Male Call

Man, he had never had it this bad.

Zach knew nothing about her. Marnie could be a thief trying to break into the apartment. But he didn’t care. Zach forced himself to turn back to taking off the door hinges. He had to get a grip. Moments later the door was off and Marnie ran into the room.

“I am so cold!” Marnie raced over to the bed and pulled on the socks that lay rolled in a ball on the floor by a pair of ugly brown hiking boots.

It was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

Before he could stop himself, he’d knelt down and taken one of her feet, rubbing it between both hands.

“That tingles.”

“Tingles are good.” He smiled up at her and switched to a slow, deep kneading, concentrating on her toes and the ball of her foot. And maybe her leg and the sexy curve of her calf and how her skirt kept climbing northward…

Marnie let out a tiny moan. “That feels so good. You could do this for a living.”

He could do this forever, Zach realized with a jolt.

HEATHER MACALLISTER

lives near the Texas gulf coast where, in spite of the ten-month growing season and plenty of humidity, she can’t grow plants. She’s a former music teacher who married her high school sweetheart on the Fourth of July, so is it any surprise that their two sons turned out to be a couple of firecrackers? When she’s not writing stories in which life takes a funny twist, Heather collects vintage costume jewelry, and also loves fireworks displays, Christmas lights (which are like frozen fireworks displays), commercial-free television and sons who answer their mother’s e-mail. You can visit her on the Web at www.HeatherMacAllister.com.

Male Call

Heather MacAllister

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Peggy Field and Sue Pellegrino-Wolf

With Alpha Gam love

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Prologue

MY DEAR MRS. HIGGENBOTHAM,

Greetings from sunny and windy San Francisco! I do hope you and Pierre are in the throes of connubial bliss. I want to hear all the details of the wedding, particularly in regard to the jewelry and gowns. I so wish I could have been there in New York, however it was time to move on. I do miss the city and the apartment building and your own dear self, though.

I cannot stress how much your friendship has meant to me during the trying times of late. Both Marlon and I thought we would be together forever and for my part, I did nothing to threaten that. I had invested all of myself. I’d spent my days looking after Marlon’s building and tenants only to have him…but that is water under the bridge, as you know. It is sad when courts must become involved to protect those of us who have given all to a relationship. One would assume there would be an equitable distribution of assets with the understanding that there cannot be a monetary value placed on some contributions. Apparently my contributions were only worth one modest apartment in San Francisco.

Yet, I am not bitter. At least I now have a home. Marlon’s apartment—former apartment, as I have recently received the deed—is one of four in a charming pink-and-green Painted Lady, which is what we San Franciscans call the Victorian houses.

This one and its neighbors survived the great earthquake, though since construction began on the house across the street, I feel as though I relive the quake daily.

The apartment is furnished in period style—Marlon always did have exquisite taste—with a bedroom, office where I can work on my script and a largish kitchen. Oh, and a balcony, a cozy place where I can sit and watch the activity on Mission Street as I answer the call of my muse.

And speaking of that, I cannot express my gratitude to you for the gift of the skirt.

As my muse appears to have remained in New York, I shall continue with my study of the effects of the skirt on heterosexual mating. I find the subject fascinating, if perplexing, and I do believe there is a story here. Urban legends are always popular in movies and plays. The very idea that this nondescript, though well-tailored, black skirt has some sort of power to attract men is preposterous and yet A.J., Sam and Claire, and even your dear self all swear it’s true. And have you heard from the girls? I do miss them. Is all well with them? Sam, especially, was a valuable source of gossip.

I have decided to put the skirt to the test. As it happens, I find myself short of cash. Not to worry! The residents of this building and the others on the block have never known the convenience of a doorman until now. For a small honorarium, I have offered my services to deal with repairmen and accept packages and keep an eye on the neighborhood. But until my talents as an actor and playwright are recognized, I must provide my own backing. Therefore, I have removed to the service quarters in the basement and am attempting to rent out the apartment on a daily basis to those who need a temporary base in the city.

