Skirting The Issue

This was…well, this was just letting a friend crash on the sofa, that’s what it was. Carrying two bottles of beer, he rounded the corner from the kitchen and the full force of Sam’s presence hit him.

At that moment Samantha Baldwin was everything he’d ever wanted, or would ever want in a woman, want being the operative word.

Sam’s chest rose and fell gently, and Josh realized he’d been staring at her—staring at her chest actually—for more than a few minutes. There was only so much chest-staring a woman would allow—and Josh knew from personal experience that it wasn’t very much—before she objected. He swallowed. Sam wasn’t objecting. Why wasn’t she? She should object, dammit!

Josh met Sam’s eyes, which were regarding him above a mouth curved in a Mona Lisa smile. Her hands slowly smoothed their way down her thighs, drawing his gaze. She was wearing a black skirt that outlined her legs as though they were immortalized in bronze.

She looked like a World War II pinup photo.

She looked good. Too good.

And suddenly Josh knew he was going to be very, very bad….

Dear Reader,

The skirt is back! When you last saw the mysterious, “man-magnet” skirt, it was flying through the air at the end of Kristin Gabriel’s Seduced in Seattle. However, Kristin, Cara Summers and I had so much fun writing this series, we decided someone should catch the skirt. And we also decided to give the next set of SINGLE IN THE CITY stories a twist….

For this installment, we decided to have all three stories happen at the same time! Not only that, but the heroines are three relative strangers who end up becoming roommates in a New York apartment. Best of all, the books feature three lookalike skirts. But that’s not all…. You’ll meet the neighbors—Mrs. Higgenbotham and her poodle, Cleo, who is in therapy for Canine Intimacy Dysfunction, Petra, the sculptress with a penchant for naked men, and Franco, the aspiring actor/doorman with a gossip addicition. And of course, we’ll introduce you to three new heroes, who may or may not have been attracted by the skirt.

With three women counting on the skirt to work its magic, mix-ups are bound to happen. Will they ever really be sure which skirt is which? Be sure to watch out for even more romantic misadventures next month in Sheerly Irresistible by Kristin Gabriel, then again in Short, Sweet and Sexy, by Cara Summers in October. And don’t miss the skirt’s upcoming West Coast debut, when it arrives in San Francisco for the next round of SINGLE IN THE CITY books—April, May and June of 2003.

And be sure to visit our Web site at www.SingleintheCity.org to let us know how you like the series. While you’re at it, check out my Web site at www.HeatherMacAllister.com for other writing news.

Happy reading!

Heather MacAllister

Skirting the Issue

Heather MacAllister

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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In memory of my grandmother, Mildred Copple Hull.

1902–2002

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Prologue

THERE WAS NOTHING LIKE A wedding to make a single woman assess her options. And Samantha Baldwin had options. She was hiding from one of them now.

“Sam! There you are.”

She cringed. How had Kevin found her?

“The bride’s about to throw the bouquet.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Caught behind the proverbial potted palm artfully disguising the hallway to the women’s rest room, Sam downed the last swallow of her champagne and snagged another glass from a passing waiter.

“Won’t it be difficult to catch the bouquet with your hands full?” Kevin, her boyfriend, her blond-haired, blue-eyed, what-a-wonderful-catch boyfriend, the very boyfriend who traveled to the wedding with her all the way from San Francisco to Seattle—even though she had told him not to—smiled archly. Sam didn’t even know he knew how to smile archly. Kevin wasn’t an arch sort of man. He was a veterinarian.

“Silly me.” Looking him right in the eye, Sam quaffed the glass and handed it to him. “Oh, please,” she said at his raised eyebrow. “The glasses are small and only half-full.”

“I just want you to be sharp and alert.”

It was a cue. She knew she was supposed to ask him why she should be sharp and alert. Then he’d reply that it was so she could be sure and catch the bouquet. Then she’d ask why catching flowers was so important, and he’d…he’d…

And there the screen in Sam’s mind went blank.

