Dream Man (9 page)

When I see you again, I'll ask you that question. You won't be able to evade me or equivocate. I'll look into your gray eyes and know the truth.

“Oh, heaven help me! He would too!” she muttered. “Lord, what am I going to do?”

I want to see you right this minute. I want to hold you, touch you, smell your scent. When are you going to spend the whole night with me, my sweet? When are you going to release me from the torture of wanting to have you with me always, ease the agony of having to wait?

It's the waiting that's intolerable. Don't make me wait any longer. Call me, dear heart. Call me and tell me our time is now. I won't sign my name because you know who I am. Simply, the man who wants you more than he's ever wanted anyone else his life.

When she was able to move. Jeanie reached for the phone. When she was sure she'd be able to speak instead of just breathe heavily, she dialed and drew in several steadying breaths, listening to the ringing at the other end. When a female voice responded with the information that she had reached Max's office, she was able to say, “I'd like to speak to Mr. McKenzie, please,” with a cool briskness in which she took great pride. “J. Leslie Career Consultants calling.”

“I'm sorry. Mr. McKenzie is working just now, and I can't interrupt him until twelve forty-five, unless the house is on fire, and not even then unless it's burning in this wing. I'm Freda Coin, his personal assistant. Maybe I can help you?”

The woman sounded as if she were accustomed to deflecting interruptions. She also sounded as if she were always successful, and as if perhaps her middle name were Legree. Jeanie, however, had never been put off by tough people. She hadn't become the president of her own company two years ago at the age of twenty-nine by allowing others to keep her from what she meant to accomplish.

“Mr. McKenzie is under contract to do some work for one of my clients. I really must speak with him at once,” she said clearly, in her most polite yet most determined tone. “It is very important, and I know he'll want to talk with me.”

“And I'm certain he will, my dear, just soon as he is able. But as I told you, Mr. McKenzie is working. As you likely know, that means writing. When he is at his computer, he permits no one and nothing to interrupt him. It would be more than my life was worth to knock on his door before his lunch arrives. Even then, I knock, open it, and shove his tray in with a long pole. Mr. McKenzie is not an easy man to disturb.”

Jeanie thought briefly of disputing that statement, but the kind of “disturbing” she'd be speaking of was not what his assistant meant. Freda Coin sounded somewhat older than the women who were likely to be chasing Max McKenzie but perhaps age was no barrier to the man's fatal charm. Freda continued, “I'd be happy to take your name and number and have him call you when he's able.”

Not accustomed to such obdurate refusals, Jeanie's tolerance level began to slip. “That,” she said, “might make you happy. It might even make Max happy. It would not, however, make me happy, Ms. Coin. I need to speak to him, and it's imperative that I do it now. He has submitted an extremely unsatisfactory piece of work and it needs immediate attention.”

“And I'm quite positive he will be glad to give it that attention when he is finished what he is doing. Believe me, I'll pass on your message along with all the others just as soon as I am able. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn't. I am Jeanie Leslie of J. Leslie and Associates, Career Consultants.” She didn't always give the firm's full and legal name unless it appeared necessary. This time, it did. “I suggest, madam, that you tell him who is on the line. He will take my call, I assure you.”

“No, he won't. At least not while he's writing. I'm truly sorry, but I won't interrupt him,” said the firm, unflappable voice of Freda Legree Coin.

Jeanie decided on a swift change of tactics, preceded by a soft, understanding laugh. “Of course,” she said. “We all know what grouches men can be when they're working. But I assure you, Freda, he'll want to hear from me. So please, as one woman to another, won't you make an exception to your excellent, and I'm certain, necessary, rule, and at least tell him I'm calling? Let him make the decision.”

Freda's laugh was not soft nor was it gentle. It was filled with genuine amusement and a little malice. “Sweetie,” she said, “Max pays me well to make those decisions for him. I fend off at least a dozen calls like yours every day, and every one of you assures me that Max would really want me to make an exception in her case. Now why should I think you're any different?”

