by Lisa Plumley
As the spur-of-the-moment holiday party continued on the toy store’s sales floor, Danielle spun around. She pulled a knit beanie on her head, grabbed her fuzzy, bright orange “fun fur” jacket, then snatched Jason’s far swankier outdoor gear, too.
She shoved his coat and gloves in his direction.
He gawked at them. “Where did these come from?”
Danielle angled her head. “I’m guessing . . . Brooks Brothers?”
A hasty grin. “I mean, I took them off out there.”
He nodded toward the bustling sales floor.
“I brought them in here, where they belong.”
“Wow. Stealthy and organized. Mostly stealthy. I didn’t even see you do that.” Jason glanced behind her, noticing for the first time where she’d retrieved his things from. He boggled. “No, mostly organized. I have a locker here already?”
“Everyone does.” She didn’t see what was so mind-bending about a simple employee locker with a neatly labeled name tag. “While you’re here, you do, too. Come on. The door’s this way.”
Danielle led the charge toward it, expertly weaving between precariously tall stacks of boxed inventory. Officially, everything was supposed to fit neatly on the metal shelving that filled two-thirds of the toy store’s back room and office area. Realistically, she had as much chance of making that happen as she did of making a candy cane fit up her nose. No go. At all.
“Whoa,” Jason said. “There’s a lot of stuff back here.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Danielle didn’t want to talk about that. Many of the toys currently in the back room were in transition between stores as part of her self-devised inventory scheme. Instead, she leaned on the exit door. “Hurry up! They’re gaining on us.”
They weren’t. Not really, she glimpsed as she nearly thrust her boss out the back door. The members of the local media who’d been headed toward the office area had been intercepted by Gigi.
Thanks, mon amie! Danielle pantomimed an I’ll call you gesture toward her number-one salesclerk, then stepped outside.
There in the snowy alleyway, Jason paced, hastily pulling on his expensive-looking wool coat. He put on his gloves next, clenching his jaw as though frostbite might instantly set in.
California men. They didn’t know what to do without sunshine. It was a perfectly acceptable December day, too, with bluish wintertime skies overhead and just enough brightness to make the snowdrifts glisten along the side of the building.
“Don’t worry, Golden State,” she assured him as she bit back a grin. “The back alley isn’t our final destination.”
“Good. A person could die out here.”
“Sure. If they didn’t have the sense to walk fifty feet.”
“Those snow flurries are blinding.”
“Not right now, they’re not.” Danielle drew in a refreshing gulp of icy air. Was she seriously about to play hooky from work? With her boss? Yes, she was. “Where are you parked?”
“Out front, along the street.” Jason gestured. “At a free meter.” His hard-jawed face darkened. “Speaking of which—”
“We’d better not risk it. I’m right around the block.”
Determinedly, Danielle marched in the direction of her car, wiggling into her own jacket and gloves as she went, not wanting to give Jason any time to discuss the parking meter situation.
Judging by his expression, he wasn’t a fan of her holiday initiative to bring customers downtown. It probably wouldn’t be the first of her tactics with which the CEO disagreed, either.
“Here we are.” Remotely, she unlocked the doors to her old but reliable sedan. She glanced at Jason as they neared its parking space. “I’ll expect you to chip in for gas, you know.”
Bringing up the rear, Jason stopped. He grinned at her.
“You think I’m kidding?” She stared at him over the top of her frosted-over car. “Times are tight, buster. Gas isn’t cheap. I can’t afford to gallivant all over town as your personal getaway driver. Not on what you pay me.”
As bids for a raise went, it was a little weak.
But it was an opening salvo in her quest to get promoted, and that was all Danielle wanted. As soon as she’d heard Jason describing the executive opportunities at Moosby’s in L.A., she’d been 100 percent in. Now her mission was twofold:
One: Get Jason Hamilton to promote me. Two: Don’t flirt with him.
The first of those goals ought to be easy, she figured. She was qualified. He seemed reasonable. Success was inevitable.
The second . . . well, even now, Jason was making the second goal seem more difficult than it had to be. Why did he have to look so nice all the time? So handsome? So capable of using those hands of his to work a girl into a state of delirious bliss?
