He caught on before the sentence was out of her mouth. “If you’re trying to go all Tom Sawyer on me, I’m afraid it’s not going to work.” There were a hundred things he would do before agreeing to pick up a paintbrush or a roller.
Undaunted, she pressed on. He had a feeling that other than tight spaces, very little daunted this woman.
“As I recall, Tom Sawyer pretended he was having so much fun that the other boys begged him to let them try their hand at it and even offered to trade things for the privilege of whitewashing his aunt Polly’s fence.” She opened her eyes wide, the very picture of innocence. A picture he wasn’t buying. “I wouldn’t presume to try to suck you into doing something with a lie.”
She was a clever woman. Was she being transparent on purpose? “No, you’d use flattery.”
The innocent expression remained intact. “No way. Just observation. You’re a type A personality. You believe in being hands-on and you need to oversee everything yourself. People like that are too intense not to be good. Am I right?”
He watched in fascination as the smile on her lips blossomed and subsequently moved into her eyes. He supposed it wasn’t only Irish eyes, as the old song went, that smiled, but dark, mesmerizing Mexican ones, as well.
He found he had to force words to his lips. “I’ve never painted anything in my life.”
She nodded, as though expecting him to say as much. He felt as if he was involved in some kind of cosmic chess game.
“It’s not hard, really. You just put paint on the roller.” She picked one up to demonstrate, moving the roller up and down in the paint tray. “These rollers don’t allow you to drip and they absorb just the right amount to cover a given space.” She raised her eyes to his face. “You almost can’t fail.”
The look in her eyes dared him.
He found part of himself actually entertaining the idea and wondered if the paint fumes were getting to him. In the background he heard Blondie singing “‘I’m gonna getcha, getcha, getcha…’”
“I’ll get my suit dirty,” Jack continued.
She spread her hands to her sides. “Not a problem. I’ve an extra set of coveralls.” She nodded over to the side.
He didn’t bother looking to verify. For the moment, she had captivated his attention. He told himself he could walk away anytime he chose. So, for the time being, he chose to remain.
“You come prepared.”
“They were for Jorge.” Her eyes slid slowly from his head to his toes. Her smile widened as a tinge of triumph highlighted it. “I’d say that you were about his height, give or take an inch.”
“How convenient.” Maybe this woman could have shown old Tom Sawyer a trick or two, he thought, amused despite himself.
Her smile warmed him as it washed over him. “Yes, isn’t it? They’re in the back room if you feel like trying them on.”
He didn’t move an inch. “And why would I want to do that?”
Her answer came without hesitation. The space between them, he noted, seemed to have been whittled down to nothing without either of them taking another step.
“So that you can conquer something else,” she told him.
He wasn’t altogether sure if she was talking about painting or if “something else” referred to a whole different subject entirely. All he knew was that the chemistry that seemed to act up every time he got within ten feet of her was present as always.
She stood waiting for his answer. Her expression indicated that she was rather certain of the outcome. He knew he should just turn on his heel and walk out. That would have been the smart thing to do. After all, he didn’t like the smell of paint and he was far too busy a man to waste his time dipping a roller into a tray of periwinkle-blue liquid.
Finally, with a shrug, he turned away from her. But instead of heading for the papered doors, he walked in the opposite direction, toward the back.
So he’d try something new, he told himself.
He supposed Gloria was to be commended for trying to cut corners and save money. That made her a decent businesswoman. It was in keeping with what he’d already found out about her.
And he’d lied to her. He had painted before. He’d helped one of his roommates paint their dorm room while he was in college. They’d painted one wall stark black, the other three walls a virgin white. It had been very dramatic at the time. Now he had a feeling it would have driven him crazy.
He found the coveralls hanging on the inside of the back room door. Shedding his jacket and tie, he pulled the garment over his slacks and shirt.
“You’re right.” He snapped shut the row of snaps that ran along his chest. The coveralls felt a little tight, but not as bad as they could have. He could still move his arm. “Your brother and I are just about the same size…”
His voice trailed off as he came out of the back room and saw her balancing herself on the next-to-the-topmost rung on the ladder. Was she crazy? “What the hell are you doing up there?”
She turned around slowly to look down at him from the top of the ladder. Humor curved the corners of her mouth. “Am I going to have to explain this all over to you again? I’m painting.”
“No, you’re not,” he corrected, really angry. “You’re risking breaking your neck.”
He wasn’t just a type A personality, she thought, he was a worrier. She bristled against his implication that she was too clumsy to be careful.
“I’m standing on a ladder—A does not exactly equal B here.”
He wasn’t going to debate this with her. “Get down,” he ordered.
Humor vanished. Her eyes narrowed into slits. He should have picked up on the warning, but he could almost see her flying off the ladder. “You’re not in charge of me, Fortune.”
He had a different opinion. “I am when you don’t make an effort to use your brains and right now, they appear to be taking a break.”
“For your information, I’ve climbed ladders before, Fortune.” Open space had never been a problem for her. She had absolutely no fear of heights.
