No Wife Required!
No Wife Required!
Rebecca Winters
SIMPLY THE BESTShe wanted a husband…Lacey West's biological clock wasn't so much ticking as sounding alarm bells. And then Max Jarvis moved in to her apartment block. Six feet two inches of prime bachelor–the perfect male, except for one thing…He didn't need a wife!Max wasn't in the market for marriage. As far as he was concerned, a ring and a piece of paper didn't prove anything–his parents' disastrous marriage had taught him that. Added to which he seemed to think Lacey was just male bait, that she went through men like coffee. He'd accused her of being a temptation no man could resist…but, if that was the case, why wouldn't he give in?SIMPLY THE BEST."Rebecca Winters writes from the heart. She has the ability to make me laugh or…cry. Mostly she makes me care."–Debbie Macomber
“Since your mind is made up about me, there’s no point in prolonging this discussion.” (#ue5b25e26-d64e-5f7d-81c8-c188a25a7a6a)Letter to Reader (#ub0e43e57-eb30-5578-8160-54c002c9bdb1)Title Page (#u963da949-8e1c-5bce-9f82-bea1d2187ee5)Chapter One (#u56940fe2-ed1a-55fc-b881-2a150b296845)Chapter Two (#u67b661f2-899d-5e85-8bf4-519bf17ac886)Chapter Three (#u7e2dfca3-d8b2-503f-b50c-29ed23a05376)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Since your mind is made up about me, there’s no point in prolonging this discussion.”
“Why don’t you try and change it?” he murmured, his mouth achingly close to her ear.
Before she could catch her breath, his mouth closed over hers and he pulled her into his arms, as if he were starving for her.
“You taste of cocoa,” he whispered all too soon. “In fact, you taste of so many delectable things, guaranteed to drive a man to distraction. It’s no wonder they’re over here day and night.... But you seem to have all the men you can handle right now—” Max’s voice had an edge to it “—and I refuse to be part of a collection no matter how greatly I’m tempted.”
He grasped her chin and lifted it so that she’d have to look at him. “And believe me, lady. I’m tempted.”
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the next book in our exciting showcase series for 1997! Once again, we’re delighted to bring you a specially chosen story we know you’re going to enjoy, again and again...
Authors you’ll treasure, books you’ll want to keep!
This month’s recommended reading is No Wife Required! by award-winning and much-loved author Rebecca Winters. Our SIMPLY THE BEST title for November is Daniel and Daughter by Lucy Gordon.(#3480)
Happy reading!
No Wife Required!
Rebecca Winters
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
“HI, ALL of you listeners out there. Thanks for tuning in to a little Heart Talk with yours truly, Max Jarvis.
“Once again it’s time to settle back and get comfortable. Put your feet up, eat a little snack, and concentrate on your deepest feelings about love, romance, and the intriguing, mysterious relationship between men and women.
“You know... in this morning’s newspaper, there was an article that gave me a lot of food for thought. I’ve pondered it all day. According to a recent poll, seventy-six percent of the married women in Utah hold either part-time or full-time jobs in the workforce. The article went on to say that this figure was fairly typical of the percentage of married women working outside the home nationwide.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I feel kind of sad about that figure. The world can be a cold, cruel place for a soft, desirable, lovely woman. What do you suppose ever happened to the wife who stayed home to keep the love nest clean, cook delicious, wholesome meals, watch over the children while the husband was forced to leave the comfort of her arms to earn the living? What ever happened to the wife who used to greet her bruised and battered other half with a rejuvenating kiss and a hug at the end of a hard day?”
“That does it!” Lacey West muttered furiously beneath her breath, standing on her brakes after roaring into the parking stall of her sister and brother-in-law’s condo. While Valerie and Brad were away on business in the Far East, Lacey had agreed to house-sit their place.
As soon as she flicked off Radio Talk, she dashed into the condo, determined to phone the radio station and give Max Jarvis a piece of her mind. In his way, he was quite brilliant, but he’d only come from the West Coast two months ago and wasn’t a native Utahn. He didn’t understand the real story behind most local issues, which was almost as irritating as his outdated opinions about love expressed on his Heart Talk segment.
She hated to admit that he did have one redeeming quality however, it was a sexy voice. She was almost tempted to drop by the station to get a close look to see if the rest of him lived up to ‘The Voice’ as she’d secretly named him.
Lacey had a theory about voices. They were more important than faces. She could love or hate on the strength of a voice. And Max Jarvis’s voice definitely belonged on her special list along with Pavarotti and Timothy Dalton. Hundreds of new radio listeners attributed to his program had been lured by his voice. They just weren’t aware of its seductive quality.
Still, his outsider status rendered him invalid in Lacey’s eyes. He hadn’t a clue about the history behind the city’s school boundary disputes, the flooding cycle of the Great Salt Lake, or the attorney general quitting his post, midterm, to take a higher paying job in the workforce, irritating the voters who elected him.
As for his antiquated theories on marriage...
With the light of battle kindling her forest-green eyes, she let herself in the back door of the condo. George, the lovable, trained capuchin monkey she was tending for her psychologist friend, Lorraine, must have heard her put the key in the lock because he wrapped his arms around her legs when she walked in.
Lacey experienced a stab of positively maternal feeling as she patted his head. “I’ve missed you, too. Come on. Let’s eat. I’m starving.”
While she made a tossed salad and broiled a couple of lamb chops, she turned on the radio in the kitchen, then called the station on her cordless phone.
She must have tried a dozen times, but the male callers siding with Max Jarvis had jammed the lines. When she finally connected and was told to hold, there were only three minutes left before he went off the air for the night. She doubted she’d get on.
With George settled in the far corner of the kitchen to eat his greens and sunflower seeds, she put her food on the kitchen table and sat down to her own meal, the receiver still wedged between her ear and chin.
Finally she heard a click. “Hi, Lorraine. This is Max Jarvis.”
Lacey took a fortifying breath. Lorraine was the fake name she’d given his producer. For privacy’s sake, she never used her own name and picked a different one whenever she called in on a talk show.
“Yes, Mr. Jarvis, I know who you are.” The sarcasm oozed out of her.
“I don’t recognize your voice, Lorraine. You must be a first-time caller.”
His astute observation not only annoyed her, it caught her off guard. “How would you know that?”
“Because yours has a slightly husky quality I find rather unforgettable. I’m right about this being a first for you, aren’t I?”
Her jaw hardened. “As a matter of fact you are, where your show is concerned. I’ve called in dozens of times on other shows over the years.”
“You’ve made my day, Lorraine. The owner of the station loves it when I get a first-time caller. Unfortunately we’re almost out of time.”
“I’ll make this quick,” she asserted forcefully. “If you want to know what happened to the lovely wife working her nails to the bone at home while she waited for her beloved to return home after a hard day’s work...check with his little girlfriend in town.
“The one who didn’t have a clue he was married and hoped to become his wife, only to discover too late that the money he’d been spending wining and dining her was the money from his paycheck to support the family, thus forcing his wife to get out and earn a living she could count on!”
“Were you the wife or the girlfriend?” Max Jarvis insinuated in his deep, vibrant voice before she could catch her breath.
His question shot home like an arrow to the heart. Afraid to reveal any more, Lacey hung up the phone, still angry that Perry hadn’t told her he was a married man with children until after she’d fallen in love with him. Never again!
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just lost Lorraine. No doubt her personal story has struck a resounding chord in the breast of those legions of people who’ve lost trust in a loved one. A sign of the times? An explanation for the numbers of married women entering the workforce outside the home?
“We all commiserate with your loss, Lorraine. If you can ever bring yourself to talk about this again, call in and we’ll discuss it further. Until tomorrow at 3:00 p.m., this is Max Jarvis with Radio Talk. Have a good night.”
Hot-faced, Lacey got up from the table and turned off the radio. By now George had gone into the living room and was watching television.
Still fuming because everything Max Jarvis said tended to upset her, she cleaned up the kitchen, then gripped a bulging briefcase to get to work on the accounts for a client who’d opened an extension of his law firm in Idaho.
By ten o’clock she called it quits but didn’t have the heart to wake George and walk him to his basket in the kitchen. So she left him lying in front of the TV and went into the bathroom for a soak in the tub.
Maybe the running water wakened him because a few minutes later he suddenly ambled into the bathroom and climbed up on the hamper.
“George? I thought you were out for the count. Did you miss me?”
George cocked his head to the side engagingly.
“Did I tell you we’re leaving on our trip to Idaho Falls day after tomorrow? Just you and me and the wide open spaces. We’ll sleep along the way and do whatever we feel like. Of course, you have to remember I have work to do. We can’t fool around all the time.”
She studied him while he displayed a splendid set of yellow teeth. Lorraine had been training him to be an aide to an other-abled person. George had the capacity to do a variety of tedious tasks a human would never tolerate.
“So you want to play now, do you?” She chuckled as he jumped down and came over to the side of the tub, tentatively stirring his hand in the water. “Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait. And don’t look at me like that with those sorrowful brown eyes. I want to relax for a while first. Then it will be your turn.”
George scurried out of the bathroom and came back with his red ball. He threw it in the water.
“That was naughty,” she said with mock severity. “Now you can’t have it until tomorrow morning. Sulk all you want, but it won’t do you any good.” She laughed as he covered his eyes with his hands in exaggerated fashion. He was such an endearing little ham. Obedient, too. He didn’t make another attempt to get the ball.
“You know—you’re not as hairy as I’d imagined. I wonder what it is about you that Lorraine can’t tolerate? How sad if she really is allergic to you. Thank goodness you and I took to each other without any problem.
“I’ve loved having you around, even if you’re too curious for your own good. In ways I would like to keep you, but even if that were possible, someone else needs you desperately, and you’re far too expensive.” The responsibility of caring for a fifty-thousand-dollar monkey had been weighing on her from the outset.
Lacey patted his silky head as she got out of the tub and hitched a towel around her. “You miss Lorraine, don’t you? But you like living with me a little bit, right?” He looked at the water wistfully, then back at her.
“I know what you want. All right. Go ahead.”
George leaped into the tub, rolling his ball over and over again, jumping up and down, splashing water.
“Careful, George. You’re getting me wet again. Let’s keep everything to the confines of the tub. You’re too excited. Now calm down. You act like this is the first time. You know the rules.”
Lacey couldn’t keep a straight face. Laughter spilled out of her, which only incited him to more antics. He beat on his chest.
“You’re too much, do you know that? Come on. Play time is over. You’ve worn me out. Let’s go to bed and sleep till noon. Then we have to clean because Brad’s boss from Denver will be flying in to Salt Lake some time tomorrow afternoon on his way to Tokyo. You’ll have to stay in the storeroom out of sight. I’ll bring you a pillow and your blanket. After he’s in bed, I’ll come out to see you.”
As she leaned over to let the water out of the tub, she could’ve sworn she heard the clank of metal followed by a low groan. It had to have come from the bathroom next door. George looked at the wall, then at her. He’d heard the noise, too.
“Uh-oh,” she whispered. “I think my neighbor is trying to tell us something. We’d better not play in the middle of the night anymore or we might be evicted.”
Lacey fell into bed exhausted, but Saturday turned out to be even more tiring. George made house cleaning an unforgettable experience. He followed her around and found the vacuum an unending source of delight.
Lorraine had assured her he was capable of vacuuming, it was part of his training. Though he might not be as thorough as a human, he knew to cover the open areas of the floor.
Lacey decided to let him do the carpet in the master bedroom while she finished the dusting and polishing in the living room. With the plants watered, all she had to do was make up the guest bedroom with clean sheets and scour the bathroom.
Not wanting to miss any of the noon news, she carried her radio to the bathroom and plugged it in while she attacked the tub. As soon as George heard the radio, he turned off the vacuum and scuttled into the bathroom to admire himself in the mirror, which covered one whole wall.
It was a good thing she hadn’t cleaned the glass yet. Lacey grinned as she watched him kiss the mirror with his mobile lips. She figured he was a normal monkey and missed the companionship of a mate.
It was anyone’s guess if his face made him attractive to the female of the species, but she thought him a terrific specimen. Apparently he did, too. He leaned on the knuckles of his hands and scrutinized himself from head to toe.
Lacey got up from her knees and turned off the radio. In her opinion, the Saturday real estate news show had to be the most boring segment of Radio Talk. At least if Max Jarvis had been hosting it, she could have enjoyed his voice.
She eyed George affectionately. “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the handsomest of all?” George bared his teeth in a huge grin now that he had her full attention.
“You know you’re gorgeous, don’t you? But there’s no need to overdo it. I’m already in love with you, you big ape. Now run along while I finish cleaning. With you in here, I can’t get my work done. You’re far and away the most entertaining and loving rascal I’ve ever known.”
