Читать книгу How To Succeed At Love - Susan Connell - Страница 8

One

“Smoochie?”

The baritone voice came from inches away, but as far as Jade Macleod was concerned, the sound could have been from Mars.

Was she losing her mind? Did someone just offer her a kiss? Or was this an auditory hallucination brought on by stress? Pressing her hand against the front of her gray, pin-striped business suit, she cautiously turned away from the train window to the man sitting beside her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Smoochie?” he repeated, giving her a lopsided grin that made her forget to breathe. He lowered his thick, dark lashes toward the foil-wrapped chocolate in his hand then back to her. “You look as if you could use one.”

With everything she had to think about, it should have been easy to turn away. But the inviting combination of a handsome hunk with a funny line and her favorite brand of chocolate was making her mouth water. She swallowed; she’d never felt such deprivation in all of her twenty-eight years. And that trust-me twinkle in his big blue eyes wasn’t helping. Then again, this was not a big decision.

Jade slowly brushed her fingers through her bangs. As she resettled the curvy, red locks on her forehead, her stare shifted to his trim, broad-shouldered body. He moved his hand closer to hers, causing her gaze to skim down to the candy before settling on his hand. The kind of hand that inspired thoughts of strength, reliability and gentle touches in the moonlight.

His corded wrists and muscled forearms were covered in a light sprinkling of hair all the way to where the pushed-up sleeves of his sweater bunched at his elbows. Her gaze drifted to his lap. His well-worn jeans defined every muscle, every angle and everything else within the masculine sprawl of his long legs. The same long legs that had been casually bumping against hers in time with the rhythmic swaying of the train car. Blinking, she moved her leg away from his and looked up.

His knowing and riveting stare was there to meet hers. Her lips parted in astonishment. What was she doing staring at his body like that? A plague of problems had descended on both her professional world and her personal world. She had major decisions to make. The last thing she should be thinking about was taking candy from a stranger.

“No, thank you.”

“Spence. Spencer Madison,” he said, peeling back the foil and popping the candy in his mouth. “Remember?”

Nodding, she watched him lick dark chocolate from his thumb. How could she forget his name when he’d introduced himself shortly after claiming the seat next to hers three hours ago? Since they’d left Washington, he’d succeeded in telling her a dozen other facts about himself, too. None of which she’d asked for. All of which, surprisingly, she remembered. Especially that he would be around Follett River for the next few weeks working on his novel.

She dropped her head back on the seat. She had phone calls to make, a résumé to update and a letter of recommendation to look forward to. But right now all she wanted was to arrive quietly in the small New Jersey town, slip into the safety of her family home and lick her wounded pride until she figured out what else she had to do about the mess she was in. The last thing she needed was a distraction like Spencer Madison.

“Going home for Christmas?”

“Yes, and my ten-year high school reunion,” she answered before she thought to stop herself. She slowly slid her gaze toward him. How was he managing to catch her off guard like this?

“I went to mine a few years back,” he said, shaking his head and chuckling. “You’re going to have a great time.”

Wrong. The thought of showing up at her reunion without a date was as appealing as facing an IRS audit alone. Of course, she had no intention of dating anyone anytime soon anyway. Being dumped by her boyfriend yesterday was almost as humiliating as being fired from her Capitol Hill job the day before. Almost.

She wrapped her arms tightly around her midriff. Had she really been voted The Girl Most Likely To Succeed by her graduating class or was that just a nightmare she had last night? She winced when she thought about the disgraceful reality of her life. Nothing like this was supposed to happen. Not to Jade Macleod, the planner, the prioritizer, the achiever. The class president. Pressing back against her seat, she gave into a weary sigh.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, leaning close again.

She could smell orange-flavored chocolate on his breath, the expensive leather of his bomber jacket tucked between them and, most enticing of all, his clean, male scent. Her heart was pounding hard enough to make her skin tingle. For one heavenly moment she closed her eyes and escaped into the sensual haze his presence created.

