Secret Admirer: Secret Kisses / Hidden Hearts / Dream Marriage

Jane pulled the pencil out of her hair. “I forgot. I can’t believe I forgot my own birthday.”

“You work too hard.”

“Thirty-two,” Jane said a little sadly. “I’m old. Maybe I wanted to forget.”

“Age is a state of mind.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not thirty yet. You know, I can’t remember when I last went out on a date.”

“Because you turn everybody down.”

“Maybe because the right man doesn’t ask.”

Mindy hesitated. “Hey, Mom just called.”

“Did she remember she’s picking me up?”

“Yes. But that’s not why…I mean…I thought I’d better warn you. She’s on one of her tears.”

“Oh, dear. What’s she up to now?”

“Have you seen the paper yet?”

“Mindy, I have a very important presentation this afternoon. I’d—”

“Helen Geary called Mom first thing as soon as she saw it. She was very upset about it.”

Not good. Helen had been Mom’s best friend since first grade—and they were very bad influences on each other. Helen had the biggest beehive hairdo in all of Texas and that was saying something. She was also Red Rock’s most opinionated gossip and a prime meddler, if you didn’t count Ol’ Bill Sinclair.

“So what did Ol’ Bill do to get Helen’s tail in a knot? More politics?”

“Ol’ Bill ran a love letter.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He snipped the signature off the letter, and he won’t tell Helen who wrote it. Our mom had ideas of her own about the author, and she’s been talking to Matt’s mom.”

“Already?”

“Mrs. Harper thinks he’s definitely interested in you. Mom wants me to read you the love letter to see if it rings any bells.”

“Don’t tell me Mom thinks Matt wrote it.”

“Duh-h-h.”

“Well, she can just forget it. He’s not the literary type.”

“You shouldn’t have kissed him last Christmas at the Harpers’ party. And kept kissing him.”

Jane felt her face redden as it always did when she thought about those kisses. “He’s the one who kissed me under the mistletoe.”

“How well we remember the cherished moment.”

“He would have kissed anybody if she’d been standing under the mistletoe.”

“Not like that. You both looked plenty smitten. And once you two started, you couldn’t seem to stop.”

“I—I was too flabbergasted and outraged.”

“All anybody remembers is how you both looked pie-eyed the rest of the night. You couldn’t look at each other without turning red. He is so cute. And hot. I don’t get why you still hate him. Those wet T-shirt photos were flattering. I’m still jealous because he didn’t take a single one of me.”

“I’m going to hang up if you don’t shut up about this.”

“Okay already.”

“Besides, he’s been going out with Carol Frey.”

“I rest my case. Look who’s keeping up with his love life. But for the record, you’ll be glad to know, Mom says that’s off. As of last night.”

Jane’s racing heart leaped into her throat. For a long minute she was unable to swallow, much less answer. Finally, she managed to say, “Look, I really do have to go.”

“Not before I read you his love letter.”

Against her will, Jane listened. Of course, after the first word, when she got to thinking it really might be Matt, she was spellbound. Certain phrases like I would give anything to turn back time before the moment I hurt you, made her go hot all over and catch her breath as she dreamily remembered Matt’s lips clinging to hers.

“So, what do you think?” Mindy asked when she’d finished.

Jane’s heart was racing at an even more frightening pace as she pondered the phrase there has never been anyone in my heart except you. Soon it became difficult to breathe.

She remembered the warmth and eagerness in his eyes after their Christmas kiss. The next day when she’d refused to wave or speak to him on the town square after he’d waved, he’d looked so strange and hurt. Since then he’d been awfully nice. Not that she’d responded.

“I—I think I’d better get dressed now,” Jane said quickly.

“Okay, be that way. But don’t forget, I’m taking you to lunch on the river—for your birthday.”

“I’ve been starving all week so I can eat three crepes and a chocolate dessert. It’s not often that you pick up the check, little sister.”

“Can I help it if I have issues about growing up? Unlike you, I never sprouted big boobs to console me.”

Jane sighed. She hated her figure. “You’re sure Mom won’t forget about picking me up?”

“As sure as one can ever be about a mom who paints her fingernails and toenails with shiny blue paint and consults astrology charts before making the simplest decision.”

“She’ll probably talk about that ol’ letter the whole way into town,” Jane said.