He loped out of the bathroom. A few minutes later she could hear “Mr. Ed,” the talking horse, on cable TV. With that much respite she was able to finish the work before getting ready to go pick up Brad’s boss at the airport.
The more she thought about it, the more she was determined to keep George a secret from him. If Brad ever found out, he’d have a fit. He’d chosen this condo because of the ‘no pets’ rule. His fastidious nature couldn’t tolerate animal hair. And Valerie would start giving Lacey more pep talks about finding another man to love instead of a monkey.
Lacey wasn’t against the idea exactly. It was just that she’d never met a man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She worked with lots of men in her job as a CPA. That’s how she’d met Perry, the liar. Since there was no way she’d get herself into that kind of situation again, she hadn’t been looking for anyone new.
Valerie despaired of Lacey’s paranoia where dishonest men were concerned, but then Valerie was happily married and didn’t realize that there weren’t a lot of desirable, available, unattached males in the world who told the whole truth.
While Lacey fixed lunch, she heard a car.start up in the other carport. Good. Her neighbor had finally gone out. Valerie had mentioned that a man had recently moved in next door, but Lacey had never seen him. He kept strange hours, but at least he was gone and hadn’t complained about the noise last night. “Come on, George. Let’s make a dash for it.”
She left her half-made tuna sandwich on the counter and grasped the monkey’s hand. With her other hand she grabbed everything else she’d need and headed for the carport, which backed onto an access road bordering the complex. A high fence ran alongside the road, affording privacy.
So far, no one knew she was keeping George on the premises. She intended to keep his presence a secret until Lorraine came for him.
The storage shed ran along half of the carport wall. She undid the heavy padlock and ushered George inside, pulling the cord that turned on the light. “See what I have for you.” She handed him his pillow and blanket and watched as he made a little bed for himself at one end of the pad.
With that accomplished, he examined the contents of the sack she’d put by the door. Out came his red ball, a hoop the size of a dinner plate, and a handmade seesaw which moved up and down slowly when he placed a marble in the holder.
While he busied himself with his toys, she ran back to the condo and brought out a small, portable TV, which she set up on one of the boxes, hooking up a long extension cord that ran under the door to an outlet in the carport. The television would keep him company if he got lonesome. In his dishes she put water, lettuce, apples, and sunflower seeds. Enough to hold him through the day and night.
“Be a good boy. I’ll come in and say good-night before I go to bed. Remember. No hooting or screaming.”
She made the sign Lorraine had taught her. George understood her hand gestures and ambled over to hug her legs. “Lacey loves you, too, George. This is only for tonight. An emergency. And because you’re being so good, I have a present for you. Reach in here.”
She patted the hip pocket of her jeans. George carefully felt for his surprise. He made low hooting sounds when he discovered a strip of beef jerky. He loved to suck on it like a lollipop, and rolled his eyes in ecstasy.
With his attention focused on food, Lacey slipped out of the storeroom and padlocked the door. She felt as guilty as if she’d abandoned a child, but she had to pick up Brad’s boss.
To make doubly sure of keeping George’s presence a secret, she would park out front for the night Brad’s boss wouldn’t have a clue. As it turned out, he was a quiet, self-effacing person in his sixties who just happened to be the vice president of the electronics firm Brad worked for.
He’d put up Brad many times when her brother-in-law had meetings in Denver. Under the circumstances, taking him to the Utah Jazz basketball game turned out to be a stroke of genius. John Stockton and Karl Malone, two Olympic basketball players from Utah, had been at their best. If taking Brad’s boss to the game helped her brother-in-law up the corporate ladder, so much the better.
She had been wise to keep George out of sight, but the poor thing must’ve thought she had gone for good. As soon as her guest left the next morning in a taxi, Lacey jumped out of bed, threw on a robe over her nightgown and hurried out to the carport. No telling how long the monkey had been awake. She could hear the TV. It sounded like the Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir.
George grabbed her around the legs when she opened the door. “I’ve missed you, too.” She patted his head before poking hers outside the door to see if the coast was clear.
Her neighbor’s blue Saab was now parked in the other carport, but she’d seen no sign of life. “Come on, George. We need to make another run for it.”
He required no urging and reached the kitchen before she did. Once his breakfast was prepared, she returned to the storeroom and cleaned up. With the TV in one arm, his sack of toys and dishes in the other, she somehow managed to lock the door and make it back inside the condo without being observed.
While George watched TV, she left for church, slipping out the front door carrying a sack of smiley faces for the children in her Sunday school class. They loved wearing them on their foreheads if they’d been good.
No sooner had she returned from church than the man from the car rental appeared at her front door. Because of the situation with George, her client had rented her a motor home so that she and George could use it in place of a hotel room while she was in Idaho.
She parked her own car in the carport, then wrapped George in a blanket and carried him out to the motor home as if he were her baby. She couldn’t take chances on anyone from the condo seeing him. Once their bags were on board, she drove the man back to the rental agency, then she and George were on their own.
Lacey loved driving the motor home. Because she was on the shorter side, she’d always wondered what it would feel like to sit in a semitrailer and figured it would be like this. King of the road.
One thing about her client. He never did anything by half measures. He had leased her the best Winnebago on the lot. It had everything. Sleeping for six, a shower, galley, TV, VCR, radio, and a dinner table with blue and white curtains at the windows.
Though strapped in the car seat, George was in heaven. She was pretty happy herself and flicked on the radio, excited at the prospect of listening to Max Jarvis display his ignorance in matters of love once more.
A guest was speaking. “...So it makes sense that living together is the only way to find out certain things which would never be learned in a dating relationship.”
“You mean like discovering that your girlfriend had a snoring problem,” Max Jarvis interjected.
“Snoring, talking in your sleep, walking in your sleep. The list is endless, and so are the surprises which often cause newlyweds to end up in divorce.”
“You make a good practical point, Dr. Ryder. You constantly hear married people say that the honeymoon was ruined by something unexpected, which in turn set a negative tone for the marriage. It looks like the board is lit up with callers wanting to talk to you.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Max Jarvis and we have Dr. Victor Ryder in studio for the next half hour, anxious to discuss his new book entitled, Living Together. A solution for the technological age. Hello, Phil.”
Lacey brought the motor home to a shrieking halt. George hooted.
“Sorry, but that man makes me so angry I missed the turnoff for Malad. We’ll have to backtrack to Garland.”
For ‘The Voice’ to agree with some one-book-wonder marriage therapist on the subject of living together made Lacey’s blood boil. Especially someone like Victor Ryder. The name was all too familiar to Lacey and if he was a legitimate therapist she was Madonna! How could Max Jarvis be such a fool? Why didn’t he go back to California where he belonged?
She had half a mind to call him and tell him just that. When she spied a free telephone booth outside a convenience store in Garland, she maneuvered the motor home into the parking lot and turned off the ignition.
“I’ve got to make a phone call, George. You can watch me. I won’t be long. We’ll reach Idaho Falls by seven and then some. Since the reservations are all made, we won’t have to worry where to park when we get there.”
As she left the motor home, a couple of kids were coming out of the store. When they saw George perched near the front dashboard they asked Lacey if she minded if they watched him while she made her call.
She knew how they felt. Apes had always been her favorite animal at the zoo. Maybe that was why she had been so willing to help out Lorraine. Lacey told the boys to enjoy themselves and returned to the business of getting a free long-distance line. After ten tries, she connected.
“This is Radio Talk. Do you have a question for Dr. Ryder?”
“Actually, I’d like to speak to Mr. Jarvis.”
“What’s your name?”
“Gloria.”
“Hold on, Gloria. You’ll be up next.”
“I’m holding.”
Lacey waited another minute, then Max Jarvis’s voice was speaking. “Hello, Gloria. I hear you want to speak to me.”
“That’s right.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“Garland.”
“As in?”
“Utah! And if you knew anything about this state, you wouldn’t have had to ask that question.”
He chuckled. “I may not know a great deal about Utah, but I do know voices, and you’re not Gloria. You’re Lorraine! I’ve been hoping you’d call back, but it’s been a while and I’d almost lost hope. Go ahead and take all the time you need to vent your feelings about your unsatisfactory personal life.”
Lacey blinked in stunned surprise. He was a lot more intelligent than she’d given him credit for.
“My personal life is my own concern. But I do want to vent my feelings about the kinds of outrageous opinions you express, which not only show that you’re from out of state, but that you know nothing about men and women.”
“So what you’re saying is that if a man isn’t from Utah, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about?” he asked in a mild tone, raising her blood pressure.
“Let’s just say we were all just fine until you came along with your unique brand of ‘practicality’! What really alarms me is your willingness to let anyone who has written a book be a guest on your show. You allow them to pass off their work as the latest authority for the masses to heedlessly imbibe, then side with them when you know there are two sides to every issue! What about romance? What about love?”
His chuckle got under her skin. “Me thinks the lady protesteth too much. Something tells me you’ve never lived with a man. Is that right?”
“That’s right, because I believe in romantic solutions not practical ones!”
“Be more specific.”
“If a woman’s lucky, she’s only going to give herself to one man forever. If a man’s lucky, he’s only going to give himself to one woman forever. That’s the highest form of love, consecrated in marriage.
“Yet your pseudo-doctor guest is advocating that we should be ruled by our heads not our hearts and you are condoning it. You’re both out of your minds.”
“How would you like to put that remark to the test, Lorraine?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Have you written a book lately on the relationship between men and women?”
“I wouldn’t presume to take on a subject that should be left alone.”
“Good. Then you’re the perfect person to appear as a guest on my show next week and prove to my face that I’m out of my mind, as you said.”
“That won’t be hard. I’ll look forward to it,” she averred before it dawned on her what she’d just said.
“All you callers out there heard her. It ought to be an interesting show. Rob—take the information on Lorraine while we go to our next caller.”
Lacey knew Max Jarvis’s tactics. He hadn’t expected her to take up his challenge. She kind of surprised herself by agreeing to appear as a guest on the show. What an irony that after phoning into Radio Talk all these years, she would be facing the one host who had the capacity to rile her.
If she were being honest with herself, she would admit that she really wanted to find out if the man measured up to his voice.
By now, a crowd had gathered around the motor home to watch George. She had to work her way through to climb on board. He hooted a welcome.
“Good news, George. I’m going to be on Radio Talk next week. I’ve a few thousand things to say to that infuriating man. It’s time for his education to begin.”
CHAPTER TWO
“HI! You made it. I’m Rob Clark. Max Jarvis will be with you in a minute. I take it you’re Lorraine.”
Lacey nodded and shook his hand. For the time being, she was stuck with Lorraine’s name. “Pleased to meet you, Rob.”
She put her briefcase next to a Naugahyde couch. The radio station was a small bungalow situated on a lonely road in the southwest part of the city not far from the condo. There wasn’t anything about the place that resembled what she had pictured in her mind throughout her trip to Idaho and back.
“Can I get you coffee, or a cold drink?” He stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking expectant.
“Nothing for me, thank you.”
“Is this your first time as a guest?” He watched with avid interest as she sat down on the couch and crossed her legs.
“That’s right.” Because he was trying so hard, she gave him the benefit of a full-bodied smile. “Do you have any advice for me?”
Her question caused him to blush, which made him appear even younger than she’d surmised. “Just remember this isn’t television. There’s no camera trained on you, so you shouldn’t be nervous. But even if there was a camera, you would have no worries, believe me.”
“I agree,” The Voice concurred.
Startled, Lacey looked around and found herself the focus of Max Jarvis’s unnerving scrutiny.
She blinked. He reminded her of somebody’s brother. How many times in her life had she been told that one of her friends had this gorgeous brother Lacey just had to meet? The perfect male. Six feet two inches, dark blond hair, rugged features, blue eyes, lean, a white smile, intelligent, successful.
She’d heard it all, but for once in her life there he was, standing three feet away. And like all things too good to be true, he was probably married with one or two little offshoots showing just as much promise.
A glance at his tanned hands revealed a huge white opal set in antique gold. Not your typical wedding ring, but she knew from listening to his show that Max Jarvis was a man with discriminating tastes. He’d traveled and lived in many parts of the world.
He’d probably picked up that stone in the Australian outback. His tan certainly didn’t come from lying around a swimming pool all day.
She happened to know he had recently been on a trip to Alaska. But whether or not he’d gone with his family was anyone’s guess. Of all the radio hosts, he was the only one who didn’t discuss his personal life, which was an irony considering he loved to discuss everyone else’s.
To Lacey’s way of thinking, it was a deliberate ploy to keep him mysterious and intrigue his listeners. The ploy worked. He had the biggest following of anyone on Radio Talk. At this point, not even Lacey was immune.
A phone was ringing somewhere, but no one seemed particularly worried about it.
His laserlike glance took in her conservative navy skirt and blazer with a snowy-white silk blouse that tied in a large bow at the neck. There was something intimate about that male assessment which made her heart give a little thump.
