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“And I admire your character, not afraid to go after what you wanted, protecting what belonged to you, Miss... Mrs... 7”
“Ms.”
“Of course, how Neanderthal of me.” He smiled but not just with his lips—with his eyes, the tilt of his head, the lines in his face. Even his posture added to his air of amusement. “Ms...?”
“Taylor. Becky—Rebecca—Taylor.” He admired her. Who’d have expected that? She tugged off her warped glasses and shoved them into her coat pocket. Legally, she needed the corrective lenses for driving and they helped tremendously when navigating the streets of Chicago on foot, but in a pinch she could get along without them. She pulled free the rubber band constraining her ponytail, shook her head, then fluffed her hair with one hand. “Becky, usually.”
“Well, Ms. Becky usually, I believe I owe you an apology for not returning this to you more promptly.”
He tapped the charm in her still-outstretched palm with his blunt fingertip.
The coins jingled.
Becky’s pulse leaped.
The simple gesture of this man dipping his finger into the hollow of her hand had an instant, almost erotic effect, with tiny, tingling waves building outward from the spot where his skin touched hers.
“I hope I didn’t inconvenience you too much by the delay,” he said.
“Oh, no. You didn’t delay me. You couldn’t delay me. I mean, I have nowhere special to go. Oh...that makes me sound homeless or...I’m not, not yet at least. I’m job hunting, so you see...I’m just unemploy...” The words rushed out all breathless with an unexpected young-girl quality that made her selfconscious, aware of the need to shut herself up. “Um, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He took his hand away and slipped it into his pocket, but before he did, Becky took the time and care to notice that he wore no wedding ring.
She focused on the objects remaining in her hand, wanting to say something, anything, to show herself as calm and casual about the whole awkward situation. This man had seen her looking like a big fool after all, and suddenly it felt very important to counteract her first impression. She plucked up the bootie, turning it this way and that. The gray morning light brought out the flaws and fine details of its design. A thought struck her. “I feel a little like Cinderella here. You know, you tracking me down with only this shoe to go on.”
“That would make me, what? Prince Charming?”
“That’s Snow White. I don’t think the prince in Cinderella ever gave his name.” She shifted her umbrella. “See? There’s another similarity. You haven’t given me your name, either.”
“Winstead. Clark Winstead.” He extended his hand.
Clark Winstead. He even had a great name. She put her own hand forward, remembered she still held the bootie in her fingers, dropped her gaze to it, then started to tuck it back into her other hand.
Clark Winstead stopped her.
“Here, if you don’t mind?” He took the trinket, apparently forgetting about the handshake entirely.
Becky felt a twinge of regret at not getting to feel her band in his. They’d made a connection, she thought, one she’d have liked to prolong if only with a more formal introduction.
“I notice it’s a bit worse for the run-in with my heel.” He examined the charm with one eye half-shut, then fixed those amazing eyes on her. “Why don’t you let me have my jeweler fix that for you?”
This guy has his own jeweler? she thought.
“Or I could replace it altogether,” he suggested.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want a new one. This one has sentimental value.”
“For your own baby?”
“No, I’ve never had any babies.” She gazed up into those heart-melting brown eyes. But I’d have yours, a little voice inside her sighed. “I do hope to have one someday.”
He nodded as if she’d just confirmed something to him.
“I know I don’t look terribly responsible or anything right now, but I am. I’ve always had goals in my life—like going to college, moving to Chicago. I made the second one happen—obviously—and hope to make the first one happen when I can afford it. I think that’s the kind of thing that helps make a good mother, having priorities and never slacking off on self-improvement.”
She knew she sounded like she was applying for the job. She felt the heat rise from her neck to her cheeks, even singeing the rims of her ears, at her chattering on. But a girl like her only met a prince, or a Clark Winstead, once in a lifetime, and something inside her told her to give him as much information about herself as she possibly could. It couldn’t hurt and something she said might just strike a chord in the guy.
“Plus I love kids and they love me. When the time comes, I think I’d be a very good mother.”
“No doubt.”
What had she thought? That he’d be so awed by her blathering that he’d propose right on the spot and ask her to bear his child? She folded her coat around her like a security blanket. “Um, in answer to your question, the bootie charm is for my nephew. I have one for my niece, too. I have a charm for every major event in my life.”
She held up the bracelet before she could stop herself from the childish, bumpkin behavior. Like the man wanted to see her stupid bracelet!
“Delightful,” he said. “May I?”
This time, he took her hand in his and Becky decided then and there she knew how the “real” Cinderella must have felt when the prince slid that glass slipper into place on her foot.
He turned her hand over and the bracelet clattered softly. “Why, it looks like you’ve led a very full life, Ms. Taylor.”
“I guess as full as a girl can lead and still be allowed to sing in the church choir in Woodbridge, Indiana.”
He laughed, probably just out of politeness, but it was a warm, genuine-sounding laugh all the same that radiated through Becky’s rain-soaked being.
He raised his eyes to look at her, his chin still tucked in. “That’s where you’re from? Woodbridge, Indiana?”
“Born and raised,” she said, nodding.
