Читать книгу Ticket To Love - Jen Safrey, Jen Safrey - Страница 11

H arry pushed his swivel chair back from his tiny, lopsided desk and wiggled his cramped fingers. He found he could only type for about three hours before he needed to stretch them out. It was pretty pathetic, but it was better than a few months ago, when he began his career as a grant writer. Back then, it only took about sixty minutes before his hands, stiff with the privilege of leisure for most of his life, ached.

Harry’s new work carried some irony. He was now writing grant letters to the government for charities and small businesses requesting money that his former self could have just donated if he felt so inclined. But he’d left his inheritance behind, and now his job was to work on behalf of these organizations. He had plenty of fundraising and networking experience from just being a wealthy Wells, but he didn’t know, until he began toiling away for a living, that he’d have a knack for doing it full-time.

When he came to New York, he’d brought enough money to give himself a financial cushion while he freelanced. The money was a better reserve than most people had, but was nowhere near the amount of money he was actually entitled to. As he had no résumé to speak of, he’d planned on a period of figuring out what he was capable of. So far, he’d made the right decisions. A rarity for someone accustomed to having accountants and attorneys make his decisions for him.

He checked his watch. One o’clock. Lemonade break. He’d missed his lemonade yesterday when a call to the current charity he was working for ran long. Thank God the call hadn’t occurred a day earlier, or Harry might have missed seeing that…that vision on the street outside, and the opportunity to run and help her.

Harry rose and stretched his arms over his head, thinking of Acey Corelli, the wild-haired, fiery-eyed temptress. The way she called him “cowboy,” like he was a character actor in an old romantic Western. He wanted to see her again. He hoped his street was her regular route to work, because he’d been glancing out the window every two minutes for the past three days.

He knew her name. He supposed he could look her up…

No, said his relentless conscience. Aside from his vow to build his own life and make his own way in the world, he’d also secretly decided, upon leaving Texas, that he wouldn’t get mixed up with any women for the time being. He’d proved to be a danger to himself, and to others. It was too hard to remember the horse, and the pain, and the horror on Lara’s face, which had shone so adoringly five minutes earlier when her man and her horse had pranced out into the jumping ring together.

Harry couldn’t bear to hurt another woman, and it seemed that was all he knew how to do. He’d made up his mind to just pull himself out of the dating game until he’d convinced himself he’d changed. It had been only six months since arriving here, but Harry had let his old easy habits with women die out.

Harry went to the window and looked out. Dark clouds had been hanging in the sky since late morning. He noted the still-dry sidewalk and decided against his umbrella. But then he saw one other thing on the sidewalk, something that his lemonade could damn well wait for.

It was her. It was Acey, walking along his street, weighed down with a plastic bag emblazoned with a supermarket logo. She was carrying it in her arms, and Harry guessed the bag had a hole in it. Lucky for him, because now he could watch her bare, olive-skinned legs as she put one foot in front of the other.

If he hadn’t been hypnotized by her swaying walk, Harry wouldn’t have noticed her slow down, just a tiny bit, in front of his building. But yes, her pace was definitely waning as she inclined her head toward the brick facade.

Was she admiring Mrs. Stein’s purple lilac bushes out front? Harry imagined a woman might be taken with them, but Acey’s gaze traveled around the front yard and up the side of the building. Harry took one step back from the window, so he could still see her from the second floor but she hopefully couldn’t see him.

Was she possibly looking for him? No. Harry scoffed at his own ego. He had gotten a little too used to beautiful women skulking near his Texas mansion, hoping for a glimpse. Maybe Acey was looking for someone else?

She shrugged, her smooth shoulders lifting the straps of her black tank top up and down. Then she continued on her way, but her bag chose that moment to split open, spilling apples and boxes of raisins all around her.

Without thinking twice about it, Harry hurried outside.

“Acey Corelli,” he drawled, “once again cast in the damsel-in-distress role.”

“For crying out loud,” Acey said. “Do you believe this? I’ll have to walk home a different way tomorrow so lightning doesn’t strike me right here, too.”

Harry squinted up at the blackening sky. “I’d say that’s a possibility right now.”

“Great. You’d better stand back to avoid being hit.”

“I think it would be better if you came in and let me give you a new bag.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t put you out again.” She seemed more flustered than she ought to.

“You’re right,” Harry said. “The best thing for you to do, obviously, would be to gather up all your groceries in your arms and just go on home. Here you go. Can you put this mac-n-cheese in your purse? And you can probably fit this in the pocket of your shorts.”

