Enchanted (6 page)

“There’s nothing wrong with a successful woman looking beautiful.”

She felt his breath near her ear. Warm—no, hot. His cologne an almost intoxicating smell. Why does he have to stand so close?

“Thank you for your input, Mr. O’Brien. But, as you’ll recall, this is
my
magazine and you said you wouldn’t offer any help. I believe that should apply to your interpretation of how a successful woman should look.”

“Just offering a personal opinion, Ms. Flannigan. It has no reflection on your magazine at all.”

“Good.” Kathleen turned her head and glared into his eyes. “May I finish my meeting without any more interruptions?”

“Please do.” He continued to lean over her chair.

“The woman is okay,” she said to Wayne and Jon. “But couldn’t you change her hairstyle? Her clothes?”

“How about a bun, support hose, and orthopedic shoes?” Mac laughed.

Kathleen slammed the copy down on the table. “Enough. What did you want to see me about?”

He grinned and strolled to the door. “Thanks for the roses.”

As he walked from the room, Kathleen wanted to hurl something heavy at the insufferable man. But then, again, she realized she hadn’t seen this much warmth radiating from him in years. And she liked it.

oOo

Kathleen ran into the overcrowded, disheveled, two-bedroom apartment and grabbed for the ringing phone. She kicked off her navy pumps and sent them sailing across the room to land near her bedroom door. “Hello.”

“Hello, kiddo.” She heard her dad’s voice and she instantly smiled.

“Hi, Daddy. Is everything okay? Julie’s not driving you and Mom crazy, is she?”

“We’re having a great time. You know your mother always wanted more children.”

Kathleen laughed. “You’re not too old to give it another try.”

“I think we’ll stick with grandchildren. Your daughter’s begging me to give her the phone. Talk to you later, hon.”

Kathleen listened to the crash, assuming the phone at the other end had fallen on the floor. Then she heard Julie’s voice, and tears instantly appeared at the comers of her eyes.

“Hi, Mommy. Guess what?”

“What?”

“Grandpa let me ride Scotty today.”

“Scotty? I don’t remember that name. Did he get a new horse?”

“No, Mommy. That’s the one Grandpa used to call Randolph Scott. But I think that’s a silly name for a horse.”

“I think it’s silly, too.” Kathleen would never admit to her daughter that she’d been the one to put the name on that particular gelding, or that she’d been the one to convince her dad to give the others names like John Wayne and Roy Rogers. At the time they sounded a whole lot better than Fury and Flicka and Thunder.

“Grandma and I made chocolate chip cookies today.”

“Mmm. Sounds delicious.”

“I wrote you a letter, too. And I put chocolate fingerprints on the paper so you wouldn’t forget me.”

“I won’t forget you, honey.”

“But you won’t see me for a long, long time.”

“The time will fly by,” Kathleen lied, already feeling miserable, and Julie had been gone less than a week.

“Grandma says I have to go now. She said it costs lots of money to call you on the phone.”

Kathleen laughed. Her mother had always been frugal, and Kathleen followed in her footsteps. “Be a good girl for Grandma and Grandpa?”

“I will, Mommy. I love you.”

“I love you, too, honey.”

Kathleen listened to the click, then the dial tone. So much for a long conversation.

She hung up the receiver. Then she noticed the quiet. No Big Bird or Cookie Monster on the TV; no five-year-old asking “why, why, why”; nothing but peace and solitude.
S
he hated it.

Julie gave Kathleen the family life she’d missed since leaving Montana. Adopting Julie, apart from the job she loved, had been the best thing to happen to her. She never regretted it for a moment even though her
friends
thought she had lost her mind. “Adoption. My God, Kathleen. A brat will only tie you down.” That’s what they said.
S
he laughed at them then, and she laughed at them now. The little girl lit up her life in a way no one else ever had.

She slipped off her pin-striped jacket. Like most everything she wore to the office, it was navy and white, a little too big, and probably in need of cleaning and pressing. She draped it over the back of a battered old chair, piling on top of it the white silk blouse and the just-below-knee-length skirt. She made a mental note to take time to clean the disaster she called an apartment. Maybe she should consider getting a housekeeper, but hated the idea of spending her money on something so frivolous, when she could do it herself. But she hated cleaning. She wasn’t fond of cooking, either. She’d rather curl up with pen and paper in her spare time and write, or develop innovative ideas for new magazines she knew would never see the light of day.

Stripped to just her delicate silk-and-lace panties and bra, one of the few luxuries she allowed herself, she turned the dial on the thermostat and hoped she could cool her apartment without having to take out a loan to pay her electric bill. In the kitchen she took a Diet Coke from the refrigerator, popped open the top, and stuck a flex straw into the can. She searched through an already open cabinet for something to eat and ended up in her dad’s old hand-me-down recliner with a spoon, a jar of Jif, and a bag of Hershey’s Kisses for dessert. Savoring the taste of the creamy peanut butter, she gave thanks to the good Lord that she had never had a weight problem. Eating junk food was her one and only vice, and she refused to give it up.

She popped a Kiss between her lips, letting it melt in her mouth, and thought about McKenna O’Brien, the most elusive, frustrating man she’d ever encountered. Maybe she shouldn’t have sent the roses, but she wanted to plant herself firmly in his brain. It had been a long time since they’d had a civil conversation. Oh, how she wished they could return to those days when they had talked for hours, laughed, and he had listened intently to all her crazy schemes. Back then, Mac was a big man with a big heart. But he went away, and when he returned, his father died, and everything seemed to change, especially their relationship.

