by Cara Colter
“Which do you want to do first?” Jamie asked. “Canadian consular services, or shopping?”
“What’s more convenient for your sister? What’s her name, by the way?”
“Sarah.” He looked uncomfortable. “My nephew was sick last night. I think she’s going to bow out.”
“How old is your nephew? Is he okay?”
“Jared is two, apparently suffering from a birthday cake overdose, the little oinker.”
She heard the affection in his voice, and again, could imagine him throwing a laughing child in the air.
As sorry as she was for the missed opportunity to ferret out the family perspective on Jamie, and as sorry as she was that his nephew was sick, she felt the tiniest little tickle of pure anticipation.
“Let’s go shopping first,” she decided, aching to get rid of the clothes she was wearing the way she assumed a snake must ache to get rid of its old skin.
“Shopping it is,” he said with so little enthusiasm she burst out laughing.
And then he was laughing, too.
And it felt, oddly and beautifully, like one of the most glorious moments of her entire life.
Which, she told herself sternly, just meant everyone was right. She had been far too sheltered. She had lived way too small. She had used a dreadful event to cling to safety, as if the whole world was a life raft that could capsize at any time.
Jamie was a charming man, used to these kinds of intimate little interchanges with the opposite sex.
She needed to be very wary of being enchanted by him.
But the new her insisted on poo-poohing her wariness. It wasn’t as if they had posted banns for marriage. They were going shopping. She needed to loosen up and learn to have fun.
A sensation of freedom overcame her. Not a single person here knew her. There was a lovely anonymity to being here.
Not like Timber Falls, which was akin to living in the proverbial goldfish bowl.
Suffocating, a small inner voice offered helpfully.
For the second time.
She shrugged it off, finished her coffee and her croissant, and felt ready, not for a shopping trip, but for the adventure of her life. Her eyes met Jamie’s.
Nothing is impossible, Daisy’s voice sang inside her head.
Together on his computer, his shoulder nearly touching hers, they filled out the police report, and then she borrowed his phone and called her insurance company.
When she hung up, she was beaming. “They’ll cover everything, even the costs involved in getting my passport replaced. They are being extraordinarily generous.” She couldn’t resist telling him how much they had offered her. “Shopping just became a lot more fun!”
But her confidence flagged a touch as their driver dropped them off on Fifth Avenue, arguably the most exclusive—and expensive—shopping area in the world. As they joined the throngs of people enjoying the early-summer warmth and strolling the famous street, familiar names vied for her attention: Tiffany, Gucci, Versace, Hugo Boss, Luis Vuitton.
“Isn’t there a Woolmart?” she asked Jamie, only partly kidding. She was getting a Who do you think you are? feeling. Glancing in the windows, she doubted, even with the insurance money, if she could afford a pair of socks on this block.
Jamie looked at her and smiled. “What do they sell? Wool?”
He was teasing her. It felt nice, but he wasn’t getting the point.
“Look, I just need a few things, temporarily. This seems—”
“Fun?” he suggested.
Fun. A reminder of her goal for the day. A reminder of the new her. But new her or old her, she was going to have to be careful not to get carried away.
“There’s nothing fun about bankruptcy,” she said firmly. She stopped at the window of a jewelry store, and looked at the watches on display. She gasped. One of them was worth more than a hundred thousand dollars! And it looked quite a bit like the one on Jamie’s wrist.
This suddenly didn’t feel fun. Not at all. She felt so far out of her depth, she could soon drown.
As if sensing her sudden discomfort, Jamie swept his hand toward the rings that were displayed next to the watch.
“Which one do you like?”
They were obviously engagement rings, diamonds winking and blinking as the morning sun hit them. “That one,” she said. It was as different as the sun was to the moon to the small promise ring Devon had once given her.
And perhaps, unfolding without her awareness, she had become as different from that long-ago girl as the choice of that ring would indicate. The thought was vaguely unsettling, but she shook it off and reminded herself of her goal to just let go, have some fun and relax a bit.
Jamie bent nearer to have a closer look. “You have good taste.”
She looked at the discreet price tag displayed beside the box. “What kind of man would spend that on a ring?” she gasped, shocked.
“One who is very much in love?”
She slid him a look. Did he have a secret romantic side, then?
He took her elbow and steered her away from the jewelry store window and through the crowds.
“My sister recommended this place,” he said and stopped at the black-painted door of a posh storefront. He opened the door, placed his hand on the small of her back and thrust her through it as if he sensed her desire to bolt.
Jessica stood there, letting her eyes adjust to the light. The space looked like a hybrid between a living room and a boutique. It looked expensive. It even smelled expensive.
And here came the saleslady who looked more like a wealthy heiress than a clerk. She was dressed in understated elegance, a single string of pearls at her neck, her makeup and hair and manicure absolutely perfect.
Jessica braced herself, ready to get kicked out. But then she could feel Jamie’s presence behind her, and his hand resting on her shoulder, that solid warmth reminding her she was not only not alone, but also that she had a great guide for navigating his world.
