Entice Me Box Set: The Truth About Shoes and Men\Cover Me\My Favorite Mistake (11 page)

“Jacki, this will be different from meeting in a dark bar. We know each other now.”

“All the better.”

I shook my head at her romanticism. “Even if Sam wanted to…you know—and I don’t believe he will—I can’t risk it.”

“Can’t risk what?”

“My
job
,” I said. “Remember—that little thing I call a career? And I can’t risk my health, either. I’m allergic, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Jacki said, her voice thick with frustration. “I have to run.”

“Are you and Ted doing something this weekend?” A dumb question considering they were spending almost every spare moment together.

“We’re driving to the Jersey shore for the day.”

“Sounds fun,” I mumbled. “When will I get to meet this guy?”

“When you cut the cord between you and Helena Birch. You work too much.”

“Easy for you to say, Jacki—you’re a success in your field. But I feel like I’m so…behind. Overdue. If this is my big break, I want to make the most of it.”

Jacki sighed. “Then go for it. But wear your seatbelt. And give yourself permission to have a good time. And call me.”

“Okay.” I slowly disconnected the call and looked over
at Angel. The pooch sagged against the seat, but at least the sparkle had returned to her beady little eyes.

For some reason I didn’t want to explore too deeply, her beady little eyes reminded me of Daniel Cruz. “I reneged on a date with a perfectly nice guy to go on this road trip,” I informed my traveling companion.

Angel lifted her head and yipped, as if encouraging me to go back.

I spied a lone quarter in the plastic console between us. “Coin toss,” I announced. “Heads we go forward, tails we go back.”

Angel seemed agreeable.

I tossed the coin in the air, but my eye-hand coordination wasn’t the best. (Okay, I was always the kid who took score during recess sports.) I missed, and the quarter fell down the crack between my seat and the console. Angel looked at me and I pursed my mouth, trying to decide what I’d wanted the coin to tell me.

God help me, I did want to see Sam again, if only to put to rest the perception that I was a tipsy, shirt-snatching woman who made a habit out of picking up guys at bars for one-night stands.

“Okay, we can do this,” I said. “We’ll go and make the best of it. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Angel gave me the dubious look of someone about to go under the knife, which I decided to ignore. But when the faint scent of throw-up reached my nose, I realized that in order for the remainder of the drive to be tolerable, we’d need to roll down the windows. Since the spring temps were still a bit chilly, I pulled an Amy Tangerine coat from my suitcase, and opened the Louis Vuitton overnight case that Helena had given me for Angel. From the jaw-dropping array of sweaters, coats, collars, accessories and food treats that looked good enough for human consumption,
I found a lavender polka-dot sweater (designer) to match the bow in her hair. I had never dressed a dog before, so that took a little maneuvering, but in the end, Angel looked every inch the princess that she was. The pooch seemed to know she was color-coordinated because she perked up a bit, even licked my face a couple of times. I was glad I had packed anti-bacterial sanitizer.

I rolled down my window, but lowered the passenger-side window only a couple of inches to circumvent potential disasters in the event Angel had suicidal tendencies. Still, the ventilation was enough to send the wind whipping through the car like a whirlwind when we got under way. I turned up the radio volume and we sped down the highway like a couple of girls resigned to whatever fate flung our way.

We drove by and through numerous towns. Since I rarely left the city, I found the foliage and the signage positively fascinating—people put words on anything that didn’t move, including roofs and water towers. The farther I drove, the more quaint the names of the towns. Tree Gum. Weeping Wonder. Used Branch. (Used for what, I was dying to know.)

I wasn’t making good time because after nearly going airborne when I swerved to miss what might have been a squirrel, I had driven the last one hundred miles with one foot on the gas and one on the brake in case any other critters decided to hurl themselves underneath my wheels.

Okay…I’d also taken a couple of wrong turns and mistakenly zoomed through a rest area going fifty miles an hour, but only because the directions I’d downloaded from the Internet weren’t as clear as they could have been. Suffice it to say that when I saw the sign that promised Jar Hollow, 4 miles, I was enormously relieved. And I was, according to the ETA I’d given Sam, about three hours late.
I’d lost the signal to my cell phone a few minutes after saying sayonara to Jacki, and both of the pay phones at my last pit stop had been amputated at the cord. It was good to know that vandalism wasn’t confined to the city.