“Only means your luck is that much closer to running out.” Crossing the floor, he came up to the ladder and stood right beneath her. “Now get down.”
Anger surged through her. She stubbornly refused to budge. “Damn it, Jack, why do you insist on always seeing the glass as half empty?”
“Because it usually is. Now get down,” he ordered again.
Gloria was sorely tempted to give him a piece of her mind, but she didn’t want to alienate his father and most fathers didn’t relish hearing that their sons compared to jackasses.
She blew out a breath. “All right, I’m coming down, but only because I need to refill my roller.”
“Whatever.” He held the ladder braced as she made her way down. In his opinion, she was moving awfully fast.
She was moving faster than that when she hit the next-to-the-last rung. Missing it, she slipped and went sailing off.
Right into his arms.
Chapter Eight
S heer instinct had guided his movements. Jack caught her without thinking. One second he was standing below Gloria, the next she’d somehow twisted around and was airborne.
The ladder she’d involuntarily vacated wobbled dangerously for a second, but mercifully remained standing upright. Jack hardly noticed. He was too busy assessing the immediate situation. That he was holding a stunningly gorgeous woman in his arms.
And that he was reacting to her.
Gloria’s eyes widened and for a second he thought she’d suddenly become aware that she had hurt something. But when she blurted a heartfelt, “I’m so sorry,” followed by possibly the sexiest giggle he could ever recall hearing, Jack knew that there was nothing broken, bruised or injured.
At least where she was concerned. The jury was still out in regard to him.
Her eyes weren’t on his face. Looking somewhat chagrined, she was staring at his chest. Jack looked down to see what she was looking at. The roller she’d been wielding was still
clutched in her hand. He realized that Gloria must have accidentally hit him with it when she’d come sailing off the ladder. He was now sporting the same color across his chest that was on the freshly painted wall. Periwinkle blue.
He frowned. It didn’t take much imagination to realize how narrowly she’d missed hitting his face. “I thought the idea was to paint the wall, not me.”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated.
Looking closer, he could see that Gloria was obviously battling facial muscles, trying to keep them in line so that she could at least look somewhat contrite. But the grin was winning. Why he found that endearing rather than annoying he had no idea.
She blew out a breath, still tugging the corners of her mouth down. “Lucky thing I had you put on those coveralls.”
“I think it was luckier that I was here to catch you.”
“It was only one rung,” she pointed out. “And I wouldn’t have slipped if you hadn’t made me so nervous.”
Other than the incident with the air bag, Gloria Mendoza struck him as someone who possessed nerves of steel. And, he had to admit, he also found it a little intriguing.
His face still inches away from hers, Jack searched her expression for the telltale signs of humor. But this time, there was none. She was serious. His interest heightened.
“I make you nervous?”
Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have said that, Gloria upbraided herself. But it wasn’t as if she were giving away some kind of deep, dark state secret. The man had to know that his looking over her shoulder was making her second-guess herself. That kind of thing would make anyone nervous.
Gloria looked at him pointedly. She decided not to backtrack. Honesty was usually the best policy, anyway. Lies were far harder to keep straight. “Yes, you do. By the way—” amusement played across her lips “—when do you think you’ll be putting me down?”
He’d gotten so caught up in his reaction to her, he’d completely forgotten that he was still holding her. Feeling a little like an idiot, Jack set her on the floor. As he did so, it felt as if he was doing it in slow motion. He was utterly aware of every movement, every part of her body that came in contact with his as he released her.
Moreover, he could feel a reluctance humming in his body, an annoying reluctance he was entirely unfamiliar with.
Well, perhaps not entirely, he amended silently, but it had been a long, long time since he’d felt the stirrings of genuine desire awakening his body.
It was just a male reaction to a beautiful woman, he insisted, nothing more.
Except that he generally wasn’t laid siege to by those kinds of feelings. He kept himself so busy that physical reactions were things that, for the most part, did not enter into his life. Even on those rare occasions when he had to take someone to a business function, he was more interested in working the room, in securing professional alliances for the bank, than he was with being attentive to his date of the evening.
He might be a brilliant strategist in the corporate world, but in the social realm, he knew that he was woefully out of step.
And he intended to remain that way no matter what the hell was going on here.
“How…” His throat felt strangely tight and he cleared it to not sacrifice his normal deep pitch. “How exactly do I make you nervous?”
When she raised her eyes to his, he felt something turn over in his belly then tighten into a knot. “Just knowing you’re watching does it.”
Jack fell back on sarcasm, his weapon of choice around someone like Gloria. “Can’t very well walk around with a blindfold when I’m around you, can I?”
“No.” Her mouth curved and he had the oddest desire to taste her lips. To see if they were as velvety smooth as they appeared.
The thought sent a jolt through his system.
What the hell was wrong with him? He was Jack Fortune, he could have any woman he wanted and he didn’t want any.
He didn’t want any, he underscored fiercely, knowing in his gut that he was doing one damn poor job of convincing himself.
