Valentine's Day Is Killing Me (17 page)

“A place that offers a wine list instead of a kids’ menu,” she immediately responded as she closed the phone books and stacked one on top of another.

Okay, he didn’t expect that answer. Shanna always had definite standards about this kind of stuff. “Not even romantic?”

“No.” She cast a quick glance at him as if she heard something judgmental in his tone. “I hit all the romantic ones, but I can’t get in. I’m sure you know of at least one nice one.”

He did, but he wasn’t chivalrous enough to let on about them. “What would I know about restaurants? According to you I’m in the office 24/7.”

Shanna pressed her lips in a firm line, the only indication that she heard the latent argument. “You know of a few,” she pointed out, refusing to get into past history. “There were one or two neighborhood restaurants where they knew you by name.”

Uh, no way. No way was he going to let her go there. “Try them,” he suggested, ready to call them up and block her reservation. He didn’t want Shanna reenacting those moments with another guy.

“I did try,” she confessed, “but they can’t fit me in. At this point I’m willing to drop the
nice
requirement as long as I don’t wind up at a drive-thru.”

“Why don’t you cook dinner?” Hell, where did that come from? What was he doing?

She gave him a horrified look. “Cook?”

“Yeah.” Why wasn’t he shutting up? “That lasagna you made from scratch for my birthday was good.” He placed his hand over his stomach as he remembered. It was better than good. And then what they did with the leftover sauce…

“You think I should cook?” Shanna’s raised voice cut through his carnal thoughts. “On Valentine’s Day?”

She said it like it was a bad thing. “Does that go against your beliefs?”

“A little,” she said in a huff. “I’m not going to spend hours in a kitchen on a special day.”

“Oh, yeah. What was I thinking?” The woman expected to be treated like a queen for a day, wanting all other moments to pale in comparison. She was getting hung up on all the shiny trappings and didn’t see she was tossing away the good stuff.

Shanna shook her head. “Next you’ll suggest I bake my own wedding cake.”

“It’s not unheard of,” Calder said as her phone rang.

She held her hand up at him as if she were controlling traffic. “No more suggestions out of you. Cook. For Dominic. On Valentine’s Day.” She picked up the phone. “Hello, this is Shanna Murphy.”

He suppressed a smile. Dominic didn’t rate a home-cooked meal. Probably not even a pot of coffee. That would hold him…for now. Calder backed out of the office suite, feeling like he just dodged a bullet.

“Shanna? This is Tony.”

Tony. Tony? Shanna frowned as she flipped through her mental Rolodex. She didn’t know of any Tony. “Tony…?”

“Angie’s…friend.”

“Oh, hi.”
That
Tony. She twisted her lips before she mouthed off, but she just
loved
how everyone assumed she remembered everyone and their full personal history. As if she didn’t have a life of her own. Which she didn’t, but that was beside the point.

Her mind rewound to what Tony labeled himself.
Angie’s friend.
Ha. What a joke. More like
lover. Inamorato. Bedbuddy.
For someone who gets it on with Angie during office hours, it was useless to practice discretion now.

“I don’t know how you got transferred over to my line,” Shanna told him as she reached for the buttons on her phone. “I’ll connect you to Angie’s voice mail.”

“No, wait,” Tony said in a rush. “It’s you I want to talk to.”

“Me?” Her stomach clenched. Why? She was surprised that he was aware of her existence. That he knew her name. Her work number.

What would someone like Tony want with her? The possibilities were bizarre. Tantalizing. Each one feeding her vengeful fantasies against Angie.

A wicked smile curled along her lips. Tony wants to dump Angie for someone nicer. No, someone beautiful and sexy. No, wait…a goddess. A
love
goddess.

Of course, she would turn him down flat, Shanna decided as she leaned back against her chair. But she could carry on, knowing that the boss’s
friend
wanted her more than the goddess Angie. Her days would be spent finding ways to remind Angie of that. While dodging the unemployment line. Hmm…being lusted over by your boss’s lover was a hazardous pastime, but oh, so worth it.

“Shanna?” Tony repeated with a trace of exasperation. “Can you hear me?”

“Hmm?” Shanna mentally prepared her thanks-forthe-offer-but-I-find-you-disgusting-and-no-STD-free-test-results-would-change-my-mind speech.

“I said, what does Angie have planned on Friday afternoon? I’m planning a surprise for her.”

The revenge fantasies skidded and hit the wall of reality. Eh, no big. Actually, it was a relief.

But did he have to make her an accomplice in giving the witch a perfect Valentine’s Day? Ugh. The indignity of it all! “Oh, that’s so”—
unfair, unjustified, and just plain wrong!
—“sweet.”

“Yeah,” Tony said bashfully. “But I need to know if she has any important meetings.”

