Читать книгу Sweet Harmony - Felicia Mason - Страница 11

Before Kara even moved, the door burst open and a whirlwind blew in wearing jeans and a cropped T-shirt, a riot of corkscrew curls cascading down its back.

Kara groaned. “I’m sorry about this,” she told Marcus.

“Sorry about what?”

“Oh, my gosh. It’s really you!”

Marcus put down the forkful of breakfast casserole and stared up at the young woman. Then, remembering his manners, he rose.

“Patrice, Marcus. Marcus, this is Patrice Spencer, my sister. Your number one fan.”

“Well, hello. It’s always nice…”

She grabbed his arm, then let it go as if she’d been burned. “I have every one of your CDs.” To prove it, she plopped a gold tote bag on the table and then upended it. CD cases clacked against the table, and several of them hit the floor.

Marcus reached for them at the same time as Kara. The two bumped heads and then hands. A jolt of electricity ran up Kara’s arm. Her gaze connected with his and she felt again that sense of awareness, an inexplicable bond.

“I…”

“I’ll get them,” he said.

Kara nodded and rose. “Have you eaten?”

Patrice pulled out a chair and sat gazing at Marcus, a dreamy smile filling her face. “I just can’t believe.”

Kara waved a hand in front of her sister. “Hello. Earth to Patrice.”

“Here you go.” Marcus handed the CD cases to her.

“I can’t believe you’re really here. Right at my kitchen table.”

He glanced up at Kara. “Your kitchen table?”

Patrice blushed prettily. “Well, you know what I mean. What’s mine is hers, and vice versa.”

Kara set a plate in front of Patrice.

She helped herself to apples and some of the casserole. “There’s a mob over at the B and B. I think they’re looking for you.”

Marcus winked at her. “That’s why I’m over here.”

Kara thought her sister might swoon. A playful wink from Marcus Ambrose would provide at least six to eight months of quality retelling.

It was easy to see why Patrice was so infatuated with him. Marcus was easy on the eyes. But a relationship needed more than smoky eyes and a playful smile. Kara, while not actively looking for companionship, wanted more substance than style, more commitment than flash and dash. That’s why she and Howard Boyd made a great team. Howard didn’t upset her equilibrium.

With intense dark looks that radiated sex appeal both from his album covers and on the big screen, Marcus Ambrose was definitely the flash-and-dash type. Then there was that smile. Kara studiously ignored the little flip in her midsection when that smile—that Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Mel Gibson melt-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hands smile—was aimed her way.

Since at the moment Patrice found herself the lucky benefactor of that gift, Kara figured it was time to make her getaway. Something akin to jealousy flickered through her. Patrice could get cozy with her hero, and Kara could get back to her laundry and then work on the grant application, without distractions.

She had to remind herself that she liked confident men, not cocky ones, and he’d definitely been full of himself last night.

As if on cue, Patrice asked, “So what’s this challenge between you two?”

“There is no challenge,” Kara said. “It was just hype for the television cameras. Mr. Ambrose was merely drumming up attendance and support for the film and music festival.”

“Actually,” he said, the word a slow drawl that Kara found oddly disconcerting, “I was serious. And so were you, Dr. Kara. You were quite passionate in your belief that those in the entertainment industry are a bunch of selfish, self-serving prima donnas.”

Kara winced. “I never said that.”

“But that’s how it came across. What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”

“She’s our resident headshrinker,” Patrice said.

“I am not a psychiatrist.”

Patrice tossed her head, and curls spilled over her shoulder and down her back. “She’s a psychologist. But lately she’s been spending more time cooped up with books than with patients.”

“I don’t maintain an active practice. You know that, Patrice.”

“So you’re writing a book?”

Flattered that he’d think she had the skills to write a book, Kara smiled. But the smile and the good feeling toward him disappeared in the next moment.

“I hope you’re not doing one of those female empowerment books.”

