Victoria Pade - From Boss to Bridegroom p.02

Sadie seemed to pick up on the tension between Lucy and Rand but she kept up a good front. “I’ve opened a bottle of wine. Will you have a glass?” she asked Rand then. “Dinner is just about ready.”

“I think a glass of wine might be a good idea. Maybe it’ll have a calming effect,” he said pointedly, still letting his gaze bore into Lucy with the heat of ten lasers.

She drew herself up, pulling back her shoulders, straightening her spine, holding her head high. Just as Rand had his own life that was none of her business, her life was none of his. And she was not going to cower or sulk or try to deny the fact that yes, she did have a son. A son she loved to death. A son she was proud of.

“Go wash your hands for dinner, Max,” Lucy told the little boy gently, meeting Rand’s stormy eyes with a defiant gaze of her own to let him know he could take this turn of events or leave them, that she couldn’t care less.

Sadie poured Rand a glass of wine, making small talk that he responded to while still staring daggers at Lucy.

Then Max returned from the bathroom, slipped his hand into Rand’s as if it were something he’d done a million times before, and said, “Come on. I’ll show you where to sit. You can be by me.”

“Thank you,” Rand said to both Max and Sadie at once as he accepted the wineglass with his free hand before letting the child take him into the dining room.

He earned points with Lucy for not rejecting the handholding or the invitation to sit with her son, no matter how mad he might be at her.

The moment Max and Rand were out of earshot Sadie sidled up next to Lucy and whispered, “He didn’t know about Max?”

“It was an underlying condition of the job that I not be a single mother. He said he was sick of dealing with them and all the complications that came with them. He said having kids interfered with work. He assumed I didn’t have any and I didn’t inform him otherwise.”

“Oh, dear.”

“It’s okay. As long as he’s nice to Max tonight, he can do what he wants about me tomorrow,” Lucy assured her aunt, casting a glance in the direction of the dining room where she could hear her son regaling her boss with his career plans.

Rand was nice to Max, though. All evening. More than nice, he was actually good with the little boy who had been stricken by a sudden case of hero worship and seemed to have made it his goal to charm the object of it.

For her part, Lucy let her son have free rein. Ordinarily she would have attempted to keep him in check so he didn’t monopolize an adult evening, but tonight she didn’t. Tonight she wanted Rand to see that she doted on Max, that she wasn’t ashamed of him in any way.

As a result, Max was the entertainment of the evening. He told his dinosaur stories and demonstrated dinosaurs stalking other dinosaurs. He did his full repertoire of knock-knock jokes and then he sang “Blue Suede Shoes”—complete with hip-wiggling gyrations, air guitar, and a curled lip at the end.

For his part, Rand didn’t seem to mind. In fact he held up his own side of the conversation with Max, posing questions as if the little boy were the resident expert—which he actually was.

Rand told a few of his own knock-knock jokes, surprising both Lucy and Sadie that he knew them, and laughed and clapped as heartily as Lucy and Sadie at the end of “Blue Suede Shoes.”

It was all a relief to Lucy because no matter how angry Rand was at her—and it was still clear she was in trouble with him—at least he didn’t take it out on her son.

By eight o’clock Max was getting overtired and slap-happy so Lucy announced that it was time to go home.

After a few protests, Max went to stand directly in front of Rand and held out his right hand for Rand to shake.

“It was nice to meet you,” the little boy said like a seasoned businessman.

Rand accepted Max’s hand with the same decorum. “It was nice to meet you, too.”

Max beamed as if he’d been granted the best compliment in the world and then ran to where his mother waited for him at the front door.

But Lucy couldn’t go without posing the first question she’d aimed directly at Rand all evening. “Should I come to work tomorrow?” she asked with a high note of challenge in her tone.

“The car will be here at seven-thirty,” he answered, but dourly enough to leave Lucy wondering if he just wanted to berate her in his office before he fired her.

“Seven-thirty,” she repeated.

Then she thanked Sadie for dinner, urged Max to do the same and left.

But if she thought her stress for the evening was over when she stepped out into the cold night air to cross the few feet of sidewalk to her own town house next door, she was mistaken.

Because an hour later, just as she was coming down the stairs from reading Max to sleep and tucking him in, there was a sharp knock on her front door that she somehow knew didn’t bode well.

She took a deep breath and decided if Rand had changed his mind and decided to fire her tonight instead of tomorrow she’d just as soon get it over with.

So, with her shoulders once again squared, she crossed the small entryway at the foot of the stairs and opened the door.

Sure enough, Rand was outside, leaning one shoulder against the jamb as if she’d kept him waiting, his arms crossed over his expansive chest.

She hadn’t taken notice of what he had on before, but she did now. Tan slacks, navy blue blazer, navy blue V-neck sweater over a cream-colored shirt with the collar button left open. As good as he looked in his expensive suits, he looked even better in the more casual attire.

Except that his handsome face was still a thunder-cloud.

“Change of plans?” she asked, not bothering with a greeting.

“Just thought I’d stop by before I went home and find out why you lied to me,” he answered, his voice even deeper than usual and so low there was no chance of it waking Max. So low it was even more ominous than had he been shouting.

But even though he wasn’t likely to wake the neighborhood, she still didn’t want to do this on the front stoop so she stepped aside and formally invited him in.

When he was inside she closed the door and led the way into the living room to the left of the foyer. It was the one portion of the house that had no boxes left to be unpacked and the furniture positioned where it would stay.

Lucy went to the bean-pot lamp on the antique oak end table beside her overstuffed plaid sofa and turned it on.

“Would you like to sit?” she asked.

But when she turned to see where Rand had landed she found him the same way he’d been outside—leaning a shoulder against the archway between the entry and the living room, his arms once again over his chest, his weight slung on one hip and his expression an expectant, direly solemn mask as he waited for an answer to his question.

So Lucy cut to the chase.

“I didn’t lie to you,” she said, taking her own stand behind the overstuffed chair that matched the sofa. “I just didn’t tell you about Max. As long as my being his mother doesn’t interfere with the job you’re paying me to do, he’s none of your business. And since I haven’t heard any complaints, I assume my having a child hasn’t caused a problem, has it?”

Rand ignored the challenge in her tone. In fact, he seemed to ignore what she’d said. “I don’t like being lied to.”

“No one does. But you left it up to me, and I just opted to leave out the fact that I’m a parent.”

“Omission is still a lie in my book.”

“Well, in my book it’s an omission. And had you not come to dinner tonight, you would never have known there’d been one because I don’t let Max interfere with my work. As you’ve seen for yourself.”

“I need you later than five in the evening and you won’t stay so you can get home to him. What do you call that?”

“I call it a nine-hour workday if it starts at seven-thirty and I only take half an hour for lunch. I think that’s sufficient.”

“Not if I need you longer.”

Why had that sounded more personal than professional? Maybe she was just imagining it.

“I’m not your permanent secretary, remember? I’m just the fill-in. You can stipulate whatever you like when you hire someone else, but with me this is the way things are. If you want me to continue working for you until you find someone else, fine. If not, I’m sure you know the number for the temp agency. They can send you someone else first thing tomorrow.”

Their eyes were locked together.

Lucy could tell he was tempted to say that calling the temp agency was just what he would do, that he no longer needed her services. And she was surprised by how much she didn’t want that to be the case. By how bad it made her feel to think he might walk out in the next few minutes and she’d never see him again.

But regardless of how she felt, she stood her ground. She wouldn’t sacrifice time with Max to please Rand, to go on working with him, to go on seeing him.

Rand pushed off the archway then, finally coming into the room. He sat on the Bentley rocker that faced the overstuffed chair Lucy’s fingertips were digging into the back of.

“You know damn well you’re too good for me to give up before I have to,” he conceded. Then he glanced around the room. “Are you hiding anything else I should know about?”

“You didn’t need to know about this.”

“I thought maybe you were rushing home to a boyfriend.”

She wondered if that possibility had bothered him the way she’d been bothered by the evidence of the women in his life, but the only thing she gave him in response was a raised eyebrow.

It made him smile. Just slightly. A secret, satisfied sort of smile that left her thinking he enjoyed the fact that she was still keeping him guessing.

