Where Dreams Are Written

by M. L. Buchman

“I’m okay. Sorry,” he forced himself upright. “I’m fine.”

  “Oui,” she went back to her French accent hoping to elicit a small smile, but it didn’t work. “You look as fine as Caesar the day his best friend stabbed him.”

  “No!” he faced her. “It’s not like that! She—”

  “Shhh…” she brushed a hand down his smooth cheek. He was trying so hard to be fair and brave no matter how it tore him up inside.

  “Shhh,” she stopped his next protest with her fingertips on his lips.

  Quite how she came to be kissing him she would never be sure, no matter how often she thought about it. It was definitely her action to replace her fingertips with her lips, not his. And it hadn’t really lasted all that long. Not really. Just long enough for Joshua to return the kiss. Just long enough for her to moan briefly as their bodies slid together like a custom fit.

  She took a half step back.

  Joshua didn’t move to follow.

  But when she went to step back farther, he reached out to stop her; just resting his fingertips on her arm, but it was enough.

  “Just give me a moment.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  Joshua swallowed hard, then blinked. “First, let me say thank you.”

  “And second?” There was a softness there she didn’t often allow into her own voice, but she really wanted to know what was second.

  “Well, we can never do that again.”

  “What?” That was about the last reaction she’d expected. What was it with the world that everyone was suddenly rejecting her? Why were—

  “Wait! Stop!”

  “Stop what?” She looked down at herself. She hadn’t moved an inch. They still stood close enough for her to feel the heat from his body, his fingers resting so lightly on her forearm still kept her in place as if glued. Close enough to see the obvious reaction his body was having to hers. “I haven’t moved.”

  “No, but your brain just went somewhere nasty. Here,” Joshua turned down the burner under the soup and tossed a cover on the pot with an overloud clatter that made them both wince. Then he took her hand and, leading her over to the dining table, guided her into one of the chairs. Not releasing her hand, he sat in the next one after turning it to face hers.

  She liked the way his hands felt. Clean, muscular. Not callused, but someone used to using his hands. He didn’t crush his grip down on hers. It was the lightness of his touch that held her in place far more surely than his grasp.

  “Okay,” his voice was deep, husky, one she could easily melt into under different circumstances. “First—”

  “You do like your lists, don’t you?”

  “I do. First, a kiss like that could kill a man. Way more dangerous than a Taser. You know that, right?”

  She could only shake her head. He wasn’t what she expected from even one sentence to the next.

  “Well, it can. Damn, Melanie, that was amazing. But second, there is no way you want to waste that kind of amazing on me no matter how much I enjoyed it.”

  “Why not?” The man wove words around her in circles more neatly than Donatella wrapped the latest Versace fashion.

  “Remember the part where I’m a mess?”

  “And I’m not?”

  That rocked him back in his chair. He let go of her hand, more let it slip from his grasp than actually let go. She missed the contact.

  He rubbed at his eyes for a moment. “Sorry. Wow. Told you I was a mess. You hit me with a kiss like that and you expect me to remember that you aren’t some fashion goddess for whom everything is perfect.”

  Perfect. She was so many kinds of not perfect. She was sick of men thinking that because she was “oh so stunning” and had a successful career, that somehow made everything automatically okay.

  Then he slid down a little in his chair, crossing his feet under the table—rather than outside her chair as if to cage her in—and catching his thumbs in his jeans pockets with just that exact amount of casual that men made look so easy and natural. He might be a mess, but he was a damned handsome one. He assessed her with those dark eyes. She’d worked with too many intense designers and photographers to fidget, but it was the first time in a long time she’d wanted to.

  “You’re in Seattle. In a borrowed condo. What is the world’s best model doing hiding out in Seattle?”

  “I’m not hiding. And I’m not the best.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he dismissed her second statement so lightly. “Yet still, you’re here.”

  “Okay,” she had to admit, “maybe it looks like I’m hiding, but I’m not.” Then why was she sounding so defensive? “I’m helping Perrin.”

  She could see that he wasn’t buying it. She could prove it, even if it wasn’t technically true. Reaching into her handbag, Melanie pulled out her newly-purchased journal and dropped it into his lap, forcing him to stop looking so damn comfortable with himself in order to keep it from falling to the floor.

  She went to the bath off her bedroom to let him look through her ideas. The first step away, she regretted exposing herself to him that way, but couldn’t very well take it back. She had to get some space, and rinse the city off her skin with cool water. Instead, she stood staring at herself in the mirror and tried to see how he saw what he did. Melanie looked at her reflection, and only saw herself.

  That was the problem.

  Joshua saw the same woman she did.

  Josh flipped through the two dozen pages covered in Melanie’s sloppy cursive and some sketched charts that he’d have to ask her about, though two of them might have been a workload analysis. Then he went back to the first page and began reading.

  Analysis of Perrin’s Glorious Garb business structure and present standing in cash and orders. It was bigger than he thought, though some of the numbers were really wonky. He noticed that Melanie had returned from her bedroom and stood in her doorway looking at him still seated at the dining table studying her work.

  “Did she really only have a manager and a shop clerk and herself until yesterday?”

