Loe raamatut: «Dan All Over Again: Dan All Over Again / The Mountie Steals A Wife»

1

“I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE that little weenie is trying to steal one of my accounts. And I have to find out after five on a Friday.” Cassie Chamberlain stopped at the chart hanging in the hallway of Nicholson’s Advertising Specialists. She looked at her best friend, Pam Kraft. “Roger just moved ahead of me into the Market Buster Contest’s number-one spot. I still have a chance to win the five-thousand-dollar bonus, money that’s going to get me one step closer to—” she dropped her voice “—opening my own marketing firm. At least Chamberlain Marketing will appreciate my talent and hard work. And maybe winning this contest will gain me some respect at Nicholson’s in the meantime.” And maybe it would make her feel complete, or at least satisfied. “I feel like they’ve cast me in the dumb blonde role.”

Pam smoothed down her blue sheath dress with orchids spilling down the side. “Maybe it was from sending a cascade of water down the hallway when you tried to replace the water bottle.”

“Oh, sure, but nobody remembers that I was trying to be independent and not bug one of the guys to do it.”

“And I’m sure it wouldn’t be because the mail cart bounced down two flights of stairs and showered Mr. Shavely with envelopes.”

“That was three and a half years ago! Do they still talk about it?”

“Only in the same conversations as other natural disasters.”

Cassie wrinkled her nose at Pam. “Gee, thanks.” She hadn’t goofed up in three years, since she’d taken The Supreme Seminar on Being Orderly, but she still hadn’t lived it down. She needed a game plan to (a) confront Roger-the-weenie Pinkle (b) make—Her ears perked at the sound: Squeak, squeak, squeak.

“Roger! Wait’ll I get my hands on him.”

“Get him, girl, in the name of womanhood and co-workerhood! Smear him! Trample him!” Most people thought they were sisters, with their blond, shoulder-length curls and close friendship. “’Course, don’t create too much of an uproar or Roger might retaliate and that could get ugly—ugly indeed. He could burn down the building. Or do something worse.”

Cassie waved away her friend’s overactive imagination. “No, he wouldn’t.” She turned down the hallway in time to see him duck into the bathroom. She pounded on the door. “Roger, I heard your lifts squeaking. Come out before I come in there to get you.”

The door slowly opened and he appeared. He tried to look surprised to see her, and even forced a smile. “Did you, er, need to use the facilities?”

Even with those thick lifts he’d had installed on his shoes, he still stood at about her 5’7” height with heels. “No, I need to talk to you about stealing my fishing lure account.”

He lifted his hands in supplication. “Now, now, I didn’t steal the account. I can’t help it if my talents lie within the fishing realm, and you weren’t there to take the call, after all. Mr. Nicholson thought I should handle the account, or at least the initial contact.” He sounded so logical, even in his whiny voice.

“I’m not going down without a fight. I need this account to have a chance at the contest.”

“Well, Cassie, I need it, too. I’ve got important things to buy with that money.”

“Like what?”

“I think that’s my own personal business.” He rubbed his flat nose. “All right, if you must know, I’m going to have my sinuses worked on. And a nose job while they’re at it. It’s the only way I’m going to get a pretty girl like you to go out with me.”

“Your nose has nothing to do with your overall appeal, Roger.”

“Then you’ll go out with me?”

She nearly choked. “I mean, it’s…more than your nose.”

He bounced up and down on his lifts, squeaking each time. “I’ve got one of those stretching machines that’s going to make me taller. I’ve already gained a fraction of an inch.”

“And lost a pound of common sense. It’s not your height, either.” It was probably one of his curls that had gained him the fraction. “It’s…” She glanced down over his plaid shirt, his Looney Tunes plaid tie, and bright green pants. In addition to bouncing up and down, he was jingling his keys in his pocket. “I’m not here to assess you, Roger. I’m here to ask for the account back.”

He raised his eyebrows. “We could discuss it over dinner. I discovered that the electrical device I purchased to stop my receding hairline roasts a great hot dog.”

“Weenie.”

“I don’t think we need to argue over the term for a hot dog. So, are we on?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Er, no, thank you.” Interesting, though, that the weenie liked weenies. “Just hand over the account and I won’t have to hurt you.”

He shrank back at those words and inched around her. “Don’t hurt me! I bruise easily!” And with a squeak, squeak, squeak, he was gone.

Well, she certainly wasn’t going to chase him down. Not in these heels, anyway. Maybe the old Cassie would have done that, whipped off her heels and gone after him in full-tilt mode. But that’s not what the (a) dignified (b) sensible and (c) responsible Cassie was going to do. Even if her body was leaning toward that attack. Her narrowed eyes focused on her boss’s door. She pushed up her jacket sleeves and knocked.

