Valentine's Day Is Killing Me (16 page)

Heather let out a long-suffering groan. “Come on, Shanna. Why not wait until Dominic gives you some for Valentine’s Day?”

Dominic? Heavy stillness came over Calder. Who the hell was Dominic?

A hectic flush crawled up Shanna’s neck and flooded her pale cheeks. “My other bouquet won’t last that long,” she explained in a mumble.

A bouquet from
Dominic
? Why hadn’t he heard about this guy? How did his competition slip under his guard?

“You guys go on ahead,” Shanna suggested as she backed away. Each guilty step ate at him. “See you after work, Heather.”

“’Bye, Shanna.” He said it low and rough, but he knew it would get her attention.

Shanna turned around and tripped, her tennis shoes squeaking on the floor. “Yeah, okay. ’Bye!” she said, flustered and avoiding eye contact before she darted away.

That’s it. He’d been patient long enough. Calder watched the crowd swallow Shanna up before he turned to Heather. “What do you know about this Dominic?”

“That depends.” Her sister hooked an arm through his. Her smile chilled his blood as she asked, “What’s it worth to you?”

Shanna hurriedly crossed the lobby without giving a backward glance to Calder. She felt like she had just run a marathon. Breathe in…breathe out…breathe in…

He and Heather could make fun all they wanted to, but they never had to deal with a bad Valentine’s Day. Okay, maybe Heather hated being required to make mailboxes and give cards to classmates in elementary school, but she survived.

And as far as Shanna knew, Calder hadn’t had any traumatic V-Day experiences. No floral delivery truck accidents or chocolate tragedy in his past. No Valentine date gone awry. She would definitely have heard about it by now.

Even if he had slapped a lawsuit on the Valentine card industry for a paper cut, she wouldn’t let his opinion change hers. She was used to people showing little appreciation about the most romantic holiday of the year. Of course, it was more difficult when the most important people in her life felt that way. But she wasn’t going to let that sway her from what she wanted.

Shanna squared her shoulders back and threaded through the long lines at the coffee bar to get to the flower cart. She determinedly ignored the dark-roast scent that always beckoned her in the morning. A couple more days and she could indulge in her caffeine habit.

Most of her coworkers thought she gave up her morning coffee as a New Year’s Resolution. Shanna was more than willing to let them think that when the real reason was she used her java money for a bouquet of flowers every week.

Of all the preplanning she had done for this holiday, Shanna realized the flower preparations were a mistake. She knew well enough to bring in the crystal vase at work around the beginning of the year. Any later than that, and she might as well advertise her Valentine expectations with neon lights.

But next time she wouldn’t buy such a big vase. Great idea in theory, but it sucked buying jumbo bouquets. And, even though they came in a wide array of unnatural colors, she was getting tired of carnations.

Approaching the flower cart, Shanna nodded to the shop girl and bypassed the roses. The sweet, heady scent curled around and enveloped her, but she wasn’t going to look at them. Roses, in her humble opinion, should not be bought, but given. By a man.

And it didn’t have to be a man in love, Shanna decided, as she browsed the pale tulips. Interested, yes. In like would be fine. In love was not obligatory.

She certainly wasn’t looking for love. Shanna blinked as the colors blurred before her eyes. She found it with Calder, but what she had felt didn’t boomerang back.

When she met Calder, she thought she had found her Prince Charming. She had been ready to dive into a whirlwind affair complete with a happily-ever-after fit for a princess bride. Instead she discovered that she had fallen in love with a guy who was more cowboy than charming, who had little use for romance, and had no plans to treat her like a princess. It was no coincidence that there was a lack of cowboys in fairy tales.

Calder obviously thought she would “come to her senses,” but that was three months ago. She thought it had been the right choice to stand up for what she wanted. Now she wasn’t so sure.

No. She wouldn’t second-guess herself again. Not this late in the game. Shanna blindly grabbed a bouquet of pink tulips. To hell with the cost. She was on a mission. This time she was looking for romance. She wanted to be wooed. Courted.

Was it so wrong that she wanted to be the center of a man’s attention? She didn’t think so. She wanted a man to do something goofy and stupid over her. That wasn’t asking for much!

