“DON’T GIVE ME THAT innocent little smile, babe.” Jack took a swig of his fourth long-necked beer and scowled at the poster above his computer. “Enjoyed yourself with Hamilton, did you? I suppose you were planning to tell me you put a bag over his head and thought of Candy Valentine.”
He took another long swallow and frowned. “But of course when you found out today that Candy’s dead, there was no reason to pretend you did it for the good of the cause. You could tell the truth and shame the devil.” Jack stared at Krysta’s smiling face. “So ol’ Derek’s a real studmuffin. Who would have thought a guy with a fake Rolex could get it on?” He raised the bottle in the poster’s direction. “Thanks for sharing, Krysta.”
His cat jumped into his lap.
“Well, here’s a nonpartial observer ready with an opinion. Tell me, cat, can you believe Krysta Lueckenhoff would jump into bed with the likes of Derek Hamilton two days after making mind-blowing love to yours truly?”
The cat meowed and began kneading her claws into the denim of his jeans.
“Well, I can’t, either, no matter how mad she was at me. She even told me it was so, told me straight out, and I still can’t buy it. Maybe in about fifty years I’ll understand what happened.”
The cat circled his lap and settled down.
“Oh, and by the way, I’ve changed your name back to ‘cat,”’ he muttered, stroking the tabby’s golden fur. “Then you and me, we’re goin’ on a trip, living off the land, like I did before. That’s after I tell Mr. Fake Rolex where he can put a very large paper bale, which will likely get my ass fired.”
The cat began to purr.
“You like that idea, do you? You’ll purr out of the other side of your mouth when we run out of Tender Vittles.”
The cat gazed up at him with eyes that were a familiar green.
“And to answer your question, no, you are not going to be a famous author’s cat. Not unless I decide to opt for a sex change.” He scratched behind the tabby’s ears. “Krysta was right. They’d bought the whole package, and now I’m relegated to the bottom of the list. No display dump, no book tour. They were royally ticked at me, cat. Indignant city.”
Jack sighed and tipped the bottle back to drain it. Then he lined it up next to the three empties on top of his computer terminal and reached for another. Four down and two to go. The computer screen, gray and lifeless, reflected his grim expression as he unscrewed the cap.
PUTTING ON RAIN GEAR the next morning seemed stupid to Jack when he was on his way to get fired, so he threw on his ski jacket, jumped on his Harley and took off through the downpour for his showdown with Derek Hamilton. Even if Krysta had enjoyed it, Hamilton couldn’t get away with asking a woman for sexual favors in exchange for privileges at work. Not if Jack had anything to say about it, and as a matter of fact, he had plenty to say. He arrived in Hamilton’s outer office completely soaked.
The secretary eyed him with distaste as he dripped on the carpet. “Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“Mr. Hamilton and I have had this appointment for months,” Jack said. “We just hadn’t settled on the exact time.”
“Let me check with him.” She picked up the receiver on her desk phone. “Your name?”
“I’ll announce myself.” Jack headed for the closed door of Hamilton’s office.
“Just a minute, Mr.—”
Jack ignored her and walked in, locking the door behind him.
Hamilton half rose from behind his desk, his expression startled.
“Hello, there, Derek.” Jack approached the desk. “I’m here to talk about Krysta Lueckenhoff.”
“Oh.” Hamilton seemed to recover himself somewhat. “Don’t worry. She’s been dismissed.”
“She’s been what?” Jack roared.
Hamilton drew himself up to his full height, which still lacked a few inches to allow him to go eyeball-to-eyeball with Jack. “We can’t have that kind of behavior from employees here at Rainier. It was quite embarrassing, really.”
“You slimeball. You dangle special company privileges in front of her so she’ll sleep with you, and when she does, you dismiss her?” Jack reached across the desk and grabbed Hamilton by the tie. “I was going to tell you exactly what I thought of you, and I’m damn good with words, but sometimes words aren’t enough.” He clenched his fist.
