Predicting Rain?
Mary Anne Wilson
When Business Leads To Pleasure…With her long flowing hair and her tie-dyed T-shirts, Rain Armstrong is the complete opposite of every woman conservative businessman Jackson Ford has ever found attractive. Yet the moment she looks up at him with her big brown eyes, Jackson aches to touch her. And when the little girl who's been left in his care, a child who hasn't spoken a word in weeks, suddenly begins chattering away with Rain, Jackson knows there's more to this free-spirited therapist than meets the eye. But can Jackson change his workaholic nature to become the permanent daddy Victoria needs–and the husband a woman like Rain deserves?Just for Kids: A day care where love abounds…and families are made!
“So you think you have me pegged?”
Jackson asked innocently.
“I did.”
“And now?” he said in a rough whisper as he touched her. Just the tips of his fingers on her chin, bringing with it an intense heat.
Rain’s awareness of him was so strong that it literally had her rooted to the spot. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. He was closer now, so close that all rational thought vanished.
“You don’t know what?”
She couldn’t answer. Rain knew nothing about this man who’d come into her life so unexpectedly, throwing her off center, making her think things she had no business thinking.
But none of that mattered. Because when he touched her, then slowly lowered his head to kiss her, nothing else in this world existed.
Nothing but the two of them and this one perfect moment.
Predicting Rain?
Mary Anne Wilson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Anne Wilson is a Canadian transplanted to Southern California, where she lives with her husband, three children and an assortment of animals. She knew she wanted to write romances when she found herself “rewriting” the great stories in literature, such as A Tale of Two Cities, to give them “happy endings.” Over her long career she’s published more than thirty romances, had her books on bestseller lists, been nominated for Reviewer’s Choice Awards and received a Career Achievement Award in Romantic Suspense. She’s looking forward to her next thirty books.
Books by Mary Anne Wilson
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
495—HART’S OBSESSION
523—COULD IT BE YOU?
543—HER BODYGUARD
570—THE BRIDE WORE BLUE JEANS
589—HART’S DREAM
609—THE CHRISTMAS HUSBAND
637—NINE MONTHS LATER…
652—MISMATCHED MOMMY?
670—JUST ONE TOUCH
700—MR. WRONG!
714—VALENTINE FOR AN ANGEL
760—RICH, SINGLE & SEXY
778—COWBOY IN A TUX
826—THAT NIGHT WE MADE BABY
891—REGARDING THE TYCOON’S TODDLER… * (#litres_trial_promo)
895—THE C.E.O. & THE SECRET HEIRESS * (#litres_trial_promo)
899—MILLIONAIRE’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE * (#litres_trial_promo)
909—THE MCCALLUM QUINTUPLETS “And Babies Make Seven”
952—MONTANA MIRACLE
1003—PREDICTING RAIN? * (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader,
The idea of opposites attracting is as old as time and never loses its appeal to the romantic at heart. That concept sparked the idea for book one in my current JUST FOR KIDS day-care center series, Predicting Rain? I created two people so different there didn’t seem to be any way they could ever find each other. But, as in real life, things happen that you never expected, and the heart is as unpredictable as the weather.
Writing about Rain and Jack was touching and lots of fun, but making sure they found each other and lived happily ever after was the best part of all.
Thanks for all the positive feedback on my JUST FOR KIDS series. I hope you enjoy this story and the next two, Winning Sara’s Heart (2/04) and When Megan Smiles (3/04), as much as I enjoyed writing them.
Contents
Prologue (#u98e0dd7a-7fd5-5e43-b5e0-57a9939efd1e)
Chapter One (#u1493e35d-8e1f-5c17-ad06-9e90b48f261f)
Chapter Two (#uadbba013-c133-5272-9c81-74422f0453b0)
Chapter Three (#u8b9dfb64-a55e-5fbf-8ec8-624847c1f2a1)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
London
Jackson Ford knew how to negotiate business deals, take over multimillion dollar corporations and face down a board of directors who wanted his scalp. He could fix anything. He’d have facts and figures, bluff if he had to, or just walk out. But as he crouched in front of the tiny four-year-old girl with her silvery blond hair plaited in two braids, sitting in the oversize leather chair in his study, he didn’t have a clue what to do to make things work between them.
He knew nothing about children and hadn’t planned to learn. Now he had no choice. He tried to use his best I’m-being-reasonable voice when he spoke to Victoria and laid out the facts. “I have to go to Houston, Victoria. That’s in Texas. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. A week, but probably two or three weeks.” Her huge blue eyes stared at him, never blinking, and she said nothing. She hadn’t spoken since arriving on his doorstep a week ago. “I have important business in Houston, and I have to be there as quickly as possible. I don’t have a choice.”
She wouldn’t understand the fact that he’d been the one at LynTech initiating an acquisition of a branch of an up-and-coming corporation, an acquisition that would make LynTech more viable and give it more strength. Or that the acquisition had been totally stopped when their bid became public and others started circling in a feeding frenzy. Playing hardball in business wasn’t pretty, but part of the game. This was beyond hardball. She wouldn’t understand that he felt morally bound to make it work, to salvage the deal. But she could understand that he had no choice in what he had to do. “I wouldn’t go if I didn’t have to. You understand that, don’t you?” he asked the mute child.
“Darling, of course she does.” He’d almost forgotten about Eve and from the sound of her throaty voice, she was inches from him, looking over his shoulder at Victoria. “She’ll be fine. You’ve got everything in place, and besides, her father traveled all the time. This isn’t new to her.”
He frowned at her mention of Ian and almost flinched when he felt her press against his back. Eve. Lavender eyes, ebony hair feathered around her elegant face, willowy beauty, and very well versed in heavy-hitting corporate business coming from the Ryders, a family that had been front and center in international business for generations. A real “catch” as his mother had told him so often. Someone who understands what his life is all about. That was true and had been an important part of his decision to marry her. But he didn’t like the way she was dealing with the child right now.
“This is all new to her,” he murmured and stood. “And new to me, too.”
He had a flash of his image in the windows behind where Victoria sat. A tall man, two inches over six feet, not handsome in any traditional sense, with dark-brown hair brushed back from a face that was a bit too strong and a bit too irregular. Eve stood behind him. They’d been set up by mutual friends, and the timing had been right for both of them. Eve was just through a bad relationship, and he’d been considering solidifying his personal life for a while. A month ago, they’d gotten engaged, and a week ago, he’d received the phone call about Ian and Jean.
He looked down at the child who hadn’t moved or taken her eyes off of him. “Victoria, I have to go. Do you understand?”
She sat very still, her tiny hands clutching an old rag doll in the lap of the pink pinafore Eve had bought for her. She gave no indication that she cared what he was saying. If she’d only talk, and say, “Yes, I understand, Uncle Jack,” but that wasn’t going to happen.
When he’d agreed to be the child’s godfather, when he’d agreed to take care of her if Ian and Jean couldn’t, none of them had ever dreamed he’d ever have to make good on his promise. That he’d be dealing with a four-year-old who lost both her mother and father in one fell swoop, who suddenly found herself in the care of a thirty-seven-year old man who worked twenty hours a day, and who’d thought that marriage wouldn’t be a major change in his life. But this child was a major change.
“Victoria, I—” His words were cut short as she suddenly scooted off of the chair, and hurried past both him and Eve. He turned and saw her cross to the nanny in the doorway.
Mrs. Ferris, a slender, gray-haired woman in a deep-lavender dress and sensible oxfords, watched as the child stopped in front of her. The nanny patted the child on the head as she looked past her at Jack.
“Sir,” she said in her soft Scottish brogue. “It is bedtime for the wee one. Can she come with me now?”
He hated that degree of relief he felt that Victoria was leaving the room. “Of course. Good night, Victoria.”
The child didn’t acknowledge what he’d said, just went with the woman without a backward glance. “What a mess,” Jack muttered, closing his eyes as he ran a hand over his face.
Eve was there, her hands covering his, their fingers entwining as she drew his hands down between them. He met her sultry gaze, more than a little aware of the way her all white, short dress showed off her cleavage and her tanned legs that seemed to go on forever. “Darling, don’t worry so,” she said softly. “Everything’s under control.” She came closer, pressing her hips against his. “Everything.”
He felt her against him, and wondered why he didn’t feel anything except frustration over the lack of control he seemed to be having in his life. “I wish that were true,” he said.
She frowned. “I know it’s sad that Ian and Jean are gone, and that Victoria is an orphan.”
“He was my best friend. We knew each other since college.” They’d been as close as brothers back then, two men from totally different backgrounds, but who had formed a friendship that had lasted over the years. Six months ago, Ian and Jean had come to London. Now they were gone. “I never dreamed this would happen.”