“Cassie.” Mr. Nicholson’s smile quickly faded. “Uh-oh, you’re upset. You know how I am about confrontation.”

She had plastered her most calm expression on her face. “How could you tell I was upset?”

“You’re crunching those Lifesaver things, same way you did when you had to swap offices with the new guy. In fact, throughout the whole move. But you were real good about it, giving up your corner office with the great view and without a fight, and I appreciate that. You’re a team player, Cassie, and that’s going to get you places. So I know you’ll understand about the Lure ’Em In Tackle Company.”

Loud crunching echoed in her ears, and she swallowed the sharp pieces with a grimace. “You’re letting Roger steal my account.”

Mr. Nicholson lifted his fat hands before running them through what was left of his hair. “Now, now, he didn’t steal it. He was standing by the receptionist’s desk when the call came in. You weren’t available, so he talked to them. Turns out he’s quite the little fisherman.”

“The client asked for me!”

“They’re looking for someone to design an ad campaign for their lures. Fishing lures.” As though she couldn’t have possibly made the connection. “Now, what do you know about fishing?”

It used to capture her ex-husband Dan’s attention more than she could. Where had that come from? “I could learn. That’s what I always do, make my lists and research every aspect of the company and its products. How hard could fishing lures be to understand?”

His deep chuckle rubbed on her nerves. “Now, I’m not saying a woman can’t know about fishing. It’s got nothing to do with gender and everything to do with having the product here.” He fisted his hand to his chest. “Like me and Cheesecake Galore. You’re not a fishing type of girl. You’re banks and florists. Roger said he knows fishing inside and out, so he’s the likely candidate. The next new account that’s suitable for you, it’s yours. If you’ll look past your pride, you’ll see that we’re all here to service our customers the best we can. We’re a team. Be a gentleman, Cassie, and step aside so Roger can win this new client over to Nicholson.”

Her shoulders bunched up as she realized how often she’d stepped aside gracefully. “It’s kind of hard to step aside when you’ve just been stepped on.”

“HE’S GOING TO LET that loser keep the account?” Pam asked when Cassie relayed the conversation.

“Yep. Because, hey, what do I know about fishing?”

“What do you know about fishing?”

“You throw something in the water, the fish grabs it and you wrestle it in and try not to get so excited that you rear back and knock your husband right out of the boat in front of all his buddies.” Cassie’s face flushed. “Never mind that.” She tapped her jaw with her forefinger, her mind searching. “I’ve been a pushover for too long. He doesn’t know how much of a quitter I’m not. I’m mean, how much I’m not a quitter. I mean—you know what I mean.”

“Scarily enough, I do. Between your lists and charts and goals, you’re the most determined person I know.”

“Yeah, (a) determined not to be like my mother, and (b) I’m certainly no gentleman.” To prove it, she rifled through the receptionist’s desk and snagged a key. “And (c) I’m tired of being a rung on the ladder that everyone else uses on their way up.”

“You’re so cute when you’re angry,” Pam said with a grin. “Even when you’re pulverizing butter rums. So what are you going to do, insist that Mr. Nicholson let you present a campaign, too?”

“Hah! And let him pat my head and tell me how ungentlemanly that would be?” Cassie gave her a slow smile. “I’m simply going to walk into the presentation and show them my stuff.”

“What if he fires you on the spot?”

“He won’t.”

“Uh-oh. This is starting to sound—dare I say it?—impulsive.”

Cassie stopped. “This isn’t impulsive. No, not at all. It’s going to be a well-planned attack in the name of all that’s fair and good in the world. And I’m going to be honest about it. You know I can’t stand dishonest people.” She slid the key into Roger’s doorknob.

Pam whispered, “Wouldn’t breaking into Roger’s office fall slightly under that category?”

“Of course not. I have a key. No breaking anything.”

“Cassie, what if someone catches you and you’re arrested? We’re arrested? We’ll be in the Police Beat section of the paper. We could be shot by a trigger-happy cop who’s out to prove himself!”

“We won’t.” Cassie opened the door. The office smelled like Roger’s last splash of cheap aftershave. “When I chose a career in marketing, I decided this was something I was going to stick with, follow through on.” She flicked on the light.

Pam took up a lookout position near the door. “You’re thinking about your ex-marriage, aren’t you?”

