Читать книгу She's Got Mail!: She's Got Mail! / Forget Me? Not - Darlene Gardner, Colleen Collins - Страница 12

AT 8:30 P.M., after a business dinner meeting, Ben eased his BMW up the driveway of his house in the outskirts of Chicago. Home sweet ranch-style home. The one place in the world where he could walk in and—except for his dog, Max—be alone. No ex-fiancées. No ex-wives. And no space nabbers nabbing his space.

He punched a button above the rearview mirror. The electric garage door opened and he drove inside. The back of the garage was lined with tool-filled shelves. Mixed in with the saws, drills and toolboxes were remnants of abandoned hobbies: a baseball mitt, a pair of inline skates, a battered trumpet case.

He got out and pressed the button on a side wall. As the garage door creaked closed, he looked up at the ceiling from which hung a kayak, an abandoned hobby he’d often dreamed of resurrecting. At one time—Nine years ago? Ten?—he’d loved kayaking down rivers. Feeling the heat of the sun on his skin. Hearing the slap of water against the hull—a hull now covered with dust. He’d even fantasized about kayaking in some exotic locale—like New Guinea or Africa—and taking photographs. Fitting a key into the door lock, he wondered where unused dreams went. Milwaukee?

The door opened into his kitchen, which was filled with the soothing strains of classical music. He always left the radio playing for his dog. Late afternoon, various lights also turned on automatically. “Max?” he called out, looking across the kitchen at the nearly closed sliding door that led into the living room. Through the narrow opening, his Brittany spaniel would stick its nose, nudging and sniffing the air, anxious to greet his master.

But tonight, no nose greeted Ben.

“Max?” he called again, checking the blinking light on the phone. Clients. More legal problems, questions, issues. They could wait. Right now he needed to unwind, chat with Max, do anything but play lawyer.

Still no nose.

Ben crossed the linoleum floor and slid open the door. “Maxwell?”

But instead of the scrabble of dog toenails on the living room hardwood floor, he heard the sharp click click of high heels.

“Not Maxwell, darling. Meredith.” His ex-wife halted in the living room, center stage, and smiled so broadly, the white rectangles of her teeth looked eerily like the white wood-paneled blinds behind her.

“How’d you get in?” Ben looked around. In her deranged postaffair state, maybe she’d cut a hole in a window with that mega-ice-cream-diamond ring Dexter wanted back.

“No hello?” Those blindingly white teeth disappeared behind a pout.

“Hello,” he snapped, scanning the room. “Did you break in to steal another couch?”

Meredith threw her head back and laughed. Ben flinched as one of her hairdo chopsticks came precariously close to getting tangled in his ficus tree. As he debated whether to make a mad lunge to save the tree, she raised her head and propped her hands on her kimono-clad hips. “Darling, darling. I’m not stealing a couch. Or a chair. Or any coatracks.” She opened her arms so wide, he feared she’d break into a song from The Sound of Music. “I’m—” she paused dramatically “—re-modeling your bathroom!”

He stared at her so long, he felt that same eyelid start to go numb.

“Say something!” Meredith gushed, her arms still open.

“You broke into my house to remodel my bathroom?” This had to be a first. A thief who doesn’t steal, but remodels.

She dropped her arms, which fell with a soft fwop against the silky kimono getup. “I didn’t break in,” she said peevishly. “I used the key hidden under the brick.”

“The brick?”

“The third one—the loose one—on the outside of the brick patio. We wrapped the house keys in a plastic bag and stuck it under there…remember?”

He’d almost forgotten. Which was easy to do considering his backyard patio was a sea of bricks. A big, round brickred sea. Something Meredith had had installed as a good-will gift after their ill-willed divorce…the divorce where she got to keep the house, the car, the antiques. But worst of all, she’d insisted—and pleaded and cried—that she wanted to keep their golden retriever, Bogie.

That was a painful trot down memory lane.

