Her warm face got warmer, but that wasn’t what he’d meant by hot. “Listen . . . if you’ve come here to insult me—”
“It was a compliment. Jeesh! Since when is being considered sexy an insult?”
“Let’s start over. My name is Marguerite Baptiste. I am the president of Extreme Dating. My friends call me Margo.” She leaned across the desk, extending a hand for him to shake.
At first, he just stared at her. Then he took her hand and shook it. His big calloused palm engulfed hers, causing her skin to tingle, even when he released her hand. “My name is Larry Wilson. My teammates call me Scary Larry.”
This guy was scary, all right . . . scary gorgeous, scary irresistible, scary like crazy to a twenty-seven-year-old woman who hadn’t been involved in a relationship for so long her birth control pills had long passed their expiration date. It was the eyes. And the lines between his eyes and bracketing his mouth . . . definitely not smile lines. Something bad had happened to this man, she just knew it, to put that perpetual glower there.
“Larry, I promise you. I am going to do everything in my power to make you happy.”
Was it heartache, or heartburn? . . .
Larry was stunned speechless at that promise because, frankly, his warped mind was already conjuring some things she could do to make him happy, and none had a thing to do with her dating service.
From the moment he’d laid eyes on Ms. I-am-the-president-la-de-da Baptiste, Larry had felt the oddest sensation in his chest. Like someone was squeezing his heart, making him breathless. And he was tingling in some interesting places. Even worse, he’d been practically floored by a spontaneous, knee-buckling, mind-numbing hard-on, which was why he’d just sat down. It was amazing because he hadn’t been turned on—in fact, he’d been practically a eunuch—since Bethany.
She was a little above average in height, probably five-seven, and although he’d remarked on her being skinny, she was just fine. More than fine. Slender but well-formed in brown linen slacks, with a beige silk tank top outlining high, full breasts. She’d attempted to tame her long, curly blonde hair into a knot on top of her head with one of those claw thingees. To no avail. Tendrils had come loose and framed a heart-shaped face and a pouty rosebud mouth. Yeah, he was referring to her mouth as a rosebud like some frickin’ girly guy. Next he would be quoting poetry.
He shook his head to clear it, feeling like a total dork. He was a thirty-three-year-old Navy SEAL who had been around the block more times than one of Sly’s Forty-second Street hookers, and here he was tossing out silly insults like a clumsy teenager in heat, practically panting.
Cage had talked him into this fool trip to the Crescent City. “Listen, cher. My Mawmaw, she allus sez, ‘ya cain’t cook a gumbo if yer drivin’ down the highway,’ ” Cage had told him.
To which he’d snapped, “What the hell does that mean?”
“Means ya gotta settle this matter face-ta-face. Not by telephone or email or snail mail. No one’s gonna take ya seriously if they doan know who they’re dealin’ with. Glare at her jist like yer doin’ now, and she’ll prob’ly jump up and down tryin’ ta handle yer bizness, lickedy split. Talk about!”
So, here he was, using insults as a method of persuasion. Did he really think pissing her off would make his embarrassing dilemma go away? He was about to try a different tact when she asked, “Why do they call you Scary Larry?”
Huh?“Look at me.”
“You are drop-dead gorgeous. I’m not surprised that so many women want to connect with you.”
His jaw dropped, and he turned to see if there was someone behind him. She likes me? Me? “Are you blind? I was only passably good looking before . . . well, just before. Now, more than one person has told me that I’m scary-bad looking.”
“Whoever told you that was lying. What happened?”
“I was married. My wife . . . my pregnant wife died in a freak ferry collision, and—” He shook his head like a wet dog at having spoken aloud what he’d been only thinking. “I never discuss Bethany. Never.”
“I am so sorry, Larry. Have you tried grief counseling?”
“Hell, no! I handle my rage by killing tangos. Lots of them. And I’m damn good at it, too.” I must be more rattled by this crap than I realized to be spilling my guts like this.
“Tangos?”
