L.A. Caveman (13 page)

They entered the cool confines of the
building lobby. Jake greeted the heavy-lidded deskbound security
guard with a nod. Stanna gave him a friendly wave.

In the elevator, she felt the tension
hanging between them, invisible yet thick and warm, like an
electric blanket. Sensual. Pleasantly claustrophobic. Too aware of
his animal-like stance as he leaned slightly against the thick
brass railing, she couldn't help but wonder if hiking was how he
kept in such superb shape. His brown slacks discretely outlined
lean, muscular legs, and his casual shirt wasn't too tight on his
torso, but neither was it too loose to hide his broad shoulders and
powerful physique.

Hiking would be fun with this man. She
wouldn't even be breathing hard. At least, not because of the
trail. Six feet of capable, razor-witted, exceedingly able-bodied
guy might steal some of her breath. She knew she could handle the
trail. Could she handle him?

"Yes," she said emphatically,
startling Jake into staring at her. Recovering, she hastened to
add, "Saturday. Noon is good for me."

The elevator door opened. Michael
slumped provocatively against the far wall waiting for the car, and
was the only witness to Jake's surprising reply.

Jake cupped her chin gently in one
warm hand, tilting her head up until her gray eyes rested on his
teasing blue-green ones. His closeness affected her, no matter how
she tried to remain indifferent. His unconscious sensuality fired
point-blank at her. "I hope you're ready for a workout." Releasing
her as if he'd never touched her, he strode out, nodding to a
drop-jawed Michael.

She couldn’t move for a long moment.
She forgot to be miffed at Jake’s manhandling. She was still
vibrating from the sexy growl in his tone, so like some big, bad
wolf come to eat her up.

She gulped.

"Did I just see what I thought I just
saw?" Michael asked her in an awed, hand-over-heart display. He
fanned himself with the other hand. "Whew. Oh my. The hormones are
getting thick in here."

"Don't say anything about it," she
begged him.

"No worries, luv. I'll be too toasted
from the drinks I'm about to have to calm my raging jealousy." He
archly pointed one index finger at her and waved it side-to-side.
"Naughty." He swished past her into the elevator with a wink and a
narrow-eyed grin.

Stanna sighed hopelessly. The news
would be all over work within the hour.

Surprisingly, she didn’t feel too
upset about that. As she approached her desk, she heard her
telephone ringing and hurried her steps. It wouldn't be a tragedy
if people knew there was something going on, she decided.
Probably.

A sigh escaped her. She remembered the
way his warm hand felt on her chin. At that moment, all she’d
wanted in the world was for him to kiss her, hold her, do anything
he wanted to her. The entire staff could be crowded onto bleachers
watching and cheering for all she’d have cared. It was the amazing
effect of his proximity to her. It short-circuited her good
sense.

Dropping her wallet onto her desk and
picking up the phone with the same hand, Stanna gave her
now-standard greeting: "Stanna here."

The sound of a woman sobbing filled
her ear.

"Hello?" Stanna's own voice gentled
and became uncertain in the face of the woman's crying. "Hello. Who
is this, please? Can I help you?"

More sobbing. Then: "Is thees
Meeen's Weekly?
" Her accent was a lilting Spanish. Her tone
exuded heartbreak. "My man has left me. He ees gone." The woman
snuffled, emitting pathetic whimpering sounds. "I complain. To you.
Stan wrote that a man should leave his woman if he ees not happy in
his heart. My man has left me. My three babies have no father.
Soon… soon they have no mother, for I am broken in my
heart."

"Ma'am." Stanna's comprehension of
what the caller just confided alarmed her, made her cautious.
"Don't... I am so sorry that you feel that way. Please don't do
anything drastic, though. These things have a way of working out."
Her words felt pathetically insufficient.

"It ees too late!" the woman shrieked.
"My man. My husband Dario ees gone! He leave me nothing. Nothing
but thees cursed magazine with Stan page circled in blood-red ink.
I explain: He leaved note, then he leaved me. He go." Her voice
hitched hysterically.

Stanna listened in horror. The woman's
voice resonated with despair as she concluded, "Now I go, too.
Thees ees what your magazine has done. I go forever."

The line went dead.

Stanna sat with the phone to her ear
for another minute, in shock. Not daring to hang up, just in case,
she placed the receiver gently on her desk, shoved back her chair
and raced to Jake's office.

"Jake!" She burst in without knocking.
She skidded to a halt, the words she was about to say sticking in
her throat.

There was a gorgeous brunette draped
like a mink across Jake's shoulders.

She wasn't going to be the one to
break the silence, she really wasn't, Stanna vowed as she nimbly
leaped over a particularly thick tree root.

It was hard to be nimble hiking up a
mountain with a backpack full of water, snacks, sunscreen, a
blanket, and spare toilet paper. It was even harder keeping her
panting quiet, so Jake didn't suspect his lead was a bit too
rigorous for her. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction, even
though they'd marched uphill nonstop for three long
hours.

Glancing up, she saw that he'd pulled
away again, and forced herself to increase her pace. Silently, she
suffered.

It
would
turn out that Jake had
the endurance of a professional athlete.

And the stubbornness of a lump of
granite.

For three days she'd been working on
him extra hard to reform the Stan column, in light of that woman's
phone call. It was outrageous how Jake wouldn't change it, now. It
was destroying lives! That's what she'd told Ian, too, when he’d
called her the next day. He’d agreed with her, supported her, said
that she owed it to every woman alive to get Jake to tone down the
He-Man angle. She'd tried. Ever since she walked in on him and Ms.
Minky.

She remembered the way the woman's
lipsticked smile had faded as she glanced up from her clinging
position perched behind Jake's leather chair. They were looking at
paperwork on his desk, but both stared as Stanna pinned Jake with a
meaningful glance and said, "Could I talk to you alone, please?
It's urgent."