Ben had only been bitter over losing Bogie. That dog had been his pal, his kayaking buddy, his confidante. Newly single and worse, Bogie-less, Ben had crashed on his friend Matt’s couch for several months until Ben found this small, affordable ranch home in suburban Chicago. Meredith, knowing Ben loved the massive brick fireplace at their old home, took it upon herself to bestow him with a brick patio. He had thought it a gracious gift until Ben discovered Meredith had just broken up with a bricklayer.

He still wondered what their sex life had been like.

At that moment, Max trotted into the living room, his short tail wagging double time. Max rarely got anxious. Had to be Meredith’s impromptu visit.

“How’d you think I got in?” she said, obviously more miffed that she’d been accused of breaking in than dismantling someone’s bathroom.

“Through the doggy door.”

“Doggy—? Hardly!” Meredith smoothed her hand over her dress. “My hips would get stuck.”

An image that filled Ben with a moment of deliciously perverse pleasure. Meredith, stuck in the doggy door. He’d take his sweet time calling for help. Feign deafness to her calls for assistance as he popped open a beer, sat in his favorite chair and, with Max leaning against him, read the paper for, oh, thirty, forty minutes before calling the fire department.

“What are you thinking about?” Meredith said testily.

“Doggy doors. Fire departments.” Time to stop dawdling in day dreams and put a stopper on Meredith’s newest redecorating urge. He’d deal with little issues like breaking and entering later. “Leave my bathroom alone, Meredith,” he said in his best he-man no-nonsense tone. “A bathroom is a man’s castle.”

Max’s tail thumped against the floor, like an exclamation point to Ben’s statement.

Meredith dipped her head, barely missing the ficus tree again. “Well, as of today, your castle needs a new commode.”

He had to ponder that for a moment. “Toilet? Why? What happened—”

“And your castle also needs a new shower,” she said speedily, ignoring his question. “That blue-and-gold-speckled tile and grimy sliding-door look is passé.”

“To hell with passé. What happened to my toilet?”

“Well,” Meredith raised her eyebrows so high, they nearly blended in with her hairline. “After the moving men undid the bolts—”

“What were moving men doing in my bathroom?”

“How was I supposed to get a plumber at this hour?”

This logic was giving him a headache. He raised a warning finger when she started to speak. “Forget whoever was in my bathroom, just explain why they removed—” Forget asking. He made a beeline for his castle. The scrabbling of Max’s nails and the clicking of Meredith’s heels followed him down the hallway.

Right before he reached the bathroom, Meredith said, “I forgot to mention something. After that little explosion, we had to turn off the water….”

ROSIE, more than a little cranky from having to double-park her Neon in a spot barely large enough for a cow, shoved open her apartment door. After stepping inside, she closed the door, turned the lock and shoved the bolt. “Home Sweet Fortress,” she murmured. Back in Colby, they never locked doors. But in Chicago, she’d been counseled by her friend Pam to always lock her door. Any door. Car, apartment, whatever. “You get in and you lock it,” Pam had lectured with a dead-on And-I’m-not-kidding-around look.

Rosie tossed her keys into an upside down helmet on a coffee table. It had been her dad’s, from when he served in Vietnam. Years ago, he’d given her brothers mementos from that war—but nothing to her. She’d complained. Said even if she was a girl, she too wanted something that held meaning for him, something that got him through the war and back home. A few days later, he quietly walked into her bedroom and handed her his helmet. Obviously, he’d worn it, but she never knew he’d also used it as a food and water bowl for a German Shepherd war dog, an animal that had once saved his life.

Rosie now stared at the helmet, taking a moment to remember her dad’s stories. The husky timbre of his voice. The way he’d squint one eye when he wanted to drive home a point. The way he’d lightly tap her on the head, an unspoken I-love-you gesture. Typically, she tossed the keys into the helmet, which jangled and clattered as they hit bottom. If she didn’t toss the keys into the hat first thing upon getting home, she’d never find them again in the morning. But tonight, she gently placed them inside before settling onto the futon love seat and stretching out her five-three frame.

Silence.