And he was asking her because…? “I wouldn’t know.”

“Can you check her schedule?” he prompted, as if she was brainless. “It would be on her computer.”

That’s another thing she loved. Everyone assumed she was a lackey. “I don’t have her password. Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’ll figure it out some other way. Just don’t let Angie know about my plans.”

“Nota…problem.” She stumbled to a stop as Tony hung up. Before she could ask him if he knew of any romantic restaurants. Bummer.

As she returned the phone to its cradle, her gaze caught the familiar scrap of paper nestled underneath the yellow pages.

THE LIST

1. 1. Receive a dozen long-stemmed red roses. At work. In front of everyone.
   
2. 2. Dinner at
   the
   a
   most romantic
   nice
   restaurant in
   the
   downtown
   Seattle
   area.
   Champagne
   or wine
   optional, but would gain bonus points.
   
3. 3. A date with someone who knows where my G-spot is without asking for directions. And knows what to do with it.
   

It doesn’t look bad. That bad. As bad as it could be. She had to remember that it was all about adapting. Adjusting. Hanging on.

She wondered to which restaurant Tony was taking her boss. Probably something fabulous. Ultraromantic. Angie probably wouldn’t appreciate it unless it was ultraexpensive.

Why did guys do this kind of stuff for someone like Angie? She was demanding, ungrateful, and thoughtless. Shanna couldn’t imagine that would be an aphrodisiac to men. Everyone knew men have fragile egos.

The woman must make it up to him in bed. Shanna shuddered at the thought. It was unimaginable, but as Sherlock Holmes once said, if you eliminated all other factors, the one that remains must be the truth. Or something like that. But if someone as hard and unloving as Angie could lure guys into acting stupid and goofy in the name of love and sex, any woman could get romanced.

Shanna grabbed her to-do list and added the pharmacy to her errands. Hope surged through her for the first time since she’d read the paper in the morning. If the promise of incredible sex was all that it took, Dominic was going to romance her brains out.

T minus 36 hours

Calder looked up from his computer screen. He thought he had seen a glimpse of flame-red Murphy hair next to his door. Anticipation buzzed through his veins until he saw the porcupine hairstyle.

He quashed the disappointment welling in his chest. “Heather,” he greeted evenly.

“Cut the chitchat,” Heather demanded as she strode into his office. “It’s time to take a walk.”

When it came to Shanna’s twin sister, he always felt like he walked into a conversation midway. “Where?”

“To our friendly neighborhood drugstore. The one across the street.” She clapped her hands. “Come on, let’s hustle.”

He propped his chin on his fist. “Not that I wouldn’t
love
to spend time with you…”

“I’ll explain it on the way.” She gestured to the open door.

“I have work to do.” He thought it was obvious. He couldn’t see the surface of his desk. Hadn’t seen it since the last time Shanna clucked her tongue and straightened it up for him.

“Dude,” Heather glared at him. No tongue-clucking out of her. “I’ll give it to you straight. You’re blowing it with Shanna.”

His chest clenched and he felt something shift. It was like the void yawned bigger. Calder remained still, but the restraint that had gotten him this far in life slipped. “How do you figure that?”

“You’re giving her some slack before you reel her in.” Heather acted like she was fly-fishing. “I know it. You know it. Shanna doesn’t know it.”

“That’s my plan.”

“Yeah, it was a brilliant plan. In November.” She splayed her hands in the air. “But it’s freaking February and she has just made a To Do Dominic list.”

He flinched at the news. It ate at his gut like acid. He wanted to punch something. Rip apart everything in his path until the world matched the destruction that was going on inside him.

Shanna didn’t want him anymore. He felt like he was falling into a black hole. He had nothing to hold onto.

Had Shanna ever made a To Do Calder list? Did she complete it and decided it was time to move on? What if there was something on the Dominic list he didn’t have? His gut twisted. Better not be.

Calder noticed that Heather was watching him closely. He schooled his expression but felt his skin drawn tight against his face. “What does this have to do with me?” he asked. His voice was cold. Arctic. Too bad Heather wasn’t one to get frostbitten.

“She doesn’t want Dominic.” Heather waved her hand as if the guy was a nonissue.

“It doesn’t sound that way,” he replied.

Heather’s eyebrow rose from the lethal softness of his voice. “She isn’t going to bed him because she’s still hung up on you.” Heather leaned her arm against his monitor. “Take my word on it.”

“You’re that sure?” He wanted to believe her, but Shanna never said she loved him. Yeah, he felt loved, but for someone who was into anything mushy and sappy, Calder had to wonder what kept her from saying those words.

“Shanna wants romance.” Heather made a face and a retching noise. “Something Dominic will give without backing it up with any real feelings.”

“More power to him.” He returned his attention to the screen, but it was all a blur.