“One way or the other, she’ll get her licks in.”

“How’s she feeling?” Jane asked, her voice softening.

“Stronger every day since she stopped the chemo.”

“I’m glad I came home…even if she reads our fortunes and meddles to make them come true.”

“I know. Mom may be trouble but she’s fun.”

For no reason at all, at the thought of trouble and fun, Jane thought of Matt, and smiled.

Chapter 2

Matthew Harper’s alarm blared at him from the kitchen counter of his ancient blue trailer. God, he had the hangover from hell. He’d slept with the cat from hell on the mattress from hell in a trailer that was hotter than hell. The air-conditioning had bummed out months ago, which shouldn’t have mattered since Jerry Keith should have had his new house built way before May. Hell, J.K. had sworn he’d be finished way before March. But little brothers weren’t so hot at keeping their promises.

Sweat rolled off Matt’s forehead. Hell and damnation, but the heat was fierce! The sun was barely up, and the sheets were plastered to his damp body. So was his crazy cat. Tonight after work he was definitely installing his new window unit.

He’d have time since Carol had broken their date for tonight—broken all their dates for that matter, even their date to the Spring Fling. When he’d said he wasn’t ready for marriage, she’d broken up with him—period.

The phone began to ring, but he fought to ignore it. Nobody in Red Rock but a lunatic or a bothersome woman who wanted an engagement ring would call a man before he had his coffee. He let the phone ring and tried not to listen when his machine picked up.

“Matt, this is Lula Snow. I need a big favor. It’s about Jane. Pick up.”

Jane? Lula? Carol he could handle. But it was way too early for a man with a hangover to wrap his mind around the Snow women.

Beads of perspiration rolled off his forehead. For the first time he realized his baby brother, Jerry Keith, who was also his unreliable building contractor, had been right on when he’d advised him they should finish the house first and build the garage last instead of vice versa.

What about a freak hailstorm? A man had to house his car, not a car really, a Porsche Carrera GT.

“An air-conditioned garage for a toy?” J.K. had taunted.

“For my baby. For my wheels. She’s a real racing machine.”

Hell, maybe if he’d listened to his brother, he wouldn’t be sleeping on this lousy couch in his lousy, ovenlike, hunting trailer, suffering phone calls about Jane from Lula.

Maybe he should have said yes when Carol had demanded marriage. She was perfect for him. Beautiful, complacent, smart, and smart enough to hide it. Other men envied him when he took her out. Jane, on the other hand, wore glasses, hid her figure and flaunted her intelligence. She had a bad habit of holding on to grudges, too.

As he thought about Jane, which he’d been doing a lot lately, a vision of her lovely mouth, not Carol’s, arose in his mind’s eye to taunt him. The mouth, a familiar demon, was huge and red and absolutely luscious.

Next, that male organ he normally took such immense pride in arose underneath the sheets and said, Hi, here I am, darlin’, to the giant mouth. It didn’t take much guessin’ to know what that excitement was all about.

“Damn!”

Never drink too much when you’ve got to go to work the next morning.

He’d been so happy last night when he’d gotten home and seen Jerry Keith along with a full crew at the house actually hammering and nailing, he’d invited the guys to dinner. No sooner had he started grilling thick slabs of beef when Carol had called to ask if he’d forgotten their date. He’d apologized and asked her over to have dinner with the guys. She hadn’t liked that. Somehow she’d launched into the subject of marriage. The rest was history. Or rather they were history.

Which was why he’d sat out on the big flat rocks on his land with the guys until all hours watching his pet armadillo, Dillard, dig for grubs in the moonlight. They’d all gotten to bragging about women, telling dirty jokes and drinking—mostly drinking. Everybody had wanted to hear the old story about how he and Jerry Keith had snuck up on the Snow girls right when they’d been tanning their legs behind their house that fateful afternoon the year he’d asked Jane to the Spring Fling. Too bad for him the girls had started spraying each other with hoses and Jerry Keith had grabbed his camera and started snapping pictures. But if Matt lived to be a hundred, he wasn’t likely to forget how good Jane had looked with that wet cotton plastered against her breasts.

He rubbed his head where it hurt. The trouble with being a bachelor was the time gap when there wasn’t a good woman to nag you into living sensibly. Carol would have stopped him on beer number three.