“I know, I know,” Eve said softly. “It’s hard.” She frowned slightly. “And the wedding plans are piling up, decisions to be made and you’re off to the States for God knows how long.” Her frown deepened. “Then to suddenly have a child dumped on you.” She shrugged with a degree of distaste. “It’s really quite an inconvenience.”
Her choice of words startled him. Dumped? An inconvenience? He’d been raised by nannies, but he’d had his parents there in the background, no matter what kind of parents they’d been. “I don’t think that Ian and Jean’s dying can be called a simple inconvenience,” he said tightly.
“Oh, love, of course not. I was just…” She shrugged again. “It’s a terrible tragedy, but life goes on. And look what the child has now. You agreed to take over her care, and you’re as rich as…” She shrugged. “Well, you’re well fixed, and you’ll take care of her. She has a superb nanny. Kyle and Betsy loved the woman taking care of the twins.” She smiled, and the expression seemed jarring to Jack. “And she’s going to have beautiful clothes. It’s like dressing a little doll.”
Eve had been good about this, but maybe not exactly realistic. “Everything a girl needs,” he muttered with more than a touch of sarcasm.
“Exactly.” She didn’t catch his mood at all. “And don’t worry about the child. Children are resilient and she’ll adjust. Now, we just have to get you back from the States and get on with things. Go to Houston, and work your magic, then come back and we can go on vacation before the real planning for the wedding gets underway.” She smiled a bit more deeply as she seemed to warm up to that idea. “Somewhere warm and sunny.”
“Sure,” he said, and couldn’t even think about a vacation at the moment. He moved away from Eve, breaking the contact to cross to the massive desk in the wood and leather study, and reach for his briefcase. “Right now I need to get out of here. I don’t want to get tied up at the airport.” He sorted through the papers he had to read on the flight to Houston, dropped them into the case and snapped it shut. “I’ll call you from Houston when I get in.”
“Okay, you go and fix things, then get back here.”
“That’s the plan,” he murmured as he turned to her.
She gave him a soft, lingering kiss, then drew back. “Just remember…vacation.” She turned and headed for the door. “Now, I’m off to see Lady Branson to find out who designed her daughter’s absolutely delicious bridesmaids’ outfits last year.” She stopped at the door and smiled at him. “Remember, vacation.” And she left.
He heard the entry door click shut behind Eve. Even through the thick walls of the century-old row house, he heard Eve’s sports car’s motor rev to life, then drive off in a squeal of tires. The next moment, Mrs. Ferris appeared in the doorway. Her expression was somber, but then again, that seemed to be her normal appearance. “The driver is at the side door with your car, sir, and the wee one is in bed, one light on, eyes closed. She did not have her milk, just refused it, and wore the pink nightie Miss Ryder bought for her. I hope that is acceptable.”
He turned and said, “Yes, it is.”
“She has that doll with her, too. I think it might be close to a health hazard. Both the doll and its clothes need cleaning.”
That was the least of his worries. “Buy her a new doll.”
“That is not it, sir,” she said, with more than a touch of reproach in her voice. “She would not want a new doll, but that doll is dirty, and I just wanted to mention it so you know that I’m aware of the dangers.”
He was quite certain Mrs. Ferris was aware of everything, and he didn’t want, or need, a blow-by-blow description of what she knew or didn’t know. “Do whatever you think is best,” he said, his tone a bit more clipped than he’d intended.
“As you wish, sir,” she murmured.
“You have all my phone numbers, my contacts at LynTech, and my e-mail address,” he said as he gripped the briefcase. “If anything comes up, Miss Ryder can assist you. The bottom line is, just give the child whatever she needs.”
“That’s another thing, sir.” She crossed her arms on her chest. “I was always believing that spoiling a child, no matter what the reasons, was wrong. Children need rules and schedules. Trust me, that gives a child a sense of security.”
She was probably right. What did he know about kids? He and Eve hadn’t even talked about children, and the only real contact he’d had with children before this, had been when he was a child himself. “Of course,” he murmured.
“It is just my opinion, sir.”
He exhaled as he frowned at the gray-haired woman. “Mrs. Ferris, can we get one thing straight?”
Her lips tightened slightly. “Of course, sir.”
“I don’t know much about children, and I don’t have the time to learn right now. That’s what I’m paying you for, to leave me out of the loop, unless there is a major problem. I trust your professional instincts to do the right thing, so you don’t have to run everything past me. Do you understand?”
Her face flushed slightly. “Yes, sir,” she said.
“Good. Now, tell Victoria goodbye for me, and I’ll contact you when I get to Houston.”
“Yes, sir. Safe trip,” she said and left quickly.
He headed out of the room, and down the narrow wood-lined hall toward the side entrance. A soft sound stopped him, and he looked up the back stairs. It was shadowy, but he saw Victoria on the top step, sitting with her doll, rocking.
“Victoria?” he said, and started up, but Mrs. Ferris was there.
“Don’t trouble yourself, sir, she’s okay, just a mite restless.” The nanny reached down and took Victoria’s hand, urging her to her feet.
“Mrs. Ferris?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, the lady standing by the little girl in the semishadows.
“Stay with her until she falls asleep, and—” he exhaled “—do that every night.”
“As you wish, sir,” she said, and the two of them went silently out of sight into the upper hallway. Jack took a deep breath. He had to leave. He couldn’t change that. When he got back, he’d worry about the wedding plans and about a silent four-year-old girl. Right now he had to focus on Houston and what was waiting for him there.
Chapter One
Jack had barely landed in Houston when the phone rang in the company car. As the driver drove out of the airport, Jack answered the phone. “Jack? Zane. Glad you made it in.”
Zane Holden, one of the two men who took over LynTech from the founder, Robert Lewis, sounded rushed and anxious. “What’s going on?” Jack asked, settling back in the soft gray leather.
“We’re just waiting for you before we make a move toward Sommers.”
“He’s in Houston?”
“Not yet. He’s in New York at the moment. If we get lucky, he’ll agree to handle the negotiations himself, instead of using a middleman.”
E. J. Sommers, the founder and head of the EJS Corporation, wasn’t an easy man to pin down. He didn’t do things the way other corporate heads did. He was more freewheeling, more unstructured, and that bothered Jack. But the branch of EJS Corporation that LynTech wanted was a gem. A real find. “Any word on how our interest in EJS got out?”
“We’ll talk about that when you get here. I called Robert Lewis in on it as a consultant. We need his take on things.”
“That’s a smart move. No one knows the business around here like Robert.”
Robert Lewis had been Jack’s father’s friend from college days, just the way Ian had been his. Ten years ago, when Jack’s father had died, Robert had been there. Robert had known the full story about Jack’s father, and he’d been the one to trust Jack to make things right. He owed Robert a lot and, despite the fact that the company wasn’t Robert’s any longer, it meant a lot to the man, and Jack wasn’t going to let him down.
“Did you find a nanny?” Zane asked.
Jack grimaced as he remembered his last glimpse of Victoria alone at the top of the stairs. He was surprised that the co-CEO of LynTech was worried about a nanny. He’d dealt with Zane for over a year, and knew that his son, Walker, was the center of his existence along with his wife Lindsey, but he didn’t expect him to take much of an interest in his child care situation.
“It’s all settled,” he said and realized that he’d just uttered a lie of staggering magnitude.
“Good. The child, the little girl, is she okay with the nanny?”
That was when he realized why Zane was asking. It wasn’t the child he was asking about, he was asking if Jack was in any condition to give one hundred percent to the problem at hand. That annoyed him slightly, that Zane would even think that he wouldn’t be effective in a crisis. “She’s fine with the nanny, and she understands I had to leave.”
“I never found a good nanny when I needed one.”
He knew enough about Zane to know what he was referring to, when his son had been dropped into his life. When Lindsey, now his wife, had stepped in to be a mother to the boy, and they’d become a family. There was a vague similarity between his and Jack’s predicaments with child care, except Victoria wasn’t his, and…well, Eve was Eve. She’d stepped right in, too. She’d found Mrs. Ferris and promptly bought Victoria a whole new wardrobe. She smiled at the child, pouted about her private time with Jack being limited, then blissfully went on with her plans.
“My fiancée found the nanny through a friend,” he said, thinking that maybe Eve didn’t have overwhelming maternal instincts, but then again, he’d never had any great paternal instincts, either.
“Lindsey thought that you could have brought the child with you and she could have been cared for at the day-care center at LynTech while you worked.”
Zane had even recruited his wife to make sure Jack was focused on the crisis. Maybe his father’s reputation had preceded him with Zane. He hoped not. The car slowed and Jack looked out at the downtown street where the headquarters for LynTech were located. “Thank her for me, but Victoria’s just fine in London. We’re outside. I’ll be up in a few minutes, then go to the hotel later on.”
