, debating about taking a bath. Maybe the hot water would help calm the turbulent, edgy feelings that hummed through his veins. “Too much rich food,” he told his dogs, who watched him with perplexed looks.
Or too many toasts of champagne. Good champagne, too. He hadn’t expected to be able to tell the difference, but he still could.
He’d liked that rush of crisp, dry bubbles that almost burned as it cascaded over his tongue. If he was honest, the alcohol—something he’d denied himself since his diagnosis—wasn’t the only thing he’d enjoyed.
He stopped and turned to look at his reflection in the window. He’d removed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his silk shirt when he got home. His feet were complaining from being squeezed into shoes that looked stylish but weren’t made for comfort. He hadn’t kicked them off the moment he walked in the door. Why, he wondered?
He shifted slightly. A subtle, ultra-casual pose. One of his signature looks.
Did he miss modeling?
He shook his head, conscious of how different it felt to have his hair tamed with gel and styled in a way that was all too familiar. He was positive he no longer felt any pull toward that part of his former life.
He reached up and yanked the rubber band from his hair. He pushed it into his hip pocket then bent over to shake his hair loose. It felt stiff with product, but he figured if his scalp could breathe again the dull pulsing pain in his head might go away.
Straightening, he closed his eyes from a momentary rush of blood. When he looked at his reflection again, he saw a more familiar face. No beard, but it would grow back. And, in all honesty, he didn’t miss it.
He couldn’t deny that he had derived a certain thrill from feeling handsome again. As ridiculous and shallow as that sounded, he’d enjoyed watching people’s expressions when they saw him for the first time. Surprise, interest, praise, desire.
The last had been obvious in Rachel’s eyes. And the feeling had been mutual.
Her sexy red dress had reminded him of a candle flame—mesmerizing and hot. Had he liked the lust and admiration he’d read in her eyes? Hell, yes. His first impulse had been to sweep her into his arms and carry her, caveman-style, to a remote corner and make out until dawn.
But those raw, unguarded emotions were exactly what he’d been attempting to avoid all these years. Bad things happened when you took your eye off the ball. And all the money, fame, beautiful women and booze in the world couldn’t fix you. His New York lifestyle had been as big a sham as this one was, only it cost more. Literally and emotionally. He’d paid the price in terms of health and self-respect.
Talking to Rachel’s mother had made him realize how important Rachel had become to him. How much she’d changed things in such a short time. And understanding that, he’d reacted much the same way he had after his agent pulled the rug out from under him. He’d run.
So much for the Zen of personal growth.
He turned his back on his reflection. One of his mother’s favorite sayings had been, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” He understood that, now.
Rachel’s mother was right—if for the wrong reasons. He needed to put a halt to the attraction between him and Rachel. For both their sakes. He knew from experience that rebound affairs rarely lasted. Only a pathetic fool would start something that was bound to end badly.
“I need to focus on business,” he told his dogs.
All three sets of ears perked up, impressed, no doubt, by his decisive tone.
He kicked off his shoes and charged up the spiral staircase. He had a new plan. He’d build Dreamhouses all night and sleep during the day when Rachel was in her office. He wouldn’t back out of their agreement, even if it killed him to be around her.
An hour later, he pushed his current project away with a snarl of frustration. “Damn.”
His focus was a mess. He was tempted to blame the alcohol but he knew better. It was Rachel. The memory of her smile the moment she realized the stranger in the nice suit was Rufus was one he couldn’t quit replaying in his head. Her shapely legs and sexy heels. The way her dress clung to her womanly shape. The wounded-kitten look in her eyes when her mother harangued her.
With a grunt of capitulation, he stood.
He checked the clock. Eleven-thirty. Too early to go to bed, too late to start a bath.
After tossing a couple of logs in the wood-burning stove, he trudged back to his workbench. The dogs hadn’t moved from their cozy spots by the fire. He didn’t blame them. Today had been a long, confusing day. He halfway wished he had a few pharmaceuticals in his medicine cabinet. Doctors were always happy to prescribe drugs for celebrities.
