She snapped open her purse and pulled out a folded sheaf of papers, slapping them on the back of the sofa before handing them to him. “My resume,” she said. “I suggest you read it before you make a decision.”
With a long-suffering sigh and another glance at his watch, he opened the folds in the papers and stared at the printed words. As she watched, a frown wrinkled his brow, his mouth twisted wryly, then he bit his lip. At length, he shook his head. He sat again, heavily, and finally looked at her. “Business degree?”
“That’s right.” Perching on the arm of the sofa, she smiled. “Achieved on one of those little college junkets this ‘professional student’ enjoyed. The same story for the sociology degree.” He winced.
“Languages?”
“They’re all down there.” Even so, she listed them. “Swedish, French, German, Italian and Japanese. A smattering of Cantonese, Danish, Greek and Korean.”
“When did you do all that?” His voice was hoarse.
“Remember our German cook? I learned that language from her, then took it in school for a couple of years. Same with French. I crewed one summer on a Swedish sailboat. Japanese, Chinese and Korean I took because it seemed like the thing to do when I was working on my business degree. A lot of business is trans-Pacific now. I learned Italian when I was studying art in Florence. I have a knack for languages and after the second or third, the others come easier. And for some reason, I never forget them, or they come back so quickly when I need them it’s as good as not forgetting.” She shrugged negligently. “It was sort of a parlor trick at first, then when I opened up that little boutique down near the ferry dock shortly after I came home last year, having different languages came in handy, what with all the tourists who came in.”
“God,” he said, shaking his head. “And I thought you’d been goofing off all those years. You’re, well, phenomenal, I guess is the only word. By the way, what happened to that boutique? Did you go broke?”
“Oh, no! I sold it at a profit when Mom got worse and needed me at home all day. But I was ready to let it go. No challenge once it was on its feet.” She frowned. “Though I did enjoy the selling aspect. I like selling things to people.” She fixed an intent gaze on his stunned face. “I could do that, here. I know I could, Rolph.”
“I sell boats,” he said. “You know nothing about boats in spite of those summers crewing. I buy boats. I find boats for clients who trust my judgment. My assistant would have to do the same. What if I were over in Europe somewhere checking out a boat with a client and someone came in with one they wanted me to market for them? You’d be lost. You wouldn’t recognize dryrot if it was in your shin.”
She smiled again. “I can read a surveyor’s report,” she said, “and if I can’t do it to your satisfaction, you could teach me to.”
He chewed the inside of his lip and she could see he was considering it. Her heart beat faster, her palms grew damp, her mouth dry. She wanted this so much …
“All right, maybe you could learn to do that. But there’s more to the job than surveyors’ reports.”
“I know.” She leaned forward, ready to plead now. “You can teach me. A willingness to learn is half the battle, and I certainly have that. Give me a chance, Rolph. That’s all I ask. Three months. Give me that long to prove myself.”
Still with his brows drawn down, he looked at her for a long moment, then shook his head. “No. I can’t.”
Something in her snapped. “Dammit, why not? Is it because I’m a woman and you have some kind of built-in prejudice against hiring a woman?”
“Honey, you’re not a woman,” he said, then, as if warned by her stormy gasp of indignation, he pulled a face and laughed. “I mean, of course you’re a woman, a … female, but you’re … you’re, well, Marian. My friend. Hell, I taught you how to ride your bike. I taught you how to roller skate. I even scratched the chicken pox you couldn’t reach in the middle of your back. And I have no prejudice against women. If you’re wondering why I’m still single at my advanced age, it’s because women seem to have some kind of prejudice against me. And if I can’t get along with one socially for more than a few minutes, how could I ever work successfully with one?”
He looked away, spoke as if to himself, musingly. “I don’t understand women, though I’ve tried. Lord, how I’ve tried. I can’t figure out what they want.”
