse sounded in my ears so loudly I could hear it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could hear it. Or if he had already read my thoughts and sensed the sexual tension that had me tied in knots. Maybe my inner voice was right. Maybe I had gone without too long. I drew a calming breath and willed myself to not squirm.
He, on the other hand, seemed to be relaxed. An I-can-kick-any-dragon’s-ass confidence exuded from him.
“Drake tells me you’re not married,” he said.
That inner voice that thought I needed help piped up. Boo! Hiss! Not appropriate.
Stifling a gasp, I stiffened. My relationship with Drake Lockhart was strictly professional. Why would he discuss me personally with someone? Should I be angry that apparently he had done just that? We landed on the sixth floor before I found my voice. “Um, no. I’m not.”
He gestured me out of the elevator ahead of himself. I strode at a clip toward a unit I had shown a young couple earlier. He kept up, matching my stride. “Are we in a race?”
I dared not let myself look at him. “I have to check several units and I’d like to get home. It’s been a long day. My feet are killing me.”
From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed him looking down at my feet. “Wrong shoes,” he muttered.
I chose not to reply.
At the small unit’s front door, I unlocked it and we stepped inside. “Feel free to look around. This will take me only a minute.”
“I’m in no hurry. You’re the one in a rush.”
I left him in the living room gazing out at the view of the city, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets, again revealing his flat stomach, which did nothing to cool the stew simmering within me. I sailed through each of the rooms, double-checking the closets and making sure all was well and hoping I didn’t miss anything. I was so distracted by him and what the situation between us had suddenly become.
In the master bathroom, I stopped and checked my makeup and hair in the vanity mirror. My lipstick had faded. My long auburn hair that I had pulled back in a ponytail and clipped with a gold barrette was disorderly. Wispy strands had come loose around my face. I had not a single tool. I could do nothing about either the lipstick or the hair.
When I returned to the living room, he still stood in front of the window wall where I had left him. I called up a phony smile. “The view is great, isn’t it?”
“Sure is.” He gave me a look across his shoulder, his eyelids narrowed into a squint. “Does Drake know you come up here alone?”
What?...
I didn’t know the answer to that question. Drake and I had never discussed it. I skidded back into my quick recovery mode and gave a nervous titter. “I can’t imagine Drake accepting I-was-afraid-to-go-upstairs-alone as an excuse for leaving all the doors unlocked. I asked the concierge to watch the elevators and not let anyone else come up behind me.”
Why I was making a speech about this I didn’t know. It was none of Mr. Tackett’s business.
His brow furrowed and he gave me a how-can-you-be-so dumb look. “Trust me. That guy never left his office.”
Exactly what I thought, but I didn’t want to say it and make myself sound wimpy.
“You’re a pretty woman,” he said. “There’s more to think about than somebody following you. An empty building like this? Some nut could hang out all day, waiting for an opportunity. If you worked for me, I wouldn’t expect you to take chances like this.”
Now he had put words to one of my own concerns, making me nervous for a different reason. “If I dwelled on the negative possibilities, I might scare myself. Please. Don’t plant evil thoughts in my mind.”
“The concierge should be the one to lock the doors. Or those cops. Or the dude who was here with you this afternoon. One of them should have volunteered to do it. What’s wrong with them?”
His provincial attitude caught me off-guard, but at the same time, someone like him showing concern for my safety hooked me in a subtle way. I released a small sigh. “Look, I understand what you’re saying, but it’s okay. Really. I’m doing just fine. I hope you aren’t going to mention it to Drake.”
“Somebody should. I’m surprised he hasn’t thought of it.”
“I’m expecting to see him tomorrow and I’ll say something to him, okay?”
His jaw flexed. He wasn’t satisfied with that answer. No doubt he would take it up with Drake. Good grief!
“Have you got a boyfriend?”
Oh, my God, that voice in my head shrieked. Tell him that is none of his business…. No, wait. Don’t scare him away. Just tell him no….
