“I won’t be responsible for you!” About the Author Books by Anne McAllister Title Page Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN Copyright

“I won’t be responsible for you!”

Chloe looked at him, startled. “Of course not!”

“I won’t fight your battles for you or protect your innocence or mollycoddle you in any way!”

“I never asked—”

Gib’s finger stabbed the air, making his point. “I just want it clear. If you stay, you’re on your own!”

Chloe stood her ground. She even looked mutinous. He thought she might bite his finger.

“Yes, certainly!” she agreed. As he turned away, she asked almost belligerently, “Is there anything else?”

He whirled back. “Yes! You’ll damned well keep your clothes on!”

ANNE McALLISTER was born in California. She spent long lazy summers daydreaming on local beaches and studying surfers, swimmers and volleyball players in an effort to find the perfect hero. She finally did—not on the beach, but in a university library where she was working. She, her husband and their four children have since moved to the Midwest. She taught, copyedited, capped deodorant bottles and ghostwrote sermons before turning to her first love, writing romance fiction.

RITA award-winning author Anne McAllister

writes fast, funny and emotional romances.

You’ll be hooked till the very last page!

Books by Anne McAllister

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Gibson’s Girl

Anne McAllister

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Samantha Bell and Tessa Shapcott

—wise and supportive editors both—

Gib and Chloe (and I) thank you

CHAPTER ONE

THERE were six naked women in Gibson Walker’s line of sight. They were slender, lissome women with long legs, smooth thighs, and pert breasts.

And all he could think was, Why in hell weren’t there seven?

He glanced at his watch, tapped his foot, ground his teeth.

“Where is she?” he muttered for the fiftieth time in the past half hour.

How was he supposed to shoot the photos for the brand-new fragrance Seven! if he only had six naked women?

“Can’t we start?” one of the naked women whined.

“I’m cold,” bleated another, hugging herself.

“I’m hot!” purred a third, batting her lashes at Gibson in an all too obvious attempt to make him hot, too.

But any temperature elevation in his body, Gibson knew, would have more to do with the heat of his growing irritability than with any woman’s seductive wiggle. To make that fact clear he glared at her. She immediately edged behind a light reflector to avoid his gaze.

“Gibson, my nose is shiny,” one of them complained now, studying herself in the mirror, tipping her head this way and that and making rabbit faces.

They won’t be looking at your nose, sweetheart, Gibson wanted to tell her. But he knew better. This was Art—in the eyes of marketing, at least. So all he did was say to the makeup girl, “Judi, powder her nose.”

Judi powdered the girl’s nose. She powdered someone else’s cheeks. Sierra, the hair stylist, fiddled for the thousandth time with everybody’s hair.

Gibson tapped his toes, drummed his fingers, yelled at Edith, the studio manager, to find out who the hell she was, this missing female.

Whose fault she was, he meant.

Given a choice Gib always picked his own models—ones he knew, ones he trusted to be reliable, professional, on time.

But he hadn’t picked any of these. The client had.

“We want a little of everything,” the ad rep had told him on the phone. “All beautiful, of course,” he’d added hastily, “but not all...you know, standard brand.”

Gibson had snorted at the time, but he knew what the rep meant.

Seven!, according to the ad-babble he’d been given, was supposed to appeal to Every-woman. Therefore Every-woman—albeit beautiful—was supposed to be in the ad. In other words, not cookie-cutter dark-haired, expressionless models with chiseled cheekbones and pouty lips.

“We’ll look through the head sheets and pick them,” the rep had promised. “Some tall, some short. Curly hair. Straight. A variety of ethnic types.” Like it was somehow bold and daring. “And we’ll send them over.”

Fine with him. Gibson didn’t care who was sent—as long as they could tell the time.

One of them obviously couldn’t.

He drummed his fingers on the desktop. He paced. He fumed. The girls fumed, too. They fluttered. The fluttering grew. Agitation was next. Then, who knew?

Gibson, who counted on setting a mood for a shoot, could feel the mood of this one turning grim.

And then, all of a sudden, he heard Edith say, “Yes, yes. He’s waiting for you. Go on right through. Go in.”

The door opened. Slowly. Warily.

As well it might, Gibson thought.

“About time,” he barked at the young woman who appeared in the doorway. “You were supposed to be here at one.”

She blinked round eyes so deep and dark a blue they were almost violet. Gib shook his head. The idiots in marketing strike again. They knew he was shooting in black-and-white. The eyes were wasted.

“M-my plane was late.”

“Plane?” They’d flown her in? Was she some hotshot West Coast model he’d never seen before? The latest L.A. superstar?

Gib’s brows drew down, and he studied her more closely, trying to see whatever it was they’d seen in her. He was the one, after all, who was supposed to be a connoisseur of women.

It was what he did—photograph women. Beautiful women. It was what he was famous for—the photographs—and the ability to recognize beauty and capture it so others could see it, too.

He looked closely now.

Miss Blue-Violet looked like a caricature of the 1950s version of “the all-American girl.” She was in her mid-twenties age-wise, he’d guess. Older than the average “flavor of the month” they usually came up with. She wasn’t especially tall, either. Average, he’d have said. Not average when it came to curves, though. He’d seen roads through Nebraska with more curves than the typical model. This one looked more like a real woman than that from what he guessed was camouflaged under her shirtwaist dress.

Who the hell wore a shirtwaist dress on a job like this? Who the hell wore a shirtwaist dress in New York City in this day and age? With her wavy blonde hair and full lips, she looked, for all the world, like a sort of discreet, demure, buttoned-down Marilyn Monroe.

And there was a contradiction in terms for you, he thought wryly.

Maybe that was what they saw in her—the potential to burst out, to become something more. Sprinkle on a little Seven! and a woman could turn from the seven virtues to the seven sins.

Not a bad idea. A speculative smile touched Gibson’s mouth. He could work with that.

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Chloe,” she said with a flutter of lashes designed to indicate bafflement, as if she thought he should have known.

Gibson’s brows lifted. Was she going to be one of those arrogant ones, then? One of those models who’d done two or three jobs, maybe got a cover somewhere, and expected that she was now a household word? Gib had no use for prima donnas, even if their planes were late.

“Well, Chloe,” he drawled, “you’re here now, so take off your clothes and let’s get this show on the road.”

The blue-violet eyes seemed almost to bug out of her head. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She only gaped at him. Her cheeks actually seemed to be turning red.

“What’s the matter?” Gibson said, entirely unsympathetic. “Didn’t the nice people tell you what you’d have to do if you came here today?”

“They didn’t say...they didn’t say...that” Chloe gulped. She looked around wildly, blinking as her gaze went from one naked woman to the next.

Generally models who’d been around a while were entirely unselfconscious, wandering around without a stitch on. Every one had seen so many naked people that they were too blasé to care. But now, under Chloe’s stricken gaze, Gib could feel their self-consciousness rising. Next thing you knew they’d be grabbing for their robes.

Gib ground his teeth. Then he pasted a smile on his face. “Well, I guess you can leave,” he said in saccharine tones. He leveled a challenging gaze at her. “I guess you can just get back on that plane and fly home again.” He paused a beat. “Or you can do what you were hired for.”

Dead silence. She seemed almost to stop breathing. Then she made a quick gasp. Her tongue touched her upper lip. Gib could read indecision on her face. He almost thought he could read fleeting panic there, too.

Hell’s bells, what had possessed them to hire this one?

And then, with one last desperate gulp, she nodded. “Wh-where do I...ch-change?”

