Tall, Dark & Reckless

by Heather MacAllister

  “What he always wears,” Dancie said. “Dockers with his belly hanging over the waist and a golf shirt with a Longhorn football booster logo…” She met Piper’s eyes as she trailed off.

  “Exactly. Travis mirrors your father.”

  “Then I’ll wear khakis and a golf shirt!”

  “Your father likes pretty, feminine women.” Which was why Piper was rocking a retro sorority girl/receptionist look today.

  “Oh, I know,” Dancie snapped. “He wants nothing more than for me to be his little princess until he can hand me off to Prince Charming.”

  “So be a princess with a brain.” Piper led Dancie to the chair in front of the mirror and pushed on her shoulders. Unresisting, Dancie sat down, staring unseeingly until she noticed Piper with the flatiron in the reflection.

  “Are you cra—”

  Piper moved fast, grabbing a hank of Dancie’s curly pony-tail and running the iron through it.

  Dancie jerked away in outrage. “Look what you’ve done! Now part of my hair is straight and part is curly!”

  “Oops,” Piper said, not sorry at all. “I guess I’ll just have to straighten the rest of it, then.”

  Glaring, Dancie yanked the elastic off her ponytail. “I’m going to look pathetic!”

  “No—”

  “Yes, I am! There’s nothing you can do to me that will make me look one-tenth as good as my mother looks when she rolls out of bed in the morning! You making me look all girlie is only going to emphasize it.”

  Her beauty queen mother was Dancie’s huge hot button and there was no way around it. Better that she vent now than lose her cool during the meeting.

  “Travis is the one who looks like Mom!” Dancie said of her twin.

  True. Piper stayed silent and kept flat-ironing Dancie’s frizzy hair. If Dancie would use some product, she’d have great waves. But she didn’t, so Piper was going for long, loose and feminine today.

  “He got the blond hair and the blue eyes and the great teeth and the dimple. I ended up with Dad’s brown eyes and kinky black hair and mustache. I got mom’s nose, though,” Dancie continued bitterly. “It was a gift for my sixteenth birthday.”

  “And a lovely gift it was, too,” Piper said. “Remember, I’ve seen pictures of you before.”

  Dancie gasped, and then they both laughed.

  Piper finished taming Dancie’s hair and while it wasn’t perfect, it was an improvement. “This isn’t cheating,” she told Dancie as she applied some basic makeup. “Your dad will see you’re making an effort to look more feminine, so subconsciously, he’ll make an effort to listen. It’s a sales tactic and takes nothing away from what you’ve accomplished.”

  Piper’s phone buzzed. She ignored it, but Dancie reached around her and removed it from Piper’s purse.

  “Give me that!” Piper grabbed for the phone, but Dancie, grinning, answered it.

  “Piper Scott’s office. Are you ready to find your per—” Dancie abruptly stopped smiling. “I—”

  Sighing, Piper said, “Put her on speaker.”

  Dancie pressed the screen and mouthed, “I’m sorry,” as sobbing sounded from the phone.

  “Piiiipeeeeerrrr!”

  “I’m here.” Piper kept applying makeup while a subdued Dancie held the phone.

  “Dale… He’s—he’s gonnnnne!” More sobbing. “He left meeeeee!”

  Piper squinted at Dancie’s eyes and added a little more shading to one. “Did he leave you and your money or just you?”

  Hiccup. “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “You gave him the money, didn’t you?”

  “He needed it!”

  “They always do.” Piper didn’t want to deal with this right now, which is why she hadn’t answered her phone.

  “But—it was for his motorcycle! He couldn’t very well get to his job without his bike, could he?”

  “He has a job? That’s different.”

  Dancie winced.

  “Yes, he does! In Wichita Falls.”

  Piper glanced at the office wall clock. Taking the phone, she handed Dancie the denim skirt and a pair of flats. Dancie was clearly feeling guilty, because she put them on without protest.

  “Are you in Wichita Falls now?” Piper asked.

  “No—I’m in Lubbock. Dale was going to send for me when he found us a place to live.”

  Piper closed her eyes and shook her head. “And he hasn’t sent for you.”

