The Cupcake Queen. Patricia Coughlin

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СКАЧАТЬ and swiveled around to hang up the phone and grab the day’s schedule book.

      “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, plastering her best receptionist smile in place as she looked up—way up—and straight into a pair of dark, deep-set gray eyes she’d seen only once before and would not soon forget.

      “Because he grabbed my butt,” she’d told her mother. “Because the other men all laughed,” she’d told her. What she hadn’t told her was how the man hadn’t even flinched when she tossed the coffee at him, and how his dark, unsmiling gaze had caught and held hers for what seemed like forever, until it was somehow understood between them that he was good and ready to look away, and let her do the same. She also hadn’t mentioned how, with the front of his shirt and faded jeans soaked with coffee, he had paid for his breakfast, laid a five-dollar tip on the table and walked out…all without saying a word.

      His absolute control had unsettled her in a way his insolence couldn’t possibly. She was an old hand at dealing with unwanted male attention. She was not, however, accustomed to allowing a man to throw her off balance. And she didn’t like it. The fact that he was some hick from Danby made it more maddening. As soon as she’d handed in her apron, she had put him out of her mind. Or tried to at least.

      “Well, well,” he murmured finally, the sardonic slant of his mouth leaving no doubt he remembered their last meeting as vividly as she did.

      How much of her phone conversation had he overheard? Probably too much, given her recent streak of things going from bad to worse. She waited for him to speak first, but he was preoccupied with studying her, his hooded gaze cool and utterly unfathomable. The rest of him, on the other hand, was easy to read.

      He was a big man, not heavy, just big—tall and broad-shouldered and solidly muscled. His face was suntanned, suggesting he worked outdoors. His scraped knuckles and rough hands told Olivia he worked with those hands and worked hard. A glance at the dark-brown hair curling around his ears and collar and she knew there were lots of things he’d rather do with his time than sit in a barber’s chair. She had a hunch he didn’t like sitting around of any kind.

      His mouth was generous enough to be intriguing, his cheekbones high, his jaw solid…and stubborn. She supposed the town’s female population considered him quite handsome, in that primitive, diamond-in-the-rough way some women found irresistible. Personally, she’d never understood the appeal of a “fixer-upper,” in houses or men.

      What she found most revealing about him, however, was something more subtle than the rest. Actually, it was two things. The way he moved and the way he was still. This, she decided, was a man totally and unmistakably at ease in his own skin. It was the sort of intrinsic confidence you couldn’t buy. If you could, most of the men she knew would have it. It also wasn’t easily cultivated. Few people cared to turn over rocks inside themselves; fewer still could come to terms with what they were and were not.

      Of course, the fact that this particular man was so self-accepting indicated he was also an appallingly bad judge of character.

      While she was taking stock of him, he continued to look at her long and hard. Knock yourself out, thought Olivia, buoyed by her own rush of confidence. This was familiar ground. Stares and admiring male glances were a fact of life. Also a fact of life was her skill at keeping hormone-driven responses in check, even when the man had other ideas.

      Another of her father’s favorite quotes was “Use the gifts God gave you.” It wasn’t too long after puberty struck that she figured out her greatest God-given gift was the one she came face-to-face with when she looked in a mirror. It was a little while before she was comfortable with the ardent attention it brought her, and longer still until she claimed the power that was part of the package. Once she had, beauty became her weapon of choice, and through trial and error she’d come to wield it with finesse.

      If this small-town Don Juan thought he could rattle her twice in one lifetime, he was sorely mistaken.

      “What is it with you, lady?” he asked, when he appeared to have looked his fill at last. His tone was cordial, gentle even, but his voice was deep, the gravelly kind of deep that could give a woman goose bumps if she let it. “Are you flat-out crazy?”

      “What makes you ask?” she countered coolly.

      “Oh, I don’t know, something about you dumping coffee on strangers and wanting to walk a plank naked.”

      “Oh, that. Yes, I’m flat-out crazy.”

      Their eyes met. He might have a bigger Adam’s apple than she did, but she had a few assets of her own—a sub-Arctic tone and a dismissive gaze that had cut the machismo out from under inebriated frat boys and philandering Fortune 500 executives alike. The combination had never failed her.

      Until now.

      For the first time in her life she brought it to bear full force on a man and nothing happened. No stuttering or shifting of feet, and not so much as a flicker of embarrassment.

      Concentrate, she told herself, allowing her lips to curve into a subtly amused smile. Next to public rejection, men most hated being laughed at.

      “Now it’s my turn to ask you a question,” she said. “Do you cop a feel off every waitress who slaps a $1.99 special in front of you? Or is it only crazy ladies you can’t keep your hands off?”

      First he laughed. Then he stepped around the chesthigh counter separating the entry and office, and planted his palms in the center of her desk. An ancient leather bomber jacket hung open over his black sweater and jeans. He was also sporting several days’ black stubble, and she would bet an extra week in Danby that if she bothered to check out his feet, she’d see some battered member of the boot family. The complete “bad boy” ensemble. Generations of self-proclaimed rebels had adopted it to affect a menacing, misunderstood look, with an undercurrent of raw sexuality.

      And for good reason, she acknowledged to herself. It worked. As he continued to lean forward slowly, Olivia subdued the urge to wheel her chair out of reach.

      “I think I’ll keep you guessing about my taste in women,” he said, his too deep voice now also too close. “I will tell you this much. If I ever do decide to put my hands on you, I’ll make damn sure you know who it is touching you. I’m scared as hell you’ll get spooked again and hurl something really lethal at me.”

      Funny, he didn’t look scared. He looked pretty damned amused, Olivia decided, bristling. “Let’s get something straight. I didn’t throw coffee at you because I was spooked. The truth is, I wasn’t even upset,” she added, shrugging. “It was strictly a matter of principle.”

      “Yeah?” The corners of his wide mouth curled upward. “What principle is that?”

      “The one that says a man keeps his hands to himself unless I invite him to do otherwise.”

      His grin became full-blown. “Unless? Or until? Either way, lady, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

      “Lucky me,” she murmured, taking the hand he extended to seal the bargain. It wouldn’t have surprised her in the least if he turned out to be a fast-fingered Harry as well as a groper. The tags were from her college days, when she and a small group of close friends would pigeonhole a man according to his most impressive—or offensive—quality. Instead of prolonging the handshake, however, or rubbing a finger suggestively against her palm, he shook her hand in crisp, businesslike fashion and let go.

      It was a little like being dismissed СКАЧАТЬ