“What’s the matter, Mr. Ambrose, are you afraid that a thinking woman will see beyond the veneer?”

He smiled. “No, Dr. Kara. I’m looking forward to one who has the guts to try.”

Something in his tone—a real challenge, perhaps?—put Kara on alert. She sensed he spoke of more than what he actually said. He’d surprised her last night, and he seemed to have more surprises at the ready. “Forewarned is forearmed, Mr. Ambrose.”

“Let the games begin,” he said.

“See, that’s his problem,” Kara told her best friend a few hours later. She and Haley Cartwright Brandon-Dumaine sat at an outdoor table on the patio café at Pop’s Ice Cream & Malt Shoppe. “Everything’s a game.”

The two women made an eye-catching pair, each wholesomely pretty in her own way—Haley’s golden blond look to Kara’s rich caramel. Friends for years, the two claimed to covet the other’s assets, Haley wanting Kara’s petite figure and Kara wanting Haley’s tall, lush curves.

“Lighten up,” Haley said. “You looked great on television. And just think what the exposure will do for your programs—not to mention that JUMP grant you’re applying for. You could say you’ve appeared with Marcus Ambrose. And that would be true.”

Kara nodded. Getting that JUMPstart Activism community block grant would go a long way toward establishing two of the outreach projects she’d long advocated. According to the program material and the level of funding Kara sought, the granting committee liked applicants to already have established a support base in the community, a base that could be counted on to get the word out and act as foot soldiers.

To those looking in from the outside—people like superstar Marcus Ambrose—Wayside might appear to be an idyllic community, a perfect little slice of Americana. But Wayside had its fair share of problems. From homelessness to poverty.

Patrice was right, and so was Haley. Kara spent more time with her pet projects than she did with some of her original client work. She’d slowly phased that out of her practice, converting it instead into a one-woman resource bank for people in need.

She nodded her agreement, then scooped up the last of the hot fudge on her sundae. “Maybe I can turn this around into something worthwhile.”

Marcus Ambrose wanted to have a little amusement at her expense. Well, Kara could prove her point and win this so-called challenge.

Haley narrowed her eyes at Kara. “I don’t like that look in your eyes.”

Kara smiled and spread out her hands. “I’ve nothing to hide,” she said. “But I’m not above taking advantage of an opportunity.”

“What are you up to?”

“I just figured out how to best Mr. Ambrose at his own game. He wants to carry out this challenge. Well, he can start by picking up some of the slack on the Adopt-a-Spot program.”

Haley’s brown eyes widened. “He’s a star. I don’t think picking up trash is going to sit well. You can’t make him get down and dirty like that.”

Kara’s grin said otherwise. “Then he can help build a house for a low-income family.”

Shaking her head, Haley didn’t look convinced that either plan would work. “Matt is going to invite him to sing at a service one Sunday while he’s here.”

Kara wasn’t too thrilled about Marcus getting ensconced at their church. Haley ran the Sunday school division, while her husband, Matt Brandon-Dumaine, led the music ministry at Community Christian Church. Since he was a former nationally known gospel singer, it stood to reason that he’d want to connect with a fellow musician.

Nevertheless, she would have expected Marcus to hook up with one of the town’s larger churches, one that would showcase him to the largest number of people. With its 250 families, Community Christian was hardly a first stop on a celebrity tour—that, after all, was why Matt had sought refuge there.

“What did Reverend Baines have to say about that?”

Haley flashed her right hand in what was apparently meant as a careless, carefree gesture. Diamonds sparkled. “You know Cliff. He’s always excited about spreading the word through any ministry that will reach people.”

“And what’s this?” Kara reached for her friend’s hand, a twinkle in her eye as she waved her other hand around as Haley had been doing.

“I thought you’d never notice.” A big grin filled Haley’s face as she wiggled her fingers. “Matt gave it to me. To mark our first anniversary.”