What was it about this audacious stranger that she found so compelling? His voice? His scent? She squirmed in her seat. His taste in chocolate? Her growing smile suddenly froze. He was pressing his knee against her thigh with all the familiarity and intensity of a concerned lover.

Stiffening her spine she sat straight up. A lover? Who said anything about a lover? The man was a stranger. Granted, a good-looking, chocolate-scented one, but for all she knew there were other words that could describe him better. Slippery. Unstable. Dangerous.

She looked up for the emergency brake then winced when she realized what she was considering. She was on a train to Follett River, not in a lost episode of “I Love Lucy.” There was no call for histrionics.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she said, hoping her cool tone and hard stare would make him move back.

He didn’t move.

Honestly, he was close enough for her to count his eyelashes if they weren’t so thick. She uncrossed her legs and looked away. His warm breath continued playing against her neck as subtly as a sweet caress. Shifting her weight to one hip, she adjusted the hem of her skirt then crossed her legs in the opposite direction.

“Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Yes.” No! The next two weeks of her life were going to be an endurance test for her nervous system. She was about to attend her high school reunion without a date. On top of that she was going to have to deal with all those questions about her illustrious career on Capitol Hill. A career that no longer existed. And just to make things interesting, this would all take place over the Christmas holidays. She squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe she should have pressed for an emergency appointment with that psychotherapist instead of tucking her tail between her legs and hurrying home.

Candy, even chocolate candy, couldn’t fix her problems. Nor could brawny, breezy Spencer Madison. Stealing a glance at him, she suddenly felt a flicker of self-doubt tickling beneath her breastbone. Before she could figure out a logical reason for the sensation, the door at the end of the car rattled open.

“Follett River. Next stop, Follett River.”

Turning away from Spencer, she pressed both hands against the window as the train crossed the bridge over Follett River. Then a stand of snow-laden pines whisked by and the college bell tower came into view. She was already picturing herself climbing into a taxi and telling the driver to take her to Red Oak Road...the back way. The last thing she needed right now was to run into a chatty friend.

“Looks like something off of a church calendar out there.”

So what if he was leaning over her shoulder? This was the happiest she’d felt in a long time. “Yes, it does,” she said, not caring if he heard the rush of excitement in her voice or saw her beaming.

After a second he backed off, leaving her to bask in the special moment. But not for long. As the train pulled into the station, the brakes grabbed and half the contents of her purse spilled onto the floor.

“No,” she said, blocking him with her arm when he reached to help her. “I’ll get it.”

As she scrambled to pick up her things, Spencer Madison let out a heartfelt “What have we here?” followed by an amused laugh.

Jade fought feminine instinct to defend the scattered contents of her purse. What business was it of his anyway? Besides, in a matter of seconds, she would be escaping this newest distracting bid by him to engage her in conversation. She tossed a tube of lipstick back in her purse, followed by her day planner notebook and flip phone. What made him think talking would work when that smile of his hadn’t? That smile...

Before she could help herself, she twisted around to look up at him. He had the whitest, most even teeth she’d ever seen. And those dimples were incredibly charming on a man she suspected was approaching his mid-thirties.

“Check that out.” Jutting his thumb toward the window on the opposite side of the train car, he said, “Looks like we arrived right on time for the celebration...” He gave her a comical frown. “You never did tell me your name.”

“No, I didn’t,” she said, purposely giving him her most sincere smile to confuse him before turning away. She didn’t care to know what he was talking about. Reaching for a pen that had rolled beneath her seat, she shoved it in her purse, grabbed her coat and started up from her seat.

Outside, a band began playing “Hello, Dolly.” There was something eerily familiar about the enthusiastic though amateurish rendition. Jade eased back onto her seat. Leaning across Spencer Madison’s lap, she felt her eyes widening as her heart contracted. “Oh, no.”

