Truly, Madly, Deeply

“Fig Newmans.”

He must have misunderstood her. “Fig Newtons?”

“Better. These are the organic version put out by Paul Newman and his daughter Nell.”

“Oh. Sounds good.” The cookies might be made from seaweed and tofu, but he’d eat the damned things. Urban chick or not, Erica obviously was still into the environmental stuff. He glanced at the magazines on the coffee table and noticed they were back issues of Mother Earth News.

He wondered if he had time to sneak back to the computer and read about her techniques for prolonging an erection. Not that he needed to read them, of course. He didn’t have that problem anymore. For another thing, focusing on the problem might even make it happen when he finally got his second chance. Now that would be a pisser.

“Here we are.” She walked into the room carrying a wooden tray with a pitcher of iced tea, two frosted glasses and a plate mounded with what looked like fig bars. “If you’ll pick up those magazines, I’ll set the tray there.”

He leaned over and scooped up the magazines. From this angle, if he made any kind of effort, he could look right up her skirt. He made no effort. Just watching the way her thighs brushed lightly together as she walked was causing enough damage. He couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything but sex where Erica was concerned.

First things first. He needed to sell her on the idea of expanding her newsletter. Once they’d agreed on that he could turn his attention to other things, and not before.

She poured the tea and sat in the chair on the other side of the coffee table. “So. You have a proposition for me?”

He wondered if she’d deliberately made that sound like a sexual challenge, as if she found it difficult to believe a three-minute wonder could manage a decent business proposal. Maybe his performance ten years ago was coloring everything for her, too. God, he hoped not.

Wrapping his hand around the cold glass of iced tea, he picked it up and took a swallow. Good, strong tea. He looked her straight in the eye. “I’d love to take you and your newsletter to the next level.”

Her gaze flickered. “My newsletter?”

At least she hadn’t laughed. If she’d laughed, he would have been toast. “I think you should consider widening your scope. Ramsey Enterprises could provide a support structure that would allow you to really try your wings and achieve greater satisfaction from your efforts.”

Hey, that sounded pretty good. Maybe he was better at business negotiations than he thought. He’d decided not to mention the weeklies until later on, after she was hooked on the idea. According to Jennifer’s info, Erica used to work for the Dallas Morning News. After being involved with a major daily, she might think a weekly wasn’t impressive enough.

She frowned in obvious confusion. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Then again, maybe he sucked at business negotiations. He sighed. “You have a great product. I think you could franchise it.”

“Oh.” She shook her head. “I’m not really into the newsletter. It’s just something I’m doing while I wait for the right opening on a big daily.”

He stared at her, unable to believe that this brilliant newsletter idea was a throwaway job. “But everybody’s talking about Dateline: Dallas. You have a hot commodity there with all kinds of potential.”

She shrugged and picked up a cookie. “Sure, it’s fun, but—”

“If you expanded into other cities, the sky’s the limit. Compare that to slaving away on a reporter’s salary.”

Her eyes flashed. “As if I cared about money. I want to make a difference, and I quit my job at the Morning News when I wasn’t getting the stories I wanted. The newsletter is tiding me over until a good job opens up somewhere else, but I don’t kid myself that it has any socially redeeming value. At least I print it on seventy percent post-consumer recycled paper, so that salves my conscience.”

Dustin was astounded. He’d never imagined that she wasn’t going to continue with this fantastic project. “It has lots of redeeming value,” he said without thinking.

“Like what?” She bit into her cookie with even white teeth.

“Like…being single is tough these days. Sexual marathoners, born-again virgins, cross-dressers. It’s a jungle out there. People need a guide.”

She chewed and swallowed her bite of cookie. “I want to deal with bigger issues.”

He had a feeling that saving Ramsey Enterprises wouldn’t count as a big issue with her. “So you’re not interested in what I’m suggesting.”

“I have to admit I’m intrigued, but I can’t see any point in talking about it when I’ll abandon the whole thing the minute I get the right job offer.”

