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“Say you’ll come.”
Zoe imagined her dad, Davis, getting all up in her face, calling her his little free spirit, teasing her in that totally annoying way he had, wondering aloud how long this job would last. “I don’t know, Mom. I have so much I need to do this weekend.”
“Please, honey. It really has been way too long.” Like most mothers, Aleta knew when to whip out the guilt card.
Zoe turned the key. Her cute little BMW’s precision engine purred to life. “All right. I’ll be there.”
“Great.” The pleasure in her mom’s voice was almost worth the potential headache of dealing with her dad. “Dinner’s at three or so, but come anytime.”
Sunday, she got to the ranch at quarter of three just as everyone was sitting down in the dining room.
Her dad was aggravatingly hearty. “Zoe. How’s my little girl?”
“Great, Dad. Doing well.” She put on a big smile and reminded herself that when he said “little girl,” he meant it with love. And she was his youngest child—well, if you didn’t count Elena, her half sister, who was a year younger. She went to him and he grabbed her in a hug.
When she tried to slip free, he put his big hands on her shoulders and held her in place. “What in the hell did you do to your hair?”
I am not going to let him get to me. She eased free of his grip and smoothed the thick curls that fell below her shoulders. “I always wanted to be a redhead. Now I am.” Like most of her decisions, she’d made it on the fly Thursday, after her interview with Dax Girard, when she went in for a cut. She’d stared at her reflection in her hairdresser’s mirror and decided she was beyond tired of having brown hair. It had to go.
And no matter what her father said, she knew the vibrant red looked good on her. It set off her fair skin and blue eyes.
“Ahem, well,” said her dad. “It’s very—”
“You look so hot.” Marnie, her brother Jericho’s bride of a little over a month now, came to her rescue.
Zoe turned gratefully into new sister-in-law’s embrace. “Hey. How’s married life?”
Marnie released her and slanted a happy glance toward her groom. Jericho slowly smiled. It was hard to believe he’d always been the family’s troubled loner. He didn’t seem the least troubled now. For the first time, he was really happy. With his life. And his new wife.
“It’s good,” said Marnie. “It’s very, very good.”
“You look beautiful, honey,” Aleta declared, already in her chair. Zoe went over and kissed her mom’s cheek and then sat down.
They began passing the platters of juicy T-bones, corn on the cob and baked potatoes.
It was a big turnout for a family Sunday. Everyone had shown up this time except for Travis, youngest of the boys. Travis was always off on some oil rig somewhere.
Matt and Corrine’s six-year-old, Kira, told them all about her new puppy, Rosie. “Rosie loves Kathleen,” she announced. Kathleen was Matt and Corrine’s second child, born the previous September. “Rosie wants to lick Kathleen all over. That’s what a dog does when she wants to give you a kiss. She licks you. It’s kind of icky and they slobber, you know? But Mommy says it’s only from love, so it’s all right.”
It was nice, Zoe thought, to have a few little kids around now for family gatherings. Her brother Luke and his wife, Mercy, had a boy, Lucas. Gabe’s wife, Mary, had a girl from her first marriage; Ginny was two now. Gabe doted on her. And Tessa, Ash’s wife and Marnie’s older sister, was four and a half months pregnant, so another niece or nephew was on the way.
After the meal, Zoe played pool in the game room, doubles, Marnie and Jericho versus Zoe and Abilene, who was Zoe’s older sister by a year. As she bent over the table to set up a bank shot, Zoe realized she was having a great time. Really, she had to remember how much she enjoyed her family. She needed to show up at these things more often, not let her dad’s careless remarks keep her away.
Around seven, she thanked Luke, who lived at the ranch full-time. She hugged Jericho and Marnie and headed for the door.
Her dad caught her as she was making her escape. “Zoe, hold on.” She felt the knot of tension gather at the back of her neck as he strode toward her. He was sixty now, but he still carried himself as if he owned the world—and everyone in it.
She braced herself for more criticism. But he only grabbed her in a last hug and told her not to be a stranger.
She looked at up at him and smiled. “I won’t, Dad. I love you.”
Gruffly, he gave the words back to her. “And I love you, too. Very much.”