But he didn’t pursue it. Instead he let the subject slide and said, “Now that I do know about Max—even if I don’t know anything else about your life,” he added facetiously, “what if when I need you to work later than five we do it here?”

“Here?” she repeated dimly.

“It wouldn’t be every night. But tonight, for instance, after being away from the office all day, I could have used you. As it is, we’ll have to spend tomorrow morning doing the finish-up work for today, which will give us a late start on tomorrow’s work. But I don’t live far from here. I’d be willing to continue things out of the office just to get them done.”

Again she heard some sort of double entendre in his words but she once more decided it was only in her mind.

“I like my evenings with Max,” she said, trying to push away the sense that more was going on here than business.

“You’d be with Max. And so would I, for that matter. Unless I’m mistaken he liked me well enough. Between the two of us we could make sure he’s not neglected but still get some work done.”

Lucy had no doubt her son would like that arrangement. Max hadn’t talked about anything but Rand the whole time she’d been getting him ready for bed.

“There would have to be an understanding that when we’re on my turf, Max comes first. You’d have to be patient with interruptions.”

“Fair enough.”

Lucy was amazed at the change in his mood. Gone, suddenly, was the anger she’d been bathed in all evening, replaced by a coolheaded negotiator. No wonder the man was good at his job. He could be an intimidator one minute and an arbitrator the next.

“So do we have a deal?” he asked amiably.

“I guess so. But there’s one other thing you’d better know. I did not appreciate being sent to run your errands today. I’m not your personal maid, valet or social secretary. Find someone else to pick up your dry cleaning, do your banking and send flowers to your girlfriends.”

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow at her. “Sadie always took care of everything.”

“I’m not Sadie.”

He sized her up again, clearly debating whether to push this issue.

But once more Lucy stood her ground, not wavering beneath his scrutiny.

Then he took a deep breath, sighed it out and said, “All right. You drive a hard bargain.”

“I’m worth it.”

That made him laugh again, as if he were genuinely enjoying this.

“So if everything is settled, do you want to do some work now, while you’re here?” she offered.

He shook his head as if that were the last thing on his mind. “I didn’t bring anything with me or I’d say yes. But we may need to work tomorrow night to make up.”

Making up was what it seemed like they were doing now. From a lover’s quarrel.

But of course that was crazy.

Rand glanced around again. “You’re renting this place from Sadie?” he said then, making yet another quick change into interested guest.

“We have an arrangement, yes.”

“And she owns the other two in this section of row houses, unless I’m mistaken, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Good investment.”

“Yes,” Lucy answered yet again, trying to regroup and not being as fast at it as he was.

Putting some effort into it, though, she said, “Would you like something to drink?”

“No thanks.”

Lucy finally rounded the chair and sat down just as Rand said, “Where is Max’s father?”

That tightened every muscle in her body again. “He’s out of the picture,” she said curtly.

Rand reared back as if she’d struck out at him. “Sore subject and you don’t want to talk about it,” he guessed.

“There’s nothing to talk about. He’s out of the picture,” she repeated firmly.

“Max is quite a kid.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Have you had his IQ tested? I’ve never met another kid as sharp as he is.”

She shook her head. “I know he’s bright, but I just figured it would be dealt with when he gets into school.”

“I can tell you’ve given him a lot of time and attention. It shows.”

“I try to.”

“That’s why you want to get into only freelance work, isn’t it? So you can be with him.”

“That’s the plan.”

“What about when he goes to school all day? Will you go back into office work then?”

“No. I’ll use the hours he’s in school to work at home and try to finish before he gets out in the afternoons.”

Rand’s smile this time was sheepish. “Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said, apparently having been fishing for a way to get her permanently onboard.

Lucy couldn’t help cracking a smile of her own finally. It was flattering that he was so pleased with the job she’d done for him but there was also a part of her that hoped there was more to it than that. A part of her that she tamped down on before it got out of hand by thinking: Deidre, Bunny and Veronica…

“We flustered poor Sadie tonight,” he informed her then, finding it amusing. “It was the first time in all the years I’ve known her that I’ve seen that. I thought she was unflappable.”

“She usually is.”

“I take it you didn’t let her know you’d kept me in the dark about Max?”

“I wasn’t proud of it. He’s not something I hide in the closet.”

Rand pointed a long, accusing index finger at her, narrowed his eyes and said victoriously, “Hiding him in the closet—that means you were lying not omitting.”

“Semantics,” she countered, unwilling to concede the point.

It only made Rand laugh. “I know where Max gets his brains but I hope he’s not as stubborn as you are.”

“I beg your pardon,” Lucy said, pretending to take offense but laughing along with him just the same.

What was left of the tension between them seemed diffused and for a moment they sat there looking at each other the way two equally matched contenders might.

But then Rand stood. “I better let you get some sleep. I’m working your tail off tomorrow.”

“Will you be in the office or out all day again like today?” she asked as they both headed for the front door again. She hated that it was so important to her that he’d say he was going to be in the office. Hated that the day without him there today had seemed so empty.

“I have a few court appearances in the afternoon but we can work in the car on the way into town and through the morning. Then again tomorrow night—don’t forget that,” he said. But the way he said it sounded more like he was reminding her of a date and this time Lucy didn’t think she was just imagining it. There was definitely a more personal tone in his voice.

“I hadn’t forgotten,” she answered him, hearing the same sort of note in her own tone, although it hadn’t been intentional.

Rand reached for the door handle when they arrived in the entryway and turned it but he didn’t open the door. Instead he stood there looking down at her for a moment with eyes so warm they heated her to the core.

“I hope you know I don’t put up with this much from anyone else,” he said, his voice teasing but intimate, too. An intimacy that was very intoxicating.

“I hope you know I don’t put up with this much from anyone either,” she answered the same way.

Again he smiled and chuckled just a little, as if she never said what he expected her to.

And tonight when thoughts of him kissing her sprang to life in her mind, Lucy couldn’t believe they were only in her mind. Not when his eyelids dropped slightly to aim his gaze at her lips. Not when he actually leaned forward just a bit. Not when he reached out and took her arm in a strong hand that set off lightning bolts in her bloodstream…

But in the end he only gave her arm an affectionate, playful squeeze and said, “No more omissions, okay? Be straight with me.”

Lucy only agreed with yet another raise of her chin.

Or maybe she raised her chin in response to the lingering idea that he might kiss her after all. In response to the lingering wish that he would.

But he didn’t.

He merely said, “See you in the morning.” Then he opened the door and left.

Lucy rested against the door after he’d closed it, telling herself it was a good thing he hadn’t kissed her, that it would have been totally inappropriate.

But deep down she couldn’t ignore the disappointment.

Four

When Rand’s phone rang at seven the next morning he was already showered, shaved and dressed for the day. He was just putting papers in his briefcase and trying to concentrate on the work he had ahead of him.

Trying but not succeeding.

His thoughts were really on Lucy.

He always screened his calls and while he waited for the phone to ring four times and the message to play, he felt a tight clench in his stomach at the thought that Lucy might be his caller. That after the end of the last evening she’d realized he had almost kissed her and now that she’d thought about it, about how out of line that would have been, she would let him know she didn’t think it was a good idea for her to continue working with him.

It would serve him right, he told himself. What the hell had been going through his mind? She was his secretary. And she was a single mother on top of it. He didn’t mix business with pleasure. Ever. And he certainly didn’t have time for the complications of a woman with a child.

It was just that there they’d both been, standing at her door after sharing a conversation that had left him feeling as if they’d been on a date. She’d looked so soft, so alluring, so fantastic. And he’d been so tempted….

But after the fourth ring and the message, it wasn’t Lucy’s voice that came through his answering machine.

It was the voice of his adopted sister, Emily Blair Colton.

Shock froze Rand for a split second before he lunged for the phone as if it were a lifeline. Which it might very well have been, since Emily had been kidnapped out of her house in late September.

“Emily?” Rand nearly shouted into the receiver. “Is that you?”

“Hi,” the young woman said tentatively.

“Are you all right? Where are you?”

