In the Groove (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

She wanted to hit him. No. She wanted to scream. No. Maybe what she wanted to do was run out the door. That seemed a much better solution to all her problems. Run out the door and keep on running.

"You're Lance Cooper," she said again. And it was a statement, a flat, unemotional statement, which was hard to accomplish given how furious she felt.

"That's what I said." And then his smile turned playful. She'd seen little boys do that, too. Catch them gluing paper to their desk and they'd look up at you with that same aren't-I-funny? grin.

As if by smiling at her like that she'd forgive him.

As if she should be all smiles, too.

As if.

She'd been dealing with far too many adolescent males lately to have much patience for the opposite sex.

"You, sir, are no gentleman."

It was a lame thing to say. Very Scarlett O'Hara, but she didn't care. She didn't swear and she didn't like to call people names. That said, if ever there was a time when she felt like cussing, this was it.

"Uh-oh. What'd he do now?" Sal Lowenstein, the man who'd interviewed her and who was Lance Cooper's business manger, asked.

"He told me he was the pool boy."

Which made the big-breasted man's eyes widen so fast, his head actually flicked back a bit. And then he laughed, his meaty jowls opening and exposing perfectly bleached teeth. Sarah's lips tightened. She crossed her arms in front of her, giving both Lance and his portly manager a look that would have turned her kindergarten class silent in an instant.

"Look, Mr. Lowenstein," she said. "Obviously, Mr. Cooper has a sense of humor I don't appreciate. Thus, I don't think I'm suited for this job. I'm sorry I was late, but now that I've met Mr. Cooper there's no sense in wasting our time. I don't want the job."

She had a car to fix. A job to find. Rent to pay.

You don't want the job ?

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Lance said, his movie-star smile morphing into a frown. "You can't leave."

"I beg to differ, Mr. Cooper. I can."

"Don't blow an ignition over this."

"Blow a
what?"

"An ignition."

"I'll do whatever I want."

"Great. As long as it's with me."

"You're impossible," she said.

"I try," Lance said.

"And it's just one more reason why I shouldn't take the job. You're a flirt, Mr. Cooper, and right now I've had it up to here with lying, cheating flirts."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said again. "Who said anything about cheating?" He turned to his manager. "Have you been blabbing?"

"Not me," Sal said, his wide arms spreading as he lifted his hands. The result was that he lost all semblance of a neck. Sarah thought he looked rather like an egg with a gum ball on top of it.

"I've got to go," she said, standing. When she wobbled a bit, Lance Cooper shot forward, trying to steady her with a hand. She leaned away so his fingers never connected.

"Don't touch me," she snapped.

His amusement faded. In fact, he looked so sympathetic, she found herself staying still despite what she told herself.

"Look," he said. "You're right. It was wrong of me to pretend I was a pool boy. But you looked so distraught after I hit you with my car that I didn't have the heart to tell you who I was."

"You hit her with your car?"

Lance glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah. When she was a half hour late, I quit waiting and went out— When I came back, I didn't see her in the driveway until I ran into her. She claims she's okay, but I'm not buying it."

"I
am
okay," she contradicted.

"That's what they all say and then they drop dead the next day from fluid building up around the brain."

"You think I have a brain injury?"

"I don't know, do you? Let me look in your ears and see if I can tell."

And all she could think to do was stare at him because he'd lost his mind. He'd completely lost his mind.

"Just kidding," he said.

She turned for the door.

He stopped her with a hand, a big, warm hand that made her suddenly flush with heat and embarrassment and, and—she didn't know what else.

"I'd like to take you to a doctor," he said gently.

"I'm not going to a doctor."

"I'll pay for it."

"No thanks. What I need is to get back to my car."

"Did it break down?" Mr. Lowenstein asked.

"Yeah," she said, testing her leg with the knee injury. Pain shot up her thigh. She tried not to wince, but she had a feeling Lance Cooper saw it anyway.

"Was it a VW with faded blue paint?" Sal asked.

Sarah froze, pain momentarily forgotten. "Yeah?" she asked warily. "Why?"

"It's being towed."

"That's impossible. It's been on the road for less than two hours."

"Yeah, well, someone must have reported it because I saw them loading it up with my own two eyes."

"No," she said with a quick shake of her head.

"Did it have a yellow smiley-face sticker in the back window?"

Her shoulders slumped. "They're towing my car," she said, desolate.

"We'll get it back," Lance said.

"But I don't have the money to pay an impound."

"I do," Lance said.

"I don't believe this," she said breathlessly. "I just don't believe this." And horrors upon horrors, she could feel the tears begin to build again in her eyes. "This has got to be a cosmic joke. There's got to be some kind of conspiracy going on. Drive Sarah Tingle crazy. And, you know what, it's working. It's really, really working."

"Come here," Lance Cooper said.

"No," she warned. "Stay away from me."

But the man just ignored her, pulling her into his arms before she could stop him. She tried to pull away, muttering, "If you don't let me go, I'll sue you for sexual harassment."

"Go ahead," he said, his big hand cupping the back of her head and forcing it against his chest. "Go right on ahead," he said softly.

She gave in then, she just gave in and did the girliest thing she'd ever done in her life. She started sobbing in a total stranger's arms. A stranger who was supposed to be her new boss. A stranger whom she could never work for because even while she was bawling all over his polo shirt, she couldn't stop herself from noticing how muscular his chest was, how big his arms, how perfectly nice it felt to be held in a man's arms.