  “Day before, I helped her interview and hire two seamstresses.”

  “I don’t know fashion, but she looks really understaffed.”

  “She was. Still is,” Melanie admitted.

  He continued reading. Growth curves, analyses… “What’s a mob show? Is that like a runway event for the mafia or something?”

  “A runway show can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to stage. She doesn’t have the cash for that and won’t anytime soon. A mob show is hiring and dressing the models, but turning it into an informal show at the entrance of a major runway show. It gets attention, perhaps decent press if it’s good—and it goes without saying that hers would be good—it can be almost as effective at a tenth the cost.”

  He looked at the timeline sketched out, “but not for six months?”

  “You have to build a capacity so that you can address success when it occurs. To have a hit show and then not be able to deliver subsequent orders to customers…”

  She trailed off at his nod.

  “What?” She looked surprised that he understood.

  “I was just thinking of some restaurants I reviewed. The chefs were masterful. And in the early days, I’d review them. Then they collapsed beneath their own inability to perform and maintain standards after the notoriety packed their establishment. It was pretty sad actually.” He tried shifting in his seat, but couldn’t find a comfortable position. Those first failures had been so horrid.

  “I took more care later in my career, starting reading their financials and inspecting their kitchens before I’d write them up. I used to hurt for some of these poor guys, they finally land a visit by the Senior Editor of Gourmet Week, me, and cook their hearts out. What does he do? He sits them down and tries to explain why he won’t write a review until they get their shit together. Not a pretty sight. I may have made Angelo cry back in the beginning.”

  Melanie moved into the room, slowly coming
from the doorway back to the table. The sway of her hips, the smooth slide of long hair onto her shoulder, the way she looked at him…

  And then all she did was sit back in the chair she’d occupied only minutes before. Something had changed, but he’d be damned if he knew what. He dug around in his head for what he’d just been talking about.

  Soup?

  No. He needed to check on it, but that wasn’t it.

  How they were both a mess?

  She hadn’t answered that; which was a lady’s prerogative.

  Perrin’s Glorious Garb. Right. He tapped the pages filled with Melanie’s writing.

  “I can see this working, but do you think she can pull it off?”

  Melanie didn’t play coy or pretend; she simply shook her head.

  He liked that clarity and honesty. He flipped through the pages once more, “There’s got to be a way. This is solid. You did a really great job here.”

  He failed to notice the casual brush of fingertips that Melanie used to wipe away the tear sliding along her cheek.

  “So, what are you writing?” Melanie had to talk about something to stop herself from getting a second bowl of the minestrone. It was beyond delicious.

  “Crap. That’s what I’m writing, drivel and crap. I didn’t really expect anything else at the outset, so I’m not really upset.” Joshua mopped up the remains of his second bowl with his roll. “I wish it wasn’t quite such forced, amateurship, totally lame crap though.”

  “Tell me about it.” Somewhere along the way the Ice Queen hadn’t quite shattered, but she’d certainly been star-cracked. Actually, she knew the exact moment. It was when Joshua had read her notes and said they were “solid.” She knew he was one of the most respected writers and business analysts in his field. She’d learned a lot about how to manage her own career from reading the business column he put in each issue of Gourmet Week: “Basting the Business.”

  Why did one outside validation from such a near total stranger mean so much more than the evidence of her banking and investment accounts? She didn’t know why, but it did.

  “I always thought a foodie mystery would be fun. Murder and food. There are so many great weapons: knives, poisons, gases, walk-in freezers… It just seemed like a fun idea. I’ve been thinking about it for years.” He took up his third ciabatta roll and, finding nothing more to mop up, simply began eating it.

  “But…” Breaking down, she took the last piece of her first roll to wipe her own bowl.

  “But,” Joshua shrugged. “I never thought about what plot I would write, who I would kill and who might be the murderer. So, I’m starting out pretty cold. An article I can fake.

  “Because you’ve written four or five columns a week for the last decade,” she cut him off.

  “Okay, granted. I’ve had some practice so I know how to do that. Can’t fake a novel. That’s real writing.”

  “What if it wasn’t?”

  “Huh?”

  She rested her chin on her fist, elbow on the table. It placed her a bit closer to him than she’d anticipated, but neither did she want to draw away.

  “Well,” she began, “I’ve watched designers become completely snarled when trying to create a ‘showstopper’—a truly breakthrough dress. Perrin does it right. She surrounds herself with dozens of sketches and specific fabrics. I think that’s part of the reason she has so much success. She keeps the results unimportant until it’s done. She just plays.”

  “Unimportant?”

  Melanie so enjoyed watching him thinking. Every expression was right on the surface.

  “You mean just start writing and let it go where it goes?”

  “Absolument! If the words aren’t so precious, if the stakes were lower, wouldn’t it be easier to write?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, “How are you so smart?”

  She could only sit back and blink at him.

  “No, don’t stop now. You’re on a roll.”

  Melanie went and dished up one more ladle of the soup, more to buy herself a little space for the new emotions running through her. He had cooked her dinner, but there was no quid pro quo that she could sense, he’d been generous and she’d accepted. She checked her internal tally sheet and still found no entry on it except gratitude. Joshua was gaining a presence in her thoughts in just an evening’s time. That was disconcerting.