“Why you couldn’t give it to her remains a mystery,” she said, as she inspected her nails.

He swerved his attention back on Heather, surprised by the accusation. “You’re asking me that?
You
are?”

Heather held up her hand. “I back up your sentiments one hundred percent, Calder. You know I do. But is it really that hard to give a dozen red roses when you know how important it is to Shanna?”

“I’m not going to pretend to be someone that I’m not.” What he felt for her wasn’t soft and fragile. It wasn’t refined. Roses and lace didn’t explain how he felt.

But it was more than that. He wasn’t sophisticated. The stuff Shanna wanted might as well be from a foreign culture. He didn’t understand it, didn’t know how to get it for her. And if he tried, he would mess it up.

“Okay, Calder,” Heather said, as she snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Now is not the time to think. It’s the time to act.”

He leaned back in his chair and sighed. He couldn’t. He had responsibilities. Obligations. Deadlines. No one seemed to understand this. “I have work—”

“It’ll be here when you get back. I promise, no one will steal it from you.” She shifted impatiently. “Don’t you want to see for yourself if Shanna is over you?”

Not really. He didn’t know how he would cope if the interest was gone from her blue eyes. If the glimmer of attraction had dimmed. But he had to know.

“What, exactly, am I supposed to do?” Calder asked as he rose from his chair. “Storm into the pharmacy, throw her over my shoulder, and see if she calls security on me?”

“That’s Plan B,” Heather said, as she pushed him out the door. “Plan A is much more subtle.”

Calder looked over his shoulder. “What do you know about subtle?”

“Trust me.”

That was hard to do when the simple suggestion made his stomach cramp. “Do I have a choice?” he muttered under his breath.

“Not really,” Heather admitted, coming around to his side. “Here’s the plan. All you have to do is troll the condom rack…”

“Oh, hell.” He turned around and headed back for the safety of his office.

Panic, hot and pure, nearly blinded Shanna. The need to unsheathe her claws was instinctive. But that wouldn’t get her anywhere.

She knew better than to cause a scene. She would be sweet but insistent. Do whatever it took to overcome this obstacle.

And that meant she couldn’t lunge over the counter and grab the pharmacist by the lapels of his crisp white coat. No matter how much she wanted to.

Shanna rested her wrists on the counter. She folded her hands together, ignoring the urge to ball her fingers into fists. “What do you mean,” she said through a fixed smile, “that you won’t give me my birth control?”

The older man looked at her from over his half-glasses. “Your prescription has expired,” he replied in his typical, no-nonsense manner.

Shanna wanted to shrug and make a face. Instead she went for a wide-eyed-innocence look. If acting stupid could cajole men into changing their minds, she’d give it a whirl. “Not by much,” she said.

“Enough,” he replied, mimicking her tone.

Okay, Shanna decided, as her eyes narrowed. He wasn’t going to fall for that. But after polite, sweet, and stupid, she was running out of tactics. What was next in her limited repertoire?

Tears. Ech. She absolutely hated when women did it, but it seemed to work. She had to give it a try.

“But you don’t understand,” she said, looking up, trying to get tears to form. She looked into the lights and blinked frantically. Nothing. Her eyes, if anything, felt bone-dry and itchy.

Apparently she couldn’t cry on demand. Especially when a very unfriendly guy was waiting with impatience for her to leave. Wish she had known about that earlier. She should have practiced before trying it out in public. Now she had to fake it.

“It’s going to be”—she sniffed and fluttered her hands next to her face—“Valentine’s Day.”

The pharmacist appeared unmoved. Shanna wondered if he was waiting to see tears stream down her face. It was going to be a long wait. She ran the tip of her finger under her eyelashes, pretending to wipe away the moisture.

“Facial tissues are in aisle three.”

Shanna sighed and slouched. She never did like this pharmacist. He was old-fashioned, judgmental, and disapproving. Basically, he was like her dad, with an authoritarian white coat as a bonus. And access to her birth control. That would explain the awkwardness she always felt when getting a refill. Trust her to find a pharmacy that would give her a complex along with her medicine.

It was time to beg for mercy, no matter the consequences. The loss in dignity…The absolute humiliation…

Shanna threw herself facedown on the counter, her arms stretched out wide. She winced as she bumped her nose. Hard. It stung.
Oh, sure, now the tears come.

The sharp corner dug into her stomach. Her toes dangled a few inches from the floor. Shanna had no idea she was that short.

The pharmacist exhaled sharply. “What is it now?”

“Isn’t it against some Hippocratic oath to prevent me from having my birth control on the most romantic day of the year?” Her voice sounded muffled. She was about to blow her hair out of her way when she felt herself slipping.

“No,” the man replied firmly. “I suggest you call your doctor and schedule an appointment.”