“That’s another thing. The hotel’s not going to work out for this. It’s overrun with people involved in the charity ball that’s being planned by LynTech. You wouldn’t have any privacy.”
“Then where am I staying?” he asked, caring only that he could work uninterrupted.
“No hotel rooms are available on short notice, so we decided on a loft we’ve got set up not far from the offices. Lots of privacy, and it’s wired directly to here.”
“Fine, whatever,” Jack murmured. “See you in a few,” he said and hung up as the luxury car approached the entrance for the parking garage.
SEX AND SILK. It had to be a dream, because Jack was never poetic, and he knew that he’d never met the owner of the voice that was filtering around him in the blackness.
After getting only a few hours’ sleep in the last two days, Jack had counted on sleeping for six hours before getting back to work. He’d been at the offices since arriving from London, took a nap in a side room off of Zane Holden’s office, and this was the first time he’d made it to the loft. He’d planned to sleep hard, then get to work on his own without interruption.
He just hadn’t expected to dream, because he never dreamed. At least, he never remembered any dreams. He’d set his internal clock for a few hours and slept…his usual pattern. Get hard sleep, then work hard. But now there was a dream that consisted of a single voice, low murmurs, floating around him. Soft. Seductively feminine.
“Oh, come on,” the voice whispered. “Come to me.”
Sexy, inviting, seducing him, even though it barely existed.
“That’s it, love. Come on. Please? Come to me. Now.”
No pictures, no images, just him listening, drifting, waiting, the sound tingling through his body, giving him pleasure.
“Good, good.” The whisper floated softly. “That’s it. Come on, baby, that’s it. Closer, closer.”
The voice was seeping into his being, making him ache for more, then it was gone. He woke suddenly, not sure what had just happened. But his heart was pounding in his chest and his body ached, a painful remnant of his reaction to the voice in his dreams. He took shallow, rapid breaths while he stared up into the shadows overhead, trying to make his body let go of the dream.
Damn dream! He shifted onto his side, wide-awake now, but froze when he saw a dull glow coming over the partial wall that divided the sleeping area from the kitchen. When he’d come in, he had turned on the overhead lights to get oriented, showered, then turned off all the lights and climbed into the king-size bed. The only things he’d left on were the fax machine and computer, waiting for incoming messages. Now a light was on in the kitchen. He heard a shuffling sound, then a faint clink.
Someone was there.
Zane? Matthew Terrell, the other CEO? Rita something-or-other who worked for both men? He looked at the clock and the glowing LED panel read 2:13 a.m. No, Zane wouldn’t be here at this time. Zane wouldn’t be anywhere, but with his family. Neither would Matt or anyone else from LynTech.
He listened, heard another sound, a low humming and he moved. He stood, grabbed his pants and put them on quickly, forgoing his shirt and shoes, then debated his options. Call someone, stay quiet and hope whoever was there would leave, or go out and confront the trespasser.
He considered his options, then heard another soft sound, of a drawer being opened, then closed. He made his decision. The best thing to do was to get out of the loft without being seen, but be prepared just in case. He looked around in the shadow-darkened room for anything he could use as a weapon, and the best thing he could see was a lamp by the bed that looked solid. He reached for it, took off the shade and took out the bulb, then unplugged it and wrapped the cord around the base that felt like rough stone.
He held it like a club and it felt heavy and solid. Cautiously, he approached the door that led into the main living area of the loft. He paused, trying to remember the layout of the loft. Basically one cavernous space, divided into areas by six-foot high walls that came short of touching the lofty ceilings by at least another six feet. Polished hardwood floors, rough white plastered walls, plain furnishings, just two sprawling navy couches, a television in a unit on the far wall, a few tables, some stacked boxes, no carpets that he remembered. The communications-work area took up most of the back wall, on a twelve-foot table set up under high louvered windows, and framed by towering floor-to-ceiling windows on either side.
Simple and clear. He just had to get to the door without being noticed. He cautiously looked out into the main space, and knew luck was with him. Whoever had broken in had left the front door open enough for a thin sliver of light from the corridor to cut into the room. He glanced to his left, to the glow of a light beyond the partial wall that defined the kitchen area. Carefully, he eased into the space, staying as close to the wall as he could while he slowly made his way to the right and the escape of the open door.
He’d gone only a few feet when he heard something that stopped him in his tracks. The voice. The one from his dreams. This time it was softly singing a song he vaguely remembered from somewhere in the past, maybe an old Bob Dylan song…or some folk song? A simple melody sung in a breathy whisper. Then the song stopped when the voice said softly, “So, you don’t like music, huh? Bummer.”
There was no response. Just the voice again, “Okay, okay, I get the idea.” Followed by a low chuckle. “I’ll stop.”
The idea of going out the entry door was forgotten and Jack found himself moving silently toward the kitchen, the lamp base firmly gripped. The voice. He’d been right. A feminine voice. A woman, and she seemed to be talking to herself or maybe on the telephone. He didn’t have a clue if there was a phone line in the kitchen. He lifted the lamp base slightly as he approached the wall, then looked into the kitchen area.
He saw the owner of the voice that had invaded his dreams, the person who invaded the loft. It didn’t make sense. She was tiny, definitely alone, not more than an inch over five feet tall, maybe one hundred pounds soaking wet and she had her back to him as she leaned forward over something on the counter. She looked tiny in an oversize T-shirt fashioned in brilliant, tie-dyed colors of reds, blues and yellows. It was barely long enough to brush the tops of her bare thighs. Her hair so blond it was almost silver, fell long and straight down her back, almost to her waist, and her feet were bare. There was something at her slender ankle, jewelry of some sort.
Whatever fear he’d had at the intrusion was gone, replaced by curiosity and something else. That stirring he’d experienced in the dream was back full-force, fed by the way her long hair shifted in a silky veil when she moved, and by the seductive lines of her bare legs. He just watched. Her hands shifted to her hips, the action hiking the T-shirt higher on her thighs while her feet shifted on the cold hardwood floor.
“Okay, bud, you’re on your own,” she said a little louder now, but the voice didn’t lose any of its sexiness.
This was ridiculous, standing here, watching, listening. He made himself move farther into the room, still gripping the lamp base, and he made himself speak up. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
She jerked around, her long hair flowing like a veil, then she was facing him. If the voice had been disturbing, looking into huge brown eyes set in a delicately boned face, seeing seductively full lips softly parted in surprise and watching her rapid breathing press her high, small breasts against the soft cotton of her shirt, stunned him. His jumbled thoughts and spontaneous responses were so unlike anything he’d experienced before with any woman, that he was literally frozen to the spot. He simply stared at her.
WHEN RAIN ARMSTRONG heard that voice, she spun around. Her heart pounded against her ribs, and she couldn’t take a decent lungful of air to save her life. Fear choked her and she had to blink twice before she could make out a man not more than six feet from her in the shadowed kitchen. A man who had appeared out of nowhere in a loft that was supposed to have been deserted.
All she could do was stare at him, tall and lean, standing by the entrance, half lost in the fringe shadows of the space. She could tell he was wearing nothing but dark slacks and that he totally blocked any means of escape. He had something in his right hand, something that look ominously heavy and lethal, raised as if ready to strike her.
Even though she couldn’t move, her mind raced. Get out! she screamed in her head. Just get out any way you can! But she didn’t know how to do that. The only weapon she had was the can opener she had been using to open the cat food, and it was hardly a weapon.
He took a single step toward her. “I asked what’s going on? What are you doing in here?”
She swallowed hard. “Wh-what are you doing in here?”
“You first,” he muttered as he took another step forward.
She tried to back up, but her waist hit the counter behind her. She darted a look past him, the space between him and the door rapidly expanding. Maybe she could get around him before he could react. But then again, maybe he’d just hit her with the thing in his hands. He was tall, a good foot taller then she, somewhere in his mid to late thirties, and from his near naked state, she could see he was fit. Lightly tanned skin stretched taut over hard stomach muscles, a chest with just an arrow of dark hair and disturbingly broad shoulders. His angular face was partially shadowed in the dim light, but she could see the slash of dark brows over hooded eyes, a slightly crooked nose, all framed by dark hair, short and somewhat spiked.
She saw the way his hand held the weapon, and she cursed the fact she didn’t have a clue where the knives were located. She shifted slightly, ready to just make a run for it, but she never got the chance. Joey, the orange tabby cat she’d come to feed, had made his way to the top of the wall between the kitchen and living area, and right then, the huge beast launched himself at the intruder. The man must have sensed something coming, because he started to turn in the direction of the attacking cat, but he couldn’t do a thing to protect himself before there was impact.
The cat hit him in the shoulder and chest, sending him off balance, and for a moment man and cat were suspended in midair flying to Rain’s right. Then there was a crashing sound as the man hit the floor, mixed with a profound curse. The cat immediately launched himself off of the man, up and onto the counter in one smooth move.