This was always the toughest part of the day. These first few minutes of stony quiet after coming home. Because no matter how hard she listened, she wouldn’t hear her family’s voices, watch their comings and goings. At this point in the day, her heart always shrank a little as she yearned for how it used to be. She’d slam open the screen door, hear her mom’s voice, “Don’t slam…” Rosie, tossing a coat or book on a side table, would apologize for the slamming while waving hello to her dad. He’d be in his overalls, sitting in his favorite armchair, reading the paper while watching the news. Sometimes he’d catch a discrepancy in what he read and what he heard and loudly announce the difference, whether anyone was around to hear or not.

Scents of chicken or beef wafted from the kitchen, where her mother was making dinner. The meals were basic fare. Chicken and potatoes. Meat loaf and potatoes. Spam and potatoes. But every few weeks the dreaded meal appeared on the table. Everything Stew. A combination of chicken, meatloaf, Spam, potatoes and anything else that caught Mom’s eye. Once a piece of apple pie slid accidentally into the stew—which her mother proudly announced at the dinner table as though whoever bit into a piece of apple got a prize.

Rosie never dreamed she’d miss Everything Stew. But what she’d give right now to be sitting at the thick oak table, seeing the cast-iron pot appear, and suppressing her groan along with her father and her brothers. They’d exchange glances as they picked at the stew’s contents, watching as one or the other identified a fragment of a former meal.

Br-ring. Br-ring.

Jerked out of stew memories, Rosie listened for the source of the sound. Was it buried under that pile of magazines? Wedged under that pillow?

Br-ring. Br-ring.

“I’ve got to remember to put the phone in the same spot,” she muttered, tossing aside a pillow. Nothing. If the phone fit, she’d have kept it in the helmet along with her keys—then she’d never be in this predicament again! Shoving aside some magazines, her fingers hit something hard. The receiver! She yanked it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Rosie Posey?”

Recognizing her oldest brother’s voice, Rosie grinned. “Dillon!” She fell back onto the couch. “What’s up?”

“How’s our big-city girl?”

“Missing Mom’s Everything Stew.”

“Is food that awful in Chicago?”

“No.” Rosie giggled. “Just got a bad case of the lonelies.”

“Mom’s Everything Stew could give you a bad case of something else. Li’l sis, if you miss it that much, we’ll gladly send you a batch. The entire batch.”

Rosie laughed. “No thanks. It was a weak moment, not a special request. So what’s up? Usually you call on Saturday mornings.” Every Saturday morning, to be exact. Seven-thirty sharp. Rosie had an inkling it was her brother’s way to ensure she was safe. Not staying out too late—or worse, not coming home. Actually, it wasn’t just Dillon who called. All four of her brothers called, each taking a turn as though she wouldn’t catch on they were keeping tabs that way. But she didn’t mind. Such over-protectiveness meant they loved her. Wanted to watch over her. After all, she was the baby sister in a family of four boys.

“Thought you’d like a friendly reminder that this Sunday is Father’s Day,” Dillon said. “Pops checked the mailbox at lunch, then again before dinner.”

Dillon didn’t need to explain further. Her dad was looking for a card from Rosie. Her father was a big, rough-handed farmer with an even bigger, sensitive heart. More than once she’d caught her father brushing aside a tear while watching a sunset or listening to the church choir.

“It’ll be in the mail tomorrow. Promise.”

“That’s my Rosie Posey. How’s everythin’ going?”

She sighed, suddenly feeling the weight of the workday. “Busy. Got a promotion. Temporary, but at least I get to write for a while.”

“Write? You’re one of them magazine writers now?” Dillon, unlike her other brothers, had never pursued an education beyond high school. He loved the farm, which everyone knew he’d take over when her father couldn’t manage the land or care for the stock any longer. As her other brothers had their own careers, no one minded that Dillon would take over the family farm.

“Yes, I’m one of the magazine writers.” A minor exaggeration. But it didn’t seem necessary to admit she was actually the columnist filling in for Mr. Real.

“Writing articles about big-city life?”

