Annette Blair (2 page)

“I get it, and now I
know
you paid him.” She might walk around disguised as a four-foot-ten, ninety-seven-pound granny, Jason thought, but when she dug in her heels, Bessie Pickering Hazard was one immovable object.

“You owe me,” she said.

Her words struck like a puck in the face. And damned if she wasn’t right, Jason thought, when he got past the sting, but damned if he’d let her know he agreed. “What is it you think I owe you?”

“I will
not
let the boys at St. Anthony’s down.” She firmed her small steel shoulders. “If we lose the foundation, we lose four of Newport’s finest, if not its biggest, mansions, which amounts to a pretty amazing chunk of history, hundreds of jobs, employee homes, and most important, we’d lose our support structure for St. Anthony’s.

“If that happens, those boys will be given over to the state’s already-overworked and understaffed foster-care system.”

“I won’t kid you, Gram, you have my attention, but how do the foundation’s problems fit in with my supposed debt to you?”

“
Supposed
debt? Are you, or are you not, the Jason
Goddard I sneaked off to Mite Hockey when you were too young to blow your own nose?”

She had him there. He’d played for years before his parents stayed around long enough to catch on, and then it was too late.

A top draft pick of the NHL, he’d risen to glory, to the very top of his game. He’d played his heart out, until the blonde driving his rented Peugeot along a mountain road in France—him passed-out in the passenger seat—took a wrong turn through a brick wall and walked away without a scratch. Unlike him.

Jason grimaced. Gram believed the doctors, plural, who said he’d never play again. He believed the
one
who said he would. He had a right to suspect Gram’s motives. “How can a few months of my life make a difference? I don’t know anything about raising money. Why me?”

“We need to get more people on more tours, or have more fund-raisers. I figure a celebrity like you would lure some high-stakes donors to some big-ticket special events.”

Jason mocked himself with a laugh. “I’m old news.”

“Nonsense, even if ‘The Ice Wolf’ was, and he’s not, ‘The Best Kisser in America’ still carries some pretty amazing clout.” She pulled out a copy of
In the Know
magazine and flashed it. The cover read “Newport, Rhode Island’s Brightest Star” with a picture of him in his Wizards uniform, sitting on the ice, playing kissy-face with the Hollywood goddess straddling him.

Son of a bitch. Jason raised a brow. “Wait a minute; the reality show’s not absurd when there’s money involved?”

“Not when it means money for our kids, it’s not. Hey, we might as well make it work
for
us. All I want from you is six months of special events, the type of functions you did all the time for team promo.”

Jason sighed. “Which functions?”

“You get to choose.” His grandmother’s eyes twinkled brighter than they had in years, more enticing than any argument she might make, but he couldn’t shake the fear
that she was doling out the penalties in small doses when she really wanted to bench him . . . for life.

“Why not just put another few million into the foundation?” he asked.

“Good long-range planning calls for keeping the principal—ours, and the foundation’s—intact, and utilizing only the interest from both to keep the foundation running,” she said. “Otherwise, in a few years, the money’s gone, and St. Anthony’s and the mansions become condos or parking lots.”

Jason knew she was right. He’d seen it happen.

“To preserve the mansions and support St. Anthony’s in perpetuity, I intend to increase the foundation’s principal,” Gram said, “and protect it, on several fronts. We need more donors to solicit. Therefore, we need some headline-making special events to bring the foundation’s causes to the hearts, eyes, and bank accounts, of some high-stakes donors, events that will bring philanthropists to us.”

“Sounds ambitious,” Jason said.

“I have no choice,” Gram said. “Neither I, nor my money, will last forever.” She regarded him measuringly. “You know what the doctors say about my heart.”

Jason winced. “You know, Gram, I do know what the doctors say about your heart, and I also know that there’s a word for your current exploitation of the diagnosis, and it isn’t pretty. It’s called blackmail.”

The wily old vixen tried to contain her grin. “You’re gonna be the best director of special events the Pickering Foundation has ever seen.”

“The director? No way. Absolutely not!”

“Hey, I’m making you the brains of the outfit, the head coach, the idea man. You won’t have to lift a stick. I hired you an incredible new coordinator who can work magic.”

“Not for me, you didn’t, because I’m not gonna be the director.”

“Jay,” she said, using the nickname his parents hated,
the one she’d whispered only with a good-night kiss. “Think of this as my final wish.”

“Another one? I think this makes about eleven. I swear, Gram, one more final wish and I’m gonna
make
it your last.”

She laughed, because she had him and they both knew it.

THE
day after she was supposed to have been married, Kira Fitzgerald sat with her back to her desk at the Pickering Foundation, systematically and symbolically ridding herself of the dick-wad she’d caught screwing her sister.

She emptied her desk and purse of anything that reminded her of the jock. Then she tossed the debris into her metal trashcan with gratifying force, and broke a tiny but expensive vial of his favorite perfume with great satisfaction. She took each of her addressed, ecru parchment wedding invitations that she’d been saving in self-torture for months and finally tossed them in as well.

Taking this job had been a first step in rising from the ashes of her life. Performing this spell was the second. She’d turn everything that reminded her of the snake into ashes.

She added a pinch of healing herbs from her pouch, lit a long tapered match, and touched it to the edges of her shattered dreams. “I hate jocks!”

As a number of pearl-embossed calla lilies, and ridiculous, romantic words began to singe and curl, Kira raised her amethyst-tipped wand, tempted to give the jerk what he really deserved. “I wanna wither your Charlie, Penis!” But like any witch worthy of the title, she would harm none.

Kira wielded her wand with a flourish.

“Charlie Tillinghast,

Reap what you sow.

Recall your faithless past.

Travel the row you hoe,

And grow a heart to last.

