by J. D. Robb
Did Mel’s chest look like this? Would the dark hair be coarse or downy soft? Would his skin be hot and smooth with hard pads of muscle beneath?
Oh my. She snapped the magazine closed. Big, deep breath. She glanced around to see if anyone watched as her cheeks flushed with heat, like some pervert in the magazine section of an adult bookstore. She gathered her things quickly, deciding it might be best to let Mel pick out his own clothes.
A few minutes later, watching the clerk fit a seven-inch stack of magazines into a bag for her, Charlotte trembled inside and out. She was excited. She couldn’t wait to get back to Mel. He’d be pleased and proud of her for taking this first step, minuscule as it was. On her own. Without him. He’d smile that smile that made her insides lurch and tell her she was being bold, that she was finally doing the right thing, getting her life back on track.
She rushed out of the store in time to see a tall, well-built man in jeans and a white cable knit sweater with a black sports jacket on over it, jogging gracefully across the street toward her in large, sparkling red shoes.
She started to laugh.
He slowed down when he saw her, his face full of smiles, stopped three feet away, held out his arms and turned in a circle for her to see.
“Look at me,” he kept saying. “Just look at me. I couldn’t wait to see you. I’m a hunk, right? Look at me. Real clothes. They feel amazing and they’re warm. I look fantastic, don’t I?”
“Yes. You do. I’m . . . I’m sorry about the shoes. I didn’t even think about—”
She fell silent when he suddenly took her by the shoulders. “Baby steps, Charlotte. One thing at a time. To me this says I’m sticking around, that you believe in me, that you’re beginning to trust me and you’re finally willing to at least hear what I have to say.” He leaned in, set a tender kiss between her brows, then pulled back to meet her gaze squarely. “You were hoping I’d be pleased and proud of you, and I am. But more than that, I . . . well, I’m beginning to believe in you, too, sugar.”
He laughed at her expression and stepped away. They fell into an easy pace uphill toward home.
“Okay. Not sugar. But I’m still pretty impressed with the guts it took for you jump the hurdle, Charlotte. Most people ignore the voice inside them all their life. They play it safe, too afraid to take a chance on their dreams, and they regret it until the day they die. But not you. Not my Charlotte Gibson. You give your voice a body, and designer clothes . . . and body hair . . .” He whipped an evil and highly amused glanced her way. She felt fire in her cheeks. “And you listen. I admit, I had my doubts about you. You are a True Believer but up to now you gave me no reason to believe you were any different than most people.” He looked down as he slid his hand over the front of his sweater. “Up until now.”
He was like watching a little boy on his birthday. His obvious happiness brought a deep joy that settled around her heart like the gathering of rain clouds in a drought. And with it came hope, solid and true, like an object she could hold in her hand. There was something new and exciting in her life, and her world was on the verge of change. She could feel it. She was excited and scared . . . and so ready.
“And you were right this morning,” he said, being generous in return. “I was unreasonable—you ignore someone long enough they get that way, you know. But you were right. This isn’t the best time to drop the business ball and run off willy-nilly to play Barbie Gets A Makeover.”
“Barbie?”
“Your transformation isn’t going to happen overnight anyway. It shouldn’t. We want to feel comfortable with the changes we make, one at a time, grow into the new you. There’ll be plenty of time for that and to get the business settled again. Together, there isn’t anything we can’t handle, given a little time and a good attitude. Right?”
“Right.”
“Right. We’ve already seen what all work and no play has done to you. All play and no work would make Charlotte . . . poor . . . and anxious and desperate. Depressed and frightened. Did I mention poor?”
She smiled and a woman walking toward her on the sidewalk smiled back.
“Besides, this is all about balance, isn’t it? Yin and yang. Good and evil. Right and wrong. Work and play. You and me. We’re a team. You listen to me, I listen to you, and together we build a new, well-balanced, well-dressed, well-groomed, considerably more attractive and confident businesswoman with a social life. How hard can it be?”
Did he want an answer to that? She looked up at him and he winked at her. Her breath caught and she swallowed, hard. She felt a little lightheaded.
“Piece of cake,” he said, seeming not to notice the effect he had on her. “A pumpkin-and-ground-oatmeal bundt cake with rum-plumped raisins and a spiced-sugar glaze made from scratch, maybe. But cake nonetheless. And there’s so much to think about.” He threw his arms wide. “Clothes. Hair. Makeup. We need to call that stylist in Bellevue right away, the one from the newspaper article. He probably has a waiting list. What about joining a gym? All this walking is fine but a little upper body workout wouldn’t hurt. Oh! Let’s take that trip to Victoria like we always wanted. And what about revamping the apartment, too, while we’re at it? It’s yours now, so you might as well claim it. And shoes . . . for both of us. We should make a list of the hot spots in town, see where people go to meet people. There’ll be plenty of dating tips in those magazines. We’ll ask around a little and . . .”
Charlotte listened as he mapped out a new life for her. She’d never known anyone like Mel before, no one whose sole purpose for existence was . . . her. Her life, her fulfillment, her dreams. She’d never been the epicenter of anyone’s universe before, the full focus of their energies. It was heady. Pleasing in a completely selfish way that she could easily get used to.