“I’ll show you.” Sierra, the purple-haired stylist, smiled encouragingly at her and beckoned to her with long, be-ringed fingers. “This way.”

With one last gulp and a sidelong glance in his direction, Chloe skittered after Sierra toward the row of changing rooms on the other side of the studio.

Gib could have sworn he heard her teeth chattering as she passed.

In the last twelve years, Gibson had photographed a lot of women.

His camera liked them. It traced their lines, their curves, their pouts, their smiles. It turned them into art. It made Gibson one of the most sought-after photographers in the business. From a professional standpoint he was pleased.

Personally he couldn’t have cared less.

He didn’t care about the women either. Gibson didn’t get involved with the women he photographed.

He’d been there, done that. And he’d learned his lesson.

As far as he was concerned, they were nothing more than light and shadow, curve and angle, rise and fall.

It was the geometry of the lens and the body he concentrated on. Nothing personal. They might as well have been old tires or autumn leaves, these naked women. They were objects. They were interchangeable, all of them. Had been for years.

Until Chloe came out of the dressing room that afternoon.

Chloe wasn’t just a curve or an angle, a light or a shadow. She was a person. Live. Breathing.

Trembling.

It drove him nuts.

“Okay. Let’s go,” he said, barely sparing her a glance, when she finally crept out of the changing room and slipped in behind the other models. “In a circle now. I need silhouettes. Arms over your heads. Reaching...that’s right... reaching.”

And seven women’s arms went over their heads. Seven women reached, stretched.

Six moved smoothly, their gestures flowing, their bodies curving.

The seventh trembled.

Gib lowered the camera. “Chloe,” he said. “Straighten up.”

She gave him a quick desperate glance. She nodded. She ran her tongue over her lips. She straightened up.

“Reach,” he commanded.

Chloe reached. Her hair bounced.

Her breasts did, too.

And Gib’s mouth went dry. His palms went damp. His body got hard. Like he was some damn teenager, for heaven’s sake!

He’d seen breasts before. Hundreds. Thousands. He’d probably seen more women’s breasts in the last twelve years than most men did in a lifetime.

But most of the breasts he’d seen didn’t—he ran his tongue over his lips—well, they didn’t...bounce.

The other thousands of breasts Gib had seen had been firm, perky, plastic almost. And there had never been very much of them. Not even a handful.

Chloe was rather more... voluptuous.

The shirtwaist gone, she was Marilyn unbound.

Gib shut his eyes and shoved the thought away. But the moment he opened them, his gaze, and the thought, immediately snapped back right to her.

“Reach,” he barked at her. And when she reached—and jiggled—he bit out, “I didn’t say lunge, sweetheart! I said, reach. Like you’re reaching for your lover.”

Her whole body blushed.

Gibson lowered the camera. He blinked. He shifted position, disbelieving, wanting to see her more clearly. He’d never seen a full body blush. He was amazed. Intrigued. Enchanted.

Well, no. Not enchanted. That was stretching things too far.

Gibson Walker was not enchanted by women. He hadn’t been enchanted by any woman since...

He squelched that thought.

“Stop shaking,” he commanded her. “Or I’ll have six lovely ladies and a blur.”

“S-sorry.” But she still shook. She didn’t stop.

Gib shook his head, then picked up the camera again. He shot. He moved. He directed.

“Swim,” he told them. “Languid, easy movements overhead. Like you’re going through water.”

They swam. Easy overhand strokes. They went up on tiptoe. They floated.

Chloe jiggled.

Gib ground his teeth.

He looked away, focused on another of the women. They moved and Chloe hove into view once more. He cleared his throat and tried to find a rhythm. “Let’s see those lips. Purse those lips. Kisses. I want kisses.”

And damned if Chloe didn’t look straight at him, face aflame, body blushing, lips pursed!

Gib blew out a harsh exclamation of air. “Not me, sweetheart!” he said in a slightly strangled tone. “I want profiles. Kiss your lover. You do have a lover, don’t you?”

Whoa. The flush was back—with a vengeance. Too bad the ad wasn’t going to be in color. That was some rosy glow.

Gib let out a pent-up breath. He wiped suddenly damp palms on the sides of his jeans, then ran his tongue over his lips. Focus, damn it, he told himself.

He was focusing. That was the problem.

Don’t focus on her!

He tried not to. He moved, he crouched. He willed himself to ignore the growing insistence in his body. He pointed the camera at all seven women. Unerringly it found Chloe.

He tried to remember all the ways he wanted them to move. His mind was a blank. Well, no, not really a blank. There were very definite curves on his mind. A very definite body.

A very sexy body.

A real body. Unlike the other six, Chloe seemed to respond to his direction with more than her muscles. She was unguarded, open. He said, “Lover,” and she blushed. He said, “Kiss,” and he saw longing on her face.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s it. Like that. More. Give me more, sweetheart.”

They all looked at him.

“Er, sweethearts,” he corrected. He smiled at them all. He looked at Chloe.

She trembled. She blushed. Her breasts jiggled.

Then he heard a commotion in the outer office. A “You can’t go in there!” followed by “Of course I can. I’m late!”

And the door burst open and Tasha, a top flight model he’d worked with lots of times, burst into the room.

“Ah, Gibson, I am zo zorry! Zee taxi! Zhe break down! Zee driver! He say I can’t leave without pay! I say, No pay! You don’t go where I mus’ go! No pay! Then he grab me! An’ I scream! I say, he kidnapping me! He say, I cheating him! Oh!” She shook a yard of flaming red hair. “Zhose police! Zhey never listen! You zhink zhey would listen to be-you-tif-ful girl, yes? No! Zhey listen to dumbest taxi driver!”

And while she delivered this entire monologue, Tasha was busily flinging off her clothes. First the skimpy halter top, then the minuscule bra. One foot came up and a sandal slipped off. The other followed. She unzipped her mini-skirt and wiggled it past mini-hips over mini-thighs down ski slope legs.

“I tell you, zhese police, zhey know from nozhing!” To punctuate her declaration, she peeled off her underpants and flung them in the air. Then she lifted her arms and beamed at Gibson.

“We begin now, yes? I am ready!”

In the silence that followed, Gibson was conscious of shutting his mouth.

He was conscious of looking from Tasha, standing bare and beautiful in the middle of the room, full-frontal fantastic and not jiggling at all, to the rest of the naked women who surrounded her.

His gaze moved slowly. From body to body to body. From face to face to face. They looked at him, then at each other. Their eyes seemed to be doing the same thing his were.

Counting.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

His eyes went to Chloe. Trembling. Jiggling. Blushing. Seven.

And Tasha made...

Eight.

Eight?

“Wait a minute,” Gibson said. “There’s something wrong here. If Tasha’s supposed to be here—”

“Of courze I’m zupposed to be here!”

But Gibson went right on. “Then somebody else is not.”

And as one, they all turned to look at Chloe.

She slapped her arms across her breasts and ducked behind the table. Her face—her whole body—was as red as Tasha’s hair. If he’d thought she was blushing before, it was nothing compared to this.

“You’re not a model.” Gibson’s eyes narrowed. He glared at her accusingly.

“A model? Of course not!”

It was the last thing he expected her to say. If she wasn’t supposed to be here, he figured she was at least trying to horn in, to make a name for herself, take advantage where she could. It had happened before.

He scowled now, unprepared for such a prompt denial. If she wasn’t a model, what the hell was she doing here and why had she taken her clothes off?

“Who are you?”

