Within This Frame (3 page)

“The same thing they thought before—that you’re a selfish, egotistical, narcissistic ass.”

“Ouch.” With a sigh, Lance dropped his arms. “You do know I’m a fitness expert, right?”At her dubious look, he said, “Oh, come on, you had to have seen some of my promotional stuff on TV.”

“Whenever I have the misfortune to catch a glimpse of your face on TV, I change the channel.”

“Must do a lot of channel surfing then.”

“I’m closing the door now. There is no way I’m working with you. I’d rather work with my sister.” Maggie shuddered and moved to push the door shut, but Lance quickly put up his hand to stop it. She met his eyes. “Let go.”

“No,” he said cheerfully.

A scowl took over her mouth and she shoved harder, but Lance was an unmovable wall, and the door merely inched forward. His expression said it all: See? You’re a pudgy wimp. You need me to make you strong, and hopefully get you slimmed down as well, if we can keep the doughnuts out of your hands. With an angry exhalation of air, Maggie stepped back quickly and Lance stumbled into the entryway. He shot upright and gave her a look, smoothing black locks that didn’t need it.

He looked around the space. “You go for the old look, huh?”

“It’s not old. It’s antiquated,” she corrected, crossing her arms when she remembered she didn’t have on a bra and his eyes liked to wander.

“Whatever you say.” He paused. “Show me around.”

“No!” The word was loud and violently executed, and the look he aimed her way hinted that he wondered at her mental stability.

Maggie sucked in a sharp breath that was meant to be calming, and blew it out with excessive force. It didn’t calm her down. “I’m not showing you my house. I’m not hiring you. I’ll find someone else.”

“There is no one else. That’s why I was called. I’m sort of all you got.”

“Now, wouldn’t that be a horrible, horrible predicament in which to find oneself, having to rely on you for anything of importance.”

Lance rubbed his jaw. “I don’t remember you being this feisty when we were younger.”

“That’s because I didn’t know enough to stay away from you.”

He didn’t move, but the way he looked at her took all the space between them and crushed it. “You knew.”

Maggie swallowed. She couldn’t refute that. She had known what Lance Denton was like, from the very first day of their acquaintance, but it hadn’t mattered enough to keep her away. She couldn’t stay away—he was ablaze with life and danger and rawness and she was pulled to him, wanting to dance along the shadows of his presence.

“And if you didn’t, I warned you.”

Another truth. It was time to move on.

“What do you get out of this, other than my humiliation?”

“Money?”

She snorted. “You have to have loads of that lying around. I’m sure you wash your body and brush your teeth with it. Wipe your butt . . .”

Lance didn’t answer, giving her a look.

Maggie glanced down at his bare ring finger. “Aren’t you supposed to be in England or Australia or whatever foreign country you inhabit with your wife and daughter during the winter and spring months?”

His smile evaporated. It was interesting how dark his face went. “Recently divorced.”

She’d known that. “Oh. Is that why you’re here? I thought you lived in Florida part of the time.”

“I did.”

Lance’s abrupt tone let Maggie know she’d hit a nerve. She decided to torture it a little bit. “Why are you in Iowa then?”

“Don’t you know, Maggie?” he whispered, voice and eyes beseeching. He lifted a finger and trailed it along her jaw, tingles following his touch. “You.”

She swallowed, struck speechless. Shaking her head, she got her wits back in order and glared at him. “You’re good,” she said grudgingly.

Lance flashed a sinister smile. “I’m better than good, and you know it.” His eyes dared her to say otherwise.

“You didn’t answer me—why are you in Iowa?”

“I did answer you.” He glanced at her as he walked farther into the room. “You.”

As she tried to steady a pulse that was presently erratic, Lance moved for the alabaster and wood staircase. He took one step and something snapped inside her. It didn’t even make sense—she just knew he could not go upstairs. That was her home, her life, and he was not allowed to enter it as he pleased and make it a mess by putting his Lance Denton figurative lips all over it.

Maggie lunged for him, tackling him around the waist and swinging him around with her weight. They both landed on the hard floor, but he was gentlemanly enough to spin them so he took the brunt of it. He hit the wood with his back. Maggie was draped over him, still as stone as air forcefully left him in a painful rush.

