by Megan Hart
"Partnership," Rivka corrected, "but yes."
Lila didn’t know what to say. The idea frightened and flattered her. "I don’t know anything about running a gallery, Rivka."
"You don’t need to, hon. You just need to know everything about running me."
"What about Mick? Can’t he handle it?"
Rivka’s snort was so loud Lila had to pull the phone away from her ear. "My Mickey? That blarney-tongued charmer? C’mon Lila! When’s the last time I let Mick handle anything but my left—"
Lila laughed out loud. "I get the picture." Mick was a wonderful husband and brother-in-law, but Mr. Responsible he was not. Mick’s idea of keeping things straight was knowing which of his guitars needed tuning before he went on stage.
"So you’ll do it?"
Although she was flattered by her sister’s offer, Lila had been burned too many times by the fire of Rivka’s enthusiasm. Honor or no, she wasn’t about to agree to the partnership before she’d asked a few more questions. "What do I have to do exactly?"
"Oh, you know. Make sure things happen. Keep my head on straight. Make sure I do what I say I’m going to do. You’re good at that."
"Who else is in this partnership?"
"Me and Mick, of course. We’re the creative angle, though I can see that causing one of us to sleep on the sofa more than a few times. You know I love my Mickey, Lila-love, but the man can be so stubborn!"
Lila laughed silently. Rivka calling Mick stubborn was the clearest case she had ever seen of the pond calling the ocean wet. The pair of them were both of artistic temperament, prone to the ecstasy and agony of creative successes and failures. Their marriage was one of the most volatile, passionate, yet loving marriages Lila had ever seen.
Still, Lila couldn’t help but envy Rivka a little. Her sister had found her soul mate, what Orthodox Jews called the baschert. The one person in the world so perfect for you, no matter how you met, you knew he was the one. Rivka had met Mick at a concert. The Roving Ramblers, Mick’s band, were well known throughout the area for their unique blend of traditional Celtic and Cajun music. A slight man with a mop of ink-dark hair and a face creased from smiling, Mick had decided not to return to Ireland after meeting Rivka. They’d been married three months later.
With a sudden shiver, Lila thought of Tom Caine’s last words to her. What had he meant by, "We marry them?" Had he been implying something? Obviously not, since he hadn’t called her. The showing had been more than a week ago. She hadn’t given him her phone number, but when did that ever stop anybody? She was listed in the book. Then again, she hadn’t called him either. Lila sighed. She just couldn’t seem to get him out of her mind.
"Hello? Earth to Lila Lazin!"
"What?" She was embarrassed to admit she hadn’t been paying attention. "What did you say?"
"I’m just telling you who else is in the partnership. Of course, I’ve asked Martin. He’s the business angle. If he can’t market my stuff now that I have my own gallery, I don’t know who can. Then you, dear sister. You’ll be the fire under all our butts, of course. And there’s also an investor, for the financial side of it—"
Lila didn’t wait to hear about that. "Fire under your butts, huh?"
"Don’t get your panties in a twist." The grin was clear in her voice. "You know you love that stuff. I’ll come up with the ideas, Martin will market them, and the investor will pay for them. You just have to be the one who makes sure we all do our jobs on time."
Lila sighed. "It sounds like a lot of work, Riv. I do have a job of my own, you know."
"Ah yes, the high and mighty production manager of Deerkiller magazine." Rivka was teasing again. "And what’s that other one? Dollhouse?"
"Archery Hunter and Doll Collector," Lila replied dryly. Her sister knew exactly what she did for a living. "Don’t forget Early Colonial Crafts and British Life."
"Will you do it, Lila-love?" Rivka sounded serious. "I don’t trust anyone else."
She couldn’t say no, and she didn’t really want to. Working with Rivka would be as close to being an artist as Lila would ever get. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t like being a part of her sister’s work. It gave her a taste of what creativity was like.
"I think I’m setting myself up for a whole lot of headaches, but of course I’ll do it. When have I ever let you down?"
"Never, Lila-love." Rivka clapped her hands gleefully, like a child. Lila could hear her through the phone. Rivka’s bangles clamored and jangled like an out-of-tune calliope. "So you’ll be at the meeting tonight, at the gallery? It’s Thursday night. You don’t have any hot dates tonight, do you?"
Lila flipped through her appointment book. All clear, as usual. She hadn’t had a date since she’d gone for tea with Tom Caine. Darn! Now she was thinking of him again. Resolutely, Lila pushed the memory of his face from her mind, though the sound of him saying he wanted to kiss her refused to be banished.
"I’ll cancel Keanu," Lila said wryly. Before she could stop herself, she found herself thinking that Tom was handsomer than any movie actor. "Buy me dinner, though."
Rivka chuckled. "No problem. The investor’s treating us all to dinner."
