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Now she’d nearly been hit from behind. An angry-looking driver jerked his car around hers, and Tracy tried not to lip-read the names he was calling her. She was ready to retrieve Hannah from day care and go home. Today seemed like a good day to camp out on the living-room floor with a game of Candyland, a double batch of fudge and a half dozen of Hannah’s favorite videos. Every parent and child needed quality time together.
After the driver she’d nearly hit had disappeared back into the traffic, Tracy shifted her car into gear and crawled on past her spot. There wasn’t another vacant space for a couple of blocks.
With a deep sigh, Tracy pulled into it. She wouldn’t even attempt to carry the box of forms so far by herself. She’d have to leave them in the trunk until later, and walk to work in her skirt and heels.
She’d told Booker this type of clothing wasn’t practical for a glorified messenger, but he had prevailed. His favorite saying was that in business, image was everything. He’d said a woman’s femininity was often a viable selling point and had advised Tracy to dress for the job she aspired to rather than the one she had.
Since she had hopes of being promoted to full consultant, she was inclined to bow to his wishes.
The whistle she received from a passing driver as she walked down the busy sidewalk only made her madder. By the time she reached the dusty black motorcycle, she wanted to shove it off its big bad tires. Suddenly, hog seemed an appropriate term. She glared at it as she juggled her armful of reports to one hand and whirled around to go inside.
The door to her boss’s private office was open, so she called out, “I’m here. Did you see the hairy beast who stole my spot? I nearly ran over his motorcycle.”
There was a lengthy pause, then Booker’s voice drifted out. “Come in here, Tracy.”
Tracy threw the reports on her desk and kicked her shoes under her desk before she headed back. “I had to park two blocks away,” she said on the way in. “I’d love to grind my foot into that imbecile’s—”
Tracy stopped when she reached Booker’s doorway. This time, she wasn’t noticing something that reminded her of Riley.
She was seeing Riley, himself.
He was sitting in Booker’s plush client’s chair with a helmet balanced on his knees. He grinned that wicked, lopsided grin as he stared at her feet. “Where were you planning to put those sassy red toes?”
Tracy looked down at her feet. The polish was not red, it was pink. Rowdy Rouge, to be precise. She stuck her thumbnail between her teeth and grimaced at the taste of the anti-nail-biting cream she’d rubbed in this morning. Drawing her hand back down, she looked across at Riley, whose smile had spread to both sides.
He looked out of place in Booker’s office. Even in creased dress pants and a collared shirt, he seemed too dangerous to occupy a space so tame.
Her boss cleared his throat. Tracy dragged her gaze to Booker’s most violent frown. He motioned to her feet and mouthed for her to put her shoes on.
She did the only thing she could do.
She walked in three steps farther and sat in the third chair. “It’s okay, I know him,” she said to Booker.
Then she turned her head slightly and looked down her nose at Riley. “Why are you here?”
Riley’s smile revealed an even row of white teeth. Which held her complete attention until a firm grip on her arm wrenched her out of her chair.
“Excuse us, please.” This was from Booker, who hauled her out the door and all the way across the office. He didn’t stop until they were secluded by the coatrack next to the front door. Leaning close, he said, “What are you doing?”
Tracy tossed her head back toward Booker’s office. “He’s bad news.”
Booker backed up a step and looked at her as if she had a row of Rowdy Rouge toenails growing out of the bridge of her nose. “Oh, really?”
“He probably just came here to torment me.”
“Not exactly.” Booker stood up straight and cleared his throat. “He came to hire you.”
She sniffed. “Why would Riley need a consultant?”
Booker paused, and Tracy finally processed his statement. “You don’t mean hire Vanderveer’s?” she whispered.
Booker had crossed to her desk and was squatting to scavenge around on the floor. “No, I said hire you.”
“What for?” Tracy scowled across the room at the pair of trousered legs she could see inside Booker’s office. Even from this distance, they looked all wrong.
“He’s opening a civil engineering firm, and he wants help getting things going,” Booker said before he dropped to his knees, pulled back her chair and said, “Aha!”
Tracy had never seen her boss from this angle. The bald spot peeking out of his tidy brown hairstyle was disturbing.
Or maybe it was what he’d just said—Riley, starting a business in Kirkwood. Oh, no!
“Office setup, demographics, personal coaching—the works,” Booker said from beneath her desk. He held both of her shoes in one hand and used the seat of her chair to pull himself up.
“But I’ve never done a full consulting job,” Tracy said as she accepted a shoe and bent down to slip it on. “You said it could take another year to work up to that.”