“I’m okay,” she answered, sounding it. “I know everyone believes I was kidnapped but I wasn’t.”

That shocked Rand as much as hearing her voice had. “What do you mean? What’s going on, Em?”

“Rand, somebody tried to kill me,” she said as if the information had been building and building inside her and just had to come out. “The night I left. A man was right there in my bedroom. I barely got away and when I did, well, I knew I’d only be safe away from the ranch. Away from that woman who claims to be your mother,” Emily finished in a derisive tone.

“Oh, Emily,” Rand sighed, beginning to relax.

He knew what his sister was referring to. Since the car accident she and their mother had been in when Emily was eleven, Emily had never stopped insisting that their mother was not the same person. Just after the accident she’d sworn there had been “two mommies” at the scene—a “bad mommy” and a “good mommy,” that the “bad mommy” was who had come home with her afterward. It was a claim she’d never wavered from, a nightmare Rand knew she was still plagued by.

“Where are you, Em?” he asked patiently.

“I don’t want to tell you. But I’m okay. I’ve been in contact with Liza—”

“Liza knows where you are and that you weren’t kidnapped?”

Liza Colton was Rand’s cousin and another child his parents had basically raised, having spent more time at his house than her own. She and Emily had always been close.

“I had to get hold of Liza right after it happened,” Emily explained. “She believes that woman is an imposter just the way I do, and I was afraid that put her in the same kind of danger I was in. That that woman would want Liza dead, too, so there wouldn’t be anyone left to question who she is. I had to warn her.”

“Is Liza okay?”

“Yeah. But she’s been telling me to call you, and I finally decided she was right. She said if anyone would help us prove that woman isn’t who she says she is it would be you.”

Emily’s voice echoed with such confidence in him that Rand didn’t have the heart to let her know he didn’t believe the woman he knew as his mother was an imposter.

“Tell me where you are, Emily,” he said then.

“I won’t tell you exactly where I am but I will tell you what state I’m in if you promise you won’t tell anyone else. I’m even worried that woman might have bugged your phone, figuring I’d call you sooner or later. And if she finds out exactly where I am, she could send that man to try to kill me again.”

Promising not to tell anyone where Emily was was tough. He knew his father was out of his mind with worry over her. Rand himself had spent more sleepless nights than he could count since her disappearance, imagining the worst.

But he also knew that if he didn’t make the promise to Emily she was likely to hang up without going any further and be lost again. He didn’t want that.

“I promise,” he said, albeit reluctantly.

“I hitched a ride with a truck driver,” she confessed. Then, before Rand could comment on the perils in that, she added, “I know, it was a dangerous, crazy thing to do. But I didn’t have a choice. I had to get away. And I figured if I was in danger in my own house, how much more danger could I be in hitchhiking? Besides, the man who picked me up was nice. Wonderful, in fact. He gave me the lecture himself about not doing what I was doing. Then he said he was going to Wyoming. Wyoming, Rand. Where Dad grew up. It seemed like a sign that someone was watching over me.”

Rand closed his eyes against the thoughts of how naive this reasoning was. But now wasn’t the time to get into that.

“Just tell me you’re all right,” he reiterated.

“I am. I’m fine. But will you help us?”

“You mean help you and Liza prove there’s an imposter mother at the ranch?”

“Yes. Will you do it?”

“I don’t doubt that someone tried to hurt you, Em. But what makes you think it wasn’t an attack by a random someone who broke into the house to kidnap you?”

“I just know, that’s all, Rand. I know. And he wasn’t there to kidnap me, he was there to kill me,” she insisted. “Me. Because I know that woman isn’t who she wants everyone to think she is.”

“There was a ransom note.”

“I don’t care. I know this wasn’t an attempted kidnapping. I know that that woman who has everyone thinking she’s Mom is evil, Rand. Please believe me and help prove she isn’t who she says she is.”

Rand heard the desperation in Emily’s voice and it wasn’t something he could ignore, even if he couldn’t buy into Emily’s imposter theory. But how could he convince Emily unless he agreed to do what he could to check out his own mother?

Besides, if he did as Emily asked, he reasoned, he could prove to her that she was wrong. That their mother was their mother and that the “two mommies” Emily was so sure she’d seen at the accident had only been a part of the trauma of the accident itself. Something that had festered in her mind as time had passed. Something that now had such power she believed it was the reason behind other, totally unrelated things that happened to her.

“I’ll do what I can,” Rand finally told his sister.

“Oh, thank you!” Emily said on a gust of breath, her relief flooding through the wires of the phone. “I know if anybody can find the truth you can.”

“In the meantime, why don’t you come here, Em? Stay with me.”

“I can’t,” Emily said without thinking about it. “Then you’d be in danger, too. Just the way Liza is.”

He heard the fear—no, the terror—in Emily’s tone and he backed down. “What about money, then? Do you need that?”

“I only need your help, Rand. That’s all I need. For you to find the truth and stop what’s going on.”

“Will you at least give me a phone number where I can reach you?”

“No. I’m in a phone booth now. I’ll give you some time to look into things and then I’ll call you.”

“I want a promise from you in return for my promise to do this,” he said then. “I want you to agree that if I don’t turn up anything suspicious you’ll go home.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long time before Emily said, “I know you’ll turn up something because I know that woman isn’t who she says she is.”

“Promise me, Em.”

“If you can prove without a shadow of a doubt that that woman is your real mother, then okay. I’ll go home,” Emily vowed but clearly without believing that was going to happen.

“You’ll let me know if you need anything,” Rand said then, an order not an offer. “And, Em, I’ll get on the first plane to Wyoming if you say the word. To be with you there or to take you home to Prosperino, or to bring you here. You know that.”

“I know. But there’s enough of us in danger already. As it is, I’m putting you at risk just doing this. If your phone is tapped and she finds out you’re going to help me expose her, she could send someone to hurt you, too.”

“You just think about yourself and be careful. Let me worry about me.”

“But you’ll start looking into this right away?” Emily said hopefully.

“As soon as I figure out where to start, yes. Believe me, I want you home and this whole thing over with as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” Emily said, reminding him of the little girl who had become part of his family so long ago. “I have to go. Someone is waiting to use this phone.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said, not wanting to end their connection, worrying that it might be their last.

But there was no stopping it.

Emily said, “You take care of yourself, too,” and hung up.



“The brachiosaurus is like the dinosaur giraffe only way, way, wa-aay bigger. Forty whole feet tall with a long, lo-oong neck with a little bitty head that weighs eighty tons.”

“The brachiosaurus’s head weighs eighty tons?” Rand asked, winking conspiratorially at Lucy as she looked on.

It was nearly eight o’clock that night and, good to his word, Rand had been patient with her son’s interruptions of the work they were trying to finish up for the day.

“No, his head doesn’t weigh eighty tons,” Max answered as if Rand was just being silly. “His body weighs eighty tons. But his head has huge nose holes—”

“Nostrils,” Lucy supplied.

“—high up on his head to keep him from getting too hot.”

“And when did he live?” Rand asked.

“At the end of the Jurassic time.”

“The Jurassic period,” Lucy amended.

“Nostrils at the end of the Jurassic period,” Max repeated to let them know he’d made note of both of his mother’s corrections.

“And that’s it for tonight’s dinosaur lecture,” Lucy said before her son could get started again. “Time for bed.”

Max put up his usual fuss but finally gave in with a warm good-night to Rand.

Rand ruffled up Max’s hair and answered the good-night with one of his own, leaving the little boy beaming as if Rand had bestowed the medal of honor rather than a simple hair mussing.

“I’ll be right back,” Lucy told her boss, appreciating his kind treatment of her son, who was obviously even more enamored by the man than he’d been the previous evening.

Max was already in his pajamas, having been dispatched to put them on earlier, so when Lucy got him upstairs she oversaw him brushing his teeth, read him a quick story and tucked him in.

“Can Rand come back tomorrow night, too?” the little boy asked as she kissed his forehead.

“I don’t know. That depends on whether we’ll still have work to do.”

“He could just come to play if you don’t have work to do,” Max suggested.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Lucy hedged, wishing the idea of having Rand over just to play didn’t have an appeal for her, too. “You just think about going to sleep now.”

