Аннотация к произведению Raffling Ryan - Кейси Майклс

She was taking a shower, getting clean.

She was taking a shower, getting clean.

While he was hot, sweaty, dirty and felt pretty much like he’d been hired out to be on a chain gang, not raffled as someone’s dream date. Definitely not appreciated.

And, unfortunately, not very well equipped to look good while he was mucking around doing chores the rest of the male world could probably complete with one hand tied behind their backs.

He had a huge pull in the front of his brand-new designer shirt, a cartoon bandage on his elbow, smears of dirt all over his khaki slacks and it seemed that he’d somehow gotten something green stuck in his hair that Janna hadn’t bothered to tell him about.

He could cheerfully strangle the woman.

What really bothered him, and what he really wished he wouldn’t be considering, or worrying about, was what a really rotten impression he must be making on Janna Monroe.

Not that he liked her…

Raffling Ryan

Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Sally Hawkes, just because.

KASEY MICHAELS,

the New York Times bestselling author of more than two dozen books, divides her creative time between writing contemporary romance and Regency novels. Married and the mother of four, Kasey’s writing has garnered the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Medallion Award and the Romantic Times Magazine’s Best Regency Trophy.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Chapter One

Almira Chandler rode along the Appalachian trails to the sound of birdsong, the wind rippling through the tall trees, and the sound of her own heavy breathing. Three miles, uphill, and then she could coast awhile, as the bike traveled downhill.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, came the sound of voices raised in near whoops. Outlaws about to attack? The end of the world? Somebody knocking on the door to announce that the long-suffering Chandler housekeeper, Mrs. Ballantine, had won some million-dollar sweepstakes?

Almira had little time to reflect, as the door to her ground-floor exercise room flew open, banging hard against the doorstop as Maddy Chandler O’Malley burst into the room, flapping her arms as if about to take flight.

Almira kept pedaling, kept her eyes on the moving screen in front of her that showed she had less than half a mile to go before she could coast. It was, after all, only Maddy. Maddy got excited when one of her roses bloomed. She went into ecstasies when her soufflés didn’t fall—which they never did.

Whatever it was that Maddy had to tell her, it could wait until Almira was on the downhill side of the mountain.

Maddy skidded to a halt in front of her grandmother, waved her hands to get the woman’s attention. When that failed, she did the unthinkable. She turned off the exercise video.

“That’s it, kiddo, you’re out of the will,” Almira gasped breathlessly, her pumping legs slowing down without the incentive in front of her. Incentive like a carrot in front of a donkey, she’d always said, but it worked for her. At seventy, she needed whatever worked for her.

“This can’t wait, Allie,” Maddy told her. “Jessica’s back from the doctor. Remember? She and Matt went today for that sonogram, ultrasound—whatever. You’ll never guess. You’ll never, never ever guess!”

Allie let go of the handlebars and checked her pulse. Calming wonderfully, right on schedule. This bike-riding stuff just might help her heart, along with her calves. Although it was her calves that concerned her, had gotten her on the bike in the first place. Not that Almira Chandler was vain.

Well, maybe just a little. There had been those cosmetic surgeries, hadn’t there? But she had long ago convinced herself that if she was to keep up with her three grandchildren, she couldn’t give in to age and go sit in a corner somewhere, watching soap operas.

“I’d never guess, huh?” Allie said now, stepping off the bicycle and accepting the white terry towel Maddy tossed in her direction. “Let’s see. Twins?”

“Allie! Why are you always doing that?”

It had been a logical assumption, not that Allie wanted to point that out to her youngest granddaughter. She had two guesses otherwise: boy or girl. But Maddy had said she’d never guess. That ruled out any fifty-fifty shots. Besides, Almira was too busy being stunned, from the hot-pink terry band around her forehead, straight down to her designer sneakers. “Twins? Jessica really is carrying twins?”

