The Tycoon's Proposal

by Leigh Michaels

  She gathered up a couple of bags of books and kept her voice level. “Accounting theory, auditing, organizing information systems, advanced database programming—”

  “What do you do for a hobby? Write the computer code for the federal government to calculate income tax?”

  “I could,” Lissa said calmly. “In fact, I have. Not the government’s software, but a sample package for a small corporation. That was last year, in my tax practicum.” She pulled a ragged box from under the bed.

  Kurt ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m curious—do the words pizza and a movie mean anything to you? You notice I’m not even talking about anything as elaborate as going to a basketball game or a dance.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t have the time or money for entertainment.”

  “Everybody needs to relax. And you can’t tell me those guys hanging around the cloakroom last night wouldn’t buy you a pizza. That looks like a very old quilt.”

  “Congratulations, you win a prize.” She shook her head and started to push it back. “Nobody would steal that.”

  “What is it, honestly. Your security blanket?” He took the box out of her hands. “If it’s really old, somebody might just pick it up. Better take it.”

  “Hannah’s got enough of her own old stuff to deal with.”

  “It’s a big guestroom. She and Janet are probably getting it ready for you right now, putting in all the little touches to make it feel like home. You know, scented towels, fresh flowers, robe and slippers laid out, a chocolate mint on the pillow….”

  Lissa looked around the drab little room. “That will make it feel just like home,” she said dryly. “And in case you’re trying to hurry me along by pointing out that I’m supposed to be relieving Hannah of household duties, not creating more work for her—”

  “The idea had crossed my mind.”

  “Yes, and I already feel guilty about being here instead of helping out. But so should you—I caught what she said about waxing the floor for you.” She got her single good dress from the closet and folded it carefully atop a crate. “Why aren’t you already in the guestroom, anyway?”

  “Because she keeps it for guests,” Kurt explained, with an air of long-suffering patience. “She always has. I have my own room up on the top floor, reserved from the time when I was a kid and went to visit her for the summers.”

  “Every year? You mean, like all summer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she put you in the attic?”

  “Hey, I liked the attic. It was better than being at home.” Then, as if he realized too late what he was saying, he seized the crate from her arms and walked out.

  So maybe Kurt’s life hadn’t been so privileged after all. Well, that was certainly something to chew on some night when she couldn’t sleep, Lissa thought.

  She picked up another crate and followed him out to the Jaguar.

  The steps were still piled with snow, but the front-room tenant was picking at the sidewalk with irregular thrusts of a ragged-edged snow shovel.

  “Good exercise,” Kurt commented as he walked past. “The repetitive arm motion builds the biceps—and that gets the girls’ attention every time.”

  The tenant rolled his eyes. “So maybe you want to clear the sidewalk?”

  “Oh, no,” Kurt said pleasantly. “I already have my girl’s attention, you see.”

  The tenant looked at Lissa as if he’d never seen her before. And perhaps, she thought, he hadn’t—she’d certainly done her best to remain invisible around the boarding house. But suddenly a warm gleam of appreciation crept into his eyes.

  She set the crate into the back of the Jaguar. “Gee, thanks,” she said. “Now I suppose when I come home I’ll have him on my doorstep asking for dates. You know, Kurt, if I wanted someone to advertise my good points I’d ask. But you wouldn’t be the salesman I chose—so don’t hold your breath.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Advertising your good points? I was just trying to hurry him along to finish the sidewalk before one of us slips on the snow and falls down.”

  When they went back inside, the landlady was hovering suspiciously in the doorway of Lissa’s room. “It sure looks like you’re moving out,” she accused. “The only things you’ve left are junk.”

  Lissa swallowed the retort she’d have liked to make—something about the landlady knowing junk when she saw it, since that was all the woman owned—and reached for another crate. This one was full of office supplies, and when she laid a board across the top, it served as her desk. She decided to leave the board behind. The landlady had finally moved on, and she decided to distract herself. “What is it with guys anyway?”

  “Let’s not start with the philosophical questions, Lissa.”

  “I’m serious. Why do men always seem more attracted to a woman after someone else has shown an interest in her? Even—” She bit her tongue. Even in calculus class, she’d started to say. The other young men had certainly looked at her with more interest after Kurt’s tutoring session—at least in the few classes she’d managed to sit through before she’d cut and run.

  “We want to make sure that other hunters agree that the quarry’s worth going after, I suppose.”

  “Charming,” Lissa muttered. “It’s like being singled out as the meatiest mammoth in the herd.”

  Two trips later, the sidewalk was in much better condition. The shoveler paused to smile at her and lick his lips, and Lissa shuddered as she slid behind the wheel of Hannah’s car.

  Two weeks, she told herself. I don’t even have to think about it for two weeks.

  It was amazing how much stuff the woman thought she needed for a two-week stay, Kurt thought. Okay, he was responsible for her bringing the security blanket, but most of the rest had been her own idea. It had taken them far longer to load up all of Lissa’s belongings than Kurt had expected it to, and when he carried in the first crate he was greeted with the scent of prime rib and fresh bread drifting through the house. At the top of the stairs, the guestroom sparkled, complete with robe and slippers laid out across the antique coverlet which covered the brass bed.

