Starting from Scratch

by Marie Ferrarella

  Sutherland nodded toward the only other vacant seat at the table besides his own. “You can take that chair.”

  She did as suggested, noting out of the corner of her eye that at least one of the men, the one with the salt-and-pepper mustache, had half risen in his chair.

  Nodding at the man, she smiled, then looked back at Sutherland. “Aren’t you going to introduce me, Mr. Sutherland?”

  “Yes, ‘Mr. Sutherland,’ where are your manners?” the man closest to her left asked just before winking at her. As blond as Sutherland was dark, he had eyes so brown that they almost looked black. She wasn’t sure if he was being friendly out of kindness, flirtatious out of habit, or having fun at her expense out of the perverseness that Sutherland had exhibited most of the time she’d dealt with him.

  Though she kept a smile on her face, she felt every inch a fish out of water. This was not the kind of situation she was accustomed to.

  “Same place your common sense is,” Ryan retorted in response to his friend’s question. With a frown, he went around the table, shooting off names as if they were rounds being fired from an automatic weapon. He didn’t even bother pointing, but she assumed that he was naming them in the order they were sitting. “Murphy, Finn, Gonzales, Conway and Jovanovich.”

  In response, each man bobbed his head, except for the winker. Murphy just winked again.

  Elisha nodded in response, trying her best to look as if she was comfortable in these surroundings. As if playing cards with a bunch of strange men was something she did all the time. Then, because Sutherland hadn’t, she introduced herself to them. “I’m Elisha Reed, his editor.”

  Finn, a man with a ruddy complexion and hair the color of a newly harvested carrot, smirked. “She going to be editing you tonight, Sutherland?”

  Slanting her eyes toward Sutherland, she noticed that the thin line that comprised his lips grew thinner still. She saved him from making a response by saying, “And I take it that you’re all former Navy SEALs, or former colleagues of his?”

  Gonzales seemed amused by her innocent question. The smile on his face was kindly. Sutherland could take a lesson from him, she thought.

  “If we told you what we were,” he confided, lowering his voice to an appropriate stage whisper, “I’m afraid we’d have to kill you.”

  She would have liked to think he was joking, but she wasn’t a hundred percent sure of that. Banking down her uneasiness, she looked at Sutherland again.

  His frown was creating ruts on either side of his mouth. “This is poker, Max, not a game of Truth or Dare,” Sutherland snapped at her. “Are you here to play, or to talk?”

  No, she wasn’t going to be the field mouse to his mountain lion, she told herself. Instead, she raised her chin pugnaciously, showing him, she hoped, that she wasn’t about to go cowering off in some corner.

  “I didn’t realize they were mutually exclusive.” Then, because she saw he was about to bite off another terse comment, she answered, “I’m here to play.”

  “Good.” He picked up the first deck of cards and broke open the seal around the box. “Then let’s get on with it.”

  He’d never been what she would have described as easygoing, but Sutherland seemed to be unusually grumpy tonight, even for him. She wondered if it had anything to do with her being here.

  Too bad. A bet’s a bet. And she intended on winning hers.

  Sutherland’s mood did not get any better as the evening unfolded. Especially when she wound up winning far more hands than she lost. At the end of a long evening of intense playing, Elisha found herself acknowledged the big winner. Not that a great deal of money had changed hands. However, most of it had wound up with Elisha.

  The men took their losses graciously. She hadn’t heard a single foul word from any of them, not an easy feat if their origins had been the kind she’d initially surmised. She had to admit that she was grateful not to have been submitted to an evening of mindless, aimless cursing. She prized words far too much not to take offense at what she’d always felt were only vulgar place holders.

  And then finally, with the chips gone and the beer consumed, the men called it a night.

  Jerez Jovanovich glanced back over his shoulder as he slipped on his jacket and prepared to take his leave. He laughed as he looked at Elisha before turning to his host. “You might have mentioned that you were bringing in a ringer.”

  The frown Ryan had been sporting in one form or another all evening grew more intense. “I was bringing her in to teach her a lesson.”

  That made it even more humorous. “And what lesson would that be, my friend? How to plan for an early retirement on someone else’s money?” the man asked with a laugh.

  The rest of the men gathered in the foyer, reaching into the closet to claim their outerwear.

  “If anyone learned a lesson tonight, it’s the rest of us,” Murphy chimed in. Standing, he was shorter than the rest. But he made up for it with determination that on occasion bordered on obsession. “Bringing a woman into the mix is too distracting. Shakes things up too much.” Murphy allowed his eyes to sweep over her, even though she was still sitting at the table in the other room.

  Gonzales laughed. “Speak for yourself. Me, I like things shaken, not stirred.”

  Finn directed his words to Elisha. “Anytime you want someone to come to Atlantic City with you—” he reached for his own coat and put it on “—give me a call. I’m your man.”

  “I’ll be first alternate,” Conway volunteered with enthusiasm, raising his hand like some schoolboy.

  “You’ll be first jackass,” Sutherland snapped, ushering the men out and closing the door on them. He could hear the hoots of laughter on the other side before the men went to their cars. Flipping the lock, he turned around to face Elisha.

