by Dawn Atkins
What a pistol. Jake's mother's expression for someone full of sparks and fire fit Ariel Adams to a T. Even exhausted from lack of sleep, she fairly glowed with energy. She made him want to blink and step back.
And she practically screamed help me relax—from her tight little 'do, to her buttoned-up suit, forward-leaning walk and no-nonsense mouth. She reminded him of the businesswomen who sometimes landed on one of his sailboat charters—wound too tight, clutching their cell phones like security blankets, wanting to stay on top and in control.
He liked how the slow, easy energy of a sail gradually took over and relaxed them, until they let go like a twisted rope flung free. Loosening up Ariel Adams, however, would take more than a day on the ocean, he suspected.
But he couldn't sleep with her. She was right about that. If ever there was any woman who would make sex complicated, it would be Ariel. Staying at the beach house was about keeping his living costs down … and maybe having a little fun—like taking Ariel swimming tonight. Maybe he'd teach her to sail or dive. He'd be helping her. It was practically a public service. He rolled his eyes at himself.
He already knew one way to her heart was cooking, so he intended to make her mouthwatering meal after mouthwatering meal until she wanted him around for that alone.
For now, he'd see about turning the sunporch into an office. That would satisfy her workaholism and take the pressure off him to move out of the room she wanted.
The tattered screens came off easily. By the time he'd taken measurements for Plexiglas replacements, it was 3:00 a.m. so he went to bed. He had to get up at a decent time to make her a nice breakfast and convince her he was the best roommate she could ever want.
* * *
Chapter 5
«^»
Ariel woke the next morning to her alarm and the mouthwatering smell of something baking. She'd slept through Jake's banging, thanks to her pillow, but she was still groggy after so little sleep. She forced herself to sit up.
She'd make calls before they went to pick up her things at the storage place. And she had to make sure Jake knew that the kiss had been a late-night mistake. She threw on her robe and headed for the bathroom, only to run headlong into Jake, who held out a plate brimming with fresh fruit and a steaming muffin. "Breakfast is served," he said with a slight bow.
"You shouldn't have. Really."
"You need your strength." He stood there holding the plate looking fresh and healthy and bare-chested—were those Hawaiian shirts for show like his boxers?—on less sleep than she'd had.
The muffin smelled so good. Was he going to bring the plate for her to eat in bed? "I'll come into the kitchen," she said, clutching her robe closed. She backed into the bathroom.
"Nice nightgown," he said, his eyes twinkling.
She looked down at the polyester ruffles. "Simple and innocent?" she joked back.
"For a grandma, maybe." He fingered the ruffle high on her neck. "I see you in sheer white silk."
Her cheeks heated and she made to close the door.
"Okay, but don't dawdle. These are best when they're still warm." He wiggled the muffin under her nose, then backed down the hall, as if luring her with the food.
Of course, it worked. She did the essentials, threw on some jeans shorts and a tank top, then headed into the kitchen like Lucky on the trail of fresh bacon. She was a sucker for fresh-baked goods. She hoped her metabolism could handle a day or two of Jake's cooking.
She found Jake waiting for her at the kitchen table. He motioned for her to sit where he'd placed the plate of muffin and fruit—a small heap of raspberries, triangles of fresh pineapple and slices of mango and papaya.
She plunked into the chair and Jake tore open the muffin, cupped half in his palm and lovingly covered it with butter, which melted into its fluffy center.
Ariel had to suck up saliva to keep from drooling. "Jake, this really isn't necessary. I—"
"Eat," he said and lifted the muffin to her mouth. Of course she took a bite. The muffin dissolved on her tongue, each blueberry a tangy surprise. "Mmm," she couldn't help moaning, embarrassed at how sexual that sounded. "So good."
"The secret's sour cream," he said.
She took the buttered muffin from his hand and consumed another bite.
He watched her fondly, his chin resting on his palm.
"Really, you can't fuss like this," she said. As long as she was hungry, he could have his way with her with cooking.
"It's no more than I'd do for Lucky."
"Right." When was the last time he'd kissed a dog? Fighting the urge to gulp more muffin, she decided to clear the air. "Jake, about last night, I just want you to know…"
"It's fine. I understand. Look what I did." He stood and went to fling open the kitchen door. "Voila! Your new office."
She saw that the screens on the sunporch had been torn from the windows and lay in a tangled pile on the sandy porch floor. "My office?"
"Yeah. I got started on it last night."
"But now there's nothing to keep out the sand."
"I'll get the Plexiglas up, no sweat, and you'll have an office with a million-dollar view."
"I told you I can't afford anything extra." Her annoyance didn't keep her from wolfing down the other half of the muffin.
"My friends will do me a deal on the glass. And my labor—" he waggled his brow "—you and I can work out some kind of trade." He returned to sit across from her.
"What does that mean?" she said, the muffin turning to sawdust on her tongue. "What kind of trade?"
"Hard to say. Try the raspberries." He forked a few and aimed them at her mouth. "Maybe I need some business advice." If only his eyes didn't seem so honest, so open, so full of fun.
"You're not even in a business."
