L.A. Caveman (10 page)

But where else could she
look?

Bars. Telly shuddered. How seedy. How
unlikely to find a fresh, likely bloom within the dank confines of
the meat-market.

Then there was always the classified
route. Online dating. Telly considered it a last resort. She’d
prefer to suss a man out in person, or have a trusted friend do it
for her, rather than placing and browsing ads.

Where did that leave her?

She supposed she'd have to look in
places she'd never thought of before to find her very own Mr.
Right.

She sighed, rising to make ready for
bedtime. She faintly heard Stanna tapping away on her keyboard --
short bursts of staccato, followed by longer periods of
silence.

Telly smiled with real affection. She
knew firsthand just how strong-willed her roommate was, and from
the sound of it, Stanna's new boss was just as strong-willed. Their
clashes were making for some interesting bedtime
stories.

If only her own love life were as
promising.

Across town, Ian had problems of his
own.

I've got to get my job back.
Ian's distinguished features were icy. None of his former employees
would initially recognize the face of Ian McClain, former editor of
Men's Weekly
.

His handy worker bees had never
suspected there was more to him. Not even Stanna.

The men who were now overstaying their
welcome knew him a bit better. They deliberately infuriated Ian,
but he kept his outrage and helplessness hidden. They'd just
"accidentally" bumped against a marble pedestal, sending his prize
oriental vase crashing to pieces. Dressed in shabby jeans and
matching leather jackets, they prowled his lovely Beverly Hills
home like the hoodlums they were.

Never mind that he'd financed his
luxurious dwelling with a good chunk of the embezzled money he owed
their boss. You'd think they'd give him more than the single week
since he'd been "retired" from his lucrative job to see if he'd
come up with the money without the business front of
Men's
Weekly
.

But, he admitted, he probably would do
the same thing in their place. Criminal minds thought
alike.

"Tell the man I'll pay him just as I
always do. On time."

Hoodlum number one kicked at an
ornately carved glass-top coffee table, making the smoky beveled
glass shiver inside its cherry wood frame. It didn't break. "And
how you gonna do that, old man?" His voice was irreverent,
threatening. "Now that you're booted out of your
gainful
employment
."

The thugs chuckled at the
sarcasm.

How, indeed
. Ian didn't have a
clue. But that, of course, he could not tell the messengers.
Men's Weekly
had been the perfect operation: a moneymaking
magazine with absentee owners who’d been satisfied for so long with
the quarterly statements he sent them. They’d never found out he'd
squirreled aside half its earnings.

His countenance darkened. He had to
get back in. He was far too deeply in debt to some very powerful
and dangerous individuals to have a choice in the matter. He had to
find a way to make that young upstart who'd bought the magazine
want to rid himself of it.

He had some ideas. He'd spent enough
of his life around the crooked element of society to absorb some of
its lessons.

As he'd told Stanna, he had a few
tricks left up his old sleeves.

His grandfatherly, old-money demeanor
was merely one of his misleading but trust-inspiring
traits.

He turned it on his guests. Bristling,
he projected justified outrage at his guests: "Now there, my good
man. Have a care with that table, it's a fourteenth-century
treasure." Disgruntled and playing the part of old-money
respectability to the hilt, he added, "Tell your employer these
strong-arm tactics are unnecessary. He'll have his money. And my
bill." He tugged at his dressing gown, brushing imaginary specks of
dust from it.

They were impressed, as he’d intended,
by the charm and grace they'd never possess. But unwilling to show
any weakness, the hoodlum on the right pointed a finger at Ian and
told him, "You got a month. That's his terms, if we decided you
were good for it. You owe me, man, 'cause I'm giving you the time
to pay up." They stalked out together, giving the cherry table a
kick. It may have been accidental. The sturdy antique held up, Ian
was gratified to see.

He owed the little punk, all right.
Ian smiled dangerously. For that sort of insolence, he'd pay him
back with new shoes of the cement variety. Or their equivalent. Oh
yes. Ian indulged in pleasant dark fantasies for a while, then,
feeling better, began sweeping up the shards of his broken
vase.

He was the very image of a harmless
old gentleman.

Stanna walked into Jake's office
Monday afternoon.
Here comes trouble
, he thought. She'd been
up to her armpits in administrative paperwork all day. When he saw
her last, she was juggling the phone calls, the files, the computer
chores, and the reports with the efficient finesse of a born
secretary, so it wasn't surprising he'd forgotten she had a column
to turn in.

Her face was pink and rosy, and she
wore a long burgundy skirt with a white top. Casual but elegant.
Jake approved, realizing it was the first day he'd ever seen her
wear a skirt to work. She looked feminine in it.

But her stride was confident and
direct like a man, as was her matter-of-fact voice when she spoke:
"I have the column revised, but you won't like it. It will offend
your Neanderthal sensibilities." She softened her words with a
smile and held out the previously unnoticed white packet to him
over his desk. She lowered it into his in box when he didn't
immediately take it.

"In bed," Jake replied
calmly.

"What?" Stanna, having made her
entrance and statement, had wheeled to exit but jerked to a stop at
his words.

"In bed," Jake repeated. "It's funnier
if you append the words 'in bed' after someone's sentence. 'It will
offend your Neanderthal sensibilities... in bed.'"

The look on her cute,
dewy-complexioned face was priceless. It was so much fun to play
down to her assumptions.

He rose to his feet, grinning at her.
He reached into the in box to retrieve the white packet. He began
reading it, his face cordially interested but no more. He peeked at
her.

