by Rita Herron
"Not this time, this time I'm serious."
"That's what you said about art school," Lance said. "Remember when you took that class to draw nudes."
"But you were too embarrassed to draw the men," Reid added. "So, you used your imagination—"
"And the body parts weren't proportioned quite right."
"I was only sixteen," Maddie said, her face flushing. "And I was drawing from memory. I can't help it that you guys were five when I last saw you naked."
"Yeah, but you didn't have to tell everyone we were your models. For God's sakes, we'd just been kids, streaking across the yard."
Maddie laughed. "Your male pride seems to have survived."
"Yeah, but still..." Reid began.
"What about that time you decided to join the peace corps?" Lance said.
"I really wanted to help people," Maddie said through clenched teeth.
"But you couldn't get past those spiders," Reid pointed out.
"Arachnophobia isn't that uncommon."
"Then you wanted to be a soap-opera star," Lance said.
"Just so you could play kissy-kissy to some punk who didn't even have chest hair."
Maddie groaned. "I know I made mistakes, guys, but I'm grown up now and I finished my degree this time. Please let me work on the project."
Her brothers traded skeptical looks.
"But you haven't gotten established yet," Reid argued, shaking creamer into his cup.
"Don't you need some set-up time before you take on a big project like ours?" Lance asked. "Maybe you should work as an apprentice for someone."
"You could get a job at the hardware store in town," Lance suggested.
"The mall has a furniture store," Reid said.
Chase rose, fumbled with the coffeepot, then poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, black. "You don't have your business license yet, do you, Maddie?"
Maddie's hand tightened around her tea cup. If she didn't know better, she'd think the men didn't want her to work with them. "I've already applied for my license, and I'm meeting with the bank next week to finalize the loan." She went on to describe her concept of the decorating van on wheels and how much overhead she'd save by using the mobile unit. In fact, getting the loan was almost a done deal, so she'd already ordered the van with her logo on it. It would be ready Monday. She didn't have to tell the boys that part though. "I know there are a couple of high-class design firms in town, guys, but they're going to be pricey, and they don't need your business, I do. I'll cut you a deal. Besides, this tour could be a great way for me to jump-start my business." Maddie took a quick breath, then continued, her excitement gaining momentum. "I already have themes in mind I could incorporate to give each home an individual look and to demonstrate my style."
Lance wiped a drop of perspiration from his cheek. "Most of the people shopping for houses out this way are pretty conservative, Maddie. You can't do anything flamboyant or too contemporary."
"Yeah, the historical society has to approve the restoration projects so none of that weird sponge painting like you have in your bathroom," Reid said.
"And no voodoo paraphernalia or feather headdresses like you hung on the walls in your bedroom," Lance said.
"The voodoo spell is copy of a famous legend," Maddie said. "And that headdress is a Mardi Gras mask I brought back from New Orleans."
"Still, we have to stick to code," Reid added forcefully.
"And you can't quit mid-job like you did on a couple of your other little projects," Lance said.
Maddie's jaw tightened. "I am a professional, guys. You don't have to worry. I know what I'm doing, and I'll finish the job, on time, too."
The boys exchanged uncertain looks, hem-hawed around in a hushed discussion, then finally, very reluctantly, agreed. Maddie jumped up and hugged both of them. "Thanks, you guys. Working with you will be wonderful. I won't let you down, I promise."
"Yeah, okay," Reid mumbled.
Lance scrubbed his hand along his neck. "You'll have to talk to Chase about some of the house designs, the unique features he's including."
Maddie hooked her arm through Chase's, trying to ignore the fact that he hadn't commented on their kiss before her brothers arrived. She must be rustier than she'd thought. "No, problem there. Chase and I will work well together, won't we, Chase?"
Chase's jaw tightened as his gaze roamed over her mouth, then trailed downward over the clinging dress, pausing briefly at the swell of her breasts, her hips, and finally down to her bare toes again where she noticed his eyes linger on her toe ring. Her sparkling red nail polish glittered beneath the light of the moon.