Acey laughed. “If you try to slide that banana in my pocket, you’ll be seeing me in court, cowboy.”

Harry was mortified. “I didn’t mean that as a—as a, you know…”

“Hey, I know,” Acey said. “I’m just teasing you. You’re right. I can’t really walk home like this. I’ll make it quick.”

“Don’t,” Harry said, but changed it quickly to, “I mean, you don’t have to.”

He led her up to his apartment for the second time in their brief acquaintance. They had just finished piling groceries on his kitchen table when a clap of thunder crashed, so loud that her hands flew to her ears. Then she checked around the room. “God, I thought that hit us.”

He liked the way she said “us.”

Then, as if from a giant overturned bucket, rain dumped down, pouring over the windowsills. Harry jumped to close a window and Acey closed the other one while the drops slammed into the glass like BB-gun pellets. Harry said, “I can’t let you go out in this. I hope you don’t have anywhere you need to be.”

“No, it’s my day off.”

“That doesn’t seem too unusual for a Saturday.”

“It is where I work.” Acey sank to the floor and crossed her legs lotus-style. “Saturday’s busy from dawn till dusk. I’ve been there five years, and I finally got the seniority for Saturdays off.”

“Where’s this?”

“Focaccia’s.”

“Oh, up the street? The pizza place? I haven’t tried it yet.”

“You’ve been here a few months and you haven’t been there yet? What’s your problem?”

Harry laughed. Acey was so in-your-face—so open and honest. “I’ve been eating tons of sandwiches. Heros, that is. I guess I never was much of a pizza person.”

“Who’s not a pizza person?”

Harry shrugged.

“Come by and order a large pie with everything,” Acey continued, “and I guarantee you will become a pizza person after the first bite.”

“Does your boss pay you for advertising like this?”

“It’s not advertising, it’s just the truth. It’s the best in New York.”

Harry thought that even if Acey had said it was terrible pizza, the worst ever, he would still have planned a trip there. Purely for the service.

The two fell silent for another few minutes. Harry was the sort to enjoy companionable quiet but it seemed his talkative guest might not be, so he said, “Would you like some music?”

Acey brightened. “That would be great.” Then she frowned. “Oh, but not if you’re going to put on some twangy country stuff. I can’t stand it.”

Harry walked to the stereo and flipped through his CD collection. “Were you born here, Acey?”

“Born in Queens, then my family moved a whopping ten miles to Valley Stream when I was about four.”

“So then, what does a city slicker like you know about country music?”

“Loads.”

“Uh-huh.” He paused. “Y’all watched Urban Cowboy a couple of times and that’s it. Am I right?”

Acey looked guilty. “Okay,” she admitted. “But how much do I have to hear to know I don’t like it?”

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Harry said, sliding a CD in and pressing Play. “I don’t like country music, either.” The first chords of a Bruce Springsteen hit filled the room.

Acey grinned. “Now that’s more like it, cowboy.” She looked down at his boots. “That is some secret. I bet you’d have to turn those boots over to the Texas authorities if I ratted you out.”

“I trust you.”

“Mistake number one.” She laughed. “Actually, I’m joking. I’m good with secrets. Got any others you’d like to spill while you’re at it?”

Was it his imagination, or did she look as if she really knew something? Could she know him? No, he wasn’t nationwide famous. He’d just been locally famous back home. But her teasing tone had an undercurrent of something. “Nope,” he told her. “My life—as it is now—is an open book.”

“My younger sister writes books.”

“Really?” Harry sat down on the floor also, leaning his back against the sofa. “Have I heard of her?”

“No. She hasn’t sold one yet. But she’s really good. She writes mysteries. It’s only a matter of time before everyone knows the name Stephanie Corelli. Then we can move into a bigger place. Or she can just buy me my own.” Acey grinned.

“You live together?”

“Yes. Sisters and roomies. She was my only roommate my whole life, actually. I went to community college, and when I was…done, we moved out of our parents’ house.”

He noticed her hesitation, but didn’t comment. “You’re very close, then.”

“Yeah. It was just the two of us growing up. What about you? Any brothers or sisters?”

“Two younger sisters. They’re in Texas, along with everyone else in my family.” Harry stopped. He didn’t want to get into this topic, get into how his sisters thought he was crazy to leave Texas, how his parents insisted he was not in his right mind, and how he’d yelled back that for the first time in his life, he was.

