Jace was at her side in heartbeat. He placed his hand on her back, in the space between her shoulder blades, and rubbed in wide, firm circles. “Drank too fast, didn’t you?” he said calmly, almost as if he were trying to soothe a child. “I’ve done that before. Sucks when it’s something hot. Just give yourself a minute, and you’ll be fine.”
Melanie nodded and took in careful, small breaths. When she was able to talk, she said, “Some water might be good.” She stared at the table, not wanting to turn toward him until she had the chance to clean herself up. “Do you mind getting me a bottle?”
His hand dropped away, and she felt his body shift. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him walk toward the front of the coffee shop. The second she knew he wasn’t going to look at her, she found the napkin and dried her face. Bemused humor replaced some of her humiliation. It was a darn good thing she wasn’t trying to seduce Jace, because choking on coffee could not be described as sexy.
One little comment, and she’d forgotten how to drink. Awesome. Dabbing at her shirt, she sopped up some of the dampness and tried to work out why Jace had this…power over her. It was more than his good looks, his charm. It had to be. She’d met plenty of handsome, charming men in her lifetime. She’d dealt with relentless flirters before. She’d walked away from every single one of them without a second thought.
But Jace seemed to be of a different species. A man whose mere presence made her feel as if she’d been struck by lightning. God help her, she understood for maybe the first time in her life why women did such crazy things to get the attention of “the perfect man.”
Good grief. Jace was not the perfect man. He wasn’t irresistible. He couldn’t be. He was nothing but a novelty. Probably, she thought, after spending the next several weeks with him, she wouldn’t find him any more appealing than any other man.
Maybe, instead of trying to avoid spending time with Jace, she should be spending as much time as possible with him. Wouldn’t she get used to him quicker that way? Wouldn’t his…appeal…become less intense as she acclimated herself to him?
“You doing okay now?” Jace asked with a considering once-over when he returned. He handed her the water bottle and sat down. “No need to call nine-one-one or anything, is there?”
“Much better now.” She unscrewed the top from the water bottle and took a careful sip. “Thank you for this. I…tend to be on the clumsy side.”
A faint smile appeared. “I’ve noticed. How many broken bones did you have as a kid?”
“None, actually. I’m clumsy around normal, everyday objects. Like flat ground and invisible globs of air.” She shrugged. “But dangerous stuff like climbing trees I never had a problem with.”
“You’re an interesting woman, Mel.”
“In what way?” she asked, genuinely curious.
He blinked. “In every way.”
“Oh.” What was she supposed to say to that? “Interesting good or interesting bad?”
“Good, Mel.” His voice thickened and lowered. “Very, very good.”
“Oh,” she said again, still at a loss for words. “Thank you. I think you’re…interesting, too.” Before he could quiz her on what she meant by that, she said, “Is there anything else you wanted to go over?”
“We were talking about Grady and Olivia,” Jace reminded her, stubborn man that he was.
Melanie expelled a sigh. “I’d rather keep this entirely impartial.”
“Why not meet them before deciding?” he pushed. “Something informal, like lunch?”
“And if I don’t change my mind?”
“I’ll stop badgering you, but the bet sticks.” Finishing off his coffee, he crumpled the cup in his hand. “They’re a special couple. I can promise that they’ll be celebrating Valentine’s Day because they love each other, because they choose to be together.”
“Okay, okay.” She decided this battle wasn’t worth fighting at the moment. “I’ll meet them and then decide, but I doubt doing so will change anything.”
“Good enough.” Jace glanced at his watch. “Crap, it’s getting late. I have to take off soon, but there is one more idea I’d like to run by you.”
Take off? Disappointment clouded around her before settling in her stomach like a lead weight. Where was he going? More to the point, why did she care? “Shoot,” she said.
“We should publicize the bet, make it a part of the article. In addition, we could approach the feature with a ‘he-said, she-said’ mentality.”
“Meaning?”
“We state up front that we have a bet going and what’s at stake.” Jace’s brow furrowed as he talked. “If you win, they’ll all see the damn Snuggie photo anyway. And if I win…” He trailed off and glanced away, apparently having second thoughts about completing his sentence.
“It will just play into your womanizing reputation, is that it? If anything, that will help your columns get more attention.” She scowled and fought to keep her temper in check. “What then, Jace? Supposing a miracle happens and you somehow manage to win, will you use our date as fodder for your column?”
“I…hadn’t really thought about that,” he said carefully.
“Okay. Think about it now.”
“No, Mel. I wouldn’t ‘use our date as fodder’ unless that was something you’d already agreed to.” The furrows in his brow deepened. “You continually assume I’m out to deceive you, in one way or another. Why?”
She let out a breath. If she was going to get through the next several weeks, she needed to relax. “I don’t know,” she admitted in a soft voice. “But come on, Jace, you write a dating column that is…fairly free with the details of your dates, so why wouldn’t I wonder?”
“Maybe because we’re coworkers? Maybe, just maybe, you could give me the benefit of the doubt for once.” His eyes darkened, grew steely. “I sure as hell don’t need to be sneaky about using a date for my column. Any date.”