  Sniff. “No.”

  “And you haven’t heard from him.”

  “That’s why I called the construction company! I thought maybe he’d been in an accident and was unconscious and—”

  “They’d never heard of him.” Same thing over and over again. Her mother never learned.

  Sobbing.

  Pointing to the clock, Dancie slipped around Piper and closed and unplugged her laptop.

  “I thought he loved me!”

  “You always think that,” Piper said quietly. “How much, Mom?”

  “Wh— That’s—”

  “I’m in a hurry. I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes. Do you have any money left at all? Or did he take you for everything?”

  “Penelope Ann Scott! Don’t you talk—”

  Piper took her mother off speaker. “Tell me how much you need and where to send it.”

  When she ended the call, Dancie was trying to sneak out the door. “I’m so sorry, Piper. I never would have answered the phone—”

  “Forget it.” Piper planned to. Until the next time. “Put on the jacket.”

  “But it’s pink,” Dancie said with heavy loathing.

  “Blush khaki,” Piper corrected.

  “If I were the khaki, I’d blush, too.”

  “You wear pink.” Piper indicated Dancie’s tank.

  “I got it at a breast-cancer awareness walkathon.”

  Piper slipped the jacket over her shoulders. “And now, it’s complemented by the jacket.” It was a lucky break that Dancie was wearing that particular tank top today.

  Dancie set her computer and folder down and put on the jacket. “I’m only wearing this because I feel horrible about answering the phone.”

  “I know,” Piper said. “But I’ll take it—because you look great!” She gave Dancie a thumbs-up and followed her through the doorway.

  “I didn’t realize you were still sending your mom money,” Dancie said as they started down the stairs.

  “You have your mother issues and I have mine,” Piper said. “But right now, we need to concentrate on the meeting and getting you made partner.”

  “Deal,” Dancie said. And then, “Oh, sh—”

  “Language!” Piper cautioned with a laugh.

  “—oot!” Dancie finished. “Shoot, shoot, shoot!”

  They were at the final turn of the staircase and Dancie was staring across the foyer at the conference table in the old dining room.

  Piper followed her gaze and saw the blue-eyed limper from earlier. “Okay, who is that guy?”

  “Seriously?” Dancie asked.

  “Yeah, why? I ran into him earlier.”

  Dancie gave her a strange look. “And you didn’t recognize him?”

  “Well…” As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Piper glanced into the room again. “I thought he seemed vaguely familiar, but honestly? All guys are beginning to look alike to me.”

  “If all men look like that to you, then you’re working too hard.” Dancie nodded her head in his direction. “That’s Mark Banning, Travis’s star columnist, his big moneymaker.”

  There was something more… Piper couldn’t quite remember.

  “Oh, come on, Piper! The big-deal foreign journalist who got himself captured last year?”

  “Right!” Finally, she made the connection.

  “And the only reason I beat Travis in revenue is because Mark got injured. He’s been teaching a journalism course at UT instead of wowing all Travis’s readers with his insane adventures.”

  Mark got injured
… Now Piper remembered. It had been all over the news. Dramatic rescue and so on. Video clips of the photogenic Mark Banning had run incessantly, including one of him waving from a stretcher, bloodstained bandage wrapped around his thigh—right about where his hand had gripped it earlier, if Piper wasn’t mistaken. Ah.

  Dancie exhaled. “I thought I had another quarter before I had to compete with him again.” She headed for the conference room. “Well, if Mark’s back, that must mean his leg has healed.”

  “Or maybe not,” Piper murmured beneath her breath. Mark Banning had been stateside for months. If his leg was still that sensitive, then it most certainly had not fully healed.

  As they walked into the room, Piper glanced at the famous Mark Banning and found him studying her in a way that meant Travis had filled him in on her identity. Not that either of them would ever have anything to do with the other—unless Mark needed dating tips. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. The only tip he’d need was how to fend off women, something at which he’d no doubt had a lot of practice.

