Читать книгу The Hand-Picked Bride - Raye Morgan - Страница 9

Three

Grant took in the banquet room at a glance. Decorated for a baby shower, pink and blue teddy bears floated down from the ceiling and fluffy white swans cruised down the center of the long table. He nodded approvingly.

“You did a great job putting this together,” he told the tall, elegant woman standing beside him.

“Thank you, boss,” Michelle answered gravely, her green eyes and carefully coiffed auburn hair advertising her Irish heritage. “We aim to please.”

He laughed. “You aim to take over the world, and we all know it,” he teased her. “I keep thinking I’ll walk in here some morning and find out you now hold the papers on the place.”

Her smile was pleased, but she demurred. “You know I wouldn’t do that without consulting you first,” she teased back.

His answering grin faded as his thoughts took in their past together. “You’re a good friend, Michelle. You know I never would have made a success of this place without you,” he told her solemnly. “Without you and Tony giving me moral support when our dad died, I never would have taken this on. I wouldn’t have had the guts.”

She smiled and patted his arm. “Don’t exaggerate, darling,” she told him in a motherly tone. “You always had more guts than all the rest of us put together.” She shook her head when he looked about to speak and turned to another topic. “By the way,” she mentioned casually. “How is your brother these days?”

“Tony?” Grant gave a quick thought to his once irascible older sibling. “Tony, as usual, could use a life.”

Michelle flashed a smile in his direction, but she didn’t pause as she counted out the change for the cash register. “Couldn’t we all?” she murmured.

He leaned against the counter, watching her with a thoughtful frown. “No, I really mean it about Tony. You and me, Michelle, we’re not the marrying kind. We’ve been there and done that and learned to avoid it. We know how to have our fun without entanglements and commitments. But Tony...” He grimaced. “Well, he’s got the kid and all and it’s making him nutty. He’s like a mother hen these days.” His frown deepened as he remembered his brother coming to the door in an apron with huge red apples painted all over it the last time he’d appeared unannounced at his door. “Damn it all, he needs a wife.”

Michelle nodded as she filled a bin with nickels, putting them in neat stacks. “Is there anyone on the horizon right now?” she asked him.

Grant shook his head. “Naw. He doesn’t even date. His whole life is wrapped up in his daughter, Allison. Ever since Mary died...” He glanced at Michelle, aware that he was treading on dangerous ground when criticizing his brother’s response to his wife’s death two years before. “Well, for the first year or so, you could understand it. I mean, Mary was wonderful and I think, if he hadn’t had Allison to take care of, he might have died, too. You know? His life just seemed to come to a stop.”

Michelle’s green eyes clouded. “Yes,” she said softly. “I remember.”

Grant nodded. “But now it’s time to move on. He needs a new woman in his life. That would turn things around, get him back in gear. If only I could find him someone...” His eyes brightened. “You know, I saw this girl the other day...” His voice trailed off as he thought of her.

Michelle looked up curiously. “What girl?”

“Hmm?” He met her gaze and realized he’d left her hanging. “Oh, this girl at the Farmers’ Market. I tried to hire her as a pastry chef but she turned me down.” He nodded slowly, thinking hard and coming to a decision. “You know, now that I think about it, she’d be perfect for Tony.”

“Who? This girl at the Farmers’ Market?”

“Why didn’t I realize this before?” He grew more excited about the idea as more details came to him. “She’s cuter than heck and she can cook and she’s got a kid, too.”

“Grant...”

He threw out his arms, amazed at how obligingly accommodating life could be. “I mean, how perfect can you get? They could have one of those...what do you call them? Blended families.”

Michelle laughed, looking as though she was tempted to give his dark hair an affectionate ruffle. Luckily she held back the impulse, but her tone was teasing. “Whoa there, pardner. Don’t you think you’re getting the cart before the horse? They haven’t even met yet and you’ve got them knitting booties together.”

He gazed at her earnestly. “What do you think, Michelle? What would happen if I tried a little matchmaking? Come on, you know Tony almost as well as I do. What do you think?”

Michelle hesitated, shaking her head as she studied his face. “I knew Tony once,” she admitted softly. “But ever since he came back from college with Mary on his arm...”

“Oh, come on. That was years ago.”

She raised a wise eyebrow. “Exactly my point.”