No, do not feel sorry for me, Mrs. H. One must suffer for one’s art, though I seem to suffer more than most. But my plan is to rent to single young ladies who can make use of the skirt—and who will recount all their adventures to me. Perhaps my muse will be intrigued enough to help me incorporate these stories about the skirt into a small play.

So far, I have found two young women who are willing to take on a partial sublet and a third who is currently considering. I have seen her walk by here every day and feel she would provide the skirt with its most stringent test. Attractive women attracting attractive men, well, where is the challenge for the skirt in that? But this young woman practices none of the feminine arts and, indeed, seems unaware of them. Oh, to witness when she becomes aware…

In any event, know that I am well, of good cheer and no doubt destined for greatness.

Until then, I remain, ever yours,

Franco Rossi

1

AT THE SOUND of an old-fashioned wolf whistle, Marnie LaTour looked up from her laptop, which was currently sitting on the serving counter of the Deli Dally next to her cold meatball sub. Her three co-workers from Carnahan Custom Software—all male—had swiveled on their stools to stare out the window.

“Whoa, would you look at that?” murmured one.

Marnie looked. A long-legged blonde walked by in a flippy skirt that fluttered alarmingly in the San Francisco wind. Glued to her side was one of the men from Technical Support.

“All right, Gregie boy!” Two of the guys high-fived each other.

Marnie watched long enough to see that Greg was taking the blonde to Tarantella, the new Italian restaurant down the street, then returned to the screen full of code she was trying to debug. If she had written the code in the first place, there wouldn’t have been anything to debug.

“You think she’s wearing a thong?” This comment came from Barry Emmons, who was sitting next to Marnie since it was his program she was trying to fix. She assumed he meant that as a rhetorical question and didn’t answer.

The three men slid off the counter stools and walked over to the window.

“All I’m asking for is one really good gust of wind before they make it to the door.” It was probably Doug.

“Oh, yeah.” That was Barry again.

Marnie wished he’d stayed with her instead of heading for the window with the rest of them. She also wished she was dining alone with him at Tarantella instead of going with the guys to two-for-one Italian night at the Deli Dally. After all, she’d just spent three hours fixing the code for his animated oil-field tool instructional video. At least he’d bought her meatball sub.

Well, actually he’d paid for his and had given her the free one. Still. It was something. A start. And right now, Marnie needed a start.

She’d worked at Carnahan since graduating from college six years ago and had eliminated all the dating possibilities among her co-workers. Barry had been working at Carnahan less than a year and was still in the “possible” column. Word was that he’d spent time in a couple of women’s “possible” columns, but wasn’t dating anyone currently.

Marnie figured it was her turn, except that Barry was proving slippery to pin down. Thus, she’d volunteered her code expertise to help with his projects. Several times.

She glanced over her shoulder at the men. Clearly, he needed a nudge.

While they stood at the window, Marnie found and corrected a repeating error in a line of code. And that should do it. She brought up the animation of a rotating tool that did who-knew-what on screen and watched as it turned, opened, swiveled and let yellow arrows parade through it.

“Hey, you fixed it!” Barry and the others returned to the bar stools, the wind apparently not having cooperated.

Barry leaned one hand on the counter, blocking her from the others’ sight. “You’re a genius,” he murmured and looked down at her, smiling.

Marnie looked up at him and her heart gave an extra blip. It was a movie moment. Inches separated their mouths and if he’d wanted to, he could have kissed her, not that he would here in the delicatessen in front of their co-workers, but still, Marnie knew they’d made a connection.

He reached in front of her and typed on her keyboard—almost suggestively—so that the program ran again. “Man, I owe you, Marnie.”

She waited a beat. “Take me to Tarantella and we’ll call it even.”

“Tarantella.” He made a rude noise. “Good one, Marnie.”