At his preposterous statement, she felt her anger cool and laughed. Who was he trying to kid? She’d spent a lifetime watching girls and women revolve through the lives of the McKenzie boys. “I understand Freud had that same problem. Tell you what,” she added mischievously, going along with his game. “You hire me, give me a three-month training period, and I’ll teach you what women want.”
His chuckle was warm, his smile merely friendly as he said, “Forget it, kitten. Even if I don’t have a real, deep-seated prejudice against hiring a woman, I do have one against hiring you. I need someone who’ll stick to the job. I need someone who won’t decide day after tomorrow that she’s bored and wants to go to Japan and learn how to make silk kites, or to Paris to the Cordon Bleu School, or whatever fancy would strike your little butterfly heart some moment when I happened to need you desperately to perform some vital function in the business. Assuming,” he added with a sly, teasing grin calculated to rile her, “that you’d be capable of performing a function that could be considered vital.”
His careless words brought her back to her feet on a swift, stinging lash of hurt. She’d had more than enough of his teasing. If this was the way he treated all women, maybe he hadn’t been fooling when he said he couldn’t get along with them socially.
It was obvious he didn’t have a glimmer of understanding. She’d come to him, been as serious as she knew how, had laid out in a clear, concise, businesslike manner a sound proposition that would benefit them both, and had expected him to respect it and her. Since he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, there was nothing more for her to do here.
“Fine,” she said, tilting her chin up as she spun away from him. “Suit yourself. It’s your loss, McKenzie.”
At the door, she paused, turned back and said, “And I’ll even give you lesson number one free: No woman likes to hear a man say she has a ‘little butterfly heart’. No woman likes to have a man assume she’s incapable of performing a vital function. And no woman will accept that kind of gratuitous insult anymore, Rolph McKenzie, least of all this one. I wish you teredoes in your keelson and mildew in your spinnaker. Goodbye!”
With that, she swung away from him, opened the door and banged it behind her, hoping she’d escaped before Rolph saw the tears that stung so hotly in her eyes.
“Damn him, damn him!” Marian muttered now, and jumped when Jeanie touched her shoulder.
“Hey, don’t talk like that in front of my son. I want him to grow up to be a gentleman.”
Marian looked up. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, then. This child’s going to grow up to be a McKenzie.” Again, tears filled her eyes and she lowered her head to Christopher’s warmth. “Poor little guy.”
Jeanie put her arm around her friend. “Ah, Marian … Things have a way of working out.”
“Not for me they don’t. Never for me.”
That was the scene Rolph walked in on.
Chapter Two
WITH A PAINED, HELPLESS glance at Jeanie, Rolph crouched before Marian, reached out and tucked a strand of her hair back behind one of her ears. “Hey,” he said, when she lifted her head, startled. “I came to tell you I’m sorry. I acted like a jerk, and what I said was insulting, though I didn’t mean it to be. I thought I was being funny. Forgive me?”
Shaking his hand off her, she shrugged. “Of course,” she said in a frigid tone. Half turning from him, she continued to rock Christopher, her hair curtaining her face again.
He stood erect, backing away. “You look good with a baby in your arms,” he said, the words popping out before he could stop them. “Why don’t you forget finding a job and find
some nice boy to marry instead?”
With a strangled sound, Jeanie got up and slipped out of the office, unnoticed by the other two.
Marian lifted her head and gave Rolph a level look. “Any woman looks good with a baby in her arms. At least to a chauvinistic male. And if you think some ‘nice boy’ would hold my interest for long, think again.” She stood and handed Christopher to him. “Here, take your nephew. I’ll leave you and Jeanie to discuss strategy for the continued search for Rolph McKenzie’s perfect assistant, should he even exist.” She glanced around for her friend, surprised to discover she wasn’t there.
Rolph took the baby, holding him expertly as Christopher squirmed and tried to get down. He followed Marian as she walked back across the room, and moved to keep himself between her and the door. “The search is over,” he said. “At least for office staff. I hired the first secretary who came this morning and told her to choose an aide for herself out of the ones who came after.”
Marian’s green eyes flared with temper. “How nice for her. Can she type? Can she file? How’s her telephone manner?”
