Secret Admirer: Secret Kisses / Hidden Hearts / Dream Marriage

Chapter 5

“Mother—please!”

The fragrance of Matt’s flowers were cloyingly sweet. Jane wished she could ignore them. If only she had windows she could open.

If only her mother hadn’t called.

“Mother, I can’t deal with this!” Jane closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I’ve got a meeting with my boss in two minutes, so listen to me! Please, quit calling him!”

“If she offers you the job, refuse it. Tell her Matt would be better.”

“This kind of help I don’t need.”

“A smart woman is smart enough to let her man win—at least until she’s got him hooked.”

“Do you ever read anything that’s been written this century? Your ideas are medieval.”

“No, your generation is impossible. There aren’t going to be any grandbabies. We’re going to be extinct.”

“Mother!”

“But the cards explicitly recommended—”

“Mother!”

“I really do see him in your future!”

“Mother!” Each Mother was louder than the last.

“Stop shouting. It’s not good for me, you know.”

Her mother took a breath. Jane glanced at her watch.

“Okay. All right. But, Jane, if you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d wear those contact lenses I bought you and play more. But go ahead and keep messing up your own life. Just don’t come crying to me when he gets himself snapped up by some floozy, and you realize you’re in love with him when it’s too late.”

“What?”

“You’ve been in love with him for years.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I remember the way you trailed around after him on the playground, always pestering him until he pulled your ponytail or something. Remember the time you sat on his cowboy hat?”

“What I remember is having to leave home and go to a private, big city high school because he humiliated me. I didn’t get to graduate with my friends.”

“Lighten up. Not in this lifetime will I forget that kiss last Christmas. You could barely stand.”

“He probably spiked the punch.”

“Nobody else was reeling. You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to your mother. Do you need me to pick you up this afternoon or not?”

“No,” she replied wearily, glad her mother had finally changed the subject. “Mindy said she’d do it.”

“You could get off your stubborn high horse and ride home with him in that dream machine.”

“He nearly killed me in it this morning.”

“Helen Geary’s version is way different than yours.”

When they hung up, Jane got up and ran, shaking, down the hall to Andrea’s office.

Jane had left her report and fund-raiser material with Andrea earlier, but now she didn’t feel up to the meeting. She felt like yelling and tearing her hair. Talking to her mother frequently did that to her. When she finally reached Andrea’s door, she took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then she counted to ten again before knocking.

“Come in,” Andrea called from inside.

When Jane opened the door, Andrea, who was tall, black-haired and slim, rose to greet her. The woman looked stunning in a navy suit with gold at her throat.

“I can’t wait to talk to you,” she said. “I have some very exciting news.”

Jane’s heart was already thumping madly as she sank into the chair opposite Andrea’s desk and crossed her long legs.

“You’re doing a wonderful job. Management loves your ideas.”

Jane nodded. Then she bit her lips, hoping against hope that she’d been chosen as director of market research. At least then she could quit worrying about Matt’s motives.

Andrea lifted a folder from her desk. When Jane recognized her own handwriting on the manila cover, she began to tremble.

“Your ideas for the fund-raiser are fabulous.”

“The fund-raiser?”

“They’re both passionate and personal. I want to hear more about your plans for the bake-sale auction Wednesday at the game.”

“I have some friends who are cooking for free, to raise money for the event. And then—”

The door behind them opened.

“Sorry I’m late,” Matt said as he strode inside and sat down beside Jane.

Andrea picked up another folder with lots of messy inky-black swirls and leafed through it. “I hope you don’t mind taking on a partner in your fund-raiser project this late.”

“I—prefer—”

“A very talented partner,” Andrea said quickly, glancing at Harper. “Matt approached me on this…this morning.”

“Oh, really?”

He was smiling with boyish mischief. Only, the charming smile that could make her heart do flips caused a very different reaction under these circumstances. If he’d been wearing his favorite Stetson, she would have snatched it and sat on it.