“They’re a little heavy on the drums, but that kind of energy sure catches your attention, doesn’t it?” Standing, Spencer Madison purposely blocked her view as he shrugged into his jacket. “I wonder who rates this kind of welcome.”

She pressed back in the seat for another look, her gaze darting around him like a hummingbird. When she didn’t answer him, Spencer reached to the rack above them for their luggage.

“You’re getting out here, right?” he asked as several people squeezed by him on their way off the train.

Jade Macleod gave him the kind of blank look reserved for startled deer trapped in car headlights. In the three weeks Spencer Madison had been following her, she had always appeared in complete control of herself. The sight of her like this jarred him. He could almost allow himself to feel sorry for her current state, but that wouldn’t get his job done.

“You sure you’re okay?”

Reaching across his empty seat she took a white-knuckled grip on the armrest and scanned the scene outside.

“I—I... Oh, no, it—it ca—Ohh, no.”

He gently shook his head as she tried to force a coherent sentence. “Sorry,” he said, with a shrug. “If you think it would help, I’d be willing to buy a vowel.”

“Move!” she said, frantically grabbing onto the leather sleeve of his jacket, and pulling herself past him to the seat across the aisle. Kneeling on the cushion, she bent low to the window, sending her short skirt up her thigh.

Spencer indulged himself with an admiring glance lasting a full five seconds. He’d seen her at her health club wearing less, but this time those firm, sleek thighs were so close they were making his fingers itch.

“What is it?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose as he leaned down. When she started speaking in broken syllables again, he moved in close, curving his large hand around her shoulder.

“Is there someone out there you don’t want to see?” When she didn’t answer, he dipped his head lower and read from the banner outside. “Jade Macleod.” Turning his face toward her profile, he felt her hair brush his cheek. “Is that your name?”

She nodded.

“Jade, you look a little pale. You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?”

She twisted around on her knees to stare blankly into his eyes. A second later the tuba player took advantage of a lull and blew an amazingly rude note. The sound sent Jade forward against Spencer’s chest.

“Steady there, kiddo. What’s this all about?”

“It’s about me,” she said, pushing away from him the instant, it seemed, she came to her senses and realized she’d been burrowing into his embrace.

“Who are you?”

“Nobody anymore. I swear,” she said just as the crowd outside began chanting her name.

Spence looked out the window again then gave her a squinty-eyed look. “Well, you’re the most popular nobody I’ve ever met.”

With her gaze darting nervously around them, she whipped down the window shade. The train car was empty except for the two of them. “It’s too complicated to explain right now.”

Holding up his hand, he brought his thumb and index finger as close as he could without actually making contact with the other. “Could you give me just a tiny hint?” he asked, hoping his attempt at humor would break the tension and calm her down.

She shook her head. Her desperate expression told him she wasn’t in the mood for joking. Truth was, she looked as if she was beginning to hyperventilate.

For the first time since he’d started his investigation, he wondered if the pretty congressional aide might be more of a pawn than a perpetrator in the suspected travel fraud in her office. Stunned by his sentimental thought, he rolled his eyes. He knew nothing for certain yet. Except one thing. If anyone understood that hard-edged journalism had no place for sappy softies, it was Spencer Madison.

He gave her a skeptical look.

She pushed him into the aisle. “I need a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“Pretend we’re traveling together.”

He stepped back and lowered his chin. “You want me to pretend we’re, uh...” Smiling, he moved his hand back and forth between them. “Together? As in... together?”

“What?”

“In the Biblical sense together?”

“No! Not like that. I want you to pretend you’re my assistant,” Jade said, picking up a piece of her luggage and reaching for another. “And only if anyone asks.”

“Oh,” he said, his voice flat with disappointment.

She gave him a look to match the temperature and pointedness of the icicles hanging from the station’s overhang. “Why am I not surprised?” she murmured under her breath.

Jade began silently counting to ten, hoping her composure would return by the time she finished. She made it to three before blurting out, “Well, can you help me?”

