Paper Moon (9 page)

“And a well-cushioned tush.” Caroline felt her eyes grow wide in shock at her retort. “Me, not you!” Another wave of scarlet rose from her neck and slapped her cheeks.
Lord, I've been around the
girls so long I don't even know how to act with a man.

When Blaine propped her up against the open door and backed away, Caroline could have sworn a part of her went with him. Her breath, at least.

“We'd better call it a night before someone calls security.”

Caroline nodded. She could hear it now. There's some guy trying to pick up a laughing hyena in the hall. What was worse, as tired as she was, she still had a buildup of schoolgirl giggles just dying to be released if she so much as opened her mouth. What on earth was wrong with her?

“Don't worry, Dad,” Karen said, taking Caroline by the arm.

“We'll take care of Miz C.”

“Yeah, when Mom gets overtired, she gets kind of doofus.”

Stepping inside, Caroline gripped the brass handle of the door latch. “Thank you for being so gallant.”

Blaine tipped an imaginary hat. “My pleasure. Good night, ladies . . . and bolt the door.”

“We will, Dad.”

“See you in the morning, Mr. M,” Annie said.

Easing the door shut after Blaine turned to go, Caroline dutifully slipped the bolt into place and then floated into the bathroom, lifted by the clamor of her fairy tale–infected heart's
Good
night, sweet prince
. But when she stubbed her toe on the marble threshold, reason had its say.
He was just being the gentleman his
Atlanta-born mama raised him to be.
Caroline sat on the toilet lid and rubbed her protesting toe, her lips pulling into a wistful smile.

But thank you, Neta Madison, for bringing me the Cinderella moment
à la your son's dance lessons. It might be sensible shoes tomorrow, but
for tonight, it was glass slippers all the way.

The moonlight madness of the night before gave way to a peek-aboo sun above the surrounding mountains and sleep-deprived, grumpy faces the following morning. It was hard enough for Caroline to get ready, much less ride herd over the girls, who kept hogging the bathroom. Resigned to using the room mirror, Caroline stood before it in her sleep shirt and rubbed makeup remover on her eyes before she realized the tissues were in the bathroom.

“Annie, honey,” she called out, padding over to the door in her bare feet, “hand me out some tissues or toilet paper?” Okay, Caroline knew the experts insisted on cotton balls or pads, but the experts couldn't afford to keep her, Annie, and Annie's friends stocked with them.

“What?” Annie called from the other side of the locked door.

“Unlock the door. I need to get some toilet—”

“Hey, Dad,” Karen said, throwing open the connecting door behind Caroline. “You ready yet?”

Caroline jerked her head around to see Blaine Madison sitting on the edge of an unmade bed, a telephone pressed to his ear.

“Karen,
I'm
not ready,” she cried. Not with a crumpled T-shirt touting a Winnie the Pooh “Tiggertude” and raccoon circles around the eyes. And her hair was as
wild woman
as it gets before a morning brushing.

Blaine, on the other hand, while unshaved and still in a pair of sweatpants, looked fine in the most flattering sense of the word.

Mother Nature hadn't played fair to make females so high maintenance. Caroline groaned silently as he crooked his finger at his daughter, bidding her to come in. To Caroline he afforded a crimped smile that held back at least shock, if not outright laughter.

Blaine motioned for his daughter to close the door behind her and resumed taking the messages that his secretary was reading off.

Some ground rules obviously needed to be set.

“What?” Karen mouthed.

“Hold on a minute please, Alice.” He covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “Don't ever do that again. It was rude.”

A picture of innocence, his daughter lifted her shoulders. “Do what? I mean, it's not like anyone was naked or anything.”

Blaine's voice took on a hint of Karen's exasperation. “It isn't proper for unmarried adults to see each other—” He groped for the word, the image of Caroline in a rumpled sleep shirt adorned with Tigger now indelibly etched in his mind. She'd reminded him of a wide-eyed raccoon caught in its mischief. Of course, he doubted he appeared any less startled.

“Dad, you're gonna see her in a swimsuit,” Karen reminded him, as if she had the monopoly of wit and wisdom in the room.

For the moment, she did.

“It's just . . . improper,” he stammered. Talk about lame. “And if you do it again, you won't see the light of day till school starts in September.”

“I just wanted to see if you were going to breakfast, but I don't want to eat with a grumpy old bear.”

Grumpy old bear?
He picked up the roll of antacid tablets he slept with and popped one to put out the early morning fire in his stomach.

“And I can see you're working anyway, so I'll just cut out and leave you to the love of your life.”

“
You
are the love of my life,” Blaine recovered, wishing he had a mate to carry on this argument so that he could deal with reasonable people. “But that won't excuse you from everything you do.

Understand?”

With a big sigh and roll of her eyes to the ceiling, Karen put her hands on her hips again. “Got it. Open the door, grounded forever.

