Sugar And Spice (38 page)

Being a Lyons clearly meant something else to Brad, who had to be from a whole other gene pool.

Jake gritted his teeth, both against the nickname and the intrusion of his cousin. Brad thought nothing of popping in, propping his feet up on the desk and rambling on for two or three hours about nothing. No matter how many times Jake tried to tell him he had work to do, Brad still did it.

Because Brad didn’t do a damned thing around the office and everyone knew it. Leaving things squarely in “Jakey’s” lap.

He took the gift from his cousin. “Thanks.”

“I know something you don’t know,” Brad said, leaning forward and grinning. “Like who your Secret Santa is.”

“All right, I’ll bite. Who?”

“Dena. Don’t know why I didn’t think to snag her myself. I wouldn’t mind her thanking me under the mistletoe.” He grinned. “I might have even gone over the ten dollar limit just to have that happen.”

“Dena?” Jake looked down at the gift. It was small, perhaps three inches on each side, and wrapped in a velvety festive paper, secured by a thick crimson ribbon. Attached to that was a small white envelope, his name and FROM YOUR SECRET SANTA written precisely across the front.

The word Santa brought up the memory of the shelter and the kids asking him about the jolly guy visits.

Then Natalie, coming to his rescue, saving him from explaining that his father was too often out of town, off with the woman of the week, and his stepmother of that year was too busy socializing to think of perpetuating the myth for a little boy who was only one more thing underfoot.

No one in his life had ever gone to this much trouble, not for a present, and certainly not for Christmas.

For a man who didn’t do Christmas, he was feeling downright nostalgic right now, looking at the jolly paper and the carefully tied bow.

None of which seemed to go along with the receptionist, who had all the organizational skills of a barrel of monkeys.

“Why do you think Dena is my Secret Santa?” Jake asked.

“I saw her, with this gift in her hands. She was going to try to deliver it personally, but I stopped her, so I could give you the heads up.”

“Dena,” Jake repeated, wondering why he felt so disappointed. On any other day, the thought of the busty Dena being interested in him would have had him planning a cozy weekend at a B&B and picking out a bottle of good champagne. Dena was his usual type—uncommitted, undemanding and yet, if he were honest with himself, also uninteresting.

Dena should have been the one he’d fantasized about last night. But for some reason, the woman starring in his late-night mind movies had been a leggy brunette who got all tangled up in her words.

“Mr. Lyons,” Velma, Brad’s assistant, poked her gray-haired head into the room and gave her boss a stern look. “You have kept a client on hold for ten minutes. I have already pulled his file, laid the paperwork on your desk and flagged the relevant information. Do you think you could possibly answer the phone?”

No one in the office messed with Velma. She’d been here since the dawn of time and made Nurse Ratchet look about as menacing as Gidget.

“Be sure to thank Dena in person,” Brad said, giving him a wink-wink before leaving. Velma followed, shooing Brad back into his office like a mother goose.

Instead of getting back to work, Jake detached the card from the ribbon. Good paper stock. Careful writing. Clearly this was someone who had gone to more work than tipping the counter staff at Bath Essentials to slap some wrapping paper on a box.

Putting the card aside for now, Jake opened the package. Inside, he found a small inscribed clock, set in a triangular-shaped stone. “True leaders climb the ladder of success,” it read, “always keeping one hand free to help those behind them.”

True leaders. He wouldn’t say he was one of those, not even on his best day. Nevertheless, the thought that someone thought he was one—or had that potential—sent a smile to his face.

He went to put the clock back in the box, then stopped. He grabbed a stack of papers and files, looked around for a new location and finally put them on the floor, leaving a clear space. He took the clock and planted it squarely in the center of his desk.

He toyed with the card, weighing the wisdom of reading instead of tackling the long To Do list he had yet to conquer today.

The To Do list would be there tomorrow. He slit the envelope with a pearl-handled letter opener and then slid out the single sheet of paper inside.

Dear Jake,

A million times, I’ve wanted to tell you face-to-face how I feel. To put into words how much I admire you, and not just for your looks.

Okay, so I do admire your looks. Often. Especially that blue shirt that sets off your eyes and those gray pinstriped trousers—

Whoops. Got a little sidetracked there. Anyway, on this the “first” day of Christmas, I wanted to tell you something about firsts. You’re the first thing I think of in the morning. The first man I’ve met who has sent me so off-kilter, I end up forgetting the simplest thing. The first man I’ve put this much thought into for a Christmas gift in…forever.