“We’re looking for Meredith,” he told the woman.
“I’m Meredith.”
“My sister, Sarah Stately, recommended you.”
“I adore Sarah!”
“Don’t we all?” he said dryly, “My friend here, Jessica Winton, is in New York for a few days and has had all her luggage stolen.”
Meredith turned to her, and the genuine sympathy Jessica saw in her face belied whatever she had expected from the big-city shopping experience.
“You’ll need absolutely everything.” She couldn’t hide her delight.
“Just for a few days,” Jessica said quickly, resisting the temptation to go and start turning over price tags.
“I love your jacket. Clarion? The Canadian designer? You’re Canadian, aren’t you? I recognize the accent.”
Jessica nodded. “The Clarion was a splurge,” she said as a hint the jacket wasn’t in her regular price range.
“Can I just say, that even though I love it, it seems, um, a bit mature. How old are you?”
“Twenty-six. I am here on business, so I need items that are appropriate.” She wanted to add, and not too expensive, but she’d wait until Jamie was out of hearing.
“Got it. You are safe with me.” Meredith stood back, tapped a manicured finger against her lip. “You are going to be a dream to work with. Look at that figure.”
Jamie seemed to take it as an instruction. He looked at her, she blushed. She looked at him, he blushed. That super suave man blushed! It was one of the most endearing things Jessica had ever seen.
He looked hastily to his expensive watch. “If an hour will work, I’ll just duck out...”
Jessica felt oddly abandoned. Had she really thought he would stay? He was a busy man, and important. He wouldn’t have time for something so frivolous as all this.
“You’re not go
ing anywhere,” Meredith told him firmly. “We’ll need your opinion if we want to get it just right.”
Jessica shot Jamie a look. His mouth fell open, and then he slammed it shut. He ran a hand through the silver of his hair. Obviously, he was not used to being ordered about by a saleslady, no matter how high-end the shop.
But when he looked at Jessica, something shifted in his face. His colossal composure was rattled, but only briefly. He cocked his head at her, and then lifted a shoulder.
He was staying!
Jessica felt like a deer caught in headlights. When she had originally assumed he would stay, she hadn’t considered modeling outfits for him. She supposed he would take out his phone and settle in one of those deep leather chairs at the front of the store.
It was a nightmare. Or a dream. She wasn’t sure which.
Meredith showed her to the change rooms. Actually, more like a change suite. They entered a private enclave with a sitting area and a change room bigger than her bedroom in the tiny cottage she had in the yard behind her parents’ house. It was certainly more well-appointed than her own lodgings, which suddenly seemed to lean more toward shabby than chic.
“In you go,” Meredith said.
“But I haven’t even looked at any clothes,” Jessica protested.
“I’m going to choose things for you.” She wagged a finger at her. “No dull colors. No safe but boring styles. No clothing that does not show off that super figure of yours!”
Jessica looked down at herself with a frown. Super figure? In Timber Falls they called it skinny. Still, it had made Jamie blush. She shot him a look. Rescue me, but apparently he was all done rescuing her for the time being. Because he wagged his eyebrows wickedly at her when Meredith mentioned her super figure, and then sank down in one of the chairs and pulled out his phone.
He could have had the decency to look a little uncomfortable—he was a man in a woman’s clothing store, after all—but he looked terribly at home.
Jessica went in the change room and Meredith slipped in with her, closed the door and studied her. “Did you lose everything?”
“Everything. My luggage was stolen from me at the airport.”
“So, you don’t even have makeup?”
This said with a faint shudder, as if no makeup was a catastrophe beyond measure.
“No lingerie? Pajamas?
“Everything’s gone.”
“How many days do we need to get you sorted for?”
“Three,” Jessica said, firmly. “If I can get my temporary passport, or travel documents, I’ll be here for the three days I originally planned. But just in case it’s a bit longer, I’ll need things I can mix and match for slightly different looks.”
“We’ll get you fixed up. It may be a blessing in disguise. I’m going to send my assistant to get you some makeup. Your face is amazing. I can’t wait to show you. It’s going to be a makeover.”
“Um, I’m not sure—”
“Your current bra, by the way, is a disaster,” Meredith said.
“Pardon?”
“You’ll see what I mean when I bring you a good one. Do you mind if I measure you?”
“Yes, I mind!” She crossed her arms defensively over her chest.
Meredith sighed. “All right, just give me a size then.”
Jessica did. “And nothing fancy,” she whispered, so that Jamie, sitting just outside the door, couldn’t hear her. “I don’t like underwires in my bra. And I don’t like lace on my underwear, at all.”
Meredith was looking mutinous.
“It’s scratchy!”
Meredith left, and Jessica sank down on the Cleopatra-style pink tufted chaise longue. What had she just let herself in for? Another woman was choosing underwear for her. It was appalling. She should have protested more strenuously, instead of agreeing to be Meredith’s hostage.
Shoot, she’d forgotten to mention that all important word. Budget. She looked at the ceiling. She’d worry about that later, when it came time to make final selections. She’d have to put her foot down then.