Now can I go?”

Already zeroing back in on his messages, Blaine waved her off.

“Did Mark say where he was going?”

“No, sir,” Alice replied. “He just said he'd be gone for the remainder of the week and that we'd see him Monday.”

Tightening his grip on the phone as though it were his younger brother's neck, Blaine's mind whirred with contingencies regarding the contract he'd just e-mailed. Mark had assured him that he'd be on hand to go over the details in case Blaine had missed something important during his whirlwind presentation.

“Do you want me to start calling around, sir?” the secretary asked.

“Have you got Mark's black book?” Blaine asked, then winced. It wasn't Alice's fault. “Sorry, Alice, I don't mean to be cynical, but—”

“I know, sir. It's Mark.” She paused. “What about Eric Stolzman? He worked on the specs with you. He doesn't really need Mark to give a blank approval.”

Which was about all his brother did. If only Blaine hadn't had to rush through the presentation, no one would really need to approve it. He was a stickler for detail.

“It's not protocol,” he said. “I set up the procedures and expect them to be followed.”

Mark always complains that he doesn't have enough responsibility.

So I toss something important his way, and he fumbles.
If his brother couldn't follow through on the inside sales, how could he handle the outside trips he was so eager to take on?

“Never mind,” Blaine decided aloud. “I'll go over it myself.”

“That's not protocol either, sir,” Alice reminded him good-naturedly. She was always on him to delegate. Blaine had to delegate to Mark, who was family. He didn't have to delegate elsewhere. He wanted, no,
needed
to have a finger in every pie.

“If I do it myself, I know it's done right,” he thought aloud.

Then, remembering Alice, he added in a more gentle tone, “Unless it's something you're handling. You're the best.”

“Then why don't you listen to the best and take a few days away? Eric knows exactly how you came up with the numbers.”

“He doesn't have the managerial eye that I have. That's why I want you to tell him to hold the high line on the Haggarty proposal.

They won't balk when they hear our guarantee. Knowing they can rely on Madison to deliver the best on time is an intangible asset worth paying for.” Blaine took pride in his company's reputation.

Their bids might be high, but they were firm, no mandatory add-ons later.

“Eric may not have a managerial eye yet, but he will soon.”

Alice's smug assumption caught him off guard. Had Eric been wooed away by a competitor? “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Because you'll be stroked out in the hospital, or worse.”

“I'll take that under advisement.” The tension-pressed line of his lips relaxed. “In the meantime, keep your Tiggertude to yourself.”

If he couldn't finish it before the tour left— “Excuse me,” Alice interrupted in a bewildered voice. “Did you say Tiggertude?”

Did he? The cartoon character on Caroline's T-shirt laughed at him from the corner of his mind. Heat seeped up his neck. “I meant attitude.”

“I didn't know you were a Pooh fan.”

Winnie-the-Pooh. That's where he'd seen that tiger. “My daughter is.” The fact that this tiger had nothing to do with Karen and everything to do with a sleep-bedraggled woman with cute little raccoon eyes was none of Alice's business. “Well, that wraps it up for now. I have to get to work.”

“Keep up the
Tiggertude
.”

“Will do. Bye.”

Blaine hung up the phone and stared at the adjoining door to his daughter's room.
Now
he had an answer to her question as to why it mattered that a single guy should see a woman in a freshly bedraggled state. Because he would never shake the image from his mind, and because his secretary would never let him hear the end of this.

The hotel dining room was busy with the breakfast buffet. The efficient Señora Marron had reserved two large tables for the Edenton group.

“Dad read me the riot act on door etiquette,” Karen complained to Annie as they stood in the buffet line. “I mean, it's not like anyone wasn't decent.”

“Sweetie, decent doesn't necessarily equal presentable.” Caroline maintained a gentle voice as opposed to the authoritarian tone she'd overheard earlier, beyond the adjoining door to their room.

Her urge to strangle the girl passed when she saw Karen's crestfallen face upon her return. “I don't know any man well enough to let him see me like that.”

Karen made a contrite grimace. “At least you didn't threaten to ground me for the rest of my life if I did it again. I just wanted to see if he was going with us today.”

“So . . . is he coming?” Annie asked.

“He said he'd be down after breakfast. Guess he ordered in.”

“Well, he must not be too mad at you.” Caroline hugged her forlorn charge. “And I obviously didn't scare him all the way back to PA.”

“Miz C, you couldn't scare a flea,” the girl said with a sheepish grin, not unlike her father's. “I don't think I've ever seen you mad.”

“I have,” Annie volunteered. “It's not a pretty sight.”

“Yeah, just remember that, kid.” Caroline flicked Karen's ponytail and, taking up a tray, focused on the long display of hot, lamp-lit, stainless steel.