Million Dollar Valentine. Rita Clay Estrada
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he’d been with her.
“Yes, it is,” she contested softly, gently, unwilling to begin another argument but not willing to agree for the sake of agreement, either. “And your smile is dynamite, as is the twinkle in your handsome blue eyes.”
Blake gave a rueful sigh. “First you accuse me of being a grouch, act as if I’m anal retentive, and then you tell me I’m handsome. Are you always so direct?”
“I try to be,” she said modestly, pleased that he could at least read her correctly. There might be hope for him yet, even though it’d be with another woman. “And don’t forget honest.”
He gave a laugh, delightful lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes again. His smile truly was dynamite, when he used it. Darn. Taking his arm, she turned him around and began walking again. “Well, in that case, Blake, you can continue with me on this quest of mine for a lesson in window dressing—as long as you occasionally smile.”
“Another sexist remark, Ms. Tynan?” Blake asked dryly. “If a man said that, he’d be considered a pig.”
“So be it, Blake,” she said, laughter in her voice. “But there has to be some retribution for your sex’s behavior over the past two thousand years. I’m just one woman doing my part to show you the way to change your outlook and ego stance.”
“You flatter me. I feel so…”
“Feminine?” she interjected.
“No. Like a sex object.”
“Lucky you,” she said, patting his arm. “You never know when it’s your lucky day.”
His laughter was so delightfully sexy, Crystal had to stop and look at him again. The pride of making him laugh warmed her insides. Without thinking, she went on tiptoe and touched his lips, lightly brushing them with hers. “Thank you for such a delightful sound.”
His laughter stopped and he sucked in his breath. “You’re welcome,” he finally managed to say. But he sounded strangled and the hold on her hand against his body tightened.
She liked that.
One of the women’s lingerie store windows was having a chilly month, displaying seductive bras and panties in cream and white silks and rayons on mannequins also wearing winter hats. Large snowflakes on invisible strings hung from the ceiling and the floor was covered in tiny snowflakes.
Crystal stopped and stared, making mental notes of the techniques that the window dresser had used to emphasize the hot, sexy appeal of the undergarments in the snowstorm scene. She paid close attention to where thumbtacks were secured, what kind of paper was used to create the snowflakes and how the mannequins were positioned and the choices of lingerie on view from affordable to extravagant.
“Ms. Tynan?” Blake’s voice was low but urgent.
“Mmm?” she asked, still staring at the details of the window.
“Can we leave this setting?”
“What?” She looked up at him. It took a minute to recognize a definitely uncomfortable male. “Oh,” she said. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t say anything, but the expression on his handsome face revealed his relief. Crystal chewed another carrot stick to hide her smile as they continued to stroll through the mall.
Blake stopped in front of a cafeteria, where the line was already out the door. “Can I interest you in something to eat?”
“Not today, but if you ask me tomorrow, I’ll be sure not to bring my lunch.” She looked around. “I like cafeterias. They cater to my weird taste.”
“Somehow, I knew that.”
“Good, then we’ll meet tomorrow for lunch?” she asked.
“Tomorrow,” he confirmed, glancing at his watch.
If she hadn’t known better, she’d have said he was reluctant to end their meeting until that telltale look at the time. He obviously had an appointment scheduled. That wasn’t good for the digestion, but until she could teach him differently, it was his way.
“See you tomorrow,” she promised with a smile. And with a wave, Crystal set off down the other side of the mall, still peering into windows and studying the various display techniques.
She felt Blake’s eyes on her for a few moments, then she knew he’d disappeared.
He was an oddity. So handsome, yet he didn’t seem to be quite aware of it himself. So uptight in his thoughts and actions, that he believed it was normal to be so shut off from others. So sophisticated in business, yet unable to study a window that had women’s underwear. And he had one heck of a great body, but didn’t eat carrot sticks….
Unusual to say the least.
Crystal knew she was a bit unconventional, but she wasn’t that far out of the loop of normal! And she was told she had a great sense of humor—of course she was told that by friends who shared the same sense of sublime silliness.
Besides, she had as much of a right to be silly or businesslike as much as she had a right to be herself. It took her a while to realize it, but she knew now that she could be anything she wanted to be without having to fit into someone else’s idea of normal or conventional. In the past few years she’d noticed something startling: everyone’s idea of normal was different.
Aunt Helen was right. You can’t please everyone all the time, so please yourself first—as long as it doesn’t hurt someone else.
Her watch told her that if she hurried, she’d have ten minutes to eat her lunch. Yogurt and two pieces of fresh fruit along with a bottle of water flavored with cranberry juice awaited her in the back room.
Surprisingly, her first day on the job at Aunt Helen’s store was the most fun she’d had in a while. She couldn’t wait to see how she felt tomorrow, when she had lunch with Blake Wright.
Crystal grinned. It was funny to call him Blake while he called her Ms. Tynan. But she refused to give up the right to call him by his first name. In every telephone conversation with her aunt over the past two years, Helen had referred to him as Blake. Crystal wasn’t about to learn a new name for the man her aunt had spoken of. Part of her was hoping she’d come to know the same Blake as her aunt did. That Blake had a sense of humor and was a lot of fun, if her aunt was to be believed—and if the peek at him she’d just had was really real. In fact, Crystal was praying for him to be the same. The glimpses of the man she’d seen beneath his disapproving attitude was nice. Sweet. And very human.
It was that stiff attitude he occasionally wore that she wasn’t too sure of being able to handle without giving him directions on where to take it. But then, if she could handle her boss, Tim, at the lodge, she could handle anything. Now there was a stiff. The difference was, she wasn’t the least bit interested in seeing if there was another side to Tim. She had to admit, at least to herself, that she would love to see the other side of Blake…. If only for a little while.
BLAKE WATCHED Crystal walk away, his eyes straying from her small shoulders and tiny waist to her swaying hips. Her walk was free and sensuous and feminine. Her shoulders moved with a rhythm that was also feminine. But if he’d seen that walk on a male, he’d have called it cocky. On this woman, it was just damn sexy.
He gave himself a mental shake, and deliberately looked away. What the hell was on his mind that he would get so wrapped up in a woman’s walk? Especially this woman?
She was his opposite and he was astute enough to know it. Although she was beautiful in a very unusual way, there was more that called to a male than her looks. It was the light behind her eyes. The promise of her constantly uptilted lips. The softness of her body in all the right places.
She was made for loving. Like it or not, he had to admit he was drawn to her physically. And that could never be if he wanted to keep his friendship with Helen. After all, he couldn’t be friends with the aunt, whom he genuinely liked and admired,