скачать книгу бесплатно
“I thought it was you,” he said, trying to feign total surprise. Will stared at her. It was the same Jane, but she was different. Features that had once been a bit plain had changed into something quite striking, not cute at all, but beautiful. She’d been a nineteen-year-old girl when he’d last seen her. Now, she was definitely a woman.
“What are you doing here?” Jane asked.
He slammed the car door and circled the hood to stand in front of her. “I…I was just heading…up the street, to a restaurant.” Will reached out and before he realized what he was doing, he’d grabbed her hand. He hadn’t meant to touch her, but now that he had, he realized how much he’d missed her.
For two years, Janie had been a constant in his life, a friend who’d been there whenever he’d needed her. A sliver of guilt shot through him. And he’d never taken the time to thank her, or even to return the favors she’d so eagerly done for him. He stared down at her hand and slowly rubbed his thumb along her wrist. “It’s really good to see you, Janie.”
She shifted nervously and tugged her hand away. “What restaurant?”
“What? Oh, I don’t know the name,” he said. “I just know it’s on this block.” He smiled. “You look great. It’s been a long time. What have you been up to?”
“A long time,” she repeated. “Yes, it has. Six years almost. I think the last time I saw you was the day you graduated from law school. We were going to keep in touch but then…well, you know how it goes. I got so busy and…”
“I’m sorry we didn’t,” Will said, the sentiment sincere.
“Me, too.”
As he stood in front of her, he fought the urge to touch her again, to drag her into his arms and reassure himself that it was really Jane. Memories of her flooded his mind, memories that he hadn’t even recalled storing away. The long, thick lashes that ringed her dark eyes. The perfect shape of her mouth, like a tiny Cupid’s bow. And the scent of her, like fresh air and spring flowers. “You know, I don’t have to be at the restaurant for a half hour. Maybe you and I could have a cup of coffee?”
She stepped back, as if the invitation caught her by surprise. “I—I can’t,” Jane said. “I—I’m late for an appointment. But it was really nice seeing you, Will.”
“Well, then dinner,” Will insisted. “Whenever you like. How about this weekend? There’s this terrific new Asian restaurant downtown. You like Asian food, don’t you?”
“This weekend won’t work,” Jane said. “Listen, it was great seeing you again.”
“Lunch?” Will asked. “You must eat lunch.”
“I never have time.” She gave him a little wave and rushed off down the sidewalk, looking back just once.
Will stood at the car, stunned at how quickly it was over. He watched until she turned a corner. “Well, that was just great,” he muttered. “If I can’t talk her into a cup of coffee, how am I going to convince her to date me?” A soft curse slipped from his lips, but then he remembered the contract. He’d just try again—and again, if he had to. And if Jane Singleton continued to resist his charms and refuse his invitations, he’d just have to use the only weapon he had—the law.
“MAYBE WE COULD ASK FOR an extension on the rent.”
Jane Singleton pressed her fingers to her temples and stared at the spreadsheet program on her computer, knowing that the suggestion wouldn’t make any difference. The columns of numbers blurred in front of her eyes and she caught herself daydreaming again, her mind wandering back to her encounter with Will McCaffrey last week.
He’d looked so good, the same, but different, more polished and sophisticated. When she’d first seen him standing next to his car, Jane had been certain he was a figment of her imagination. But he had been real, and after all these years, he still had the capacity to send her pulse into overdrive and turn her brain into mush.
Overwhelmed and exasperated by her reaction, she’d made a quick escape. Though she’d once harbored a secret crush on Will McCaffrey, she’d finally managed to put her fantasies aside. She was a grown woman now, not some silly schoolgirl.
Still, Will wasn’t making it easy. He’d called three times since their chance meeting to ask her out and over and over again, she’d come up with a litany of feeble excuses. She’d been tempted, but Jane knew she could never trust herself around him—he could make her fall in love all over again with just a simple smile.
“Jane!”
She jerked up and placed her palms on her desk. “What? I was listening. The numbers just don’t add up. Right. I can see that. We’re not going to have enough to keep the office.”
