My Phony Valentine

by Marie Ferrarella

  Digging palms into the mattress on either side of him, Christopher tried to sit up. A thousand disembodied hammers simultaneously began whacking away at his joints. The groan was involuntary and as much of a surprise as the sudden pain was.

  Damn, he felt weak. Training had him struggling against the feeling and denying its very existence. He didn’t have time for this.

  The door to his room opened almost immediately in response to the groan. The woman he’d met at the airport stuck her head in.

  Cochran.

  Theresa, he thought, putting a first name to her. She looked concerned. Vaguely, he wondered why.

  T.J. had just been about to enter her unexpected guest’s room when she’d heard him groan. Her haste to open the door had almost made her drop the pitcher of orange juice she was carrying on a tray.

  Recovering, she made it inside with glassware intact. T.J. peered at Christopher’s face. He still looked pale, although it wasn’t easy to detect at first. The man’s olive complexion tended to make him look healthy. The sheen of perspiration along his hairline along with the cast of his eyes negated that.

  Maybe she should have taken him to the hospital. It still wasn’t too late. Emmett was killing time in the kitchen, just in case. He’d been there for the past five hours. Their guest had been sleeping that long.

  T.J. eased the tray onto the nightstand. “How are you feeling?”

  Like hell on a bad day, but he wasn’t about to admit that. “Where are my pants?”

  His voice was gruff. Maybe he wasn’t as sick as she thought.

  T.J. nodded toward the mirrored wardrobe. “In the closet.” The expensive trousers were better off on a hanger than wrinkling beneath her comforter. “I thought you’d be more comfortable without them.”

  Had she undressed him? he wondered. “Only when I’m showering.”

  T.J. shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Taking the gray trousers out of the closet, she deposited them at the foot of the bed, then smiled at him. Actually, it was hard not to laugh out loud. He wasn’t the type to wear a dark blue, flowing nightshirt with flair.

  “There, you can make good your escape anytime you want, although I wouldn’t suggest going just yet.” Crossing to him, she touched her palm to Christopher’s forehead. It only confirmed what she already knew. “You’re still very warm, but then, it’s only been a few hours.”

  There might be a sickly cast to his eyes, but they were still far too green for her comfort. T.J. looked away. Picking the pitcher up, she filled his glass up halfway.

  “I brought you some orange juice.” She offered the glass to him. “You need plenty of fluids to flush out your fever.”

  Her touch had been soft, light. It stirred something distant within him. Something that responded to the concern he saw in her eyes.

  Just went to show you couldn’t believe everything you read. His report on Theresa Cochran had her pegged as a social butterfly, more interested in making temperatures rise than in lowering them.

  Apparently, she was capable of both.

  “A few hours?” he echoed, suddenly registering what she’d said earlier.

  She nodded. “Five. You’ve been asleep.”

  “I have a flight,” he began weakly. What time was it, anyway?

  “I already took care of that.” She’d gone through his pockets to find the return ticket. “You’re booked on a flight for Sunday.” Two days should do it, she thought. If he got well faster, they could always reschedule again. “And I called your assistant to tell him what happened.”

  All he could do was nod weakly and let things happen. “Very efficient,” he managed.

  “We try to please. Now drink.”

  After a beat, he finally took the glass from her. “Is this your house?”

  “Yes.” T.J. looked pointedly at the glass.

  He didn’t care for orange juice, but because she’d gone to the trouble of getting it for him, he drank. There was something about her that told him she would press the issue if he refused. He wasn’t up to carrying on a debate.

  The juice stung his throat. “Why did you bring me here?”

  She lifted a shoulder casually and resisted the temptation of pushing a wayward lock of hair from his forehead. There had been enough touching. “You were sick. Tossing you out by the side of the road just didn’t seem right.”

  Flippant. Flippant usually irritated him. He found it vaguely amusing this time and didn’t have the energy to question it. “Why not a hotel?”