That was what Maddy had wanted to see—her grandmother flustered. It didn’t happen often, and Maddy wished she’d thought to pick up a camera and bring it into the exercise room with her. “Twins, Allie,” she repeated. “Jess had to drive back here from the doctor’s, because Matt seems to be in shock. Joe’s with them in the other room, fanning poor Matt with the sports section of the morning paper. Oh, and neither one will tell us the sex, although they already know. That’s mean.”

“And Jessica?” Allie asked carefully. She knew this pregnancy hadn’t been planned—had even preceded the late-July marriage ceremony by about two months. Now, in only mid-September, Jessica had been reluctantly wearing maternity clothing, moaning about her weight gain, and swearing she’d be as big as a house before she finally delivered.

Maddy dismissed her sister’s reaction with a wave of her hand. “Oh, her. She’s just so happy that the doctor has upped the amount of weight she can gain. In other words, she copped that last doughnut you were saving until after your ramble through the Appalachians. Ever see someone wearing powdered sugar all over a smile she can’t seem to wipe off her face? Disgusting. Come on, Allie, let’s go congratulate them.”

Allie was already reaching for a robe, and led the way out of the room with Maddy following close behind. “You know, Allie,” Maddy said, “it’s really funny, isn’t it? Jess having babies before me? I thought I wanted them so much, and I do, but Joe and I are having so much fun that we’ve decided to wait awhile, while Jessica is happily learning how to crochet booties. And now? Two for one? Man, am I ever going to have some catching up to do, huh? And Ryan. Not that anyone expects big brother ever to marry.”

“Speak for yourself, darling,” Allie said, then pulled a ticket out of one of her pockets, handing it to Maddy. “Here, read this.”

Maddy looked over the announcement. “‘Date for a Day?”’ She regarded her grandmother, then read more. “It’s for the children’s wing of the hospital. Charity event…bid on the man of your dreams who’ll do your bidding for one entire day…all proceeds go to—Allie! You’ve signed Ryan up for this, haven’t you? Don’t answer me, I can see the answer in your eyes. Omigod! He’s going to have a cow!”

“Nonsense, Maddy,” Allie said, tying the sash of her robe tighter around her slim waist. Almira Chandler, thanks to cosmetic surgeries and an active lifestyle, both physically and mentally, looked twenty years younger than her seventy years…and if doing mischief took years off a person’s life, she’d look even younger.

“I’ve settled you and Joe, haven’t I? Settled Jessica and Matt? Not that I’m expecting miracles, you understand, but if Ryan were just to get off his duff, get out more, I’m sure he’d soon find someone suitable. Even better, he might find someone unsuitable. That’s really who he needs, you know. Someone to get him out of his rut.”

Maddy was still looking at the ticket, still shaking her head. “Maximum security prison will get him out of his rut, Allie. Because he is going to kill you.”

“No.”

“Yes, Ryan,” Allie countered evenly as Ryan stood up from behind his desk and began to pace.

A tall man, taller than the average, he reminded her so much of her late husband that sometimes her heart ached just looking at him. Hair as black as coal, with a tendency to wave, and with the chance of tumbling onto his forehead if only he’d let it grow past a near military shortness. His grandfather’s same brilliant green eyes, sparkling with intelligence but, alas, rarely with mischief. Already thirty-three, Ryan was heading toward a settled, boring middle age.

At least he would be, if Allie left him alone, which she wasn’t about to do.

He still held the ticket, and stabbed at it with the index finger of his other hand. “This—this is ridiculous. Auctioning off bachelors to giggly women? How much money could anything like this raise, anyway?”

“Thirty-six thousand dollars last year, I understand, with only fifty bachelors. They outfitted a whole new playroom for the in-patient children. This year there will be at least sixty, including you, darling,” Allie slid in reasonably. “I believe now they want to be able to hire a full-time play activities director for the unit. It’s for the children, Ryan. You can’t say no.”

“I can’t say no because you’ve already signed me up!” He mashed the ticket into a ball and threw it into the wastebasket. Thanks to his high school basketball days, he had a pretty good shot, and rarely missed what he aimed at. “Okay, so I’ll send a donation instead. It’s a good project. But that’s it. Who do I call? Who’s in charge?”