Or rather, she knew what was on the screen, she just wished she was in a different theater.

There were two shows running in Sam’s mind. Showing on the screen with Kevin was the happily-ever-after, white-picket-fence, puppies-and-kids movie. A qualified thumbs-up, especially surrounded as she was by all the wedding vibes this weekend.

But showing on another screen was the promotion-and-corporate-success-in-New-York movie. Two thumbs-up. And in the audience, applauding wildly, was Sam’s mother.

Kevin took her arm—really, there was no need; the glasses were small, a couple of swallows max—and gently, but insistently steered her toward the ballroom.

Sam swallowed dryly, since Kevin avoided the wait staff.

“Holy cow!” Kevin was given to animal imprecations. “Look at that mob.”

“They can’t all be wedding guests.” But there they were all crowding around Kate and her bridesmaids, Chelsea, Gwen and Torrie. Sam felt cheered. The odds of her not catching the bouquet had just gone up.

At the realization, she looked up at Kevin guiltily, then back at Kate.

The other bridesmaids, all friends of Sam’s from college, were also newlyweds and they all glowed disgustingly. No, it wasn’t disgusting, but they were all so happy it made her wish for that happiness, too. The way they looked at their husbands—and the way their husbands looked back at them…Sam squeezed Kevin’s arm and he looked down at her in almost the same way. He was a good man, a kind man—he cured little kids’ sick puppies, for heaven’s sake. But he also had a quirky sense of humor, played a ruthlessly wicked game of poker and was perfectly willing to walk out of a movie he didn’t feel was worth his time.

She should love him. What was wrong with her that she didn’t love him?

But she didn’t. At least not enough to give up the chance of the promotion she was recently offered. And not enough to ask him to wait while she went to New York to compete for it. Because…because what if she got it? What if she became the east coast convention sales manager for Carrington Hotels? She’d have to move to New York. Kevin had a thriving veterinary practice in San Francisco. He’d have to really, really love her to relocate to New York.

And he’d deserve someone who really, really loved him back.

Sam squeezed his arm again and as he smiled down at her, she waited for the gooey feelings she knew Kate and the others felt for their husbands. She felt…fondness. And a little irritation because she didn’t feel more.

That was it, then. She’d made her decision, the one she’d come all the way from San Francisco to think about. She’d intended to come alone, but Kevin had surprised her. Would it have made any difference if he’d stayed behind as she’d asked? She’d half-seriously quoted, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” at him, but he’d countered with, “while the cat’s away, the mouse will play.” The animal theme again, but honestly, she’d set herself up for it.

And speaking of setups…while Sam was pondering her future, Kevin steered her through an incredibly aggressive throng of single women until she’d reached a decent field position, one well within bouquet-throwing range. Then he’d kissed her on her cheek and got the heck out of Dodge.

Sam watched Kate search the crowd, her face lighting with radiant bliss—truly, she looked like the women in those diamond ads—when she found her husband. At her nod, Brock approached the band-leader, and then came a remarkable announcement: the bride would be throwing a skirt, not a bouquet.

Well, now. Sam edged toward the side. This she had to see. Oh, sure, she’d heard the rumors about this great skirt. Kate and her bridesmaids all swore they met their husbands while wearing it. Others must have heard about it, too, because as the bride and her attendants climbed the circular dais, they were practically mobbed.

Kate stepped forward and scanned the crowd. Taking a deep breath, she tossed the skirt high into the air, right toward the spot where Sam had been standing.

Then it seemed to float in the air, drifting left, as though caught by a draft from the ventilation system. It twirled and fluttered. It may have even glinted.

Then it dived. Straight toward Sam. Like she had a homing beacon attached to her, or something. Whatever, Sam ducked and waved her arms to fend off the attack. The crowd pushed and shoved, grasping for the black fabric. Sam backed up, and felt one of the white folding chairs against her calf. She lost her balance and grabbed blindly, hoping to prevent her fall. She grabbed a fistful of air—and the skirt. Astonishingly, the thing nearly molded itself to her hands, but it didn’t prevent Sam from a hard landing on the dance floor. She sat, dazed, her legs splayed in front of her, the skirt in her hands.

