“No idea,” Jay admitted. “But she did win my grandfather with them.”
Arabella looked even more delighted. “Really?”
If her eyes hadn’t held such vivid interest, he would have wished that he’d kept his mouth shut. “They met when she was just seventeen. Her father wouldn’t let her go out with him because he was eight years older. But her mother, who was a piano teacher, said he could come to their house on Sunday afternoons for piano lessons. After which, my grandmother would serve him her homemade lemonade and chocolate chip cookies. He always claimed that it was the lemonade and cookies that kept him coming back. They eloped a week after she turned eighteen.”
Arabella propped her chin on her hand. “That’s the sweetest story. Is she your mom’s mom or your dad’s?”
“Mom’s. She was their only child. Lonely only, as my mother says.”
“Are you a lonely only, too?”
A crumble of cookie caught in his throat. He coughed slightly and nodded.
“Do your parents live here in Rambling Rose also?”
“Houston. That’s where I grew up. My dad’s a math teacher. Mom’s a piano teacher.”
“I remember you mentioned that the day we met. Like your great-grandmother.”
He nodded. “But I spent a lot of summers here with my grandparents.” Until he’d turned fifteen and decided he was too old for such nonsense. It had taken him another ten years before he’d begun to appreciate the error of his ways. Fortunately, his grandmother hadn’t held that against him too much when he’d needed a bolt-hole.
“And now you live here with her.”
“No, I live in the barn,” he corrected dryly. “Which she tolerates only because I feed the horses she refuses to give up and my presence here keeps my mother relatively quiet on the subject of moving Gran to Houston. In case it’s not apparent by her choice to live way the hell out here, my grandmother likes her privacy.” Something that also suited him very well these days.
Arabella shook her head. “I’ll bet she loves having you here. You, who surprises her with potted plants.”
“One plant.” He rotated his glass in the pool of condensation that had formed around the base. “And it was just so you’d have to deliver it,” he admitted.
Her eyebrows pulled together. The corners of her lips curved again. “You’re joking.”
“You didn’t call me this morning to tell me your battery was dead. What else was I supposed to do?”
She looked down at the tray between them. Her lashes were dark and long and looked entirely natural. “So the plant really was an excuse?”
“For a special occasion.”
She wrinkled her nose and looked at him. “Special occasion being...?”
He was barely aware that he’d leaned down on his arms on the workbench, putting him at her level. “Getting to see you again.”
Her eyes softened. “Jay.”
“Arabella.” He couldn’t help himself. He touched the ponytail hanging over her shoulder. The red strands might look fiery, but they slid through his fingers cool and silky.
“I think you’d better kiss me,” she murmured and her cheeks turned rosy.
“Yeah?” His voice dropped also.
“If you don’t, then I’ll know this is just a dream.”
“And if I do?”
She moistened her lips. “Then I’ll know this is just a dream.”
He smiled slightly. He brushed the silky end of her ponytail against her cheek and leaned closer. “Dream, Bella,” he whispered, and slowly pressed his lips to hers.
He felt her quick inhale and his own quick rush. Tasted the brightness of lemonade, the sweetness of strawberry.
He slid his fingers from her ponytail to the back of her neck and urged her closer.
Her fingers splayed against his chest. She murmured something against his lips. He barely heard. His head was full of sound. Full of pulse beats and bells.
She murmured again. This time not against his lips.
He frowned, feeling entirely thwarted. “What?”
She pulled back yet another inch. Her fingertips pushed instead of urged closer. “Do you want to answer that?”
It made sense then. His cell phone was ringing.
He exhaled his annoyance and pulled the offending device from his back pocket. The number showing on the screen wasn’t familiar, but the area code was. He declined the call, the ringing went quiet and he shoved the phone into his pocket again.
“Nobody important?”
He shook his head, but some piece of conscience in him prickled.
Start as you mean to go on.
When had he stopped believing in that?
“Bella. Arabella—”
“I like when you call me Bella.” Her hand had found a place against his chest again, her fingertips grazing his neck.
The urge to pull her out of the potting shed and beyond the peach orchard to his barn was painful.
He closed his hand around hers, moving it away from his chest. “Then you’ll always be Bella to me.” He kissed her fingertips. “But I—” He broke off with a curse when his phone rang insistently again. He didn’t need to look at the screen to know it would be the same caller. Just as he hadn’t needed to recognize the number to know it would be the same caller.
Despite their long alliance, Michael Devane had cut Jay loose the year before without a speck of regret.
Then everything changed and Jay had been dodging Michael ever since. When there was money on the line, the other man was like a bulldog.
He pulled out his phone again, turned it off and left it facedown on the bench.
But even though he wanted to start up right where he’d left off—namely the pouty curve of Arabella’s lower lip—that damn piece of conscience prickled harder than ever. So instead, he raked his fingers through his ruthlessly short hair and refilled his glass of lemonade. “Damn, it’s getting hot out, isn’t it?”