That wouldn't do. That just wouldn't do
at all.

It felt nice to hold her.

"Sal, can you hand me that box of tissue?"

"Lance," his manager started to say, obviously seeing big attorney fees in his future. "Maybe you should let her—"

"Shh," he said, both to Sal and the woman in his arms. "It'll be okay." He even rested his head atop her hair, liking the way the curls turned to silk beneath his cheeks. "Shh," he said again, slowly rocking her.

"I can't believe this," he heard her mumble. "I can't believe I'm crying in some stranger's arms."

"I'm not a stranger."

"You are to
me.
I've never even seen your Wheaties box."

"No big deal. It's a bad picture, anyway."

"That
I find hard to believe."

"It's true," Sal piped up.

But she ignored him, mumbling, "It's just that from the moment those darn pictures appeared in that magazine, everything's gone wrong. I feel like God's got a vendetta out for me. Like if I try to do one more thing, I'm going to be struck by lightning."

"I've had days like that."

She drew back, looked up at him. Lance's heart melted at the tear-streaked face that stared up at him. "Oh, yeah?" she asked. "What happened? All four tires fall off your race car or something?"

"No. Just two. We had a new tire changer and he didn't get all the lug nuts tight. Back tire fell off which tweaked the car enough that the front tire came off. My car looked like something you'd find in a ghetto."

She was staring up at him like she thought he was crazy.

"I'm serious. Looked like someone had stolen my rims. One of the boys back at the shop even spray-painted some graffiti on the side to make it look more authentic."

"Seriously?" she asked in a small voice.

"Seriously."

"But did you break a leg while trying to get out of the car? Because that's the kind of thing that would happen to me right now."

"No. But one of the other drivers got mad at me because my tire ended up in the middle of the racetrack, which he hit. It tore apart his front end, caused him to go a few laps down, which ultimately caused him to miss the top ten in points, thus eliminating him from the Chase. He threw a wrench at me in the garage."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Here," Sal said, holding a box of tissues out to her.

"Thanks," she said, wiping at her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said to them both. "It's just been a bad day."

"Well, we're going to make it better," Lance promised. "Sal, get on the phone with the city. Find out who they use to tow cars. I'm going to get my cell phone to call Doc Brown. I want him to give you the once-over—ah, ah, ah," he warned her when she opened her mouth to protest. "For my sake, not yours. I'll worry about you all night if you don't get yourself checked out."

She didn't look any more enthusiastic about the idea, but at least she stopped protesting. "Now. C'mon. Let's get you settled in the family room."

"You mean the one with all the pictures of you in it?"

"Yeah," he said, giving her a smile. "That's the one."

"I should have known something was up when you all but dragged me away from the room."

"I didn't
drag
you."

"No. But it was clear you didn't want me loitering."

"I didn't," he said with a wide smile. "I was having too much fun pretending to be a pool boy."

Her eyes dimmed a bit.

"C'mon, you gotta admit. I'd make a good pool boy." He flexed one of his arms.

"Yeah... well, don't quit your day job, 'cause your acting skills leave a lot to be desired."

He clutched at his heart. "Ooo."

She smiled a bit. And that's all he'd wanted to see. A smile. Just one tiny little grin.

They got her settled onto his burgundy-colored couch, the thing practically swallowing her up. Lance helped prop her injured knee up on his glass coffee table, saying, "You realize you're hired, don't you?"

She caught his gaze, wariness in her eyes. "I'm not so certain that's a good idea."

"Oh yeah?" he asked. "And why's that?"

"Because..." She looked away, her lower lip being sucked into her mouth for a second, a blush lightly staining her cheeks.

He just loved the way she blushed.

"Because I just don't think it'd work out."

"So what're you going to do? Go home in a taxi, take a bus to your next job interview, use up the last of your savings while you try to find a new job?"

"I don't have any savings."

"Well, then, it's going to be awfully hard to get your car out of jail, isn't it?"

In went her lip again, her eyes moving to the floor once more.

He tipped her chin up. It was a completely personal thing to do, something he wouldn't normally do to a woman he'd just met, but with Sarah, it felt right. "Drive my bus. Just give it a try. If it doesn't work out, at least you'll have one paycheck to help see you through."

She met his
gaze,
and that thing happened to Lance again, that odd sort of mushy feeling he got in his stomach as he stared down at her.

"All right."

"Atta girl," he said, dropping his hand back to his side, rubbing his fingers together because it felt as if he'd been shocked by a loose spark plug wire.

"Okay," Sal said. "I'm, ah, I'm going to go call the city."

Lance held Sarah's gaze for a second longer before forcing himself to look away—and he really did have to force it. "Great," he said, telling himself he just felt sorry for her. He knew what it was like to go it alone. It wasn't easy. "I'll go call Doc Brown."

Thankfully, she didn't protest again, but when Lance turned to go, Sal grabbed his arm, waiting until they were out of the room before saying, "I should probably use the phone in your office."

"Why's that?"

"Because I don't want her to know I'm really calling a tow truck company to tow off her car."

"You're
what?"

"Shh," Sal instantly said. "Not so loud. I don't want her suspicious."

"You mean to tell me her car isn't really gone?"

"Nah," he said, shaking his head and pressing his lips together so his jowls hung down like a bulldog. And that's exactly what Lance's business manager was. A bulldog, even if he was a bit overzealous in his protection. "I just told her that so she wouldn't take off on us."