She began refilling saltcellars on the tables and he followed her, reaching out to open one for her. “So he got married and broke up that old gang of ours,” he murmured, handing her the empty container. “That doesn’t erase all those years growing up in the canyon and chasing each other around Lincoln Elementary.”

She turned to go to the next table, but a smile was beginning to tease the corners of her mouth.

He noted it and grinned, adding another recollection he knew she would share. “Or going to Mary Engle’s birthday party and ending up in her fishpond.”

She managed to force back her giggle but she couldn’t resist adding her own memory. “Or taking the bus down Lake Avenue from Eliot Junior High to go to the Rose Bowl Café for orange freezes,” she remembered reluctantly as she poured out another stream of white crystals.

He nodded his approval as he dropped into a chair right under where she was working. He had her now. He was going to need some expert female advice if he were going to match his brother up with a wife, and Michelle was the best manipulator he knew. “Or ditching high school,” he went on, adding another memory to lure her in, “piling into Tony’s old Chevy and heading down to Chavez Ravine to watch the Dodgers play in the World Series.”

“Gosh, we really did have fun in those days,” Michelle agreed, smiling broadly at last. Looking down at him, she shook her head. “Remember the beach parties at Lacuna?”

He nodded and rose, snagging a thorn-shaved white rose from the vase on the table and tucking it behind her ear. “Cruising Hollywood Boulevard with a car full of kids on a Saturday night?”

She grinned, touching the rose but leaving it where he’d put it. “Staying up all night on the sidewalk on New Year’s Eve to watch the Rose Parade?”

“And falling asleep before it came?”

They both laughed.

“The all-night gab sessions in your backyard?” he added.

“The proms at the Huntington Sheraton?” she chimed in, eyes narrowing as she remembered her slinky black velvet prom dress.

“It’s a Ritz-Carleton now.”

She frowned and waved as though to push reality away. “Don’t tell me that. I’m floating in the past.”

He sank into a chair at the table where they’d had lunch together and motioned for her to join him. “Well, float yourself over here and tell me what you think about my idea.”

She came, sliding in beside him, but her eyes didn’t smile. “To find Tony a mate?”

“Yeah.”

She looked him over with quiet affection. “If this person is so perfect, why don’t you snap her up yourself?” she asked him. “It’s about time you started getting serious again, don’t you think?”

Grant grimaced and looked away. Michelle was being very delicate and discreet. She hadn’t even mentioned Stephanie’s name. In fact, he didn’t think anyone in his family or circle of friends had mentioned her name since the divorce. Everyone assumed that the way she’d left had hurt him so badly, he couldn’t stand to be reminded. And for once, everyone was pretty much right.

Turning back, he flashed his friend a brilliant smile. “How can you say something like that? I thought you knew me better. I’m never serious.”

She covered his hand with her own and gave it a squeeze. “Maybe you should be,” she suggested softly.

He shook his head. “Not now. One Fargo brother at a time. And right now, I’m working on Tony. We’ve got to get him hitched.”

Michelle sat back and rolled her eyes. “I think you’d better forget it,” she advised. “If he figures out what you’re doing, he’ll kill you.”

He waved a forefinger at her. “Ah, but that’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it? I’ll be subtle. I’ll be tactful. I’ll masterfully manipulate events. He’ll never know what I’m doing until it’s too late.”

Michelle laughed, her white teeth glistening behind the slick Persian melon lipstick that was her trademark. The thought of this open-faced man pulling the wool over his brother’s eyes boggled the mind.

But before she could explain to him just how crazy this was, she saw his eyes change and saw him start to his feet, muttering, “My God, I can’t believe it,” and she turned to see a pretty young woman picking her way through the darkened restaurant, looking nervously from one side to the other.

Grant started toward her but Michelle followed more slowly. The woman was young, probably in her late twenties, and yet she had a youthful air that made her seem years younger. She was dressed in designer jeans and a pink sweater and her hair was in braids. This had to be the pretty pastry chef, and though she hid it behind a pleasant smile, unease hovered at the back of Michelle’s eyes. Here she was, the girl Grant had earmarked for Tony. Things were moving more quickly than she could have anticipated.

