L.A. Caveman

Christina Crooks

L.A. Caveman

Copyright © 2010 by Christina Crooks.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

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Smashwords Edition: June 2010

CHAPTER ONE

"This is difficult for me. Please know that."

He bowed his head slightly, which alarmed her more than anything else. But she listened. What else could she do?

"I believe your work is intelligent and humorous, and could even be very popular, at the right magazine. I'm sure you will have the other editors in this town all begging for your editorial services. But unfortunately, Men's Weekly is no longer suitable for your particular slant. I admire feminists. But your approach isn’t appropriate here any longer."

Jake Tremere gave Stanna what she supposed was meant to be a reassuring and sympathetic smile. It came across a bit stiff.

Stanna's gut instinct had vibrated with tension when the much talked-about, mysterious new owner of Men's Weekly called her to his large but cluttered corner office. The oversized windows offered a panoramic view of the Hollywood Hills, but her eyes were locked with dawning comprehension on the man who'd singled her out of the Men's Weekly gang and who was now tapping his red pencil on the hardened leather covering his mahogany desk. He made her nervous.

It wasn't his shaggy golden-brown hair, too ruggedly unkempt for the white dress shirt he had on. And it wasn't his powerful frame. As the well-built, proud new magazine investor pinned her with an uncompromising stare, a moment of intuition told her exactly what she was about to hear.

"I want you to know there's nothing personal in this. I'm sorry, but I find it necessary to let you go."

Let you go. The words reverberated in Stanna's mind and kept her from concentrating on the rest of the speech being given by the new boss: Let you go let you go let you go. His voice was background noise as she considered those very important words.

Strangely, she felt a keen disappointment that this particular man wanted to be rid of her. Had to be the shock.

He actually thought he could waltz in here, fire the old editor Ian, then fire her, all before unpacking his luggage.

He’d gotten away with axing Ian, which was a crying shame. Everybody missed him and was busy speculating about what kind of boss would make firing the editor his first order of business. Ian was a decent enough man, even if he hadn't exactly turned the magazine into a pot of gold. He certainly didn't have a problem with so-called feminists. She owed him for hiring her as a columnist at the Los Angeles-based Men's Weekly when all she’d had to offer was barrels full of enthusiasm and a great column idea. He’d been more than a boss. He’d been her mentor.

Gone now, fired by this pencil-tapping autocratic man in front of her because there wasn't enough of a profit. And he thought he was going to "let her go" as well. Perhaps he actually believed exorcising the feminist would improve the format.

She looked up to discover that Jake had stopped talking and was staring at her. She supposed he was waiting for some kind of response. Tears, perhaps. He would be disappointed. She raised a brow and let her gaze drift to the surface of his desk.

The flat expanse was still piled with full cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked, and his upper chest and head were framed between two of them. He was handsome, she couldn't deny that. With his broad shoulders and longish shadow-gold hair, he'd make any woman look twice. And his eyes! The almond-shaped aqua-greenish jewels were set in an outdoorsman's face. Though they weren't slanted in any way, they gave a falcon-like impression of cruelty. They were beautiful, and she felt herself flushing slightly in reaction to their steady regard.

Especially when those eyes traveled the length of her body, slowly and arrogantly. Her rose cardigan sweater fit somewhat snugly, offering no protection from his measuring gaze, which insolently roved over her relaxed gray slacks with a practiced look. He did it so casually that she wondered for a moment if he were just taking note of her business-casual attire. No, there was a very masculine approval in his eyes.

And she was pretty sure it wasn't because he liked her outfit.

She couldn't believe it: he'd just told her she was out of a job, and yet he had the nerve to peruse her physical attributes. Her body tingled unsettlingly while her mind registered the violation to propriety. He was exactly the type of guy she was trying to reach in her column.

It was going to be a pleasure to inform mister boss-man he couldn't "let her go."

His eyes finally fell to a stack of papers on his desk and he evened them out in a gesture of finality. His tone was almost gentle. "I take it from your silence that you have a full understanding of my reasoning and no objections to this purely business decision? Fine. In that case, I'll have your final paycheck mailed--"

"Excuse me," Stanna broke in. "You can't fire me."

The empathy disappeared from his face. Jake's look of displeasure pleased her. The look was quickly masked and a bureaucratic robot responded in a rehearsed-sounding monotone, “I understand how you feel. It's difficult and traumatic for these things to occur in one's life but if you can rise above this minor setback and persevere—"

"No. You don’t understand," Stanna interrupted softly, noting how the displeasure immediately reappeared on his face. His forehead creased into fierce lines. So, he didn't like being interrupted.

She smiled. "You can't fire me. Legally. Unless you want to buy off my contract, which I hope you don't do because I enjoy working here. Also, it would be very expensive for you. Really expensive."

"Contract. You're saying you have a contract?" For the first time, Jake seemed slightly uncertain.

"If you'll consult the company records, you'll find my three-year contract, of which I still have two more years as the exclusive writer of our 'Woman's Word' advice column. Of course, I also work as copy editor and assist with my share of the administrative stuff, too..." Stanna tapered off into silence as the expression on Jake's face alchemized slowly into a controlled dislike: first the wide and finely-shaped lips dipped almost imperceptibly at the corners, then that forehead furrowed once more.

He stood. "Please excuse me for a moment." Reflexively, her eyes skimmed over the hard-muscled figure that revealed itself when he stood. She jerked her eyes away immediately, peeking only when he turned his back. He circled his desk and strode quickly and deliberately toward the door. His movements were taut with suppressed energy, and as smoothly confident as any creature in its natural habitat. His khaki dress slacks and the tucked-in white shirt fit so perfectly that the designer might have used Jake's muscled body type to design them, but Stanna thought he'd probably be just as comfortable in an animal pelt. For some reason, the odd thought intensified her tingling reaction to him.

And directly on the heels of that thought, red danger signals began blinking in her mind. She needed to ditch thoughts like those, pronto.

She called after him sweetly as he walked out of the office, "The records are located in the northeast corner of the floor, in the gray cabinets." He shut the door firmly behind him -- a not-slam that really wanted to be a slam. Stanna grinned.

Why had he bothered to soft-pedal the termination, Jake wondered to himself as he rested the damned file on one khaki-slacked knee. He had been so professional about it, to the point of having a slimy taste in his mouth due to some of the corporate-smoothster language he had used. Not his usual style. Not that any style would have done any good, according to the evidence perched on his knee.

Of course Ian hadn’t told him about this. Oh, no. Ian had pulled a fast one on Jake, telling him Stanna was a permanent employee. Permanent his ass. She was contracted, though. Legally contracted. He couldn’t get rid of her as easily as a firing.

And damn it, after she butted in, interrupting him twice, he'd especially wanted her the hell off his magazine. If there was one thing that bugged him about women, aside from their manipulations, games, cattiness, and general untrustworthiness, it was when they cut him off. That kind of aggression, as far as he was concerned, defined too many modern females: disrespectful and intruding where they weren’t wanted.

He mused that his careful termination speech might have had something to do with the young blonde's delicate good looks. She'd seemed so deceptively fragile at first, he hadn't wanted to hurt her. Rather, he'd wanted to make it easy on her.

Ha.

The only fragile thing about her was her tempting little body. He'd never had a weakness for ballet-bodied blondes, but her slender figure and shiny helmet of straight, just-past-shoulder-length hair were elegant. Pretty. Very different from Jolene.

The memory of his last girlfriend rose like an unwelcome guest in Jake's head. Dark, curly hair, sparkly brown eyes and voluptuous curves that she’d used to best advantage. Just as she’d used him.

Jake shook his head to rid it of her image.

He'd like nothing more than to warn the poor slobs out there who didn't know the dangers of twenty-first-century women. He rose to his feet, slapping the file a couple times onto his left palm. The damning file telling him that Stanna's contentious presence -- he remembered the smug way she’d called after him with the cabinet's location -- would be around for another two years, unless he had a tidy bundle of cash to buy her off. Which he didn't, of course. His life's savings, including the small sum that came to him when his parents passed away, were sunk beyond sight in this dark horse of a magazine.

Despite himself, he started feeling the familiar twinge of excitement as he thought of how he was going to turn Men’s Weekly around. Ian had been doing it all wrong, letting the men's magazine degenerate into a wimpy politically correct rag that hurt nobody's feelings and bored everybody with be-nice advice and tepid stories.

The previous absentee owner-investors had treated the magazine like their other hands-off investments. From what he'd heard, they rarely even came in the building, so long as the investment dollars trickled in. Luckily for Jake, when the profits started looking unreasonably poor to them, they were more than willing to listen to Jake's offer to take the dying magazine off their hands. It had cost him nearly his entire sizeable fortune, but he knew that Men's Weekly was a winner.

All it needed was a change in how it talked to the men who read it. A firming-up of editorial slant. It was so simple, really, he was surprised that Ian hadn't thought of it:

Men wanted to read about men things, from a man's perspective, and get masculine-type advice. Men want to be real men, they want to understand women, they want to get sex, and they want magazines to show them how. Jake planned to give them that, and Stanna stood in the way with her inappropriate 'Woman's Word' advice column. It wouldn't do. It was his magazine now, and Stanna, along with the modern world’s popular new political correctness regarding women, could go take a flying--

"Didn't like the shape of your file?" asked Michael. The stocky, pony-tailed art director was in his early thirties, the same age as Jake. No one would’ve guessed. There was something of the eternal youth attached to Michael, in a flamboyant, suspiciously "arty" way. He paused in his stroll down the hallway to flash his white teeth at Jake's confusion.

"What? Oh." Jake looked down to see the forest-green hanging file folder with the dirt on Stanna, now crumpled almost to a ball. He smoothed it out, ruefully grinning back at Michael. "I was just thinking about something."

"Just hope it wasn't me," Michael tossed over his shoulder, along with a wink, and sauntered down the hall. His untucked vibrant Hawaiian print shirt swayed gaily with the movements of his hips. Jake stared after him for a moment or two in mild suspicion, then shrugged his shoulders, amused. His new employees were a varied bunch. But as long as they could do their jobs the way he directed, he didn't care.

Which brought his thoughts back to Stanna: What was he going to do with a feminist columnist on a men’s magazine, when his program for success called for male-bonding writing?

Fire her, of course, like he had the previous editor. Like excising a tumor, he would cut out the bad and also cut down on overhead. Beautiful simplicity. But it wasn't to be that simple, he thought as he glared at the offending green file, putting it back in the gray cabinet before he could maim it further.

The 'Woman's Word' advice column would have to stay. Stanna herself would have to stay. And he had nothing to say about it -- yes, he did. Jake narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. He couldn't fire her, it was true, but he did have control over her. Over her writing, anyway. The editorial content in his own magazine belonged to him. Stanna would just have to write in a Men's Weekly way. Goodbye "Woman's Word," hello..."Stan Says." That had a nice ring to it.

The idea might be so repugnant to her sensibilities. she might voluntarily give up the column in favor of more appropriate duties. Maybe she'd even leave.

Jake realized that he was psyching himself up as it were a ball game, justifying what he was about to do. Which, if he were honest with himself, was to haunt her out of the house. He had a moment's twinge of guilt, thinking of the slender young girl in her cute pink sweater, waiting in his office.

Then he remembered why she was waiting. He shrugged the guilt off. He strode back down the hall purposefully. Business was war.

Stanna looked up at her new boss leaning against the cluttered desk and wanted to spit into his aqua eyes. "You're telling me," she paused to get her breath because her voice was hitching with fury, "I have to have a guy name? That my column has to reflect your Neanderthal point of view? Forget what's best for them, and just--"

"As the owner of the company, I decide what's best for my readers. The column should not be Neanderthal, though I'm not surprised to hear a feminist call it that." He said the word as if it were vulgar. His mouth was a thin contemptuous line, all traces of empathy gone. A purely ruthless businessman. "I think, if you decide to continue as Stan the columnist..." he paused, seeming to enjoy her discomfort, “you’ll need more education on the subject of men's interest columns. Specifically, what men are interested in. You might want to pick up a copy of Robert Bly's Iron John. It's a book about--"

"I know what that book's about," Stanna interrupted, barely holding onto her temper. She felt her own lips compressed into a thin barrier against profanity. "It's about a bunch of guys who wish they were born in a century where it was still cool to carry a club and drag a woman by the hair." She could see he wasn't going to respond to her words. In fact, this time the interruption barely made him blink, though she could tell it bugged him. He sat down leisurely, looking dangerously expectant. She lowered her voice, trying to sound reasonable. She had to convince him.

"Men don't want that sort of old-fashioned philosophy anymore. They want to know about modern men and women, modern solutions, how to deal with the latest relationship issues of today. I've been educating them in the column, giving them the tools they need to be sensitive people."

"Have you?" His hooded eyes sank over her figure, deliberately roaming the front of her rose-shaded sweater, then flicking back to her face. Heat mounted to her cheeks, probably staining them the same color, she thought furiously. She opened her mouth to really slam him. But he spoke again in the same measured tone. "And is it your vast experience with men that makes you such an expert?"

Her head fell forward slightly, her eyes still locked on his. Had she heard him correctly? There really was no way of misinterpreting that knowing gaze.

He was absolutely still, head tilted slightly to one side as if in anticipation of her answer. She didn't answer right away, offended into immobility and yet finding it difficult to unlock her gaze from his. His tropical-ocean eyes simmered with a strange heat as he added quietly, unsmiling, “You’re an innocent, aren’t you? I should show you just how wrong your assumptions are."

Her body's immediate reflex-reaction to his soft words was to tingle warmly. His powerful, mesmerizing eyes; his superbly conditioned body costumed in banker business-wear; his shaggy hair; the controlled edges of his thin, wide lips. The softly delivered sentence. She didn't blame her body for responding the way it did. She only wished, in that moment, it had selected any other man but the one in front of her who looked so… ready.

First she tore her own eyes from his, as they were no doubt telegraphing her inappropriate, ill-timed desire. Inappropriate, she emphasized to herself. Bad timing, she added. Calming down from her electric reaction, she wondered for the second time in an hour if her imagination was playing tricks with her.

She had to play it cooler than she felt.

She tried to appear to seriously consider his "show you” comment, raising her eyes to meet his. She tried to look cool. Cold, even. No, she couldn’t sustain cold. Instead, she promised him, "I'll show you a swift kick where it hurts if you hit on me again."

The chilly smile Jake bestowed on her trumped her heat. "Fair enough, Stanna, but you'll write what I need written, or else I'll have to 'edit' your column extensively every week. And by edit, I mean rewrite. I'd appreciate it if you'd learn the new editorial policy and implement it immediately."

"And if I don't?" Now, why was she goading him? Stanna felt like kicking herself rather than Jake. She had such trouble playing it cool.

Jake smiled, amused. She cared for that sort of smile even less than the chilly one. How could such a good-looking man be such a jerk? His heartbreakingly-shaped but cruel mouth parted to deliver equally cruel words: "If you don't, then you may find that this magazine becomes an unpleasant working environment for you. Let me be frank. Due to the existence of that contract, we both know that I can't fire you -- unfortunately for the magazine. But I can make you want to leave. Or, you may eventually choose to renegotiate your contract. For example, you might have value as a receptionist."

Stanna felt her control strain. She mentally listed all the things she could sue him for if she were inclined to duke it out in court rather than at the office. Luckily for him, that went against her own sense of fairness, like running in to tell mommy and daddy that Rickie next door wasn't playing nice. She'd had guy friends all her life, and she knew how to deal with them. Jake was a guy like any other. Easy to handle. No sweat, no lawyers, no complexity.

Well, maybe a bit of complexity.

Jake watched her with his predator-eyes, obviously relishing the thoughtful wariness she was sure showed on her face.

A guy like any other.

Except…

It was one thing for him to say that he had a problem with her work; it was another to engrave the line so clearly between them. He must really dislike her. The feeling was wholeheartedly returned, she decided.

Jake's condescending voice insinuated itself again. "Consider broadening your horizons about the column. You don't have the proper equipment to truly relate to men, in the most basic physical ways. But there's always research." He smiled lecherously, and she had no doubt about what kind of research he referred to.

He pushed his chair back and stood. "Men's Weekly won't support your female-cozy columns any longer. Make 'Woman's Word' -- I mean, 'Stan Says' -- something of interest to men." He paused, then added, speaking slowly and gently, "Not all of us guys out there are cavemen, Neanderthal or otherwise. We're just sick of all the overreacting feminists." He walked to the door, opening it to indicate the conversation was over.

Game, set, and match to the man in the khaki slacks. This time. Stanna rose, seeking her dignity. She wasn't going to let him get away with this. She couldn't. 'Woman's Word' was her column, her way to reach men like Tarzan, here. To teach them what she was in such a perfect position to know: what works with women, and what doesn't. She wasn't going to freak out. She wasn't going to cry, or run away, or anything else he expected. Thanks to her tomboy youth and guy friends, she understood men better than Jake knew.

He would not eliminate her valuable job like so much boot scraping. She controlled the stress-reaction trembling of her mouth with supreme effort.

She mentally commended herself for the easy way she glided to the door, keeping her expression carefully neutral. It was hard to keep it that way, though, when he smugly tossed the reminder after her, "Copy's due tomorrow," but she managed. Barely.

Men's Weekly took up an entire floor in the five-story building, with its advertising department, copy department, and separate dimly-lit and funkily-decorated art department. The shoulder-high partition setup let the departments communicate easily. It also allowed people to drape over them and chit-chat. Stanna liked the friendly camaraderie and teamwork she shared with her co-workers. Despite the separate groupings for departments, everybody truly worked in synch with everybody else, and her few previous post-college work experiences let her appreciate the difference at Men's Weekly. How lucky she was to work in the glamorous world of magazine publishing. It was a good job she had, especially for a twenty-five-year-old, and she knew it.

But at the moment she had a hard time appreciating it. She hurried back to her cube directly, because she didn't want to inadvertently take out her bad temper on anyone. She seated herself in her cube and stared unseeingly at the computer monitor, at her half-finished 'Woman's Word' column. She'd heard the expression, "cross-eyed with anger" before, but she was experiencing it firsthand. The text on the screen flip-flopped and she figured her eyes were as crossed as they could get.

Bad enough that he’d fired Ian and then dictated a column sex change. Worse, though, was that he’d killed a dream: she had, with Ian's encouragement, coveted the position of "Editor" for herself. Ian wasn't too many years from retirement. It could’ve happened.

The grizzled old guy, a veteran of dozens of publishing companies all over the country, could be a little out of it, a little uninvolved, maybe. But he let her do what she wanted. He used to look at her with a strange twinkle in his pale gray eyes and talk about retiring early to bass-fish. He would talk in his funny faux pirate accent and command her to "look after the ship" after he left, as if he was some kind of boat captain.

What changes she could have made in Men's Weekly! Big changes, moneymaking changes. Most of all, educational changes. She’d fully planned on making Men's Weekly a progressive, cultural 'zine that never, ever resorted to woman bashing. But now, with Jake at the tip-top of the chain of command, she wouldn't get the chance to make those big changes. Instead, he was going full-throttle with his own.

"You don't have the proper equipment to truly relate to men, in the most basic physical ways." That just wasn't true. Men and women were human beings and basically the same, just with internal versus external equipment. Why did some people make such a big deal out of the plumbing? Those people were wrong.

People like Jake who perpetuated that way of thinking were dangerous to the idea of basic equality. She'd known the type before. Been friends with some, even. Which was the reason she got hot under her cardigan over Jake's smug, insufferable, arrogant attitude. It wasn't right to shovel females into that limiting bucket o' bimbos. It wasn’t fair.

Maybe he thought his readers wanted a James Bond/Larry Flynt combo, a column about the finer attributes of women who were four feet tall with a flat head -- all the better for setting your beer down, went the sexist joke. Or perhaps a modern-style Conan critique of large versus small rear ends. She could hear the locker-room laughter already. She couldn't bring herself to write like that. And she shouldn't have to. 'Woman's Word' was hers!

Especially since she’d offered Ian the column idea even before she was hired. She wanted to write a civilized and enlightening women's opinion column for men. During her interview, she'd pitched the idea with all the enthusiasm her heart could muster, and Ian had been so impressed that he not only assigned her the column, but also agreed to her ambitious terms for a contract: Three years.

Unfortunately, she was sure the contract wouldn't protect her column from Jake's editing each week as he threatened. As the head honcho, he had the right to alter her copy. Her mind, in good journalistic spirit, faithfully documented her feelings about that: Magazine columnist's head cooks to boiling point and then explodes in a superheated geyser of blood! Magazine's new owner comments, "That's what happens to angry feminists. In our next issue, Men's Weekly explores this phenomenon in our new replacement column, 'Stan Says'--with a new replacement writer."

She ground her teeth together in frustration. She could leave, she supposed. Or become a receptionist. She couldn't believe he had the gall to suggest that one.

She focused on the screen in front of her: her column. She couldn't give it up without a fight. Getting the column was the biggest achievement of her life. She’d had a career setback, but she wasn’t out for the count.

That would let Jake and what he represented win.

And, though she didn't particularly want to, she could see why he was being so stubborn and blind. It was because the jerk believed that junk about her not having the proper equipment. He was misinformed, of course.

About the "proper," not about her "equipment," she wryly mused to herself with a flush of amusement that soothed her ruffled psyche.

She snorted, and smoothed the wrinkles out of her pants. She wondered if a guy like that was even a little bit redeemable. It was possible, she mused. Highly unlikely, but possible.

She stared at the screen for a long time, but no column ideas came to her.

"He sounds like a charmer." Telly scooped another green grape from the bowl nestled next to her on the antique chaise lounge and dropped it into her lush mouth, Cleopatra-style.

Stanna felt the tension of the workday begin to drain away in the familiar environment of the two-bedroom apartment they shared, but she knew her stiff perch on the edge of their cream-colored couch told her best friend and roommate even more than her tirade.

For her part, Telly stretched out sinuously, catlike. She reposed in a velvety midnight-blue nightgown that was just a touch too fancy for the casual event of two roommates lounging at night. But that was just Telly being Telly.

Stanna herself wore simple sweatpant cutoffs and a T-shirt. It was amazing, she thought, that the day's confrontation hadn't given her a monster headache instead of just stringing her emotions taut. The single glass of red wine was helping, but after unburdening herself to Telly about her experiences with her new boss, she still felt the urge to vent.

"It's not just that he wants to make the magazine more profitable. It's that he really hates women. The guy had that look in his eyes that says, 'You are a bug.'" Stanna demonstrated by narrowing her eyes the way she'd seen Jake do, and then exaggerating an affected disdain that made Telly nearly choke on a grape with laughter.

"He probably feels threatened by you," Telly said when she caught her breath. She smilingly ran one painted-nail finger over her hip and Stanna had no doubt she was thinking of times when she had "threatened" the males of the species. But for all of her obvious charms, she still hadn't found Mr. Wonderful, either.

Stanna surreptitiously evaluated Telly's looks: short, spiky blond hair, perfect makeup, voluptuous body. And, of course, excellent taste in clothes.

Very different from her own minimalist makeup style. Her single tribute to face paint was her dark pink lipstick, and the lack of other makeup made hers a "French" style, she’d read somewhere. Which sounded way more glamorous than she was. She kept her straight, thick, blunt-cut blond hair clean and frizz-free.

Her body was not nearly curvy enough, she compared, critical. But she was happy enough with her bod. Since she'd been an adult she'd never been confused for a boy. Telly was better endowed, maybe, but she always moaned about men gawking at her more generous chest long before they noticed she had a brain.

Stanna considered Telly's comment that Jake might feel threatened, for all of two seconds, then shook her head. "He's too in-control for that. Like nothing could faze him." She stared at a spot in the cream couch and tried to imagine the strong, powerfully athletic man who was her boss feeling threatened. She failed utterly. She was unaware of Telly eyeing her speculatively, with a mischievous smile curving her flawlessly lipsticked mouth.

"You could..." Telly paused dramatically and then continued with the seriousness of a scientist announcing a medical breakthrough, "try tickling him."

Stanna greeted that outrageous statement with an unladylike snort of laughter. She felt her face completely relax at the thought of tickling Jake. "That would be about as effective as tickling a marble statue."

Telly paused her hand in mid grape-delivery and raised one thin brown eyebrow theatrically. "He's that good-looking?"

"Believe me," Stanna responded emphatically, feeling her face tighten once more, "good-looking means nothing when the personality is poison. And this man has RAID running through his veins. Regarding women, anyway. I don't know how I'm going to work under him for another two years." What was it about the man that just the thought of him made her skin crawl interestingly and her muscles tense as if in anticipation of a fight?

"From the look on your face when you were thinking of tickling him," Telly needled, "you wouldn't mind working... under… him too terribly much." Stanna glowered at her roommate, punching a crocheted beige pillow to emphasize her next words. "No! No matter what kind of pheromones he oozes that let me ever even consider... that... which I have not, just for the record... but even if I had..." She paused for a deep breath, trying to compose her words. It was tough, trying to explain why she could never be intimate with Jake, and she wasn't sure why. The man was like some kind of a wicked demon, for crying out loud. Absolutely off limits.

Telly smiled affectionately and said, "Enough about that." Stanna nodded in agreement, waving her hands in the air dismissively, as if to wave away a bad odor. "My guy situation is exactly the same as it has been since I moved down here, since we won't count that ogre-in-residence at work. What about you? Any fun prospects?"

"Only if you think putting together rare sci-fi monster models for 3 hours is fun." In answer to Stanna's questioning look, Telly grumbled, “Don’t ask. Where, I would love to know," she paused dramatically, and Stanna joined her in the little ritual, "are the really good men?" They gave each other matching lascivious grins. "But, not too good."

"They're all home reading my column," Stanna quipped.

Telly looked at her with interest. "Do you ever get fan mail from them? With pictures, maybe?"

Stanna thought back. "That's funny... I never thought about it, but I haven't received even one fan letter from a guy. I got a couple of emails from grateful girlfriends who read the column. They were really positive emails, praising me for keeping up the good fight. Nothing from a guy." Stanna arched her back, stretching the kinks out, then shrugged. "They'll thank me when they see how well my advice helps them in their lives, especially in relationships."

"I've read your column, and I agree one thousand percent," Telly said. "If my sci-fi friend on Friday had read your column...if any of my recent dates had read your column... my weekends would offer better memories."

"And mine," Stanna moaned. "What's with our luck lately? My few dating adventures here were a waste of time, too. Is it a big-city thing, maybe? The guys here are just freaks? I dunno. The more I hear from you, the more I want to stick to red wine and a good book on Friday and Saturday nights."

Telly spoke again, reproachful. "You can't just hide. The dears can't all be duds. There are good companions out there."

She sounded to Stanna as if she were trying to convince herself as well, and Stanna couldn't resist: "The best ones have a lot of fur, cuddle with you on command, and are affectionate and obedient by nature." Now, why was she suddenly thinking of Jake's golden chest hair peeking through the V of his white shirt? Shaking her head and smiling, she added, "And if they're bad, you can give them a good smack."

Telly whistled. "Careful what company you spout that sort of thing in. If a guy said that, he'd be carted off for a chauvinist pig."

"Pigs are better, too. Nice, clean pets."

Bemusedly imagining a pot-bellied pig trotting across her light-brown berber carpet, Stanna rose from the sofa to get some food for her empty stomach. The wine clearly had taken over her brain. "The problem with men -- and I've said this in my column -- is that they're too male." Her gray eyes sparkled with humor.

"Exactly!" Telly agreed. "Now, why can’t they be masculine without those nasty old side affects? Something ought to be done." She put her arms out in front of her, palms up, and loudly beseeched an unseen audience, "Somebody do something!"

"How about... governmental deprogramming!"

"A medical study!"

"Female hormones in the drinking water!"

"A woman for President!"

"Penile shut-off switches! They have chemical castration for pedophiles, so it could be done…"

"A cult of modern-day Amazons!"

Stanna suddenly became quiet on hearing that. She paused halfway between the couch and the kitchen, and stared fixedly into the distance. What a neat idea. Women banded together to show that men weren't the only ones who could kick ass.

"Stanna. You're getting an idea, aren't you?" Telly didn't sound surprised. Living with a columnist, she was used to Stanna's creative fugues. Stanna murmured to herself, "Cults are pretty common, actually. Maybe not of Amazons. I mean, that wouldn't fly, would it? They kill people, and the whole right-breast removal thing sounds a little gratuitous. But a group of modern women who want good guys instead of the jerks that are out there… it might just get a lot of media attention and volunteers."

Stanna turned to catch Telly peering at her suspiciously. "Are you going to start your own little tribe?" She tipped an index finger at her, an I've-got-it gesture. "This is because of your new boss, isn't it?"

"No," Stanna replied a shade too quickly. "Well, maybe," she amended, to be fair. "Maybe I just like the thought of Jake Tremere trussed up and hanging over a bubbling cauldron ringed by tough chicks. He needs a demonstration that men are not roughly forty feet higher on the food chain than women."

"Cauldrons and food chains!" Telly giggled. "You know what Freud would say about your edible metaphors? That you want his meat dipped in your cauldron!"

Stanna lunged for the couch and hurled an embroidered pillow at Telly. Telly dodged, still laughing. Freud was a fool, anyway. Just another man who thought with his phallus and thought everyone else did the same. "Ooooh," she suddenly said, thoughtful.

"Another idea?"

Stanna felt a devilish grin stretch her lips. "Woman's Word' just got the word, thanks to Freuddy-poo. And Jake won't like it at all."

"Uh, Stanna? Not to state the painfully obvious, but didn't he tell you to change the 'Woman's Word' column? And, isn't he your boss?" Telly's expressive eyes managed to both smile and telegraph her concern.

"He's the editor, which I would've been if it wasn't for him," Stanna replied, frowning. Thoughts of food fled her mind. Jake was mangling her column and her career. Intolerable.

Before she knew it, she was halfway down the hallway. "I'll talk to you later," she called back over her shoulder, belatedly. Oh, well. Telly knew she was impulsive and wouldn't take her abrupt departure personally. Her roomie was probably rolling her eyes with the kind of eloquence and grace only Telly could manage.

She sped to her bedroom and flew to her desk, parking herself in front of Old Reliable. She stroked the keyboard, composing the column in her mind before typing a word. Then she began.

Reviewing it an hour later, she couldn't help laughing. It worked just fine in letting her new boss know she wasn't one to be pushed around, and she felt oh so much better now too. This was even better than drinking wine and talking to Telly, 'cause the tyrant in the corner office would actually read this!

He would recognize himself in her column, since she talked about a testosterone-soaked caveman who made business decisions with his "divining rod." She hoped it made him mad enough to call her into his office again. This time she'd be prepared, though. Now she knew what to expect. Kind of.

Not really.

Well, maybe she didn't hope he called for her. Maybe magazine life could continue on uninterrupted, though, the way it used to be. Surely he had better things to do, other responsibilities of managing the magazine business.

He’d just have to wake up to modern reality. It wasn't fair or appropriate to change her column to be the voice of Neanderthals, men's magazine or not, and it wasn’t good business despite his misguided opinion. He might give her a man's byline. "Stan" was the name he’d picked out, she thought with amusement. How many people would even be fooled by the changing of her name?

But rewrite her entire column? He wouldn’t have time.

She suddenly wondered what revenge he would have time to take. Might he use his red editor’s pencil on her column? Or might he do something worse? For a moment, a shadow of dread passed over her and a calm and reasonable voice within her asked if she knew what she was getting into.

Stanna acknowledged the voice's point even as she reached for a paperclip to fasten the editorial runsheet to her column. It really was much too late for second thoughts. She'd taken her stand.

Unlike some people who questioned themselves into a corner, she'd stick by her decision until she succeeded. Or until someone convinced her men didn't desperately need to hear what she had to say in her column every week.

Not bloody likely.

She felt a shiver of anticipation. Wondering at it, she realized she was looking forward to the battle.

CHAPTER TWO

She should’ve gone to bed earlier.

The effects of sipping wine with Telly then finessing her column until late into the night dragged on Stanna: slightly foggy upstairs, and her limbs were slow taking orders from her.

She prescribed herself coffee and walked to the Wednesday morning employee meeting. She was curious about the very first meeting chaired by the new editor/owner, but more curious about Jake's reaction to the column she’d drop on his desk afterward. The anticipation of seeing him again made her smile, a touch nervously.