“Hey, I’m serious!” She’d heard the restaurant was expensive, but it wasn’t that expensive. She’d even order spaghetti instead of the seven-layer lasagna.

“Come on.” He sat on the stool. “Tarantella is where you take your lady for a very special—” he raised and lowered his eyebrows “—evening.”

“I happen to think three hours of my time fixing your mess is worth a special evening.”

“What do you say I buy you a six-pack? You name the brand. I’ll even spring for imported.”

“Ooo, imported,” the others mocked.

Marnie extended her hands palms up, imitating a scale. “Let’s see…a six-pack of beer…dinner at Tarantella…helping Barry out of a jam…letting him spend all night trying to figure out where he screwed up in time for the client’s demo tomorrow. Gee, Barry, I dunno.”

“What, you want wine instead?”

There was general snickering.

Marnie glared down the bar. “No, I want dinner at Tarantella.”

The others looked at each other, then stared at their plates.

“Marnie, Tarantella is a date restaurant. You know, it’s dark, there’re candles, booths, tablecloths—all that stuff. There’s even a violin dude.”

“Yeah, chicks love that stuff,” Doug said.

Barry lowered his voice and leaned toward her. “It’s where you take your girlfriend.”

Marnie waited for Barry to connect the dots, but he was as bad at that as he was at writing code. “So?” she prompted.

He laughed as he picked up his soda. “You’re not the girlfriend type.”

Until a few nanoseconds ago, she’d kinda, sorta thought she was on her way to being his girlfriend. “What do you mean?”

Barry was still chuckling. “You know.”

“Apparently I don’t.”

As the tone of her voice registered, Barry stopped laughing and shifted on the bar stool. Marnie was aware that the other two guys had gone very quiet.

He cleared his throat. “Well…you don’t give off girlfriend vibes.”

Did he really think she’d helped him because she loved extra work? And she’d just asked him to take her to a romantic restaurant. Clearly she wasn’t vibe-literate. “Vibes how?”

“For one thing, you don’t dress…” He made a vague gesture at her jeans and baggy sweater. He, himself, was wearing Dockers and a golf shirt with a dribble of sauce from the meatball sub. Hardly the stuff of fantasies.

Marnie thought of the blonde. “Short skirts, stiletto heels, that kind of thing?”

“Hell, yeah,” Doug chimed in.

Barry made a slashing motion with his hand at others. “Not so much that, but there’s a certain attitude that lets men know you’re girlfriend material.”

“I see.” Marnie didn’t like what she saw.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We like that you’re one of the guys.”

As if that weren’t bad enough, there were murmurs of agreement from the others. Marnie just stared at him.

“It’s a compliment,” Barry added.

She glanced from the green awning and the liveried doorman outside Tarantella to the partially eaten, cold meatball sub next to her laptop. “It doesn’t feel like a compliment.”

“Trust me, it is. You’re easy to work with ‘cause there’s none of that man/woman stuff going on.”

“Oh, the available-for-sex vibes. Right.”

There was not a sound in the deli.

Okay, then. Marnie saved the program to a disk which she ejected and handed to Barry.

He looked relieved. “Thanks, Marnie. You’re a pal.”

“Yeah, that’s me. A real pal.” She closed her laptop.

Barry gave her a look. “I’m telling you, you’d hate Tarantella. It’s not your style.”

Marnie gave him a look right back. “It could be.” He wanted vibes? She’d show him vibes. One of the guys? Not anymore. Attitude? Just wait. She was going to show him so much attitude he’d beg her to let him take her to Tarantella. She’d make all of them take her to Tarantella.

Barry squinted at her before shaking his head. “I’m just not seeing it. Better take me up on the beer.” He cuffed her on the shoulder. “What kind do you want?”

NOT THE GIRLFRIEND TYPE. Vibeless. One of the guys. A pal.