"Fair enough. See you tonight."
As soon as she had slung the phone back into its cradle, Lila heard Darren’s trademark double tap on the door. Before she could say anything, he’d entered the office with another set of papers filling his hand. He set them down on her desk, then flopped down into the chair across from hers. "What’s up with Rivka? How’s the gallery?"
"Almost done. She wants me to take a partnership in it."
One of the things Lila appreciated most about Darren was his ability to convey entire conversations with little more than a glance. He was doing it now, she saw, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips to signify being impressed. He smoothed one coffee-colored hand over his head, tousling the tight cap of bright yellow curls.
"Wow," he said. "That’s like her kid or something."
"Yeah, I know."
"The last time my brother asked me to help with anything it was to enter a fantasy football league. As if! Like I care about football." He snapped twice in the air over his head. "Now, if he’d asked me what stockings to wear with the sequined, red cocktail gown, that I might’ve been able to help him with."
Lila laughed, shaking her head. She knew no one else in the company shared such a casual work relationship with their assistants, but she didn’t care. Darren was more than her employee; he was her friend. Some days, he was the only source of humor she had.
"What stockings might that be, Darren?"
"Nude, honey." Darren drew the word out nasally. "Nude."
Rolling her eyes, Lila signed the first paper on the stack. "Darren, you make my life so interesting. What would I do without you?"
Darren grinned. "Spend a lot more time working, less time disco dancin’, honey!"
He got up from the chair and did a back-and-forth bump and grind that had Lila giggling like a madwoman.
"Enough!" She glanced furtively out the open doorway of her office. Spying one of the more notoriously nosy coworkers passing by, she made her voice stern. "I’m paying you to make copies and bring me coffee, Mr. Ramsey, not to disco dance!"
Darren grinned. "Shoot, Lila, if you were paying me to dance, you’d never be able to afford my salary."
He’s right, too, Lila thought as she scribbled her name on another endless stack of papers. He was good enough to be on stage instead of working behind a desk as her assistant. She’d seen him dance once in a local talent show, and he’d brought the house down.
"I really don’t know what I’d do without you, Darren." She was serious.
"If I’m the man in your life, honey, something is seriously wrong."
And the sad thing is, Lila thought as she watched him bump and grind his way out of the office, closing the door behind him, he’s right about that, too.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want a relationship. She just didn’t want to date
. Living as a single in a couples’ world could be hell, but suffering through endless awkward conversations and even worse, uncomfortable silences, had resigned her to ending up old and alone, a crazy lady with fifteen cats.
There hadn’t been any uncomfortable silence with Tom. Damn! Lila slapped her signature onto a few more papers, then tossed them in the Out bin. She had to stop thinking of him.
The only thing worse than being an old, crazy lady with fifteen cats would be if she ended up an old, crazy and horny lady. Lila sighed and leaned back in her chair. Horny didn’t even begin to describe it. She was flat out sexually frustrated.
And that meant she was thinking about him again.
Damn!
* * *
Tom dipped his finger into a vat of tomato sauce bubbling on the stove and tasted it. "Too spicy. Not enough sugar."
The chef, Michel Leroy, nodded. At the moment, his face was as red as the scarf tied around his neck, but his whites were immaculately spotless. He wiped his hands fastidiously on a fresh cloth.
A tall, spare man in his mid-thirties, Michel’s thick head of blue-black hair, snapping black eyes, and carefully groomed mustache made him look more like a professional gambler than a chef. He had, however, trained at the Cordon Bleu and was one of the most highly respected chefs in the country. He had come to The Foxfire Pub, he always said, because he was tired of metropolitan life. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was the perfect blend of city and country for the French master of cuisine.
Michel may have come to central Pennsylvania to escape the big city, Tom thought as the chef tossed some sugar into the vat of bubbling sauce, but had another reason for staying. Tom’s niece, Emma, a fiery, spunky redhead, Michel’s junior by at least ten years. Though Michel claimed she drove him insane, Tom thought privately the master of The Foxfire’s kitchen was more likely crazy in love. Though the pair was constantly at odds in the kitchen, they managed to turn out some of the area’s finest food.
"Oui, sugar. I was telling the sous-chef that very thing, but she…ah! She is not to be listening to me! Forgive me for saying so, Monsieur Tom, but Emma Simmons has no respect for the tomato!"
Tom grinned, but managed to refrain from laughing at the chef’s bold statement. He doubted anyone, except perhaps Michel himself, could have any respect for "the tomato." "I’ll speak to Emma if you’d like, Michel."
The whip-thin chef’s brows knitted into a scowl Tom knew was only partly real. "Oui, Tom. If you would be so kind. I am afraid the sight of her face will have me losing my temper! And anger in the kitchen can come to no good."
