Love and Other Surprises (3 page)

“Right,” Matt said cautiously. “So?”

“So it doesn’t strike me as fair that I’ll receive half the profits without doing any of the work.” Ali calmly opened a packet of sugar and poured it into her glass. “I’ve got some great ideas for the project and I’ve moved back to Hillsboro to help you with it.”

She couldn’t have shocked him more if she’d dropped a bomb in his lap. In fact, Matt felt like she’d done just that. “Now wait just a cotton-picking minute,” he began.
Easy, Jordan—proceed with caution,
a little voice inside him warned.
So far strong-arm tactics have only gotten her back up.

Matt drew a deep breath and deliberately lowered his voice. “That really isn’t necessary,” he said with feigned nonchalance. “Robert completed his portion of the work when he designed the homes.”

“But I
want
to help,” Ali said. “I’m an interior designer, Matt, and I’ve always wanted to work on one of Robert’s projects. He told me that we would someday. This was his last project, so it’s the only ‘someday’ I’ve got.”

“But… but…” Matt sputtered. Her words were striking pure terror in his heart. He searched for another way to dissuade her. “What about your job in Dallas?”

“I quit,” Ali told him.

Matt barely stifled a groan. Great. Just great. She was really serious about this.

“I’d gotten tired of the pace of the city and I missed my old friends, anyway,” she continued, “so I decided to move back to Hillsboro. Since Robert left his house to me, it seemed like a logical decision.”

Logical? By whose definition?

Ali glanced at her watch. “Oh, dear—I’m nearly late for the bridesmaid’s luncheon. Look, I’ll be home later today and most of tomorrow if you want to discuss this some more. Feel free to drop by. Otherwise, I’ll see you at the office on Monday.” She flashed him a smile, then she was gone.

Matt stared after her, feeling like he’d been hit by a cyclone. He watched her sweep out of the cafe in a whirl of black and red, thinking that a cyclone was an all too accurate analogy. After all, what she proposed would cut a swath of chaos through his well-ordered life.

A phrase came to mind—a phrase weathermen used to describe the part of the country most prone to destructive twisters.

Tornado Alley.

Better make that Tornado Ali.

Matt heaved a sigh and raked a hand through his hair. Whichever way he spelled it, he was definitely in for a rough time.

Chapter Two

“Okay, Flipper—ready? Go get it, boy!”

Ali flung the miniature Frisbee. The small black-and-white dog scampered through the dry leaves,leaped high in the air and caught the toy in his teeth.

Ali grinned and clapped her hands, her thick wool mittens muffling the sound. The little dog darted back to her and plopped the toy at her feet, barking sharply and wagging his tail. Ali bent and petted the animal as she picked up the disc.

“Good catch! You really love this game, don’t you, fella? Okay, here we go again. Ready… set… go!” Ali drew back her arm and again hurled the disc. To her dismay, this time it landed on the slope of the roof.

“Oh, no!”she exclaimed. Flipper stood on his hind legs and whined.

“Don’t worry, boy,” she crooned to her pet. “We’ll get it down. I think there’s a ladder in the garage.” Ali headed back to the house, the frozen grass crunching under her feet as the little dog followed at her heels.

She found the ladder resting against the wall where she remembered it. As she bent to lift it, she noticed a box beside it on the concrete floor. She pulled up the flap and peered inside.

Drafting tools. The sight made Ali’s eyes mist over and a lump formed in her throat. She picked up a slide rule and reverently ran her mittened hand along the length of it, her heart aching to see the instruments her brother had loved so much boxed and forgotten in the garage.

This wasn’t the first time she’d been hit by a sudden, overwhelming wave of grief. She’d felt the same thing when she first walked into the house—a house that Robert had designed, a home filled with his furniture, a place that so strongly reminded her of her brother that she could almost hear him laugh in the other room.

Why hadn’t she come to visit him here when he was alive? He’d begged her to come last summer.

Ali gently placed the slide rule back in the box. She knew exactly why she hadn’t come, and she might as well admit it: she’d wanted to avoid Robert’s well-intentioned advice on how to live her life. He didn’t meant to, but Robert had always made her feel like a screw-up.