“I don’t need a partner.” Jane’s voice was calm, but she knotted her hands in her lap so she wouldn’t be tempted to lean forward and pound Andrea’s desk, or better, his head.

“His ideas for the fund-raiser are almost exactly like yours.”

“How absolutely amazing,” Jane said, smiling tightly as she remembered her folder that had gone missing.

“You and he both live in the same town. I’ve decided to put you on the same committee to raise this money. Matt says he’s totally free the night before and the night of the fund-raiser.”

Why am I not surprised?

“So, he’ll be helping you Wednesday night.”

Suddenly the temperature in the room plummeted to sub-zero.

“Nice view,” Matt said far too pleasantly.

“Isn’t it?” Andrea shot him her most dazzling smile, and Jane remembered what her mother had said about some floozy nailing him. Andrea wasn’t exactly the kind of woman her mother had warned her about, but maybe good ol’ Mom had a slight, annoying point. Not that it mattered. Jane didn’t want him. She wanted to kick him or flatten one of his fancy tires. Or maybe strangle him with his loud tie.

It was all she could do to keep her face blank. Somehow she forced a smile, but she couldn’t quite control her eyes. No doubt, they were shooting sparks.

Not that Andrea, who was beaming at Matt, seemed to notice. Not that Jane blamed her boss for smiling at the handsome rat. Despite the chill in the room, the man radiated sex appeal.

“This is great,” Andrea said. “The two of you on top of this—together.”

“Teammates,” Matt supplied silkily, winking at Jane. “Hey, I don’t know if now’s the time, but I’ve come up with several new ideas. What about a chicken flying contest and maybe some armadillo races?”

Jane began to cough.

“Why, that’s brilliant,” Andrea said. “The male viewpoint is so refreshingly original. This is so…so Texas. Don’t you agree, Jane?”

Jane swallowed. “My thoughts exactly,” she said, clasping her knotted hands even more tightly because she itched to strangle them both.

Chicken flying contests—my you know what!

Jane’s reaction to being blindsided and put on the spot while in Andrea’s office was predictable. What she did about it wasn’t. Normally she would have kept her cool and worked behind closed doors to resolve the problem. Today she stormed down the hall, threw open the door to Matt’s office and went inside without even knocking.

He was at his desk, on the phone.

Making a date with some floozy, no doubt. At the thought she saw green.

His playful, sparkling green eyes rose to hers innocently when she hurled herself inside his office. Instantly he said a polite goodbye in his low, husky voice, and was off the phone before Jane could blink. He got up and shut the door.

Carefully she stepped across papers, reports, corporate manuals and stacks of files.

“Your office is a mess!”

“I’m phobic about file cabinets,” he said.

“You should be ashamed.”

He grinned. “Something from my dysfunctional childhood. Haven’t told the shrink about it yet.”

She didn’t laugh as she removed several files from a chair and slapped them on his desk before sitting down.

“Coffee?” he offered as he sank into his leather chair on the other side of his massive desk, which was also overflowing with clutter.

She shook her head so hard several pins flew out of her hair toward him. “This won’t take long.”

Smiling amiably, he picked up a pin and began to play with it.

She cleared her throat. “You stole my folder on the fund-raiser out of my briefcase.”

“Wrong. You left it. I returned it.”

“And you stole my ideas!”

“I think our working together could be fun.”

“You have absolutely no interest in the children’s after-school day-care education fund.”

“Maybe I want to become…passionate about the same things you are.”

“All you want is to be director of market research.”

“Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black to me, darlin’?”

“I’ve worked hard for everything I’ve ever gotten. But you…you just get by on your contacts, money, your fancy car, good looks and good-old-boy network. Schmoozing around the ol’ watercooler. Telling dirty jokes.”

“Last time I looked, Andrea isn’t a good old boy. She seems to think highly of me.”

“Because she’s got a crush on you.”

“If she does, is that my fault?”

“You’re using it.”

“Relax. Spending more time together on this project could be fun…if you’d let it be.”

“This is my career. I work hard. All you do is joke.”