“Lucky Woodbridge.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He released her hand and reached inside his pocket. In a moment, he had withdrawn two perfect business cards the color of rich vanilla ice cream. He handed them both to her, then took a pen from inside his overcoat.
Becky recognized the type of pen from windowshopping for a gift for her brother’s last birthday. That simple, stylish, fine writing instrument, as they were called in the store, easily cost more than she could earn in a month at her old job in Woodbridge. Well, she thought, had she expected less from a prince?
“Write down your name, address and phone number on one of these,” he said. It wasn’t a request.
He wants my number, she thought. Her fingers could hardly grip the pen he handed her.
“I’ll take the charm to my jeweler to be repaired, then have him send it to you.”
“Oh.” She blinked. The noises of the city, which had seemed muted by the very presence of the man, came rushing back to fill her ears. Car horns blared, tires whooshed over the wet road, people called out to one another. Becky swallowed hard and managed to eke out a stiff but respectful “Thank you.”
If she had a shred of pride left, she’d tell him not to trouble himself. Correction—if she had pride and enough money to get the charm repaired herself, she’d tell him...
She looked up into that face.
His gaze brushed over her chin, her lips, her hair, then settled on her eyes.
She’d tell him... “Here you go. If it takes past the end of the month, I may not be at that apartment anymore, so I jotted down my brother’s address in Woodbridge.”
He slid the card slowly from between her fingers and placed it in his breast pocket. “Good. And you keep my card just in case they don’t do the job to your satisfaction.”
She ran her fingertip over the engraved lettering. “thank you. I will.”
He tipped his head and took a step backward. “Goodbye, then.”
“Bye.” She smiled, then stepped back herself, bumping into a burly mailman as she did. Her umbrella slid down her shin and clunked to the pavement, rolled into the gutter, then burst open just in time to get run over by a speeding taxi.
She was having one of the worst days of her life and the only prince she’d ever meet was right there to witness it.
Becky Taylor was either the sweetest, most innocent young woman he had ever run across—or she was a stark, raving lunatic.
“Miss Harriman, have this sent to my regular jeweler for repair and then have it...” He glanced down at the name and number written in delicate swirls on the back of one of his business cards.
Plus I love kids and they love me. When the time comes, I think I’d be a very good mother. Her words echoed through his mind.
He ran his thumb along the sharp edge of the card.
Flawless-as-cream skin, hair that looked, when not bunched up on her head, like the spun-gold curls straight off a Christmas angel and every bit as wholesome.
Clark did not often run into girls like that. The novelty of her spirit and innocence intrigued him, stirred something up in him. Other things about her stirred him up, as well.
Not too thin, but not too plump, either, the girl had a body that would fill a man’s hands, that could fulfill his most primal fantasies. Not like those stick-figure women who inhabited his moneyed world. That type wouldn’t do more than nibble on the exorbitant meals he’d buy them at all the best restaurants, but they’d damn sure eat a girl like Becky Taylor alive if given the chance.
And she’d give them indigestion for their trouble, too, he decided with a wry smile.
He chuckled to recall the fury she’d shown when she thought he’d made off with her prized ornament. Oh, sure, she looked like a pitiful but precious rag doll at first glance, but underneath it she had fire in her, self-reliance and character. And she was a virgin, too. He’d stake his fortune on that fact.
That “fact” touched something in him, awakened his male protective instinct and made him feel proprietary even though he hardly knew the girl. And any girl who did that to a man like him, someone suspicious of entanglements since childhood and distanced from them by choice in adulthood, deserved due consideration.
Yes—provided she wasn’t a lunatic—Becky Taylor might just be exactly what he was looking for.
He closed his hand over the crisp card. “Just have the charm repaired, Miss Harriman, then returned to me. I think I can handle it from there.”
Chapter Three
A hot shower. A cool drink. A warm bed, then out cold. That’s all Becky wanted tonight. Feet aching and spirit sagging, she trudged up the first fight of stairs, with their worn rubber surface, to her tiny apartment. She gripped the wobbling handrail for support and clutched a file folder filled with copies of her rеsumе, job applications and the day’s paper, thinking only of the night ahead. Well, not only of the night ahead, she corrected herself, rounding the first landing. One other thing she wanted, and wanted badly—to put Clark Winstead completely out of her mind once and for all.
She hadn’t done that last night or the night before. In fact, not one morning or afternoon or evening or night—since she’d met the man three days ago—had gone by without something reminding her of him. Each morning when she closed the clasp on her favorite charm bracelet before going out job hunting, she thought of him. When she’d spent an afternoon on a temp job handing out samples of expensive men’s cologne, she thought of the scent that had clung unobtrusively to his overcoat. In the evening, when she enjoyed the only entertainment she could afford—a romance novel checked out from the library—the hero’s voice became his voice in her mind. And when she went to sleep at night...
Becky bit her lip and staggered to a stop on the second landing. Such dreams! And from a former vacation Bible school assistant teacher and onetime Sweetheart of the Future Farmers of America! She blushed at her own imagination in an area that had, until now, not been overly explored in her life. In aspects of romantic love and unbridled lust, Becky could count herself a novice, a subnovice, in anything approaching serious intimacy. Quaint and old-fashioned as it probably seemed to many, she’d always figured she would reserve learning more about “it” until after she got married.