“I didn’t ask. I figured if Jeanie sent her to me, she was worth hiring. I … trust Jeanie’s judgment.”
“No kidding.” With her toes, Marian turned her left shoe over and stepped back into it, found her right and donned that, too, giving herself the advantage of a few more inches of height. Gathering up her scattered pins from Jeanie’s desk, she let them trickle from her hand into her purse.
“No kidding,” he agreed, his green eyes fixed on her profile. “I trust her judgment about you, too, Marian. I want you to come and work with me.”
Slowly, she turned. Just as slowly, she lifted her gaze to his face. After several silent moments, she said again with utterly no expression, “No kidding.”
His mouth twisted up at one corner. “Oh, hell,” he said. “You told me you’d forgiven me.”
She snapped her purse closed. “I lied.”
“Marian …”
She walked to the door, opened it, stepped through and closed it behind her, very, very quietly.
He caught her just as the elevator opened and stepped in after her, pushing the Close Door button, then the one for ground floor, his finger still on the first one.
“What do I have to do?” he said. “Grovel?”
She considered that. “It might help.”
“I’m groveling. I’m abject. Forgive me.”
She continued to ponder, her chin on her fist, her elbow resting on her other hand. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll try. You’ll buy me lunch?”
He grinned. “I’ll buy you lunch every day for the rest of the month.”
“If what?”
“If you forgive me.”
“And?” Her eyes sparkled as she met his gaze.
His mouth twisted to one side again. There was, it seemed, no way out of it at all. “And come to work at the marina.”
Her smile was radiant. For an instant, he felt its impact deep inside where he was most a man. Briefly, he recalled the sharp stab of desire that had clenched his innards this morning, watching her walk toward him along the wharf. Of course, the second he recognized Marian with her new hairstyle and color, it had died. But in those first moments, he, like every other man who’d watched her passage, had felt desire for a beautiful, enchanting woman. Dammit, the first time he’d experienced this response to Marian had been at Max and Jeanie’s wedding. It had happened again at Jeanie’s sister’s wedding. Like a tide-rip it rattled his rigging and he didn’t like it. Now, as he had the other times, he clamped down on it. This was Marian, for heaven’s sake. He couldn’t go responding to her the way he did to a datable woman.
It just wouldn’t be right.
“For a three-month trial period,” he added.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s a deal.”
“Shake,” he said, reaching out to enfold her hand in his, surprised to discover that she was trembling slightly. Hell, the poor kid really had wanted the stupid job. Oh, well, what were three months out of the whole scope of his life? He’d let her stay that long. At the end of that time, maybe even before, she’d be tired of it. Of course she would. She never stuck with anything. Look at her, the last time he’d seen her, her hair had been red and her eyes blue. Now, she was a green-eyed blonde. Next week, she’d probably be a brown-eyed brunette and the month after that, who knows? All he knew was she’d probably be gone, and then he could get on with finding the right man for the job. And get over this extraordinary response his body persisted in having to her subtle yet unforgettable scent.
He sighed and let the elevator door button go. Max might think it was his phone-call that had gotten Marian the job. He might believe that it was his veiled threat to withdraw his investment capital out of the marina if Rolph didn’t hire Marian—or someone—to take up some of the slack and hence protect Max’s investment. He didn’t need to know, nobody needed to know that Rolph’s mind had been made up before Max’s call.
It had been that little sheen of tears in Marian’s eyes just before she stormed out of his office that had done him in. That, and an indelible memory of a moment of forbidden enchantment.
Curling an arm over her shoulders, he led her out to where he had parked his car.
“Now,” he said, “where does my new assistant want to go for lunch?”
“Why don’t you pick up a couple of sandwiches for us,” she said, shrugging his arm off and turning to her own car, parked three slots over. “I’ll meet you at the office and we can eat while we talk about business.”
Clearly, if he suddenly found Marian enchanting, she found him less so. She didn’t even want his arm around her shoulders, though it had been there a hundred times before.