“I appreciate all you do. I admire you. That’s why I’m so interested in getting to know you better,” he insisted.

“Sorry, I don’t trust your motives. And if you dare joke about me or what happened in your car this morning to your watercooler pals…If they start coming on to me…” She choked at the awful thought and was unable to go on. His handsome face blurred. Oh, God, in another second she would be crying.

She got up to run, but he was faster. He grabbed her and pushed her up against the wall. She twisted her face away from his.

His grip eased. “Hey, I don’t want to hurt you.” His deep voice was soft. So soft, her knees went weak. “And I damn sure don’t want other men coming on to you.”

Very gently he cupped her chin and forced her to look at him just as she felt a single mortifying tear slide down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her fist and took a deep breath and glared at him.

A muscle tightened in his jawline. Then he drew a deep breath of his own, and he swallowed.

“Let me go,” she said.

“All right. But it’s not going to be that easy.”

When his hands fell away, she opened the door and ran. The day got worse. During her PowerPoint presentation about corporate branding, the computer she was using went down. When she couldn’t get it to work, she grew flustered. Naturally, Matt seized the day. After he jimmied a couple of wires, the computer hummed to life. By the time she was able to start over, she felt shy and unsure because she was running out of time. She talked too fast, lost her focus and forgot to make her most important points. If only Matt hadn’t been there, leaning forward, listening to her every word as if he was spellbound. The jerk even complimented her speech and asked several intelligent questions that made her look great afterward.

Then it was his turn. A natural when it came to sports or performances of any kind, he got up and blew everybody away with his smooth presentation. He stared at her the whole time, smiling after every point he made. When everybody clapped and congratulated him, Jane sat in her corner and chewed moodily on her pencil until the lead snapped and she tossed it down.

When their colleagues filed out of the conference room, Matt came over to her. No doubt to gloat because he was sure she’d lost and he’d landed the director of market research position.

“You didn’t say anything. Well?”

“Well what?”

“What’d you think of my presentation?”

She jabbed her pencil into the knot of hair at her nape. “You’ve been a natural-born ham ever since elementary school.”

“Surely you don’t still hold my clumsy efforts in the school talent shows against me.”

“You blew everybody away even back then, and you know it.”

“Even you?” he asked.

She felt her face heat. She was sure she was blushing, which was even better for his ego than actually telling him he’d been terrific.

“Did anybody ever tell you, you’re way too conceited, Harper?”

“Just you.”

She got up and began gathering her books and reports noisily.

“Darlin’, are you going to hate me forever?”

“I—I don’t hate you.”

“Well, that’s a start.”

“Just leave me alone. Okay?”

“What if it’s not okay?”

“Don’t be too sure you’ve got the promotion, Harper. Not until it’s announced.”

When she walked toward the door, he stepped in front of her. “Is that all you care about? This morning I thought that maybe…” When he swallowed, she thought he looked human, too human; hurt even, and it bothered her. A lot.

She swallowed, too. “Don’t think about this morning. And don’t brag to anybody about that kiss either.”

“Kisses. Plural. And I think we need a repeat.”

“Don’t even think about it, Harper.”

He grabbed her. “What if I can’t stop thinking about it, darlin’, any more than you can?”

Slowly he removed her glasses. When his mouth touched hers, she melted into his big body. Then it was all over but the kissing—long passionate, drowning kisses, which didn’t stop until she was wet and feverish, and he was shaking violently.

When he finally let her come up for air, her legs were wobbly, and she was reeling. Somehow she managed to say in a chilly tone, “This has got to stop, Harper.”

“You could have fooled me.”

He calmly picked up her glasses and handed them to her.

She shoved them onto the bridge of her nose. Then she grabbed her purse and briefcase and walked toward the door. She didn’t look back.

She didn’t dare look back.

Chapter 6

Wednesday evening

Jane seethed as she swallowed a nervous breath against the panic that threatened to overpower her. She tilted her chin upward, fighting not to glance at Matt, who was surrounded by kids and their mothers, all wanting to buy tickets to his armadillo races and chicken-flying contests.