“Because,” Jeanie said, “I am. Last night Max asked me to marry him.”

There was a very long silence at the other end and then another laugh, this one filled with an odd combination of admiration and sympathy. “Now, that,” said Freda, “takes the year's—no, maybe even the decade's—prize for inventiveness. Bye-bye, sweetie pie. I'll tell him you called.”

“Wait!”

There was an impatient sigh, then a curt “Yes?”

“Tell me,” Jeanie said. “Which wing of the house am I going to have to set on fire?”

“The west one,” Freda said. “But only if you can get past the pit bulls.” Then, she hung up.

Jeanie did the same and found to her amazement that she was laughing again. Freda Coin would probably be as much fun to know as Max McKenzie.

The light on her phone flashed twenty minutes later, and she picked it up to hear Cindy say, “Mr. McKenzie for you on line three.”

Jeanie grinned. “Tell him I'm in conference and can't be disturbed unless the building's on fire, and then only if the fire's on the fourth floor.”

“But what if it's on the second or third floor, Ms. Leslie? Or even the first? Wouldn't you want to get out? Uh… would it be okay if I got out? I mean, after I told you, of course?”

“Sure, Cindy. If the building ever catches fire, you let me know and then get on out, no matter what floor it's on. But in the meantime, simply tell Mr. McKenzie what I said and that I have found his work unsatisfactory. I will be sending him further instructions by messenger. Okay?”

“You don't want to talk to him?”

“I don't want to talk to him.”

Cindy sighed dramatically. Clearly, she thought Jeanie was several flakes short of a snowball. Any woman who passed up an opportunity to talk to Max McKenzie had to be short something.

Jeanie hung up and went back to the résumé she was working on. It wasn't easy to make a man who had been fired from three different executive positions in five years look like a good prospect, but she was obligated to try.

She had just unearthed from her notes the fact that he had once brought a company back from near bankruptcy by an inventive method of marketing, when a piercing scream split the air and Cindy's panicked voice cried, “Help! He's lighting a fire in the wastebasket! Stop! No! Ms. Leslie! What should I do? Quick! Call 9-l-l!”

Jeanie flew out of her chair at the word fire, barked her shin on the leg of her desk and bashed her hip into the arm of her visitor's chair trying to get out of the room. By the time she'd heard the word wastebasket, she'd flung open her office door and come to a halt to see a grinning Max McKenzie aiming a small, red fire extinguisher into the wastebasket from which a tiny wisp of smoke emerged. A bug-eyed Cindy was backed up against the filing cabinets, wringing her hands, and several heads poked around the door, all wearing variously stunned or interested expressions on their faces.

“What,” asked Max much too loudly, “was wrong with that love letter I sent you, Jeanie Leslie? I think for a first attempt it was damned good. Didn't you like that part about me wearing my shirt to bed because it smelled like you? And how about the part where I said I never wanted to wake up again without seeing your face on the pillow beside mine, and the part about how I'd slowly move the covers down until I could see your—”

He broke off as she grabbed a fistful of his thick, curly dark hair and literally dragged him, extinguisher and all, into her office, kicking the door shut behind her.

“I am going to trade that girl in on a pit bull and turn it loose on you! You are a menace, Max McKenzie! A—”

He reached up with his free hand and untangled her fingers from his hair, then kissed her palm before she thought to snatch her hand away. But his reaction had the effect of stopping her flow of words to say nothing of her of breath.

“As you might have guessed,” he said with a grin, “I heard about your conversation with Freda. She was highly amused and wants to meet you. Especially because you told her you intend to marry me.”

Jeanie gasped. “I did nothing of the sort! I merely told her that you'd proposed.”

“To Freda, it would be inconceivable for you to have refused. She's probably out right now looking for a new hat.”

“Hat?”

“To wear to our wedding.”

“She is not! She didn't even believe me.”

“She did once I told her that I had asked you. By the way, when is it going to be?”

