“I missed a tour of this place earlier, and I thought since you’re here and I’m here, I wouldn’t mind looking around.”
She clasped her hands behind her back and relished the feel of her ring, smooth and warm and comforting. “Well, if you really want to. Where did you want to start?”
He shrugged, the action testing the fine material of his tux jacket. “Surprise me,” he said in a low voice that ran riot over her nerves.
She turned to avoid looking at him and to concentrate on the center, but as she turned, she realized that the fragrance of baking gingerbread coming from the new oven in the redone kitchen had become a pungent odor. And smoke was seeping out through the swinging door of the kitchen.
Chapter Two
Quint didn’t realize what was going on until Amy turned and sprinted barefoot across the room, then he saw the smoke. She burst through swinging doors and disappeared as smoke spilled out into the room. He ran after her, heading for the smoke, and suddenly a sound split the air—a smoke alarm.
He cursed himself for being so distracted by the woman and the rat that he hadn’t noticed anything else. Instead of paying attention, he’d been trying to figure out if Mike’s advice was worth taking. The damn building could be burning down around him, and he was trying to figure out if he should go for it and ask Amy out for a drink, stalling for time by asking her to give him a tour of the place. He shoved back the door and stepped into a room filled with smoke.
“Amy!” he called above the alarm, coughing when he took a breath.
Quint heard a scream, a crash, and he dove into the smoke as someone behind him called out, “What’s going on?”
Through coughing, Amy’s disembodied voice came from inside the room, “Gingerbread.”
There was movement behind him, then a motor started up and the smoke began to thin dramatically. Quint spotted Amy crouching on the far side of the room by an open oven surrounded by shattered glass from what looked to have once been a dish and a number of blackened, smoking lumps. He went to her, dropped to his haunches and made himself not touch her. That scream had shocked him, followed by his reaction that something had happened to her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She stared at the mess in front of her, coughing again before she answered him. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Someone else was there, rushing around doing something to controls on the wall. But all he could focus on was Amy and the charred mess between them. “The gingerbread family, I take it?”
“Exactly.” Amy waved at the air in front of her as if she could disperse the last of the smoke. “I was baking them to show off the oven and to make this place smell nice. You know, the trick Realtors use to make houses more inviting? Bake cookies or something that smells great? Well, I had some dough left, so I put them in to take home with me when I went, and I forgot all about them.”
“The family’s toast,” he murmured.
She looked at him, grimacing. “That’s terrible.”
“Sorry.”
“So am I,” she muttered as she frowned at the broken glass all around them. “I’d hoped the smell of it baking would cover the paint and new carpet smells and people would think the place was homey and nice.” The alarm stopped as she added, “What a mess.”
He watched her in profile, and didn’t miss the slight unsteadiness in her chin. “For what it’s worth, it worked. That’s the first thing I smelled when I came in.”
She looked up at him. “Then the smoke, huh? I can’t believe I got so distracted.” She bit her lip, then finished. “Charlie has one more thing to answer for.”
She stood, then turned to the guard who was coming toward them through the haze of smoke lingering in the room. “Sorry, Walt, the gingerbread is a bit overdone. I hope this didn’t mess up things too badly for you.”
“No, I got to the sprinkler control before they came on and I got a couple of fans going. The smoke’s almost gone.” He went over to a central range with a huge hood over it and flipped a switch. Another fan roared to life. “I’ll leave them on for an hour or so, then check back here.” He turned to Amy and Quint. “Meanwhile, I’ll get maintenance in here to clean this up.”
“No, please don’t,” Amy said as she stood. “I did it. I’ll clean it up.”
“Whatever you say, ma’am,” Walt said. “You two okay?”
“We’re fine,” Quint said and then heard glass crunch under the man’s shoes as he turned and left. “Where are the brooms kept?” he asked Amy.
“I’ll get them,” she said, and she would have if he hadn’t stopped her by capturing her upper arm and stopping her before she could take a step.
“Don’t move,” he said, trying to block out the pleasure of her soft skin under his hand.
He drew back as she turned to him. “What are you doing?”
“Stopping you from getting cut.” He pointed to her bare feet. “There’s glass all over this place. I’ve got shoes on. You stay put and tell me where the supplies are.”
She glanced down, then back up at him, her lashes partially shadowing her deep-brown eyes. “I never thought…” She bit her lip. “The broom is in the closet to the right of the door over there.” She pointed behind her. “There’s a dustpan, too, and a bucket of some sort to put the pieces in.”
As Quint crossed to the cupboard, he heard glass crunch under his shoes, too. He got the broom, pan and bucket, then went back to where Amy stood very still. He handed her the pan. “Just hold this and don’t move your feet.”
“I never thought of that,” she said as she crouched down and he started to sweep the pieces into the dustpan. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said, sweeping the shards into the pan. By the time the floor was clear, the smoke was gone, but the odor still lingered. “You stay here,” Quint told her as he went to put back the equipment, and when he turned she was where he’d left her, her hair mussed, her feet bare, her dress torn and little or no makeup on her face. Not only was she beautiful at that moment, but she made his decision for him. Mike had been right after all. He needed this, a diversion, some time off to “go with the flow.”