And she certainly wasn’t asking for it to last forever, Shanna thought, as she paid for the flowers. She wasn’t even asking for it to last a month. Just one day.

One
lousy
day.

Valentine’s Day, to be exact.

Shanna turned at the sound of screeching tires next to the lobby’s back doors. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of a familiar silver sports car.

February 14. The same day when even the most unworthy of women were treated like princesses. Women like her boss Angie.

Shanna took a prudent step behind the cart and watched Angie’s husband—Ted, Ed, Fred, or something like that—bolt out of the car and hustle around the hood to help Angie out from the passenger side.

Shanna didn’t get it. Ted-Ed-Fred was successful, sweet, and good-looking. How’d he wind up with a witch like Angie? Some sort of court-ordered community service?

And Angie sure didn’t appreciate what she had, Shanna decided, her mouth twisted with disapproval. It wasn’t enough to have the lapdog. Oh, no. Not nearly enough. Angie’s secret lover, Tony, was always dropping by the office. He was extremely sexy, extremely attentive, and from the occasional grunting heard in Angie’s office during lunchtime, extremely well hung.

So the witch had two men who made her the center of attention, and Shanna had no one. On paper, it didn’t compute. She played by the rules. She was the good girl. How come she wasn’t being rewarded?

Angie strode in, her obscenely expensive shoes clicking against the hard floor. She carried a platinum travel coffee mug in one overly manicured hand and gave a half-wave over her shoulder to her husband with the other. “’Bye, Stan.”

Stan. That was it. Heh. Close enough. She frowned as she noticed how Angie’s new designer pantsuit hugged her toned body. Shanna’s sigh reached to her toes. Why did the blonde have to have everything
and
a high metabolism? Why didn’t the gods just make Angie a Charlie’s Angel while they were at it?

“Shanna?” Angie’s attention swiveled at the sound of the heavy sigh. “Why aren’t you in the office yet?”

Why aren’t you?
Shanna bit her tongue before she said it aloud. “I’m early.” Like stating the obvious was going to make a difference.

“There’s no time to waste.” She gestured for Shanna to hurry up, which she grudgingly obeyed. “We have to reach our project objective on Friday…”

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Shanna stepped into the elevator with Angie, wishing she worked on the first level.

“…So these are your assignments for the week…”

Like this couldn’t wait for the department’s morning meeting? Of course not. Angie had a captive audience, and everyone in the elevator was going to hear her wield her dubious authority.

All Shanna could do was nod and tune out. She stared at her bouquet as if her life depended on it. Her professional life, at any rate.

“I don’t know why you spend money on bouquets,” Angie veered off onto another topic. “Flowers are so boring. All they do is shrivel up and die.”

Shanna wished there was a bumblebee in the bouquet. A big, fat one. It would then zip out and sting Angie on the mouth. That would shut her up. For maybe all of one minute.

“Of course, Stan’s going to be out of town this week…”

“Oh?” Shanna perked up at this tidbit of information. “You’re spending Valentine’s apart?”

“No way!” Angie looked appalled at the very idea. “Stan wouldn’t do that to me. He’s going to take a cross-country flight back home so we’ll be able to spend Valentine’s night together.”

It was a struggle to keep a blank expression, but Shanna managed. Barely. “That’s so…sweet.”

Okay. It was official. Valentine’s Day was wasted on the wrong people. Or maybe V-Day was designed for the wrong people.

Hmm…Shanna returned her gaze to the bouquet. She might have something there. Maybe Valentine’s was based on a Darwinian principle.

There were those who would always have spectacular V-Days. They would never spend February 14 alone.

Angie was definitely one of them. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t even logical, but it was the way the world turned.

Then there were those designed to endure. They were the ones whose Valentine’s Days were less than spectacular. They would get potted plants instead of roses. Jewelry that turned skin green. Sugar-free chocolates.

And then there were those designed to envy. No gifts. No celebrations. No nothing. Shanna was stuck in that group. Figured.

Not this year, though. Shanna’s jaw tightened. And if she had something to say about it, never again.

Because if it was about survival of the fittest, Shanna was going to win. She was going to have spectacular V-Days from this moment on. No matter what. Even if it meant sacrificing, adapting, eating her young….

