by Julia London
“Okay, okay,” he said. He had to slide his fingers into the skirt to get a grip, and they brushed against the warm, firm flesh of her butt.
“Well?”
Well . . . he was having a moment. “Carly, calm down—”
“What? Did you really just tell me to calm down? Do you not see that I’m stuck in a skirt and I’m having to ask a complete stranger to get me out and he’s taking his own sweet time and telling me to calm down?”
“Stranger! I don’t think you can say I’m a complete stranger anymore. I mean, especially now.”
“Oh my God! How do you expect me to be calm? Would you be calm?”
“I’m not saying to calm down, not like that,” he said as he worked the bit of silky panty. “I was going to suggest it’s not good for your heart to get so agitated. You’re releasing catecholamines into your bloodstream left and right and you don’t want your blood pressure to get too high.”
“What the . . .” She tried to look over her shoulder at him.
“You’re moving around too much,” he said, and with one hand, pushed her shoulder forward.
“What is wrong with you, Max? Seriously, what is wrong with you?”
“Nothing that I’m aware of. But you, on the other hand, are letting an inconsequential observation get under your skin.” He almost had the bit free. His fingers were pressed into her hip, and he was terribly distracted by it. He could imagine the feel of her in his hand, could imagine how it would feel if he squeezed. “I’m a scientist and I was just explaining the biological reaction to anxiety.”
“Right,” she said with a snort.
He pulled a little more of her panty free. “A neuroscientist,” he clarified. “I study brains for a living.”
Carly snorted. “Uh-huh. And I’m a supermodel.”
He knew she was not a supermodel, but Max was attracted to women who had curves, and he was discovering that Carly had some of the most enticing curves he’d seen in a very long time. He managed to get a bit of the zipper undone and discovered she was wearing a thong. “Seriously. I am,” he muttered absently, absurdly transfixed by that thong and imagining all the places it went on her body.
“Please hurry. This is so awkward.”
“What is awkward? Me being a scientist? Or the zipper?” He managed to free the thong and unzipped the zipper.
She whipped around. “Thank you!” She reached behind her to the zipper.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. That thing is, like, way too tight.”
She glared at him with her flushed cheeks and sparkling blue eyes and with the memory of her hip still on his fingers, he was, once again, slightly aroused.
“Max?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for freeing me. But I’ve had a really long day. Really long. Being stuck in this skirt and having to ask you to free me is just the icing on the cake. My sister is having her fourth meltdown of the week because her children are demons and she is a pushover. These dogs are eating all my nice things and one of them is stinking up the place, and I had to throw out my Jimmy Choos. Victor is questioning the show lineup, and I haven’t had even a moment to go to the store and get the jug of wine that I so richly deserve, so if you would be so kind as to take your dog and go and let me wallow in my self-pity, I would appreciate it.”
A number of responses flitted through Max’s brain. A number of questions, too. But she looked at the door, and it was late, and it was clear he needed to go. “Can I reimburse you—”
“Nope.” She sighed. And then she smiled a little. He would even say it was a warm smile. “Thank you for the offer. Really. But it’s not necessary. I was just making a point.”
So this was it, then. He looked around her to the dogs on the couch. “Hazel, come.”
Hazel obediently crawled off the couch. Baxter followed, trotting after her.
“Here are her things,” Carly said, gesturing to the box he’d sent home with her.
Max picked them up and started for the door. The two dogs trotted ahead.
“Baxter,” Carly said wearily. “The last thing I need is for him to get in the herb garden again.” She went around Max to the door to grab Baxter.
Max opened the door, and Hazel trotted out without a single look back. Baxter tried to go, too, but Carly held on to his collar. Baxter’s tail began to wag pretty hard. He whimpered. Max dipped down and rubbed Baxter’s nape. “You’re a good dog, Baxter. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And you come see me if you ever need a couch.”
“Dogs do not belong on couches. Baxter knows that,” Carly said, and got down on her knees next to him to hold him from racing after Hazel.
Max stepped out onto the porch. He paused there and turned around. “Carly, I do want to thank you again for your help. Sincerely. I don’t know what I would have done.”
She softened and smiled again. She had an adorable smile. “Don’t mention it,” she said. “I really like your dumb dog.”
“I think she likes you, too.” He glanced at his car where Hazel was patiently waiting. And still, he couldn’t make himself go. He turned back once more.
Carly was still smiling. “Sorry for biting your head off,” she said. “I’ve been pretty stressed lately.”
“Apology accepted. Sorry for explaining anxiety to you.”
She laughed a little. “Apology accepted. I did need to calm down because I was on the verge of one helluva panic attack. I was imagining having to call the fire department. That would be humiliating.”
Max smiled. He walked off the porch. He could hear Baxter whimpering and trying to scamper behind them. He turned back.
“Take care of yourself,” Carly said, and shut the door.
Max walked on to his car. He opened the door to the back seat and Hazel climbed in. He hooked her up to the dog harness, then slid the box of her things onto the seat next to her. As he got into the driver’s seat, he could hear Baxter’s howls. “I hear you, Baxter,” he muttered.