Kara appropriately oohed and aahed over the anniversary band. “I can’t believe you guys have been married for a year already. What happened to the time?”

Since the question was obviously rhetorical, Haley didn’t respond to it. She instead asked one of her own.

“Guess what I gave him?”

“What?”

“A calendar.”

Kara groaned. “Haley, honey, you’re not really supposed to follow that anniversary guide from the card stores. Paper is so, well, cheap. Unless, of course, it’s stock options or bonds. And even those aren’t worth much in today’s economy.”

Haley’s eyes sparkled as much as her ring. The late-afternoon sun hit the blond highlights in her hair, providing what looked a lot like a halo around the Sunday-school director. “This was a special calendar. It had a date highlighted on it.”

Kara lifted her brow in an “And?” expression.

“And that date is almost nine months away. Well,” she added on a shrug, “it was almost nine months away when I had the calendar made.”

But Kara’s squeal drowned out the last of Haley’s words. The two friends were up and hugging each other, Kara crying and Haley beaming. Kara eyed her friend’s flat stomach.

“When? When are you due?”

Haley gave her the details. Marcus’s appearance at their church forgotten, the two women spent the rest of their time together talking about baby names and nursery colors.

That’s how Marcus and his entourage found them.

“Man, this place looks like it got lost in a time warp. Talk about Mayberry R.F.D.” someone said.

“It doesn’t look like Mayberry. It is,” another one of Marcus’s hangers-on said, casting a glance about Main Street.

Kara and Haley looked up at the crowd of people surrounding their outdoor table. Marcus and about six others stood not three feet away. The woman with the headset and clipboard stood sentinel at Marcus’s side, though she seemed to be having a rather heated conversation with someone. She touched him on the arm and motioned her head. Marcus nodded and she slipped away, pressing the earpiece closer and saying, “I don’t care how much it costs….”

“Good afternoon, ladies,” Marcus greeted them, the trademark smile operating at force ten on the weak-in-the-knees scale.

Haley, instantly charmed, held out a hand introducing herself when Kara didn’t seem inclined to do so.

“Hi, I’m Haley Brandon-Dumaine. It’s a pleasure meeting you. Welcome to Wayside.”

“Thank you.”

“If you’d like any information on the town, I volunteer over at the library and I’m also on the historical committee, so don’t be a stranger.”

Marcus smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And you know Kara.”

He smiled. “Yes, I know Dr. Kara.”

For her part, Kara couldn’t believe that he’d rendered her speechless.

Patrice needs to come get her man, she thought, because he’s wreaking havoc with my senses. She tried to bring up a mental image of Howard, her on-again, off-again companion and escort—he could hardly be called a boyfriend. But Howard’s squinting image blurred in her mind with a computer monitor, just like the one he always sat in front of. An IT specialist, Howard Boyd lived and breathed computers. They’d last gone out three weeks ago—to a computer show and sale. It was his idea of a hot date, her idea of purgatory.

“Hello, Dr. Kara.”

She nodded. “Mr. Ambrose.” A man with a video camera edged around the group and aimed his equipment toward Haley and Kara. “I see you’re still being hounded by the local media.”

Marcus glanced at the cameraman. “Actually, he’s with me. I went back to the bed-and-breakfast, made a statement over at the college and gave a few personal moments and we’re all clear.”

Gave a few personal moments. For some reason that statement didn’t sit well with Kara. It was as if he could just push all the right buttons and get just what he wanted in his charmed world.

“We’re just doing a little filming to get a record of the town.”

“A video scrapbook,” Kara muttered.

“Yes, something like that.” He reached into his pocket, came up empty and called for the clipboard woman. “Nadira.”

She turned, and was instantly at his side holding out four slim tickets.

“I’d like you to be my guests at the opening reception for the film and music festival. It’s a blacktie gala followed by a miniconcert.”

“Why, we’d love to,” Haley said. “My husband is a musician, as well.”