  He stood by the sideboard and sipped coffee, his other hand, left and ringless, for what that was worth, rested on the back of a swivel club chair. Long and lean in a leather jacket, surrounded by a cloud of confidence and testosterone. An alpha-alpha, the pinnacle of male desirability. Men wanted to be him. Women just wanted him.

  Not even Piper was immune, although she had no intention of treating Mark Banning with anything other than clinical detachment.

  A double-alpha male was a lot of trouble. Not only would his woman have to fight to catch him, she’d have to fight off other females to keep him. This type of man lived as though the world revolved around him because it usually did. He didn’t become a part of your life, he drew you into his.

  Piper would never recommend a double-alpha male for anything long-term unless a woman was a double alpha herself. And if she was, she’d hardly be a client of Piper’s. The only other kind of woman for a man like that was the completely self-sacrificing type who was willing to devote her life to enhancing his—and willing to look the other way when she had to.

  Believe it or not, there were women like that in the world. More power to them.

  Looking at Mark Banning, Piper could understand why. He was unignorable, like a Ferrari parked among the mom-mobiles at a suburban grocery store—beautiful to look at and you didn’t have to see it in action to know it had power and speed under the hood. Or needed extra maintenance. However, she wanted no part of a selfish, self-centered, arrogant, unaware… Except hadn’t Mark opened the door for her? Twice? He hadn’t said or done anything to make her feel bad when her bag had hit his leg, either. So maybe he wasn’t totally self-centered and unaware, which would make him unique among the double alphas she’d interviewed. But he still had the looks and power that made her want to take him for a test drive.

  “Ladies!” Travis saw them and beamed his showman smile. “May I pour you a mug of coffee?”

  “You’d better, since you stole the good pot!” Dancie said to her brother.

  “Just for you.” Travis pushed forward an oversize mug with a crazed stick-figure woman that said, “Forget sugar and spice. Give me caffeine and then I’ll be nice!”

  All the other mugs were plain. It was a subtle way to diminish Dancie, who didn’t notice as she eagerly gulped coffee. Piper would take care of it later.

  As Travis poured more coffee, Piper looked behind the chair and saw that Mark’s knee was bent and one booted toe rested on the hardwood floor. He was keeping the weight off his leg, which made her feel awful knowing her bag had bashed it.

  She probably wasn’t his favorite person at the moment. So why was he staring at her, clearly sizing her up?

  Piper suddenly understood. She was the competition. Mark was not only the big moneymaker for Travis, he contributed to the OMG news division. At the moment, Piper was the big moneymaker for Dancie, but only wrote for the Living Fabulous division. However, they were presenting a proposal for expansion today and Mark was probably wondering how much of a threat to his budget she was going to be.

  A lot, Piper hoped.

  “Hey, Piper. How’s it going?” Travis asked.

  “Fine.” She smiled. Travis was an alpha-beta, always striving to prove his alphaness, where a true alpha didn’t need to prove anything. He wasn’t her type, either.

  He handed her a mug. “Good to see you, as always. You take cream and sugar?”

  “Cream.” It was real cream, Piper knew, because the twins’ father wanted cream and not “that blue water they try to pass off as milk.”

  As she poured a dollop into her mug, she was aware that Mark continued to watch her. He hadn’t said one word since she and Dancie had walked into the room.

  Dancie must have noticed, as well. “I don’t think Piper and Mark have met, Travis.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Travis touched Piper’s elbow and turned her to face Mark’s blue-eyed gaze. “I guess I assumed everyone knew Mark Banning.”

  So Travis was going to be a pain. Piper gave Mark a polite nod of recognition. “Piper Scott.” She held out her hand before Travis introduced her. “We ran into each other earlier.”

  “And really hit it off,” Mark said with an easy smile and a warm, solid grip.

  She felt a flutter of attraction. Oh, he was good. “About that—”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Princess!” sounded from the doorway.

  Mark released her hand. “Seriously,” he said under his breath. “Don’t mention it.”

  Before she could ask why, a short, older, barrel-chested man with Dancie’s former nose strode into the room. B. T. Pollard, the twins’ father and head of OMG. Actually, the head of several companies. He was the man who’d bankrolled the twins’ college business project and expanded it into a vast online conglomerate. It had been one of his better business decisions.

