was waiting when the bus pulled up at her corner the next morning. The weather was a little warmer, and the snow, so unusual in Seattle, was already melting.
Fifteen minutes later Amanda walked through the huge revolving door of the Evergreen Hotel. Its lush Oriental carpets were soft beneath the soles of her shoes, and crystal chandeliers winked overhead, their multicolored reflections blazing in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.
Amanda took the elevator to the third floor, where the hotel’s business offices were. As she was passing through the small reception area, Mindy Simmons hailed her from her desk.
“Mr. Mansfield is sick today,” she said in an undertone. Mindy was small and pretty, with long brown hair and expressive green eyes. “Your desk is buried in messages.”
Amanda went into her office and started dealing with problems. The plumbing in the presidential suite was on the fritz, so she called to make sure Maintenance was on top of the situation. A Mrs. Edman in 1203 suspected one of the maids of stealing her pearl earring, and someone had mixed up some dates at the reception desk—two couples were expecting to occupy the bridal suite on the same night.
It was noon when Amanda finished straightening everything out—Mrs. Edman’s pearl earring had fallen behind the television set, the plumbing in the presidential suite was back in working order and each of the newlywed couples would have rooms to themselves. At Mindy’s suggestion, she and Amanda went to the busy Westlake Mall for lunch, buying salads at one of the fast-food restaurants and taking a table near a window.
“Two more weeks and I start my vacation,” Mindy stated enthusiastically, pouring dressing from a little carton over her salad. “Christmas at Big Mountain. I can hardly wait.”
Amanda would just as soon have skipped Christmas altogether if she could have gotten the rest of the world to go along with the idea, but of course she didn’t say that. “You and Pete will have a great time at the ski resort.”
Mindy was chewing, and she swallowed before answering. “It’s just great of his parents to take us along—we could never have afforded it on our own.”
With a nod, Amanda poked her fork into a cherry tomato.
“What are you doing over the holidays?” Mindy asked.
Amanda forced a smile. “I’m going to be working,” she reminded her friend.
“I know that, but what about a tree and presents and a turkey?”
“I’ll have all those things at my mom and stepdad’s place.”
Mindy, who knew about James and all the dashed hopes he’d left in his wake, looked sympathetic. “You need to meet a new man.”
Amanda bristled a little. “It just so happens that a woman can have a perfectly happy life without a man hanging around.”
Mindy looked doubtful. “Sure,” she said.
“Besides, I met someone just yesterday.”
“Who?”
Amanda concentrated on her salad for several long moments. “His name is Jordan Richards, and—”
“Jordan Richards?” Mindy interrupted excitedly. “Wow! How did you ever manage to meet him?”
A little insulted that Mindy seemed to think Jordan was so far out of her orbit that even meeting him was a feat to get excited about, Amanda frowned. “We were in line together at a bookstore. Do you know him?”
“Not exactly,” Mindy admitted, subsiding a little. “But my father-in-law does. Jordan Richards practically doubled his retirement fund for him, and they’re always writing about him in the financial section of the Sunday paper.”
“I didn’t know you read that section,” Amanda remarked.
“I don’t,” Mindy admitted readily, unwrapping a bread stick. “But we have dinner with my in-laws practically every Sunday, and that’s all Pete and his dad ever talk about. Did he ask you out?”
“Who?”
“Jordan Richards, silly.”
Amanda shook her head. “No, we just had Chinese food together and talked a little.” She deliberately left out the part about how they’d gone to the minitherapy session and the way she’d reacted when Jordan had asked her about James.
Mindy looked disappointed. “Well, he did ask for your number, didn’t he?”
“No. But he knows where I work. If he wants to call, I suppose he will.”
A delighted smile lit Mindy’s face. Positive thinking was an art form with her. “He’ll call. I just know it.”
Amanda grinned. “If he does, I won’t be able to accept the glory—I owe it all to an article I read in Cosmo. I think it was called ‘Big Girls Should Talk to Strangers,’ or something like that.”
Mindy lifted her diet cola in a rousing roast. “Here’s to Jordan Richards and a red-hot romance!”
With a chuckle, Amanda touched her cup to Mindy’s and drank a toast to something that would probably never happen.
Back at the hotel more crises were waiting to be solved, and there was a message on Amanda’s desk, scrawled by the typist who’d filled in for Mindy during lunch. Jordan Richards had called.
A peculiar tightness constricted Amanda’s throat, and a flutter started in the pit of her stomach. Mindy’s toast echoed in her ears: “Here’s to Jordan Richards and a red-hot romance.”
Amanda laid down the message, telling herself she didn’t have time to return the call, then picked it up again. Before she knew it, her finger was punching out the numbers.
“Striner, Striner and Richards,” sang a receptionist’s voice at the other end of the line.
Amanda drew a deep breath, squared her shoulders and exhaled. “This is Amanda Scott,” she said in her most professional voice. “I’m returning a call from Jordan Richards.”
“One moment, please.”
After a series of clicks and buzzes another female voice came on the line. “Jordan Richards’s office. May I help you?”
Again Amanda gave her name. And again she was careful to say she was returning a call that had originated with Jordan.
There was another buzz, then Jordan’s deep, crisp voice saying, “Richards.”
Amanda hadn’t expected a simple thing like the man saying his name to affect her the way it did. It was the strangest sensation to feel dizzy over something like that. She dropped into the swivel chair behind her desk. “Hi. It’s Amanda.”
“Amanda.”
Coming from him, her own name had the same strange impact as his had had.
“How are you?” he asked.
Amanda swallowed.