She grimaced. Okay, maybe not that far. But Darwin had nothing on her. She wasn’t going to let anything get in her way. If anyone tried, Shanna thought as she glanced in Angie’s direction, they were going down.

It was revolution time.

T minus 63 hours

“Have you seen the paper?” Heather asked as she pulled her backpack off the bus seat she had been saving.

Shanna sat down and brushed the rain from her coat. “Heather, you know if it’s important, then I’ll see it on the Web.”

“You might find this important.” She tossed the local newspaper at her.

Shanna grabbed it and reluctantly scanned the front page. She had other things to do on their commute. Reading the news was the last thing on her mind. “If you’re upset about some comic strip character dying—whoa!” She felt like someone kicked her in the stomach. It hurt so much, she wanted to gag. In fact, she did.

“Told ya,” Heather said softly.

She stared at the headlines until her eyes burned. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced them open. No good. The words remained in the same order.
SWISH CLOSED DOWN BY AUTHORITIES
.

Shanna slapped the newspaper on her lap and stared straight ahead.
I’m not going to cry,
she decided, as she pressed her trembling lips together.
I will not cry.

She flopped back, her head hitting the hard plastic. “I can’t believe this is happening,” Shanna said in a daze. Her eyelashes fluttered as she tried to stop the first tear from falling.

“Yep.” Heather took the paper back and clucked her tongue. “Who knew ‘most romantic restaurant’ was synonymous with ‘a breeding ground for Hepatitis A’?”

Shanna leaned forward and thunked her head against the chair in front of her. Again. And again.

The skinny guy who always sat there turned around and scowled. “Do you mind?”

She drew back and slouched in her seat, waiting until the man turned around before sticking her tongue out at him. Couldn’t anyone show some compassion? Just a speck? She was having a crisis here!

“Why? Why?” She tossed her hands up in the air and looked skyward. “Why this week? Couldn’t the authorities have closed it next week? Saturday, even?”

“So unsuspecting customers like yourself could contract a liver disease?” her sister said as she turned the page of her newspaper.

“Come on, how dangerous is Hepatitis A?”

Heather flipped back the page and leveled her with a look. “Wouldn’t you rather have good health over a good Valentine’s Day?”

Shanna pursed her lips as she considered the question. Healthy liver or a happy Valentine’s Day…healthy liver, happy Valentine’s Day…

“Shanna?” Heather sounded just like their mother when she did that.

“What does a liver do again? Ow!” She flinched as Heather elbowed her in the ribs. “Yeah, yeah,” Shanna agreed as she rubbed the sore spot. “I want the healthy liver. I guess.”

“I can’t believe the way you’re acting.” Heather returned her attention to the newspaper.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” She combed her fingers through her hair. “What am I saying? Of course it’s happening. Because this is my life we’re talking about.”

“Calm down. It’s going to be fine.”

“How can you say that?” She already felt the panic clawing its way up her throat. There was no way she could bounce back from this setback. Screw revolution.

Her sister shrugged. “You can go to another restaurant.”

Shanna scoffed at the idea. If only it were that simple. “Right. Don’t you think that all of the romantic restaurants are booked up at this time?”

“You don’t know that for sure unless you call other places.”

“I don’t
want
another restaurant. I want Swish.” She folded her arms and pouted. She planned on it, waited for almost a year, and now it was snatched from her days before she could enjoy it. Her luck blew.

Heather put down the paper. “Don’t you think you’re asking for too much out of this day?”

Shanna flinched at the absurd idea. “Too much?” she said in a low, fierce tone. “Hardly. Too much would be expecting a Valentine’s Day
wedding
with Calder Smith.”

Her sister’s eyebrows shot up. “I should say so, since you barely speak to him.”

Damn, she wished she hadn’t said those words out loud. It hurt more having her dream out in the open. And, if the rules were right, it would never come true.

“Forget I said that,” Shanna said from the corner of her mouth.

“Done.” Heather looked out the window as if she hadn’t heard a thing. “Forgotten. Purged from my memory.”

Now if only she could purge it from hers. Shanna’s shoulders sagged. “This was supposed to be a Valentine’s that couldn’t go wrong.”