Stanna warmed her hands on the mug of coffee, enjoying its heat and the new-coffee aroma wafting back as she strode to the conference room. She might actually have to give Jake a bit of credit. He'd dumped the notoriously bad industrial brew Ian called coffee and stocked the kitchen with savory Starbucks flavors sometime in the past twenty-four hours.

Stanna pushed her hip against the shining metal handlebar on one of the large glass doors to the conference room. She slipped inside with practiced skill before the door could swing shut and dislodge her coffee.

The room was the largest one on the entire floor, the length of perhaps ten employee cubicles end-to-end. The oversized glass doors fitted into glass wall, and at the other end a floor-to-ceiling window had an uninspiring view of the big brown high-rise next to theirs. Sitting at the long wooden table were most of the Men's Weekly employees, and she greeted some of her friends and pulled up a chair near the head of the table. The glass doors opened again and Jake pushed through.

"Ok, let's get this thing started." He nudged his chair further underneath the head of the table and stood behind it, lightly grasping the chair back. The glass doors shut, creating a tiny breeze that whooshed past him and over Stanna. She could smell the understated scent of his woodsy cologne along with her coffee, since he was an uncomfortably insufficient three feet away. He smelled of quality and competence, and pure, raw masculinity. It was disturbing, and she couldn't help but look at the man who originated the scent.

Even more disturbing.

He wasn't looking at her, but had his strong profile turned to survey the others of his staff. He might have been counting, or just interested in seeing all his people gathered in one place.

In all, exactly nineteen employees ringed the long table. They were a varied bunch, with slightly more men than women, all dressed more or less casually or business-casual, as per norm. The publishing industry hosted a relaxed dress code, which the artistic employees who gravitated to such jobs appreciated.

Even Jake took "casual" to an extreme, for an owner anyway. Making a point about his wanting to be one of the crew? Trying to set a new casual standard? Or did he just prefer more laid-back clothes? She didn’t know, but Stanna reluctantly admired the way Jake's rugged, broken-in jeans hugged his narrow hips. Her angle next to him gave her a hip-height vantage point, and her eyes naturally fell on his pocket-tucked thumb pinning his black shirt to make an open curtain frame for the generously rounded, faded button-fly front. Her breath caught, and she looked for a full, mesmerized second before quickly lowering her gaze, her face heated. It didn't help. Now she could see his superbly muscled thigh and calf, and down by the wheels on the chair, the leather peek of cowboy boots.

His voice was smoky, melodious. She enjoyed the tone of it for a few moments before lending her attention to the content. She didn't quite dare to look up at his face yet -- had he seen her ogling his crotch? How embarrassing. What was she doing, anyway, with such thoughts of... of consorting with the enemy.

She scanned her fellow employees instead. They seemed to be hanging on every word he said. To be fair, it was interesting, the way he described his decision to buy Men's Weekly. And his declaration in ringing tones of his commitment to his employees. Very convincing. They were certainly eating it all up. Michael the art director was looking at Jake with something like adoration.

What about how he fired Ian, Stanna thought with some bitterness. Where was all Jake’s so-called employee commitment then, hmmm? A cynical puff of sound escaped her, making some of her nearer co-workers glance at her questioningly. But the disapproving compression of her lips slowly eased as she listened to Jake’s words.

"...and of course some of you must be wondering why your former editor, Ian, had to be let go, and whether there will be any more changes." Jake turned and looked down to meet Stanna's startled glance up at him. His mouth momentarily curved in sardonic amusement, then his eyes flicked back over the long table of employees calmly. "The short answer to the first question is, Ian is no longer needed since I am assuming the role of editor. For those of you who are wondering, he was receptive to the idea of an early retirement, and seemed content to accept the terms of the severance package I offered him."

Not wasn't exactly true, Jake mused, but they didn't need to know the gory details of the previous editor's refusal to accept the termination and his nastiness and threats to Jake.

Ian had finally taken Jake's more-than-generous severance and left, not without promising Jake he hadn't heard the last of him. But Jake thought that he had. The sixty-year-old would have to be a fool not to realize what a sweet deal he'd received, considering the incompetent way he’d been running the magazine.

At least Ian hadn't had a contract, Jake thought, fighting the urge to look again at his female columnist. He liked the way her smooth golden hair fell to well above her small round breasts pushing against her white T-shirt. He remembered how testy she’d been in his office yesterday. Passionate. Was she the type to display the same kind of passion in bed? The thoughts made him self-consciously wonder for a moment if he possessed more than the average amount of healthy male lust, and he moved closer to the chair back in front of him.

Jake opened a manila folder and pulled out some handouts he'd prepared. Handing them to the guy on his left, he said, "Please take one and pass ‘em on. This," he said, raising his voice to include the whole table, "should answer most of your questions about the changes I want to implement in Men's Weekly. It's an overview explanation with a breakdown by department showing what each of you will be responsible for. Please take a look at it. I’ll discuss this first, then I'll answer any questions."

When the diminished pile of handouts got to Stanna, she pulled one from the top and placed the last one, pinch-fingered, in front of Jake. Silence ruled the room. Glancing down at the sheet, Stanna's eyes widened. There, in title-type at the top of the page, was Jake's new Men's Weekly slogan: "GIVING MEN WHAT THEY WANT, WHEN THEY WANT IT."

Stanna bristled, but on second thought shrugged, figuring it was just marketing. The line could simply be referring to baseball cards. Or something that was totally innocent.

But when her eyes scanned down to her new responsibilities, she knew her problem would be much bigger than baseball cards:

"'STAN SAYS,' formerly 'Woman's Word,' is Stanna Whitland's responsibility. The voice should be a hip, hungry heterosexual male who delivers a weekly column on troubles plaguing the modern man: employment, women, finances, women, fitness, women, you get the picture. Surveys say men want to hear about women. This is the magazine's main forum for it. In addition to this weekly column, Stanna's official responsibilities now include handling the main phone line and acting as receptionist, managing the departmental correspondence (mail, Fed Ex, faxes, memos, etc.), and any other special projects I give her."

The florescent light in the conference room gave the white sheet of destiny in front of her an unpleasant glare. Stanna felt her stomach tighten in a defensive ball as the shock kicked in. There it was, committed to print for everyone to see. Her column, a forum for slobbering over women. And, as if that weren't enough, he'd made her receptionist too. Receptionist. The lowest rung on the magazine ladder. It was a joke. She, Stanna Whitland, had been training under Ian to become the next editor. The highest rung aside from being the publisher or owner. Receptionist. They'd gotten along fine without a receptionist by having everyone answer their own phone. What was this all about?

But the moment she asked herself the question, the answer popped into her head. He's doing it to make you quit.

Her anger coalesced as she stared at the paper in front of her. Scanning quickly, she saw only minor changes to the others' responsibilities.

Definitely out to get her.

It was the sound rather than the conscious decision to do it that made Stanna realize that she'd torn the paper in two. It seemed to echo in the silence of the room, and she became aware that every eye was on her.

Jake didn't seem surprised. His face held an attentive, alert, expression. She could only imagine what the other faces ringing the table revealed. They were suddenly all peripheral blurs.

"Do you have a question?" So Jake was going to play dumb. He exuded the kind of arrogance that made her want to upset his equilibrium, just for the cosmic balance of it.

Her words shot out without any premeditation. "Yes. How did such an ignorant son of a bitch get to be an editor?"

Did I really just say that? Stanna heard gasps around the room. Michael was staring at her like she'd grown a long black hat and sprouted a wart-sporting beak.

Jake's face hardened somehow, showing displeasure without a change in expression. But he controlled it, along with his voice when he answered, "If you’re referring to Ian…” His voice warned.

“I’m not.”

“Then, you’re referring to me. I will say I didn’t attain this position by rudely swearing at my superiors, I assure you."

"You’re certainly not my superior. You’re not superior to Ian either. You’re not superior, end of statement. Get over yourself." The rest of the room had disappeared as far as Stanna was concerned. It was just the two of them. Mano et mano. Duking it out. Maybe she had her "tail feathers in a twist" as her stepfather used to condescendingly tell her, but she had good cause.

So it was with momentary surprise that she registered how Jake's next words were directed at the rest of the table rather than at her.

"Please excuse the interruption, but I think it's best if we resume this meeting next week at the same time." Jake dismissed everyone with a calmness she felt certain he didn't feel. Too quietly, her fellow workers gathered up their mugs and notes and filed solemnly out of the room. The tension in the air prickled her skin.

She swallowed. They were alone.

"I'd like to discuss this further in my office." Jake gave her a neutral, almost distant glance and began walking toward the door, assuming she'd follow him.

"I'm not going to your office," Stanna responded, wishing she were more successful in injecting outrage into her voice.

Jake whipped around. "Yes you will," he snapped, "because I've had enough of this putting on a circus." He stalked toward her, then sideways as he brushed his hair off his face. His movements radiated suppressed energy. There it was, his dangerous side revealed. For some reason she wasn't surprised or afraid; she'd sensed his animal side and seen too much of his ability to control his temper to be fearful, though the tension she sensed made her almost supernaturally alert. And increasingly uncomfortable.

The scent of his cologne wafted over her again, and she couldn't help noticing the commanding presence in the way his stride took possession of the room. It was such a masculine body to be so graceful. The ridiculous thought occurred to her that if he were, indeed, in a circus, then he would be the lion tamer. The cats couldn't help but acknowledge him as their master. It was in the way he stalked.

One arm shot out to point at the clear glass walls, and Stanna blinked.

"Glass is acceptable for design, but it doesn't offer much in the way of privacy. I prefer privacy when I discipline an employee."

Noticing the way she bristled, he smiled tightly. "Also, I’d better take this opportunity to tell you that when I ask for something at work, I expect it to happen, right away, otherwise it's known as insubordination, and I can and will write you up for that." He turned around again and pushed the glass door without looking back. "Enough write ups," she heard him say in a frustrated sotto-voice, "and maybe a lawyer will let me tear up that contract."

Stanna sat for a moment, alone and shaken. Her mind cast about for some sort of plan. Get a lawyer herself? Get out her contract and rip it the way she'd ripped the handout? Give up on the magazine business and try her hand at something more her speed, say, knitting quilts?

No.

The negation came from somewhere deep within her. No lawyers. Whatever had begun, here, with Jake coming and altering her profession and trying to kill her goals, it wasn't finished playing out yet. A lawyer would change the game, making her lose even if she won.

She wouldn't run, she wouldn't cry for help. Strangely enough, she heard her stepfather's sincere but rough Texan-tinged advisory: Play the cards you’ve been dealt. For once, the domineering voice actually seemed to guide her decision rather than give her something to rebel against.

Besides, she was just plain curious how the situation could get any worse. Surely anything she attempted could only improve the situation?

He seemed to really hate her. It bothered her that she cared. Was it possible to hate someone you met only the day before? She believed she hated him too. He was evil, he was ignorant, he was the devil.

She didn't really think he was the devil though. Stanna rose, resolved to do what she could to repair any damage done. Maybe she’d spoken and acted a trifle hastily. Maybe more than a trifle. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Her face burned as delayed embarrassment about the scene she made struck her. She shouldn't have gone public with their little feud. It hadn’t helped anybody. Especially her. But as it occasionally did, her temper had gotten the better of her.

She would have to call on all her reserves of diplomacy, she thought as she swept up the torn paper. She deposited the two pieces in a narrow, mesh-steel trash receptacle tucked discreetly next to the glass doors on her way out. She’d be humble.

It was too quiet in the industrial-brown carpeted hallway. As if the troops had all retreated to their solitary posts to sift through the morning's events. Or cowered in their foxholes. No hum of gossip or even radios playing.

It made her uneasy.

She walked with her head high toward his lair. Worry dogged her steps, sending spikes of anxiety through her. She admitted to herself, for the first time, she might actually be outgunned.

In his office, Jake tossed his briefcase on his chair instead of his desk. Lumped high with half-unpacked boxes and crowded with somewhat organized piles of paper and film to be sorted, the desk seemed to forbid any more items being placed upon it.

That damn contract. She was going to be much more trouble than he’d realized. He seriously contemplated firing her despite the contract. What a sweet thought. Unfortunately, an impossible one. Jake stroked his temples wearily and leaned against his desk.

He didn't need any legal expenses now, not when he had everything staked on the magazine's success.

Which meant he was stuck with the little pain in the ass. He pressed the flat of his palm against some paper covering the solid wood of his desk, then hit it. It made a satisfying thwap. She had spirit, which under other circumstances he'd admire. She had some talent, too, he reluctantly admitted. He'd read some of her old columns. Her writing snapped and crackled even with the blame-the-men-for-everything feminist subject matter.

But.

She was a hellion in front of his other employees and stubborn about applying his editorial direction. It wouldn't do. He couldn't afford insubordination right now, any more than he could afford to buy off her contract. Everything depended on the magazine running smoothly and efficiently, responsive to his direction. He couldn’t allow another tantrum like the one she’d thrown in the conference room.

As if in answer to his unspoken ultimatum, Stanna knocked hesitatingly on his door while pushing it further open. Her demeanor seemed more subdued than before, he noticed. She looked at the floor as she walked quietly towards his desk. Stopping still a good five feet from him, she slowly glanced up at his face. He saw the tension etched in hers. Her pretty gray-blue eyes no longer spit fire. She twitched but stood her ground when he pushed himself away from his desk and strode past her to shut his office door behind her.

Brushing close enough by her to touch the sleeve of her simple white T-shirt, he took control of the meeting by speaking quietly toward her shell-pink ear, "I believe an apology is in order." He continued, then turned to lean again against the edge of his crowded desk. He folded his arms. "Your dissatisfaction about your new role at this magazine shouldn't have been expressed publicly. Nor in such a manner."

Stanna started to respond.

"I'm not finished!" Jake slashed the air with his palm. His voice vibrated with suppressed anger and determination. "You undermined my authority in front of my new employees at our first meeting. You insulted me personally, and you effectively brought an end to a meeting that should have lasted until everyone had a chance to respond with their own questions."

He could see her lips twist slightly. Distaste for what she was hearing? Too bad. But perhaps she was about to cry. Damn it, he hated it when women cried. He hoped she wouldn’t cry.

He softened his voice. "Stanna, I can't have you disrupting the magazine like that. Whether you agree with my methods or not, I have to ask you to cooperate."

"Cooperate with my own destruction?"

Nope, she wasn't near tears, Jake realized with relief. He began to speak but Stanna held her hand palm out and fingers spread in a stopping gesture.

She visibly restrained her ire. "Okay, I shouldn't have let my temper get the better of me. Sorry. All right? But when I saw what you did to me, I flipped out." She searched his eyes. "You don't understand," she said, watching his expression. In a despairing undertone, she added, "I just wish you could understand."

Jake thought he'd never seen a more angelic entreaty. Her mesmerizing blue-gray eyes were clear and expressive. Her brows arched delicately like angel's wings. Her white shirt and simple haircut only added to the effect of innocence. It was a compelling picture, and he felt himself responding to it naturally with a surge of protectiveness.

He tried to crush the impulse. She might morph into Stanna Spitfire any moment, so her angelic act didn't fool him one bit, he told himself.

"I have to think of my magazine," he explained, his voice sounding too gentle to his own ears. As a result, his next sentence dripped with menace: "You have a job to do. Go do it."

"What if I don't choose to do it that exact way?"

Jake suppressed a chuckle at her wheedling retort. What was it about her that messed with his moods until he wanted to slam his fist through a wall one moment, and felt tickled with humor the next? He shook his head, baffled.

Stanna raised her chin stubbornly. "You really don't understand. If it weren't for you, I'd be next in line for this office, this desk..." Her glance took in the office, then the mountainous pile on the desk. She frowned at it. "Ian told me, often, that I was a shoo-in for editor. Then you came along and fired him. And not just that," her voice got faster, heated with the ire she obviously tried to control, "you also insult me, demote me, and channel my creative voice into your women-bashing new column."

Jake felt a twinge of guilt for enjoying the way her chest was heaving. He compensated by modulating his tone for easy listening. "Stanna." Then what she said sunk in. "You were thinking that you'd be editor?" In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have sounded so surprised.

And he really shouldn’t have laughed.

Stanna's expression registered the additional insult, and sure enough, she morphed before his very eyes. She became almost a she-wolf, teeth bared in a grimace and her whirlwind of sudden movement toward him triggering his own defensive measures: Before even a second had ticked by, they were frozen in a tableau of her firm body halted in mid-strike by his imprisoning grasp of her wrist. Somewhere in the back of his mind he noticed the morning sunbeam through his large office window illuminating a rectangle of swirling dust over her left shoulder. The front of his mind, along with the rest of him, was occupied with the woman whose chest pressed against his.

For a second she remained completely still, as if stunned into immobility. Then he felt the twisting of her wrist as she tried to extricate. He knew she could feel the crushing grip he exerted communicating she wouldn't get away until he got some answers.

Answers to questions like, how did those angry, pale pink lips taste? The shape of them -- delicately bowed, just wide enough and expressive as hell -- tempted him to an extreme he shouldn’t be contemplating.

When he didn’t let her go, she subsided. To his amazement, she even apologized. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. That was… incredibly inappropriate. I actually tried to hit you.” She laughed, and he heard the defeat in it. “You should be able to fire me for that.”

Such lovely lips. “I can take reparation another way. If you’re willing.”

“If you mean… do you mean? What exactly do you mean? I think maybe I am willing.” She stared up at him, breathing fast. Her lips curved into a bemused smile.

With her body trembling against his, he didn't hesitate. Jerking her body tighter against him and inclining his head, he caught a strange expression in her eyes just as he devoured her lips. His free hand rose to grasp a thick handful of the silky hair at the back of her head, sealing the kiss.

His mouth was eating her alive, Stanna thought desperately. And what was worse, she was enjoying it! His lips and teeth teased, but his tongue plundered her mouth in direct ratio to the shock waves that vibrated to the pit of her stomach. The intense pleasure he inflicted turned her legs to spaghetti noodles, and she appreciated his strong grip holding her up. Escape was a distraction she immediately forgot.

Plastered against his chest, she reveled in its broad, hard expanse. He must have sensed she wasn't planning on going anywhere just yet because he released her wrist to gain embrace-leverage and shock her anew with the amazing sensation of the full length of his superb body fitted to all of hers.

But he didn't give her mouth any rest. Hot, smooth, and intoxicating, his tongue suddenly thrust in a rhythm that her whole body resonated to. In and in and in... she'd never been kissed like this before. Her few boyfriends were as puppy beagles next to this completely dominating, extremely competent man who held her. Impossible to forget this thoroughly alpha male with his muscled body plastering her to him. Responding shamelessly, she arched against him, moaning deep in her throat.

She nearly purred in satisfaction when she heard him groan, a low rumble, perhaps in response to her sound. One of his hands pressed the back of her shirt and the flesh beneath, the other clutched thick handfuls of her hair, as if he couldn't get her close enough. Her response whipped through her, another shockwave of pleasure. What was happening? Her fuzzed mind tried to make sense of it, but his mouth kept driving all thought away. She leaned into him further, hungry for more.

Their hips bumped the desk, and a small glossy brown block tumbled from its precarious perch atop the cardboard boxes. It struck a small cleared patch of shining mahogany desktop with a thud that effectively drew both their attention. With arms still intertwined, they both stared at the wooden rectangle and the name engraved on the brass front:

Jake Tremere

Editor

Her mind managed to make itself heard over the din of sensation.

Horrified, she pulled from his grasp even as one nagging, smug little voice inside her head rebutted with a sigh and an admiring two thumbs up.

She focused on a random spot of the brown carpet in front of Jake's boots and gathered her thoughts. Jesus, what a fool she'd been making of herself! Probably most women threw themselves at him, but she of all people should’ve shown more restraint. Roughly one hundred percent more.

She smoothed her T-shirt and shook her head. Stepping a safe distance from him, her nerves vibrated with reaction to her own impetuous violence and also his sensuous onslaught.

What had come over her?

CHAPTER THREE

Jake watched her step away. She looked disturbed.

He shared the sentiment. Kissing certainly hadn’t been on his agenda.

It had been pure liquid heaven. Her wholehearted response to him inflamed him like he’d never felt before. That was mindless abandon. He'd wanted her when she was writhing against him more than his next breath, and he’d felt the way her slender, hot little body and eager lips responded to him, too.

Hell, she was still breathing hard, he thought with masculine satisfaction. Nothing in his past even came close to the surprising electricity that had flowed between them. Not even Jolene.

He looked keenly at Stanna and his mind cleared further. What was he doing, being proud of himself for getting her hot? For kissing her, at work? He was smarter than that.

Issues of sexual harassment liability aside, he might very well be repeating a mistake he’d made with Jolene. He didn't want to think of it, but memories of his darling ex put it into his head: it was possible that Stanna might be a faker, a user trying to manipulate him with her feminine wiles.

He exhaled heavily. It had happened to him before. Guys had a blind spot about pretty women. He just couldn't afford to be the naive, lost-in-infatuation boy he’d once been. He certainly couldn’t afford a hostile workplace lawsuit. Though she had invited his touch. She’d asked for it specifically, damn it. And she’d actually said he should be able to fire her for her attack on him, and she was bloody well right. They were even in terms of office offenses.

He touched his nameplate, caressing it with his thumb as he worked the possibilities over. No one had more reason to try and manipulate him than she. He supposed her next move might be to try to threaten him with exposure of what he’d just done. Or trade favors. If she thought he played that way, she had a rude surprise coming.

So her sincere words at first surprised him, then triggered his reluctant respect. Soft but emphatic, Stanna's voice underscored her sincerity: "Jake. I'm very sorry for that. I was totally out of line to try and hit you and what we just did was a mistake too." Her ragged breath betrayed the edge on her emotions, but he couldn't tell which edge. Maybe this time she was going to cry. He found himself rooting for her to finish so he could apologize, too. He suddenly wanted to.

She continued in the same controlled tone. "But I want you to know I still think you're wrong in your chauvinistic angle regarding my column and my re-assignment as receptionist."

His urge to apologize vanished. She was still hung up on that? Now? His suspicion that she might be trying to manipulate him flitted through his mind, but he was beginning to believe it wasn't the case. He was beginning to believe this small-boned, thoroughly female girl in front of him was disturbingly single-minded.

She was stubborn. He tested his theory.

"Stanna, you can't write about--"

"Yes, I can."

Jake stifled a chuckle. He thought she'd respond that way. In fact, he thought she might say it no matter the challenge: "Stanna, you can't travel to the moon in an automobile." He was pretty sure her competitive spirit would kick in before her common sense and he'd hear "Yes, I can" before she even heard the whole sentence.

It was weird, being with a woman who acted as competitive as a man. But whether she liked to admit it or not, she was still a woman. He took one deliberate step toward her, and smiled inwardly when she only bristled but didn't back away.

"If you're planning on kissing me again, I'll ask you to remember I'm your employee and not your girlfriend."

Jake smiled wistfully. "A man could wish things were different."

"Yes, you've made your desire to fire me well-known to me and everyone else who works here."

With his reminder he was a businessman and not a date, no matter how thrilling his kisses, Stanna's common sense came back to her in a rush. It told her to get out of his office before something really bad happened.

Turning her back on him made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Leaving his office felt like retreating, even though she was coming right back. She could sense him watching her.

She wasn't sure if he’d ignore her signals to stop with the amorous activities. Worse, she wasn't sure she that she wanted him to. Moving as fast as she could, she strode to her cube, yanked her column from her notebook, and whirled. She swallowed as she returned to his office.

He was still by his desk, only he wore a mocking smile as if he knew the thoughts whirling through her mind.

Face heated, she stiffly closed the distance and held out the binder-clamped papers stiff-armed. He took it from her slowly, with just a raised eyebrow in question.

"Here’s my column. Do what you see fit.”

Without looking down at the column, Jake looked at her steadily. "I always try to." A half-smile played about his wide, intriguing lips. She noticed his whiskers. He had the beginnings of what would be a dark shadow on his jaw, and she knew the firm sandpaper feeling of it rubbing against her tender flesh. It was odd knowing something so intimate about someone who was nearly a stranger.

Tearing her eyes from him and feeling as if she'd lost some undeclared battle, Stanna mumbled, "Great." She kept her pace to a slow, dignified walk as she exited his office, when all she wanted to do was leap for the door and run all the way home.

She shut his door behind her with exaggerated softness. When her pulse slowed, she started down the hallway to her desk.

"Hey beautiful." Michael appeared round a cube-corner and pinned her with his patented gossip-hungry stare. The vivid white polka dots on his black shirt arrested her attention. "What have you been keeping from us, Peaches?" Folding his arms and blocking her path, he cocked his head and raised his brows in a theatrical gesture that Telly would have appreciated.

Stanna was tiredly amused. "More than you could imagine, Cupcake." She tried to move around him, but he waggled his finger while he shook his head. "You can do better than that. After that tantalizing display of temper you gave us all this morning I deserve the dirt, and how. C’mon. Spill, woman!"

She gave Michael what she hoped was a Mona Lisa smile and made to slip past him.

Rounding the same cube-corner, Corrinna nearly collided with them both. She added her two cents: "Stanna! What's going on!" Corrinna, a petite Asian lady who looked much younger than her thirty-four years, worked in the editorial department as a copy editor.

Stanna sighed. She wouldn't be allowed to just forget it. Everyone she worked with, at least the ones she interacted with directly, would have to be told the background or else think she was truly a monster.

She tried the ultra-abbreviated version: "Okay. Basically, he tried to fire me like he did Ian, found out he couldn't due to a contract I have, and now is making my life sort of hellish." She shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle.” She hoped.

Corrinna nodded understandingly, but a quizzical expression remained on her face. Michael expressed it: "That's not good for you. Not a bit of it. However... he seems like he might... I stress might... be a few steps above a moronic, repulsive slime. But the thing is, he's the head honcho now. You just don't screw too vigorously with the top dogs. Unless you’re into getting your hiney gnawed off." He glanced at her hiney and shrugged. “A bit off the top might not be a bad idea in your case.” He danced back out of potential fist-range. Corinna just hook her head, use to it all.

At Stanna's exasperated sigh, Michael headed off any retort by adding, "Peace, wench! Anyway, let's go to lunch. I suppose," he looked at her slyly, "you don't want to invite our handsome, fearless leader to accompany? No?" His heavy sigh of poignant regret pried a smile from Stanna and a chuckle from Corrinna.

Stanna found herself grateful for the little show of support and friendship as their small group piled into her clean but dented and wood-paneled pea-green station wagon. She managed to mostly forget that Jake would have read her column by now, and reacted to it one way or another. Did he mark it up with his red pencil? Or did he wad it up and throw it away?

Stanna blew into the first-floor department feeling worlds better for the late lunch and comradeship of her co-workers. She'd told them everything. Everything except her and Jake's kissing mistake. That little tidbit would go to her grave, she thought, her face heating just with the memory. She hoped desperately that Jake was a discreet man. Something about the natural control he usually displayed told her he was.

She stopped at the opening to her cube, her eyes locked on her In-Box. She couldn't believe it. The black tray, hanging conspicuously over a corner of her wrap-around cube-desk, could barely contain all the paper and folders and envelopes and binder-clamped bills to pay.

Evidently Jake was a man of his word. She wouldn't see daylight from this storm of paper. Her lunchtime high abruptly left her, and she collapsed into her chair with a scowl. She wondered if the phone would start ringing wildly with everyone's outside calls for her to answer, too. That was part of the new Stanna-responsibilities, right? Phone jockeying, and maybe also moving her to that narrow desk by the front door so she could greet newcomers with a receptionist's plastic smile.

It was a nightmare.

The phone rang.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the little black instrument. It used to be her friend.

She was a columnist, not a receptionist. She would be a terrible receptionist, anyway.

An idea suggested itself and a wicked smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

Stanna picked up the phone. “Knuckle Dragger Central, where men are men, and women are zookeepers. What is the nature of your emergency?”

After a long stretch of silence, Ian's voice responded, "It didn't take long for things to change around there, did it?"

"Ian!" Stanna gasped. "That wasn't what it sounded like. I mean, I thought you were someone else..." Her face was getting used to the heat of embarrassment. Floor, swallow me now.

"Stanna, dear. I do hope you’re quite all right?" Her previous boss sounded properly solicitous. Maybe a bit distracted. She could hardly blame him. Losing a job hit one’s self-esteem and sense of identity, even if Ian had ultimately been satisfied with the idea. "I was merely calling to see how my favorite employee -- well, ex-employee now, I suppose -- is adjusting to the new ownership of Men's Weekly. I know it's only been a matter of days, but I must admit to some feelings of estrangement not being involved with it any longer."

Stanna twisted the black phone cord in her fingers thoughtfully. So Ian wasn't happy about leaving. "Well, I wish you were still here. Jake has already made some incredibly bad business decisions affecting me directly." She went on to inform him of her new status and column alteration, getting angry again as she spoke. "...and that chauvinist pig is actually going to make me write as a guy! And not even a cool guy, but the kind of guy who watches other guy's girlfriends' butts! Your leaving is such a disaster."

Ian's voice resonated with feeling as he agreed. "That, my dear, is an understatement." He paused, then added a clipped, "But I wasn't left much of a choice."

Stanna caught herself chewing on a pencil, and shoved it back into her round pencil holder as she spoke. "Jake implied that you were glad to accept a generous severance, so you could retire. I gather that’s not the truth?"

She heard Ian’s cynical laughter. She frowned at the jaded bitterness of it. She’d heard him sound like that before, but rarely. His manner, which she was familiar with after a full year as his right hand and columnist, was always a proper, understated one, but she'd sensed something darker beneath the surface. Something of that darkness now came across over the phone, and Stanna stared at the phone’s rectangular base as if it could provide clues about the departed editor.

"What's done is done, for the time being. I'm perturbed that an irresponsible playboy like Jake Tremere has succeeded me, but who knows what can happen in the future."

Jake, irresponsible? Playboy, maybe. Ignorant chauvinist, definitely. But even she had to admit he was a hardworking guy. Working hard in the absolute wrong direction, of course, but working hard.

"The future is as yet unwritten, and this story is not yet at an end. I do have a few tricks left up these sleeves."

Stanna was politely quiet. The pirate-like bravado in his voice made her raise her eyebrows. What was he thinking, that he'd come back someday and replace Jake? Jake wouldn't take too kindly to that.

But... wouldn't that be the very best of all possible situations for her?

Ian was civilly taking his leave. "Dear, I hope you keep me apprised, and look after the ship in my absence. She’s a promising vessel, but of course you’ve always appreciated her. Its one of the many reasons I hired you."

After she hung up the phone, Stanna stared at the corkboard-lined partition in front of her. It was strange, but she suspected that Ian viewed his "absence" as temporary. The possibility of having her old secure life back made her giddy with hope, but caused a niggling feeling of regret.

Regret?

Yes, regret, she told herself with brutal honesty. But only because she felt piqued by the challenge of reforming Jake Tremere, not because of anything stupid and weak, like a crush.

She was smarter than that.

She stood and peered into her black in box. Rifling through it, she saw at a glance that her column wasn't inside. She sat back down. There would be no way she could concentrate on menial drudgery until she found out if her column was mangled beyond recognition.

Maybe that was why Ian sounded so bitter. He had impossible hopes, doomed to failure, yet he hoped anyway. Foolish, really.

Maybe she was being foolish too, for hoping Jake would respect her column and for thinking she’d be able to reform him.

She sat, drumming her short nails against her wood-grained desktop. He would’ve read it by now. Was he angry? More likely he’d contemptuously tossed it in the trash. The thought caused a hurtful twinge to vibrate briefly through her.

He didn't know any better, she told herself.

She squared her shoulders. Jake had no idea what it meant to pour oneself on paper and write what you believed in to help others. If he were so insensitive that he could just throw a perfectly good column away without a thought, then she would have to find somewhere else to work. The receptionist demotion, the phones, the extra work, she'd deal gracefully with all of it if she could only keep her weekly column.

She didn’t want to end up hopeful but deluded, like Ian.

Saddened by the possibility of having to leave, Stanna rose from her chair. She didn't see the beige partitions on her left or the plain wall on the right as she paced determinedly toward Jake's office. She would ask him to his face what he thought of the column.

If he viewed her work as a waste of paper, if all she had to look forward to was week after week of red-penciled replacement copy and Jake’s smug face gloating, she would rip her contract into pieces under his nose herself and be done with it.

She desperately hoped it wouldn't come to that.

His door was shut, she saw immediately. There was no light under the door, but that didn't guarantee he wasn't there. Ian usually had liked to concentrate by shutting and locking the door and working by the light from the window and the glow of the computer monitor. Sometimes the door stayed shut all afternoon. She’d wondered if her old boss snuck afternoon naps.

