even higher. The volume actually knocked out our computer server for nearly a week. The response was just as heavy over at HuntCom, too.”
“Doubt the computers over there failed,” he said dryly. The international juggernaut was computers.
“Right?” She gave him a dry look. “Anyway, Cornelia was already thinking that she wanted to help more people the way she’d helped Joanna, and all that public response sealed the deal.”
“FGI was born.”
“Pretty much.” She looked around at the lavish foyer. “Helps when you’re married to a man who gives you sixty million or so as a wedding gift that you can invest right out of the gate. Cornelia’s already helped nearly three hundred women start their own small businesses. Everything from yarn shops to B&Bs to law firms.” She hitched her purse up on her shoulder. “It’s pretty impressive, actually.” Belle had reappeared again sans cart and Shea waited until she’d gone back upstairs. “Of course, Cornelia and the others have to read through a lot of ridiculous requests before they find a valid one.”
“Others being the fairy godmothers,” he added. “It wasn’t just a term of Joanna’s. That’s what they call themselves, isn’t it? And the women they select for their projects are called Cindys.” Erik and Rory had told him that.
She made a reluctant sound. “Cornelia values the anonymity of the women she helps even more than she values her own. So, yes. They’re...Cindys. As in Cinderella project.”
“But you’ve never called them that. Not in anything you’ve written about Cornelia’s business, anyway.”
“Because the terms are silly!” Her voice rose again and she jumped guiltily when a voice spoke her name from above them. They both looked up to see Phil standing at the top of the stairs.
“I’m glad you’re still inside.” Phil held up a colorful, woven key chain. “You forgot your keys again.”
Shea grimaced and met the other woman halfway up the stairs. “Thanks. Wouldn’t have gotten very far without them. Think I need to wear them around my neck or something.” She skipped back down the stairs and headed straight for the door. “See you all later,” she called out to nobody in particular before seeming to bolt out the door.
“Another successful effort, I see,” Phil told Pax after the door softly closed. “Have you ever thought about just asking Shea out?”
Pax exhaled. Before they’d slept together, he’d asked Shea out dozens of times and she’d always refused. Usually with a laugh that said she didn’t take him seriously at all. He folded his arms over the fancy, curving banister. “And what are you doing tonight, Phil?”
The woman nudged up her glasses and grinned. “I have an evening planned with my favorite salted caramels. Unlike a real date, they never fail to disappoint.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like Shea.”
She descended the rest of the stairs until she was at his level. “Don’t give up on her.”
Phil was attractive. Single. Somewhere in her early thirties, he’d guess. He’d known her for four months, but he’d never once looked at her that way. Never once wondered how his parents would like her or what their kids would look like. Annoyingly, those thoughts always seemed reserved for the elusive Shea.
“I hadn’t planned to.” He wouldn’t mind another dose of encouragement from Shea, though. That ice storm had been nearly two months ago.
With a smile, Phil headed past him toward the conference room. “That’s what I like about you, Pax. You’re a long-haul kind of guy.”
He didn’t know about that, but he wished Shea weren’t so convinced he was only one-night stand material. He picked up one of the bouquets and carried it back to his building to leave on Ruth’s desk. She’d be in the office for a few hours the next day, so she’d still have a chance to enjoy the flowers over the weekend.
He packed up the paperwork that he still needed to review, locked up the building and drove home. Hooch greeted him at the door of his apartment with slathering kisses and then immediately tried to eat the rose. He got the bloom away from the dog, tossed it in the trash, changed into running gear and took the dog out for a run.
Everywhere they passed, he saw the signs of Valentine’s Day. Which just reminded him of Shea.
He’d finally had enough, and turned Hooch around for home. “Pretty pathetic, eh, buddy?”
Hooch just wagged his tail and trotted alongside Pax. The dog didn’t care where they were or what they did as long as he was with his owner.
Back in the apartment once more, Pax turned on a basketball game, fed and watered Hooch and hit the shower.
His cell phone was ringing when he shut off the water, and he stepped out onto the rug, grabbing it. But it was just the realtor he’d asked to look into some properties for him, and he let it go to voice mail while he wrapped the towel around his hips and wandered into the kitchen to stare into the refrigerator as if it would magically produce something edible. Last time he’d been out to his parents’ place in Port Orchard, his mom had sent him home with a bag full of leftovers, but they were long gone now.
His cell phone rang again, and he snatched it up again, checking the display.
Smiling broadly, he grabbed a beer with his other hand as he answered casually. “If it isn’t my favorite prickly journalist. Have you been saving my number all this time, or did you dig it up from one of those secret sources of yours?”
She ignored him. “Thank you for the bouquet.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You knew I’d have to respond somehow,” she continued. “That’s why you did it.”
He twisted off the bottle cap and sat down at the stainless steel counter in his kitchen that had an unobstructed view overlooking the city. Instead of the lights, though, all he saw in his head was Shea. “I did it because I thought it might make you smile,” he said truthfully.
“It did,” she admitted after a moment. “It’s the first bouquet of cat treats I’ve ever received. Marsha-Marsha thanks you, too.”
“My pleasure.”
He could hear her soft breathing through the phone line. “Well. I just wanted to say thanks. And happy...happy Valentine’s Day.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Shea.”
A moment later, he was listening to the dial tone.
Hooch propped his chin on Pax’s knee and looked up at him.
“Whadya think, Hooch? Any chance of winning the race if she won’t even get out of the starting gate?”
The dog flopped his tail a few times on the floor.
It was as much of an answer as Pax had.
* * *
In her apartment, Shea set her cell phone on the ancient steamer trunk she used as a coffee table and pulled Marsha-Marsha carefully onto her lap. The calico tabby had become increasingly frail over the past year, but she’d still gleefully gone after one of the cat toys from the “bouquet” that had been sitting in front of Shea’s doorway when she’d gotten home.
She pressed her cheek to the cat’s head and listened to her throaty purr. “How am I going to tell him?” she asked. “I had an opportunity earlier today. I tried then. But I just couldn’t.” No more than she had been able to tell him just now on the cell phone.
Marsha-Marsha just circled around on her lap a few times before settling down.
Shea chewed the inside of her lip and stared at the coffee table.
Next to her cell phone and the basket that had contained Pax’s wholly unexpected “bouquet” sat a blue and pink box.