by Lisa Hendrix
“Nice look,” Craig said, brushing a clump of dirt off her nose. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”
“He who?”
Grinning like an obnoxious big brother, Craig put his hands on her shoulders and spun her around. At the foot of the drive, next to a very large, gray Rolls Royce, stood Mason Alexander.
Raine stared, her face frozen in a half smile. Maybe having a lilac dropped on her head wouldn’t have been such a bad thing after all.
“He must have really enjoyed that kiss,” Craig whispered in her ear. Aloud he added, “Go ahead and call it a day, Raine. We’re going to knock off anyway, as soon as we get that bush watered in.”
“I’m going to get you,” said Raine through unmoving lips.
Craig just chuckled and walked off.
Nothing like having friends. Raine forced the rest of that smile onto her lips, and walked down the drive. Was it her imagination, or had it suddenly gotten hotter? “Mr. Alexander. Good afternoon.”
“Miss Hobart.” His glance flickered down the length of her and back up, and she could see that he was fighting back either a smile or a shudder. She must be a real sight.
“I was wrestling a lilac,” she said, immediately hating the defensive tone in her voice.
“I assume you won.”
“Barely. I hope you didn’t come out here to tell me you couldn’t talk your lady friend out of getting me fired.”
“No.” He lost the battle with the smile, but she didn’t mind. “She calmed down remarkably well after a bath.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
“Actually, I owe you—an explanation for what happened on the terrace the other day.”
What happened on the terrace. Just the recollection of those final thirty seconds curled her toes all over again, and facing the man responsible didn’t do a thing to straighten them. “It’s really not necessary.”
“Yes, it is. I hoped you might accept a ride home. We could talk on the way.”
“I live in Fremont,” she said. “It’s out of your way, and besides, my truck’s back at the nursery. I should just ride with the crew.”
“I’ll take you to the nursery then. Please, Miss Hobart.”
Raine could think of several reasons why she shouldn’t get into a car with Mason Alexander, from the amount of grit in her hair to her conviction that he was as certifiable as he was sexy, but none of them stood up to pure curiosity. Besides, a chance to ride in a chauffeured Rolls didn’t come her way every day.
“Okay.” she said. “On one condition. Call me Raine. I’ve always thought ‘Miss Hobart’ made me sound like the commercial dishwasher queen.”
He gave her a blank look, and it occurred to her that this might be the first time she’d ever gotten into a car with a man who had never worked a single day in food service.
“Raine it is,” he said after a moment. “Provided that you call me Mason.”
“All right.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to that, so she avoided his name altogether. “Hang on while I get my gear out of the crew truck.”
A few minutes later, when she’d settled into buff leather seats so soft they almost swallowed her and the car had rolled away from the curb, Raine realized that this was a bad idea. Not only did the immaculate interior make her feel like a chimney sweep, but she was apparently being kidnapped.
“We’re going the wrong way,” she said.
“I told Paul to take a couple of turns around the Arboretum on the way.” Mason smiled at Raine’s raised eyebrow. “It’s going to be a long explanation.”
That turned out to be a flagrant understatement, and not only was his tale long, it was bizarre. Raine grew more bemused by the minute. Witches. Love potions. Forget the Best Actor award; this guy should be writing pulp fiction.
“So, there we were,” he wound up, “with a pitcher full of God-knows-what and my mother coming, and—”
“Are they really witches?” Raine interrupted.
“Of course not,” he snapped.
“Ah.” She’d obviously hit a nerve. “I take it you don’t believe in their, um, abilities.”
He drilled her with a glare. “Are you in love with me?”
“Uh … no,” Raine said. After all, lust didn’t equal love, a lesson she’d learned the hard way.
“Precisely. The only ability my mother and sister have demonstrated is an uncanny knack for creating maximum trouble with minimum forethought.”
Raine shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand why you’re so upset. So they put a few herbs in the tea. Big deal. It didn’t do any harm.”