“Sort of.” Didn’t seem necessary, either, to admit she was writing man-to-man advice on how to fend off ex-wives and ex-fiancées and space-nabbing women. Remembering her own space-nabbing adventure this morning, she stared at the splotches of dried mud on her skirt. That litigating lummox.

“Life treating you good?”

“Except for a certain guy, yes.”

There was a long pause on the other end. “What guy?”

She brushed at a stubborn splotch of dirt. “A jerk.” She’d only worn this skirt once, but now she’d have to take it back to the dry cleaners. Forget that he heated her imagination with fantasies of naked writhing; that jerk was costing her money!

“Jerk?”

“Yes, a jerk who’s trying to invade my space.”

“What happened?” Dillon asked gravely. “He still botherin’ you?”

“He’s going to bother me until he gets his way, that space-barging, space-stealing—” she was running out of space words “—mud-splattering jerko.” She glanced up at the clock and gasped. “It’s almost seven! Damn—” She squeezed shut her eyes. “I mean, darn. I forgot about Pam coming over. I told her I’d fix dinner and I haven’t done a thing.” There was some leftover chicken, a jar of pickles, and a half-eaten piece of cherry pie in the fridge. Suddenly she understood the reasoning behind her mother’s Everything Stew.

“Invaded your space? Bothering you until he gets his way?”

“Dillon, gotta go! A card will be in the mail to Dad tomorrow. I love you!”

She waited for his murmured “Love you, too” before she hung up.

THE SOOTHING STRAINS of a violin woke Ben up from a dream filled with moving men dressed like geishas, who were carrying orange cones, couches and commodes. He blinked sleepily at the clock radio and turned up the volume. Brandenburg Concerto no. 1. He smiled to himself. Was there a better way than Bach to get up in the morning? For a fleeting moment, he thought about waking up with Rosie, her warm body nestled against his. Those sleepy hazel eyes blinking at him, those luscious lips whispering, “Good morning.”

That definitely beat Bach as a better way to wake up.

Trying to ignore the hard jolt that seized his groin, Ben slid out of bed. He had to get up, get to work, not fantasize about that territorial, strong-willed—okay, and titillatingly attractive—woman. He headed across the carpeting to the bathroom, flipped the light switch and halted.

Something was different.

He rubbed his eyes, then scanned the white walls, white porcelain sink, the white—

“She stole my commode!” he barked, staring at the hole in the floor left by Meredith the Bathroom Marauder. His gaze swerved to the left. “And the shower door!” Shuffling from one foot to another on the cold tile floor, he recalled the cold facts from the night before.

He’d marched into the bathroom and first noticed the water. On the walls, the floor. While Max thumped his tail madly, Meredith had hurriedly explained something about the movers unbolting the commode, but forgetting to dismantle the main water pipe. With water spewing everywhere, they’d had to turn off the main water valve to the house.

But Meredith had promised everything would be better than new. She promised a plumber would fix the main pipe today. She’d left a case of bottled water. And she’d promised to show Ben some pictures of new commodes.

He hadn’t asked—hadn’t wanted to know—further particulars. It had been one hell of a day. He’d told Meredith, her orange-cone lips quivering, to fix things ASAP. Then he’d fixed Max’s dinner, fixed himself a Scotch on the rocks, then gone to bed, setting the alarm thirty minutes early so he could get to work early and shower, shave and dress in the exercise club located in his work building’s basement.

He glanced at a wall clock. Six-thirty. He had to step on it. After throwing on a pair of sweats and tennis shoes, Ben conversed with his dog while fixing his food. “Your master’s first wife—and God help me, last—wasn’t satisfied re-covering my office couch,” Ben grumbled, setting the dog’s bowl on the floor. “No, that woman had a demented need to tear apart my bathroom as well.” Ben gave Max a male-bonding pat on the head. “Take my advice, buddy. Don’t get married. And if you do, marry a dog who doesn’t need to control or redecorate you. This is your castle. Stand up for your rights.”

Max licked Ben’s face before chowing down.

