Authors: Sherryl Woods
“No.”
“You haven't said what happens if I lose.”
“You hire an accountant and get your finances straightened out.”
“My finances are fine, thank you. I've never missed a mortgage payment. My electricity's never been turned off. And I don't even own a credit card.” She absolutely refused to tell him that she'd lost them and never gotten around to obtaining replacements.
“Thank God,” he murmured fervently under his breath.
She regarded him indignantly. “Are you insulting me?”
“Heaven forbid!”
“Then why did you say that?”
“Let's just say that individuals more organized than you seem to have gotten themselves in way over their heads by haphazardly buying with plastic.”
To be perfectly truthful, that was exactly why Victoria had decided not to replace the credit cards. It wasn't that she'd overspent. It was that she had this silly habit of misplacing the bills so that she never knew whether they'd been paid or not. By buying with cash she was relatively certain that she, not the credit card company, owned her possessions.
She did not, however, intend to stand here and discuss the relative merits of plastic money with Tate McAndrews. Not when he'd just bet her that she couldn't turn over the receipts she needed to back up her tax return. Taking a deep breath, she surveyed the room and went to work, picking up, studying and then discarding stacks of paper that had been stashed in boxes and bags of every size and shape. Every so often, she triumphantly dumped something new in Tate's lap or at his feet, gloating at his increasingly bemused expression.
“There,” she said at last, standing in front of him with her hands on her hips. “I think that's everything.” It had taken her exactly twenty minutes.
Tate looked at the four shoeboxes, two bulging shopping bags, three manila envelopes and one beat-up purse that she'd deposited with him. “This is it?” he said skeptically. “Price Waterhouse would be impressed.”
“Don't be sarcastic.”
“Sorry. What exactly do I have here?”
“These two boxes have the receipts for everything I bought for the shop last year. These two are all the bills for fixing it up, the mortgage payments on the shop and so on.”
“The shopping bags?”
“My cash register receipts. The envelopes have all of my other stuff. Medical bills. Interest payments. Insurance.”
“I know I'm going to hate myself for asking, but what's in the purse?”
“Contributions to charity. You know like when you're driving along, and somebody's on a street corner collecting for muscular dystrophy and you give `em a dollar.”
“You actually kept track of that? I'm impressed,” he said, opening the purse. He pulled out a Popsicle stick with “2/M.D.” scribbled on it, followed by a button from the heart fund drive clipped to a scrap of paper that said 50 cents. There were also stubs for at least a dozen charity raffles and the ends from three boxes of chocolate mint Girl Scout cookies. He groaned.
“What's wrong?” Victoria demanded. “It's all very clear.”
“Yes. I suppose it is,” Tate admitted. “It's just that I'm used to⦔
“You're used to nice, tidy books with columns of numbers that all add up.”
The way she put it sounded insulting, as though there was something wrong with believing in order. “I can't help it if I've been trained to respect reliable accounting methods. This isâ¦it's⦔ He couldn't even find a word to express his utter dismay at her lackadaisical approach to record keeping.
“Mr. McAndrews,” Victoria said, her cheeks flushed and her blue eyes flashing. “I have better things to do with my time than write a bunch of figures down in some book. They all add up the same whether they're in a book or in that shopping bag.”
Tate's head was starting to pound. He was beginning to feel the way he had earlier when he'd understood her logic in expecting that ridiculous tax refund. “I suppose,” he agreed without very much conviction. He stood up and tried to balance the stack of shoeboxes in one arm, while grabbing the two shopping bags and the purse with the other. He motioned toward the envelopes. “Can you get those?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“I'm going to take it into the office and try to make some sense of it. That's what an audit is all about. I have to assure the IRS that you haven't tried to cheat them.”
Victoria sighed. “I haven't, you know,” she said softly, her voice filled with something that sounded like disappointment at his continued disbelief.
Tate nodded. Ironically, he did believe her. No one whose head was as high in the clouds as Victoria Marshall's would ever dream of cheating on her taxes. And even if the thought had crossed her mind, he doubted if she could figure out how to do it.