“Marcia Hyatt,” Allie mumbled, speaking into her own chest as she bowed her head. It was either that or laugh out loud, which probably would get her in trouble with her only grandson.

“Who? Marcia? Did you say Marcia?” If Ryan had something else to throw, he’d have whipped it hard against the wall. “Of all the people…”

“That was years ago, Ryan, and you were never suited for each other. I certainly knew that. Besides, it would take a pretty big ego to think that she’s still pining for you all these years later. And I don’t think Marcia Hyatt is the pining type. Barracudas don’t pine. They attack. Oh, dear. That would be unfortunate, wouldn’t it? Are you sure you want to back out, darling? It might be dangerous.”

Ryan bent his head, used both hands to rub at the back of his neck. “I can’t call her. She’d know I was backing out over some personal reason and, knowing her, think I was backing out in case she’d bid on me. Damn it, Allie, I’m stuck, and you know I’m stuck.”

Allie delicately coughed into her hand, covering her near purr of satisfaction. “Anyone would think I was hiring you out for hard labor in some coal mine. It’s a date, darling. Wine and dine some woman for a single day, for a good cause. What could go wrong?”

Everything was going wrong.

From the moment Ryan showed up at Allen Country Club the night of the auction, everything had gone from bad, to worse, to damn near miserable.

Marcia had met him at the door, kissing both his cheeks as she stuck a paper badge to his tuxedo jacket touting him to be Hunk Number 22, and told him to “Circulate, darling, circulate, and whip the ladies into a bidding frenzy. Too bad that tux doesn’t show your butt. Charlie Armstrong, also on the tux list, went against the rules and wore jeans to show his, and a sorrier choice of attire I’ve never seen. Bruce Springsteen he isn’t! We’ll be lucky to get two hundred dollars for that idiot. But you,” she said, patting his cheek, “well, we’re expecting some big money for you. You look so…so James Bond. I knew you would, when I added your name to the tuxedo list.”

Ryan knew he must have responded to Marcia’s near monologue, but he would never be quite sure what he said as he smiled and moved away from the foyer, into the large ballroom already crowded with “Hunks” and their prospective bidders.

The country club had huge facilities, but the auction had been limited to the barnlike addition to the clubhouse, a huge, parquet-floored ballroom with dark, open-beamed ceilings and a stone fireplace you could roast two pigs in at the same time, with room left over for a small cow.

The chandeliers that hung from the rafters had been dimmed considerably, throwing the corners of the room into shadow and creating a more intimate atmosphere. If you were into atmosphere and, at least for tonight, Ryan most certainly was not. He was too busy reminding himself of the location of all the exits.

There were other tuxedos sprinkled throughout the crowd, he saw, as well as men dressed in casual khakis and golf shirts, some even with cardigans draped over their shoulders, the sleeves tied across their chests—a “look” Ryan had always considered too studied to be really “casual.” There were men in jeans and cowboy shirts, a few in tennis whites and carrying rackets.

He even saw one guy walk by in nothing but swim trunks and thongs, a towel draped around his shoulders—and looking about as “casual” as the too deliberately casual khaki men. He also looked as if the self-adhesive paper badge pressed to his bare chest proclaiming him as Hunk Number 47 was playing hell with his few chest hairs. Which served him right, in Ryan’s opinion.

Some of the men looked embarrassed. But the majority, Lord help them, seemed to be enjoying themselves very much.

Pitiful. Absolutely pitiful. He was ashamed of his own gender.

Within moments Ryan began feeling like a side of beef, as giggling women circled him, writing down his number, and then moving on. His mouth having suddenly gone as dry as a desert, he snagged a glass of wine from a passing waiter and drank it down in one gulp, then looked for a place to hide the glass, and himself, until his number was called.