How she hated the reluctance in his
voice as he measured her distress. He slowly told the brunette,
"I'm very sorry, would you please excuse me for a moment?" Her icy
smile and nod didn't go unnoticed by Jake, who touched her shoulder
companionably and whispered something in her ear that visibly
thawed her and made a coy smile curve her lips.

Jake shut his office door behind him
as he stepped into the hallway and grasped her elbow, steering her
almost roughly towards the nearby conference room.

"What is it?" he asked her before the
glass doors had swung shut.

She told him about the phone
call.

He was already backing out as she
concluded. He shook his head and said, "Probably someone's idea of
a prank. Now, if you'll excuse me, Tia is K&C's Account Exec
and we really shouldn't keep her--"

"Hold it right there! It was not a
prank. She was upset, devastated even. Are you just going to blow
it off? She might be jumping off a bridge right now, all because of
that damn Stan column." Stanna was shaking with anger at Jake's
callous disregard for... well, for everything important.

She locked eyes with him, mentally
daring him to make a move. If he dismissed this, she knew she'd
never think of him kindly again. The hot fire of challenge she felt
in her eyes was met by a reluctant capitulation in his.

"Okay, damn it, you’re right.” He
knocked his hair off his forehead with an impatient swipe. “You
need to call the police, see if they can trace the number, let them
do their thing." He walked toward her and spoke with finality. "And
that's all we can be involved at this point."

"But the column--!"

"--will stay exactly as it is, most
likely. I'll think about it, but I don't believe I'll change my
mind because of one phone call that may or may not be a prank." He
reached for her forearms as if to encircle them, saw her mutinous
frown and changed his mind. He looked down at her, his face
suddenly an expressionless mask. "Thank you for informing me. We'll
talk about this later."

"Yes, we will," she growled. But he
was already hurrying back to Tia.

And they did talk later, for all the
good it did her. The poor woman's number couldn't be traced, and
Jake refused to take the matter seriously enough. It didn't help
how he spent the rest of the afternoon sequestered with Ms. Minky.
No, it didn't help at all.

He was horrible, stubborn, and
insensitive, and he was outdistancing her again. Looking up to
measure just how fast she'd have to trot to regain a respectable
pace, she noticed the surefooted way he glided up the trail. He was
graceful, she'd give him that.

Just then, her sneakered foot slipped
into a small stream-cut ditch in the trail. She pitched forward
onto her face, landing with a solid thud that knocked what little
wind she had out of her.

She peeked up the next moment,
hoping... but no, Jake picked that exact moment to finally turn
around and check on her.

In another, he was by her side,
solicitous and worried.

"Are you okay?" She could have sworn
that it was sincere worry in his voice. Her brains were obviously
jarred.

"I'm fine. Absolutely," she paused to
breathe as she struggled to her feet, "one-hundred percent
fine."

She smiled at him, chin up.

He steered her slowly to the side of
the trail, to two large rocks.

"Why don't we sit for a bit," he
suggested.

"No. I'm ready to go."

"Sit!"

Stanna sat. She tried not to huff and
puff, but somehow the act of resting in one place made her want to
heave in great lungfuls of air. She did, as surreptitiously as
possible.

The half-concerned, half-exasperated
expression on his face made his brows furrow. Then his wide, finely
chiseled lips quirked into a wry smile. "Why didn't you tell me
you'd reached your limit?"

She shot up. He pushed her back down.
She glared at him, but she wasn't really mad. "I haven't reached my
limit."

His watchful care, even when he was
pushing her around, told her he was truly concerned about her. It
nearly erased her frustration, but didn't do much for her
embarrassment.

"When you overdo it, you can get
heatstroke or worse," Jake informed her. He shrugged out of his
backpack, opening it to pull out a large thermos of water. He
pushed it into her face. "Drink."

Batting at the bottle in irritation,
she glared at him some more. Then realizing how ludicrous it was to
stay miffed at him -- about offering water, anyway -- she grinned
and leaned over to pat the boulder next to her own. "Pull up a
rock."

They sat together. Sunshine pierced
through the clouds in the west. The rays kissed the edge of the
mountains, creating long shadows in the valley they'd hiked though.
Stanna marveled at the purplish hue of the far hills blending into
endless shades of green down below. With the grays and browns of
arid rock outcropping nestled between coastal sage scrub and
wildflowers, it was a picture to make a postcard
jealous.

She drained the lukewarm thermos water
in long hungry gulps. She wiped her forehead with the back of her
hand. Under it, she snuck a peek at the one who'd witnessed her
humiliating collapse.

He regarded her patiently. He wasn't
even winded, but lounged like a basking lizard. A cloud crossed the
sun. His face was flushed with healthy color, she noticed. His
lips, shaped so perfectly cruel and compelling, were relaxed and
smiling slightly. She suddenly felt how alone they were, under the
sky, miles from anyone.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I knew I walked
pretty fast back there, but I thought you'd speak up. I should've
know better," he gently mocked, with concern still in his eyes.
"Big, bad Stanna wouldn't dream of crying defeat, would
she?"

Wouldn't she? She wondered. She just
might, if he kept looking at her in that teasing, gentle
way.

A breeze from over the ocean buffeted
her, cooling the perspiration on her bare arms and legs. She gazed
out toward the west. The clouds seemed to be thickening and moving
a little closer. The sinking sun still shone intermittently though
them. She looked sideways at Jake, smiling.

"Looks like it might be a race: us
versus the weather. How far are we from the top?"

He tilted his head up toward Sandpiper
Peak. "Should have an even better view from thirty-one hundred and
eleven feet. Pretty close race. Another half-hour."

"At Jake-speed or a more traditional
pace?"