Jolene wasn’t sure what she was doing here. She’d turned a deaf ear to Mandy’s persuasion for two days, but this morning, when Kevin had banged his cup for orange juice and she’d heard herself explaining to him that there wouldn’t be enough money to buy things like that until after next Thursday, she’d realized she was just being stubborn. If the man needed a pastry chef, why not take the job? If it turned out her first instincts were right and he only wanted a date for the evening—well, if she could walk in, she could walk out. She was a grown woman. She ought to be able to handle it.

So here she was in this restaurant located at the edge of Old Town. It seemed nice enough. A decorator had worked hard to achieve just the right Southwestern flair. A large saguaro cactus stood brooding in the entryway and red tiles stretched as far as the eye could see. Desert palms appeared in clumps here and there, hiding tables and supply cabinets, and Mexican ceramics sat propped against faux-Navajo rugs.

There was someone working behind the bar and she started toward it, but before she got there, Grant appeared out of nowhere, heading her off at the pass.

“Hi,” he said, smiling at her, his gorgeous dark eyes shining. “I’m glad you decided to come take a look at us.”

She came to a stop, feeling just a bit awkward. A tall, elegant woman was walking up behind him and she glanced at her with a quick smile, then looked back at Grant.

“Is the job still open?” Jolene asked him abruptly.

He nodded, trying to stay serious but having a hard time hiding his reaction to her surprise arrival. “I’ve been holding it for you,” he fibbed, because after all, there hadn’t been any other applicants.

“I didn’t say I’d take it,” she said hastily. “I just wanted to check it out and see...”

He shrugged his casual acceptance. “No problem. You’ll like it here.” Turning, he deftly included Michelle. “This is my assistant manager, Michelle Gleason. And your name is again...?”

It gave her a start to realize he didn’t remember her name. “Jolene Campbell,” she said, holding out her hand to the woman for a quick acknowledgment.

“Jolene makes some nice pastries,” Grant went on, looking her over as though he were very pleased she’d come, but talking to Michelle. “If she approves of the terms, I’m thinking of offering her a six month contract to start with.”

“A real contract?” Jolene asked, though that was just a ploy to give her time to think and she didn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t know about that. I thought maybe I could just bring over some of the things I baked each day and you could choose what might fit your needs....”

He was shaking his head and her voice trailed off. Obviously that was not what he’d had in mind.

“I’ve got to have a full-time pastry chef,” he told her. “I’d want you to do your baking here.”

She grimaced, looking around at the tables standing in wait for a flood of customers later on in the afternoon.

“You see, that’s going to be a problem,” she said, her tone confident. The only evidence of the nervousness she felt was her hand playing with the tassles on her purse. “Tell you the truth, I sort of bake what I feel like baking when I feel like it. If I was under contract...”

“We’re not all that rigid here. You’ll be free to do a lot of experimenting.” He smiled at her, and she had a quick impression of being coaxed, beguiled. He really wanted her to take this job. She frowned, wondering why.

But he didn’t notice. “Come on back to the kitchen,” he said, turning. “I’ll show you around.”

She glanced at Michelle, then back at Grant. “Okay,” she said. “I’d like to see it.”

He was proud of his place and it showed. And she had to hand it to him, he had something to be proud of. The kitchen gleamed with stainless-steel efficiency. She hadn’t seen such impressive equipment since culinary school. Her heart beat a little faster as she took it all in. It would be very different to do her baking in a place like this.

“What sort of food do you serve?” she asked, though she thought she probably knew.

“California modern.”

She glanced at him as she let her hand trail along the cool surface of a stainless-steel counter. “Trendy stuff?”

He shrugged, his hands in his pockets. “I guess you could call it that.”

She wrinkled her nose, looking at him candidly. “I’m not much for trendy stuff. I don’t follow trends myself.”

He grinned at her. “Just a sweet old-fashioned girl?”

Her chin rose. “Do you have something against traditions?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good.” She sighed softly. She was going to take the job. There really were no more excuses not to. Just one little item had to be cleared up first. “I’d need to bring my little boy to work with me,” she told him, turning her head so that she could judge his reaction. “Could you handle that?”

His face said it all, but that was hardly necessary to interpret, because his words did the job on their own. “No way. This is a place of business. We can’t have kids running around.”

She smiled, almost relieved. “Then you won’t have me running around, either,” she said firmly, turning to go.