As he smiled and excused himself through the crowd, he saw the temporary construction at one end of the ballroom and his knees nearly crumpled. A runway. For God’s sake—a runway.

He couldn’t believe it. He was going to have to walk down that runway? Probably while Marcia Hyatt read some drivel from a card about how rich and eligible he was.

How did Miss America contestants stand it?

“Hi. You’re one of the bachelors, aren’t you? I think this is where I’m supposed to say hubba-hubba, and act like some brainless twit or sex-starved career woman on the prowl for fresh meat. You won’t mind if I ask you where you got that glass of wine instead, would you? I think my tongue is soon going to be stuck to the roof of my mouth.”

And not a moment too soon, Ryan thought, sighing, as the near-mocking female voice finally came to a halt. Then he turned to look at the woman who’d spoken to him, surprised to see that she was taller than most women of his acquaintance, a good five feet nine in her stocking feet, he decided.

But that wasn’t the only thing she didn’t have in common with the women he knew, the women he occasionally dated, less frequently bedded.

For one thing, she didn’t seem to have a clue as to who he was—or care, for that matter. That in itself was unusual.

And then there was the matter of her clothes. He guessed they were clothes. Either that, or she had grabbed a tablecloth off a restaurant table and wrapped it around her as a skirt on her way over here. Combined with a lemon-color ribbed sweater, her wildly flowered skirt wrapped around her like a sarong, and hung nearly to the tops of her shoes…which were brown boots. Hiking boots, it looked like. Maybe combat boots. No. That couldn’t be. Combat boots? Boots, he finally noticed, which sort of matched the brown knapsack hung over one shoulder.

Her hair was dark red as a ripe persimmon, and curled wildly around her head, framing her huge brown eyes and making her creamy white skin look even more pale. The woman wasn’t even wearing lipstick, although her lips were naturally pink…and full…and looked great against her teeth as she smiled…as she was smiling now.

Whoa! Hold it! She’s just different, that’s all. Way different. Too different. Practically a late-night test pattern for a color television.

“I snagged this from a passing waiter,” he said at last, once he’d realized he was staring. And she’d known it, he could tell from the smile on her face, the sparkle in her eyes. “If you want, I could go look for him?”

“No, that’s all right. I’d really rather have a soda, anyway,” she answered, then stuck out her hand. “It’s Janna. Janna Monroe. And you’re…?”

“Ryan Chandler,” he answered, automatically taking her hand in his, surprised by the firmness of her grip. “Are you here for the auction?”

Her eyes were doing it again. Twinkling. “Yep,” she said, retrieving her hand, which he had somehow forgotten to let go. “I’m here looking for a good man. Are you a good man? It’s hard to tell, especially as you really look like you’re hunting for the nearest way out and a quick run for the border.”

Ryan smiled in spite of himself. “That obvious, huh? The truth is—” and why he was telling her the truth he’d never understand “—my grandmother set me up…signed me up, that is. But it is for a good cause.”

“Well, that’s good. Getting roped into it is understandable. Volunteering to be auctioned off like a prize horse or something is…well, it’s sorta weird, don’t you think?”

Charlie Armstrong passed by at that particular moment, dressed in jeans as Marcia had said. What she hadn’t said was that he was also wearing a homespun white shirt, a black leather vest, cowboy boots and a bright-white ten-gallon hat. And if that wasn’t a hunk of chew ballooning out the side of his cheek, Ryan was a monkey’s uncle. Especially since good old Charlie took that moment to spit into the paper cup he carried with him.

He wore the number 21 on his vest.

Charlie Armstrong was, in “real life,” a pediatrician, and fifty-five if he was a day, though he looked sixty. But tonight? Tonight he was Kid Armstrong, King of the West, chewing tobacco, wearing too tight jeans, middle-aged paunch and all.

It was pitiful. And sort of funny.

Ryan looked back at Janna as Charlie sashayed through the crowd, to see her rolling her eyes and laughing in pure delight. “I don’t know. Do you think I should bid on him?”