His gaze flicked to her face, studying her classic features, the cut of her cap of glossy black curls.
“I guess I’d better answer it,” his producer finally murmured, and disappeared.
“Lorraine?” Her host extended his hand as she rose to her feet. “I’m Max Jarvis. We’ll be going on the air after world news. If you’ll step into the booth, I’ll acquaint you with the setup. As Rob said, you don’t need to be uncomfortable. If you come across the way you did when you called in last week, we ought to have a lively half hour.”
She bit on the velvety underside of her lip with her small, even white teeth.
“It’s a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Jarvis, but I have a problem. I came in early, hoping I could talk to you before the broadcast.”
Max’s lips twitched. “I hope it’s not serious,” he called over his shoulder as she followed him down the hall and into the booth with her briefcase in hand.
“I’m afraid it is.” She sat down in the chair he indicated and opened her briefcase, pulling out a legal-size folder. “This file contains information on Dr. Ryder I think you should see, but Nester warned me I couldn’t talk about it over the air.”
“Nester?”
“Nester Morgan, of Morgan and Morgan law firm. I’m a close friend of his as well as being his CPA. He said you’re free to look at the information. In fact, I hoped you would have time before we went on the air. It’s a printout about Dr. Ryder’s credentials.
“Among other things you’ll discover that his real name is Horace Farr. He’s a doctor of divinity, not psychology. There’s a copy of his transcript and it only lists a few psychology classes. You’ll also find out that ten years ago he was excommunicated from his church for preaching false doctrine from the pulpit.
“If you read further, you’ll see that he changed his name and started his own church before this book came out. One of his followers lived with him until she’d given him all her money, then he left her and moved in with someone else. She came to Nester to try to get her money back.”
Max took the file from her well-manicured hands and quickly perused some of the findings. After a moment, he sent her a long, penetrating glance.
“I’m amazed you would allow anyone to see this,” he muttered in a serious tone. “You must be on amazing terms with...Nester,” he mocked dryly. “In fact, you could be arrested if this information were leaked to the public. Why risk it?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
She bristled. “Because your show is listened to by thousands of people who hang on your every word, and I hate it when you go on about a guest when you don’t know the real truth. The fact is, you’re from—”
“California,” he supplied in a testy tone.
“Yes,” she affirmed haughtily because he’d made her so mad.
He sucked in his breath. “I bow to your superior knowledge on this one, Lorraine. It appears I’m going to have to be much more thorough in my background checks from now on.” He flashed her a quick smile. This time it made her heart turn over. “What else do you have in that proverbial bag of tricks?”
She chuckled softly. “Nothing which could get me into a legal entanglement.”
“But I might have to eat crow.”
“Maybe a little. I’ve lived here all my life.”
His eyes blazed a hot blue. “And I haven’t.”
“Correct. And it shows. Dr. Ryder comes off sounding smooth, but his central Utah accent gives him away.”
He held her glance until she felt the heat rise to her face. “An honest woman who speaks her mind...”
Beneath his words were serious undertones. A strange shiver chased across her skin.
“All right, we’re on in thirty seconds. Pick a subject and we’ll talk about it. We won’t discuss your views on Dr. Ryder unless a listener brings it up. Fair enough?”
He moved too fast for her. “More than fair.”
“We’ve got ten seconds. What shall we talk about first?”
She seized on the first thought to enter her head. “Football and romance.”
One brow quirked. “Something tells me I might be sorry.” While Lacey reacted to his quiet irony, he spoke into the mike. “Welcome to Radio Talk. Tonight we have a guest who is going to give me a little lesson about the differences between men and women.
“Lorraine is in the booth now, and I think what we’ll do is conduct a poll. For each issue we touch on, we’ll have our listening audience call in their vote. Make it a ‘yes’ if you agree with Lorraine.
“If you don’t go along with her opinion, make it a ‘no.’ I’ll have my producer tally the votes at the end of the program. Is that all right with you, Lorraine?”
“That’s fine, Mr. Jarvis. But if I get more yeses than noes, will you give me a free sample of that lotion Lon Freeman pushes on the morning show? I want to see if it’s really as miraculous as he says it is.”
A nerve twitched in his jaw, letting her know she’d said something to amuse him. Unable to resist, she added, “The other day he interrupted a dialogue with an important spokesman from the United Nations, just to advertise it. He has interrupted a lot of famous guests for the same reason, and I can’t figure out why.
“He didn’t use to do things like that, and I’m afraid he’s losing his listeners, which would be a shame since he’s always been a local favorite.”
“Rob—” The exciting man seated next to her called to his producer. “Why don’t we take a poll on that issue first?”
She decided Max was trying to smother a laugh, which relieved her nervousness a little.
“Let’s find out if our listeners agree with her. If they do, we’ll pass the information along to Lon. To think I believed myself to be the only one in the doghouse with Lorraine.
“She wants to talk about football and romance. I have a feeling we’re in for a provocative half hour. Lorraine—” His eyes impaled her. “The audience is as curious as I am to know why you’ve chosen those two particular topics as a lead-in for tonight’s show.”
Lacey had to give Max Jarvis full marks for diplomacy. She’d been waiting for him to make a cutting remark about the fact that she hadn’t published a book or distinguished herself in any way to merit being a guest on his show.
But he didn’t use those kinds of tactics. As far as she could see, he was open, fair, honest, decent, and he definitely lived up to her image of The Voice.
Clearing her throat, she said, “Last week you sided with dozens of men callers who complained about the large number of women who waste their time going to romantic movies and reading romance novels. You said, and I quote, ‘The story lines are boring and repetitious because all the two people ever do is fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after.’”
He grinned. “I did say that.”
She schooled her features not to let his charisma disturb her train of thought. “The same point could be made that men waste their time watching soccer or football. The plays are repetitious and boring, and everyone knows either side A or side B is going to win. At least in a romance, everyone goes home happy after the game is over.”
His eyes were dancing. “That’s true. And my producer is signaling me that all the lines are lit up, anxious to jump in. You’re on the line, Anna.”
It was difficult, if not impossible, to remain irritated with him. Later he conceded defeat with such good-natured humor, when he asked her to stay the last hour of the Heart Talk segment, Lacey agreed.
Unfortunately she didn’t realize until too late that she’d been lured into a trap. The second he opened up the last hour, he went for the jugular.
“I know our loyal listening audience has been hoping to hear more about your painful story, Lorraine. For those of you who weren’t tuned in last week, I opened up my show with a statistic about the large percentage of women making up today’s workforce outside the home.
“When I asked why more women weren’t at home while their husbands faced the cruel working world, Lorraine gave us a very sobering response, then hung up before we could explore her story in-depth.”
He stared her down. “With a week to think about it, are you now prepared to tell us if you were the betrayed wife or girlfriend of the man who hurt you? There are thousands of sympathetic listeners out there who want to know.”
Lacey’s gaze darted to the opal ring on his finger. “I might be persuaded to discuss my story if you were willing to let your listeners in on your marital status first,” she challenged. “You never talk about a wife and family. Does that mean you’re not married?”
The brilliant blue of his eyes intensified. “I make it a policy never to discuss my personal life over the air.”
“Don’t you think that’s rather hypocritical when you’ve just asked me to reveal something extremely personal?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Why do you want to know if I’m married or not, Lorraine?”
She sucked in her breath. “I imagine everyone who listens to your show wants to know.”
“I find that a little hard to believe since I have no curiosity about the marital status of my callers.” His voice mocked. “That’s the beauty of Radio Talk. We block out the unimportant and tune in to real issues affecting lives.”
“Your marital status is a real issue as far as I’m concerned since it might explain your viewpoint on dozens of subjects in which you and I have a tendency to disagree.”
“Name one.”
“Living together. If you’re not married, then I can see why you sided with last week’s guest. If you are married, then I don’t imagine your wife is too happy with some of your opinions.”
“I wonder if my other callers are as curious as you are. Let’s go to the Utah county line. Hi, Nancy. You’re on Heart Talk with Max Jarvis.”
“How are you doing, Max?”
“I’m terrific, Nancy. Now is the chance to get in on this illuminating discussion.”
“Say, you know Lorraine has a point. I figure you’re happily married, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked that question about what ever happened to the woman who stayed at home while her hubby went off to bring home the bacon.”
Lacey watched his face, but his expression gave nothing away.
“Are you married, Nancy?”
“You bet ya. Forty years, to the same man.”
“Did you stay at home all that time?”
“Nope. He was a truck driver, but we couldn’t make ends meet so I drove a school bus nearly all that time to help pay the bills.” She paused. “Lorraine? Are you there?”
“Yes, Nancy.” Lacey spoke into the mike. “I’m listening.”
“Good, honey. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I can tell you’re in pain. To be honest with you, I guess I’ll never know if my hubby ever played around with another woman or not. But if I had found out, I probably couldn’t have changed anything, not with six kids.
“You sound pretty young. If your husband did step out on you, he’ll probably do it again and again. If you don’t have kids yet, then I say leave him if you haven’t already, and find a job that will take care of you. Good luck, honey.” The older woman sounded totally sincere.
“Thank you, Nancy,” Lacey murmured quietly.
“All right,” Max interjected. “Let’s go to one of our local lines. Hello, Stan. You’re on Heart Talk. Have you got something you want to say to Lorraine?”
“That’s right. Lorraine? Your voice is sexy as hell and you’re probably in your early twenties. I bet you’re a real looker and single. What’s your take on that, Max?”
Max flicked her a probing glance that made her heart turn over. “As my producer said earlier, if this were a television show, Lorraine would have no problem in the looks department. That’s as much as I can legally reveal.”
“Okay, Lorraine. Then let’s face it, there are a lot of married men out there who would like to get to know you, but the huge majority will never act on that desire.
“If you’re single, it’s a given that a small percentage of married men will lie to get what they want. But don’t blame all of us.
“If you’re married, then it sounds to me like your husband is a fool for straying so far from home, unless you’ve got something going on behind the scenes while he’s out there earning money to support both of you.”
“Single or married, I would never do that to a man with whom I was having a relationship. I’d break up with him first!” she countered indignantly.
“Unfortunately, statistics don’t lie and there are husbands who go home to their wives, only to find them involved with someone else,” Max inserted so swiftly, Lacey wondered if his remarks were rooted in personal experience.
“It happened to my brother,” Stan muttered.
“Thanks for the input, Stan. I’m sorry we don’t have more time to talk, but the phone lines are jammed with callers and I have to go to commercial. We’ll be right back.”
For the rest of the hour, people continued to call in with all kinds of advice for her, and the time was gone before she knew it. The talk show host for the six-to-nine segment had already come into the booth to get ready.
Lacey removed her earphones and rose to her feet, picking up her briefcase to leave.
“Where do you think you’re going in such a big hurry?” Max stood in the corridor outside the booth door, larger than life, blocking her exit. “After winning the poll on every issue hands down, the least you can do is have a drink with me on the way home so I’ll feel a little better.”
“You don’t fool me,” she murmured. “You loved every minute of your defeat.”
“You’re right,” he grunted. He folded his arms across his chest. “You saw the note Rob stuck on the window. We had a dozen first-time callers. The owner of the station will probably give me a raise. He wants you to come on the show again. So do L How about next week? The listening audience loved you. You’re one of them.”
Her pulse was racing too fast. “Thank you, but I’d like to stay a listener. I appreciate you giving me time on your program however. With your sense of fair play, I can see why you were brought to Salt Lake.”
Something flickered in the depths of his eyes. “You have my permission to call in any time and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. That is—” his sensuous mouth quirked “—if you’ll give me equal time. I’m off for the night. Will you go out with me?”
A long time ago Perry had asked her the same question and she’d said yes. A month later she found out about his wife and children. Max Jarvis was tempting. She was tempted. But...
“I make it a policy not to go out with a man who can’t reveal his marital status over the air.” She glanced at her Mickey Mouse watch. After all these years it still worked perfectly, while two other expensive Swiss watches sat broken in her jewelry box. “I’m also a half hour late for home already.”
“Another time then,” he declared as if it were a statement of fact, then walked her to the front door. “We didn’t explore the football versus romance angle enough. I’d like to hear the rest of that argument sometime soon. I’ll call you.”
She started to say, “don’t bother,” when she was interrupted by his producer.
“Lorraine—don’t forget your lotion. Lon Freeman heard about what you said. He called in to tell me to give you a free sample. It’s really good stuff. Try it on your legs. Not that they need improvement or anything.”
Max Jarvis’s all-encompassing gaze did a swift inventory of her legs, which suddenly felt as shaky as rubber. This time her face went hot.
“Thank you very much. If it works those purported miracles, I’ll call in with my own testimonial, but don’t hold your breath.”