Mel saw her potential. He knew, as she had often wished, that there was so much more to her than a mind that was good with numbers and an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and duty. Her body and soul were starving for attention, and Mel planned to put both on a weight-gaining diet.
She planned to let him.
Six
Days slipped by and while the April weather remained wet, naturally, it also grew warm enough to shed her long, black wool coat for her old, tan trench coat.
“Halloween is six months off, Charlotte.” Mel’s expression was bland, his tone dry, and when she frowned in confusion, he held his hands out toward her coat and added, “This is your best impersonation of Detective Columbo, isn’t it?”
“This happens to be a perfectly respectable Worthington raincoat. These kinds of overcoats never go out of style.”
“Says who? And even if they didn’t, they still lose buttons and get worn until they look threadbare and ratty. Much like this one.” The phone rang. “Give it to me. I’ll throw it in the trash.”
“No,” she said, backing up toward the phone, clutching the front of her coat. “Not until I have something to replace it with, and then it’s going to someone who could use a perfectly good six-year-old coat. Along with everything else I own. Don’t you like anything I have? Hello?”
“Charlotte Gibson? This is Axel Burton. I hope I’m not disturbing you.” The baritone voice in her ear caused a slight hitch in her breathing. The deep, dark, purely masculine tones shivered along her nerve endings, as if she’d been touched. “Hello?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. What?”
Mel’s thoughts were still in her closet. “I like that old, really soft flannel nightgown with the little pink bunnies on it. The long one? It feels so good when we’re sick.”
She tapped her closed lips with her index finger, listening intently.
“Is this Charlotte Gibson?” The man put a heavy inflection on the Char part of her name; it made her heart flutter.
“Yes. I was . . . distracted. I’m sorry. What did you say your name was?”
“Axel Burton. I’m calling from Chicago but I’m planning to be in Seattle later next week. Henry Chancellor said you might be able to tur
n me on to a couple of jobs coming up in the area.”
“Henry? Oh.” Memory kicked in and her stomach sank to the floor. “Right. You’re his wife’s sister’s cousin’s nephew or something. I remember. Henry seemed very fond of you.”
He gave a soft laugh that made her want to weep with regret. It just wasn’t fair that the voice belonged to the very nice, quiet, single, young, unemployed, miserable, boring loser Henry told her about. Money isn’t everything? To a CFO? Get real.
And come to think of it, Axel?
“Actually, my mother’s sister divorced Henry’s wife’s brother. But before they did, Henry and I got to know each other pretty well. At the family reunions. On vacation. Things like that. Henry’s a good man.”
“Yes, he is. And because he thinks so highly of you, I’d be happy to recommend you to the clients I’m dropping from my practice. I don’t know if Henry explained the situation to you or not, but my—”
“Yes. He did.” He spoke quickly to spare her the pain of explaining. “I’m sorry about your father.”
“Thank you. So you know that these companies are in transition, or permanently fixed in the 13 percent of all businesses that have between twenty and one hundred employees and no longer qualify as a small business?” She winced. She was talking like . . . like an accountant.
“Yes, but I was hoping you might agree to meet with me next week to discuss all this. Friday evening maybe, for drinks or dinner. I could explain briefly what I’m looking for, you could give me a short run down on what you’ve got and then we could discuss where you think I might fit best . . . if at all.”
Oh, sure. Like she couldn’t smell a blind date buried under a business meeting from a mile away.
“I’m sorry. I have plans for next Friday. In fact, the next few weeks are going to be crazy busy for me, and I know you’re going to want to find a job fairly soon, so why don’t you give me an email address or a fax or even a street address and I’ll send you an overview and declaration of each company. You can take a few days to look them over and let me know which ones you’re interested in. Then I’ll write you a letter of introduction. How does that sound?”
“Like a lot of extra work for you, I’m sorry to say.”
“Not at all. It’s all right there on my computer. It’s no problem at all.”
“All right.” He agreed and gave her his email address. “Maybe once we both get settled we can have that drink together anyway. Henry says, and I quote, that you’re ‘a pearl the oyster divers have somehow overlooked.’ ”
She rolled her eyes, Oh brother, then made a soft snorting noise in lieu of a laugh and brushed him off. “He has to say that. I do his taxes.”
Politely, he didn’t push the point and said good-bye. She set the phone in its cradle and looked up to find Mel staring at her.
“What?”
“You’re not even going to give him a chance?”
“Oh, please. There’s a stigma to blind dating for a reason, you know. And it’s not just because they’re set up so you go into them blind.” She picked up her briefcase, walked to the door, opened it and then waited for him. “It’s because once you get there, your date makes you wish you were blind. Or even worse, your poor date is blind, and you dressed up for nothing. Trust me,” she said, following him through the door and down the stairs to the foyer. “I’ve been on enough blind dates to know they never work. No more blind dates for me. I want to meet someone on my own. I want our gazes to lock across a crowded room. I want our souls to mate before we even speak. I want . . . magic. Love at first sight.” Watching him shrug into an expensive looking brown leather bomber jacket, she let loose a tiny, wistful sigh. “Why didn’t I conjure up a fairy godmother with a wand or a genie with a bottle full of wishes instead of a playmate with a fashion fetish?”
