Courting Chloe

by Nancy Warren

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, keep your appointment tomorrow. If it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to go back.”

  He nodded. “All right.”

  “May I ask you one question?”

  “You can ask.”

  “Does your sudden willingness to take this job have anything to do with Stephanie?”

  He sent her one of those unreadable glances from his dark, dark eyes. “What time’s my appointment tomorrow?”

  Recognizing a brick wall when she’d just bashed her head against it, she sighed and shook her head. “Two o’clock.” He took her card and the book and turned toward the door, the sexy mess of streaky hair straggling behind.

  Oh, yes, she thought. If you wanted an absolute disaster of a sexpot, Rafael Escobar was your man.

  Chapter 14

  Had that bastard stuck a GPS device on her? Stephanie wondered as she furiously returned her neatly labeled files into the new filing system.

  But if he’d wanted to keep track of her so badly, could he not have called? Or repeated his late-night visit? Hot waves of anger washed over her as she admitted to herself that she’d changed her bed sheets, shaved her legs, and bought a new nightgown, then sat at home like some pathetic, lovesick moron all weekend.

  He might carry a cop’s badge, but he was still a badass. Her fatal weakness. Rafael Escobar hadn’t called, he hadn’t banged on her door late at night bringing his dangerous self into her apartment and her body. He’d humped her and dumped her.

  She was close to losing it when she realized she’d filed Doran under B. Today was supposed to be a brand-new start for her.

  Yet another brand-new start. How was it possible that this man had followed her to her new job when he couldn’t be bothered to follow her home?

  Stephanie wouldn’t put her ear to the wall, even though she was almost certain she’d be able to hear what Rafe and Chloe were saying if she did.

  But she would not demean herself.

  Fury bubbled inside her along with an awful pain, the kind that comes when you do something really stupid and you only have yourself to blame. Maybe this was how people felt when they had gangrene and had to cut off an important part of their body before the rot killed everything. Maybe she had gangrene of the heart.

  The conference in Chloe’s office wasn’t long. Well, why would it be?

  When she’d first seen him walk up those stairs, she’d had a moment when her heart banged against her ribs and her spirits soared. He’d found her.

  Somehow he’d found her.

  But he hadn’t rushed to take her in his arms as he did in her daydreams.

  She replayed the scene, all the while hearing the murmur of voices in the other room. He’d said, “Hi, Stephanie.”

  Once Chloe had gone into her office and left them alone, she’d asked him, “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to see Chloe.” His face gave her no clue to what he was feeling. Or maybe it did and what he felt for her was nothing.

  Would she never, ever learn?

  She asked him if he’d known she’d be here and he’d said, “Had a pretty good idea.” And the gangrene spread a little more.

  She heard the door to Chloe’s office open, signaling that the meeting between her boss and Rafe was over. She grabbed up the phone and started talking. She had the appointment screen open on her computer and pretty much mimicked her dentist’s receptionist when she made an appointment.

  Rafe hovered a minute in her doorway, while she said, “Thursday at nine?” And then, “Okay, how about Friday at eleven.” When he still hadn’t left, she said, “Sure, I’d be happy to tell you a bit about our services.” And she started reading aloud from the brochure.

  She kept reading until she heard his footsteps fade. She glanced around at the office she’d only spent a few hours in. She’d been so hopeful.

  She was packing up her bag when Chloe came into her office.

  “Is it lunchtime already?” How could she like the woman so much when she was such a twit?

  “It’s not lunchtime. I’m leaving. I’ll save you the trouble of firing me.”

  Chloe blinked. Those big blue china-doll eyes of hers closed and opened, but there was no other indication of emotion in her face. Well, maybe a trace of curiosity. “Why would I fire you?”

  “Oh, come on. Rafe was in your office and I don’t think he needs any help breaking up with anyone. He does a great job of that on his own.”

  “Rafe broke up with you? I knew you two had slept together. I can always tell. But I thought you were still engaged to that tedious jewelry shop clerk.”

  She flashed her now ringless engagement hand and Chloe shrugged her fashion-model shoulders. “One had hoped. I am glad. The jewelry clerk struck me as a total fuckwit.”

  At any other time she’d have smiled. Chloe pronounced clerk so it rhymed with lark, and fuckwit as two complete words. She was the only person Stephanie had ever met who cursed with perfect elocution. But Stephanie didn’t feel like smiling. She felt like snarling. “Rafe told you about me.”

  “Told me what? I do wish you’d sit down. Have some coffee. You haven’t touched yours, and I made it specially.”

  “I’m a thief!” she yelled. Shouted the words so that Rafe could hear them over the infernal noise of the motorcycle racing him away from her.

  Chloe picked up one of the two untouched mugs of coffee on the tray and added milk. Then she glanced around the room. “What we need in here is a nice comfortable chair. This won’t do. Come, bring your coffee and follow me.”

  Stephanie wondered which one of them was crazier as she picked up the second mug of coffee and followed her boss (for now) not into the other office, as she’d assumed, but into Chloe’s bedroom.