They lay like that for some time, neither feeling the need to move. Maggie, because she was appalled by her behavior and their current physicality, and Lance, she assumed, because he was having a hard time breathing. As the seconds turned into minutes, it started to get awkward—or more awkward.

Lance’s tone was conversational as he asked, “You’re not wearing a bra, are you?”

Maggie began to take note of things. The hardness of his chest, the boniness of his hip as it dug into her abdomen, how close her face was to his neck—how well her breasts molded to his shoulder and arm, and the fact that she was feeling a draft in a place she rather would not be feeling one.

“Shit!” She scrambled back and spun away as she tucked a boob back within the confines of the tank top she wore under the robe. Then, brave person that she was, she sprinted up the stairs, dove into her room, and flipped the lock on the door.

Chest heaving, blood burned through her veins as her heart thundered out a fast beat. Maggie took quick, shallow breaths, but all that did was make her need more air. She would stay in her room, wait him out. They had too much history, too much pain between the two of them, to be anything but strangers. He would leave eventually. He’d get bored, or hungry, or realize it was futile to think she’d ever hire him on as her personal trainer.

Maggie nodded to herself. Right. That was exactly how things would go.

That settled, she sat on the bed and listened for the front door to shut, a clear signal that he had left the premises. Instead she cocked her head as a faint, scratching sound met her ears. Not owning a pet of any kind, that puzzled her. She moved for the door, reaching for the doorknob just as it powerfully swung open and smacked against her forehead.

“Ow!” Maggie stumbled back and careened to the left, hand held to her stinging flesh.

“Oh. Whoops.” Lance stood with his hand raised, bobby pin within it. He tossed it over his shoulder and stepped inside. “Nice room.”

Maggie’s voice sounded like gravel as she said, “First of all, why are you carrying around a bobby pin?”

Lance blinked at her. “How else was I going to open the door you so rudely locked?”

“It’s my bedroom,” she shouted, a slice of sanity sliding away. “I could have been naked!”

His eyes went up and down the length of her, lingering on her breasts as a smile skipped along his lips. “Don’t tease. It’s unkind.”

Palm to her head, she seethed at the man standing in her bedroom. “Get . . . out . . . of . . . my . . . house.”

He moved to sit on the bed, bouncing up and down a few times before looking at her. “You need me.”

“I need you like I need—”

“Watch it. You might regret what you say and then you can’t take it back.” He reclined on the bed with his hands behind his head.

“I doubt I’d want to take it back.”

“I like your bed. It’s comfy.” Lance jumped to his feet like a spring and clapped his hands together once. “So . . . where’s my room?”

Maggie gaped at him, hand falling limply to her side.

“Downstairs, down the hall? Guest house? I see my physical perfection has you speechless.” Shrugging, he said, “That’s okay, I’ll find it.”

When Lance reached her, her hand shot out and slammed against his chest.

He looked down. “If you want excuses to fondle me, I could think of better ways to go about it.”

She snatched her hand back. “You’re not staying here, you’re not working for me. And if you don’t leave now, I’m calling the police.”

His eyes narrowed. “You would do that?”

Maggie’s resolution wavered. “Yes.”

“What about the scandal it would cause?”

“No one would have to find out.” They could find out, easily.

“Well, they would, with me telling them and all.”

“Are you . . . are you . . . blackmailing me?” Anger had her sputtering.

“Of course not. Not unless I have to,” he added.

“Why are you so adamant about this?”

“You need a trainer, I need a job. I don’t see the problem.”

“Except we used to date and I would rather scratch out my own eyes than have you as a personal trainer.”

“Such harsh words, Maggie.” Lance’s expression turned serious. “Okay, look at it this way—do you want me to help you or do you want your sister? Because there isn’t anyone else. I’m it. She was ready to call you and tell you when I got back to her and said I’d take the job. I know you two don’t get along,” he continued. “I remember.”

“That was years ago,” she hissed. “She’s changed. I’ve changed.” Lies. All of it.

“Sure.” Lance didn’t sound convinced.