“Bad guys. Terrorists.”
She nodded, as if she understood, which she couldn’t possibly.
Enough of this nonsense! “I want this situation cleared up now. I’m drowning in mail . . . two thousand letters and growing. My computer mailbox has crashed from overload a dozen times. Women are breaking into the special forces training grounds looking for me, and half the sailors on the North Island Naval Air Station are laughing their BDUs off at the joke of the year . . . me. Not to mention this bruised hamstring”—he patted his pain-ridden thigh near the knee—“caused by a forced handspring over a woman who’d made my doorstep a home away from home, probably the loony bin. It’s an injury that might very well land me on permanent desk duty.”
“I had no idea it was that bad. I’m so sor—”
“And, by the way, what the hell were you doing on Good Morning America?”
She blushed prettily. “That was a mistake. I realize that now. Classic bait and switch. They lured me on to the show saying they were interested in the concept of extreme dating, then made it be all about you. I should have known better.”
“Damn straight you should have. And I don’t give a rat’s ass who was at fault. Just fix it.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to avail yourself of our services?”
“Hell, no!” Unless you’re offering yourself, baby.
“I have an idea.”
So do I, baby. So do I. But then he realized that it wasn’t Margo who had spoken but Cage, who stood in the doorway. He looked like an idiot in a cowboy hat and boots, but women seemed to go for the image. Sly was sitting on the secretary’s desk in the other office, doing his usual thing . . . charming her panties off, no doubt.
Larry waved him in and said, “Cage, this is Margo Baptiste, owner of this screwball company.”
She bristled.
Good! “And, Margo, meet my friend and teammate, Justin LeBlanc. A dingbat Louisiana cowboy.”
Cage wasn’t at all insulted. In fact, he preened as if he’d just said he had golden nuts. “Jist call me Cage, sugah,” he said in an exaggerated Cajun drawl.
Margo didn’t seem as insulted by Cage’s endearment as she had been by his.
Dammit!
“So what’s your big idea?”
“You’ve been lettin’ the tail wag the dog so far. The only way ta get rid of all this publicity is ta give them somethin’ else ta feed on.” Cage sank down into the other chair in front of the desk and flashed Margo a smile and a wink.
She smiled back.
Dammit!
“You two are gonna get engaged,” Cage said.
“What?” he and Margo both shouted.
“Now, now, it’s jist fer make believe, but ya gotta use yer website ta publicize every little thing, Margo, darlin’.”
“Margo, darlin’ ” ? What the hell!
“I can see the banners proclaiming, ‘Brave Navy SEAL Falls for Beautiful Matchmaker.’ Every day ya kin feed them a bit more news. ‘The Ring.’ ‘The Betrothal Party.’ ‘The Wedding Plans.’ ”
“You are an idiot.” He glowered at Cage, even more than usual.
“I don’t know. He might have a point,” Margo said, tapping her lips with a forefinger thoughtfully.
“Huh?”
“If women who log on to my website see that you’re taken, they’ll eventually fade away. And the press will give it only a fifteen-minutes-of-fame type of attention after the initial announcement.”
“I am not getting married again. No way!”
“Who asked you to?” she snapped back.
“This is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard of.”
A
fter that, Cage and Margo ignored him as they made the most god-awful plans. “I have to be back at Coronado in three days,” he interjected finally.
“Well then I guess we’ll have to work fast,” Margo said. “Can you be here tomorrow at eleven? I’ll get a photographer and my webmaster in here. Hopefully my computer system will be fixed by then.”
“I haven’t agreed to all this crap,” he said, but he did agree, grudgingly, to come in the next morning . . . to think about it overnight. Yeah, right. He was going to go get blitzed.
As he limped down Bourbon Street with Cage a short time later—Sly already had a date with the secretary—Cage looked at him and laughed.
“What now?”
“We’re gonna turn you into Happy Larry yet. Guar-an-teed!”
She was gone with the wind . . . uh, elevator . . .