I rolled into the city limits of Jar Hollow, population 5,842 at 7:00 p.m. with a full bladder and shin splints from toggling the foot pedals. Despite the ventilation, I suspected I reeked of doggie throw-up, so I thought it prudent to freshen up before I saw Sam again. I also needed directions to his residence because the page with that information had been sucked out the window during the squirrel incident.

Jar Hollow was a picturesque little town, complete with a town square populated by a few pipe-smoking old men, a bubbling fountain and a waving American flag. Yellow tulips marched along the base of a monument holding a cannon. I looked for a barber-shop pole and found it on the other side of the square—Doo-Dad’s was open for business. A few doors down, Fi’s Flowers was having a sale on carnations, and farther down the street, a red-and-white striped awning marked an ice cream shop, the word
Malts
spelled out in neon. I’d never had a malt, but assumed they were pretty good to warrant that kind of window space.

The downtown area consisted of about ten blocks of squatty brown brick buildings with long, large windows, some empty, some claimed by a community college extension program. All I could think was how much and how quickly they would go in the city as loft apartments or condos. The downtown area seemed to be situated on the lowest-lying land in the city. Tree-covered hills hemmed the town, then gave way to tree-covered plateaus dotted with house roofs and ribbons of roads. The lime-green of new spring growth swathed every living
thing. I was in a Norman Rockwell painting. Me and my purple-sweatered dog.

A few hundred feet ahead I spotted a place called Chickle’s, which appeared to be a diner with gas pumps and a souvenir shop that sold gen-u-wine Indian arrowheads. And most importantly, Chickle’s looked as if it probably had indoor bathrooms—a must since the clerk at the last place I’d stopped had handed me a key with a wooden paddle attached to it and pointed “around back.”

I parked the Volvo, scooped up my purse and Angel, and entered the establishment, which was relatively busy and smelled like French fries. A balding man behind the cash register shouted, “Hi there, how are you?”

“Fine,” I said, then remembered my manners. “How are you?”

He beamed. “If I was any better, you’d have to buy me!” I blinked.

“Stop flirting, Hap.” A rusty-haired woman in a smock sidled up and shook her head. “Excuse my husband, miss. He hasn’t looked in a mirror in twenty years.” The woman smiled. “Cute dog.”

“She’s not mine,” I said, “but thanks. Is it all right to have her in here?”

The woman nodded. “The health inspector is married to my sister.”

Fair enough. “Do either of you know Dr. Sam Long?”

Hap nodded. “Pert near everyone around here knows the doc. Is your dog sick?”

“She’s not mine,” I repeated. “But no. I’m a writer here to do a story on Dr. Long, and I lost the directions to his place.”

The woman’s face lit up. “Does this have anything to do with the doc being on the cover of
Personal
magazine?”

“
Personality
,” I corrected. “Yes, I work for the magazine. I’m doing a…follow-up piece.”

She wore the adoring expression of a mother. “We’re so proud of Doc Long. My great-aunt Maida was one of the folks he saved from the fire.”

“That’s wonderful.”

She nodded, then her expression turned suspicious. “Is the doc expecting you?”

“Yes.” Angel yipped. “Both of us,” I corrected.

“Did you just drive up from the city?”

“I did.”

“You’re a long way from home,” Hap said.

Not really, but I knew what he meant. I was also a little concerned that he could tell I was a city girl, although I decided that assessment might have something to do with the fact that I was holding a clothed dog.

“Are you staying with the doc?” he asked.

“Enough, Hap,” the wife said, giving him a shove. “You know Doc Long has guest quarters over his office.” She turned back to me and smiled. “We have a temperamental parakeet that we’ve taken out to see the doc a time or two. Have you had supper yet?”

“Supper? Urn, no.”

“Then my guess is you’ll need to grab a bite to eat in town before you head out to his place anyway. And since it’ll be dark soon, the doc will probably want to meet you so you don’t have to drive on that road alone.”

This was starting to sound ominous. “Is it far?”

“Not as the crow flies, but the doc lives in the boonies.”

I had a general idea of what the boonies were, but I opted for clarification. “Pardon me?”

Hap grinned. “You know, the boonies—in the sticks. Off the beaten path.”