Acey waited. Harry supposed she wasn’t used to conversation with someone like him. Most of the people around here talked like she did, fast and loud and boisterous. It made Harry hyperaware of how he thought out every sentence before he spoke. It wasn’t a Southern thing, either—it was a conscious effort to be more deliberate in word and action. He opened his mouth, but was interrupted by another bone-cracking thunderclap.

Acey stuck her fingers in her ears again for a moment, then said, “I hate thunderstorms.”

Harry got halfway up, snapped on a lamp next to the sofa and sank back down. “Didn’t your parents tell you it was God moving the furniture?” That was the line he remembered from one of his well-meaning nannies.

“They tried to sell me some story like that but I didn’t buy it. So Dad got me this book on weather, and I looked it up. I still have to tell myself every time that it’s just this big sound of a shock wave made when air is compressed around the lightning. Knowing how it happens makes me feel a little less scared.”

“Sounds like your Dad knew what a clever kid he had.”

“I think he hoped I would turn out to be something. I did always have big dreams and intentions, but I have a problem with follow-through. That’s what Steph says.”

“What does Acey say?”

“Acey says, got anything to drink?”

“I know a subject change when I hear it. What’s your poison? Soda? Beer?”

“A beer would be excellent.”

Harry went into the kitchen, opened two bottles and brought them back into the living room, where Acey was staring out at the rain. Harry handed her a bottle and clinked his with hers. “To skinned knees.”

“And Southern hospitality,” she said. They both tilted their heads back and drank. “So,” Acey said. “Somehow you know about my job, my sister and one dumb hang-up I have. Start talking.”

“Oh, is it my turn now?”

Acey made a horrified face.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I like listening to you. You’re funny. In a good way,” he said, as Acey raised her bottle threateningly.

“At least tell me about your job. Is it freelance?”

“Yes, I’ve done a few projects now, most of them successful.”

“What are you working on today?”

“Right now I’m trying to get a grant for this new cat shelter a few towns away. It’s a great place, a no-kill shelter. But when you commit to keeping animals for a long time, you need money to do it.”

“Hmm. I admit I thought writing grants sounded boring, but not if you get to help places like that. Have you been to see the shelter?”

“Of course, several times. Every time I go I’m supposed to be there for business but I end up playing with an armful of the cutest cats.”

Acey’s eyes widened, and she turned her face to the side, muttering something that sounded like, “God, even animals love you.” But why would she say that?

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, nothing. I have a habit of talking to myself all the time.”

“You are a good conversationalist. I don’t blame you for wanting it to go both ways.”

“Very funny.”

The rain continued to beat down, and small talk kept Harry and Acey busy until their beers were finished.

“Another?” Harry asked, putting out his hand for her bottle.

“No, thanks. I didn’t have lunch yet. Any more alcohol and I may say things I’ll regret.” She stood and stretched her arms out to her sides, then walked toward the kitchen. “I’d better go bag my stuff.”

Harry followed her and pulled out two plastic bags from his cabinet. He gave her one, and they bagged her things together.

“Thanks. Hey, you do have photos!” Acey pointed to the refrigerator door. “Who are they?”

“Those are my sisters, Minnie and Corinne.”

“Do you miss your family?”

Harry chose his words carefully. “I miss my sisters, mostly. My parents, well…I love them, but distance is the best solution, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Acey said. “My parents finally moved to Florida this year. Though you’d hardly know it by the number of times Ma still calls. She can’t miss any quality nagging opportunities.”

Harry laughed. “My mother didn’t nag me, I’ll say that. She was too busy for that.”

“Lucky you.” And just at that moment, something else on the refrigerator caught Acey’s eye. “Hey, you have a lottery ticket.”

“Yeah.”

“And is it…? Yes, it is, it’s from May twenty-fourth. Did you buy it at Bread and Milk? You know that was the winning store, right?”

“It’s been the big story every night.” Harry couldn’t keep the wryness out of his voice. “Must be a slow news week.”

Acey tilted her head. “Don’t you think it’s exciting? Someone in the neighborhood? A homey?”

“There have to be better things to occupy the public’s mind than someone becoming a member of the rich elite.”

“Maybe.” Acey moved away from the refrigerator but kept her eyes on Harry. “Just think, thirty-five million dollars. All your financial problems solved. Like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“More like, his problems are probably just beginning,” Harry retorted, failing to keep annoyance out of his voice.

“What are you, crazy? Most people dream of hitting it big.”

