Marriage, Maverick Style!

by Christine Rimmer

  “Tonight?” he asked again.

  “Let me think about it.”

  And she did think about it, all the rest of that day. She thought how much she wanted the whole night with him—and the night after that. And after that.

  She also reminded herself that spending a string of hot, sexy nights with him would only make it harder in the end to let him go.

  That evening, after dinner, after a nice, long walk together in Rust Creek Falls Park, she told him she wouldn’t be going to the Manor with him that night.

  He didn’t argue, just took her arm when they reached the edge of the park and pulled her under the shelter of a big oak. She waited with way too much anticipation for him to kiss her.

  But he didn’t. Instead, for the first time in a full week, he brought up the subject of that interview he wanted her to agree to, an interview with one of the biggest advertising firms in LA.

  “Let me call them and set it up,” he coaxed. “What do you have to lose? I’ll fly you down there so you can check them out.”

  She laughed. “That’s a good one. I think the idea is that they check me out—and I can buy my own plane ticket, thank you.”

  “Get there however you want to. Just promise you’ll come if I get you the interview. And all I’m saying is that it doesn’t have to cost you a thing. Just a little of your time. And you can stay with me in Malibu.”

  Okay, now that was tempting. To visit him in Malibu, to be with him there, where he lived...

  She might be constantly telling herself not to get too close to him, but who did she think she was kidding? The minute he left her to return to his own life, she was going to start missing him. It was going to be tough.

  “Say yes—” He framed her face in his big, warm hands. “To the trip, to the interview, to staying with me.” He dropped a kiss in the middle of her forehead. “It’s not a lifetime commitment. You can just say no to the job if it’s not going to work for you.”

  She searched those dark eyes of his and found only tenderness and hope that she might give it a chance—both the job and this thing they had together.

  Why not? asked a brave little voice deep down inside her.

  He’d been nothing but wonderful to her. She needed to quit making up reasons to push him away.

  And as for the job, she should stop being so negative. She wanted another chance at the career she’d trained for, apprenticed for, worked her butt off for. If she really could get a great job in LA, why shouldn’t she go for it? Why shouldn’t she try again? It wouldn’t kill her to put off her dream of living in Rust Creek Falls for a few more years.

  She needed to buck up, stop throwing away a great opportunity. She needed to be braver. To stand tall and take a real chance or two in life again—and just maybe in love, as well.

  “Tessa?” He was watching her, looking more than a little worried. “You’re too quiet. What are you thinking?”

  She went for it. “I’m thinking I need to thank you, Carson.”

  He looked more wary than flattered. “Thank me for what?”

  “For pushing me to take a damn chance again.”

  His mouth twitched with the beginnings of a smile. “You’re welcome.”

  “Go ahead and call your guy at IMI. Set up the interview. I’ll come visit you in Malibu, and we’ll see how it goes.”

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning after breakfast, Carson went to Maverick Manor where the Wi-Fi was dependable. He had a virtual meeting scheduled for ten o’clock with the Drake Distilleries management team.

  But before that, he called Jason Velasco at IMI. After the usual how’re-you-doing chitchat, he told Jason about Tessa and said he’d seen her work, considered her brilliant and talented and wanted Jason to take a look at her for IMI.

  He gave Jason her website address. “Tessa worked in New York for a couple of years, but then moved back to her hometown of Bozeman, Montana. And I have some examples of her work here with me,” he added, meaning the sketchbook from the night of the moonshine. “She drew up a whole moonshine campaign for me on the fly.”

  “You mean the moonshine campaign that isn’t going to happen?” Jason asked.

  “That’s the one. But I thought it might be useful to you. It’ll give you another angle on how damn good she is. I’ll get that to you overnight.”

  “How, exactly, do you see us proceeding with this?”

  “Look over her stuff. Vet her. Then have her in for an interview and see where it goes from there.”

  “She’s now in Bozeman, Montana, you said? What’s the name of her firm there?”

  “She works freelance. I’ll have her fly down to you when you’re ready to interview her.” Carson really didn’t want to get into the part about Della Storm firing her. What if Tessa had overestimated the problem? He didn’t want to make her look bad if Jason didn’t even need to know.

  Then again, Jason would be hiring her to a large degree on Carson’s say-so. The man had a right to know the basic story as Tessa had explained it.

  So he told Jason a generalized version of what Tessa had told him, excluding any mention of that douche canoe, Miles Rutherford, instead citing “personal issues” as the reason Tessa had lost focus on her work and ended up being discharged.

  Carson also left out the part about how the Storm woman had blackballed her. Legally, Della Storm could do nothing of the sort, and four years had passed since all that had gone down. Maybe Tessa’s former boss was willing to let bygones be bygones by now.

  When Carson finished the story, Jason said he’d heard of Della Storm, that she was a household name in the ad game. Then he asked, “And since Della Storm let her go, Tessa Strickland has only worked freelance, you said?”

  “Look at it this way. Now you know she’s a find. Della Storm wouldn’t work with anyone second-rate.”

  “That’s an interesting take on the situation.” At least Jason chuckled when he said it. “Okay, Carson. I’ll do my homework on this, and we’ll go from there.”

