by Cara Colter
To be perfectly honest, yes, she had.
And then she saw him.
It felt as if the sea of people around her had been storm-stirred waves that suddenly went still.
He was standing, leaning one shoulder, casually, against a post, long legs crossed at the ankle. Unlike almost everyone else in the terminal, he seemed to be neither waiting eagerly for someone nor rushing off somewhere.
He seemed, while not exactly indifferent to the controlled chaos around him, above it, somehow, untouched by it.
He was wearing a suit of the lightest charcoal gray, the jacket open, the cut showed off both his broad shoulders and the length of those powerful legs. The shirt was a crisp white, a tie, in an unlikely shade of pale pink, was knotted somewhat carelessly at his throat. Jessica’s gaze rested on his shoes—leather, buffed to a soft sheen, a shade of tan that shouldn’t have worked with the suit, but did.
Not one man in all of her hometown of Timber Falls could carry off any shade of pink, in any circumstances, and certainly not in combination with those shoes. The man’s sophistication—his absolute confidence—was underscored by the color of his hair.
It was gray—not fifty shades, Jessica scolded herself—but certainly a dozen, from several startling variations of silver, to strands of white, and tiny hints of black. Rather than aging him in any way, his hair, and the superb cut of it, made him seem distinguished, in control and fabulously sure of himself.
He was scrolling through his phone, and she had a ridiculous desire to know what was holding his interest like that.
Photos? Of his children? He somehow did not look the type. Wife? No ring on his finger. Girlfriend? Ah, probably plenty of those.
He glanced up, as if he’d sensed her gaze on him. Jessica saw his eyes were darker than her own, coffee as compared to chocolate, and his gaze was intense, and stripping.
Embarrassed by feeling such a pull to a complete stranger, Jess looked quickly away and scanned the crowd for the far more dowdy Gilbert-Cooper of her imagination. When she didn’t see anyone, she cast another longing glance over her shoulder at the firmly closed Customs doors behind her.
And then, disgusted with herself for the weakness, Jessica found she could not resist glancing back at that man one more time. He was scanning the crowds now. She noted his brow was furrowed in a frown, almost as if he was irritated. And then it appeared he saw whomever he was looking for because he tucked his phone away, and moved. Straight toward her! She could feel herself holding her breath.
Jessica didn’t know if she was relieved or sorry when he stopped in front of the woman beside her.
Who happened to be wearing a red jacket.
Paired with a rather hideous flowered skirt.
With jet-black beehive hair and too much makeup.
“Jessica Winton?” he asked the woman.
Jessica felt the insult of it, and also her wariness increased. Was that how he pictured a small-town bookstore owner, then? If that was the case, why had his company gone to such lengths to get her to come?
Still, the inquiry did mean that he was Gilbert-Cooper. Her potential boss!
“Honey,” the woman said, eyeing him as if he was a hot fudge sundae on a sultry July day, “I’ll be whoever you want me to be.”
Jessica understood the polite thing to do would be to go correct this, but some little devil made her want to see him pay the price for his misconception.
“I believe it would be a yes or no answer,” he said after a pause. “Jessica Winton?”
The woman extended her hand. “And you are?”
Jessica’s mouth fell open. Was this stranger beside her really going to pretend to be her?
It obviously was time to say something, she knew that. But she was inappropriately tickled to watch Mr. Suave and Confident’s hand disappear inside a ham-like grip. The woman didn’t let go, either. In fact she blinked, eyelashes so heavy with mascara that it looked like she had spiders glued on, at him.
He extricated his hand with difficulty. “Jamie Gilbert-Cooper.”
If they had said Jamie, instead of James, in the letter, Jessica might have been better prepared for him. She would have been prepared to meet the hero of Outlander not someone dowdy and old and in a bow tie! Still, she was guiltily aware she had let this go far enough.
“I don’t see a wedding ring,” the woman said boldly. “A guy like you not hitched?”
His discomfort was acute, and really Jessica could not have him believing for another second that this woman was her.
Well, maybe one more second. Just until she heard his answer.
“Not hitched,” he said, only the tiniest tightness in his tone indicating he was irritated, “and not planning on it, either.”
“Well, that makes you exactly my kinda guy, Mr. Gilbert-Cooper.”
Jessica cleared her throat. “Did you say Gilbert-Cooper? That’s who I’m waiting for.”
Jessica looked at them both innocently, as if she had just noticed them.
The woman swiveled her head, and gave her a glare as if Jessica was an uninvited guest at a private party. Then she turned back to Jamie Gilbert-Cooper. “Honey, you are one long, tall drink of handsome. You can’t fault a girl for trying. Can you?”
Apparently an answer was required.
He did not look like he was caught off balance often, but he definitely was now. Casting Jessica a faintly accusing look, he muttered, “Enjoy your stay in New York.”
“I’m here for the Gidgets Widgets Convention,” she said, not so easily dismissed. She fished in a large red handbag that missed matching her jacket by a shade or two, and handed him a card. “I’m Debbie, a sales consultant.”
He glanced at the card and actually blanched before quickly handing it back to her.