Harper was good. What was the use of even trying to compete with him? He could beat her with both his hands tied behind his back. Once again he’d proved that her hard work and discipline and careful planning were nothing against his gut instinct, common touch and savvy charisma. While he was too busy to believe manning his armadillo races and chicken-flying contests, she’d hardly sold a pie. Anytime he had a free second, he strode up and down among the throng hawking his wares.

She clicked her nails against the counter and tried not to feel bored or depressed at her failures or resent the excellent job Matt and his brother, Jerry Keith, had done building booths for her under the bleachers of the baseball stadium. They’d worked cheerfully until nearly 2:00 a.m. last night. Even though Matt had been exhausted, he’d insisted on following her home, which was out of his way.

“Just to make sure you get there safely,” he’d said.

“Like you really think there might be a criminal lurking behind every mesquite tree and cactus bush,” she’d replied.

“Is it a major crime I want to protect you?” His handsome face had been touchingly earnest as she’d slid behind the wheel.

She was fighting to be a good sport about his popularity. After all, he was outdoing himself for a good cause. Her cause. The nagging question was—why? To help her? For the cause? Or to improve his position as contender for director of market research?

She was afraid she knew the answer.

While stragglers trickled by her booth to buy cakes or pies or bicker about her prices, Matt patiently answered his young fans’ nonstop questions in between armadillo races. For the most part, Jerry Keith was manning the chicken-flying booth, which was almost as popular. Feathers were flying, chickens were squawking and kids were running wildly about inside the screened booth, screaming in delight.

Upon the rare occasions when Jane sold a cake or pie, she couldn’t help glancing at Matt, hoping he’d see she wasn’t a total loser. He always smiled back at her.

“Are armadillos really really fast, Mr. Harper?” squealed cute little ten-year-old Susanna Hays, who was jumping back and forth, causing her red pigtails to bounce.

Matt knelt so that he was at eye level with the excited little girl. “When they think you’re tracking ’em down to carve out their insides so you can sell ’em on the side of the road as baskets, they can skitter away over the rocks mighty dern fast.”

Susanna stilled. “Do bad people really do that?”

“Mostly they’re slow though,” said Beaver Jackson, pushing his rumpled black Stetson back. His tone was authoritative because he was in the sixth grade. “I got one. Wumpus I call him. He’s my pet.”

“I’ve got one too,” Matt said, looking up and winking at Jane.

Oh, why didn’t somebody, anybody, come up and buy a pie?

“I got a scorpion for a pet,” another little boy said. “In a bottle with holes in the cap.”

“Well, don’t let him out in the house,” Matt warned, patting him on the head.

Pretty Annie Grant, the bank teller, and Greg Flynn, a local cop, were ambling among the tables side by side, pretending not to be too interested in each other as they eyed the items to be sold in the silent auction. Annie wrote her name down beneath several items, including the card to buy Jane’s cooking services.

Matt watched Annie and then nodded at Jane.

Good. She was glad he’d noticed that at least somebody appreciated her cooking skills. She said a quick prayer that somebody would buy more of her pies so she could sell out and leave. Just being around Matt made her hot and edgy.

“Got any ideas about who wrote that love letter?” cracked a voice to her right as he slapped a ten-dollar bill down. “Two strawberry pies, please.”

Jane turned. Ol’ Bill Sinclair’s weather-beaten face looked like a human road map, but his bright blue eyes twinkled at her with more mischief than most youngsters. Obviously he knew Matt wrote it.

“I have an idea or two,” she said, not looking at him as she rung up the sale.

“A lot of people do,” he said, glancing toward Matt. “You two did a mighty good job together on these booths.”

“Matt and his brother did most of it.”

“Matt damn sure has a way with kids.”

No sooner had Ol’ Bill Sinclair paid for his stacks of pies than Matt left his own booth and fans. He stalked straight to the display that described her cooking services, which were to be auctioned.