It was Rain’s chance to escape, and she took it, but she’d only taken one step before her foot struck something hard and cold. She pitched forward, flailing to get her balance, but fell straight into the prone stranger.
There was heat and the scent of soap and maleness, and strength. That scared her. She quickly pushed as hard as she could, sending herself back and away from the contact, hitting the wooden floor and ending up on her knees. She sat back on her heels, pushed her tangled hair out of her face. Whatever chance she had of escape was gone.
The man was standing and towering over. Then she saw the weapon he’d been holding, the thing that had caused her to trip. She made a grab for it, but she wasn’t fast enough. He had it and he was standing over her once again.
She took several deep breaths, then pushed herself to her feet. She couldn’t do a thing about his size advantage, but she could talk a good game—her father had always told her that, insinuating that was why she was so good at what she did. She took another breath, thankful that the man was keeping his distance, at least for now. She didn’t want to touch him again or have him touch her.
She braced herself, ready to try anything, then looked right at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was frowning at Joey on the counter. “What in the hell is that?”
“My attack cat,” she muttered, her mind working a mile a minute. The best defense is a good offense, and she’d go on the offensive to see what happened. “You’re lucky all he did was knock you down, you sneaking in here like this and scaring me to death.”
He looked at her then and she had the oddest feeling she’d met him before. But she hadn’t. She’d never heard that voice or faced the man himself before in her life. She would have remembered. “What was he going to do, tear me to shreds?”
She shrugged. “Who knows?”
He shook his head. “Just tell me why you’re here and what in the hell you’re doing here at two in the morning?”
At least he was talking and not bashing her over the head with the lamp base. An attacker who wanted to talk, but why was he here half-dressed? It didn’t make sense. “You explain first,” she said.
He exhaled roughly. “Oh, come on. I’m not the one who broke in.”
“I didn’t break in. There’s a key in the lock.” She knew at least one thing. “That’s how you got in here, isn’t it? I left the damn door open.”
“No, I have my own key,” he said.
Her stomach sank. “You were in here all along?”
“Since midnight.”
Oh, boy, had she been wrong. “In here?”
“Actually, in the bedroom. I was sleeping….” He shrugged. “Let’s start over. It’s obvious that you aren’t here ripping me off, and I belong here, so just tell me why you’re here in the middle of the night with that animal?”
He was staying here. She knew people went in and out of this place, but no one had told her that anyone would be here tonight, or she wouldn’t have come over. She motioned to Joey who was calmly cleaning himself on the counter. “Feeding that beast.”
“At two in the morning?”
“That wasn’t my idea,” she muttered and looked at the lamp base in his hand. “Were you going to hit me with that?”
He looked taken aback, but said, “Only if you were a killer and you outweighed me by fifty pounds.”
“Well, I’m not and I don’t,” she muttered.
“So I can see,” he said softly in a tone that brought color to her cheeks. Then he said, “So, you came to feed the cat…?”
She exhaled and motioned to the lamp base. “Can you put that down?”
He eyed her up and down, and there was a definite softening in his expression. She realized that his eyes weren’t just shadowed, they were dark as night. “If you promise not to unleash that beast on me again.”
“Sorry, I can’t promise that. He’s pretty much got a mind of his own.”
“Okay, but I’ll keep an eye on him,” he said and laid the lamp base on the counter. Facing her again, he asked, “Now, why were you coming in here to feed him at this time of night?”
“Because he ran away.”
“From you?”
“No, the guy who used to live here. He moved, the cat went with him, but he disappeared—the cat, not the man—and his wife’s worried about it and thought that the cat might try to get back here, and sure enough…” She pointed to Joey. “He turned up tonight. I was sitting on the fire escape meditating when I spotted him going over the roof, then he jumped down to the window and disappeared. I guess the guy left the window open just in case he came back. Anyway, he got in, and I knew…” She cleared her throat. “I thought this place was empty.”
“Wrong,” he said. “So, you were outside on the fire escape, then came in here? What do you do, hang out on fire escapes at night for fun?”
She shook her head. “I’m staying in the next unit. The guy, the one who lived here and moved out with the cat—”
“I’ve got that part of it.”
“Okay, well he asked if the cat showed up, could we feed him or something and keep him here until he could get over here to take him back. So, I did. Not that he liked the food I found.” She took a breath. “I thought he was waiting here in an empty loft, and I came over.” She shrugged. “And there you were.”
He raked his fingers through his hair, spiking it even more. “Who was it who asked you to watch for the cat?”
“Zane something-or-other, one of the suits at LynTech, I think. They lease this place, for whatever reasons. Since I’ve been here, no one’s lived in here at all for more than a few days.”
“One of the what at LynTech?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said one of the suits at LynTech? A suit?”
“A suit. You know, some bigwig executive who makes millions and wants to rule the world from his corporate tower. Although this isn’t any corporate tower, and I’d think, with all the money they’re raking in, that they could put their people up in a plush penthouse or something.”
His expression tightened. “Zane Holden wants to the rule the world?”
“Whatever. The man’s the head of everything at LynTech, along with some other guy, and, from what I’ve heard, eats up competitors. Heck, he’s probably eyeing IBM even as we speak.”
“You’ve met him?”
“Oh, of course not. And I can’t say I’d want to.”
“Not your type, huh?”
She heard the edge to his voice, then suddenly it all added up. She was so slow on the uptake, it had to be the late hour and inability to sleep that was fogging her brain. He was here, in a place leased by LynTech. He more than likely worked for Holden. He was a suit. A half-naked suit at the moment, but a suit, unless he was just loft sitting or something. Maybe a relative in from out of town? “I wouldn’t know,” she murmured.
He eyed her night shirt and bare feet. “Take my word for it, he’s not your type.”
She felt that touch of heat in her cheeks again at the tone in his voice. Condescension, or maybe sarcasm? She wasn’t sure, but she knew that she didn’t like it. “Tell your boss his cat is back,” she said.
“My boss?” he asked.
The moment he said the words, she knew she’d been wrong. This man wasn’t a flunky. He was a boss, a filthy rich boss staying in a very plain loft. She remembered exactly where she’d seen him before. A glossy magazine. She’d been in one of the offices at the hospital waiting for yet another interview with Dr. Shay, and she’d picked it up to pass the time. It had been one of those “people on the go” columns, the type that either started rumors or confirmed them.
This man had earned a full half-page column including a color picture. He’d been in a tux, his arm around the shoulders of a tall, beautiful woman with perfect bone structure and a cap of ebony hair. The paragraph was about Jackson Ford, and Eve something-or-other. Definitely a suit, a very rich, powerful suit. It had been announcing the engagement of Jackson Ford, head of European operations for LynTech. Something about them making their home in London.
“You’re Jackson Ford, aren’t you?” she blurted out.
She’d definitely shocked him.
“How in the hell—?”
“Saw your picture in a magazine a bit back. You were getting engaged and partying in England, I think.”
“You got me,” he said. “So, you are…?”
Out of here, she thought, but said, “I didn’t know you were here, that anyone was here. Sorry about all of this.”
“I didn’t expect to wake up at two in the morning and find a half dressed hippie in the kitchen.”
“Hippie?”
He flicked his gaze over her. “Hippie.”
“Whatever,” she said, and knew it was time to get out of the loft and away from this guy. She’d faced snobbery before, but it hadn’t rankled her as much as the snobbery he was showing at that moment.
“Now that we’ve labeled each other, I’m leaving,” she said, and moved to go past him.
But it wasn’t going to be that easy, not when he caught her by the upper arm and stopped her. His fingers hovered this side of real pain, but held her firmly, stopping her escape completely. “Hold on there,” he said. “You aren’t leaving yet.”
Chapter Two
Rain fought every instinct to try to free herself of his hold, and stood very still. “What, do you want me to thank you for not braining me with that lamp? Or do you want me to do a spirit dance around you while you try to correct your very-out-of-whack Karma?”
He almost smiled, and she had a flashing knowledge that he was a man who didn’t smile easily. “Neither,” he said and let her go. “I just wanted to know who you are.”
She stayed where she was, not moving at all and definitely not rubbing her arm where he’d gripped her. “I’m an idiot who thought I was rescuing a cat. I even gave him some dolphin free tuna to eat, and he turned his nose up at it. Then you came after me with that lamp.”
“I never threatened you with the lamp or anything else, and as far as my karma goes, it’s just fine.”
“Rainbow!”
She heard George calling from somewhere beyond the entry door and his voice cut through the loft with a boom even from that distance. “I’m in here, George!” she called back, not taking her eyes off the man in front of her. “I’ll be right there.”
“Okay,” he called back and she heard their loft door close with a soft clang.