He went back to her, and she coughed softly. “Thank goodness everyone had pretty much left before that happened.” She looked up at him and said, “If anything had happened to this center, after everything everyone’s gone through…” She sighed heavily. “I don’t know what I would have done.”
Not willing to think back to that moment of sheer horror when she’d disappeared into the smoke, he tried to make a joke. “If anyone asks about it, do what you said you were going to do, blame it on the rat.”
She looked at him, and for the first time since he’d glimpsed her, she was smiling. Not hugely, but a soft lifting of her pale lips, and there was a sparkle deep in her dark eyes that accompanied that touch of humor in her. It made him wish he could see her smile fully realized. “Poor Charlie, how do you suppose I convince everyone that the rat burned the gingerbread family?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Well, lady, my theory is, if a mouse can own one of the biggest theme parks in the world, a rat could have done this.”
His wish came true and she smiled at him, really smiled, and the sight of it literally made his breath catch in his chest. Beautiful? Was that what he thought? This woman was beyond beautiful. “I guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks, huh?” she asked.
“What?” he asked, his thinking not exactly clear at that moment.
“Coming up with ideas to fix what’s going on in this place. I think they called you a ‘visionary,’ and I know that visionaries don’t come cheaply, at least not in this world. So, solutions equal big bucks.”
“I just do a job,” he said, noticing the faint touch of a dimple to the left of her mouth. Just the suggestion of a dimple. “That’s all.”
She exhaled, and the smile started to fade a bit, something he regretted greatly. “It’s time to leave, before I really burn this place down,” she said and l
ooked down at the floor. “I hope all the glass is gone, because with my luck today, I’ll find the last piece, cut myself and really make a mess.”
“Amy, you’re brilliant. As a visionary, I can see you’re absolutely right. You’ll do that very thing.” She frowned slightly, as if trying to figure out where he was going with this. “And since I’m being paid big bucks to keep this company on the right path, I figure that keeping an employee from hurting herself is all part of the job description, and one of the reasons I make all those big bucks.”
He went closer to her as he spoke, so close he could see that there was a deep amber burst around the pupils of her eyes.
“Mr. Gallagher—” she started, but he stopped her.
“It’s Quint, and let me earn my money.” Before she could evade him, he picked her up. She was as light as a feather, but a feather wouldn’t have twisted the minute he held it, or gasped with shock as he caught it high in his arms.
“Put me down,” she was saying, but he was busy trying to absorb the way the fascination he’d had with her from the start was transforming into a basic need to keep this contact.
“Not in here,” he said.
She felt soft and warm and smelled like burnt gingerbread and flowers. Her hair tickled his face as she wiggled around, pressed one hand to his chest and looked him right in the eyes, her face inches from his own. “You do not have to do this.”
He did, but he couldn’t explain to her why he did. He couldn’t explain it to himself. “Oh yes I do,” he said, carrying her across the room to the door. “It’s for the good of LynTech.”
“Oh, come on,” she muttered, finally stilling in his arms.
“Oh, yes, if you cut your foot, you’ll go on disability and lose time, and the company will lose your work time, and you can see that we’ll all be headed down the road to ruin.”
She stared at him as they went out into the main room, then suddenly that smile came back. “You’re ridiculous, you know?”
“I’ve been called worse than that,” he said. There was carpet underfoot now, but he kept going with her, taking her over to the tree before he even considered letting her go. And when he let her down, he had to quite literally keep himself from reaching out to brush at the hair clinging to her cheeks as she stood to face him.
“You’ve earned your big bucks,” she said, her face slightly flushed, probably from all the excitement.
He was going to ask her out for drinks or coffee or something. Anything to prolong this evening. “We’ve got our stories straight, right?”
“What?”
“You’re pulling a Watergate. You need to blame someone else for all of this, and Charlie is an excellent scapegoat.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, Watergate? Sure, of course. Boy, that’s pretty ancient history, isn’t it?”
Ancient history? It had happened during his college years. He looked at her then, really looked at her, beyond that incredible sensuality that rocked him, beyond the voice and the eyes. She was young. It hadn’t even hit him before. He’d been too busy “going with the flow” and with everything else. “Very ancient,” he murmured, then found himself saying, “How old are you?”
He hadn’t meant to ask that bluntly, but it was out there and he waited. “How old are you?” she countered without batting an eye.
“Let’s put it this way, I was there when ancient history was made.” He tried to joke, but it seemed flat in his own ears.
She smiled again. “Well, if you were there for the Civil War, I want to know if Scarlett and Rhett ever got back together?”
Her smile was melting his reason—big-time. “I never met the lady, but rumor has it that she kept Tara and lost that Butler fellow.”
“Too bad. I heard he was pretty cool.”