Harry didn’t say, I’m not most people.

“I knew a rich guy once,” Acey added. “Trust me, he had no problems.”

“Did he cause any?” Harry asked.

Acey paused for a long moment. “I still think you should check your numbers,” she finally said.

Harry realized the last thing he wanted was to tip this woman off to his sad truth. He reined in his emotion. “The rain’s stopped.”

“So it has.” Acey picked her bags up off the table.

“I’ll throw out your apples because they fell in the street. Wait.” He reached into a silver bowl on the table and picked out two shiny apples, dropping them into one of her bags. “I bought these yesterday.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I always buy fruits and vegetables and never eat them. I just end up eating take-out food and letting the produce rot. Please take them.”

“A’right, thanks. I bet you can tell by my appearance that I never waste food.” She rolled her eyes.

Harry took her self-deprecating comment as an invitation to sweep his gaze over her body. She was not overweight. She was as lush and ripe as a piece of fruit herself, and when he turned his eyes back to her face, it was the color of the apples in question. She practically ran from the kitchen. Harry followed her but paused to peel the offending lottery ticket out from underneath its magnet. He went to drop it in the trash, but he’d forgotten to replace the bag this morning, so he chucked the ticket on top of the refrigerator. He didn’t want to have to see it anymore.

“Thanks,” Acey said, edging toward his door. “I mean it. This has been—”

Harry tried to help. “Yeah, it really has been, uh—”

Silence.

“Unexpected,” Acey finished, and Harry agreed. Acey was unexpected, filling his apartment with exuberance and light, which he was sure he’d miss again the second she left.

He wanted to ask her if she would come by again, or go out somewhere, just spend time with him in some way but his promise to himself was still there, humming through him, stopping him. Acey stood a moment, quiet, and with his untrained eye, he could almost see her own inner struggle. He wondered if it was the same, and he wondered at her reasons. He hoped she’d give in first. If she did, if she asked him out, he could cave. But if she didn’t, he knew his resolve was too strong for him to overcome.

She didn’t. She put out her hand. “It was so nice meeting you,” she said.

He shook it. “Y’all be careful going home now, all right? Walk slow on that knee,” he added with a half smile.

“I like that ‘y’all’ thing,” Acey said. Then she blurted, “Oh, I forgot my purse,” and she trotted back to the kitchen. When she returned, she looked at him a bit differently, with her head cocked just slightly to one side.

Harry narrowed his eyes with curiosity.

Acey picked up her grocery bags, stepped outside and said over her shoulder, “See ya around, cowboy.” Then she clattered down the stairs.

Harry grinned. Everything that woman did was noisy.

“I wasn’t stalking him,” Acey called, squeezing water out of her hair and into the kitchen sink. A second quick downpour had caught her two blocks from home, drenching her. She wrapped a towel around her head and entered the living room where Steph was sitting, her eyebrows raised in amused fashion.

“I wasn’t stalking,” Acey repeated.

“Uh-huh,” Steph said, leaning back on the sofa and lacing her fingers behind her head.

“I wasn’t.” Acey tucked the towel behind each ear to hear better. “The supermarket run happened to take me past his building. And then my bag sort of ripped open, maybe because I sort of absentmindedly picked a hole in the bottom of it with my nail.”

“Suddenly this all becomes more believable.”

“Listen, I had to meet him again. So my bag breaks, and he comes running like…like…”

“Like what?”

“Like the hero. Every time I see him, he’s saving the day. In the store, he was all sweet to Rosalia, and he said the nicest thing to Cassandra I ever heard, did I tell you?”

“About twenty-three times.”

“He helps kids, and elderly people, and me.”

“So, is his place papered with hundred-dollar bills?”

“No, it’s…totally nothing. It was like, white walls and brown chairs and that’s it.”

“Doesn’t sound very megamillionaire-ish.”

“No, I thought the same thing. I talked to him and I felt…” Acey stopped. She’d felt, and that was amazing in itself. She’d wrapped up and protected her heart since her bad breakup last year, and she hadn’t really enjoyed a conversation with a man in so long.

“Felt what?”

Acey shook her head. “I just figured, it’s not him. I mean, he’s in this little apartment, doing this freelance grant-writing work for nonprofits that can’t be paying him a whole lot, and if he did win, he’d probably be making some serious changes. But…” Acey paused for drama.

Steph, who knew her sister’s games, waited ten seconds before demanding, “But what?”

