LITMIR.BIZ

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than just the high heels, very different. All grown up, as he had noted earlier. Her hair had been very long, but now, once she had let it down, he’d noticed it was shoulder-length and very stylishly cut. She used makeup well, and it made her cheekbones stand out, high and fine. She hadn’t had on lipstick when he’d first seen her, but when she had sat down across from him at the coffee shop, her lips had the faintest pink-tinged gloss on them, shining just enough to make a man’s eyes linger there for a moment.

      And yet her eyes, huge and brown with no makeup at all, were almost exactly, hauntingly, as he remembered them—owlish and earnest, behind spectacles.

      Almost, because now there was a new layer there. Sorrow. For her father, of course, but maybe something deeper, too.

      She had pegged it. He’d never dated a girl like her before her prom, and to be honest, never had again.

      “And I’m not about to start now,” he told the dog. He took off his jacket and threw it in a heap on the floor, then undid his shirt and took off his shoes and socks. He padded barefoot through his house.

      The architect had kept the outer footprint of the house, as the historical society demanded, but the inside had been stripped to the bones and rebuilt in a way that honored the home’s roots, yet still had a clean, modern aesthetic.

      The kitchen was no exception. Except for the Elvis cookie jar in the center of a huge granite island, his kitchen was a modern mecca of stainless steel and white cabinets, photo-shoot ready.

      The designer had convinced him to go with a commercial kitchen, both for resale value and for ease of catering large events at his home. So far, there had been no large events at his home. As good as it sounded on paper, he didn’t like the idea of boisterous gatherings in his space. Home, for him, was a landing strip between business trips, one that was intensely private. It was what it had never been when he was growing up—a place of quiet and predictability.

      The cookie jar was stuffed with Girl Guide cookies. Brand shared a fondness for them with his dog, but he wondered if his enjoyment was now compromised for all time after sampling Bree’s wares. Not feeling ready to admit to that, Brand passed on the cookies, grabbed a beer from a fridge that could have stocked a cruise ship for a month and went to the media room.

      The media room was bachelor heaven: deep reclining leather seats, set up theater style, and a wall-to-wall television set with surround sound. There were Elvis posters on every wall. He flopped into one of the chairs, while Beau took up guard in his dog bed at his feet. He turned on the TV set, and let the comforting rumble of sound fill the room. He flipped through to the hockey game that had been recorded in his absence.

      “This is the life,” he told Beau, a little too forcefully.

      Beau moaned, and he was aware of an echo, as if this room, filled with everything any man could ever want, was empty.

      Bree had done that, made him aware of emptiness, in one single encounter.

      If there was one thing Brand was really good at, in the business world and wherever else it mattered, it was heeding the subtle first tingles of a warning.

      She was the kind of woman that would require more of a man.

      No doubt most men would find her quite terrifying. That included him.

      So, he knew what he had to do. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Disengage. He’d already done way too much. In a moment of madness he’d actually given her his phone number. She had already shown she wasn’t afraid to use it.

      Or maybe she had been afraid, and used it anyway, which was much, much worse.

      See? That’s the kind of woman she was. Simple things could become complicated way too fast.

      He thought of the new layer of sadness in her eyes. Was that from the death of her dad, or had something else happened to her? He thought of her trying to get that business off the ground by herself. He thought of her not having an answer about having fun. He thought of her assistant letting it slip that Bree was on a dating site, and was meeting losers who stiffed her with the bill. He thought about how good her father had been to him.

      He took her business card out of his pocket. It was a well-done card. Glossy. Colorful. Professional. Memorable. Kookies for all occasions. Her number was already in his phone, because she had called him.

      He took a deep breath, scrolled through to her information and added it to his contact information. He hesitated and pressed the green phone symbol.

      She wouldn’t answer. She was in the middle of—

      “Hello?” Her voice was breathless.

      He had the renegade thought he would like to make her breathless in quite a different way. It nearly made him end the call, because what the hell did a thought like that have to do with honoring her father by helping her out a bit? But there was no placing an anonymous call these days, so he sucked it up.

      “Can’t get the taste of your cookies out of my head,” he said.

      Funny that thinking about taste made a vision of her lips pop into his mind.

      “I try to warn people,” she said. “Spells and enchantment.”

      He thought of her lips again! That must be it. He was spellbound. Now would be a great time to tell her he had pocket-dialed.

      “Aside from my charity function, I thought we should talk about the possibility of you supplying my office staff room. And meetings.”

      She was silent.

      “Bree?”

      “It’s very kind, but—”

      There was suddenly a great deal of noise.

      “I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s intermission. I’m going to have to—”

      “Meet with me next week.”

      “Um—”

      Geez! He was offering her a huge opportunity here. What was the problem? While the rest of the world was yapping at his heels wanting things from him, she was resistant—the lone exception.

      “I’ll be in the office all day Wednesday,” he said smoothly, “if you want to drop by and we’ll figure out the details.”

      Again there was hesitation, and then she asked, “Around ten a.m.?”

      “Perfect. My office is—”

      “I know. It’s in the article.”

      “The damn article,” he said.

      She rewarded him with that laugh, soft, like a brook gurgling over rocks. “Okay. Wednesday at ten. Dear Lord.”

      “What?”

      “Crystal Silvers is walking toward me. Good grief. She hardly has any clothes on.”

      And then she was gone. Brand stared at his phone. “Beau?”

      The dog lifted his head and gave him a watery-eyed look.

      “You’re an expert on all things stinky. I stink at relationships, right?”

      The dog laid his head back down with a groan as if there was no point in having bothered him with such a self-evident question.

      “That’s what I thought. I’m putting on my big-brother shirt.”

      He remembered the refreshing innocence about her. Crystal Silvers had been walking toward her, the chance of a lifetime, possibly, and she focused on the no-clothes-on part.

      Innocent in a world that was fast. Old-fashioned in a world that could be slick. Real in a world that distracted with shock.

      So, she needed a bit of coaching. His offer to get her under contract to supply his office was perfect. Of course, he could have left the details up to his office manager, but this way he would be able to check up on her a little bit, and make sure some great business opportunities

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