Guilt tugged at Margo’s conscience as she stuffed her briefcase, turned off the office lights, locked the door, and headed for the elevator.
But more than that, she was stunned by the effect the sad Navy SEAL had on her. Her heart literally ached for him. Even worse, she felt an overpowering sexual attraction, and she never ever got involved with her clients. Not that he was a client.
From the time she had been a dirt-poor kid living with a druggie mother in a fourth-ward project apartment, Margo had vowed to make enough money when she was grown up that she would never have to struggle again. And she had been successful . . .
Until recently. But the downturn in the economy had affected more than banks, real estate, restaurants, car dealers, and upscale purchases, like yachts and vacations. Yep, expensive dating agencies were a luxury in a time of depression. For the first time since she had left home at fourteen, Margo was nervous about her future.
So, yes, she had been careless, especially in agreeing to the Good Morning America interview. She was a smart cookie. She should have crossed her t’s and dotted her i’s before ever hopping on that plane to New York City.
The question was how far she could, or would, go to make him good again. How much bad publicity could she afford? Would their last-minute damage control work?
It had to. Look at how he’s being harassed. His life has been turned upside down, at no fault of his own. That was the good side of her brain speaking. Her conscience.
He isn’t really hurt by the publicity. Just a lot of women chasing him, which will die down once he shows he isn’t available. Jeesh! It’s not like anyone died or anything. This from the logical, more ambitious side of her personality.
Don’t you care that he’s a private man, still grieving over the death of his wife?
Absolutely. My heart goes out to him. I can see why he looks so haunted. But that’s not my fault.
And the joke he’s become? The subject of ridicule on the navy base?
Those guys making fun of him are just jealous. Plus, he needs to get over himself. Lighten up. Have a sense of humor.
Okay, so I go ahead with this fake engagement idea. I do my best to make sure he’s buffered from the publicity. It might even be fun.
But what if I fall for him? I haven’t been attracted to a man like this in, like, forever.
I can handle it.
Margo could swear she heard laughter in her head.
The elevator started making weird, clacking noises. “Here we go again,” she muttered. Honestly, she was going to have to make another call to the landlord. He either needed to replace the antiquated elevator or fix it better than he had the last six times.
There was charm in being located in the heart of the Crescent City in a building that had once been the fashionable Vieux Carre Hotel, but not when it resisted modern technology.
This elevator in itself was a relic . . . all dark mahogany with its deep patina offset by polished brass. At one time there would have been a uniformed elevator operator. She’d seen the pictures in the lobby showing the way the hotel had once looked just after the Civil War.
For a second, the elevator seemed to stall. Then, before she could press the call button, it shot downward, and crashed.
Screaming, she hit one wall, then another, before falling to the carpeted floor.
Then everything went black.
Some dreams are really scary . . .
She awakened a short time later . . . or she assumed it was a short time . . . to find herself reclining on a plush velvet sofa in the lobby with a bunch of people looking down at her with concern. Strange people. Wearing strange clothing . . . clothing that would have been more appropriate in the 1800s. Women in long dresses, carrying frilly parasols, men in dark suits with fancy satin brocade vests. Several men in what looked like Yankee Civil War uniforms.
Her eyes darted about, and she began to panic. It was the lobby of her office building, but as it had been when it had been the Vieux Carre Hotel. A hundred and forty years ago! Period furniture. Flocked wallpaper. Heavy red draperies with gold braiding. Thick Brussels carpeting.
Voices began to penetrate her frozen mind.
“Miss, are you all right?”
“I think she hit her head. Someone should call a physician or take her over to Charity Hospital.”
“Look at her clothing. It’s scandalous.”
“Maybe she’s one of the girls from Simone’s House of Pleasure.”
“A prostitute? In a respectable hotel like this? Outrageous! Where’s the hotel manager?”
Margo blinked with confusion and put a hand to the back of her head. There was a bump there. But what was going on? She must be dreaming. A dream in color? Wow!Yes, she must have a concussion.