  The dark cloud across Sutherland’s brow intensified. From where she stood, he seemed to sink deeper into the dark hole he’d occupied for most of the evening.

  Why?

  Drawing her courage to her, Elisha left the shelter of the game room and walked into the foyer. “Something wrong?” she asked, her expression serious as she fished her jacket out of the closet.

  “What could be wrong?” he barked. “You played well.”

  Was that an accusation? Didn’t he know that she would have never put in an appearance here if she couldn’t at least play decently? She’d taken him for a fair judge of character. This couldn’t have been a surprise. “Told you I did.”

  He’d thought that she meant she played well for an editor. For a woman. The women in his world couldn’t be placed in the same class as a riverboat gambler. But Elisha could. “Where the hell did you learn how to play like that?”

  She smiled. “Just natural talent, I guess.” She shrugged dismissively. Then, because he was apparently waiting for more, she added, “I picked up a lot of tips watching the dealers at the casinos.”

  Sutherland snorted, an angry bull waiting to be led into the arena for what could, quite possibly, be his death. “Now I suppose you’ll want me to incorporate your notes into my manuscript.”

  So, that was what was bothering him. That and he was probably one of those men who hated being shown up. She hadn’t won to show him up, she’d done it to make him more accessible. To show him that she could be in his world and that when he was in hers, he was to show her a measure of respect for what she did.

  “That was the agreement,” she said lightly.

  His eyes were steely daggers as he looked at her. She could almost feel the sharp points. “What if I don’t want to honor it?”

  “You will,” she told him confidently. “Because you are all about honor, Mr. Sutherland.”

  “You took me for three hundred dollars, Max. You can drop the ‘Mr.’ part.”

  Her eyes held his. “I’d rather drop it because we’re friends.”

  That was something that hadn’t been in tonight’s bargain.

  Something else hadn’t been in tonight’s bargain. His reaction to her
.

  He didn’t like it.

  “I don’t make friends easily.”

  Her mouth curved, making her look younger than he knew she was. Making her look like a girl. She probably knew that, which was why she was smiling the way she was.

  “I already gathered that,” she told him. “Still, you have some.” Something wary entered his eyes, as if he was telling her to tread lightly. Why? What was it that he was afraid of? Even as she wondered she almost laughed. What would he say if she accused him of that, of being afraid? What would she say after he choked her for daring to say it? she wondered humorously. “Those men at the table tonight, for instance.”

  “Collectively, I’ve known them more than a hundred years.”

  “Tough club to get into.” And then, because she’d been taught to try another door when one was locked, she said, “Had to be a first day for all of them, though. I’d like my chance at a first day.”

  “Why?”

  She didn’t let his malevolent expression get to her. Or at least not show him that it got to her. “Because, for one thing, it’s easier working together if we’re not adversaries.”

  He was quick to point out the obvious to her. “It’s easier still if you just go along with everything I give you.”

  But she shook her head. “Then I wouldn’t be doing my job and I could be replaced by a rubber stamp.” She refused to allow herself to look away. Instead, her gaze challenged him. “Is that what you want?”

  He realized that he’d been watching her lips a little too intently as they formed words.

  “Maxwell,” Sutherland warned darkly, “I think you’d be better off if you didn’t ask me what I wanted.”

  For most of her life, there’d always been this part that liked challenging the unknown, that liked to walk into a dark room and let her imagination run wild before she turned on the light, chasing the specters away. She also had more than her share of curiosity. She liked to think it was what made her a good editor.

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer her at first.

  And then, instead of using words, Sutherland showed her.

  CHAPTER 30

  His mood had been dark from the moment the woman had walked in. From the moment he’d seen her and realized that she no longer looked like the woman he’d been dealing with over the last few months.

  Granted, until tonight, Elisha Reed had been the model for the somewhat frumpy, no-nonsense and no-sense-of-humor editor he was used to. He didn’t particularly like the type, but he knew how to handle that kind of editor, knew where he was in the scheme of things. Best of all, he knew that he could do what he wanted without interference. Being a bestselling author had its perks and it didn’t particularly bother him that intimidation was one of them.

  One way or another, he was accustomed to getting what he wanted. It had been this way ever since he’d been on his own. And now, with more money coming in than he needed, he held a trump card. He could pull up stakes and go to another publishing house if he wasn’t happy.

  That was supposed to keep his editor in line.

  But this woman, even before her transformation, didn’t seem to want to sit back and just accept the positive fallout for being considered his editor. Didn’t want to ride on the end of the gravy train. She wanted to reschedule the trip.

  And if that wasn’t irritating enough, she’d thrown a final monkey wrench into the works. She’d come here, looking more like a woman than an editor, and then proceeded to beat not only his friends, but him at what they considered to be their own game. If that wasn’t adding insult to injury, then he wasn’t aware what the trite saying actually meant.

  There definitely was nothing to smile about.

  Less than nothing. Because he realized that he was attracted to this woman who was making too many waves in his otherwise even-keel life.