Intrigued. He could work with that. Maybe he hadn’t bobbled the Hail Mary pass, after all. Maybe it was still hanging suspended in the air. “Any good leads on that job?”

She sighed. “No. With the economy still uncertain, people are keeping the jobs they have. Openings are scarce.”

“Then why not think about the franchise idea?”

“Because if I expanded, then I wouldn’t be able to drop it and run so easily.”

“We could anticipate that you’d be leaving, put people in place who could take over.” That would be easier said than done. Judging from the editions he’d seen, her personality was stamped all over it.

“Why are you so hot to do this?”

Now there was a loaded question. “What you’re doing is unique because it’s city-specific.” He had no idea where that term had come from, but it sounded professional. Thank God for his natural ability to BS his way through anything. The talent had served him well in college, and it might work here.

But talk about hot—all he had to do was glance over at her sitting in the chair with her long legs crossed, and he began to salivate. Desperate for some sort of oral satisfaction, he picked up a cookie and bit into it. Not bad. Tasty, even. But figs made him think of fig leaves. And fig leaves made him think of nearly naked bodies. And sex.

“What sort of expansion are we talking about?”

Surely she hadn’t just glanced at his crotch. He was imagining things. “Whatever you think you could handle.”

She nibbled at her cookie. “Fort Worth would be the logical first step. Then maybe Houston.”

“Houston’s good. San Antonio, too, maybe.” He watched her eat the cookie, watched as she licked a crumb from her lower lip, leaving it red and glistening.

“I’m not saying I want to do this,” she said, “but I wouldn’t mind having a little time to think about it.”

“Take as long as you want.” Yes, the Hail Mary pass was still in the air.

“Are you heading back to Midland today?”

“Not necessarily.” He didn’t plan to let her know how critical her little newsletter was to the fate of Ramsey Enterprises. That could spook her completely.

“Do you have other business in Dallas?”

Only you. “Not really. In fact, I’m due for a couple of days off.” He picked up his briefcase, opened it and pulled out a nine-by-eleven envelope. “I’ve laid out the details of the proposal for you to look over at your leisure. No pressure. I haven’t been to Dallas in a couple of years. I can give you a day or so to decide while I take in the sights.”

“Alone?”

“If you mean do I have a girlfriend stashed in a hotel room, the answer is no.” Good. She’d led the way to a topic he wanted to cover. He finished off his cookie. “And while we’re on the subject, is there anyone you need to consult about this? Some silent partner I don’t know about?”

She spread her arms. “Nope. I’m it.”

You sure are. “If you should change your mind and agree to this, there will be some intense working situations until we get all the machinery in place for the various markets we plan to penetrate.” Penetrate. God, he couldn’t seem to avoid sexual language. “If you have a boyfriend who likes plenty of attention, he should be forewarned.”

Her gaze turned frosty. “I wouldn’t tolerate a boyfriend who required plenty of attention, as you so quaintly put it.”

Whoops. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that. Whether you have a boyfriend is of no consequence to our business discussion, and I was out of line to bring up the subject.”

“Agreed.”

Well, he’d outsmarted himself, zigged when he should have zagged, and been thrown for a loss. He needed time out so he could regroup. He handed her the envelope. “Then maybe I should leave you with this and go play tourist. I can check back tomor—”

“Or we can take the envelope with us while we go grab some lunch. I have a restaurant to review for the current issue, and I need to do it today.”

“Sounds good.” The idea of spending more time with her was the best news he’d had yet, but he didn’t want to seem too eager.

“Then we can have more time to talk.” She rattled the envelope. “And I doubt if all the questions I have are answered in here. On the very slight chance I might change my mind and consider franchising, I need to get a feel for the company. All my information is ten years old.”

“What information?” He was truly bewildered. Ten years ago even he, the only son of Joan and Clayton Ramsey, hadn’t known diddly about how the company operated. Hell, ten months ago he hadn’t known anything. He had trouble believing Erica had possessed any knowledge whatsoever ten years ago.

She focused those mysterious gray eyes on him. “On your performance,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t very good.”