  “Can’t ask for more.”

  “I’ll get back to you if I have questions.”

  “Please do. I’ll mail you these sketches.”

  “And I’ll let you know when we’re ready to move on to the next step.”

  “Meaning the interview,” Carson clarified.

  “Yes. Meaning the interview.”

  “Terrific. I appreciate this, Jason. And I can’t wait to see what you and your team have for us next week.”

  Jason went on for a few minutes about how excited he was to show off the campaign for the flavored liqueur launch. Carson made the right noises in response and then, finally, they said goodbye.

  After Carson took his virtual meeting, which lasted two hours, he packed up Tessa’s sketchbook to send to Jason and added it to the stack of outgoing mail in the foyer of his suite. The Manor’s concierge would take care of it from there.

  By the time he finally got back to the boardinghouse, Melba told him that Tessa was down in the basement dealing with laundry. He ran down the backstairs, eager to see her.

  She was bent at the waist, stuffing wet sheets in a dryer when he found her.

  “Don’t straighten up,” he advised. “Things look great from here.”

  She called him a bad name under her breath and did exactly what he’d asked her not to do, rising to her full five-foot-three, shoving the door shut and starting the machine. The sheets inside began to tumble as she turned to face him. He grabbed her hand and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her, burying his nose against her throat so he could breathe in the scent of her.

  She sighed and let her hands slide up to hook around his neck. “Hello, Carson.”

  They shared a kiss. God, he loved the taste of her.

  When he
lifted his head, she asked, “Busy morning?”

  He bent close again and rubbed his cheek against her hair. “I had a long online meeting.” He sighed. “And I miss my assistant. I had to address several envelopes all by myself.”

  She faked a sympathetic look, not a very good one. “Oh, you poor thing. You must be exhausted.”

  “My fingers are worn to the bone.” He held them out to her. “Kiss them.” Wearing a very serious expression, she did just that, one by one. He watched those soft lips brush his fingertips and wished he could freeze time in that moment, with her standing so close, her gold-flecked eyes shining up into his. “Thank you,” he said once she’d kissed all eight fingers and his thumbs, as well. “I feel so much better now.”

  “Good. Help me.” She grabbed a sheet from the table by the machines. He helped her fold, taking one side, following her cues, until the large sheet was a tidy square. They started on the next one. “So...did you talk to your guy at IMI about me?”

  He brought her up to speed on that situation. “I hope you’re not pissed that I said you fell down on the job.”

  She gave him a glowing smile for that. “Are you kidding? A little honesty is never a bad thing.”

  “Good.” Relief released the slight knot of tension between his shoulder blades. He had been worried she’d be upset that he’d said so much. “I left that Miles character completely out of it, just said you had ‘personal issues,’ so when it comes to the interview, you can take that in whatever direction you want. And I never said anything about your being blackballed, either.”

  She tipped her head sideways and gave him a thoughtful look. “You’re sure there will even be an interview?”

  “I am, absolutely.”

  A low, amused sound escaped her. “It must be wonderful being you. You just say jump, and all your minions ask how high.”

  He gave her a shrug. “Someone has to rule the world. I think I should get another kiss for being so helpful to your career.”

  She handed him one end of yet another sheet. “You’re always finding some reason that you should get another kiss.”

  He reached out, wrapped an arm around her and hauled her close. “Give me my kiss.”

  She whipped her side of the sheet quickly around her other arm before it could hit the concrete floor. “Oh, fine. Take it.”

  So he did. A long one. Until she pushed against his chest and demanded, “Get folding.” He stepped back, and the whole process began again.

  As they came together and then stepped away, she said softly, “I feel kind of bad.”

  “Why?”

  “I think I’ve made Miles seem worse than he was.”

  “Worse? How could that bastard be worse? He cheated on you, and he set you up so you walked in on him in the act. He rubbed your nose in it. The man gives new meaning to ugly.”

  “He, um, he did propose to me. Several times.”

  “So? He still cheated. You made the right choice to tell him no.”

  “All I’m saying is, maybe he got tired of waiting for me to say yes.”

  “So what? He didn’t deserve a yes.”

  “But, Carson, at the end, after I caught him with the twins, when I was packing my bags to go, he told me that he’d given up on me because I kept turning him down.”

  “He actually said that?” At her sad little nod, he said exactly what he thought of Miles Rutherford’s excuses. “If he was so damned upset that you wouldn’t say yes, he should have told you so then, and tried to work it out with you. After that, if you still wouldn’t meet him halfway, he should have broken it off. Relationships aren’t rocket science, Tessa. A guy needs to stand up and behave with integrity. If he doesn’t, he gets what he damn well deserves.” He saw the gleam in her eyes and went on before she could start in on him. “And yeah, I’ve been with more women than I probably should have. I blew up my marriage to a wonderful wife. I wasn’t ready to be married, and I damn well should have figured that out before I broke Marianne’s heart. I’m not perfect. But I don’t tell lies, and I don’t cheat.” He moved close and gave her his side of the mostly folded sheet.