That wasn’t going to help, Shanna thought, as she grappled for traction. It took months to get an appointment with that woman. Hmm…now that she thought about it, this medical insurance program she was in really wasn’t working out for her.

What was she doing? She didn’t have time to think about that, Shanna reminded herself, as her fingers squeaked down the smooth counter. She needed to focus. Get birth control in the next thirty-six hours.

Shanna raised her head. “Do you have anything that would tide me over?” She puffed some of the hair away from her face.

“Try the contraception aisle,” he suggested in a cold tone and walked away without a backward glance.

The contraception aisle. Shanna’s feet hit the floor with a thud. Great. Terrific. Didn’t the guy realize she had a prescription so she wouldn’t have to deal with the contraception aisle?

She turned away from the counter and read the signs hanging from the ceiling. The aisle in question was in between the feminine hygiene products and diapers. Shanna sensed there was a hidden message in the layout, but felt some things were better left alone.

Turning the corner into the aisle, Shanna stumbled to a halt. People with more forethought than she had picked the row clean. Someone was going to have hot and heavy Valentine sex. Too bad it wasn’t going to be her.

So why did she feel relief? No. That can’t be it. She was looking forward to her date with Dominic. Wasn’t she? He was reasonably attractive and somewhat attentive. More importantly, he wasn’t married, gay, or hung up on his mother. And he was marginally employed. Other than the fact he wasn’t Calder, what was the problem?

Calder. Stop thinking about him. No more thinking of C—He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.
Shanna determinedly studied her purchase options. Spermicides…caps…condoms…Which one would offer her a more romantic evening? She was thinking, none of the above.

Okay, which offered less interruption? Less mess? How about no assembly required?

Sheesh. Shanna dug her fingers into her hair. Why did she let her prescription expire? Okay, yeah, there was that ridiculous vow when she believed she was never going to be in another serious relationship again. Heather tried to stop her from doing something rash, impulsive, and incredibly stupid. But did she listen? Nooooo.

She hated when her twin sister was right. But at the time she knew she wasn’t going to want anyone as much as she wanted Cal—her ex-boyfriend. Sad thing was, it was still true.

Shanna felt herself wallowing in self-pity. Nothing could be done about it now. She had to move on.

She reluctantly picked up a box of something called dental dams. She frowned, wondering why it was shelved in this section. Shouldn’t it be with the toothbrushes and mouthwash?

Seeing someone step in the aisle, Shanna shoved the dams back on the rack. The box teetered and fell onto the floor.

She glanced at the person who just entered. And did a fast double take that made her neck pop.
Calder!

He strode in, his scuffed boots echoing against the tiled floor. It was like watching raw nature sweeping in. Calder was untamed beauty from the quiet hunter stance to the scent of rain clinging to his tanned skin.

“Hey, Shanna.” She felt her heart flip-flop as his slow smile completely captivated her.

“Hi,” she greeted weakly. Taking a step back, the toe of her sneaker hit something. Shanna looked down and saw the box. She bent down to retrieve it, mentally cursing her awkward movements.

Calder was already there, crouched and watching. Shanna couldn’t shake off the sense that he was ready to pounce. But that was ridiculous. Still, it made her hesitate before she accepted the box from him.

His fingers brushed against her skin. She closed her eyes as sensations erupted in her. Her instinct wasn’t to yank back. She wanted his touch to linger. Thread her fingers through his and hold tight.

Shanna pulled away, desire roaring through her. “Thanks,” she murmured.

“You’re welcome.” His voice was low and intimate.

She didn’t look at him as she straightened to her full height, which didn’t come close to his. It was more than his stature that was overwhelming. His broad shoulders were made for clinging. The smoke-colored Henley brushed against his sculpted chest. It looked soft and well-worn. The classic cut of his faded jeans emphasized his lean, muscular legs. She knew the back view would make her stomach flutter.

Everything about the man invaded her senses. He was pure male, elemental and sensual. She wanted to meld into him, whether he was in bed or in a crowded store.

Which reminded her…What the hell was he doing in the contraceptive aisle? Not that she could necessarily ask that. She had to be blasé. Nonchalant. “How’s it going?”

“Good.” He scanned the row of condoms. “You?”

“Good,” she answered, striving for a casual tone. Her eyes widened as he reached for a box of ribbed and studded condoms.

Shanna froze as she felt everything fall away from her like tinkling glass. He was buying condoms. Condoms designed to stimulate a woman’s nerve endings. A woman who wasn’t her!

The jagged pain ripped her in half. She struggled to remain upright instead of doubled over. How was this possible? When did he find someone new? How much did he like this woman? Okay, cut to the chase. The real question was, how hard was it to replace her?

“Sorry,” Calder looked down at her. “Did you say something?”