He stopped at the foot of the steps that led to the second floor. “Maybe I’d feel more inspired if I saw some of the new orders,” he murmured.
Pausing at the landing, he looked around. The place had Rachel’s stamp on it everywhere, neat and orderly yet fun. Two bumper stickers were tacked to the bulletin board a foot or so to the right of her desk. One read Namaste. The other said The Drink in Front of Me is Cheaper Than a Frontal Lobotomy.”
He snickered at that.
He bypassed the U-shaped packing center and walked straight to her desk. Her laptop was open. He settled into her chair and moved the mouse to activate the computer. He smiled at her wallpaper—one of his Dreamhouses. His fingers hovered over the icon that would take him directly to his new Web site.
After a few seconds of silent debate, he clicked on a popular search engine icon, instead. At the prompt, he typed in his former professional name: R. J. Milne.
To his surprise, the search revealed several hundred links, ranging from official fan club to dozens of magazine attributions. One in particular caught his eye: R. J. Milne voted sexiest kisser in print ad.
He clicked on it. A second later the screen was filled with an image of his body, clad only in the briefest of white briefs, kneeling over a voluptuous woman in a string bikini. Their lips were barely touching but the connection seemed to cry hot sex.
If he closed his eyes, he could picture the shoot. Mid-November. Colder than hell. A drafty midtown Manhattan warehouse. The photographer was famous—and infamous. He traveled with no less than fourteen flunkies and he shrieked at them constantly, using profanities unlike anything Rufus had heard up to that time. The female model had the best body money could buy, but Rufus had seen her pop a handful of pills—he didn’t know or care what kind—dry, no water, right before they started posing. Even a few ounces of water might show up as bloat if you weren’t careful, he’d once heard a female model say.
“Did you screw her?” a voice asked from behind him.
His momentary jolt of shock dissipated quickly once he glanced over his shoulder. Rachel. He’d been so engrossed in his trip down memory lane he hadn’t heard her come in. And, neither, apparently, had his ferocious guard dogs.
“Not so much as a whimper,” he muttered under his breath as he turned to look at her.
She must have come straight from the party because she was still wearing her slinky red dress under her puffy jacket. It was a cold night and nylons couldn’t have provided much warmth. He started to stand, intending to lead the way to the fire, but she stopped him. “That is you, isn’t it? I don’t recognize the name, but the rest of you looks familiar.”
He glanced at the screen. “I didn’t sleep with her,” he said, truthfully. “Not for lack of trying, but my agent failed to tell me this was a one-on-one shot. Afterward, I heard that she referred to me as ‘scampi breath’.”
The corners of her mouth flickered but she didn’t smile. “You left the party without saying goodbye. That’s really bad date etiquette—especially when there’s money on the line.”
“I know. I planned to apologize in the morning.”
“That’s not good enough. I couldn’t spend the rest of the night wondering what I did to make you leave.”
A knifelike pain caught him right under the sternum. Good Lord, it nev
er occurred to him she’d blame herself, but it made sense. Wasn’t she still beating herself up about her divorce? Even though her lowlife ex deserved the majority of the blame?
“It wasn’t your fault, Rachel.”
She crossed her arms. “So what happened? Did Mother verbally rip you to shreds? Was the crowd too much? What?” She put out one hand before he could answer. “If you tell me you found another woman, I’ll be right back with a gun.”
He had to grip the arms of the chair to keep from launching himself across the space between them to take her in his arms. “It was me, Rachel. Just me. I think I had a mild panic attack.”
Instantly, her expression turned sympathetic, and she took a step forward. Now, it was his turn to hold up a hand. “I thought I could handle a small social gathering like that, but apparently not. When your mother and I finished our discussion, she went outside and I went looking for you. Someone said you were in the kitchen with Santa.” He paused, wondering if he should mention the spurt of jealousy that ripped through him. An emotion so foreign and unexpected, he felt a momentary burst of panic.
