Ask Anyone

Let Harvey Needham rant and rave. Let Bobby try to keep him in the dark. King had a plan. Nobody could get the better of a man with a solid plan and the determination to implement it.

3

T he God-blessed car was out of gas. Jenna pounded the steering wheel in frustration. Naturally, to make matters worse, her cell phone was dead. She’d used up the battery the night before trying to convince her daughter that it was absolutely not okay, much less necessary, for her to dye her hair purple. Darcy had cried and pleaded and accused Jenna of ruining her life. If Darcy was this difficult at nine, what would she be like when she hit her teens? At any rate, Jenna had been so exhausted by the long-distance battle that she hadn’t thought to recharge the phone.

It was 9:52 a.m. She had exactly eight minutes to get to the yacht center. In her running shoes she might have been able to do it. In three-inch spike heels, she didn’t have a prayer.

Maybe Bobby Spencer wasn’t quite as much of a tight-ass as he’d seemed yesterday. Maybe she could be a few minutes late and still catch him.

Yeah, right. The man had looked at her as if he’d rather be dealing with the devil. He’d obviously seize any excuse at all not to consider the Pennington and Sons proposal.

She stripped off her shoes, thanked heaven that her skirt had a slit in it and grabbed her briefcase off the seat. She hit the sidewalk at a dead run, grateful that she’d taken up jogging as a way to relieve stress.

Pounding along the pavement, praying that she’d gotten through to Darcy, praying even harder that she would not miss this appointment and blow her one and only chance to earn a little respect from her father, she concluded that this particular run was not likely to reduce her stress one iota. If anything, she was getting more anxious with every painful step she took.

Seven minutes and thirty seconds later, she reached the yacht center. She had runs in her hose, blisters on her feet and her hair no doubt looked as if it had been styled in a wind tunnel, but she was on time.

Bobby Spencer, however, was nowhere in sight and not even expected.

Jenna stared at the secretary. “He’s not here,” she repeated incredulously, certain she had to have misunderstood.

“Never gets in before eleven,” the young woman said, clearly working to contain her curiosity over Jenna’s disheveled appearance.

The woman’s own attire consisted of shorts that showed off her long legs and a crisply pressed blouse with one too many buttons left open to display an ample amount of cleavage. Obviously Bobby did not stress professional decorum, or maybe at a yacht center, this was the appropriate uniform, Jenna concluded. She was probably the one who was seriously overdressed…or had been when she’d left her car, anyway.

“Never?” she echoed, still certain that she had to be missing something.

“Not once in the year I’ve worked for him,” the woman said. “Are you sure he said to be here at ten?”

“Oh, I am very sure he said ten,” Jenna said, gritting her teeth. Her temper, which she usually worked really, really hard to contain, began to simmer. “Are you saying there has never been one single occasion when he’s been here before eleven?”

“Not that I can recall,” the woman said blithely. “He works late at night. Besides, he’s just not a morning person. Believe me, you don’t want to see him at this hour. In fact, if you’d like a little advice, I’d suggest you come back around two. He’s pretty cheerful by then, especially if the reservations are up for dinner.”

“Look…what’s your name?”

“Maggie.”

“Okay, Maggie, here’s the thing. I saw Mr. Spencer yesterday. He told me to be here at ten. He made a really big deal about it. My car broke down, but I busted my butt to be on time. Could you get on that phone and track him down and tell him that I’m here and getting more aggravated by the minute that he’s not?”

Maggie grinned. “You really want me to tell him that?”

Jenna sighed. “Okay, you can leave out the part about my attitude. Just try to hurry him along. I need to get back to Baltimore. I hadn’t intended to stay overnight in the first place.” In fact, she’d planned to be sitting cheerfully at her desk this morning with a contract in hand. Obviously she’d been overly optimistic about her powers of persuasion.

“Maybe you could think of this little delay as a blessing in disguise,” Maggie suggested. Then she added tactfully, “You know, and use the time to kind of put yourself back together. Not that appearances are everything, but you look kinda like you tangled with a wrestler or something. I’ve got a sewing kit right here I could loan you.”

Jenna stared at her blankly. “A sewing kit?”

“Your skirt,” Maggie said, then gestured. “And your jacket.”

