appearance.
The woman’s own attire consisted of shorts that showed off her long legs and a crisply pressed blouse with one too many buttons left open to display an ample amount of cleavage. Obviously Bobby did not stress professional decorum, or maybe at a yacht center, this was the appropriate uniform, Jenna concluded. She was probably the one who was seriously overdressed…or had been when she’d left her car, anyway.
“Never?” she echoed, still certain that she had to be missing something.
“Not once in the year I’ve worked for him,” the woman said. “Are you sure he said to be here at ten?”
“Oh, I am very sure he said ten,” Jenna said, gritting her teeth. Her temper, which she usually worked really, really hard to contain, began to simmer. “Are you saying there has never been one single occasion when he’s been here before eleven?”
“Not that I can recall,” the woman said blithely. “He works late at night. Besides, he’s just not a morning person. Believe me, you don’t want to see him at this hour. In fact, if you’d like a little advice, I’d suggest you come back around two. He’s pretty cheerful by then, especially if the reservations are up for dinner.”
“Look…what’s your name?”
“Maggie.”
“Okay, Maggie, here’s the thing. I saw Mr. Spencer yesterday. He told me to be here at ten. He made a really big deal about it. My car broke down, but I busted my butt to be on time. Could you get on that phone and track him down and tell him that I’m here and getting more aggravated by the minute that he’s not?”
Maggie grinned. “You really want me to tell him that?”
Jenna sighed. “Okay, you can leave out the part about my attitude. Just try to hurry him along. I need to get back to Baltimore. I hadn’t intended to stay overnight in the first place.” In fact, she’d planned to be sitting cheerfully at her desk this morning with a contract in hand. Obviously she’d been overly optimistic about her powers of persuasion.
“Maybe you could think of this little delay as a blessing in disguise,” Maggie suggested. Then she added tactfully, “You know, and use the time to kind of put yourself back together. Not that appearances are everything, but you look kinda like you tangled with a wrestler or something. I’ve got a sewing kit right here I could loan you.”
Jenna stared at her blankly. “A sewing kit?”
“Your skirt,” Maggie said, then gestured. “And your jacket.”
Jenna looked down. The slit in her skirt now extended almost to the waistband. Any movement, she concluded with a horrified stare, revealed way too much of her lower anatomy. Two buttons on her jacket were hanging by threads, which left a gaping space across her chest featuring an even more ample display of skin and lace than Maggie herself was sharing with the world. No wonder she’d encountered a series of astounded stares and heard several cars skid to a stop en route to the yacht center. She was lucky that brother of Bobby’s hadn’t come along to arrest her for indecent exposure.
“Oh, God,” she murmured, collapsing into a chair with a heartfelt moan.
“Now don’t get upset,” Maggie said, bouncing up at once. She was as refreshingly eager as an accommodating kid as she rummaged in her desk. “Here’s the sewing kit.” She glanced worriedly from the array of tiny spools of thread to Jenna’s outfit, then grabbed the stapler. “Come with me. We’ll have you fixed up in no time. It might not be pretty, but you will be decent.”
“What if the phone starts ringing or Mr. Spencer comes while you’re away from your desk?” Jenna said as she dragged herself out of the chair.
“Nobody important calls in the morning,” Maggie assured her. “They all know how Bobby is. And you don’t need to worry about him, either. He’s a sweetie once he’s had his coffee. You should see him. It’s like this ritual the way he grinds the beans, then hovers over it as it brews. It’s a little compulsive, if you ask me, but the coffee is way better than the instant kind I make at home. Anyway, once he’s had his first cup, he’s a doll.”
“Really?” Jenna regarded her skeptically as Maggie led the way into a nearby bathroom. Jenna stripped off her skirt and jacket and they went to work with needle, thread and stapler.
“Oh, sure. Everyone knows that,” Maggie said. “Everybody in town loves Bobby. Well, except for the mayor, but he thinks Bobby is a threat to his power. As if Bobby would ever want that job. He has all the power he needs just being a Spencer. Did you know that his ancestors founded this town? They came over from Jamestown. Not that Bobby flaunts that. I think it embarrasses him when I tell people, but I think it’s just so cool. People should know, don’t you think?”
“You admire him?” Jenna concluded.
“What’s not to admire? He’s nice. He’s gorgeous. He works hard. He’s from a great family.”
Since Maggie was a young, attractive woman with no wedding band on her finger, Jenna asked, “Are you more than his secretary?”
“You mean like a one-woman cheerleading squad or something?” Maggie asked, then paled. “Or do you mean is there something going on romantically between us? Good grief, no.” She paused to consider the idea. “He’s kind of sexy, I suppose. That earring makes him look like a pirate. But he’s way older than me.”
“He can’t be more than thirty,” Jenna pointed out.
“Twenty-eight, actually, but I’m only nineteen, and I’m not going to get seriously involved with anyone for years and years—and then it won’t be with Bobby Spencer.”
More curious than she ought to be, Jenna asked, “Why not, especially if he’s such a paragon?”
“Because we’re friends,” Maggie said simply. “He treats me like a kid sister. Heck, he used to baby-sit my brother and me.”
“And you’ve never had a crush on him? Not even a little one?”
“No way,” Maggie claimed emphatically. “He’s really nice, if you know what I mean. I want a man with more of an edge. A guy who’s a little dangerous.” Her expression turned dreamy.
“Trust me, dangerous is highly overrated,” Jenna told her. “Nice is a better alternative.”
Maggie’s gaze narrowed and her expression turned thoughtful. “So, what do you think of Bobby? I heard about the commotion at his house yesterday. I would have given anything to be there to see his face.”
“Actually, he looked a little ticked,” Jenna confided as Maggie stitched and stapled her skirt back together, while Jenna herself worked on the buttons on her jacket. The designer suit looked as if it had been pieced together by drunken elves.
Maggie’s expression brightened at Jenna’s description of Bobby’s reaction. “To tell you the truth, that’s a good thing,” she declared. “We’ve all been saying for a long time now that somebody needs to come along and shake up that man’s life. He’s in a rut, emotionally speaking, that is. Not that he listens to me. He just rolls his eyes and walks away as if a kid my age couldn’t possibly have anything intelligent to say about love.”
Jenna didn’t give