But Jake wouldn't be inside napping. Nor hiding. Being open and available to his employees -- having his meddling fingers stuck in everything -- was more his style. She paused in front of the door and just looked at it. It wasn't his style to lock doors, either, if her hunch was correct.

She reached out and touched the L-shaped handle.

"Stanna!"

She leaped halfway up the door before recognizing the voice as Corrinna's.

Stanna glared. "What!"

"Exxcuuuuuse me. I just though you'd like to know that your hero’s gone for the afternoon. He told a couple people in Art that he needed to take care of some things." Her ultra-thin brows twitched up and down. "You're a bit jumpy, girl."

She minced away, whistling. Stanna let her breath hiss out through her teeth and forced her pulse to slow its hummingbird tattoo.

No jumpy girls around here, no ma'am. Stanna waited for Corrinna to turn the corner, then whirled to open the door. As she expected, it turned easily.

She had to find out about her column.

Breathing shallowly, she opened the door. The faded masculine scent that greeted her brought back distracting memories. Determined, she overrode them in her mind. Stay focused. Her little act of spying was making her unreasonably nervous. She flipped the light switch, adding stark florescent brightness to the gentle yellow afternoon glow from the one window.

She looked about, her eyes touching on all the likely spots: trash can (empty), cardboard boxes (full, but with his own things), desk (who knew with all that paperwork piled so high?), and floor (the only neat thing about the office). The spot in front of his desk where they'd embraced looked somehow different from the rest of the office, as if ghosts of their entwined bodies still filled the space.

Avoiding the spot and forcibly shoving the memory from her mind, she dashed to the desk and scanned the surface documents. She hated to rifle his paperwork, not because she was afraid of messing it up -- it couldn't be messier -- but because it made her feel like a nosy obnoxious thief. She knew she'd hate it if someone went through her things. It was an inexcusable invasion.

But she had to know about her column. She wouldn't even look at anything else. With a speedy efficiency born of distaste for her actions, she shuffled the surface paper, turning up corners and flipping over anything that looked like the little white binder-clipped packet she'd turned in just hours ago. She'd left the door almost completely shut, but she knew she had to hurry before any of her coworkers walked by and peeked in.

"Damn it, it's not here," she muttered. Stumped, she surveyed the papers on his desk. Her eyes fell on the inconspicuous black file cabinet in the corner behind his desk. Could he have filed it away? If he had, she supposed she was out of luck. She drew the line at digging through his personal files.

She would just have to wait until he returned to ask him about her column.

Disappointed, she whirled to exit. A couple steps with her head down were all she took before her internal collision-warning system jerked her head up. She froze.

Blocking her path, Jake had his arms folded. His silent, cool appraisal suggested he'd been there for some time.

CHAPTER FOUR

Too close to him, she reflexively jumped back with an involuntary "oh!" of surprise.

Slowly, he unfolded his arms. Deliberately, his body turned and he closed the office door behind him before re-folding his arms.

"Hi," she offered weakly.

He just stood there, a life-size, expressionless woodcarving.

"I wasn't snooping," she tried next. She cleared her throat. "I was just looking for my column so I could move it along to production. That's what I always did with Ian." That was mostly true. Ian let her give her column directly to the Production department -- he just never bothered reading it until after it was published.

"I'm not Ian." His quiet voice rolled out at he. He took a step closer.

She backed up one step, then caught herself, irritated. "Listen. I wasn't doing anything wrong."

He took another step, but then he maneuvered around her, agile. He put his briefcase on his chair, and she heard it click open as he leaned over it for a moment. He pulled out her column.

When he turned to face her, she watched the familiar white packet tensely. "There it is," she said unnecessarily. Would he demonstrate his big-shot power now and destroy it? His expression wasn't hostile, at least. In fact, unless she were mistaken...

His aqua eyes fixed on her gray ones, and she read undercurrents of... humor! He was amused at her!

He waved the packet slowly, back and forth. His eyes glittered with assurance and silent laughter.

Great, so she’d given him his afternoon chuckles. She supposed it could be seen as amusing, her being caught with her hand in the cookie jar and all.

At least he wasn't angry. Was he?

"You aren't angry?" She had to be sure.

"Not about your being in my office, no. Though a closed door generally indicates a desire for privacy." He frowned. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't assume that Ian's way of doing business is my way. That won't help either of us."

"Fair enough," Stanna responded too quickly, finding herself impressed with him again, totally against her will. But the column business would be the real test.

Tentatively feeling her way through the foreign experience of participating in a civil conversation with him, Stanna asked, "So... since you brought it up... what will help us?" She felt the ball of anxiety in her gut swell a bit larger.

“Communication.”

She stared, suspicious. Then offered him a tentative smile. “Communication’s my specialty.”

With his unexpected humor and the civilized banter, the tense atmosphere between them diffused slightly. Still alert for landmines, she continued, "Since we're more or less stuck with each other, we could learn to help each other. What do you think?" And what do you think of my column, by the way?

"I think I'd like to learn more about you."

Part of her stirred in response to his simple words. It was hard not to be with six feet of prime male leveling his mesmerizing aqua eyes on hers, reminding her of their kiss. It didn’t help knowing that any moment the knee-liquefying experience could easily be repeated. His steady gaze told her volumes more than his words. He was thinking of it too.

But he kept his distance.

And she kept her head, controlling such inappropriate thoughts by an effort of will. The sobering idea of her column in his clutches helped bring her back to business.

So he wanted to learn more about her.

"Know your enemy, huh?" she quipped. He'd turned away, toward the window. The lean muscles rippling under his shirt quickened her pulse.

"I'd like to learn about your skills, and how I can best use you on my magazine."

His magazine. He'd run his magazine into the ground if he weren't careful. Stanna sighed. Enough was enough. A gesture was needed.

She'd be the bigger person. She spoke to his back.

"Jake, I'd like to come to terms with your being here and the changes you're making. I guess I need to understand more about what you're trying to accomplish so I can accommodate it, up to the limit of my nausea threshold."

He slowly pivoted back towards her and gave a sardonic grin. "You? Accommodating? I'm agog." He raised his brows at her. He glanced down at the packet he held. "This first taste of your accommodation leaves some room for doubt, you understand." He referred to her column by running his thumb over its edges, rifling the few papers. He stood by the window with easy grace, watching her with a rueful little smile.

She wished the sight of that slow-moving thumb didn't zap right through her spine and directly into her nervous system. His smile was cute. Too sexy for her own good. He was taking her bashing of him in her column extremely well.

He could afford to, she reminded herself. With one flick of his tanned, strong wrist, her column would sail into the trash. Then where would she be? Careful.

"Jake. I, uh..." Hmm, this diplomacy thing was hard. Reaching to see it from his point of view felt like spanning an abyss. Slowly, she spoke.

"I think I understand you want to make a bigger success of what has been a middle-of-the-road, modern men’s magazine. And you believe that since the audience is men they want stereotypically male subject matter."

She had his complete interest. His eyes were alert on her. Those eyes wouldn't miss the tiniest thing. And she couldn't miss the excitement igniting in them. If she hadn't already known, she was enlightened anew about just how much the magazine meant to Jake Tremere.

He nodded, slapping the windowsill emphatically. "Yes, that's what guys want. I've read the back issues and they don't speak to the demographics. What we have here are smart young-adult and adult guys who pick up Men's Weekly to stay smart and informed. And the studies say their main priorities are women, women, women. If we don't give them what they want now, someone else will." His deep voice held absolute conviction.

"What you wrote before," he gave another absent thumb-caress to her packet and missed her quicker than normal intake of breath, "isn't giving them what they want. Or what they say with their hard-earned dollars they need.

"The question is, are you going to help me, Stanna?"

She sensed the power coiled within him as he faced her fully.

She held firm. “I’m not interested in working on a titty magazine.”

“That’s good, because I’m not interested in running one.”

"What do you want from me? Exactly what position do I have here with you?" Her question was uttered devoid of double meaning, but it hung there in the air between them anyway. A quirk of his lips acknowledged it.

"I want you to cooperate with me." His repeated request was soft and strong, persuasive and charismatic. The kind of voice that made her feel like she'd be a heel if she didn't cease her stubbornness and do what he wanted immediately.

Oooh, you're good, she marveled.

The bemused half-smile on her face must have encouraged him because he continued with a shift into a disarmingly straightforward manner.

"We didn't get off on the right foot, did we? No." He half-sat, half-leaned against the edge of his desk, his black boots pointed insolently at the ceiling. "So. When my parents passed away, I inherited a certain amount of money which, combined with what I've saved for years and a small business loan, enabled me to do something I've always wanted to do: own a magazine like this one." His gaze, when he looked up at her, was full of determination, implacable.

"Ian couldn't be salvaged. No," he held up his hand and spoke over her attempted interruption. "You may not agree with me yet, but Ian was slowly killing this magazine. And you," he evaluated her, "were to be replaced with some low-buck freelance talent. I didn’t know you, didn’t know about your contract, and the freelancer might not be as good as you. They are, however, cheaper and easier to replace if they don’t work out. I'd have used the extra money to increase circulation and ad marketing, something I'd like to begin concentrating more on. Hired help does what they're told. You follow your own feminist vision, and it’s incompatible here."

Before Stanna could take umbrage at that bit of cheer, Jake surprised her by grudgingly shifting gears again.

"You are actually more than I expected. Ian obviously thought so, too, or he wouldn't have been training you to take his place, or misled me about your employment status."

That would be his idea of an apology, Stanna knew. Though it was a bit late in coming and more than a little reluctant, it pleased her inordinately. So did the affirmation of Ian’s vote of confidence.

Even though Jake admitted that he thought Ian was "killing the magazine." That made it a sort of left-handed compliment, didn't it? If Ian was a magazine murderer, then Ian’s choosing her made her a murderer-in-training.

Jake couldn't for the life of him figure out why she was suddenly looking at him with those blue-tinted silver eyes glinting shrewdly, amused. But that wouldn't stop him from trying to bridge the chasm gaping between them since the beginning of their professional relationship. Being stuck with her didn't have to be a bad thing.

Her face glowed with health, he noticed. She was so young, so full of vitality. Her delicate brows were knitted slightly and those stunning eyes that he'd seen in extreme close-up not three hours ago now steadily watched him, a coolly assessing gaze. Very different from their melting heat when he'd kissed her. The memory of their fiery embrace nudged him, reminding him how much more his sexy columnist had to offer than her writing skills.

He needed her cooperation with the column, though. Her other qualities were nothing but mind-candy. And that's where they would stay. In his mind.

It would be much too distracting any other way.

"Stanna, the magazine is the main issue here. Its success and its satisfied readership. Can we agree on that, at least?"

"Yes. Yes, absolutely." He watched the idea spread its animation across her porcelain face before her lips parted to speak. "You know, Jake, the magazine could do well exactly as it is, with your idea about building up marketing and circulation. That's just what I've thought it needed all along, only Ian never quite had the budget to begin."

The hopeful look in her eyes tugged at him. It was her innocence and youth, he decided. That's what made him react so guiltily when she made those "save my magazine" hopeful comments. The vulnerable look in her eyes, which he knew she wasn't aware of, made him feel like a bully stealing Halloween candy.

But it wouldn't make him change his mind.

"Ian's gone, and I'm here now," he replied.

"And you're the boss," she appended, her tone carefully neutral.

"I'm glad we see eye-to-eye." He liked the way her lips twitched slightly before regaining their normal aloof shape. He was a good half-foot taller than she, just the right kind of eye-to-eye with a woman, as far as he was concerned.

She remained stubbornly silent, watching and waiting.

"Stanna..." His manners caught up to him then, and he gestured at the spare chair even as he rose to fetch it himself. "Please, sit down." She did, with another distrustful glance and a ballet-graceful bend of her slender body.

The afternoon was fading quickly, he noticed. Already the light from his window was a thick yellow-orange that only Los Angeles smog could produce. He knew if he looked outside he'd see long metal arteries of early commuters sluggishly moving along surface streets in the vain hope that they'd be faster than the freeways.

His rented home in Manhattan Beach would be a good forty-five minute drive, but the ocean-adjacent abode was worth it. Old friends of the family charged him such a low rental price that he wouldn't dream of telling anyone just how little he paid for the prime-location home. It would only make them feel bad that the same money they doubtless used to secure a single apartment in a modest Los Angeles neighborhood could keep him in a three-bedroom, two-bath house only two blocks from the beach.

Maybe he could tie this up and take off early so he'd have an hour or two to relax and prepare for his business dinner with the ad agency later.

He leaned against his desk again, feeling the wood edge against his thigh. He'd make his point with the direct approach.

"Stanna, your column is offensive to men."

Opening the packet, he read: "'...testosterone-soaked brains.... a certain Me-Tarzan corner-office tyrant whose sack gets in the way of sound business decisions... men using their penis as a divining rod in the time-honored tradition of the old-boys-club'...I don't think I need to go on.

"Men's Weekly was a hodgepodge of articles on boats, features on celebrities, how-tos for home stereo systems. And of course your 'get civilized' woman's perspective column. That was the extent of Ian's game plan, I assume, if he even had one.

"Mine is different. Worse, some might say. But mine has a structure, a narrow target audience, and a theme, and I plan to go forward with it.

"Therefore, your column, as it is, is unacceptable. I have every faith that you can do better than this."

"Nope. That's the best I can do." Her flippant rebuttal and challenging stare were expected, but Jake experienced a twinge of irritation.

"Then I'll have to do it for you. To show you how it's done." He watched as Stanna's confident facade showed a few cracks.

"Ian never rewrote me. He never bothered, and there’s no time. You have more important responsibilities. You don’t have to do this too."

"I can. I have to, evidently." He pushed up from the desk, looking at his watch. "If you'll excuse me, I have to get going."

"Wait! Wait. Hold on, cowboy." She rose from the chair with energetic gusto and a look that dared him to move one more step. Her eyes revealed the turmoil of her thoughts. "What if... Jake," she sighed exasperatedly, "you won't be getting woman-bashing columns from me."

"Did I say they had to bash women?"

"Yes! Not in so many words, but that's your so-called theme." She said the word with bafflement, as if he were nuts to do such a thing.

"Stanna, that's not what I'm saying. Not exactly." He searched for the right words. "It isn't bashing to look at women from a man's perspective. You know, their bodies, their desires, their frustrating little games..."

"Frustrating games?" Her eyes sparked dangerously.

"Games, like Hard-To-Get, or Playing Dumb, or Let's Pretend I'm Something I'm Not," Jake replied, Jolene's image in his head.

"Ahhh," she drawled, an enlightened smile spreading across her face. "You've had a bad experience with a woman. I should have guessed." She added sweetly, "But you have to realize, Jake, we aren't all evil."

Thoroughly perturbed, Jake grumbled, "Of course not. But that's not the point--"

"No, your point is you think most men would be more sympathetic to a gang-up-on-women column rather than trying to understand us."

"Why should they even try?" Jake replied, chilliness creeping back into his voice. "What's to understand? Who'd want to get tangled up in all your illogic and hormones?"

"I flatter myself I'm being logical now," Stanna replied logically. "Not all women play games, by the way. And men are so much worse."

"Worse?" Jake found himself beginning to smile. This was such a ridiculous conversation.

"You've heard of men's games, if you haven't played them yourself: Thrill-Of-The-Chase, Tell-Them-What-They-Want-To-Hear, Morning-After-Disappearing-Act. Sound familiar?"

"'We aren't all evil,'" Jake threw her words back at her. He found himself enjoying their verbal sparring. He liked the way her eyes sparkled as she argued, and the small nod of concession she gave him when he scored a point.

Her lips curved upward, a somewhat contemptuous battle-mask that he knew was due to her basically contentious nature. Her body was tense and angled in a way that suggested a cat's just before it leaped at its prey. He had her full attention.

He wanted to pull her into his arms again and help her get rid of that intensity of hers in the best possible way. Imagining her wiggling against him, her wild lips responding to him, he knew his own expression was that of a predator, too. He turned it on her, waiting for its message to impact.

It didn't take long. She cocked her head slightly, emphasizing her catlike appeal. Her eyes blazed back at him, all challenge.

"Some of us are more evil than others," he conceded, grinning wickedly.

"Evil enough to keep men in the dark? If you stick with your 'theme,' you're showing your readers only the worst part of women." She remained firmly by her guns, he noticed in admiration.

"So you admit that women can be morally vacant? Good. Your feminist inclinations don't blind to you to the facts."

"Some! Only some women are morally vacant. Some men are, too. My perspective as a woman is valid. Don't you think your readers could learn something coming from me, from the woman's perspective?"

He thought about it. He needed an exciting, man-friendly column. Stanna wanted to burn bras. Maybe a compromise could be a 'balanced picture' column. He tapped his fingers on the flimsy white column, thinking about it while regarding her steadily.

She returned the gaze, waiting for his answer. She felt invigorated as she watched him, sensing that his resolution to mangle her column was becoming less than rock-solid. The rest of him still fit that description, though, she thought as she surreptitiously scraped her eyes down his superb male form.

There was something about men in jeans and cowboy boots, especially when they could hold their own in an intelligent debate, she decided.

She filed away the information for future reference. She certainly wouldn't be applying the newfound knowledge to the hunk in front of her, even if he was managing to play her libido-strings with a maestro's touch -- without a single touch.

He was still silent, his golden-brown hair falling unruly to his shoulders as he angled his head down. She remembered the thick, silky feel of it under her hands when she'd touched him.

Stop that, she told herself sternly.

"Stanna." His voice, decisive. His next words, curious, shocked her. "What made you distrust men the way you do?" Seeming to realize what a nosy question it was, he reluctantly added, "Never mind, you don't have to answer. Right now, anyway." But he waited another moment before gruffly addressing her original question.

"I think the idea of a 'balanced picture' column is interesting, but it probably wouldn't work because of your extreme feminism," he continued, blunt. He held his hands out, palms up in a shrugging What Can I Do pose. "Unless you make it entertaining to my readers," he emphasized the word possessively, "it won't fly. But, I'll give you this much: I'll give you back this week's column for you to change to show me what you can manage in the way of 'balanced.' If I like it, I'll publish it. If I don't," he gave her a grim smile, "you won't recognize the column that gets published, even though 'Stan's' name'll be on it."

He extended his arm stiffly and formally offered her the white packet. She knew it was the offering of a new "contract" between the two of them, an informal but nonetheless binding agreement to work together in a new way.

She thought about it for long enough to cause Jake's eyes to flicker with impatience. She made him wait another few moments just because she could.

She lifted her arm to accept her column from Jake, sealing the contract.

She gave his grim little smile back to him, her fingers tightening on her unacceptable column. Maybe she’d gone a bit over the top. She could fix it. She had to try and reform this man along with all his misguided readers for the sake of the magazine and, well, for all womankind.

"I'll have it back to you first thing Tuesday," she told him, turning to leave.

"By Monday morning, please," he corrected uncompromisingly.

"Yes, boss," she grumbled, taking care to sound appropriately disgruntled as she wheeled about. He couldn't see her smile secretively down at her column. She wrote quickly, and needed mere hours, not days. She wasn't about to let him know that though, or how much she was growing to look forward to debating with him.

The early evening light turned the brown carpeting an orange-gold in front of the large window by the elevators. Stanna waited alone for one of the sluggish lifts to arrive, as everyone else had already trickled out. She leaned tiredly against the wall, fatigued from the day's unexpected new workload. It had taken her hours to tackle everything in her in box.

Usually she was the one waving goodbye to everyone. When Ian was here she'd certainly had it easier, she realized.

The stainless steel doors finally parted and she had to step aside as the vaguely unkempt blue-uniformed cleaning people wheeled their equipment out of the car.

For some reason she remembered what Jake said about her not trusting men. It resonated in her mind the way only the truth did. How interesting that Jake, a man she barely knew, would call her on it.

But she had to modify his statement for accuracy. She didn't trust men in relationships. Outside of the man/woman love-bond, she trusted them fine. In fact, when she'd rebelled as a child against her stepfather's overbearing, narrow-minded chauvinism, the word 'tomboy' best described her. At age eight, she didn't know she was different from other girls, she just knew she liked climbing trees, building forts, and playing war with the neighbor boys. At sixteen she’d had more guy friends than girl friends. Her emerging grace and improving looks created some awkward moments when many of the guys developed crushes on her. She’d never dated any of them, and her impartial sisterliness salved their egos. They even remained friends. As a benefit of those friendships, Stanna got the inside scoop on men's behaviors regarding women.

She knew the schemes and devious, selfish goals that made up the typical man's mind regarding women. To an extent, they couldn't help it. It was just the way they were.

When a relationship surpassed friendship, men couldn't be trusted. If she didn't already know that from her supremely typical stepfather dominating her meekly acquiescing mother, then she'd discovered it in later years firsthand.

Jake knew she didn't trust men, but he didn't know the biggest reason why.

She wondered what Jake would say if he knew. If she told him about the dream that haunted her in words whispered from her mother’s deathbed: “Chase your dreams, and never slow down for any man. He’ll catch you and keep you, and you might be content from time to time but you’ll never be happy. I know.”

It was a well-meaning chauvinist who kept her mother from achieving her potential. Her own stepfather. He'd suppressed her mother’s desire to sing in a country band, something she'd done while married to her real father when Stanna was a young child. After his disappearance, her mother seemed to almost revert to childhood herself in her grief and helplessness, and old Ray, her stepfather, stepped into the picture.

Ray wasn't even a bad man. Just a typical one. He was a good stepfather, paying for her college education and providing for them both. He was kind, in a distant way. But he had no concept of how a good woman could have ambition to match a man’s. She remembered his comment once when she'd visited them on a school break: "Any luck on that MRS degree?" The crazy thing was, he'd asked in the same tone as one would ask about any noble cause, with full seriousness and interest in her answer. When she'd launched into a tirade about equality and chauvinistic attitudes, he'd just laughed.

Her mother was gone now, and her dream with her. Stanna vowed she would never let a man do the same to her.

Her history wasn't exactly flooding over with boyfriends, but that was by choice. The few she'd consented to dating didn't inspire too many romantic thoughts. The men who interested her now had one thing in common. They were convenient, safe, and predictable. They didn't challenge her or get in her way.

Only once had she danced with a devil who’d challenged her, and the resulting scars on her heart cured her for once and for all against such folly.

What really annoyed her, though, Stanna thought as she exited the elevator car and strode towards her battered station wagon, was that the "good" kind of man, the sweetly sensitive, fun, understanding guy, was so often insipid. Or gay.

She was obviously meant to remain single.

CHAPTER FIVE

Jake concluded his night meeting with the ad agency representing one of Men's Weekly's biggest advertisers.

It had gone extremely well.

He felt his blood pounding quickly through his veins as the mirrored elevator closed and began sinking slowly to ground floor, and managed to restrain his shout of triumph until he was well out of earshot of the ad executives. Then he let her rip: "Whoooo-hooooo!" He did a two-second silly dance, wiggling his butt, until the elevator bumped ground and the mirrored doors parted to reveal the decadently appointed lobby. He grinned at the desk-bound security guard and strode out into the warm Los Angeles night.

"They like me, they really really like me!" Jake couldn't remember the Hollywood actress who first uttered those plaintive words, but for him it would be, "They like my magazine, they really really like my magazine!"

The agency had agreed to buy ad space in Men's Weekly based on his pitch tonight! Anyone in publishing knew the meaning of such a coup: ad agencies represented dozens of businesses, and were the strategists who decided where to invest their clients' money. And they liked his new magazine focus. They were excited about the niche market of red-blooded men wanting the straight dope in plain language. They thought it had great advertising potential.

Well, most of them liked it. He remembered a few women in the meeting expressed discomfort with the blatant macho-flavor of some of his planned articles. But even they admitted there was probably a market for such things.

The circulation numbers and the revenue would prove the bottom-line truth about the popularity of the new Men's Weekly. He wouldn't have those numbers in for a couple more months. But ad agencies had their fingers on the pulse of pop culture. They could smell a winner. They had to, to stay in business.

His magazine smelled good to them.

He suddenly had the strong urge to tell Stanna about it. The memory of her snapping gray eyes made him want to rub the ad agency victory in her face.

Then he wondered what she was doing, after business hours, and who she was doing it with. A beautiful young blond on a Friday night pretty much had her pick of all sorts of men. The thought bothered him a little, enough to dim his satisfaction about the night's meeting. Stanna's chiseled pink mouth pressed to another man's mouth. Just like Jolene’s.

She could kiss whoever she wanted, he didn't care. He was annoyed that he'd even thought of it. He supposed it was a guy territorial thing. They'd tongued each other, so now she was part of his mental harem. It didn't mean a thing.

He climbed into his Jeep and enjoyed the bass rumble of the souped-up engine roaring to life. As he drove down Santa Monica Boulevard, he wondered if Stanna would go out with him sometime. Her sweet body and hot-tempered mind guaranteed an interesting evening. She probably wouldn't. She was the type who preferred the tame, easily controlled, effeminate type. The sort of guy who ate paste in third grade.

Why was he even considering dating that ball-buster?

He had better things to think about. Like planning the investment strategy of the agency money. Maybe he'd buy a T.V. spot to promote Men's Weekly. Radio spots and online ad campaigns. He could even afford to create some marketing gimmicks like bikini contests or Men's Weekly nightclub themes for his readers.

The magazine was going to take Los Angeles by storm, in print and online. Despite Stanna's doubts. Jake felt excitement coursing through his veins. A big grin split his face and the exhaust-laden night air whipped around him as he accelerated.

Jake sped up the 405 on-ramp, easily gaining freeway speed plus a little. There was surprising little traffic. He looked at his car clock and found out why. It was nearly midnight.

Jake idly wondered if Stanna was home from her date, yet.

"They're all gay!" Stanna declared to Telly. It was getting late night and they'd been trading man-stories ever since Telly arrived home from a tedious drink-date with yet another Mr. Wrong.

Ever supportive, Telly inclined her head, with its fresh, spiky blond hairdo, in agreement. Then looked up with a mischievous sparkle as she told her old joke: "'Why is it so hard for women to find men who are sensitive, caring and good-looking? Because those men already have boyfriends.'"

Stanna smiled. "So much for the 'nice' guys." But she added, "I just can't believe that the regular ones can't be educated. Upgraded. Polished a bit so their attitudes and actions with women reflect a brand-new spirit of respect!"

"You're getting worked up, my dear. That's good stuff, you should put it in a column."

"Jake won't publish it." Stanna was gloomy.

Telly conceded as much. "But... since when have you blunted your voice for any man?" Telly needled effectively. Stanna felt anger rise, swamping her gloom. Telly knew just what to say to raise Stanna's fighting spirit.

She found herself rising to her feet resolutely. Telly was right. Write a boring old balanced column that he'd rip to shreds anyway? No way. She wouldn't even blame him for ripping it. Compromises were always pretty boring, and she'd die before putting out a column that'd put people to sleep.

He wasn't going to like the revised column either.

But maybe… just maybe out of the resulting argument she now expected, she'd be able to make him come around to seeing things more her way. At least a little bit.

Telly watched her go. Grinning at her roommate's back, she wondered what would become of the Jake/Stanna challenge. For that matter, she wondered what would become of the Telly/Whoever challenge.

Her track record lately was pretty dismal; she wasn't hooking up with any man she could tolerate for even an hour, much less something lengthier. Tonight's ogre was merely the latest in a series. Whatever gave men the idea that sports bars and shouted conversation were appealing on a date?

She remembered the way... Matt was his name... Matt's spittle had gathered in the pond between his lower lip and gums as he’d shouted his inane small talk at her. It had held her attention, though. She didn't dare take her eyes off him, for when he was especially emphatic, the spittle launched toward her. She dodged spittle for half an hour before politely calling it a night.

Perhaps she was looking in the wrong places.

Telly's precisely plucked brows slanted into a frown as she pondered.

Work was the logical place to meet people. A person spent the bulk of their day there, after all. Unfortunate for her how women and gay men made up the fashion workforce. And after tonight, she could officially state that blind date friends-of-co-workers didn't do it for her.

But where else could she look?

Bars. Telly shuddered. How seedy. How unlikely to find a fresh, likely bloom within the dank confines of the meat-market.

Then there was always the classified route. Online dating. Telly considered it a last resort. She’d prefer to suss a man out in person, or have a trusted friend do it for her, rather than placing and browsing ads.

Where did that leave her?

She supposed she'd have to look in places she'd never thought of before to find her very own Mr. Right.

She sighed, rising to make ready for bedtime. She faintly heard Stanna tapping away on her keyboard -- short bursts of staccato, followed by longer periods of silence.

Telly smiled with real affection. She knew firsthand just how strong-willed her roommate was, and from the sound of it, Stanna's new boss was just as strong-willed. Their clashes were making for some interesting bedtime stories.

If only her own love life were as promising.

Across town, Ian had problems of his own.

I've got to get my job back. Ian's distinguished features were icy. None of his former employees would initially recognize the face of Ian McClain, former editor of Men's Weekly.

His handy worker bees had never suspected there was more to him. Not even Stanna.

The men who were now overstaying their welcome knew him a bit better. They deliberately infuriated Ian, but he kept his outrage and helplessness hidden. They'd just "accidentally" bumped against a marble pedestal, sending his prize oriental vase crashing to pieces. Dressed in shabby jeans and matching leather jackets, they prowled his lovely Beverly Hills home like the hoodlums they were.

Never mind that he'd financed his luxurious dwelling with a good chunk of the embezzled money he owed their boss. You'd think they'd give him more than the single week since he'd been "retired" from his lucrative job to see if he'd come up with the money without the business front of Men's Weekly.

But, he admitted, he probably would do the same thing in their place. Criminal minds thought alike.

"Tell the man I'll pay him just as I always do. On time."

Hoodlum number one kicked at an ornately carved glass-top coffee table, making the smoky beveled glass shiver inside its cherry wood frame. It didn't break. "And how you gonna do that, old man?" His voice was irreverent, threatening. "Now that you're booted out of your gainful employment."

The thugs chuckled at the sarcasm.

How, indeed. Ian didn't have a clue. But that, of course, he could not tell the messengers. Men's Weekly had been the perfect operation: a moneymaking magazine with absentee owners who’d been satisfied for so long with the quarterly statements he sent them. They’d never found out he'd squirreled aside half its earnings.

His countenance darkened. He had to get back in. He was far too deeply in debt to some very powerful and dangerous individuals to have a choice in the matter. He had to find a way to make that young upstart who'd bought the magazine want to rid himself of it.

He had some ideas. He'd spent enough of his life around the crooked element of society to absorb some of its lessons.

As he'd told Stanna, he had a few tricks left up his old sleeves.

His grandfatherly, old-money demeanor was merely one of his misleading but trust-inspiring traits.

He turned it on his guests. Bristling, he projected justified outrage at his guests: "Now there, my good man. Have a care with that table, it's a fourteenth-century treasure." Disgruntled and playing the part of old-money respectability to the hilt, he added, "Tell your employer these strong-arm tactics are unnecessary. He'll have his money. And my bill." He tugged at his dressing gown, brushing imaginary specks of dust from it.

They were impressed, as he’d intended, by the charm and grace they'd never possess. But unwilling to show any weakness, the hoodlum on the right pointed a finger at Ian and told him, "You got a month. That's his terms, if we decided you were good for it. You owe me, man, 'cause I'm giving you the time to pay up." They stalked out together, giving the cherry table a kick. It may have been accidental. The sturdy antique held up, Ian was gratified to see.

He owed the little punk, all right. Ian smiled dangerously. For that sort of insolence, he'd pay him back with new shoes of the cement variety. Or their equivalent. Oh yes. Ian indulged in pleasant dark fantasies for a while, then, feeling better, began sweeping up the shards of his broken vase.

He was the very image of a harmless old gentleman.

Stanna walked into Jake's office Monday afternoon. Here comes trouble, he thought. She'd been up to her armpits in administrative paperwork all day. When he saw her last, she was juggling the phone calls, the files, the computer chores, and the reports with the efficient finesse of a born secretary, so it wasn't surprising he'd forgotten she had a column to turn in.

Her face was pink and rosy, and she wore a long burgundy skirt with a white top. Casual but elegant. Jake approved, realizing it was the first day he'd ever seen her wear a skirt to work. She looked feminine in it.