Maybe, when my identity is revealed, we can have coffee. Tea. More?

In the meantime, this clock is here as a thank-you for taking the time to look for those behind you and offer them a hand up the ladder. I see a true leader in you, in the way you handle everything around you.

As I write this, I don’t know what you’ll wear today (the blue shirt…can I get that lucky twice?) but knowing you as I do, I bet it will be a blend of both determination and compromise.

Just don’t dry that shirt I love on cotton. I’d hate to see anything about you shrink. ;-) SpiceGirl, your Secret Santa

A secret admirer. Hell, he hadn’t had one of those in…never. He turned the card over, looking for a hint, a clue. Nothing. Jake glanced up, looking out at the cubicles. Same as every day. Jerry was eating a pen cap, Ken had his cell phone held up to one ear, his desk phone held up to the other, feigning a business call. Brad was wandering the floor, chest thrust forward like a peacock, and Dena, the receptionist, was—

Staring at him.

She gave him a smile, then a two-finger wave.

Jake glanced down at the box, the card. Nah, it couldn’t be. Could it?

“Uh, Mr. Lyons?”

Natalie was back in his office, another pile of papers in her hands.

“Yes?”

“I forgot. I needed you t-t-to,” she drew in a breath, concentrated, then started again, “s-s-sign this one too.”

“Oh, sure.” He took the papers from her, gave them a glance, then scrawled his signature across the bottom.

“Nice c-c-c—” Natalie let out a gust and with it, the word that had gotten lodged on her tongue. “Cock.”

Had he just heard what he thought? “Nice what?”

She flushed crimson. “Clock.” She pointed toward the newest addition to his desk.

“Oh, yeah.” Jake cleared his throat, trying to rid his mind of the mental images of Natalie Harris in his bedroom, helped along by her missing consonant. It was definitely time for some bourbon. “It was my Secret Santa gift.” Then he remembered his unthoughtful, unimaginative, un-carded gift to her. “Did you open yours?”

She nodded. “It was a b-b-body spray. I l-l-love it.”

He got up, came around his desk, laying the papers in her hand. Before he could think about what he was doing, Jake leaned down and inhaled the soft fragrance drifting off her warm skin, a complement to the scent she normally wore. “Very nice.” Why was his voice so damned gruff?

She smiled, then stepped away. “Th-th-thank you.”

And then she was gone, back to her cubicle.

Ten minutes ago, all Jake had wanted was to dispense with the Secret Santa thing and get back to work.

But as the memory of that quiet, mesmerizing scent ran through him—Peach Simmer or Summer or something—he found himself doing nothing but staring.

And wondering what Natalie Harris would do if he gave her that warming body cream the saleswoman had been trying to push. Or even better, what she might do to and with him.

He had a business to rescue, a secret admirer to uncover and a holiday to avoid. He didn’t have time for a fantasy.

Even one that gave peaches a whole new meaning.

“How’d it go?” Angie said when Natalie hurried back to her desk, took a seat and let out a burst of air.

Natalie sighed. “You know how Tom Cruise crashed and burned in Top Gun?”

Angie nodded.

“I went nuclear.”

“You didn’t tell him you wrote the letter?”

“I didn’t even get past saying ‘M-M-Mr. Lyons.’ Damned stuttering.” It had been her own personal curse to carry around all her life, as bad as Cyrano de Bergerac’s nose. Only more vocal. In the sixth-grade play, it had given her performance as Tinkerbell a whole new dimension. Poor Peter Pan hung so long from the ceiling, waiting for her to finish her line, that he ended up losing circulation in his toes.

That had effectively ended her career in acting.

During the seventh-grade spelling bee, she’d gotten so stuck on the first letter of bicentennial that the program director had ended up escorting her off the stage, still trying to blubber out anything beyond bb-b.

The Titanic had gone down with more grace.

And at graduation, her salutatorian speech had taken so long to get through, the principal had dozed off, setting off a chain reaction of snorers on the stage. Finally, the band director stepped up, cuing the brass section to play a rousing version of “Pomp and Circumstance.” Mrs. Beetleman, the guidance counselor, had tugged Natalie off the stage as if she were Michael Moore at the Oscars.