Her car waited in the circular drive at the foot of the wide front steps. She slid in behind the wheel, turned the engine on and rolled down the windows. The hot June wind blew in and ruffled her newly red hair. For a moment, she just sat there, staring at the ranch house, which was big and white and modeled after the governor’s mansion, complete with giant Doric columns marching impressively along the wide front verandah.
Then she laughed and gunned the engine and took off around the circle and down the long front driveway, headed back to SA and her own cute, cozy condo. Life, right then, seemed very good, indeed. She was young and strong and ready, at last, to be more focused, more mature, less … easily distracted.
Her new job at Great Escapes magazine began tomorrow. She couldn’t wait to get started.
“What in the hell did you do to your hair?”
Those were Dax’s first words to her Monday morning, when he got off the elevator and saw her sitting at her new desk where the HR person had left her.
Zoe pressed her lips together to stifle a cutting reply. She really didn’t want to start right off trading insults with the boss.
But on the other hand, she needed to be herself or this job wouldn’t last any longer than any of the others had. Being herself would have to include fighting back when Dax pissed her off.
And anyway, hadn’t he said he wanted someone with personality?
She yanked open the pencil drawer, grabbed the dagger-shaped letter opener from the tray within, raised it high and stabbed the air with it. “Do you realize that is exactly what my father said to me yesterday at Sunday dinner?”
He moved back a step and eyed the letter opener sideways.
She pressed her point—both literally and figuratively. “You don’t need to know all the issues I’ve got with my dad. You just need to know there are issues and you would do well not to turn out to be too much like him.”
With gratifying caution, Dax inquired, “Are you really planning to stab me with that thing?”
“Oh, I guess not.” She dropped it back in the pencil tray and shoved the drawer shut again. “I have to face facts. If I kill you, who will sign my paychecks?”
He was still staring at her hair. “Okay. Now that I’m over the shock, I admit it suits you,” he grumbled.
She gave him her sweetest smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment. And we can move on.”
“Coffee first,” he commanded low.
She peered at him more closely. Killer handsome, of course. But tired, too. There were dark circles under those wonderful bedroom eyes. “Long night?”
“Aren’t they all?” He named a place around the corner where the lattes were excellent. “Petty cash in the bottom drawer.”
She pulled out the drawer in question. There was a little safe mounted inside, with a combination lock. He rattled off the combination. She grabbed a pencil and jotted the numbers on a sticky note.
He said, “Get me the strongest coffee they’ve got, black, extra-large. When you bring it in to me, come armed with a notebook or your laptop and we’ll get down to what I want from you today. After that, you get with Lin Dietrich.” He turned and gazed over the large open workspace of desks, tables, machines and semi-cubicles. “Lin!”
A slim, beautiful Asian woman with a streak of cobalt blue in her thick, straight black bangs popped up from behind a glass partition. “What now?”
Dax signaled her over. When she reached his side, he announced proudly, “Lin’s the best editorial assistant I ever had, which means I had to promote her. My loss. Your gain. Lin is features editor now. But today, she’ll be with you, showing you everything you need to know.”
Lin gave Dax a narrow look, and then sent a wry smile in Zoe’s direction. “Because there’s nothing I need more than a little extra work to do.”
“I learn fast,” Zoe promised.
“Best news I’ve heard so far today.” Lin’s expression said she’d believe it when she saw it.
“Coffee,” Dax said one more time, in a pained voice. He turned and went into his office without waiting for a reply, swinging the door firmly shut behind him.
Lin laughed. “He’s always at his most charming on Monday mornings. Better get that coffee. I’m here when you’re ready for me.”
Dax finished telling Zoe what he wanted from her at a little after ten. She found Lin, who took a few minutes to introduce her around the office. More than one of her new colleagues teased her about falling for the boss. Wearily, Zoe reassured each one that it wasn’t going to be a problem.
Once the introductions were made, Lin then began guiding her through the mile-long list of high-priority duties Dax had given her.
At noon, she and Lin went to a coffee shop down the street for a quick lunch.
“I feel it’s only right that I say something,” Lin warned. “I can’t stress it strongly enough. If you fall for him, he will have to let you go.”
Zoe made the sign of the cross. “Lin. Please. Not you, too.”
“Did Dax warn you about the problem?”
“Repeatedly. And you heard the others back at the office. The subject is getting seriously old.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s an issue. You don’t have to take my word for it. Just wait. You’ll see. He loves women. Women love him. They can’t seem to help it. He can’t seem to say no.”