“Right,” she fired back. “The women you date probably love having what they wear, what they say, every move they make dissected in your damn column for public consumption. Hell, they probably beg you for dates. They probably cut the column out of the paper and show it off to their friends and neighbors before framing it and hanging it on their wall.”
“Some of them, maybe,” Jace said quietly. “Others prefer to stay out of the limelight. Regardless, have you ever seen an actual name printed in my ‘damn column’? You haven’t, because I keep that information private. I respect women, Mel.” He swore under his breath. “Stop expecting the worst from me.”
She stared at him for a minute, letting his words filter through her temper. He was right. Sort of. To the best of her recollection, his dates were never named. Well, not with their given names, anyway. “I’ll try,” she said. “But I can’t promise anything.”
“Someday, I’m going to prove to you that I can be trusted.”
The sincerity in his voice caught her off guard, softened away the rest of her anger and, in a way she didn’t understand, made her want to trust him. She shrugged and played off the moment as no big deal. “Sure, Jace. Good luck with that. Maybe you’ll win the lottery, too.”
He closed his eyes for a millisecond and pushed out a sigh. Then, with his playboy grin solidly in place, he put them back on familiar ground. “Anyway, if we lay the bet out right in the beginning, the readers will get involved. Actually, we should do that now as a way to get some buzz going on the article. I figure I can mention it in my columns, and you can in yours.”
She nodded. “Then what?”
“Simple. We share our massively different viewpoints going in, drop in our opinions throughout—how we feel before the interviews compared to how we feel after.” Jace fiddled with his crushed coffee cup and checked his watch again. “I’m fairly sure Kurt wil
l give us the extra page space, and I know he’ll like the approach.”
“It’s a fantastic idea,” she said honestly. “Okay, if Kurt agrees, I’m in.”
“I’ll give him a call later to get the go-ahead.” With that, Jace glanced at his watch for the third time. “I really need to get going. I’m thinking we’ll start interviews on Monday.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask where he was off to, but she managed to swallow the words. “So we’re done until next week?”
“Unless I can put something together with Grady and Olivia before then, yes.” Jace packed away his laptop and stood. “Have a good night, Mel. Try not to trip over any dangerous globs of air in the meantime.”
“I’ll try,” she said, matching his light tone with one of her own. “It’s hard, though. Those dang invisible air globs are everywhere.”
He gave her a long, slow look, as if he wanted to say more. In the end, he simply nodded, angled himself toward the door and strode away. She watched him again. She couldn’t help it. When he exited the coffee shop, a feeling of emptiness came over her.
Surely not because Jace had left or because she wished he’d stuck around for longer. And surely not because she wondered where he was off to, if he had a date with a glamorous, non-clumsy, beautiful woman who didn’t have issues about trusting men.
Feeling this way for those reasons would be stupid, and she was not a stupid woman. It had been a long day with a lot of surprises on very little sleep. Of course she was tired and out of sorts. Her meeting with Jace had been an opportunity to think about something other than her mother’s engagement or her father potentially trying to become part of her life again. Jace’s departure signaled the end of their meeting, and therefore a return to her earlier worries.
Yes, she decided, the cause for this sudden, engulfing loneliness wasn’t because of Jace at all. His presence combined with their chat about work had simply shielded her from emotions she already had. In the absence of both, they came flooding back.
It was a good argument, she thought as she gathered her belongings, tossed her paper coffee cup in the trash and headed toward the parking lot. A valid, completely logical argument…except for one thing. Melanie wasn’t thinking about her mother or her father when Jace walked out the door. No, she’d been thinking about him, that deep, almost searching look he’d just given her and his comment about proving to her that he was trustworthy.
He had been in her mind.
Now in her car, Melanie pulled the visor down to look in the mini-mirror. Her eyes were darker than normal and somewhat dazed. Her normally pale cheeks were flushed, and when she brushed her fingers down the side of her face, her skin was hot to the touch.
Oh, hell. She’d been wrong earlier, when she convinced herself that spending more time with Jace would help her get over her absurd attraction. After all, the sun’s rays didn’t grow less hot the longer you stood in them. All that happened then was that you got burned.
Chapter Five
Saturday afternoon, Jace was carrying a bottle of beer and a bowl of popcorn into the living room with the telephone propped between his shoulder and ear. “Thanks for getting back to me,” he said to Kurt. “I’m sorry to bug you over the weekend but was hoping to get the go-ahead on this before Monday.”
Kurt had been out of the office since Thursday with the flu, so Jace had finally left him a message regarding the new approach to the Valentine’s Day feature. In addition, Jace wanted to have a conversation about dropping “Bachelor on the Loose” in favor of a different column.
“Look, I don’t much care how you run the article. Just remember it’s supposed to be a feel-good piece,” Kurt said, his voice raspy.
“Right, and it will be. No problem with that. I just think the bet will draw attention, and the…let’s call it contention…between me and Melanie will prove compelling.”
“Like a train wreck, maybe,” Kurt said. “But whatever sells papers works for me.”