All of a sudden the damn alarm clock had his brain throbbing so hard he could have sworn it hopped off the counter straight into his skull. Jane’s red mouth dissolved into the mists of his mind. Groaning, he jammed pillow number three over his head, rolled over onto Julie Baby, who stuck several claws in his chest. When he screamed, she jumped from the bed to the lamp, knocking it over and shattering the bulb.

“Damn your hide, cat!”

Although he wasn’t much on rules, a man should know better than to sleep naked with an untrustworthy female whose nails were too long.

Matt sat bolt upright and glared at Julie Baby, who stared back at him serenely. Did cats ever blink? Growling, Matt threw a pillow at the clock, which hit the floor and mercifully died beside the jagged bits of lightbulb.

The phone rang again.

Lula again.

Later.

The trailer, what he could see of it from the tattered couch, would’ve made a pig oink with pride. The sink overflowed with last night’s dishes. The garbage can brimmed with several days’ stinky leavings.

Later. After he got the window unit installed and washed his Porsche tonight, maybe he’d vacuum. Even he could see it was time.

The phone stopped ringing. Lula didn’t leave a second message.

If and when Jerry Keith ever got his ranch house finished, Matt intended to be neater. The trashed trailer, which was supposed to have been temporary lodging, would go back where it belonged—to his hunting lease.

The trouble was Jerry Keith was bad about working for other people instead of for him.

“Have to build clientele. Marketing. That’s your game, ain’t it, Big Bubba? You’re up for director of market research, am I right? Same as Jane Snow? Afraid she’ll beat you?”

Matt knew he’d been way too patient with the brat, but his kid brother did have a few things on his plate—a pregnant wife, for one thing.

At least with no AC and open windows, Matt could hear doves cooing outside and a whippoorwill. The faint breeze that smelled of cedar and grass nearly lured him outside, only the phone rang again, and he picked up.

“Lula, darlin’, you aren’t gonna quit, now, are you?”

“How’d you guess it was me?” She sounded pleased.

“I’m psychic.”

“Like me? Then you probably know why I called.”

“Let me guess. You want a favor.”

“Jane’s car’s in the shop. Could you drive her to work?” Jane. She’d barely spoken to him since she’d gotten him expelled his senior year. He’d been forced to resign as president of his high-school class, and several honors he’d earned had been stricken from his transcripts. He’d been in the doghouse with his folks, too.

“If she calls and asks me herself, I’ll consider it.” Silence.

“Lula, are you still there?”

When Lula still didn’t answer, he began to think about the promotion Jane and he were competing for. If Jane needed a ride, why not scope out the competition? She was a tight-ass if ever there was one. Surprises, especially from him, unnerved her.

“Do you take the Gazette?” There was a note in Lula’s voice he knew better than to trust.

“Am I a red-blooded Red Rockian or what?”

“There’s an anonymous love letter to the editor you might find very interesting. A little birdie told me it was written to you.”

Jane’s mother wouldn’t be talking about Carol. “Are you saying Jane wrote it?”

“Why don’t you drive her to work and ask her yourself.”

The luscious, enormous mouth came back to taunt him. The red lips puckered. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the mouth, Jane’s mouth, stayed right where it was—tempting him.

He’d kissed that mouth.

The lips puckered seductively. Hell, he could almost taste her. He remembered exactly how satiny and slick those lips had felt on the outside and how wet and hot and honey sweet they’d been on the inside. He still couldn’t quite believe she’d let his tongue through the pearly gates without chomping it to bits.

He thought about her hot body, and his number-two brain got so excited it tented the sheets beneath his waist. Good thing the cat wasn’t watching or she would pounce for sure.

“Oh, and one more thing, Matty.” He gritted his teeth at his kindergarten nickname. “My Janie doesn’t have a date to the Spring Fling.”

“Because she’s so damn picky, she’s turned everybody down who’s gotten up the nerve to ask her. Who’s she waiting for—Prince Charming?”

“Could be, handsome,” her mother said slyly. “So, you keep up with my Janie’s love life?”

“With our nonstop gossip grapevine buzzing day and night, I’d have to be brain dead not to know everybody’s business, including hers. How’d you find out Carol broke up with me last night because she’s moving to Houston a week earlier than she thought?”

“She broke up with you because you wouldn’t propose.”

