Skirting The Issue

2

THE APARTMENT WAS ON THE sixth floor. Just enough to get a modest workout, if Sam were so inclined. There were only three apartments on the floor and number 6C was at the end. Sam didn’t even have to look at the card. She could hear the crowd the moment she stepped off the elevator.

What was she doing here? This was hopeless.

But Sam had been in hopeless situations before—generally those including Josh Crandall…why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? Anyway, some of those had turned out to be not so hopeless after all because she’d persevered and that’s what she planned to do now. She’d persevere herself right into the apartment.

Sam opened the door. Why knock? No one would hear her.

The first thing she noticed was that the ratio of women to men was about, well, except for a couple of men who appeared to be brokers, the ratio was ninety-eight to two. The next thing she noticed was that there was a high percentage of blondes in the mix, including a woman with pink-blond hair and matching poodle.

Sam was very definitely not a blonde.

People were freely milling around, so Sam acted like she belonged there and milled as well. The apartment appeared to have three bedrooms, though one was currently being used as a combination office and video lair.

Definitely bachelor pad material. She looked upward, expecting mirrors, but apparently Tavish’s excruciating taste extended only to cowboy vests. Maybe a touch of overkill on the Western look—how many steer horns did a person need?—but, hey, this was great. Fabulous location, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, generously spaced for a New York apartment, and she could always rent out the other bedrooms to help with the rent.

Would that be a sub-sublet? Was that more illegal than a regular sublet?

“Where is Tavish?” pouted one blonde.

One of the men stood on the staircase leading to a small loft. “Mr. McLain will be here momentarily.”

“I say we can start without him,” said another blonde. This one wore a black suit and nearly black lipstick, spike heels and had her hair in a French twist that not one strand dared to come loose.

Sam tucked her own windblown hair—that would be brown windblown hair—behind her ears and straightened her spine.

“My opening offer will be fifteen hundred,” the woman continued. She looked over the competition. “So anyone who can’t beat that is out of luck because the price will go higher.”

“But…but I don’t understand!” It was a redhead. The only one. “Tavish promised me the apartment for eight-fifty!”

“He promised me I could have it for eight hundred!” said someone else.

“Oh, honey.” The blond woman who’d taken charge shook her head. “He does this every year. Then a few of us spend the following year bribing him in hopes he’ll just forget this demeaning lottery and let one of us have the apartment for the summer.” She looked wistful. “I actually lived here one summer. It was…” She seemed to remember where she was and that a crowd of apartment competitors hung raptly on each word. “Just be prepared to ante up, kiddos.”

Sam had been mentally plundering her savings as the door opened and the two women she’d seen in the lobby entered the apartment. They must have known the password.

One of them, poor thing, actually was dragging luggage with her. She looked desperate. Desperate enough to bid a lot. Sam swept an assessing gaze over her. She didn’t look as though she had a lot to bid.

The woman next to her was an unknown. A blond unknown, though. Unsmiling, she looked like a woman with a mission—and Sam knew what the mission was. Sam watched her case the situation from the edge of the crowd, bracing herself for when they locked eyes.

Actually, it wasn’t much of a lock. Sam figured she didn’t come across as much competition when the woman’s gaze swept past her after the briefest hesitation. Probably because she wasn’t a blonde.

French Twist held a check high over her head. “Here it is, folks. Good faith money. Forty-five hundred dollars—three months—up front.” She walked over to one of the agents and tried to hand him a check.

“Hey!” someone shouted, and that pretty much set the rest of the potential renters off.

Some headed for the door and Sam got carried along with them. She didn’t fight too much because she wasn’t yet sure that staying would do any good. Just how much higher would she have to go? Though facing Central Park would be a kick, she didn’t need three bedrooms and there would be the hassle of trying to find roommates for just the summer—even assuming she could outbid French Twist.

The exodus toward the door backed up as the first of the crowd got held up at the elevator. Sam stepped out of the current of disappointed women and found herself next to the two she’d seen downstairs. The one with the luggage was sitting on her suitcase staring blankly at the crowd. The other one, the short blonde, was studying her checkbook and had whipped out her cell phone.

Sam spoke to the woman on the suitcase. “This is really something, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly what I expected,” the woman answered, motioning to the suitcases. “I was planning to move in here today. Now, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Sam knew despair when she heard it. “This is your lucky day. I work for a hotel. Therefore, I can promise you won’t sleep on the street tonight. And you can treat yourself to a nice, hot bubble bath.”

“I can’t—”

“Oh, I got that part. You’d be in one of the unrentable rooms. No charge.”

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why would you do that? You don’t even know me.”

Oh, good grief. When had a good deed become a threat? “Because I can. Because helping the sisterhood was something my mother drilled into me. And, hey, I get off on warm, fuzzy feelings in my tummy.”

There was a crack of laughter from the other woman. “So do I, but they don’t come from giving away freebie hotel rooms,” the woman said with a smile.

Sam grinned down at her. “Samantha Baldwin.” She stuck her hand out at the exact moment the other woman stuck out hers.

“A. J. Potter. You sounded like a madam gathering the poor waif into her house of ill repute. I already made the same great impression. I think we scared her.”

“I’m not scared,” denied the other woman, still sitting on her suitcase. “Just fascinated by abnormal human behavior. Abnormal for a New Yorker, anyway.”

A.J. turned her attention back to Sam. “This place has three bedrooms.”

Ooo. She cut right to the chase. Sam liked her. “I don’t smoke. I can go eighteen hundred a month, but I don’t want to.”

“Non-smoker, I’m in for two grand.”

“You’d get the big bedroom, then.”

They looked down. “What’s your name?” A.J. asked the woman on the suitcase.

“Claire Dellafield. Why?”

Sam gestured to her. “Get with the program. We’re forming a rental coalition. You want in?”

Claire stood, revealing that she was as short as A.J. “You mean we’d room together?”

“Mental functions appear to be intact,” A.J. said. “You smoke?”

Claire shook her head. “But I can learn.”

Sam laughed. “She’s in for the entertainment value alone.”

“How much can you contribute to rent?” A.J. was displaying a practical side.

Claire drew a deep breath. “Eight hundred.”