“It isn't going to be, you idiot! Remember, you withdrew your proposal.”

“Why, so I did. How forgetful of me. I must remember to tell Freda that when I get home. Maybe she can take the hat back.”

“Maybe she can save it to wear to your funeral.”

Jeanie whirled around, grabbed the two pages of his letter that she'd hidden under her blotter, and waved them in his face. “What kind of garbage is this? I thought you took that job offer seriously, Max. I can't send this to my client! For one thing, a real love letter would never be typewritten! And for another, what if the person it's meant for doesn't have curly hair or gray eyes, as you specifically mentioned? What if the real recipient does actually wake up in the morning with her head on the same pillow as the writer, and he does—” She broke off, swallowing hard, but he didn't hesitate to fill in the silence.

“And he does pull down the covers, inch by inch—”

“Dammit, stop that! This is a business office not a boudoir!” She was glad that she was wearing a suit with a boxy bouclé jacket. Quickly, she sat behind her desk and folded her arms on top of her blotter. “Sit down. We have to discuss this like professionals, if you mean to go on with the job. Otherwise, I'll have to find someone else.”

To her surprise, he sat down, bouncing the little red extinguisher on his knees as if it were a baby. “All right, so make any changes you feel are appropriate. Just get your secretary, receptionist, whatever she is, to type it up and send it to your client.”

Jeanie shuddered at the thought of asking Cindy to type copies of that letter. She shuddered at the thought of trying to type them herself. She valued her office equipment far too highly to want to watch it catch fire. His computer would have to have a cast-iron casing.

She looked at him with studied patience. “These letters cannot be typewritten. That's why the client insisted I hire a male writer for the job, so that they would be in a distinctly masculine hand.”

Max's dark brows rose. “Couldn't he write them himself? I mean, copy out something someone else typed?”

“Max, remember we don't know if the client is male or female, and really, I don't ask questions like that. When someone wants me to find an employee, unless he's looking for a hired gun, I find what he wants. If I haven't done so in this case, tell me now and I'll start advertising, which is what I should have done in the first place.”

“He—you keep saying he, Jeanie. What if the other possibility is the right one and the client is a woman? And she wants them in my handwriting? I could be setting myself up for a breach of promise suit or something.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” She laughed. “Suits like that went out with spats.”

He grinned. “Hadn't you noticed? Spats are back in. You and I have them all the time. If I write these letters for you, you're going to have to protect me by accepting my proposal of marriage.”

“As I pointed out before, you withdrew your proposal.”

His eyes danced. “Can't I reinstate it?”

Jeanie had to laugh again. Dammit, the man made her feel so giddy, she couldn't even conduct a proper job interview! “No, you cannot! Now, are you taking this job, Mr. McKenzie? Are you in or are you out? Are you going to cooperate, or are you not?”

“You don't need to trade Cindy in on a pit bull.” He glared at her for a moment. “You seem to do all right yourself. If Freda ever quits, maybe I'll hire you.”

“Not likely. I've moved beyond that stage of my career, but perhaps you could hire someone I've trained,” she said sweetly. “By the time I've finished with them, they all know how to bite, and the bitee rarely knows that he's been wounded until he finds himself bleeding. And usually, by then, my trainee has what she wants. And you haven't answered my question.”

“All right,” he said with a brief nod. “Give me the list of requirements and I'll do my best. I'll have a love letter to suit your client's needs on your desk before five this evening.”

“Thank you.”

“On one condition, “he said smoothly.

Jeanie sighed. “What is that?”

“That you have lunch with me. Because Freda told me you called, and you refused my return call, I missed my lunch.”

“You mean the one she pokes into your room at twelve forty-five with a long pole?”

He blinked. “She said that? The old—just for that, I'm going to take away her laser printer.”

Jeanie gulped, wondering if Freda had been the one to run off that letter on her laser printer, but all she said was, “A crueler punishment I can't imagine.”

He stood. “Are you ready?”

She remained seated. “For what?”

“Lunch.”