Operation Cinderella (13 page)

Touching her beneath her clothes, he drew back to nip at her neck. “No, ma’am, definitely don’t need any training bra now.”

He grazed her nipple, the slight roughness of his fingers making her moan. She threw back her head and pushed against his palm. “That feels…entirely…too…good to even think of stopping.”

His soft laugh resonated with male pride but the erection brushing against her lower belly confirmed he was as turned on as she. “In that case, we should probably say good night.”

“Good night?” Macie clutched at his hand, hoping to stay him. Was Ross Mannon a clit tease or was he simply trying to kill her?

He pulled her sweatshirt back down and stepped back with an expression of regret. “Sweet dreams, baby.”

Sweet dreams—suddenly that seemed like a distinct possibility.

“This is so unfair,” she said, but the smile in her voice wasn’t lost on either of them. Senses singing, she turned to go, intimately aware of his gaze following her out.

Stepping inside her room, she felt herself smiling. Warm milk, spicy eggs, and now a first rate make out session—if that wasn’t the “complete package” Macie couldn’t say what was.

.

“You’re unusually cheerful,” Stef remarked during her drop-off later that day.

Macie halted her humming. “Am I?”

“Uh huh.”

“The food looks amazing,” Macie said, deliberately turning the topic, although it was nothing less than the truth. The dinner menu du jour, boneless braised beef ribs, sautéed white asparagus, and rice pilaf, looked and smelled mouth-watering.

“About ten minutes before you serve, heat up the meat in the oven, not the microwave. That way it’s less likely to dry out,” Stefanie advised.

Macie nodded. “Okay, I will. Thanks.”

Her insulated case emptied, Stef turned to go. “Bon appétit.”

Screwing up her nerve, Macie called her back. “Are you in a big hurry?”

Stefanie stopped and turned back. “I have to deliver some party platters later, but I have some time. What’s up?”

Macie reached for her nerve. “I was wondering if you might walk me through making huevos rancheros.”

Stef’s dark eyes widened. “You want me to show you how to
cook
something?” She came up, stuck out a hand, and made as if to check Macie’s forehead for fever.

Batting her away, Macie backed up. “What if I do? Lately I’ve developed…a craving.” That was oh so true.

Shrugging off her windbreaker and dropping it atop one of the stools, Stef ticked off the list of ingredients. “Eggs, salsa, sour cream, grated cheese, olive oil, and scallions, very finely chopped. Oh, and you’ll need corn tortillas, of course.”

Macie nodded. “Ross keeps tortillas in the fridge like other people keep sandwich bread. Must be a Texas thing,” she added with a smile.

“Great, we’ll need one tortilla per serving. Oh, and I like to include guacamole—that’s mashed avocado, by the way.” Stef winked.

“Very funny, yes, I know.” Macie had stopped off at the grocery store after dropping Sam at school, gathering the ingredients she’d committed to memory. She opened the fridge and began setting them out.

She lined up the items on the counter and turned back to see her friend had taken the large frying pan down from its wall hook. Pouring olive oil in the pan, she turned the stove burner to low.

“It’s a cinch so long as you follow the recipe,” Stef assured her, rotating the pan so the bottom was evenly coated.

Macie came up beside her. “It’s me you’re talking to, remember? A card carrying member of the culinary-impaired.”

“You’ll do great. Most of the work is in the prep. I usually make my salsa from scratch but with a little doctoring, readymade salsa can work, too.”

Macie thought back to that morning. While certain…
details
were tattooed onto her brain, she was fuzzy on the cooking part. “I’m pretty sure Ross used salsa from a jar.”

Stef’s gaze flew up from the sizzling pan. “Mannon made you breakfast?”

Recalling Ross’s tangy kiss and knowing touch, Macie felt her face flame. Hoping Stef would attribute any flushing to the rising steam, she answered, “It was a case of mutual insomnia leading to the munchies.”

“Interesting,” Stef said, handing Macie the spatula. Macie stared at it. “You asked me to walk you through, right? What are you waiting for, rookie? Let’s get started.”

Nervous, nonetheless Macie did her best to follow Stef’s directions to the letter, occasionally pausing to ask a clarifying question such as the difference between chipotle and chili powder and how long to cook the tortillas on each side.