Another disapproving frown flitted onto his brooding face. Still, Maddie could have sworn she felt a current of some primal urge dance between them. Then the minute was gone, and Chase started cracking jokes about her poor sense of direction and how he couldn't imagine her driving a van all over town when she still got lost in the Savannah square. He finished by reminding them that she'd decorated her room with fluorescent painted toilet paper tubes tied together when she was eight.
Once again Maddie had been relegated to kid sister.
She stood, ready to tell him off, when he yanked her back down. Chase brushed his cheek against her ear and whispered, "Here's a brotherly tip: Next time, you might want to go with the white underwear, shortstop."
Maddie's temper exploded. She leaned on her toes and whispered the first comeback that popped into her head. "Heck, Chase, next time, I'll show a little cleavage. And I won't wear any underwear at all."
* * *
Chase grimaced inwardly at his inability to hold his traitorous tongue in check. He'd never meant to make that comment to Maddie about her panties, but damn, he'd seen a whiff of that black scrap and her bare butt beneath the dress in the moonlight and nearly choked on his coffee. The fact that Maddie was acting rather strangely herself, talking about barhopping and picking up men hadn't helped either. And that... that kiss.
He wasn't sure whether to be worried about her or to warn every single man in Savannah to watch out for the sex siren that had suddenly been unleashed into the city. His poor buddies. They had their hands full.
Recognizing trouble brewing, Chase decided to hit the road and fast. "I gotta get out of here. Maddie looks tired."
Maddie raised one beautiful auburn eyebrow.
He shrugged. "Okay, I'm tired. I have a few years on you, shortstop." And a few mental calluses and a bad name to boot.
"We'll head out, too," Lance said.
Reid and Lance hugged Maddie, and Chase waited patiently at the porch edge while they once again offered their condolences. Chase forced himself not to look back as he headed to his truck, afraid moonlight would halo Maddie's curves beneath that white dress and ruin his don't-give-a-shit exit.
He flicked a wave over his shoulder. "See you, kid."
One of Maddie's heels hit Chase's backside, then clunked to the concrete behind him, punctuating her statement. "I am not a kid, Chase Holloway."
Reid and Lance broke into laughter as they walked him to his truck. He'd barely started the engine before Lance began. "Man, I didn't know how to turn down Maddie about the decorating thing, not after what she's been through today."
Reid crooked his arm on the window ledge. "What are we going to do? We can't work with our baby sister underfoot all the time."
"I don't think Maddie's ready for the business world. She's just a kid," Lance complained.
Chase frowned. His buddies obviously had vision problems. Better yet, they needed eye surgery.
"What if she screws up this deal for us? We've been working our butts off to get this business off the ground."
"Why couldn't she have been satisfied marrying Oglethorpe? She could have babies, stay home, throw dinner parties."
Sounded like a miserable life to Chase, especially the dinner party part. He cleared his throat. "Uh, do I have to remind you guys that Oglethorpe turned her down?"
"You heard what he said abo
ut her job. He wanted a businessman's wife."
"Mama wanted that for Maddie, too," Reid added.
"But Maddie's excited about her job," Chase said, wondering why he was defending her. Heck, for all he knew Maddie might hang tiki torches in every room or paint the studies pansy pink, or some other weird female color like fuchsia.
"Yeah, I thought this decorating thing was a hobby, figured Maddie would use her degree to make conversation when she was entertaining at dinner parties," Reid said.
A vision of Maddie at one of the droll society affairs, bowing down to some of the ritzy set darted through Chase's mind. He just couldn't picture it.
"What are we going to do?" Lance asked, sounding desperate.
"Why don't you give her a chance?" Chase suggested. "Maybe she'll surprise you and be an asset to the company."
"Yeah, right," Reid mouthed.
"I guess we're stuck." Lance drummed his fingers on the side of the truck. "But she won't listen to the two of us, so you have to be in charge of her, Chase."