“Sleep with me? Hell, she turned me down!”
“What did you say?”
“She was after you, you numbskull!”
Jack let go of Hamilton’s tie. “What do you mean, after me?”
The vice president sank back into his swivel chair and loosened his tie, but kept his gaze riveted on Jack. “You’re fired, Killigan.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just tell me what you were talking about a minute ago.” A warm glow suffused the region of his heart. Maybe she hadn’t gone to bed with this bozo, after all.
“I’m sure you know the details far better than I do. She followed you to New York and tried to seduce you. Surely, despite your limited intelligence, you would notice a woman of Krysta’s caliber throwing herself at you.”
“Who told you she did that?”
“She did, after I confronted her with the fact that you’d both been on the same plane to New York. She confessed that she’d followed you on purpose when she learned of your travel plans. She had a taste for brawn over brains, was the impression I got. We can’t have people in the organization who are ruled by their hormones, so I let her go.”
Jack folded his arms to keep from reaching for this sorry excuse for a man one more time. “And just when did this little interchange take place, where she confessed and you fired her?”
“This discussion is over, Killigan. You’re lucky I haven’t called security.”
Jack lost the battle to control himself. In one swift movement, he grabbed Hamilton by the front of his white silk shirt and lifted him from the chair. “When did you fire her?”
Hamilton turned pale. “Monday night.”
“Let’s review our conversation.” Jack narrowed his gaze as he peered into Hamilton’s pale eyes. “Contrary to your opinion of my intelligence, I have an excellent memory for dialogue. Right before I was ready to punch you in the nose, you blurted out that Krysta turned you down. Do you happen to remember that statement?”
“You misunderstood.”
Jack tightened his grip and lowered his voice. “Wrong. I understood perfectly. You’ve just admitted to sexually harassing a female employee, then firing her when she wouldn’t cooperate.” He shoved Hamilton back into his chair. “If Krysta will testify, we have grounds for a lawsuit.”
“We have grounds? How come you’re so chummy all of a sudden? I thought you didn’t even like her!”
“What I feel for that woman goes way beyond liking, and it’s time I quit wasting my breath on you and told her so.” He turned to go.
“You’re still fired!” Hamilton shouted.
“Fine with me. I wouldn’t want to work for you, anyway.” Jack kept walking.
“And I didn’t fire her!”
Jack paused and glanced back. “You didn’t?”
“No.” Hamilton straightened his shirtfront and adjusted his vest. “She quit.”
“I don’t think that’s going to help you much,” Jack said. “But you have no idea what it does for me.” He left Hamilton’s office and took the fire stairs two at a time down to the floor where the contracts office was located. On the way down he let out a yell of jubilation that echoed in tune with his rapid footsteps on the metal stairs.
Rosie glanced up and raised her eyebrows when he burst in. “It’s about time.”
“Where is she?”
“Home typing up her résumé and nursing a slight hangover. If you hadn’t shown up I was going to use my coffee break to come and get you, Mr. Candy Valentine. I was planning to tell your foreman all about this little sideline of yours, and watch you squirm.”
“I gather Krysta told you what’s been goin
g on.”
“She told me enough, after I plied her with some wine, to make me wonder if my first favorable assessment of you was mistaken. You may be the best lover God ever created, but—”
“Did she say that?”
“I’m not telling. I just have one question for you, loverboy. Are you going to do right by that woman, or will I have to ask some friends of mine to work you over?”
Jack’s smile was grim. “Save your efforts for putting Hamilton away.”
“Now, there’s a cause I could get into. I asked around a little yesterday, and I don’t think Krysta’s the only one with a complaint.”
“That’s music to my ears. But Hamilton can wait. I need directions to Krysta’s apartment, assuming you’re pretty sure she’s there right now.”
Rosie leaned her chin on her hand and looked up at him. “I’m not giving directions to some guy who’s going to use and abuse my good friend and then abandon her when he finds out he’s about to become rich and famous.”