A subtle, indefinable light came into his eyes at the same moment a slow smile began deepening his lengthy dimples. Later, when she was safely hiding in her old room, she would take the time to curse his ancestry. “Look, I know you must find this amusing but I just need to get through that crowd out there as quickly as I can. Will you help me?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Will we be having dinner together afterward?”

“Dinner? Yes, yes, of course.” She was willing to promise him a new car and an all-expense-paid trip to the Bahamas. Hell, she’d throw in ten pounds of Smoochies, too, if that would get him to help her.

Her heart began sinking when he glanced outside then gave her a dubious frown. Just when he had her convinced he was about to say no, he picked up his suitcases. “So, where are we going for dinner, Jade Macleod?”

A rush of relief mixed with a generous amount of gratitude filled her heart. Behind all that exasperating behavior there was a decent man! “Anywhere you want, Spencer Madison. Just get me out of here.”

She followed him up the aisle to the opposite end of the train, then hung back when he motioned for her to wait. He went down the steps, set down his luggage and reached back for hers. After setting everything on the platform, he looked around then motioned her down the steps. “Watch out for my computer case.”

She didn’t have to. He lifted her off the bottom step and over the case before her high-heeled boots could touch the platform. The effortless, take-charge move took her breath away. An unfamiliar excitement shivered through her. He wasn’t the irritating stranger anymore and she was feeling anything but weary. With his hands still curved around her waist, he leaned his head close enough to hers so she felt his beard stubble brush her cheek.

“Where to now?”

“In that door, through the station and out to the taxi stand. Then—”

“Jade! There you are,” her brother shouted from down the platform.

Without missing a bone-jangling note, the members of the Follett River High School marching band promptly pivoted in her direction. Spencer took his hands away and a few seconds later the music stopped.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Representative Bloomfield’s aide, valedictorian and president of her high school class and the girl voted Most Likely to Succeed—my sister, Jade Macleod.”

As the small crowd whooped and clapped their hands, Neal Macleod said in a stage whisper, “I’m doing a feature for the Follett River Ledger. I’m calling it, ‘What Ever Happened To The Girl Most Likely To Succeed?’ I came up with the idea this morning over at the Chocolate Chip Café when I heard the band director say the band needed practice. Kinda nice how it all came together. What do you think?”

She stared at him in silence.

“Right. Okay,” he said, sticking a small tape recorder within an inch of her lips. “So how does it feel to be back home in Follett River for your ten-year high school reunion?”

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out but a strangled rasp. Desperate, she looked up at Spencer.

Without hesitation, Spencer leaned close to the recorder. “I know Jade would like to tell you how surprised and honored she is by all of this attention. Unfortunately she’s recovering from a bad case of laryngitis.”

“And you are...?” Neal asked.

“Her personal assistant, Spencer Madison,” he said, glancing down at her.

Personal? She never said anything about personal. Pressing her lips together, she looked first at Spencer and then at her brother. The good news was, she didn’t have to choose; she could murder the both of them and the punishment would be the same.

“Jade, you have your own personal assistant now,” Neal said, as he reached across to shake Spencer’s hand, “I am impressed.”

And you’re lying, too, little brother. She could tell by the look in Neal’s eyes that his incredibly intelligent mind was in overdrive, trying to figure out what she was doing with Spencer.

She wondered that herself. In her haste to avoid public embarrassment, she hadn’t considered that Spencer Madison was all wrong to play her assistant. While she had shown up in her business suit, he was standing beside her in a leather bomber jacket, jeans that molded to everything and two-days’ worth of beard stubble that would have appeared contrived under the best circumstances. She swallowed slowly. She was already regretting her hasty decision.

“Smile,” someone shouted.

And Spencer did just that. His grin was genuine, his attitude—pleased-to-be-here—and his white teeth the envy of any politician. Down-to-earth yet dazzling, Jade couldn’t take her eyes from him. No one else could, either.

“You’re not smiling,” he said without moving his lips.