  She could have sworn he was challenging her. It made her wonder how he would have treated her if the tables had been turned.

  “There’s a huge computer convention in town. The only room I could have gotten you was with a church mouse. Upper berth.” An easy smile curved her mouth. “Besides, leaving a sick man in a hotel room by himself didn’t seem quite right, either.”

  He tried to evaluate her motives. The hammering in his head made it difficult.

  “Bad for business,” he guessed. In his experience, people didn’t go out of their way for one another unless they wanted something. There was no mystery here. He represented a lucrative contract for her company.

  T.J. sighed inwardly. He was a cynic. Sad that someone so young and good-looking was so turned off by the world. But that, she reminded herself, was none of her business. Her job was to convince him that she was Theresa, get him to approve the contracts, then pack him up and send him on his way, nothing else.

  How would Theresa have answered him? “Yes, that, too.”

  Dark brows drew together and furrowed over an almost perfect nose. “Too?”

  She mimicked a smile she’d seen on Theresa’s face countless times. Sexy, yet aloof enough to be intriguing. She looked at his wrist before answering. “I’m a pushover for a racing pulse and yours was.”

  T.J. took the glass from his hand and placed it on the tray, then very deliberately smoothed out the comforter. She leaned over so that her face was just inches from his. For a moment, she felt her own pulse scrambling, then dismissed it.

  “Now get some rest,” she ordered sweetly, “and we’ll discuss business whenever you feel up to it.”

  Even in his slightly confused state, he could feel the woman fairly sizzled with sex. It went along with her reputation, but seemed almost incongruous with the jaunty ponytail that bobbed to and fro atop her head. She’d somehow managed to wrap a rubber band around the voluminous mass of hair he remembered earlier. For a split second, he entertained the thought of snapping that band and watching her hair come tumbling down again.

  He wasn’t really well yet, Christopher thought

  It didn’t keep him from trying to get up. “I feel up to it now.”

  The hell he did. You only had to take one look at him to know he was pushing it. She placed a firm hand against his chest and forced him back down. It wasn’t hard.

  “All right, when I feel up to it,” she amended. “I don’t at the moment. Why don’t you take the opportunity this lull provides and get some more rest?” she proposed sunnily.

  He was being patronized. Christopher knew he should argue with her, but he suddenly felt too tired. Resigned, he supposed that no vast eternal plan would be altered if he waited a few hours before beginning this meeting that fate seemed determined to postpone.

  With a sigh, he slid down against the pillows.

  TJ. took it as a victory. Smiling, she retreated from the bed.

  Christopher had never been aware of jeans looking quite that enticing before. He felt vaguely aroused.

  “Theresa,” he called after her.

  Theresa. She was Theresa. Widening her smile, she turned at the door. Edginess buzzed in her brain. She hoped it didn’t show.

  “Yes?”

  He had to know. Christopher picked at the dark blue nightshirt, holding it away from his chest. It was way too large to fit Theresa. It was almost too large for him. “Who does this belong to?”

  T.J. grinned. She’d wondered
when he’d get around to asking. “Cecilia, my housekeeper.”

  He was six-two. That meant she must have one hell of a housekeeper. “Oh, I thought perhaps it belonged to some former lover.”

  T.J. caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth. He had tactfully refrained from commenting on Cecilia’s size. She rather liked that. Maybe he wasn’t so brittle after all.

  “I won’t tell her you said that.”

  “Thanks.”

  He was asleep before he saw her close the door behind her.

  THE SOUND OF LAUGHTER called to him, rousing Christopher and drawing him to the surface.

  It intruded on his formless dream, pouring over it like sparkling golden honey, until it completely blotted out what had been before, substituting, instead, an incredible urge to join in the sound. To become one with it. Without the reserve his life had instilled on him, Christopher wanted it with every fiber of his being.

  It was a child’s laugh.

  And yet it wasn’t.