* * *
Jamie waited until Jessica had closed the change room door after Meredith left, then got up from his chair quietly and followed the sales associate out into the store.
“Can I get you to take the tags off things before you bring them in to her? I want her to get what she wants, and not be influenced by the price.”
Jamie told himself that giving this instruction to the sales associate was why he had stayed. But it was a lie. There was something about being a witness to Jessica discovering some of the treasures of being in New York that he found himself unable to resist.
“At the end, if it could add up to her insurance settlement that would be great.” He named the amount. “I’ll look after the difference, if you can slip me a second bill.”
What on earth was he doing?
“Love that!” Meredith said, grinning at him, a delighted coconspirator. She held up two dresses. “Which one do you think she would pick?”
One dress was a subtle gray pinstripe with straight lines and a longish skirt. The other was a sundress style with a full skirt. It was white with huge red poppies all over it.
“She’d go for the gray,” he said. “Very businesslike.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Meredith said, and with a wide wink at him, hung the gray dress back up on the rack. “This other dress can be for business, too, with the right sweater and shoes. What do you think of this one?”
And so, somehow he ended up being on Jessica’s personal shopping team. It was all fun and games until they came to the underwear section.
Meredith, unabashed, held up a pair of shapeless beige panties. “What do you think?”
He didn’t want to be thinking about Jessica’s panties, obviously!
“This is what she told me she wanted,” Meredith said with barely concealed scorn.
Somehow, it made him feel oddly sad for Jessica that she didn’t celebrate her femininity. On the other hand, if she did? Danger zone! He had to remove himself from this situation.
Meredith smiled at him, held up another pair.
He felt his mouth go dry. Thankfully, his phone pinged. He glanced at it. Not at all urgent. But he wagged the phone at Meredith, anyway. “I have to take this.”
“Chicken,” she mouthed at him, adding a generous supply of froth and film to the already gigantic pile over her arm. “Okay,” she sang, “this will get us started.”
You had to like a woman who loved her job.
“I haven’t had a chance to tag these yet,” Meredith said to Jessica as she went through the door of the change room. “I’m raiding our brand-new summer stock, just for you.”
“But I need to know—”
The door closed on Jessica’s protest, which Meredith must have managed to assuage, because Jessica emerged from the change room in the first outfit. It was the poppy-covered white sundress and she looked absolutely stunning.
If he was not mistaken, she had makeup on. It was subtle and yet the changes to her face were extraordinary. Her eyes looked huge, her cheekbones high and sculpted, her mouth a sultry pout of pure temptation. Her hair had been put up in casual knot, instead of clipped back, and tendrils were escaping and curling wildly around her face.
Despite the sophisticated woman-of-the-world look of the clothes, Jessica looked as shy as a young woman going on her first date.
Meredith had paired the dress with a short white cashmere sweater and white high heels, and the look was professional, yet hinted at a playful side at the same time.
“Give a twirl,” Meredith ordered. “You have to see the movement in that skirt.”
Jamie wasn’t sure if he was ready for the movement in that skirt! Jessica hesitated.
“Pretend you are someone else,” Meredith advised. “Elise
Hollander on the red carpet.”
Jessica hesitated, and then obviously made a decision to get in the spirit of things. She put a hand on her hip and cocked it. She twirled. He expected she might be awkward, but nothing could have been further from the truth. She was as graceful as a ballerina, and her legs were toned, tanned and looked a mile long as the skirt swirled around them. He was pretty sure he caught a glimpse of a pair of panties that were about the furthest thing from boring beige that a man could imagine.
She finished her twirl, set her legs wide apart, put her hand back on her cocked hip and winked at him.
“Fun, flirty and youthful,” Meredith declared approvingly. “Yes or no?”
Jessica held his gaze. He nodded his head, unable to speak.
Next she came out in a straight-lined plaid skirt, that should have looked librarian—or bookstore owner appropriate—paired with a pair of stilettos and a loose white blouse that was, by design, semitransparent. He could see a lacy outline beneath it. It was about the sexiest thing he had ever seen.
“These shoes...” she said hesitantly.
Shoes?
“Are perfect,” he growled, without even looking at them.
Meredith was an absolute wizard at her job. The clothes she had chosen showed off Jessica’s amazingly lithe but sexy figure. Jessica made the transformation from a small-town girl to a supermodel before his very eyes.
He loved seeing the change in her. It wasn’t just the clothing, though obviously the cut of expensive clothes made a huge difference, and obviously Meredith had supplied a little something that had transformed Jessica’s somewhat athletic figure into something far more beguiling.
With each outfit change, Jessica’s confidence grew, her hips swinging, her eyes glowing with a soft luster as she began to unveil who she really was, certainly to him, but also to herself. By the time she tried on the last outfit, she was reveling in her femininity, enjoying the effect it was having on him.
He couldn’t believe he was disappointed when Meredith opened the change room door, and announced, “Last one.”