“I was fixing Eli’s borrowed costume.”
He nodded. “I know. I saw you.” Laughing and joking with an insider’s ease. Something he’d never known and always envied. Even at the height of his popularity and earning power, he’d felt like a fake. A fraud. A small-town rube who would be kicked back to South Dakota when the truth came out. “Men in red suits scare me,” he joked.
He could tell she didn’t believe him.
“Have you seen a doctor for the problem? They make drugs for—” She stepped closer. “Why are you smiling?”
“Doctors and I don’t get along. I’ve seen more than my share. I’m healthy, productive, self-sufficient…as long as I stay within my comfort zone and avoid all things Christmas. What’s wrong with that?”
She stuck her hands in her pockets and frowned. “Nothing, I guess. If that’s all you want out of life. But I watched you tonight, Rufus. You worked the room like a social networking pro. Everyone was blown away—partly by your looks, partly by how friendly and easygoing you were. Most said they’d never seen that side of you. Were you acting?”
The question gave him pause. He wasn’t sure how to answer. “I used to be the king of schmooze. I could talk to anybody. People—especially women—were always hanging around me. Now, it’s me and the dogs. They don’t require a lot of small talk.”
“You don’t seem uncomfortable talking to me. Is that an act, too? Has my presence been a burden and you were too polite to say so?”
He could tell that idea hurt her. “No. You’re different than most people. You and Kat both accept me the way I am.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right,” she said dryly. “You mean until the moment I asked you to shave your beard and pretend to be someone you’re not.”
But who am I? Is it possible there’s still some of the old R. J. Milne in me?
“I was certain that was why you left without saying goodbye. Because you were mad at me. Hiring you to be my date was dumb, but asking you to shave and be someone you’re not was worse. I really am sorry, Rufus.”
He believed her, but before he could tell her that he didn’t regret being her date, she added, “But you do look great. Not that you looked bad with a beard, but…well…the other Rufus definitely wouldn’t have been posing with that woman—bad breath or not.”
To keep her from seeing his smile, he spun the chair around and tapped the mouse on the little X in the upper corner of the page. He quickly backed out of his search and opened the Dreamhouses Web site.
“I was going to check on new orders. I thought having a deadline might inspire me.”
Her heels made a crisp, all-business staccato on the floor as she cleared the distance between them. In his peripheral vision, he could see the shimmer of her elegant hosiery. “Go to the drop-down menu at the top and click Orders.”
He did. As they waited for the information to appear, she hopped up on the desk. “I saw the lights on in the house, but I didn’t stop. I knew you’d be here,” she told him, slipping off her jacket.
Her cocktail-length dress had long, fitted sleeves. It might have been warm, if not for the plunging neckline in back.
“Why?”
“Partly because you told Libby you had orders to fill and partly because work is my escape, too.”
He had to ask. “Did you and your mother have words?”
She threw up her hands with a look of consternation. “What is with all this old-fashioned, euphemistic talk?”
He had no idea what she meant so he didn’t say anything.
“Mom and I have two ways of communicating. Twitteresque—short and businesslike,” she explained. “Or in-your-face contentious. No middle ground. I don’t know why that is. Even when I’m trying to be a model daughter, she’s not happy with me. She doesn’t say so out loud, but when Mom is talking to me, I hear words like foolish, bullheaded, infantile, self-centered and inconsiderate in the subtext.”
“You aren’t any of those things as far as I can see. Have you tried telling her that?”
She shrugged, which made the fabric covering her left shoulder edge downward exposing more of her smooth, creamy neck. “It would probably help if we spoke the same language, but we don’t. She’s smart and pragmatic and practical. I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants girl. Mom hates not having a plan. I’ve never met a plan that didn’t need tweaking.”
He smiled at her answer. Maybe that was the reason he liked her so much. Because he knew all too well that the best laid plans weren’t worth the price of the paper they were written on. Stephen would attest to that. If he were still alive.
