“That is the sappiest story I ever heard,” Simon said, with a trace of bitterness.
“Really? Because I fell in love with her a little when she told me. Maybe it was just her delivery.”
Simon shook his head. Ridiculous.
“Didn’t get any, huh Simon?”
“Don’t speak disrespectfully of Veronica.”
“Oh, my God, you’re really into her, aren’t you? Is she more than a pretty face? How long have you known her? Five minutes? Certainly not as long as I’ve known Sally, Mr. Hypocrite.”
“Yes, I am.” He lowered his voice. “And not only that, but if I could have slept with her last night, I would have. She’s the most . . . magnetic woman I’ve ever met.”
“I’ll grant you she’s gorgeous. And nice breasts, if my assessment is correct—whoa, don’t strike me. I’ll give you tit for tat. Sally’s are small and round and perfect. I, uh, accidentally felt them while she was in my lap.”
“I may be a hypocrite, but I’ll say it again. Treat that girl nicely until you put a wedding band on her finger.”
Logan laughed in disbelief. “You keep your hands off your Veronica, and I’ll keep my hands off Sally.”
Simon glared at Logan until his old friend walked gracefully out of the office, then deflated when he saw the pile of mail on his desk. He needed to let his brain dictate his behavior, not another prominent organ that seemed to have taken over his life. He needed to get back to work. He sat down at the desk, but not before he closed the blinds. He wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted by scenery, sunshine, or sweet, sweet memories of luscious lips. He got down to business.
* *
Two hours later Veronica walked briskly to the main desk. “Could you point me toward the office, please?” she asked the blonde girl working there.
“Oh, sure. Right down there and to the left.” The girl smiled in a friendly fashion. “Oh, and you’re Miss James, right? I have a note for you in your box.” She turned, grabbed an envelope out of a cubbyhole behind her, and handed it to Veronica.
“Thank you,” Veronica said, mystified.
“You have a nice day, now,” said the girl, heading back to her computer.
* *
A knock at the door brought his head up. He rubbed at his eyes, tossed a pile of envelopes in the trash. “Come in,” he said.
Veronica entered. Her hair was slightly tousled, her face thoughtful. She held an envelope in her hand. Of course she looked more beautiful than ever.
“How are the lessons going?” he asked.
Her face was transformed from thoughtful to euphoric. “Oh, Simon,” she said. “Your dad is doing so well! He already had some knowledge coming into it; I gave him a little test. I’m sure that he’ll progress very rapidly. He’s so bright and intelligent and funny. And charming,” she said with a wistful expression.
Simon pretended to glare at her. “Don’t go falling in love with my father. He’s too old for you. And you’ll break the heart of Mrs. Chamberlain in 423. She can’t compete with the likes of you.”
“The likes of me?” she asked, laughing. “Well, it’s too late, because I’m already in love with your father. He’s sweet and handsome.”
“Stop with the adjectives. I get it. He’s lots of things that girls like. Well, you’re in love with him, and I’m in love with you. What do we do now?”
Those amazing eyes widened, and then she laughed, which he supposed he deserved, for bringing her to his office for the ostensible reason of signing forms and then pledging that he loved her like a smitten boy. She smacked him on the arm with a workbook she was carrying, and said, “Oh, stop. Where are those papers?”
He opened a drawer, took them out, and handed them to her wordlessly.
She stared at him. “Might there be a place I can sit down with these?”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I seem to act like a lovesick boy every time you’re around, and until yesterday I was a relatively mature and responsible man of thirty-five. Ask anyone. I have a reputation in town as a fair, just and worldly old man. Sit right there, the little desk in the corner.”
She sat, looked down at the forms, scribbled some information. Still looking at the paper in front of her, she asked, “Is that the only reputation you have in town?”
“What? Oh, you mean do they know me as the mad masher who makes passionate love to women the moment I meet them?”
She said nothing.
“No, Veronica, that’s just you. Do you have that effect on all men?”
She looked up at him, biting the tip of her pen in a way that could only be called erotic.
“No, Simon, that’s just you.”
He watched her fill out the paperwork. She had nice handwriting. Of course. She was a teacher. “Do you like teaching?”
Her eyes lit up. “I love it. I thought I’d miss the children, but teaching your father, well—”
“Well, of course it’s wonderful, because he sweet, handsome, charming, etcetera,” he finished dryly.
“It’s not just that. I can see where he’s going, where he’ll be. It’s very exciting to know what a change is in store for him, how much better his life will be when everything makes sense, everything he probably trained himself to ignore.”
Simon felt a pang of hurt for his father. He’d thought much the same thing, which was why he’d finally insisted on a tutor. His father was sixty years old. He needed to have this in his life, especially with Mom gone. “I’m glad it’s you. He’ll have someone lovely and fresh to work with him, to get excited with him. I almost wish you were teaching me.”
“I’m sure there are some things I could teach you,” she said softly, studying her
W-2 form.
Simon stiffened. That was flirtation, that was blatant flirtation. Did she want to be all business, or not? The girl was confusing him.