  With effort, Christopher pried open his eyes and discovered to his relief that the room did not shimmer and swim before him when he raised his head. More than that, it remained still as he sat up.

  Pleased, Christopher smiled as he took a deep breath. The queasiness he’d experienced earlier was still there, but on a scale of one to ten it had gone from a twelve to a two.

  The laughter came again, surrounding him. Giggles. Little-girl giggles. He tried to concentrate. Hadn’t the Cochran woman said something about a niece spending the weekend here?

  A child. Christopher frowned slightly. It wasn’t that he didn’t like children; he just wasn’t any good with them. Not the best thing to admit, he supposed, given the fact that the family fortune was built on an impish-faced doll called Moppsie that had found its way into thousands of homes more than sixty years ago. But he’d never gotten the knack of being at ease around children, even when he had been one himself.

  It hadn’t improved with age.

  But the sound was inviting. Curiosity got the better of him.

  The room tilted only slightly and then only for a moment as he reached to the edge of the bed for his trousers. He waited to get his bearings, then swung his legs over the side of the bed and got dressed. Partially. He had no idea where his shirt was and the uneasy feeling nagged at him that if he stopped to look for it, he would exhaust his supply of energy.

  So, muttering under his breath, Christopher tucked in the long, flowing tails of the nightshirt into his pants. It took a lot of tucking. Christopher glanced down. It looked as if he was smuggling a spare tire. He looked absurd. Wearing the shirt out would have made him look even more ridiculous.

  Opening the door, he let the sound of the laughter guide him. There were more giggles, accompanied by a deep, throaty laugh Christopher attributed to his hostess. Either that, he amended, or the housekeeper who probably moonlighted as a basketball player.

  In either case, he wanted to see for himself. The laughter was coming from down the long hallway. He didn’t bother closing the door behind him. Padding on the Spanish tile with bare feet, Christopher felt he was being led like one of the mice in The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

  Might make for a good commercial, he thought, pleased with the image he’d conjured up.

  He was even more pleased with what he saw when he reached what appeared to be the family room, because it fleshed out the sketchy image.

  His hostess had forsaken her ponytail. The effect was akin to standing still for a one-two punch to the gut. Mechanically, he passed his hand over his abdomen.

  Theresa, her hair partially tucked behind one ear, tumbling down on the other side, was kneeling on the floor beside an animated-looking little girl who could have been a magically enhanced miniature of the woman with her.

  More giggles and squeals of pleasure ricocheted about the room, which was filled with toys. Theresa was entertaining her, speaking in a high voice and pretending to be the comical, stuffed royal lion she held in her hand. The lion was carrying on a discussion with a shorter, squatter-looking penguin. The latter had a lopsided crown on its head.

  She was playing with the toys he’d brought down with him, Christopher realized. The annoyance that she’d taken it upon herself to go through his things faded in the wake of the pleasure the scene generated.

  If it worked on him, it would certainly work on others, he decided.

  Feeling as if he were privy to something that belonged in a video put out by a greeting-card company, Christopher leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and watched in charmed silence.

  T.J.’s BACK WAS to the doorway. Christopher had slept through the night. She’d gone in several times to check on him. Since he was still asleep this morning, T.J. had taken the time to play with her daughter. Having found the toys earlier in MacAffee’s suitcase while she was rummaging for something more appropriate for him to wear during his convalescence, she’d decided to put them to good use.

  Megan made a great audience.

  T.J. twisted her hand from side to side, making the lion appear to be hopping from one foot to the other. His sorrowful expression almost seemed to change, reflecting the words she put into his mouth.

  “Boy, oh boy, I wish I had a little girl to pull my string and help me talk. Talking is hard work.” She turned the lion so that he faced the penguin. “Do you know where I can find a helpful little girl, Mr. Penguin?”

  “King Penguin,” the latter corrected indignantly, raising his head regally. Then he attempted to scratch his head, puzzled. The penguin shook his head haplessly. Both stuffed animals turned to Megan for help. “Do you know where we can find a helpful little girl?” the penguin asked her.