The single women of Seattle gave a disappointed groan. Make that a menacing groan.

“Sam…You caught it! Way to go!” Kevin made his way through the knot of resentful women.

“But I didn’t mean to catch it,” Sam said. But she knew nobody heard her and wouldn’t believe her if they had.

Kevin stood behind her and struggled to haul her upright by taking hold of her beneath her arms, almost like he was wrestling with a ninety-pound German shepherd.

Sam didn’t weigh ninety pounds, but she was no German shepherd, either. She waved him off with skirt-covered hands and got to her feet.

“So, what’s this mean?” he asked.

“That Kate wanted to dry her bouquet and keep it for herself?”

At that moment, Gwen, one of the bridesmaids, made her way toward them. “Hey, Sam!” She hugged her. “We were hoping you’d be the one.” And Gwen smiled pointedly, beamed, actually, at Kevin.

Kevin was beaming back in perfect understanding. This was not good.

Gwen tapped the skirt with the pink rose she’d carried in the wedding. “Kate sent me over here to make sure you knew the skirt rules.”

Sam held the skirt out in front of her. It shimmered enticingly. “There’re rules?”

“Oh, yeah. Rules and a warning. It works fast.”

“Is that the rule or the warning?”

Gwen laughed. “I got the skirt right after Christmas and I was married on Valentine’s Day.”

Sam stared at her. How horrible. Fortunately, she didn’t say so.

“What exactly does it do?” Kevin asked.

“It attracts men,” Gwen answered.

Kevin frowned.

“One of whom will be your true love,” she added to Sam.

“What if she’s already met her true love?” Kevin stepped forward and fingered the material of the skirt. It must have been a trick of the light, but the lustrous black material seemed to take on an ashy hue. It hung limply from Sam’s hand.

“Then she’ll know he’s the one.” Gwen gave one of the gooey smiles so prevalent today as a well-built man ambled over and tucked his arm around her waist. “After all, I already knew Alec, here, but it wasn’t until I put on the skirt that I knew he was the one for me.”

“If I recall, there was a certain red sweater you wore with it.” Alec grinned. “I liked that sweater.”

Gwen batted at his arm. “Anyway, when you find him, you’ll know. And then you toss it at your wedding to some extremely lucky woman.” After exchanging goo-goo eyes with her husband, Gwen went off with Alec.

Sam stared at the skirt and then at Kevin. He stared back. She knew all right, and she didn’t need the skirt to tell her.

1

SUMMER IN NEW YORK CITY. It was…great. Really great to be here, Sam reminded herself. Just great. It would be greater if she could find an apartment, though. And she’d thought San Francisco rental prices were high.

But today, she was committed to making something happen. Nothing and nobody was getting to her today.

Dropping off a report with the receptionist, Sam headed for the banks of elevators that would take her from the executive offices to the fabulous lobby of Carrington’s flagship hotel in Manhattan.

She rounded the corner in time to see an elevator close behind a tall man—being tall herself, Sam always noticed tall men. He was walking away from her with a confident loose-limbed stride that seemed vaguely familiar. He wore a sports coat that she could see was well-cut, though the plaid was too loud for her taste, just like the jackets Josh—

She froze, staring at the back of the man’s head. No. This man didn’t remind her of anyone, certainly not anyone who might jinx the day for her.

Certainly not Josh Crandall, scourge of the convention sales circuit and Sam’s own personal nemesis.

An involuntary shudder rippled through her. Nope. Not Josh Crandall. Couldn’t be. Sam got into the express elevator and rode it all the way to the lobby. She had left Josh Crandall far, far behind. He was still scrambling—in his usual underhanded, sneaky way—to book conventions for Meckler Hotels, while she, who prided herself on honesty and fair dealings, was about to become Carrington’s east coast sales manager.