Jack groaned. “I would never abandon Krysta. I’m crazy about her.”
“How crazy?”
Jack leaned both hands on Rosie’s desk and gazed into her brown eyes. “Give me directions to her apartment and I’m sure you’ll find out the next time you ply her with a bottle of wine.”
“Uh-huh.” Rosie gazed back at him. “I’m beginning to see what that girl was raving about. You do have a way about you.”
“I’m going to marry her, Rosie.”
“Oo-wee!” Rosie wiggled her shoulders in delight. “I love stuff like this. Come around the desk and pay attention while Rosie draws you a map, Mr. Valentine.”
15
IT WAS A TOSS-UP which ached worse, her head or her heart, Krysta thought as she sat in front of her word processor and updated her résumé. The rain pattering against her apartment windows fit her mood perfectly.
Already bored with the morning’s assigned job, she decided to amuse herself by typing “Stand-in for Male Romance Author” as her most recent position. Under “Duties” she listed contract negotiation, revision consultant, dinner companion, roommate…lover. With a sigh she hit the delete button. She’d been a good Candy Valentine, dammit. Not everyone could have performed the role as well as she had. Even Rosie had said so.
She probably shouldn’t have gone out with Rosie, although it had temporarily eased her distress to talk about her troubles and drink more red wine than was good for her. But this morning there was no Rosie, no wine, no job and definitely no Jack Killigan.
She’d forced herself to shower and dress, despite having no office to go to and no boss to satisfy. For the time being, her dining room table would be her office, and she would be the boss in charge of the great Krysta Lueckenhoff job search. She had a meager savings account that could take her through a few weeks if she scrimped.
She stared at the small screen on her word processor and longed for the computer she’d used at Rainier. Rosie had offered to put together her résumé for her and run it off on the laser printer in the office, but Krysta hadn’t been that sort of employee and she didn’t want to become that sort of ex-employee. Despite Rosie’s insistence that the company owed her that much, she’d turned down the offer in favor of using her own word processor, limited though it might be.
She heard a motorcycle outside her living room window, and for one wild moment thought maybe…but, no. She’d have to stop imagining the sort of ending to this story that Jack would write in one of his novels. He’d even been the one who’d told her to separate fantasy from reality.
When her doorbell buzzed, she jumped and knocked her chair over. Telling herself it was either the Avon lady or a magazine salesman, she walked toward the door, her heart pounding. Then she squinted through the peephole and her heart threatened to stop altogether.
With a trembling hand she unlocked the door and opened it to the wettest, most magnificent man in the world. “You’re soaked, Jack.”
He grinned at her and stepped inside. “And you’re hung over, Krysta.”
She backed up. “And how would you know?”
“Do you deny it?”
“You’ve been talking to Rosie, haven’t you.” She backed up some more. He looked too appealing, and she didn’t want to fall victim to that magnetism when there was no future in it.
“Among other people.” He shortened the distance between them again.
“I’ll bet you come down with a bad cold, riding around in the rain like that.”
He advanced, his blue gaze intense. “If I do, will you be my nurse?”
“Absolutely not.” She retreated farther. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“I was fired.” He stepped closer.
“Fired? But Jack, your book won’t be out until next year! What will you do until then?”
He shrugged. “Something will turn up.”
“That is so typical of you.” She tried to break eye contact, but the old fascination with Jack remained and she couldn’t do it. “I suppose you have no plan whatsoever.”
“Oh, I have a plan.”
Her blood thrummed through her veins. “You…do?”
“I do. But first I have a few questions. Did you tell Rosie I was the best lover God ever created?”
Heat climbed into her face. Doggone that Rosie. She was supposed to be her friend. “That was the wine talking. In point of fact, I think you’re—”
“I’ll take it, wine-induced though it might have been. Did you go to bed with Hamilton?”
She opened her mouth to say yes, but the lie wouldn’t come out. “No.”
