The Groom's Revenge

by Susan Crosby

  “I don’t send a computer unsolicited, then expect someone to pay for it, Mollie.”

  “But you said it wasn’t a gift.”

  “It isn’t”

  “Well. That’s crystal clear.”

  Gray enjoyed her temper, bright as a newly minted penny. “Sign for the delivery and I’ll explain.”

  “I’ll just be calling in a pickup order for tomorrow.”

  “That’ll be your decision. For now, just accept it. Please,” he said. Mike returned in time to overhear their discussion.

  She cursed Gray with her eyes but scrawled her name across the signature pad when Mike slid it across the counter, grinning.

  “He won’t keep Jus mouth shut,” she almost growled when they were alone again. “Everyone up and down the block will know.”

  “I wasn’t the one making a fuss,” Gray said mildly.

  “I would expect a man like you to get to the point,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “A man like me?”

  “Brilliant. Analytical.” She frowned. “Although People magazine also called you quirky.” She lost her fighting edge for a moment as she seemed to think about that.

  Had she gone to the library last night and read up on him? He never had figured out why that reporter had labeled him as quirky, a definition Gray would never apply to himself. He’d told her she could ask questions while he jogged his eight miles, because he didn’t have time for her otherwise. Did that make him quirky? Or efficient?

  “You work hard and you’re ambitious,” he said to Mollie. “I respect that You’re trying to take what’s already a charming little shop and make it more upscale, to attract new business, right?”

  “Without losing any of the old customers.” Diverted from her argument, she mirrored his pose across the counter, leaning toward him.

  “The coffeehouse down the block draws a different crowd into the area,” he said.

  “There’s a lot of revitalization going on here. New businesses are mushrooming. There’s a lot of potential business because the neighborhood has changed. I would’ve moved my business here, if I hadn’t already been here.”

  He nodded. He’d done some quick research on the subject. An infusion of cash would certainly help her give a fresh new look to her shop. “The whole area is on the brink of a renaissance.”

  “And I want to be ready.”

  “Then you’ll need to computerize your business.”

  “Why?”

  “For one, when you get on the Internet, you can locate other florists and see what they’re doing. You won’t believe the doors that will open to you.”

  Interest flashed in her eyes before she clamped her mouth shut and pushed away from the counter. “Why do you care?”

  He’d come up with his new plan last night, pleased with his solution. He had to buy himself some tune, let her get to know him, then convince her to help him ruin Stuart Fortune. For now, though, he just needed a reason to keep her in close contact.

  “I want you to plan my parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party.”

  Surprise widened her eyes. “Twenty-fifth? But—”

  “My mother and stepfather,” he said.

  “Oh. I guess I assumed they lived in California.”

  “They do. That’s why you’ll need a computer.”

  Molhe frowned. Her world had stopped making sense the moment Gray had dropped into her life, the man-who didn’t know he’d helped her bury her grief. But not only did his request not make sense, it was downright ridiculous. Not just quirky. Ridiculous. Absurd. Preposterous.

  So why did she just want to say okay without questioning his motives? Surely he had motives.

  “You must have a choice of a hundred party planners where you live,” she said.

  “Last month I attended a charity ball here in Minneapolis. You were one of the sponsors.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I won one of the table centerpieces. A basket decorated with dried flowers. Very original. Your business card was taped to the bottom ” He pulled it out of his pocket and showed her. “I shipped the basket to my mother the next day, because I thought it was something she would like. And she did. Obviously you’re the right person for the job.”

  The phone rang. She watched him peel off a packing slip from one of the computer boxes as she handled a frantic caller requesting a dozen long-stemmed red roses for a just-remembered anniversary. Yes, she had some on hand, she told the man with the stress-filled voice. Yes, roses were expensive, but his wife was priceless, wasn’t she? Yes, she took Mastercard. Yes, he could pick them up in half an hour.

  Gray looked at his watch no less than five tunes in the few minutes she was on the phone.

  After she hung up she moved to the refrigerator case and lifted out a tall vase filled with roses, then grabbed some baby’s breath, lemon leaves and leather fern.

  She lined a long gold-foil box with forest green tissue paper, a task that soothed her with its familiarity. In a world turned upside down, she needed routine. “Why me?” she asked.

  “Because I’ve seen and admired your work, as I said. And because you’re from home.”

  “Here?” She’d stripped the lower stems of thorns and leaves before putting them in the refrigerator. Grabbing her paring knife, she made an angle cut at the bottom of each stem before sliding it into a water-filled tube. Gray wandered close to watch.

  “My mother and stepfather were born in Minneapolis,” he said, his gaze following her hands as she worked. “So was I.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Is there a reason why you should?”

  She layered roses, greenery and baby’s breath in the box. “I suppose not. I’m just surprised. Still, that’s hardly enough reason to put me in charge of a party that will take place so far from here. It’s not practical. Or are you planning to have the party here?”

  “No. It’ll be near where they live in Atherton. That’s in Northern California, near what’s called the Silicon Valley. Near Stanford University.”

  “When?”

  “April twentieth.”