Ali sighed and sat back on her heels. She’d adored her big brother, but he’d been her exact opposite. Practical to a fault, Robert had never made a move without carefully weighing every conceivable consequence. Ali, on the other hand, preferred to tackle life head-on, and everything she touched somehow took an unexpected turn. She had a way of attracting mishaps like a magnet, but that didn’t mean that she was careless or incompetent. Unfortunately, she’d never convinced her brother of that fact. He’d felt it was his duty to point out the error of her ways and he hadn’t abandoned the task once she’d become an adult.

She wiped a tear from her cheek, the mitten rough against her skin. Robert had never known how badly his criticisms had hurt, how much she’d yearned for his acceptance and approval. In fact, the desire to earn his respect was part of the reason she’d moved to Dallas as soon as she’d earned a degree at the local college. She’d hoped to prove herself in the big city—and she’d done a pretty good job of it, too, she thought with a modest burst of pride. In the past five years as an interior designer with a major furniture store, she’d received three promotions.

But her secret plan had been shattered by her brother’s death. She’d always harbored the dream that someday she’d work with Robert and prove that she was capable and mature. If she could do that, maybe she could finally believe, deep down where it counted, that she wasn’t an overgrown child like her mother—that she was strong and competent, that she could function on her own, that her ideas had weight and merit.

Now her only chance to work on one of Robert’s projects was the housing development Matt was building.

Ali chewed the inside of her lip worriedly at the thought of Matt. They hadn’t gotten off to a very good start. He seemed to be laboring under the misguided notion that she needed a surrogate big brother. Judging from the way he’d acted and his remarks about her being unpredictable, her reputation had preceded her.

She blew a stray curl from her forehead in a sharp puff of air as frustration tightened her chest. She’d long ago accepted the fact that an extraordinary number of odd things seemed to happen around her, but other people sometimes had a hard time adjusting to it. Especially rigidly structured, plan-every-detail types like Matt Jordan.

Well, she’d just have to try extra hard to appear capable around him. She’d present her plan in a professional, businesslike manner on Monday, and hopefully he’d agree with her ideas.

Ali’s mouth firmed into a determined line. He had to; this was her only opportunity to pay back the brother who’d stepped into a parental role when their father had died, who’d mowed the piano teacher’s lawn in exchange for her lessons, who’d held a before-school paper route and an after-school restaurant job to pay for braces for her teeth.

Ali rose to her feet and dusted off her knees. Robert had viewed the Victorian Village project as the most important one of his career, and she was determined to help make it a reality.

A surge of energy flowed through her as she thought of her plans. “Come on, Flipper,” she said to her pet, picking up the ladder and heading for the garage door. “Let’s go get your toy.”

The cold wind invigorated her face and lifted her spirits. With Flipper jumping excitedly at her heels, she dragged the ladder across the grass and leaned it against the house.

The moment it was set in place, the little dog dashed up the rungs.

“Flipper! Oh, my gosh—what are you doing?”

Ali watched helplessly as her pet scampered up the ladder. “Come back down here right now,” she ordered.
“Flipper!”

But it was too late. Flipper was already on the roof, picking his way across the thick wood shingles toward the disc. Ali gazed in horror as he clamped his teeth around the toy and stretched his head over the edge to look down at her, wagging his stumpy tail. Do dogs get dizzy? she wondered wildly.

“Don’t move!
Stay!”
she shouted.

“Why? What’s the matter?” an alarmed masculine voice responded.

Ali jerked her head in the direction of the voice and saw Matt entering the backyard, his hand frozen on the gate latch. “Not you—my dog. He’s on the roof!” She pointed to Flipper.

Matt craned his neck, stared up, then blinked in disbelief. Sure enough, a tiny black-and-white dog trotted along the edge of the overhang, a red disc grasped in its jaws. The mutt stopped with his front paws in the rain gutter, looked down at him and growled.

Matt groaned. He’d come over here to straighten things out, figuring he and Ali could have a quiet, rational conversation. He should have known better. With all the normal, sane people in the world, why did his partner have to be related to a complete lunatic?

From the corner of his eye, Matt saw Ali head toward the ladder. Alarm raced through him and he quickly stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“Going up after him.”