He could feel the heat working up from his collar. “You mean the performance of Ramsey Enterprises?”

“Of course. What did you think I meant?”

“That’s what I thought you meant.” He cleared his throat. “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem for you now.”

“That’s good to hear.” She smiled. “But I’d like specifics. If we spend some time together, I’ll be certain to get all I need from you.”

They couldn’t be talking about sex. Surely she wouldn’t do that. But even if they weren’t talking about sex, she was proposing that they hang out together. Good things had to happen eventually.

“Okay,” he said. “I haven’t rented a hotel room yet. Do you have time to come along while I take care of that?”

“I can do that.” She stood and picked up the tray of tea and cookies. “Let me put this stuff away and get my purse.”

“Great.” Things were looking up. He closed his briefcase and stood as she quickly put the cookies back in the package and dumped out the remains of their iced tea.

“Be back in a sec,” she said, breezing past him and heading down the hallway.

While she was gone, he couldn’t resist going over to the computer and checking out the rest of her answer to Frustrated Franny.

Practice first with fellatio, keeping your thumb and forefinger around the base of his penis. When he’s about to come, squeeze there until he’s under control again. Once he realizes that holding off will increase his pleasure, he may be more motivated. You can also consider which positions—

Dustin heard her coming back down the hall and quickly returned to the sofa where he pretended to study the gigantic flower print hanging over it. Theoretically, looking at a flower should quiet his erection, but damned if the soft, plump interior of that flower didn’t look like a woman’s—

“Georgia O’Keefe,” Erica said, coming back into the room. “On loan from the library.”

He must have looked confused.

“You can check out prints just like you can check out books,” she explained. “That cuts down on the materialistic acquisition of things.”

“Oh.” He thought of the Western art, all originals, hanging in his mother and dad’s house. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to suggest selling those, either. He studied the print more closely and found the signature. “I thought Georgia O’Keefe painted cow skulls.”

“She did that, too. But her work with flowers is quite sexual, don’t you think?”

He turned to look at her. “So it wasn’t my imagination.”

“No.” Her color was high, but she met his gaze without hesitation. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, thinking about the hours that lay ahead of them, hours that just might unfold with promise like this exotic flower. “I definitely like it.”

2

AS ERICA LOCKED UP her apartment and walked to the stairway with Dustin, she wondered what in hell she was doing, inviting him to have lunch with her. Testing her courage, most likely. Venturing into the scary old haunted house to see if the boogeyman really lived there.

She wanted Dustin to think of her as a sophisticated, sexual creature, and so far she believed she’d pulled it off. The smart thing would have been to take his envelope and send him out the door with his new vision of her intact. She had a deadline to think about. Instead she was accompanying him out the door, as if she had to continue proving her point.

Apparently she did. He’d showed signs of being very turned on by her. She’d detected a bulge behind his fly as they’d been talking. The possibility that he still wanted her was so fascinating she had to follow up on it.

Besides, he looked damned good—more of a hottie than she’d remembered, and that was saying something. Although she’d been taught by her parents to be suspicious of men wearing expensive sport coats, she had to admit Dustin looked excellent in one and even better out of it.

For the trip down the stairs, he’d taken off his jacket and slung it over one shoulder. The western cut of his shirt emphasized those shoulders, which had broadened since high school. His voice was a shade deeper, too, and listening to him gave her goose bumps. She liked the tiny character lines fanning out from the corners of his blue eyes and the leanness in his face that had turned a handsome boy into an awesome man.

Maybe she’d decided to spend more time with him so she could figure out why he turned her on. Because he definitely did. All she had to do was look at him and she got all warm and pliable. But that reaction was very inconvenient, because he was not her type. Her type wore loose cotton pants and sandals, not snug western-cut slacks and snakeskin boots.

“Have you been working for your parents since college?” she asked.

“Uh, no, not exactly. I got back into the family business a few months ago.”

“Really?” She would have thought he’d slide right into a job with Ramsey Enterprises. “Then what have you been up to?”