“Damn, you’re good.”

Lula laughed.

“It was pretty late when she called me,” he muttered.

“To be exact, it was 8:30 p.m. ’Cause you stood her up.”

“Next time I want to know what’s going on in my life I’ll call you.”

“If you’re driving Janie, she’s expecting me at 7:30 a.m.—sharp! You know how grumpy she gets if she has to wait even one second.”

“I know how grumpy she is—period—any time I come around.”

“That’s just because she’s afraid to let you know how much she likes you.”

“Right!”

“Trust me. Her mother knows. Remember, I was the one who had to put her back together after you kissed her under the mistletoe.”

“Goodbye, Lula.”

“Just read her letter. It made me weep.”

Chapter 3

A devil bit him in the tail when Matt saw her street sign and realized he was almost to her house. He finger-combed his inky hair. He adjusted his red tie with the pink flamingos. Hell. Maybe the thing was too loud. He ripped it out of his collar and tossed it behind him as he yanked his collar open.

What was it? Every time he got around Jane, he got like this.

Maybe the big sexy mouth that had haunted him ever since he’d gotten up this morning had him a little crazed. Maybe it was the thought of her perfect yellow house with its perfect white shutters and a picket fence, yes, a real picket fence, damn it, the kind that made a man think of kids and a future and a sweet, alluring woman waiting for him at night, that unnerved him. Or maybe it was just her.

Not to mention the letter.

Had she written it?

Whoa! He wished that phrase that kept replaying like a broken record while the big, neon-red lips puckered would stop. His head hurt just thinking about it. He’d popped two aspirin, but they weren’t cutting the pain.

…there has never been anyone in my heart except you.

How could this be when she ran from him instead of to him that night. People who kissed like that and couldn’t stop belonged in bed together. He’d been a coward not to go after her. But after some of the hurtful things she’d said, Matt knew he’d done damage and should leave well enough alone.

As if this helped his current predicament, he thought gloomily. Without having a why for the childish insanity that getting anywhere near her brought out in him, he stomped on the gas pedal so hard the powerful engine roared. It was 7:30 a.m. sharp when Matt skidded into her driveway, leaving a trail of black marks just to prove he was the big grown-up brat she thought he was. Next he honked. Just a couple of light taps just to make her mad.

She had ears like a lynx. She’d hear him.

Her front door opened immediately. The second he caught the merest glimpse of her slim, curvy body in the shadowy doorway, a hot bolt zapped him. As always, she hid that perfect figure under one of her dull conservative black suits and high-collared blouses. As always, every pearl button was securely fastened. As usual, her long, platinum-blond hair was tied back in that odious little knot in an attempt to downplay her looks.

Oddly, the severe hairdo served to accentuate the high cheekbones and the classic lines of her exquisite face. And it was exquisite—a perfect oval. Everything she did just made her more attractive, at least to him, which was probably why she did it—to annoy him. She’d been annoying the hell out of him since she’d been a first-grader, so she was an expert at it by now.

Her blue eyes swept over her perfectly manicured lawn, the row of potted geraniums and the well-tended ivies hanging in her oak trees before zeroing in on him. Pushing her stylish, if thick, metal-framed glasses up the slender bridge of her nose, she stepped onto her porch. Her blue eyes, which were fringed by long, inky lashes, widened before they narrowed—on him. Her beautiful mouth, the mouth of his wet dreams, opened and closed with distaste.

“Your mom said you needed a ride,” he yelled. She pivoted on a single high heel and slammed the door in his face.

“Good morning to you too, darlin’!”

Okay, so he shouldn’t have honked.

Gripping the steering wheel, he waited a minute. When she didn’t come out, he got out, finger-combed his hair again, and then climbed her steps two at a time. Before he could knock, she opened the door.

She was on her cell phone now. “Mom! Mother! I know you’re there.” Abruptly Jane snapped her phone shut. With her eyes glued on his pink shirt, she said, “She hung up.”

“Happy birthday, darlin’.” He bowed low.

She didn’t smile.

“We’d better go,” he said.

“I’ll just be a minute,” she said icily, and true to her word, she was back in seconds with her briefcase and purse. He helped her into the Porsche, and in no time, they were zooming out of her driveway.

“Sorry about this,” she said. “My mother—”

“Mothers like ours are forces of nature.”