He felt strangely unsettled. This was clearly the end of his brief and strange acquaintance with Carly Kennedy, she of the weird clothes and short temper. He liked her in spite of that short temper, because on some level it amused him. And he was truly sorry he wouldn’t see her again.
He was sorry he wouldn’t see Baxter again for that matter. He glanced in the rearview mirror at his dog in the back seat. What Hazel felt would remain a mystery, because she didn’t look like she cared who she would or wouldn’t see and was perfectly content to go with the flow.
Eight
Carly woke up with a start the next day because the image of handsome Max Sheffington was dancing in her dreams—a literal dream in which he’d been dancing on an arena stage wearing a Victor Allen design, only the shoulders were much larger than normal. Carly was trying to hold the two dogs as people around them went wild.
She sat up and blinked. “Jesus,” she muttered.
She slowly lay back down and closed her eyes. She tried to banish the current image of Max from her brain, the one of him as he’d appeared last night in the black Henley and slim chinos. She’d been mortified that he should look so hot when she was stuck in a skirt.
She’d been mortified and strangely disappointed, too, because in that moment, she thought he’d spent the weekend with a woman. But then her mortification had ratcheted up when she understood he was not in Chicago having crazy sex. He was hot and apparently unattached, and Megan Monroe said, Put your best foot forward, every day in every way. She had not put her best foot forward. He thought she was nutty. And she’d been stuck in that damn skirt.
It was all Victor’s fault.
They were due to meet with the Couture photographer this week. This was the chance she’d worked so hard to get for Victor. They wanted the red pieces, and after his visit on Saturday, she’d worried and fretted and finally called h
im that evening with the hope of getting him to see reason. To make him “feel it.”
Victor’s response was curt. “I’ve made up my mind, Carly. That’s it. None of the red.” He’d hung up.
Anybody else might have taken that as the last word, but Carly knew Victor pretty well. Nothing was ever “it” with him. His ideas turned and morphed into something new and better every day.
Her job was to get those red pieces in front of Couture. She’d come up with a hastily put together and ridiculous plan B and had called Victor back Sunday morning and asked if she could borrow the red suit. Her totally crazy plan was to wear one of the red outfits herself to meet the Couture guy when he flew into town. She would pretend Victor had been stuck in traffic, and then at least show him one of the red pieces. She’d say, “Oh, I just happen to be wearing one,” and she’d stand up and do a slow turn. Carly was no model, but she was desperate. This kind of exposure for Victor was worth its weight in gold, and while he might have cold feet, she was not going to let him squander this opportunity.
He answered on the fourth ring and sounded groggy. “Before you hang up,” she said quickly, “can I at least borrow one of the red pieces?”
Victor didn’t even ask why. “Take it, I don’t care. Keep it. Wear it, make a tablecloth from it, shred it. Whatever.”
She’d hung up. “Whatever my ass, Victor,” she’d muttered and had looked at the dogs. “Saddle up, boys. We’re going for a ride.” Hazel had launched herself at the door, clearly familiar with the word ride. Carly wasn’t sure if Baxter understood anything. But wherever Hazel led, he would follow.
A half hour later, with the leashes in one hand, and a key in the other, Carly unlocked the door to Victor’s darkened studio and stepped inside.
The place smelled musty, like someone hadn’t taken out the trash. She flipped on the lights and dropped the leashes, and the dogs headed straight for the kitchenette. Victor’s studio was small and cluttered with bolts of fabric. On one wall there was wire shelving that he’d had attached to hold his notions and thread, scissors and fabric tape, and different trims. Discarded pieces of fabric and pattern paper always littered the floor. In the center of the room was a long table for patterning and cutting. Against one wall were two sewing machines. Carly had never understood the differences between the two or why two were needed. There were also two naked dress forms on rollers that moved around the studio as necessary. Usually, the forms wore garments in various stages of construction. Victor hung his finished pieces along the back wall.
Carly thought the red pieces would be hanging where she’d seen them last, but those wall bolts were empty. She’d walked around looking for them and gasped with alarm when she found them, carelessly piled in a heap in the corner of the studio.
She rescued them from the floor. “Why would he do this?” she’d said aloud when Hazel came to sniff the pile.
She’d draped the pieces across the back of that disgusting couch and decided she had the best chance of fitting into the jacket and skirt. She hung up the rest of the red collection, took the jacket and skirt, and summoned her hounds.
Those two red pieces were hanging on the door of her closet and staring at her now, disturbing the sanctity of her bedroom.
Her bedroom was her haven. It was small and quaint, and she’d covered her bed with a chenille bedspread her grandmother had used. She’d overstuffed the built-in bookcase with books, because Carly was a devoted bookworm . . . although she hadn’t had as much time to read or even stream Netflix in the last six months as she would have liked.
She had a vanity that she’d picked up at an estate sale. She’d spent the winter after she was laid off refinishing it and painting it a very soothing pale green. On the top of her vanity were the brushes and palettes of her cosmetics, lotions and creams, and her jewelry in a cloisonné box. The floors could get cold in the winter, so she’d put down a large, fluffy blue rug that felt delightful year-round beneath her feet.