He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to discuss it. “Amateur auto racing,” he said at last.

“Oh.” In other words, he’d extended his childhood so he could race around a track burning up precious fossil fuels while he helped destroy the ozone layer. He was so not her kind of guy. She dated men who held environmentally responsible jobs and spent their weekends browsing used bookstores or seeking out interesting foreign films. Any day now she was going to find a man like that who also excited her sexually.

He glanced at her. “You don’t approve of the racing thing.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. I could hear it in your voice.” He sighed. “I knew you wouldn’t.”

He sounded much like a remorseful little kid and she smiled.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m a little embarrassed that I stayed with it so long,” he continued. “I realize it was a purely selfish deal—I barely made enough money to support myself, and although I had a hell of a good time, I probably should have been doing something more constructive.”

She tried to banish a picture of him emerging from a fast car with a triumphant grin, because the image was so damned sexy. “Then you can understand why I don’t want to devote my life to putting out a newsletter for singles, when I could be investigating important stuff like the disposal of toxic waste.” She hoped she wasn’t attracted to his flash and dash. As they continued down the stairs, she studied him with covert glances, trying to decide if that was the appeal.

“There’s a huge difference between my racing days and this newsletter,” he said. “I loved the racing, but nobody benefited from it but me. By putting out the newsletter, you’re bringing people together, making things better.”

“In a small way, maybe, but—”

“I know, I know. You want to change the world. I always admired that about you.”

“You did?” She’d never imagined herself the focus of his admiration. The focus of his temporary lust, maybe, but not admiration.

“Sure. Most of the girls were concentrating on makeup and clothes, but you picketed the administration for recycled TP in the bathrooms.”

“Which we didn’t get.”

“You were ahead of your time.”

“Thanks. I think so, too.” She also thought it was pretty cool that he’d paid attention to her antics. She’d paid attention to him, too, but not for such noble reasons.

He’d worn those sleek satin football pants to good advantage. No doubt about it, he had great buns then and still had them now. The baggy look so many of her dates liked didn’t give her a chance to find out if she liked their buns or not.

“I’m really sorry I didn’t get to the reunion,” she said, meaning it. She could ask him to give her the name of the coordinators so she could attend the next one. “How many people showed up?”

“About two hundred graduates, so the kids and spouses made it closer to four hundred at the picnic.”

“I can’t believe the kids in our class have kids of their own.”

“Some have two or three. Jeremy and Lucinda have four. Some people are on their second marriages already.”

“Unbelievable.” Speaking of Jeremy and Lucinda took her right back to that party where she and Dustin had become involved. They’d shared their first kiss out on the patio beside the swimming pool. She’d loved the shape of Dustin’s mouth. His lips were full enough to qualify him as a great kisser, yet not so full that he looked feminine.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, she had a sudden thought. “Do you have kids?” No wedding ring didn’t necessarily mean no kids.

He shook his head. “Nope. No ex-wife, either. Not even an ex-fiancée.” He gave her that winning smile of his. “I’ve been having too much fun to think of tying myself down.”

Fortunately she remembered her savvy chick line as they walked out into the midday heat. “Me, too. Way too much fun.” His smile was another thing that made her tummy quiver with anticipation. Not every guy could smile with that level of confidence, as if he could spin the world on the tip of his finger if he chose to try.

“Footloose and fancy-free, huh?”

“So many men, so little time.”

He took sunglasses from an inside pocket of his jacket and put them on. “I guess I should be honored that you’re spending your lunch hour with me, then.”

She put on her own shades. “So, are you honored?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

She smiled, liking that a lot. Ten years ago he’d held the upper hand, but today she’d felt a shift in the balance of power. She couldn’t be blamed for wanting to savor that a little.

He was definitely flirting with her, and for the time being, she’d flirt back. But if he wanted to take it further, she’d back off. No point in pushing her luck and risk getting dumped a second time. Besides, she had a deadline. That should keep her from making a fool of herself today.

When they reached the apartment complex parking lot, she noticed a shiny new red Mustang and started toward it, thinking he must have traded in his vintage ride for a new model.