He was right. She’d been too busy staring at his born-to-break-hearts smile. Not her heart, of course, she thought as she turned away from him to smile at the camera. A second later her gaze strayed back to him as he gave a thumbs-up to the crowd.

They whooped their approval.

She gave him a light kick on the ankle. Honestly, what some people wouldn’t do for a free meal.

“All right.” Spencer clapped his hands together once then turned to Neal. “She should probably get home and rest.”

“Rough day?” Neal asked, pocketing his tape recorder.

“Rough,” Spencer agreed. “We worked right up until it was time to catch our train.”

We? Our? Would this madness ever end? The two men reached for the luggage as she turned on her heel and started toward the parking lot. The band followed them, blasting out “Moon River” this time.

Jade’s heart was already sinking when she spotted the hand-lettered sign attached to Neal’s car. Welcome Home, Congressional Aide Jade Macleod. Climbing in the back seat, she quickly slammed the door.

True, Spencer Madison had done what she’d asked. He also proved he could think quickly on his feet. But did he have to look so damned pleased with himself while he did it? Well, he could eat worms for dinner for all she cared. And he could eat them alone. Reaching for the door lock, she jammed down the button. At that same moment the front car doors opened.

“Hey, sis, I’ll head out to the house first to drop you off,” Neal said, as he and his photographer climbed in. “Then I’ve got to get Casey and me back to the paper so I can have a look at these photos.”

Before Jade could respond, the back door opposite hers opened. “Moon River” was blaring into the car’s interior as Spencer Madison got in. His surprise entry had her lurching forward and reaching for her brother’s shoulder.

Without missing a beat, Neal continued. “Spencer said he was going to be staying over at the Maxwell, but I told him living in a hotel was crazy when we have all that room at the house. When he told me you two are working on that special project together, I said it only makes sense that you both should be near each other.”

Jade’s mouth dropped open as she turned to glare at Spencer. “What project?” she mouthed silently.

“That’s okay,” Spence said in a perfectly audible voice. “I haven’t mentioned the nature of Representative Bloomfield’s project.” He pressed a finger to his lips. “It’s still secret.”

Secret project? There was no secret project, she wanted to shout. But she couldn’t now that Casey was sitting in the front seat next to Neal. The fewer people that knew about this catastrophe, the better.

She slumped back in her seat as Neal tooted his horn then waved off the high school band that was circling the car. “Moon River” suddenly ended as the band members scattered out of the way.

“Their particular interpretation needs a tad more work,” Neal said as he started the car. Spencer and Casey agreed, as he turned on the radio and drove off. Channel surfing, he quickly landed on a station playing reggae music. “Yesss.” He turned up the volume. “Now that’s music.”

Jade checked her watch then inched closer to her door.

Without hesitation, Spencer stretched his arm over the back of her seat and leaned in close to her ear. “How’d I do?” he asked, his leg casually pressing against hers.

“Let’s put it this way. No matter what my brother promised, you’re not moving in with us. And you can forget about dinner,” she whispered, giving his knee a hearty shove. Hard muscle and bone bounced back against her own. “Get off me!” she seethed, thumping him harder this time.

Neal took that moment to glance in the rearview mirror. “Settle down back there, you kids,” he said, in his best imitation of their father’s voice. “Or, I swear, I’m turning this car around and we’re all going home.”

Coming off the seat, Jade grabbed onto her brother’s headrest and opened her mouth to speak. Casey took that moment to snap off a few more photos, momentarily blinding her with the flash.

“Thought I’d finish the roll,” she heard the girl say.

“Uh, uh,” Neal said, waving his finger in the air between the spots of light. “You’d better save that voice, sis. Mom and Dad are at the house waiting to hear all about how you’re straightening out those naughty politicians on Capitol Hill.”

Sinking back in her seat, she gave a whimper that was lost to everyone but Spencer in the reggae din. If they only knew how naughty.

“Don’t worry,” Spencer said, patting her shoulder. “I can get you through that, too.”