“The point is that I had specifically told them not to use their so-called potion. They had promised they wouldn’t, and yet less than an hour later, one or both of them had spiked the iced tea. I was, and still am, justifiably furious.”
“And so you thought you’d teach them a lesson by kissing the gardener.” She pretended to notice something out the window and muttered to herself, “Gee, it’s a good thing I wasn’t someone appropriate.”
“You were simply the person at hand.” It was his turn to sound defensive.
“How flattering. That doesn’t exactly dig you out, you know.” Raine laughed as a tinge of red crept above his collar. “So, what did your mother say when you told her the truth about our little performance?”
Mason rubbed his thumb over an invisible smudge on the burr oak trim. “I haven’t.”
“What?”
“I haven’t,” he repeated, more firmly. “And I don’t intend to, until I accomplish my purpose. That’s the other part of why I’m here. I want to hire you, Miss Hobart.”
“Hire me?”
“To continue the charade we started on Saturday. I want to teach my mother and sister a very clear lesson.”
“Lesson?” Raine knew she sounded thick, but she felt thick, too. The whole situation was just too weird.
“Our ‘little performance,’ as you put it, was only partly successful,” said Mason. “Mother and Miranda apparently believe that their potion worked, but now they feel obliged to counteract it with yet another of their concoctions, so that they can try again with Caroline and me. In other words, they still feel entitled to run roughshod over my personal life and my express wishes. I want to make certain their efforts to reverse their so-called spell fail miserably, but I’ll need your presence to do that. I will pay you five thousand dollars to help me continue a convincing romance.”
Geez, that cleared the mind real quick, Raine thought. Five thousand dollars. Shoot, she’d do it for free, just to have the chance to kiss him again—which was exactly the reason she should throw herself out of the car right now. Not being into bodily harm, however, she grabbed at the first excuse that popped to mind. “I’m sure your girlfriend will just love that.”
“Caroline is on her way to Tokyo.” Mason checked his watch. “As of five minutes ago, in fact. She’ll be gone until the sixth.”
“And what happens when she comes back and finds out you’ve been romancing the gardener for over two weeks? No thanks.” She shuddered. “Just the idea of having her find out I’ve been playing cozy with her boyfriend, even if it was all pretend… Geez.”
“That prospect doesn’t appeal to me, either,” said Mason firmly. “I assure you, I have thought of little else for two days, and I think I’ve considered every aspect. We will play this very close to the vest. Since the idea is to aggravate my mother and sister, we will spend most of our time at the house. Dinner. Bridge. Perhaps some tennis. You do play, don’t you?”
“Not very well.”
“You’ll improve,” Mason said, as though he would personally see that she did. “If we do go out, we’ll choose places where I’m not likely to be recognized. Caroline will never know a thing.”
“Still…”
“Five thousand dollars,” he repeated smoothly. “Plus I can offer you other help in the future: introductions, referrals, perhaps a job reference down the road. Whatever you n
eed. There are advantages to knowing someone with my connections.”
Raine almost said no. Almost, until Mason leaned toward her, and the faintest whiff of some unknown and particularly masculine cologne threw her right back into the middle of that kiss once again. Funny, she hadn’t even noticed the scent at the time, but now she recognized the spicy undertones immediately, and with the power that smells have, they triggered delicious memory in every part of her body.
“This is very important to me,” said Mason. “And I promise, once Caroline returns, your involvement ends, whether Mother and Miranda have sworn off witchcraft or not.
“Please, Raine,” he urged. “Just two weeks.”
Two weeks—maybe a few more of those kisses—and she’d have five thousand dollars. Raine thought about the nasty fight she’d just started with MMT Properties. What if they took FUSE to court?
Well, if those briefcase-toting weenies insisted on turning FUSE’s perfectly legal protest into a vendetta, then she was going to fight back. Surely five thousand dollars would attract a hungry young lawyer with an interest in preserving their First Amendment rights.