“I’m over here.” He headed in the direction of a silver king-cab with Ramsey Enterprises stenciled on the driver’s door.

“Oh.” She hated giving herself away by letting him know that she remembered the Mustang. “Somehow that red car looked more like you.”

“As a matter of fact, I do have a soft spot in my heart for Mustangs.”

So did she. “Is that red car a Mustang? I can never tell one model from the other.”

He rounded the truck and unlocked the passenger side. “I had a Mustang in high school.”

“Did you?”

He held out a hand to help her up into the cab. “You don’t remember it? The convertible?”

She put her hand in his and a quiver of recognition rippled through her. Thank God for sunglasses, so he couldn’t see the aftershock registered in her eyes. “Ah.” She managed a little laugh. “The convertible. Now I remember.” Then she stepped up into the saunalike interior of the truck and released his hand. At least he’d used a sunshade to shield the interior, or the heat would have been unbearable. “Those were the days, huh?”

“Those were the days.” His voice sounded a little strained. “Listen, I’ll leave the door open until I get in and get the air going.”

Thoughtful. The truck had automatic windows she wouldn’t be able to open if he closed her inside the hot cab. But she was more concerned about the topic of conversation than the temperature. She didn’t want to talk about that night and risk letting him know how much she still thought about it, or worse, remind him of what a little bumpkin she’d been.

“Do you have a favorite hotel in town?” she asked the minute he swung into his seat and started the engine. An easy-listening station came on along with the air. “Because I’d like to make a suggestion.”

“Go ahead.” He turned up the air-conditioning and removed the sunshade, lightly bumping her shoulder in the process.

She noticed the contact and pretended not to. “The Fairmont.”

“The Fairmont it is.” He turned the air conditioner to full blast, but he made no move to back out of the parking spot. Instead he rested an arm on the steering wheel and turned to her. “You’ve probably forgotten about the night of Jeremy’s party, but—”

“Wasn’t there a lot of beer involved?” Damn, he wasn’t going to let it go. “You’re right, I’m pretty foggy about what happened. I remember I’d had too much beer.”

“Maybe. But foggy memory or not, I’d like you to consider the franchise proposal. I don’t want lingering thoughts about that night to interfere with your decision.”

Swallowing, she glanced over at him and hoped he couldn’t hear her heart thumping. The radio switched to an oldie, Save The Best For Last. She’d always associated that song with Dustin. With both of them wearing sunglasses, she couldn’t read his expression. Fortunately he couldn’t read hers, either. “Wouldn’t it be best if we agreed to put that night behind us?”

“And start fresh?”

“Meaning what?” She wasn’t planning to have sex with him again, that was for sure. Never mind that she was feeling warm and tingly with both of them settled cozily in the cab and the radio playing a song from their high school days.

“A clean slate. Two friends from high school meeting again after ten years.”

“Were we friends?” God, but he looked sexy. The shirt fit beautifully, showing off his solid chest and firm stomach. She’d unbuttoned his shirt that night and run her hands over his chest. She still remembered the texture of his skin and the tickle of his hair beneath her exploring fingers. Then she’d unbuckled his belt…

“I like to think so. You pulled me through chemistry.”

She’d developed a huge crush on him in chemistry class. Her crush had been mostly about his gorgeous body, but to her surprise, she’d discovered his mind wasn’t too bad, either. Apparently he hadn’t been accustomed to using it. He’d scored higher on the final than she had, which had annoyed her, but she’d been secretly thrilled to find out he could match her intellectually.

“You didn’t need me to get through chemistry, and you know it,” she said.

“But I did. I discovered you’re a good influence on me.” His slow smile took her breath away.

If his goal was to charm her, he was doing a hell of a job. “I thought boys liked girls who were a bad influence on them.”

“Boys do. Men know better.”

Oh, baby. Keeping him at arm’s length would take some doing. They had serious automobile history, and the combined scent of aftershave and leather upholstery was stirring up memories in color with surround sound.