But her stride was confident and direct like a man, as was her matter-of-fact voice when she spoke: "I have the column revised, but you won't like it. It will offend your Neanderthal sensibilities." She softened her words with a smile and held out the previously unnoticed white packet to him over his desk. She lowered it into his in box when he didn't immediately take it.

"In bed," Jake replied calmly.

"What?" Stanna, having made her entrance and statement, had wheeled to exit but jerked to a stop at his words.

"In bed," Jake repeated. "It's funnier if you append the words 'in bed' after someone's sentence. 'It will offend your Neanderthal sensibilities... in bed.'"

The look on her cute, dewy-complexioned face was priceless. It was so much fun to play down to her assumptions.

He rose to his feet, grinning at her. He reached into the in box to retrieve the white packet. He began reading it, his face cordially interested but no more. He peeked at her.

"You know what,” she began, almost thoughtfully. “You actually are the most immature, arrogant, infuriating, unbelievable ass I've ever had the misfortune to know." Stanna's face had a becoming flush on it, and her eyes were spitting those familiar sparks.

Jake blinked at her, slowly. "You're so adorable when you're angry."

Stanna heaved in her breath, exhaled loudly. "Okay. You're doing this on purpose."

"Give the woman a cigar."

"You'd give a woman a cigar? Aren't those forbidden the weaker sex? Too phallic, probably."

"Do you enjoy arguing, or am I just the lucky one?"

"I'm sure you get lucky all the time, but not with me."

Now it was Jake's turn to be thrown off-guard. But only momentarily. Then he felt a warm glow of admiration for the spunky blond perched in front of him. Along with another, more primitive reaction.

He'd love to prove her statement wrong. That claim she was immune to his charms had the effect of a red flag waved before a bull. In the exceedingly near future, he would demonstrate her error in an unmistakable way. How should he take her up on that challenge she so impetuously threw down? His sense of timing told him not to do it just yet.

"Thank you for your confidence in my virile male abilities," he told her with enough dryness to suck the moisture from a swimming pool. It worked; finally he got through her defenses: She laughed.

She immediately stifled it, but it was too late. The flag-waving contentious spirit had been humanized, again. Took long enough.

"I do like to make you smile," he said, the words soft and reflective. It was out of his mouth before he knew it.

Why did I say that? he asked himself.

He watched as a vulnerable look flashed across her face. Her eyes softened, her face relaxed, and her lips began to curve into a gentle smile. Seeming to catch herself, the expression faded just as quickly.

Jake wondered at it.

Then he remembered something. Something that made him dispense with the touchy-feely. His voice was ominous even to his own ears as he spoke. "Stanna, why won't I like your column?"

She lifted her chin defiantly. "You just won't."

Ever-helpful Stanna. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we have an agreement? You write more or less what I need for the magazine?"

"Well, this week it'll be 'less.'"

Jake narrowed his eyes at her. Then he ignored her completely as he gave his attention to her column. He read it all. He told her flatly, "This won't do at all. But then, you knew that."

Why was she doing this? Jake couldn't fathom the girl's reasoning. If she wanted to be published, she had to write what he wanted. Didn't she realize that?

He looked at her narrowly. She stood still and at attention as any soldier. He understood. "This is your way of getting me to change my mind."

She said nothing, just stared at him expressionlessly.

"I'll have to rewrite it completely," he informed her. "I'm not going to change my mind about the magazine, especially not now."

"Why? I mean, why not now, especially?" Her face filled with an intense curiosity.

Jake smiled gently. Then chuckled. "Men's Weekly will be just the kind of pure, undiluted man's magazine that you won't like, because that's what I want to do." He shrugged his shoulders, amiable. He held all the cards and he knew it.

Jake looked at her nakedly, so that she could see his sincerity and confidence. "I want to put out a magazine for the kind of man I want to be. And I'm not the only one who thinks it's a good idea."

Stanna looked at him with distaste. He wondered how deeply it ran.

"I have commitments from the K&C Ad Agency," he said mildly.

"K&C? Oh my god, Jake, that's great!" A pleased grin transformed her face. Jake couldn't help noticing her even white teeth and supple mouth. She's so cute when she smiles, he thought dazedly. Amazing how a friendly expression could make a woman appealing. She continued, her voice as animated as her flashing blue-gray eyes.

"Ian tried to get them, of course. They're the biggest and best. But they wouldn't even meet with him. How on earth did you do it?" She paced his office slowly and murmured to herself, "It's amazing. Now we can finally invest in better circulation and some PR."

Jake didn't bother to remind her that "we" wouldn't be doing any such thing. He liked her energetic enthusiasm way too much to remind her of her proper place. Her breasts pushed against the white top, and her long loose skirt billowed behind her as she moved.

He couldn't help watching her with pleasure, and he really couldn't resist answering her "how did you do it" question.

Modestly, as if it were nothing, he stated, "I told them about the new and improved Men's Weekly."

"Sure you did," she snorted. "It may be new, but it's not improved." Looking closely at his face, she faltered. "You did. You told them about the new theme. They met with you and they committed based on that?" Her eyes demanded he come clean.

Then some of their light faded as a forlorn expression slid onto her face. "They liked it."

It wasn't that her fighting spirit was dimmed, Jake mused. It was still there, in the stiff way she held herself and the thoughtful, firm expression of her lips. It was more like she'd suddenly realized a trusted ally had forsaken her cause.

He felt awkward suddenly. She still stood before him, her arms folding gracefully across her chest. It seemed more a defensive gesture than an angry one. He was conscious of his own body nearly dwarfing hers. He wanted to take her in his arms and protect her. He wanted to...

"Are they nuts?" Her voice jarred, totally at odds with her vulnerable stance. She didn't look mean, though her eyes shot daggers at him under her lowered lids. She looked upset, despite her voice.

"The agency? No. They're smart. They believe in me. Which is more than I can say for you." Jake didn't mean for the bitter edge to creep into his voice.

She had the good grace to appear mildly guilty at least.

"Sorry. But I feel strongly about the subject." She looked the tiniest bit remorseful. As he watched, even that disappeared.

He sighed. "Yes, I understand you. And you understand me." They eyed each other warily.

"I have to keep writing my column the way I see fit," Stanna informed him, relentless. "I believe in them. That's the only kind of writing I want to do for Men's Weekly."

Jake felt admiration along with the irritation at her stubbornness, but he didn't let on. "You're aware that they won't be published as they are? That I'll change them, rewrite them?" His voice was matter-of-fact.

"Maybe you'll find one you like. You never know." With her chin raised, her voice radiating her conviction, Stanna smiled at him calmly. "Even bull-headed guys like you change your minds occasionally."

He smiled back at her, enjoying the way her face softened and her eyes twinkled. He’d graduated from “chauvinist” to “bull-headed guy.” An improvement? "It could happen," he said agreeably.

"And monkeys might fly out of your butt?" she teased.

"Now, Stanna," he scolded, still smiling. "The first rule of writing is 'thou shalt not repeat tired-out phrases,' as you well know."

A sly grin appeared on her face. "Alligators might squeeze out of your--"

"That's fine," he hastily added.

She cocked her head, still grinning at him. A blond sheathe of hair swung gently around her shoulders, the white gold of it glistening against her natural, healthy face. She raised her eyebrows at him in a "what do you have to say to that?" look. It was challenging, and subtly flirtatious. His breath caught in his throat. Damn she was pretty.

He wanted their conversation to continue. He wanted to find out more about this intriguing, feisty-yet-feminine girl. But it was getting late. He wouldn't keep her after quitting time.

Jake had an idea.

He moved slowly toward her, stalking her. He eased into her personal space, looking down and gauging her reaction. If she so much as flinched he'd back off. But she didn't move, aside from a tiny tremor that ran through her small-framed body. Her breath came faster. But resolute to the last, she held her ground, smiling slightly, an expression even more charming on her face when her eyes registered a sultry response.

Their mouths were inches from each other when he spoke softly. "I've got a lot on my mind about Men's Weekly, and no one really to talk to about it since I moved out here. Would you like to go for a drive up the coast and talk about it?"

He was cool, this one, Stanna thought as she smiled up at him and breathed, "Yes." His proximity was getting to her, throwing off her equilibrium. She was affecting him too, if his flashing aqua eyes and hungry body language was any indication.

At her answer, he moved closer still, until she tasted his breath. The humid heat of it made her want to surrender to him, give herself over to the promise his eyes so eloquently made to her. His body was as close to hers as it could be without touching.

They had touched, last time. Now what made her catch her breath with excitement was the realization they were each capable of ending the exquisite tension, but neither of them were willing to. It was a display of power on both sides, and she trembled inwardly at what it might imply about a more intimate encounter.

He ended it by taking a slow step back. And another, making their distance respectable. "Ready?" he asked, tipping his head toward the door.

If he only knew how ready. She immediately chastised herself for the thought. "Ready," she answered, glad that her voice came out evenly.

He was so enticing, she thought as she watched him scoop up his briefcase. He turned on a confident pivot, smoothly moving in that jungle prowl toward her and the door. She waited an extra beat in response to his "after you" gesture before preceding him out the door. She knew he watched her with his knowing falcon eyes, and she tried to stamp out her excitement.

Her heartbeat accelerated. How ridiculous. How inadvisable. She shouldn't be doing this, no matter what her body was telling her. However, she’d be silly to turn down the chance to influence him about Men's Weekly. But on the other hand, the man already had more power than he knew over her emotions. Getting into the dangerous realm, actually. But then again, she found herself trusting his basic integrity.

Her thoughts see-sawed. Go for it. Don’t even dare.

It played hell with her equilibrium. "Jake, I'm not sure this is the best time--"

"Hey guys, heading out?" Michael strutted into their path, preening in front of Jake so obviously that Stanna would have laughed if she weren't so distracted. He gave Jake a quick, subtle lowered-eyelid/lip pout, but the expression was gone so fast she might have imagined it.

"Yep. Stanna and I are taking off. What’re you doing here after five o'clock?"

"Working on this cover concept you'll just love, Jake. I mean, it's a primo-magnifico eye-grabber. The boys out there will simply devour it. I really hope you like it..." Michael's flirty, little-dog-lost pathos had Stanna wanting to pat his head and reassure him – or maybe kick him out of the way – but Jake had a better idea.

"That's great. I wasn't too happy with the other concepts offered in the art meeting. Show it to me tomorrow, but don't stay too late. 'All work...'" Jake touched her back gently, and they were moving again.

She heard Michael's poignant sigh behind them, but was pretty sure Jake missed it. She suppressed a grin.

They rode down the elevator. Memories of the previous week, and the week before it, crossed her mind. Things change fast, she realized suddenly. With the replacement of the editor, much of what she'd taken for granted had altered. For example, here she was with a man who changed faces: one minute he was a chauvinist pig who threatened her job, the next he was the thoroughly competent magazine manager, and the next he was a potential boyfriend who made her weak in the knees.

He had to change his mind about modern men, and Men's Weekly, if he were to be that last one.

Jake walked ahead of her, leading her to the reserved space where his Wrangler was parked. He tossed his briefcase into the back then chivalrously opened the passenger side door for her. She admired the forest green slightly metallic color and ruggedness of the Jeep. It suited him.

"Nice Jeep." She tossed her own case to join his in the back, then told him with a smile, "You know I'm going to hammer at you about the magazine. The new theme won't stick in the long term."

He grinned back confidently, as if he'd been expecting her to say exactly that. "It will. I'll make it stick."

She hopped up into the cloth-covered bucket seat, smoothed her skirt. She lined up all her arguments, prepared her rebuttals, and was ready to really launch into him as he leaped into the driver's side seat.

But then he leaned over and kissed her.

CHAPTER SIX

It was a peck, a hard, on-the-lips silencing kiss. It ended as soon as it began, and he sat back grinning at her while he turned the ignition key. The rumbling engine prohibited talk.

She reached over and turned off the ignition.

He was actually surprised, Stanna noticed in bafflement. His eyebrows shot up and he looked at her like he didn't know quite what to make of her.

It was sort of funny. But not really.

"You don't want to talk, you want to make out!" she accused scathingly.

"I wouldn't mind doing both." His innocent voice made it sound like a joke, like the most casual thing in the world. His eyes were warm and sparkled deviously.

A smile tugged at her mouth, but she suppressed it. "I would mind." Overruling the part of her brain that hummed for more of his kisses, she flipped open her door and hopped out, grabbing her briefcase and heaving the door shut so quickly behind her that it nearly caught her skirt.

He watched her impassively, his head tilted slightly. He looked so capable and masculine behind the wheel. She had the impulse to jump back in and go with him wherever he went, however he wanted to get there.

But she restrained herself. "I'll talk with you about the magazine anytime," she offered diplomatically.

"Tomorrow. At lunch." His voice was distant and professional, without the smallest touch of the heat and warmth threading it just moments before. He started up the engine immediately, and tossed her a goodbye smile that didn't quite touch his eyes.

Jake kicked himself all the way out of the parking garage, from the subterranean 4th level on up the spiral to the sudden bright square opening to the larger outside world. He shifted his Jeep into third gear, accelerating onto Wilshire Boulevard toward the freeway.

He didn't know who he was madder at: Stanna, for not responding to his casual gesture of affection, or himself for rushing things. He really did want to talk about the magazine with her. She had a unique perspective.

He should’ve moved slower.

Weaving expertly in and out of the commuter traffic, Jake pondered the situation. She didn't seem mad, at least. Not really. She'd handled him promptly and firmly, as if he were a wayward high-school date, he realized with chagrin.

Which was pretty much what he'd acted like.

Damn it, she brought out the impulsive side of him he'd last seen when he’d dated Jolene.

His blood chilled in reflex. The woman’s image, her glossy full black hair and matching mysterious eyes rose in his mind. Just a memory. Just Jolene laughing freely as she plucked at his dinner jacket and spoke in her intriguing, accented South American purr: "I'm going to marry you, handsome man." He smiled bitterly at the irony of that statement, for it was less than two months later he'd discovered just what manner of woman he’d nearly given his name to.

Jolene was a friend of a friend, and he’d thought her some kind of angel sent to him in the rough week after his parent's funeral outside of Denver. Comforting without being intrusive, warm yet seductively affectionate, Jolene's presence grew from something he enjoyed to something he wasn't completely happy without. He'd never been more in love.

She'd played him well.

Her exotic, mysterious demeanor included spending days at a time away from him, and not talking about her past. Jake didn't question it. He was far too busy cherishing her to pressure or cross-examine her.

It was a Sunday when his world fell apart.

"I'll be at confession, darling. Which is all your doing," she teasingly scolded him that morning and kissed him goodbye. She didn't know she'd left her small tan wallet behind.

She was just driving slowly away when he discovered it. It occurred to him she was driving without a license, not to mention cash and credit cards, without her wallet. He grabbed his keys and pursued her in his Jeep. She drove quickly once she hit the main road -- more quickly than he’d seen before, to the point of reckless driving. Surprised, Jake accelerated to keep up.

She wasn't heading to church, of course.

When she pulled off the road in a poor section of downtown, he knew where they were. This was the area she'd told him she lived with her sisters. For the first time it occurred to Jake he hadn't met any of them yet. During the delirious months they'd seen each other, she'd always come to him or met him. She had a job with odd hours, a dull one about which it bored her to speak.

She pulled behind a ratty converted motel apartment complex, but by the time Jake pulled around she'd already gone inside.

Drifts of garbage clotted the ground. The cries of cranky children and the familiarly accented reprimands of cranky mothers filled the dusty air. Rust stains and weeds were the sole exterior apartment decorations, unless one counted the beat-up cars up on cinder blocks. He parked his Jeep next to Jolene's familiar late-model RX-7, noticing how hers was the best car in the ragged little lot.

He’d actually felt a stab of remorse for not realizing the conditions she lived in. She lived in this rattrap with her sisters? She was the most patient, loving person he'd ever met, to not breathe a word of complaint, or nag him in the slightest for the marriage he knew she wanted. He resolved in that moment to ask her to marry him.

He leaped down from his Jeep, her wallet in hand. He heard her sultry laugh and smiled as he rounded the corner.

His smile froze.

She hadn't seen him. Her arms, completely covered by the white silky "church" outfit, were locked around the neck of a stranger, and her lush lips pressed and parted over his. Stunned, Jake only watched.

She giggled, breaking from him coyly and taking his hand. "If that's a preview, I want the main course," the man said roughly, yanking her to him once more. "I'm paying enough for it," he complained, maneuvering her towards the door at her back. Jake tried to make sense of his words, and when comprehension set in his world tilted crazily.

How could it be? Not Jolene! Maybe it was a sister, a twin! Forgetting he'd followed her, forgetting everything but the desperate relief of his solution, he stepped closer. Of course she had a twin. It had to be a lookalike. His Jolene loved him, only him, and they would have a good laugh over this misunderstanding together.

Then her dark eyes met his, and widened. Her hand let go of the man's immediately. Jake saw, and understood. It was the moment ice began to coat his heart in numbness. He couldn't deny what he saw.

He dropped her wallet where he stood, taking one last look at the tableau of her creation. The strange man just looked impatient and yelled something at him he didn't hear. But Jolene. He saw a callous, hard look encase her face, an expression he'd never seen before on anyone. Her game was over, her plan to trap him in a cushy marriage thwarted, so her pretense disappeared. He saw a cold man-hater whose only lust was for playing him. And who knew who else.

She regarded Jake without even the tribute of regret. He was only a lost opportunity to her, worthless now.

Nothing more for me here. Numb detachment gave Jake the ability to turn his back and walk away.

The numbness never really went away. That creature had managed to crawl too far into his heart for it not to affect him, especially at such a vulnerable time in his life on the heels of his parent's death. From that point forward, men were his only confidants. He dropped his few female friends when he found he couldn't look at them without wondering what nasty secrets they hid. Men could be trusted.

Women couldn't.

It was that simple.

Sometimes he met women he respected and admired. Sometimes he'd even had casual relationships with them. Nothing serious on his end. He preferred it that way. When the women inevitably manipulated him with varying degrees of subtlety, creating serious issues where none existed, he ended it.

He'd never seen Jolene again. He was better off for the lesson, he told himself. Too many of his male readers could benefit from his experience. Even if he could impart just a little healthy male skepticism in them about women, he'd be doing them a huge service.

He had Men's Weekly, and it would be his voice in addition to his single biggest investment.

Stanna, as desirable and intriguing as she was, had better not mess with that.

Every time they met, she messed with it, Jake thought in bemusement more than a month later.

It was at another of their now-established weekly lunches that they faced off across a square table at the local Italian spot.

"My latest column talks about the issue of men's freedom from women, otherwise known as the cold-foot conundrum. I mean, guys want all the benefits of a relationship. Sex, ego-stroking, a date on Saturday nights, etc. But too often guys don't stick around when the woman wants to get more serious than casual dating. I want to ask them, 'What are you afraid of? Think the grass will be greener later on, when you’re older?' That's a shabby way to treat a faithful, loving woman!"

Stanna's musical voice was soft but it resonated clearly in the small restaurant. Her ivory skin seemed to glow rosily with vigorous emotion, and Jake looked at her with admiration even as he shot down her idea: "Every week with you it's the same. Guys are the insensitive jerks and women are their innocent victims. Get real. Sorry, but that doesn't fly with me or my readers. You're just lucky that I kept your basic idea: the issue of men's freedom from women. It's a necessity for a man to be free to have space and quiet for introspection. It needful to see the truth about their woman, so he can make the decision to stay or leave on his own. Otherwise he shouldn't settle down. That's what I think."

"Your readers will take that as license to keep their feet cold forever. Sometimes one has to just go for it, have faith and leap into it. Adopting your attitude, the guys’ll refuse to commit until they're eighty years old."

"Maybe that's how long they need to be sure." Seeing her frustration, Jake relented enough to explain gently, "I think it's in their best interests. But I was fair when I edited the column. You know I was." It was too watered-down and toothless for his taste, the defanged blend of her ideas and his. Compromises were so boring.

The column really needed to be completely pro-men, to be extreme and exciting. He revised enough each week to satisfy himself that his readers would approve, and enough to piss Stanna off, but he knew a compromise when he saw one. He wondered why he went to the trouble every week when he could just hire a ghostwriter to doctor her column to his specifications and wash his hands of the whole affair.

It wasn’t completely about the money. Stanna was good. He supposed he'd grown to like her enough to want to train her to be a proper Men's Weekly columnist. Though he could tell it would take longer than originally anticipated, with those feminist ideals of hers.

He smiled, winking at her as he grabbed for the bill and dug in his wallet. Stanna quickly threw in her half of the tab. Just as he had the last five times, Jake immediately tossed it back at her. Something about the way he did it, as if the bills were worthless little Frisbees, appealed to her.

She grumbled still. "You could just leave me alone to write my own column, the way Ian did."

Jake snorted. "Leave you unsupervised? No ma'am." He rose sinuously from his chair, the strong fingers of his left hand resting on the cheerfully red-and-white checkered tablecloth. Jake radiated a calm confidence that drew respectful glances from men, and covetous ones from women. "Besides, I don't want to leave you alone." His deep, teasing voice went straight through her, the way it always did.

They locked eyes for a long, heated moment.

Jake's broadcast a flirtatious challenge. She knew her own cool gray eyes were leveled on him with undisguised interest. She couldn’t help it. She felt flushed, and her heartbeat was speeding again. He made her feel so utterly present and accounted for.

He just reminded her of the kinds of bad-news guys she knew how to handle. She sensed the danger. That was why she always felt so fully alert with him, she told herself. That's why her very hair follicles seemed to sense his presence. Alpha-male chauvinists had that unfortunate effect on her. And Jake was the alpha-est alpha-male of the bunch, and fun, too, which made him immeasurably more appealing. When they were casual and joking together, she had to forcibly remind herself that it was just business.

He was her boss. And he still didn't like her column. That made him a dangerous foe, someone to feel very alert around. He was a smart man but a misguided one who embraced the wrong philosophy regarding men and women. He was her noble opposition.

She was on the side of good, while he was on the side of... evil?

Come to the dark side, Luke...

Just managing to stifle her giggles at the image of Jake in Vader's black cape, Stanna let her eyes broadcast her humor.

"Share the joke?" His warm insinuating voice immediately dissolved the Star Wars image. Darth Vader could never sound so disturbingly sexy.

"I was just thinking that you're a bad badguy."

"A bad, bad guy?"

"Completely."

"And this is good?" Jake's quizzical response made her laugh.

"Of course." Pushing back her chair and standing, she reached for her wallet on the table. On impulse, she touched his hand. It was firm and warm. "Thanks for lunch.” He didn't move, but radiated a strong stillness. She had the sudden impression that she'd just put her hand on a lion's back. A wild lion.

Playing it out, she merely patted him irreverently and took her hand back to herself. She felt lightheaded.

He didn't move. He gazed at her, evaluating. One corner of his mouth pulled into a slight smile. She couldn't move, couldn’t make the everyday gestures of turning, walking toward the door, heading back to work. She couldn't move until he let her.

His piercing look seemed to delve into her soul. She wondered what he saw there. And if it pleased him. He was making her self-conscious. But she waited for him to say whatever it was he was waiting to say. She raised her head slightly, and matched him stare-for-stare.

He nodded slightly, as if to himself. Abruptly, his eyes left hers and he casually moved towards the exit. Mystified but intrigued, she followed.

What was on his mind? Did it have anything to do with the last five week's unspoken agreement to treat each other with a cordial respect? He hadn't once tried to kiss her, and she didn't lose her temper when he butchered her columns. Well, not too much.

Her own restraint surprised her. Each week she went to lunch with him, guns blazing to defend the week's brainchild and discuss the already-published column. And each week he performed a vivisection on her ideas, leaving mere remnants of the original punch, and he justified the latest published vivisection. But he did it fairly, explaining his reasoning and all.

She wished she didn’t respect the man. She knew he was still very much wrong about two essential things: his view of the intrinsically evil/burdensome nature of women in general, and the new content of Men's Weekly. Including its new covers. If she saw one more scantily clad bimbo in a one-use pose, she would puke right onto Jake's lap.

Which meant he'd better carry a few changes of clothes, Stanna thought wryly. The next eight issues, since they prepared two months in advance, were showered with bimbos. Jake's "giving men what they want" meant lots of women.

What was worse, the magazine was garnering good reviews. It was extreme, un-PC, and in-your-face. The audience loved it. The circulation numbers backed it up. Jake was right about that.

Some other people out there in reader-land didn't like it. There was that women's group she saw on the news last week. And one or two PTA members who trashed Men's Weekly for lowbrow "pig slop." But they weren't creating the kind of commotion that made for magazine boycotting.

Not yet, anyway. Just yesterday Ian called and told her about some huge feminist group in West Hollywood making Men's Weekly their whipping boy. He saw one of their representatives on the local news condemning it. Their protest march, over a freelancer’s article listing ways to score on a first date, closed down a part of Santa Monica Boulevard for over an hour.

And Ian's own reaction to "Stan's" latest published column "Freedom from Women" told her all she needed to know about his opinion of it: he laughed. Sobering instantly, he gave her his condolences about the alterations Jake imposed. But that impulsive laugh of his had irritated her. He could have at least shown some sympathy.

So, Men's Weekly had foes as well as fans.

Jake wouldn't care, though. All he cared about was the magazine growing according to his master plan.

And it was, whether she approved or not.

So what did that serious, contemplative look on his face mean?

He held the door open for her to precede him into the afternoon sunshine. Sun glinted on the metal and glass in the tiny strip-mall parking lot, and she pulled her shades down from atop her head. Cutting through the lot to the wide sidewalk on Wilshire Boulevard, they strolled in silence. Three more buildings and they'd be back at work. She paced him quietly, waiting impatiently. Two more buildings.

"What are you thinking?" she finally queried.

He looked at her. "I was just wondering," he drawled out casually, "if you'd like to go hiking this weekend."

Curiouser and curiouser. The big bad magazine owner actually asked her out on a real date? She turned the question on him. "Are you asking me out?" Immediately she regretted her bluntness when he frowned slightly and spit out, "Never mind."

A few more paces in silence.

"Never mind?"

"Yes. Forget it." He walked a little faster. She had to exert herself to keep abreast. "Sorry. For a second I thought it'd be fun to go hiking in the Santa Monica mountains, but then I remembered who I was talking to. You wouldn't be interested."

"I wouldn't be? What, do you think that because I'm female that I'd break out in hives at the thought of exertion? I hardly even wear high heels. I happen to love hiking," Stanna asserted.

"Great. Noon Saturday? I know a great trail. It’s a bit rough, but you look like you might be able to handle a rocky path that climbs up to Sandpiper Peak. Quite a view," he remarked offhandedly, as if she weren't obviously simmering from that "might be able to handle it" comment.

He just didn't take women seriously enough, Stanna decided. He would after Saturday though. She smiled. She'd been making use of the Santa Monica National Park Service land since she'd moved to Los Angeles. The hundreds of acres of barely touched wilderness so close to the city's freeways and mini malls and endless concrete buildings soothed her immeasurably. She'd never been on the Sandpiper Peak trail, but how hard could it be? She could handle anything he could.

They entered the cool confines of the building lobby. Jake greeted the heavy-lidded deskbound security guard with a nod. Stanna gave him a friendly wave.

In the elevator, she felt the tension hanging between them, invisible yet thick and warm, like an electric blanket. Sensual. Pleasantly claustrophobic. Too aware of his animal-like stance as he leaned slightly against the thick brass railing, she couldn't help but wonder if hiking was how he kept in such superb shape. His brown slacks discretely outlined lean, muscular legs, and his casual shirt wasn't too tight on his torso, but neither was it too loose to hide his broad shoulders and powerful physique.

Hiking would be fun with this man. She wouldn't even be breathing hard. At least, not because of the trail. Six feet of capable, razor-witted, exceedingly able-bodied guy might steal some of her breath. She knew she could handle the trail. Could she handle him?

"Yes," she said emphatically, startling Jake into staring at her. Recovering, she hastened to add, "Saturday. Noon is good for me."

The elevator door opened. Michael slumped provocatively against the far wall waiting for the car, and was the only witness to Jake's surprising reply.

Jake cupped her chin gently in one warm hand, tilting her head up until her gray eyes rested on his teasing blue-green ones. His closeness affected her, no matter how she tried to remain indifferent. His unconscious sensuality fired point-blank at her. "I hope you're ready for a workout." Releasing her as if he'd never touched her, he strode out, nodding to a drop-jawed Michael.

She couldn’t move for a long moment. She forgot to be miffed at Jake’s manhandling. She was still vibrating from the sexy growl in his tone, so like some big, bad wolf come to eat her up.

She gulped.

"Did I just see what I thought I just saw?" Michael asked her in an awed, hand-over-heart display. He fanned himself with the other hand. "Whew. Oh my. The hormones are getting thick in here."

"Don't say anything about it," she begged him.

"No worries, luv. I'll be too toasted from the drinks I'm about to have to calm my raging jealousy." He archly pointed one index finger at her and waved it side-to-side. "Naughty." He swished past her into the elevator with a wink and a narrow-eyed grin.

Stanna sighed hopelessly. The news would be all over work within the hour.

Surprisingly, she didn’t feel too upset about that. As she approached her desk, she heard her telephone ringing and hurried her steps. It wouldn't be a tragedy if people knew there was something going on, she decided. Probably.

A sigh escaped her. She remembered the way his warm hand felt on her chin. At that moment, all she’d wanted in the world was for him to kiss her, hold her, do anything he wanted to her. The entire staff could be crowded onto bleachers watching and cheering for all she’d have cared. It was the amazing effect of his proximity to her. It short-circuited her good sense.

Dropping her wallet onto her desk and picking up the phone with the same hand, Stanna gave her now-standard greeting: "Stanna here."

The sound of a woman sobbing filled her ear.

"Hello?" Stanna's own voice gentled and became uncertain in the face of the woman's crying. "Hello. Who is this, please? Can I help you?"

More sobbing. Then: "Is thees Meeen's Weekly?" Her accent was a lilting Spanish. Her tone exuded heartbreak. "My man has left me. He ees gone." The woman snuffled, emitting pathetic whimpering sounds. "I complain. To you. Stan wrote that a man should leave his woman if he ees not happy in his heart. My man has left me. My three babies have no father. Soon… soon they have no mother, for I am broken in my heart."

"Ma'am." Stanna's comprehension of what the caller just confided alarmed her, made her cautious. "Don't... I am so sorry that you feel that way. Please don't do anything drastic, though. These things have a way of working out." Her words felt pathetically insufficient.

"It ees too late!" the woman shrieked. "My man. My husband Dario ees gone! He leave me nothing. Nothing but thees cursed magazine with Stan page circled in blood-red ink. I explain: He leaved note, then he leaved me. He go." Her voice hitched hysterically.

Stanna listened in horror. The woman's voice resonated with despair as she concluded, "Now I go, too. Thees ees what your magazine has done. I go forever."

The line went dead.

Stanna sat with the phone to her ear for another minute, in shock. Not daring to hang up, just in case, she placed the receiver gently on her desk, shoved back her chair and raced to Jake's office.

"Jake!" She burst in without knocking. She skidded to a halt, the words she was about to say sticking in her throat.

There was a gorgeous brunette draped like a mink across Jake's shoulders.

CHAPTER SEVEN

She wasn't going to be the one to break the silence, she really wasn't, Stanna vowed as she nimbly leaped over a particularly thick tree root.

It was hard to be nimble hiking up a mountain with a backpack full of water, snacks, sunscreen, a blanket, and spare toilet paper. It was even harder keeping her panting quiet, so Jake didn't suspect his lead was a bit too rigorous for her. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction, even though they'd marched uphill nonstop for three long hours.

Glancing up, she saw that he'd pulled away again, and forced herself to increase her pace. Silently, she suffered.

It would turn out that Jake had the endurance of a professional athlete.

And the stubbornness of a lump of granite.

For three days she'd been working on him extra hard to reform the Stan column, in light of that woman's phone call. It was outrageous how Jake wouldn't change it, now. It was destroying lives! That's what she'd told Ian, too, when he’d called her the next day. He’d agreed with her, supported her, said that she owed it to every woman alive to get Jake to tone down the He-Man angle. She'd tried. Ever since she walked in on him and Ms. Minky.

She remembered the way the woman's lipsticked smile had faded as she glanced up from her clinging position perched behind Jake's leather chair. They were looking at paperwork on his desk, but both stared as Stanna pinned Jake with a meaningful glance and said, "Could I talk to you alone, please? It's urgent."