She pouted prettily, cast Jessica another dark look. “Now you look like a gal who could benefit from—” she held out the card that he had returned to her.
He intercepted quickly. “No,” he said, with such firmness even Debbie was dissuaded. Miffed, she put her card back in her purse and then marched off through the crowds.
“Your loss,” she called over her ample shoulder, before disappearing from view.
“What is a Gidgets Widget?” Jessica asked, watching her go, trying to contain her glee at his discomfort.
“You don’t want to know,” he told her firmly. He turned his attention back to her. “So you are the real Jessica Winton, then?”
“Guilty.”
“It seems to me you might have stepped in sooner.”
“Um...”
“You enjoyed that.”
“Just eager to clear up misconceptions about small-town bookstore owners everywhere.” Potential boss, she reminded herself sternly. Even if she pretty much had already decided she was not taking this job, she needed to be professional.
Her potential boss cocked his head and studied her. He was much taller than her. Close up, the chiseled perfection of his features was even more evident. He had the faintest hint of gray-and-black stubble on his face. Deliberate, obviously. Sexually potent, terribly.
The most subtle fragrance came off him, faintly spicy, faintly exotic and strongly masculine.
“It was the red jacket, not any kind of preconceived conception about small towns or bookstore owners.”
His voice was as smooth and smoky as the twenty-one-year-old Glenfiddich her father broke out once a year at Christmastime. She did not think she wanted to be having a conversation with him that included the word conception, no matter what the circumstances.
She had worn the red jacket that she had purchased for her trip to Copenhagen two years ago. It was, easily, the best item of clothing that she owned, the only time she had ever splurged on a designer name.
But suddenly she was so aware it was two years old, and it didn’t feel as timel
ess as she had told herself it would be when she had indulged her desire for it. Her blouse felt wrinkled and her black pants felt travel-rumpled. For the first time in her life, she felt aware of the importance of shoes, and sorry that she had chosen the loafers she had on for their comfort and practicality.
Meeting a man like this, one wanted to have on four-inch heels.
Jessica Winton, she chided herself, you’ve never had on four-inch heels in your life!
She’d been concentrating on how to look businesslike this morning as she had prepared for the flight, and so her hair was held back in a clip, and her makeup was minimal.
“Jamie,” he introduced himself to her, as if she wasn’t already 100 percent aware of who he was! His voice was deep and had an entirely too sensual rasp to it. “Gilbert-Cooper.”
She let loose the handle of her suitcase. Her fingers actually felt cramped from holding it so tight, and she extended her hand to him.
“How do you do?” she said, and then could have kicked herself for how ridiculously formal and stilted she sounded.
He took her hand.
The feeling of stillness, of all that activity around her fading to nothing, increased. His handshake was firm, strong and sexy.
How could a handshake be sexy?
“Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper!”
He let go of her hand, and turned, frowning. Jessica could see Debbie, the Gidgets Widgets gal, steaming back toward them.
“I forgot to give you the free sample!” she bellowed. She was coming at them brandishing something that looked like a large green cucumber. People were staring at her, startled and wary.
Jamie actually tucked Jessica behind him, putting his body between her and the charging saleslady. There was something so entirely protective about it that it could completely dissolve that potential boss barrier.
Jessica felt, more than saw, a movement out of the corner of her eye. Someone jostled her. Hard. She lurched into Jamie’s back, and he took a startled step forward then turned around.
“Hey!” Jamie cried.
She realized, stunned, someone had grabbed her suitcase. As she watched, frozen in horror, what appeared to be a businessman—nearly as well dressed as Jamie himself—darted through the crowds with her suitcase, her purse and tablet case still attached to the handle. He wasn’t running, just moving fast, like someone late for a connection.
“He stole my things!”
Jamie took both her shoulders in a strong grip and scanned her face. The strength in his touch, the calm in those dark eyes—he had thick sooty eyelashes that the women of the world would die for—had a way of making the calamity unfolding fade into a distant background.
“You’re all right?”
As soon as she nodded, he released her shoulders and took off at a dead run after the perpetrator.
Even with it being such an awful moment, some despicable part of herself insisted on noting how athletic he was, and insisted on seeing this as somehow intensely romantic. She would have to share this story with the romance genre fans who met at the bookstore once a month. The members of the Smitten Word would be delighted! And so would Aubrey and Daisy. They had told her life could be full of unexpected adventures, and here you had it. She had been in New York less than fifteen minutes, and she was being rescued by a stunning hero.
Not that she should be thinking about her potential boss like that. It was highly inappropriate.
It occurred to her, almost peripherally, that Debbie had disappeared. That seemed impossible. She had been charging straight toward them. How did someone that size, that colorfully dressed and that loud, simply vanish?
Without the calming effect of Jamie’s touch and gaze, Jessica could feel the full implication of the theft. She felt rattled and off balance.
She took a deep breath, then found an uncomfortable seat.