Lisa Harper shook her head. “All right. What’s wrong? You’ve been distracted all morning. I know we’re under a lot of pressure here, but you’re always so focused at times like these. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Lisa had been her friend since freshman year in college and her business partner since they’d founded Windy City Gardens after they’d graduated. But Lisa had spent too many evenings listening to Jane babble about Will McCaffrey to have him reappear in their conversations again. “It’s nothing,” Jane murmured.
“Tell me.”
“You won’t like it,” Jane warned her.
“You’re my best friend. You’re supposed to tell me every little detail about your life. It’s part of the deal. We talk about highly personal matters, you insist that I look skinny in everything I wear, you encourage me to eat more chocolate because it’s good for my skin, and you—”
“If I tell you, you have to promise this isn’t going to become a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Yeah. Whenever we discuss my personal life and you have an opinion, you want to talk about it over and over and analyze it. And then, once you’ve decided what I should do, you won’t let up until I do it. If I tell you this, you have to promise to just drop it, all right?”
“Promise,” Lisa said, drawing a cross over her heart.
“I saw Will McCaffrey last week.”
Lisa’s expression turned from genuine interest to outright disbelief. “Oh, no. Not again. You haven’t mentioned his name for nearly two years. We are not bringing him back into conversation. The man has ruined you for all men.”
“How is that?”
“Because you haven’t met one man in the past six years that you haven’t compared to Will McCaffrey. You’d think the guy was some kind of god. He’s just a jerk who never appreciated you while he was around.”
“He was right across the street. He was getting out of his car and I was on my way to the Armstrong appointment and there he was, just standing there.”
Lisa covered her ears. “La, la, la, la, la. I’m not listening. I can’t hear you.”
Jane reached out and pulled Lisa’s hands from her ears. “All right. I won’t talk about him. Let’s get back to business.” She drew a deep breath. “It’s November. Even if we bring in ten new contracts for the spring, we’re not going to get paid until at least April. We knew the risks when we decided to go into the landscaping business in Chicago. Gardens don’t grow in the winter.”
“So what did he say?” Lisa asked.
“I think our only option is to diversify. We’ll do Christmas decorations. Put up outdoor lights, decorate trees. We can call some of our competitors, see if they’re too busy. They could subcontract some of their jobs to us.”
“Is he still as handsome as he always was?” Lisa wriggled in her chair. “He always was a hottie. And he knew it, too. I guess it’s too much to hope that he’s gained fifty pounds and has developed a bad case of acne.”
“We cut costs as much as we can,” Jane continued, sending Lisa a quelling glare. “We get rid of the office and transfer the phone. We’ll have to keep the garage for equipment storage. And we call all our past and present clients and offer up our services as Christmas decorators. And then we find a place that will give us a cut rate on twinkle lights.” A tiny smile was all that Jane could muster. There was one good thing about being an eternal optimist. Even in the face of impending disaster, she could keep her wits about her. But it wasn’t easy when things looked this bad. “Even with the Christmas jobs, I’m still not going to be able to make my rent. I’m two months behind and I have less than one hundred dollars in my checking account.”
“Can we please talk about Will?” Lisa pleaded.
Jane eyed her business partner. “I thought you didn’t want to hear about him.”
“All right. I admit. I’m curious and we might as well get it out of the way so we can get down to business.”
It didn’t take much encouragement for Jane to spill the beans. She’d been thinking about him nonstop for nearly six days and she felt as if she were about to burst into flames unless she put her thoughts into words. “He looked different. Handsome and sexy. And respectable. He was wearing a suit that made his shoulders look so broad, and his hair was shorter. But he’s still just as confident and charming as ever.”
“What did he say?”
“I really can’t remember. The moment he touched me I just—” Jane fluttered her fingers around her face. “I got all flustered. He asked me out, first to coffee, then to dinner and then to lunch. You would have been proud of me. I said no and then I got out of there before I starting drooling all over him.”
“You turned him down.”