“He said that he wants you, and that he’d pay a full month’s fees up front if you accept the job.”
Tracy stared at the wrinkles in her boss’s herringbone jacket. “You’d let me do it?”
“Let’s put it this way—if you take on the job and handle it well, you’ve got your toenails in the door.” He handed her the second shoe. “But you’d be wise to keep your shoes on at all times, got it?”
Tracy slumped down in her chair with the leftover shoe still in her hand. “Uh-huh.” She peered toward the corner office, oblivious now to the foul taste as she clicked her thumbnail between her teeth. Riley had tucked a leg back beside the chair and was beating his heel against the floor.
Impatiently. Powerfully.
Oh, Lord.
“Tracy, he’s waiting.”
She knew he was.
She slid out of the seat and walked slowly across the room, dangling one brown pump from her wet fingertip. Up and down all the way she glided, as fluidly as a carousel horse. As she stepped inside Booker’s office again, she turned back to her boss and said calmly, “Excuse us, Booker.”
And closed his door behind her.
Chapter Three
Remember, image is everything.
Raising her chin, Tracy dropped the shoe in the middle of Booker’s cherry-wood desk, then claimed his chair, too. When she found the courage to meet Riley’s eyes, she refused to cower. She opened hers wider and said, “My boss is convinced you’re starting a civil engineering company.”
“I am.”
She wasn’t completely surprised. She’d always thought Riley would become successful at something. She just wished he wasn’t planning to do it within her range of notice.
She forced a puff of air through closed lips and claimed a few seconds to collect her thoughts. “Do you know anything about engineering?”
“I did a two-year stint as associate professor of fluid mechanics and hydrology at the University of California at Berkeley,” Riley said with a confidence bordering on boastfulness. “After that, I worked for a couple of firms before I started my own.”
“You started your own?” Tracy parroted, studying Riley’s crisp blue shirt. His perfectly tailored and expensive-looking shirt. She couldn’t remember another man filling one quite so well. “Was it successful?”
He lifted broad shoulders, but she knew the answer.
“If you’ve already got a firm going, why do you need to hire an organizer?”
There was that smile again. “You told me I wouldn’t be accepted here,” he said. “So I figured you were just the lady to straighten my image.”
Tracy studied the helmet he held in his lap. It was glossy, black and spotless. As far as helmets went, it was stunning. But it didn’t fit into the business world.
She moved her eyes up to hair that was a little too long, then looked back into smoke-gray eyes. There was a trace of wildness in them, always had been, even when he was a child.
Riley could never be tamed by anyone.
Least of all her.
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” she said, searching his face again—this time for the confidant she’d known all those years ago.
“Sure you do. You’re a gold-star girl.”
Tracy rolled her eyes. After her first day of kindergarten, Riley had taken it upon himself to walk her home from the bus stop. She’d bragged all the way about the shiny stars she’d found pasted on the crayoned pictures she’d drawn that day. Riley had never let her forget it.
“Riley, please,” she said, lowering her voice. “Booker’s never offered me a chance at promotion before. If I blow it, he may never again. I can’t risk my job. I have a little girl at home.”
Riley looked pointedly at the shoe she’d left on the desk between them. “How old did you say you were?”
She grabbed the shoe. “I’m twenty-nine, as you very well know.”
His eyes returned to hers. “And you’re a gofer?”
She sat up straighter. The shoe in her hand dropped to the floor with a clatter. “My title is office manager.”
“I see,” he said, lifting his eyebrows and nodding as if he was impressed. “You’re a dressed-up gofer.”
Scowling, she busied herself extending her foot to pull her shoe closer and tip it upright so she could slip it on.
“Can you afford not to take this chance?” he said next.
That was her problem—she’d been begging for this chance for more than a year. She wanted and deserved a promotion. The adoption had depleted her savings, and now she was working nonstop to pay her monthly bills. If she or Hannah had any kind of emergency, she’d barely land on her feet.
But she could not work with Riley Collins.
She was well versed in Booker’s views of business savvy. He wouldn’t understand an outright refusal. An opportunity was an opportunity, and you didn’t turn down a client because his regard made you uncomfortable.
And since Tracy couldn’t explain the history of Riley and her sister without sounding like a whiner with a long memory, she’d have to make an appearance of considering the job. Maybe if she got Riley away from this office, she could figure out his game and let him know he wasn’t allowed to make up the rules. It might take a few hours, but the cause was worthwhile. After that, she could work doubly hard to catch up and take a stack of reports home again. If Hannah was allowed to finger paint, she wouldn’t care if her mom spent another evening typing.