Victoria followed him down the stairs and out to his car, noting that it was what she would have expected him to drive: a very conservative, American made, four-door sedan. Anyone with his precise, orderly mind definitely would not be into flash and dazzle. She was a little worried, though, about the effect the afternoon seemed to have had on him. He did not look like the same determined, self-confident man who'd walked into her life a few hours earlier. He appeared defeated somehow, though his brown eyes did twinkle a little when he said goodbye.
“What happened to dinner?” she taunted. “I did win the bet, you know.”
“As soon as I figure this out, I'll be in touch,” he promised with a sizzling, sensual smile that sent her blood pressure soaring. “And we'll celebrate your victory over IRS with champagne, caviar and beef Wellington.”
As he drove off, Victoria sighed. If he threw in candlelight and roses, she'd be a goner.
T
he following morning, Victoria sat at the kitchen table for a long time, dreamily sipping a cup of tea and trying unsuccessfully to push disturbing and unexpectedly lusty thoughts of Tate McAndrews from her mind. The rumpled tan sports jacket he'd forgotten and left draped over the back of a chair was not helping matters. When she'd run her hand over the fine material, her fingers had picked up the lingering, tangy scent of his cologne. The clean, outdoorsy odor had brought back a sharp image of that brief, tantalizing moment when he'd caught her and held her in his arms.
Of all the men who might have wandered into her life and stirred up her untapped passions, Tate McAndrews was the worst possible choice. Tate was soâ¦sensible, so practical. She had the distinct impression that he would never do anything impulsive. He would examine all the implications, evaluate the possible consequences and then, if it didn't seem too costly, he might indulge in a few minutes of simple fun.
She, on the other hand, was constantly getting sidetracked by interesting, unexpected things. Not once could she ever recall going from point A to point B without wandering off to explore along the way. She saw life in glorious, spectacular Technicolor. If what she'd seen yesterday was any indication, Tate seemed to view it in black and white, without the benefit of any grays.
Victoria sighed. It was definitely a mismatch. And yetâ¦. She glanced over at the bright yellow wall phone, dared it to ring, then shook her head.
“You are losing it, Victoria,” she muttered aloud. “It's barely 8:00 a.m. No man, however enchanted he might be, is likely to call at that hour, and Tate McAndrews did not seem the least bit enchanted.” She paused thoughtfully, recalling those one or two looks that could have sizzled bacon to a crisp. She shook her head and dismissed them. “Uh-uh. The man thinks you are a certifiable nut. There is a very good chance he will not call at allâ¦unless he remembers his jacket or decides to haul you in for income tax evasion. Forget about him.”
Deep down she knew this was good advice. She also knew she wasn't likely to follow it. Unfortunately romantics never listened to their heads. Lancelot, who had finished his breakfast and retreated to the windowsill for his morning sunbath, meowed softly as though in complete agreement with her analysis of the absurdity of her behavior.
“Oh, shut up, cat! Don't you start on me,” she grumbled irritably, slamming down her teacup and grabbing the morning paper. She turned the pages with a vengeance that caused more than one of them to tear. When the phone shrilled a moment later, she jumped nervously and stared at it, almost afraid to pick it up.
“Hello,” she said at last, her voice soft, low and unintentionally sexy.
“Victoria? Is that you? You sound like you have a cold.”
“Oh. Hi, Mom,” she said, unconsciously trading sexiness for disappointed grumpiness.
“My goodness, that's certainly a cheerful greeting. What's wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” she denied, trying to inject a little spirit into her voice before her mother rushed over with chicken soup and parental advice. “I'm fine. What's up?”
“I was just wondering if you'd like a little company at the shop today. I haven't seen you in a while.”
“Three days.”
“Well, it seems like longer.”
Victoria chuckled. She knew how her mother loved to help out at the shop. She enjoyed meeting the people, and she absolutely loved haggling with them over a price. She said it made up for the frustration of having to pay outrageous prices without question in the local stores.
“Come on over, Mom. I should be there about ten.”