“’Night,” Max said, wiggling around in his bed with one arm around his bear. “Bart says ’night, too.”

“Good night, Bart,” Lucy said to the teddy bear, kissing its forehead the way she had her son’s. “And good night to you, Mr. Max. I love you. Sleep tight.”

As always Max was nearly asleep by the time she got to the door and turned out his light. And, as always, Lucy paused a moment to look back at him and revel in the peaceful sight of the little boy dropping off into dreamland. Then she closed the door halfway and left him to it.

As she passed by the bathroom next to Max’s room, though, she hesitated. She had an inordinate urge to take a moment to check the mirror.

She shouldn’t, she knew. It wasn’t as if she were going back downstairs to a date. She was going back downstairs to work.

But she was powerless to stop herself and before she was even finished mentally listing all the reasons she shouldn’t do it, there she was in front of the bathroom mirror, taking stock.

Her hair was caught in back by a clip and lifted into a geyser of curls at her crown just as she’d combed it that morning. But the curls had wilted slightly so she picked at them with practiced fingers to fluff them up again.

Her cheeks were still rosy, although she had a suspicion that was due more to the company waiting for her in the dining room than to the blush she’d applied before dawn. But her lips were dry and she reached for the remedy.

Lipstick or lip balm?

Lip balm was all she needed. Plain and simple. But what she grabbed from the medicine cabinet was the lipstick.

Don’t analyze it and read more into it than is actually there, she advised herself, trying to believe that the fact that Rand was an extremely appealing man didn’t have anything to do with her choice. But deep down she knew better.

Once she’d used the lipstick she took a quick glance at what she was wearing. The navy blue slacks and matching sweater she’d put on when she’d arrived home at the end of the day were still holding up. Not that she would have changed clothes if they weren’t. But it was good to see she hadn’t spilled anything on herself at dinner.

Then, as if the lipstick wasn’t bad enough, she caught sight of her favorite bottle of perfume on the vanity beside the sink.

Oh no, I couldn’t, she thought.

But her hand reached for the bottle anyway.

This is crazy. Inappropriate. Dangerous…

And worse than that, what if Rand noticed she’d come back downstairs wearing fresh lipstick and perfume?

That thought stopped her cold and she replaced the bottle on the counter. No way would she do anything that made it seem as if she were trying to seduce him. Because she wasn’t. Seduction was the last thing on her mind.

So get back downstairs, finish your work and get him out of here, she ordered herself.

Though she might not be thinking about seducing him, she wasn’t thrilled with the thought of him leaving.

She didn’t want to admit it but she’d been looking forward to tonight. To being in the more relaxed atmosphere with him again. To this moment when Max would be off to bed and she and Rand would be alone…

Oh no, she definitely didn’t want to admit that.

But it was true nonetheless.

“Just cool it,” she whispered to her reflection in the mirror.

And she meant it, too. It was one thing to be hungry for adult company and indulge in a little of that. But anything beyond that was off the course she’d set for herself. Too far off the course for her to venture.

Even if she had been tormented since the previous evening, wondering if Rand really had been on the verge of kissing her.

Those thoughts evaporated when Lucy returned to the dining room where she and Rand had papers spread out all over the oak pedestal table. Like several other times during the day and evening, she found him staring into space, apparently lost in thought.

So lost in thought he didn’t even notice she was back.

For a moment she stood in the doorway watching him. He looked terrific dressed in a pair of khaki slacks and a plain cocoa-colored sport shirt. His hair was only slightly mussed from some roughhousing he’d done with Max but it was every bit as attractive as when it was combed perfectly. Maybe even slightly more attractive because it gave him such a casual, approachable look.

But still his clean-shaven face was lined with what appeared to be worry and she couldn’t help wondering what had caused it. What had been causing that same expression all day whenever he was left alone for a few minutes.

Several times that day she’d caught him making mistakes. Not to mention that he’d asked her to do the same things two and three times—even after she’d already done them—without realizing he was repeating himself.

It just wasn’t like him. Something was on his mind, she decided, something that was distracting him. Maybe it was time she tried to find out what it was.

“Don’t tell me. You’re completely preoccupied with curiosity about the love life of the brachiosaurus,” she joked to let him know she was there and to bring him out of his reverie.

He smiled, focusing his attention on her, but it was a weak smile. “I’m not much good today, am I?”

It was nice that he could acknowledge it, that he wasn’t the kind of person to blame someone else when he was having a bad day.

“Seems as if you have something on your mind is all,” Lucy answered, taking the seat she’d occupied most of the evening only a few inches to his right.

“Family problems,” he said.

It surprised Lucy that he’d even confide that much and she thought it was an indication of just how troubled he was. But she couldn’t be sure where to go from there. Should she accept that and let the subject drop? Or should she offer him the opportunity to get it off his chest?

“We don’t have to work anymore if you aren’t up to it,” she said, tiptoeing through the trenches. “What’s left here I can take care of while you’re in court tomorrow.”

He glanced at the work in front of them and seemed to make a quick decision. “Great. You’ll probably do better without me dragging on you anyway.”

But did that mean he was leaving? Lucy felt a twinge of regret that she’d even planted the thought in his head.

“You don’t have to go,” she heard herself say before she’d thought about it. Then, trying to cover her tracks, she added, “There’s still some of that pie you brought and if it would help to talk about what’s on your mind, I’ve been told I’m a pretty fair listener.”

She didn’t know if she was being too transparent, or if Rand had so much on his mind that he wouldn’t notice.

For a moment he seemed to consider the pros and cons of her offer, and while he was at it, she fretted over the possibility that he’d realized some of the more personal things that had been flashing through her mind about him, that he might recognize the raw hunger in her for his company.

Then suddenly he said, “I think I could use another piece of pie. I’ll straighten up this mess while you do that and meet you in the living room.”

He sounded so pleased by the prospect.

Lucy’s heart took wing despite telling herself to keep things in perspective, that it was probably just the pie he was really interested in.

But she didn’t waste any time. She got up and went into the kitchen, joining Rand in her living room only moments later.

He was sitting on the couch and she thought it might seem standoffish if she sat on the chair instead, so she handed him a dessert plate with a healthy-size slice of key lime pie and then took her own smaller piece with her to the other end of the sofa.

“Did something happen back home in California between when you left last night and this morning?” she asked then, in keeping with her initial intention to listen to his problems so he wouldn’t guess she had also been rooting around for an excuse to extend his visit.

“It’s a long story,” he warned.

“It’s early yet and I don’t have any other plans,” she assured.

“I guess things really started in ‘92.”

“It must be a long story if starts that far back,” Lucy said with a laugh, settling into the corner of the couch so she could see Rand as he talked and trying not to notice the way his big hands dwarfed the small plate and fork he held. Trying not to think about the power leashed in them. Trying not to wonder what they would feel like on her skin…

“You’re sure you want to hear it all?” Rand asked.

“Positive,” she said too effusively, kicking off her shoes and curling her legs underneath her to prove she was committed to however much time it took.

“Okay. Well, when my adopted sister, Emily, was eleven, she and my mother were in a car accident. There were some minor injuries but the trauma was what really caused problems.”

Rand went on to tell her about Emily’s claim to have seen two mommies at the scene, about her continuing insistence that the woman everyone knew as his mother was an imposter, and about Emily’s disappearance in September, ending with the phone call he’d received that morning.

“Could she be right?” Lucy asked when he was finished. “About your mother, I mean. It seems strange to me that she’s stayed so steadfast all these years. It makes me wonder if she has some basis to believe it.”

“I’ll admit that that accident marked a big change in my mother,” Rand conceded. “Everyone has seen that over the years. In many ways she isn’t the same person she was.”

“How so?”

“Before the accident she was about the sweetest person you’d ever want to meet. Thoughtful, kind, caring, generous, selfless. But since…well, since the accident she just hasn’t been like that anymore. She’s… I’m not sure how to put this. She’s more intense. Material things mean more to her. She thinks more about herself than she ever did before. So there was unquestionably a personality change—maybe from a head injury during the accident. Obviously Emily sees that just as we all do. Only in her mind, coupled with the illusion or double vision or whatever it was she suffered herself in the accident, she’s concluded that there really were two different people and the bad mother replaced the good.”