“I look forward to meeting him. And you?” he said, addressing Kara. “Will you be bringing a date, as well?” His voice clearly conveyed the message that he hoped she wouldn’t.

Standing tall, Kara nodded. “Yes, of course.”

Marcus fingered his goatee. “That’s too bad. I should have known someone as pretty as you already had a boyfriend.”

“Oh, Kara doesn’t have a…” A quelling look from Kara silenced Haley. “Uh, what I meant was—”

“We double-date all the time,” Kara smoothly interjected. “So my friend and I look forward to your event. Tell me, Mr. Ambrose. Do you ever go anywhere alone?”

He smiled. “Would you care to find out?”

Kara blushed and backed down on the verbal aggression.

After a couple of people in Marcus’s group got ice cream cones to go, the entourage moved on. Haley turned to Kara.

“What was that about a boyfriend and double-dating? Since when are you dating anyone?”

Kara dropped her head into her hands. “I cannot believe I said that.”

“Neither can I. And where are you going to get a date for—” she glanced at the tickets “—Friday night?”

Kara looked miserable. Without even trying, Marcus Ambrose made her reckless. “That’s a good question. Maybe Howard is free.”

Haley wrinkled her nose. “He’s a computer whiz, but Kara, he’s…” She floundered for a word.

“Boring?”

“Well, there is that.”

“Haley, what have I gotten myself into?” Then she had a brainstorm. “What about Amber’s brother?”

Haley shook her head. “He’s out of the country. Deacon Prentiss from church can always be counted on as an escort, though.”

“Great,” Kara said, her shoulders slumped. “Just what I need to impress Marcus—an eighty-year-old pity date.”

The next afternoon Kara found herself no closer to landing a date to the gala than she’d been at Pop’s the day before. According to his voice mail, Howard was at an IT conference in Seattle. He’d left a phone number where he could be reached, as well as a pager number and an instant e-mail address—all in the event of an emergency.

“This is an emergency,” Kara mumbled.

But she didn’t page him, phone him or e-mail him.

She was about to pick up the phone and call in a favor with one of her male cousins when a truck backed into her driveway and over the flower bed that marked her property line with the house next door. She dropped the phone and scrambled outside.

“Hey! Hey, what are you doing?”

The truck driver looked out his window and winced. “Sorry about that, lady.” He drove forward a bit, then cut the engine, hopping down from the cab. Kara heard the other door slam, as well.

Her carefully tended flower bed was in ruins, the V-grooved treads of two tires running right down the middle of her impatiens.

“What are you doing?”

He held out one of those electronic order processing boards for her signature. “Furniture’s here.”

“Furniture? I didn’t order any—”

“Yoo-hoo! Excuse me.” A moment later Miss Ever Efficient, today in a lime-green miniskirt suit, tiptoed around the ruined flower bed. “We’re over here.” The woman made it to where they stood without getting her heels caught in the lawn. Kara had to admire the skill—and the shoes.

Her gaze was still on the shoes when another set of feet appeared. This one looked to be about a size twelve encased in Timberlands. Her stomach knotted, and Kara knew even before her gaze roamed up the man’s body and landed on his face.

“You.”

He grinned. “Hello, Dr. Kara. I seem to be bad news for flowers in this town. Maybe I need to buy some greenhouse stock. Nadira?”

“I’ll have quotes for you this afternoon.”

“My fl…”

Before Kara could get the rest of the words out, he’d motioned to the assistant, who nodded.

“Hello, Dr. Spencer. I’m Nadira,” she said, extending a hand for a quick, efficient handshake. “We’re very sorry about the lawn. I’ll have a landscaper over here to fix it pronto.” She then directed the delivery driver to the house next door and started talking on her phone again.

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you, I rented a house.”

“But…” Kara waved a hand at her home, and then at—his! “But that one is…it’s right next to mine.” She pointed back and forth between the two houses as if they might disappear if she blinked. “You can’t possibly plan to live there.”