“Of course not. I’m thinking of that cross-stitch thingee I started five years ago. It sits in my wicker basket and reminds me of all the puzzles, paintings and hook rug kits I didn’t finish. Every Sunday, I put three stitches in the thing. At least I’m making progress. Oh, stop looking at me with that I-know-you-better-than-you-do smirk of yours. Okay, yes, I am thinking about my ex-marriage. You don’t know how scary it was for me to realize I’d become my mother. She’s hopped into and out of so many marriages, I’m surprised she isn’t perpetually dizzy. As a matter of fact, she is, God love her.”

“You’re nothing like your mother.”

“Not now, but I was then. I was suddenly married to a gorgeous stranger. The first blush of excitement turned into the reality of bills, routines and the mention of babies, and I panicked. Probably the same way Mom did in her seven marriages. I wasn’t ready, I ran away and…I hurt Dan.” She was sure the thickness in her throat was the result of eating too many butter rums. “I swore I would never start something I cared about and not finish it.” She consulted the small, leather-bound notepad she wore on a chain around her neck. “I have $12,420 to save before I can escape this place and start my own company. In 1.4 years, I should be able to bring you aboard. This is what being sensible does to a person: (a) concrete goals and (b) no broken hearts.”

“Sensible. Yeah, well, I know you’ll never have a broken heart again.”

Cassie smiled. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

“Because you’ll never find anyone who’ll fit that compatibility list you have.”

“Hey, you’re supposed to support me.”

“I’m not your bra, I’m your friend. I’m telling you, you’re going to be a lonely old woman before you find a man who matches the criteria on that list, watching The Rockford Files reruns and conversing with your nine cats. You’ll be one of those people who never throws anything away and you’ll be dead a week before anyone knows it. They’ll have to wade through thirty years of trash to find you. Or something worse.”

“No, I won’t. At least I won’t be a seven-times-divorced lonely old woman without goals or a career.” Like her mom, dragging her daughter all over as she skipped from place to place, living wherever an acquaintance or boyfriend would permit until she got bored or wore out their welcome. No roots, no traditions, and no sense of being able to depend on her mom when she needed her. Not even a father to provide a speck of stability, since three years after her mother had divorced him, he’d died in a sailing accident. She blinked back the thought and opened one of Roger’s drawers. She pulled out a wrinkled tube of Preparation H. “Would I be totally evil if I put Ben-Gay in here?”

Pam screeched in laughter, then quickly sobered. “Yes. Totally.”

Cassie tossed it back in with the other junk in the drawer: wart remover, corn pads and an assortment of nasal sprays. After rooting around in the papers on his desk, she held up a brochure for the Naples Snook Rodeo, a fishing tournament starting the next morning. “Ugh, at seven o’clock. The weirdest thing in the world is for someone to get up before dawn all excited to go fishing. It was a phenomenon I never could figure out.” She flipped open the brochure, pushing away the memory of Dan tiptoeing around their bedroom in all his naked glory as he got ready. “Whew, is it warm in here?” She fanned herself, forcing her attention back to the brochure and not Dan’s bare butt in the early morning light. “Hey, it’s sponsored by the Lure ’Em In Tackle Company. Isn’t that handy-dandy?”

“Perfect! So you’ll go talk to some of the fishermen, maybe even the company officials?”

“Talk?” She wrote down details on a receipt for Dramamine. The box was still sitting on the desk. “I’m going to learn everything I can about fishing lures, fishing and fish by hanging out with one of the contestants.”

“What if the guy gets fresh, and you’re out there by yourself? Dangerous, dangerous indeed.”

“He won’t. Besides, all I’d have to do is show him my egret legs, and all thoughts of seduction would go flying out of his mind.” She lifted a leg sheathed in dress pants.

“I think you’re a little hard on yourself and those legs of yours.”

Cassie knew Pam was also picturing the white bird with spindly legs and an S-shaped neck.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to approach just anyone. I’ll ask one of the officials to hook me up with someone reputable. Hook—get it?” Cassie giggled. “I am going to be so good at this. If you’re worried, come with me.”

“No can do. I promised Andy I’d help him do yard work this weekend. But I’ll go to the docks with you.”

“That’d be nice,” Cassie said as she closed up Roger’s office. Besides Marion, a neighbor in her apartment building, Pam was her closest friend. Cassie didn’t mind that they both tended to mother her a bit. She stopped in front of the chart. “Roger, you little weenie, you don’t know it yet, but I’ve just declared war.”

DAN MCDERMOTT double-checked his fishing poles, making sure each one was snug in its holder. Then he checked the cooler—enough beer to last him the weekend. Checked the rods again. Something was missing. He poked his head down into the cabin where his little dog, Thor, was studiously chewing his pig’s ear—a gruesome gift from Granny.

