by Cara Colter
Her mother had actually sounded delighted at the invitation. Couldn't wait, were her exact words, as if she had been holding on breathlessly for Holly to come around to her way of seeing things all of their shared lives.
But the mistake of calling her mother paled in relation to the biggest mistake of all. The biggest mistake of all had been crossing the road that separated her quarters from Blake's the other night.
Really, if she would have known what she was going to encounter she would have let the building burn to the ground. The whole ranch.
Anything would have been better than standing there in the flickering light, watching the gold and red licks of flame reflect off the masculine perfection of his naked chest.
Of course she had seen things like that before. On posters. In magazine ads. In movies, on TV. What shocked her was how unprepared she was for the pure potency of a man half-dressed at close range.
Which brought her to the final mistake of her mistake-riddled life.
Why had she ever let herself admit she loved him?
It was like a weakness that flowed through her veins now instead of blood, especially that night, gazing helplessly at the play of light across muscle and skin, his unclothed upper body a beautiful and breathtaking array of taut bulges and hard ripples.
All of which she had wanted to touch.
Instead, she had managed to squeak, like a girl straight out of the convent, that she thought he should go put a shirt on. When of course she thought no such thing. Her real thoughts were so wanton that she felt a stranger to herself.
A stranger she liked. A stranger who might have proclaimed the room way too hot, which it had been with that stupidly large fire he had built, and might have removed an article or two of clothing herself. A stranger who might have let him know, with a wink or a look, that she wanted to know what his lips tasted like, what his hands felt like, what it would feel like to be caught tight in the hard banded steel of his embrace.
She looked at what she was typing and gasped. "Head-on" had become something quite different. She backspaced over it and thoroughly checked the rest of her document for Freudian slips.
Anyway, somehow she had escaped that night with her dignity intact.
And her virginity. But she'd vowed right then and there it was going to be him or no one. Another mistake, because it committed her more to her course with her mother.
She probably had him to thank for not losing his head.
He had stayed on his side of the couch. He had not made one improper move or suggestion. They had drunk cocoa instead of mulled wine or Spanish coffee. One glance from him, one crook of his finger, and she would have cast herself on him like a jezebel.
There was the awful truth of it.
She wanted him desperately, madly, badly, insanely.
And he had finished his cocoa in what seemed to be one long gulp, and then offered to walk her home and not listened when she had told him that wasn't necessary at all.
As he had walked her back across the road, she had allowed herself the fantasy that he would pause in the darkness of her porch and see her.
Really see her.
He'd see her integrity, the goodness of her heart and her intelligence and he would love her for all those things. He would take her in his arms, and touch his lips lightly to her lips and then harder, until they were being swept away on a tide of passion, his heart recognizing all that was real and wonderful about her, even if his eyes had misled him into presuming she was the dowdy and efficient secretary.
Had she read the faintest surprise in his expression about something that night? What? The no glasses? The hair down? Why would that surprise him? She knew it really didn't help. She should know by now men didn't see her.
She was still plain. What's more she didn't play the game. Her mother's game. Power through beauty. Holly called it the debutante mentality. Still, if she'd agreed to that coming-out party over a decade ago, she'd probably know how to put on her own makeup by now.
No, there was no use kidding herself. The interest was one-sided, and now she had to live with the discomfort of working side by side with him when she had a secret that he would likely never share.
When she was leaning closer to get a whiff of that soap-and-sunshine scent that was all his, he was just pointing out a sentence he wanted changed in a letter.
It had been absolute hell getting through this week. He had not even referred to that cozy moment on the couch—except to tell her the Coltons had confirmed a time for their dance for one week this Saturday. A barn dance theme. Dress western.
At least he hadn't tried to squirm out of his offer to take her. Yet.
"Hello, darling."
Holly looked up with dread. What was her mother doing here already? It was only Friday. She was supposed to come tomorrow morning.
"Hello, Mother."
Her mother, under the impeccable makeup, looked suspiciously like she had been crying. Which meant the new relationship was going about as well as the others, and explained the early arrival. Rose was a silvery shade of blond this week, and still a perfect size four. The pantsuit looked like an Armani, and the bag and shoes Gucci.
She certainly did not look old enough to have a daughter Holly's age.
She was regarding Holly, one long tapered fingernail, which matched her stunning pink silk outfit to a tee, pressed against the side of her mouth.
"I can see why you needed a little help. Goodness, what is that you're wearing?"
"I'm fine, thanks, Mother. And how are you?" She sighed. "It's a suit, Mom. This is what people wear to offices."
"A suit? It doesn't look like a Chanel or a Dior."
"It's a Wal-Mart."
Her mother looked like someone had passed wind in public. "Really, darling, if you need money, you know I've always been more than—"
"Mom, I'm twenty-seven years old. I take a certain amount of pride in the fact I can make it on my own."
"Oh. Well, that's refreshing, dear."
