Читать книгу A Whirlwind...Makeover - Nancy Lavo - Страница 11

“I’m fine, thanks to you.” Obviously shaken by her near fall, the woman’s pleasantly husky voice wobbled. “I’m not usually so clumsy. I guess I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Dan had seen her slow progress through the crowded room and knew full well why she’d stumbled. She was one-hundred-percent focused on the movie-star guy she’d come in with. As was half the population of the room. “No problem. You want to sit down?” he asked, pointing to the chair that had nearly toppled her. “I’ve got room for you here.”

After an almost imperceptible glance toward the movie star’s table, she turned to Dan and smiled. “Thanks.”

She had a great smile. Full. Warm. Sincere.

And a really great mouth. Full. Warm. Delicious. He knew the camera would love it, though at the moment his thoughts weren’t entirely professional.

Dan eased the tray from her white-knuckled grip and placed it on the table before maneuvering the chair from the aisle. He waited until she sat down before sitting across from her.

“I’m Dan Willis.”

She smiled again. “Maddie Sinclair,” she said, extending her hand to him.

“Nice to meet you, Maddie.” He glanced down at the puny salad on her tray. “Not much lunch.”

She looked at the red plastic bowl half filled with greens and wrinkled her nose. “No.”

He tapped the dessert plate on the edge of his tray. “Tell you what. You eat all your salad and I’ll give you a bite of my pie.”

She grinned. “Deal.”

Dan watched her pour the watery dressing over the lettuce and pick up her fork. “Great hands,” he said.

Her fork froze, drippy lettuce dangling in midair. “I’m sorry?”

“I said you have great hands. Very graceful. You have the perfect combination of slender palms and long fingers.”

She looked embarrassed but pleased with the unexpected praise. “Long fingers must be the only perk of being a giant.”

He heard the dissatisfaction in her voice. “You’re not a giant. You’re tall. What are you, six feet?”

“Only five-eleven,” she corrected in a way that told him that that one inch was important to her.

“If I look taller it’s the hair,” she continued while pointing to what looked like an ugly brown badger hibernating on top of her head. “It’s long and thick. I pin it up on the top of my head to keep it out of the way. Once I tried pinning it around the sides of my head, but it looked like I was wearing a hairy inner-tube crown. I probably look taller with it pinned up this way, but really I’m only five-eleven.”

“I believe you.” He took a bite of his sandwich. “I take it you don’t like being tall.”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “I hate it. Trust me, it’s only in fairy tales that giants have the advantage. In real life we have to buy ugly flat shoes and slump our shoulders to keep from towering over everyone.”

“You didn’t seem to tower over the guy you came in with.”

“Colton?” Her gaze traveled to the movie star’s table and her expression softened. “He’s the perfect height.”

“Perfect for what?”

Her eyes remained trained on Colton. “For me.”

“He’s your guy?” Dan hoped his astonishment didn’t bleed through to his voice.

She dragged her eyes back to Dan. “No,” she admitted with an embarrassed blush.

Dan sensed there was an interesting story here. “How do you know him?”

She leaned in, eager to talk about Colton. “We work together. At Cue Communications. He just came on board today.”

“You met him today, and you’ve already fallen for him?”

“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I’m not usually the impulsive type. I don’t even believe in love at first sight. Or didn’t. There’s just something about Colton.”

He couldn’t keep the cynicism from his tone. “Mind if I hazard a guess? Could it be that he looks like a movie star?”

She dismissed the idea with a graceful wave of her hand. “Oh no. I mean, sure, he’s fabulous looking, but there’s more to it than that.”

“Like what?”

She hesitated. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

He hadn’t been tempted to until he saw her suddenly solemn expression. He chewed the insides of his mouth. “I promise.”

“My dad always told me that when I met Mr. Right, he’d knock me off my feet. Not literally, of course. He used to say that when he met my mom his heart went zing and he knew she was the one. It happened to me today. The minute I saw Colton my heart did this funny thing.”

Dan resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. “Define ‘funny thing.’”

She shrugged. “I can’t explain it exactly. It was a weird feeling. First my chest felt kind of tight, and then my heart raced.”

Dan swallowed his last bite of sandwich. “I don’t think a tight chest and a racing heart mean love. I think it means arrhythmia. Could be deadly. You probably ought to have it checked out.”

She laughed. “You’re obviously not a romantic.”

“Obviously not.” Dan scooted the plate of pie between them. “Time for dessert. Eat up.”

She didn’t need a second invitation. Seemed the tiny salad hadn’t filled her up. She and Dan talked and laughed as they demolished the pie.

“So, you think this Colton guy has got it for you? Think his heart zinged?”

Maddie snorted. “Not likely. He can’t even remember my name. Kept calling me Molly or Mandy.”

Ouch. Dan wasn’t surprised to hear Maddie didn’t turn the golden boy’s head. Guys like Colton went for bomb-shells, not bombs. And the shapeless black dress and Wild Kingdom hairdo Maddie wore were bonafide bombs. Still, Dan felt an urge to soften the blow. “Don’t be discouraged. He probably had a lot of distractions, this being his first day and all.”