Barry had all but called her sexless. Or maybe he had. He’d definitely made it clear that she held no feminine appeal for him and, while he was at it, included the entire male gender. Even worse, the other guys hadn’t contradicted him.

At this moment, Marnie wasn’t too pleased with the entire male gender.

It was true that she’d prided herself on being a team player and that the guys included her in their downtime. Working with them was comfortable. She hadn’t realized that it was because they’d forgotten she was a woman.

So, she’d just figure out a way to remind them.

One of the guys. Not girlfriend material.

On her way home, Marnie mentally chewed on Barry’s words as she got off the bus and walked toward the 24th Street Mission BART station where she’d spend the next hour or so riding the train to Pleasant Hill, where, yes, she lived with her mother. Her mom was a great roommate—even if she weren’t Marnie’s mom. She did more than her share of the housework and cooking and didn’t bug Marnie too much about where she was going at night…mostly because by the time Marnie got home, she was in for the evening. How exciting was that?

Yeah, now that she thought about it, that sounded like a vibeless existence. The thing was, she’d never expected that she’d end up single and still living with her mother at the age of twenty-eight. What person thinks as a kid, “I want to live at home when I grow up?” When she was young, she’d had this image of what her future would be. She couldn’t exactly remember what it was, but living with her mother and sleeping in the same bedroom she’d had all her life wasn’t it.

Marnie was ready to settle down, as they say. But unfortunately, she hadn’t found anybody to settle with. Or even settle for.

When was the last time she’d been anybody’s girlfriend?

Marnie stopped walking right in the middle of the sidewalk, next to a trendy boutique, one of a string of them in this block.

There had been Darren, but that hadn’t lasted long and it had been the same kind of cheapie meal and occasional movie relationship she’d always had with guys. That had been fine when they were all starting out, but lately Marnie wanted more.

And, darn it, she was going to get it. Somehow.

She’d been gazing into the distance, but now she focused on the display window of the boutique. Skirts. Skimpy sweaters. Purses too tiny to be useful. Girlfriend clothes.

Marnie wore jeans and sweaters or T-shirts just like everyone else in her department. How stupid would she look if she started wearing clothes like that to work? And why should she have to change the way she dressed and fool around with her hair and makeup? She used to wear makeup, but she liked the extra sleeping time. Anyway, San Francisco’s windy weather made her eyes water and the stupid mascara run, so she’d get to work and have to do everything over again. Waste of time.

And did it matter? Were men really that shallow?

Of course they were.

Grumbling to herself, Marnie rounded the corner and headed down Twenty-Third Street, her favorite part of the walk to and from the station. Her route took her past a row of Painted Ladies, the San Francisco Victorian houses. Their defiantly gaudy colors and ornate trim appealed to Marnie. Why, she didn’t know. She was more of a neutral, sleek, chrome and clean lines kind of person, when she thought about decor at all. These houses were about as far from that as something could be.

This had been her route for nearly six years, uneventful until recently. First, several days ago, Marnie had noticed a sign in one of the pretty town houses—the pink-and-green one with the cream trim and darling gingerbread balcony—offering two-day rentals.

She’d memorized the sign: Two-Day Sublet. Inquire Within. There was additional writing beneath. It is not up to me to supply reasons why you might need an apartment for two days a week. If you do, let’s talk. If you do not, please walk.

Marnie had been thinking about it—she’d even met the doorman who had insisted that she take a flyer and had talked a blue streak at her until she’d given him a politely noncommittal platitude just to get away from him. Still, it would be wonderful to avoid the tedious commute for a couple of days a week.

The other thing that had happened was that construction had begun on one of the more tawdry of the ladies across the street. The house was being completely renovated and would no doubt rent or sell to a gazillionaire, if it hadn’t already.

At some point during the years since the town houses had been built in the late 1800s, they’d been updated by having their gingerbread trim torn off and new facades built over the old so that they’d lost all their personality. Now they’d get it back.

