Hearts Are Wild

by Laura Wright

  “Who’s that?” Maggie asked.

  Kitty turned back, her eyes bright. “Just a friend.”

  Maggie stared at her grandma in astonishment. “Are you blushing, Grandma?”

  “Of course not. It’s just the exercise.”

  Maggie didn’t buy it. “Is he a client?” Kitty was supposed to be retired from matchmaking, but Maggie knew from very recent and personal experience that the older woman just couldn’t seem to help herself.

  Kitty grinned. “You mean, am I helping him to find love?”

  Maggie nodded, her own grin widening.

  “I’m going to do my very best to help Ted find love, honey.” She had a faraway look in her eyes.

  Was her grandma actually dating? Was she in love? Happiness filled Maggie’s heart as she watched Kitty walk up the steps of the pool. Happiness and concern. She couldn’t stop her hand from going to her throat, touching her gold locket—her constant reminder that the Conner women were great at finding love for others. Just not for themselves.

  Her grandfather had died just six months after he’d married Kitty. Maggie’s mother had thought she’d found the love of her life at eighteen, but the man had taken her virginity and left her pregnant.

  It was The Conner Curse.

  But as Kitty watched Ted move away from the pool area and out of sight, the glow emanating from her face looked like excitement, not worry.

  “Good men are hard to come by,” Kitty said as she sat down next to Maggie, swept off her swim cap and ran her hands through her short, dark-gray hair. “Nick Kaplan is a good man, Maggie.”

  Maggie handed her a towel. “I’m sure he is.”

  “Helping others find love doesn’t mean you shouldn’t find a little for yourself.”

  “I don’t have time to think about myself right now.” She’d never told her grandma that she believed their family to be cursed. Kitty would call it rubbish and try to convince her otherwise. And Maggie didn’t want to hear it. She knew what was true, and she wasn’t going to tempt the Fates. “I have a business to run. A future to think about. I’m hoping that this new roommate you’ve found me will actually help to make it a success.”

  Kitty shook her head dejectedly. “That doesn’t sound at all like what I had in mind. How is he going to do that?”

  Maggie told her grandma about the four-week agreement with Nick. She tried to sound as professional as possible. She didn’t want Kitty to even suspect how incredibly attracted she was to Nick. It wouldn’t do to give the woman any room to hope that her little plan might work. And besides that, Maggie was convinced that any and all feelings for the man would subside over time like the heat of a chili pepper after an ice-cold lemonade.

  “Yes, I know that scenario well,” Kitty said finally. “Converting the nonbeliever. It was one of my favorite challenges.” She slipped the red cotton sweater over her shoulders, then turned and gave her granddaughter a kiss on the cheek. “I think you’ll be a wonderful success, Maggie. But take it from me, try and make a little time for romance. All the success in the world can’t make up for the lack of it.”

  If there was one thing Nick Kaplan hated it was shopping malls. Miles of stores, tons of people and a food court that sent up the unmistakable stench of fake international cuisine. He slowed his bike when he entered the parking structure, pulled his motorcycle into a space and cut the engine. He still couldn’t believe that he’d let Maggie talk him into this. He was the damn head of a construction company—not some teenager with a point to prove. But at least he had a place to leave his toothbrush.

  And what a place. Situated high up on what the locals called the Riviera because of its similarity to the French Riviera, it overlooked everything—town, mountains and the ocean. Like most of the homes in Santa Flora it was Spanish in style, with two small balconies attached to the bedrooms. Lemon, orange and fig trees dotted the lush front lawn, while pots of flowers decorated the front stoop. Inside the small home, the mood was something he could definitely appreciate: comfort. Cozy couches, rustic oak tables and colorful rugs. Elegant and simple, just like her, he’d remembered thinking. No surprises there.

  That was until he’d gone upstairs, into the bathroom.

  Hanging over the shower rod like a scene from some racy foreign film were undergarments. And not white cotton briefs as he would have expected. Hell, no. These were male torture devices!