Now, one bumbling run-in with Clark Winstead and she seemed ready to sign up for night school! What had become of her? She laughed to herself at the ridiculous idea that a man like Winstead would even recall who she was, much less want to sign on as her very own professor of passion.
She started up the stairs again with renewed vigor. This wasn’t the mopey little farm girl who had arrived in Chicago months ago. She had too much at stake here to let childish fancies, or even mature fantasies, distract her from her real work of finding a job and making it on her own. She did not need a man to come along and make everything wonderful for her. She had everything it took to make her own way in life, to succeed and excel. She hardly needed rescuing, for heaven’s sake. She was strong and resourceful and determined; those traits alone would see her through this current crisis in good stead.
Forget the fairy tales, she told herself, where the prince sweeps the ragamuffin girl off her feet and into a magical world of romance and riches. That kind of thing never happened in the real world. And Becky, with her temp job over and her prospects for gainful employment about as bleak as the overcast evening skies, lived dead center in the real world.
She would probably never see her would-be Prince Charming again, except in her dreams. That, she decided as she took the last step of the dreary four-story walk up to her small apartment, was the story of her life. No job. No prince. No—
“Clark!”
Clark jerked his head up to find a pair of beautiful, shock-widened eyes fixed on him. He stiffened from his jaw to his work-tightened shoulders and all points southward. All points.
That this woman had that kind of intense physical effect on him puzzled and disturbed Clark only slightly more than the profound protectiveness he had felt toward her at their very first meeting. Something about this woman penetrated his steely control and got right to the core of his being. He did not like that. Did not like it one bit.
Clearing his throat, he forced himself to relax as much as he could in this circumstance and give her a smile of indulgent benevolence. “Hello again.”
“Hello.” Ms. Taylor looked as if she wanted to say more, to say anything, but no sound came out.
Clark did not mind. He enjoyed watching her full lips part, purse, then open slightly. Then, seductive in the sheer instinct of the action, her tongue flicked out to brush the center of her lower lip. Clark found himself wishing he could do the same—brush his tongue slowly, instinctually, over those lips and then—
Becky blew out a long, breathy whistle and shook back her hair.
She wanted him to kiss her, he reasoned. He looked into her eyes and felt them practically pleading for it.
She blinked. “Clark. It’s really...it’s really you.”
“Yes, it is.” He stepped toward her. Really him. Really just about to fulfill the inner need he saw in her, beckoning to him. He angled his head downward just enough to put him in position and then, when her mouth opened again—
“Wh-what on earth are you doing here?” She plunked her hands on her hips and gaped at him.
The stinging disbelief of her tone slapped him back to his senses. He stepped back, unsure of what to say to her. After all, Clark had asked himself the same question—what on earth was he doing here?
He’d asked himself that question more than once today already: when he’d put a senior VP on hold to take a phone call from the jeweler, again when he’d made specific arrangements that the charm not be left with a secretary but delivered to him personally, and yet again when he’d cut short a meeting to take the time to bring the charm to Ms. Taylor himself.
He glanced around at the dimly lit hallway lined with brown-painted doors with brackish brass numbers on the frames. It wasn’t a shabby place by any means, clean but unremarkable, not at all the kind of place he’d have chosen for Becky, though. “Actually, I was just thinking the same thing myself.”
“You were?”
“Yes, I was wondering what a girl like you was doing living in a place like this.” He’d asked it to turn things back to his advantage, he thought, but even he didn’t quite believe that the question had not come from some genuine concern for her well-being. “Not that it’s not perfectly...acceptable, but—”
“But?” She folded her arms over her chest, her eyes sparking with challenge.
That spark set off its own little fire in Clark. No one challenged him—not the big man, the boss, the one who signed the paychecks. He gritted his teeth to keep from grinning in sheer delight at rising to the forgotten feeling. “But I thought I’d find you living somewhere more suited to your personality.”
“Like where?” The tendrils of her hair quivered with the quick, controlled jerk upward of her head. “The armory?”
Clark laughed. It felt good to laugh and really mean it. “Actually, I had more in mind the country, but I assume if you are going to insist on city life, you could do the least damage at an armory. That or one of those steel-and-marble skyscrapers with...no, no, far too many opportunities for elevator mishaps there.”
“I can afford this place—at least for a while longer still. It’s clean, convenient and safe. That’s why I’m here.” She tacked on a look that reminded him he had yet to explain his own presence in her building.
Clark sighed. He had no business being here, he told himself as he skimmed his thumb over the velvety box in his pocket. Damaged charm or not, he had other, far more serious responsibilities demanding his attention right now.
His mind went over the reports his legal team had handed him in the meeting he’d abandoned in favor of this errand. The operation he’d been determined to buy out, a struggling, privately owned company that would flounder within a year on its own—or flourish as a part of Clark’s empire—would not sell. That incomplete transaction gnawed at his insides, but then, so had this dangling bit of unfinished business concerning a certain young lady and a bent baby bootie.