  Returning to the table, she casually nudged her chair a few inches farther away. She needed the extra distance from this man if she had any hope of keeping her shields intact.

  The extra few inches didn’t feel nearly far enough.

  “No! No! No!” Melanie waved her licked-clean soup spoon at him.

  Josh fooled around in the kitchen cutting up a pear and some cheese for dessert.

  “You start with a bang. Here, I will show you.” She dug into her big purse and unearthed five novels.

  “What else is in there?”

  “Shut up and listen.” And she began reading. It wasn’t some sotto voice recitation. She read the first half dozen paragraphs of each book, giving a voice and drama to the writing. By the second one she was on her feet, by the third, she began acting out the speeches. By the fourth he’d forgotten about dessert and at the last one he was mesmerized.

  Each book opened with a punch. Some character in trouble. The trouble varied. The military romantic suspense had conflict with a new commander, the mysteries with a dead body, the thriller with a car chase, and the humor book with a hilarious situation that Melanie refused to read past the first few lines.

  “Non! What is de la plus grande importance isn’t what they are saying. It is the punch with which they open. The first scene, the first dress in the runway show—POW!” She actually came up to him and slapped her palm against his forehead. “That is what makes the audience excited about the show, that first kick says ‘just you wait.’ The one at the end of the show is the showstopper, but the beginning, that is the powerful one.”

  Josh still didn’t have the least inkling of where to start his book. But watching Melanie stride back and forth in her excitement, he definitely understood that a powerful woman had to be at the heart of the story. Because, Damn!, he had the perfect model for that character right in front of him.

  Chapter 5

  Josh woke at his usual five a.m. Apparently being on the West Coast simply wasn’t working its way into his biorhythms. He showered, and slipped out of the condo. He exchanged a wave with the now-familiar shelter cook going in the back door just as Josh passed. The bit of routine helped ground him in the quiet city, it made him feel a little more as if he belonged.

  Which was a welcome change, because nothing about last night fit into any sort of a coherent reality. Normal guys didn’t spend a long quiet evening chatting with a supermodel. For the life of him, he couldn’t recall what they’d talked about.

  Maybe his nervous system was still in overwhelm.

  He’d headed up the ten blocks of the First Avenue grade and tried to get his brain working again. Every time he did, he simply thought of Melanie.

  That was it. Just Melanie.

  The words had been fun. She was intelligent, well-read, and had a dry sense of humor that he tripped over every time.

  Her laugh. He loved her laugh.

  It had lit the condo, made it warm, filled it with life.

  They’d—he could do this if he focused—talked about favorite books through a dessert of tea and crisp slices of New Zealand pears. Okay, he’d recovered that much. Oh, and powerful characters. Didn’t the woman use a mirror and see herself clearly? She held herself under such tight and careful control with apparently no idea of how truly formidable she was.

  He watched the ferry once again leaving the Seattle waterfront under the brightening sky. Right! Travel. They’d gone on to talk favorite destinations: he and Constance had vacationed in several spots that had been promoted in the backgrounds of Melanie’s photo shoots. Melanie had eaten in any number of the restaurants that he’d reviewed. T
hey were forming a nice little mutual admiration society. J&M Mutual Admiration Society. She’d suggested they needed a logo and t-shirts.

  Melanie had tried to insist on cleaning the dishes, but he hadn’t thought to buy rubber gloves and he wasn’t letting her risk her hands.

  “I’m not frail,” she’d protested.

  “But I know that my fingers are not worth a gazillion dollars an hour. Go on, tell me what your hands are insured for by Lloyd’s of London.”

  He’d meant it as a joke, but when she quoted a number in the mid-seven figures he’d responded, “I am so throwing you off the clean-up detail.”

  And her bright laugh had wrapped around him in thanks.

  Like Odysseus, he followed the siren call of coffee through the warm spring darkness still hovering over the silence about Pike Place Market. Mama Maria would assuredly have coffee and a cornetto ready and waiting.

  Melanie had reacted strangely to him, which shouldn’t surprise him, as she was running his own emotions through the blender—on the Utterly Destroy setting. She’d smile at him and his pulse would rocket upward. She’d look grateful for being let off the hook of washing dishes barehanded and he’d felt…strong? Chivalrous? Something.

  Once he’d thought about it, it made perfect sense how smart she was. Even if it was unexpected at first. Careers like hers didn’t happen by accident. No matter how delectable the food was, the restaurant failed if not properly run. When he learned that she was her own manager and agent and negotiated her own contracts, he knew he was in the presence of greatness.

  He arrived at the back door of Angelo’s faster than expected. Again it was open to the soft morning. Maria, in a pale blue dress and floral apron worked once again beneath the lone light in the darkness.

  “What are you making today, Maria? It smells heavenly.” He reached for a cornetto but she slapped his knuckles with a long wooden spoon so fast that he never saw it coming. He sucked on his knuckles; they really stung.

  “What?” she turned to face him. “Is that the proper way to greet a woman? I expect at least a hug and a kiss upon the cheek before you steal any of my breakfast.”