  “There’s no chocolate on the pillow,” Lissa said. “And no fresh flowers.”

  He blinked in surprise. What an ungrateful little brat she was—to complain!

  Then he saw the dazed look in her eyes as she looked around, and he took a minute to assess for himself the differences between Hannah’s guestroom and the dark little hole they’d just left. Even at dusk on a winter afternoon the guestroom was bright and cheerful, airy and full of color and warmth, while he’d bet that at high noon on a sunny summer day the boarding house would look gloomy.

  In fact, the only thing in the guestroom which wasn’t particularly colorful was Lissa herself. She was still wearing the stark white tux shirt and black pants from her waitress shift earlier in the day, though she’d taken off the bow tie. And even her hair looked a little subdued—as if she were tired from head to foot.

  I can work an hour here and there and fit partial shifts in between classes.

  No wonder she was exhausted. But he thought it would be wiser not to share the suggestion which trembled on the tip of his tongue—that she might look better after a nap. Instead, he said mildly, “Well, the garden’s covered with snow, and you had the car, so she couldn’t go to the flower shop. I guess you’ll have to do without the flowers.”

  “I just meant….” She shook her head. “I was being silly. This room is stunning. Those must be the drapes she thinks need to be replaced.”

  He could hear the incredulity in her voice, and he had to stop and think what she was talking about. Oh, yes—Gran had said something about drapes in the midst of that litany of reasons why she wanted to sell the house. “I guess so. She did say guestroom, I think. But they look fine to me.”

  Lissa sighed. “Me, too. Better than fine, in fact.”

  “I’ll go bring up another load.” Kurt paused in the doorway. “You might want to change clo
thes before dinner. I caught a glimpse of silver in the dining room on my way up the stairs, so I think it’s a dress-up occasion.”

  By the time he’d brought up the rest of her things Lissa had vanished into the bathroom. He stacked the last of the crates neatly along one wall of the guestroom, retreated to the attic bedroom to change his shirt, and went downstairs.

  Janet and Gran had pulled out all the stops. The dining room table was laid with the heaviest and best of the silver flatware, and an old-fashioned epergne stood in the center, filled with oranges and apples and kiwi.

  Hannah was sitting up very straight on a velvet chair in the living room, next to a flickering fire. She was wearing something lush and purple, with a row of sparkly clear stones around her neck.

  She was staring out the front window, and for a moment Kurt thought she hadn’t heard him come in. “Gran?”

  “Oh, hello, dear. I assume you got all of Lissa’s things moved?”

  “Yes.” The question left him feeling a bit uneasy. All of Lissa’s things…. “Everything she could possibly need for a couple of weeks, anyway. You’re not expecting her to stay longer than that—right?”

  “How could she stay here, Kurt, if I’ll be moving out myself?”

  His grandmother’s eyes were unusually bright, and Kurt wondered if she’d been sitting there staring into space, thinking about her move. Maybe even winking back a few tears. Lissa just might be right after all. If Gran was already having second thoughts….

  Maybe we didn’t need to pack up so much after all. A few days and Lissa might be headed straight back home…in a manner of speaking. Well, when it came time to shift it all back, he’d gladly pay a mover.

  “Can I get you a sherry?” he asked.

  His grandmother smiled. “That would be lovely, dear.”

  He was standing at the sideboard in the dining room when he heard the creak of a stair. Third one from the bottom—he remembered it well from trying to sneak in after his curfew, before he’d learned how to climb the oak tree and swing over the rail of the attic balcony to let himself in.

  He poured a second sherry. It probably wasn’t the drink Lissa would choose—he suspected she’d rather have a beer—but if she was going to live under his grandmother’s roof for a couple of weeks she’d better at least be introduced to the sherry ritual.

  He turned toward the living room, saw her standing at the foot of the stairs with one hand still on the newel post, and stopped dead.

  There was nothing outstanding about the dress Lissa wore—neither the cut nor the fabric shouted for attention, and he’d bet it had come from an anonymous designer and a discount rack. But the deep rich color fell somewhere between ordinary blue and ordinary green, and ended up not being ordinary at all. She didn’t look like a faded photo anymore—she was once more vivid and brilliant and stunning.

  And the cut—commonplace though it would probably look on another woman—was anything but common on Lissa. There was still no doubt in his mind that she was too slender. But when she was clad in something more feminine than the tux shirt and black pants she wasn’t at all the stick he’d expected. The way the dress draped around her body drew his gaze upward to a slim, straight neck, and downward to slim, straight legs. And then he lingered over a whole lot of soft and gentle curves in between.

  Soft and gentle curves she hadn’t had six years ago. He’d have remembered those, just as clearly as he remembered the way she’d slowly come to life as he’d kissed her…the way she’d sparkled as he made love to her…the way she’d made him catch fire….

  You wouldn’t have heard a brass band that night either, Callahan.

  He must have made some kind of a sound, for his grandmother looked over her shoulder at him. “My goodness, dear, I thought for a moment you were choking.”