"Good point. But maybe someday I'll get the urge to get a j-o-b." He pretended to shudder.
"What's wrong with a job?"
"Takes too big a bite out of my day."
"Brother. Aren't you going to eat?"
"I already have. Finish up so we can go for a quick swim."
"No thanks." She wasn't climbing into the ocean with him again. Swimming and kissing were getting all mixed up in her mind. "Besides, you're not supposed to swim for forty-five minutes after eating."
"An exaggeration. Check the research. You're eating light."
"I need to get busy. And, on that subject, will your friend loan us that truck this morning? Soon?"
"I'll give him a call. Come swimming. This is your first day. The work will still be there when you're done swimming."
"And the swimming will still be there when I'm done working." The raspberries were so sweet. Then she moved on to the papaya and decided it was the best yet. Except for that muffin. She took another bite of that.
"Come on, Ariel. You're living on the beach. It's no accident that philosophers use the sea to put life's little problems in perspective. Water wearing away sharp edges, waves ebbing and flowing, the daily rhythm of the tide."
"The best way to put life's little problems in perspective is to tackle them head-on, not wait for waves to wash them out to sea."
He laughed and shook his head as if she was crazy.
"I didn't choose to live on the beach, you know. I was forced here."
"Maybe the beach chose you. Maybe that's why you're here."
Brother. Zen Master Beach Bum. Though something told her this laid-back, no-sweat attitude wasn't as natural to Jake as he made it seem. There was sharp intellect behind those smoky blue eyes. He was deliberately underachieving for some reason. She felt a stab of curiosity about the Jake who lived behind the Mr. Affable facade, but the less she thought about the man, the better.
"Trudy chose the beach, not me," she said. "And I'm here because she felt guilty."
"Guilty?" Jake asked.
She finished chewing, nodding her head all the while. "Yeah. We had the perfect plan to work together for two years until I was ready to go off on my own."
"Wh
at happened?"
"Trudy fell in love." She shook her head.
"And that's a bad thing?"
"In this case, the worst. Trudy stayed in London with the man she fell for and turned the remains of her business and this house over to me. It means starting up on my own, which I'm not ready for. As for love, I think it's always bad when the timing's wrong."
"You can't time love, Ariel."
Oh, yes I can. She looked up at him. "You're quite the philosopher. Have you ever been in love?"
"A few times."
"But you never got serious?"
"No."
"You will eventually, right?"
He shrugged.
"You're waiting for the timing to be right—my point exactly."
"I'm not putting it on my calendar," he said. "If it doesn't happen, so be it."
"Refusing to plan is planning."
"Now who's the philosopher? And what about you? You been in love?"
"Once," she said, though it was probably a mistake to confess this to Jake. "In college. But we were too young…" She'd completely lost her head, fallen head over heels for Grayson, a photojournalist ambitious for adventure. She'd become obsessed with him, made wild plans to put her degree on hold to travel the world with him on assignment. Then Grayson had come to his senses, realized they were rushing things, tying each other down, blah, blah, blah. It had hurt like hell, but it was like ice water splashed in the face of a hysterical person—the sharp shock of reality.
"And you don't want to get hurt like that again?" Jake said, breaking into her memory.
"Who says I got hurt?"
"Your eyes, I guess. Something sad in there."
The man was way too perceptive. Or she was too transparent. "I just came to my senses. It was an anomaly."
"An anomaly? So love's a statistical error? You fell for a guy. What's wrong with that?"
"Everything. For me, at that time." It had been a lesson in watching over her heart, guarding against the part of her that wanted to run and play, go with the moment, be impulsive. The part of her that came from her spontaneous father, not her sensible, practical mother.
"How about you?" she asked; moving on to the slices of mango—even better than the papaya. "Ever have your heart broken?" The pineapple wasn't bad either.
"Feelings change. Things run their course." But he looked guilty as hell.
"In other words, you've never been dumped." No surprise. She'd seen that barrier between him and poor Heather.
"I guess not."
"So you keep things light, right? Nothing exclusive and no long affairs? So the women never get the wrong idea?"
"You got me," he said, looking sheepish.
For some reason, she couldn't resist a jab. Maybe she'd been a little more hurt by Grayson than she wanted to admit. "Great sex, enjoy the moment, we only have today?"
"You're good," he said, but his loose smile had tightened.
"No, you're just obvious."
Hurt flickered across his face. She'd gone too far. "That was rude. I'm just upset over Trudy and her nutty love affair."
"No prob," he said, shrugging off the hurt the way Lucky shed sand. For a moment, she envied him that easy release of feelings. "And I'm sorry you lost your partner. That could throw anyone."
"Yeah. Thanks."
"You're doing it again."
"What?"
"Slicing and dicing your bottom lip," he said, watching her closely. That reminded her of the alternate lip activity he'd suggested last night in the ocean. Her face heated.
"You'll do fine without a partner," he said. "You have a determined glint in your eye."
She arched a brow at him. "I have a glint? Would you trust a consultant with a glint?" She was trying to joke, but it didn't come out sounding funny.
"I'd trust you," he said simply.