Zoe sipped her iced tea. “What about you? You were his assistant once. Did you fall in love with him?”
“Uh-uh. I had my secret weapon.” Lin held up her left hand. She wore a thick platinum wedding band.
“A husband.”
Lin beamed. “Roger.” She sighed in a dreamy way. “He’s an aerospace engineer.” She pulled her wallet from her giant black tote and took out a picture. Roger had blond hair, an angular face and thick-rimmed black glasses. “Hot, huh?”
“Very handsome.”
“He’s the only man for me.” Lin pressed the picture to her heart before tucking it away in her wallet again. “So I’m immune.”
“But what about every other woman in the office? I haven’t heard any predictions that they’re doomed to fall for Dax. What makes me so special?”
Lin shrugged. “It’s the constant proximity, I think.
The daily close exposure to him when you work directly for him. I don’t know what it is about him. He must have some genetic anomaly. An excess of sex pheromones maybe.”
“Oh, come on. You’re not serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” Lin tipped her head, studying Zoe. “And you’re exactly his type.” The blue streak in her hair caught the light, gleaming. “It’s sad, really. I tend to think of it as Dax’s fatal flaw. He hires the pretty ones with personality. And then they fall head-over-heels for him.”
“Not me. Can we be done talking about this?”
Lin picked up her fork and stuck it in her Cobb salad. “Too bad you’re not already in love with someone else.”
… in love with someone else….
The words bounced around in Zoe’s brain.
Lin was right. Zoe needed a man. Her man. A man she adored, who adored her in return. Such a man would be the perfect way to get everyone at Great Escapes to stop predicting her inevitable, job-destroying, hopeless passion for the boss.
Too bad her man didn’t exist—or if he did, Zoe had failed, so far, to meet him.
She pushed her coleslaw around on her plate, considering. Not that she was in any way ready for her own personal hero, not yet. She had things to prove, a success to make in the business world, before she found the man for her and settled down.
Besides, right now she didn’t need an actual guy. No way. She didn’t have the time for a flesh-and-blood Mr. Wonderful who would drag along love and commitment and a shared mortgage. Uh-uh. It was the idea of the guy that mattered. It was that everyone believed she had a guy who was the only guy for her.
She slanted Lin a glance. “Maybe I am in love already.”
Sharp black eyes widening, Lin looked up from her plate. “There is someone special, then?”
“I … don’t want to say anything right now. It’s, um, well, it’s complicated.”
“Complicated is fine. Whatever. As long as there’s someone and you’re in love with him.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so. If you’re serious about getting a start at Great Escapes, a special guy would be the best thing for you. And for Dax. And for the poor, overworked ladies down in HR.”
Chapter Two
Zoe took that whole week to make up her mind.
Really, it was a wild idea. Not to mention a total lie. She didn’t want to get involved in an elaborate fiction if she could avoid it. It could be dangerous. There was always the possibility she would get caught, and not only by tripping herself up. What if Dax ran into her mother or father or someone in the family and happened to mention that Zoe had a fiancé?
That could be embarrassing.
But, then, as far as tripping up, she could make notes, create her own personal hero from the ground up, so that he became the next thing to real for her. Then she would be unlikely to contradict herself when she spoke of him.
And as far as her family, well, how much chance was there that they would blow the whistle on her? It wasn’t as though Dax knew her family well, or hung around with them or anything. Even if he ran into her mother somewhere, it would only be Hello, how are you? And have a nice day.
True, her mom might ask how Zoe was doing on the job. He would say how great she was—well, he’d better say how great she was, because she intended to be even better at the job than Lin had been—and that would be that.
No reason a fiancé even had to come up.
And she wouldn’t have to tell the lie forever. Eventually, when she was certain that Dax had stopped worrying she might try to seduce him, when everyone in the office quit waiting for her to drag him into the supply closet and ravish him, she could end it with her imaginary groom-to-be. Because, well, sadly, sometimes even the most perfect relationships don’t last.
Yeah. It was workable. Totally workable.
Still, she hesitated. Maybe if she just held tight, the issue would resolve itself. Dax and everyone else at the office would see she wasn’t the least interested in him and that would be that.
She wished.
Unfortunately, as that first week went by, it was becoming painfully clear that the issue was not resolving itself, that she had to do something.