Chase nearly knocked the truck into gear. "I... I don't think that's a good idea. You two know how to deal with Maddie, you're her brothers, she'll listen to you—"
"Not anymore," Lance argued.
"Man, she followed you around like a puppy dog when she was little, Chase. You were the only one she'd let teach her to pitch," Reid argued.
"And you're the one that talked her out of going out for the football team in high school," Lance said.
"She only wanted to prove a point," Chase said, remembering he'd admired her for her courage. But in the end, Maddie had decided to run for school office and had tried to change things on the political level instead of getting beaten up by a bunch of hulking jocks.
"Yeah, you can deal with her better than us right now," Lance said.
"And someone has to handle her. You know how impulsive she is."
She was impulsive all right. She'd stolen all the football players' jock straps and ran them up the flagpole. Then she'd taken off her own underwear and let them fly beside the boys'. Every male in school had speculated on whether she'd been panty-less at school that day.
"So, you'll do it?" Lance asked.
Chase gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. An X-rated image of handling Maddie flashed into his mind, nearly knocking the wind out of him.
Lance slapped him on the back before he could argue further. "Thanks, man. You're like a brother to her. Besides, you're the only guy we trust with our little sister. Every other man in town would be chomping at the bit to get in her pants."
And see that black thong up close.
"We have to protect the business," Reid added.
Oh, yeah, the business. Chase remembered the bachelors forever pact the three of them had made when they were twelve. They'd renewed their pact when they'd forged their business venture. Marriage and families would only rob time from the company. And right now, the company was the most important thing in the world to Chase. Next to his friendship with Reid and Lance, of course.
He'd grown up an orphan nobody, had been teased his entire life about his jailbird dad, his tainted name. Chase tried to form a mental picture of his father, but the only image that surfaced was prison bars and a number on a pair of orange work overalls. After that, there had been the endless barbs from the other kids about being the son of a murderer. The fights and scrapes he'd gotten into when he couldn't stand the ridicule. Being rejected by a stream of adoptive families. Holidays spent alone. Always feeling like an outcast. Anger had simmered and festered inside him, almost destroying him. He'd promised himself that one day he'd show this town that Chase Holloway was someone worthy of their respect.
Making a success out of this company and building a decent reputation and name for himself in Savannah had to take precedence over a personal life. And definitely over his untamed libido. If he had to handle Maddie for her brothers to ensure success, then hell, he'd accept the job as baby-sitter. He'd just be sure to buy a pair of kid gloves before he saw her next. He'd have to forget that black thong and those delicious-looking cherry-red toenails, too. And that toe ring. And that... that insatiable kiss.
Reid poked his side. "Chase, you listening?"
"Yeah, no problem," Chase said. After all, Maddie was almost his kid sister.
"But remember," Lance added, "Whatever you do, don't ever tell Maddie we asked you to do this."
Chase nodded. "Don't worry. Maddie will never know."
* * *
The last three days had been hell. Friday morning, Maddie dragged herself out of the Lend and Loan, battling depression. First the Small Business Association had turned her down, then every bank in town had dittoed the response. She'd reached the end of her list. Darn it; how could she start her business if everyone in Savannah refused to give her a chance?
The excuses varied, but the results had all been the same. She didn't own her house, so she couldn't use it as collateral. Her brothers had borrowed to the hilt for their own business so she had no one to co-sign a loan for her. Worse, there were the whispered looks behind her back, the raised eyebrows; obviously her TV appearance had been noted, and she'd been blackballed by all the businessmen in town.
She sighed as she thought about splurging on the new car. A dumb impulsive decision. At the time, she'd never dreamed there would be a problem with her business loan. Although she hadn't officially applied for funding, Jeff had hinted that he'd put in a good word for her so she'd thought it was in the bag. Obviously she'd been wrong.
And now she had the van payment as well.