So it wasn’t Thor or the beer, or his poles, sunblock, shades or anything else he could think of.

Maybe he needed a bigger boat. Women were always saying size didn’t matter, but a guy could never have one that was too big. A boat, that was.

“Hey, Dan, gonna be weird you not competing this year,” Jessie said, stopping on the way to his boat.

The sun had barely peeked over the horizon, but the city dock was crowded with men who definitely had a say about bigger being better. Fish, that was.

“Yeah, it’s killing me.” But it wasn’t. And it should be. He should at least be excited about spending a whole weekend fishing. But he wasn’t. He should be pleased as punch with his life as a successful, freewheeling bachelor. The damned of it was, he wasn’t.

Jessie laughed, his brown hair blowing over his face in the breeze. “Well, gotta let some of the other guys have a chance.”

“Yeah, I suppose so. Good luck, Jess.”

Dan had a feeling the Rodeo committee would have made him retire even if he hadn’t voluntarily backed out of the official competition; he’d won the last four years in a row.

Champion. Yeah, that’s what he was. The Snook Rodeo champion. The fishing god.

“Dan, you look like an ant,” his father Hal said as he paused by the boat. Not many people remembered that Hal was Dan’s dad. Not even Hal and Dan. Hal had only been seventeen when his girlfriend took off for Las Vegas—and left their baby with him. Even when Dan was just a kid, they were more like friends than father and son. So much so that Hal preferred to be called by his name than “Dad.” “I just don’t feel like a dad,” he’d said when Dan was six. Dan had agreed. Even Hal’s mom, Granny, hadn’t been the typical grandma.

As usual, Hal looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. “You’ve checked that cooler five times. Are you brewing your own beer in there, or what? I haven’t seen you this edgy in a long time, and you ain’t even competing.”

“I’ll still catch more fish than you, even if they don’t count.” Better to divert the conversation than admit he was restless.

Hal wagged his finger and laughed that deep laugh of his. “Put your fish where your mouth is, buddy. See you on the water.”

He gave Hal a halfhearted wave, and then caught himself checking the poles again. He didn’t like this restlessness. It had started a few weeks ago, when he’d seen Cassie’s picture in the paper. His ex-wife, the woman he’d woken up next to for seven whole months, and there was her picture, as though she were a virtual stranger.

He didn’t know she’d gotten into marketing, but she’d won some kind of award for one of her campaigns. He’d started thinking about her, wondering what else she’d been doing in the last five years, like getting married, and whether she still had Sammy.

Whether she thought about him.

Her beautiful face smiled at him from the refrigerator door every morning when he fixed his egg sandwich, and every evening when he checked to see what leftovers were waiting within.

Those seven months had been crazy, full of stormy seas and lightning. Now his life was on an even keel, no waves, nice and calm just the way he liked it. Or the way he should like it. They’d had little more to their name than a marriage license, yet he’d been happy. In love for the first time. For the only time. He hadn’t realized it until he’d seen her picture. The damned of it was, he was still in love with her. And so he’d put his plan into motion….

IT WASN’T A DECENT HOUR for any human being to be up and about, and already the Southwest Florida summer heat and mugginess drenched the air. Cassie and Pam stepped out of the one status symbol in Cassie’s life, if you didn’t count its ancient age: her buttercup-yellow Mercedes-Benz. A banner over the Naples City Dock’s entrance rippled in the breeze as pink light seeped across the eastern sky like a wine stain.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Pam said, taking in the men carting fishing gear and cases of beer.

“It’s the only idea I have. Besides—”

“I know, I know, you’re no quitter. I’ll bet that’s your bedtime mantra.”

“So what if it is?” Cassie lifted her chin. “It’s better than living your life on the wind.”

“Have you heard from Andromeda lately, speaking of?”

Cassie laughed. “Last I heard, she was living on a boat with some young scuba diving instructor down in the Dry Tortugas.” Her mother had legally changed her name from Bernadette to Andromeda, after the wife of Perseus. Oddly enough, she’d named her daughter after Cassiopeia, Andromeda’s mother.

Cassie tucked her curls over her ears and leaned in the car. “Come on, Sammy. Hope you’re up for a day on the boat.” She scooped her Yorkshire Terrier into her large bag. His little bell jingled pleasantly as he settled in. “I wonder if he remembers when Dan and I used to take him out on the boat.” She nudged away the annoying softness in her voice. “You liked that, didn’t you, boy?” She touched her nose to Sammy’s little wet one, then tapped him down into the bag. “Stay hidden. Don’t want to turn off any potential boaters.”

“And speaking of that, I can’t believe you’re actually wearing shorts.”

