She's Got Mail!. Colleen Collins
back off, a warning look. With a shake of her head, she pivoted neatly on those oversize platform shoes and clomped back to her desk.
Ben crossed to the door. In an aside to Meredith, he whispered, “I’m sorry I misunderstood about the ring…. Why don’t you check out the couch?” He darted his gaze to the piece of furniture against the far wall in the reception area. A moment of peace was worth the couch sacrifice.
With the merest hint of a sniffle, Meredith swiveled and made a beeline to the object.
He turned his full attention to the curly-haired good girl. Bad girl. Mad girl. She wore an ill-fitting white blouse semitucked into a knee-length brown skirt, both of which reminded him of those chocolate-and-vanilla ice-cream bars he relished as a kid. But he didn’t dare voice that, now that he knew the evil connotation of the word ice cream. Ben gestured her inside. “Please come in, Miss—?”
“Myers. Rosie Myers.”
So it was Miss, not Mrs. Not that he cared. Maybe it was that wayward curl that intrigued him. Or the flash of lightning in those hazel eyes—which were now checking out the room as though a pervert had just invited her into the back seat of his car. “It’s a law office,” he said, “not a torture chamber. Please, have a seat.”
She shifted her gaze to his, giving him a we-are-not-amused look, before crossing to one of two wooden guest chairs, silhouettes of harps cut into their backs.
As she walked by, Ben noticed a spatter of mud in her hairline. And a chunk of mud on the toe of one of her sensible brown loafers. So it wasn’t a surprise she also wore mud-splattered tights. Didn’t she say she’d almost rear-ended his car? How? By running into it with her body? “Care for coffee? Tea?”
Rosie picked the chair farthest from Ben’s rectangular pine desk. “I’d kill for a coffee.”
He gave her a double take, hoping he didn’t have a homicidal rear-ending caffeine freak on his hands. “Heather, would you mind bringing—”
“I’m still helping Meredith!” she answered curtly from the other room.
With what? A stuck chopstick? Looking back at Rosie, he asked wearily, “Sugar? Cream?”
“Three teaspoons sugar. Plenty of milk.”
“That’s a milkshake, not a coffee,” Ben murmured as he headed to the coffee station in the reception area.
Rosie sat stiffly in the harp chair and checked out the inner sanctum of ILITIG8. She was already so late for work, what was another ten minutes? She hated disappointing Teresa, though, who was pretty cool when it came to bending rules. Unfortunately, Rosie had bent the tardy rule so far, she’d broken it, so Teresa had had to lay down the law: get into work on time or go on probation.
Although probation was not high on Rosie’s wish list, after stomping in a puddle, exchanging greetings with a trucker, and hiking six blocks into work, she needed a few extra minutes. And needed a few more to negotiate a parking space with a lawyer.
Considering what faced her, she also needed that free cup of coffee.
She scanned the room. Looked as though an interior decorator had had a breakdown in here. On one wall were several paintings of landscapes. Rosie fought a surge of homesickness as she scanned the images of rolling earth and sky, the type of world in which she’d spent most of her twenty-six years. She quickly shifted her gaze to another wall, where an arrangement of round brass thing-amajigs, covered with beads and feathers, hung. One of the round thingamajigs, on closer inspection, was a clock whose face was embedded in an old chrome steering wheel.
“Here’s your coffee,” Ben said pleasantly, handing her a steaming mug. He headed around the pine desk and sat in a high-backed swivel chair.
He had an ease about him, which surprised Rosie. And he wasn’t dressed in a stuffy suit—the way lawyers in the movies dressed—but in slacks and a light pullover. The sweater’s blue-and-smoke diamond pattern complemented his brown hair, a café au lait color, and his blue eyes. Maybe his office hadn’t settled on a style, but he definitely had one. And although she’d tried to ignore it, his style had a sexy edge. A slow, feverish heat tickled her insides.
“Thank you,” she croaked, wishing her voice would behave. Forget the voice—she wished her body would behave! She quickly diverted her attention to the graphic on the cup and stared at James Dean, a cigarette dangling from his lips, slouched in front of the marquee Rebel Without a Cause. Did Ben Taylor think the image of some studly movie star would mollify her? At the very least, he should have picked her a cup that didn’t have cars drag racing in the background. If she looked closely enough, she’d probably find one of the cars sneaking up on a parking space, too.
“My, uh, interior decorator got me these,” he explained, catching her reaction. “It’s a set of mugs called the Golden Age of Hollywood…from my, uh, decorator’s Tinseltown theme era. I prefer to use my china for guests, but it appears my receptionist took them home for a party….” His voice trailed off as he cast a tired gaze around the room, stopping on a framed poster of Jimmy Stewart under the title Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
He seemed preoccupied with Jimmy Stewart, so Rosie took a sip of James Dean, nearly groaning as the sweet hot liquid warmed her mouth. That was one of the problems of being perpetually late. She never had the time to savor something as toe-tinglingly delightful as a great cup of java. She closed her eyes, inhaling the roasted scent, savoring the moment. “This is delicious,” she murmured.
When she opened her eyes, Ben was staring at her with a twinkle in his. “Appreciate your enjoyment,” he said, his voice dropping to a husky register.
Their gazes locked for a long moment. Rosie’s heart hammered so hard, she swore the sound must be echoing off the walls. She gripped the cup, not wanting it to slip out of her suddenly moist palms. Minutes ago, he’d simply been ILITIG8. Now he was a powerful, exciting presence that unnerved her body and ignited her libido.
She wanted to kick herself. She wasn’t here to enjoy herself, but to be angry. To demand her rights! “Is that what you lawyers do?” she began, breaking the charged silence. At least her voice was behaving better—it wasn’t croaking anymore. “Do you wear people down with coffee and movie stars so they forget what they’re fighting for?”
“Movie stars?” He looked perplexed. “What are they fighting for?”
She casually wiped one moistened palm against her skirt. “You stole my parking space.”
“Stole it?” he repeated. He motioned in the general direction of north. “The space behind the stairs, next to the back entrance?”
She leveled him her sternest look. “Right.”
“Wrong.” Cocking an eyebrow, he took a swig from his mug, decorated with a sloe-eyed Marlene Dietrich in a top hat. Lowering his drink, she swore he flinched when he looked at the movie title over Marlene’s head, Blonde Venus. He plunked down the mug, too hard, and opened his desk drawer. “Yesterday I paid the monthly rental fee for the space my car is currently occupying.”
She blinked, surprised. “Yesterday? So did I.”
“Perhaps you paid for another parking space,” he suggested, rummaging through the drawer.
“No, that’s my space.”
He held up a piece of paper. “Here’s my receipt. Do you have yours?”
“Somewhere. At home.” Probably in the pile of paper on the edge of her dresser. Or maybe in the pile of paper in the fruit basket that hung in her kitchen. “Yes,” she said. In some pile.
He handed her the piece of paper. “I believe this has all the pertinent information.”
Pertinent. Trust a lawyer to not simply say “information.” As though “pertinent information” gave it an extra distinction. She read the handwritten receipt, upon which was typed his name, yesterday’s date and the number C1001.
“C1001.