She turned to Max. “Thank you, Mr. Jarvis. I didn’t expect to enjoy this evening so much.”
A mysterious gleam entered his eyes. “The surprise was all mine, Lorraine. Good night.”
Shaken by their meeting, Lacey hurried out to the car and sped all the way to the supermarket located a few blocks from the condo. Every time she thought of Max Jarvis, which was pretty constantly, a spurt of adrenaline shot through her system.
She’d given him a chance to tell her the truth, but he hadn’t taken it. No man that attractive was still single. He had to be married, or living with a woman, she groaned inwardly. To waste her time fantasizing about him would be absurd. The only way to get over him was to stop listening to the radio during his show.
Later, when she stood in line at the counter, a voice she’d know anywhere murmured, “I’m glad I found out you’re a vegetarian. I was going to ask you out for a steak dinner next week.”
Shocked, Lacey turned around and discovered Max Jarvis standing behind her, staring at her groceries; lettuce, sunflower seeds, greens, and yogurt. Her heart was being given the greatest workout of its life.
Her fear that he might have a wife at home prompted her to put an end to this right now. “Did you follow me here?”
His features hardened perceptibly. “I hate to disappoint you, but the answer is no. This is where I shop.”
That was funny. She always bought her groceries here, but this was the first time she’d ever seen him on the premises.
“Interestingly enough,” he drawled, “the thought did occur to me that you had followed me. Have you changed your mind about going out for a drink?”
“No!” she defended hotly, then had to force herself to calm down. “I shop here, too. I—I’m sorry if I jumped to conclusions.”
Embarrassed and out of sorts, she avoided his narrowed gaze and waited nervously in line to pay for her groceries.
“Hello.” The cashier grinned at her. “You’re looking mighty fine tonight.” The college freshman had been trying to get a date with her for the last year.
“How are you, Roger?”
“Better now that you’ve shown up,” he said as he bagged her groceries. “I’ve got two fifty-yard-line tickets to the game Saturday afternoon. How about it?”
“Roger—I was playing football with the kids on the block before you were born. Try asking a girl your own age.”
“Girls my own age don’t interest me.”
“How many times have I told you that I make it a habit not to date a boy young enough to be my little brother? Have a good evening.”
She paid for her groceries and left, all the while conscious that Max had heard every word of their conversation. At least now he knew she was a regular customer at this store and couldn’t accuse her of following him.
“You were pretty rough on Roger, weren’t you?” came the distinctive sound of his voice directly behind her. “Boys his age have fragile egos.”
Lacey swung around in the middle of the crowded parking lot. “His is about as fragile as concrete. He may look innocent, but he picks up desperate older women on a regular basis.”
“That’s because he’s terrified of girls his own age. Think about that and let him down a little more gently next time. Whoever hurt you did a fairly thorough job of it. You’ve left a couple of bleeding victims in your wake and the night’s not even over yet.”
A couple of bleeding victims, she grumbled silently as she wheeled away from him and found her car. A man who refused to be honest about his marital status wasn’t capable of being a victim and definitely didn’t deserve the time she spent thinking about him....
CHAPTER THREE
“COME on. It’s late and I’ve a full day’s work tomorrow. Let’s go.”
Lacey bundled George in a quilt like a baby and headed home from the park across the street from the condo. She tossed the sack which had contained his dinner into the garbage can on the way.
After having watched him eat greens, the thought of a steak dinner with Max Jarvis sounded more and more enticing. But he’d probably never call her now.
It had been a couple of hours since she’d walked away from him in the supermarket parking lot. If by some miracle he did try to phone her, she would ask him politely if he were married. No sense wondering about the hotshot from California with the hot blue eyes if he belonged to someone else, if not in spirit and body, on paper. No more Perrys in her life. Not ever!
Once again exhausted, Lacey put George to bed in his basket, then slid beneath the covers of her own bed as soon as they returned to the condo. She didn’t know anything else till the phone rang the next day around ten. George had been playing with his hoop at the side of her bed and handed her the receiver.
She patted his head and said hello.
“Hi, Lacey. It’s Lorraine.”
“Hi! How are you? What does the doctor say?”
“That’s why I’m calling. He’s given me a new medication he hopes will work. He doesn’t think I’m allergic to George after all. But he does think the shampoo I’ve been using may be the culprit. Can you believe it? It’s the same shampoo I use to bathe George.” She named the brand.
“That’s what I use,” Lacey murmured, “but it hasn’t made me break out in a rash or hives or anything.”
“Well, it’s only a theory, but I hope he’s right. Listen. I’m going to come over right now and get George, keep him for the weekend. You haven’t bathed him yet, have you?”
“No. Sometimes I let him play in the plastic tub you brought over. But I haven’t let him use the shampoo. The only soap he has touched is that liquid stuff. What do you think?”
“Good. The doctor wanted to be sure he hadn’t been near my shampoo for at least a week.”
“You’re taking him for the whole weekend?”
“What’s the matter? Do I detect a note of relief in your voice?”
“Don’t get me wrong, Lorraine. He’s wonderful and perfectly behaved, but I’m beginning to understand why new mothers always look so harried and exhausted.”
Lorraine chuckled. “It’s a huge responsibility. I take it you’ve decided not to volunteer as a foster parent to another monkey.”
“I don’t think so. He needs a home with lots of room and a backyard where he can play. Every time I get down to work on someone’s accounts, he wants to help. I end up playing with him and accomplish nothing.
“But I wouldn’t have missed the experience for the world. Someone other-abled will adore him because he’s so loving and good. I had no idea how much he craves companionship.”
“He’s just like the rest of us. Lacey—you’re a friend in a million. I’m confident that I’ll have George home with me permanently a week from Tuesday. When’s Valerie due back?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe a month. Maybe less.”
“I’ll help you find a new place when the time comes to move. Has George missed me?”
“I’ll say. But I think he’s had a pretty good time with me.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. You’ve spoiled him rotten, I just know it. I can’t wait to see him. Which reminds me. You know that guy on the radio you can’t stand? Max Jarvis?”
“Yes?”
“I think he called my house by mistake a few minutes ago.”
Lacey sat up in bed, instantly alert. “He called?”
“Yes. He said, ‘Hi, Lorraine. This is Max.’ And I said, ‘Max who?’ and he said, ‘Max Jarvis. How many other men do you know named Max?’ And I said I didn’t know any. That’s when he got a little testy and asked me if my phone number was the same number he read out loud, and I said yes.
“So he started over and said he was trying to reach someone named Lorraine but he didn’t know her last name. I told him my name was Lorraine Walker. He said I was the wrong Lorraine because my voice wasn’t husky enough. Then he hung up. He was really riled. Don’t you think that’s funny? Max Jarvis of all people?”
Lacey closed her eyes. “That’s really funny, Lorraine.” How could she have been so stupid? When the producer at the radio station asked for her name and phone number, she gave him Lorraine’s. But she’d forgotten to tell Lorraine.
“Lacey? Are you there?”
“Yes. It’s a long story. Come on over and I’ll explain everything, but for heaven’s sake, if Max Jarvis should call again, tell him the Lorraine he is looking for can be reached at my number.”
The news that he had tried to get in touch gave Lacey a brand new reason to greet the day. She sailed through her chores and had George ready to go when Lorraine arrived.
After hearing the story, Lorraine agreed that Lacey needed to determine Max’s marital status before any more time went by. Perry had done too much damage for her to take any chances.
Much as she enjoyed George, Lacey found it liberating to have the condo to herself. She worked nonstop through the dinner hour on her clients’ accounts. When Greg, a close family friend from childhood, knocked on the door, then let himself in with a key, she was still doing figures.
“What do you mean you don’t want to see A Majority of One?” he barked a few minutes later. “It’s your favorite movie of all time.”
“I know,” Lacey sighed.
“And we don’t have to hurry home to George. He’s gone for two whole days and nights.”
“I know.”
“So, what do you want to do? We could still make the last few plays of the Utah-Wyoming game.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk. I’ve met this man, but I don’t want anything to do with him if he’s married.”
Greg rubbed his chin pensively. “Why can’t you just ask him the next time he calls?”
She took a deep breath. “Because he doesn’t know my real name or my number.”
“That could be a problem,” he muttered. “Why don’t we stop being cryptic. Who is it? Another slick attorney like Perry?”
“Actually, it’s Max Jarvis.”
“The hotshot from California? The one you can’t stand? It happened awfully fast, didn’t it? Or maybe being on the air sort of went to your head.”
She had to admit it had been pretty exciting to tangle with Max in front of thousands of listeners. In fact she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been more stimulated. Except of course when she thought about tangling with him without an audience, which had little to do with words and more to do with—
“Take my advice and find a man with a real job.”
She had no comeback to that. In fact she’d been guilty of thinking the same thing the first time she’d heard The Voice.
Out of the window she spotted a lighted ‘U’ on the mountain. It was too late to drive to the stadium. The Utes had won the football game. “Maybe I’ll call in on the air and put the question to him one more time. He can’t very well evade me without his whole listening audience giving him a hard time.”
“You’re really gone on him.” Greg didn’t sound in the least happy about it.
“Let’s just say I’m interested. He asked me out.”
“When did all this happen?”
“After the show.”
“I don’t like it, Lacey.”
“You sound just like Nester when he’s trying to come on like my father.”
“You need watching. I told Valerie I’d keep an eye on you.”
“That’s funny. I told her I’d make sure you got back together with Annette. What you two need to do is start having fun together again.”
“Annette and I don’t have fun. We fight.”
“Then think up something wild and surprise her. For our first date—that is, if we get that far—I’m going to ask Max to take a scuba diving class with me. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. But coming from California, he probably already knows how and is terrific at it.”
Greg scowled. “How come you never asked me to do that?”
“Because that’s the sort of thing you should do with Annette. Why don’t you call her while I turn on the radio?”
She hurried into the kitchen for her Walkman and came back to the living room wearing her earphones. Greg had buried his head in the newspaper.
“...All you Radio Talk listeners. As you know, once a week, this hour is devoted to the outrage of the week. I’m Max Jarvis filling in tonight for Lon Freeman, who’s ill.
“I hope I won’t be offending you when I tell you that of all the states in the U.S., including the foreign countries where I’ve driven, Utah stands alone in its insistence to pass in the right-hand lane. The law states that faster traffic should pass on the left, but you Utahns act as if you’ve never heard of that law. I wonder if some of you would call in and tell me why this phenomenon only occurs in Utah?
“When I came here from California, it was a little like Alice in Through the Looking Glass. Everything was just a little different Your highway sense is unique. My producer is letting me know the calls are stacking up. Let’s go to our local phone line first and talk to Mavis.”
“Hi, Max.”
“Hi, Mavis. What’s your outrage this evening?”
“You won’t remember my husband Joe who died two years ago, but he felt exactly the same way you do. He used to drive—”
Lacey removed the earphones and reached for the cordless phone. She knew Radio Talk’s number by heart and punched the digits.
“Hi. This is Rob Clark. You want to go on the air with Max Jarvis?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lorraine.”
“Hey—Lorraine. Hi. It’s me.”
“I know.”
“How do you like the lotion?”
Rob had just given her a legitimate reason to call in. “I thought I’d say something about it over the air.”
“Uh-oh. Okay. You’ll be on after Mavis.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure thing.”
Suddenly she could hear Max’s conversation with Mavis and waited until he switched over to her. The thought of talking to him made her heart leap into her throat.
“He would have liked your show, Max. Keep up the good work. I’ll hang up now.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence, Mavis. Perhaps before the night is out we’ll have some answers. Let’s go to our other local line.
“Well, well. My producer says it’s Lorraine, our talk show celebrity from last week. How are you, Lorraine?”
She couldn’t tell if he was happy to hear from her or not.
“I’m fine, Mr. Jarvis,” she answered nervously, trying to ignore Greg’s speaking glance.
“You’re on the air. Can you talk a little louder.”
She cleared her throat. “Yes. This is open forum, isn’t it? We can talk about anything?”
“Absolutely.” The adrenaline started to flow. “But first, give us your outrage.”
My outrage. How perfect.
“Well—you never talk about your wife and family. Does that mean you’re not married?”
There was a slight hesitation before he asked, “That’s your outrage?”
“Yes.”
“Since this is the second time you’ve asked me that question over the air, I tell you what. If you’ll call Rob on the business line and leave your full name and number, I’ll be happy to call you personally and answer your question. Does that sound fair?”