“But before I left, I was in his kitchen, and I saw a lottery ticket on the fridge. The date was May twenty-fourth.”

Steph jumped a tiny bit. “Did you ask him about it?”

“Yeah, but I tried to be cool.”

“Ha!”

“Shut up. I tried to start a conversation about it, but he reacted so strangely. He just about said that winning all that money would cause problems, not solve them. He sounded annoyed.”

“Did you recognize the numbers? They’ve been showing them so often on TV…”

“That was another thing. The numbers were folded under. I could read the date but not the numbers.”

“Maybe he’d folded it in his pocket when he bought it and stuck it up there like that?”

“Yeah, well, here’s the kicker. I forgot my purse, and when I went back to the kitchen to get it, it was gone.”

“Your purse was gone?”

“No. The ticket. Gone. Disappeared off the refrigerator. So I peeked in the garbage can. The can was empty, not even a trash bag in there. He’d followed me out of the room the first time, so…”

Steph was nodding, her mystery-writing, clue-analyzing mind jumping ahead. “So you think he swiped it out of your sight? Hid it in a safe place?”

“Exactly. Which got me to thinking on my walk home.”

“As well it should.”

“I thought, for someone so convinced that money causes problems, he still bought a ticket. If he’s so antimoney, why did he pay a buck to play?”

“Good question.”

“Isn’t it.” Acey plopped herself down on the floor and put her fuzzy-slippered feet on top of her sister’s bare ones. “The thing is, he’s so…” Her voice trailed off.

“Amazing? Sexy? Wonderful? Gorgeous?”

Acey looked into Steph’s face.

“It’s okay, hon,” Steph said. “I knew you had a thing for him the first time you saw him. You’ve been going on and on about him even before today’s little encounter. Maybe you can ask him out?”

“No. Absolutely not.” Acey jerked her head from side to side, and her towel turban collapsed. She threw it to the ground. “What if it turns out he’s the one? That he won all that money? And I think that’s the case.”

“That would be great, right? You wanted it to be a nice person who won. From your description, he’s the nicest man who ever walked the streets of New York.”

“It would be terrific for him, but I couldn’t go out with him. I couldn’t have a relationship with him.”

“Why not?”

Acey was quiet for a minute. “You know why not. I hate talking about it. Even after all this time, I still hate thinking about Charlie and what he—” She cut herself off before beginning again. “I’m never dating a wealthy man again. I will never again be accused of being a gold digger.”

“Listen, Charlie’s parents had their heads up their behinds when they said that.”

“Charlie didn’t exactly rush to my defense.”

“I think that was less a consequence of his being rich and more a consequence of his being an utter bastard.”

“I’m not taking any chances. No rich guys.” Acey lay down on the floor. “I liked Harry. Dammit.”

“Should we hope he didn’t win? That doesn’t seem right.”

“No.”

“Besides,” Steph said, “if everything you said is true—that funny business with the ticket, and the weird stuff he said—he does sound like the secret winner.”

“I know.” Acey lay quiet for a moment. “Remember the other night? When we were wondering about why the winner wouldn’t come forward and then we thought he might just be scared?”

“Yeah?”

“That could be it. Harry could be scared to have all that money. Scared it will corrupt him somehow. Cause problems, he said.”

“Sounds possible.” Steph glanced at her watch. “Time for the news.” She hit the power button on the remote and grabbed her notebook. Acey sat watching with her sister through stories on accidents and homicides and world tensions before the lottery took precedence once again.

“Still no word on the winner of the thirty-five-million-dollar lottery jackpot, who bought the lucky ticket at a Valley Stream convenience store,” the TV said.

Steph looked at Acey, who took the remote from her and muted the set.

“I can’t pursue Harry. I liked him,” Acey repeated. “And I’m pretty sure he liked me, at least as a friend. So I can be his friend, and—”

“And what?” Steph asked suspiciously.

“And help him see the light. I can help him—come out of his shell of an apartment and see that having money will be a good thing for him, and he can help other people with it, which I’m sure would be important to him.”

“You can’t let on you know it’s him.”

“Obviously, no. Then he’d assume I’m out to get my hands on it.” She sighed. “God knows, I’ll never win the lottery, but if I help him accept his destiny, it will feel in some small way like I won, too. You know?”

Steph chewed on her lip. “Yeah,” she finally said. “I see what you mean. Especially if he’s like you said—a hero, always saving the day.”

“Maybe this time,” Acey said, “the hero needs someone to save the day for him.”