She’d spent her life being teased and haunted by the possibility that her stuttering could pop up at the worst possible time. It had restricted her, made her hold back on fully living.

No more, dammit (or d-d-dammit, as she might say). She was determined to conquer this stuttering thing once and for all, starting with the main cause of her twisted tongue.

Jake Lyons.

“And now, I have another problem,” Natalie said. “Dena. I saw her snag my present out from under the Christmas tree in the lobby and try to hand it off to Jake, like it was from her.”

“Well, that’s it then. We’re just going to have to kill her.”

“Don’t plot her murder yet. Brad intercepted her.”

“He apparently does have a brain cell or two.” Angie grinned.

“Let’s not overestimate now.”

Angie laughed, then nodded in Dena’s direction as the receptionist toodled another wave at Jake.

“You’re going to have to watch out for her. And beat her to the playboy.”

“Yeah, if I can get a word out,” Natalie said. “I don’t know what it is about him. It’s like hives or something.”

Angie patted Natalie’s hand. “I think it’s kind of cute.”

“Cute is when a Bichon Frise sits up and begs for a cocktail wiener, Angie. I want Jake to look at me and think: sexy, gotta have her.” She shook her head. “Kind of hard to do when I sound like a scratched Celine Dion CD.”

Angie laughed. “Just keep talking to him. It’ll get easier.”

“It can’t get worse.” Natalie dropped her head into her hands. “When I went in there, I noticed the gift I got him on his desk and thought maybe I could be clever about it. You know, notice it, all cool, like I had nothing to do with it. So I told him he had a nice—” She held up her hands.

“What, clock?”

“Drop a consonant.”

Angie’s mouth rounded into a little O. “Well, look on the bright side. At least you made an unforgettable impression. It’ll be a hell of an addition to your year-end review.”

“Oh God.” Natalie groaned. “Shoot me now.”

“Did someone say guns?” Tony Harris poked his head over the gray cubicle wall. “I’ve got a Ruger, a Colt and a Magnum. Pick your method.”

“Tony, are you stocking up for Armageddon? War of the Worlds was fiction, you know.”

Tony looked around the office, then back at them, cupping his hand over his mouth. “I’m not worried about the end of the world. I’m packing heat because of the rats.”

“Rats? Since when did you need a Magnum to take out a rat?”

“These are smart rats,” Tony said. “Escaped lab experiments.”

Natalie and Angie exchanged a glance. Tony had always been a little on the psycho side of weird. Angie was convinced Brad employed the eenie-meenie-moe method on resumes based on the selection of employees at Lyons. “Uh, okay, Tony. Escaped rats. I’ll keep an eye out.”

“You mark my words,” Tony said. “One of these days, rodents will take over the world.” He wagged a finger of warning, then dipped back into his space.

“I think we need to talk to Brad about his hiring policies,” Angie whispered. “And you, girlfriend, need to snag that.” She pointed in Jake’s direction.

“No, I need to buy a muzzle. It’s my only hope.”

Tony poked his head over again. “Did someone say muzzle loader?”

“No!” Angie and Natalie said together.

“Sheesh. Try to help someone ward off a rodent invasion and get blasted.” Tony went back to work.

“What are you going to get him tomorrow?” Angie asked.

“I’m not going to get him anything. This is an insane idea. I don’t know why I ever thought it would work.

And besides, he’s going to think it’s all from Dena, not me.”

Angie took hold of Natalie’s hands and forced her friend to look at her. “Do you want him?”

“Does Anna Nicole Smith want public exposure?”

“All right, then. You gotta work it. You have eleven days. Plenty of time.” Angie grinned. “God only needed six to pull off his miracles.”

Angie was right. Natalie couldn’t let a little setback—well, two if she counted both of Dena’s 38D’s—stop her. “I need to find another way to reach him, something he won’t expect,” Natalie said, thinking.

After that afternoon at the shelter, she hadn’t been able to put Jake from her mind. If she left Lyons Corporation without ever dating him, at least once, she’d always have that what-if in her life. If there was one thing Natalie was done doing, it was wondering what might have happened if she’d just taken a chance. “I know what I’ll do. Text.”

“Text? As in a big heavy book thrown at his head?”