“Perhaps because, in your infinite wisdom, you knew it would be more fun to make your own magic.” She gave him a look as he passed through the open door to the street. “Wait and see, my pet. When you do fall in love, you’ll be glad there isn’t any other magic around but your own.”
A few weeks after that, when Mel proposed burning both of her coats in celebration of sweater weather, they made their first massive trip to the Goodwill.
These were not idle weeks by any means. Most days were consumed with the shifting of her father’s remaining clients into a reasonable, and profitable, work schedule along with her own. Closing the books to-date for those she had to part with, designing several new client organizers and updating their methods of accounting to systems that were more efficient for them . . . and her.
She got new business cards and stationary, changing the company name from Gibson & Gibson Financial Associates, Inc. to Gibson Financial Services, Inc. in standout Money Green ink, not the standard Profit Black.
The only thing Mel insisted on, other than waiting for Shamus—the famed hairdresser in Bellevue—was that she join the gym a few blocks south near Garfield Street. “Not just for your body, but also for your soul,” he said, holding the tips of his fingers together like an Italian fresh off the boat.
She couldn’t say that her soul enjoyed the exercise any more than her body did, but she was surprised at how quickly it became a part of her daily routine. The more energy she exerted, the more she seemed to have.
Late afternoons and early evenings were set aside for the evacuation of most things old. Her parents’ old clothes. Her old clothes. Old books she didn’t want to keep. Old adding machines three hundred times bigger than last year’s model. Old kitchen utensils and furniture. And more of her old clothes that she couldn’t part with the first time.
Mel was doggedly determined to wipe out her wardrobe completely.
“Ooh. Now we’re talkin’.” His voice echoed the admiration in his expression as she stepped out of the dressing room to look at the new jeans he talked her into trying on. He sat in a chair beside the mirror, nodding. “Look at this. We’ve found curves. And those are not so low on your hips that you’re embarrassed every time you sit down, but they don’t cut you off at the armpits either. Perfect. You’ve got a sweet little waist there and it’s time to show it off.” He did hesitate a moment. “We’ll wait on the naval piercing. One thing at a time, right?”
“Right.” Admiring the flattering fit of the jeans in the mirror, she didn’t bother to scowl at him. She was used to his pushing the line of change to extremes with ideas like tattoos, thong underwear and lightweight Scandinavian furniture. These things were all fine and interesting to think about, but they were so not her, and he knew it. Still, he said he felt compelled to bring them to mind, just in case.
“The T-shirt could be a little shorter. You’ve got the belly for it, hun. No, hun, huh? Okay. Well, at least that one’s tight enough to hug your curves, not just hang there like your body was a tree trunk.”
She wished he’d stop talking about her curves. Stop looking at them with the warm approval that made her feel uneasy in a truly wonderful way. It was moments like this that she consciously fought to cling to reality, like a climber on the sheer face of a mountain, by the tips of her fingers and a prayer. He wasn’t real. No matter how much or how hard she wished he was, he wasn’t real.
“Let’s burn the old ones.”
“Pyromaniac.”
“Obsessive-compulsive-frumpy-clothes-hoarder.”
She bit her lower lip to keep her smile small.
“At least wear these home,” he suggested, reaching out to pull the sizing tape off the back of her thigh, then the price tag. She reached up and yanked one from under her arm, then looked in the mirror again.
There was a distinctive . . . exposed sensation in wearing clothes that exhibited the exact shape of her body, the true size of her breasts and the tone of her bottom. Like being naked, but not. Exciting and disturbing and . . . sexual in a way she never dreamed she could be. Seductive. Soft and feminine. Not like a tree trunk. Like a woman. And it was potent.
Those weeks with Mel were
special. As they cleaned and sorted, they made piles for consignment shops, another for charity and one more for a planned weekend at the Stop’n Swap near Lake Union. And they talked. About everything. The funny things her parents used to do, the girl who bullied her in sixth grade, the strife in the Middle East, why there was no special name for the tops of their feet.
When first Sidney and then Sue called with their biannual invitations to a casual dinner to meet someone new from their husband’s office or the latest addition to their company baseball team, neither she nor Mel felt any compunction in declining.
Late in the evenings they would curl up, exhausted, on opposite ends of the sofa and share a blanket between them. Sometimes Mel rubbed her feet, sometimes she tickled his, and at all times she was content and happy in his company.
“I like Tony Soprano,” Mel mumbled late one Sunday night.
“He’s a cold-blooded gangster.”
“He loves his children.”
“He kills people. With his hands.”
“He’s always sorry afterward.”
“He cheats on his wife.”
“Lots of men do.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s always because of the wife. I don’t think it is most of the time. And I know for a fact that it wasn’t your fault when Eddie Boise cheated on you.”
“You do?”
“Of course. You jumped through hoops trying to make that guy happy, but it was the challenge he loved. He cheated on everyone once he got what he wanted from them. It wasn’t you, it was him playing games.”