“You taught me something last night,” he said.
She looked up, amused. “What was that?”
“Don’t close your eyes when you kiss a girl, or she might run away from you.”
She made a prim face. “Realistically, how long did you want it to last?” She was priceless, with those teachery sentences and those pursed lips.
“Until breakfast would have been nice.” He stood, went closer to her.
She scribbled something, held up a form. “There. I’m finished. I should go.”
“No, Miss James, I need to look over your form,” he said, grinning when she blushed at his double entendre. “Do you always wear those teachery outfits, or do you have a nice snug pair of jeans? Or better yet, a little black dress, cut low at the top and high at the bottom?”
“My clothing is limited. I planned to buy some in town. Maybe you’d like to pick it out for me?” she asked sarcastically.
“I’d love to. And after we go shopping, we can have dinner. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Shouldn’t you have dinner with your daughter?” she asked softly.
He wasn’t offended, since she’d said it gently. “I plan to spend plenty of time with Lilah. And she’s having the time of her life, I’ll have you know. She’ll be happy to play with her Grandpa while you and I make eyes at each other at Tony’s Bistro. I’ll be home in time to tuck her in, and then I can come and tuck you in.”
She was opening the envelope she still had with her. “I think you might be—”
She read the words on the paper and turned white.
“Veronica? What is it?”
“I—don’t know. Who takes down the messages at the main desk?”
“Well, whoever answers the phone.” He stepped closer. “What is it? May I see it?”
She handed it to him, and looked up at him mutely. He could look long and deeply into those eyes, he thought, as he took the paper and glanced at it. It read merely, I came for yo
u, Veronica.
“No name,” he said.
“No,” she agreed. “Should I be worried about this? It seems so . . . sinister.”
“It could just be a mistake,” he said, not believing it. He felt, in fact, that the note seemed threatening. “Just for fun, we’ll talk to a friend of mine about it. Guy on the police force in Clearview. Good Irish cop, of course. We don’t have as many of those here as you do in Chicago.”
His humor had lifted her spirits, and he saw her smile again with relief. “Okay. I’d appreciate it,” she said. She stood up, and their faces were a foot apart. “Now I’d better get going.”
He leaned in, pulled her toward him, and kissed her. He did it softly, barely touching her lips, his mouth closed. He watched her eyes widen in surprise and disappointment when he pulled away. YES! His ego cried, slapping him a high five in his imagination. He went back in, deepening the kiss, felt her lips answer in that now-familiar way. God, her mouth was just—comfortable.
He pulled away again, and feasted on the sight of her face. She put her hands on her mouth, then at her sides. “Simon, here’s the problem,” she said.
“You’re married.”
“No.” She looked annoyed.
“You have a fatal disease.”
“No, stop it.” She was laughing now.
“You’re gay.”
“Simon!”
“You’re on the run—” he was going to say “from the law,” but he didn’t finish because of the curious expression on her face. She had a shuttered look. A part of her had just been closed off to him in a split second. Interesting.
“The problem is,” she continued firmly, “that sooner or later we’d end up in bed together, and that simply can’t happen.” She pointed at the forms that were still crumpled in his hand. “You’re my employer. I work for you. It’s just not right. Our mothers and fathers taught us this, and—”
“Where do your folks hail from, Veronica?” he asked.
“What?—oh, Iowa.”
“Still there?”
“Yes, my mother.”
“Any other family?”
She looked at him strangely. “This isn’t about my family. I need to preserve the last shreds of my pride. It’s obvious to us both that I’m attracted to you, or I would have slapped your face and told you off by now. I’m ashamed to say that I look forward—”
He grinned. “Oh, I do too, I really do.”
“Simon! I’m serious. No matter how much we like it, it has to stop. Not only am I not the kind of girl to have sex with my boss, I—”
“I’m sorry, am I interrupting?” asked Logan’s smooth voice as he entered the room. Simon shot him a murderous look, but Logan merely smiled. “I need those estimates from the plumbers, Simon. If I might just sneak into this drawer?” He beamed at them, shamelessly examining their faces. “Don’t let me keep you lovebirds a second longer. Veronica, nice to see you, hon.”
He went back to the door. “You go right ahead. You were saying you’re not the kind of girl to have sex with your boss. Which I regret to hear,” he said with mock solemnity.
“I’m her boss, you asshole,” Simon yelled.
He turned to Veronica, but he knew he’d lost her. She was almost purple with embarrassment. That girl loved to blush, he thought. “Veronica—”
“I have to go.” She stood on tiptoe, kissed him sweetly on the lips. “You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever met, and if the situation were different I’d love to get to know you in a more—personal way, but this is just—too—bizarre. Let’s be adult about this.” She practically ran out of the office.
Simon looked at the forms in his hand. No dependents. And she’d flinched when he’d said “on the run.” “What are you running from, my girl?” He asked softly of the closed door. “Besides me, that is?”