If you’re in this world at the same time, age doesn’t matter, Mike had said, and looking at Amy right then just solidified that for him. Besides, he wasn’t looking to “settle down” or anything like that. Drinks, talk, a bit of fun, a diversion. Time out of time. If Mike were here, he’d call this decision a miracle. Quint just called it a good idea. “And I bet he got paid big bucks, too.”
She laughed then, really laughed, and the sound floated around him and seemed to seep into his being. God, it felt wonderful. He wanted to ask her out right then, but he felt almost as uncertain as a teenager as to how to go about it. He was out of practice with this dating thing. But she seemed like such a perfect person to start practicing with.
“I bet he did,” Amy said, then sighed. “Thanks for everything, including the lesson in excuses. Now, I need to get going.”
It was now or never. “It’s getting late, but I wanted to ask you something,” he said quickly, before she could just take off.
Amy had barely recovered from him carrying her, from that sense of being supported and surrounded. She hadn’t realized until the moment Quint picked her up that she sorely missed that sort of contact. The strength of a man, the scent of a man. She pushed the thought away. That was a foolish path to take. That was part of the past, not here and now. “What?”
“Would you like to go somewhere and recover?” he asked in his low, rough drawl. “We can have drinks or food, or both, and work on your defense some more.”
He couldn’t be asking her out. No, he wasn’t. She probably looked like she needed a stiff drink. She knew she felt as if she could use one. “I don’t think so.”
“Listen, I’ll be honest with you. I’m no good at small talk or playing games. I never have been.” His hazel eyes narrowed on her. “I’ll just say this right out. I’m attracted to you, and I’d like to get to know you better.”
She stared at him, her heart starting to beat faster, and she pressed her hand to it, a futile action that made no difference to her heartbeat. She touched her tongue to her cold lips. “No, thanks. I’m sorry.”
He glanced down to her hand pressed to her chest, and everything changed when he shook his head. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I had no idea that you were married. I’m more out of practice than I thought.”
Married. Oh, God. She could feel her stomach tense, and sickness rise in the back of her throat. He was looking at her wedding band, the simple gold ring that Rob had given her three years ago. The ring she’d never taken off since he’d put it there. She lowered her hand, pushing it behind her back and clenching her hand so tightly that the ring pressed into her fingers.
Quint was watching her, waiting, and she didn’t have a clue what to say or do. She could let him just believe she was married and he’d leave. It seemed like such a simple solution to stop whatever was going on. But she couldn’t lie.
She took a partial step back. The words were there, but she found them as hard to say now as she had right after Rob had died. Touching her tongue to her lips, she swallowed hard and made herself say them. “I’m…I’m a widow.”
The look that came to everyone’s eyes when they found out about Rob’s death was there in his. Pity, sympathy. She hated it, but she could deal with it. What she couldn’t deal with was Quint being so close, so close that when he spoke again, she could have sworn that she felt his breath brush her cold cheeks.
“Boy, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t,” she said, her voice vaguely tight now. “It’s getting late.” As she spoke, she turned to get more space between them, but that simple act backfired when her foot tangled with the silver slingback heels she’d left by the tree when she’d had to crawl inside to get Charlie.
Quint had her by her upper arm, gently easing her back, and she was facing him, inches separating them, and there was no way she could ignore him. Trying to ignore him at that moment would be about as easy as walking on water for her. So she stood very still, tried not to inhale too deeply and tried very hard to think realistically to explain her scattered emotions right then.
She was lonely. She’d been lonely for what seemed forever—or at least since the car accident that had taken Rob’s l
ife. And she wasn’t having a good evening. Quint just happened to be here, and he was a man. A man who happened to make her remember more of what she’d lost than she’d remembered until now.
“Are you okay?” he was asking.
She wanted to pull back and free herself from his touch, hoping that would help her think more clearly. But she was embarrassed enough by all of this and not about to make any more of a scene than she already had. “I promise you that I’m not self-destructive, and I don’t usually need help staying on my feet.”
“That’s good to know.” He exhaled and she felt the vibration through his hand and into her arm. “Amy, let me be totally honest about this,” he said in a low voice. “I told you I’m not good at this. I’m way out of practice.” That suggestion of a smile was there, but now it was tinged with what could have been uncertainty. “I’d like to sit and talk with you, just get to know you.”
He drew back from her, his hand letting her go, but without physical contact he was still affecting her on some level that she didn’t want to admit. She didn’t want to feel heat and she didn’t want to feel an aching loneliness. She was being pulled into something that terrified her, and all she wanted was to be out of there and away from Quint. “I’m not dating now,” she blurted out.
He was just inches from her, his eyes narrowing on her. “That’s a shame,” he murmured as his gaze flicked over her and her stomach clenched. “But I understand. It’s too soon?”
Honestly, she’d never thought of ever dating again. That wasn’t in her plans. She’d had love once, real love, and she knew that only came to a person once in a lifetime. “I just don’t date.” She felt her wedding ring almost biting into her from clenching her hands at her sides. She had Taylor, worked ten-hour days and didn’t think too much about what she didn’t have. She didn’t want to start now. “I’m really too busy.”
Millionaire's Christmas Miracle Page 3