“Don’t worry,” the woman said with a laugh. “There’s indoor plumbing.”

“Ah. May I use your phone?”

“To call the doc?”

I was actually considering calling Helena to tender my resignation, but I nodded.

“No need,” the woman said, looking beyond my shoulder. “I do believe Sam’s truck just pulled in. Looks like you’re covered.”

“Oh…” I conjured up a smile that belied my shaking insides. “Goody.”

9

I
REMEMBERED
what Sam Long looked like, of course, but I had to admit I’d forgotten the impact of his brown, brown eyes on my green, green heart. And that grin…oh…
yeah
.

“Hi, Kenzie.”

He was delectable looking in an army-green J Crew T-shirt (I knew T-shirts), and no-name jeans that fit him intimately. He wore low-heeled leather workboots of an indistinguishable color that were well acquainted with the outdoors, and it occurred to me that my high-heeled red boots might be in for some serious exposure to…country elements.

“Hello, Sam.”

He looked as if he were considering the proper greeting for a one-night-stand-turned-business-associate. I was thinking handshake, arm squeeze or maybe a shoulder hug, but the kiss on the corner of my mouth really took me by surprise.

By the time I registered the warmth of his breath and the familiarity of his mouth on mine, the kiss was over. A few heartbeats later I realized, to my horror, that my eyes were still closed. I pried them open and found Sam smiling as if nothing was amiss. Hap and his wife’s reaction was something more akin to mine, minus the sudden itch that assailed my neck. My man allergy appeared to be intact.

“I see you found us,” Sam said. “I was on the verge of sending out a search party.”

I was mildly pleased that he’d been worried. “You were?”

“Yeah, your boss called a half dozen times to see if you’d arrived.”

Ah, Helena had been the worried one. “I lost cell phone service, and I ran into a couple of delays,” I said, hedging, then decided to blame it all on Angel. “And you can’t imagine how difficult it is to travel with an animal.” When I remembered what he did for a living, I felt like an idiot. “Well, I guess
you
can imagine.” I tried to laugh, thinking if I didn’t get my act together, he’d never believe I was there to do an in-depth story on the life of a small-town vet. I cleared my throat. “How did you know I was here?”

“I thought I’d ride into town to see if anyone had seen you, and I spotted the car.” He pointed with his thumb. “Not many silver Volvos with Manhattan tags in Jar Hollow. Nice ride.”

“It’s a rental. I don’t own a car.” Which sounded as if I was reminding him of our differences right up-front, in case he’d forgotten.

He shrugged amiably. “Guess you don’t have much need for one.”

An awkward silence ensued, during which I could think of nothing except how surreal this whole situation seemed. When we’d gone back to his hotel room that night and rolled around like the sex-starved strangers we were, neither one of us had expected this continuum. From the light flush on his cheeks, I thought he might be thinking the same thing.

Then again, he could be sunburned.

My travel companion broke the silence with a complaining little yip.

“And this must be Angel,” Sam said.

The pooch perked up when she heard her name. I smirked. “Helena said you would be expecting her.”

He nodded and scratched Angel behind her ear. “I’m going to fix pretty little Angel right up,” he said with a wink. “We don’t want her playing loose with the boys and getting into trouble.”

I swallowed. “No, we don’t want that.” Mine was, of course, the voice of morality talking.

“I was hoping we’d have time to sit and eat dinner,” he said, “but I just got a call about a family dog that was hit by a car.”

“It wasn’t me,” I said quickly, wondering if the poor squirrel I’d brushed was lying in a ditch somewhere recovering.

One side of his mouth lifted. “I didn’t think it was you.”

“Urn, are the injuries serious?”

“No, fortunately. A broken leg, but I’ll take X-rays to rule out internal injuries. I told the Randalls to meet me at the clinic at home—do you mind if we get carryout?”

We
…hmm. “Not at all.”

He waved at Hap’s wife. “Arma, can you get us a bucket of chicken to go?”

“Sure, doc—regular or extra crispy?”

He looked at me.

I assumed they weren’t referring to a grilling method, and my familiarity with fried chicken was limited at best. But when in Rome…“Extra crispy.”

Sam grinned, so I must have scored points. “Throw in some extra biscuits and gravy, Arma. I’m starving.”