A gleam of triumph shone in his eyes. “Then why did you tell me you had?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh, yes, you did. I distinctly remember you shoving my nose in the fact and adding that you’d enjoyed it.”
“I never told you specifically what I enjoyed.” Her chin lifted. “You jumped to conclusions, and I let you jump. Served you right.”
“You’re right, it did.” His expression gentled. “It would also serve me right if you refused to forgive me for having so little faith in you. But I’ll ask, anyway, because I’m a desperate man.” He paused. “Please forgive me, Krysta.”
When he looked at her like that, all the anger seeped right out of her. “I guess you had your reasons for thinking that way.”
“More instincts than reasons. When I thought Hamilton might get the woman I wanted, I turned into a complete jerk.”
A quiver ran through her. “The woman you wanted? I don’t recall you ever mentioning that you wanted me for more than a weekend in New York.”
“Right again. Because I felt I had nothing to offer you.”
“Nothing to offer?” All her anger and frustration came rushing back. “You must take me for a fool. You’re going to be a bestselling author!”
“I know Manchester’s enthusiasm convinced you of that, but I’ve read hundreds of magazine articles about this business. You never know if a book will be a success. You can’t count on the income it will bring. It could be fantastic, or it could be a total mirage, and like a mirage, you won’t know until you get there.”
Under the glamorous spell of that weekend in New York, Krysta hadn’t been able to consider such a truth. But today, back home in Evergreen, it seemed more logical to her. Yet she hated to give up the certainty of Jack’s stardom so easily. “I still say you’re going to be famous.”
“Your faith in me is wonderful, but there was no guarantee of that then, and there’s even less now.”
“What do you mean? They’re putting book dumps in the front of stores, and they—” She paused when the meaning behind his statement hit her. Oh, no. “Jack, what’s happened?” She was afraid to hear his answer.
He ran a hand through his damp hair and glanced away. “Manchester isn’t very happy to discover that a guy wrote those books. Some of the publishing plans are changing.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. I w
asn’t completely truthful yesterday because I didn’t want you to worry. What’s done is done, anyway.”
“Oh, Jack! Why on earth did you tell them?”
“Because I thought if I didn’t, you were going to risk your career to go on that damned tour. But I was too late.”
Her stomach clutched. “You mean that everything we went through has been for nothing?”
His startled gaze met hers. “Nothing?” He gripped her by the arms. “You’re calling the most fantastic weekend of our lives nothing?”
“I was talking about your publishing career, Jack! That’s the important thing right now.”
“No, it isn’t.” He pulled her against his soggy jacket, dampening her blouse. “To hell with my publishing career.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”
“It’s a free country, Krysta. I’ll say whatever I want. I’ll even say I love you.”
She looked into his eyes and felt as if someone had just knocked the breath from her lungs. “Jack…”
He stepped away from her and caught her by the hand. “Come here,” he said, starting toward the door.
She pulled back. “Jack, are you crazy? It’s cold. And it’s raining out there.”
“Precisely.” He tugged her through the door and closed it. The storm door slammed after them. Then he pulled her, sputtering and protesting all the way, out into the drizzle.
“Now.” He stopped and drew her into his arms.
She shivered in the cold. “I wish you’d tell me what this is all about.”
“The first lesson a writer learns is ‘show, don’t tell.”’ He tilted her face up.
“Jack, I’m getting rain in my eyes.”
“Then, close them, Krysta,” he murmured.
And then she understood. His mouth touched her rain-cooled cheeks, warming them. His tongue followed the path of a droplet to a corner of her mouth. She drank in the rain, drank in the moist caress of his lips, drank in his love.
As happy tears joined the cascade that had become a benediction, she forgot the chill in the air, forgot the cars whizzing by on the street next to the apartment building, forgot the neighbors who might be staring out the window. But she remembered what he’d once said to her. All I have to offer is a kiss in the rain. It was more than enough.
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