Sam exited the hotel and crossed Forty-second Street on her way to the post office. She was currently staying in a substandard room at the Manhattan Carrington. Once maintenance repaired the problem—the air-conditioning wasn’t as enthusiastic as it needed to be—then she would move to another unrentable room. She’d been living like this for two weeks now and this weekend, her housing vouchers, such as they were, ran out. Sure, she could have an employee discount, but even with that, the hotel was too pricey to stay in the whole summer.

Today, Sam had been at her desk two hours early and was taking a long lunch, determined to find some place to live, or at least a cheaper hotel.

She pushed open the door to the post office, thankful for the air-conditioning. She did miss San Francisco’s temperate weather.

Because it was noontime, there was a line at the post office, but Sam figured there was always going to be a line in New York and she might as well get used to it. Sam got at the end of the line, which looped back on itself three times like an amusement park ride. Since all the clerk windows were open, the wait shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes or so. And if it was longer, well, what could she do about it?

She fanned herself with her soft bulky package. In it was the skirt. She’d never had so much attention as she’d had since catching the thing at Kate’s wedding. School friends she hadn’t heard from in years had contacted her for progress reports. And magazines, too, for pity’s sake! There had been articles about the thing. And not one, but two reporters had tracked her down here in New York.

And then there were all the women who’d e-mailed her to check on her progress. Good grief. She hadn’t even worn the thing, not counting that hideous evening right after she’d caught it when Kevin had insisted that she try it on and she’d hoped it wouldn’t fit.

It had. It had fit as though it had been made for her. Sam was a tall woman—five-ten in flats which she wore because she felt like it and not to de-emphasize her height—and the skirt flirted with the top of her knees.

Kevin had wanted to flirt with the top of her knees, too, and insisted she wear the new addition to her wardrobe to dinner. He loved the skirt. Sam couldn’t see why. It was black and maybe shorter than she generally wore, but not outrageously so. Nothing special. The material that had seemed so rich and warmly luxurious earlier was now sleazy and limp. It wasn’t doing anything for her. Unfortunately, neither was Kevin. She didn’t want to wear it to dinner, which Kevin had taken as an invitation to skip dinner for other pursuits when that hadn’t been Sam’s intention at all.

Kevin had become obnoxious and Kevin was never obnoxious. He’d made a cryptic remark about willing to buy the whole cow instead of settling for milk—another animal metaphor—and that she should appreciate it. She didn’t. They’d argued and Sam had been forced to tell him right then that she’d decided to come to New York after all.

He’d blamed the skirt, which was so incredibly stupid she couldn’t believe it, but, understanding that his pride had been hurt, Sam had allowed it.

She never intended to wear the skirt again, let alone throw it at her nonexistent wedding. Why would she want to mess up her life just when it was getting interesting? And the thing that really chapped her was that Kevin had just assumed that Sam would give up her chance at a promotion to stay in San Francisco with him. It never occurred to him to move to New York with her, not that she wanted him to, but still. He never got it; he never understood that he expected her to make the big sacrifice without considering making one of his own.

The sound of crumpling paper as she squeezed the package brought Sam back to the present.

Inhaling, she cleared her mind of all things Kevin. New York air could do that to a person. In spite of her mother’s tempting suggestion that she do all womankind a favor and burn it, Sam intended to mail the skirt back to Kate. That’s all there was to it.

She smoothed out the label. Let Kate invite some desperately single candidates to an elegant little luncheon where she could use all her bridal china and throw the thing at them.

Exhaling, Sam massaged the muscles in her neck, relaxing because for once, no one she knew was watching her or comparing her to the other job candidates.

