was glad to be starting a new project today, she decided as she circled the full parking lot searching for a vacant space, despite the fact that someone from the Bentley Group was arriving this afternoon to offer tips on the kind of dessert they were looking for. Working with a suit looking over her shoulder didn’t rank high on her list, but if Bentley signed for a new dessert, Edmund Blythe had promised her a very handsome bonus, so she aimed to please. Plus, a new face would take her mind off her after-hours manhunting mission. Her nerve was dwindling rapidly.
Through thrashing windshield wipers, she spotted one wide parking space on the end of a row and headed toward it. Cursing the van’s absence of power steering, Piper started turning well before the spot to leverage a good angle. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small black sports car dart around the corner and wheel deftly into the spot. Piper slammed on the brake, bouncing her forehead against the unforgiving steering wheel and biting her tongue. Pain exploded in her sinuses while stars floated behind her eyes. And she had the vaguest thought that the cut in her mouth would affect her tasting abilities for the day. Damn pushy salesmen! They bombarded the plant daily, trying to coax Edmund Blythe into using their branded ingredients in the desserts produced on the line.
She pressed her hands against her forehead, blinking back involuntary tears. A low thumping noise invaded her senses and she realized someone was knocking on her window. Loath to move her pounding head, Piper glanced up slowly to see a man standing outside beneath an umbrella, peering in at her. He wiped away the rain on the glass, then yelled, “Are you all right?”
Her first instinct was to fling open the door and send the stranger sprawling, but her head hurt so much, she could only nod. He knocked again and motioned for her to lower the window. She cranked down the glass gingerly, giving him the same two inches she’d allowed Lenny this morning.
However, if she hadn’t been so angry, she would have appreciated the fact that the stranger was a measurable improvement over Lenny. His dark hair was cleanly shorn and he was wearing a shirt—a dress shirt, no less—and a tie, which was reason enough for pause in these parts. His clear eyes were the color of the rain dripping from his umbrella and topped with dark eyebrows, which were drawn into a vee. “Are you all right?” he demanded again.
Furious at her physical response to the nitwit, she swallowed a mouthful of blood and narrowed her eyes at him. “You,” she said thickly, “are a menace.”
The man’s eyebrows shot up and he pulled back a few inches. “Me?” he sputtered. “What about you? Don’t you know you’re supposed to have your lights on when it’s raining?”
Piper licked her lips, testing her tongue. “I didn’t expect,” she said, her voice escalating with each word, “anyone to be driving like a maniac in the parking lot!” She winced at the pain and exhaled.
“It’s a good thing you had your seat belt on,” he snapped.
“It’s a good thing I’m not carrying a gun,” Piper returned.
He scowled, gesturing. “Are you all right or aren’t you?”
“I’ll live,” she muttered, fingering the goose egg fast forming on her forehead.
“Look, give me a minute to move my car,” he said. “You can have the parking space.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” she said dryly.
“I didn’t see you,” he said tersely, “or I would have gladly let you have the spot.” He strode toward his car, shielded by the umbrella. His movements were jerky as he unlocked the door and lowered himself inside. Within a few seconds, he had backed out of the spot and disappeared around the corner.
Piper eased into the space, her heart still racing from the encounter. After she turned off the engine, she leaned forward and rolled her eyes up at the sky, hoping for a few minutes’ reprieve to make the dash into the building. When none seemed forthcoming, she fished a plastic grocery bag out of the glove box. After tying the handles under her chin, she took a deep breath, then shot out of the door into the unrelenting cloudburst.
She didn’t make it far. Her pumps didn’t have the same grip as her trusty clogs. One second she was jumping puddles, the next she was flat on her back on the pavement, completely winded and half-submerged, her head held out of the water, she suspected, by the knot rising swiftly on her crown. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain. Mercifully the rain suddenly stopped.
“You’re accident prone,” a male voice said above her.
Piper opened her eyes slowly to see the salesman kneeling over her, his umbrella providing the imagined lapse in the downpour. She considered the depth of the puddle—surely drowning would be less painful than dying of humiliation.
“Are you all right?” He grasped her arm and pulled her to her soggy feet, but she felt off balance and leaned heavily on his arm.
“I should have let you keep the parking spot,” she murmured, still a little fuzzy, and very, very wet. Water streamed off her clothes, which were seemingly vacuum-packed to her backside.
“Do you feel well enough to walk?” he asked, his breath fanning her face as they huddled under the umbrella.
Piper conjured up a smirk. “What are my options?”
“I could carry you,” he said simply, one side of his mouth drawing up into a lopsided smile.
Her heart lodged near her throat at the prospect and time stood still for an instant. His gaze locked with hers and Piper swallowed painfully. They might have been captured in their own little snow globe, separated from the rest of the world by some transparent barrier. Rain drummed on the umbrella and water ran around their feet. Piper’s tongue felt thick, but she wasn’t sure if it was swollen from biting herself or if she’d suffered brain damage from the combined knocks to her head.
“N-no,” she stammered. She would already be the laughingstock when she walked into her office—she’d never live it down if she arrived high in the arms of a stranger. “I’ll walk.”
“That might be difficult.” He shifted and fighting a smile, he held up the heel to one of her pumps.
Her heart sank. “I’ll crawl,” she amended.
“Come on,” he urged, turning her toward the building. “I owe you one.”
“You certainly do,” Piper said briskly, but his throaty chuckle relaxed her slightly. He bore more of her weight than she did as they made their way across the short walkway and up a sweeping set of limestone steps. Piper’s vital signs went haywire and she fluctuated between wanting the encounter to end and wishing for another lap around the grounds on the arm of this man.
His driving skills aside, this was a man worth hunting. Tall, solidly built from what she could see, nice dresser. Piper frowned. He obviously was not from Mudville—hmm, that could be a problem. Still, she was thrilled that she’d managed to stumble over such a prize specimen so early in her hunt. Phrases from her grandmother’s guide popped into her head and she searched for something brilliant to say that would erase the impression she’d given him.
But her romantic musings came to a screeching halt when she glanced down at his left hand. Winking back at her, mocking her from his third finger was a very gold, very sparkly, very substantial-looking wedding band.
Her quarry had been bagged by someone else.
Piper