Maggie thought of her food and exercise obsessed, self-absorbed, judgmental sister, and then she turned her gaze to Lance Denton. The man who had once been the boy who had her heart and didn’t want it enough. Neither was ideal. He was slightly better—very slightly.

She eyed him. “Why do you have to stay here?”

“You have the space, and I am temporarily without a permanent residence.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you not have a home?”

Shadows shifted through his eyes. “It’s personal. Besides, hands-on is always better. Less cheating that way.”

“You would know about that.”

“About hands-on?” The curve of his lips was sensual.

“About cheating,” she corrected.

He placed a hand to his heart, even as his eyes flashed dangerously. “You got me, right here.”

“How long will it take to get me in shape?”

“That depends on you. Your eating habits, your exercise routine, your dedication. I always say it takes three weeks to notice a change, and three months to make it stick.”

He actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
Probably read that in a book.

“If you stay here, you get paid less.” She raised her eyebrows as she waited for his response. Maggie hoped he’d refuse. The thought of being within such close proximity to him for months had her palms sweaty and her stomach swirling.

Lance hesitated, then nodded. “Deal.”

“What do you usually charge?”

“One hundred dollars an hour.”

“And how often do you see your clients?”

“Three to five times a week, one to two hours each time.”

Maggie’s mouth dropped open. “You’re insane.”

He shrugged. “I’m worth it.”

His tone lacked its usual arrogance, which told her he wasn’t exaggerating.

Eyeing him, she said, “I’ll pay you half what you usually make, and you get to stay here and eat my food. We’ll have a two-week trial run. If I can’t stand you, you’re gone.”

“At least make it fair to me.”

“Fine,” Maggie ground out. “If I can find a single good thing about you being here, you can stay.”

Lance grinned. “That I can do.”

“We’ll see,” she muttered. “How are you able to devote the next three months to me? Don’t you have other clients you need to be working with?”

“I do, but for now, Maggie, I’m yours,” Lance said, his eyes dark and smoldering.

Apparently her body liked his tone, jerking at his words as though brought back to life from a somber reality. She slowly inhaled. “I need to put on clothes.”

He didn’t move.

“Leave.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I know. Wasn’t that one of the reasons you didn’t want to be with me anymore? I wasn’t exciting enough for you.”

A shadow of something swept across his features. Lance’s jaw tightened, and then his expression was clear once more. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“You don’t know where it is.”

“I’m sure I can find it,” he called over his shoulder as he sauntered from the room. In the hallway, he turned to face her. “How many bedrooms are in this place anyway?”

Maggie strode for the door. “Oh, you know.” She slammed the door shut, smiling as she imagined it hitting his face.

***

Lane Gym, owned and operated by Nora Lane, was one of the most reputable workout centers in Dubuque, Iowa. The city was close to, if not over, sixty-thousand strong, which said something. Nora was a controlling and high strung perfectionist, which worked well for being successful.

As Maggie stepped inside the white building with matching walls and flooring, she was besieged by the appearance of muscled, sweaty beings working out with weights or exercise equipment, and the sound of upbeat music. The air was cool, high-powered ceiling fans propelling it around. Beyond the main room, there were two smaller rooms where classes were given. Maggie looked at the windowed wall that faced the parking lot, wondering how people could be okay with others staring at them as they worked out.

She preferred to mortify herself within the privacy of her own home.

Maggie stopped at the front desk, smiling at the receptionist. “Is Nora in?”

Julie, a college student with a tiny body and a huge smile, looked up. Her straight brown hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and a pink top and shorts that looked more fitting for a doll graced her body.

Smile brightening her brown eyes, she said, “Hey, Maggie! She’s doing a yoga class right now, but it should be done in about five minutes, if you want to wait.”

“Sure. I’ll wait.”

“Your parents are here.” Julie pointed a finger.

Maggie faced the rows of treadmills, elliptical machines, exercise bikes, and weight machines, catching sight of her mom and dad. Both retired Math teachers, they spent an hour each weekday at Lane Gym, followed by lunch with a fellow retired couple, book reading, and relaxing at their home. Maggie was the only family member who struggled with her weight, to her eternal exasperation. Of course, she was also the least physically active—and she enjoyed her desserts, carbohydrates, and fried foods more than the other Smileys.