Cooking the eggs proved to be the easy part. Apparently there were two versions of the dish, one with scrambled eggs, as Mannon had made, and the other with fried. Feeling brave, Macie decided to try fried. In the same skillet she’d used to heat the tortilla, she followed Stef’s directions and added a dollop of butter. She waited a moment for it to melt, and then cracked in two eggs.

“Cook them for three to four minutes if you want the yolks runny, longer if you like them firmer,” Stef advised.

“Definitely firmer,” Macie said, picking out a piece of shell.

At the end of twenty minutes give or take, Macie had a nearly perfect plate of huevos rancheros.

Beaming, Stef handed her a fork. “You did it, Mace!”

“I did it, didn’t I?” Absurdly excited, Macie picked up a fork and dug in. Popping the morsel into her mouth, she chewed, savored, and finally swallowed. Setting down the fork, she felt a big grin breaking forth. “I made this and it doesn’t suck. It’s actually pretty good.”

“Of course it is.” Stef patted her on the shoulder. “The act of cooking can be a very powerful thing. It’s no coincidence that ‘holy days’ became our modern holidays and that the celebrations always involved sharing beautifully prepared food.” She hesitated, and then asked, “This sudden…
craving
for Tex Mex wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain hot Texas transplant, would it?”

Caught out, Macie admitted, “He’s not anything like what I came here expecting. He’s warm and funny and kind and caring. He even helps out around the house.”

Equally amazing was her discovery that there were some aspects of domestic life she actually enjoyed, such as family movie night with Ross and Sam passing around a big bowl of popcorn and arguing over how much salt to add. Ross’s daughter might have some issues, but now that she’d started letting down her guard on occasion, she was a pretty cool kid. Helping her with her homework and chauffeuring her around the city could even be fun.

“Sounds like a keeper. And he’s single, right?

Macie nodded. “Divorced, but it happened years ago. He must have married pretty young.” She declined to point out that Ross’s ex was a famous fashion photographer whom she’d first met at the magazine. Stef didn’t keep up with the fashion world, so the name Francesca St. James likely would mean nothing to her.

“So what’s the problem?”

“Well, for starters, he’s a Republican.”

Her friend shrugged. “You say that like some people say ‘axe murderer.’”

“There’s a difference?”

“Come on, Macie, lighten up. It is a two-party system.” She popped a sliver of avocado into her mouth.

“Not if Ross and his followers have their way.”

Stef lifted a dark slash of brow. “He has followers?”

“I’d say cronies but ‘followers’ has a nicer sound.”

Obviously struggling to keep a straight face, Stef managed a nod. “Definitely makes him sound more messiah-like.”

Macie rounded the counter and slumped down on a stool. “Seriously, Stef, what am I going to do? He thinks I’m someone I’m not, a sweet, old-fashioned girl who believes in the things he does. You and I both know that woman doesn’t exist.”

“Are you so sure about that?” Following, Stef sat down beside her. “If you mean the woman who just learned to make huevos rancheros even though she claims she hates to cook and who talks my ear off about some teenage kid who’s not hers but who she worries about all the time anyway, then I’d say she exists all right.”

Macie speared her with a look. “You know why I came here.”

“Muckraking mission, Operation Cinderella, yep, I copy you. So bag the Black Ops and move on. Mannon sounds like he just may be a pretty great guy. There aren’t all that many of them out there.” She sighed.

“I’ll lose my job at the magazine.”

“There are other jobs at other magazines,” Stef countered.

Macie shook her head. “Starr gave me my first byline. I’d still be covering the weather if it weren’t for her. I owe her.”

Stef scowled. “You’ve worked your ass off for her and that magazine for five years. Nobody
gave
you anything. You earned it all, paid your dues, and then some. The only person you owe now is yourself. You don’t have to do this. You have choices, Mace. Make the most of them.”

Appetite lost, Macie pushed the plate away. “It’s a moot point anyway. Ross really is the Prince of Clean.” The surety of her imminent failure to find anything approaching dirt, or even dust on Ross left her feeling simultaneously anxious and relieved.

“Then tell your boss the truth, that you’ve come up empty. Let the potato chips fall where they may and get on with your life—with or without
On Top
in it.”

Stefanie was right, Macie decided. She might not have dirt but she did have a choice.