Jamie was just the kind of man you could rely on in a situation like this, she told herself. He radiated an ability to control the world. He would catch the perpetrator, return her belongings to her and the ice would be broken between them. He would forgive her for having not stepped in sooner to reveal Debbie as an imposter, and she would choose to believe that it was the red jacket that had caused the mistaken identity, and not a stereotypical idea of what a female business owner from a tiny dot on the map in the Canadian Rockies would look like.
In a few minutes they would be sitting in a cab—or maybe he had an extraordinary car—but either way, they would be laughing about her introduction to the city. She could picture those firm, sensual lips tilted with laughter, the dark eyes sparking, and that picture made a very improper shiver run up and down her spine.
She craned her neck to see, but the crowds had swallowed up both Jamie and the thief making off with her suitcase.
Seconds ticked by, and then minutes.
Finally, she saw Jamie coming back through the crowds toward her. She leaped to her feet but her relief at seeing the only face she knew in all of New York was short-lived.
His hands were empty and there was a look like thunder on his handsome face. He was breathing hard.
Reality collided with fantasy. As he approached her, he loosened his tie with one hand, and held his phone to his ear with the other. Obviously he was talking to the police or airport security.
It occurred to Jessica that instead of mooning about, making up stories, she should have been calling the authorities. They could have been setting up traps at the exits, watching security cameras...
Except her phone was in her purse.
He ended his call as he came back to her. “I’m sorry,” he said, running an agitated hand through the multicolored gray silk of his hair. “He’s obviously very skilled at this. The Artful Dodger. I couldn’t catch him. I lost him in the crowds. He probably has some favorite getaway route, and some little hole he ducks into.”
She could feel the tiniest prick of impending tears behind her eyes. She would not be a country bumpkin in front of this super sophisticated suave man. She would not! But the enormity of what had happened was hitting her. Hard.
It wasn’t an adventure. It was a catastrophe. Trust her to mix the two things up!
“I called the police,” Jamie said, his voice soothing, despite the anger on his face. “Unfortunately, there are nearly two hundred claims a day of baggage theft at this airport.”
“Two hundred thefts a day?” she gasped. So much for a team of people scanning the exits and the security cameras in search of her stolen items.
“Most of the stuff is grabbed from the luggage carousels, but there’s been quite a sophisticated ring operating lately. Teams. One distracts, one grabs the goods.”
He lifted an elegant shoulder in apology.
“In Timber Falls,” she said, “we probably don’t have two dozen thefts in a whole year. I’ve had two shoplifting incidents in the four years that I’ve had had my bookstore. Poor Mrs. Webber, who was getting dementia, and Sonny McGill, a teenage boy who had been going through a rebel-without-a-cause phase.”
She realized she was babbling nervously. She realized she had probably revealed all kinds of things about her life that he would find quaint and amusing.
On the other hand, maybe she didn’t have to say a word to reveal secrets about herself. The theft team had obviously targeted her as hopelessly small-town from the minute she had come out those doors.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. The genuine distress in his voice made the cold, hard reality of what she was dealing with intensify.
“Did they peg me as naive?” she asked softly.
“Hey, don’t say that as if it’s somehow your fault you were robbed. Honestly, I feel as if I should have twigged in on Debbie’s over-the-top performance.” He turned his attention back to his phone. “As I suspected. No Gidgets Widgets Convention in New York this weekend.” He scowled as he scrolled. “No
Gidgets Widgets, period.”
“Too bad you didn’t keep the business card,” she said forlornly.
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Fingerprints.”
“Uh, yeah, I somehow doubt this crime would have rated fingerprinting. Sorry. Apparently, we can file a police report online, though. And we need to get your credit cards looked after. Your phone plan canceled.”
We. Because she no longer had a computer. It felt somehow insulting that the crime that had been committed against her did not even warrant a face-to-face visit with authorities. His suggestions for dealing with practicalities made her face the grim truth of the matter.
“I’m not getting my things back, am I?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Um—
The prick of tears intensified behind her eyes. “I don’t have my phone,” she stammered. “And no cash. No clothes.”
It occurred to her that her reliance on this formidable specimen of a man, a person she barely knew, and her potential boss, was 100 percent.
It was shocking, and yet her mind insisted on itemizing things of no importance at all.
No makeup. No perfume. No favorite shampoo. No pink frosted nail polish. No novel to escape into.
She glanced one more time at the Customs and Immigration door she had exited from. Even if she could go back through there, she needed proper documentation to go anywhere.
“My passport,” she whispered. “How am I going to get home? How do I go about replacing it?”
Jessica realized she was trapped in New York City. With Jamie Gilbert-Cooper.
Such a dreadful, dreadful mistake to come here.
Just like her ill-advised adventure to Copenhagen.
The noise and activity around her seemed to rise up to almost unbearable levels: the intercom warning people not to leave their luggage unattended, a shout of laughter, the constant hum of busy people moving.
Jessica suddenly longed for the comfort of Timber Falls: for her charming bookstore on Main Street, and for her little cottage in her mom and dad’s backyard. She longed for the turquoise waters of the nearby lake, for the cool green of a forest just getting ready to welcome summer. She wished she was sitting beside Timber Falls, that thunderous noise filling her every sense, her face lifted to the spray.