“I told you.” She sounded almost desperate now. “I’m Chloe. Chloe Madsen. Your sister sent me—”

“My sister? Gina sent you?”

Her head bobbed. Behind her hands, he noticed, her breasts bobbed, too. Gib shut his eyes.

When he opened them it was to see her grab one of the robes that had been casually tossed across the table, and drag it on. Then she folded her arms across her chest. “Yes,” she said. “Gina sent me. To work for you. For the summer. To be your assistant.”

“Assistant.” Gib dropped the word like a lead balloon.

“Yes,” Chloe said firmly. “She said you’d agreed. Didn’t you?”

Oh, God. Gib gritted his teeth.

“Probably,” he said through them.

“Just...probably?” Chloe looked doubtful.

Oh, all right. “I suppose I must have,” he muttered.

But only because he agreed to whatever Gina asked him to do. He owed Gina. Their parents had died when Gib was thirteen and Gina was twenty. She’d practically raised him, had given up college to come back and make a home for the two of them. Later she’d seen that he was able to go to university. She’d supported and believed in him his whole life.

He could never say no to the few things she asked.

But sometimes, when he really would have liked to, he let her know from the tone of his voice that he really didn’t want to do it. She’d never pushed it on him.

Until now.

Fury rising—though whether he was mad at Gina or Chloe or himself he couldn’t have said—he yelled at Chloe now. “If you’re supposed to be my assistant, what were you doing taking off your damn clothes?”

“You told me to!”

It was that easy? Gib stared, stupefied. “You mean if I just walked up to you on the street and said, ‘Take off your clothes, Chloe Madsen,’ you’d do it?”

“Of course not!” Her face, he noted with some satisfaction, now turned an even deeper shade of red. “But,” she added after a moment, “when Gina told me I could come she stressed that I had to what you told me, that I was obligated to do whatever was required.” A pause. “Jobwise.”

Their gazes met. Clashed.

But she didn’t look away. Gib had to give her credit. Chloe Madsen was a tryer—and she didn’t back down.

She was breathing so hard he could see her breasts heaving slightly behind the soft terry fabric. He had a memory flash of what they’d looked like bare.

As blonde as she was, Chloe Madsen didn’t have a blonde’s fair skin. Her breasts had been a warm honey color, the peaks a dusky rose. Now she was wrapped in the equivalent of a terry bath sheet. He preferred her naked.

He suspected he wouldn’t get to see her naked again.

Just as well, he thought, still very aware of how the sight of her had affected him.

Definitely just as well.

“Why you use zat girl?” Tasha’s eyes flicked from Gibson to Chloe and back accusingly. “You cannot use zat girl! I am ze Zeven! girl!” She slapped hands on hips and glared at him.

“Tasha...” Gib began to placate her.

She took his face between her hands and planted a kiss on his mouth. “You ztart over, yes? You forgive Tazha for being late, yes?”

“Yes,” Gib said automatically, stepping out of her reach. His gaze flicked back to Chloe who hadn’t moved an inch. She was still looking at him—and he was looking back at her, not making any move to shoot.

“Gibzon,” Tasha said impatiently.

He jerked his gaze toward her. “Huh?”

She tapped her bare foot. “We zhoot now?”

“Uh, yeah. We zhoo-shoot now.” At last Gibson managed to tear his eyes away from Chloe Madsen. “We shoot.” He turned back to the camera. “All right, let’s start again,” he said to the other women. “We’ll take it easy. You know what to do.”

They started to move in the circle again, Tasha sliding into the formation easily, not jiggling, Gib was happy to note.

“What about me?” Chloe asked. “What should I do now?”

Gibson looked at her once more. His mind saw everything the white terry robe covered. His body tightened.

Fortunately so did his resolve.

“Go home.”

Go home?

Go home?

She would never dare to show her face in Collierville, Iowa again!

Not after baring everything else in New York City! Chloe huddled in the tiny dressing room and listened to Gibson Walker’s gruff seductive baritone encouraging the models to reach and stretch and swim. Just the way he had encouraged Chloe to reach and stretch and swim.

Oh, God. She pressed her palms to her cheeks—the ones on her face!—and tried to stop them glowing. Fat chance.

Her whole body was glowing. Burning. From the inside out. If this was what hot flashes were like, she had no desire to hit menopause. Ever.

Not that she would.

She would surely die of embarrassment first.

She pulled on her underwear, then yanked her dress over her head, all the while breathing as if she’d just run a marathon. She could barely get the dress buttoned, her hands were shaking so badly. She stuffed her feet into her sandals, and thought she would never get the straps fastened. She didn’t even try to refresh her gnawed-off lipstick. She was sure, if she did, she would look as if a demented three-year-old had colored all over her mouth.

So finally she was finished. Dressed. Armored.

And absolutely unable to leave the dressing room.

There was no way she was walking back out into that studio. No way on earth she was going to face the world—or Gibson Walker—again.

She was mortified.

And he’d been furious.

What did he have to be furious about?

She was the one who had taken off her clothes! He’d merely asked her to.

What had she been thinking?

Well, she hadn’t, really. That much was obvious. If she had, she’d have realized that a photographer of Gibson Walker’s stature had no interest at all in photographing a silly bumbling twit from Iowa, for goodness’ sakes!

But at the time, with his demand ringing in her ears and the memory of his sister Gina telling her that Gibson might ask her to stand in for a model while he sets lights and things, well, she’d misunderstood! That was all.

Heck of a misunderstanding.

A tiny giggle escaped her.

It wasn’t much of a giggle. The misery of it, the disgrace and embarrassment of it were still too new and raw. But if she was honest, there was a funny side to it.

What on earth would Dave say?

Of course, he’d never know because Chloe was never, ever going to tell him! Dave Shelton, her fiancé, had enough misgivings about this summer job she had taken in the “big bad city.” He still couldn’t understand why she needed to go to New York at all.

“New York? You want to go to New York? What do you want to go out there and get corrupted for?” he’d asked more than once.

“It’s a wonderful city. A fascinating city. There’s so much to see and do. I just want to experience it. I’m not going to get corrupted,” Chloe had assured him.

And she wasn’t! But even so, he didn’t need to hear how she’d paraded around naked in front of her employer!

No one was ever going to hear about that!

Unless—and here she gulped—unless Gibson Walker told them.

He wouldn’t! Would he?

That thought zapped her with another flush, even hotter than the first. Oh, please, no! He couldn’t!

“Kissing, ladies. Purse those lips,” she heard him say.

She put her hands over her face, remembering how she’d looked straight at him and pursed hers. Merciful heavens! She truly might die.

And then, at last, he said, “Okay, that’s it. Thanks a lot. I think we got some great stuff.”

At once she heard the models begin chattering, the redheaded latecomer with the sexy accent—her replacement!—louder than all the rest. It was all “Gibzon thiz” and “Gibzon that.” And Gibson answered, gruff but perfectly matter-of-fact, as if he worked with beautiful naked women every day of the week.

For all Chloe knew, he did!

There was the sound of shuffling bare feet as the models came toward the dressing cubicles and doors opened. Someone rapped on her door.

“I’m...n-not ready,” Chloe managed.

She would never be ready. If she could, she would stay in here the rest of her life.

Her fingers were trembling less. So she finished buttoning up her dress—closing it clear to the neck. Then she ran her palms down her sides, cinched the belt, and drew in a deep and—she hoped—steadying breath.

She tried to look sensible, demure, competent. She did look sensible, demure, competent—if you discounted the disarray of her wavy blonde hair and the hectic blush on her cheeks.