How she hated the reluctance in his voice as he measured her distress. He slowly told the brunette, "I'm very sorry, would you please excuse me for a moment?" Her icy smile and nod didn't go unnoticed by Jake, who touched her shoulder companionably and whispered something in her ear that visibly thawed her and made a coy smile curve her lips.

Jake shut his office door behind him as he stepped into the hallway and grasped her elbow, steering her almost roughly towards the nearby conference room.

"What is it?" he asked her before the glass doors had swung shut.

She told him about the phone call.

He was already backing out as she concluded. He shook his head and said, "Probably someone's idea of a prank. Now, if you'll excuse me, Tia is K&C's Account Exec and we really shouldn't keep her--"

"Hold it right there! It was not a prank. She was upset, devastated even. Are you just going to blow it off? She might be jumping off a bridge right now, all because of that damn Stan column." Stanna was shaking with anger at Jake's callous disregard for... well, for everything important.

She locked eyes with him, mentally daring him to make a move. If he dismissed this, she knew she'd never think of him kindly again. The hot fire of challenge she felt in her eyes was met by a reluctant capitulation in his.

"Okay, damn it, you’re right.” He knocked his hair off his forehead with an impatient swipe. “You need to call the police, see if they can trace the number, let them do their thing." He walked toward her and spoke with finality. "And that's all we can be involved at this point."

"But the column--!"

"--will stay exactly as it is, most likely. I'll think about it, but I don't believe I'll change my mind because of one phone call that may or may not be a prank." He reached for her forearms as if to encircle them, saw her mutinous frown and changed his mind. He looked down at her, his face suddenly an expressionless mask. "Thank you for informing me. We'll talk about this later."

"Yes, we will," she growled. But he was already hurrying back to Tia.

And they did talk later, for all the good it did her. The poor woman's number couldn't be traced, and Jake refused to take the matter seriously enough. It didn't help how he spent the rest of the afternoon sequestered with Ms. Minky. No, it didn't help at all.

He was horrible, stubborn, and insensitive, and he was outdistancing her again. Looking up to measure just how fast she'd have to trot to regain a respectable pace, she noticed the surefooted way he glided up the trail. He was graceful, she'd give him that.

Just then, her sneakered foot slipped into a small stream-cut ditch in the trail. She pitched forward onto her face, landing with a solid thud that knocked what little wind she had out of her.

She peeked up the next moment, hoping... but no, Jake picked that exact moment to finally turn around and check on her.

In another, he was by her side, solicitous and worried.

"Are you okay?" She could have sworn that it was sincere worry in his voice. Her brains were obviously jarred.

"I'm fine. Absolutely," she paused to breathe as she struggled to her feet, "one-hundred percent fine."

She smiled at him, chin up.

He steered her slowly to the side of the trail, to two large rocks.

"Why don't we sit for a bit," he suggested.

"No. I'm ready to go."

"Sit!"

Stanna sat. She tried not to huff and puff, but somehow the act of resting in one place made her want to heave in great lungfuls of air. She did, as surreptitiously as possible.

The half-concerned, half-exasperated expression on his face made his brows furrow. Then his wide, finely chiseled lips quirked into a wry smile. "Why didn't you tell me you'd reached your limit?"

She shot up. He pushed her back down. She glared at him, but she wasn't really mad. "I haven't reached my limit."

His watchful care, even when he was pushing her around, told her he was truly concerned about her. It nearly erased her frustration, but didn't do much for her embarrassment.

"When you overdo it, you can get heatstroke or worse," Jake informed her. He shrugged out of his backpack, opening it to pull out a large thermos of water. He pushed it into her face. "Drink."

Batting at the bottle in irritation, she glared at him some more. Then realizing how ludicrous it was to stay miffed at him -- about offering water, anyway -- she grinned and leaned over to pat the boulder next to her own. "Pull up a rock."

They sat together. Sunshine pierced through the clouds in the west. The rays kissed the edge of the mountains, creating long shadows in the valley they'd hiked though. Stanna marveled at the purplish hue of the far hills blending into endless shades of green down below. With the grays and browns of arid rock outcropping nestled between coastal sage scrub and wildflowers, it was a picture to make a postcard jealous.

She drained the lukewarm thermos water in long hungry gulps. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Under it, she snuck a peek at the one who'd witnessed her humiliating collapse.

He regarded her patiently. He wasn't even winded, but lounged like a basking lizard. A cloud crossed the sun. His face was flushed with healthy color, she noticed. His lips, shaped so perfectly cruel and compelling, were relaxed and smiling slightly. She suddenly felt how alone they were, under the sky, miles from anyone.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I knew I walked pretty fast back there, but I thought you'd speak up. I should've know better," he gently mocked, with concern still in his eyes. "Big, bad Stanna wouldn't dream of crying defeat, would she?"

Wouldn't she? She wondered. She just might, if he kept looking at her in that teasing, gentle way.

A breeze from over the ocean buffeted her, cooling the perspiration on her bare arms and legs. She gazed out toward the west. The clouds seemed to be thickening and moving a little closer. The sinking sun still shone intermittently though them. She looked sideways at Jake, smiling.

"Looks like it might be a race: us versus the weather. How far are we from the top?"

He tilted his head up toward Sandpiper Peak. "Should have an even better view from thirty-one hundred and eleven feet. Pretty close race. Another half-hour."

"At Jake-speed or a more traditional pace?"

He laughed, a deep amused chuckle. In a fluid movement, he was sharing her rock and rubbing arms with her. He looked down sideways at her, curved his arm around and tucked a stray blond lock of her hair back behind her ear. "We'll go at your speed." His voice sounded very masculine for all its softness. His eyes glowed with a warm heat.

Stanna was all too aware of the heat radiating from his body. His strong upper arm was a warm, welcome solid pillar against hers. It felt deliciously hard, and she had the sudden unreasonable urge to nuzzle against his chest and feel that arm folding her to him. She moved slightly away from him, trying to clear her mind.

He seemed aware of her thoughts. He looked at her evaluatingly. Another gust of wind blew his shaggy golden chestnut hair back from his face, and he raised his head suddenly to the west and frowned, distracted.

"It hardly ever rains heavily in L.A.," he murmured almost to himself. He shrugged on his backpack. "But those look like they might be serious rain clouds. How badly do you want to see the peak?"

"Pretty badly," she answered, her voice more breathy and sultry than she intended.

He smiled, and cute laugh-lines appeared at the corner of his eyes. He gazed into her own eyes teasingly. "Then the next question would be, do you mind getting a little wet?"

She didn't laugh, but it was an effort not to. "No. I don't mind getting a little wet."

His mischievous smile went well with his speculative gaze. He leaped up from the small boulder, bowed before her and held out his hand, palm up. "Come then, my lady. For there are sights worth seeing further up yonder trail." He was the very image of an old-fashioned knight for a moment, his broad shoulders bent to her service, his bearing gallant.

Laughing and delighted with his antics, she grasped his hand. The touch tingled through her as he pulled her to her feet.

He didn't let go, but kept her hand enfolded in his larger one as he paced beside her. The connection warmed and centered her.

She'd never felt more safe.

Ian had never felt more furious.

After more than a month of miscellaneous dirty tricks, from petty vandalism to promoting Men's Weekly's bad publicity… from agitating the feminist groups to calling in favors from his shadier contacts… from Internet discussion group trolling to emails sent off wherever they might do the most damage... the stupid magazine was showing no sign of stumbling.

Jake was showing no signs of stumbling.

How he hated that damn usurper. Jake was using the money Ian himself had once easily embezzled to launch the magazine into national prominence.

His latest trick, paying off that Mexican actress to make her suicide call to Stanna, was diabolical if he did say so himself. Keeping Stanna primed against Jake and on Ian’s good side was key to his success. The key that got Jake out of the way for good.

He was running out of time.

The thugs were becoming persistent. Just last night he'd discovered all four tires on his beautiful Jaguar punctured. How they’d managed to do it while he dined at the famous French restaurant L'Orangerie he didn't discover. Probably bribed the valets.

The note was more ominous. Tucked under his wiper as if it was a ticket, the note read simply, "Thirty days. Then we turn you into geezer pate."

He could’ve done without such unpleasant, not to mention nauseating, reminders.

Yet he owed enough money they’d never let him go with a slap on the wrist if he defaulted. Outrageous that after so many years of power and ease, he found himself at such a disadvantage.

Ian bared his teeth. If he worked quickly, he might still pull this chestnut out of the fire. He might take quite a bit of additional profit for himself besides, if all went swimmingly.

His grimace broadened into a fierce smile. The lipless grin of covetous greed was that of an intelligently watchful, ravenously hungry vulture.

Soon, he thought. He would make his next move very soon.

If the cute guy across the room didn't make his move soon, Telly reasoned, then she'd be justified in making one of her own. She'd give him exactly one more minute of her high-powered smiles and subtly provocative poses.

Subtle was the name of the game here at the Saturday night church social. She probably should have slicked her white-blond hair back, stuck in a few barrettes or something instead of the spiky punk look she currently sported. But how could she have known it'd be so drably conservative? She'd never been to church in her life, but “social” to her meant talking, dancing, flirting… all the things not happening nearly enough here.

Looking around the large room, Telly noticed lots of gray, blue, and white preppy styles. The men and women were around her age, but they looked older due to their dress and demeanor. Books and inspirational pictures lined the walls, and Christian rock music played softly over the PA system. Nobody danced. Nobody flirted. And the talking… Telly shuddered. She’d had more rousing conversations with herself.

She shook off her displeasure. She was here in a quest to explore new places for the elusive Mr. Just Right. Someone with good morals. Someone sincere and sweet and not sleazy. The guy she envisioned had to be a decent sort of fellow. What better place than a church to screen out the lecherous, spittley types?

The cute, tall, and sincere-looking guy she watched most closely had dimples when he smiled, and he smiled often, with a cute shy dip to his head. His blond hair was cropped short in tiny ringlets, like a Greek statue. He wore inconspicuous wire-rim glasses that made him look like a beautiful scholar.

Trouble was, he didn't seem aware of her existence as a woman.

That was about to change. Telly regarded him with fox-like interest, knowing her big black-lined eyes sparkled deviously. Setting down her empty punch cup, she grabbed two more full ones and made a beeline for his small group.

Telly parked herself next to him and fixed her eyes adoringly on his face. She smiled up at him when he glanced at her, and held out one of the punch cups to him.

"I'm Telly," she stated with what she hoped was affectionate directness. She batted her eyes and smiled winningly up at him.

"Hi," he said softly, but equally direct. His even white teeth revealed themselves quickly in a shy smile. "I'm Ernest." He looked down at the punch cup in her hand and back at her face. "Is that for me?"

She grinned and nodded, projecting friendliness and interest. He was so serious. So earnest. She swallowed giggles.

"You are very kind to bring me a drink." His pronunciation was so exact, she wondered if he thought she was hard of hearing. He regarded her with an innocent scrutiny and sipped his cup of punch, waiting for her to speak again. Behind his spectacles, blue eyes the color of a still summer sky blinked slowly and with childlike simplicity.

A few minutes of silence passed, filled by nothing more than smiling and waiting. Weird, thought Telly, keeping the smile on her face. But maybe church guys were less aggressive than the norm. That would make sense. She’d just have to take the lead.

"Why don't we go for a walk?"

He immediately nodded with a pleased smile, letting her lead him to the front porch and beyond, to a well groomed and prettily lit little garden near the building's parking lot. She checked the lot for her red Mustang out of habit. Once one had had one’s car "borrowed" by a weasel jerk of an ex boyfriend, one just monitored vehicle whereabouts more closely. But there it still was, her beautiful steed.

She sighed. Why couldn't men be as beautiful, reliable, and powerful as her Mustang?

This man was beautiful, anyway. She snuck a peek. Chiseled profile, flawless skin, tall...

"You're seeking something here, aren't you?" The gentle query wasn't a come-on line. It was too serious. Interesting.

"Well... I suppose so." She ran a long nail down her own bare white forearm slowly. "You could say so," she growled, sultry, nudging him playfully. See what he did with that, she thought.

He was already nodding. "You've found it, here. With me."

She did a double take. Was Ernest conceited?

"The church eagerly embraces seekers such as yourself. Those who are sincerely seeking God's love, as you are." He had a youthful smile on his face. He stepped closer and took her hand gently into his cool one. She felt no sparks. "I'm the Pastor's son and I know he'd love to meet you." His tugging her back toward the building reminded her of an eager golden retriever she'd once owned.

"Whoa," she said, extricating her hand. "I'm really not especially religious."

"You're not?" His voice reflected his shock. For the first time, his gaze obviously crept over her attire, taking in the black skirt and punky hair and make-up, lingering on the tiny edge of cleavage she’d let show. “But you want to be, right? To be forgiven your trespasses? You’re seeking Divine grace.” His eyes telegraphed his sudden caution. He moved three steps back from the chummy proximity he'd had when he took her hand.

"No, not exactly. But I don’t mind people who’re into religion. It could be sort of different." But it was a lost cause. He kept eyeballing her outfit and she could read him as clearly as one of Stanna's columns. He was thinking she was one of them, one of those godless heathen sluts from Hollywood. He'd been warned about women like her.

It was suddenly hard not to laugh. There he was, looking a bizarre combination of crestfallen and enguard, and all she'd wanted was to get to know him better, maybe flirt a tiny bit, possibly set up a date.

He clearly wanted to flee, but just as clearly didn't want to be rude. The poor guy visibly re-gathered his composure and tried again. He spoke sincerely, but kept his distance. "I know you'd like my dad. I know he likes to meet people like you too. We could go and meet him before we all head down to the Pleasant Pastures retirement home to play checkers. That’s the charity for this evening, and it makes the seniors so happy. Won't you join us?"

"Thanks, Ernest. That's really sweet of you." She pointedly looked at her watch. "Oh, gosh, look at the time. I have to be going. Have fun with the checkers and everything." She spoke over her shoulder as she darted across the path, over the grass and to the parking lot to escape.

It was tremendously strange, Telly thought as she drove from the church social at a speed that doubtless reinforced Ernest's opinion of her, that someone so beautiful could be such a bore.

Okay. So, bar boys weren’t for her. And, church boys weren't for her.

Telly popped Blondie's "One Way Or Another" into her cassette deck and narrowed her flawlessly made-up eyes. The hard-driving tunes pumped her up.

There were other places to look for Mr. Just Right, and she'd search every one of them if necessary.

Jake and Stanna hiked up Sandpiper Peak together, holding hands and talking shop. Stanna listened with fascination as he actually confided in her.

"We've been getting bomb threats," he told her. “Well, I have, anyway. And that's not all. Magazine hate mail addressed to me. Then my house was spray-painted. Who has nothing better to do than follow me home and spray paint my house?

“Then, it was a double-whammy: a dramatic, unexplained rise in Standard's paper prices combined with Marshall Distributing's union strike. That suicidal woman's phone call was par for the course, Stanna."

His lips pursed thoughtfully. "It's as if someone's determined to make me fail with Men's Weekly, but of course that's silly. Who would have the time, influence, or motivation to go to all that trouble? Why would they do it? It's all just bad timing for me, I guess." His words were fatalistic, but his thunderous glare at the trail in front said otherwise.

"I don't remember business being so difficult with Ian," Stanna mused aloud. Then, blushing, she added, "I don't mean to say he was better than you or anything. But it's weird that things are going wrong all of a sudden with him gone. Maybe there's something suspicious about that. Yesterday when he called--"

"He called you?" Jake's thunderous expression turned on her suddenly. As if to punctuate, a low rumble of thunder echoed across the hills.

"Well... yes." She eyed him warily.

"That will stop. It's entirely inappropriate for the former editor to be consulting with you still," he told her stiffly.

"And what you and I are doing is so proper and appropriate?" she bit back immediately, wondering why he'd donned the "boss" persona all of a sudden. It was strange hearing it while they held hands. She sang cavalierly, tauntingly, "I guess I'm just not an 'appropriate' kind of girl," and gave him a sweet smile.

"Did you have a special relationship with him, Stanna? An intimate one?" His grasp tightened painfully. His acid voice would have stung her if she weren't struck by the humor of it. Her and Ian. She imagined the man’s frail body and lined old face and dapper little distinguished-gentleman clothing. Ridiculous!

He caught her amused expression and his mask-like face relaxed slightly, as did his grip, but he still waited for her answer.

"Not 'special' the way you're implying, buddy. Unlike some people, he was harmless that way." She thought about Ian and what she’d tried to suggest to Jake concerning him. Namely, that Ian had the motivation and resources to mess with Men's Weekly. But it seemed so silly now that she held the image of weak, fired old Ian in her mind.

She decided not to mention her fleeting suspicion. The recent Men's Weekly difficulties was just bad luck and doubtless the result of Jake's controversial new angles. Some unstable schoolteacher probably found an issue of Men's Weekly under Junior's pillow, followed Jake home and painted his garage with correctly spelled profanity.

The air must be getting thin, Stanna thought. Her mind's imaginings had her vilifying poor old Ian and innocent schoolteachers.

He was tugging her to a stop and turned to face her. His broad chest and shoulders blocked her view of anything but him, he stood so close. "I apologize for suggesting anything about you and Ian," he stated formally.

"It’s okay. Humorous, really," she began.

He placed his finger on her lips to quiet her and continued. "But I think it's strange he still calls you. If it's to talk about the magazine, that's bad. That's what's known as a 'conflict of interest.' We don't know if he's ferreting for info to start his own competing magazine, or something worse."

Flippantly, she replied, "If you want to worry about someone starting a competing magazine, worry about me. I'd blow you out of the water."

He smiled at that, but nodded his head: maybe-possibly. "Just the same, it's a delicate situation. I have to ask that you keep magazine business confidential."

Stanna felt a twinge of guilt. Did he know she hadn't exactly been closed-mouthed on magazine business with Ian, and she'd been especially vocal in her disapproval of Jake? In the beginning it was because she'd still held out hope that somehow Ian might return as editor. But later she was just venting and trying to make an old, fired man feel better. He seemed to enjoy -- encouraged, really -- her slamming of Jake's leadership and ideas and plans.

Jake was making her feel sneaky and disloyal. And ashamed. Stanna frowned. All she was doing was trying to preserve her professional lifestyle and aspirations. She was entitled to protect herself, wasn't she? Ian was just a friendly former colleague, a mentor in absence, who probably called every day out of loneliness more than anything. Did she tell Jake that Ian called every day? She didn't think she had.

While she debated whether to tell him, she felt the first splatters of raindrops on her head. Surprised, for she had been so distracted by her internal musings that she'd forgotten they were simply standing on the trail, she looked at the sky above her. It was darkening with rain clouds. Looking for the sinking sun, she spotted a diffused glow from behind the hills now far beneath her. They were almost at the top of Sandpiper Peak.

"C'mon," he uttered and tugged her up the trail.

"Do you know where you're going?" she asked, looking around for a big tree or outcropping where they could take cover. There wasn't anything. They were at the top of the peak. "Maybe we should head back to that big oak tree a ways down the trail," she suggested, beginning to pant with the double-speed pace he again set.

He didn't even slow down. Miffed, she was about to dig in her heels when they rounded a bend and viewed what lay beyond the trail sloping down. A small valley.

Even the gray skies and her rain-blurred vision couldn't dim the beauty of the place. It was as if they'd crossed into another world. Lush grasses grew uncut and she thought she spotted a bobcat leaping through it. Dots of evergreen Chamise and Toyon plant varieties grew wild next to deep red, yellow, and purple wildflowers. Twisted, ancient-looking trees dotted the grassland with artistic irregularity, and a muddy mini-canyon cut a violent gash through a third of it. A quaint little wooden bridge spanned the nearer mini-crevasse, leading to the wonder of the meadow perched in a small soon-to-be-muddy clearing: a tiny gray-brown cottage from another century.

It was a single-room frontier shack with what she thought at first was a bell-tower jutting out of one end of the roof. But on closer inspection she recognized the old-style chimney roof, a little pyramid perched above the stubby square of the chimney.

The house had a base of rough-hewn stones, but weathered gray wood made up the walls and door and roof. It was nearly small enough to be a large shed, or a garage. A white picket fence described a small circle in front of it. A protected patch of gardening?

It charmed her.

Jake headed directly toward it.

Then she did dig in her heels.

That just got her pulled along a few feet before Jake slowed his bull-run enough to notice she wasn't cooperating.

"Now what?" he asked, exasperated. He wiped rain from his forehead with a vehement arc of his arm. "Do you want to be carried over the threshold?"

"Think the people who live there now will mind the company?" she retorted, folding her arms across her chest.

He walked towards her, smiling slightly. "Oh no, they won't mind. They only live there between eight and nine o'clock Pacific Time on Tuesdays." He cocked his head, visibly enjoying her confusion.

"Care to explain?" she queried finally.

"Television. This hut, here," he waved a muscular arm at it, "is property of Paramount. They use it for filming." He grinned at her somewhat proudly. "Nobody's home."

"How did you know about it?" she asked him grudgingly as she began to walk quickly beside him. The rain was really beginning to pelt them. "And how do we get in," she added, peering at the door. Would it have an old-fashioned little latch on it? She couldn't see one. “And isn’t breaking in illegal?”

He ignored her last question. "I've been here before. Sandpiper Peak is the only hill around here that offers any challenge. No offense, but in Colorado we'd laugh at the idea of this bump being called a 'peak.' Pikes Peak: now that's a mountain."

"You're pretty athletic," she observed.

He shot a quick grin at her. "I've been at it a long time," he said modestly.

She'd just bet he had.

He darted a glance at the cabin. She followed his gaze. Close up, it was smaller rather than larger. She wondered if Jake'd have to duck his head going in the door. He seemed to be wondering about getting into the home too. "As far as a way inside... if it’s locked I actually have no idea. Yet."

She looked at him quickly.

"Maybe the door's unlocked again," he offered. She looked back at the little house. A skinny porch looked hardly big enough to support someone's weight, but the tiny flare of roof above the door offered moderate shelter.

They hurried through the downpour over the small arched bridge and past the picket fence. They hopped up the rickety porch steps and lunged at the door. Stanna wiggled the handle.

Locked.

Jake pushed her to the side and tried it himself, adding his weight against the door.

Still nothing.

"Maybe the windows?"

"Shutters. They latch from the inside." Then a thoughtful expression crossed his face. Silently he trotted down the stairs and gazed up at the roof. "Stanna?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"Do you know First Aid?"

"No."

"Oh well." He shrugged off his backpack, tossed it to the foot of the house where the little ridge of roof would shelter it from some of the rain. Reaching up, he grabbed a corner and with one violent lunge swung his legs onto the roof. He hauled the rest of himself up in a dazzling display of upper-body strength. Quickly, he maneuvered himself in lithe, muscle-rippling movements up the gentle but slippery slope.

To the chimney.

Stanna realized what he intended. "Jake!" She meant it to be an angry yell, but it came out a fearful shriek.

He paused. Waved. Then lowered himself feet-first under the cone-shaped mini-roof of the chimney and disappeared.

Stanna listened for the thud.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Stanna waited on the porch with her heart in her throat, breathing shallowly, but all she heard was the steady sound of rain falling. She faced the front door with hope and dread.

Her body began to shake with the chill and tension. She became conscious of her own backpack sliding down strengthless arms.

He had to be okay. She didn't know First Aid, so he had to be okay. Those were the rules, she firmly told any benevolent deities tuned in to her little drama.

The sudden click and clatter of locks being turned made her jump. Then she was leaping forward to help open the door and he stood there just inside, smudges of dirt streaking his grinning handsome face and it was the most natural thing in the world to fling her arms around him and plant a heartfelt kiss on those amazingly warm lips.

He returned the kiss enthusiastically.

His lips moved with instant mastery over hers, parting them to thrust his hot tongue into her mouth. After the chill of the rain, his heat nearly made her swoon.

His muscular cable-hard arms held her against him effortlessly. His hands moved over her, rubbing her back up and down gently. The demanding pulse of desire that throbbed through her left her aching.

He ended the kiss. His eyes glowing mere inches from hers, he ruefully told her, "I suppose I should rescue my pack before the rain destroys our dinner." He held her a moment longer. He shook his head, bemused, as he finally dropped his arms from around her. "You’re a very interesting woman, Stanna."

She tipped her finger, right back at ya. "You aren't putting me to sleep, either." Understatement of the century.

Breathe, Stanna, she reminded herself as he brushed by her. She felt a smile curve her lips. Her mind paraphrased Jake's statement into her own thought: this was turning out to be a very interesting day.

She took a step further into the house, hearing a creak and feeling the wood floor give ever so slightly beneath her sneaker. It was getting dark, so she unlatched and cracked open the three shutters enough to let in the fading afternoon light.

There wasn't much within the four walls of the house. A large, wide cook place/fireplace with a neat pyramid of firewood stacked beside it dominated one wall. An antique cot lay tucked against the opposite wall. And between them, against the third wall, perched a small rickety table-sized hutch with some bowls and plates and utensils within it and a large half-melted white candle on top. One chair. There wasn't anything else. There wasn't room for much else, but it could have used some personal touches, she observed. She supposed the starkness could be Hollywood's idea of period realism.

The star must be a guy, she concluded.

The door shut softly behind. Jake lay her backpack at her feet and paced to the one chair. He took a seat to unzip his own larger backpack. He pulled out matches, lighted the candle. The orange-yellow glow warmed up the gray light filtering in through the shutters.

Then, as naturally as if the little cabin were his second home, he stepped to the fireplace, lifted some cords of firewood from the stack, and proceeded to expertly start up a cozy hearth fire.

Stanna smiled in appreciation of his take-charge approach to their trespassing. He knelt before the mouth of the fireplace. She admired the way his blue T-shirt clung wetly to his broad, powerful back. Glancing down at her own white tee, she was glad for the extra concealing layer of her athletic bra.

She shivered.

They were both a bit underdressed for a rainy evening on a mountain.

Then she remembered the picnic blanket she'd packed. She grinned wryly. It was supposed to be used as something to sit on while they ate cheese and crackers in the sunshine.

She sat on the cot, pulled the blanket out and draped herself in it.

"You'll be warmer over here by the fire." His melodious rumble seemed to warm her insides all by itself. Fire? Who needs fire?

"I'm fine," she said shortly. He was entirely too appealing, basking his powerful body in front of the licking flames like some kind of primitive hunter.

He pivoted languorously until his back was to the fire, his aqua eyes turned black by the backlight of the flames.

She felt she was in the room with a predator, and shivered again, this time with pleasure.

Jake felt the fire's heat beating into his back, but it was nothing next to the radiating inflammation of his desire.

If she kept looking at him with that innocent hunger, he’d... he would... what? Make love to his columnist? He swore softly at himself. She was his employee and totally off-limits for what he was thinking. He tried to ignore his discomfort. She couldn't help that her damp tan shorts and white shirt, combined with her rain-slicked blond hair, made her look like a fallen angel. Or that the blanket she draped so casually around her didn't quite hide the telltale nubs of her erect nipples.

She didn't share his lust. He had to remember and respect it. He shifted uncomfortably. To distract himself, he rummaged in his pack, came up with sandwiches.

He heard her unzip, looked up sharply.

Her backpack.

He shifted uncomfortably again. She reached again into her own backpack and fished out Ritz crackers and Cheez Whiz, offering them up solemnly. He held up his sandwiches just as solemnly. They both smiled at the same time, and he wondered if she were as warmed by the simultaneous nature of it as he was.

"I have something," he whispered conspiratorially to her, still smiling. He reached back into his bag.

"Oooh, what do you have," she whispered back, playing along.

"Voila!" He pulled out a bottle of Pagor Tempranillo red wine and two gaudy purple plastic wine glasses, complete with bumpy stems in the shape of grape columns. She clapped delightedly, like a small child. "All right!"

Charmed by her reaction, he modestly said, "I don't know how well it will complement the sandwiches--"

"It's perfect," she emphatically assured him. She glided from the cot and sat in front of him looking so happily pleased that it was all he could do not to lean in and kiss her again. He held back by an intense effort of will.

She had no idea how sexy she was, with her small body gracefully folded beneath her. Her face glowed from the fire and her gray eyes sparkled.

He wolfed his sandwich without tasting it. She tore into hers pretty quickly too, he noticed. Trust a day of exercise to sharpen the appetite.

He watched her gulp her sandwich then nibble slowly on her cheese and crackers, wondering if his arousal would ever go away. Would she inadvertently stimulate him all night? The thought of Stanna stimulating him all night stimulated him further.

There was no winning.

As the fire burned lower, they reclined in front of the warming flames.

Stanna took a sip of wine. "Mmm. Good stuff… Jake?" she lazily queried, licking wine from her lips. She stretched out her feet -- clad now only in white socks -- toward the fireplace. "Are we going to head back down the hill, or stay here tonight?"

She didn't mean it to sound so sultry. She only meant… she peeked at him. When she saw the expression of pure desire on his face, she gasped. "Jake…" she whispered.

She watched his face darken with some inner struggle as he put his wineglass down.

"Yes."

She tingled at the sound of his voice. She heard his voice change, becoming deliberately rough and callous. "I'm going to give you about three seconds to move your cute ass away from me."

His cruel mouth was set in its most ruthless lines. Why on earth was she responding so fiercely to it? To him? Ever since they'd kissed just inside the door, her arousal had remained at an all-time high. It was a pleasant sensuality quite foreign to her.

Move away from him? She didn't think so.

She tilted her head up defiantly, smiling slowly at the thin line his mouth made.

She heard him make a small noise. Then a strained, "I don't think you realize--"

She made a purring, guttural noise of desire. She couldn't help it, watching his expression reflecting his struggle. That involuntary noise of hers was evidently his undoing.

Groaning deep in his throat, he grabbed her forearms with a restrained ferocity and crushed her against him. Again his mouth plundered hers, his wine-flavored tongue stroking hers in a sensuous dance.

He swept her up easily, his lips not pausing in their movement on hers. He held her cradled to his hard chest. His sinuous rocking panther-walk, one she’d enjoyed watching so often, now carried her effortlessly to the cot, which he knelt before. He gently lowered her, breaking their kiss. In a tender, unexpected gesture that made her feel precious, he stroked her hair and kissed her cheek.

She was aware of the briefest cold of not being in his arms. She protested. He didn't give her murmured complaint time to exit her mouth before he slid over her, the thin cotton of their clothes no barrier at all.

His strong hard body covered hers. She breathed in the clean masculine scent of him, a spicy musk mixed with smoke and rain. His mouth locked onto hers, and he pressed the full length of his body against hers for a moment. A startling hardness pressed between her legs. A surge of pleasure made her tremble. He felt it. The movement of his lips against hers felt like a smile.

His strong arms straddled her. They lifted him above her in an effortlessly sustained push-up and his darkened blue-green eyes bored into hers. Heat, sizzling, barely restrained. But it was restrained. He rolled to his side, his left hand restlessly roaming over her, expertly taking possession of her body.

He watched her eyes, she thought wonderingly as his fingers stroked her body in a slow exploration. He liked reading her reaction, she realized with a warm flush of heat. Tingles coursed over her skin wherever his fingertips wandered, over her clothes and underneath them. His small admiring glances to her gradually revealed body always returned to her eyes. His commanding stare demanded that she return it, and she did. His aqua eyes filled her sight, glittering down with dark heat. She read his own rising powerful lust, watched him hold it in check.

His adept hands radiated heat on her skin as he removed her shirt. He lingered over her athletic bra, seeming to enjoy tremendously the way her breasts, compressed by the tight cotton material, bounded forth when he removed it.

Her pleasure spiked almost painfully when he lowered his silky hair over her chest and breathed warmly on her bared breasts. His lips, then teeth, grazed her nipples. He pressed her breasts together and took both nipples into his mouth. She hissed in a shocked gasp at the slick, hot sensation of it.

Tonguing her expertly, lovingly, he explored with his mouth while his restless hands slipped over her bared belly. A delightful shiver of wanting ran through her. His mouth and his touch, firm and persuasive, invited more shivers.

She couldn't resist him if she tried. The thought spiraled through her head dreamily. He evoked sensations as elemental as fire, as right as the first man who ever touched the first woman, and she wouldn't have it any other way. The thought had a significance that Stanna tried to grasp, but Jake's talented fingers were removing her shorts and delving underneath her flimsy cotton panties and the resulting slam of exquisite delight chased every thought from her head.

She heard his harsh, uneven breath. His arousal stoked her own even higher, if that were possible, making her reach for him wantonly. He felt so wonderful… She tugged him closer, but he resisted. His hand played, deliberately teasing, drawing jolts of sensation from her body. Every fiber of her being sizzled with the pleasure he inflicted on her. She writhed beneath him, eager to touch his skin.