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Rebecca Winters
SIMPLY THE BESTShe wanted a husband…Lacey West's biological clock wasn't so much ticking as sounding alarm bells. And then Max Jarvis moved in to her apartment block. Six feet two inches of prime bachelor–the perfect male, except for one thing…He didn't need a wife!Max wasn't in the market for marriage. As far as he was concerned, a ring and a piece of paper didn't prove anything–his parents' disastrous marriage had taught him that. Added to which he seemed to think Lacey was just male bait, that she went through men like coffee. He'd accused her of being a temptation no man could resist…but, if that was the case, why wouldn't he give in?SIMPLY THE BEST."Rebecca Winters writes from the heart. She has the ability to make me laugh or…cry. Mostly she makes me care."–Debbie Macomber
“Since your mind is made up about me, there’s no point in prolonging this discussion.” (#ue5b25e26-d64e-5f7d-81c8-c188a25a7a6a)Letter to Reader (#ub0e43e57-eb30-5578-8160-54c002c9bdb1)Title Page (#u963da949-8e1c-5bce-9f82-bea1d2187ee5)Chapter One (#u56940fe2-ed1a-55fc-b881-2a150b296845)Chapter Two (#u67b661f2-899d-5e85-8bf4-519bf17ac886)Chapter Three (#u7e2dfca3-d8b2-503f-b50c-29ed23a05376)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Since your mind is made up about me, there’s no point in prolonging this discussion.”
“Why don’t you try and change it?” he murmured, his mouth achingly close to her ear.
Before she could catch her breath, his mouth closed over hers and he pulled her into his arms, as if he were starving for her.
“You taste of cocoa,” he whispered all too soon. “In fact, you taste of so many delectable things, guaranteed to drive a man to distraction. It’s no wonder they’re over here day and night.... But you seem to have all the men you can handle right now—” Max’s voice had an edge to it “—and I refuse to be part of a collection no matter how greatly I’m tempted.”
He grasped her chin and lifted it so that she’d have to look at him. “And believe me, lady. I’m tempted.”
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the next book in our exciting showcase series for 1997! Once again, we’re delighted to bring you a specially chosen story we know you’re going to enjoy, again and again...
Authors you’ll treasure, books you’ll want to keep!
This month’s recommended reading is No Wife Required! by award-winning and much-loved author Rebecca Winters. Our SIMPLY THE BEST title for November is Daniel and Daughter by Lucy Gordon.(#3480)
Happy reading!
No Wife Required!
Rebecca Winters
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
“HI, ALL of you listeners out there. Thanks for tuning in to a little Heart Talk with yours truly, Max Jarvis.
“Once again it’s time to settle back and get comfortable. Put your feet up, eat a little snack, and concentrate on your deepest feelings about love, romance, and the intriguing, mysterious relationship between men and women.
“You know... in this morning’s newspaper, there was an article that gave me a lot of food for thought. I’ve pondered it all day. According to a recent poll, seventy-six percent of the married women in Utah hold either part-time or full-time jobs in the workforce. The article went on to say that this figure was fairly typical of the percentage of married women working outside the home nationwide.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I feel kind of sad about that figure. The world can be a cold, cruel place for a soft, desirable, lovely woman. What do you suppose ever happened to the wife who stayed home to keep the love nest clean, cook delicious, wholesome meals, watch over the children while the husband was forced to leave the comfort of her arms to earn the living? What ever happened to the wife who used to greet her bruised and battered other half with a rejuvenating kiss and a hug at the end of a hard day?”
“That does it!” Lacey West muttered furiously beneath her breath, standing on her brakes after roaring into the parking stall of her sister and brother-in-law’s condo. While Valerie and Brad were away on business in the Far East, Lacey had agreed to house-sit their place.
As soon as she flicked off Radio Talk, she dashed into the condo, determined to phone the radio station and give Max Jarvis a piece of her mind. In his way, he was quite brilliant, but he’d only come from the West Coast two months ago and wasn’t a native Utahn. He didn’t understand the real story behind most local issues, which was almost as irritating as his outdated opinions about love expressed on his Heart Talk segment.
She hated to admit that he did have one redeeming quality however, it was a sexy voice. She was almost tempted to drop by the station to get a close look to see if the rest of him lived up to ‘The Voice’ as she’d secretly named him.
Lacey had a theory about voices. They were more important than faces. She could love or hate on the strength of a voice. And Max Jarvis’s voice definitely belonged on her special list along with Pavarotti and Timothy Dalton. Hundreds of new radio listeners attributed to his program had been lured by his voice. They just weren’t aware of its seductive quality.
Still, his outsider status rendered him invalid in Lacey’s eyes. He hadn’t a clue about the history behind the city’s school boundary disputes, the flooding cycle of the Great Salt Lake, or the attorney general quitting his post, midterm, to take a higher paying job in the workforce, irritating the voters who elected him.
As for his antiquated theories on marriage...
With the light of battle kindling her forest-green eyes, she let herself in the back door of the condo. George, the lovable, trained capuchin monkey she was tending for her psychologist friend, Lorraine, must have heard her put the key in the lock because he wrapped his arms around her legs when she walked in.
Lacey experienced a stab of positively maternal feeling as she patted his head. “I’ve missed you, too. Come on. Let’s eat. I’m starving.”
While she made a tossed salad and broiled a couple of lamb chops, she turned on the radio in the kitchen, then called the station on her cordless phone.
She must have tried a dozen times, but the male callers siding with Max Jarvis had jammed the lines. When she finally connected and was told to hold, there were only three minutes left before he went off the air for the night. She doubted she’d get on.
With George settled in the far corner of the kitchen to eat his greens and sunflower seeds, she put her food on the kitchen table and sat down to her own meal, the receiver still wedged between her ear and chin.
Finally she heard a click. “Hi, Lorraine. This is Max Jarvis.”
Lacey took a fortifying breath. Lorraine was the fake name she’d given his producer. For privacy’s sake, she never used her own name and picked a different one whenever she called in on a talk show.
“Yes, Mr. Jarvis, I know who you are.” The sarcasm oozed out of her.
“I don’t recognize your voice, Lorraine. You must be a first-time caller.”
His astute observation not only annoyed her, it caught her off guard. “How would you know that?”
“Because yours has a slightly husky quality I find rather unforgettable. I’m right about this being a first for you, aren’t I?”
Her jaw hardened. “As a matter of fact you are, where your show is concerned. I’ve called in dozens of times on other shows over the years.”
“You’ve made my day, Lorraine. The owner of the station loves it when I get a first-time caller. Unfortunately we’re almost out of time.”
“I’ll make this quick,” she asserted forcefully. “If you want to know what happened to the lovely wife working her nails to the bone at home while she waited for her beloved to return home after a hard day’s work...check with his little girlfriend in town.
“The one who didn’t have a clue he was married and hoped to become his wife, only to discover too late that the money he’d been spending wining and dining her was the money from his paycheck to support the family, thus forcing his wife to get out and earn a living she could count on!”
“Were you the wife or the girlfriend?” Max Jarvis insinuated in his deep, vibrant voice before she could catch her breath.
His question shot home like an arrow to the heart. Afraid to reveal any more, Lacey hung up the phone, still angry that Perry hadn’t told her he was a married man with children until after she’d fallen in love with him. Never again!
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just lost Lorraine. No doubt her personal story has struck a resounding chord in the breast of those legions of people who’ve lost trust in a loved one. A sign of the times? An explanation for the numbers of married women entering the workforce outside the home?
“We all commiserate with your loss, Lorraine. If you can ever bring yourself to talk about this again, call in and we’ll discuss it further. Until tomorrow at 3:00 p.m., this is Max Jarvis with Radio Talk. Have a good night.”
Hot-faced, Lacey got up from the table and turned off the radio. By now George had gone into the living room and was watching television.
Still fuming because everything Max Jarvis said tended to upset her, she cleaned up the kitchen, then gripped a bulging briefcase to get to work on the accounts for a client who’d opened an extension of his law firm in Idaho.
By ten o’clock she called it quits but didn’t have the heart to wake George and walk him to his basket in the kitchen. So she left him lying in front of the TV and went into the bathroom for a soak in the tub.
Maybe the running water wakened him because a few minutes later he suddenly ambled into the bathroom and climbed up on the hamper.
“George? I thought you were out for the count. Did you miss me?”
George cocked his head to the side engagingly.
“Did I tell you we’re leaving on our trip to Idaho Falls day after tomorrow? Just you and me and the wide open spaces. We’ll sleep along the way and do whatever we feel like. Of course, you have to remember I have work to do. We can’t fool around all the time.”
She studied him while he displayed a splendid set of yellow teeth. Lorraine had been training him to be an aide to an other-abled person. George had the capacity to do a variety of tedious tasks a human would never tolerate.
“So you want to play now, do you?” She chuckled as he jumped down and came over to the side of the tub, tentatively stirring his hand in the water. “Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait. And don’t look at me like that with those sorrowful brown eyes. I want to relax for a while first. Then it will be your turn.”
George scurried out of the bathroom and came back with his red ball. He threw it in the water.
“That was naughty,” she said with mock severity. “Now you can’t have it until tomorrow morning. Sulk all you want, but it won’t do you any good.” She laughed as he covered his eyes with his hands in exaggerated fashion. He was such an endearing little ham. Obedient, too. He didn’t make another attempt to get the ball.
“You know—you’re not as hairy as I’d imagined. I wonder what it is about you that Lorraine can’t tolerate? How sad if she really is allergic to you. Thank goodness you and I took to each other without any problem.
“I’ve loved having you around, even if you’re too curious for your own good. In ways I would like to keep you, but even if that were possible, someone else needs you desperately, and you’re far too expensive.” The responsibility of caring for a fifty-thousand-dollar monkey had been weighing on her from the outset.
Lacey patted his silky head as she got out of the tub and hitched a towel around her. “You miss Lorraine, don’t you? But you like living with me a little bit, right?” He looked at the water wistfully, then back at her.
“I know what you want. All right. Go ahead.”
George leaped into the tub, rolling his ball over and over again, jumping up and down, splashing water.
“Careful, George. You’re getting me wet again. Let’s keep everything to the confines of the tub. You’re too excited. Now calm down. You act like this is the first time. You know the rules.”
Lacey couldn’t keep a straight face. Laughter spilled out of her, which only incited him to more antics. He beat on his chest.
“You’re too much, do you know that? Come on. Play time is over. You’ve worn me out. Let’s go to bed and sleep till noon. Then we have to clean because Brad’s boss from Denver will be flying in to Salt Lake some time tomorrow afternoon on his way to Tokyo. You’ll have to stay in the storeroom out of sight. I’ll bring you a pillow and your blanket. After he’s in bed, I’ll come out to see you.”
As she leaned over to let the water out of the tub, she could’ve sworn she heard the clank of metal followed by a low groan. It had to have come from the bathroom next door. George looked at the wall, then at her. He’d heard the noise, too.
“Uh-oh,” she whispered. “I think my neighbor is trying to tell us something. We’d better not play in the middle of the night anymore or we might be evicted.”
Lacey fell into bed exhausted, but Saturday turned out to be even more tiring. George made house cleaning an unforgettable experience. He followed her around and found the vacuum an unending source of delight.
Lorraine had assured her he was capable of vacuuming, it was part of his training. Though he might not be as thorough as a human, he knew to cover the open areas of the floor.
Lacey decided to let him do the carpet in the master bedroom while she finished the dusting and polishing in the living room. With the plants watered, all she had to do was make up the guest bedroom with clean sheets and scour the bathroom.
Not wanting to miss any of the noon news, she carried her radio to the bathroom and plugged it in while she attacked the tub. As soon as George heard the radio, he turned off the vacuum and scuttled into the bathroom to admire himself in the mirror, which covered one whole wall.
It was a good thing she hadn’t cleaned the glass yet. Lacey grinned as she watched him kiss the mirror with his mobile lips. She figured he was a normal monkey and missed the companionship of a mate.
It was anyone’s guess if his face made him attractive to the female of the species, but she thought him a terrific specimen. Apparently he did, too. He leaned on the knuckles of his hands and scrutinized himself from head to toe.
Lacey got up from her knees and turned off the radio. In her opinion, the Saturday real estate news show had to be the most boring segment of Radio Talk. At least if Max Jarvis had been hosting it, she could have enjoyed his voice.
She eyed George affectionately. “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the handsomest of all?” George bared his teeth in a huge grin now that he had her full attention.
“You know you’re gorgeous, don’t you? But there’s no need to overdo it. I’m already in love with you, you big ape. Now run along while I finish cleaning. With you in here, I can’t get my work done. You’re far and away the most entertaining and loving rascal I’ve ever known.”
He loped out of the bathroom. A few minutes later she could hear “Mr. Ed,” the talking horse, on cable TV. With that much respite she was able to finish the work before getting ready to go pick up Brad’s boss at the airport.
The more she thought about it, the more she was determined to keep George a secret from him. If Brad ever found out, he’d have a fit. He’d chosen this condo because of the ‘no pets’ rule. His fastidious nature couldn’t tolerate animal hair. And Valerie would start giving Lacey more pep talks about finding another man to love instead of a monkey.
Lacey wasn’t against the idea exactly. It was just that she’d never met a man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She worked with lots of men in her job as a CPA. That’s how she’d met Perry, the liar. Since there was no way she’d get herself into that kind of situation again, she hadn’t been looking for anyone new.
Valerie despaired of Lacey’s paranoia where dishonest men were concerned, but then Valerie was happily married and didn’t realize that there weren’t a lot of desirable, available, unattached males in the world who told the whole truth.
While Lacey fixed lunch, she heard a car.start up in the other carport. Good. Her neighbor had finally gone out. Valerie had mentioned that a man had recently moved in next door, but Lacey had never seen him. He kept strange hours, but at least he was gone and hadn’t complained about the noise last night. “Come on, George. Let’s make a dash for it.”
She left her half-made tuna sandwich on the counter and grasped the monkey’s hand. With her other hand she grabbed everything else she’d need and headed for the carport, which backed onto an access road bordering the complex. A high fence ran alongside the road, affording privacy.
So far, no one knew she was keeping George on the premises. She intended to keep his presence a secret until Lorraine came for him.
The storage shed ran along half of the carport wall. She undid the heavy padlock and ushered George inside, pulling the cord that turned on the light. “See what I have for you.” She handed him his pillow and blanket and watched as he made a little bed for himself at one end of the pad.
With that accomplished, he examined the contents of the sack she’d put by the door. Out came his red ball, a hoop the size of a dinner plate, and a handmade seesaw which moved up and down slowly when he placed a marble in the holder.
While he busied himself with his toys, she ran back to the condo and brought out a small, portable TV, which she set up on one of the boxes, hooking up a long extension cord that ran under the door to an outlet in the carport. The television would keep him company if he got lonesome. In his dishes she put water, lettuce, apples, and sunflower seeds. Enough to hold him through the day and night.
“Be a good boy. I’ll come in and say good-night before I go to bed. Remember. No hooting or screaming.”
She made the sign Lorraine had taught her. George understood her hand gestures and ambled over to hug her legs. “Lacey loves you, too, George. This is only for tonight. An emergency. And because you’re being so good, I have a present for you. Reach in here.”
She patted the hip pocket of her jeans. George carefully felt for his surprise. He made low hooting sounds when he discovered a strip of beef jerky. He loved to suck on it like a lollipop, and rolled his eyes in ecstasy.
With his attention focused on food, Lacey slipped out of the storeroom and padlocked the door. She felt as guilty as if she’d abandoned a child, but she had to pick up Brad’s boss.
To make doubly sure of keeping George’s presence a secret, she would park out front for the night Brad’s boss wouldn’t have a clue. As it turned out, he was a quiet, self-effacing person in his sixties who just happened to be the vice president of the electronics firm Brad worked for.
He’d put up Brad many times when her brother-in-law had meetings in Denver. Under the circumstances, taking him to the Utah Jazz basketball game turned out to be a stroke of genius. John Stockton and Karl Malone, two Olympic basketball players from Utah, had been at their best. If taking Brad’s boss to the game helped her brother-in-law up the corporate ladder, so much the better.
She had been wise to keep George out of sight, but the poor thing must’ve thought she had gone for good. As soon as her guest left the next morning in a taxi, Lacey jumped out of bed, threw on a robe over her nightgown and hurried out to the carport. No telling how long the monkey had been awake. She could hear the TV. It sounded like the Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir.
George grabbed her around the legs when she opened the door. “I’ve missed you, too.” She patted his head before poking hers outside the door to see if the coast was clear.
Her neighbor’s blue Saab was now parked in the other carport, but she’d seen no sign of life. “Come on, George. We need to make another run for it.”
He required no urging and reached the kitchen before she did. Once his breakfast was prepared, she returned to the storeroom and cleaned up. With the TV in one arm, his sack of toys and dishes in the other, she somehow managed to lock the door and make it back inside the condo without being observed.
While George watched TV, she left for church, slipping out the front door carrying a sack of smiley faces for the children in her Sunday school class. They loved wearing them on their foreheads if they’d been good.
No sooner had she returned from church than the man from the car rental appeared at her front door. Because of the situation with George, her client had rented her a motor home so that she and George could use it in place of a hotel room while she was in Idaho.
She parked her own car in the carport, then wrapped George in a blanket and carried him out to the motor home as if he were her baby. She couldn’t take chances on anyone from the condo seeing him. Once their bags were on board, she drove the man back to the rental agency, then she and George were on their own.
Lacey loved driving the motor home. Because she was on the shorter side, she’d always wondered what it would feel like to sit in a semitrailer and figured it would be like this. King of the road.
One thing about her client. He never did anything by half measures. He had leased her the best Winnebago on the lot. It had everything. Sleeping for six, a shower, galley, TV, VCR, radio, and a dinner table with blue and white curtains at the windows.
Though strapped in the car seat, George was in heaven. She was pretty happy herself and flicked on the radio, excited at the prospect of listening to Max Jarvis display his ignorance in matters of love once more.
A guest was speaking. “...So it makes sense that living together is the only way to find out certain things which would never be learned in a dating relationship.”
“You mean like discovering that your girlfriend had a snoring problem,” Max Jarvis interjected.
“Snoring, talking in your sleep, walking in your sleep. The list is endless, and so are the surprises which often cause newlyweds to end up in divorce.”
“You make a good practical point, Dr. Ryder. You constantly hear married people say that the honeymoon was ruined by something unexpected, which in turn set a negative tone for the marriage. It looks like the board is lit up with callers wanting to talk to you.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Max Jarvis and we have Dr. Victor Ryder in studio for the next half hour, anxious to discuss his new book entitled, Living Together. A solution for the technological age. Hello, Phil.”
Lacey brought the motor home to a shrieking halt. George hooted.
“Sorry, but that man makes me so angry I missed the turnoff for Malad. We’ll have to backtrack to Garland.”
For ‘The Voice’ to agree with some one-book-wonder marriage therapist on the subject of living together made Lacey’s blood boil. Especially someone like Victor Ryder. The name was all too familiar to Lacey and if he was a legitimate therapist she was Madonna! How could Max Jarvis be such a fool? Why didn’t he go back to California where he belonged?
She had half a mind to call him and tell him just that. When she spied a free telephone booth outside a convenience store in Garland, she maneuvered the motor home into the parking lot and turned off the ignition.
“I’ve got to make a phone call, George. You can watch me. I won’t be long. We’ll reach Idaho Falls by seven and then some. Since the reservations are all made, we won’t have to worry where to park when we get there.”
As she left the motor home, a couple of kids were coming out of the store. When they saw George perched near the front dashboard they asked Lacey if she minded if they watched him while she made her call.
She knew how they felt. Apes had always been her favorite animal at the zoo. Maybe that was why she had been so willing to help out Lorraine. Lacey told the boys to enjoy themselves and returned to the business of getting a free long-distance line. After ten tries, she connected.
“This is Radio Talk. Do you have a question for Dr. Ryder?”
“Actually, I’d like to speak to Mr. Jarvis.”
“What’s your name?”
“Gloria.”
“Hold on, Gloria. You’ll be up next.”
“I’m holding.”
Lacey waited another minute, then Max Jarvis’s voice was speaking. “Hello, Gloria. I hear you want to speak to me.”
“That’s right.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“Garland.”
“As in?”
“Utah! And if you knew anything about this state, you wouldn’t have had to ask that question.”
He chuckled. “I may not know a great deal about Utah, but I do know voices, and you’re not Gloria. You’re Lorraine! I’ve been hoping you’d call back, but it’s been a while and I’d almost lost hope. Go ahead and take all the time you need to vent your feelings about your unsatisfactory personal life.”
Lacey blinked in stunned surprise. He was a lot more intelligent than she’d given him credit for.
“My personal life is my own concern. But I do want to vent my feelings about the kinds of outrageous opinions you express, which not only show that you’re from out of state, but that you know nothing about men and women.”
“So what you’re saying is that if a man isn’t from Utah, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about?” he asked in a mild tone, raising her blood pressure.
“Let’s just say we were all just fine until you came along with your unique brand of ‘practicality’! What really alarms me is your willingness to let anyone who has written a book be a guest on your show. You allow them to pass off their work as the latest authority for the masses to heedlessly imbibe, then side with them when you know there are two sides to every issue! What about romance? What about love?”
His chuckle got under her skin. “Me thinks the lady protesteth too much. Something tells me you’ve never lived with a man. Is that right?”
“That’s right, because I believe in romantic solutions not practical ones!”
“Be more specific.”
“If a woman’s lucky, she’s only going to give herself to one man forever. If a man’s lucky, he’s only going to give himself to one woman forever. That’s the highest form of love, consecrated in marriage.
“Yet your pseudo-doctor guest is advocating that we should be ruled by our heads not our hearts and you are condoning it. You’re both out of your minds.”
“How would you like to put that remark to the test, Lorraine?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Have you written a book lately on the relationship between men and women?”
“I wouldn’t presume to take on a subject that should be left alone.”
“Good. Then you’re the perfect person to appear as a guest on my show next week and prove to my face that I’m out of my mind, as you said.”
“That won’t be hard. I’ll look forward to it,” she averred before it dawned on her what she’d just said.
“All you callers out there heard her. It ought to be an interesting show. Rob—take the information on Lorraine while we go to our next caller.”
Lacey knew Max Jarvis’s tactics. He hadn’t expected her to take up his challenge. She kind of surprised herself by agreeing to appear as a guest on the show. What an irony that after phoning into Radio Talk all these years, she would be facing the one host who had the capacity to rile her.
If she were being honest with herself, she would admit that she really wanted to find out if the man measured up to his voice.
By now, a crowd had gathered around the motor home to watch George. She had to work her way through to climb on board. He hooted a welcome.
“Good news, George. I’m going to be on Radio Talk next week. I’ve a few thousand things to say to that infuriating man. It’s time for his education to begin.”
CHAPTER TWO
“HI! You made it. I’m Rob Clark. Max Jarvis will be with you in a minute. I take it you’re Lorraine.”
Lacey nodded and shook his hand. For the time being, she was stuck with Lorraine’s name. “Pleased to meet you, Rob.”
She put her briefcase next to a Naugahyde couch. The radio station was a small bungalow situated on a lonely road in the southwest part of the city not far from the condo. There wasn’t anything about the place that resembled what she had pictured in her mind throughout her trip to Idaho and back.
“Can I get you coffee, or a cold drink?” He stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking expectant.
“Nothing for me, thank you.”
“Is this your first time as a guest?” He watched with avid interest as she sat down on the couch and crossed her legs.
“That’s right.” Because he was trying so hard, she gave him the benefit of a full-bodied smile. “Do you have any advice for me?”
Her question caused him to blush, which made him appear even younger than she’d surmised. “Just remember this isn’t television. There’s no camera trained on you, so you shouldn’t be nervous. But even if there was a camera, you would have no worries, believe me.”
“I agree,” The Voice concurred.
Startled, Lacey looked around and found herself the focus of Max Jarvis’s unnerving scrutiny.
She blinked. He reminded her of somebody’s brother. How many times in her life had she been told that one of her friends had this gorgeous brother Lacey just had to meet? The perfect male. Six feet two inches, dark blond hair, rugged features, blue eyes, lean, a white smile, intelligent, successful.
She’d heard it all, but for once in her life there he was, standing three feet away. And like all things too good to be true, he was probably married with one or two little offshoots showing just as much promise.
A glance at his tanned hands revealed a huge white opal set in antique gold. Not your typical wedding ring, but she knew from listening to his show that Max Jarvis was a man with discriminating tastes. He’d traveled and lived in many parts of the world.
He’d probably picked up that stone in the Australian outback. His tan certainly didn’t come from lying around a swimming pool all day.
She happened to know he had recently been on a trip to Alaska. But whether or not he’d gone with his family was anyone’s guess. Of all the radio hosts, he was the only one who didn’t discuss his personal life, which was an irony considering he loved to discuss everyone else’s.
To Lacey’s way of thinking, it was a deliberate ploy to keep him mysterious and intrigue his listeners. The ploy worked. He had the biggest following of anyone on Radio Talk. At this point, not even Lacey was immune.
A phone was ringing somewhere, but no one seemed particularly worried about it.
His laserlike glance took in her conservative navy skirt and blazer with a snowy-white silk blouse that tied in a large bow at the neck. There was something intimate about that male assessment which made her heart give a little thump.
His gaze flicked to her face, studying her classic features, the cut of her cap of glossy black curls.
“I guess I’d better answer it,” his producer finally murmured, and disappeared.
“Lorraine?” Her host extended his hand as she rose to her feet. “I’m Max Jarvis. We’ll be going on the air after world news. If you’ll step into the booth, I’ll acquaint you with the setup. As Rob said, you don’t need to be uncomfortable. If you come across the way you did when you called in last week, we ought to have a lively half hour.”
She bit on the velvety underside of her lip with her small, even white teeth.
“It’s a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Jarvis, but I have a problem. I came in early, hoping I could talk to you before the broadcast.”
Max’s lips twitched. “I hope it’s not serious,” he called over his shoulder as she followed him down the hall and into the booth with her briefcase in hand.
“I’m afraid it is.” She sat down in the chair he indicated and opened her briefcase, pulling out a legal-size folder. “This file contains information on Dr. Ryder I think you should see, but Nester warned me I couldn’t talk about it over the air.”
“Nester?”
“Nester Morgan, of Morgan and Morgan law firm. I’m a close friend of his as well as being his CPA. He said you’re free to look at the information. In fact, I hoped you would have time before we went on the air. It’s a printout about Dr. Ryder’s credentials.
“Among other things you’ll discover that his real name is Horace Farr. He’s a doctor of divinity, not psychology. There’s a copy of his transcript and it only lists a few psychology classes. You’ll also find out that ten years ago he was excommunicated from his church for preaching false doctrine from the pulpit.
“If you read further, you’ll see that he changed his name and started his own church before this book came out. One of his followers lived with him until she’d given him all her money, then he left her and moved in with someone else. She came to Nester to try to get her money back.”
Max took the file from her well-manicured hands and quickly perused some of the findings. After a moment, he sent her a long, penetrating glance.
“I’m amazed you would allow anyone to see this,” he muttered in a serious tone. “You must be on amazing terms with...Nester,” he mocked dryly. “In fact, you could be arrested if this information were leaked to the public. Why risk it?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
She bristled. “Because your show is listened to by thousands of people who hang on your every word, and I hate it when you go on about a guest when you don’t know the real truth. The fact is, you’re from—”
“California,” he supplied in a testy tone.
“Yes,” she affirmed haughtily because he’d made her so mad.
He sucked in his breath. “I bow to your superior knowledge on this one, Lorraine. It appears I’m going to have to be much more thorough in my background checks from now on.” He flashed her a quick smile. This time it made her heart turn over. “What else do you have in that proverbial bag of tricks?”
She chuckled softly. “Nothing which could get me into a legal entanglement.”
“But I might have to eat crow.”
“Maybe a little. I’ve lived here all my life.”
His eyes blazed a hot blue. “And I haven’t.”
“Correct. And it shows. Dr. Ryder comes off sounding smooth, but his central Utah accent gives him away.”
He held her glance until she felt the heat rise to her face. “An honest woman who speaks her mind...”
Beneath his words were serious undertones. A strange shiver chased across her skin.
“All right, we’re on in thirty seconds. Pick a subject and we’ll talk about it. We won’t discuss your views on Dr. Ryder unless a listener brings it up. Fair enough?”
He moved too fast for her. “More than fair.”
“We’ve got ten seconds. What shall we talk about first?”
She seized on the first thought to enter her head. “Football and romance.”
One brow quirked. “Something tells me I might be sorry.” While Lacey reacted to his quiet irony, he spoke into the mike. “Welcome to Radio Talk. Tonight we have a guest who is going to give me a little lesson about the differences between men and women.
“Lorraine is in the booth now, and I think what we’ll do is conduct a poll. For each issue we touch on, we’ll have our listening audience call in their vote. Make it a ‘yes’ if you agree with Lorraine.
“If you don’t go along with her opinion, make it a ‘no.’ I’ll have my producer tally the votes at the end of the program. Is that all right with you, Lorraine?”
“That’s fine, Mr. Jarvis. But if I get more yeses than noes, will you give me a free sample of that lotion Lon Freeman pushes on the morning show? I want to see if it’s really as miraculous as he says it is.”
A nerve twitched in his jaw, letting her know she’d said something to amuse him. Unable to resist, she added, “The other day he interrupted a dialogue with an important spokesman from the United Nations, just to advertise it. He has interrupted a lot of famous guests for the same reason, and I can’t figure out why.
“He didn’t use to do things like that, and I’m afraid he’s losing his listeners, which would be a shame since he’s always been a local favorite.”
“Rob—” The exciting man seated next to her called to his producer. “Why don’t we take a poll on that issue first?”
She decided Max was trying to smother a laugh, which relieved her nervousness a little.
“Let’s find out if our listeners agree with her. If they do, we’ll pass the information along to Lon. To think I believed myself to be the only one in the doghouse with Lorraine.
“She wants to talk about football and romance. I have a feeling we’re in for a provocative half hour. Lorraine—” His eyes impaled her. “The audience is as curious as I am to know why you’ve chosen those two particular topics as a lead-in for tonight’s show.”
Lacey had to give Max Jarvis full marks for diplomacy. She’d been waiting for him to make a cutting remark about the fact that she hadn’t published a book or distinguished herself in any way to merit being a guest on his show.
But he didn’t use those kinds of tactics. As far as she could see, he was open, fair, honest, decent, and he definitely lived up to her image of The Voice.
Clearing her throat, she said, “Last week you sided with dozens of men callers who complained about the large number of women who waste their time going to romantic movies and reading romance novels. You said, and I quote, ‘The story lines are boring and repetitious because all the two people ever do is fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after.’”
He grinned. “I did say that.”
She schooled her features not to let his charisma disturb her train of thought. “The same point could be made that men waste their time watching soccer or football. The plays are repetitious and boring, and everyone knows either side A or side B is going to win. At least in a romance, everyone goes home happy after the game is over.”
His eyes were dancing. “That’s true. And my producer is signaling me that all the lines are lit up, anxious to jump in. You’re on the line, Anna.”
It was difficult, if not impossible, to remain irritated with him. Later he conceded defeat with such good-natured humor, when he asked her to stay the last hour of the Heart Talk segment, Lacey agreed.
Unfortunately she didn’t realize until too late that she’d been lured into a trap. The second he opened up the last hour, he went for the jugular.
“I know our loyal listening audience has been hoping to hear more about your painful story, Lorraine. For those of you who weren’t tuned in last week, I opened up my show with a statistic about the large percentage of women making up today’s workforce outside the home.
“When I asked why more women weren’t at home while their husbands faced the cruel working world, Lorraine gave us a very sobering response, then hung up before we could explore her story in-depth.”
He stared her down. “With a week to think about it, are you now prepared to tell us if you were the betrayed wife or girlfriend of the man who hurt you? There are thousands of sympathetic listeners out there who want to know.”
Lacey’s gaze darted to the opal ring on his finger. “I might be persuaded to discuss my story if you were willing to let your listeners in on your marital status first,” she challenged. “You never talk about a wife and family. Does that mean you’re not married?”
The brilliant blue of his eyes intensified. “I make it a policy never to discuss my personal life over the air.”
“Don’t you think that’s rather hypocritical when you’ve just asked me to reveal something extremely personal?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Why do you want to know if I’m married or not, Lorraine?”
She sucked in her breath. “I imagine everyone who listens to your show wants to know.”
“I find that a little hard to believe since I have no curiosity about the marital status of my callers.” His voice mocked. “That’s the beauty of Radio Talk. We block out the unimportant and tune in to real issues affecting lives.”
“Your marital status is a real issue as far as I’m concerned since it might explain your viewpoint on dozens of subjects in which you and I have a tendency to disagree.”
“Name one.”
“Living together. If you’re not married, then I can see why you sided with last week’s guest. If you are married, then I don’t imagine your wife is too happy with some of your opinions.”
“I wonder if my other callers are as curious as you are. Let’s go to the Utah county line. Hi, Nancy. You’re on Heart Talk with Max Jarvis.”
“How are you doing, Max?”
“I’m terrific, Nancy. Now is the chance to get in on this illuminating discussion.”
“Say, you know Lorraine has a point. I figure you’re happily married, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked that question about what ever happened to the woman who stayed at home while her hubby went off to bring home the bacon.”
Lacey watched his face, but his expression gave nothing away.
“Are you married, Nancy?”
“You bet ya. Forty years, to the same man.”
“Did you stay at home all that time?”
“Nope. He was a truck driver, but we couldn’t make ends meet so I drove a school bus nearly all that time to help pay the bills.” She paused. “Lorraine? Are you there?”
“Yes, Nancy.” Lacey spoke into the mike. “I’m listening.”
“Good, honey. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I can tell you’re in pain. To be honest with you, I guess I’ll never know if my hubby ever played around with another woman or not. But if I had found out, I probably couldn’t have changed anything, not with six kids.
“You sound pretty young. If your husband did step out on you, he’ll probably do it again and again. If you don’t have kids yet, then I say leave him if you haven’t already, and find a job that will take care of you. Good luck, honey.” The older woman sounded totally sincere.
“Thank you, Nancy,” Lacey murmured quietly.
“All right,” Max interjected. “Let’s go to one of our local lines. Hello, Stan. You’re on Heart Talk. Have you got something you want to say to Lorraine?”
“That’s right. Lorraine? Your voice is sexy as hell and you’re probably in your early twenties. I bet you’re a real looker and single. What’s your take on that, Max?”
Max flicked her a probing glance that made her heart turn over. “As my producer said earlier, if this were a television show, Lorraine would have no problem in the looks department. That’s as much as I can legally reveal.”
“Okay, Lorraine. Then let’s face it, there are a lot of married men out there who would like to get to know you, but the huge majority will never act on that desire.
“If you’re single, it’s a given that a small percentage of married men will lie to get what they want. But don’t blame all of us.
“If you’re married, then it sounds to me like your husband is a fool for straying so far from home, unless you’ve got something going on behind the scenes while he’s out there earning money to support both of you.”
“Single or married, I would never do that to a man with whom I was having a relationship. I’d break up with him first!” she countered indignantly.
“Unfortunately, statistics don’t lie and there are husbands who go home to their wives, only to find them involved with someone else,” Max inserted so swiftly, Lacey wondered if his remarks were rooted in personal experience.
“It happened to my brother,” Stan muttered.
“Thanks for the input, Stan. I’m sorry we don’t have more time to talk, but the phone lines are jammed with callers and I have to go to commercial. We’ll be right back.”
For the rest of the hour, people continued to call in with all kinds of advice for her, and the time was gone before she knew it. The talk show host for the six-to-nine segment had already come into the booth to get ready.
Lacey removed her earphones and rose to her feet, picking up her briefcase to leave.
“Where do you think you’re going in such a big hurry?” Max stood in the corridor outside the booth door, larger than life, blocking her exit. “After winning the poll on every issue hands down, the least you can do is have a drink with me on the way home so I’ll feel a little better.”
“You don’t fool me,” she murmured. “You loved every minute of your defeat.”
“You’re right,” he grunted. He folded his arms across his chest. “You saw the note Rob stuck on the window. We had a dozen first-time callers. The owner of the station will probably give me a raise. He wants you to come on the show again. So do L How about next week? The listening audience loved you. You’re one of them.”
Her pulse was racing too fast. “Thank you, but I’d like to stay a listener. I appreciate you giving me time on your program however. With your sense of fair play, I can see why you were brought to Salt Lake.”
Something flickered in the depths of his eyes. “You have my permission to call in any time and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. That is—” his sensuous mouth quirked “—if you’ll give me equal time. I’m off for the night. Will you go out with me?”
A long time ago Perry had asked her the same question and she’d said yes. A month later she found out about his wife and children. Max Jarvis was tempting. She was tempted. But...
“I make it a policy not to go out with a man who can’t reveal his marital status over the air.” She glanced at her Mickey Mouse watch. After all these years it still worked perfectly, while two other expensive Swiss watches sat broken in her jewelry box. “I’m also a half hour late for home already.”
“Another time then,” he declared as if it were a statement of fact, then walked her to the front door. “We didn’t explore the football versus romance angle enough. I’d like to hear the rest of that argument sometime soon. I’ll call you.”
She started to say, “don’t bother,” when she was interrupted by his producer.
“Lorraine—don’t forget your lotion. Lon Freeman heard about what you said. He called in to tell me to give you a free sample. It’s really good stuff. Try it on your legs. Not that they need improvement or anything.”
Max Jarvis’s all-encompassing gaze did a swift inventory of her legs, which suddenly felt as shaky as rubber. This time her face went hot.
“Thank you very much. If it works those purported miracles, I’ll call in with my own testimonial, but don’t hold your breath.”
She turned to Max. “Thank you, Mr. Jarvis. I didn’t expect to enjoy this evening so much.”
A mysterious gleam entered his eyes. “The surprise was all mine, Lorraine. Good night.”
Shaken by their meeting, Lacey hurried out to the car and sped all the way to the supermarket located a few blocks from the condo. Every time she thought of Max Jarvis, which was pretty constantly, a spurt of adrenaline shot through her system.
She’d given him a chance to tell her the truth, but he hadn’t taken it. No man that attractive was still single. He had to be married, or living with a woman, she groaned inwardly. To waste her time fantasizing about him would be absurd. The only way to get over him was to stop listening to the radio during his show.
Later, when she stood in line at the counter, a voice she’d know anywhere murmured, “I’m glad I found out you’re a vegetarian. I was going to ask you out for a steak dinner next week.”
Shocked, Lacey turned around and discovered Max Jarvis standing behind her, staring at her groceries; lettuce, sunflower seeds, greens, and yogurt. Her heart was being given the greatest workout of its life.
Her fear that he might have a wife at home prompted her to put an end to this right now. “Did you follow me here?”
His features hardened perceptibly. “I hate to disappoint you, but the answer is no. This is where I shop.”
That was funny. She always bought her groceries here, but this was the first time she’d ever seen him on the premises.
“Interestingly enough,” he drawled, “the thought did occur to me that you had followed me. Have you changed your mind about going out for a drink?”
“No!” she defended hotly, then had to force herself to calm down. “I shop here, too. I—I’m sorry if I jumped to conclusions.”
Embarrassed and out of sorts, she avoided his narrowed gaze and waited nervously in line to pay for her groceries.
“Hello.” The cashier grinned at her. “You’re looking mighty fine tonight.” The college freshman had been trying to get a date with her for the last year.
“How are you, Roger?”
“Better now that you’ve shown up,” he said as he bagged her groceries. “I’ve got two fifty-yard-line tickets to the game Saturday afternoon. How about it?”
“Roger—I was playing football with the kids on the block before you were born. Try asking a girl your own age.”
“Girls my own age don’t interest me.”
“How many times have I told you that I make it a habit not to date a boy young enough to be my little brother? Have a good evening.”
She paid for her groceries and left, all the while conscious that Max had heard every word of their conversation. At least now he knew she was a regular customer at this store and couldn’t accuse her of following him.
“You were pretty rough on Roger, weren’t you?” came the distinctive sound of his voice directly behind her. “Boys his age have fragile egos.”
Lacey swung around in the middle of the crowded parking lot. “His is about as fragile as concrete. He may look innocent, but he picks up desperate older women on a regular basis.”
“That’s because he’s terrified of girls his own age. Think about that and let him down a little more gently next time. Whoever hurt you did a fairly thorough job of it. You’ve left a couple of bleeding victims in your wake and the night’s not even over yet.”
A couple of bleeding victims, she grumbled silently as she wheeled away from him and found her car. A man who refused to be honest about his marital status wasn’t capable of being a victim and definitely didn’t deserve the time she spent thinking about him....
CHAPTER THREE
“COME on. It’s late and I’ve a full day’s work tomorrow. Let’s go.”
Lacey bundled George in a quilt like a baby and headed home from the park across the street from the condo. She tossed the sack which had contained his dinner into the garbage can on the way.
After having watched him eat greens, the thought of a steak dinner with Max Jarvis sounded more and more enticing. But he’d probably never call her now.
It had been a couple of hours since she’d walked away from him in the supermarket parking lot. If by some miracle he did try to phone her, she would ask him politely if he were married. No sense wondering about the hotshot from California with the hot blue eyes if he belonged to someone else, if not in spirit and body, on paper. No more Perrys in her life. Not ever!
Once again exhausted, Lacey put George to bed in his basket, then slid beneath the covers of her own bed as soon as they returned to the condo. She didn’t know anything else till the phone rang the next day around ten. George had been playing with his hoop at the side of her bed and handed her the receiver.
She patted his head and said hello.
“Hi, Lacey. It’s Lorraine.”
“Hi! How are you? What does the doctor say?”
“That’s why I’m calling. He’s given me a new medication he hopes will work. He doesn’t think I’m allergic to George after all. But he does think the shampoo I’ve been using may be the culprit. Can you believe it? It’s the same shampoo I use to bathe George.” She named the brand.
“That’s what I use,” Lacey murmured, “but it hasn’t made me break out in a rash or hives or anything.”
“Well, it’s only a theory, but I hope he’s right. Listen. I’m going to come over right now and get George, keep him for the weekend. You haven’t bathed him yet, have you?”
“No. Sometimes I let him play in the plastic tub you brought over. But I haven’t let him use the shampoo. The only soap he has touched is that liquid stuff. What do you think?”
“Good. The doctor wanted to be sure he hadn’t been near my shampoo for at least a week.”
“You’re taking him for the whole weekend?”
“What’s the matter? Do I detect a note of relief in your voice?”
“Don’t get me wrong, Lorraine. He’s wonderful and perfectly behaved, but I’m beginning to understand why new mothers always look so harried and exhausted.”
Lorraine chuckled. “It’s a huge responsibility. I take it you’ve decided not to volunteer as a foster parent to another monkey.”
“I don’t think so. He needs a home with lots of room and a backyard where he can play. Every time I get down to work on someone’s accounts, he wants to help. I end up playing with him and accomplish nothing.
“But I wouldn’t have missed the experience for the world. Someone other-abled will adore him because he’s so loving and good. I had no idea how much he craves companionship.”
“He’s just like the rest of us. Lacey—you’re a friend in a million. I’m confident that I’ll have George home with me permanently a week from Tuesday. When’s Valerie due back?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe a month. Maybe less.”
“I’ll help you find a new place when the time comes to move. Has George missed me?”
“I’ll say. But I think he’s had a pretty good time with me.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. You’ve spoiled him rotten, I just know it. I can’t wait to see him. Which reminds me. You know that guy on the radio you can’t stand? Max Jarvis?”
“Yes?”
“I think he called my house by mistake a few minutes ago.”
Lacey sat up in bed, instantly alert. “He called?”
“Yes. He said, ‘Hi, Lorraine. This is Max.’ And I said, ‘Max who?’ and he said, ‘Max Jarvis. How many other men do you know named Max?’ And I said I didn’t know any. That’s when he got a little testy and asked me if my phone number was the same number he read out loud, and I said yes.
“So he started over and said he was trying to reach someone named Lorraine but he didn’t know her last name. I told him my name was Lorraine Walker. He said I was the wrong Lorraine because my voice wasn’t husky enough. Then he hung up. He was really riled. Don’t you think that’s funny? Max Jarvis of all people?”
Lacey closed her eyes. “That’s really funny, Lorraine.” How could she have been so stupid? When the producer at the radio station asked for her name and phone number, she gave him Lorraine’s. But she’d forgotten to tell Lorraine.
“Lacey? Are you there?”
“Yes. It’s a long story. Come on over and I’ll explain everything, but for heaven’s sake, if Max Jarvis should call again, tell him the Lorraine he is looking for can be reached at my number.”
The news that he had tried to get in touch gave Lacey a brand new reason to greet the day. She sailed through her chores and had George ready to go when Lorraine arrived.
After hearing the story, Lorraine agreed that Lacey needed to determine Max’s marital status before any more time went by. Perry had done too much damage for her to take any chances.
Much as she enjoyed George, Lacey found it liberating to have the condo to herself. She worked nonstop through the dinner hour on her clients’ accounts. When Greg, a close family friend from childhood, knocked on the door, then let himself in with a key, she was still doing figures.
“What do you mean you don’t want to see A Majority of One?” he barked a few minutes later. “It’s your favorite movie of all time.”
“I know,” Lacey sighed.
“And we don’t have to hurry home to George. He’s gone for two whole days and nights.”
“I know.”
“So, what do you want to do? We could still make the last few plays of the Utah-Wyoming game.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk. I’ve met this man, but I don’t want anything to do with him if he’s married.”
Greg rubbed his chin pensively. “Why can’t you just ask him the next time he calls?”
She took a deep breath. “Because he doesn’t know my real name or my number.”
“That could be a problem,” he muttered. “Why don’t we stop being cryptic. Who is it? Another slick attorney like Perry?”
“Actually, it’s Max Jarvis.”
“The hotshot from California? The one you can’t stand? It happened awfully fast, didn’t it? Or maybe being on the air sort of went to your head.”
She had to admit it had been pretty exciting to tangle with Max in front of thousands of listeners. In fact she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been more stimulated. Except of course when she thought about tangling with him without an audience, which had little to do with words and more to do with—
“Take my advice and find a man with a real job.”
She had no comeback to that. In fact she’d been guilty of thinking the same thing the first time she’d heard The Voice.
Out of the window she spotted a lighted ‘U’ on the mountain. It was too late to drive to the stadium. The Utes had won the football game. “Maybe I’ll call in on the air and put the question to him one more time. He can’t very well evade me without his whole listening audience giving him a hard time.”
“You’re really gone on him.” Greg didn’t sound in the least happy about it.
“Let’s just say I’m interested. He asked me out.”
“When did all this happen?”
“After the show.”
“I don’t like it, Lacey.”
“You sound just like Nester when he’s trying to come on like my father.”
“You need watching. I told Valerie I’d keep an eye on you.”
“That’s funny. I told her I’d make sure you got back together with Annette. What you two need to do is start having fun together again.”
“Annette and I don’t have fun. We fight.”
“Then think up something wild and surprise her. For our first date—that is, if we get that far—I’m going to ask Max to take a scuba diving class with me. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. But coming from California, he probably already knows how and is terrific at it.”
Greg scowled. “How come you never asked me to do that?”
“Because that’s the sort of thing you should do with Annette. Why don’t you call her while I turn on the radio?”
She hurried into the kitchen for her Walkman and came back to the living room wearing her earphones. Greg had buried his head in the newspaper.
“...All you Radio Talk listeners. As you know, once a week, this hour is devoted to the outrage of the week. I’m Max Jarvis filling in tonight for Lon Freeman, who’s ill.
“I hope I won’t be offending you when I tell you that of all the states in the U.S., including the foreign countries where I’ve driven, Utah stands alone in its insistence to pass in the right-hand lane. The law states that faster traffic should pass on the left, but you Utahns act as if you’ve never heard of that law. I wonder if some of you would call in and tell me why this phenomenon only occurs in Utah?
“When I came here from California, it was a little like Alice in Through the Looking Glass. Everything was just a little different Your highway sense is unique. My producer is letting me know the calls are stacking up. Let’s go to our local phone line first and talk to Mavis.”
“Hi, Max.”
“Hi, Mavis. What’s your outrage this evening?”
“You won’t remember my husband Joe who died two years ago, but he felt exactly the same way you do. He used to drive—”
Lacey removed the earphones and reached for the cordless phone. She knew Radio Talk’s number by heart and punched the digits.
“Hi. This is Rob Clark. You want to go on the air with Max Jarvis?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lorraine.”
“Hey—Lorraine. Hi. It’s me.”
“I know.”
“How do you like the lotion?”
Rob had just given her a legitimate reason to call in. “I thought I’d say something about it over the air.”
“Uh-oh. Okay. You’ll be on after Mavis.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure thing.”
Suddenly she could hear Max’s conversation with Mavis and waited until he switched over to her. The thought of talking to him made her heart leap into her throat.
“He would have liked your show, Max. Keep up the good work. I’ll hang up now.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence, Mavis. Perhaps before the night is out we’ll have some answers. Let’s go to our other local line.
“Well, well. My producer says it’s Lorraine, our talk show celebrity from last week. How are you, Lorraine?”
She couldn’t tell if he was happy to hear from her or not.
“I’m fine, Mr. Jarvis,” she answered nervously, trying to ignore Greg’s speaking glance.
“You’re on the air. Can you talk a little louder.”
She cleared her throat. “Yes. This is open forum, isn’t it? We can talk about anything?”
“Absolutely.” The adrenaline started to flow. “But first, give us your outrage.”
My outrage. How perfect.
“Well—you never talk about your wife and family. Does that mean you’re not married?”
There was a slight hesitation before he asked, “That’s your outrage?”
“Yes.”
“Since this is the second time you’ve asked me that question over the air, I tell you what. If you’ll call Rob on the business line and leave your full name and number, I’ll be happy to call you personally and answer your question. Does that sound fair?”
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Rebecca Winters
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: SIMPLY THE BESTShe wanted a husband…Lacey West′s biological clock wasn′t so much ticking as sounding alarm bells. And then Max Jarvis moved in to her apartment block. Six feet two inches of prime bachelor–the perfect male, except for one thing…He didn′t need a wife!Max wasn′t in the market for marriage. As far as he was concerned, a ring and a piece of paper didn′t prove anything–his parents′ disastrous marriage had taught him that. Added to which he seemed to think Lacey was just male bait, that she went through men like coffee. He′d accused her of being a temptation no man could resist…but, if that was the case, why wouldn′t he give in?SIMPLY THE BEST."Rebecca Winters writes from the heart. She has the ability to make me laugh or…cry. Mostly she makes me care."–Debbie Macomber