Yet scant moments before she had been anything but!

Beyond the door she could hear the other girls getting dressed. They laughed and chattered. The doors to the dressing rooms banged open.

“Bye, Gib!”

“See you soon!”

“Love you, Gib.”

With a chorus of cheery goodbyes, they departed—until there remained only silence.

And Gibson Walker.

It was, Chloe knew, the moment of truth.

Some would say, Chloe was sure, that cavorting naked around a room was a moment of truth of sorts.

Perhaps it had been. After all, could whatever came next possibly be worse? As far as she could see, she had two options. She could sneak out, never show her face here again, and take the next plane back to Iowa, admitting defeat before she even got started. Or she could face the man on the other side of the door, swear that she would be a good assistant, and buckle down and live up to her word for the rest of the summer.

Put like that, there wasn’t any choice.

Chloe wanted this summer. She needed this summer. She had turned her own and Dave’s lives upside down for this summer. It was on the order of a spiritual journey, she’d told him.

He hadn’t understood. She supposed she couldn’t really expect him to. But if she really believed what she’d told him, she couldn’t go home.

Not now. Not yet.

Chloe took a deep breath, crossed her fingers, and opened the door.

“I’ve got you a plane reservation,” he told her briskly the minute the door opened. “You leave at six, get into Chicago at nine. There’s an hour layover. You’ll get the last flight to Dubuque and be there by 11:15. You can call someone to pick you up.”

He gave her one quick glance—and not only to see if she was wearing clothes and if her breasts still jiggled. Though he couldn’t help noticing that she was and they weren’t. Then he made himself concentrate on the pile of junk that had been accumulating on his desk for the past twelve years.

It seemed suddenly imperative that he sort through it.

When she didn’t reply, he glanced up again, careful to keep his eyes firmly on her face. Unfortunately that was where her lips were. Damn.

She was looking at him with a worried, woebegone expression on her face.

“I’ll pay for it,” he said impatiently, because he was willing to bet she was worrying about the cost.

“It’s...it’s not that. It’s...I can’t go home.”

“What?” Gib’s brows snapped down. “What do you mean, you can’t go home? Of course you can go home!”

But Chloe Madsen just shook her head adamantly. “No. I can’t. Not until August 15th, anyway.”

“They banished you from Iowa until August 15th?”

Granted, he hadn’t been back to Iowa once in the past dozen years, but it didn’t seem likely they’d instituted quota laws that would prevent people from returning.

“I said I would be back August 15th,” she said as if that were explanation enough.

It wasn’t. “So? They got a phone? Call them and tell them you’ll be back sooner. Call them now and tell them you’ll be back tonight.”

But she only shook her head. “I can’t.”

Gib felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. “Why the hell not?”

Chloe Madsen twisted her fingers. Her gaze flicked just a second in his direction. The blue-violet eyes blinked rapidly.

“Stop that!” Gib snapped.

Her eyes went wide. “Stop what?” She looked baffled.

“Crying. Don’t you dare cry.”

Her chin lifted. “I never cry.”

Gibson snorted a reply. He wasn’t going to argue about it.

“I don’t,” Chloe said firmly, taking his snort in exactly the vein in which it was intended. “Not about jobs, anyway,” she qualified after a moment. She hesitated, then took a deep breath. It made her breasts lift—and settle.

Gib shut his eyes. He turned away, headed for the door, opened it and stood waiting for her to go.

Edith, his office manager, was still sitting at her desk. She looked up now with interest. Gib hoped her being there would encourage Chloe not to continue the discussion.

“I know I made a fool of myself this afternoon,” Chloe said, her voice soft but firm. So much for his hopes. “But when we were talking about the job, Gina and I, I told her I was willing to do whatever an assistant did. And, well, one of the things she said they did was to stand in for models. I...wasn’t thinking. I should have realized you weren’t just setting up and running through. But I thought it was...expected of me. And then when you told me if I didn’t want to do it, to get back on the plane and go home...well, I couldn’t do that, either!”

“Why not?”

She looked at him as if he were crazy. “Because I couldn’t! Not after I’d made such a fuss and—” She stopped, clamped her lips together, didn’t say another word.

“Fuss?” Gib encouraged helpfully. What sort of fuss?

But she didn’t respond. Eventually she said, “Look, it was an honest mistake. I feel like an idiot. I must have looked like an idiot.”

No, she had looked...memorable. He didn’t figure he would forget Chloe Madsen swimming naked around his office as long as he lived. He also didn’t figure she wanted to hear that.

She bit her lip. “I really want to do this. Be your assistant, I mean. Please, don’t hold what I...what I did...against me.” She looked at him beseechingly.

“I don’t hold it against you,” he said roughly. “But you still can’t stay.”

“But you told Gina—”

“No,” he corrected her, “Gina told me. Gina is always telling me what I need to do, and I just sort of let it go in one ear and out the other. I go uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh at appropriate intervals.”

“Well, you obviously should have gone ‘huh-uh’ at one of them,” Chloe said just a little tartly. It was the first bit of spirit he’d seen from her since she’d come out of the dressing room.

“I never thought she’d actually send you!”

“Well, she did. She assured me that you’d agreed. She said you would let me work for you for two months. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a big deal!”

She looked astonished. “Why?”

The innocence of her query stopped him dead. “Because... because...” Because he didn’t want an assistant like her—an innocent from Iowa, for heaven’s sake! New York was a rough place, a hard place. A person needed to be sophisticated to survive. Chloe would get eaten in a matter of minutes.

“It wouldn’t work,” was all he said.

“You don’t think I can do it! You think I’m incompetent.” Her eyes accused him.

Gib scowled. “I do not! I’m sure you’re very competent—”

“I am.”

“—and I’m sure you’d make a fine assistant—”

“I would.”

“—but I don’t want an assistant!”

“You need one,” Edith said.

Both Gibson and Chloe snapped around to stare at the older woman sitting behind the reception desk. She gave Chloe a little nod and Gibson a benign smile.

“You need one,” she repeated.

“I have...what’s her name...?” He could never remember their names. They didn’t last long enough for him to bother to learn them. “Frosty?”

“Misty,” Edith said patiently. “And she’s about as reliable as her name.”

“Right. Misty.” He tried to make her sound tough and competent. She was neither. Misty was the latest in a long line of what Gibson called his “girls.” The young women who schlepped and carried, set up lights and reflectors, ran errands, loaded film and lugged power packs.

“Girls.” Edith sniffed every time he used the term. “That is totally politically incorrect.”

“So sue me,” Gibson muttered.

They were lucky he even recognized them as members of the species. Misty and her forerunners—he was sure there had once been one called Frosty—came in all shapes and colors and sizes. They also invariably came with nose rings, spiked hair, black leggings and very little brain. They had the half-life of a loaf of bread. And were as memorable.

Gibson figured he’d remember Chloe for a good long while.

“We’re going to need someone reliable,” Edith reminded him, “because I’m going to Georgia’s next week.”

Gibson scowled. He didn’t want to think about that. He relied on Edith for everything unconnected with the actual shooting of photos. She ran the studio, kept the ad reps at bay, dealt with the agencies, the caterer, the legion of bike messengers who rang the buzzer in the middle of his work. She was the person who kept him sane. He’d been appalled when she’d asked for a month off.

“A month?” She hadn’t taken more than a week at a time in the last ten years.

“A month,” she’d said firmly. “At least. I’ll need it to help Georgia with the babies.”