  “This is much nicer, isn’t it? Though I haven’t had time to really decorate it yet. Pull the chair closer to the bed and we’ll have a proper chat.”

  Then she kicked off her gorgeous sandals, propped two pillows behind her back, and curled her legs under. The bedding was all black and white but amazingly Chloe.

  Stephanie pulled up the single chair, a department store type wingback, and sat down, feeling stupid and not knowing what to say now that she’d blurted out her problem.

  Chloe didn’t seem to share her reluctance. “Are you a jewel thief? I’ve always thought that would be so exciting.” She paused to sip her coffee. “So long, of course, as one didn’t get caught.”

  “A jewel thief. Not unless you count crappy costume jewelry.” She stopped, feeling almost as embarrassed that she’d set her sights so low as she did about the actual stealing.

  “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  So she did. Told her about the thrill of danger, the possibility of getting caught, the way she’d be fine for ages and then this urge would take her over. “Rafe didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “God, I feel like an idiot.”

  “You shouldn’t. I’m glad you told me.”

  “You’ve probably never stolen anything.”

  “Well, I get the same thrill of danger and getting caught from having sex in odd places and from the emotional drama of my love life. Does the trick. Darling, we all have our vices. We simply must learn to channel those energies so as not to end up in some horrible jail.”

  “But—you never checked my references. You’re just starting your business. Don’t you think you should be more careful?”

  Chloe took a sip of her coffee and appeared to think about what Stephanie had said. “Are you planning to steal from me?”

  “No.”

  “Then we’ll be all right.”

  She had the strangest feeling that Chloe got it. The it she’d never successfully understood herself or been able to explain to another person. How could it be that this woman from a different world should understand her?

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Sure. I guess.”

  “Try having sex outside
. I think you’ll find it much more fun. And you’d be far less likely to go to jail.”

  Stephanie felt a smile break out on her face.

  “I would think Rafe could take you to some very interesting places.” Chloe glanced up under her lashes. “On his motorcycle.”

  “I don’t think Rafe and I—” She couldn’t even finish the sentence. She didn’t want to voice her fears.

  She didn’t have to. Chloe got it. Of course. “I saw him look at you. He’s a bit of a complicated man, as all the interesting ones are. But I would say he is smitten.”

  She snorted. “He’s got a funny way of showing it.”

  “What exactly happened between you two?”

  And suddenly, she had someone she could talk to who wasn’t a relative, or a friend who’d known her in her wild, bad teen years, or who wasn’t paid to counsel her. She described the day they’d met, how he’d followed her around that store and she’d felt scared, excited, aroused, and finally mad when she had to put that watch back.

  “So you met him the same day you met me?”

  “Yeah. Weird, huh?”

  Chloe nodded. “Quite a coincidence. Or was it, I wonder?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Sorry, do go on. What happened next?”

  So, she told Chloe what she still hadn’t been able to tell another soul. Not her girl friends, who were going to be pissed that she’d broken up with Derek; not her mom, who was brokenhearted that she’d broken up with Derek. Not anybody. It felt great to spill all that stuff—and to the only woman in her life who didn’t seem all that thrilled with Derek.

  When she got to the part about Rafe coming to her apartment, she stalled, wondering what she was doing spilling her sex life to her boss on her first day of work. But Chloe wasn’t like any boss Stephanie had ever had. She said, “And was he fabulous in bed?”

  “We never made it to the bed,” she said, and got warm just thinking about their escapades on the couch. “And yeah, he was fabulous.”

  Chloe looked delighted. “I knew it. There are some men you can take one look at and know they’ll be fantastic.” She sighed. “And tell me, is his backside as amazing naked as it is in jeans?”

  “Better. All of him is better.”

  Chloe picked up one of the pillows and hurled it at her. “You lucky girl!” she cried.

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t called or come by again. I think he dumped me.” She sighed. “The guy I’m crazy about doesn’t want me, and the one I’m trying to break free of won’t leave me alone.”

  “What do you mean?” Chloe looked a little worried and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

  “Nothing bad. He sends me flowers, pushes gushy greeting cards under my door—”

  “Oh, you don’t mean the ones with dozens of overblown roses on the outside and equally overblown sentiment on the inside?”

  “Yep. Those.” She felt sort of sick even talking about them. “And I’m pretty sure he followed me to work today.”

  The concerned expression on Chloe’s face deepened. “Oh, dear.”

  She contemplated the room, which was tidy and feminine and restful. “Sometimes I wish I was a lesbian.”

  “And then a man like Rafe walks into your life.”

  “And out of it again so fast he’s like a blur.”

  “I asked Rafe outright what was going on between the two of you and all he would say was that it was complicated. If he thought it was a one-off, he wouldn’t have called it complicated, would he?”

  Stephanie shrugged. She’d learned early not to trust her own judgment about men. Unfortunately, she still followed it. She felt miserable, was certain she looked worse.

  “Well,” said Chloe brightly, “As Shakespeare said, ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

  “Actually, that was Alfred Lord Tennyson.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. ‘In Memoriam,’ written in 1850.”