“Just because you went for the downgrade version?” Her sister shook her head. “Think again.”

If she reached for the moon, she’d crash and burn. Asking for the minimum was already showing cracks in her plans. It was time to regroup and go straight into crisis management.

“Stop worrying.” Heather lightly tapped her on the shoulder with the paper. “You’ll come up with something. Better yet, have Dominic take care of it.”

“Have a guy be in charge of my Valentine’s Day?” Shanna snorted. “Puhleeze.”

Shanna rushed into her department, wondering how to conduct a fast search for romantic restaurants. She needed to get a head start before the other Swish patrons nabbed all the alternative reservations. Damn, she hated the sense of urgency pulsing through her veins. It was enough to make her want to curl up into a fetal position.

She skidded to a stop the moment she saw her two coworkers. They were huddled next to her office space, and once again Shanna hated being in the middle cubicle. It was bad enough that she could hear everything between the thin walls, but it was worse when everyone gravitated to her “door.” She knew it wasn’t for her cheerful disposition or her stash of candy. More like geographic bad luck.

“Shanna!” Megan jerked her head up. “Hi!”

“Hi,” she replied cautiously to what could only be described as the dishwater blonde. She never knew what that meant until she met Megan.

“Hey, Shanna,” Kerry said, flipping her brunette hair away from her face before walking back to her cubicle. “How’s it going?”

“Good.” Okay, something was up. That was about as chatty as Kerry got in the morning. And what was with these two? They barely tolerated each other. Whenever Kerry wasn’t in the office—which happened a lot—Megan would gossip and badmouth her to Shanna. And vice versa. It made Shanna wonder what they said about her when she wasn’t around.

“Hi, Angie!” Megan said past Shanna’s shoulder, her brightness level going up a notch, where it would remain until Angie left the room. “Oh, love your shoes.”

Shanna tried to keep her expression blank as she took off her coat. Megan’s brown-nosing was really annoying. Probably because it worked so well. Shanna didn’t think she could stoop that low. And even if she did, she would still get caught for pulling stunts. Megan had the unique talent of getting away with anything.

“Thanks, Megan. I just bought them yesterday.” Angie stopped and rotated her ankle so everyone could get a better look. She glanced up when Shanna stowed her purse away in the bottom desk drawer. “Shanna, are you just getting in?”

Are you?
She bit the tip of her tongue. “I’m early.” She didn’t know why she kept telling Angie that.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Yep. Never works.
Shanna kept her mouth shut and booted up her computer.

“We need to have all the bugs fixed by the end of Friday,” Angie continued, gesturing with her travel coffee mug as she warmed up to her gloom-and-doom speech that she had given every day for the past two weeks.

“Oh, speaking of Friday,” Kerry said. “I need to leave early.”

“Hot date?” Megan asked. There was a sharp edge to the cheerfully curious question.

Kerry flashed a warning look at her coworker. “No, my grandmother is getting out of the hospital and they need me there before the visiting nurse shows up.”

Good one.
Shanna grabbed a tissue from her box and wiped the water circling the base of her vase. Kerry was getting more creative with her excuses. She had to; she was running out of the usual ones.

“I thought your grandmother died on New Year’s Eve,” Angie said, perplexed. “I remember something about you having to leave early for the funeral home.”

Kerry paused. “Right—that was for my other grandmother.”

Yeah, Grandma #7.
Shanna pinched off a dead leaf and tossed it in her wastebasket. She was not going to get into this. It had nothing to do with her.

“Well,” Angie shrugged, “I guess that can’t be helped. Do as much as you can in the next few days.” Angie walked off and stopped. “Hold on a second.”

Shanna perked up. Did she finally add up all of Kerry’s relatives and realize they didn’t compute? Oh, please, please.

“Shanna?”

Shanna froze. She was wrong. She winced and closed her eyes. Kerry’s lies were going to affect her. She could hear it in her boss’s voice. She could feel it coming.

“Weren’t you planning on leaving early?”

She forced her eyes open. “Yeah.”

“Come on, you guys.” Angie raised her voice. “We can’t have two people out on the day of our deadline.”