Just the fact that she was talking to herself in sappy terms like delirious bliss meant she was in trouble. Most of the time, Danielle knew, she was not the romantic pushover type.
Not anymore, she wasn’t. Now she was jaded. Wary. And much too smart to get involved—especially with an easy-come, easy-go type like Jason, who was only in town for a few days at most.
He wasn’t even being serious about repenting for the scandal he’d caused! That was incomprehensible. If she’d gotten in trouble with her board of directors, Danielle knew, she would have worked her tail off until she’d fixed the problem. Jason clearly favored a different approach to professional redemption.
A stupid approach, if you asked her. Which ought to have lessened his appeal. He wasn’t at all her type. But she liked him anyway. Which was making it trickier than she’d expected to keep things professional. Not that she couldn’t do it, of course. It would be easier, though, if he would, for instance, quit smiling at her! Even now, in midflight from the local media, Jason was grinning at her in a way that made Danielle wonder exactly what else could make him smile like that.
Puppies? Gingerbread men? Her, being penny-pinching in a way that he, Mr. Moneybags, had obviously never had cause to be?
Defensively, she added, “Look, I’m rescuing you here. The least you could do is not seem so entertained by my budget issues. And pony up a few bucks in advance, maybe, too.” She held out her hand. “For all I know, you might stiff me later.”
“Wow, you are untrusting.”
“You’re sidestepping the issue.”
“Sorry.” Jason sobered. “I’m not laughing at your budget.”
Silently and (she hoped) dauntingly, she stared him down.
Gee. He had really nice eyes. Warm, brown, melty . . .
“I’m laughing at your jacket.”
“What? Why?” Affronted, she looked down at herself—at her orange “fun fur” jacket. “What’s wrong with my jacket?”
“Nothing.” His grin widened. “It’s a . . . surprising choice for a woman who brandishes a clipboard as effectively as you do.”
“Huh?”
“A woman who, if I’m not mistaken, wielded a label-making machine just this morning to tag an employee locker for me.”
“So?” Those label makers were wildly popular with kids.
“And who tidied up someone else’s coat and gloves.”
“I’m not sure what you’re driving at.”
“You act like a librarian CPA,” Jason clarified, “all Dewey Decimal System and alphabetized clipboards.” He grinned again. “But you look like Cookie Monster’s glamorous kid sister.”
“Hey!”
“After a drunken shopping spree.”
He was hallucinating. “Just get in the car.”
“You seem more like the classic peacoat type to me.”
I love peacoats. She appreciated their traditionalism. They’d stood the test of time; she liked that about them. She couldn’t imagine how Jason had guessed as much about her.
Her own mother hadn’t been that astute. Instead, Blythe Benoit had given Danielle this fuzzy orange jacket as a part of her ongoing efforts to morph her staid offspring into the kind of artistic daughter she’d always wanted. Danie
lle hadn’t had the heart (or the financial wherewithal) to refuse it. No matter what outerwear (peacoat) she’d have preferred (peacoat).
“You seem like the type who doesn’t know when to stop talking.” Danielle opened the driver’s-side door. “I’m leaving. If you’re coming with me, fork over your cash and get in.”
She slid into the driver’s seat and inserted the key.
Fifteen seconds later, the passenger-side door opened. A twenty-dollar bill fluttered inside. It landed on the console.
Jason came next, confidently settling his rangy frame beside her. “Remind me not to get started on your beanie.”
Automatically, Danielle clapped her hand on her knit hat. “Hey! It’s practical.” She looked down. He was wearing glossy wing tips. “Which is more than I can say for those shoes. You need a pair of boots that can handle the snow. Stat.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t expect to be here.”
“Me either.” It was surreal having her boss in her car. Really surreal. Also, the fancy-pants CEO of Moosby’s really did have fancy pants, it occurred to her. That gray flannel fabric looked especially luxurious when contrasted with the wadded-up homework papers, discarded granola bar wrappers, and single pink polka-dotted ponytail holder littering the front of her car.