“It would be a pity bid, to hear the committee chair’s opinion,” Ryan said, then was immediately embarrassed for himself. Still, this wasn’t exactly cutting up Charlie, or cutting him down. It was just a little good clean fun in the midst of a night that promised to be less than enjoyable. “He’s really a good guy, you know. His wife left him two years ago, and I think he’s just starting to get out and about again.”

“And doing it with a real flair,” Janna added, giggling some more. “Well, I’ve got to move on. I’m looking over all the tall ones, you understand.”

“Tall ones?” Ryan repeated, but Janna Monroe was already gone, disappearing into the crowd, although he could still see her flaming red head as she moved along. Then he shrugged. She was probably looking for the tall ones because she was tall herself. She probably wanted a man of some size, for dancing, for whatever.

Whatever?

Ryan grabbed another glass of wine from a passing waiter. What would be whatever?

He reluctantly went off in search of Marcia, and a list of the rules.

Ryan stood behind a portable curtain, conjuring up tortures for his grandmother. Date for a Day?

That might have been the original name, but Allie had forgotten to tell him that name had been changed. The auction was now dubbed Yours for a Day, and the possibilities that opened up to inventive minds had packed the ballroom.

There were rules, of course, and he’d found a listing of them in the foyer, on the registration table. One rule, actually. It just said that everything had to be “mutual.”

Now, to define mutual. Mostly, to define everything.

He’d tell his grandmother he thought he saw a wrinkle next to her nose the next time she smiled. Yeah. That would do it. Allie would be looking in mirrors for days, trying to see that same wrinkle, and it would serve her right, considering it was her mission in life these days to do everything necessary not to look like anyone’s soon-to-be great-grandmother.

But, for right now, all Ryan wanted to do was get out of here. Get up on the runway, listen to himself be auctioned off, and get out of here. He was number 22, and there were sixty-three bachelors. Did he really have to stay after his number was called?

Yeah, and like whose team of wild horses was going to keep him here?

Once the bidding started, it became pretty heated a few times, especially when the band had broken into Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?,” and Bob Rogers, one of the senior partners in the prestigious Rogers and Whitcomb Securities Inc., no less, had begun stripping off his artfully draped beige sweater and wiggling his pelvis at the women. Hit heartthrob Ricky Martin comes to Allentown, complete with banker-striped tie. Scary, that’s what it was. Positively scary.

Okay, so Ryan had laughed along with everyone else, but Bob had pulled in nearly one thousand dollars for the children’s wing. A person could forgive a lot of inane nonsense for one thousand bucks, right?

There had been a short intermission, during which the ladies had nibbled on small cakes and tea as they sharpened their bidding skills for the next round, and now the second bidding session was about to start.

Marcia, who had indeed taken on the role of master of ceremonies with a will—and a little more verve than necessary, to Ryan’s mind—was counting heads behind the curtain, making sure all of the second round of bachelors had shown up. She spied Ryan, winked at him, and whispered dangerously, “You’re mine, Chandler,” before heading back out to the microphone; a statement that cheered Ryan not a bit.

“Good luck, Charlie!” other bachelors called out as Charlie Armstrong’s number was called and the pediatrician hiked up his jeans, tried to rearrange his paunch somewhere closer to his chest, and stepped through the opening in the curtain.

He was met by a roar of approval and the band’s vocal rendition of Garth Brooks’s fast-paced “Something with a Ring to It.”

The crowd, as the saying goes, went wild.

And the bidding only got hotter when Charlie began singing along to the music.

“Two hundred!”

“Three-fifty!”

“Six! Six!”

“One…thousand…dollars.”

Ryan raised his eyes toward the ceiling, running that last, definitely authoritative voice through his head, processing it, and then pushed through the crowd of bachelors peeping through the curtain to take a look for himself.

He’d been right. Good Lord, he’d been right. There she was, his grandmother, standing right at the end of the runway, waving her checkbook in the air.