  Nick had started to sweat while he’d mentally counted off each piece of lingerie: one red-satin teddy, one lacy black bra, one black-lace thong.

  Conservative Maggie Conner wore a thong?

  He hadn’t stuck around to contemplate that erotic little fact. He’d gotten the hell out of there, jumped on his bike and driven like a madman down the highway—making a pit stop at his new construction site before heading to the Santa Flora Mall where Maggie had told him to meet her at four o’clock.

  “Four o’clock, and don’t be late. We have a lot to do,” she’d said as though she were instructing a child.

  He’d agreed but hadn’t liked the sound of a mall on a Saturday and didn’t even want to imagine what her plans for him were.

  But he’d given his word. And he never went back on his word.

  If Nick understood Maggie’s personality at all, she was going to do everything in her power to prove to him that she could find him the perfect woman. Hell, she probably already had someone she thought was Miss Right all picked out and ready for him.

  He cursed under his breath as he strode into the open-air mall with its endless sea of useless junk. Frowning, he shook his head. He wasn’t hanging around in here for more than an hour, deal or no deal, or he might run into someone he knew or—God forbid—his family.

  But he’d agreed to this ridiculous challenge. And if Maggie wanted to introduce him to some woman who worked at the Hoagie Hut, he’d have to do it.

  Beside him a couple of teenage boys whistled under their breath, and Nick looked up, following their gazes. His chest tightened as the reason for his presence in this shoppers’ Babylon walked toward him in a pink sundress. She’d gone home to change. He must’ve just missed her.

  Maggie moved with grace, with just a soft sway of the hips—not too obvious. But, man, she was all female. Long, tanned legs, trim waist, full breasts, her dark hair piled high on top of her head. She still looked fairly conservative, but he knew now what she wore underneath her conservative clothes. And that made her simple, pale-pink dress sexy as hell.

  Damned if she wasn’t looking just a little bit like Miss Right herself.

  The thought dropped into his mind with a noisy crash. Kind of like a wrecking ball, he thought as he promptly shoved it aside. He and “Matchmaking Maggie” were roommates with a business arrangement. And he didn’t mix business and pleasure. Besides, she wasn’t even remotely close to his kind of woman. She probably dated accountants with beige Volvos, not a man who worked with his hands and drove a Harley. She was classic, elegant—a good girl with crazy ideas. Not to mention a major pain in the—

  “Hi, there,” she called brightly. “Get settled in all right?”

  “Fine,” he said, his body stirring from looking at her too long. “Why am I here?”

  “Well, good afternoon to you, too.”

  He arranged his face in what he hoped passed for a smile. “Afternoon. Now, why am I here in this gulch of discounted garbage?”

  Her gaze roamed over him. “Before I send you out to find that special someone, we have to do something about—” she waved a hand at him “—this.”

  “You have a problem with the way I dress?”

  She seemed to consider this.

  “You’re not going to turn me into one of the suits that you probably date,” he said.

  “I don’t date suits.”

  He raised a brow. “Oh, really? Then what kind of man turns your crank, Maggie?” What’s good for the goose, he thought. If she got to dig into his personal life, he was just as entitled.

  “No one turns my
crank,” she said in a hushed whisper. “I don’t date.”

  “Come again?”

  She hesitated, her gaze slipping to the floor. “Well, what I mean is that I haven’t dated in a while and I’m not planning to date anyone until my business is a success.”

  A splash of ice water in the face couldn’t have shocked him more. “That could be months, maybe years.”

  She nodded. “Maybe.”

  Dating was her business. And she was too busy? He’d heard a lot of bull in his life, enough to know when he wasn’t hearing the whole truth. But he didn’t think she was going to tell him anything—not here anyway, not now. Hell, they were going to be living together. He’d find out soon enough the real reason why she didn’t want to date. His inexplicable curiosity about her seemed to demand it.