Why hadn’t she cleaned up yesterday?
Oh yeah. She’d been in a panic preparing for him to arrive.
Well, now she’d have to clean her car, text Gigi, get the Kismet Klangers a thank-you gift for playing today, call the—
“I think you said something about leaving?” Jason’s husky, sardonic voice broke into her mental to-do list compilation.
Danielle glanced up, instantly snapped back to the present. Where she was sitting next to the man who could make her dreams come true with a single phone call. Ogling his pants. Whoops.
“Is there something wrong with my pants?” he asked.
Inevitably, she felt her gaze drawn straight back to them. To their fancy fabric. Their impeccable fit. Their tailored cut.
Their owner, who fit into them with enthralling ease.
He didn’t even have the tiniest suggestion of a paunch, Danielle realized with disbelief. Most men she encountered locally, even those her own age and younger, were a little . . . soft. But Jason seemed to be completely hard. Everywhere. Taut and toned and probably possessed of those six-pack abs she’d heard about but had never personally experienced for herself.
She may have missed out, Danielle realized, by getting married straight out of college to the third man she’d seriously dated in her whole life. She may have missed . . . a lot. Like Jason.
Who was still waiting for her to answer his question.
This kind of daydreaming wasn’t going to impress him.
“No!” Purposely, Danielle gave a jovial chuckle. “There’s nothing wrong with these pants of yours. Nothing at all!”
To prove it, she slapped her hand on his thigh. The gesture was supposed to be reassuring. Carefree. A man-to-man kind of thing. The trouble was, Danielle wasn’t a man. But he was.
Beneath her palm, Jason’s thigh felt like hot granite. Even through her cable-knit gloves, she could feel his body heat.
For an instant, their gazes met. Something . . . sizzled between them. She had the dizzying impression that he wanted her to touch him. There. On his thigh. Personally and directly. She had an equally dizzying impulse to slide her hand higher, higher . . .
Ahem. With effort, Danielle gave him a cordial pat.
“I should buy a pair of these for my ex-husband.”
She removed her hand. Casually, she transferred it to the ignition key. Shakily, she started her car. It chugged to life.
Unfortunately, so did Danielle’s libido. On hiatus for the two years since her divorce, it raged back in a single instant.
She wanted to touch someone. To be touched by someone. To kiss and caress and experience every intimate, erotic pleasure she’d denied herself during the breakup of her marriage. She wanted it. She wanted it all. She wanted it now. Somehow, touching Jason Hamilton had flipped a switch. One moment, she’d been Danielle Sharpe: responsible mother, employee, and friend. The next, she’d morphed into Danielle Sharpe: lusty divorcée.
This wasn’t going to help her get promoted.
Well, it might, Danielle knew. But she wasn’t a woman who took things she hadn’t earned. She never had been.
“You buy clothes for your ex-husband?” Jason asked.
Argh. Her common sense had deserted her today.
“We’re very close,” Danielle semi-fibbed. Because in the few months since Mark had married his ditzy bride, she had been closer to her ex than she wanted to be. She was constantly running into those two lovebirds, canoodling and cooing, around every Kismet corner. If she had to endure much more, she was going to lose her mind. “Almost too close, some would say.”
“Good.” Not catching her fib, Jason nodded. He was staring at her gloved hand on the steering wheel, probably wondering if her grope officially qualified as harassment. “Being able to maintain positive ongoing relationships with difficult people is an asset in any employee, for any position, in any company.”
With that, Danielle felt even worse. Obviously, Jason was operating in employer/employee, all-business mode. Whereas she . . .
. . . was wondering if his voice got even huskier when he was aroused. She bet it did. She bet Jason sounded super sexy all the time, but especially when murmuring sensual suggestions to his partner in the bedroom. Or the toy store office. Or the car.
The car? Holy moly. She had to get a grip here.
And not on her boss’s muscular, intriguing thigh.
“That’s me. I have excellent people skills.” Belatedly, Danielle realized that this meant that if Jason and Mark ever inhabited the same location at the same time, she would have to be especially communicative and kind to her ex-husband. Not that she was bitter; she wasn’t. She and Mark had worked out their issues. Her disappointment in their marriage was behind her. All that remained now was prudent wariness of future romances.