Right, he thought, getting into his car. That was the way it should be. Businesslike. Cool. Controlled. Because not only was Marian his employee, she was an old family friend and a smart guy didn’t mess around with a relationship like that. Especially a smart guy who wanted some permanence in his life. The last thing he needed to be attracted to was a top-drawer, well-bred, first-class … hobo.
“You’ve been contracting out interior design on the refit jobs, haven’t you?” asked Marian, brushing bread crumbs from her lap and flipping through several pages of material before her. This was their tenth working lunch in two weeks. True to his promise, Rolph had bought her meal for her every day.
Rolph looked up from a report he was writing. “Yes, but since we’re a brokerage business, not a shipyard, I contract out the entire refit. It only makes sense. Why have someone on staff who can do interior design?”
“But you do have. Me.”
He gave her a startled look that switched to good-humored scathing. “Come on. I’ve seen your apartment, remember? All zebra strips and spears, with boars’ heads sticking out of the walls.”
Marian shuddered at the memory. “That was when I was in college, for goodness’ sake! I was nineteen years old and going through an African phase. Besides, the interior of a yacht takes a whole different technique than the interior of a home. When I was in New Zealand a couple of years ago I worked for a company that did the interiors of ocean-going yachts for several different builders. Did you know that blues and greens are avoided in upholstery and other fixtures, that the preferred shades are taken from the earth-tones of the spectrum?”
“I didn’t know, but now that you mention it, I’ve noticed a lot of browns and reds and yellows in boat interiors.”
“That’s because when a crew spends months at sea, the eye grows weary of the blues and greens of ocean and sky. The sailor needs a rest for his eyes, a change from the ordinary, just as people do in all walks of life.”
“Uh-huh.” He grinned. “Like boars’ heads and spears.”
Marian laughed tolerantly. “My tastes have changed.” She crossed one leg over the other, swinging her neatly shod foot. “Haven’t yours over the years? Didn’t you like things ten years ago that you think now are outrageo
us, and vice versa?”
He thought about it. “Yeah, I suppose so.” Then, with a grin, he said, “Yes. Definitely. Ten years ago I was in love with a woman whose only expression of emotion, be it satisfaction or disgust or pleasure or pain was a faint, weak little ‘wow’ … I thought she was fantastic because of all she could convey with that one little word. That was before I figured out that it constituted nearly her entire vocabulary.”
This was not an opportunity to be missed. Apart from that day of the interview, when he’d confessed that he didn’t think he knew what women wanted, or how to treat them, he’d kept their conversations strictly on business. She hadn’t minded for the most part. There was so much to learn and she was an eager student. She thought, sometimes, that she had surprised him with her greed for knowledge. But if he were willing to move into a more personal mode now, she was all for it.
“Hmm,” she said. “And what are your tastes in women today?”
He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard to put something like that into words.”
“Pretend you’re writing a companions ad.”
He stared at her. Did she know he’d done just that on two occasions? No. Of course she didn’t. He said, “Wanted, SWF, sexy, cheerful, eager for experiences. Must like outdoors, sailing, hiking, skiing. Some culture okay.”
“Some culture?”
“Yeah. You know, a little bit intellectual, but not overdone. I’d hate to spend all my time in museums and art galleries or attending the symphony, though those are fine sometimes. And she’d need to like books and movies, but not just high-brow stuff. The real things that real people read and enjoy. Spy stories, mysteries, romance, adventure. You know. Escapism.”
“So a brainy woman is out.”
He shot her a sharp glance, remembering just how brainy she, herself had proved to be. A dull woman wouldn’t have achieved a business degree backed by one in sociology in addition to multiple languages. “I didn’t say that. There’s nothing wrong with intelligent women. I’d just prefer one who didn’t take herself too seriously all the time. I like a woman with a mind of her own, one who doesn’t let other people make decisions for her.” He hesitated, drawing his brows together. “Unless they’re the right decisions, of course.”
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