Holly was quickly covering her computer, hoping to get out of here before Blake's office door opened and he came out. On the one or two rare occasions she had brought boys home to meet her mother, Rose had stolen the show with ease, and Holly had had to spend the rest of the night with people who seemed more interested in her mother than her.
"I'm just about ready to go. I'll just pop in and get these papers signed and tell Blake I'm leaving a few minutes early."
"Your office is so quaint. What did you say you do here? Orphans, isn't it?"
"Something like that."
"Where are the little darlings?"
Her mother despised children nearly as much as she despised cats.
"Mom, I told you. There was an awful, um, accident here. Involving the water."
"Oh, of course, I do remember you telling me that. I'm sorry. It was right before I left for Monte Carlo."
Holly wondered if her mother would have canceled her trip if Holly were one of the ones who had gotten so sick she needed to be hospitalized. It was the kind of question she had nearly driven herself crazy asking as a child.
She got up from her desk, aware of her mother looking with horror at the neat black skirt and double-breasted jacket Holly had thought was so professional-looking this morning.
"You know, darling, just a silk scarf would have done wonders for that outfit. Red and white and black."
Trying not to sigh too heavily, Holly tapped lightly on Blake's door and went in, pressing the door firmly closed behind her, and leaning on it for a moment.
"Something wrong, Holly?"
"Er, no."
"Last time you told me that you'd just finished having a knife pressed to your throat."
"This is only slightly worse. My mother."
"Didn't you say she was supposed to arrive tomorrow?"
"My mother is always full of unexpected surprises. She's early."
"Look, do you want a few extra days off? You certainly deserve it."
She stared at him in horror. Extra days with her mother? She wasn't even sure how she was going to get through this weekend.
"I'll take that as a no," he said drily.
She pulled herself together and moved away from the door. "I'll just get you to sign the Bonner letter before I go. And the transfer for Jamie Lynn Barker. I'll go get her and bring her to the Coltons. I just spoke to Meredith—" the woman every person wished was their mother—"and she said—"
She saw his eyes widen, and knew without turning around her mother was in the mysteriously opened doorway of his office.
She turned and sure enough, Rose stood there with a mollified smile on her face as if she had accidentally leaned on the door and it had just opened.
"Oh," Rose said. "You must be Holly's boss. I've heard so much about you. I've just been dying to meet you."
Blake's name had never come up in a conversation between Holly and her mother, not even when she had told her she needed a little make-over assistance.
"Mr…." Rose was coming forward, her hand regally extended, as if she were the queen.
"Fallon," Holly filled in. "Mom, my boss, Blake Fallon. Blake, my mother, Rose Lamb. I mean Rose—" She fumbled for the last husband's name.
"Bennet," her mother filled in smoothly, giving Holly the tiniest sour look.
"A pleasure," Blake said, rising and coming around his desk. But something in his voice made Holly turn back and give him a quick look.
For heaven's sake. This had to be a first in human history. He did not look the least bit taken with her mother. He was not grinning at her with that frank male approval Rose had spent her entire life perfecting how to get.
He took her hand, shook it and let go.
"My," Rose said, blinking up at him, "what a powerful handshake you have, Mr. Fallon."
Holly cringed and looked for a place to drop through the floor. Did her mother have to flirt with everyone? Couldn't her daughter's boss be off-limits?
"Thank you," he said. "I developed it lifting weights while incarcerated."
Holly sent him a shocked look, then noted her mother's quickly faltering smile as she backed steadily for the door. Suddenly, Holly felt like laughing.
"I'll wait for you outside, dear," her mother said frostily. She looked like she was going to take a hanky out of her purse and wipe her hand.
When the door had shut behind her mother, she faced him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "You didn't know, did you?"
She was trying not to laugh. Really, this was very serious business. Her boss had just trusted her with a very important fact about his personal life. Of course, he couldn't be too sensitive about it, since he had used it to deliberately shock her mother.
A little snicker slipped out of her. And then she laughed. "I'm sorry, Blake," she sputtered, "but the look on her face! Why did you say that?"
"I don't know," he said with a careless shrug. "There's something about the color pink that makes me see red."
"I'll remember that," she said, wiping her eyes.
"See that you do, Miss Lamb." He leaned the back of his legs against the front of his desk, and folded his arms over his chest.
"I will, Mr. Fallon."
"Do you care?" he surprised her by asking, his look suddenly intense.
"About the color pink?" she asked, flabbergasted.
He laughed. "No. That I spent part of my youth under lock and key."
She regarded him somberly, and the words came from so deep within her, it felt like her soul speaking.
"Of course, I care," she said. "I wish nothing bad had ever happened to you. But I see it as a mark of who you are, that you turned your greatest tragedy into your greatest asset. That you can use your experiences to make a difference in the lives of these kids is a wonderful thing. Maybe even a miraculous thing.
"Blake Fallon," she said, almost fiercely, "I know exactly who you are."
He looked at her for a long time before he smiled, slow and soft and sweet. "And that's the difference between you and your mother."
Why did she feel like, even though he had revealed a secret about himself, it was her secrets that were dangerously close to being revealed?