Though I wish you no ill,

Begone from screwing me.

This is my will.

So mote it be.”

Whoosh!
The fire flared to bright and vigorous life, releasing a sickly sweet scent into the air. “Shit!” She’d forgotten perfume was flammable.

As the flames and the flowery smoke rose, Kira grabbed her consolation bouquet from beside her computer, rescued the yellow roses, poured the water on the fire, and doused the small inferno.

That was when she saw the crisp blue vellum invitation atop her stack of mail, sitting there, free of its envelope, mocking her.

“Cripes, not another wedding.” She leaned forward to read it.

You Are Cordially Invited
to Jason Pickering Goddard’s
Ghost & Graveyard Tour of Rainbow’s Edge
Narragansett and Ochre Point Avenues
Newport, Rhode Island
Sunday Evening, October 30, 2005, 7
P
.
M
.
Donation: $1,000 per person

“What idiot thought this up? There are no ghosts at Rainbow’s Edge.”

“Damn!” came a deep, sexy voice. “I should’ve thought of that.”

Kira yelped and whipped about to gape at the hunk of manhood who’d materialized behind her, her heart beating double time.

How long had he been standing there?

He made her think of a wolf, hungry yet calm, every nuance of his aquiline features sharp, like the gleam in his silver-gray eyes, and the disapproving dimple cut deep in the center of his chin.

Like a lazy predator, he leaned against the connecting doorjamb between her office and the next, arms crossed, sculpted lips firm, an antique walking stick at his side.

Kira’s heart shifted into overdrive. For half a beat she thought he was gorgeous, flawless, but no. He needed a haircut, a bump spoiled the precision of his nose, and his square chin bore a decidedly stubborn set, not to mention that five-o’clock shadow at eleven in the morning.

The small scar that crossed his left brow intrigued her, but his lips—too perfect for a man—seemed carved in granite, and the orgasmic promise in his eyes should have come with a warning label. Nevertheless, all the odd parts formed such an attractive whole, Kira had to catch her breath and rub her arms against a sudden chill. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to be glad my name’s not Charlie.”

“Shit!”

“Nice talk. Little hormone problem going on there?”

Kira bristled. “Little attitude problem going on
there
?”

“Sorry, geez, but that penis talk was seriously scary.”

“Who are you?”

The intruder extended his hand with a wolfish grin that made her wonder why his teeth weren’t sharp. “I’m the new director of special events,” he said. “And you?”

Just call me screwed
. “Kira Fitzgerald,” she said, unable
to extend a hand because she held an empty vase in one, and dripping roses in the other.

She placed the flowers in the vase, glanced behind her at her smoking trashcan, and opened the window above it. Then she wiped her hands on the skirt of her smocked tube dress, glad it was black, and eyed her matching blazer with yearning. “I’m the coordinator of special events,” she said.

“Son of a . . . I mean, glad to meet you.” The wolf warmed her with his sweeping glance, and when she took his offered hand across her desk, the heat his gaze had ignited escalated.

He let her hand go so fast, she thought he might have felt the burn as well.

“I guess . . . you’re my new boss.” Kira took her blazer from the back of her chair and slipped into it.

“You guessed right,” he said.

“I’ve been alone in this office for two weeks,” she said. “I didn’t expect—”

“Not last week, you weren’t. I started last week.”

“Well, no, I was on . . . vacation last week. Personal stuff . . . to settle.” Like getting her things from the Penis’s apartment, finally.

Her hot new boss waited, for more of an explanation, Kira supposed, but she preferred not to elaborate. “I wouldn’t have cast—I mean, I thought I was alone or . . .” She pointed over her shoulder and down toward the trashcan.

“Ah . . .” He winced. “Is the Penis begoned forever?”

“Nah. I’m sure he’s screwing somebody.”

“Okaaayyy.”

Kira bit her lip and shifted her stance. “Anything in particular you’d like me to . . . coordinate this morning?”

“Now that you ask.” Her boss gave her another deadly wolf grin, but fortunately for her, she’d mastered the art of hunk-resistance.

“I don’t suppose you could scare up a few ghosts for
Rainbow’s Edge,” he said. “You know, say something that rhymes, and twirl that . . . thing in the air, the way you . . . toasted . . . Charlie.”

“Do you honestly believe in magic?” Kira asked.

“I’m reserving judgment, but threaten one penis and a guy will usually believe about anything you tell him.”

Kira bit her lip, refusing to be charmed. “Did
you
have this invitation printed?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” the hunk said. “How do you know Rainbow’s Edge doesn’t have any ghosts?”

“I’ve read histories on all our mansions.”

He tilted his head. “Maybe you need to get a life?”

Kira slapped her palm with the invitation.
Bite me,
she thought. “Good thing these haven’t been mailed yet.”

“Oh, but they have.”

She glanced at her desk calendar. “You ordered them
before
you started the job? What are you, some kind of overachiever?”

“I wanted to get a head start, but I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Nevertheless, I was assured that you could work, ahem, magic, and coordinate any event I thought would bring money into the foundation.”

Kira thought about ways to put
him
on the spot to raise money for the foundation, like . . . selling him to the highest bidder. Hmm. Revenge for fun and profit.

She smiled, and reread the invite. “The phantom ghost
is
a problem, pun intended, though the event is perfect for All Hallows’ Eve. But if anybody’s willing to pay a grand to attend, which I seriously doubt, they’re gonna expect to meet this drive-by playboy, and I don’t think we can depend on him to show, even if he is Bessie’s—”

“I see you two have met.” Bessie Pickering Hazard, chairman of the board, swept into Kira’s office, making for an awkward moment, as Kira had been about to trash her neglectful grandson.

“I came down to perform the introductions,” Bessie said, “but no need, I see.”