“I decided to take my chances.” She glanced down at her skinny legs. “Men, be afraid. Be very afraid,” she intoned, making Pam giggle. “All right, let’s go fishing for a fisherman.”

Once they walked through the entrance, they found the tournament sign-in area. So had fifty other men who were standing in line, not to mention many others milling around. Voices and laughter rivaled footsteps echoing on the wood planks of the pier. Everyone was trading jokes and patting backs, all that manly kind of thing. She tried to dredge up all that fury she’d felt yesterday to stave off the nervousness.

“Having second thoughts?”

Cassie lifted her chin. “No way, uh-uh.” They both knew she was lying and left it at that. She popped a butter rum in her mouth and slipped her hand in the bag to scratch Sammy’s head.

“You are nervous, aren’t you?” Pam said a few minutes later.

“Why?” She peered over the rim of her sunglasses. “I’m making noises, aren’t I?”

“Sucking furiously on those things is a dead giveaway.”

Cassie anchored the candy ring against the roof of her mouth and scanned the boats, the crowds and the fishing poles spearing the air.

Pam leaned closer. “It occurs to me that despite your claims of sensibility, this whole thing is extremely impulsive. Might I remind you of the last time you did something really impulsive and what trouble that got you into. And I’m not talking about the limbo contest that sent you to the chiropractor. Or dyeing your hair black. Or…”

Cassie’s gaze skipped to the next boat, and that’s when she saw him. “Dan,” she said on a breath.

“Exactly. Look at these men. You don’t even know them. Once they have you alone on their boat, they could take you out to the horizon and ravage you and…good heavens, why are you smiling?”

Dan McDermott, with his brown hair lit reddish by the sun, white T-shirt moving in the breeze and muscular, tan legs. Her canvas tote dropped to the wooden planks, and she leaned to the side when Pam darted in front of her so as not to let Dan out of her view for a second. She even heard bells! A couple of men stopped to talk to him, and Dan ran his fingers through his hair and laughed. Lordy, when had he gotten so gorgeous?

She blindly reached for Pam’s arm, unable to utter anything other than a sound vaguely resembling a whimper. She tried again to reach Pam, and then had to wrench her gaze away to find that Pam wasn’t even standing there. Then she remembered Pam darting in front of her, and as her gaze sought Dan again she felt annoyed that her friend wasn’t there when Cassie really, really needed to verify that she wasn’t imagining Dan, that he was really there, that—

“Good grief, woman, didn’t you notice that you dropped your tote bag and your little fuzzball led me on a merry chase between twenty pairs of hairy legs?”

Cassie blinked, taking in a breathless Pam holding a panting Sammy. So that’s where the bells came from! She opened her mouth, but her voice still wasn’t cooperating. Dan was waving goodbye to the men and resuming whatever it was he was doing that required him to bend over and show off that cute little butt of his.

“Hello-o-o?” Pam waved her hand in front of Cassie’s face. “What are you grinning like a she-devil for?”

Was she grinning? She couldn’t even feel her face, just her heart pounding louder than a rock and roll drummer. It’s only Dan, she tried to tell herself, that guy you were married to, but some other part of her was making her feel the way she had the first time she’d ever laid eyes on him. “I wasn’t grinning, I was looking…pleasantly surprised, yeah, that’s all, because Dan’s here, you remember Dan, don’t you, the guy I was married to, who fished and would stumble around in the dark naked so he wouldn’t wake me up, which was so sweet, but he always whispered that he loved me right before he left, and of course he had clothes on then—”

Pam grabbed Cassie’s arm and gave it a good shake. “Get a grip, girl! Listen to yourself.”

Her mouth was watering around the candy. “I wasn’t sucking.”

“No, you were talking nonstop. You’ve worked hard to squash that impulsive, vivacious Cassie, and here she is trying to take over again!”

“I wasn’t rambling. I just had a lot to say. And I was surprised.” She’d worked so hard on getting rid of that going-on-and-on thing. “I never thought about him being here. I haven’t seen him since our divorce. Oh, I have a great idea!”

“You’re going to ask Dan if you can ride with him.”

“I’m going to ask Dan if I can ride with him. It’ll be perfect!”

“Now that would be impulsive, and a bad idea. A bad idea, indeed.”

“Not at all, since (a) I know him (b) I trust him (c) he was my favorite mistake, after all. Therefore, (d) it’s perfectly sensible.”

“Honey, there isn’t anything sensible about the way you’re looking at that man.”

There wasn’t anything sensible about the way she felt, either, all giddy and silly. “I’m just glad to see him, that’s all,” she said in her most sensible voice.