After fifteen years of a childless marriage, Edith’s daughter, Georgia, had picked this summer to be inconsiderate enough to have triplets!

“Three?” Gibson had been aghast when Edith had told him. “What’s the matter with just one?”

But apparently the quantity hadn’t been up for discussion.

“We’ll take all we can get,” Edith had said cheerfully. She was over the moon about going to North Carolina and helping out with her first grandchildren. In fact she could hardly wait.

Gibson hadn’t been able to say no. He knew she would have simply quit if he had. So he’d said, all right. But once he’d agreed, he’d shoved the thought right out of his mind.

“Get someone to take your place,” he’d finally told her yesterday when she’d asked if he had someone in mind.

“I think Chloe will do fine,” Edith said now.

“What?” Gibson practically shouted.

But Edith just smiled her I’m-going-to-be-a-grandmother-and-all-is-right-with-the-world smile. “She looks sane and sensible and responsible. And if your sister trusts her...”

“My sister—”

“Is a good judge of character,” Edith said firmly. “If he doesn’t want you as his assistant, you can take over for me all right?” she said to Chloe. Then she looked at Gibson “Do you want her?”

A damned unfortunate choice of words.

Gibson felt his tongue tangling with his teeth. No, dam it, he didn’t want her! Not in his studio every day. Not ever in his reception room. And not just because his body had had an inconvenient reaction to her, either.

But he knew he was stuck. Gina proposed, Edith dis posed. And he, heaven help him, was caught in the under tow.

But he wanted one thing understood. He turned on Chloe “I won’t be responsible for you!”

She looked at him, startled. “Of course not!”

He poked a finger under her nose and waggled it. “ won’t fight your battles for you or protect your innocence or mollycoddle you in any way!”

“I never asked—”

His finger stabbed the air, making his point. “I just wan it clear. If you stay, you’re on your own!”

She stood her ground, drat her. She even looked muti nous. He thought she might bite his finger.

“Yes, certainly!” she agreed. As he turned away, she asked almost belligerently, “Is there anything else?”

He whirled back. “Yes! You’ll damned well keep you clothes on!”

CHAPTER TWO

OF COURSE Gib had to find her a place to stay. Gina reminded him that he’d told her he would.

“I did what?” he yelped.

She had called late that evening just to “check on things”—to see how “darling Chloe” was, and to find out where he’d arranged for her to stay.

“You said you’d find her a sublet,” Gina told him.

He was sure he had done no such thing. “I said I’d find her a sublet? I said that? In those words?”

“Well, if you’re going to sound like a lawyer about it,” Gina said huffily, “I suppose those weren’t your precise words. When we discussed it, I asked if you could find her a place to stay, a sublet or something, and you said sure, you guessed.”

“I never thought—” But he couldn’t tell her that he had come to count on her not following through. He owed her. A lot. And she rarely actually asked for anything.

Just this. Just...

Chloe.

“Nothing yet.”

“Nothing?” Gina sounded horrified.

“Yet, I said,” Gib muttered, beleaguered. “I’ll find something.”

“You won’t be sorry,” Gina said, all traces of huffiness gone at once. “I’m sure it will work out really well for both of you. Chloe was so eager to come. And she’s such a hard worker, Gib. There is nothing you could ask that Chloe wouldn’t do to help out.”

“You don’t say,” Gib replied drily, biting on the inside of his cheek to keep from telling Gina exactly what Chloe had already done.

She would be shocked. Hell, when he thought about it—about who she was—he was shocked. But he wasn’t going to mention it. Chloe Madsen, naked, was a memory he had no intention of sharing with anyone.

“She’s quite a good photographer in her own right,” Gina went on. “Oh, not in your class, dear. But she shoots wonderful photos for the Gazette.”

The Collierville Gazette was the local weekly newspaper. Gina was the business manager of the paper, so that was clearly where she and Chloe had connected. The photos Gib remembered in the Gazette’s pages were of local Pork Queens, fiftieth wedding anniversary celebrants, high-school football players who scored winning touchdowns and, for variety, artful “scenic” shots of acres and acres of corn and soybeans.

“And this inspired her to want to come to New York?”

“Not exactly.” Gina paused. “It had something to do with a nun, I think.”

“A nun!”

“For a story she wrote. Chloe, I mean. It sparked off something in her. She’s been a little restless, trying to figure out what she should do...”

Dance naked? Gib thought, smiling.

“She taught kindergarten for three years before she came to work on the paper.”

“Kindergarten?” He’d seen a kindergarten teacher naked !

Worse, at the memory, Gib could feel a stirring in his body even now. At least her being a kindergarten teacher explained the prim shirtwaist dress.

“She was wonderful with the children. She loved it, but she was a little restless there, too. She thought maybe it wasn’t what she ought to do forever, so she came to the paper last year.”

“And she still isn’t satisfied?” Gib asked.

“Well, I don’t know that she isn’t satisfied. But she’s lived in Iowa all her life. She wants to see what’s beyond the horizon.”

The more fool she, Gib thought.

“She won’t be able to cope with this,” he told Gina bluntly. “She’s too naive. Too innocent.”

“Well, she’ll have you and—”

“She damned well won’t have me! I’m not Mary Poppins, you know!”

“Of course not,” Gina said quickly. “I don’t expect that. Not...really. I was just hoping you’d be sort of...aware of her.”

Oh, he was that.

“She’s very eager to learn whatever you can teach her—”

Oh, cripes, don’t say that!

“—and you always seem to need a new assistant...”

Had she been talking to Edith?

“She’s exactly the sort of girl I wish you’d—” Abruptly, Gina stopped.

There was a long silence. A pregnant silence. A silence Gib was determined not to fill. One which he hoped Gina wouldn’t fill, either. He knew what she’d say if she did.

The girl I wish you’d marry.

It was no secret that Gina wanted him to get married and come back to Iowa. That was what she’d always hoped for, ever since he’d taken a summer internship with noted celebrity photographer Camilo Volante a dozen years ago.

At the time Gina had wondered why he would do something like that. “Celebrity doesn’t interest you,” she’d said.

And Gib had replied, “But people do.” It was people he wanted to photograph. Working for Camilo Volante had seemed like a terrific opportunity to learn from one of the world’s foremost photographers of famous people. Then he could take it from there, using what he’d learned, photographing whoever he wanted.

That had been the plan, at least.

He’d expected then that he would go back to Iowa.

But life had a way of changing those plans. And the summer job had turned into an autumn one. And after that, well, things had changed. Irrevocably.

And Gib had never come back.

Now Gina appreciated that he was a success as a fast-lane, high-style photographer of beautiful women. But she still never hesitated to ask what had happened to his dream of shooting photos of people from all walks of life. And she also never hesitated to say how much nicer she thought it would be if he would find a lovely young woman, marry her, come back to Iowa and take photos of farmers—and Pork Queens.

Or maybe, just this once, she did hesitate.

“I’m not interested,” Gib said firmly, in case she thought she had subliminally made her point.

“Interested? Oh, you mean... in Chloe?” Gina laughed lightly. “Of course not. And Chloe’s not interested in you, either. She’s only there for a break, Gib. Anyway she’s engaged. She’s getting married in September.”

Married? Chloe?

Gib felt oddly breathless, as if someone had punched him. It was the most unexpected feeling he’d ever had. It puzzled him. Why should he care?

He didn’t care.

It was just that all of a sudden his mind offered him a reprise of a very naked, very rosy, very jiggly Chloe Madsen—and she didn’t look like anyone’s fiancée!