But Jeff's support had come before Sophie's show. She should have waited until after she'd secured the loan to issue her ultimatum to Jeff. What had she been thinking? Not only was Jeff prominent blue-blood Savannah, but he was on the board of the Savannah Economic Development committee, friends with all the entrepreneurs in town, and he was related to the mayor. He'd probably called everyone he knew and advised them she was a nutcase, not to loan her a dime.
She'd obviously bitten her own self in the ass!
The expression on Jeff's face when he'd seen that flaming red heart instantly materialized in her mind, and Maddie shuddered. She'd purposely avoided his bank this week hoping to secure the money she needed elsewhere. She didn't relish the idea of begging him for money now, not after the way they'd parted, but she had no other choice. She checked her appearance in the mirror, painted her lips a soft plum color to contrast with the dark green suit she'd chosen, climbed from her car, and walked inside the double glass doors.
On the other side of the room, she spotted Jeff leaning against a chrome counter decked with coffee and other condiments. A tall blonde rested her hand on his arm, chatting flirtatiously. Obviously, Jeff had weathered the break-up pretty well.
His gaze lifted, and he looked straight at her, his blue eyes piercing. Frissons of heat danced along her nerve endings at the anger she saw radiating from his expression. She should have worn knee pads for protection when she dropped to the floor to beg for money, she decided. Jeff Oglethorpe didn't intend to make this encounter easy.
In fact, he spent ten minutes talking to the blonde, ten more to his secretary detailing his schedule, then made Maddie wait in his outer office a good twenty minutes after his secretary had disappeared for lunch before he finally allowed her to enter.
She approached his office cautiously. "Um, hi, Jeff."
The mole at the corner of his mouth jumped as his jaw tightened. "If this is about the other day, I don't want to discuss it, Madison."
Maddie bit down on her lip. "Actually, it's not about the other day. Not exactly."
His brown eyebrow raised.
"I would like to apologize for embarrassing you though, Jeff, I never meant to—"
"If you came hoping for a reconciliation, I don't think that's possible now. My mother has barely recovered from that debacle on TV."
His mother. What about him?
"I didn't come here to beg for a reco
nciliation."
He clutched the lapels of his suit jacket stiffly. "Well then, why are you here?"
Maddie momentarily lost her nerve. The strained hum of silence that lingered between them only elevated the tension in the room. Finally, unable to bear the awkwardness any longer, she cleared her throat. "I came here about a loan."
"You want to borrow money from me?" He pulled out a couple of hundred-dollar bills and tossed them toward her. "I'm a little surprised but here, I'm a generous guy, and I don't want any hard feelings. Will two, three hundred be enough to tide you over?"
"I didn't mean I wanted money from you personally. I need a business loan, Jeff. From the bank." Heat climbed her neck. "Remember we discussed it before."
"Before you ditched me on TV." He settled into his brown leather desk chair, then leaned back and studied her, a faint look of hurt in his eyes. "You seriously want me to back your business now?"
"Yes. I hate to come to you, Jeff, but I've been everywhere else in town, and no one will help me." She indicated the folder in her perspiring hands. Darnit, she was sweating like a pig in heat, and her panty hose were climbing up her behind, sticking in every nook and cranny. "I've itemized the costs for start-up and included a business plan and a report on the parent company and the franchise I want to buy."
When he simply stared at her, she rushed on, "You know I've wanted to be an interior designer for a long time."
His thin lips quirked sideways. "This venture is risky, Maddie. I think the two elite design firms already established in Savannah would have the market cornered."
"You didn't seem skeptical before."
"Well, as you pointed out, that was before. Now that I've seen how impulsive you can be, I have a few reservations."
She pressed her lips into a fine line at his insinuation, remembering her brothers' comments. At least her previous meetings had prepared her to argue her case. "There are a lot of new developments popping up, and let's face it, Jeff, not everyone can afford Franchesca's or Dante's. They're pretty upscale and don't cater to middle-income families. I want to cater to them. Plus, I have the advantage of low overhead on my side, and I'll travel to people's homes with samples."