"You like that?" His hot whisper in her ear, far from distracting, added another dimension to his loveplay..

"Yes..." she whispered back. "Please..." She had to acknowledge the commanding smile of pleased masculine confidence was entirely justified.

He removed his shirt and shorts quickly, pausing to touch her as if he couldn't stop or help himself. When she saw the evidence of his desire, she gasped. He was huge and hard and leaning over her once more. His hands, never still, skillfully lowered her panties.

She could feel the heat of his entire body slipping against the length of hers as he firmly, almost violently parted her legs to lie between them. The heavy heat of his manhood nudged against her thigh. His hardness electrified her entire body, and as she felt the hard, frighteningly large part of him push roughly inside her in a raw act of possession, she soared to an awesome, shuddering climax.

When her vision cleared again she felt him still throbbing inside her. Her body shivered with delight when he began to move again, invading her further with his insistent manhood. She moved tentatively under him. His ragged breath and his soft oath encouraged her.

Caressing his back and buttocks, she pulled him deeper. She ran her tongue up his salty chest, enjoying the clean-sweat smell of him and the fuzzy feel of his chest hair. He responded by roughly dragging her against him, impaling her deeply. A delicious shudder rippled through her body, and she felt his trembling as he teetered on the edge of his own climax. He thrust in an ancient, almost punishing rhythm, tormenting her with new waves of pleasure.

Knowing she gave the same pleasure to this magnificent man triggered her own, even more intense climax. As she exploded into a million stars she heard her own loud cry of pure animalistic joy. His moan meshed with it as he accompanied her into bliss with his eyes locked on her, narrowed in a pleasure so intense that it seemed to pin her, joining her to him in spirit as well as body.

She liked the feel of his body on her, and loved his eyes as he gazed down at her. She was filled with an amazing sense of completeness. Her breathing began to settle into a more even tempo. His eyes... now they were a warm shade of green-blue. And caring. Vulnerable, even.

She stared up in wonder.

His eyes got closer... closer... and then she felt the gentlest warm touch of his lips against hers. Their eyelashes meshed delightfully as he stared into her eyes a moment longer. His expression reflected her wonder. His arms gathered her to him and cradled her.

A totally unexpected surge of affection went through her as she wrapped her arms around him. She returned the kiss, and her heart skittered alarmingly. She knew then that she loved the big, dumb Neanderthal. She loved him, and her breath caught as she looked at the shape his lips made as they disengaged from her own.

Her heart thudded in an emotional reflex that she couldn't control. The unsteady beat of it seemed to articulate the warning: danger, danger, danger...

But, of course, it was already much too late.

They cuddled under her picnic blanket in a ball of body-heat generated warmth. Stanna stretched luxuriously, enjoying the deep tenor of Jake's voice as much as his words. His hands were warm on her skin, stroking soothingly.

"The house is tiny because they created the set scaled-down. It makes the characters look more heroic. Bigger."

"As big as you?" she teased.

"You'll never have the opportunity to compare," he growled mock-fiercely, but with a truly possessive glare that Stanna took delight in. She lowered her head so he wouldn't see her wide, pleased smile. Her eyes focused on the worn, weathered flooring.

"What's the show? Who’re the characters?"

He nuzzled her, nipped her bared neck. She shivered under the blanket. "The show is 'Shaman of the Sky.' The main character, everyone just calls him “Shaman,” is the here who lives here. He's an alien from another galaxy who magicked himself accidentally to Earth in the 18th century, and set up shop using his healing powers for the good of mankind. Cold?"

His voice rumbled through her, felt as much as heard, generating heat all by itself. He ran his warm palm over her hard, erect nipples. She melted, but managed to lie. "Yes, icy cold. I'm afraid I need more of your body heat. Or else..." she gasped when his magic hands slipped under the blanket, "...or else I might become frigid."

"Can't have that." His eyes began to glow again with their own type of soft and melting heat. He pulled her against him firmly, and she felt his body rock-hard against her. Her own body trembled with anticipation of more pleasure to come. She met his devouring gaze with a ferocity of her own. She dipped her head to nibble on his shoulder like a playful animal. She listened to his groan with satisfaction and felt another wave of affection that took her by surprise. She wanted to please this man so very much.

How frightening.

He felt her slight stiffening. "What's wrong?" His gentle voice crept ever further into her heart. She was so defenseless against him! Her body, her heart... only her mind was still her own.

He pulled back, gazing at her with gentle concern. "Stanna?"

He’d possessed her body, and her mind was under siege too if she counted his tactics in changing her column. Hadn't he called her a man-hating, manipulating feminist?

What she hated was the idea of this man thinking of her as manipulative. She'd certainly just given him reason enough, by sleeping with the boss. Perhaps he thought she angled for special favors. But surely he wouldn't count what they’d just done against her. Would he?

Jake couldn't for the life of him figure out why she froze up. One minute she was responsive as hell, the next in her own world. One that didn't include him.

A flash of memory wormed through his head, one he wished hadn't: A laughing, seductive Jolene suddenly transformed into a cold, manipulative woman whom he didn't know, and didn't want to know. The resulting numbness lingered. Even now.

He shook off the memory almost immediately, but the taste of it remained, chilling him.

He felt her arms tighten about him, somewhat belatedly.

But now he was the stiff one, and he didn't mean the part of him that seemed to have a mind of its own. She was so desirable, so seemingly vulnerable. He wanted to believe it wasn't an act. That she wasn't angling to use him somehow.

She sensed his distance, he could tell. She looked at him questioningly. "What's wrong?"

After a long pause, he spoke. "I know how much you want your column back the way it was. How much you want the magazine to change back to what it had been when Ian ruled the roost. I just want to be straight with you. This won't change things."

"Change things? As in changing your mind about your precious woman-bashing 'zine? You thought that's why I did this. I knew it. I just knew it."

Her flame-lit face telegraphed disappointment, then pure feminine fury before she rolled from him and began to dress.

He spoke to her back. "You don't have to be so unreasonable about it all." He was becoming irritated. "I didn't mean anything."

She whirled. Grabbed her backpack and began stuffing her belongings into it. When she yanked the blanket off him he lay still as a statue and caught her looking. He raised an eyebrow at her and thought he spotted the beginning of a smile.

"Stanna." He rose sinuously and tilted her chin to him. "You're wrong about me, you know." He kissed her, long and slow. "I don't think that's why we did this." He kissed her again, felt her resistance beginning to melt. "We did this because of simple, animal desire, nothing more, I realize that now," and bent to kiss her again.

He pressed his lips against something suddenly hard and compressed.

Realizing his error, he tried again. "I feel... good thoughts about you." Good thoughts? Good going, Casanova. But what did she expect? An 'I love you?' His heart lurched as those exact words poised on his lips. He wasn't sure they weren't true.

But it was too late.

Stanna pushed against him, freeing herself. "The rain sounds like it’s stopped. Let's get back down the hill, okay?" Her back was turned again. He wanted to put his arms around her. He wanted to kiss her skin, tug gently on her hair, and pull her against him.

But she turned and gazed at him coolly.

Suddenly realizing he was naked and she was fully dressed, pack in hand and waiting by the door to leave, he began feeling a little cool himself. "Fine," he retorted. Unstable female.

Neither said a word as he extinguished the fire.

It was a long and silent nighttime hike back down.

CHAPTER NINE

The chill extended into their professional relationship, though they both took great pains to hide it.

Weeks after, Stanna still hadn't had a moment completely alone with him, unless she counted the weekly debates over her column, which she didn't. He was much the same.

She was the one who was altered by their night on the mountain.

She found herself acutely aware of the times he arrived and the times he left, and was so sensitized to his voice that she could pick it out of a crowd of voices across the hall effortlessly. His laugh made her pause whatever she was doing with a strange ache of longing.

He didn't approach her on a personal level.

Professionally, though, he was as infuriating as he'd always been. Masticating her column, placing bimbo ads on the back covers of Men's Weekly, meeting with Tia of K&C Ad Agency more often than he met with her... he was as bullheaded and misguided as ever, but who was she to tell him such a thing? She was just a little receptionist and a column hack, that's who she was.

"It takes less facial muscles to smile than it does to frown," Corrinna chirped. She paused in her stroll down the hall. "What's wrong? You've been so sad-looking."

Stanna gave a small smile of reassurance. "It's nothing, just a minor problem I'm working on." He goes by the name of Jake Tremere.

"Well, if you ever want to talk about it..." Corrinna smiled at her warmly before continuing on her way.

"Stanna." His voice. She felt her pulse immediately begin jogging around the block. But she was carefully noncommittal as she turned towards him. "Yes?" She hoped he hadn't heard that last transaction of Corrinna's.

But his voice was neutral, professional as he spoke. "I’m attending a business convention. It runs for five days, a gathering of all the national Men's magazines: Men's Health, Men's Perspective, GQ, all the rest. I need someone to keep an eye on internal office things temporarily. Your previous training makes you the likeliest candidate for that."

Will wonders never cease. But he was stiff, proper. "What's the catch?" she asked.

"No catch. I just think you're the best man for the job," he replied. He winked.

He winked. Then he walked away. "Jake!" she called, scrambling to follow him.

He glanced at her as she paced beside him down the hall. She grouched. "You walk too fast.” For some reason that made him smile at her, slowing his pace.

"When's the trip?" she asked.

"Next week. All week."

She walked him to his office, then ground out, "Thank you."

He looked at her, lips pressed shut. His aqua eyes glinted with a tiny sparkle just for her. "Just don't do anything I wouldn't do while I'm gone," he told her sternly, but his eyes threw more sparks.

"That leaves my choices wide open," she retorted.

She didn't realize how soon she'd be confronted with decisions reminding her of that moment.

Telly had never felt more conspicuously female. Their hungry eyes crawled over her and she knew what it felt like to be a juicy steak thrown into a dog kennel. She'd only been at the Edwards Air Force Officer's Club for thirty seconds, and she was already being buried in both camouflage BDUs and dress blues.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

"I'm buying her a drink," growled a testosterone-soaked voice as its owner waved a five-dollar bill at the bartender. Others were arguing over who could take her coat, which she decided to hang onto. Maybe she'd even put it back on. Soon. The way the boys eyeballed her black corset-enhanced cleavage made her peek to see if she'd popped out. She accepted a pink Cosmopolitan from one guy.

She smiled, thanked them, and watched as they immediately got into another fight over whose chair she should take.

They gave off whiffs of Brut aftershave, beer, and eager sweat. They were randy, masculine, and about as far from Ernest the checkers-playing church boy as boys could get.

Trouble was, they were a little too far from him.

She felt the beginnings of a headache and wondered which one of them would be the first to suggest playing Quarters. Or strip poker.

She looked about in mild desperation.

He was sitting alone with a cynical twist to his lips. He watched the circle of flyboys preening and fighting before her with unconcealed amusement and not a little contempt. But he gave her a little wave and a greeting lift of his chin.

"Excuse me," she said. She had to say it a couple of times before they let her out of the circle.

"Hey, the Ladies Room is that way," one of them shouted after her too loudly.

She walked directly toward the mysteriously cool man. His blond hair was cut to above his ears, and gelled slightly to give it a spiky look much like hers, only shorter. Innocently blue eyes appraised her with amusement, as if she reminded him of a funny joke. She wished he’d share it with her. She could use a laugh.

"Have a seat," he told her when she reached his table.

He wore camouflage, like many of the others. On his shoulders were pinned the double black bars of a captain. His voice wasn't especially deep, and its wry tone matched his amused expression. He already sounded more intelligent compared to the guys who’d swarmed her. Funny how just three words, modulated properly, could make someone sound smart.

"Are you waiting for someone?" she asked him. No need to cramp some girlfriend's style.

"No." He took a sip from his glass. Vodka? Water? He watched her levelly. He lowered his drink to the red and white plastic checkered tablecloth and rubbed his double-jointed thumb against the perspiring glass.

She couldn't tell if she was unnerved or excited by the gesture.

She decided to make polite conversation. "So, do you--"

"...come here often?" he finished. "Yes. We all do." He smiled at her, a sweet smile. "Not too many women in uniform, here with us lifers. So when fresh m--, uh, faces like yours make an appearance, it's an event."

There it was, that wry tone again.

"Not that I blame them in your case. I'm sure you attract men wherever you go."

She could forgive a little wryness.

He looked at her directly and for a moment she noticed a strange manic excitement in his eyes. But then it was gone, and they were back to being impenetrable. He still smiled, an expression somehow at odds with his words. "They're trying not to stare at us right now. But they're watching our every move."

She looked up. Some of the guys did seem to be staring, but they weren't making a big sneaky deal out of it. One even waved. She started to wave back, but he grabbed her hand. "Don't do that. Brian'll take it as an invitation." He stared at her. He let go of her hand immediately, but she wasn't happy.

"Brian has one advantage over you, anyway. I know his name."

"My name is Wayne," he informed her with a small dry smile. "And yours is...?"

"Telly. It's English."

"I didn't think it was Arabic." He kept his smile.

She didn't like him, and wasn't sure if she were attracted to him. At least he was somewhat interesting. She decided to let it play out.

"So what do you big, bad military types do for fun?"

"Get drunk, shoot stick, act stupid. We also seduce women, and watch each other trying to seduce women. The way Brian and his friends are watching us right now. Hey!" His abrupt shout hurt her ears and made her jump. "You wanna show, buy a ticket!" Brian and friends laughed, shaking their heads. But they made a point of looking away.

She realized Wayne was drunk. And obnoxious.

She started to push her chair out to leave.

"Hey," he murmured gently. "I didn't mean to scare you." His sincere words made her pause, sink back in her chair. His gentle smile and wistful tone of pure regret didn't quite mesh with the expression in his eyes. But she waited.

His hands rested in his lap under the tablecloth. He wry tone was back when he told her, "They just love to watch." The tablecloth rustled. Was he scratching himself?

"I'm not a Peeping Tom. More on the other side." He fixed his unsettling eyes on her and slowly raised the tablecloth.

The panel in front of his BDU trousers was unbuttoned and gaped open. His white underwear was lowered to beneath his testicles, but pushed up tightly against them. His large penis shaft jutted out proudly. It curved slightly to the left. She noticed, in a moment of complete objectivity, that a clear bead of moisture dotted the tip.

She tore her gaze away, looked at his face.

The manic expression had returned to his eyes. He was deep into his own private fantasy, his own world. The role he wanted her to play, she understood finally, was the part of shocked, horrified, and maybe reluctantly fascinated girl.

She smiled with some wryness of her own.

"Do you like it?" he murmured. He stroked himself. She felt some vertigo -- is this really happening? -- but then the humor of it rolled over her. She hadn't expected to find a pervert with captain's bars, was all.

She smiled, which excited him visibly.

"I love it," she assured him. "Pull your pants down further so I can see it better."

He complied with a knowing smirk on his face. It must have been awkward for him to do sitting down, but he lowered his trousers and undies to his knees, all the while stroking himself.

"Do you want to suck it?" he asked her in a dreamy voice.

She responded, sultry. "Ooooh, I want to get it wet." With one hand she emptied her Cosmopolitan on his crotch, with the other she tipped the table over, exposing him to a few more people than he’d intended.

Mortification flushed his face as he emerged from his own internal world while frantically trying to yank up his pants. The pink liquid made his wilting erection shine.

"See ya, pervert," she muttered as she walked away.

Definitely a strikeout.

Stanna sat staring at the altered column Jake had dropped on her desk. He'd left that morning, so he wasn't around to throw it back in his face.

It was horrible.

She knew what he was trying to do. He thought her column was too negative on men. Too critical of nasty little male habits like leaving the toilet seat up and belching in public, as well as bigger ones like predatory promiscuity. But his compromise of the week was awful. He’d edited until the column essentially granted men the right to swagger, scratch, spit, and screw to their heart's content -- and just to be fair, granted the same rights to women.

It was a slap in her face.

If she changed the wording back, she'd be betraying his trust.

If she let it go to press, she'd be betraying her ideals.

The phone rang.

"Men's Weekly," she answered.

"This is Eva Swanson from CBS news, who am I speaking with please?"

"Stanna Whitland."

"Stanna a k a 'Stan'?" Eva asked slyly.

Stanna stilled. Where was this going?

The woman continued. "I had a tip from a reliable source that you were, in fact, the writer of 'Stan Says.' Our viewers would be interested in knowing what it's like for a woman to write as a man about such very masculine subject matter."

Stanna felt cornered. If her identity were publicized, she couldn't hide behind 'Stan's' name anymore about those horrible columns. But if she denied it and the woman's source was truly reliable, she'd be exposed for a liar and the magazine would possibly suffer negative publicity.

Her identity was blown. What should she do?

“No comment,” she tried.

The woman laughed. “Your prerogative. I’ll just run the article without your input, then.” She waited.

Stanna grimaced. She didn't have much of a choice but to admit it. But she didn't have to admit to liking it. Besides, didn't Jake want more publicity? He’d increased the promotion budget. This was free promotion. Maybe this could be good. She could do a little favor for the sake of the magazine, and then maybe Jake would warm to her. Professionally, of course.

"Okay fine. It's true. I'll give you the interview if you like."

"Wonderful. What time's good for you?"

After the interview, Stanna had misgivings. Eva had asked her at one point "Was the 'Stan' column your idea?" She'd answered with an emphatic no, adding that Jake tailored each column to his needs. Maybe she shouldn't have told the woman that. Her eyes had glinted shrewdly at that revelation. Stanna had only told her that to reduce her responsibility for the 'Stan' columns, but she now realized the woman may have taken it differently.

She didn't realize how differently until the next night's news.

"...and from West Hollywood we have another story of a gross abuse of power, this time directed at an innocent young columnist. But the victims include everyone deceived by the magazine's tagline, 'By, For, and About Men.' Stanna Whitland informed us about these politics of power at our very own local Men's Weekly magazine."

Horrified, Stanna watched the clips they showed of her speaking. They were out of context, strung together in a way to slant Jake and Men's Weekly as a tool of harassing, power hungry, chauvinist men, and herself as a heroic victim.

"As you can see, this fragile but determined young lady, when forced to write as a man on subject matters personally repellent to her, did the right thing and came forward to let us know what we were buying when we paid good money for Men's Weekly. And for that we thank her."

Stunned, there was at first only one thought in Stanna's mind: What was Jake going to think?

The next morning when she got to work and her answering machine told her there were sixty-seven messages, she realized there was more to worry about than just Jake's reaction.

"Stanna, how about your column. We need this week's." It was Corrinna, but her normally chipper, friendly voice was missing. Her expression was pretty cold too.

"Corrinna. I didn't mean to come across like that on T.V. They took everything out of context. Absolutely everything."

"That won't help us too much when we all go out of business, will it?"

There was nothing more to say, and Stanna handed her the column wordlessly. Corrinna didn't pause, just turned and walked back to the production department.

At lunchtime the gang departed without her. Michael, Corrinna and the rest didn't even look at her as they passed her desk on the way to the elevators.

She grimly watched their backs. She couldn't blame them.

The messages on the machine were mostly lawyers offering to represent her case, but also newspapers wanting to interview her and women's groups wanting her membership. Ian's was the very first message. And second, and third. His heartfelt concern over her well-being and his sweet questions on how she intended to handle the inevitable bad publicity touched her.

She called him.

"Ian, how are you?"

"My dear, I should be asking that question," he scolded. "Now. What have you done in the way of damage control? You must immediately issue a statement saying that Men's Weekly is against discrimination of any kind, and in order to prove it you'll publish only politically correct, pro-women, non-inflammatory material henceforth. Do you understand? If you don't, there will be boycotting and Men's Weekly just isn't large enough or popular enough to survive that."

Stanna's head was spinning. "Ian... I don't know. I don't think Jake would like it at all. That statement goes against his new editorial angle."

"You don't have a choice, my dear." His voice sounded almost oily in its excessive concern, and for the second time, Stanna wondered at his intervention. "Ian, why are you helping me so much? Jake let you go," she told him gently. Fired was such a brutal word, especially to someone his age.

"Gone but not forgotten," Ian quipped. Then, "I suppose a doddering old fool like me has nothing better to do than concern himself with hobbies and such. You could say that the magazine has become my hobby."

"That's very kind of you..."

"Anything for you, my dear."

She hung up the phone. Should she issue a statement? Ian had the business experience to know what he was talking about.

Plus, it was her golden chance to force Jake to return the magazine to what it was before he arrived and disrupted everything.

It was also exactly the opposite of what Jake would want.

She sighed, rubbing her temples. She needed lunch, she decided. To go for a drive, grab some food, and then think about all of it.

Down in the garage, as she swung into her beat-up wagon, she almost didn't hear the woman's voice.

"Stanna! Stanna Whitland?" A pretty redhead trotted toward her.

"Yes?"

"My name is Judy Hadley. From L.A. Ladyhawks."

"Sounds like a sports team." Tired and grouchy, Stanna retained only the barest inclination towards politeness. "If you'll excuse me, I was just on my way out to lunch. Serious blood sugar low, you know."

The woman nodded. Her professional short hair went well with her ethereally pale, sparsely made-up face. "I know you've had a lot going on. Believe me, I understand. We just wanted to be the first to offer you honorary membership in the largest women's organization in the city. Here's my card. Please call when you get the chance. I'd love to chat with you. Anytime at all." The woman passed her card through the wagon's open window with a friendly smile.

Looking at the silver-embossed card over her solitary lunch, Stanna had to smile herself.

The stylized logo featured an Amazon chieftess staring boldly out at her, black eyes glittering, her bow held before her threateningly.

Nobody greeted her return to work that afternoon. Michael even looked conspicuously away, whistling tunelessly as she passed him in the hall.

What was she going to tell Jake? She had to call him, get him in the loop on this whole mess, she realized. He'd left her a number to contact him in case of an emergency. She supposed this qualified.

To make a statement or not? "Damage control," Ian called it. And a quick fix for her own ends, she knew. A politically correct Men's Weekly would be very open to her kind of writing.

Jake had told her she was the "best man for the job." He trusted her. She couldn't betray that.

Decided, she picked up the phone to call him. A large hand reached from behind her, plucked the phone away and hung it back up.

"In my office. Now." Jake's tone made the blood freeze in her veins.

CHAPTER TEN

Numb, she followed him. He shut the door behind them and began by saying, "What the hell have you done?"

"I can explain." Just as soon as she could breath again. "What are you doing back already?"

He pounded his desk with a hard fist. "What do you think I’m doing?" He visibly strained for control of himself. She'd never seen him so furious, and it shook her. "One of our advertisers saw your little interview and kindly told me all about it. Before they pulled their twelve-month ad contract with us."

His face was grim. She strove to placate him. "Someone told CBS that I was Stan. Then CBS called, wanting an interview. I agreed in order to give the magazine good publicity, but they turned everything around. Their own agenda did this, not me. I was just now calling you to get your opinion on what to do next."

His expression wavered. He wanted to believe her, she could tell. Wanting to redeem herself, she added, "I've been told that we should issue a statement promising to avoid inflammatory, potentially offensive material."

He jumped on that, the angry expression rising again. "Who told you such a terrible idea?"

Stanna was quiet, suddenly remembering how he felt about her conversations with Ian.

Brows furrowing ominously, he approached her. "Stanna. Who?"

"Ian."

Jake felt punched. She’d been taking magazine direction from Ian. After he'd told her not to discuss business with him.

He observed the stiff way she held herself. Her gaze rested steadily on his, but the dark circles underneath betrayed the toll of the past twenty-four hours. He had to force away his natural compassion for her. She'd mishandled his business and betrayed him. She’d been communicating with Ian.

This magazine was his project, his investment, his baby, damn it. He’d invested more than just money. Therefore, her actions were not to be forgiven. It didn't matter that she looked like an exhausted angel. Like a certain other woman in his past, she was not what she appeared to be.

Just like Jolene.

Stanna looked at him as if she felt wretched with remorse. He knew better, of course.

The old, familiar numbness gave way to a flicker of pain in the vicinity of his heart.

"That will do for now," he dismissed her brusquely. "I'm back, so now you can tend to what you do best. Phones and the paperwork." He turned his back on her and tried not to hear her sharp intake of breath. Or her footsteps padding slowly away.

She deserved it, of course, Stanna told herself as the tears coursed down her cheeks. Despite her best intentions, she'd royally screwed things up. She hadn't meant to. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. And it wasn't her fault that Eva had twisted her statements around!

Applying logic to the situation and apportioning blame more broadly didn't make her feel better, but it helped her to beat down the devastating sadness by feeling angry instead. She didn't think she deserved all of his scorn. And she definitely didn't deserve that last crack about "doing what she did best." He was hitting below the belt. So to speak.

Working herself up to a good, rousing mad liberally laced with hurt, Stanna snatched her purse and barreled out the building. It was only two-thirty -- too early to go home and talk with Telly. She didn't know where she was going until she climbed into her car and saw the silver flicker on the passenger seat. The Amazon on Judy's business card. Then she knew where she was headed.

It was her third meeting with the Ladyhawks, and they’d finally begun allowing her to attend the more private, ritualistic gathering. An interesting way to spend a Saturday afternoon, Stanna thought. Telly wasn't around anyway. She'd gone out that morning to get her hair done, having no interest whatsoever in attending an all-woman meeting.

Stanna looked around at the other women. Close to her in age. Dressed in everything from jeans to pretty dresses, the ladies busily prepared a bonfire in the large backyard of one of the members.

Judy smiled at her. "I'm so glad you're here. Every woman counts, you know." She reclined on a lawn chair next to Stanna. "Did you hear the latest about your own battlefront?" Without waiting for an answer she continued, "I've been asking around. That interview you gave has had some unsavory affects. You'd think a wonderful, clear story like yours would generate some honest outrage on behalf of women. And it has. But unfortunately it looks as if some men," she said the word like it was bitter on her tongue, "see it as a fabulous reason to check out a copy of Men's Weekly to see what the fuss is all about. The magazine's sales are up almost double, due to the controversy. Did you know that?"

Double. Stanna hadn't known. Ever since he’d returned, Jake had closed her off from everything having to do with running Men's Weekly. He even canceled their weekly meetings, saying he was too busy. She turned in her column, he rewrote it, and that was that.

"But don't worry," Judy was telling her. "We'll get the magazine owner to come around. Two dozen of us are going to march outside of some local newsstands next week in protest. I won't ask you to join us with our activism until you have a different job," Judy assured her. "But I wanted you to know that we haven't forgotten your plight."

My plight? Stanna mused thoughtfully. The other two meetings she'd gone to didn't address her plight, or anything else besides general woman-bonding and frequent man-bashing. It was kind of therapeutic, but hardly productive.

Now Judy spoke as if it were truly a battle Stanna engaged in. And she spoke of it bitterly. Now that she thought about it, whenever the subject of men came up -- which was often -- a closed, cold look came over Judy’s face. A cautious look. It reminded her of Jake. He got that look sometimes. The look of a person engaged in a battle.

She supposed it was a battle, in a way. Corrinna and Michael and the others still weren't speaking to her more than strictly necessary. Jake forged ahead with his own, man-centric editorial ideas and didn't apologize to anyone.

And he didn't talk to her.

She didn't let on to anyone, even Telly, how much it hurt her.

Jake’s voice still arrested her whenever she heard it, though it was rarely addressed to her. Memories from the small cabin haunted her. Once, she even pulled out her old sneakers to look at the caked-on mud to make sure she hadn't dreamed the whole thing.

The sight of him made her blood race through her veins, and made her ache with the hope he’d stop the silent treatment. Even an argument would be a relief. It had been weeks since the day he ordered her from his office.

Too long, she realized. That was simply too long to childishly hold a grudge the way he was! It had gone on long enough.

Distracted by her internal musings, she hadn't noticed the women bringing out piles and piles of... books?

She looked questioningly at Judy. Judy smiled broadly as she lifted pastel-covered and metallic-embossed novels from cardboard boxes. The other women either unloaded the boxes from the garage or held hands around the bonfire.

"We all pulled together and collected as many romance novels as we could," she explained to Stanna. "There isn't a better example of woman-suppression anywhere. From these covers," she flicked a contemptuous finger at a clinch pose, "to the rape scenes in each and every one of them. They’re trash, and worse: they’re poison to the ideal that we've worked so hard for. The acceptance of strong and capable women."

"So you burn them," Stanna said with horror. Some women were passing out handfuls, and one by one they tossed them into the fire. Loud cheers and clapping accompanied each toss.

Judy looked at her in surprise. "Of all people, I was sure you would approve. Look at your boss, after all. He's a living example of the Neanderthals in these books."

Stanna was lifting herself off the lounge and beginning to back away. "No. Judy, no, he's not unreasonable. Insensitive, yes. But he's not one of the really awful guys." The words out of her own mouth shocked her. She was actually defending Jake?

Speaking slowly, discovering it in the telling, she said, "He's open to the idea of strong women. He just doesn't want to kill his magazine by treating his audience as if they’re women. They’re not, and it's not that kind of magazine." She laughed, relieved at the discovery that she could forgive him. Now that she saw what he was about.

She wasn't sure what she was going to do about it yet. But she realized one thing: she had more proving to do with Jake. If he distrusted women even half as much as these Ladyhawks distrusted men, she was going to have to redeem herself in his eyes in a fairly spectacular way.

She wanted to. More than anything, she wanted the frustrating man to trust her, to… to care for her. As much as he cared for his magazine.

She turned her gaze on Judy. "You're the intolerant ones if you burn those books. Have you ever read a romance?"

"Well... no. Of course not. But they’re not good literature."

"That's what I thought." Stanna gathered up her purse. "I can't participate in this. But I've enjoyed the other meetings. Thanks for inviting me."

She walked away, feeling lighter than she had in weeks. Time to listen to her heart.

Her heart was giving her very detailed instructions on what to do next.

"Jake."

He looked up, his jewel-toned eyes gleaming with animal life even under the florescent lights. His glance took in her short skirt and form-fitting top, such a change from her usual more modest attire. His eyes darkened. When she stepped through, agile on her high heels, shutting his door, his expression wore the dreaded cruel and predatory scowl she knew so well.

She wasn't afraid. She knew he had every right to be angry. Now it was up to her to soothe the savage beast.

The thought made her smile.

"What do you want?" His growled demand was anything but welcoming.

She chased the mirth from her face. "I'm sorry for interrupting, but there's a bit of an emergency."

"Well? What is it?" he asked, when she didn't volunteer the information immediately.

"You need to see it. I could explain, but it would take too long. It's in the parking garage. It's your Jeep."

Without waiting for any further explanation Jake leaped out of his chair and brushed by her without so much as a thank you, she thought in impatience. He was going to be a tough one.

She was up to the challenge.

Smiling again, she quickly followed him in time to catch the same elevator down.

The doors opened to admit the garage scent of oil, rubber, and gasoline. She followed as he strode purposefully to his reserved space. He eyed his Jeep, checking underneath it and walking around it.

"Nothing seems to be wrong," he told her. There wasn't suspicion in his voice yet, as he turned to her inquiringly. Putting on her best innocent face, she commented, "You may want to roll up your windows. I'll tell you what I saw while you do."

"Explain," he demanded. He opened the passenger side door and pumped his powerful arm up and down to roll up the window.

"Well, I saw a man. He was wearing a white button-up shirt and these brown slacks. I couldn't help but notice him because of his incredibly fit body. He had muscles that--"

"What was he doing with my car?" Jake interrupted, scowling. He didn't notice she'd just described his own white button-up shirt and brown slacks.

"Let me show you," she told him softly. She walked to the door, opening it and bending over the high bench seats provocatively. She knew his eyes would be on her uncharacteristically short skirt. "Right here…" she ran her hands over the fabric, then straightened, slowly taking off her jacket. "It's hot down here, isn't it?"

She nearly laughed, looking at the way his gaze was predictably drawn to her tight shirt unspoiled by any bra lines. He was trying to be angry but her tactic was working.

Before he could berate her any more, she crooked her finger at him. "There's something I'd like to show you," she said, looking steadily into his eyes. She reached out, took his hand and pulled him toward her, toward the seat. She held his hand palm-down and rubbed it over the seat cloth fabric slowly, making him feel the nubs and roughness. The muscles in his forearm felt tense and hard, but he didn't pull away.

A sardonic twist to his lips warned her he was about to say something cutting. But she spoke first, in a velvet voice she didn’t know she possessed.