  No, Gran, only acting like those guys at the cloakroom counter last night. He handed his grandmother a glass, holding another out to Lissa. “Would you like sherry, Lissa?”

  “Yes, please.” Her fingers brushed his as she took the crystal glass, half full of amber liquid, and Kurt felt something shift deep inside him, like the first warning tremor of an earthquake. She wasn’t even smiling at him, but the lights in the room seemed to dim in comparison.

  The woman was dangerous, he told himself. She always had been—even more so when she looked the most innocent. And, if he was smart, he wouldn’t let himself forget it.

  Maximum Sports’ newest and biggest store had already been open for business for several weeks, in order to take advantage of the enormous potential offered by holiday gift-buying. But the formal grand opening celebration had been put off till this week—both for the sake of making a bigger splash and so Kurt could be present.

  There were thirty-seven stores, and he hadn’t missed a grand opening yet—though now that they were considering selling franchises it might not be quite so easy to keep up the pace. Still, even after thirty-seven times, Kurt enjoyed the thrill of cutting the ribbon to formally unveil a new location. This was the fun part of his job—talking to employees who were excited about the new store, listening to customers as they exclaimed over the variety and style of the merchandise, and watching as golf clubs and snowboards and bicycles surged through the checkout lines.

  And, of course, he enjoyed personally demonstrating a few of the things that made Maximum Sports so different from other sports outfitters.

  In his position halfway up the climbing wall, he braced himself for a brief rest and looked down at the crowd watching his progress. The wall was sixty feet tall, and though climbing it wasn’t exactly a challenge on the same level as Mount Everest, it was no walk on the beach. He was at the point now where the wall began to curve back over his head, making the rest of the climb similar to dangling over thin air while scrambling up an overhanging knob of rock.

  Nobody to blame but yourself, Callahan, he thought. The climbing walls in most of the stores had been built with beginners in mind, and even this one had a couple of easier sections. But he’d designed this bit himself, based on a particularly challenging outcrop on a mountain he’d climbed in Peru last year. It should be a piece of cake after defeating the original.

  He looked out over the crowd. Mostly young women, he saw. What a surprise.

  A flash of red hair caught his eye, but it wasn’t Lissa. There was no tiny gray-haired lady beside her. Where were they, anyway? Cracked up somewhere on the freeway? He should have known better than to rely on her driving skills….

  His toe slipped from the foothold and the crowd gasped. Half were frightened, Kurt thought, and half were anticipating the possibility that the head of Maximum Sports might end up splattered at the bottom of the climbing wall. Which was why they had the rule that no one could be on the wall without a safety harness and a trained belaying partner.

  He got his breath back and moved on before the crowd could lose interest and wander off.

  He didn’t see Gran and Lissa come in, but twenty minutes later, when he reached the floor once more, his grandmother was chatting to the weight-lifter lookalike who was paying out Kurt’s safety ropes. “We simply couldn’t keep him on the ground as a youngster,” she was saying. “He climbed out of his crib before he was ten months old, and he climbed up the bookshelves in the library when he was two. And then there was the time he tried to fly off the garage roof with a kite in each hand….”

  “Learned my lesson on that one,” Kurt said.

  “What? How to build a bigger kite?” Lissa murmured.

  He shed the harness—not his favorite piece of equipment, since it tended to be warmer than was comfortable. “You finally got here, I see. You missed the best part.”

  She was still looking up at the wall. Her hands were buried in the pockets of her coat—the same oversized, old-fashioned man’s wool tweed overcoat she’d been wearing yesterday. On her slender frame it managed to look like a fashion statement rather than a castoff.

  Kurt mopped his forehead with a towel. “How much of the
demonstration did you watch?”

  “Enough,” Lissa said. He looked more closely; she seemed to be a little pale around the edges. “That’s what you do for fun?”

  “I’d rather do it on real mountains, without all the safety ropes. But, since Minneapolis is smack in the middle of the flatlands, I take what I can get. I suppose your reaction means you don’t want to give the wall a try?”

  “You got that much right. I’ll stick to writing tax software, thanks.”

  “Just as well—because all of today’s slots are already reserved anyway. Where have you been, Gran? I thought you were coming over first thing this morning.”

  “We were busy with the Christmas tree.”

  Kurt frowned. “I expected you’d wait for me to help put it up.”

  “You sound like a disappointed six-year-old. Anyway, it’s not up yet,” his grandmother said. “We were just trying to find one.”

  “What’s wrong with the tree you always use?”

  “I decided to have a real one. I’ve always wanted a live tree, but Janet thinks they’re a fire hazard. This year I decided to set my foot down and buy one anyway—but you have no idea how hard it is to find a nice-sized tree.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said. “Of course, it is getting pretty late in the season.”

  “So when will you be home? We need a man to get it balanced properly.”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t find one.”

  “It just took longer than I expected. I think we’ve looked at every tree for sale on this side of the city,” his grandmother said proudly. “I was just about to suggest that we go out in the country and find a tree farm, but we finally found what I wanted. It’ll take all of us to get it wrestled into place, I think.”