Of course, Ashley had been the woman in his life back then, just as she was now, and Kathleen had been just a friend. She never understood how Mac could be blinded by the wicked witch of Manhattan society, but he never discussed Ashley with her, and she never asked. In ten years of working at McKenna Publishing, Kathleen had never seen anyone but Ashley with Mac. At social functions, at office parties, she clung to Mac, and behind her smiling mask, Ashley’s expression said,
Hands off, this man is mine.
And when she looked at Kathleen, daggers of hate flew from her eyes. Had Ashley ever said more than six words to Kathleen?
Hello. How are you? Drop dead.

Kathleen laughed to herself. That woman has Mac wrapped up so tight I’m surprised he can breathe. Ashley’s cold, calculated manner, along with his father’s death, had turned the big-hearted man into a power-driven mogul. But in spite of all that, Kathleen still loved him. She knew, deep inside, the man she had admired and dreamed of was still there, hidden beneath that cool exterior. Hadn’t she seen just a touch of his warmth when he thanked her for the roses?

She picked up the newspaper, scanning the world news, the nation’s political scene, even the society pages. And then she saw the photo. Mac and Ashley standing like lovers before an ice-sculpted swan, her fingers pressed to his lips.

She stared at the picture. Quit dreaming, she told herself. Get on with your life. Mac wasn’t yours then, he isn’t yours now. And from the looks of this picture, he’ll never be yours. She let out a long, deep sigh, licked clean another spoonful of peanut butter, and tried to push Mac from her mind, but it didn’t work. Instead, she imagined his bare stomach, wondering if his chest was hairy or smooth, if he looked as good naked as he did in his expensive suits. She even wondered if he did push-ups to keep in shape, thinking how much fun it would be to help him during his exercise routine.

She remembered his picture on the cover of
Fortune
magazine. She had only been eighteen, but after reading the article about the heir apparent to the McKenna empire, she was smitten. Smart, sexy—she loved reading his quotes about running a big business, and she made it her goal to someday work for him. He was her hero. He still was, even though they were exact opposites. He was conservative; she was liberal. He was forty-nine; she was thirty-two. He was sophisticated; she was Montana middle class. And never the twain shall meet.

He had a love life, she had a dream. And it was time to put the dream to sleep and get on with her life. She tossed aside all but the classifieds and immediately searched for the personals.
WSM seeks WSF. Must be great-looking gal for a great-looking guy.
What a crock!

This is crazy. I’ll never find a man in the personals. I must be sick, deranged. But I’m not going to pine over Mac any longer.

Kathleen didn’t waste any time Saturday morning worrying about housecleaning or grocery shopping. She hadn’t seen or heard from Mac since their encounter on Wednesday, and she was more determined than ever to wipe him out of her heart and mind.

Dressed in jogging shorts and a T-shirt, she ran down five flights of stairs, her daily exercise. She hated it, but she wanted to keep her legs in shape. On top of that, she figured her heart needed all the exercise it could get since she had a tendency to clog her vessels with fatty foods.

“Good morning, Sam.” Her face brightened for the elderly man who stood on the comer selling papers. She grabbed a copy of the paper from the top of the stack, handed Sam a five and jogged in place while she patiently waited for his arthritic fingers to produce the correct amount of change.

“Sure is a pretty day,” he said, tipping his hat to Kathleen, who thought Sam’s internal clock must have stopped sometime in the 1950s. A sweet, gentle man, they exchanged very few words when she picked up her paper each day, but the words were always pleasant, and such a nice way to start the day.

“It’s a
beautiful
day, Sam.” Kathleen blew the old man a kiss and flashed him a generous smile as she began the jog back to her apartment, anxious to sift through the weekend personal ads. She had sworn last night to find a man if it killed her. Then again, she thought, if she found someone in the personals, she just
might
end up dead. She tossed the fleeting thought aside and ran back to her building.

She climbed the steps two at a time, entering the apartment just as the teakettle started to whistle. She poured boiling milk into a large earthenware mug and doctored it with a few generous squirts of chocolate syrup.

With the newspaper under her arm, the cup of hot chocolate and a day-old slice of cold pepperoni pizza for breakfast, she headed for the living room and the recliner. She spread the paper before her on the coffee table—or, rather, the beat-up old black steamer trunk that served as a coffee table—and flipped through page after page of world events and the dullest headlines imaginable. At last she reached the classifieds.

Her finger ran down column after column, finding nothing that jumped out at her, just the same old stuff. Doesn’t anyone have an imagination? And then she found it. She sat up straighter, circled the ad with a thick, red marker.

Are you the Christmas present I’ve been longing to have under my tree? Only small, perfectly wrapped gifts need apply. Late 40ish gentleman desires feminine, 30ish gifts only—no antiques.

She laughed at the ad. Well, I’m not small, and I’m probably not what he wants, but I think I’d like to meet the man who had the nerve to write such utter nonsense. She scribbled down the box where she needed to send her reply, grabbed her tablet, and stuck a well-chewed pen in her mouth while she dreamed up the perfect words.

oOo

Merry walked into Mac’s study carrying the letters she had picked up at the newspaper office. She read as she walked, not paying the least bit of attention to anything around her, but somehow managed to avoid a collision with chairs and tables.