“Going…going…sold, for one thousand dollars!” Marcia crowed from the podium, bringing down the gavel she’d probably borrowed from her father, the judge.

One thousand dollars. And Ryan was next. How was he going to top one thousand dollars?

Hell, did he want to?

Not really.

“Number 22!” Marcia called out, and Ryan took a deep breath, then stepped through the curtain. Strobe lights immediately blinded him as the room went dark except for the wildly moving colored lights that danced around the stage while the band—really pushing it now—tried their hand at the theme from Jaws.

Ryan fought a compulsion to turn and run for his life. Only the fact that Allie was no longer standing at the end of the runway—and making faces at him or something equally horrible—kept him going.

“Here we are, ladies, one Ryan Chandler. Tall, dark, sinfully gorgeous. And R-I-C-H, ladies. Oh, my goodness, yes. Could he be anything else but extremely talented? Ryan? Take a stroll down the runway, please, as I open the bids at…three hundred?”

The bids got to seven hundred quickly, with Ryan stiffly looking out over the crowd, his eyes concentrated on some vague point in the far distance. Marcia had the top bid, and it appeared that no one else wanted to go against the chairperson on this one—not if they wanted to be invited back next year.

And then, as Marcia was saying, “Going…going…” another voice piped up from the rear of the room. “Eight hundred!”

Marcia stopped the gavel in midslam and, with narrowed eyes, looked out into the darkness. “Eight-fifty,” Marcia muttered from between clenched teeth.

“Nine,” came right back at her. Closely followed by a giggle.

Ryan turned at the head of the runway, and started walking back toward Marcia. Interesting. The woman was so sleekly blond, so very controlled. And now, suddenly, her cheeks were flushed, her lips thin with anger.

He didn’t know who had dared to overbid her, but whoever it was, he was certainly enjoying himself, which he just as certainly had never expected to do.

“One…thousand…dollars,” Marcia said, throwing back her head, exposing the length of her throat, the height of her arrogance.

The answer came in less than a heartbeat. “One thousand five hundred. Oh, the heck with it—two thousand even!”

The crowd, which had gone silent, began murmuring, shuffling in their seats as they turned to see who was doing the bidding.

Ryan turned with them, putting a shielding hand to his forehead to try to see through the ridiculous strobe lights.

All he saw was a bright red head and a wide, happy grin as Marcia, bred never to cause a scene, brought the gavel down. “Sold! Please go to the registration desk to write your check and meet your bachelor.”

Applause broke out, as Ryan had brought in the largest donation of the night thus far, and he saw Allie standing right up front again, having appeared there like a genie out of a bottle and clapping for all she was worth, giving out a few good “cowgirl” yells while she was at it.

She’s enjoying this! I’m really going to have to hurt that woman, Ryan thought as he went back through the curtain and accepted the back-slappings and “you dog, you” congratulations of the other bachelors.

As another bachelor stepped through the curtain, this time to the strains of “Young at Heart”—a fitting song for the eighty-year-old George McDonald, chairman of the board of the hospital—Ryan made his way through the crowd in search of his grandmother.

He found her at the registration desk, having gone there right after the bidding on Ryan, she told him, in order to pay for Charlie and arrange their date.

“How…why…what the devil do you think you’re—”

“Oh, Ryan, close your mouth,” Allie scolded. “I’m not looking for romance, if that’s what you think. Charlie Armstrong is the best pediatrician in town, and Jessica’s babies need the best pediatrician. I’m only buttering him up, considering that I’ve heard he’s not taking new patients right now—which will change when we’re done speaking, I assure you. Besides, Charlie is taking Western line dancing lessons, and I want him to take me with him.”

Ryan shook his head. “Do you ever just do anything, Allie? Or does everything you do have a purpose? And, that being said, are you going to let me in on the purpose behind putting me up on that runway tonight?”

Allie reached up, patted his cheek. “I just want you to have some fun, darling. Live a little, loosen up. Ah, and here comes your date now. Isn’t she…different. Be nice, Ryan. She’s probably more fragile than she looks.”