Yes, competing for a position was a particularly effective form of torture in hotel management circles, no doubt thought of by a high-paid consultant who’d never actually experienced the unrelenting pressure of being scrutinized for days on end. Carrington’s executive board was always hiring consultants. If she got the job—and maybe if she didn’t—she was going to tell them what they could do with their consultants. Diplomatically, of course, because even though somebody was going to crack soon, it wasn’t going to be Sam.

There were to have been four candidates for the position of east coast convention sales manager, but one had declined, citing a reluctance to relocate to New York City—the wimp—so it was now Sam and two men. Her mother had been calling for nightly updates and to give Sam feminist pep talks. Sam’s mother had been a foot soldier in the war between the sexes and considered Sam one of her best weapons.

Sam was perfectly willing to be a weapon. As the youngest of four girls, she hadn’t often had her mother’s undivided attention—if ever—and enjoyed talking strategy and letting off steam.

This past week, managers from all the hotels in the eastern quadrant of the United States had been meeting at the flagship Carrington near Times Square. Sam and her two colleagues had been running meetings, preparing theater outings, and getting to know the managers and their hotels. Of course Sam had met some of them before when she’d contracted with groups to hold conventions at their hotels, but as the east coast manager, she’d be expected to become familiar with all the little quirks about their hotels. It wouldn’t hurt to get chummy with them, either, her mother reminded her, but Sam wasn’t a chummy sort of person. Some people just didn’t know the difference between chummy and suggestive. Josh Crandall, for instance.

Or they did and ignored it.

Like Josh Crandall.

The line moved forward and Sam hunched her shoulders, wishing she’d splurged on a massage with the hotel masseuse. Today was judgment day. There was only one meeting—one big, giant, important, possibly life-altering meeting—and Sam and the other candidates weren’t attending. Their convention sales records were being scrutinized. Sam had a spectacular sales record—except for two blotches. Sizable blotches, if she were being truthful. And both were courtesy of Josh Crandall of Meckler Hotels.

Sam closed her eyes. The very thought of him made her stomach queasy, the kind of queasy she got after eating too much chocolate in a short amount of time, which she usually did after going head-to-head with Josh.

Recently he’d been turning up every time she had a presentation. And now she was imagining him. She opened her eyes and checked out the people in line with her, involuntarily looking for his dark, carefully tousled hair and deceptively casual, but well-cut plaid sports coat. Oh, and the smile. That you-want-me-and-we-both-know-it smile.

She hated that smile. And he knew it.

Sam had a sudden craving for M&M’s.

Even now, the Carrington brass were probably dissecting her failed proposals. They’d been perfect, she knew, but still each convention had chosen Josh and the Meckler chain over Carrington. And because her proposals had been perfect, that meant the decisions had been based on intangibles, such as the charm of the representatives. In other words, they’d liked Josh better than Sam, which meant the failure had been hers, personally. Josh had no problem being chummy. Or suggestive, either.

It wasn’t that she’d never bested him before—or after—those incidences, it was that since then, she’d been too quick to make concessions to Carrington’s profit margin in order to ensure she never lost to him again.

The last time…Sam sucked her breath between her teeth—she really needed some chocolate—the last time, she’d cut profit to the bone. But instead of countering, Josh had laughed—his laughs dripped with evil amusement—then admitted he hadn’t wanted the convention anyway because the group in question was known for damaging hotel rooms.

And they had. Sam winced.

So, maybe Josh had won three times.

Stop thinking about him. It would only make her crazy. Sam deliberately wiped Josh and his smile from her mind and concentrated on the people around her. There were a couple of conversations going on—office workers mailing company letters and two good-looking, well-dressed men, well-dressed if she discounted the leather cowboy vest one wore and she was inclined to until she realized it was fake leather. And…and that the green color was not a trick of the light. Still, even with green faux leather with, she swallowed, silver fringe, they compared favorably to Josh and his stupid plaid jackets—if she’d been thinking about Josh, which she wasn’t.

The two men were one loop behind Sam and approached her as the line wound toward the counter windows. One man held a stack of printed postcards and the other man stuck preaddressed labels on them.