He’d heard enough about Ali’s mishaps to shudder at the thought of her climbing a ladder. “Why don’t you just call him?”

“Because I’m afraid he’ll jump.”

The thought struck Matt as ludicrous, but Ali looked so worried that he repressed the urge to smile. “Unless he’s some sort of rare kamikaze breed, there’s no way that dog is going to hurl himself off the roof.”

“You don’t know Flipper like I do.”

She’s even nuttier than I imagined,
Matt thought as he peered up at the mongrel. The little beast was sitting on the eave directly above them, thumping its sorry excuse of a tail. Matt moved the ladder and reached up his arm. “Come on, fella. Here’s the ladder—come on down. Here, boy,” Matt coaxed.

“Don’t encourage him!” Ali warned.

“I’m telling you, there’s no way that dog is going to jump.” Matt turned his attention back to Flipper and gave an encouraging whistle.

Flipper immediately dropped the Frisbee, yapped twice and hurled himself off the roof, executing a neat flip in midair.

Matt reflexively dived for the dog, hitting the ground in a way that would have made his old college baseball coach proud. He cautiously opened one eye to find a warm, furry bundle squirming in his arms.

“Flipper! Oh, sweetie, I’m so glad you’re okay!”

Matt opened his other eye to see Ali kneeling beside him. He caught a whiff of her perfume, something enticingly faint and soft and warm. The scent added to his overall confusion. She took the wriggling dog from his arms and cradled the creature to her chest.

“H-he jumped,” Matt mumbled, raising himself cautiously on one elbow and inventorying his body parts. His backside hurt like the dickens, but otherwise he seemed okay. He slowly hauled himself to his feet.

“I warned you. Are you all right?” Still clutching the dog in one arm, Ali turned to Matt and began dusting him off.

Matt again inhaled her intriguing scent as she brushed the back of his jacket. He felt a sudden, irrational compulsion to get closer to her just to smell her better. Realizing he was on dangerous ground, Matt backed away. “Tm sure I will be once you tell me what just happened here.”

“I was trying to get the toy off the roof and Flipper went up the ladder.” Ali nuzzled the animal under her chin and Flipper responded by licking her cheek.

Matt eyed the dog suspiciously. As far as he could tell, the creature looked like an everyday, run-of-the-mill mutt. “So what’s the explanation for the flying back-flip action?”

“Flipper used to be a circus performer.” Ali stroked the dog’s head. “He knows lots of tricks. The problem is, I don’t know what all of them are.”

“Uh-huh. I see,” said Matt. His tone implied he didn’t see at all. “And just how did you happen to end up with a circus dog as a house pet?”

“His trainer took him to the SPCA. He said he was too much trouble.” Ali shook her head. “Can you believe a person would give away a sweet little dog like this for a silly reason like that?”

Was she for real? Matt shook his head at her. “It defies the imagination,” he said dryly.

“Well, thanks for catching him,” Ali said. “You probably saved Flipper’s life.”

Matt was about to make a sarcastic reply, but her smile was so warm that the words stuck in his throat. He found himself staring at her, taking in her wind-chapped cheeks, her tousled hair and the expression of unabashed affection lighting her eyes as she cuddled her dog. It was enough to make him envy the mutt.

“You had a new trick to show me, hmm?” Ali cooed to the animal. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“You can say that again,” Matt muttered, but he wasn’t thinking of the dog. His eyes were riveted on her lips as she kissed the top of Flipper’s head. He swallowed hard and found himself responsively running his tongue over his own mouth. “I’d better put the ladder in the garage before Flipper decides to give a repeat performance,” he said abruptly.

“Good idea. Thanks.”

But Matt didn’t immediately move. He was oddly mesmerized by the motion of her fingers stroking Flipper’s fur.

“I’ll go make us some hot tea. Just come on in when you’re done.” She looked up and grinned, and Matt felt his mouth go dry. Her smile was like a burst of midsummer sunshine, and Matt found himself wanting to bask in it.

With an effort, he pulled his eyes away. “Okay.” He headed for the ladder, pausing to pick up the miniature disc from the lawn.

Watch out, Jordan
, he warned himself. She already had one male doing back flips for her. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be doing them, too.

Chapter Three