“So you think your sister took just that personality change in your mother too literally?”

“That’s what I think, yes. Not that I want to diminish how frightening the accident was for Emily. And I don’t doubt that something happened to her in September either. I just doubt that my mother had anything to do with it. But one way or another now I’m actually going to have to look into Emily’s claims somehow.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t really know. Maybe if I could get some background information on my mother, on her family. She’s never talked a lot about it. Maybe that would at least give me a place to start. I just don’t know what Emily wants from me.”

“I could probably do some of that on the Internet,” Lucy said, thinking out loud more than anything.

Rand paused with his fork in midair. “You could?”

“I’m good at research, remember? Not only legal research. I’ve had some experience doing background research into people, too. I have a cousin who was adopted—an open adoption so her adoptive parents knew who her birth parents were but had long since lost touch with them. For health reasons my cousin needed to know as much as she could about her history, so I did some exploring on the Internet and managed to locate the information she needed as well as her birth parents. I think I can look into your mother’s past without too much trouble.”

“Would you be willing to do that for me?”

“I don’t know why not. It would be fun. You’d be surprised at what interesting things you can find out.”

He laughed and sighed at once, as if she’d just taken a huge burden off his shoulders. “A great secretary and an Internet sleuth all rolled into one. Are there any of my problems you can’t solve?”

She didn’t know about his problems but there were a few of her own she wasn’t having much luck with. Like getting her eyes to stop wandering to his broad shoulders. Like getting her hands to stop craving the feel of biceps that seemed to fill his shirtsleeves to the brim. Like curing the urge to slide across the sofa and press herself up against the hard wall of man that was Rand Colton.

But she didn’t say that. Instead she said, “Actually, when you were talking about hating that you couldn’t put your family’s mind to rest about your sister I had an idea about that, too.”

“Great. I’m open to anything at this point.”

“We could write an anonymous note saying that she hadn’t actually been kidnapped, that she was okay, that she’d be home soon. Then we could put the note in an envelope, address it, put that envelope into another one and send it to a friend of mine in Colorado. I’ll call her and tell her that when she gets it to just put the enclosed envelope in the mail. That way there won’t be a D.C. postmark to link it to you and it won’t be traceable to your foster sister, either.”

Rand laughed wryly. “That’s a pretty good idea.”

“You’d probably have thought of it yourself before too long.”

“I don’t know,” he said ruminatively, studying her as if he were seeing a whole new dimension.

Then he said, “You know, I feel like I’ve struck gold in you. I thought Sadie was a hard act to follow but you’re going to be impossible.”

For some reason that seemed to put their brainstorming on a different level for her, relegating it to work, and it took some of the wind out of her sails.

But she was quick to remind herself that that was what they were doing there tonight—working. Whether it was on legal briefs or solving Rand’s family problems, she was still just his secretary.

“Feel better?” she asked as if she were doing no more than he’d hired her for.

“Better than I have in a long, long while,” he assured her in a voice that had somehow changed. It was deeper, richer.

His eyes delved into hers and just as suddenly as she’d felt reminded that she was nothing more than his secretary a moment earlier, things between them seemed to turn more intimate.

Was she imagining it?

Maybe. Because just as she was wondering where it might go from there, where she wanted it to go from there, Rand set his plate on the coffee table and stood.

“I should get out of here so you can have a little time to yourself.”

What could she say to that? No, I’d rather have the time with you? Of course not.

So she stood, too, telling herself it was for the best that he leave before those unwelcome urges of hers got any more out of hand.

In the foyer she took his coat from the closet, trying not to notice that it smelled like his aftershave. She resisted the inclination to help him on with it, to put her hands on those big shoulders and smooth them down his back. Instead she merely handed it to him.

“I’ll send the car for you in the morning but I won’t be going in with you,” he said as he slipped the coat on without any knowledge whatsoever of what the sight of it did to her. “I have a conference call to London so I’m going in earlier to do that.”

“I’ll finish up tonight’s work on the way in then,” she said, hating that they were once again back to business even though she knew very well that was the way things should be.

Rand headed for the front door but once he got there he didn’t reach for the handle. He turned to look at her again with those cobalt-blue eyes that gave off enough heat to warm her as thoroughly as an electric blanket.

“Tonight was above and beyond the call of duty. It helped me to vent the family problems. I haven’t really talked to anyone about what’s been going on and it was nice to have some objective input. Not to mention your suggestions and offers to help.”

“It was nothing,” Lucy demurred. “I’m happy to do what I can.”

Rand’s eyes held hers, his handsome face angled down at her so the full impact of his masculine beauty was right there for her to see—sharply angular bones, straight nose, square brow and those sexy, sexy lips….

And then out of the blue he kissed her.

He just leaned forward and kissed her.

Only a brief peck that could have been out of gratitude as much as anything. A brief peck that was there and gone almost before she knew it. Definitely before she could enjoy it or savor it or return it.

Do it again! her mind screamed. Do it again, only longer this time!

But of course she didn’t say that.

“Thanks,” he murmured then, his voice even deeper, richer than before, almost raspy.

All Lucy could do was nod because she was so lost in the desire for a repeat of that kiss that she couldn’t find words to speak.

“See you tomorrow,” he added as he opened the door.

“Tomorrow,” she barely managed as he walked out to the silver Jaguar two-seater he had parked at the curb in front of her house.

Then he was in the car and gone, and she was still standing with the door open, staring outside and yearning inside.

Had that kiss only been out of gratitude? she couldn’t help asking herself.

It was probably better if it was. But oh, how she didn’t want that to be the case.

A man walking his dog sauntered past just then, looking in at her, and it finally occurred to her to close the door, that standing there with it open wasn’t going to bring Rand back.

If it could, she might stand there all night.

Because more than anything she wanted him back, wanted him to kiss her again.

How could she not when that spare, nothing-of-a-kiss had heated her blood to flash point?

Five

The phone was ringing when Lucy reached the office doors the next morning. She could hear it faintly through the heavy oak panels as she tried the handle, found it locked and dug the key out of her purse. It took several rings before she finally managed to unlock the doors and rush inside. She was surprised Rand hadn’t answered it himself by then. He didn’t ordinarily stand on ceremony when it came to that.

She knew he was there. Besides the fact that he’d told her he was going in early for an important call, Frank had let her know he’d dropped Rand off at the office just before returning to Georgetown for her. Plus the television in his office was on and she could hear a news report on the stock market.

“Rand Colton’s office,” she said into the receiver as soon as she picked it up.

A client was on the other end, wanting to make an appointment. Lucy accommodated him, then hung up and heard her name called from down the hall somewhere in a voice that sounded like Rand’s but different. Strained. Tight. Tense.

She took off her coat, laid it across her chair for the moment and went to see where he was.

Not in his office, not in the conference room, not in the copy/coffee room.

“Rand?” she called as she headed for the library at the very end of the corridor.

Her only answer was a combination growl and groan.

She poked her head into the library but still didn’t see him. “Rand?” she repeated.

“I’m down behind the table,” he answered through what sounded like clenched teeth.

Lucy went around the oval table and found him lying flat on his back, stiff and so immobile he looked frozen.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I just thought I’d grab a little nap,” he ground out facetiously, definitely through clenched teeth. “I lost my footing on the damn ladder and fell off. Wrenched the hell out of an old college football injury in my back. I can’t move,” he explained irately.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “What do you want me to do? Do you have medication of some kind you can take or is there a way for me to help you up?”

“Don’t touch me!” he said as if she’d made a move to when she hadn’t. “Call 911. I’ll need an ambulance to take me to the hospital. My orthopedist’s number is in the computer directory. Call him and tell him to meet us at D.C. General.”

“Will you be okay just lying there while I’m gone?”

“No choice. If the disk has slipped, I could do damage by moving. Just hurry the hell up,” he grumbled, clearly miserable.

Lucy didn’t waste any time. She rushed out of the library and back to her desk where she made the calls he’d ordered her to make. “Help’s on the way,” she called to Rand when she was finished.