“Rainbow?” Jack asked, the way so many people had said her given name over the years.
“Rain is fine,” she muttered. “George just likes to use the full version.”
“George?”
“Your neighbor. The guy Zane gave the key to in case Joey showed up?”
“Joey?”
“The cat.”
“You were talking to the cat earlier?” he asked.
“Sure. I was trying to coax him off the wall to start with, then tried to get him to eat very expensive tuna.”
Jack kept watching her, a tiny woman who talked fast, moved with real ease and whom he’d felt against him on the floor. He took a breath, but wished he hadn’t. She carried the scent of…something…sweet and soft…but elusive. And she lived next door. And all he knew about anyone else on this floor was what Zane had said.
“There’s a middle-aged hippie next door to the loft, George Armstrong. He’s a good man, but he’s beyond eccentric and if you let him, he’ll give you hours of lectures about corporate greed. He paints, I think, and comes and goes on whims, apparently. He never got past the ‘do your own thing’ or ‘if it feels good, do it,’ era,” she said.
“You said you live next door?”
“I moved in a few weeks ago. George is my—”
“I know all about George,” he said before she could go into their relationship. He understood all too well from what Zane had told him. But it bothered him that she was involved with the man.
She frowned, then cocked her head to one side and her hair moved in a soft veil. “Oh, sure, of course, you know.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just more labeling. Since George doesn’t conform to what you think he should, you’re sure that he’s some irresponsible hippie living like some flower child.” She bit her lip. “Gad, you’re a snob.”
A snob? “Now I’m a stuffed suit and a snob?”
She shook her head, then went past him into the main living area that was deep in shadows except for the light slicing in from the hallway. He followed her, watching her silhouetted against the light coming in the door. She was at the entrance before she stopped and turned back to him. In that fleeting moment, the light behind her softly exposed her slender figure. “Sorry for the intrusion. I’ll let that Zane person know the cat’s back.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll take care of it,” he said.
“Oh, sure, the responsible one,” she muttered.
She was going back to that middle-aged hippie and he felt vaguely sick. “I’ll take care of it,” he repeated.
“Of course, and, oh, by the way, my name’s Rainbow Swan, for the record. Good night, Jackson Ford.”
With that, she left, quietly closing the door behind her. Before he could do more than absorb the fact that she’d obviously had the last word, the door opened again and this time he could see through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. “I’ve got the key,” she said. “Tell Zane that he can come get it any time he wants to. But until then we’ll guard it with our lives so that you’ll be safe from any and all undesirables who might be in the area.” And she closed the door after her.
Jack crossed to the door, opened it and heard another door shut firmly. Rain was gone. And she’d had a double last word. He hated that. He closed his door, threw the bolt lock on it, then saw the cat. The animal was walking silently along the shelf on the top of the partial wall. He got to the bedroom area, looked at Jack, then leaped in the opposite direction and disappeared. A cat. A hippie. He looked at the clock. The whole thing had lasted fifteen minutes, tops. It had seemed to last forever.
The middle-aged hippie and Rain. It sounded like the title of a bad novel, or some crazy song. But it knotted his stomach with distaste. Instead of going to the bedroom, he crossed to the work station, turned on two lights and sat down in front of the computer. As the monitor warmed up, he heard the cat somewhere close by mewing softly in the darkness. Then a heavy thump came from somewhere beyond the wall across the room that was shared with the next loft.
He looked at the computer screen, logged onto the Internet and went to the mail program. There were several notes from Mrs. Ferris, and a single note from Eve. He opened Eve’s note quickly. All thoughts of Rain pushed to the back of his mind…for now.
RAIN WENT INTO the loft and called out to George. “I’m back.” She crossed to the kitchen to make herself a cup of green tea.
“What was going on over there?” he asked coming up behind her.
“Labeling,” she muttered, a bit shocked that Jack Ford had gotten under her skin so completely. Labels didn’t matter. She’d known that all her life, but for some reason his attitude stung.
“What?” George asked as Rain put the teakettle on the stove, then turned to her father.
Yes, he was a hippie. From the long gray hair, thin on top, pulled back in a ponytail with a friendship rope that Bree, her mother, had made for him, to the rope sandals, the six earrings in his left ear and the cutoffs worn with a shirt that sported a skull and roses on it, he was a hippie. Although Rain liked the term a free, caring spirit better than hippie. He was middle-aged, sincere about helping to make the world a better place, and vastly talented as a painter.
She glanced at the loft, a cavernous space free of any real adornments, with pillows instead of chairs, bed pads on the floor in the side alcoves, and his paintings all around, in various stages of completion. “Want some green tea?” she asked, not about to get into this with her father, too.
He waved that aside with, “No, thanks,” and headed over to his latest canvas, a huge, four-by-six-foot work in progress that he’d labeled Experimental. Red he called it, and it was that. Very red. Lines, sweeping swirls, dots, splashes, all in various shades of red. Even though she loved her father and thought he was beyond talented, it still amused her at George’s chagrin that “normies,” as her dad called the rest of the world, actually liked his work and bought it. “The cat showed up, huh?”
“Sure did,” she said and turned as the kettle started to whistle. As she made a mug of tea, George put on one of his tapes of lute music. She turned with the steaming mug in her hands and inhaled the combination of paint and incense in the air. “You said LynTech used that loft sometimes when their people came to town?”
“Yeah,” George said, studying his painting, hands on his hips and his head cocked to one side. “They’ve got it set up so they can work without ever seeing the light of day,” he said. “I hear they’ll need it with all that stuff going on at LynTech.”
“What stuff?” she asked.
“Something big, and I don’t mean that charity ball next month.” He looked away from his canvas and back at her. “Business intrigue that no one’s talking about.”
She crossed to the rope hammock by the fire escape window on the back wall and settled into it, cradling her tea. This was the way it had been whenever she was here with George, her sipping tea in the hammock, him with his painting. It felt good, even if she was twenty-eight years old. “What’s the big secret?”
“I don’t know, but they called in a big gun from London, Jackson Ford. He’s dead in the middle of it.”
“He’s also dead in the middle of the loft next door,” she muttered and took another sip of the tea.
George looked surprised. “You sure?”
“I just ran into him when I was feeding that cat.” Now she understood a slight hint of a certain properness in his voice. England. Yes, it could be a hint of an English accent he might have absorbed living there. Then again, maybe it just came from him being so incredibly uptight. “They must use that place a lot. It’s set up like a control center for NASA, every business machine you could want. Well, not you.”
“Mmm,” George said as he looked back at the painting. “Next door, huh? Well, from what little I’ve been able to find out, Ford and some others are working on a big deal, and it looks as if that very big deal could fall through.”
Rain wondered if Mr. Jackson Ford was on the edge of being booted from LynTech for some mess up on his part? Maybe that was partly why he was so uptight. “Too bad,” she said.
“It’s all a part of the corporate mindset, that need to work your butt off and make big bucks and destroy this country in the process,” George said. “That can’t be easy on anyone.”
She didn’t want him to get started on this. She’d heard the speech far too often, and her nerves couldn’t stand it now. “No it can’t,” she said, ready to deflect the topic, but he did it for her.
“Do you think this is too much?” he asked, pointing at a huge blot of crimson dead in the middle of the canvas. “Too…intense, too flamboyant?”
Everything about George was flamboyant, another character trait that she’d adjusted to a long time ago. “You’re asking me that, the person who you once said, if I remember correctly, had the artistic bent of a log?” she teased.
He turned with a grin. “I forgot for a moment. Thought I was talking to Serenity.”
She called her mother Bree, but George never called her by anything except the nickname he’d given her the summer they met years ago at a commune on the coast of California near Big Sur. “So, she called, didn’t she?”
“Sure did.” The grin seemed permanent now. He always seemed to glow a bit when he talked about her. Over the years, through all the changes in both of them, she’d never doubted that her parents loved each other very much. They just didn’t commit to a relationship the way the world thought they should. “Did I tell you I’m taking off soon?” George asked.
“No, you didn’t, but then again, when did you ever check in when you wanted to take off?” She’d just gotten here, and with the mess at the hospital, she was hoping he’d be around for a while. But George moved when he wanted to and she was used to him just up and leaving when the spirit moved him.
“True, and that being the case, I’m assuming that I didn’t tell you where I’m going?”
“I didn’t expect you would,” she said. “Is there a gathering or something?”
“No, not at this time of the year.” Then he came over to the hammock and stood in front of Rain with his arms out at his sides. “So, how do I look?”
She shrugged. “Like you usually look.”
For some reason that seemed to please him. “Good, good,” he murmured and moved across the studio area to the makeshift dining table all but covered with stretched canvases and paint supplies.
“So, where are you going?” she asked.