  Without thinking, he leaned in and brushed her cheek with his thumb. He heard her gasp softly, and he felt like an idiot. He showed her the tiny eyelash he’d rescued from her cheek and said, “Make a wish,” feeling like an even bigger idiot. But her skin was so soft he’d forgotten himself for a moment.

  “Just one?” she asked with a shy smile.

  At that moment he’d give her any little thing she wanted. But he wasn’t the kind of man who showed a woman her effect on him. “Don’t get greedy,” he grumbled.

  She laughed, then blew her eyelash off his thumb.

  Desire poured through him. Not good, he thought. He needed to keep his distance or he was going to pull her close and kiss that long, graceful neck of hers. “If that wish was for me to go clothes shopping without complaint, it’s not coming true.”

  She tilted her chin up at him. “You’re being unnecessarily stubborn.”

  “I’m not changing. This is who I am, Maggie. Take it or leave it.”

  “This is not about who you are. This is just about your clothes.” She smiled. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”

  “Fun for who?” he asked.

  “For me. And it’ll be my treat.”

  “Oh, please,” he grumbled. “I own my own company. I can pay for a few pairs of jeans.”

  “Pants,” she corrected. “Nice pants.”

  “I hate to point this out, but I never agreed to a wardrobe change.”

  “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward a men’s store. “You have a roof over your head—and I have you. For four weeks. Body and soul.”

  He liked the way that sounded. He knew he shouldn’t. But he did.

  She glanced at her watch as they walked. “Then after you get clothes we’ll go see Domingo.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What’s a Domingo?”

  “Not what, who,” Maggie explained. “Domingo is a hairstylist. Well, actually he’s a hair genius, but—”

  “Hell, no. No way. No!”

  “Oh, c’mon.”

  “No.”

  She stopped at the store’s entrance, crossed her arms over her chest. “Is this a Samson thing? Shed your locks and lose your strength?”

  “First of all, I don’t have locks and second, women find my hair sexy.”

  “It’s not the hair, Nick,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Her gaze flickered from his face to the floor and back. “Well, maybe it’s not the hair they find sexy. Maybe…ah…maybe it’s just you.”

  His gut tightened as if he was taking Suicide Pass at eighty miles an hour. She wasn’t supposed to be talking to him like that or looking at him like that, either. This whole day was just plain strange. He had no idea how it could get any stranger.

  But it suddenly did.

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a young woman. Blond, pretty, with eyes like his own.

  He muttered an oath, grabbed Maggie’s hand and pulled her into the men’s store.

  “Good decision,” she said as he turned to see the woman glance in his direction. “They have very nice things in here.”

  What was she doing home from college? Nick wondered, his gaze fixed on the huge plate-glass window, on the young woman and her searching eyes.

  He dropped to the floor behind a rack of pants.

  “What on earth are you doing down there, Nick?” Maggie asked as she peeked around the rack and looked down at him.

  “Looking for the lowest prices,” he muttered, pulling apart several pairs of pants to get a better view. She was still there.

  Maggie stared at him, questions behind her eyes, then she began to laugh. “I had no idea you had a sense of humor, Nick,” she said, hunkering down on the ground next to him. “That’s going to be a big plus with the ladies.”

  Yeah, right. He was a regular Jim Carrey, he mused as his gaze flickered to the store’s entrance. The woman was gone. Relief swept over him.

  “We can get up…” His words petered out and he stayed where he was. Maggie was close, inches away, her sweet scent impaling his senses.

  Under the soft lights, beside a mess of pressed pants, she smiled at him again, her eyes still glowing with laughter. At that moment he would’ve worn a sweater vest if she’d asked him to.

  And for Nick Kaplan—a man who hadn’t worn a sweater since the third grade—that realization meant he was headed for trouble.

  Three

  Look No Further. The Girl Of Your Dreams Could Be Right Under Your Nose.

  Rock music blared throughout the fashionable salon, making it hard for Maggie to concentrate on her continuing struggles with slogan writing. She glanced around the lobby with its bottles of expensive shampoo and styling gels, wondering if anyone else felt that the music was just a bit too loud. Behind the front desk, the cherry-tinted receptionist was practically shouting into the phone, and the older woman sitting next to Maggie was ripping up a tissue and stuffing the pieces into her ears.