“Pack up the laptop and my cell phone and bring them with us to the hospital,” he called back. “You’ll have to get somebody to sub for me in court this afternoon. Try Spencer or White. Tell them to ask for continuances.”

Lucy was in the process of doing what she was told when the ambulance and emergency medical technicians arrived ten minutes later. Their assessment of Rand’s injury and carefully relaying him to a stretcher were the only interruptions to his clipped instructions to Lucy. Instructions that continued in the ambulance all the way to the hospital.

The doctor Lucy had called on Rand’s behalf met them in the emergency room and took over from there, leaving Lucy in the waiting room to work while Rand was sent to X ray.

That set the course for the entire day. In between X rays that determined that the disk had only slipped slightly, consultations with doctors, and treatments by physical therapists to manipulate the disk back into place, Lucy was by Rand’s side doing his bidding, making necessary phone calls to cancel his appointments and rearrange his schedule and basically taking care of everything that needed to be taken care of.

It was only late in the day, when he was finally pumped full of painkillers and muscle relaxants, that things slowed down.

“You got a variance on the Clift case and the continuances you wanted on the others,” Lucy said, giving him the wrap-up. “The Murphy brief is finished and ready to be printed out, the Kellog and Stanislov motions are filed, all the subpoenas on the Harris suit are set to be delivered tomorrow, I’ve cleared your calendar for the next couple of days and the doctor says I can take you home as soon as the release papers are signed.”

“You’re taking me home with you?” Rand asked with a devilish twinkle in his eye.

“I’m taking you home to your house,” Lucy qualified. “Is that all you got out of what I just said?”

“That and you’re a whiz kid.”

Lucy fought a laugh. He was so relaxed he was lying in the hospital bed with a silly, contented smile on his face.

“I’m a whiz kid and you’re high as a kite,” she said.

“No pain, though.”

“That’s one good thing.”

“So you’re going to take me to my house?”

“I thought I’d call Frank to bring the car and get you set up there, yes. Unless you’d rather I have someone else meet you at home for that. I can always take the Metro back to Georgetown.”

“Someone else?” he repeated dimly.

“One of your women friends.”

“Women friends? Do people really use that phrase?” he asked with a giddy chuckle. Then he said, “No women friends. Just you. But what about Max?”

That “just you” had come out in a curiously affectionate tone but Lucy wrote it off to the daze he was in. “I’ve already called Sadie. She’ll keep him at her place until I get there. She sends her sympathies, by the way, and said you should have known better than to climb that library ladder.”

“Needed a book. Couldn’t wait for you,” he explained. “Thought I was being careful.”

Which was something Lucy knew she needed to be because he was so sweet and silly and appealing in this state that she was having even more trouble than usual not falling victim to his charms.

A male nurse came in with the release papers and Lucy left the room so the nurse could help Rand into his clothes again.

When she got outside the room she telephoned Frank, who was there with the car by the time the nurse pushed Rand out in a wheelchair.

Getting him into the car was no easy task but they managed, and Rand promptly rested his head against the back of the seat and fell asleep for the ride home.

It left Lucy in a quandary.

There was more work she could have done but she didn’t have any inclination to do it. Instead her gaze kept straying to Rand.

There was no doubt about it, he was a very appealing sight.

His hair was mussed and gave her a glimpse of the way he must have looked as a boy. He had long, thick eyelashes—something she hadn’t noticed before—so long and thick they put most women’s lashes to shame.

His beard had reappeared through the day and shadowed his sharp jaw, lending him a rough, rugged look that only accentuated just how much man he was. Even his ears were sexy, with lobes that brought nibbling to mind. Nibbling Lucy imagined herself doing as a prelude to kissing her way down the strong column of his neck, along the rise of his Adam’s apple to the dip just below it where a few coarse hairs peeked from his open shirt collar….

“Here we are,” Frank said through the small window in the partition that separated the front seat from the back.

Lucy jolted out of the fantasy she’d involuntarily slipped into, overcompensating by sitting up too straight.

Rand opened only one eye and smiled a quirky smile that made her think he might not have been sleeping at all and might have known that she’d been taking a close look at him.

“My place?” he asked with a note of lasciviousness to his voice.

“Your place,” Lucy confirmed, sounding like a drill sergeant.

She got out of the car in a hurry, rounding it from the back at the same time the driver rounded it from the front, and meeting him at Rand’s passenger door.

Frank opened it and when he did Rand tossed Lucy his keys. “I’m the eighth floor. Go ahead and let yourself in. Have a look around while Frank gets me out of this car and I have a chat with the doorman before I come up.”

Without comment Lucy turned to the building they were parked in front of, taking it in for the first time. It was a stately old eight-story brownstone and granite structure. Twin cantilevers wrapped around both corners almost like turrets, and a pillared archway led to the courtyard entrance.

A uniformed doorman opened the glass doors as she approached, looking beyond her at Rand and asking no questions.

The lobby was paneled in cherry wood and looked more like the bar in an elite men’s club than a mere lobby. Lucy didn’t hesitate to cross to the brass elevator, taking it to the eighth floor where it opened to only a short hallway and one set of double doors. Apparently the entire eighth floor was Rand’s.

The key worked on the lock and she opened both doors, leaving them that way as she went in. The apartment was minimalist. Modern, stark, simple, yet lavish. Either he had perfect taste or his decorator did.

There was a five-foot sculpture in the entryway—a black-and-gray abstract piece that swung at the slightest touch like a pendulum between matching slabs of black marble.

To the left was the living room where three black leather sofas and two leather-and-chrome chairs were positioned in a square around a coffee table that was a piece of glass atop two stone cubes with a huge dowel that reached from the center hole of one cube to the center hole of the other like an artist’s rendition of a barbell.

The room was very formal; the walls were lined with abstract paintings and sculptures, along with a sleek, black wet bar in one corner.

Beyond the living room was an equally formal dining room, this space done in browns, tans, golds and animal prints. It looked like a post-safari gathering place with an enormous oval table and twelve high-backed chairs.

From there Lucy found the kitchen, a wide-open area of streamlined stainless steel appliances and white tile so pristine and bright it nearly hurt her eyes.

Since that seemed to be it for that side of the apartment she retraced her path to the entryway and explored the opposite half, where Rand’s home office was the first room she encountered. Also stark and spare, also black, white, chrome and glass, it was fully equipped with two computers, a printer, a fax machine, a paper shredder, a multi-functional telephone, a copy machine and file cabinets.

The master bedroom was just past that and since Rand had yet to come upstairs she went in without knocking. The room was slightly cozier, complete with an enormous king-size bed that sat low to the ground on a black Persian rug. There were two bureaus and a wall-length tropical fish tank, along with two more leather chairs and a large entertainment center that faced the bed.

Rand arrived just as Lucy was turning down his bed so he could get right into it.

“I have an electric razor in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. If you’d get it for me, please?” he said as he eased himself out of his coat. “I don’t think I’m going to get farther than the bed for now.”

Clearly the trip from the hospital had taken its toll and Lucy wondered why he hadn’t had Frank come up to help him undress. She certainly hoped he didn’t expect her to perform that service.

Then, as if reading her mind, he said, “I thought I could manage to get out of my own clothes so I sent Frank to pick up some food. I don’t know about you but I’m starving. I hope you like Chinese. Then he’ll wait downstairs to take you home when you’re ready.”

“Yes, I like Chinese food, but couldn’t Frank join us? I hate to have him just waiting for me downstairs.”

“I invited him but he’s bringing food for himself and the doorman, too. They have plans for a game of rummy.”

Lucy nodded and then said, “The shaver,” to let him know she hadn’t forgotten.

She was only too happy for the chance to go into the bathroom she’d barely glimpsed through the open door because even just that glimpse was enough to let her know it was spectacular. And it was. It was a large gray and white marble cove with a skylight for a ceiling. A free-standing sink stood below stair-step shelves of the marble that formed the shower, wainscoted the walls and provided four steps up to the sunken bathtub that nestled amid three stained glass windows that were works of abstract art all to themselves.