The emotional chef was being completely serious. Chuckling, Tom left the kitchen. He’d never seen a person more determined to deny his attraction to someone than Michel Leroy about Emma Simmons. He frowned. Suddenly, he was thinking of Lila Lazin again.
He’d gone home that night with his mind full of her face, her scent still clinging to his skin, the imagined taste of her on his lips. A cold shower had managed to let him sleep, but he’d dreamed about her and awakened, his penis hard and his head swimming. Self-induced chastity was the stupidest thing he’d ever done. Sex was the one thing in life he’d always been sure of. Women—gorgeous, beautiful, hot-bodied women—seemed to fall into his lap without him ever even trying. It was a gift, his grandmother had always said, that face. The best of all the family features tied up in one neat package.
His buddies would think he was crazy if he let on his true track record. He’d hadn’t slept with a woman for over a year, when the one-night stand he’d planned to have became an awkward confrontation with a love-starved woman who threatened to slit her wrists because he didn’t want to be with her.
Tom didn’t know what, exactly, he was waiting for, but the more he tried to put Lila Lazin out of his mind, the more stubbornly she insisted on sticking in it. Her blue ice eyes winked at him from the freezer when he went to do inventory. The complimentary cups of coffee he poured his best customers reminded him too much of her sleek brown curls. The flowers he’d ordered made him think of her fresh, light scent…
It took another trip to the freezer for him to cool off. By the time he gathered the wait staff for pre-dinner instructions, he’d managed to get himself a little bit under control. "Full house tonight, folks. I want to see everyone hopping. You know I won’t be here later tonight, so I’m trusting all of you to make things swing."
"I didn’t know you liked to swing, Tom." Jennifer, the blonde hostess, gave him a wink. Today she wore a vibrant red suit of some shiny material. Though not inappropriate in any way, the suit still managed to show off a good deal of tanned thigh and bosom. Jennifer’s honey-colored hair was swept off her face and emphasized her high cheeks and vivid, cornflower-blue eyes. She was what his buddies would call a hottie.
"Save it for the customers," he told her good-naturedly.
"You’re such a flirt," Wendi, one of the waitresses, told Jennifer. She flung her waist-length braid of chestnut hair over her shoulder. The two were best friends.
Jennifer rolled her eyes toward her friend. "And you’re not?"
The rest of the staff had drifted away to their other duties. Tom, his mind already on other things, began looking over the list of the night’s specials. Emma’s homemade gnocchi was one of them, and Tom looked forward to sampling some of it himself.
"We’ll miss you later," Jen said.
Tom startled. So involved in the specials, Tom hadn’t noticed the tall blonde next to him until he felt her breath on his cheek.
She pouted. "The night shift isn’t the same with Frank."
Frank Philips was the night manager. A short, balding man with a wife and six children, he was both personable and efficient. Still, he wasn’t exactly Jen’s type.
"You’ll manage," he told her.
She ran her fingers lightly over his arm. "Where will you be tonight? You hardly ever leave the restaurant on Thursday nights."
Tom shrugged off her grasp. "I have a meeting. Now, Jen, if you don’t mind.…"
"Sure. Lots of work to do. We know, Tom."
Wendi giggled. "What a slave driver. Don’t get out the whips and chains, Tom."
"Wait until after work," Jen added, and the pair finally left him alone.
Watching the two women undulate away from him, Tom, for the first time, found their harmless flirtation annoying. Though he appreciated a beautiful face and body as much as any man, he emphatically did not date employees. Even if that had not been one of his personal rules, Jen and Wendi were too predacious even for him. He preferred to do the pursuing.
Not that it had done much good with Lila.
"I should’ve kissed her," he mumbled grimly.
But he hadn’t kissed her. For some reason, he’d lost his nerve. Staring at her up tilted face, her lovely eyes closed and those perfect lips just ripe and waiting for his mouth to close on hers.… All at once, all he could think about was how much he liked her. She was smart and funny and sexier than any woman he’d been out with in a long time. He wanted to kiss her, sure, but not just standing on the sidewalk. When he kissed Lila Lazin, he wanted it to be in a place and circumstance where a kiss did not have to end the evening.
"‘lo, boss," Emma chirped from behind him. Tomato sauce smeared her chin and flour smudged her cheek. Tom could imagine Michel’s Gallic shudder at the appearance of Emma’s white top, which was spotted with more sauce. "Mike said I was supposed to come and talk to you about the tomato sauce."
Thankful to have his thoughts torn away from the intriguing and annoying Lila Lazin, Tom frowned at the young woman in front of him as sternly as he could. It was a hard effect to master, especially since Emma’s green eyes twinkled so merrily. She grinned at him, her freckled nose squinching.