“Wait.” He stood in her way. “Now don’t be so hasty. Maybe we can work something out.”

She glanced into his eyes. There it was again, the sense that he was just a little too anxious to have her here. “There’s nothing to work out,” she said firmly. “Either Kevin comes with me or I don’t come. I won’t leave him with a baby-sitter. The most important thing I have to do with my life is to raise him. I won’t leave it to someone else.”

He looked pained, torn. “I don’t know how we can manage that. Insurance...safety considerations...”

Suddenly Michelle interposed herself with quiet dignity, one hand on Grant’s arm. “We’ll manage,” she said firmly, smiling at Jolene.

Grant looked at her and blinked. “We’ll manage?” he echoed.

She nodded. “Leave it to me,” she said.

He hesitated a moment, but something in Michelle’s eyes told him to agree or face the consequences. Smiling, he gave in. “We’ll manage,” he told Jolene with a disarming shrug. “Somehow.”

Jolene didn’t have time to marvel on the interplay between the two of them, and the influence the woman seemed to have over Grant. He grabbed her hand and started toward his office at the corner of the wide room.

“Come on, I want to sign you up before you have a chance to think of any other roadblocks.”

She had a quick glimpse of Michelle’s face and the distinct impression that the woman would have liked to have come along with them, but Grant moved quickly and made it pretty clear he wanted to be alone with Jolene for the moment. She hesitated at the door wondering what this woman knew that she didn’t—and should. But Grant still had hold of her hand and he tugged, pulling her into the office and shutting the door behind her.

“Sit down,” he told her, pointing to a chair across the desk from where he settled. “We should get to know each other.”

She sat gingerly on the edge of the chair. “I don’t know why,” she countered. “I’m not applying to be your friend. Just your pastry chef.”

He looked surprised, then laughed. “You got me there,” he conceded. “Okay, we’ll skip the chitchat and get right to business.” Glancing down at his desk, he began shuffling through paper.

Jolene looked him over as he worked. Today he had a challenging tilt to his chin and a rakish twinkle in his eyes, a tiny spark of impudent arrogance that was intriguing rather than annoying. He had all the confidence in the world around the female gender. It was obvious that most women found him utterly irresistible. But a sense of resolve made her raise an eyebrow. It was a good thing she wasn’t like most women.

Once he’d found the paper he was searching for, he sat back and looked at her, enjoying what he saw. Yes, she would be the perfect girl for Tony.

“I won’t keep you long,” he told her, tapping his pencil on the paper. “I just have a few questions.”

She crossed her legs and nodded. “Did you want me to fill out tax forms or...?”

He waved that away. “No, we won’t bother with that stuff yet. I just want to go over some questions with you.”

She nodded, perfectly willing. “All right.”

“Personal information,” he added, glancing at her and then down at the paper he had before him on the desk.

Something in his voice put her on notice. “What?”

Ignoring her question, he stared hard at the paper and began. “Uh, let’s see. Are you married?”

She frowned, uneasy and not sure why. “I think you know the answer to that one. My friend Mandy said you’d asked her.”

He looked up. “Mandy runs the pretzel machine?”

She nodded, her silvery eyes watching him steadily.

He smiled quickly and picked up his pen, jotting down a mark. “Okay. We’ll move on, then. Is the little boy—Kevin is his name, isn’t it? Is he your only child?”

She nodded again, and he made another mark on the paper.

“Are you seeing anyone special right now?”

Her frowned deepened and her suspicions grew. “What does that have to do with how well I can handle marzipan?” she asked him.

His smile was suave and reassuring. “Nothing. Nothing at all. These are just questions on a psychological profile. They mean nothing.”

She smelled a rat, but she had to admit, his smile was persuasive and she found herself on the verge of smiling back. “Then why bother with them?” she murmured.

He shrugged disarmingly. “Like I say, it’s a profile. We like to know what kind of people our employees are.” He tapped the desk with the pencil. “You didn’t answer the question. Are you seeing anyone special?” And his gaze held hers as though he would read more in her silver eyes than she would tell him with her lips.

Slowly, reluctantly, she shook her head.

He noted her reply on the paper and moved on, but his eyes were alight with satisfaction. “Okay. Now—would you say you’re the kind of woman who, uh, works best with a lot of people around, with light support and supervision, or on her own?”