The room’s windows were covered in sheer white drapery panels that gave her some privacy—not that she needed it this far back on the lot—but also allowed for natural light. Her walk-in closet with the crystal doorknobs was a great find for a house this old, because closets had been tiny midcentury. Hers was absolutely bursting with clothes and too many shoes and accessories, and—her dirty little secret—her handbag obsession.
“Ugh,” she said. “I need coffee.” She looked around for the dogs, and remembered that Hazel had gone home with Max. “Baxter?” She climbed out of bed and went into the kitchen. Baxter had returned to his corner, his head pressed against the seam. “Poor puppy,” she cooed to him, leaning over to stroke him. “I know you miss her. I miss her, too. Which I never thought I’d say, but there you go. I kind of miss him, too, you know. I mean, I hardly know the dude. But . . . I kind of miss him.”
She thought about Max as she made her coffee. She was grateful he hadn’t arrived while she was trying to peel the jacket off, cursing how tight the arms were. But once she’d managed to shove her enormous hams through the sleeves, she discovered that she could hardly pull the jacket around her ribs, much less her boobs. So she’d shrugged out of that and tossed it aside, and pulled on a hoodie and had decided it didn’t matter, that the skirt with the modern panniers was the interesting piece anyway.
But, as she and Max both knew, the skirt did not fit, and if there had been a fire, she would have surely perished, because she could hardly walk across the room in it. “Why is the fashion industry so hell-bent on a size zero?” she asked a sulking Baxter.
That she was nowhere near a size zero was the pickle she’d found herself in when Max had finally shown up. And of course he’d shown up looking all virile and manly in his formfitting Henley and his tortoiseshell rectangular frames that made his gray eyes stand out and made him look sexy and smart. He couldn’t be some regular guy who held no appeal for her whatsoever—he had to be hot. And Carly was just curvy enough that the tight skirt had created a giant muffin top situation, which of course she’d refused to believe existed as she’d tried to zip that damn red skirt, and then had to reveal to him in order to get out of same damn red skirt.
She’d had to suffer the feel of his fingers on her flesh in this most humbling way instead of the way she would like to feel them. Those fingers of his were like fire starters, sending little waves of sparkles through her. And then she’d had to endure that sly smile of his, the one that was a mix of amusement and surprise at her misfortune and, even worse, his unnecessary explanation of the body’s reaction to anxiety. Why, thank you, Dr. Sheffington.
Dr. Sheffington.
“Stop it,” she said to herself, and picked up her coffee cup. “Get to work. You need a plan C pronto and there is no time for this.” She padded back to her room, intending to dress.
But he was a neuroscientist? For real?
She hauled her laptop up onto her bed and settled in against her pillows with her coffee. She opened her laptop again and googled Max Sheffington.
Wow.
It was true.
Dr. Max Sheffington was a professor of neuroscience at the University of Texas, which meant he was legitimately a brain scientist and not, as she had mistakenly assumed, a giant smart-ass. There were two pictures of him—one, a professional picture on the university’s faculty website along with a description of his area of study, which was incomprehensible to her: Discovering cellular and circuit mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction in neurodevelopmental disorders and understanding the neurobiological basis for individual preference and the effect on neural networks.
“What?” she whispered to herself.
The university website listed him as a tenure-track professor.
There was another picture of him, too. This one appeared under the heading of Campus Life. He was standing at a lectern in one of the university auditoriums before a class that was so large it had to be entr
y level. He was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt over low-slung trousers, a jacket, that awful knit cap, and what looked like high-top sneakers that did not go with the rest of his outfit. And, at the time of the picture, he’d had a full beard.
He was a sexy hipster in that photo. He looked smart and accomplished and masculine, but also like someone who cared about children and animals and important things like straws littering the oceans and parks for all abilities. How had she ever thought he wore too much denim?
Carly slammed her laptop shut. She refused to fantasize about this guy. This strange dog mix-up was over, and he’d taken Hazel and gone back to his world, and she had Baxter and her world. She had problems to fix, mountains to climb, monsters to slay. She would go back to the problem of Victor, and Max would go back to neural whatevers. Which was clearly for the best because she had no idea what that was. This was one of those things that happened in someone’s life, and one day she’d be at a dinner party in some tony New York apartment and she’d say, Hey, did I ever tell you about the time the dog walker mixed up two bassets?
All was right with the world again.
All was right with the world until exactly two hours later, after Carly had called the photographer to cancel his trip to Austin and with it, the exposure she’d worked so hard to get. She was very surprised when Ramona McNeil herself called her back.
“Why?” Ramona demanded curtly. “This is a big opportunity for a young designer. Why would you pull the rug out from under it?”
Carly chafed at the idea that she, a public relations professional, would have any hand in pulling the rug out from under it. “Victor is changing directions and is not ready to present his work just yet.”
“Oh, he’s not ready, poor thing,” Ramona said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Well, that’s just great, Carly . . . what did you say your last name was?”
Carly winced. “Kennedy.” She would have hoped Ramona had seen it on one of the applications she’d submitted.