She smiled at him, grateful, even though he was completely full of it. An unusual intimacy had sprung up between them. They'd had a personal conversation about love and hurt and she was mystified about how it had happened, except it had something to do with a fresh-baked, hand-fed muffin. And Jake.
"Don't let me keep you from your swim," she said. "I need to get busy."
He zeroed in on her face. "Things will work out, Ariel."
"You make it sound easy."
"I didn't say it will be easy. I just said it will work out. Sure you won't swim with me?"
"Not this morning." Or ever.
"Then I'll take a run, I guess," he said. He was up from the table and out the kitchen door before she knew it. She found herself standing and trailing him until she stood on the messy sunporch and watched him through the empty window frames. "What about the truck?" she shouted to him.
He turned, jogging in place. "When I get back. No sweat!" he called, then ran off.
He looked so good running. He held himself high and tight, yet his joints stayed loose, and his hair bounced on his shoulders, glinting silver in the sun. Ariel's heart leaped, watching him, and she wanted to just run after him, her legs stretching, muscles pumping, too, the breeze in her face. But that was escapism. You didn't get anywhere running off to play any time you felt like it. There would be plenty of time for aerobic exercise once she got things under control.
Right now, she'd fire up the laptop and start making calls until Jake returned. Though she didn't have a minute to waste, she stood watching Jake get smaller in the distance. She made out a dog—Lucky—galloping up to him. Even from this distance she could hear the joy in his bark. Two women in bikinis approached. Jake ran in place while they talked, one of them touching his arm, standing very close.
They all knew Jake, she'd bet, the free-and-easy women on the beach. Didn't they have jobs? This was a weekday, for heaven's sake, and here they were, strolling in the sand.
Get busy, Ariel told herself sternly, taking a deep breath, bracing herself to dig in. She reentered the kitchen. What a mess. Did Jake have to splatter batter everywhere? She gritted her teeth and headed for her computer. She'd clean up when it was time for a break.
Listening to her laptop hum to life, she felt her heart kick up. So much depended on how this went. Soliciting clients was Trudy's area of expertise. Once Ariel started working with a client, she was gold. But this part—convincing them they needed her—this was intimidating. Push through, she told herself. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Cheap advice from a self-help book, but any port in a storm.
She opened Trudy's business-leads software and read over the list, studying the notes Trudy had included with each entry. Armbruster Restaurant Management. Neil Armbruster, owner. Entrepreneur's Conference, 3/02. Wants more unity among staff Consider offering training, working up a mission statement.
Ariel could do that. Easy. She thought about Wendy's Cookies, the mail-order cookie manufacturer she'd helped transform from a small retail shop to a corporate sales concern. She'd helped Wendy create a virtual army of single-minded baker/marketers among her small staff.
She smiled, remembering the reception in the newly opened corporate sales office. You really understood us, Wendy had said to Ariel. You did what we needed, not some cookie cutter model. They laughed at the pun, but that was Ariel's strength—and why Trudy had wanted her as a partner—her ability to see each client with fresh eyes, to customize her services to suit them.
She'd do that for Neil Armbruster. Armbruster would be first. A for Adams and Armbruster. Ariel picked up the phone and pushed in the numbers, her mind racing. Be confident and enthusiastic, remember what you have to offer. Dizzy, she paused before the last number.
Calm down. You're good. Just get in the door. Maybe a visualization would help.
She hung up and leaned back in her chair to think about her goal—an office in Thousand Oaks, near where she would live eventually. Something with a view, but not too expensive. A reception area, small kitchen. A large window office for her, a smaller one for her associate and access to a conference room for her seminars. She would get there. I
t was just a matter of time and hard work. And it all started with this first call.
Go time. Ariel clicked the digits and with one efficient receptionist transfer, she had Armbruster on the line.
"Ariel Adams, Business Advantage. Is this a good time?"
"I've got a moment," he said, but someone was talking to him in the background.
"I believe you met my former partner at a conference a while back. Trudy Walters?"
"Walters…? I remember her. Sure. Strategic planning, something like that."
"Exactly. We—I mean, I—specialize in customized planning. I believe Trudy was talking to you about your staff … some issues about training and unity? I know she didn't have a chance to get back to you, so I'm doing that now. I'm hoping we can get together to talk about how I might assist you as you address these issues."
"I don't know, Amy. This is a busy time for us." He muttered something to the person with him.
"Which makes it even more important to have you and your staff on the same page, working together. It's Ariel, by the way. My name. Anyway, our philosophy at Business Advantage is 'go slow to go fast,' meaning that time invested in planning up front makes the decision-making and action stages go more smoothly. Rush the planning and you lose money, good employees and customer loyalty. I—"
"I'm sure you're right, Adrienne."
"Ariel."
"Right. We're managing fine for now. Thanks for calling. Maybe send me a card and I'll keep you in mind."
"If I could just meet you for lunch, take a few notes, maybe I could sketch out a brief proposal at no charge, just so you can see the advantage of my approach. That's why we named our company Business Advantage, actually, because of the advantage we offer our clients."
"Very nice. I think I'll pass right now."
"I understand. I will send you a packet, though, so look it over and I'll give you a call in, say, a month? Remember we fit any budget."