“The Golden City,” he said, the smile deepening.
That meant San Francisco, more specifically, Palo Alto. “Oh, is she expecting you?”
“She’s always expecting me,” he said. “And while I’m gone, chill and get centered.”
“I’m chilling, and I’m centered,” she said.
“No, you’re not. I can’t remember how long it’s been since you’ve been centered. That so-called institution of higher learning might have given you a degree, but it also made you uptight.” He frowned at her. “And since you showed up on my doorstep saying you were going to play doctor in Houston, well…” He gave a mock shudder. “Girl, you need to get back to the basics.”
She wasn’t in any mood for one of his lectures on her choices. For a person who believed in free will and live and let live, he got remarkably judgmental about her life choices. For a moment she thought that despite his attempts at being so different from the suits, he and Jack Ford had something in common. Judging her. “George, stop. You know this is a non-topic. You taught me to make my own choices, and my own choice was to become a clinical therapist for children.”
“I know, I know, and you’re really trying to help children, just going down a different road.” He came across to her. “It’s just hard for me to think of you, my daughter, being a real professional with a real Ph.D.” He looked genuinely shocked by that. “Who would have thought it?”
“Yeah, who would have thought it?” she murmured with a grin.
He kissed her on the forehead, then stood back and said, “I’m leaving later this morning.”
She had always been amazed at her parents’ idea of “marriage.” Her mother lived in Palo Alto and George, whom her mother called “Dune,” lived wherever he wanted to, but mostly here in Houston where he painted. But twice a year, George headed west and twice a year, Bree headed east. That had been going on since Rain was eight and her mother had decided that she needed a “home” that stayed put. So the two of them had agreed on an arrangement, and it worked. Amazingly, twenty years later, they were still “connected,” and happier than a whole lot of couples held together by a piece of paper.
“Give her my love?” she murmured.
“Why don’t you come out with me? She’d love to see you.”
“I saw her two weeks ago when I left there to come here,” she pointed out. “And you know I can’t anyway, not with this whole thing at the hospital up in the air.” She shrugged. “I never expected to get here, thinking the staff position at the hospital was a done deal, then to be told that there were ‘budget considerations,’ and they put me on hold. I talked to Dr. Shay earlier today and he said it could be a week or two before they get the approval.” She shrugged. “I think they look at it as another clinical psychologist in pediatrics isn’t a life and death role, not like a surgeon or an internist.”
“Don’t they know that the soul and spirit pretty much rule our physical health?”
She slid off of the hammock and put her mug on a paint smeared shelf nearby, then turned to George. “I guess not. Now tell me what you need done while you’re gone.”
He grinned. “That’s the beauty of my life here. There is nothing to do. Just chill and—”
“I know, get centered.”
“That’s it.” He crossed to a wicker trunk under the high loft windows.
“Well, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands until the call comes from the hospital.”
“There’s a fine free clinic down on Brown and—”
“That’s a drug treatment center, George,” she said. “That’s not my specialty. You know that. I work with children.”
“The only children thing I know about is the day-care center at LynTech,” George said as he rummaged through the wicker trunk.
“A corporate institution?” she asked with true amazement.
“No, not really. It’s in LynTech, and was started for them.” He turned with a pair of rope sandals in his hands. “But it’s changed. Lindsey Holden, the CEO’s wife, has transformed it into a real community effort. It’s just getting off the ground and they’re taking in the children of workers in that area, anyone who needs a good day care for their child. I mean, a lot of workers in that area can’t really afford expensive day care. I’m betting they’ll have some kids coming in who need the kind of help you could give them.”
She was shocked that he’d mellowed to the extent that he’d give anything connected to a corporation consideration. Then again, he’d been talking a lot about LynTech since she’d arrived. “You could be right.”
“They’re even sponsoring a huge benefit next month for the children’s hospital intensive care pediatrics wing expansion. Robert Lewis, the founder of LynTech, was involved in the fund-raising, and it seemed natural to get the day-care center in on it, too. I think they’re on the right track.” He crossed to a canvas knapsack sitting by the door to the hallway. “It was encouraging that they’d reach out like that, especially to a children’s hospital. A huge fancy ball wasn’t what I’d choose to raise money, but they weren’t interested in any of my suggestions.”
She didn’t ask what his suggestions were. “It sounds as if their corporate heart is in the right place.”
“Who would have thought that the words corporate and heart would be in the same sentence?” he murmured with a touch of disbelief.
“Well, that’s an idea, maybe volunteering there for a week or so,” she said, and headed into the side space where she’d set up her bed mat. “You’re leaving early?”
“Sunup,” he said.
She stopped and looked over at him. “Oh, speaking of corporate hearts. Mr. Ford said that he’d let them know about the cat. So, you don’t need to bother telling Zane…whatever.”
“Holden, Zane Holden,” he said. “And speaking of Zane Holden, do you want me to give him a call and put in a good word for you at the day-care center?”
“No, thanks. I’m not sure it’s a good idea anyway.” That’s all she needed was to be around people like Jack Ford all day. “The hospital might call soon.”
“Whatever,” he murmured. “Do what you think is best.”
That’s the way she’d always lived her life, with no strong parental rules. She’d just happened to make what she thought were good decisions. Staying clear of people like Jackson Ford was a very good decision.
TWO DAYS LATER, Rain gave up on a quick resolution of her position at the hospital and impulsively made a call to the day-care center at LynTech, Just For Kids. She’d spoken to a woman named Mary Garner, and Mary had been thrilled that she was interested in volunteering at the center.
Now she stood in the middle of the center, the main playroom with an awesome fantasy of a tree fashioned out of wood and paint, with tunnels in its trunk and limbs that ran from one side of the room to the other to play centers near the walls. The children were happy, and the staff seemed to be very caring. It was so much more than George had told her about.
She’d just finished a tour conducted by Mary and was taking in beautiful murals on all four walls, a ring of laughing, playing children, each with a name by them. There were maybe fifteen children in the main room right then, lying on nap mats under the sprawling wooden limbs of the play tree and soft music was being piped in. It all seemed inventive and effective.
She turned to Mary, a slightly built woman, with a cap of gray, feathery hair, and rimless glasses perched on her nose, magnifying kind blue eyes set in a softly pleasant face. She was possibly in her early sixties, spry and gentle, with a voice that matched the sweetness in her expression. Right now she was looking at Rain, and asking in a partial whisper, “So, what do you think of our lovely center?”
“I think it’s terrific. Just great,” she said in a voice that matched Mary’s.
“I’ve only been here a few months, but I do love it so. And I want others to love it, too.” She looked at Rain’s clothes, the navy slacks and white short-sleeved sweater that she’d hoped would be suitable under the circumstances. She’d confined her hair in a single braid down her back, skimming it simply off of her face. “I’d advise that you wear more casual clothes when you’re here, jeans and such. It can be hard on one’s wardrobe,” she said, then pressed a hand to her chest. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m assuming far too much.”
Rain didn’t hesitate. She’d done this impulsively, but it had been absolutely the right thing to do. “No, you aren’t. I’d love to be part of this.”
Mary touched her arm. “Wonderful, wonderful, now all we have to do is take care of the formalities. Wait right here,” she said and hurried off toward the office area.
Rain watched the children, enjoying the sense of peace in the space, then Mary was back with the folder Rain had brought with her containing her credentials and references. “After you called yesterday, I talked with Lindsey, Mrs. Holden, and she would be very grateful if you could help us out for a bit.” She handed the packet to Rain. “We’re growing so quickly and with new children coming in, we could use someone on call that could help if there was a problem.”
“Well, I’ve got plenty of time now, but once I’m on at the hospital, any help will have to be planned around my schedule there.”
“Of course. That’s understood,” she said. “I wonder how you heard about us.”
Rain didn’t need anyone’s preconceived ideas about her father tainting her. As much as she loved her father, when people found out about him and his lifestyle, they automatically included her in the equation. The way Jack Ford had. She was a clinical psychologist specializing in helping troubled children. That was all the credentials she needed here.
“I actually heard about you at the hospital when I was going through the interviewing there. They’re very excited about the charity ball.”
“We’re all very excited about it.” She tapped the top of the folder in Rain’s hands. “Just take that all up to Personnel and they’ll give you some paperwork.”
“Personnel?”
“Even though you’re not getting paid, we still need you to be on staff. Insurance, I think that’s what Lindsey said. The center has an office in LynTech Personnel for now. When you’re through there, Mrs. Holden would like to meet you. She’s in her husband’s offices on the top floor. She’s pregnant and been having morning sickness day and night, poor thing.” Mary told her how to get to Personnel and to Zane Holden’s office, then said, “Ask for Charles Gage or his assistant. They work for us. They’ll be expecting you. Take the elevator just across the corridor outside the main doors.”