Which was why, her newly awakened libido pointed out eagerly, she needed a fling! Nothing more. Just a celebratory, now I’m free, casual kind of relationship. Something that would help her get back on the horse, so to speak. Something fun.
Jason Hamilton might be fun, Danielle considered. Even if her temporarily Midwesternized boss was bundling up in his coat as if they were enduring subzero temperatures inside her car.
“Cold?” she asked in her best solicitous employee voice. She was going to get promoted or go down swinging. No matter how challenging it was. “Here, boss. I’ll crank the heat for you.”
Congratulating herself on successfully stepping away from the libidinous brink, she did so. Then she pulled into traffic.
This, Danielle told herself with a fresh burst of confidence over her own self-control, was going to be a piece of cake.
Sitting beside Danielle in her boneshaker sedan, Jason stared out at the picturesque Kismet streets as they made their getaway from the journalists who’d pursued him at Moosby’s.
They were only doing their jobs, he reminded himself. It wasn’t their fault their jobs involved preying on every disaster, large or small. He was lucky he’d escaped when he had.
Not that he’d been doing anything wrong, per se. But, newly gun-shy after his recent PR debacle, Jason had felt as if he’d been doing something very wrong. He’d felt as if his thoughts had been written all over his face, ready for anyone to read.
Ready for anyone to discover that he liked Danielle Sharpe in more than a professional, More More Moosby’s! kind of way.
Which was dumb. And unreasonable. And unlikely. After all, he had a kickass poker face. When given enough warning, he was capable of making sure his thoughts were his own. Maybe, after all he’d been through this week, he was getting paranoid.
That would explain a lot, Jason knew. Because he definitely wasn’t himself today. For instance, Dani
elle had done nothing but sensibly question him, generously listen to him, and then (improbably) help him. And what had he done in return?
He’d gone from cold to hot, from intrigued to all-in, and from zero to half-mast, in twelve seconds flat. All Danielle had had to do was innocuously lay her hand on his thigh.
It was obvious, in retrospect, that she’d only been being friendly. In that aw-shucks, small-town, think-nothing-of-it way that probably came naturally to people here in Christmasville. He’d been the one who’d taken the whole encounter to Smutty Town. Only in his mind, sure. But in his mind . . .
. . . in his mind, Jason had imagined so much more. He’d envisioned Danielle smiling seductively at him as she scooted a little closer across the console, past the twenty bucks she’d extorted from him for gas. He’d seen her sliding her hand higher, then even higher, making his breath catch and his body go rigid with expectation and hope and surprise. He’d pictured her unbuckling his belt, unzipping his pants, freeing him . . .
Stop it. With an uncomfortable grunt, Jason shifted in his seat again. He pulled his coat closer for good measure (and for modesty coverage), trying to ignore the heat blasting him.
Cold? Here, boss. I’ll crank the heat for you.
As if he needed to feel any hotter than he already did.
Ruefully, Jason thought back on their conversation. It seemed evident to him that Danielle was sincerely interested in earning a promotion to Moosby’s executive level. He’d tried to play along with that. He’d tried to support her by praising her expertise at maintaining ongoing relationships with difficult people (like her ex-husband). But he’d been spit-balling, and Jason knew it. Not that that quality wasn’t welcome in an employee. It was. Of course. But at that moment, the last thing he’d wanted to do was contemplate desirable employee skill sets.
Especially with a woman wearing an outrageous orange fur jacket. He still couldn’t wrap his head around the dichotomy of that. Upon meeting Danielle, he’d pegged her as an organized, clipboard-wielding, superserious corporate climber—albeit a sexy, bespectacled one. Then she’d put on that ridiculous jacket—which he had already decided must belong to the little girl in the photograph on the desk but didn’t—and all his assumptions had been blown out of the water. With that jacket and her vivid red lip gloss and her self-assured demeanor, Danielle was not the kind of woman he’d expected to find in Kismet. She was . . . not easy to pigeonhole. And he was fascinated.