“Yes. And not just then. He’s called me three times this past week to ask me out again. But I’m strong. I’ve decided going out with him would be a big mistake and I’m determined never to see him again. It was just a chance meeting and it’s over.”
“So he still did it to you,” Lisa muttered. “He still made your heart race and your palms sweat?”
“No,” Jane cried. “Well, maybe, a little. But I’m a different person now. I’m not that silly girl who filled up journal after journal with her fantasies about him. I’m not that girl who wasted sleep dreaming about him. Not anymore,” she lied. Although there had been more than a few very vivid dreams over the past nights, dreams that had featured a tall, dark man who looked a lot like Will. “Besides, I have a boyfriend.”
“You mean David?”
“Yes. Last month we had two dates. He took me to that play and we went to see a movie together. And we had dinner afterward. He’s sweet and polite and handsome. The kind of man I can trust. The kind of man who won’t break my heart.”
David Martin was an architect who had first contacted Windy City Gardens to do the landscaping for a home he’d designed. They’d worked with him on six other projects and he and Jane had formed a friendship. Though David seemed happy with the occasional date, Jane had always hoped that their relationship would progress to something a bit more intimate than a chaste peck on the cheek at the end of the evening.
“I still think he’s gay,” Lisa said, her voice tinged with suspicion.
“He is not! He’s just well-dressed and well-groomed. Just because he pays particular attention to his appearance doesn’t make him gay.”
“Don’t you remember what brought you together? Your mutual love of Celine Dion and Audrey Hepburn.”
“We share common interests. He’s a sweet, sensitive, understanding man—unlike Will McCaffrey who wouldn’t think of sitting through an Audrey Hepburn double feature.”
“Back to Will McCaffrey again,” Lisa murmured.
“If I had a choice between David Martin and Will McCaffrey, I’d choose David every day of the week and twice on Sundays.”
The bell on the front door rang and they both turned to watch a messenger walk inside. “Here we go,” Lisa said, deftly changing the subject. “This nice man is bringing us new business, I can feel it. Or maybe he has an envelope filled with cash.”
“Are you Jane Singleton?” the messenger asked.
Lisa pointed to Jane. “That’s her.”
“I’m supposed to deliver this to you personally and then make sure you read it.”
Jane took the envelope, noting the stamp on the front. “Personal and Confidential,” she read.
“Who’s it from?”
“There’s no return address.” She tore into the envelope and pulled out a photocopy of a handwritten document. As she began to read, she slowly recognized the handwriting. And when her gaze dropped to the bottom of the page and found her own signature, Jane gasped. “Oh, my God.”
“What is it?”
Jane handed Lisa the contract and read the cover letter. “In the matter of the contract between William A. McCaffrey and Jane Singleton, we must discuss the satisfaction of terms as soon as possible. I’ve scheduled a meeting at my office for tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Sincerely, William McCaffrey, Attorney at Law.”
“We’re doing Will McCaffrey’s garden? Gee, Jane, I’m impressed. You managed to pitch him a project while avoiding him at the same time?”
“Read the contract. This doesn’t have anything to do with a garden. This is about…marriage.”
Lisa’s eyes went wide. “Marriage? Like in ‘husband and wife, till death do us part’?” She quickly scanned the contract, then glanced up at Jane, a stunned expression on her face.
“It was a joke,” Jane said. “He was depressed and I was…vulnerable and he suggested if neither of us was married by the time he was thirty, then we’d…oh, God. I’d forgotten all about this. How could I forget about this?”
“Do you have any return message?” the messenger asked impatiently.
“No,” Jane said, forgetting he was still standing there. “Wait, yes.” She stepped up to the young man and poked a finger into his chest. “You can tell Will McCaffrey that he has a lot of nerve digging up this silly contract. I’m not going to marry him. I’m not going to date him.” She gave the guy another poke. “And you can tell him if he thinks I’m still the same love-starved, weak-willed, stupid little girl who kissed him that—” Jane bit her bottom lip. “Never mind. I’ll tell him myself.”