“She should have called me first, not you.”

“It’s a done deal now, darlin’.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It would be, if you’d let it,” he said. “You always complicate everything.”

She inhaled deeply. As he sped down the familiar, oak-lined streets, she turned her back to him and stared out her window gloomily. “It’s just that I hate to owe a man like—”

“Me? A man like me? What do you think a man like me will exact as repayment—a pound or two of your delectable flesh?” He grinned at the back of her head. “You can relax. No hidden camera today.”

She whirled around, her face red. “See—this is why I always dread being anywhere near you. You make light of things that matter a great deal to me.”

“I was just teasing,” he said softly.

“I don’t like it.”

“Sorry. I grew up with brothers.” He paused. “You smell good. Like jasmine.”

“Would you stop?”

“I can’t tease. I can’t compliment you. What does that leave?”

“Nothing. I want absolutely nothing to do with you other than a civil relationship at work.”

“Why?”

“Why? We have this awful history, for starters—your stupid camera.”

“Before that you had a crush on me in grade school.”

“I did not!”

“Did too. Okay, I know I should have ripped the negatives of those pictures to bits.”

“You shouldn’t have plastered them all over the locker room!”

He scowled at the bitter memory. “I paid for it.”

She lapsed into silence. His temples were throbbing when she finally spoke to him again. “I don’t want to talk about it any more than you do. I just think we would both be happier if we never had to see each other—except at work.”

“I wouldn’t be,” he muttered.

“Don’t start.”

“What?”

“Doing what you probably do with every woman.”

“Is that it? You’re jealous?”

“Hell, no. But we’re competing for the same job, for one thing. We have to work together. But on a personal level we can’t…”

“We can’t what?”

“I—I don’t know.” But she did know. As always, ever since she’d come back to town, there was a hot spark of electricity between them. She hated it and hated him because of it.

She continued to stare out the window. Her hands that were folded tightly in her lap shook.

“Your mother told me to read the letters to the editor this morning,” he said. “Did you happen to see that anonymous love letter?”

She blushed furiously, guiltily, and then shyly.

His heart leaped. Had she written it? Did she feel that way about him but was so repressed she couldn’t face herself or him? This possibility was incredibly exciting.

“That…er…anonymous person…is living with a lot of regret,” he said smoothly.

She flashed him an odd look that seemed both vulnerable and desperate. “I don’t feel comfortable talking about it.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because. Just because. I…I can’t believe it’s taking this long to get out of Red Rock.”

Frankly, he’d been too absorbed with her to notice where they were. He’d never been this close to her for this long. She always ran. In his eagerness, he spoke before he thought. “Your mother said you don’t have a date to the Spring Fling. Well, it so happens that I don’t either.”

“My mother should mind her own business!” she snapped.

“A lot of people in Red Rock should do that.” He hesitated, grinding his teeth. “I was trying to ask you to go with me to the Spring Fling.”

“What? Us? You and me?”

“Why not us? Maybe we could get past the past if we did that—show the town we’ve buried what happened in high school.”

She turned and her eyes narrowed on his face. “Did you ask me because you and I are both up for director of market research?”

“Hell no.” He felt himself getting mad, too.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “You asked me before when we were kids deliberately to humiliate me.”

“I did not.”

“You snuck up on us and took those pictures. Then you—”

“Like I told you then—I didn’t.”

Like always when he defended himself, she glared at him.

Damn it. He hadn’t. He clenched the steering wheel, remembering the stupid misadventure that had caused both of them so much pain when they were kids.

J.K. had lured him into the cedar-brush country right behind the Snows’ place with the promise of some exciting wildlife. J.K. had been toting his .22-caliber rifle and Matt had his camera.

“I don’t see anything worth wasting good film on,” Matt said when J.K. grabbed his arm and pulled him down behind a huge red rock.

“Just you wait.”

Sure enough, it couldn’t have been more than five minutes before they heard the Snows’ back door close. Next, leaves crackled in the direction of the Snows’ property. They heard giggles and a dog barking. Then the branches parted and Jane and Mindy Snow and their chocolate Lab, Grizzly, stepped out into the sun. The girls wore white T-shirts, and maybe, hell maybe—nothing else! A guy could hope, couldn’t he? Mindy was dragging a gushing hose, which she tossed into a bed of roses.