"This is where I'm going to sit, while you drive me back to your place, where I'm going to make love to you. Please. I haven't been able to get you out of my mind, Jake." She raised his hand from the seat and slowly, tantalizingly let it graze her chest. She knew the contrast of the rough fabric and her smooth warm curves affected him because his eyes narrowed into a look of pain as if he were burned. His breath became harsh.

"I want you," she told him, realizing how acutely true it was as the feel of his warm palm on her nipples broadcast spikes of pleasure to her brain. He moved closer to her, his body pressing her back to the side of the seat and she gasped as she felt his hard arms, chest, and all the glorious rest of him fully against her. His warmth made her tingle. His hardness made her arms snake around him and pull him more tightly to her. They both moaned softly in pleasure. But he still hadn't said a word.

She tugged at his arm, questioning. He smiled, just barely, his face ascetic in its passion. He nodded though, circling his Jeep and stepping into the driver's seat.

She gave him a very sly and wicked smile as she climbed into the passenger seat. Her fingers traced the inseam of his brown slacks, and she marveled at her own audacity. He stepped on the accelerator.

Even with senses reeling from the exquisite anticipation of her next few hours, Stanna noticed the house. As he wheeled his Jeep into the driveway, she took in the mature trees and artful landscaping that graced the large front yard. The house sat well back from the road, nearly concealed. For a home right near the beach, it was surprisingly cozy. Not one of those gated monstrosities that tourists gape at, but not a converted shanty either. A rare jewel: a pretty, private house in an ideal Southern California location. She adored it on sight.

She would ask for the tour. Later. For now, there was only one sight she wanted to see, and she didn't much care which room she saw it in. Although Jake might be more comfortable in the bedroom, she mused devilishly.

"What are you thinking?" Jake's voice was low and fascinated. He'd turned the engine off and stared at her, his lips curved upward in a bemused smile. She looked at his mouth, lust jolting through her. She looked at the shape it made as he spoke. "You don't have to do this, you know," he told her gently. The intensity of his eyes wasn't gentle. She couldn’t choose which she liked more -- the rough desire in his eyes or the sweet tone of his voice.

It was a package deal, she decided. Something about him worked just right for her.

"I'm kind of amazed, myself," she murmured, more to herself. "I want to. I really want to. You don't know what you do to me, big guy," she mock-growled, turning the full power of her gray eyes on him. "But you will. Now," she commanded, flirting shamelessly, "Do I have to beg you to come inside, or will you make this easy on me?"

His answering animal smile thrilled her as much as his teasing words. "I wouldn't dream of making it easy on you, little girl." He pinioned her wrists, dragged her to him gently and proceeded to tease her mercilessly with his skillful lips. Just long enough to get her breathing even harder.

Then with a precise controlled movement he released her and stepped out of the Jeep. Gallantly rounding the back of the vehicle, he opened her door, bowed slightly and offered his hand to Stanna for her to alight.

Stanna's lips still tingled from his kisses, and her smile felt as if it would never go away. First he was hauling her against him like some kind of rough caveman, and now his broad shoulders were bent to her service.

She could get used to this.

In fact, she was on the verge of asking him to carry her over the threshold when she realized the connotation that held: marriage. The traditional male lust-spoiler.

She felt a strange pang of sadness. She wanted this man, yes. But on a sharp intake of breath, she realized she was falling ever more deeply in love with him.

His soft hair gleamed reddish-gold in the afternoon's hazy sunlight. His outstretched hand was steady and still. Time seemed to slow for an endless moment. She felt the gentle breeze caressing her with the scent of the Pacific. Her heart warmed with something much stronger than affection; her awareness of the man before her included all she knew of him. The visual beauty of him as well as his fierce integrity, cutting wit, and disarming gentleness.

Immediately she resolved to accomplish more than just seducing the man.

She would – somehow – get him to fall in love with her.

He looked up and their eyes met. She knew she offered up all the emotion she was feeling in her gaze, and felt a jolt of connection when he blinked, his reaction re-drawing his face into more serious lines. His hand lowered to her thigh. She lifted her own hand and gently, delicately touched his hair. Stroked. All the while telling him with her eyes what she felt.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, she saw a level of intensity reflected in their aqua depths that impacted like a hammer blow to her heart. So the man had strong feelings of his own. Now all she had to do was bring them out. All the way out.

She smiled, and his eyes kindled with an immediate response.

Oh man, she thought, feeling weak. We're so compatible, so in synch that we practically read each other's minds. Which thought, of course, reminded her of the last time they communicated non-verbally. That rainy mountain evening of fire and body language. Her smile widened.

This time he didn't ask her what she was thinking. He knew.

He reached in and scooped her out, setting her lightly on her feet. One strong arm stayed around her as he shut the Jeep's door. His radiating body heat and heady masculine scent made her narrow her eyes in pleasure. It felt so good, so absolutely right to be within his encompassing arms. He seemed to be having a hard time stepping away from her as well.

She took a deep breath. Okay, she coached herself. Time to get seducing.

She pulled away from him slightly, stroking his forearm and hand as she turned a full-wattage "I'm hungry for you" smile on him. It wasn't an act. Her level, intense gaze didn't have to be faked. She felt the heat rising in her just looking at him, and she squeezed his hand, gently leading him to the door of his home.

He followed closely, caressing her back with strong fingers then squeezing her hand in response. He felt awkward in the role of follower, but nonetheless allowed her to tug him along the step-stone walkway bordered by bushy bright flowers that always overgrew and brushed against him. They smelled nice, especially with the crisp ocean breeze, and he didn't mind their untamed overgrowth. At the moment all was just about perfect with the world.

He couldn't believe his amazing fortune. This, right here, was every guy's dream come true: a sexy woman taking the lead of getting him into bed. And not just any woman. Stanna. Amazing. For all of his experience -- and he'd had a lot, if he did say so himself -- he'd never felt quite so exhilarated and happy.

She turned, closing the distance to him. She was tickling him. She was diving into his pants pockets! He squirmed, not able to help his shocked whoosh of breath. But he recovered quickly when she merely fished out his keys. Was she laughing? He couldn't tell, she'd already turned to the door and began to insert a key. Slowly. He could see her manicured nails, not long but painted pink, on her slender fingers grasping the key. The fingers held it delicately, rubbing it slightly. She pulled it back out, holding it up in the light. Her small pink tongue extended, touched the exact middle of her upper lip thoughtfully. She selected a different key. When she turned, her bottom brushed against his leg lightly.

Enough. He grabbed the keys. He jammed in the correct one so quickly that it missed the keyhole and scored the shiny brass plate.

"Uh-uh-uh," she reprimanded, taking back the keys. She placed one palm against his chest and pushed him away. With the other hand she deftly took back the keys, turning so she brushed against him again. But this time she inserted the correct key – albeit much too slowly, Jake thought, nearly growling with impatience – and they were in. About time.

He was almost too overwhelmed by his good luck and mounting frustration to notice much more than Stanna's very enticing body. But the thought of that little moment by the Jeep grew in his head. The way she'd stared into his eyes… that was something else. He'd connected with her, beyond the physical level. He could tell she’d felt it too. Those eyes of hers! Her gorgeous gray, expressive eyes had told him she wanted him, yes. But they'd revealed more than that.

She was falling in love with him.

Maybe. Maybe not.

He allowed her to steer him around, searching as she was for his bedroom.

He was uneasy, despite his raging lust. That apprehensive, short-of-breath feeling he'd experienced only once before in his life now had him in its grip once again.

It scared the hell out of him.

He wouldn't be made a fool again. He'd learned his lesson, thank you very much. Even if he hadn't, Stanna Seductress tugging him toward the bedroom was a living embodiment of women manipulators. She'd lied not too long ago in the parking garage. Supposedly it was to get him in the sack. For crying out loud, was he that easy? That dumb?

She was a control freak, and no doubt of it. He couldn't let her soft looks and softer touch blind him. He knew what happened to men who trusted too much.

He hardened his damaged heart. He would use her the way she said she needed him to, and she would love every minute.

What if she really did love him?

He squelched the thought. He would pleasure her senseless. He'd make her cry out again and again. And he'd get a nice piece of ass. That's all he wanted.

That settled, he was still surprised and touched when she turned and told him, "Thank you for being such a good sport. You have no idea how much this means to me." And she kissed him, her soft lips touching his warmly, gently.

Groaning, he responded. Damn, but she tasted sweet. The kiss deepened languorously, and the glow of desire he'd felt since he saw her in that short skirt and silky blouse began to grow, as slowly and lazily as the sweet kiss. He wanted it to last. He wanted all of it to last. It was a rare treat, being with her this way, and he'd savor it while he had it – he didn't want to think about tomorrow. Tomorrow was reality. Stanna's kiss today made him hope reality would stay away for a while. He liked the fantasy a whole lot better.

He willed all his doubts away, the better to feel her completely. He liked the silky feel of her blond hair in his hands. He liked her intoxicating smell, of earth and flowers and woman scent – an elusive fragrance that made him want to search every square inch of her skin until he found the source of it. He even liked her fiery temper, right now anyway, because the thought of all her passion re-channeled into lovemaking thrilled him in a way that made him think momentarily of souped-up classic cars, high-maintenance beauties that paid it back in a single powerful cruise up Pacific Coast Highway.

And, damn it, there was something more. There was a new sensation in his heart, a longing made of pain mixed with unbearable sweetness. It hadn’t been there before Stanna. He didn't know where it came from, but he knew what it was.

He crushed her body against him, trying to drown the unwelcome emotion with the physical intoxication of her tempting body. As a distraction, Stanna's female curves did the trick. An annoying urge to just hold her that way, reverently, despite the wave of pure lust that rolled over him as her breasts pressed against his chest, made him curse softly.

But his desire tipped the scales. He silenced the turmoil in his mind by tilting her head up to his. He brushed his lips against hers, the point of contact igniting small blazes all over his body. Her soft warm breath acted like a caress on the skin of his face. Tremblingly, her bent arms encircling his waist moved against his sides as her hands stroked his back. He could feel her desire for him, as if they were both plugged into the same primal fount, drawing the intoxicating energy from it into their bodies and giving it back to each other.

She pulled back from him, tilted her head up. The feel of her arms snaking their retreat until her warm hands gently grasped his sides sent shivers up and down the length of his body, and he spared a thankful thought for all the sit-ups he'd performed that allowed her to touch firm muscle. The wicked smile that curved her lips accelerated the blood in his veins. Her hands wandered over his sides, his stomach, his chest with wanton avarice. To see her pleasure did more for him than all her electric touches combined. Touching him was visibly getting her off. He forced himself to inhale slowly and methodically to avoid yanking up that short skirt and ending it all too quickly.

The woman was torturing him.

The glint in her eyes was all the warning he got. She reached up to caress his chest one more time, then transferred her slender fingers to her own chest to begin unbuttoning her silk blouse. As more and more of her creamy white skin lay revealed, she also began to back up slowly, fetching up against the bed. He watched, half-stunned but appreciative, as she skillfully unzipped and stepped out of her skirt… still wearing her high heels.

Jake found himself leaning against the doorframe.

Her lips curved in a knowing smile.

Her superb nude figure stood in front of his bed, posed as provocatively as any model in a magazine layout. In heels. Who would’ve thought she owned heels?

His woman was waiting for him.

He stalked her. With slow, appraising glances at what she'd revealed, he approached. She arrogantly shook her silky mane back out of her face, sticking her chin in the air, as imperious and defiant as a warrior princess and as sultry as a succubus. Her smoldering gray eyes mirrored his desire. Suddenly, she began stalking him.

As she circled, her heels put a cruelly effective sway into her hips. "Jake, honey," she said lazily, "why don't you take those clothes off?" She allowed one fingernail to trail down his forearm as she brushed against him, deliberately teasing.

"Why don't you take them off for me," he said, surprised at the husky demand of his voice. But when he saw her face flush slightly, her moist lips parting to facilitate her own breathing, he smiled a little arrogantly himself.

Until her nude body stepped against his still-clothed one in a brief, glorious moment of full contact. That got rid of his smile, and every other thought in his head. His cotton slacks and shirt were no barrier to feeling her warm curves. He could feel her erect nipples with piercing clarity, and he knew she felt him too when she quietly groaned and backed away.

"That hurt me more than it did you," she said with a rueful smile.

"Then you shouldn't punish me with your body," he said chidingly. “Reward me instead.” He was going to punish hers with his instead, he decided. But before his hands made it up to his shirt buttons, hers were there. The soft hypnotic brush of her fingers kept his blood uncomfortably warm with their delicate manipulation.

He gave himself up to the luxury of it. In heels, she was only a few inches shorter than him. She easily peeled his shirt over his shoulders and down, walking around him and raking her fingernails over his back.

"Mmmm, what nice muscles you have," she said in a low purr. He couldn't help the tremor vibrating through his flesh in response to her voice and her light caress. He closed his eyes to savor the sensation. But when her hands reached for his slacks, tugging at the front, his eyes popped open again. Was she…? Yes, there was a new breeze against his exposed lower abdomen, and lower still…

His manhood bulged, giving his white briefs stretch marks. He wondered if she enjoyed the sight of his body being revealed as much as he’d enjoyed hers. His appreciation was evident as she lowered his pants. Kneeling before him, she locked her eyes on his as she peeled his briefs down to join his pants. Her gaze dropped. She blinked slowly. "Oh, my," she said.

He swelled to an even greater size and felt a very masculine pride. He knew he was well endowed, but knowing wasn't the same as seeing the awe on Stanna's face.

"Nothing you haven't seen before, darlin'." He drawled out the endearment slowly, watching her face with pleasure.

"That was different. It was darker in the cabin. And we were more…" She smiled, from her expression obviously savoring the memory. “Busy.” This soft, sensual woman bore little resemblance to the office-Stanna. She shook her head, searching for better words. "We were mindless. At least, I was. Plus I've never had quite this kind of view before."

Before with him, or before ever? he wondered. But her kneeling proximity to him suddenly struck him as intensely erotic. He throbbed with impatience, but didn’t dare move otherwise. He didn't care who she'd been with, she was his now, only his. The possessive feeling he had added to the eroticism.

He breathed deeply, imposing an inhuman patience on himself. Something about the combination of lust and this new feeling of… liking, he'll call it… for Stanna did strange things to his mind. One moment his dirty mind conjured up images of using her hard, pushing past her lips into her warm mouth. The next moment, guilt plagued him, as if the action somehow degraded her. Degraded! What the hell put that thought in his head? She was voluntarily on her knees, wasn't she?

He wouldn’t move. Couldn’t if he wanted to.

With her contradictory ways, her spirit and sensuality, she inspired him to stillness. Happy, expectant, and having a hard time holding himself still, he waited in confused anticipation of whatever Stanna chose to do next. After all, it was her game.

He kept his face impassive as he looked down at her. He gave her a kind smile, just a little superior, just a little daring… if he read her correctly, Stanna wouldn't be able to resist a dare…

Then, to punctuate, he raised a supercilious eyebrow in question.

Again, she managed to shock him: With a grin, she stuck her tongue out at him. Then she leaned forward until he felt her breath against him. Her warm hands lifted to cup where he was soft. Her tongue ran the length of his hardness, and his knees nearly buckled.

"Stanna," he gasped.

She paused. "Yes?" her innocent voice replied.

"You are wicked."

"Mmmmm," she said.

It was intolerable. It was wonderful. Jake trembled, stilled, and trembled again, straining to keep his senses from feeling too much. An impossible task.

Suddenly, he felt cool air where it was so warm and moist. Her hand grasped him, tugged gently, making him see fireworks of light from sensation. She stood, her smooth round rear presenting an irresistible picture as she led him to the bed. He was more than willing to be led.

The fading afternoon light was giving way to the streetlamps outside, and the faint glow from the closed blinds gave just enough illumination to his bedroom. She let go of him to crawl onto his bed.

Her heels still on. The contradiction of her feminine and tomboy side and this… this vixen! It hit just the right combination with him. There must be something to the old cliché, the one about men wanting the virgin and whore in one, he thought. No, that wasn't quite it in this case. And not that anyone could consider Stanna a whore or dare call her one… but the innocent/seductress image was there, and potent. He felt desire bordering on pain.

"Jake," she sing-songed as she turned over to lie on her side on the bed, a provocative position. The mischievous glint in her gray eyes showed him she knew exactly what she was doing to him.

He had to touch her.

The next moment he lay atop her, devouring her mouth and allowing his hands to finally roam over her body. Mine, he thought with ferocity completely at odds with the tight rein he held on himself. He would pleasure this woman like she'd never been pleasured before.

With an artist's touch, he nibbled on her ears while simultaneously caressing her nipples with skillful thumbs. Listening to her soft moans and sighs, he found her erogenous spots one by one and exploited them in a knowledgeable and merciless attack. She writhed beneath him, trying to position herself for relief, but he wanted to inflame her to the same state he was in, and that was nothing short of desperate. He bit gently at the small of her back. He raked his teeth over her nipples. He breathed on her inner thighs and licked upwards. Her plump little mound delighted him because of the soft gasps and pleadings he could wring from her.

But when he brought his thick fingers into play she broke down and begged with a ragged edge in her voice.

Always the gentleman, Jake thought as he entered her partially. Then all thought fled along with his intention to tease her further. He sank into her to the hilt. Hot liquid silk tightened around him and pulsed. He was dimly aware of her loud cries of pleasure as he seemed to rise out of his body. Looking down at her face, distorted with her own release, he slammed back in with a shout as he thrust into her hard, quickly – but not quickly enough to abbreviate the orgasm which went on and on until he nearly passed out.

He found himself lying next to Stanna whispering endearments in her ear and savoring her satisfied smile. He felt an emotion just as painfully pleasurable as the desire and its release had been.

"My lover. My sweet, wonderful angel, do you know what you did to me? Do you? You are so beautiful, so damn beautiful, and I'm not just talking about your body though that's beautiful beyond compare…" Jake realized he was babbling. He felt something strangely like gratitude for her condescending to lie with him. He was going to press her dork-alert buttons if he kept this up, and why, for goodness sake, was he still hard as a rock? He should be sexually worthless for the next week at least, with an orgasm like that. But all it took was a quick glance at her and he was ready for more.

She made a purring contented sound, nuzzling her head against the sensitive skin of his neck. Her warm nose burrowed against his neck gently and her happy sound resonated as a vibrating tickle. The tremendous surge of affection he felt in response stunned him.

He felt his arm hairs standing up, hypersensitive to the fear he suddenly felt. He wanted to hold this woman in his arms all night. He wanted to make her breakfast. Hell, the domestic fantasies didn't stop there. His heart seemed to stop beating for a moment as he realized he'd like nothing more than to wake up to her every day for the rest of his life.

Whoa, he thought. Bigtime Hold-The-Presses. Jolene had bewitched him into just those exact thoughts. Was it something innate in him, to relax and trust a woman just because they slept together? Better to be on guard. Better to take it as a nice gift from a sexy woman, this seduction, and not read a lifetime into it.

Stanna stirred against him, becoming aware of his stillness. She rubbed her palm over his chest inquisitively. "Something wrong?"

He turned his head and kissed her hair, slowly. His eyes remained open as he thought of how to answer that.

"No," he said. And truthfully, nothing was. He wanted nothing to change, no more unwieldy emotions creeping in and spoiling his high. And Stanna did make him feel good.

Too good.

He stirred uncomfortably. Maybe he'd feel better if she left. That should restore his perspective. But she felt so warm and nice lying by his side.

"What are you thinking?" she asked. Her hand made smooth little circles on his chest, but her eyes were narrowed slightly and her nostrils the tiniest bit flared. The look of blissful contentment was gone.

What is it about women, anyway, Jake grumped to himself even as he squirmed uncomfortably. It's like they had some kind of radar for stuff. He just wanted distance. To think about things. Was that too much to ask?

He realized he couldn't say that, though. What could he say that would buy him some time to figure things out?

"I have some stuff to do this evening."

Her look of surprise and disappointment transitioned immediately to anger.

"A lot of stuff," he revised hopefully, tightening his left arm around her. A sick feeling in the pit of his stomach made him apprehensive.

She masked her anger with a neutral look, but he'd seen the anger and knew the mask for what it was. "Stanna…" he began. She waited. He continued carefully. "I want to thank you--"

An exasperated whoosh of air accompanied Stanna rising, reaching for her clothes. He touched her but she shook him off.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything. I just--"

"You just wanted to thank me for the sex. You're welcome." She stared at him coldly, then continued to dress.

"I was not going to thank you for the sex," Jake replied with some exasperation of his own. He took a deep breath. "I… care for you a great deal." Very still, he waited for her reaction.

"It's good to care for the person you sleep with," she said, her voice heavy and low.

All his alerts flashed to life, his innate defenses against getting too deeply involved kicking in with a vengeance. "What did you expect!" he asked angrily. Against his will, he hoped she would see through his anger to the core inside him that she'd managed to touch. That part of him wasn't angry, could never be angry at her, and was making him feel sicker and sicker to his stomach at the immediate turn of events.

In fact, he was going to apologize and admit his bullheaded demeanor was the product of some alien possessing his body. He felt the wry curve of his lips as he opened his mouth to talk. But she beat him to it, and how.

"I expected better," she said, her delivery cool. Brutally cool.

Her words knocked the wind out of him. Better? That one drew blood. Better? She'd screamed underneath him in her pleasure, and she expected better? But maybe she had faked it? He felt cold.

His voice reflected his internal thermostat. "Well, you want better, you go get it, love."

She flinched. But, "Not a problem," she replied. A flash of worry arrowed through him. Stanna, with someone else? Impossible. But he wouldn't say a word. She wanted better.

Without another glance at him, she finished dressing and headed out of the bedroom. Scrambling to pull on his own clothes, he heard her calling a cab.

He emerged as she hung up the phone and stalked past him. Out the door. He heard her heels clicking on the paving stones outside before she flipped the door shut behind her.

"Damn it!" he raged, resisting the urge to slam his fist against the door. She couldn't walk around by herself to wherever it was she told the cab to meet her. Not in those heels, not in Los Angeles! And especially not after sleeping with him.

But she wanted better…

He compromised, opening the door stealthily and slipping out to follow her. She was just turning the corner. He kept low and to the side of the street. He needn't have worried. She never even looked back.

He watched over her as she waited at the local 7-11. Her shoulders were back and her head high. He felt inexplicably sad when the cab arrived and she folded herself into it, safe and graceful and remote. He felt his lips press together firmly. Anger battled with the sadness, neither winning.

He shook his head and turned for home.

The following morning Stanna stood nervously outside Jake's door and smoothed her pretty green jacket. It shouldn't be so nerve-wracking to humble yourself and apologize to someone you cared about, Stanna grumbled to herself.

But she shouldn't have said it. She’d known better. All men had egos as fragile and delicate as porcelain, and she'd gone and busted his all to pieces because of her damn expectations.

"’What did you expect?’" he'd shouted. Well, she couldn't very well have told him what she'd expected: his profession of love. But the way he'd looked at her yesterday, and his loving endearments after they’d made love made her nearly sure of it.

He did love her. The big oaf just didn't realize it yet.

She knocked.

No answer. She waited. After a minute, she followed the scent of coffee to the kitchen. She breathed a sigh of relief that her coworkers weren't in there; it was just too unpleasant dealing with their coolness towards her.

Armed with coffee, she made it back to her seat in time to answer the phone.

"Stanna, my dear," Ian's voice crooned.

"Hi Ian. No, I haven't called the media with a statement. Did you call Jake like I suggested?" Why was Ian being so persistent about having her make a statement? Did Men's Weekly mean that much to him, or did he have an ulterior motive?

"No I haven't contacted Jake, and it's impertinent of you to suggest such a thing." It was the first time she'd heard Ian sounding shrewish, irritable. "You need to take matters into your own hands, young lady, if you wish to control your destiny. Or someone else will do it for you."

"I'm not so sure it's a good idea anymore, Ian. Did you know that sales have doubled since that interview?"

Ian was silent for a very long time, but Stanna heard his harsh breathing. "Doubled?" he finally repeated. "Doubled? That simply cannot be. You mean they're cut in half!"

Stanna held the phone away for a moment, looking at it. Then she repeated, "No, Ian, doubled." Carefully she added, "Isn't that good news?"

The screech that came out of the handset bore no likeness to Ian, the gray-haired elegant patriarch who'd hired her.

"They can't be doubled! It was ready to collapse, it was beaten on from every direction! You idiot! You're wrong! How can this be?" He was ranting. Stanna just listened in astonishment. This was more than a little surreal. Was she talking to Ian?

Gradually he got himself under control. "I apologize. I... I must be off my medication. Yes, that's it. Quite." He breathed heavily for another minute and then took his leave. "I'd better go. Please forgive me, dear. Have a lovely day."

She hung up the phone, staring at it, her thoughts in a tangle. Ian was angry sales were up. Yet he’d said the purpose of issuing a statement was to save the magazine. Something wasn't right.

More determined than ever to talk to Jake, she returned to his door and knocked.

Nothing.

This time she tried the doorknob. It turned, and before she could let second thoughts deter her she entered the office quickly and shut the door behind her, flicking on the light switch.

She had to hurry. An idea had taken shape after talking to Ian, and she eyed the file cabinet, her suspicion solidifying into near-certainty as events of the past months became clear.

With Jake gone, she could search for Ian's old files. She knew he'd kept them in the back of the bottom file cabinet, behind the secret partition he'd only told her about. He might not have had the chance to clear them out without observation, since Jake's firing of him was so sudden. She had a pretty good idea of what she'd find there.

If she were right, she'd be able to more than redeem herself with Jake.

With no hesitation this time she pulled open the drawer, reaching far back with slender fingers to find the latch. Flipping it, the drawer opened further.

Bingo.

She lifted out two thick accordion files, tucked them under her arms. Quickly, shut the drawer firmly, glided to the door and flipped off the light switch. In all it had taken less than a minute.

She quietly opened the door and stepped out into the empty hallway.

Pulling the door shut behind her, she adjusted her grip on the files and trotted back to her desk.

She didn't see Jake's surprised expression turn to bitter cynicism as he rounded the far corner in time to see her leave his office with her arms full.

Ian sat in his silk bathrobe in his luxuriously appointed den and stared without seeing at the tapestries on the wall.

His ace in the hole had just disappeared.

Stanna was his. She was supposed to do what he suggested. What was this rebelliousness of hers, anyhow? Hadn't he hired her, trained her? Hadn't she confessed she wished he were back?

He hadn't counted on her having any business sense. She was supposed to rely on his. She was supposed to be the key that got him back into his throne room corner office in the sky, complete with its riches.

He slowly shook his head. He was coming out of the shock she'd given him and was beginning to feel the first twinges of true fear. The feeling took awhile to identify. He hadn't felt fear in decades.

He was feeling it now.

The clock was running out on him. When it did they would kill him. It probably would be a spectacularly messy way to die, if he knew his boss and his associates. And he did, oh so well.

He leapt to his feet, his pulse beating threadily. Suitcases, where were his suitcases?

Australia. They wouldn't find him in Australia.

Jake’s voice grated harshly on her ears, and she couldn't believe she'd heard him correctly.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, unless it's sex you want, get out of my office. I don't have time for you."

She faced him, her complexion heating with the memory as well as with sudden burning shame. She put a lid on it and adopted an indifferent attitude. Tilting her head up to his forbidding face, she said, "Now that you mention it, sex would be nice. As nice as what I came in here to tell you. Nicer, even." She looked around, her eyes lighting on his desk.

"Yes, very nice. Sex on the desk? You could just bend me over it, lift my skirt. I'm not wearing underwear today."

Seemingly unable to help himself, he took a step toward her. His eyes flicked hungrily over her body. Then his icy mask clicked into place and he said, "I don't have time for games anymore."

"You started it."

He refused to bite. His cold regard faded to irritation. His practiced look of indifference affected her. Why couldn't she affect him anymore? He merely lifted a brow and viewed his watch. Sounding bored, he said, "There's nothing you have I can't get somewhere else. And truthfully, I’d prefer to."

The force of the insult struck Stanna like a blow.

But even as he pierced her with his most forbidding look, she couldn't bring herself to feel nothing for him. Didn't he remember how good their bodies felt together? Or the magical night in the hills?

Did she imagine everything, after all?

Was the man even capable of an emotion as "womanly" as love?

She raised her eyes to his aqua ones in mute entreaty. She stepped toward him, her hand lifting with a mind of its own to touch him.

To prove what he'd just said was a lie.

She saw a flicker of some deep emotion simmer in his eyes. Pain?

But he stepped back, folding his arms.

She found it hard to breathe with the disappointment that rippled through her. Placing the accordion folder gently on his desk, she turned as gracefully as she could and left his office.

The numbness that encompassed him was like a comforting old friend.

But as he watched her leave he actually had to grab the edge of his desk and pinch the mahogany beveling to keep himself from going after her. That look on her face... it wasn't possible to fake that kind of emotion, was it?

Jolene had.

But Stanna wasn't Jolene, his brain persisted. She was a spunky yet gentle, strong yet incredibly delicate woman who'd won his admiration and respect long before his untimely business trip.

If he weren't so entrenched in his eternal vigilance against betrayal, he would’ve told her he loved her that afternoon at his house. He knew that now.

Wasn't it a good thing he hadn't, the cool, numb part of him whispered. She'd sure shown her true colors when she walked out of his house, hadn't she? An uncomfortable tightness in his throat reminded him he'd invited her to leave.

But then her cooperation with Ian behind his back! Jake should feel relieved.

Then why did he feel so damn miserable? He pounded his desk with a string of oaths.

A drive. He needed to go for a drive, alone.

He headed out, leaving the two thick accordion files behind.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Telly gave one last tiny spritz of spray to her spiky locks and stood back to enjoy the effect. Her ankle-length, tastefully gauzy skirt in muted beige tones went well with her cheerfully red-patterned silky Chinese shirt. Classy but adventuresome. Demure yet artistic. She peered at the mirror trying to see herself from a man's perspective.

Specifically, an art museum-frequenting kind of man.

Checking her slender gold watch, she grabbed her matching purse and glided out of the apartment. Just enough time to make it to the Getty Art Museum if she hurried. She had a good five hours before her afternoon work shift started.

She drove.

Two months, her mind jeered. It had been two months since her campaign to capture her elusive soul mate. She was beginning to believe he didn't exist. Or, perhaps one of her ex boyfriends was The One, and she didn't clue to it in time. Tony, maybe. Sure he was a bit dull and predictable, but he was stable and decent-looking and sometimes gave her orgasms, at least when she closed her eyes and fantasized about others. But maybe she'd missed the boat.

Surely she'd find dozens of eligible, intelligent, worldly, sensitive men at the Getty. Just because her last few dates were unsavory... her last, let's see... Telly ticked off each finger on her two hands for each one. When she ran out of fingers she gave up.

She fisted one hand and pounded the black steering wheel in gentle frustration. Then caressed it with the same perfectly manicured hand in apology.

The guttural rumble of her Mustang's engine gobbling up the miles on the 405 freeway reassured her. At least she had her car. Her beautiful, powerful classic car wouldn't let her down.

Just then she heard a loud 'pop' and an ominous squeal and unusual putt-putting. A freeway shooting? Then she noticed thick blue-white smoke streaming out from under her hood. Someone in the left lane yelled something while speeding past her, but she was already flicking her turn signal and pulling onto the freeway's breakdown lane.

Los Angeles traffic zoomed past her without even slowing, the wind making her car rock slightly. She turned off the engine. The horrible squealing sound stopped. Smoke continued to billow out.

Not knowing what else to do, she crawled over the seat to the passenger side and got out. She raised the hood, turning her head away from the smoke. When it dispersed slightly, she peered in confusion at the engine. It looked all right. No fires anyway.

She got in again and started the engine but the squeal and renewed smoke made her shut it off again, silently cursing her car, her last mechanic, and her life. It simply could not be worse than this, stranded at the side of a smoggy L.A. freeway on her way to find Mr. Right.

If there were any justice in the world, some hunk in a BMW would pull over and rescue her and they'd laugh as they told this story to their children about how they met. If there were any justice at all anywhere.

She looked at the traffic hopefully.

A large pickup truck was slowing, stopping in front of her car. A tow truck. The man driving it stepped out, seemingly oblivious of the rushing freeway traffic mere inches from his door.

He waddled over, reaching up to wipe his nose with the back of his hand. Eyeing first her, then her car, he smirked and pulled himself up to his full five feet plus-a-little. "Hello there, little lady. I bet you're glad I stopped, huh?"