“Who’s the idiot letting her run around loose?” he demanded.

“If you’re asking who she’s engaged to, it’s Dave Shelton. He’s a very nice young man. You remember Ernie and Lavonne Shelton? They farm north of town. Dave is their son.”

Gib vaguely remembered the name. “There was a Kathy Shelton,” he said, “in my class.”

“Dave’s older sister. She got married and moved to Dubuque. Then about three years ago, she divorced and came home with her kids. Until a couple of months ago, she was living in a mobile home on the farm where Dave and Chloe had been going to live. She’s the reason they didn’t get married three years ago.”

“They’ve been engaged for three years?”

“Not three,” Gina said. “Eight, I think.”

“Eight!”

“I’m talking out of turn,” Gina said quickly. “I don’t know all the particulars, so I shouldn’t be gossiping.”

Gib was willing to bet Gina knew almost every particular. In a town the size of Collierville, everyone knew everyone else’s particulars.

But Gina just said, “I’ll let you go now, darling. Just keep me posted. And if you want to know more about Chloe and Dave, I’m sure Chloe will be happy to tell you. Just ask her.”

The hell he would.

Chloe supposed she ought to be feeling guilty.

She knew Gibson Walker did not want her working for him. If he could have turned her out onto the street and slammed the door on her back, she thought he would have.

Sensing how he felt, she knew she ought to say, Fine, I’ll leave.

But she didn’t.

She’d made such a deal out of leaving home—of needing this two months away, just to say she’d been out in the big wide world once—that she couldn’t just give up and go back home and tell Dave she’d changed her mind.

He would want to know why.

And Chloe, being Chloe and incapable of dissembling, would have had to tell him-about the mix-up, about the naked photo shoot, about what a fool she’d made of herself.

And there was no way she was going to do that.

So she was staying. And she only felt the tiniest bit guilty. There was no room for guilt in a soul so full of embarrassment.

Now, hours later, high up in the hotel room where Gibson had unceremoniously stashed her, she pressed her face to the glass and saw, not the Empire State Building out her window, but her own silly self prancing around in the buff—and she still wanted to die.

But not yet, she admitted.

First she wanted her two months in New York.

The phone rang.

She picked it up. “Hi,” she said, knowing it had to be Dave. She’d called him as soon as she’d come upstairs, forgetting the time difference and that he would be out doing the milking for at least another hour. She’d left him a message with a number to call her back.

“Hi yourself. Are you fulfilled yet?”

She almost smiled. “Not quite yet. How are you?”

He was fine. Of course he would be. She’d only seen him sixteen hours ago. But he told her anyway. He told her about his day, about the weather, about the cows, about the meal he’d just had with his parents at their house.

“Mom invited me for supper. I think they wanted to see if I’d show up alone, if you were really gone,” he told her. “They can’t believe you’re really doing this.”

Most people couldn’t.

The twelve hundred and forty-two people who called Collierville, Iowa home were not given to eagerness when it came to spending a summer in New York City. Everyone she’d told thought she was out of her mind.

Chloe had given up trying to explain—except to Dave.

She needed Dave to understand. She’d thought he would. She and Dave had grown up together. They’d played as children. They’d gone steady in high school. They were serious about each other when everyone else was still playing the field.

Chloe had always assumed she and Dave were destined for each other. Certainly there was nothing about Dave she didn’t know.

And nothing he didn’t know about her—except that she’d danced naked this afternoon!

“You’re happy?” he asked her now.

“So far,” she said. There was room for a tiny bit of happiness along with the embarrassment. So it wasn’t a lie.

“Is it all you were expecting?”

“More, actually.” And wasn’t that the truth!

Fortunately he didn’t ask what she meant. “So where are you staying? What’s it like?”

She told him about the hotel. It was a no-frills place. “Respectable,” Gib had told her. “Safe.” She remembered a muscle in his jaw ticking as he’d steered her in. “Wish they had locks on the outside of the doors, too,” he’d muttered.

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that She hadn’t asked.

Dave was surprised. “I thought you were going to rent somebody’s apartment.”

“This is just temporary. He hasn’t found a place yet.” She didn’t tell Dave he’d been hoping against hope that she wasn’t coming.

“You’re not staying with him!”

“Of course not!”

Gibson Walker didn’t want her at his apartment any more than Dave wanted her there. There had never been any question. When he’d realized he was stuck with her, he’d taken her to this hotel.

“I can’t afford a hotel,” she’d protested.

“I can,” he’d said in a voice that brooked no argument. He’d marched her up to the desk and paid for one night’s lodging.

She’d dug into her purse for her credit card. “I can manage one night!”

But he hadn’t paid any attention. He’d checked her in, handed her bags to the bellboy, tipped him, told her he hoped she came to her senses by tomorrow and went home. And then he’d turned on his heel and started toward the door.

“Wait!” Chloe had called, and he’d stopped, then turned. “What time do we start in the morning?”

For a long moment he’d just looked at her. Then a corner of his mouth had twisted and he’d replied. “First shoot’s at nine.” Then he’d turned again and strode out the door.

“I’ll find a place tomorrow,” she told Dave now. “After work.”

“A safe place,” Dave instructed her.

“A safe place,” Chloe agreed.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. But I’ll be home before you know it.”

“I’ll know it,” Dave said gruffly. “It’s sixty-one more days.”

He’d counted, Chloe realized guiltily. Well, so had she, but with anticipation, not annoyance.

“Compared to forever, sixty-one days isn’t so long,” she said gently. “And once I get home, we’ll have forever.”

And that was the truth. She had had Dave in her life for so long she couldn’t imagine him not being there. Sometimes she wondered if she existed without him. Maybe that was what she was trying to find out.

“Sister Carmela has a lot to answer for,” he grumbled.

“It wasn’t just Sister Carmela.”

But Dave wasn’t convinced.

And he was right that it had been Sister Carmela, the new abbess at the monastery just outside Collierville, who had put the idea into Chloe’s head.

She’d interviewed Sister last month for the newspaper. They’d hit it off at once, going on to talk much longer than the actual interview required. And in the course of their conversation, Sister Carmela had told Chloe not just about her new position as abbess, but the spiritual journey that had brought her there.

She had, she’d told Chloe, come to the abbey just after college, fresh with the enthusiasm and idealism of youth.

“I loved it,” she’d said, her brown eyes sparkling. “I felt at home at once. More alive. Centered. As if this was where I’d always been meant to be. And everything went smoothly until right before I was to make my final profession. And then I began to get worried. What if I was wrong? What if I was foreclosing on my options too soon? What if I was doing this just because it seemed easy for me? Maybe too easy? I got restless, fidgety, unsettled.”

Chloe, who had been feeling some of those very same feelings for the past few months, leaned forward earnestly and held her pencil, poised to note the reply. “How did you overcome it?”

“I didn’t,” the abbess told her with a smile. “I left.”

“Left?” Chloe dropped the pencil. Scrabbling to pick it up, she’d looked up at the nun again to see if she was joking.

But though there was a smile on Sister Carmela’s face, she was apparently quite serious. “I couldn’t stay. Not until I was sure. So I decided to test my vocation, to go out, live in the ‘real world’ for a while and see if that was where I belonged. So I did.”

Chloe smiled. “And that’s when you realized...you didn’t like it?”

Sister Carmela shook her head. “I did like it. A lot. It was wonderful, and by the ‘real world’s’ standards, I was a success. But in the end, I knew it wasn’t right for me. I saw that, no matter how ‘successful’ I was out there, I belonged here. And so I came back.”

It made sense. It made an incredible amount of sense. While Sister Carmela had been talking about her monastic life, she might as well have been talking about Chloe’s.

She’d been feeling every bit as unsure, every bit as restless as the date she and Dave had finally set for their wedding approached. Granted it had been, at that time, still four months off. But some nights Chloe couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about the rest of her life...and wondering if it was going to be any different than what she’d already had.

It wasn’t that she was dissatisfied really. It was just that she didn’t know!

She and Dave had been together so long, they seemed so perfect for each other—like Sister Carmela and the monastery—that it made her nervous.

“You’re asking for trouble,” Dave said.

But Chloe knew that wasn’t true. She was asking for a test. She needed to see what was beyond the rolling hills and river bluffs of the northeastern Iowa town where she’d grown up. Collierville was wonderful. Dave was wonderful. She loved them both. But maybe, like Sister Carmela, she was taking the easy way out.

Maybe she should leave, too.

“Not for fifteen years!” Dave had said when she told him how long Sister Carmela had stayed away.

“Of course not! A couple of months. That’s all. What do you think?”

“I think it’s nuts,” Dave had said with his customary bluntness. “What’s out there that isn’t here? Besides crime, poverty, dirt and air pollution, that is.”

Dave knew they had all that, to some degree, in Iowa. He was just trotting out the time-honored arguments that all self-satisfied midwesterners indulged in when they felt morally superior to big city folks.

But in the end, he’d supported her. He’d told his parents that if Chloe felt she had to do it, then she had to do it. He’d told her parents that he didn’t mind waiting to get married. They’d waited often enough.

“I’ll be back in August,” Chloe had reminded them all.

“Leaving me to do all the work,” her mother had said darkly.

But in fact, Chloe thought her mother was secretly pleased. She had far more interest in making it a wedding to remember than Chloe did.

“I’ll take the phone book with me. I’ll contact the florist, the caterer,” Chloe promised. “I’ll send out the wedding invitations from there.”

She’d brought the phone book. But she wasn’t working on lists of florists and caterers tonight. Tonight she was staring out at the New York skyline, periodically pinching herself, hardly able still to believe she was here.

It was going to be wonderful. The experience. The job. She would do a good job—she was determined about that. Despite her disastrous, humiliating beginning, she would salvage her job. And she would go home at peace, having seen the bright lights and big city; she would be ready to settle down with Dave.

Like Sister Carmela, she would get her taste of the big broad world, and then she would go home.

“The grass isn’t greener on this side of the fence,” she said aloud now. Then she giggled. From where she stood and looked out the window, there wasn’t any grass to be seen at all.

She closed her eyes and thought about Iowa. She thought about how green the grass was now, how blue the sky. She thought about Dave. Strong. Steady. Dependable. Dave.

He was all she’d ever wanted in a man.

But just before she went to sleep she found herself hoping that, when she came to him naked on their wedding night, he would look at her with the same intensity that Gibson Walker had.

You’d think Gina had an in with the Almighty!

Well, Gib admitted, maybe she did. She was always doing good deeds and helping other people. Maybe that was why everything she wanted for Chloe seemed to be falling into place.

He’d just been standing there by Edith’s desk, telling her that if she wanted to keep Chloe she’d have to find her a place to stay, when the door opened and Sierra, the hair stylist, came in.

“She’s staying?” Sierra sounded delighted. “Your sister’s friend? You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was,” Gib grumbled. “She won’t leave.”

Sierra’s eyes got big. “Took one look at you, did she? Decided she can’t live without you?” Sierra came in to do hair frequently on Gib’s shoots. She knew how many women flung themselves at his feet. She also knew it irritated the hell out of him.

“She’s engaged,” Gib said dampeningly.

Sierra blinked in surprise. Then she shrugged. “You could cut him out.”

“I’m not interested!”

The force of his voice had Sierra stepping backwards. She lifted her shoulders again. “You never are, are you?” It was common knowledge that for all that women threw themselves at Gib, he never chased them. He dated, but never seriously.

“No,” he said firmly now. “I’m not.”

“So,” Sierra changed the subject, “when’s she coming in?”

Gib shrugged. “I told her we started at nine. So we’ll see if she actually shows up. Maybe by today she’s come to her senses. Maybe,” he said hopefully, “she got to thinking about it and went home this morning.”

The door opened. “Who? Me?” Chloe said.

Gib groaned. Partly because she was still there—and partly because she looked every bit as sweet and innocent and delectable as she had the day before. He’d told himself he was imagining it.

He hadn’t been.

She also looked fresh and bright and well-rested—a whole lot better rested than he was. And though her cheeks were rosy, if it was from mortification over yesterday’s disaster, she didn’t look nearly as mortified as he might have hoped.

Actually the blush on her cheeks looked more like brimming good health than lingering embarrassment. She looked like she could hardly wait to get to work.

“I haven’t found you a place to stay,” he told her flatly.

“My sister needs a house sitter,” Sierra said.

Both Gib and Chloe jerked around to stare at her.

Sierra shrugged. “If you need a place to stay,” she said to Chloe, “you can probably stay at my sister’s. She’s having her apartment redecorated this summer. They’re doing a lot of work on it and she’s going out to the Hamptons while they’re working, but she was saying just the other day that she’d like someone to keep an eye on things, be there when the plasterers showed up, that sort of thing.”

Chloe’s eyes lit up. “Fantastic.”

“Hang on a minute,” Gib objected.

They all looked at him. He opened his mouth again, then closed it. What was he going to say? That he didn’t think that the apartment of the sister of a purple-haired stylist was appropriate lodging for a former Iowa kindergarten teacher no more worldly than her students?

“She doesn’t look like me,” Sierra said with a grin, as if she could read his mind. “Mariah is...normal.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Gib began, then stopped. What did he care? As he’d been at pains to point out to both Gina and Chloe, he wasn’t going to be anyone’s keeper. He shrugged irritably. “Fine. Ask your sister.” He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, then turned away. “Save me the trouble. I’ve got work to do,” he said and stalked off toward the studio.

Footsteps hurried after him. “Wait for me,” Chloe said a little breathlessly.

But Gib didn’t want Chloe underfoot right now. He was entirely too aware of her at the moment. “Go help Edith,” he said. “When Misty gets here she can help me.”

He glanced long enough to see a flicker of disappointment on her face. His jaw tightened. He steeled himself against it. Telling her to help Edith was not the same as kicking a puppy, damn it.

The door to the outer office opened again, and the first models came in chattering. “Hi, Gib!”

“Hi. handsome!”

Gib flashed them standard smiles, then turned a scowl on Chloe again. “Go,” he said. “Didn’t you agree to do whatever I asked you to do?” he reminded her silkily.

She colored slightly. She sighed. She went.

Gib turned back to load film in the camera. Sierra started to work on the blonde model’s hair. Beyond the door he could hear Edith telling Chloe about how she arranged the scheduling.

“Let me make some notes,” Chloe said.

Gib nodded, satisfied. If she had to be here, helping Edith was the best place for her. She could have her time in the city, and she wouldn’t be underfoot.

Now, if Misty would just show up.

He needed her to set up the lights and the reflectors so they could get started as soon as Sierra finished with the models’ hair. He would need her to move things later, changing the lighting while he shot.

He read over the notes the agency had sent. He made some of his own. He started setting things up himself, annoyed.

Edith stuck her head in. “Misty called. She can’t come in today. Something about her planets not being properly aligned.”

Gib stared.

Edith shrugged, a small smile playing around the corner of her mouth. “Apparently she’s sensitive to that sort of thing.”

Gib gave her a steely-eyed glare.

“Shame about that,” Edith said, still smiling. “You could probably use some help.”

Gib could see Chloe sitting at Edith’s desk, talking on the phone to someone, taking notes studiously, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Gib looked at her, then at Edith.

Edith looked at Gib, then at Chloe, then back at Gib.

Damn it, was she going to make him beg?

“I could send Chloe in to help when she’s finished on the phone,” Edith ventured after a moment.

“Do that,” Gib growled.

Chloe came in five minutes later. “What can I do?” she said eagerly.

“Set these up.” Gib pointed to the reflectors. He indicated where. Chloe went to work.

Gib was used to Misty and her predecessors—girls who needed to be directed and prodded every step of the way. Chloe didn’t. Once he told her what to do, she did it. And the next time he needed it done, she did it without his having to say a word. She seemed almost to anticipate his directions. And she didn’t say a word, either. Just worked.

He was amazed.

Chloe took it all in her stride.

And when they’d finished and the models had left, only then did she look at him and beam. “That was fun!”

Misty had never called it fun.

“Yeah,” Gib said gruffly. “Here.” He thrust the camera at her. “Can you load this?”

Solemnly, almost reverentially in fact, Chloe took it from him. While he watched, she loaded film into the camera. “That’s another of your jobs,” he told her.

Just as she was handing it back, Sierra came in. “I called my sister. She’d like Chloe to come over this evening at seven.”

“We’ll be there,” Gib said.

Both Chloe and Sierra looked at him, then blinked.

He scowled. “Gina would want me to make sure it’s the right place for her,” he said. “Don’t stare at me like that. She’s my sister. She doesn’t ask for much!”

“Right.” Sierra nodded wisely.

Chloe gave him a bright, entirely unnecessary smile. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Gib said. “Let’s get to work.”

Naturally Chloe thought Mariah’s apartment was wonderful.

A day in Chloe’s company had shown Gibson the truth of everything he’d feared: she thought the city was wonderful. Period.

“It’s just so...so...alive,” she’d said on the way uptown in the taxi. “Look!” She’d pointed at a man in top hat and tails, playing a grand piano on a street corner. “Wherever you look, you never know what you’ll find!”

“That’s not necessarily good,” Gib had said gruffly.

But Chloe hadn’t stopped enthusing. She enthused about the neighborhood in which Mariah lived. It was on the Upper West Side, not too many blocks above and just a little west of Gib’s own apartment on Central Park West. Not a bad neighborhood at all, he conceded. But not exactly Iowa.

Still, he reserved judgement, going only so far as to say, “I’m the one who’s deciding if it’s all right or not If it’s not, you’re not staying,” just as they were alighting from the taxi.

“What?” Chloe looked astonished.

He took her suitcases and pointed her toward the brownstone whose address Sierra had given them. “You heard me.”

Sierra’s sister, Mariah, was normal. Attractive even, in a slender, long-haired, model-like way. Her hair was brown hair, not purple. Her fingernails were red, not black. And other than tiny studs in her ears, she had no visible body piercings.

Not that Sierra had any, either. But Gib suspected she had leanings in that direction.

Mariah ushered them in and up the stairs. “I’m on the second floor. A floor-through. Everything has been pretty much gutted since I bought it this spring. The building was a wreck when I bought my place. Plaster crumbling. Wallpaper peeling. Ceilings sagging. But it’s down to the bare bones now, and the plasterers are supposed to be starting later this week.”

The apartment faced south. It was, as Mariah claimed, almost cavern-like. She had no furniture in the living room besides a television and VCR and a futon with a brightly colored Indian coverlet and lots of pillows. The kitchen was equally spartan. Appliances, a bar stool and a butcher block stacked with a small assortment of pots and pans and dishes.

“The stove is gas,” Mariah said. “It works. The water runs. Hot and cold. The refrigerator is hooked up. There’s a light overhead.” She gestured at the shop light hanging from the ceiling fixture. “Once they’ve plastered in here, the cabinet maker will begin working. Then they’re going to bring in the counter tops. They might have to shut things off briefly, but for the most part, you shouldn’t have any problems.”

Chloe took it all in wordlessly. Gib had a hundred questions.

Were these workers licensed? Bonded? Responsible? Did they have criminal records?

“Next thing you’ll be wanting to see their high school transcripts,” Chloe said irritably.

“You can’t be too careful,” Gib told her.

“I’m sure they’re very reliable,” Mariah said. She led the way into the bedroom at the back of the apartment. It needed plastering, too. But there was a queen-size bed and another pile of colorful pillows in the center of the room. It looked too big for one person, Gib thought nervously. Would some man talk her into bringing him home to share it? Would her farmer fiancé fly out for weekend trysts?

What difference did it make?

“The plasterers and cabinet maker all worked on the apartment downstairs,” Mariah went on. “It was finished this spring and it’s wonderful. I’ll ask Rhys to show you,” she said to Chloe.

“Rhys? Who’s that?” Gib wanted to know.

“My neighbor,” Mariah said. She pointed downstairs.

“We bought into the building at the same time. He’s done a great job with his place. He has the bottom two floors. Seems a waste when he’s single and hardly home enough to enjoy it.” She shook her head. “He’s a fireman. Goes all over the world putting out blazes. Oil wells, natural disasters, things like that.”

Gib watched Chloe’s eyes get bigger and bigger. He wished Mariah would confine herself to the relevant details.

“What days do they pick up trash?” he asked. “What about recyclables? Is someone checking that all this plastering gets done? Chloe won’t be responsible for it.”

“I’ve made a list.” Manah gestured toward some papers on the butcher block. “I’ve got it all written down, when everything is supposed to happen. It’s not a big deal.”

Gib snorted. Easy for her to say. She was going to be in the Hamptons. It would be Chloe who would be here. What if they were all axe murderers and rapists?

Well, he could hardly ask that. Not in so many words.

Chloe apparently had none of the same qualms. She picked up the list and smiled beatifically at Mariah. “No problem. Sounds like fun. And—” she looked at Gib, eyes shining “—I’ll get to have a real New York experience.”

Mariah chuckled. “That’s for sure.”

“She has a job,” Gib reminded them. “She can’t be here all the time.”

“Oh, she won’t have to be. Rhys can let them in.”

“I thought he was all over the world. Never home long enough to enjoy it, didn’t you say?” And now he was going to let people into the apartment. He had a key?

Mariah waved her hands. “Oh, you know how it is. When he’s gone, he’s anywhere. When he’s home, he’s downstairs. He’ll be home for the next six weeks. I’m sure you’ll meet him in the next few days,” she said to Chloe, and confided, “He’s a hunk.”

Gib’s teeth came together. “She’s engaged,” he said through them.

Mariah’s eager smile faded for a moment, then brightened again. “Well,” she said cheerfully to Chloe, “no harm in looking, is there?”

They shared a conspiratorial giggle. Gib drummed his fingers on the butcher block. When Chloe looked his way, he gave her a black scowl. She frowned right back at him.

What was that for? he wondered. He was only protecting the rights of her fiancé.

“I’m not sure he should have a key,” Gib began.

But Chloe cut in. “I think this is very nice of you,” she said to Mariah, just as if he weren’t there at all. “And I’ll be happy to let plasterers in or cabinet makers or whoever. I’m sure I’ll be very happy here.”

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