She looked vaguely confused. “The heat isn’t so bad, but the humidity is worse than I’m used to.” She freed her ponytail, only to bundle her hair up into a knot on the top of her head and secure the tie around it again. “I actually ought to be going. I have a thing I have to go to this afternoon.” She closed the binder and stretched up to replace it on the shelf. Her shirt rode up above the waistband of her jeans, briefly revealing a narrow strip of creamy skin.
He looked away and chugged another quarter glass of lemonade. “A thing?”
“Barbecue. My brother’s fiancée is expecting me.” She went back down on her heels and tugged the bottom of her shirt. “You know, if you don’t want me to come tomorrow, you can just tell me.”
His mind had been occupied with fantasies of exploring that soft-looking skin. To see whether the sprinkle of light freckles across her nose were repeated anywhere else. “Why wouldn’t I want you to come?”
“I don’t know.” She tugged at her shirt again, but this time he knew it wasn’t an unconscious act but an indicator of uncertainty. “Just thought I should make sure. She’s your grandmother. Maybe she doesn’t really expect me to take her up—”
“You haven’t spent enough time with her yet,” Jay said wryly. “She doesn’t say things she doesn’t mean.” Which was why he trusted that she wouldn’t tell all to Arabella just because she figured Jay ought to. “You didn’t decline her invitation. She’s going to expect you tomorrow. And she’s going to put you to work, so you might as well come prepared.”
“And you? Is she putting you to work, too?”
“She would if I didn’t have to be on duty at the hotel. Can’t tell you how many hours of weeding she’s gotten out of me since I moved into the barn.”
She looked crestfallen. “You have to work at the hotel tomorrow?”
Her disappointment was ego-boosting to say the le
ast. “Afraid so.” He tucked his finger beneath her chin. “Which means I’ll have to think of some way to make it up to you.”
“Really?” It was practically a squeak and she blushed. “Really?” she repeated in a much lower register and with a lot more aplomb.
Everything about her charmed him. “Really.” He wrapped the remaining cookies in one of the napkins and handed them to her. “Gran’ll figure I screwed up if all of the cookies aren’t gone.”
Their fingers brushed as she took the napkin from him. “Can’t have that.”
He walked her back to her car, going around the house rather than through it. But his attempt at avoiding his grandmother was futile, since she was outside at the front of the house anyway, tending her rosebushes.
She peered from beneath the brim of her ancient straw hat. “Leaving already?”
“Arabella has a family thing to get to,” Jay answered, knowing that was one thing that would quell his grandmother’s well-intentioned nosiness.
“I do,” Arabella confirmed. “Thank you for the cookies and lemonade, Mrs. O’Brien. They were delicious.”
“Pleased to hear it,” his grandmother said. “Nothing more satisfying when everyone’s feeling warm.”
Arabella obviously took the words at face value, but Jay was glad his grandmother’s straw brim shaded her undoubtedly crafty expression.
He opened Arabella’s car door for her and closed it again once she was behind the wheel. When she turned the key, the engine started immediately.
She smiled wryly. “Guess the battery thing must have been a fluke.”
“Fluke. Divine intervention. Either way, I’m grateful.”
Her smile widened as she put the car in gear. “You don’t happen to be Irish, do you?”
“Are you kidding?” He took a step back when her tires began to slowly crunch over the drive. “Gran’s name is O’Brien.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re Irish. But if you are, it at least explains the gift you have for blarney!” Then she was driving away, leaving behind the sound of her laughter.
He stood there, long after her car was out of sight and the dust she’d kicked up was finally settled.
“Didn’t tell her, did you.” It wasn’t a question.
He exhaled sharply and turned to face his grandmother. “Do you ever get tired of being right all the time?”
“It’s a burden I’ve learned to bear,” she deadpanned.
Then she wielded her snips with deliberation and a dying rose fell to the ground.
Chapter Five
“...And that’s ‘Giving It All Up’ by the newest sensation—”
The radio went silent as Arabella turned off her engine. She stared through her windshield at the front facade of Hotel Fortune and wondered for about the hundredth time if she was really doing this.
Applying for a job at Hotel Fortune.
Any job.
Three days ago, Todd Bellamy had returned from his family vacation and three days ago, her job at Petunia’s Posies had ended.
She also hadn’t heard one word from Jay Cross. Not even after she’d spent several hours working in his grandmother’s garden more than a week ago.
Which, considering the way he’d kissed her in the potting shed, left her once again mired in a swamp of uncertainty. Was he interested in her or wasn’t he?
You’re the one who asked him to kiss you.
She swatted away the thought like an annoying fly. But like any respectable annoying fly, it just kept returning to the picnic.
She couldn’t even be certain whether or not her decision to actually seek a job at Hotel Fortune was because of Jay or in spite of him.
She got out of the car, slamming her car door harder than necessary, and straightened her shoulders as she marched through the entrance of the hotel.
She hadn’t been there since January. The only noticeable change to the Spanish Mission–style lobby since then were the flowers in the massive arrangement on the table positioned beneath a skylight centered in the soaring ceiling.