  She dropped the length of ribbon she’d just snipped. “April as in next year? Nine months from now?”

  “Does that give you enough time?”

  “Gee, I don’t know, Gray. That might be cutting it awfully close.” She swiped the ribbon from the floor, then formed a big loopy, red bow.

  “I figured we’d need to reserve the facility well in advance I expect several hundred people to attend.”

  “What does it have to do with my having a computer?” she asked, chagrined that he was right.

  “It’s the best way of staying in touch to handle the details.”

  She looked up at him for a second, then focused on attaching the ribbon to the box. “You do remember we have telephones here in Minneapolis, right? And fax machines.”

  “I prefer e-mail.”

  “You would,” she mumbled.

  “What was that?”

  She could hear the smile in his voice and tried to decide whether she liked being a source of entertainment for him. “I said, ‘Oh, good.’”

  “Are you interested in handling the party?”

  “Of course I’m interested.” She set the box of roses in the refrigerator. “It’s just that I still can’t figure out why you’d use me. I’m new at this, plus the distance.”

  “You won’t grow your business with that attitude.”

  She laughed. “Grow my business?”

  “Standard business terminology,” he said, although he smiled.

  “I’d have to hire help for the shop.”

  “Build it into your budget for the job.”

  “I need to think about this.”

  He put his hands in his pockets. “There’s no time to think about it. I won’t be in town for long. I need to set up your computer and teach you the basics before I go.”

  Mollie skirted around him, deciding she needed the s
afety of the counter between them. Standing close to him had just made her want to kiss him even more. He had the most appealing mouth....

  “I can take computer classes,” she said, dragging her invoice pad close and writing up a bill for the roses.

  “I want to be the one to teach you.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Gray waited until she stopped writing and looked up at him. Had he come on too strong? Had she picked up on the intensity of his pursuit, even as he tried to go slow with her, to be casual? “Do I make you nervous, Mollie? Yesterday you talked to me like an old friend.”

  “Yesterday you weren’t real.” She made a little sound, as if regretting her words. “I mean, the situation didn’t seem real. Your being here. What are the odds?”

  “I already explained that. And you’re making this difficult, Mollie Shaw.”

  Her eyes sparkled at his comment.

  “I would’ve figured you for a man who likes a challenge, Gray McGuire. So, here’s the way it’ll work. I’ll use the computer until the party is over, then if I find I want to keep it, I’ll buy it from you.”

  “At cost.”

  “Well, of course. By then it’ll be a used computer. Hardly worth my paying full price.”

  The sound of his own laughter surprised him. For a moment he’d forgotten that justice was within his grasp. He had to stay focused on his goal, not be tempted into forgetting his purpose. After all, justice would be hers, too.

  “Where can I hook up the computer?” he asked her.

  Mollie looked around her work space.

  “While you’re learning,” he said, “your living quarters would probably be best. You can practice without interruptions.”

  “That would be upstairs. I’ll show you the way.” She locked the cash register, then moved to the stack of boxes.

  “You’re going to let me into your apartment? Just like that? When you hardly know me?”

  She grabbed the top two boxes, leaving the heavy one foi him. “What could I have that you could possibly want?”

  As she walked away shaking her head, he studied her long, shiny hair and slender back, her softly swaying skirt, envisioning the lithe body beneath it. A drift of something in the air had him breathing deeply. A rainbow would smell like that. Frowning at the thought, he followed her trail through the back of the shop and up the stairs to a small, neat apartment with a distinctly floral motif. Femininity personified.

  After Mollie made a quick return to the shop, Gray surveyed the apartment. The first door led to a bedroom. Twin beds. She must have shared the room with her mother, a situation not conducive to romantic liaisons, for either of them.

  One wall was dotted with framed photographs of Mollie and her mother through the years. He studied each picture, noting the same wide, smiling mouths and reed-slender bodies, the deep-copper-colored hair. The togetherness.

  He wandered out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, with its claw-foot tub and garden-print shower curtain. The room smelled of woman, something flowery and fragrant and... comforting.

  Comfort. Something he neither wanted nor needed. Be a man. His stepfather’s words echoed in Gray’s mind, as they had since the day his mother had married James McGuire when Gray was eight. No allowance for weakness. No quarter given. Go after what you want, no matter the cost. Winner takes all. Losers... die.

  James McGuire was a winner. Stuart Fortune was a winner Gray’s father...

  Go after what you want, Gray reminded himself as he returned to the living room to unbox the computer components. Along a wall, desk space had been created by laying a Formica countertop on two-drawer file cabinets, making room for two people to work simultaneously. He chose the side closest to the phone jack, wondering how much of a fuss Mollie was going to put up at having a second line installed. For now he would set up the modem on her existing line. He hooked up the hard drive, the monitor, the printer. He loaded software, including an Internet server.

  All the while he eyed a cigar box bearing Mollie’s name in bright purple paint over a crudely designed birthday cake and candles made of sequins and glitter. It looked like something a very young child might have done as a school project.