“Okay,” Rain said with a smile. “I’ll see you soon.” Then Rain left, quietly going past the sleeping children and out the entrance doors. The main reception area was to her right, more corridors to her left, and straight across the broad, marble-floored area, was a bank of elevators. She saw a lady step into the nearest car, and she called out, “Hold the car, please!” as she hurried past a couple of people.
The woman, thin with short, dark hair smiled at Rain as she kept the door from closing. Rain stepped inside and pushed the button for the sixth floor. Before the door closed she saw Jack Ford walking toward the center.
This Jack Ford wasn’t the same man she’d met in her ill-fated foray into the loft in the small hours of the morning. Now he was the image of what she’d labeled him that night, a corporate suit. He was in one of those suits, done in dove gray, double breasted, sleekly tailored and probably obscenely expensive, as expensive as the leather briefcase clutched in his free hand and the leather shoes on his feet. He was on a cell phone, and his face, even more sharply angular in the clear light, was set in an expression of extreme concentration. The tension in him the night before had only intensified, and she had the impression that whatever was going on right then, wasn’t good.
He stopped right by the doors to the center, and closed his eyes as the elevator doors finally slid shut. She was inordinately relieved that he hadn’t seen her. At least working in the center, she wouldn’t have to be around him at all. There was no way they’d get involved. Her use of words shocked her slightly. Involved? He didn’t even exist in the same reality she did and even more importantly, he wouldn’t want to.
Chapter Three
Jack knew the cat was at the loft to stay, at least until Zane and Lindsey’s lives calmed down a bit. The cat came and went as he pleased, and he only bothered with Jack when it came to food. Food ruled the cat, and the cat ruled his world as he perceived it. This morning he’d shown up and decided that it was time to eat, just as Jack was leaving the loft. Foolishly he’d gone to get the food, put it out for the cat, spilled some of the tuna on the sleeve of his jacket and had to change. All in all, it had made him more than fifteen minutes late getting to the office.
He’d barely come in the main entrance of LynTech when his cell phone rang and it was Eve. He’d been trying to make contact with her by something other than e-mail for the last two days, and now that she was on the line, he was rushed. He kept walking, and spoke into it, “Finally.”
“Yes, love, finally,” she said, her voice faintly tinny on the line. “I’ve been trying to catch you everywhere, and the cell phone number you gave me kept cutting off before it connected.”
“Well, I’m on another continent,” he said, nodding to the security guard at the front, a tall, well-built man in a tailored khaki uniform.
“I know. And that’s—”
A beep cut off her next word and he didn’t hear it. “Eve, I’ve got another call coming in. Let me call you when I get to my office. Where are you?”
“At Father’s.”
“Okay, give me ten minutes,” and he clicked over to the other call. But before he said anything, he heard a voice somewhere ahead of him. Her voice. Rain’s. He couldn’t make out the words, just that it was her voice, but when he looked up, he didn’t see her.
He hadn’t seen her again at the loft, either, and he’d thought she’d left with the old hippie for a trip. Someone on the bottom floor had said George was out of town, that he always took off like that. But for that single moment he’d been sure he’d heard her, then he’d realized how ridiculous that would have been. No one at LynTech would be walking around with bare feet, tie-dyed T-shirts or waist-length hair.
“Ford here,” he said into the phone as he stopped in the corridor by a set of brightly painted doors with Just For Kids on them.
It was Martin Griggs, the negotiator for EJS with LynTech. Jack pushed the elevator call button, hoped that he wouldn’t lose the signal in the car, and by the time he stepped out into the corridor, he’d forgotten about voices and was focused on business again. He assured Griggs that it wasn’t anyone at the top level of LynTech who let word of the deal leak out, and by the time he got to his office, Griggs had agreed to try to get E. J. Sommers in on a conference call.
Jack hung up, and put in a call to Quint Gallagher in New York, who was there for his son’s wedding. Gallagher had known E. J. Sommers in the past and he could be an edge for them. But all he got was a voice mail service and he left a message. He hung up, went into the office they’d given him for the duration and was just taking off his jacket when Rita Donovan, executive assistant to both Zane and Matt Terrell, came into his office.
“Mr. Ford,” the thin, dark haired woman said in her usual staccato voice. “I was looking for you. Mr. Holden needs to talk to you as soon as you’re in.”
“Okay,” he said as he put his suit coat over the back of his chair. “Where is he?”
“His office. His wife’s not feeling well, so he’s staying with her.”
“I’ll be down right away,” he said.
She turned to go, but stopped. “Oh, Mr. Ford, a Miss Ryder called about fifteen minutes ago. She’s been trying to reach you and couldn’t get through.”
He’d forgotten about calling Eve back, and that bothered him. He wasn’t sure why he thought it, but if he just talked to her for a while, some of the insanity that seemed to be falling into his life would disappear. “I need to call her back. Can Zane wait a few minutes?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
He glanced at his watch and then at Rita. “Okay, could you call Miss Ryder and tell her I’ll get back to her within the hour?” He scribbled her number in London on a sheet of paper and crossed to give it to her. “And tell her I’m sorry.”
“Of course, sir,” Rita said as she took the paper, then left.
Jack only took enough time to print out a file he’d e-mailed to the office earlier, before he headed for Zane’s office. Once he arrived, he thought no one was there. Then he looked past the cluttered desk in the large office, into another room across the way. He didn’t know what the original purpose of that room had been, but it was being used as a playroom of sorts for Zane’s son, Walker.
But Walker wasn’t there. Zane was with Lindsey who was all curled up on a thick mat on the floor. Zane was beside her, rubbing her back and talking softly to her. “Zane?” Jack said, hating to interrupt, but knowing they had to talk.
Zane twisted, nodded to Jack, then leaned over his wife, said something to her, kissed her quickly and stood. He came out of the room, closed the door quietly and shook his head.
“I don’t know why they call it morning sickness, because she has it all the time.” The rangy man was in a plain white shirt, with its long sleeves rolled up on his forearms, and navy slacks. His sandy hair was mussed as if he’d been running his fingers through it. “She had some tofu thing last night that Matt’s wife, Brittany, swore would stay down. Well, it didn’t,” he said as he crossed to the desk. “Nothing does.”
Jack always thought that Robert Lewis might have been angling to get him together with his daughter, Brittany, in the past, but despite the fact that she was beautiful, he’d avoided being anything more then friends with her. They had been around each other by default so many times, and Robert might have thought they were more than just friends. Robert was wrong. The Brittany he knew was flaky and self-centered, a woman who went through fiancées the way a lizard shed its skin. He’d probably been as shocked as Robert when she’d finally married Matt Terrell and actually settled down to her art career and a family that included a nine-year-old boy.
People changed. He knew Zane Holden had. The man he’d met before he married Lindsey, was vastly different from the one he was facing now. Business was still business, and he was good at it. But now his wife and child were his top priorities.
“I guess it’s rough,” he said, for lack of anything better to say about morning sickness. He couldn’t begin to imagine Eve in Lindsey’s condition. And it hit him that he’d never once envisioned Eve as a mother at all.
“Amen to that,” Zane dropped down in his chair. He sat forward, his elbows on the piles of papers sorted on the top of the desk and looked up at Jack. “How old is the little girl you’re taking care of?”
He had to think for a minute. “Four.”
Zane smiled slightly. “Cute age.”
Victoria was cute. Her mother had been pretty in a delicate way, and Victoria looked a lot like her mother. And Eve had said she was like a little doll. “Yes, a cute age,” he said, and put the papers he’d brought with him on top of the work Zane had been doing. “I got a call from Griggs,” he said, trying to get back to business and forget about why Eve and he hadn’t even discussed children. “I think he’s going to be able to get Sommers involved in this whole business.”
“Terrific,” Zane said, taking the printout Jack was offering him. “No way can we make this work with a middleman doing the talking and someone leaking the information before it’s set in stone.”
“I hope he can influence Sommers.”
“Word is, little influences E. J. Sommers beyond his play toys and a good party. You’d never guess the guy was a genius.” Zane sat back and glanced at the clock. “Matt should be back from court soon, then we can all sit down and go through this.”
“Court?”
“Nothing serious, just clearing up some things about the adoption of Anthony. As soon as he gets back here, we’ll—”
His words were cut off when Lindsey came out of the side room. Jack had seen Lindsey in February, around the time she’d found out she was pregnant and he’d thought she was pretty, in a slender, wispy way. But right then she looked miserable, her pregnancy showing despite the loose white shirt and leggings she was wearing. Her skin was as white as parchment, her eyes were smudged with shadows and an expression of discomfort etched her face.
“I’m so sorry,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “I know what you’re doing is really important, but I can’t stay here. I need to go home.”