The medicine cabinet was recessed into the wall above the sink and Lucy had no problem locating Rand’s electric razor. When she returned to the bedroom with it she found him struggling to remove his shirt, his face a grimace of pain before he realized she was there to watch. Then his expression just turned to stone.

But it was too late for him to hide the agony he was in and Lucy couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen it. She also couldn’t stand by without offering aid.

So much for not helping him undress.

“Why don’t you let me help you with that,” she said, setting the razor on the black enamel table beside his bed.

“Thanks.”

Lucy went up behind him and slid the shirt free, trying as she did not to feast on the sight of his broad, straight back once it was exposed to her. But it wasn’t easy to overlook rippling muscles that narrowed to a compact waist, all encased in sleek, smooth skin. Especially when she had the inordinate urge to press her palms to the wide expanse and test the texture to see if it really was satin over steel the way it looked.

“Can I persuade you to apply that ointment the hospital sent home with me? There’s no way I can do it myself,” he said, obviously unaware of what the sight of his incredible back was doing to her.

“Why don’t we do that just before I leave?” she said, worrying that if she actually did touch him at that moment she might embarrass herself. She could only hope she might have more stamina later.

“That’s probably a better idea anyway,” Rand conceded. “If it works the way it’s supposed to and numbs things, maybe it’ll help me get comfortable enough to sleep.”

“Right,” she agreed as if that was what she’d been thinking all along.

“I’ll go wait for Frank,” she announced then, retreating from the room without another glance at her boss and reminding herself that what she was feeling was totally inappropriate.

Closing his bedroom door behind her, Lucy took a deep breath and exhaled it with gusto in an attempt to clear her head. She was there to help and nothing more, she lectured silently, and she’d better not forget it.

With that in mind, she marched to the kitchen where she searched the cupboards until she found a pitcher for water, glasses and a tray to carry it all on.

Frank arrived with the food just as she was headed back to the bedroom so by the time she got there she had everything in tow. She knocked on the door and waited for Rand’s “Come in” before she opened it.

He had shaved and was sitting propped on pillows against the enameled black headboard. He’d changed into a pair of gray sweatpants and had on a silk bathrobe over them that covered most of his upper half. His eyes were closed as if he were sleeping again, although Lucy thought it was more likely against the pain the exertion had probably caused him.

But when he heard her enter, he opened his eyes and his supple mouth stretched into a warm, welcoming smile.

“Dinner’s here,” she announced. “And I brought water to keep by your bedside along with your pills so you won’t have to get up to take them during the night.”

“Is there anything you don’t think of?” he asked as she set the tray on his ample nightstand and began to unload it.

“Plates,” she said, only realizing at that moment that she hadn’t brought any.

“Let’s eat out of the cartons,” he suggested as if he didn’t want her to leave again to get them.

Lucy pulled one of the chairs to his bedside and settled there to eat once they’d explored each container and decided where to start.

“How are you feeling?” she asked then.

“Not as good as I did before we left the hospital but not bad. That is if I don’t try to move much.”

“Will you be okay alone here tonight?”

“I can ring for the doorman if I need help. That’s why I wanted to talk to him.” Rand smiled wickedly. “Unless you’re offering to spend the night…”

“I wasn’t. I’ll make sure you’re fed and settled but then I’m going home.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Mmm,” she agreed.

“We’ll have to work here until I can get around again,” he informed her then.

“From the equipment I saw in the other room it doesn’t look like that will be a problem.”

“It shouldn’t be. These computers link with the office so you can access anything.”

“Okay. But you’re supposed to rest, you know. Maybe you should just tell me what you need done and not work yourself.”

“I’d go out of my mind.”

Lucy didn’t question that. She’d seen enough of his intensity and energy level to accept it as fact.

“How did you hurt yourself originally?” she asked as they traded cartons of food.

“A mean tackle my senior year. I spent three weeks in traction, barely managed not to have surgery. I’m still trying to avoid it if I can, but every now and then I do something dumb—like climbing on that ladder that’s really not big enough to hold me—and I get myself into trouble.”

Rand asked if there was any fried rice left and once he had what he wanted, he said, “So tell me about yourself. I know you’re from California but I don’t know where in California.”

“Sonoma Valley. I was born and raised there.”

“Are your folks still there?”

“No. My mother passed away last year and my father deserted us when I was seven. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

“That must have been rough.”

“Rough enough.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

“No. Just me, luckily. My mom had more than she could handle with only one kid.”

Rand smiled that quirky smile again. “Are you telling me you were a handful?”

“No,” she answered as if affronted by the very idea. “Well, I was a little mischievous but I didn’t get into any real trouble. It was just that my mother wasn’t equipped to support herself, let alone a child. And when it came to raising me, it wasn’t an easy thing to do when she was dealing with her own emotional problems.”

“Emotional problems?” Rand repeated to urge her on.

“After my father left she would go into deep depressions. She’d go to bed and not get back up again for weeks at a time.”

“Would somebody else come in to look after you?”

“There wasn’t anyone else. Sadie was here and she was all the family we had. And my mother didn’t have any friends to speak of.”

“What would you do?”

“Everything that needed to be done. The cleaning, the cooking, the laundry. And I’d try to cheer Mom up. I’d do puppet shows from the foot of the bed. Sing and dance for her, tell her stories.”

His smile this time looked sweet and troubled. “Did it work?”

“No, not really,” Lucy admitted. “But I kept at it and eventually when she’d get up again I’d hope maybe I had something to do with it.”

“So you learned to take care of everything—yourself included—and to be very efficient,” Rand concluded.

“Good skills to have,” she confirmed. “I also learned to value my own child and not to ever put him in a position where he felt like he had to parent me or needed to be the caregiver.”

“In other words you learned to be a better mom through your own mother’s shortcomings.”

“I think so. I also think it’s important to look at the positives that come out of every negative experience. I could never get my mother to do that. My father’s leaving and not paying child support was bad, but it could have given my mom and me a chance to get closer, to have a better relationship, if only she would have used that opportunity. Instead… Well, instead she distanced herself from me and the rest of the world by taking to her bed.”

Lucy caught sight of the clock on Rand’s night table. She hadn’t realized it had gotten so late.

“And speaking of taking to bed, I should get out of here so you can rest.”

“I’m resting,” he pointed out. “In fact, I’m enjoying myself.”

“Still, I should get home.” She gathered up the remnants of their dinner to take to the kitchen and dispose of there.

As she did she started to think about returning to the bedroom to rub that ointment into Rand’s back and that was all it took to make her mouth go dry. To make her pulse pick up speed and her palms itch with anticipation.

Apparently waiting for a later hour had not allowed her any more stamina.

But what else could she do?

She could hope he’d forgotten about it and leave without reminding him. But that was irresponsible and cowardly and she would end up feeling guilty.

Which meant she was just going to have to meet the challenge. The challenge of actually touching Rand Colton and not giving in to what it would do to her. Not giving in to what it would arouse in her.

Steeling herself, she returned to Rand’s room.

He’d moved to the edge of the bed, his feet flat on the floor, and it occurred to her that he didn’t like her seeing him move without his usual agility or being witness to his flinching in pain so he did it when she wasn’t around to watch. She liked that he didn’t seem to want to wallow in the sympathy or the kind of attention that would garner.

“The ointment is on the bureau,” he said then, moving only his chin in the direction of the dresser nearest the door, obviously not having forgotten about it.

Lucy retrieved it and crossed to him. “Stay where you are. I’ll kneel on the bed behind you so you don’t have to get up.”

“You’re the boss,” he said with a note of levity in his tone.

Lucy gingerly maneuvered herself onto the mattress, getting into position with infinite care so as not to jostle him any more than necessary.

“If you untie your robe, I’ll do the rest,” she said, hoping it didn’t sound as suggestive to him as it had to her.

But it must have because she heard a barely audible chuckle rumble from his throat before he complied.

When he had, Lucy eased the robe off the way she had his shirt earlier.

Just mind your business, she told herself sternly, opening the ointment tube and squeezing a little onto her hand.

“This might be cold,” she warned, hating that her voice sounded so breathy, so intimate.