  Megan’s eyes shone with excitement. She jerked her thumb dead center into her chest. “Me,” she cried. “Me. Me. Me.”

  The penguin nodded his head so hard, his crown fell over one eye. When he spoke, he had a definite Bronx accent. “Yes, you, you, you. Do you know where we can find a helpful little girl?”

  Megan laughed, then narrowed her golden brown brows until they formed a V over her pert little nose. She placed her hands on the penguin, but knew better than to yank him away from her mother.

  “Me, me liddle gurl.” .

  Turning them so that they faced one another again, T.J. had the lion and the penguin exchange exaggerated looks, then jump as if the weight of a revelation had been physically dropped on them.

  “She is a little girl,” the lion said the way Sir Issac Newton might have once announced the discovery of gravity. King Penguin was appropriately speechless. Megan clapped her hands with glee. In unison, the stuffed animals presented their backs to Megan. “Do me?” the lion asked.

  “No, me,” the penguin entreated. “Pull my string first.” The stuffed animal moved his royal butt adroitly and pushed the lion out of the way.

  Holding her sides, Megan fell over on the floor, laughing at the show. The two stuffed animals promptly beset her on either side, cuddling, burrowing, adding to the source of her giggles.

  If he could have found a way to bottle this, Christopher thought, he could make a fortune. Bottled happiness.

  Megan’s laughter was infectious. The more she heard it, the more T.J. laughed herself until both mother and daughter were rolling around on the floor like two children amid their toys.

  “Man.” Megan pointed a chubby finger abruptly toward the doorway.

  TJ. looked and sucked in her breath when she saw Christopher standing there, watching them. Yes, Bambi. Man has entered the forest.

  Christopher MacAffee looked a great deal taller when perceived from ground level on the rug. Embarrassed, T.J. quickly scrambled to her feet. She brushed her hands on the back of her jeans. They suddenly felt sweaty.

  She cleared her throat, desperately wishing she had thought to close the door before entertaining Megan. “I’m sorry. Did we disturb you?”

  The scene he’d happened on was so disarming, Christopher forgot that he felt awkward around an
yone under four feet. Taking a step into the room, he couldn’t take his eyes off the little girl. She looked like an exact copy of her aunt. Or the way he would have imagined she looked as a child.

  If he were given to imagining things like that.

  “If you mean did you wake me, yes. But I don’t think you could call it being disturbed when the source of your merriment are two of the new toys I brought along.”

  “Oh, um, the suitcase.” TJ. flushed like a child caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. He probably wasn’t the type who would shrug off having his privacy invaded. She thought it was worth a shot. “I was really just looking to see if there was something a little bit more suitable for you to put on besides Cecilia’s nightshirt.” She bit her lip, then turned toward her daughter. Feeling herself on shaky ground, she decided to summon the cavalry. “Megan thinks your toys are great.”

  “So I see.” Flanked on either side by the lion and the penguin, the little girl had a possessive arm wrapped around each. “Would you like to keep them, Megan?”

  He had no idea what prompted him to give away the prototypes. It certainly wasn’t like him. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time.

  Megan looked up at the man who was as tall to her as some of the trees in the backyard. T.J. called the girl her little warrior. Megan was afraid of nothing. There was no hesitation in her response. Her head bobbed up and down as her eyes sparkled.

  Maybe they could use the little girl in the commercial, he thought. “Then they’re yours.”

  TJ. looked at him in surprise. A smile bloomed on her face. She hadn’t had much time to be filled in on the new head of MacAffee Toys, but Heidi had given her a quick thumbnail sketch before she’d left for the airport yesterday. From what she was told, the man was efficient and all business. Never married, he had no children and had little tolerance for them.

  Maybe they’d been wrong. He obviously knew how to get on the right side of a little girl.

  T.J. laid a hand on his arm and brought his attention back to her. “That’s very generous of you.”