Besides, the Universe clearly intended for her to have the money, Raine rationalized, otherwise someone like Mason Alexander wouldn’t have come along to offer it. And as for her physical reaction to him, well, she was a reasonable woman. She could keep her perspective for a couple of weeks.
She realized she was frowning, and that her prospective employer was watching her with a look of patient amusement.
“All right,” she said. “You win. When do we start?”
Mason smiled with the confidence of a man who was used to winning. “Tonight.”
“Okay.”
His gaze flickered down to her grimy knees and back. “We don’t dress formally for dinner, but if you need something appropriate, I have accounts at several stores.”
“I do own a few things besides shorts,” Raine said tartly, even as she mentally ran through her closet with a growing sense of panic.
The car swung into the drive at Johnson’s Landscape and cruised slowly toward the rear of the compound, the barely audible crunch of gravel sounding out of place inside the elegant automobile.
“There’s my pickup.” Raine pointed at the battered chunk of metal that was her baby and workhorse. Mason signaled his driver, who pulled in alongside the truck while Raine fished a notebook and pen out of her backpack and scribbled down her address and some rough directions. “I’ll run ahead and you can pick me up in, say, an hour?”
Mason accepted the directions, but countered, “Forty-five minutes. Mother likes to have drinks on the terrace before dinner.”
“Ah. A proper stage for my entrance.”
Mason nodded. “Do you mind?”
“You’re the director of this play,” she said just as the door swung open. Mason lifted a warning finger to his lips, then stepped out of the car and reached back to offer her his hand.
The late afternoon heat seemed more intense after the cool haven of the air-conditioned car. Raine raised a hand against the slanting sunlight and gave Mason a lingering look—strictly for the benefit of his driver. “I’ll see you in a little while, then.”
“I can’t wait,” said Mason.
The driver lifted one eyebrow.
Eight minutes later, Raine set the hand brake with a tug and ripped her keys out of the ignition. The trick door, gate, and front door banged shut one after another as she rushed into the tiny guest house she rented.
As she tossed her pack on the table, she grimaced at the huge pile of unfolded laundry that occupied one end of the couch. Great. She’d have to be even quicker, so she could cut him off out front.
By the time she hit the bathroom, she’d stripped to her underwear. She turned the shower on full force, and while she waited for the hot water, she reached for the fastening on her bra.
A glimpse of her image in the mirror over the sink stopped her dead. Sun-parched blonde hair sticking out every which way, peeling nose, smudged cheek. No wonder women in six-hundred-dollar shoes got men like Mason Alexander: they never had to suffer the heavy hand of Mother Nature. It was amazing the poor guy hadn’t run the other direction.
Or maybe, despite his protests, that was exactly the look he wanted in order to shock his mother.
Well, she’d be damned if she’d play scullery maid to his lord of the manor. She finished stripping and stepped under the scalding water.
Mr. Alexander had a surprise coming.
*
Mason occupied most of the forty-five minutes with a few phone calls, including one to the kitchen staff to warn them of a guest for dinner—a guest who was not to be mentioned to his mother and sister. While he worked, Paul located the address Raine had written down and maneuvered the car into a tight parking space behind her truck.
By the time Mason finished his last call, there were still five minutes to spare, so he settled back with that morning’s Wall Street Journal. He found it impossible to read, however. He kept glancing up toward the stairs where he expected Raine to appear; he hadn’t felt such a sense of anticipation in years.
No, not anticipation, he corrected himself, curiosity. Curiosity about how his protégée might dress. He probably should have insisted on taking her shopping. For all he knew, her clothes were as brash as her sense of humor, and while his mother and Miranda certainly believed their potion had made him fall in love with the first female who came along, they might not continue to do so if that female was too bizarre.
God, what was he doing? What if this girl was a complete social misfit, or a charming psychopath?