She hesitated. This actually sounded like it might be a legitimate question for a profile. “I’d say probably somewhere between the last two,” she said, and he nodded.

“Would you say you’re the kind of woman who likes walks on a moonlight beach, a good game of tennis, or dancing the night away at nightclubs.”

They were swerving into suspicious territory again, but there was something about the sneaky way he was doing it that made her want to laugh.

“I’m the kind of woman who likes to stay home and play with my son,” she told him candidly. “And that’s about it.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Then how about this. Do you go for men of action, or the strong, silent type?”

Now she knew it was a hoax. How did he even have the nerve? “What?” she said, on the verge of laughter.

He spoke quickly as though he wanted to get his question in before she got up and walked out on him. “Okay, make it multiple choice. Would you prefer a man of action, the strong silent type, a sensitive poet, or the caring, compassionate and deeply loving, father of an eleven-year-old girl?”

She was shaking her head, holding back her laugh.

“Who happens to be very handsome and even funny, when you get him in the right mood,” he added, humor gleaming in his dark eyes.

The jig was up. She knew he wasn’t serious. He was going to ask her out, wasn’t he? And yet, she couldn’t help but be a little flattered by it. After all, he was a very attractive man. Still, she was going to have to set him straight.

“Now you sound like something on the dating game,” she told him, trying to be stern. “Bachelor number one or bachelor number two?” She threw up her hands. “Who cares? I’ll pick none of the above, thank you.” Her gaze met his calmly. “The truth is, I don’t date.”

Somehow he didn’t look convinced. “Never?”

She shook her head. “No, never.”

He leaned forward on the desk and gazed at her earnestly. “But what if you met that great guy with the daughter and you hit it off right away and—”

She frowned and broke into his question. “Listen, am I here for a job or is this all a ploy just to get a date?”

“A date?” He had the gall to look puzzled by her reaction. “Oh, wait. You think I...”

Yes, she did, and she’d decided it was time to put an end to this. Rising, she reached for her bag. “I’m sorry, but I won’t go out with you. And I would advise you to find a new pickup line. This one really stinks.”

He was laughing at her. She could see it in his eyes, but she couldn’t for the life of her see why he would find this amusing.

“I think there must have been a misunderstanding...” he began.

She sighed. It looked as if she was going to have to be explicit. “That’s just the point,” she told him sweetly. “You see, I never planned to go out with you. That’s not why I came.”

He blinked. “Well, that’s good,” he said, his voice almost too hearty. “Because I never planned to ask you.”

“Oh, come on,” she began, but a small hint of unease began to tickle deep inside. After all, nothing up to this point had made much sense, had it?

“Seriously, I didn’t bring you in here to ask you out on a date.”

“And he’d better not,” said a chirpy voice from behind her. “Because that would mean that he would have to stand me up. And I get ugly when I get stood up.”

Jolene hadn’t noticed the door opening, but she whirled to behold a pretty young woman with long black hair and bangs that barely cleared her huge blue eyes leaning in the doorway. Grant rose, coughing delicately into his hand in a way that Jolene later realized could only have been to hide his grin.

“Uh, Jolene Campbell, this is Kim Mancini—my date for this evening.”

“Your...”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, Kim and I have been dating for about three months now. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

“Uh-huh.” Kim nodded her head perkily. “We met at my cousin’s wedding. I fell in the swimming pool and Grant pulled me out by my hair.” She giggled. “Isn’t that romantic?”

“Very,” Jolene agreed with a weak smile.

Grant rose from behind his desk and came around quickly, as though to get between the two women before things got messy. “Well, I guess we’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning,” he said, shaking Jolene’s hand and smiling in a way that said clearly the interview was over. “How would eight do? I’m glad you’ve decided to join us.”

Jolene managed to salvage a smile before she turned to go. When she glanced back as she closed the door, she saw Kim melting into Grant’s arms, and the blush that had begun creeping up her neck a few minutes earlier made a major surge up and over her cheeks. She took a very deep breath and made her escape to the parking lot.

Humiliation? That was too wimpy a word for what she was feeling. She fell into the driver’s seat of her car and let out a silent scream before starting the engine. If only there was a way to rewind life and do it over.