  Gray glanced toward the open front door. Mollie’s voice drifted up the stairwell from the shop. With just his forefinger he lifted the lid of the decorated cigar box. He leaned closer, seeing birthday-cake candles inside. A piece of paper was taped to each—

  “Gray!”

  Plunk. The lip dropped into place. He put his fingers on the keyboard at the sound of Mollie hurrying up the stairs.

  “Hi,” she said breathlessly as she came up beside him. “Wow. You’ve got it all set up and going.”

  “Just testing it out.”

  “It looks confusing.”

  “Pretty soon it won’t. Did you want something?”

  She curved her hand over his shoulder and bent low to look at the screen with him. Her fragrance—heather?—dropped a net over him so that he couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Like some damned teenager, he thought, amazed. Heat flashed through him.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “E-mail from my office.”

  “You can get mail on my computer?”

  “I set you up with the same server.” He turned his head fractionally toward her. “Did you come up here for something in particular?”

  She moved a little closer to him. “You seem a little warm.”

  Warm, hell. His blood had begun to simmer.

  She straightened. “Do you need the air-conditioning turned up?”

  “I’m comfortable, Mollie. Is that all?” Move away.

  “Did you want something to eat or drink? Tony’s here. He can get something from the coffeehouse. There’s not much in my refrigerator.”

  He’d noticed. A pitcher of iced tea, two peaches, milk, several cartons of yogurt. A couple of unidentifiable items in plastic containers.

  And a red-velvet, heart-shaped box of candy, half-full.

  He glanced at his watch. “I’m fine for now. Why don’t I just order some takeout to be delivered around the time the shop closes? We can eat together, then get to work showing you how this computer is going to simplify your life.”

  “Okay. If it’s pizza, I don’t like mushrooms.”

  “Any other likes or dislikes?” He saw her glance settle on the cigar box.

  Her cheeks flushed. Casually she swept up the box, tucking it close to her chest. “Not really,” she said.

  “Are you adventurous?”

  Mollie shrugged, letting him choose his own answer from the vague gesture. Adventurous? Hardly. More like “tiresomely sensible.” Except that less than a minute ago she’d almost pressed her lips to his. She wondered what he would have thought of that, considering his claim that everything was to be strictly business between them.

  “Any particular wine you like?” he asked.

  She shook her head. She’d had maybe five glasses of wine in her whole life. The box she clutched seemed to weigh a ton. Had he looked inside? Were her secrets no longer secrets? She must have been really nervous not to notice the box sitting out when she’d first brought him upstairs. She’d gotten used to it being there over the past several months, since her last birthday—the day she’d stopped believing in making wishes. She’d been working up the nerve to throw the box into the trash.

  “I need to get back to work,” she said, aware of his watchful silence.

  She hurried into the bedroom and shoved the box into a drawer, sliding it under her lingerie, a fancy name for her plain, practical bras and panties. But then, she was a practical person.

  Mollie mumbled goodbye as she hurried through the living room and down the stairs, fighting images of Gray seeing just now practical she was. She knew there wasn’t a chance in leaven that he would be interested m someone like her, someone so unsophisticated And computer illiterate—a major strike against her, undoubtedly.

  Don’t mix business and pleasur
e. How many tunes had she heard that? And if she took a chance on letting things become personal between them, then he rejected her, would she lose not only the job, but her dreams? For the past month she’d spun fantasies about him without any fuel other than magazine and newspaper stories and photos.

  She needed him to fill up the emptiness. She also wanted to know the real man beneath those glossy pages.

  There had to be some reason why she’d chosen him as her obsession when she’d never even had the slightest crush on anyone before, not even a movie star or singer. Gray was a businessman. A genius. An international icon—

  Who had the prettiest blue eyes, the nicest smile and the most ncredible body she’d ever seen. And for the first time in months, she wasn’t lonely.

  Three

  Mollie’s mouth caught fire. So much for her first foray into adventure, she thought as she swallowed half a glass of Char donnay to douse the flames.

  Gray had ordered Thai takeout, and while most of it was jus a little spicy and really delicious, the chilies in one dish burned her mouth, her throat and anywhere that the fumes alone touched. She didn’t care much for his amused smile, or the way he continued to eat the blistering dish as if it were macaroni and cheese.

  “You said—” she panted “—it was hot.” She took another swig of wine. “But I didn’t expect fire. Your taste buds mus be cauterized.” She took her plate into the kitchen, grabbed a Popsicle from the freezer, then plopped back onto the sofa bedside him. She’d already consumed two glasses of wine, and the room seemed draped with gauze.

  “It’s an acquired taste.” He closed the cartons with their left overs and carried them into the kitchen.

  “Grab a Popsicle, if you want,” she said, then moaned as the frozen treat numbed her mouth at last.

  “I’m okay, thanks,” he called out

  She heard water running and realized he was rinsing the dishes, something she should be doing, but nothing could have induced her to put aside her icy first aid. Warm and lazy from the wine, she snuggled into the cushions and closed her eyes.

  After a minute she felt him sit beside her.

  “Something tells me you aren’t exactly ready for computer lessons,” he said, humor in his voice.