Shanna had a hard-won appointment at a chi-chi salon and was getting the works done. Had scrimped and saved for almost 365 days. Had figured out her schedule with the intensity of a general going into battle. But would Angie understand any of this? “I know, but—”

Angie’s hand sliced through the air, her coffee mug reflecting against the fluorescent light. “If it’s not an emergency, forget it.”

Why was
she
getting the attitude? Shanna glanced at Kerry, who suddenly appeared to be very busy.

“You’re going to have to stay until five,” Angie decided, as she walked toward her office.

“But—” Shanna had requested that time off months ago. Earned it. Was truthful about it.

“Kerry has a family situation. And she has seniority,” Angie pointed out and stepped into her office.

Shanna stared as Angie closed the door, the impotent anger crashing through her. She wanted to scream. Stomp her feet. Quit on the spot. If only she could.

She dragged her gaze away from the door and saw Kerry looking at her. “Sorry,” her coworker said with a small smile.

Shanna looked away. “Yeah.”
And may all eight of your grandmothers come back and haunt you.

“Dominic, I’m sorry…”

Calder paused upon entering the office suite, which at first glance appeared empty. His gaze snagged on Shanna’s head peeking above her cubicle wall. The bright red hair looked tousled. Just the way he liked it.

“Yes, I know…I know…”

Regret suffused her voice. Was she canceling the date? Hope swelled inside his chest.

Striding over to where Shanna sat, Calder felt a pang of guilt for listening in on her conversation. He immediately squashed it. If she wasn’t going on a date with Dominic, he wanted to be the first to know.

Shanna’s back was turned. She combed her fingers through her hair and Calder let his gaze drift as the long, soft tresses cascaded down her blue sweatshirt. He leaned against the plastic-and-fabric wall, wondering when she started wearing bulky clothes and how he was going to get her out of them.

“I realize that you’re busy,” Shanna continued in a hushed voice, “but if we want dinner reservations on Friday, we need to act now. Surely you must know of at least one restaurant.”

Calder now understood the reason for all the phone books blanketing her desk. If the creases, wrinkles, and impatient pen scrawls on the yellow pages were anything to go by, her search wasn’t going well.

He glanced around the cubicle and noticed the gigantic crystal vase stuffed with pink tulips. A cheerful bowl set next to him, overflowing with candy hearts. Valentine decorations dotted the boring beige wall. It was a hodgepodge of flowers, lace, and ribbons.

Any of those items would make Calder break out into hives. The combination should be deadly to him, but he wasn’t backing away, forming the sign of the cross with his fingers. It wasn’t his taste, but he liked the design because it was pure Shanna.

“Okay…okay…you ask around and let me know. Okay…talk to you later. ’Bye!” She hung up the phone and muttered, “Ask around. Like that’s going to happen.”

“Problem?”

Shanna yelped and jumped. She swiveled her chair around, her eyes widening when she saw him. “Calder. I didn’t see you.”

Whatever happened to her ability of knowing the moment he stepped into the room? When she knew exactly where he was and what he was doing? He hadn’t believed in all that lover mumbo jumbo while they were together. Now he missed the intuitive connection they once shared.

Once? Nah. They still had it. It was rusty, that’s all. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head and immediately changed the subject. “If you’re looking for Angie, she’s still at lunch.”

Nothing? Yeah, right. That was another thing he was surprised he missed. She used to be very open with him. Told him everything, whether he wanted to hear it or not.

“Your reservations fell through?” he asked.

“Something like that.” Her eyelids drooped but Calder caught the disappointment she was trying to mask. Shanna twitched her mouth to one side. Like she was undecided about something. “You…” she paused, sinking the edge of her teeth into her bottom lip.

Calder felt the buzz as he stared at her mouth. Shanna did the sexiest things and never seemed aware of it. God help him when she was being seductive on purpose. “What?”

She drew back at his harsh tone. “Never mind. I’ll ask someone else if they can recommend a nice restaurant.”

Calder stood immobile. He didn’t think he heard correctly. Shanna wanted restaurant recommendations from him to go with
another man
?

The caveman impulses roared through him. He clenched his teeth until they threatened to shatter. “What do you mean by
nice?
” Did he just growl? He needed to pull back before all those weeks of patience were wasted.