  “How’s my baby?” He held out his arms. After planting a big kiss on Dancie’s cheek, he held her hands away from her. “Look at you! Hey, Travis! Look at your sister!”

  Travis gave her a thumbs-up. “Lookin’ good!”

  Contrary to Dancie’s whining, she was wearing the perfect business-casual outfit for the occasion. The denim skirt was genius, if Piper did say so herself. And the chino khaki jacket echoed the slacks both Travis and BT wore. Honestly, even the breast-cancer awareness tank worked.

  Straightened, Dancie’s hair was a couple of inches longer and the ends curved just below her shoulders in a feminine wave. She could stand an eyebrow wax, but all in all, it didn’t look as though she was trying to alienate her father by looking as asexual as possible.

  Naturally Piper had typed B. T. Pollard for Dancie’s sake—he was a beta-alpha who craved an alpha’s status—and she was using all the strategies she’d learned to position him to be receptive to what Dancie had to say. Even Piper was wearing a swirly skirt, stiletto sandals, and had dug out an ancient set of hot rollers to give herself Texas big hair.

  Dancie’s father was as old as Piper’s grandfather and clearly of the “little housewife” generation, but he loved his kids and his wife and wanted what was best for them. The problem was that he and Dancie disagreed on what was best.

  Piper wished BT could see how different Dancie was from her beauty queen mother and stop trying to force her to be something she wasn’t. She wished Dancie didn’t care so much. Maybe if Piper had grown up with a father, she might care about gaining his approval, too.

  Dancie desperately wanted to show her father that she was as valuable to the business as Travis. And Piper desperately wanted a way to pay Dancie back for all the years she’d let Piper live with her virtually rent free so Piper could stay in school. Dancie being named a partner today would do it. And then Piper could move on, guilt free.

  She needed to do something different with her life, to shake things up. But what? She’d never lived anywhere but Austin and she was just…restless. Twitchy. Tired of coaching others from the s
idelines. She was ready to get in the game of life, herself. That, she knew. Figuring out what she wanted was the tricky part.

  Before she could stop herself, she looked at Mark Banning. He and Travis were murmuring, but while Travis watched Dancie and his father, Mark was watching her. Again. Still.

  Awareness prickled her skin and she couldn’t look away. Not only that, she caught herself raising her hand toward her hair. Preening. It was a typical female response when a woman found a man attractive. But Mark wasn’t signaling romantic interest, he was studying her, no doubt looking for clues for ways he could manipulate her if he needed to. If he knew she found him attractive, then he’d use it.

  Keeping that in mind, Piper stopped from touching her hair and instead grasped her mug in both hands. Then she raised the mug from waist level and held it in front of her chest. A shield—body-language talk for “I’m not interested.” Which was a total lie because parts of her were shouting, “Look! Look! A prime male. Let’s have his babies.”

  Mark smiled slightly and shifted his torso to face her, the rat. It signaled interest and intent and he was doing it on purpose. Piper wasn’t surprised he knew something about body language. As a reporter, he’d have to.

  And it was such a lovely torso, too. She wouldn’t mind spending quality time with that torso, preferably without the jacket and shirt. Would it be so terrible to allow him to think he was manipulating her? Just for a little while?

  No. No, no, no. Wrong game for her. Mark was a major-league all-star. Piper wasn’t even ready for the minor leagues. Little League, maybe. And she’d have to warm up before she was ready to go to bat.

  And Mark Banning? Who was she kidding, anyway? Talk about a guaranteed strikeout.

  Why was she using sports metaphors? She didn’t particularly like baseball. Maybe it was because she was standing near him and she’d breathed in some of his manly essence or something.

  Oh, good grief. Dancie was seconds away from speaking to her dad in a baby voice and Piper was getting high on Mark Banning fumes.

  Forcing herself to step away from him, she snagged Dancie’s stupid coffee mug and walked to the sideboard where she poured coffee into a fresh mug for Dancie and another one for her. She added sugar to her own coffee because her brain needed a shot of glucose. Healthy? Not so much. Effective? Temporarily.