“The bad disk is slightly below my shoulder blades,” he informed her.

Oh and what shoulder blades they were!

Lucy tried not to notice as she rubbed her hands together to disperse the ointment and then pressed them to his back.

Satin over steel. She’d been right about that. Warm, smooth satin over honed steel.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” she said, fighting to keep her perspective, to focus on the medicinal aspects and nothing more.

“Don’t worry about it. You have a soft touch,” he assured her, sitting there straight and strong.

He gave no evidence of pain. In fact it was Lucy who felt mushy-kneed and light-headed and at a disadvantage because the warmth of his flesh seemed to seep through her palms and infuse her with exactly the feelings she’d been worried this would cause.

She was much too aware of every inch of that broad back, of every rise of muscle and sinew, of every ridge of tendon and bone. So aware that it was almost difficult for her to breathe. So aware that her heart was beating as hard as a jungle drum. So aware that her blood was a rushing river in her ears. So aware that her nipples were standing at attention and making themselves all too known.

She went on rubbing Rand’s back even after any signs of the ointment had disappeared into his skin, drinking in the wide expanse with her hands until she realized she was long since finished doing anything therapeutic and had begun to merely indulge herself.

“Okay,” she said after swallowing her own rapidly rising instincts to go on, to explore biceps that bulged massively in his arms, to allow her hands to glide over his shoulders to his pectorals, to even test the waistband of those sweatpants he wore…

“That should do it,” she added somewhat belatedly, willfully yanking herself out of her wandering thoughts and desires.

“Thanks,” Rand said.

Was she mistaken or did his voice sound deeper? Maybe it was from the pain of sitting up.

Lucy eased herself off the bed and went around to his night table, taking stock of his supplies when what she was really doing was working to regain some control. “You have all your pills and water to take them with. The phone is within reach if you need help. Can I get you anything else before I go?”

He didn’t answer her right away. But she could feel his eyes on her as surely as if they would make a mark.

“No, I’ll be fine,” he said finally, in a voice that was unmistakably raspier.

Then all at once his hand was on her arm, as if to stop her from leaving.

“Thanks for all this, Lucy. For everything,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” she answered, unable to keep from looking at his face any longer.

And when she did she got lost in eyes that reflected his intelligence, his strength, his power and something more. Something that maybe she’d inspired…

Then that hand at her arm rose to the back of her neck and he pulled her gently but purposefully toward him, in command despite his debilitation, bringing her mouth to his.

It seemed odd that he could be the one kissing her under the circumstances but that was how it was. And tonight’s kiss was no mere peck, nor was there a question that it might have been nothing but an expression of appreciation or gratitude. Tonight’s kiss was much, much more. It was a real kiss. A kiss between a man and a woman. A kiss he deepened with lips that parted and urged hers to part, too. A kiss so adept, so tender, so just plain sexy, that it nearly curled her toes. A kiss that went on long enough for her to savor it, to come close to losing herself in it before it ended.

And when it did Rand looked deeply into her eyes and said, “I think you’re a remarkable woman.”

“I’d better go,” she told him in the midst of a struggle to regroup, to remember why she shouldn’t be doing this when every ounce of her cried out to just do it again. And again. And again. To do even more…

Rand nodded but went right on holding her eyes with his, fingering the tendrils of hair that had come loose at her nape.

Then he slid his hand to her shoulder and down her arm in a slow caress that left her stomach aflutter, squeezing her hand when he reached it and only then letting her go.

“Frank is in the lobby,” he said with a note in his voice that made her think he was reluctant to lose her but resigned to it.

“What time do you want me tomorrow?”

Unfortunate choice of words. She only realized it after she’d spoken them and when Rand smiled that wicked smile of his again.

“Don’t make me an offer I can’t refuse,” he said. Then he let her off the hook. “How about nine? I don’t know what kind of shape I’ll be in or how long it will take me in the morning to get my act together. Go ahead and take my keys so you can let yourself in when you get here in case I can’t get to the door.”

“Nine,” Lucy repeated. “I’ll be here.”

“Tell Max hey for me and that I’m sorry to have kept his mom away tonight.”

“I will. I hope you can sleep.”

“Me, too.”

Lucy stayed a moment longer, even though they really had dragged out their goodbye as much as they could, all the while telling herself to get out of there while she was still able to, before she leaned over and kissed him and restarted something she shouldn’t.

Then, as if Rand knew how tempted she was and wanted to save her from herself, he said, “Go on. Maybe you can still get home in time to read your son a bedtime story.”

Lucy just nodded, finally succeeding at breaking that magnetic eye contact of his so she could leave.

But as she grabbed her coat, purse and Rand’s keys from the living room and rode the elevator down to the lobby she couldn’t help recalling the feel of his back beneath her hands, reliving that kiss…that glorious kiss and all it had brought to life inside her.

And she knew as the elevator doors opened again on the ground floor that it was a good thing Rand’s health had made anything else off-limits. If it hadn’t, she was afraid to think where things might have gone from there.

Because she honestly didn’t know if she’d have had the ability to stick to her convictions and resist.

Six

Lucy had told Rand’s driver not to bother picking her up the next morning. Since Rand’s apartment was only two miles from her own home, it was easier for her to drive herself. Besides, it gave her the chance to take Max to day care.

She was pleased to see that what Sadie had told her was true—her son had already made friends. The moment Max got out of the car two other little boys ran up to greet him and off they went as Lucy followed them into the building.

“I’ll pick you up a little after five,” she called to him but her only acknowledgment was a brief glance over his shoulder and a wave before Max disappeared into the day care’s gym while Lucy signed him in and left.

The doorman at Rand’s building seemed to recognize her and to be expecting her when she arrived there a few minutes before nine. He had the door open when she reached it and greeted her with a hearty “Good morning.”

And then she got on the elevator and succumbed to the jitters she’d been fighting.

Try as she might, in the last thirteen hours since leaving Rand’s apartment, she had not been able to justify that kiss they’d shared. The peck of the night before that had been so inconsequential that it had allowed her to convince herself to some degree that it had merely been a buss of gratitude. But last night…

Last night’s kiss was a real kiss.

And she wasn’t too sure how to act after it.

It shouldn’t have happened—that she knew. She shouldn’t have let it happen. And she certainly shouldn’t have been reliving it again and again in her mind ever since, like a teenager savoring a dream come true.

It wasn’t a dream come true, Lucy told herself. She didn’t have dreams about suave, sophisticated men sweeping her off her feet. She was a realist. Her dreams were about raising a good, productive son who would accomplish great things in his life. About having a wide circle of genuine friends whom she could count on. About traveling a little with Max or Sadie or her friends.

And as for romance? Yes, she had dreams of romance. Later. After Max was on his own. She had dreams of finding a mature, intelligent, responsible, prudent man who had sown all his wild oats and was in the market for companionship. She had dreams of a calm, sensible romance that would be two people coming together through mutual interests and values, both of them at the same place in life, wanting the same things, living the same kind of lifestyle. Settled. Secure. Low-risk romance. That was what she envisioned for herself.

Nowhere in even her dream was she a harried single mother rushing headlong into the arms of a man like Rand Colton who had women to spare and no room in his life for a ready-made family.

Yet there she’d been last night, kissing him.

And now she didn’t know what to do about it.

Should she tell him it had been a mistake? That she didn’t want it to ever happen again? That if it did it would mean the end of their work relationship and she would never see him again?

Or was that too dramatic? Would he look at her as if she were out of her mind and say it was not the big deal she was making it, that she should just forget about it?

Except that it felt like a big deal. A very big deal that had left her feeling branded by the man. That had left her weak-kneed and wobbly and wanting more.

Wanting more…

Now that was a big deal.

On the other hand, she thought as the elevator reached the eighth floor, Rand had been under the influence of a lot of medication. That might have contributed to his kissing her in the first place. He might not have been in his right mind, not in command of his senses. He might not have meant a single thing by it, nor even remember it this morning.

She liked that possibility the best. If he didn’t remember the kiss, she wouldn’t be the one bringing it to mind.

And as payment for taking the easy way out she vowed that a kiss would never happen again. No matter how much she wanted it.