“Not me. My staff and I,” he quickly added. “We’re all set up, except for furniture.”

“But…”

“I was glad to see there’s a path between the two houses.”

Kara winced as she looked back at the winding stone path that led from her back door to the neighboring one. Laid by her next-door neighbor’s late husband, the path had linked the two homes in fellowship and friendship for more than forty years. Kara had kept up the tradition when she moved in five years ago. The now treacherous path had been perfect when Mrs. Abersoll lived in the house next door. Kara had checked on her elderly neighbor every day. Together they’d maintained the flower beds that ran the length of the driveways. But Mrs. Abersoll had gone on to be with the Lord six months ago, and her big house had remained empty. Until now.

“So, we’re neighbors,” Marcus said.

Kara wondered how fast shrubs could grow in place of the flowers.

“So I see,” she said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into her voice.

It was one thing to be friendly toward Marcus Ambrose when she thought he lived across town in one of the big houses on Cherryville Drive. It was another completely to have to face him not just on the unlikely off chance that their paths would cross at a shop in town or one Sunday morning at Community Christian, but every single day! Kara’s sunroom faced his kitchen. If she sat in her favorite chair, he’d think she was staring straight at him.

He was an R & B singer, at that. Would a band take up residence in the garage, disturbing the tranquillity of their tree-lined street with their practices and late-night musicians’ hours?

And even more important, would Kara be able to tamp down the flicker of jealousy she felt every time the able-bodied Nadira sidled up to Marcus with her ever-ready clipboard and telephone?

Kara knew herself to be more than able and efficient, but the fact that she’d worked herself into an emotional frenzy in fifteen seconds flat didn’t bode well—and over someone whose lifestyle she couldn’t respect. She promised to do some deep breathing exercises—just as soon as she established the ground rules with him.

“It looks like these two houses have a connection,” he said.

“Yes,” replied the conversationalist.

“I hope we’ll be good neighbors and can maintain it.” He smiled. “You never know when one of us might need a cup of sugar.”

“Sugar. Yes, well.” Kara watched his mouth say the words, but her mind was elsewhere, like on the lyrics to one of his songs. Something about a cup of love. Patrice used to sing it constantly.

And that’s the thought that saved her.

As the oldest Spencer child, Kara had moved out first. Faye followed a year later when she’d married. Patrice and two other siblings still lived at home with their parents. Benjamin came and went as his graduate studies demanded. Knowing how difficult it could be to find privacy in the large, busy household or even to stake out any significant personal bathroom time, Kara had slipped her sister a key under the proviso that she not let Erica, Benjamin, or Garrett know that she had complete run of Kara’s place. Of course, their mother had a key, but that was just for emergencies. And in the five years Kara had lived here, there’d been just one emergency.

With a focus again, Kara visibly brightened. “You’ll be pleased to know that my sister Patrice spends a lot of time over here. More than she does at home.” That was the truth.

She was aware that she was thrusting Patrice at him in an attempt to quash her own persistent interest in him. Since Haley’s wedding, Kara had spent time imagining her own happily-ever-after. She’d had a hard time superimposing a groom’s face into the fantasy. Until now.

“Well, then, having two beautiful neighbors will be even better.”

Kara’s knees faltered as if an earthquake shook the land beneath her. Had anyone else felt the tremor? His compliment warmed her, shook her foundation.

“Mr. Ambrose, I need you to sign this form. And an autograph for my daughter if you don’t mind,” the delivery driver added with a sheepish grin.

Marcus acknowledged the man, but his attention didn’t immediately leave Kara, nor hers him.

If she hadn’t been watching him so intently, Kara would have missed the brief, though distinct, flash of irritation that swept over him at the man’s polite request. Not so much as a muscle moved on his face, but she knew that he was annoyed. It must be tough to always live in the spotlight, with people demanding things from you.