Feelings of triumph turned to horror when he leaned over and studied the paper with an air of intense interest. A lock of inky hair fell across his dark eyebrow when he lifted the paper and took out a pen.

No! No! Don’t you dare!

Bending lower, he scribbled something on the paper, glanced her way and smiled wickedly before returning to his cheering horde. Soon afterward a crowd began to gather around her display. She sucked in air.

What had he done?

Soon, she was so curious and terrified to know, she was wringing her hands when Ol’ Bill patted her shoulder and said, “Don’t you fret. I’ll go check it out.”

Was she so obvious?

Ol’ Bill was back at her booth before she could blink twice. Not that she much liked the mischievous glint in his blue eyes.

“Looks like your Harper’s done gone and bought himself the prettiest little cook in town.”

“He’s not my Harper.”

“Well, maybe you’re his then. He bid five thousand dollars for your cooking services.”

Her cheeks flamed. Her heart raced. She’d kill Harper for this. She would!

“With conditions,” Ol’ Bill amended softly.

“With conditions?” she parroted.

“Girl, I knew you was a cook, but he must want your services mighty bad. Ain’t nobody but a fool with money to burn gonna top that bid. You and he go back a long way, don’t cha?”

She could feel her cheeks heating now. “We don’t go back at all. And don’t you dare print a word about this in the Gazette. And don’t you dare tell my mother about this either.”

Ol’Bill chuckled. “She’s psychic, remember. She predicted you’d be born in a special way, just didn’t see how.”

“Don’t you dare go into the particulars of that event either.”

“What I’m trying to say is everybody in town already knows about you and Matt.”

“Did he write that love letter?”

Ol’ Bill winked at her. “He’s never been one to declare himself. But don’t you worry none. It’ll all come out in the wash, sweetheart.”

He had written it.

Well, that didn’t give him rights over her!

“It certainly will come out in the wash,” she said as she lifted the wooden door to her booth, slammed it down so hard the whole booth shook and strode over to the display that offered her cooking services. Sure enough, Matt’s name was a sloppy swirling scrawl of livid black ink ten times bigger than the other neatly written names. In addition, he’d penned, “Five thousand dollars. With conditions.”

As she read the enormous black letters and reread that incredible figure, the home team struck a home run, and the crowd in the bleachers began to stomp and roar again. The sound was so deafening, she covered her ears.

Suddenly Matt was beside her. When he put his arms protectively around her, she began to quiver even as she pushed him away.

“How could you bid five thousand dollars for a few meals? Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“Going after what I want.” He slid his checkbook out of his hip pocket and uncapped his pen. “After all, it’s for a cause we both believe in.” His bold gaze drifted from her mouth to her neck.

She gasped, afraid they’d drift lower to her breasts. They didn’t. Instead he leaned over the table and wrote her a check for five thousand dollars.

After a moment or two she caught her breath.

He handed her the crisp blue check, which was indeed made out for five thousand dollars.

“Don’t play games, Harper. What do you mean by…er…conditions?”

“I want breakfast in bed every morning up until the Spring Fling. I’m not picky when it comes to food. Just geography, which is you serving me breakfast in my bed.”

“What?”

“Don’t look so shocked. Villains like me always prefer to lure the damsels they want to their den to seduce them.”

She pushed her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose. “I will not sleep with you! Or kiss you! Or…or…”

“Oh, and wear your hair down, darlin’, and lose the glasses. You’re much prettier without them—as I’m sure you know.”

“I’m blind as a bat without my glasses.”

“Your mother bought you contacts years ago.”

“You have no right to know that.”

“Everybody in Red Rock knows everything, darlin’. It’s part of the town’s charm. Lose the glasses.”

She was wondering what to do when her friend Annie, who happened to work at the bank Matt’s check had been drawn on, walked by again.

“Oh, Annie!” she cried, afraid to be alone with Matt for another second.

Annie turned and smiled. She was pretty and tall. Her lush red hair was down tonight, and her brown eyes were warm and friendly as she made her way toward them.