With as much ice as she could muster, Tracy said, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to assess your situation to see whether there’s anything I can do for you.” When she finished speaking, her heart was racing.
“Great.” Riley put his motorcycle helmet on the floor, stood up and extended his hand across the desk for a shake.
Tracy looked at his hand, but kept both of hers folded in her lap. She’d taken the same hand in hers often enough in childhood, but that had been a long time ago. Accepting it seemed dangerous now.
She ignored it and stayed seated. “To be fair, I’ll only take the job if I think I can handle it. If you require more expert assistance, Booker will have to handle your needs.”
Finally she stood and pressed her hand into Riley’s. Although the handshake was firm, Tracy knew they were solemnizing a deceptive agreement. And not only on Riley’s end. She was planning to use the loophole she’d just announced to her full advantage.
Booker may have his sights on the bottom line, but taking the job was her choice. Now that Tracy’s toenails were wedged inside the door, she’d find an excuse to send Riley packing and take the next opportunity for promotion.
“I think you’ll find you and I are a perfect fit,” Riley said with a warm squeeze.
Tracy’s eyes flew to his face, wondering if the double entendre was intentional. But his expression made a grand appearance of innocence.
Grand and obviously false.
One look at the upward curl at one corner of his mouth gave that away. She didn’t believe the man had any moments of actual innocence. She tugged her hand away. “Shall we do the initial consult at your office, so I can look around?”
“Absolutely.” Riley patted his shirt pocket, then both pants pockets. Finally he reached across the desk and snatched Booker’s favorite gold-filigree pen and a business card from their holders.
Typical. Hadn’t Riley always taken what he wanted, regardless of the consequences?
He slapped the card blank side up on the desk and scrawled some writing across it. “Here’s the address and phone number,” he said, handing it to her. “The name is Collins Engineering, but I don’t have a sign up yet.”
Tracy put the card in her jacket pocket without reading it. “Will a two o’clock appointment work for you?”
“It will if we’re talking about this afternoon.”
She’d meant this afternoon. She’d meant to get it over with as soon as possible. But suddenly an extra day or two sounded smarter. She’d have time for her stomach to unclench and her heart to slow down. “Oh! No, I meant tomorr—Wednesday. I meant Wednesday.”
“I’d prefer earlier in the week,” Riley said, his eyes twinkling as if he’d won some sort of challenge. “But any afternoon is fine.”
“Then it’s settled.” Tracy stretched out her hand for Booker’s pen. When Riley dropped it in her palm, she opened Booker’s appointment book and made an entry. “I’ll be there at nine o’clock sharp…Thursday morning.” She shot a grin across the desk as she slid the pen back in its holder, and wondered why her little victory felt as false as her smile.
THREE MORNINGS LATER, she knew why.
The delay wasn’t a triumph, it was a curse. The few days’ respite had been counterproductive, and she’d accomplished little beyond chewing her nails to the quick.
Last night, she’d allowed Hannah to help her make cupcakes for the day care’s spring party. Tracy had lost patience before they’d managed to add even two simple ingredients to the mix. Then, after a half hour struggle with dropped eggs and spilled vegetable oil, Tracy had let the cakes burn in the oven. Hannah had been allowed to eat the candy decorations, and Tracy had promised to buy special treats at the grocery store.
She’d been sluggish at work, too. After three days of misplaced files, cutoff phone conversations and computer crashes, Booker had asked if she was short of sleep. She’d made up a litany of other excuses, mostly relating to single parenthood and moon phases, but she knew they weren’t the cause.
She was reminded that first instincts were often best. She should have met Riley at his office ten minutes after he left Booker’s.
Now she was in the basement of her parents’ home watching her mother transfer another bundle of clothes from her suitcase to her washing machine and add a capful of soap. “What time did you get home last night?” she asked, studying her mother’s profile.
Gwen Gilbert had never been less than gorgeous. Even when she was lying in a hospital bed with tubes poking out of absurd places, her blond good looks had seemed graceful. This morning she was stunning, humming under her breath and pink with good cheer. The getaway had worked wonders.
“Matthew and I drove straight through from Cincinnati, so it was well after dark,” her mother said, turning on the water and closing the lid. “But I really wasn’t paying attention to the time.” She began pulling clothes from the dryer.
“Hannah and I came by at dusk,” Tracy said. “I watered your gardens.” And kept an eye on your next door neighbor’s house. Have you noticed him over there yet?