She leaned down to see the screen, so he angled the unit more her way. With a couple of key strokes, she brought up the newest orders. Several included comments in the box she’d thoughtfully provided for customer feedback.
He read the first one.
I luv these things. Smart idea. You saved my butt where buying a gift for my sister is concerned. Merry Xmas.
Dave.
“We’ve gotten a lot like that,” she said. “But there’s one in here that you’ll really like.”
She scooted sideways for balance. Her left leg hung down but her right curled under her slightly, opening a gap above her knees. Rufus gulped and intensified his focus on the screen.
She leaned closer, her perfume beckoning.
“Here it is.”
She turned the screen his way. Rufus had to blink twice to remember what he was supposed to be doing. Reading. Regaining his purpose and focus. Right.
The note was brief.
My mom is sick. I’m gonna write a get-well note every night to put in this Dreamhouse. Some hope is better than none. Thank you and God bless.
“Sweet, huh?”
“Sad,” he said, closing the screen.
She nodded. “Can you tell me why you went from the man in that photo to hiding behind long hair and a beard?”
He rocked back in the chair and sighed. “When I first started modeling, I did a lot of underwear ads. But what they were really selling was sex.” He snorted. “You weren’t far off when you called me a gigolo.”
“Why’d you quit?”
“Overexposure.” True, because overexposure to tanning beds and beach shoots probably contributed to his cancer. But he wasn’t ready to talk about that. He’d swallowed a lifetime of sympathy after Stephen died. He didn’t need or want hers.
She didn’t say anything for a minute. “So, you shucked your modeling career to move to the Black Hills. You must have been pretty successful if you could afford to build a new home and a shop and not work for several years.”
“I made a lot of money.”
“Wouldn’t you call that successful?”
He rubbed his jaw with his thumb, lost for a second in how soft and strange his skin felt. Her cough brought him back to her question. “When you’re young and caught up in a glamorou
s lifestyle, it takes a while to figure out that wealth doesn’t equal happiness—no matter what people want to believe.”
Her expression turned sad. “You won’t get an argument from me on that one. But now you’re working hard again to earn money. What happened to your funds? Taxes? Bad investments?”
“The latter.”
“Bummer.”
He smiled at the understanding look in her eyes. She was a caring, generous person. Honest, too. Too bad he hadn’t hired her to handle his money back in the day. He might have, if he’d known her at the time.
A small regret in a lifetime of big ones.
“So, your former career choice is your deep, dark secret?”
One of them. “Why tell people about your past when it’s over? I burned my bridges when I came here. Libby’s grandmother told me the Hills are tolerant of people who come here to start again. Isn’t that why you came?”
She sat up primly. Sexy and proper at the same time. Not a look that was easy to pull off, but she did so with aplomb.
“I definitely needed a fresh start. Sentinel Pass was the most likely choice because I’m too big a coward to strike out on my own.” He heard her mother behind that comment and didn’t like it. “In my own defense, however, having my brother nearby makes sense from a client-building and contact-list point of view, wouldn’t you agree?”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. She might have issues with her mother, but he knew from experience that no matter how difficult and convoluted someone’s relationship with a parent, they’d defend them to the death.
“But I didn’t come here to talk about myself.”
“Why did you come?”
Her lips pursed. “To make sure you were okay. My ex called Mom a vampire cheerleader because every pep talk ends with bloodletting.”
He snickered at that. “Your mother reminded me of my former agent, Marianne. I overheard someone call her cold to her face and she replied that everything she knew about business she learned from a man.”
“Hmm. Interesting. Dad always said Mom was the strong one in the family.” Her thumb fiddled absently with her bottom lip. Reminding him of how much he’d enjoyed kissing her. “Jack and I weren’t allowed to criticize her around Dad. Even when she was pushing him to fight a battle he couldn’t win.” She shook her head. “A long, sad story. I should go.”
Until He Met Rachel Page 14