"You know what,” she began, almost
thoughtfully. “You actually are the most immature, arrogant,
infuriating, unbelievable ass I've ever had the misfortune to
know." Stanna's face had a becoming flush on it, and her eyes were
spitting those familiar sparks.

Jake blinked at her, slowly. "You're
so adorable when you're angry."

Stanna heaved in her breath, exhaled
loudly. "Okay. You're doing this on purpose."

"Give the woman a cigar."

"You'd give a woman a cigar? Aren't
those forbidden the weaker sex? Too phallic, probably."

"Do you enjoy arguing, or am I just
the lucky one?"

"I'm sure you get lucky all the time,
but not with me."

Now it was Jake's turn to be thrown
off-guard. But only momentarily. Then he felt a warm glow of
admiration for the spunky blond perched in front of him. Along with
another, more primitive reaction.

He'd love to prove her statement
wrong. That claim she was immune to his charms had the effect of a
red flag waved before a bull. In the exceedingly near future, he
would demonstrate her error in an unmistakable way. How should he
take her up on that challenge she so impetuously threw down? His
sense of timing told him not to do it just yet.

"Thank you for your confidence in my
virile male abilities," he told her with enough dryness to suck the
moisture from a swimming pool. It worked; finally he got through
her defenses: She laughed.

She immediately stifled it, but it was
too late. The flag-waving contentious spirit had been humanized,
again. Took long enough.

"I do like to make you smile," he
said, the words soft and reflective. It was out of his mouth before
he knew it.

Why did I say that?
he asked
himself.

He watched as a vulnerable look
flashed across her face. Her eyes softened, her face relaxed, and
her lips began to curve into a gentle smile. Seeming to catch
herself, the expression faded just as quickly.

Jake wondered at it.

Then he remembered something.
Something that made him dispense with the touchy-feely. His voice
was ominous even to his own ears as he spoke. "Stanna, why won't I
like your column?"

She lifted her chin defiantly. "You
just won't."

Ever-helpful Stanna. "Correct me if
I'm wrong, but didn't we have an agreement? You write more or less
what I need for the magazine?"

"Well, this week it'll be
'less.'"

Jake narrowed his eyes at her. Then he
ignored her completely as he gave his attention to her column. He
read it all. He told her flatly, "This won't do at all. But then,
you knew that."

Why was she doing this? Jake couldn't
fathom the girl's reasoning. If she wanted to be published, she had
to write what he wanted. Didn't she realize that?

He looked at her narrowly. She stood
still and at attention as any soldier. He understood. "This is your
way of getting me to change my mind."

She said nothing, just stared at him
expressionlessly.

"I'll have to rewrite it completely,"
he informed her. "I'm not going to change my mind about the
magazine, especially not now."

"Why? I mean, why not now,
especially?" Her face filled with an intense curiosity.

Jake smiled gently. Then chuckled.
"
Men's Weekly
will be just the kind of pure, undiluted man's
magazine that you won't like, because that's what I want to do." He
shrugged his shoulders, amiable. He held all the cards and he knew
it.

Jake looked at her nakedly, so that
she could see his sincerity and confidence. "I want to put out a
magazine for the kind of man I want to be. And I'm not the only one
who thinks it's a good idea."

Stanna looked at him with distaste. He
wondered how deeply it ran.

"I have commitments from the K&C
Ad Agency," he said mildly.

"K&C? Oh my god, Jake, that's
great!" A pleased grin transformed her face. Jake couldn't help
noticing her even white teeth and supple mouth.
She's so cute
when she smiles,
he thought dazedly. Amazing how a friendly
expression could make a woman appealing. She continued, her voice
as animated as her flashing blue-gray eyes.

"Ian tried to get them, of course.
They're the biggest and best. But they wouldn't even meet with him.
How on earth did you do it?" She paced his office slowly and
murmured to herself, "It's amazing. Now we can finally invest in
better circulation and some PR."

Jake didn't bother to remind her that
"we" wouldn't be doing any such thing. He liked her energetic
enthusiasm way too much to remind her of her proper place. Her
breasts pushed against the white top, and her long loose skirt
billowed behind her as she moved.

He couldn't help watching her with
pleasure, and he
really
couldn't resist answering her "how
did you do it" question.

Modestly, as if it were nothing, he
stated, "I told them about the new and improved
Men's
Weekly
."

"Sure you did," she snorted. "It may
be new, but it's not improved." Looking closely at his face, she
faltered. "You did. You told them about the new theme. They met
with you and they committed based on
that?
" Her eyes
demanded he come clean.

Then some of their light faded as a
forlorn expression slid onto her face. "They
liked
it."

It wasn't that her fighting spirit was
dimmed, Jake mused. It was still there, in the stiff way she held
herself and the thoughtful, firm expression of her lips. It was
more like she'd suddenly realized a trusted ally had forsaken her
cause.

He felt awkward suddenly. She still
stood before him, her arms folding gracefully across her chest. It
seemed more a defensive gesture than an angry one. He was conscious
of his own body nearly dwarfing hers. He wanted to take her in his
arms and protect her. He wanted to...

"Are they nuts?" Her voice jarred,
totally at odds with her vulnerable stance. She didn't look mean,
though her eyes shot daggers at him under her lowered lids. She
looked upset, despite her voice.

"The agency? No. They're smart. They
believe in me. Which is more than I can say for you." Jake didn't
mean for the bitter edge to creep into his voice.

She had the good grace to appear
mildly guilty at least.

"Sorry. But I feel strongly about the
subject." She looked the tiniest bit remorseful. As he watched,
even that disappeared.

He sighed. "Yes, I understand you. And
you understand me." They eyed each other warily.