"You know when I met your father, I assumed you must take after your mother. But now that I've met her, I realize you take after the best person of all."
"Who is that?" she asked, loving the mood in the room, the almost intimate feel of it, and wishing she could hole up in here forever, bask in his approval.
"Yourself. I think you are one hundred percent yourself, Holly, and that is the rarest of things."
Considering she was about to alter that self to win a little something more than these brotherly feelings, she didn't know what to say.
He surprised her by leaning forward, and gently pushing the glasses up on her nose. "Thanks for saying that, Holly, about my tragedies becoming my assets. I hadn't ever quite seen it in that perspective."
His hands dropped to his sides, and he returned behind his desk. He didn't look back up at her, already engrossed in whatever was before him.
"Enjoy your weekend," he said as she opened the door and went out.
Her mother was waiting, perched on the edge of the sofa as if she thought she might get dirty from it.
She got up and came and looped her arm through Holly's. "Really," she said in an undertone. "How can you stand working for that awful man?"
"Some days it's harder than others," Holly admitted. Of course, Blake had been relegated to her mother's "awful" pile because he had failed to fall all over himself over Rose.
"Incarcerated," Rose said with a sniff. "I can't imagine you knowing those kinds of people. How on earth would he get a job? What do you suppose he did?"
Holly led them out the door, and they crossed the street.
"I have no idea. It doesn't matter to me." Somehow she didn't feel the least inclined to share with her mother it was a juvenile record—possibly because she knew that wouldn't make much difference to her mother.
"Well, I care! I will not have my daughter working for an axe murderer."
"Did he strike you as an axe murderer?" Holly asked drily.
"Well, er, no, but then you know my judgment in men is terrible. Look at your father."
Holly decided to change the subject, holding tight to Blake's words. You take after the best person of all. It felt like the loveliest of compliments, something she could use like armor against her mother's barbs and disapproval and judgments.
"Well, this is where I live."
Her mother stopped and stared at the little cabin. "Oh, my. I would have mistaken it for a tool shed."
"I'm going to make you chicken tetrazzini for supper," Holly said, bravely, naming her mother's favorite. She opened the door to her house, and the cat hurtled out the door like a rocket. Mr. Rogers was intuitive to dislike.
Rose stepped inside and began to sneeze.
Two hours later, Rose had Holly captive in front of the makeup mirror she had brought with her.
"Now, first it's the eyebrows. Dear, they are just so heavy. Really, the shape of your eyebrows sets the tone for your entire face. Do you want them heavy and unruly, or do you want them light and graceful and feminine?"
"Feminine," Holly muttered.
With what seemed to be a certain amount of sadistic pleasure, her mother located her eyebrow tweezers in a huge bag she had brought.
The first hair was plucked out, and it was Holly's turn to sneeze. "Not too many," she said, feeling suddenly trapped and panicky.
"Trust me," Rose said smoothly.
But Holly thought it was probably a little too late for that. Still, when her mother proudly let her look in the mirror at her newly shaped eyebrows, she was surprised by how much more delicate her whole face looked, feminine. Nearly pretty.
"See?" her mother said. "Now, the main event." She was looking eagerly through her bags, bringing out an amazing array of creams and colors, makeup brushes and lipstick tubes.
&nbs
p; Watching her, Holly realized her mother was glowing. This was what she loved to do. She felt a little pang that she had never seen that before. That when her mother had pestered her about her looks, she had really been trying to share a part of herself with her daughter, struggling to find common ground.
In her way, maybe her always wanting to interfere with the way Holly looked had been her way of trying to say she loved her.
If she accepted her mother being here as a gift of love, as Rose knew how to express it, it changed everything.
"Mom, what I need is for you to show me how to do it. I can't have you do it for me, because you won't be here all the time. And," she said gently, "it has to be my style, not yours. I want to look natural."
"Good makeup always looks natural," her mother said with a sniff. "But I understand what you're saying. We have all weekend. We'll come up with what's right for you. I promise."
Within a short time, they were giggling like schoolgirls, as Holly fumbled with the unfamiliar mascara wand. Holly could not remember ever sharing moments like this with her mother.
An hour later, Holly looked at the completed effort in the mirror. She bit her lower lip. She didn't really look changed in any way. But features she didn't know she had were suddenly glowing in a soft spotlight.
Her eyes in particular looked wide and deep, the color of them amazingly highlighted so that they looked very, very green tonight. The minor blotches and blemishes had miraculously disappeared from her complexion, and her skin looked soft and creamy. She actually had cheekbones, and they were high and beautifully showed off the shape of her slender face. Her lips looked full and wet, like lips that were waiting to be kissed.
"You see," Rose said, "I always tried to tell you. You don't have true beauty. Your looks come from your father's side of the family. Speaking of your father, have you heard from him lately?"
"Oh, he calls from time to time to tell me I'm throwing my life away. Last time he called, he told me he had been making some investments that were about to pay off in the millions." Holly didn't tell her mother about the edge in his voice that she had found deeply disturbing.