Zane moved quickly, crossing to put his arm around her protectively and spoke in a low voice, “That tofu was a huge mistake.”
She looked up at him, and surprisingly there was a faint smile on her pale lips. “Now you tell me.”
He hugged her to him and spoke to Jack over her head. “Do me a favor and cover for me here until Matt gets back from court. Let Rita know I’m going home, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours?”
“No,” Lindsey said, protesting weakly. “I can go by myself.”
Zane acted as if she hadn’t spoken and when he did, Zane saw the morning going down the tubes. “I’ve got a call coming in from Tokyo,” Zane said over his shoulder as he helped Lindsey walk to the private elevator set off to the right in the room.
“Shegata?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. He’s got information on EJS that he thinks we might be able to use.” Zane pushed the button to go down to the parking garage and the door opened immediately. He and Lindsey got in, then he turned with his wife in his arms and looked back at Jack. “You can work in here, and take the message. Just plug into the network. Matt should be back within the hour.”
“Take care,” Jack said as the elevator door slid shut.
The door had just closed when the phone rang on Zane’s desk. He reached for it, expecting the Japanese call, but it was Rita and she was obviously surprised to hear him answering Zane’s private line.
“Mr. Ford?”
He explained about Zane and she didn’t sound surprised. In fact, she said, “I’m impressed that she lasted this long.”
Jack was impressed that Lindsey had even thought she could come into the offices in her condition. “I’ll be in here working, so send Mr. Terrell in when he arrives.”
“No problem, but I was ringing to let you know you have a call on line five. I called Miss Ryder, finally got through, and she insisted that she had to talk to you right away.”
He didn’t like the feeling he was getting. Eve usually respected business, no matter what. “Put her through,” he said.
The next thing he knew, Eve was on the line, that breathy voice, the slight pout in her tone. It was good to hear her voice again, but he’d been right to feel that something had to be wrong when she started with, “I’m sorry to have to insist on talking to you, but things on this end are in a mess.”
He glanced at the clock. It was late at night in London. His stomach tightened. “Is something wrong with Victoria?”
“Not with the girl, exactly. It’s Mrs. Ferris.”
Jack hadn’t had an e-mail from the woman this morning and had actually been relieved after ploughing through three or four every day since he’d left. “What is it?”
“Her sister’s having an operation and she’s the only one who can help her. She gave notice that she’s taking off very soon. She’s in quite a tizzy and you need a new nanny.”
He was actually relieved when she got to the bottom line. A new nanny? He didn’t like the idea of Victoria having to get used to another nanny so soon, but Eve would be there and it wouldn’t be for more than a few weeks. “Okay, as long as you’re there, a new nanny isn’t the end of the world.”
“It’s not that simple, love.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Then tell me why not?”
“I’m not going to be here myself.”
“What?”
“Well, I was bored without you here, and Sonny and Lex asked me to go to their place in Acapulco. They’re expecting me and they made plans. I thought that since Mexico is close to Texas, I could go down there, get some relaxation, then when you’re done there, you could fly down to meet me and well…”
This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. “What about Victoria?”
“Well, there’s no way she can go along with me, nanny or not. I mean, Sonny and Lex have those horrid little dogs and I don’t think any of them like children. But, don’t worry. The service that sent Mrs. Ferris says they don’t have one for a permanent position at this time, but they can send temporary staff, maybe for a day or two at a time, and they said they’ll be sure that someone will always be here.”
He’d thought that going on holiday was to include Victoria, but if she was in London with a round-robin of baby-sitters, Eve in Acapulco and him here…no, that wouldn’t work. He couldn’t do it. This wasn’t what he’d promised Ian and Jean at all. “What do they mean, someone will always be there, moving around every day or two? What are we talking about, nanny musical chairs?”
She laughed, a throaty sound that jarred him. He wasn’t trying to be funny. “Oh, love, don’t be ridiculous.”
Ridiculous was a child being cared for by different people every day. “Isn’t there someone who can be with Victoria for the full time, then fly her over for the vacation?”
“Well, there is a nanny that the Kents had a few years ago, but they didn’t keep her long. She’s okay, but they didn’t like her all that well. But she’d probably do in a pinch.”
He wasn’t going to pawn Victoria off on some nanny who was sub par, and it bothered him that Eve thought that was even an option. “No, that won’t do.”
He heard Eve’s exasperated sigh. “Well, Mrs. Ferris says she has to be out of here in three or four days at the latest, so what choice do you have? Oh, I know, your mother!”
That idea never even saw the light of day with him. “No, not Mother.” She was busy somewhere in Italy, and she had barely responded to his situation with Victoria. “Get a good nanny,” had been all she’d said. He knew that when his father had passed away, she’d been stunned, but determined to keep living the life she wanted to live. He’d made sure she could, but he never looked to her as a source of support for him. He’d never known a time when she’d been strong or independent. And nothing had changed in the past ten years.
“Then what do you want?” Eve asked.
He’d never thought of himself as chauvinistic, but right then, he really wanted Eve to say she’d stay with Victoria and be there for her until they could meet for a vacation. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Part of him worried that their marriage would not exactly be smooth sailing. Right now, the only options he had were to have Victoria stranded in London with another stranger or the option he knew he had to choose. He took a breath then said words that he barely had time to measure. “Bring her here on your way to Mexico.”
“What?” Eve sounded shocked, as if he’d told her to walk on water.
“You’re flying to Acapulco, so make a stopover in Houston and bring her with you.”
She laughed again, but this time there was little humor in it. It was more nervous disbelief. “Are you bonkers? How can you take care of her and do your job?”
He didn’t have a clue, but he said, “I’ll work it out. Just get Mrs. Ferris to pack Victoria’s things, then let me know when your flight arrives.”
“Okay,” she murmured. “But what about our holiday after you’re done there?”
He couldn’t even think about that. “We’ll work it out.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she said softly. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” Suddenly the idea of Eve in Houston was very tempting. If she could stay over a day or so, to get Victoria settled and to spend time with him, that wouldn’t be all bad. “Let me know when you’re arriving.”
“We’ll try to get out of here in three days. And, Jack?”
He had things to do, and his mood shifted. He wanted to get off the phone and get on with things. “Yes?”
“I love you.”
He closed his eyes again. “I know.”
“No, love, you’re supposed to say, ‘I love you, too.’ If you love me.”
He exhaled and felt the tension building inside him. “Love you,” he said.
“No, say, ‘I, Jack, love you, Eve,’ the way most fiancées would do.”
“Eve, not now,” he said tightly.
“Okay,” she said. “I can wait.”
He exhaled. “Call?”
“Sure. As soon as I know. Now I have to make the child understand what’s going on. Not that I think she understands much of anything. But I’ll try…just for you.”
Victoria understood, he didn’t doubt that. She just didn’t react to anything. He wished there was some way to get into her mind to see what was going on. “You’re terrific.”
“Absolutely, and remember that,” Eve said, then the line went dead.
He slowly hung up, and tried to figure out where to start. Zane was gone, Matt hadn’t shown up yet. Rita. He could ask her about nannies or baby-sitters. She seemed to be indispensable to both Matt and Zane. Maybe she could find someone to step in and be with Victoria, and possibly get something set up in the loft for the little girl. If he had to, he’d move to another place, as long as he could be hooked up to the office wherever he went.
He turned to go and find Rita, but stopped in his tracks, stunned to see Rain standing in the open door of Zane’s office, watching him. It was as if the thought of the loft had conjured her up, making her materialize not more then ten feet away from him. But he could see her breathing, could almost catch a hint of that flowery essence that clung to her. She was very real.
Rain. With her hair sleekly pulled back form her finely boned face, exposing how large her eyes were, he could see a faint suggestion of freckles dusting her small nose. She was in tailored dark slacks, an almost prim white top and—he looked down—no bare feet. White dress sandals. Even without her tie-dyed T-shirt and loose hair, she didn’t look as if she belonged here at all.
Rain faced Jack Ford from the doorway to Zane Holden’s office, and knew that his shock at seeing her had been as great as her shock seeing him moments ago. She’d expected Lindsey Holden, a woman who had almost attained sainthood in the eyes of the people she’d just talked to. Even the personnel man had almost waxed poetic about how much the woman had done for the day-care center.
But it wasn’t Lindsey she was facing now. It was the man she’d heard on the phone moments earlier, his back to her, speaking in a low voice. She’d watched the way his shoulders tested the fine fabric of his silky shirt when he took a breath, then said, “Love you.” They must have been said to his fiancée, but they were said with something of a throwaway. As if they weren’t nearly as important to him as they should be.
Now he was looking right at her. Actually, he was looking her over. From her head to her feet, then back to her face, and she couldn’t begin to read his thoughts. She hated it when a person was so closed that you had to guess at what they were thinking and feeling.
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