  Oh, good. I’m not going crazy.

  She’d certainly wondered at that possibility after Nick’s spur-of-the-moment price check on the floor of the store. But at least in all the craziness she’d gotten him to buy three pairs of nice pants and a couple of shirts.

  His playfulness had surprised her. The big, bad biker had a silly streak, and she found it immensely attractive.

  Maggie glanced at the clock on the salon wall. Nick had been in with Domingo for more than an hour and a half. The two men were probably at war behind those double doors. It wouldn’t be much of a shocker after the touch-me-again-and-you-die glare that Nick had sent the bald hairstylist when he’d taken one look at Nick and exclaimed, “Now, aren’t you a handsome one.”

  Laughter bubbled in Maggie’s throat. Mr. Masculinity vs. Mr. Clean. This project was going to be some fun.

  “Miss Conner?” Domingo’s assistant stood directly in front of her, but because the music was so loud, she looked as if she was mouthing the query.

  Maggie nodded, not willing to shout.

  “Domingo is just finishing up with your friend.” The blaring rock song ended abruptly and a soft ballad took its place. “He’ll be out in a minute.” The girl winked. “He’s really something.”

  Maggie stared after the girl. What in the world did that mean? He was something? Stashing her pen and pad of paper in her purse, she stood up and hustled to the front to pay.

  “Mr. Kaplan already took care of it,” the cherry-haired receptionist informed her.

  “He did?”

  “Yes, I did,” came his smooth baritone from behind her. “I told you I would.”

  She turned sharply, then froze where she stood. Every word of “this project is going to be some fun” melted like a Popsicle on a hot day. Nick Kaplan looked like a sexy rebel out of a men’s fashion magazine. He still wore his faded jeans, but he’d put on one of the white shirts they’d picked out that afternoon. He looked like a different man, yet not quite.

  Her pulse pounded like a steel drum, and she wondered if everyone could hear it, even the lady with the tissue in her ears. Surely they could see her face, her eyes, as she took in the tr
ansformation of her drop-dead-gorgeous roommate.

  Clean shaven, he had a stubborn, confident face that had seen sun and wind, had confronted them head-on. Like he did all challenges, she imagined. His hair had been cut short—but not too short. The chestnut waves licked the edges of his white collar, while the same maple-colored hair on his chest peeked out from the vee. And when her gaze trailed reluctantly upward, she found him staring at her, his green eyes blazing a wild streak, daring her to say something.

  No doubt about it, he was still the same bad boy who had walked into her office that morning. He was just a stylized one.

  “Satisfied?” he asked.

  Her throat went dry as cotton. “What?”

  “Well, you did this to me,” he said on a chuckle. “Do I look fine, or what?”

  You are about the finest looking man I’ve ever seen, she wanted to say, but the Sahara had replaced the cotton in her throat and she wasn’t doing much talking. She looked around her. Did Nick have any idea that every woman in the salon was staring at him, their eyes filled with longing?

  And she had to go home with this Greek god.

  Maggie groaned inwardly. What had she done? What in the world had made her believe that she could continue being unaffected by men when someone like Nick Kaplan walked the planet?

  He cast her one of those squinty, hooded, James Dean looks. “So this is it, Maggie? No more fixing? No tattoo or scar removals planned?”

  “You have a tattoo?” she asked without thinking.

  “Yeah.”

  She couldn’t help herself. “Where is it?”

  He raised an amused brow at her.

  Maggie could actually feel every woman in the place lean forward in their chairs, their ears pricking up to hear Nick’s answer to her intimate query. And out of the corner of her eye she saw the older woman she’d sat next to earlier remove the tissue from her ears.

  “We should go,” she said. For some reason she didn’t like all the ogling that was going on. And, interestingly enough, she really didn’t want any of these women to know where his tattoo was.