For self-preservation, he took a step away from her. It made him angry that he suddenly seemed to have no control over himself. “Okay, where do you want me?” he snapped at her.
An answer flew to her lips. She counted herself fortunate that her mouth was closed at the time because what she would have said in response to his question would have gotten them both in trouble.
Next to me. In bed.
She was just as startled to think it as he would have been to hear it. What in heaven’s name had come over her? After realizing just how bad Gary was for her, she had managed to wean herself off the idea of men altogether. They were in part responsible for the uneven, disastrous path she’d followed for more than ten years.
But her bet with her sisters had been more for their sakes than for her own. When she’d made it, she’d been more than confident that she wouldn’t succumb to any kind of temptation because after what she’d been through with Gary and the men who had come before, she was utterly certain that she could swear them off as easily as a nonsmoker could swear off cigarettes.
So why did smoking suddenly seem so alluring?
The man didn’t even like her, for heaven’s sake. And he was the son of the man who was backing her business. This had “complications” stamped all over it. Was she utterly out of her mind?
Yes, she had to be. Because she didn’t need or want to be involved with any men except for those within her own family. End of story.
Except that it wasn’t. Damn him, Jack was holding her in place with that dark look in his eyes, the one that should be putting her back up because it generally appeared to be so superior-looking.
But her back wasn’t up and she felt as if her body had been placed on alert. Waiting for something to happen. Dreading it and wanting it at the same time.
Her mouth felt dry. Gloria was uncomfortably aware that other more sensitive parts of her body had obviously absorbed all the moisture. She shifted her weight. It didn’t help.
“Where do I want you?” she repeated, as if giving the matter genuine thought rather than lip service. She looked around the shop. There were only so many places for him to work. “Over there would be nice,” she finally replied, pointing vaguely toward the opposite wall.
It was as far from her as was physically possible within the store. In distance there was safety. Or so she could hope.
“Okay,” he agreed mechanically. He wasn’t even looking where she was pointing.
Instead of picking up the paint can that Gloria had pushed up against the counter, Jack took the paint roller out of her hand and placed it on top of the closed container.
“You’re not moving.” The words, uttered in slow motion, tasted like cotton.
His eyes were intent on hers as he made up his mind. The second he did, excitement telegraphed itself through him. “I think that we need to get something out of our system first.”
Her mind whirled as she desperately searched for something to say. Something flippant to put him off because, God help her, she had a feeling she knew what was coming. And that it would be her undoing.
She took a deep breath. “I was never one for purging.”
“Sometimes—” his voice caressed her “—it has to be done in order to move forward.”
Think, Glory, think. “I heard leeches are coming back into vogue.”
Damn it. It felt as if his eyes were nailing her in place. This wasn’t even sporting. Why couldn’t Patrick Fortune have had ugly children? Or, barring that, why did he have to have a son who set her pulse racing the moment said son was anywhere within fifteen feet of her?
It just wasn’t fair, she’d done her time, Gloria thought in mounting desperation, still not moving from where she stood. She didn’t want to sink back into the velvet confines of desire. She wanted to be a nun—no, better than that, she wanted to be like one of those poor souls in Arabian fairy tales whose duty it was to guard the sultan’s wives. Eunuchs
had their desire made null and void.
There was nothing null and void about her reaction to him.
Damn, she was supposed to be through with desire.
Jack pretended to dig through his pockets, searching for imaginary leeches. “Fresh out.”
“That’s a shame.” Gloria could feel the air getting caught in her throat. It had to be forced out. “I’ll take a rain check.”
“Gloria?”
Jack’s breath whispered along her skin. She would have swallowed if only there was something to swallow. “Yes?”
“Shut up.”
He saw a flash of temper in her eyes before it faded away. It only served to excite him further. Jack feathered his fingers through her hair, framing her face as he tilted it up to his.
If her heart hammered any harder, it was going to break into a million pieces. In self-defense, she began to talk again. “I heard a moving target is more of a challenge.”
“All right then, consider me challenged.”
He ran his thumb along her lower lip. He felt a pulsing in his loins as desire took a larger bite out of him. Unable to breathe, Jack brought his mouth down on hers.
Her mind went blank.
Her body went on automatic pilot.
Gloria threaded her arms around his neck, leaning her body into his as something that sounded vaguely like Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” suddenly exploded inside her body and head.
Sunshine shot beams right and left, all but setting her on fire.
No, scratch that, she thought, he was setting her on fire.
Desperation scrambled through her, screaming, “Mayday.” Damn it, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
But oh dear Lord, it was glorious.
She clung harder, kissed harder. Determined that if she was going to be plowed under, she was going to leave her mark on him before she disintegrated.
It wasn’t working.
He’d made himself beard the lion in his den. Her den as the case was, he amended. More than anything, he wanted to get this, whatever it was that was bedeviling him, out of his system, put it behind him so that he would stop being ravaged by the claws of temptation and get on with his life.
Her Good Fortune Page 9