That voice that was usually so confident it was right couldn’t make up its mind.
Despite my muddle-headedness, an indefinable emotion squiggled through me. I stalled answering. I didn’t want this Adonis to know I hadn’t had a boyfriend in way more than a year. Or that I hadn’t even had a date in months. I didn’t want him to think I was chopped liver.
“Well, do you? One that you’re sleeping with?”
Whoa! I blinked. Telling a stranger whether I have “a boyfriend” was one thing. Discussing with whom I might or might not be sleeping was another. I floundered for words. Finally, I hiked my nose in the air and managed to show indignation I wasn’t sure I felt. “Mr. Tackett, Drake Lockhart and I are business associates. I don’t discuss my private life with his friends. Or with his customers.”
One corner of his etched lips tilted up in that smirk that had become familiar. Frustrated, I turned and stamped toward the front door, hoping I didn’t stumble in my “wrong shoes.” And as I went, I felt the burn of his stare on my bottom and that caused all sorts of contortions in my midsection.
He caught up with me. We traversed the hallway back to the elevator and re-boarded. While I checked four more units, he tagged along making clever comments about Skyline’s various features, as if he were trying to make up for possibly annoying me.
That inner voice piped up again. He not only looks like a god, he might have a personality.
We rode to the seventeenth floor and the small unit I had shown him this morning. If Drake had wanted me to show this one to him in the first place, he must have thought he might buy it, so letting him see it a second time couldn’t be a bad thing, right?
“Go ahead and take a second look around,” I told him. “I’m going to check the other rooms for spooks and dead bodies.”
“Yell at me if you find any.” He chuckled, a deep masculine heh-heh-heh that sounded almost intimate.
I left him looking around the living room. Once I was out of his sight, I released the breath I had been holding. My midsection was tight and trembling. I had been moving so fast my pulse rate had kicked up as if I had been jogging and I felt damp all over. I finished my inspection of all four bedrooms and closets, unable to stop thinking and wondering about him. I had about a million questions.
By the time we reached the 6,000-square-foot unit on the twentieth floor where Gabe and I had met this morning,
a peculiar connection had developed between Mr. Tackett and me. It was indefinable and it implied more than the facts. I didn’t understand it.
I unlocked the door and preceded him as we walked into one of Skyline’s premiere units located on the east side of the building. Due to the fading sunlight, the place was cast in dim golden light and dramatic shadows. I had wanted to get back downstairs before dark, but we hadn’t quite succeeded. I pressed on the indirect lighting that presented the rooms in a more evocative ambience.
“Since we cut our tour short this morning, we didn’t go through this unit,” I said. “Would you like to see something breathtaking?”
His eyes lit up and he smiled. “More breathtaking than you?”
Now that’s corny, that pesky inner voice groused.
I agreed, but a guy as sexy and good-looking as Mr. Tackett could get by with being trite. Instead of attempting a cute response, I said, “Come this way.”
I walked him over to the window wall and the 180-degree view of the outside. Until last night’s cocktail party, I hadn’t been up here after dark. The evening view of the city lights winking and twinkling to life was even more dramatic than the daytime vista. Standing side by side, shoulders almost touching, we remained silent and gave the scene the admiration it deserved.
Finally, I said, “This is stunning, isn’t it? It’s like standing on a cloud above the city.”
He walked right up to where his boot toes almost touched the glass and looked down. I didn’t have the nerve to do this. If I went within a foot of the windows, I got dizzy and a fear of the glass breaking threatened to overwhelm me, though Drake had told me it would take a freight train to break the glass.
“Too bad I need only a small space,” Mr. Tackett said. “This is tempting.”
Tempting? If it was tempting enough, he would have to shell out twelve million dollars. Or close to it even if Drake was willing to negotiate. Just how rich was Mr. Tackett?
Being unlicensed, I wasn’t allowed to quote specific prices, but I could get by with generalizing. “In New York City, this much space and luxury in a high-rise would cost you quite a lot more.”