  She made the last few folds and set it on the stack. “You’re right,” she said at last. “I didn’t really trust Miles, not deep in my heart. I felt so inexperienced. I was inexperienced. I didn’t want to make some huge mistake, you know? And it turned out he wasn’t worth trusting, anyway.”

  “Now you’re seeing what really happened there.”

  “Which doesn’t say a whole lot for my judgment, does it?”

  He gave her a stern look. “Name me one person on earth who hasn’t been guilty of bad judgment at one time or another.”

  She hummed low in her throat. “I do feel bad that I screwed Della over, though. She was tough as nails, but she was fair. I think she would have gotten over my relationship with Miles if I hadn’t left her high and dry on that last project.”

  “So get a message to her. Apologize.”

  She gave him a wide-eyed look. “Seriously? Won’t she just think I’m kissing up when IMI contacts her?”

  “Tessa, it’s what you think that matters.”

  Her smile bloomed then, a wide one. “You know, I just might do that.”

  “Good.”

  He backed her up against the folding table and claimed another kiss, after which they finished folding the rest of the sheets and went upstairs for lunch.

  Once they’d eaten, she said she had work to do and shut herself in her room for a few hours. He let her go reluctantly.

  They had six days left until he had to return to LA. Yeah, he had high hopes that she’d agree to take the job with IMI. He couldn’t wait to show her how much she was going to love living in California.

  But who knew how long it would take to get the job thing settled, to get her moved so she lived nearby? He could be weeks without her. Months, even.

  So right now, while he had the chance, he wanted to spend every possible minute with her. Was he falling too damn fast and way too hard for her?

  So what if he was?

  The way he saw it, his strong feelings for her were all the more reason to steal every second he could with her.

  That evening, he’d agreed to meet for drinks at the Manor bar with Walker Jones, the millionaire entrepreneur who was opening a new day care center in Rust Creek Falls. Tessa went with him. Both Nate Crawford and Collin Traub were there, too. Nate had brought his wife, Callie, which worked out great. She and Tessa were already casual friends and happy for a chance to catch up.

  Walker Jones’s day care empire was called Just Us Kids, and the one in Rust Creek Falls would be opening the second week of July. Nate joked that Just Us Kids was “just in time.” The only other day care in town, Country Kids, had a waiting list now, what with all the babies born that spring.

  Walker was a good-looking, confident guy who seemed a little more interested in empire building than in the particulars of how the new Rust Creek Falls day care center would be run. But Carson was big into empire building himself, so he didn’t fault Jones for having a lot of ambition. They exchanged contact info and promised to stay in touch.

  Afterward, when everyone left, it was just Carson and Tessa. They ordered burgers right there in the bar.

  Their food had just arrived when she said, “Thanks for the pep talk this afternoon.”

  He leaned close. The way he saw it, the closer he got to her, the better. Her hair shone in the glow from the lights above and he didn’t think he’d ever seen eyelashes as thick and silky as hers. “It wasn’t a pep talk. I just said what I believe.”

  She dredged a French fry in ketchup and popped it into her mouth. “Well, I appreciate it. And I took your advice about Della. I wrote her a letter—you know, on actual stationery. I don’t know why exactly, but on nice paper, it all
seemed more serious, more sincere somehow.”

  “I get that, yeah.”

  “I told her how much I respect her and how much I learned from her and also how much I regret blowing that last account. I apologized for that and wished her well. And then I mailed it before I could think of a thousand reasons not to.”

  “Well done.” He stared at her for a solid count of five and thought that he would never grow tired of looking at her.

  She leaned a little closer. “I really like you, Carson. I mean, I really, really like you.”

  He couldn’t resist, so he didn’t. He leaned closer still, brushed a kiss across her soft cheek and whispered in her ear, “I like you more.”

  She giggled. It was about the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. And then she said, “Look. Down here.” She dipped that dark head toward her lap, where she held her small purse wide-open between her hands. Inside, he saw a toothbrush and a bit of cream-colored satin.

  His chest felt suddenly tight. So did his pants. He leaned in again and whispered, directly into her ear that time. “Panties? You brought panties?”

  She backed away a fraction, enough that she could meet and hold his gaze. “A girl needs clean panties. And a toothbrush, too. At least she does if she’s planning on staying the night.”

  Chapter Nine

  Tessa stood in the doorway from the bathroom in Carson’s suite. She wore only a black lace bra and panties to match. She’d never been so nervous in her life.

  “Come here.” Carson’s voice was deep, a little bit rough—and very sure. He’d gotten undressed while she used the bathroom, and now he rose from the bedside chair and faced her in only a pair of dark boxer briefs.

  Oh, my Lord. The man was so beautiful. How did he have time to keep a honed, cut body like that while running two corporations and chasing down crazy moonshine makers in the wilds of Montana?

  He held out his hand to her.

  A sound slipped from her—half sigh, half moan. She could not believe this was actually happening. It didn’t feel quite real.

  Oh, but it was. Her bare feet whispered across the polished wide-plank floor and then were silenced completely when she reached the thick pile of the bedroom rug. Three more steps and she stood before him.