She stopped at the reception desk. “I have an appointment in human resources?”
The attendant was a young man who didn’t even look old enough to shave. “Third floor. Just follow the signs.”
“Thanks.” She headed for the elevators. There were very few people about. Only one middle-aged couple sat in the massive leather chairs in one corner of the lobby near the door. They had small suitcases sitting on the terra-cotta tiled floor next to them. Probably waiting for transportation. Another couple exited the elevator when the doors opened and Arabella stepped into the empty car and punched the third-floor button.
As the doors closed, she couldn’t help remembering the small elevator that Jay had shown her the day of Larkin’s party when she’d taken the twins outside to play.
“Stop thinking about Jay Cross,” she said under her breath. The soft bell chimed at the second floor and the doors slid open to reveal an empty corridor.
Arabella poked her head out of the car and seeing nobody standing by, ducked back inside and poked the close button a few times to hasten it along. She wouldn’t be cutting the time so closely for her appointment with the human resources department if she hadn’t had to change her outfit at the last minute thanks to Murphy’s muddy paws.
But the doors stubbornly refused to close at all. Not even pressing the third-floor button again garnered any results.
Huffing in frustration, she left the elevator and pressed the call button for its mate, but that button didn’t even light up and after another minute waiting for it to respond, she huffed again and headed down the corridor looking for signs for the stairwell.
As she went, she passed the entrance for Roja’s banquet room. The door was open and she glanced inside as she hurried past. Round tables—currently naked of tablecloths—were situated around the room. Then she remembered the stairwell they’d used in January and quickly found it around another corner. The heavy door clanged shut behind her and her heels rang out as she raced up the cement steps. She reached the landing where a door was marked with a black numeral 3.
She’d been on dozens of interviews in her life. She shouldn’t be so nervous now, yet she was. She drew in a deep breath and smoothed her hand down the side of her skirt before grasping the door handle and pushing it down.
The handle moved.
The door did not.
“No way.” She twisted the lever up. Twisted it down. But it remained locked. Cursing under her breath, she hurried back down the stairs, the whole way to the first floor, and burst breathlessly out of the door, inordinately relieved that it hadn’t been locked as well.
The stairwell hadn’t been particularly confining. Just a basic square tower filled with concrete steps and a bunch of doors that didn’t open, but she still felt shaky from nerves.
She smoothed her ponytail and hurried back to the lobby, passing a trio of people now waiting for the elevators along the way.
“One of them was stuck on the second floor,” she told them as she walked by, heading once more back to the reception desk.
The same young guy was there.
“That was fast,” he said as she stopped in front of him.
“Only because I couldn’t get up to the third floor.” She inhaled yet another deep, calming breath. “The stairwell doors are all locked on the inside.”
“It’s a security thing,” he said. “Unless you’re a guest with your room key, you can’t enter other floors except the main floor. Of course the fire department can override the locks in an emergency. The elevators—”
“—decided to hang out permanently on the second floor,” she interrupted, wanting to cut to the chase. “One of them, anyway.” Who knew about the other elevator.
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded as if just now remembering. “That’s b
een a problem lately.”
Arabella wanted to ask him why something hadn’t been done about that problem lately. “What about the service elevator?”
“Sorry but that’s for staff only.”
“Which I won’t have a chance to even be if I can’t get up to the human resource department. Can’t you just give me a room key or something so I can get through the stairwell door?”
He frowned as if the idea of it caused him physical pain.
Arabella leaned closer and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Isn’t it a bit of a hazard having only one way to get from one floor to another?”
“Is there a problem, Jason?”
Jason got a definite deer-in-the-headlights look when a brunette with a serious expression on her face stopped next to the reception desk. “No problems, Ms. Williams.”
“You’re Grace,” Arabella said, realizing it even before she saw the discreet name badge on the other woman’s lapel. Grace Williams. General Manager.
The woman’s expression was friendly but Arabella thought she detected a sense of reserve in her eyes.
“I do have the distinct pleasure of being GM,” Grace said, holding out her hand. “And you—”
“Arabella Fortune.” She pumped the manager’s hand. “I’m Br—”
“Brady’s sister!” Warmth entered Grace’s eyes. “I’m so pleased to meet you. Your brother has told me all about you.”
Arabella couldn’t help making a face. “When it comes to big brothers, that isn’t always a good thing.”
Grace laughed lightly. “He sings your praises,” she assured. “Are you here to see him?”
“Actually, no,” Arabella admitted. Brady didn’t even know what she was up to that afternoon. She cast a look toward the elevators. Two members of the waiting trio had given up and disappeared, leaving only the third standing there still staring at the unmoving illuminations above the doors. “I have an appointment with Sybil in human resources. Starts—” she glanced at her nonexistent wristwatch “—about ten minutes ago.”
“You’re applying?” Far from being concerned over Arabella’s tardiness, Grace just looked delighted. “Your brother didn’t say a word about that.”
Cowboy in Disguise Page 7