Jace ignored that comment, even if there was some truth there. He deposited the bottle and bowl on the end table before sitting down in his leather recliner. “I also think this format will give Melanie a better chance to show you what she can do.”
Kurt responded with a grunt. “I know damn well what she’s capable of. The problem is she’s unwilling to follow directions. Face it, Jace, the advice column should be a cinch for anyone to write. Hell, my sixteen-year-old daughter could probably do it.”
“Unwilling might not be the proper word.” Jace popped the footrest and leaned back, looked longingly at the still-dark television. His game was about to start. “I think it’s more a matter of—” This wasn’t a conversation he should have with the boss. Melanie wouldn’t like it. With that in mind, Jace changed tactics. “Hey, what do you think of posting a few teasers about the bet along with the feature on the Gazette’s website for promo?”
“Sure. Shouldn’t be a problem. But Jace, you should know…” Kurt hesitated a second, coughed and then said, “This is a last-shot deal for Melanie. If she screws up again, I can’t give her another chance. There’s too much at stake right now.”
“How can the advice column be a make-or-break deal?” Jace no sooner asked the question than his intuition kicked him in the gut. “Is the paper in trouble?” Kurt’s silence was all the answer Jace needed. Hell, what small newspaper wasn’t struggling nowadays? “How bad is it, Kurt? Should I be looking for another job?”
“No!” Kurt coughed again. “You’re fine. You’re one of our most popular writers, so you’re good. As long as you keep doing what you’ve been doing, I don’t see that changing.”
“Right. Keep doing what I’m doing. Great.” Okay, so he wouldn’t be chatting with Kurt about dropping “Bachelor on the Loose” today. Damn it. “So what’s the trouble? We losing money, readers, costs too high…what’s going on?”
“I’m not even supposed to be talking about this.”
“Aw, come on, Kurt. You can’t drop that kind of news without giving me the entire story.” Besides which, Jace could tell that Kurt wanted to talk about it. “I’ll keep it to myself.”
Those seemed to be the magic words, because Kurt said, “We’re not in trouble. Not exactly. But we might be sold soon, and the potential new owners tend to make heavy changes once they’ve taken over.” Kurt sighed. “A lot of us won’t have jobs at the end of it, or we’ll be kept just long enough for them to hire replacements. I need everything to run smooth, Jace. And that includes Melanie and her column. You see where I’m going with this?”
“Yeah.” Kurt was worried about his job and how Melanie’s column might reflect on him. The guy had a family, had been with the Gazette for going on fifteen years. Jace understood, all right. Blowing out a breath, he said, “I’ll do my part.”
“Make sure Melanie does hers.”
“Sure. Well, I’ll try.” They talked for another few minutes before Jace said, “Hope you’re feeling better soon, Kurt.”
After hanging up, Jace sat motionless and stared straight ahead, absorbing the news that the Gazette might be sold. He wasn’t stupid. With this hanging over Kurt’s head, there was no way he’d approve of Jace ending the column. Jace could leave the Gazette, accept one of those other offers that came in a few times per year, but the idea didn’t appeal.
For one, he’d far prefer to continue living in Portland. For two, every one of those offers came with the expectation that Jace would bring “Bachelor on the Loose” with him if he accepted. And that was out of the question.
When he’d originally started the column, he had been what he wrote: a bachelor living a semi-wild life and sharing his dating adventures with the residents of Portland. The column had taken off almost immediately, something that had both surprised and empowered Jace. He’d be a liar if he stated he hadn’t relished th
e attention or the notoriety he’d received.
Hell. What young guy, only a few years out of college, wouldn’t love the attention of beautiful, single, sexy women? Of having however many dates he wanted and then having the opportunity to write about those dates to an ever-increasing audience?
In the beginning, he’d worked hard to instill the column with humor about the dating game: the chase and conquer, the thrill of never knowing when an evening began exactly where—or how—it would end. And the women were…fascinating and complex. Able to beguile a man one second and crush the same man’s ego in the next, if they so chose.
Women were powerful. True, some were more attuned to their innate power than others, and there were the few here and there who—like superheroes gone bad—chose to misuse their power. He’d always found women enthralling. Captivating. And he’d loved writing about them. But he hadn’t lied to Melanie. He’d never identified a woman by name. Instead, he came up with a method to—for lack of a better term—brand the women he dated by type.
He used ice cream flavors.
Strawberry, for example, was his classification for a fun-loving and easygoing woman, while vanilla was the perfect description for the girl-next-door type. If he wrote that he’d spent his evening with a luscious lemon, that meant the woman fell on the flirty side of the equation. Chocolate meant exotic, perhaps even a little—or a lot—spicy. And he saved rocky road for females who, for whatever reason, were just plain difficult to get along with.
His mother hated the ice cream thing. She said it was demeaning, and maybe, Jace admitted, she was right, though he’d never intended that to be the case. In truth, many of the women asked right off what ice cream flavor he saw them as. Most of them were fine with whatever he said, though he learned fast not to tell a rocky road to her face that she was, in his opinion, a rocky road. That spelled disaster with a capital D.
And in one case, a full glass of wine dumped over his head and a stinging slap across his cheek.
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