had been handled by the fire extinguisher she’d had the presence of mind to keep in her cupboard. Cole’s baby-sitter, a woman who thrived on punctuality and took pride in being early, was late. To top it off, her less than reliable car decided that it’d had enough of the distributor cap—the one her mechanic had put in just last month—and burned a hole through it.
Needless to say, that left her without a means of transportation to use in order to get to her downtown office. There wasn’t even time to see about getting the evil car towed to her mechanic’s shop. Telling herself she wasn’t going to have a nervous breakdown, she just left the vehicle parked in the carport and hurried back to her apartment to call a taxi.
When she’d arrived at her office, there were a pile of messages already on her desk, threatening to breed if left unread. And her appointments were backing up.
On mornings like this that life of leisure her mother kept advocating began to sound awfully tempting.
Still waiting for the aspirins to kick in and do their magic, Jenny was only one third through her pile of messages and in between the battalion of clients when the secretary she shared with the other attorneys who made up Advocate Aid, Inc.—a title she’d come up with because it was short and to the point, unlike her life—called out across the communal space they all shared.
“Line three’s for you, Jenny.”
Jenny cringed. She felt as if an anvil had just been dropped on top of her head. There was such a thing as physically and mentally reaching a limit and she had well surpassed hers. She’d stayed up last night to work on the Ortiz case, but then one of Cole’s nightmares had brought her rushing to his side. She’d remained there, consoling him, until he’d fallen asleep.
Unfortunately, so had she.
Slumbering in Cole’s undersized junior bed while assuming a position made popular by early Christian martyrs had given her a phenomenal crick in her neck. One that refused to go away even when bombarded with an extra three minutes worth of hot water in the shower.
She rubbed it now, telling herself that this, too, shall pass, as she called back, “Tell them I died.”
“Really?”
She’d forgotten that Betty was a woman who took you at your word. Literally. She was completely devoid of any sense of humor, droll or otherwise.
“No,” Jenny sighed, “not really.”
Rotating her neck from side to side, she picked up the receiver. As she placed it to her ear, Jenny struggled with the sinking feeling that she was going to regret not sticking to her original instruction.
Trying to sound as cheerful as she could under the circumstances, she said, “Hello, this is Jennifer Hall.”
“Mother called me last night.”
Tension temporarily slid out of her body as she recognized her brother’s voice. Jordan represented a moment’s respite from her otherwise miserable day. “My condolences.”
She heard him chuckle before he continued. “She said that you were chairing that fund-raising bachelor auction again.”
Undoubtedly her mother had probably said a lot of other things, as well, about the situation, bemoaning the fact that once again, the daughter she’d raised for great things and adoring men was once more on the sidelines. Camille in her deathbed scene definitely had nothing on her mother. Mingling amid men had always come easy for her mother. The woman didn’t understand that not everyone was granted that gift.
“Those that can, do. Those that can’t, auction,” Jenny replied glibly.
Her brother surprised her with the serious note in his voice. “Don’t knock yourself down, Jenny. The only reason you’re not out there every night is because you choose not to be.”
“Right.” Never mind the fact that she was plain, she thought, and that no one without some grievance to file would give her the time of day, much less the time of her life.
The natives along the wall were getting restless and she had several people to see before she could leave for court. “Listen, Jordy, I’d love to talk, but—”
He got to the crux of his call, or at least, the beginning of it. “I’ve called to volunteer my services for the auction.”
Again she was surprised. She scribbled her brother’s name on the side of her blotter with a note about the bachelor auction. One thing that went right today. Maybe it would start a trend.
“Fantastic, Jordy. This means I don’t have to badger you.” Although she was only going to turn to him if she couldn’t get anyone else. She knew that this was not high on Jordan’s list of favorite things to do.
“No, but you might have to do a little persuading with the two other candidates I lined up for you.”
That stopped her cold. “Oh?”
Intrigued, she turned her swivel chair away from the lineup against the far wall. She didn’t exactly have time for this now, but she was going to have to make time later. The auction was less than two weeks away and she still needed more bodies to fill the quota. Especially since Emerson Davis just dropped out due to a sudden marriage that no one but the bartender who’d kept refilling Emerson’s glass in the Vegas club saw coming.
Still, she knew when to be cautious. “Exactly who did you ‘line up’ for me?”
“Peter Logan and his brother.” Peter Logan had two brothers as well as two sisters. Jordan paused significantly, as if waiting for a drumroll, before he finally said, “Eric.”
Eric.
Beautiful Eric.
Eric with the soulful brown eyes and thick, luscious brown hair. Eric who still, after all these years, popped up in her dreams just often enough to remind her that she had never quite gotten over that crush she’d had on him all those years ago.
Everyone had an impossible dream. Eric was hers. But dreams, Jenny had learned, did not arbitrarily come true, especially if you did nothing to make them come true. And she, un-swanlike as she was, had kept her distance from Eric Logan. The man was accustomed to drop-dead gorgeous women, a label she knew in her heart would never be applied to her, not even by a myopic, tender-hearted man.
She felt herself growing warm at the mere sound of Eric’s name. She really hoped that a blush wasn’t working its way up her neck to her face, although it probably was, if that look from the man seated against the wall, waiting to speak to her, was any indication.
“Jenny? Are you there?” Jordan asked as the silence stretched out between them.
She cleared her throat, silently calling herself a dunce. “You, um, you talked to them?”
“I talked to Peter. He suggested Eric join us, and thought that an appeal from you might cinch the deal.”
“Appeal to Eric,” she repeated as if in a trance.
“You might.”
And then she laughed. “Yeah, right.”
The next moment, she came