“She’s hardly built like a linebacker, Allie,” Ryan said out of the corner of his mouth as Janna stopped, bent from the waist to untangle her skirt from her boot, showing off the limber grace of form inherent in her long-waisted, dancer-slim body.

“Yes, but that flamboyant coloring, those clothes. I think she’s hiding behind them a little, Ryan, to make up for some courage she lacks. In fact, I’m willing to wager she’s had her heart broken at some time.” She patted his cheek again. “But you’ll fix that, won’t you?”

“I’ll fix—damn,” Ryan ended. He was talking to the air, for Allie was already back in the crowd, hanging on Charlie’s arm and making the pseudocowboy look good for it.

“Hi, again,” Janna said as she walked over to stand in front of him. “Quite the mad bidding war, wasn’t it? I was going to give up, but the auctioneer was so sure she had you that I just knew I had to rescue you. You can thank me later, unless you really wanted to be caught in her clutches for a whole day and evening. Besides, I was also being selfish. You’re the tallest man here.”

“Tall. Yes, you mentioned that before. What does my being tall have to do with anything?”

Janna’s smile dazzled more brightly than the strobe lights that had begun to flash again. Ryan would have looked to the runway to see what was causing the women to begin howling in delight, but he didn’t think he had the courage to see much more of the auction. Not if he had to face whoever was up there across a table at a business lunch anytime soon.

“What does it have to do with anything? Didn’t you read the rules?” she asked. “You’re mine for the day, for whatever—as long as it’s legal, I’m assuming. Well, I need a handyman, and you’re it. And you’re tall because, even on a ladder, you have to be tall to replace the lightbulb in the fixture over my front door. Oh, I could do it myself, but I get sort of dizzy up high, so I’d rather you do it. See?”

“No, no I don’t see. You just paid two thousand dollars to use me as a handyman for a day? You could have hired three handymen for that price. Half a dozen.”

“True, true. But I wouldn’t have this nice charity write-off, now would I? And besides, have you ever tried to find a handyman who just wants to do small jobs?” She threw back her head, showing her own long neck, and it was longer, and whiter, than Marcia’s. “Lots of luck, that’s what I say, trying to find a man like that.” She grinned. “So I bought you.”

“Because I’m tall. Because I can reach the light fixture over your front door. That’s it? That’s your reason?”

She stuck out one leg, and her rather adorable chin, and braced one hand on her hip. “No,” she said, her smile gone. “I picked you because of those killer bedroom eyes of yours. I took one look and wanted to jump your bones, big boy. There, happy now?”

Ryan had the grace to look ashamed, even feel ashamed. “You really do want me to be your handyman for the day. I—I’m sorry I didn’t understand from the first.”

“That’s all right,” Janna said, patting his shoulder, the way he imagined she’d pat a puppy who’d just got nervous on her carpet. She handed him a piece of paper. “Here. This is my address. According to The Weather Channel—if you’re into wild prognostications—this Saturday is going to be a lovely Indian summer kind of day. Perfect for handyman jobs. Be there at 8:00 a.m., okay? Now, I’ve gotta go see someone about a check.”

He pointed toward the registration desk. “You’re going the wrong way. You pay over there,” he told her, still trying to figure out what had just happened to him. Was he happy to have been rescued from Marcia? Or had he just been tossed from the frying pan straight into the fire, as the old saying went?

Janna grimaced, looking as comical as a pretty woman could, which, in her case, was pretty comical. Rather like watching a young Lucille Ball coming down the stairs in a ball gown, then looking into the camera lens and deliberately crossing her eyes. He had to smile, in spite of himself. “I know. But first I have to see…I have to…well, don’t you worry about me. I’ll see you Saturday morning.”

And then she was gone, and Ryan was standing there, holding the note, written, it appeared, in dark-brown eyebrow pencil: “Janna Monroe. 540 Washington Avenue. Eight o’clock. Be there or be square.”

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