.

Standing outside the threshold to Sam’s bedroom a week later, Macie hesitated, and then lightly knocked on the edge of the open door. “How’s it going? About ready for a lunch break?”

“Almost.” Gaze glued to her computer monitor, Sam beckoned her inside. “Check this out. It’s my Social Studies project.”

Entering, Macie said, “Not going so hot, huh?”

What was going well, very well, was Sam. Lately she’d begun keeping her bedroom door open during the day, a powerful symbol of all the ways she was opening up.

Dragging her gaze away from the screen, Sam admitted, “I could use some help.”

Relieved it wasn’t algebra again, Macie picked a path around the poster sized pieces of foam board, photos, scissors, and pushpins strewn across the carpet to Sam’s desk. “What’s the topic?”

“The American family. We’re supposed to make a poster of our family tree. Mrs. Grant said to try and go back at least three generations for both our parents.”

“Have you checked out the genealogy websites? You can search the immigration records for Ellis Island online, too.”

“Thanks but actually I’ve got most of the old stuff already. It’s Dad and Mom who don’t make any sense.”

Macie hesitated. “What do you mean?”

Sam poked a finger at the screen. “I was born on April 12, 1997. It says here that Mom and Dad didn’t get married until September 1999.”

Macie leaned in to look. Sam had landed on one of those amateur detective sites that catered to the paranoid and the nosy. For an annual membership of just $19.99, you could search and access the records of just about anyone for whom you had the most basic information.

Straightening, she stepped back. “These sites aren’t always that reliable. Sometimes people have similar sounding names—”

“No, MJ, there’s no mistake.” Sam clicked on another window. “See? Here’s the PDF of their marriage certificate, the one on file at the court house. That’s my mom’s signature. Believe me, she’s written enough school notes for me to recognize it.”

“Do you need the exact dates for your project?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Want my advice?”

Sam shrugged. “Sure.”

“This project isn’t for history, it’s for social studies, so don’t worry about exact dates right now. Finish your chart, turn it in to your teacher, and talk about this with your dad—in private. For now, let’s go have lunch, okay?”

Looking up, Sam sent her a lopsided smile so like her dad’s that Macie felt her heart fisting. “Let me guess, huevos rancheros?”

Now that Macie had learned how to make the dish, she couldn’t seem to stop. She’d even started doing some grocery shopping on her own.

“Grilled cheese sandwiches, but I made them with gorgonzola.”

Grinning, Sam got up from her seat. “Sounds fancy.”

Macie put an arm around the girl’s shoulders, pleased when Sam leaned in rather than pulled away. “Tell me about it. I’m a regular Rachel Ray.”

That night Macie couldn’t wait for dinner to end so she could see Ross alone, and not only to indulge in the private kisses they’d begun sharing in the evenings in his study. Closing the dishwasher, she sought him out.

Poking her head inside the open study doorway, she asked, “Have a moment?”

He looked up from his article draft, his pleased-to-see-her expression tugging at her heart. “As many as you want.” He rose, rounded the desk, and reached for her.

She backed up a step. “It’s about Sam.” Reaching behind, she drew the door closed.

A worried look eclipsed his smile. “She seemed okay at dinner.”

“She is okay. She’s better than okay—she’s great. She’s also really smart.”
Too smart for anyone’s good, especially yours.

“Sounds like one of us had better sit down.”

They subsided into side-by-side chairs. Macie filled him in on Sam’s Social Studies project and online discovery. Up until now, she’d expected him to deny it, to provide all sorts of proof pointing out the obvious, egregious mistake that had been made. Instead he sat almost perfectly still.

She reached over and touched his arm. “Ross?”

Staring ahead, he scarcely seemed to register her. “Frannie and I met the spring semester of my senior year when she came over as a foreign exchange student. Even as a skinny-assed eighteen-year-old, she had a way about her—bold as brass, sophisticated, worldly beyond her years. You would have thought she’d been with hundreds of guys, all of them James Bond.”

Though she wanted to be supportive, Macie hadn’t entirely gotten over her admittedly irrational jealousy of Francesca. The fashion photographer had always loomed as a larger than life figure, but lately she’d also become the competition. A first love was tough to beat. Listening to Ross rhapsodize was challenging, to say the least.