Ben ran back upstairs and grabbed his workout bag—which he’d packed the night before with work clothes and bathroom supplies—then raced through the kitchen, stopping only to turn on the kitchen radio to keep Max company. Moments later, Ben backed out the driveway while wisps of orange and pink threaded the eastern sky. He could be at work by seven-fifteen, park, shower and dress, then move his car before Rosie showed up.

Twenty minutes later Ben careened down Clark before swerving sharply down an alley. After his car sailed over a bump, Ben cut the wheel sharply to the right…

“Wha-a-a-?” He slammed on the brakes, his front bumper nearly kissing the rear end of a tacky green economy car. Gripping the steering wheel, Ben glared through the windshield at the offending vehicle.

“What in the hell is this car doing here?” he yelled. How many people was Archibald Potter renting that space to?

Seething, Ben quickly went over the facts. At yesterday’s meeting, Potter had checked his computer records. The space had been rented to only two people. Which meant…

“That tacky green Neon belongs to Rosie,” Ben muttered ominously. Forget the earlier waking-up-in-bed fantasies, this was reality! “What is it with the women in my life? They’re either redecorating or invading my space!”

Ben slammed the gear into park and hopped out of the car.

Splash.

He blew out an exasperated breath before looking down. His sockless, sneaker-clad feet were standing in a pothole of muddy water. “Now I know where her mud-splattered look came from.” He stepped out of the hole. “But before I repark, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” He sloshed his way to the back doors of the building.

Minutes later, Ben returned to his car to find a square yellow truck halted behind his BMW. Even in the early-morning haze, he could clearly see the scowl on the truck driver’s face.

“Hey!” the guy yelled out his window, jabbing a cigarette at Ben. “Just ’cause you drive a Beemer, you think you can block traffic?”

Ben shrugged. “I had to use the men’s room.”

“What?”

Ben didn’t want to repeat the reason—the last thing he wanted was his entire office building to hear him yelling that he’d had to take a leak. But the slovenly, burly truck driver looked as though he’d kill if he didn’t get a valid excuse. Ben cleared his throat. Raising his voice, he repeated, “I had to use the men’s room.”

The driver blinked with great exaggeration. “How unusual—like the rest of us don’t.” He took an angry puff off a cigarette, letting the smoke stream out of his nostrils while he continued talking. “Other guys take leaks without causing traffic jams. You’re costing me time and money!”

“You’re right,” Ben answered, putting on his best mediating voice while putting his hand on the door handle. “I’m leaving.”

“Make it snappy!”

That did it. Ben, always the peacemaker, the good guy, snapped on the “snappy” comment. Enough was enough. If he wanted to park crooked—all right, and also block an alley—for ten lousy minutes, well by damn, he’d park crooked and not have to explain he was in the men’s room.

His face growing hot, he turned slowly and faced down the driver. “I said, ‘you’re right.’ So what’s the beef, Dog Breath?”

Ben’s mind raced. In horror, he wondered where he’d come up with the death wish to insult a guy who was twice—maybe three times—his size. And worse, he called him Dog Breath, a label he never used with anyone, even his dog Max. As these thoughts crowded Ben’s mind, Dog Breath threw open his door, jumped to the ground and marched right at him.

Ben prayed the mud hole—strategically placed between him and the trucker—would hinder the one-man death march.

No such luck.

Dog Breath stepped in and out of the hole as though it were a mere dent in the road. The death march continued, unabated. Next thing Ben knew, a big jowly face was inches from his own. He fought the urge to cough at the stench of cigarette smoke.

“My beef, Mr. Beemer, is that people like you think they own the road.”

Holding his breath, Ben stared at the man’s chest, which was a blur of plaid. He raised his gaze to the man’s beady eyes, which were difficult to see through the folds of fat. But Ben didn’t want to back down. Hell, he’d backed down long enough…to Meredith, to Heather, to Ms. Parking Space.

“If I’m costing you time and money,” Ben said, “why are you arguing with me, preventing me from getting in my car and moving out of your way?”

Dog Breath snatched a handful of Ben’s sweatshirt and jerked him closer. “I’m not arguin’,” he growled.