Jenna looked down. The slit in her skirt now extended almost to the waistband. Any movement, she concluded with a horrified stare, revealed way too much of her lower anatomy. Two buttons on her jacket were hanging by threads, which left a gaping space across her chest featuring an even more ample display of skin and lace than Maggie herself was sharing with the world. No wonder she’d encountered a series of astounded stares and heard several cars skid to a stop en route to the yacht center. She was lucky that brother of Bobby’s hadn’t come along to arrest her for indecent exposure.

“Oh, God,” she murmured, collapsing into a chair with a heartfelt moan.

“Now don’t get upset,” Maggie said, bouncing up at once. She was as refreshingly eager as an accommodating kid as she rummaged in her desk. “Here’s the sewing kit.” She glanced worriedly from the array of tiny spools of thread to Jenna’s outfit, then grabbed the stapler. “Come with me. We’ll have you fixed up in no time. It might not be pretty, but you will be decent.”

“What if the phone starts ringing or Mr. Spencer comes while you’re away from your desk?” Jenna said as she dragged herself out of the chair.

“Nobody important calls in the morning,” Maggie assured her. “They all know how Bobby is. And you don’t need to worry about him, either. He’s a sweetie once he’s had his coffee. You should see him. It’s like this ritual the way he grinds the beans, then hovers over it as it brews. It’s a little compulsive, if you ask me, but the coffee is way better than the instant kind I make at home. Anyway, once he’s had his first cup, he’s a doll.”

“Really?” Jenna regarded her skeptically as Maggie led the way into a nearby bathroom. Jenna stripped off her skirt and jacket and they went to work with needle, thread and stapler.

“Oh, sure. Everyone knows that,” Maggie said. “Everybody in town loves Bobby. Well, except for the mayor, but he thinks Bobby is a threat to his power. As if Bobby would ever want that job. He has all the power he needs just being a Spencer. Did you know that his ancestors founded this town? They came over from Jamestown. Not that Bobby flaunts that. I think it embarrasses him when I tell people, but I think it’s just so cool. People should know, don’t you think?”

“You admire him?” Jenna concluded.

“What’s not to admire? He’s nice. He’s gorgeous. He works hard. He’s from a great family.”

Since Maggie was a young, attractive woman with no wedding band on her finger, Jenna asked, “Are you more than his secretary?”

“You mean like a one-woman cheerleading squad or something?” Maggie asked, then paled. “Or do you mean is there something going on romantically between us? Good grief, no.” She paused to consider the idea. “He’s kind of sexy, I suppose. That earring makes him look like a pirate. But he’s way older than me.”

“He can’t be more than thirty,” Jenna pointed out.

“Twenty-eight, actually, but I’m only nineteen, and I’m not going to get seriously involved with anyone for years and years—and then it won’t be with Bobby Spencer.”

More curious than she ought to be, Jenna asked, “Why not, especially if he’s such a paragon?”

“Because we’re friends,” Maggie said simply. “He treats me like a kid sister. Heck, he used to baby-sit my brother and me.”

“And you’ve never had a crush on him? Not even a little one?”

“No way,” Maggie claimed emphatically. “He’s really nice, if you know what I mean. I want a man with more of an edge. A guy who’s a little dangerous.” Her expression turned dreamy.

“Trust me, dangerous is highly overrated,” Jenna told her. “Nice is a better alternative.”

Maggie’s gaze narrowed and her expression turned thoughtful. “So, what do you think of Bobby? I heard about the commotion at his house yesterday. I would have given anything to be there to see his face.”

“Actually, he looked a little ticked,” Jenna confided as Maggie stitched and stapled her skirt back together, while Jenna herself worked on the buttons on her jacket. The designer suit looked as if it had been pieced together by drunken elves.

Maggie’s expression brightened at Jenna’s description of Bobby’s reaction. “To tell you the truth, that’s a good thing,” she declared. “We’ve all been saying for a long time now that somebody needs to come along and shake up that man’s life. He’s in a rut, emotionally speaking, that is. Not that he listens to me. He just rolls his eyes and walks away as if a kid my age couldn’t possibly have anything intelligent to say about love.”

Jenna didn’t give two figs what kind of rut the man was in. She wanted to sell him on this proposal and get out of town with a signed contract in hand. She had to get back to Baltimore before Darcy defied her and dyed her hair purple. Even if Darcy used something temporary, like a powdered-grape-drink mix, it would be enough to send her grandfather’s blood pressure soaring.

“Maggie, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why has your boss been refusing to take my calls? Is it because I’m a woman?”