The messenger nodded, then hurried out of the office, clearly unnerved by her outburst.
“When did you kiss Will McCaffrey?”
“Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1998. Six years ago. He was drunk. And I was completely out of my mind.” She grabbed the contract from Lisa. “This can’t be legal. Look at it. It’s handwritten. And this doesn’t even look like my signature.”
“Is that your signature?” Lisa asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I think it might be legal.”
Jane felt a warm flush creep up her cheeks and her stomach churned with nerves. “I guess I’m going to have to get a lawyer.”
“Either that or marry Will McCaffrey,” Lisa chirped.
JANE SMOOTHED HER HANDS over the front of her skirt, working out a wrinkle that had developed on the ride downtown. She’d spent most of the morning trying to decide what to wear to her meeting with Will. She’d begun with the sexy choices, anxious to prove that she wasn’t the same clumsy girl that he’d once known, that she’d grown into a confident, attractive woman who didn’t need a contract to find a husband.
But she’d discarded those outfits for more conservative choices, a tailored blazer and pants with a silk blouse and elegant jewelry, something to counter his power suit. But that choice hid every trace of femininity, so she traded the pants for a pencil-slim skirt and heels, a wardrobe choice that she rarely employed.
After dressing, she’d fussed with her hair, trying to train the waves into something more subdued. She’d finally given up on the tousled curls and carefully brushed on mascara and lipstick before heading out the door.
Will’s office was located in one of the numerous office towers that dominated downtown Chicago. She’d parked in a nearby ramp and walked the block to the building, taking a few moments to rest in the lobby and compose herself.
This was all too strange, she mused. He couldn’t really expect her to marry him, could he? This was the twenty-first century and America! Women couldn’t be forced into marriage, contract or not. Still, Jane couldn’t help but think that marriage to Will McCaffrey could solve a few of her pressing problems—like where she was going to live after she gave up her apartment or how she was going to save enough money to get her business back on stable ground.
“I don’t love him,” she murmured to herself, letting the words repeat silently in her brain like a mantra. A real marriage, a marriage meant to last, required a level of emotion that Will McCaffrey wasn’t capable of returning.
Jane smoothed her skirt again, then started toward the elevator. “Just remain calm and everything will be just fine.” After all, she didn’t know his motivations in sending her the contract. Maybe this was just his way of convincing her to accept a date.
“That’s it,” she said, the notion taking hold. Will McCaffrey was a handsome, sexy guy, the kind of guy any woman would want to marry. He’d never be forced to rely on an old contract to get a wife. He could walk down Michigan Avenue with a cardboard sign and come up with ten or fifteen candidates within a single city block. So why was he so determined to go out with her?
The elevator opened on a wide hallway. Directly in front of her, glass doors marked the entrance to the offices of McCaffrey Commercial Properties. A pretty receptionist waited behind a circular desk and smiled as Jane walked through the doors. “Good afternoon,” she said. “May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Will McCaffrey,” Jane said.
“You must be Miss Singleton.” She stepped around the desk. “Mr. McCaffrey asked that I show you to his office. He’s in a meeting right now, but he should be through momentarily. Is there anything I can get for you?”
Jane was tempted to ask for a blindfold so she wouldn’t have to stare at Will’s handsome face, or maybe earplugs so she wouldn’t have to listen to his tantalizing voice. Or maybe a bottle of Valium to calm her nerves and quell her racing heart. “No, thank you, I’m fine.”
The receptionist led her down a long hall and opened a door at the end of it. “I’ll let Mr. McCaffrey know you’re here.”
“Thanks,” Jane said.
After the receptionist walked out, Jane wandered around Will’s office, too nervous to sit. His law school diploma was displayed prominently behind his desk and the credenza held a variety of photos, most of them featuring either exotic locales or a golden retriever. What she didn’t find was a photo of a wife, or even a girlfriend. Jane ignored the tiny thrill of satisfaction that raced through her. Whether he was involved in a relationship or completely single shouldn’t make a difference. She picked up a photo of the dog and stared at it.