Ben would have growled back, but the tightly pulled sweatshirt was like a noose around his throat. “Physical violence,” he rasped, “never solved anything.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“All da better.”

The last thing Ben remembered was a chicken-size fist obliterating his vision.

ROSIE STARED at the flaxen-haired receptionist, who was studiously applying mascara with one hand while holding a small hand mirror with the other.

“If Benny said he’d meet you at seven-forty-five,” the receptionist said, her eyes never wavering from the hand mirror, “he’ll be here any minute. He’s very punctured.”

Rosie paused. “You mean punctual?”

“Yes,” the woman answered absently, adroitly twirling the mascara wand along her lashes.

Makeup. Rosie never understood why women took such pains to slather on that stuff. Rather than stare at the eyelash-thickening procedure, she checked out a painting over the receptionist’s head. It was a tropical beach under moonlight. Rosie eyed the pearly crest of waves along a dark beach, the spiked silhouette of palm trees, the man-in-the-moon face which was also…a clock? Rosie leaned forward. The moon was definitely a clock. What kind of office had a tropical painting with a clock for a moon? Lawyers. No sense of decor.

Rosie compared moon-time with her wristwatch. Both read 7:55. She crossed her arms under her chest. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly always on time herself, but hadn’t Mr. ILITIG8 said, “Not seven-fifty-five—seven-forty-five”?

Uh-huh. Real punctured.

The clattering of a dropped hand mirror interrupted Rosie’s thoughts.

“Benny!” The receptionist stood up, her voice rising with her. “Did you get mugged?”

Rosie turned to look.

If she’d run into this man on the street, she’d never have recognized him as the nattily dressed lawyer she’d met yesterday. Today he wore a soiled gray sweat suit that looked oddly stretched out around the neckline. His tennis shoes were caked with mud. His hair, which yesterday had been neatly parted on the side, stuck out in tufts that reminded her of the baby chickens back home. One hand clutched the handle of a workout bag—the other held a wadded white napkin to his chin.

Ben started to speak, but his voice was muffled behind the napkin. He moved it from his lips. “I wasn’t mugged,” he said gruffly, “I was slugged.”

“Is that a Starbucks napkin?” the receptionist asked, making Rosie wonder if this woman was more caught up with brands than injuries. “That’s why I prefer decaffeinated,” the receptionist said, jabbing her wand into the air for emphasis. “Too much caffeine makes people do weird things.”

Ben heaved a weighted sigh. “Heather, it has nothing to do with caffeine. A kindly convenience store cashier offered me this napkin filled with ice.”

“Wow,” Rosie said softly. “You can get everything at convenience stories these days. Even medical help.”

Ben flashed her a disbelieving look. In a low growl, he said, “It’s you.”

She straightened. “We had an appointment at seven-forty-five.” When his blue eyes narrowed, she bit her tongue, wishing she hadn’t blurted the appointment thing. The man obviously had a very good reason for being late.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding about as unsorry as anyone she’d ever met. “I would have been here on time, showered, dressed appropriately, and unslugged if somebody had gotten into work at a reasonable time, not some nocturnal predawn hour. Otherwise, I could have briefly used the shared space.” He clenched his jaw muscle, then winced. Adjusting the napkin, he glanced at Heather. “You’re early.”

“I was late yesterday, so I’m early today,” she said, adjusting a strap on her shift before sitting back down. “Making up for that hour.”

“Making up, all right,” he murmured, glancing at the mascara wand. “I’d love a Scotch,” Ben said to no one in particular, “but all I need is early-morning booze breath to complete this gone-to-hell look. After picking myself up from the alley asphalt, I had to park four blocks away. Do you believe on the way back, somebody mistook me for a vagrant and slipped me a quarter?” He gave his head a shake, then winced again. “But all’s not lost. Maybe Meredith can use this down-and-dirty, slugged look as a new theme when she breaks up with her next boyfriend.” He headed toward his office. “Would you be a pal and get me a cup of coffee? Black.” He disappeared through the doorway. “Like my heart.”