Marnie slowed to check on the progress—okay, and to see if the hunky construction foreman was around. In her current mood, Marnie could use a good construction foreman sighting.

Oh, goody. His truck was there. The blue-and-white Bronco bearing the name Renfro Restoration was parked off the sidewalk in the patch of grass by the front steps, just where it had been this morning when she’d walked by.

The guy had been solely responsible for Marnie acquiring a very expensive coffee habit. Every morning, she passed by about the time he arrived on site.

He’d lean against his Bronco and sip coffee from a familiar tall paper cup with a brown cuff around it. Though it was nearly May, the mornings were still cool and he’d wrap both hands around the cup. She could practically taste the coffee he gingerly brought to his lips. She’d think about it all the way into work and then have to stop in at the Starbucks next to the Carnahan building.

Early this morning, the two-man construction crew had been stripping the house to the insulation. Now they were cleaning up for the day. A large flatbed truck was parked on the street and the men threw the old wood and debris in it. Marnie stopped and watched them work. Actually, she watched one of them work because the foreman was right in there with them. His denim jacket and clipboard were on the hood of the Bronco and only a T-shirt was between him and the cooling evening.

A nicely filled out T-shirt. And jeans. Mustn’t overlook the jeans that emphasized a flat, taut stomach that clearly didn’t have a cold meatball sub sitting in it.

A broken two-by-four hit the side of the truck, bounced off and landed near Marnie. Startled, she jumped.

“Watch it!” The foreman approached her and Marnie’s eyes widened.

He was so much…more up close. Muscles and sinews worked in perfect rhythm as he strode toward her. Sawdust and other bits of old house dusted his shoulders and clung to his hair. Testosterone clouded the air. Everything about him shouted I am man and I do manly things. And the subtext which was, of course, I demand a woman who does womanly things.

Marnie doubted writing computer code counted as a womanly thing, but was willing to try to convince him.

He came to a stop in front of her, his shortish sun-kissed hair ruffling attractively in the wind. He wore gloves and swiped the back of his wrist over his forehead before resting his hands at his waist. His stance indicated that he was used to being in charge.

Marnie sighed a little. He could be in charge of her any time.

“You okay?” he asked.

She managed to nod. This was a lot of man and she wasn’t exactly sure what to do.

Apparently she didn’t have to do anything. He picked up the board and tossed it into the truck bed. “It’s dangerous to stand this close.” Then he walked back to the pile and picked up more wood. He raised his eyebrows until Marnie realized he was waiting for her to move on.

Way to go, Marnie. Talk about vibeless.

Couldn’t she have managed to come up with something to say? One measly conversational opener? She worked with men all day long and she couldn’t figure out an approach?

Talk about seriously rusty. The fact that he was a completely different type for her was no excuse. So his in-your-face masculinity had rendered her mute. Clearly, she needed help.

Disgusted with herself, she hunched into her ski parka and buried her nose in her woolen scarf as the wind picked up. Where was spring already?

She crossed the street, which brought her right by the Victorian with the two-day rent sign in the window. But she wasn’t looking at the sign—she was using the window’s reflection to watch the construction guy some more.

That was one serious hunk of man.

And she hadn’t even pinged his radar.

But to be fair, guys like that had never pinged her radar, either. She’d always gone for cerebral types, and the foreman was more the “hunka hunka burnin’ luv” type.

As Marnie stood there thinking that maybe the cerebral types she knew could use a testosterone transfusion, the door to the Victorian opened and two tiny, long-haired dogs—the kind that barked in annoying little yips—led a tall, thin man down the steps. The doorman.

“Slow down or you’ll strangle yourselves, you irritating little twits.”

The dogs ignored him and struggled to descend the stairs. Once down on the sidewalk, they sniffed at Marnie’s shoes.

The doorman pulled at the leash. “I’d say heel, but they’d only think I was suggesting another part of your foot.” He looked up at her. “Oh, it’s you. Have you decided about the apartment?”