Closing her eyes, she succumbed to the darkness again.
It was no better the next time she opened her eyes. If anything, there were more people, and none of them looked friendly, or familiar.
But wait, there, walking by on the edge of the crowd, heading toward the front door. It was a tall man with longish black hair and a mustache, wearing a rather worn dark suit . . . no brocade vests here. He glanced her way, then immediately forward again, finding her of no interest, apparently. Still, it was enough time for her to notice that he had strange grayish blue eyes. And he walked with a slight limp. It was Larry Wilson. Sort of.
Holy cow! Scary Larry in her dream.
How scary was that?
Two
Dream lovers they were not . . . yet . . .
Laurent Duvall was limping across the lobby of the Hotel Vieux Carre after a most unsatisfactory meeting with his banker, whom he had once considered a friend. No more.
At the Battle of Bentonville five years ago, the last full-scale Confederate offensive of the whole damn war, Laurent had suffered a leg wound which acted up on him on occasion, like when he was stressed. He was very stressed today and in no mood to stop and watch the ruckus being created by some crazy woman wearing trousers and little else. This was New Orleans; you never knew what you would see.
“Hey, you!” he heard her shout to someone.
He kept going, already worried about how he was going to buy all the supplies he would need before returning to Rosylyn, his small sugar cane plantation up the river, about thirty miles from New Orleans. If it weren’t for his sister Lettie and the eight or so blacks remaining, mostly old or crippled, he would chuck it all and head for the California gold fields.
“Larry! Wait up!” The woman was still shouting behind him.
He was almost to the door leading out to Royal Street when he felt someone grab his upper arm. He turned, and just his luck, it was the crazy woman.
Her blonde hair was half falling out of a comb atop her head. Her slim figure and long legs were encased in brown linen breeches. On her upper half a sort of silk camisole, cream colored, barely covered her bosoms and left bare her arms and shoulders. A diamond hung from a thin chain around her neck, probably just glass, and she wore a new-fangled watch bracelet, which you did not see often on women. Possibly a gift from a satisfied customer. His upper lip curled with distaste. A wanton, or else a prostitut
e working for one of the sporting houses. Either way, he was not in the market for her particular wares. Shrugging off her hand, he started to walk away again.
She was not to be deterred. This time she jumped in front of him, blocking his way, walking backward. “Larry? Don’t you know me?”
“Bloody hell, no, I don’t know . . . Margaret? Is that you . . . Margaret Dubois? I thought you moved north to Pennsylvania with your family before the war.” Margaret had been a skinny little thing with a heart-shaped mouth that had a tendency to pout in a most annoying fashion. Margo was still a mite skinny, but she had breasts now, and her pouty mouth was no longer unappealing.
About six years younger than he was, she had always been a bit different as a child, doing unsuitable things. Like setting up a stall at the French Market selling necklaces made of dried peas and acorns. Like pretending to be a boy in a horse race. Like smoking one of her father’s cigars in public. Like interfering at a slave auction. Well, that last he did not disagree with, but her methods had been scandalous.
But, heavens above! A prostitute? Could she have sunk so low?
“My name is Margo . . . that’s short for Marguerite, not Margaret, and my last name is Baptiste, and I’ve never lived anywhere but Louisiana.”
They were drawing an audience . . . well, not a new audience; the same crowd that had surrounded her before had just followed in her wake. He did not have time for this, but her family had been neighbors for many years. He did not want to be impolite. “Is your family with you?”
“I have no family.”
“Oh. My sympathies.” They must have died. Like so many in the South, so many deaths! In fact, now that he thought on it, he seemed to recall that her father and brother had fallen at Gettysburg. “I heard that your old plantation was sold for taxes.”
“Huh?”
“Where are you staying?”
“I don’t know.”
“Relatives?”
“I have none that I know of.”
“Friends?”
“Just you, although we’re not really friends. More like acquaintances, or you could say, business associates.”
Ladies Prefer Rogues: Four Novellas of Time-Travel Passion Page 9