  Granted, it was on a purely physical level, but he didn’t want to be attracted at all, on any level. Attractions meant nothing but trouble. They tended to cloud issues, to complicate life, and his life had always been streamlined. His missions might have been complex, but his life now was simple and he wanted to keep it that way.

  He’d been married once, briefly, when he was in his early twenties. It hadn’t worked out, as he’d sensed even at the outset that it wouldn’t, but stubbornly, he’d wanted to give it a try. He and his ex, whom he no longer thought of by any other name than that abbreviated label, were so far from compatible outside of the bedroom that it was utterly mind-boggling. His ex was everything he didn’t want to be.

  And vice versa, he surmised.

  But that was years behind him. Now, if he had a need for female companionship, he found it easily. And it lasted no longer than a few nights, with women who understood those limits. Women who wanted a little excitement for the evening and nothing more, because he damn well wasn’t the kind of man any woman with a yen for stability wanted in her life.

  God knew, Elisha Reed wasn’t his type. Wasn’t the kind of woman he normally tangled sheets with. She represented home, hearth, responsibilities, mom, apple pie and baseball. Everything that had nothing even remotely to do with him. Some men belonged in that setting. He didn’t.

  The woman was terminally optimistic, for God’s sake.

  But he still wanted to kiss her.

  If nothing else, to prove to himself that this attraction was just the result of an off day.

  Off like the hands of poker he’d played tonight. He’d been far from his best. So much so that during the course of the evening, he’d briefly entertained the notion of cheating. He could. He was good at it. Good at sleight of hand and substitution. He’d used that skill to his advantage in several tight spots he’d been in.

  But sitting at a poker table in his own house couldn’t have been considered to be a tight spot. Lives hadn’t been riding on the outcome of the game.

  Only pride had.

  So he’d banked down his urge to win by any means and wound up losing more than he’d won. But at least he’d played fair and square. As had his friends.

  And she had won.

  As if to balance the score, he took her face in his hands and kissed her. Hard.

  Anger, annoyance, bewilderment and a host of other things jockeyed through him, elbowing for position upfront. He wasn’t even sure why he kissed her, only that he did. A gut instinct made him do it. Gut instinct had seen him through most of his life, kept him alive when the odds for living out the night were all against him. He’d simply followed another one.

  And was glad as hell that he had.

  His hands slipped from her face to her back. He pulled her to him and kissed her again. And again.

  His lips tasted of dark promises and were as intoxicating as an entire bottle of wine consumed over the course of a short evening on an empty stomach. There was no other explanation for how she felt. Her head began to spin at the same time that her kneecaps deserted her.

  None of it made any sense to her. This was the kind of reaction women fantasized about when they were penning romances. This kind of thing didn’t actually happen. At least, it had never happened to her, even when she thought herself in love. Garry had never torched her world. The closest he’d come was in lighting a single match.

  Everything now felt hot, very hot. She was afraid to take inventory, certain that she was incinerating along with the rest of the room. Shaking inside, Elisha put her hands on Ryan’s shoulders. It was either that, or find herself sliding bonelessly down to the floor and making a complete fool of herself.

  Finally, because survival was something that had been ingrained in her from a very young age, Elisha drew back. To catch her breath. To catch her perspective. And to keep from dissolving completely like a mound of sugar left out in the rain.

  You’re not behaving professionally. Unless you’ve suddenly decided to switch over to the oldest profession.

  She stared at the man who had quite literally, and for no apparent reason that she could think of,
rocked her world.

  “Is that your way of trying to get out of reading my editorial notes?” She just managed to finish the sentence before she ran out of oxygen. Any second, she was going to start gasping for air like a deep-sea diver who’d been brought up too soon.

  “I read them.” His voice was surly, his breath warm as it traveled along her face.

  Right. She knew that. But he’d made her forget everything, including how to breathe. She tried very hard not to shiver, not to react. Somewhere inside her a hunger materialized, demanding satisfaction.

  It scared the hell out of her.

  “You read them?”

  “I said I did, didn’t I?”

  The fog about her brain began to lift. She found her tongue. It was wedged against the roof of her mouth.

  “Yes, you did. Now you need to follow those notes. At least some,” she qualified.

  It took effort to talk, to sound as if nothing had been thrown out of sync. It was hard not to gasp, not to suck in air at the end of each statement. Elisha felt as if her lungs had just left town. Taking her sanity with them. What was left of it.

  His eyes delved into hers. Seeing into the very center of her. Not possible. Only superheroes have X-ray vision.

  She tried again. Tried to make sense. Tried to sound like what she knew she was. An editor. His editor. “We can discuss it.”

  He didn’t look like a man who wanted to talk about books, even his own. His next question proved it. “Do you want to stay the night?”

  Her pulse kicked into high gear, dragging her heart along with it. It raced up into her throat and threatened to remain there. She did her best to sound blasé instead of like some addle-brained teenager who hadn’t been with a man since the Great Flood.

  “That wasn’t the discussion I had in mind.”