A moment of panic loomed, then faded as he dismissed the idea. He was a good judge of people. Raine Hobart was fine. This was just the jitters. Anticipation.
He made another abortive stab at the Journal’s Center Column, then gave it up and laid the paper aside. He checked his watch. Another minute or two. It never paid to rush a lady, but he popped the door open anyway. Paul jumped out and hustled around the car.
Mason waved him off. “I just wanted some fresh air.”
Kids had started to gather, as they always did when a big car pulled into a working class neighborhood, and a couple of them started arguing over whether “that guy” was a movie star or a drug dealer. Mason shook his head and told them, “Neither. Manufacturing, mostly.”
“See. I toldja,” a third kid said. He slugged one of the other boys on the arm, but before he could hit the second one, he stopped and pointed. “Wow. Lookit Raine.”
Mason turned. Look at Raine, indeed.
He never would have believed forty-five minutes and a shower could wreak such change on a woman. Gone was the grubby, unisex Johnson’s uniform, replaced by a sleek, hot pink dress with a square-cut neckline that showed just enough cleavage to make a man want a better look. She had managed to wrestle her flyaway hair into some sort of twist at the nape of her neck, and although her arms and shoulders showed the uneven reddish tan of someone who worked long hours in the sun, she’d toned down the freckles across her nose with a layer of powder. For jewelry, she wore only gold hoop earrings and, except for the fact they were a little too big and her lipstick too neon, she looked terrific.
Of course, in his book, those legs more than made up for the lipstick. He’d already known they were good, but in strappy black heels and nylons, they advanced to outstanding, and her dress was the perfect length to show them to advantage without showing too much. Or at least, it would be if she weren’t standing at the top of the stairs. Ungentlemanly or not, he couldn’t keep his eyes off the point where the straight line of her hem bisected the curve of her inner thigh.
A sigh at his side reminded Mason that he wasn’t the only man appreciating the geometry lesson.
Paul caught his glance and wiped the grin off his face, but as he stepped sharply back to the door, he murmured, “I believe it was worth the wait, sir.” Mason agreed.
He met Raine at the bottom of the stairs and off
ered her a hand into the car.
She smelled faintly of lemons and peppermint, he realized as he slipped in beside her, and even at this distance he had no complaints about her appearance beyond the lipstick. She was actually prettier than he’d thought. Those cheekbones must have been hiding under a layer of dirt.
“Well, do I pass muster?” she asked.
Mason realized he was staring, and that the car had already pulled away from the curb. “Most definitely.”
“Good. While I was in the shower, I realized that we need to clear up a couple of points.”
Just the words “while I was in the shower” triggered a whole set of images Mason had no business considering. He forced his mind back to the issue at hand and checked to make certain the intercom to the driver’s compartment was off. He trusted Paul, but only within reason. “Go ahead.”
“First, just what do you expect for your five thousand dollars?”
“A convincing performance whenever, anyone from my household is present or may be watching.”
“Watching. You mean spying?”
“I wouldn’t put it beyond possibility. Mother especially. She has a habit of peering out windows.”
“Like Mrs. Perlmutter,” said Raine. She added by way of explanation, “She owns the house I rent. Do you suppose it has something to do with hitting menopause? Peeping, I mean.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mason, barely hanging on to a straight face. “You said you had a couple of points.”
“Oh, yeah. The big one.” She met his eyes with a level gaze. “Five thousand dollars doesn’t get you sex.”
“I didn’t think it did.” He bit back a laugh. “Is there anything else?”
She pursed her lips as though considering another question, but shook her head. “I think that covers the important items. So, you play tennis. How good are you?”
They spent the rest of the trip in the kind of trivial conversation that usually passed between people just getting acquainted, and, as they talked, Mason’s concerns about social ineptitude and psychiatric history faded. Raine was casual and a bit impertinent, but bright and essentially well mannered. Before it seemed possible, the car slowed to pass through the guarded gate that marked the edge of the Highlands.