  “I didn’t know you were literary.”

  “We studied it in school. I remember weird stuff.”

  “How extraordinary. I wish you could remember where I left my house keys.”

  “Sorry. I only remember useless stuff. And it has to be written down.”

  “Do you have a photographic memory?”

  She wished she’d never mentioned Tennyson. She should have kept her mouth shut. “Not really. Sort of, I guess.”

  “But that’s wonderful. I think it could be really useful for our business.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m absolutely certain something good will come of it.” She smiled and uncurled from the bed. “Well, you’ve cured me of misquoting poor Shakespeare. That’s bound to be useful.”

  “So, if Rafe didn’t come here to tell you about me, what did he come here for?”

  “Ah, yes. I’m not sure you’re going to like it, actually.”

  Her heart sank. “He is here to break up with somebody.” While they were going at it in her apartment, he probably had another woman waiting at home for him. She’d never asked. Never even thought about it.

  “No. Quite the opposite.” She snuggled deeper into the pillows. “I didn’t know anything about the two of you, of course, but I’ve asked him to help me professionally.”

  “He’s a cop. What’s he going to do? Moonlight as an investigator?” That would be interesting. She wasn’t quite so furious now that she knew he hadn’t come to inform her employer of her little problem. If he was here to do some investigating, she might at least see him occasionally. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  “Not exactly. He’s going to make another woman interested in him, enough that she’ll realize she’s not in love with her current fiancé.” Chloe ran her finger around the white circle on her bedspread.

  “That is the stupidest, craziest idea I’ve ever heard.” Except that he’d done exactly that for her. Ridden an escalator into her life and within days caused her to dump her fiancé. She wailed, “What if he falls for her?”

  Chloe glanced up. “Then you’d better do what you’re good at. Steal him back.”

  Chapter 15

  Matthew needed some air. If he didn’t get out of the house he was going to tell Brittany that cranberry in the bathroom did not make his heart sing. Any more than sage, or pumpernickel, or any of the other colors she was shoving at him—all of them based on foods he didn’t like.

  He felt as though the walls were closing in on him. She never got mad. Even when he was being a pig. If she’d just yell at him once in a while, he’d have a chance. But she never did. So he tried to stifle his irritation and accept that if she was going to share his life, she had a right to choose colors. But did she have to be quite so nice? He was being smothered in niceness.

  He left her drawing the living room furniture on graph paper, no doubt so she could change its colors to pumpkin, quince, and seaweed and then move everything around. He claimed he had some garden work to do, figuring he’d sweat off some of his frustration.

  Instead, his frustration level shot up like a geyser when he stepped outside and saw Rafe’s motorcycle outside Chloe’s place.

  Cozy.

  None of his business; Rafe and Chloe were both single and if Rafe had lost his mind, Matt figured there wasn’t much he could do about it. But the burn in his esophagus didn’t abate. He pulled a muscle moving boulders—the same pointless rearranging that was going on inside his house—but he needed something dirty and physical to do. He didn’t bother thinking about why.

  He was staggering a boulder from one cactus bed to the other when he heard a familiar voice say, “Need a hand?”

  He shook his head, made it the rest of the way, and dropped the thing in the garden.

  “I think you just obliterated a succulent,” his old partner said.

  “You’re spending a lot of time in this neighborhood.”

  Rafe looked at him with steady eyes. “You got a problem wi
th that?”

  “Hell, yeah. That woman isn’t half sane and for all we know, she’s up to something illegal.”

  “You sure that’s all that’s bothering you?”

  His hands were scraped raw, his T-shirt was sticking to him with sweat, his breathing was ragged from overexertion, and he felt like his bum leg was about to collapse beneath him. The thought of Chloe and Rafe together made him want to howl. “Yeah.”

  Rafe shook his head. “Stupido,” he said, and turned away.

  Now, Matt wasn’t fluent in Spanish by a long shot, but you didn’t have to be to translate that one. “Make sure it’s me who’s the stupid one and not you.”

  Rafe turned back to face him. Women had always gone for his slovenly partner, he remembered, cursing himself for being the one who had introduced him to Chloe. “She’s not doing anything illegal.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she told me about her business.”

  “What business is she in?”

  Rafe had faced down some of the toughest criminals in Texas. He wasn’t about to crumble because a guy had stopped gardening to give him a hard time. “I don’t think she wants you to know, my friend.”

  Then, with a careless salute, Rafe sauntered to his motorcycle and mounted it with fluid grace.

  Matt scowled. “You wouldn’t even have met her if it wasn’t for me,” he yelled, but his words were drowned by the roar of the bike.

  Deborah slipped a super-strength painkiller into her mouth and swallowed it down with water. She stopped what she was doing to make a note in her headache diary. Headache diary. What was her life coming to when she had to keep a headache diary?

  Her temples throbbed and she wanted nothing more than to pull the blinds in her office, turn off the lights, and curl up on her faux living room couch and sleep.

  Of course, she’d do no such thing. She had patients to see and they didn’t stop having problems simply because she had suddenly developed a nasty thing called cluster headaches.