“Why don't I stop by and pick you up? There's no point in driving two cars.”
“I gather you're planning to spend the day?” Victoria teased.
Katherine Marshall refused to rise to the bait. “I thought I might as well. Your father had to go up to Columbus on business, and you did say you wanted to do some refinishing work in the back on that new washstand you bought last week.”
“Why don't you say it, Mom?”
“Say what?”
“That you think you're better at the business side of running the shop than I am.”
“Dear, surely even you must agree that you are a bit casual about making the best possible deal. I swear, sometimes I think you'd give something away just because someone admired it.”
“I like my pieces to go to people who'll treasure them,” she said defensively. “Not just to the highest bidder.”
“Hasn't it ever occurred to you that the highest bidder must like something very much to pay so dearly for it?”
“I suppose. But it seems so⦔
“Businesslike?”
“Okay, okay. You've made your point,” Victoria said, wishing her mother didn't sound quite so much like Tate McAndrews. She had a feeling if the two of them ever joined forces, her life would become a boring, organized regimen of computerized bookkeeping. The very thought made her shudder. “If you promise to drop the lecture, you can come on over and pick me up.”
“I'll be there in a few minutes,” her mother replied tartly. “But I won't promise to keep my mouth shut.”
She hung up before Victoria could respond.
As Victoria dressed in a pair of oversized, paint-splattered coveralls appropriate for the refinishing work she needed to do, she thought about her shop. Located just outside of town in the front of a large, converted barn, it had been open less than a year. She'd started the venture at her parents' enthusiastic urging. She'd accumulated so many interesting odds and ends at garage and farm sales that she'd run out of space to store them. In fact, her parents' garage had become so cluttered that for three months in the dead of a very snowy winter they'd been unable to get their car inside. At first they had dutifully admired the battered, scratched treasures she had dragged home. But after digging the car out of snowdrifts more than once, they had begun dropping subtle hints that these wonderful finds of hers would look much better “someplace where they could be displayed to advantage. Perhaps even sold.”
The idea of selling something she'd discovered in a dusty old attic or in the back corner of some other shop had vaguely disturbed Victoria. She'd bought these things because she'd loved each and every one of them. Only after her mother had reminded her that she couldn't very well afford to hoard every antique in southern Ohio had she agreed to consider the idea. The more she'd thought about it, the better she had liked it.
Once the plan had taken hold in her mind, she went about it with her usual high-spirited enthusiasm, spending a small inheritance from her grandmother to rent the perfect, old, unused barn on the Logan property and to renovate it. At first she'd only been open on weekends, continuing to teach history during the week. Soon she had quit her job at the high school and kept the shop open Tuesdays through Sundays. Her mother willingly filled in whenever she needed to go to an auction or wanted to take some time off.
“Victoria!” Her mother's shouted greeting broke into her reverie.
“I'll be down in a minute, Mom.” She ran a brush hurriedly through her hair, then twisted it into a loose knot on top of her head. Golden-red curls promptly escaped in every direction. She tried taming a few of them, then gave it up as a lost cause. “So, I look like Little Orphan Annie. I'm going to refinish a washstand, not try out for Miss Ohio.”
When she ran down the stairs and skidded to a halt in the kitchen a few minutes later, her mother was holding Tate's jacket out in front of her as though it were a live snake.
“This is not your father's,” she said emphatically.
Victoria couldn't help grinning at her puzzled expression. “Nope,” she said, opening the door of the refrigerator and sticking her head inside to scout around for some yogurt to take along for lunch.
“Victoria!”
She peeked around the side of the door. “Yes, Mother?”
“Whose jacket is this?”
Somehow Victoria did not want to explain about the IRS audit or about Tate. Her mother would want to hire an entire office of attorneys to defend her, and she wasn't quite up to fighting with her about it. “A friend's,” she replied vaguely, sticking her head back in the refrigerator. She wasn't sure how long she could spend deciding between black cherry and lemon yogurt, but she was hoping it would be enough time to chill her mother's questions.