“He had a lot of distractions all right—short, skinny female ones.” She lifted her chin a fraction. “But I’m not discouraged. I hope that after he gets to know me he’ll see that I have some great qualities. It’s the inside that counts.”

That had to be the bravest speech he’d ever heard. And the dumbest. Old Colton didn’t look like the type to seek out great qualities. Fact was he didn’t look the type to see beyond his own mirror.

Dan didn’t know why the idea of Colton raining on Maddie’s parade bothered him, but it did. It was obvious her self-esteem was already at rock bottom. He hated to think what the inevitable rejection would do to her. “He’d be lucky to have you.”

She flashed him a smile so rich in emotion, so totally beautiful he swore he felt his heart zing. “Thanks.”

She glanced down at her watch then picked up her purse—a hideous, scarred black leather bag large enough to carry a week’s worth of clothing. She stood. “I need to get back to the office.”

Dan stood. “It was nice meeting you.”

“I had fun,” Maddie said. “And thanks for the pie.” She grinned. “I believe there was enough chocolate in it to tide me over till my candy-bar break at three.”

She turned and took two steps from the table before stopping and turning back. She lowered her voice so no one at the surrounding tables could hear her. “What you said earlier, about my hands being great—that was really nice. Thanks.”

Dan unlocked the door to his office and stepped inside just as the phone rang. He crossed to the desk, a strictly utilitarian steel model he’d picked up in a secondhand office furniture store, pressed the flashing button on the phone and picked up the receiver. “This is Dan.”

“Dan, ol’ buddy. Ryan here. I called to see if you’d had enough of the wilds of Texas? Are you ready to return to civilization?”

Dan settled back into his swivel chair and propped his cowboy-booted heels on top of the desk. He chuckled. “Not a chance.”

“Come on, man. You’ve been there, what, two weeks now? Surely that’s enough time for you to come to your senses.”

“I have come to my senses. That’s why I’m back in Texas.”

Ryan’s tone changed from teasing to lecturing. “I know you think you’re burned out, but you’re not. You have an incredibly successful career up here. People do not burn out on incredibly successful careers. Besides, you love New York. Everybody loves New York.”

“You’re right. I love New York. But I needed a break. I needed to get away.”

“Fine. Take another week. Then get on a plane. There’s a big shoot in Milan in two weeks. We’ll do it together.”

“No can do.”

“Why not? What are you going to do buried down there?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure yet.”

“Okay. I won’t press you.” Ryan paused. “So, tell me, are the women down there as beautiful as you remembered?”

Dan smiled. Before he’d packed up and moved back to Texas Dan had bragged that Texan women were the most beautiful in the world. And he’d meant it. He couldn’t think of another group of women anywhere in the world who invested the kind of time and effort in themselves that Texan women did. Young or old, fat or skinny, it was as though they had an innate understanding of their worth.

Except Maddie.

Five feet and eleven inches—four inches of badger hair not withstanding—Maddie didn’t seem to have that Texas confidence. If anything, she undervalued herself.

Instead of carrying her commanding height with pride, she rolled her shoulders forward as if trying to shrink from sight. He couldn’t tell if she had a figure: no body, no matter how bad, deserved to be draped in the long, flowy black thing she’d been wearing today. It looked more like a bad slipcover than a dress. The meager attention she gave her hair and makeup said she didn’t see the point in trying. She felt she was hopeless.

Dan’s practiced eye told him nothing could be farther from the truth. If you could get past the thick black eyebrows that were separated by a scant half inch of flesh, Maddie had an excellent forehead, well-defined cheekbones, and a strong but feminine nose. She had a mile-wide smile with straight white teeth and the full lower lip that women were willing to suffer collagen injections to achieve.

The memory of Maddie’s mouth made his mouth water. How many times had he forced his focus away from her lips so he could concentrate on what she was saying?

Maddie had all the right stuff. And so much more.

Years of working with the world’s most acclaimed beauties had taught him that good physical attributes rarely added up to true beauty. More often they equaled cold hauteur and empty vanity, women who would cheerfully spend an evening with only a mirror for company.

He’d gotten to the point recently, when looking through the camera lens, that he couldn’t find the shot he wanted because he couldn’t find the beauty. His last shoot ran a record nine hours. The fault hadn’t been a temperamental model. It had been him.

He’d become cynical and he knew it. And when the cynicism became debilitating he’d packed up his camera and walked away. He was tired of looking for beauty where it didn’t exist. So he’d come home.

Funny that his first glimpse of beauty should be in the most unlikely person. In the short time he’d spent with Maddie he’d seen something he’d begun to doubt existed. A beauty that transcended good bones.

Of course, first impressions could be deceiving. Beneath her refreshing openness could be an empty shell like that he’d seen in so many others.

Maddie Sinclair intrigued him. He’d just have to get a second impression to find out.

“Are they as beautiful as I remembered?” Dan said, repeating his friend’s question. “Let me get back to you on that.”