He picked up the workbook she’d left on his desk, flipped it open. Inside, neatly
printed, were the words
Miss James
2nd Grade Teacher
St. William School
Chicago, Illinois
“Miss James,” he said softly. “You and me are not finished, not by a long shot.” In his other hand he held the note she’d received.
He lifted the phone and called John O’Malley of the Clearview police.
Chapter Seven
He had lunch with his daughter. She sat swinging her legs and chattering about the cat she’d befriended outside. It was like she’d never left, and he was glad. Liz was getting married today, and Lilah was safely here with him, instead of being embroiled in one of those horrible, ostentatious Fairchild weddings. He got the chills just remembering his, that horrible feeling of the matrimonial noose being tightened . . . .
“Hangman,” his daughter said.
“What?” he asked, shocked.
“I said we played a game called Hangman. On the plane. Veronica wrote down blanks, and I had to guess the letters that went in them. It was fun. Want to play?”
“Sure,” he said, intrigued.
Lilah drew a gallows and four blanks on her paper napkin. “Veronica said it’s a gruesome game.”
“Yes, it looks like it. So, what else did you talk about?”
“Guess a letter.”
“A.”
“Nope! Now I start drawing the man.” Lilah looked a little too pleased about this, he thought. “She told me I reminded her of someone.”
“Who was that?”
“She said she has a little sister. No brothers. But she’s taking a time out from her sister, and she hasn’t seen her in two years. Then she looked like she was going to cry, so I didn’t ask her anything else.”
“Really,” Simon said, tapping his finger on the table.
“Guess a letter.”
“E.”
“Right! It’s the last one.” She filled it in. “She was really sweet to me. When the plane started going up, she held my hand, and told me about the Wright Brothers. And she shared her coffee with me, and we had gum together, and when we got there she said she wouldn’t go anywhere until someone came to get me. I knew she’d be like that, that’s why I picked her.”
“Picked her? T.”
“No T. As my travel buddy,” she said, as she drew the man’s head. “And she was wonderful. Even when that handsome man asked for her phone number, she didn’t go off and leave me.”
Simon stiffened. “What handsome man?”
“Oh, there was this man who was staring at her on the plane. She didn’t seem to notice, and then when we dislodged—”
“Disembarked.”
“Disembarked, he ran up and asked for her phone number.”
“And what did she say?”
“You have to pick a letter.”
“Oh, uh—C.”
“No C. So he said he’d like to take her out to dinner, and she said, ‘No, thank you.’ She was being very unfriendly about it, but I was sort of glad.”
“Yes.” Simon relaxed. “Did she say she had a boyfriend?”
“No,” Lilah said. “And she has no wedding ring. I think she has no boyfriend right now.”
“I wonder where in Iowa she’s from,” he muttered to himself.
“I think she said she’s from Aim.”
“Ames?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Ames, Iowa. You know, her family comes from farmers, too. She said both her granddaddies were farmers. Daddy, you should take her out to dinner. She’s very pretty and nice.”
Simon spied John O’Malley at the counter buying coffee, and jumped up. “I will, baby. Thank you for the idea. I’ve got to get back to work. And I figured out your word, matchmaker. It’s L-O-V-E. Isn’t it?”
Lilah grinned at him; he ruffled her hair and walked over to shake John’s hand and escort him to the office.
Lilah watched him go, then said a little prayer for forgiveness, regarding her white lie. There’d been no man at the airport who asked Veronica out. But on the soap operas she watched with Bindy, it was always part of the plan to make the lover jealous. She was going to keep doing that. She smiled conspiratorially at her napkin, at the man who had been saved from the gallows.
* *
John looked at the note, took a sip of his coffee, and sighed. “Well, the thing is, there’s not much to do at this point. There’s no blatant threat, although the thing is creepy. We don’t know who did it, you tell me the girl who took it has no info other than it was a man’s voice. I’ll check on the phone that it came from, see if that leads anywhere. I can let you know that. Anything else—”
“Not much to do, eh?” Simon asked.
“I hate to say it, but not unless he contacts her again. This could just be a weird crank thing; you’ve told me you get those from time to time. What concerns me is who knew this girl was coming? Who even knows her name? This is her first day, you said?”
“And the answer is no one. No one other than my father, Logan and myself knew she was arriving last night, and the message was left early this morning, Sally says. It almost makes it sound like this guy—followed her.”
“It almost does,” said John. “Might be nothing, Simon, but I’ll get back to you on the phone thing. Might be able to nip this in the bud, as Barney Fife used to say.”
John got up to go, still holding his styrofoam cup of coffee. Simon held up a hand. “John.”
“Yeah, pal? God, this coffee’s good.”
“You know that tale my Dad tells, about the men in my family?”
“Ah, that instant love thing? Yeah, it’s great. My dad got a real kick out of that, you know these old Irishmen and their stories—”
“Well, it’s happened to me. With her. So I’m taking no chances.”
John stared at his friend of two years, whom he’d never known to be serious for very long. Simon’s face was sober now. “Message received,” John said. “You’ll hear from me.”
Love, Lust, and The Lassiters Page 5