“Oh, I almost forgot! Your eight o’clock will be a few minutes late!” The receptionist brushed her hair back with her mascara-wand-free hand. “I’ve never seen him like this!” she whispered urgently to Rosie. “Even the time that Christmas tree fell on him and we had to call 911.”

“Christmas tree?” Rosie repeated, blinking. But the receptionist was engrossed in putting away the mascara and digging around in a little polka-dot bag from which she extracted various tubes and bottles. “I’ll get the coffee,” Rosie murmured, unsure who exactly Ben had called “pal,” considering he seemed a bit peeved with both of them.

Okay, maybe a little extra peeved with Rosie, but considering they had to negotiate sharing the parking space, she decided it was best if she were his pal. That’s what Athena, the goddess who joined men as an equal, would do. Yes! Athena was the perfect goddess persona to adopt for this encounter.

Rosie-Athena headed to an arrangement of coffee stuff on a corner metal table. Reaching it, she scanned the pot, sugar and cream containers, and the collection of Hollywood mugs. Rosie felt a mild surge of guilt as she recalled that the James Dean cup still sat on her desk. Well, she’d return it later. For now, should she pick the mug with the movie title Singin’ in the Rain? No. There might be sunshine outside, but Ben looked as though he were having a rainy day. And he definitely didn’t look as though he wanted to sing. Nix that one.

Blonde Venus? No. He’d visibly flinched when he’d glanced at that yesterday. My Fair Lady? Hmm. Some Like it Hot? Hot coffee. He’d like it. Yes!

Rosie poured the steaming liquid into the cup, checking out its picture of Marilyn Monroe wearing some clingy dress and playing a ukulele. Did Benjamin Taylor like that kind of big-breasted, blond-bombshell type? An uncomfortable feeling skittered around Rosie’s stomach. Maybe she’d quaffed her nutri-quasi-Twinkie bar too quickly. Still staring at Marilyn’s red lips, fluffy blond hair and killer curves, Rosie realized the skittering wasn’t indigestion—it was…emotion.

Jealousy?

Impossible. So what if Benjamin Taylor is impossibly cute, even with that chicken-tuft hair and a swollen jaw, how can I possibly be jealous about a slugged lawyer and a dead movie star? Even as these thoughts tumbled through her mind, some internal voice offered an answer. Because Marilyn Monroe represents everything you aren’t—she’s sensual, sexy, and has a body that could stop a herd of stampeding cattle.

Rosie put the pot aside and grabbed the My Fair Lady mug for herself. Audrey Hepburn—as Eliza Doolittle—wore an ill-fitting jacket, a wrinkled skirt and a smudge of soot on her nose. Is that how I look to men? Rosie tried to forget the clump of mud that had stuck to her forehead yesterday. She turned the mug and stared at another picture of Audrey Hepburn as the suave, refurbished Eliza Doolittle—an elegant, classy lady who eventually wooed her man.

Rosie stared longingly at the image. Maybe if Mom hadn’t been so busy helping run a farm and raising five kids—four of them boys—I might have learned the secrets of being feminine and elegant. Rosie slid a glance at the receptionist, who was carefully outlining her lips with some sort of pink-leaded pencil. I could never draw a straight line, much less outline my mouth. I’d slip, skid off my top lip and end up drawing a big wobbly circle around my nose.

As Rosie poured coffee into the My Fair Lady mug, a yearning filled her. A yearning to be a new Rosie. Not a lip-lining, movie-star Rosie. But an adventurous Rosie whose dreams were bigger than the gulch, bigger than Real Men magazine. Isn’t that what Boom Boom and Mr. Real had done? Escaped from humdrum to bongo drum?

Picking up the mugs, Rosie grinned. Too bad there wasn’t a goddess named Boom Boom, who inspired women to bongo their way from a mediocre life to an exciting one. Rosie paused. Just as she stirred sugar and milk into her coffee, why couldn’t she also stir a little Boom Boom into her Athena?

With an extra oomph to her step, Rosie strutted into Ben’s office.