Читать книгу Twelfth Night Proposal - Karen Smith Rose - Страница 10

Montgomery Boat Company

Avon Lake, Texas

Glancing at the TV in his office, Leo Montgomery saw paradise. Well, a spot that was supposed to be paradise. There was a lake and grass and trees and a guy dressed in a tuxedo. But it wasn’t the guy who captured Leo’s attention.

There was a woman. The perfect fantasy woman.

Leo glimpsed her face for a moment—maybe half a moment—less time than it took to take a breath. He caught the sparkling, huge brown eyes. Then she was turning…away from him. When she turned, his palms tingled to touch her long, curly brown hair with its red highlights reflecting the sun. The dress she wore was some wispy material. It was short and bared most of her back, the fabric molding to her long legs as she walked away from the camera and away from him. She handed the guy in the tuxedo a can of soda. Large red letters proclaimed its name—ZING. Leo’s gaze was still on the woman’s back and those curls. When she lifted a parasol, tilted it over her shoulder and walked away, the letters on the parasol spelled ZING, The Fantasy Soda. As the jingle for ZING filled the airwaves, she disappeared into the trees.

To Leo’s amazement, he found himself aroused…stirred in a way he hadn’t been stirred for a very long time. Since well before Carolyn’s death two years ago, for sure.

Giving himself a mental shake, willing his libido to calm down, Leo flicked off the TV with the remote. That fantasy woman on the screen was just that—a fantasy. He knew better than most men that fantasies don’t become reality. On the other hand, however, maybe he should think about getting involved with someone from his country club. As his sister, Jolene, told him often, Heather needed a mother. His daughter needed more than the nanny-housekeeper Jolene had just hired.

Heather needed a mother, and he didn’t want to sleep alone for the rest of his life.

Although the cursor on the computer screen blinked before him, Leo couldn’t forget the fantasy woman’s mass of reddish-brown curls, those long legs, that bare back.

He couldn’t remember a feature on the model’s face, but he supposed that was the whole idea—to charge a man’s fantasy. Nevertheless, Leo wasn’t the type of man to dwell on fantasies when reality was sitting right in front of him.

He checked the information on the computer with the boatyard orders on his desk. The dream woman forgotten, work filled his head. That’s the way he wanted it for now. Jolene’s advice might be sound, but he wasn’t ready for it. He wasn’t ready for involvement or commitment.

That’s just the way it was.