His beady eyes crawled over her body. "My name's Dave," he offered her in a feeble attempt at civility. His eyes roamed even as he held out his dirty hand.

Telly wondered how far away the Santa Monica pier was. She could fling herself off of it, she thought reasonably.

No longer caring if she were thought rude, she gestured at her car. "Can you tow me to the nearest repair shop?"

His eyes glinted at her malevolently. Her skin crawled. "It'll cost ya."

She didn't want to be there. She didn't want to be negotiating with this walking oinker. "Fine, just do it."

Chuckling dirtily, Dave hooked up her Mustang to his truck. Hating the helpless look of her car dangling half off the ground, Telly forced herself into the evil-smelling nimbus of sweat and cigarettes that was the cab of the tow truck.

Dave hopped in. He just sat there looking at her. "What?" she finally asked, dreading what the answer might be.

"Pay up front," he finally informed her, grinning unpleasantly and naming the high price.

She paid it, feeling trapped in a nightmare.

Now it couldn't get any worse, she amended.

The trip lasted too long -- any amount of time would have been too long with him -- but she finally saw The Greasy Monkey, a surprisingly clean-looking repair facility.

Her last sight of Dave was of him patting the hood of her Mustang too familiarly and waddling back to his cab, hitching up dirty jeans.

She breathed in a heavy sigh of relief and turned, resigned, to face the next challenge of her miserable day.

A drop-dead gorgeous "Fred with Tires" poster boy look-alike strode toward her confidently, a serious expression on his slightly grease-smudged face. Her heart dropped to the pavement and bounced up again, thudding wildly. It's him, she thought. Her heart and body, in full agreement, homed in on him. That one. That’s the one I want.

He cocked his head then, almost as if he'd heard her. Then he smiled.

The scent of ocean spray followed Jake into his office later that morning. He smelled it on his coat as he turned to hang it and felt grateful that he lived and worked so close to something as refreshing as the Pacific. It certainly calmed him when he needed it.

He’d needed it badly that morning.

Damn her, she'd had that effect on him from the very beginning.

His eyes fell on the accordion folders she'd left on his desk. They looked familiar. Mentally snapping his fingers, he finally remembered where he seen them before.

They were the same folders he'd seen in Stanna's arms as she snuck out of his office the day before. So she thought she could just casually return his stolen papers whenever she felt like it? He didn't think so!

Marching the few steps to his desk, he snatched up the folders. Aside from Stanna carting them out of his office, he couldn't recall seeing them before.

Strange.

Attached to the uppermost one he noticed a yellow sticky note. Stanna's writing, he saw. Her delicate script only covered a small part of the paper:

"This was Ian's. He kept it in a secret compartment in your desk. Thought you should know. Stanna."

An hour later, he let both folders drop heavily to the floor. Ian had been embezzling such obscene amounts of money that the old owners should have clued in -- but they hadn't. They'd just thought the magazine wasn't successful.

Jake started to laugh. It was all starting to make sense. It was successful. Hugely.

Ian had obviously called Stanna to manipulate her. The petty vandalism to his house, the suicidal woman's phone call to Stanna, all of it was Ian's attempt to make the magazine do poorly enough to buy it back from Jake for a song.

Which meant that Stanna was innocent of it all.

He sobered instantly. She hadn't knowingly betrayed him. It was his paranoid doubting that made him think to distrust her. His emotions did a wild flip-flop inside him as he realized the extent of his error.

He’d royally screwed things up.

He could only hope she'd forgive him. He didn't think there was enough numbing balm in the world to heal his heart if she didn't.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Stanna straightened her legs out, grimacing as her knees complained with a funny grinding sound. She'd spent the entire morning of her spontaneous vacation day online, perusing advertisements for jobs.

Spread around her in a loose semi-circle, all the articles she’d ever written for Men’s Weekly poised in neat stacks, ready to be placed into the portfolio and resume package she was preparing.

The printed out online classifieds seemed to mock her. Squares and rectangles of bright yellow highlights marked all the jobs that Stanna considered decent enough to notice. Two light blue pen strokes circled two highlighted squares: Magazine companies. Those were the two best possibilities. As she looked more closely, though, one was located in Oxnard. Too far.

"Damn," she muttered, scratching it out.

She was not in a good mood.

Jake's voice on his work answering machine had made her heart do crazy acrobatics. It was the first full day off she'd taken for any reason since she'd been at Men's Weekly. She didn't tell his machine that. She just said she was sick. She wanted to get off the phone as soon as possible to start the long, hard process of severing her life from his and healing her heart. Getting past the whole messy business and on with life.

She looked gloomily at the ads. The other blue-penned winner was right nearby in West Hollywood. A "hot new start-up 'zine looking for bright team player for leader-in-training position."

Leader-in-training. She used to be a leader-in-training before Ian was fired and Jake turned her world upside down.

She dialed the number.

"Kittens 'n Kitchens, how can I help you?" a perky female voice chirped though the phone line.

"Human resources department, please?"

"Just one moment, please," the voice sang sweetly.

The transfer rang, and a woman with a sourly curt businesslike tone greeted her. "Cathleen here." The abrupt shift from diabetes to frostbite struck Stanna as surreal, and she took more than the required half a second to respond.

"Hello!" the voice barked.

"Yes," Stanna told her, "I'm calling about the leader-in-training position at your magazine. I have experience--"

"Name, please." The curt voice interrupted her. Pushing down her irritation, Stanna told her.

"Educational background." Stanna didn't like the assembly-line treatment, but stayed friendly. "Bachelor's degree in English, graduated two years ago from--"

"You may be overqualified."

A bright wave of dislike washed over Stanna. "I have a little magazine experience. I was wondering if you could tell me about the position?"

The woman was silent long enough for Stanna to wonder if they'd been disconnected. Then, "It's a wonderful internship opportunity for the right person. The selected candidate will have the chance to taste all aspects of publishing Kittens 'n Kitchens, from the ground up. After six months, we may consider them for a full-time paid position."

"Six months? An internship? As in non-paid?"

The woman chuckled. "I have thirty-two names on my list of interested parties from the local college," she told Stanna. Her voice warmed a little. "I’m afraid publishing is considered a glamour job, and we generally promote from within. But it’s quite enjoyable here. Do you like kittens? Are you artsy-craftsy? It’s a highly desired position for the right candidate, and one can advance quickly after the internship training phase.”

No pay for six months? Larcenous. “I have magazine experience,” Stanna repeated.

“It’s our way or the highway, I’m afraid.”

Stanna heard the smile in the woman’s voice and considered hanging up on her. Women who smiled while delivering rude zingers to needy strangers were some of the more horrible examples of the species. They gave other women a bad name.

Stanna slowly smiled. "And the lucky intern gets to taste everything?" she asked innocently.

"Yes," the woman assured her.

"Will I get to taste the finished kittens?"

"Pardon?"

"Kittens in kitchens. I'm interested in trying them chopped into stir-fry, I've never tried them that way before. Or baked in potpies, either. Broiled is good, though," she confided.

Silence.

"Hello? If you hire me, I'll even share some of my own recipes. My personal favorite is 'Puffed and Stuffed Pussycat.' It's my mom's creation," Stanna added modestly.

"You're joking of course," the brusque business tone was back, but shaken.

"About as much as you are, with that non-paid internship of yours."

Then Stanna did hang up, feeling much better.

For a while. She still was unemployed, with no real prospects. Time to get online and do some thinking outside of the box.

Hours later, she had half a dozen interviews lined up for the next week. Relieved she'd avoided any other mean ladies like Ms. Kitten 'n Kitchens, she mused that it was a huge weight off her shoulders to have other options. To be seriously considered for other positions.

None were ideal. None of them were magazines. But they’d be gainful employment away from Jake.

She supposed she'd be taking all of her vacation time at once for the interviews. Jake would just have to find someone else to answer phones and churn out unwanted columns.

Unwanted. He didn't want her.

Against her fiercely commanding will, a lump rose and stuck in her throat. Go away, she snarled at it.

Don't believe I will, it answered. Think I'll just hang out here 'til you sob like a baby.

And damn it, she was about to. She felt the hot wet sting of tears beginning to rise in her eyes.

Suddenly a knock on her front door broke her concentration on not-crying.

She stayed still and quiet, waiting for whoever it was to go away. Perversely, knowing that someone waited outside the door and she had to stay quiet took her mind off wanting to cry. Enough for the lump to begin to recede and for her tears to halt their rise.

Another knock.

And then, shockingly, "Stanna, I know you're in there. Your car's outside."

His voice. What was he doing at her apartment?

She leapt to her feet, cursing as her feet trampled the printouts and made a godawful racket.

"I hear you," he said. Did he sound nervous? Why would he sound nervous? "Please. I have something I'd like to say to you."

She froze. He was nervous, which was odd. Jake Tremere, nervous?

Suddenly she got it. He was coming to fire her! Contract or no, he was going to give her the boot once and for all. He was here to pink her in person so she didn't make a scene at work. Maybe he'd pay her off so she wouldn't sue for wrongful termination.

A pure fury like she'd never felt before cascaded all through her. She welcomed it as relief from the ache of her pain.

He wouldn't be rid of her quite that easily. Her breathing calmed as she marched slowly to the door. By the time she opened it, she'd schooled her features to a polite mask.

Jake feasted his eyes on Stanna when she opened the door. Blond hair tousled, and wearing cut-off gray sweat shorts that contrasted enticingly against the smooth feminine curves of her slender legs. He couldn't read her expression. She turned her back on him, leaving the door open as she moved into the living room and began gathering up a pile of papers.

She was angry, he surmised. And she had every right to be. He'd been an amazing jerk, not believing in her, talking to her so cruelly, and all the rest he'd rather not think of.

But he'd make everything better, if she’d let him.

Watching her move gracefully across the room to deposit the papers in an out-of-the way corner, he was thrown back to all the other times he'd watched her move, admiring the ballet-sinuous way she carried herself. Especially that time in their little magical mountain house, when she'd strut about in the buff.

But it wasn't even her surpassing beauty that made his heart thump painfully in his chest as he watched her. It was everything about her. Her wit, her courage, her integrity, her compassion. He was hooked right through the heart, he realized.

He had to make it better.

He fingered the small envelope he'd brought with him.

She returned to the living room, faced him with arms folded. She didn't ask him to sit down. She glanced at the envelope, then back up to his face. Her gray eyes gave away a flicker of some turbocharged emotion, but he couldn't tell what it was. He watched her carefully. She was impenetrable again.

He ploughed ahead. "Stanna. I came here to do something I've wanted to do for a some time, now. The situation sort of prevented it, and... oh, hell, I suppose I was afraid to do it before. I have here an official document, on Men's Weekly letterhead..." he paused to chuckle as he handed it to her, "which… um… officially…" Jake trailed off in consternation as Stanna slowly, methodically ripped the unopened envelope into tiny squares, then let the confetti drift to the beige carpet.

She folded her arms, again the ice queen.

What the...?

Jake was immobilized with bewilderment as he stared into her fathomless darkened eyes. He saw anger, and a deep sadness. He saw more, but then she turned her back on him again.

"Please leave," she stated in a low, trembling voice.

He looked at the small shredded squares resting on the carpet by her bare heels.

So that was it, then.

He felt the old numbness trying to enfold his heart again, and knew for a fact the organ had no hope of relief ever again. There wasn't enough anesthetizing medicine in the world to take the pain out of it. The pain made Jolene look like a weekend romp in the park.

"Stanna," he whispered. He shook his head. Hopelessly, he told her what he'd really come to say.

"I love you."

He turned to leave, as she'd requested.

He heard a great whooshing of exhaled breath. "What? What did you say?"

Jake found that he couldn't move another step toward the door until he found out what put that sweet breathless tone in Stanna's voice. The shock he felt locked his muscles for a long moment.

He turned slowly, not daring to hope. The sight of her intense, searching, hopeful eyes hit him like a blow. He couldn't catch his breath. When he could, he sucked in air and turned all the powerful emotions he felt on her like a beacon, willing her to feel the strength of what he felt for her. He locked his eyes on her.

"I love you, Stanna. I love you. I love you." With each sentence thrust before him like an offering, or possibly a weapon – whatever worked – he took another step until she was against him again.

He felt the sob rip through her simultaneously with her arms wrapping tightly around his waist. "I love you, too!" she wailed. She shook against him, and he felt the wonder of their embrace and his own tears threatening.

When he heard her soft, reverent voice calling his name, he looked down at her, wondering for a moment why she was blurry. She touched a tear as it spilled over and smiled radiantly. "I thought Neanderthal caveman types like you never cried," she teased gently, wiping her own face.

"We do when we get our cavewoman back." He tightened his grip possessively and she snuggled contentedly against him.

"Does this mean I get you back?" she asked him. He could hear the smile in her voice.

"For as long as you want me," he assured her, marveling at how lucky he was. How lucky they both were, to be together just like this, finally and despite it all.

EPILOGUE

Stanna felt the gentle brush of Jake's warm fingers tucking a strand of her blond hair back behind her ear. The strand had escaped from her elegantly simple-looking upsweep, which wasn't at all simple to create. The Bridal Tresses stylist actually spent the better part of three hours earlier in the day making it perfect, and already it leaked tiny wisps.

It served its purpose, though, she thought in satisfaction as she watched her brand-new husband Jake looking at her with those eyes of his soft with proud happiness and love. She didn't need a mirror to know that her own expression was identical. Who cared about hair at a time like this?

She smiled at her magnificent man, not hiding at all the vibrant emotion she felt. She sighed contentedly, surveying her wedding guests as they enjoyed the reception dinner that she and Jake had planned together. Quite a few were her co-workers, who had forgiven her that ridiculous business with the news lady. When it turned out that the publicity actually helped Men's Weekly and they didn't need to worry for their jobs, they quickly – and shamefacedly – came around. There was Corrinna, smiling demurely around a mouthful of apple-stuffed lamb. And Michael sitting across from her while blowing a diva-kiss in Stanna's direction. Or Jake's direction. She wasn't sure.

Her darling Jake, who she'd thought was going to fire her! How ironic the document he'd handed her that day in her apartment was actually a new contract between them for her exclusive "Woman's Word" column. She'd ripped it to shreds, but he printed out a new one for her that very same afternoon.

She felt like a princess in her long white dress. She moved slightly, feeling the silk rustle against her skin luxuriously. And she had her prince beside her, dressed not in caveman-esque animal skins but a proper -- and incredibly sexy -- black and white tuxedo. Wonderful how it didn't hide his animal virility at all.

The outdoor wedding was a great idea, she thought with satisfaction. The cool scented breeze off the ocean rippled the luxurious white tent coverings and made the hundreds of hanging flower arrangements sway majestically. Her ears filled with the happy chatter of guests and the romantic melodies of the live band. She actively absorbed as many sensations as she could, trying to imprint every last one on her mind to remember always.

With everything that had happened in the last few months, this was the best conclusion to it all she could imagine.

Telly looked as if she'd agree to that for herself as well.

She looked as radiant as Stanna felt, in a bizarre jewel-toned wrap that showcased her superb sense of style. Her date couldn't keep his eyes off her, that was for sure. She couldn't blame him any more than she could blame Telly's neglect of the wedding festivities in favor of ogling her handsome date. A mechanic and aspiring racecar driver, Telly had told her earlier. He did have a certain rough appeal. Not that he held a candle to her... husband.

The word caused dozens of warm fuzzies to whirl happily inside her.

Ever since he'd shown up at her apartment to finally declare himself, those fuzzies were never far away. She supposed she'd just have to get used to them, she thought with satisfaction.

Everyone she knew in Los Angeles was here to witness her happiness. She looked around with interest. No, there was one missing person. Ian.

But then, he would hardly be there, as she hadn't invited him. She hadn't heard from him since the one last unsettling call to the magazine when he’d said he needed to take his medication. It was as if he'd disappeared.

Stanna and Jake had decided not to press charges. If Ian had the good grace to disappear and stay out of their lives, then they could live without sending the old guy to jail.

He would've been so surprised to see the latest Men's Weekly change. Hell, she was still surprised that Jake had agreed to it. Surprised and thrilled: A His and Hers column writing on opposite sides of a subject. She wrote what she pleased in "Woman's Word," and Jake presented the opposite, manly take on the matter in his "Hear the Man." A perfect solution for them.

From the challenging glint in his eyes when he’d agreed to it, they'd never run out of material. Jake was too fundamentally masculine. Sometimes he even edged into chauvinist territory.

Nothing she couldn't handle.

A lock of blond hair brushed against her cheek and tickled her skin gently, but this time she didn't mind. She just tilted her head until her cheek rested against the broad shoulder of her husband, replacing the tickling sensation with the solid warmth of Jake, giving her a vast, inexhaustible contentment.

From his satisfied growl and the way his arm immediately rose to fold her against him, she could tell he felt exactly the same way.

The End

About the Author

An award-winning writer, Christina Crooks lives with her husband in Portland, Oregon. She has a bachelor's degree in English literature and is a member of Romance Writers of America.

Christina's work has been recommended by Booklist and has received commendations including an honorable mention in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, a Reviewer’s Choice Award from Two Lips and a Staff Pick from Powell’s Books.

Christina's books have been published by Kensington, Samhain, and Five Star Publishing. Her short fiction has appeared in Hot Blood #13: Dark Passions, Space and Time Magazine, Nossa Morte, Quantum Kiss, and elsewhere.

Please visit Christina at www.christinacrooks.com.

Where sparks fly and rubber burns.

Thrill of the Chase

© 2010 Christina Crooks

Sarah’s a whiz at tuning engines and winning races. Winning Craig, the local drag race hero, proves more difficult. He only has eyes for gorgeous women who are hot in the sack, not grubby tomboys. Sarah’s world gets an overhaul when her father hires Gordon Devine. Soon she’s torn not only between two men she wants, but between the drag race winner she is and the woman she feels pressured to become.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Thrill of the Chase:

Powering up through the gears, Sarah felt all the muscles in her body tighten with readiness and excitement before the two turns. She gripped her Mustang’s custom wood-lacquered shift knob with one hand, the thick steering wheel with the other. Though the late morning traffic was light, she checked her side mirrors twice and carefully scanned from left to right through her windshield, alert for any movement. There were no cars nearby. And, of course, no pedestrians. Nobody walked in Huntington Beach’s industrial-zoned “automotive alley.”

Jerking the steering wheel to the right then pulling it smoothly left, simultaneously heel-toeing the clutch and brake pedals with the edge of her running shoe, she felt her car’s tires break free from the pavement’s friction. The car slid sideways.

Maintaining the throttle pressure to keep her wheels spinning, she steered into the same direction she slid. She spotted the large, faded red letters of Big Red’s Auto Performance Shop’s sign out of the corner of her eye.

Right on target.

The four-wheel drift positioned her to race up the exact middle of the entrance to the shop’s parking lot.

With a satisfying screech of tires, she floored the gas to gather more speed, then whipped her car into the second and final turn.

Another four-wheel drift, pressing her back into the firm, curved racing seats she’d installed. She grinned as she piloted the sideways-hurtling car with an instinctive touch, lifting off the gas pedal and feathering the brakes to bleed off her speed.

The yellow Mustang slid to a halt. It was positioned perfectly in the middle of her parking space.

“Yes!” Energized, she leapt out of the car. Another day’s commute concluded.

Sarah pushed the building’s tinted front door open, humming. She jogged through the shop’s retail area, neither seeing nor expecting to see anyone manning the front desk. Matt was probably in the back again, complaining to the technicians. He pretended to be a gearhead, but she knew they saw through it. What he should be doing was unpacking and stocking those magazine shipments she saw lining the front wall in boxes, or cleaning the grimy glass display case. He should be sitting on that padded stool answering the ringing phone. Her dad hadn’t hired him to hang out.

She shrugged. Matt didn’t know a 9/16th from a hole in the ground, but he wasn’t her main problem.

Still, his absence added a new bounce to her gait. How nice that he wasn’t lounging in the short hallway staring at her workout bra–flattened chest as she returned from her Friday morning routine. As she trotted into the back, a gust of motor oil–scented air cooled her forehead. She wiped at it absently.

It was perfectly acceptable for the techs to sneak a peek—surreptitiously, of course—but Matt didn’t even try to be subtle. She rolled her eyes at the memory of his creepy peeping as he’d challenged her to arm-wrestle him. As if the scrawny weasel would win. Since she’d started working out she had arms of steel, powerful as any man’s. Useful for lifting transmissions into place, and carrying flywheels without having to always ask assistance from the guys in the back.

“The ‘ho is on the flo’,” she announced, trotting past the small group of men gathered around the engine stand gazing at a shiny small-block motor.

“Don’t I wish,” the taller mustached blond answered. He winked at her as she passed, but his attention remained firmly fixed on the small block. The shiny chrome seemed to have them mesmerized. “Shake some ass, already. We wouldn’t mind a little help.”

Flipping Will off even as she began to veer toward the object of attention, at the last moment she kept moving towards her own locker area, the converted women’s restroom. She was late again, but first she had to swap out her damp gym T-shirt. While she had no problem assaulting the guys with her version of ladies’ perspiration, her white shirt was miraculously unstained by grease. Best to keep it that way. Remembering with chagrin the last time she’d worn a shop shirt on the weight machines—she’d left black grease smudges on three of them before the trainers threw her out—she was already beginning to pull it off as the bathroom door hushed shut.

Yanking on her jeans along with a faded shop-shirt, she spared just enough time to splash cold water onto her face, pull her disarranged hair back into a neater ponytail, and run a strawberry-flavored ChapStick over her lips before rejoining the guys. “Is this a new engine build or a refresh job?” she asked no one in particular.

“Refresh,” Lee answered, fingering the pen behind his ear. He edged his small body to one side, making room for her next to the parts-covered workbench. He smiled shyly at her, the bright chrome flashing in his eyes.

She clapped him on the back, but softly so as not to frighten him. Then, looking around: “Where’s Matt?”

It became very quiet.

“What? Did he forget to show up?” No, that wasn’t it. As she peered at the familiar faces around her, she knew. “The weasel pissed Dad off.” She said it with some awe. Her father was not easy to rile. Which was his best quality, in her opinion. Easygoing Red Mattel had a reputation in the industry for fair, laid-back evenhandedness when dealing with his customers and technicians alike. It was a major element of his performance shop’s survival in a city where lesser mechanic garages went belly-up after only a year or two in business.

“What did he do?” All four guys looked pointedly away from her. Lee actually blushed. “What, damn it?” Now she was really curious.

Will finally answered her. He spoke quickly, looking at the ceiling. “This morning Red was showing the new guy around storage, when—”

“What new guy?” Sarah demanded.

“Patience, patience,” Will said, teasing her. “All things, ah, come to those who wait.”

At the inside joke, the guys guffawed, then fell into embarrassed silence.

“Tell me what the hell happened with Matt or I’ll start beating on you,” she threatened, laying her hand on a long, lumpy camshaft. Then she watched, mystified, as all four of them broke into gales of laughter.

“Beating. Oh man,” Will gasped, his face flushed from laughter.

“No. No way.” Sarah snatched her hand away from the part. She was beginning to get the picture. “He didn’t.”

“He sure did. With a wad of shop rags and a pile of American Rodder’s Mechanic of the Month fold-outs. And guess whose picture was on top?”

“Please no,” Sarah said. She knew. It was just like the little weasel to do something so gross right in her own shop. Nearly her own shop, she reminded herself again. “You shouldn’t have snapped that stupid picture of me cleaning the transmission spill. I looked like a bimbo in a wet T-shirt contest.”

“Just Craig’s type. What will your Romeo have to say about all this?” Will asked, shaking his head. His eyes twinkled with humor.

She suddenly felt restless and irritable as she thought about Craig. “Probably nothing. He doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body where I’m concerned.”

“Guess not. Anyway, your dad and the new guy—Gordon—were so unimpressed by Matt’s taste in T-shirted, smudge-faced ladies that Matt was kindly asked to accompany them up to Red’s office for his last paycheck. Last I saw, Matt was trying to cling to that pull-out poster of you like it was a treasure, but Red relieved him of it before booting him out the door.”

“Flattering,” she said, picking up the work order and scanning the specs for the refresh job. “Well, at least we’ll have someone decent to handle the front. The glass needs cleaning.”

Will cleared his throat. “Didn’t get the impression that’s what the new guy’ll be doing.” When she looked at him quizzically, he plucked the work order from her fingers. “Red said to tell you to go on up when you get in. That was about an hour ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me!” she growled, punching him in the arm as she passed him. She pulled the blow at the last moment. She didn’t want to damage her people. And she liked Will. She liked them all. Except Matt. And now he was gone.

She nearly danced up the stairs to her dad’s office.

Sitting across the desk from Red, Gordon felt the tingling in his veins that he always got with a good idea, but magnified. This one was it.

He gazed at the big man who’d just made his business instincts snap to attention. Like his name implied, Red had the requisite strawberry-blond mop of hair sitting atop a head that pushed up past Gordon’s own six-foot height by at least a few inches. The man who filled his swiveling cloth chair to capacity, dwarfing it, seemed to be offering Gordon a shortcut to his dreams.

“You’re offering something different from what we discussed on the phone.” Gordon spoke plainly. “Why?” He interlaced his well-manicured fingers together over his pressed slacks. The business suit gave him a sense of security that boosted his confidence, though the clothes seemed desperately out of place in this shop. Even Red, the owner, wore jeans. But then again, Red had openly admitted that he had no experience in taking his shop to the next level.

Gordon did.

Red answered him with matching directness, but with a slow drawl. “You’re overqualified for the tech position, which I think you know.”

“I am, but the job is important.” Working here was more important than he’d wanted Red to know during the phone interviews. After slaving his butt off and now going to night school to earn his advanced business degree, this was the next step. And if he played his cards right, Big Red’s Auto Performance Shop would be the answer to his business dreams.

“I like your attitude, Gordon. That’s why I’m offering the supervisor position, and if that goes well . . .”

Gordon leaned back in his chair, hoping to look nonchalant. “I’m listening.”

“I need someone with your business acumen to run things after I leave.”

“What about your daughter? I understood that this was a family company.”

“It is. And she’s sharp as a tack, but she’s not interested in anything that doesn’t have four wheels attached to it.”

Gordon envisioned a tomboy in grimy overalls. From his experience in the automotive industry, chances were good she answered that phone he’d seen up front. Women—even tomboys—generally weren’t natural additions to the rougher circle of mechanics who did the real work. “I understand completely, sir.”

“Don’t get me wrong. She knows her way around the shop better than anyone, and Lord knows I pay her enough, but all she wants to do is race.” Red’s expression when he looked at Gordon was mostly inscrutable, but Gordon thought he detected a certain resignation. “She’s close, so close, to being what this shop needs. But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, am I right?” He waved his hand as if dismissing the topic. “I believe that’s her I hear pounding up the stairs as we speak.”

Expecting to see an overweight tomboy in the predicted grimy overalls from the clomping sound of the footsteps, Gordon couldn’t help being surprised at the sight of the slim young lady who pushed open the doors to Red’s large office without so much as a polite knock. She was the same T-shirted woman as the one in the glossy photo pullout he’d first seen down in the storage room, and which was now curled into Red’s trashcan. That was his daughter? No wonder Red had looked like he’d been ready to punch the guy.

But evidently Gordon had surprised her too. Her easy grin segued into a confused stare as she took in his suit. Gordon rather enjoyed the frank scrutiny. Her wide, pale lips and her pulled-back hair couldn’t disguise an earthy femininity, and her clear eyes when they rose to meet his questioningly were a striking shade of emerald that he’d never seen before.

“Sarah, dear,” Red said, rising. “This is our newest member of the company, Gordon Devine.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Sarah said, immediately crossing the floor and extending her hand to him before he could get to his feet. The scent of orange hand cleaner wafted up as she gripped his hand firmly.

Then, so quickly that he could only watch, she turned her back and strode toward Red. “Just got here. Last night’s race ran late, so I slept in. Will sent me up.” When she saw Red darting nervous glances at Gordon, she turned toward him again with curiosity.

Somewhat at a loss for words, and marveling at the rare sensation of being caught off guard, Gordon belatedly rose to his feet. “It is indeed a pleasure to meet Red’s capable daughter. He tells me that you’re a valuable asset to the shop.” He watched her tilt her head up to him, her wheat-colored ponytail glinting even in the office’s fluorescent light.

She was slightly older than the sixteen or seventeen he’d first assumed. Her lack of makeup and jewelry lent her an unsophisticated air. Quite unlike the women he preferred to date.

“I try,” she said dryly. Her lips twitched, as if she were suppressing a grin. She nodded at his suit and raised a pale eyebrow at his leather-bound briefcase leaning against the chair. “You look too polished for this shop. Are you sure you don’t mind getting dirty?”

“Sarah, dear. Be nice.”

Red’s mild chastising had no visible effect on the girl.

“No, Red, it’s okay.” Gordon gazed down at Red’s spoiled little daughter—for that’s certainly what she was, spoiled rotten—and spoke with precise enunciation, as if to a slow child. He smiled warmly. “We all have our uses.” He made sure her eyes followed his as he looked pointedly at Red’s trashcan and what lay within.

Her blush was lovely to behold. He wasn’t sure until that moment that she knew exactly how her image had been utilized.

The flush of pink that suffused her cheeks had another effect on him, as well. The hint of color transformed her from being merely pretty, to being beautiful. Gordon stared, astonished. A little makeup, some high heels, she’d be a knockout. He supposed that her receptionist duties might include some work that got her “dirty,” as she put it, hence the grubby clothes she had on. Not sufficiently professional. A dress code was clearly needed.

He hoped he’d embarrassed her into silence. Beginning to turn his back on her and continue his business with Red, he was stopped by her voice.

“Dad, where’s that spray window cleaner you brought up here?”

“Over on the windowsill.” Red spoke to her with clear fondness. Probably never saw a reason to be anything other than indulgent with her. Doubtless allowed her anything her little heart desired from the time she was old enough to ask. Gordon felt the old resentment shift and turn inside him as he compared her easy upbringing to his own lifelong struggle to raise himself up by his bootstraps. He’d had to help support his family, then pay for his own night-school education as he worked during the day. He’d gone even farther and invented a few high-performance parts for hot rods, and actually managed to sell a prototype to a big aftermarket company.

Now, finally, he was nearly ready to take his place among the automotive industry’s business elite.

Gordon squelched his brief resentment. It was Red’s business whether he chose to spoil his daughter. As long as she answered the phone politely and didn’t drain the company coffers more than was reasonable.

He watched her cross the office with her confident, almost masculine swagger. He noticed her short unpainted nails that showed traces of old dirt still embedded beneath them. He was still wearing his polite smile as she crossed back toward him carrying the blue cleaner. “Well, Sarah, it’s been nice meeting—what is this?”

The spray bottle leaked onto his fingers where she’d thrust it into his hand.

She smiled at him, a little pityingly. “It’s a bit of a dirty job, but you know what they say: ‘any job worth doing is worth doing well.’ Please do the glass counter. It’s really grungy. Welcome to my company.”

Sarah sailed out, her footsteps a confident staccato on the stairs as she raced down them.

Gordon stood with the smell of ammonia wafting up, at a complete loss for words.

Red looked at him, his pitying expression a mirror of his daughter’s. “Um, she’s actually right about your clothes. Business casual or even jeans would probably be better.”

Gordon slowly set the cleaner down onto Red’s desk with what he thought was admirable self-control. “Red, I would hope that this supervisor position doesn’t include taking direction from the receptionist.”

Red blustered. “No, of course not. Well, I suppose I might take the occasional suggestion under consideration. But, you know, Sarah’s not the receptionist. She’s more of a technician. The, um, head technician.” Red managed, with all his bulk, to look sheepish. “Matt was the front man who answered the phone and worked the store. When he felt like it. But now of course, he’s gone.” He gazed at Gordon.

“You don’t expect me . . .”

“No, of course not! In fact, I’d like to work with you about the reorganization of the company. Business management is your area.”

“You haven’t told Sarah that I’ll be the new supervisor, have you?” Gordon shook his head, not needing an answer. He flicked his fingers, ridding them of liquid. “Okay Red, you asked for it. First thing Monday, let’s you and I have a meeting. The day after, we’ll hand out the new positions. This should be interesting.”

His hand was already itching to shove the ammonia bottle back into Sarah’s face. It would be his pleasure to tell Daddy’s little tomboy not to miss a spot.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE