Emily had eagerly given her the recipe, and Susannah had read it carefully. Just how difficult could baking cookies be?
Not very, she determined twenty minutes later when everything was laid out on her extended counter. Pushing up the sleeves of her shirt, she turned on the radio to keep her company. Next she tied the arms of an old shirt around her waist, using that as an apron. Emily always seemed to wear one when she worked in the kitchen and if her sister did, then it must be the thing to do.
The automatic mixer was blending the butter and white sugar nicely and, feeling extraordinarily proud of herself, Susannah cracked the eggs on the edge of the bowl with a decided flair.
“Damn,” she cried when half the shell fell into the swirling blades. She glared at it a moment, watching helplessly as the beater broke the fragile shell into a thousand bits. Shrugging, she figured a little extra protein—or was it calcium?—wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Finally she turned off the mixer and stirred in the flour, then the chocolate chips.
The oven was preheated exactly as the recipe required when Susannah slipped the shiny new cookie sheet inside. She closed the oven door with a swing of her hip and set the timer for twelve minutes.
Sampling a blob of dough from the end of her finger, she had to admit it was tasty. At least as good as Emily’s. But Susannah considered it best not to let anyone know her secret ingredient was eggshell.
With a sense of genuine satisfaction, she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table with the evening paper.
A few minutes later she smelled smoke. Suspiciously sniffing the air, she set the paper aside. It couldn’t possibly be her cookies—they’d been in the oven less than five minutes. To be on the safe side, however, she reached for a towel and opened the oven door.
She was immediately assaulted by billowing waves of smoke, followed by flames that licked out at her. Gasping in horror, she dropped the towel and gave a piercing scream. “Fire! Fire!”
The smoke alarm blared, and she thought she’d never heard anything louder in her life. Like a madwoman, Susannah raced for the door, throwing it open in an effort to allow the smoke to escape. Then she ran back to the table and hurled her coffee straight into the belly of the oven. Coughing hoarsely, she slammed the door shut.
“Susannah!” Breathless, Nate burst into her condominium.
“I started a fire,” she shouted above the deafening din of the smoke alarm. Her voice still sounded raspy.
“Where?” Nate circled her table several times, looking frantically for the source of her panic.
“In the oven.” Standing aside, she covered her face with her hands, not wanting to look.
A few minutes later, Nate took her in his arms. The smoke alarm was off. Two blackened sheets of charred cookies were angled into the sink. “Are you all right?”
Somehow she managed a nod.
“You didn’t burn yourself?”
She didn’t have so much as a blister and told him so.
Gently he brushed the hair away from her face, and expelled his breath, apparently to ease his tension. “Okay, how did the fire get started?”
“I don’t know,” she said dismally. “I…I did everything the recipe said, but when I put the cookies in the oven they…they caught on fire.” Her voice quavered as she spoke.
“The cookies weren’t responsible for the fire,” he corrected her. “The cookie sheets were the culprits. They must’ve been new—it seems, ah, you forgot to remove the paper covering.”
“Oh,” she whispered. Her shoulders were shaking with the effort to repress her sobs.
“Susannah, there’s no reason to cry. It was a reasonable mistake. Here, sit down.” Gently he lowered her onto the kitchen chair and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his and rubbing them. “It isn’t the biggest disaster in the world.”
“I know that,” she wailed, unable to stop herself. “You don’t understand. It was sort of a test….”
“A test?”
“Yes. Emily claims men love cookies…and I was baking them for you.” She didn’t go on to add that Emily also claimed that men loved the women who baked those cookies. “I can’t cook…I started a fire…and I dropped part of the eggshell in the batter and…and left it…. I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”
Her confession must have shocked Nate because he stood up and left the room. Burying her face in her hands, Susannah endeavored to regain her composure and was doing an admirable job of it when Nate returned, holding a box of tissue.
Effortlessly lifting her into his arms, he pulled out the chair and sat down, holding her securely on his lap. “Okay, Betty Crocker, explain yourself.”
She wiped her face dry with the tissue, feeling rather silly at the way she was reacting. So she’d burned a couple of cookie sheets and ruined a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Big deal, she told herself with as much bravado as she could muster. “Explain what?”
“The comment about men loving cookies. Were you trying to prove something to me?”
“Actually it was Emily I wanted to set straight,” she whispered.
“You said you were baking them for my benefit.”
“I was. Yesterday you said I shouldn’t forget who I was, I should find myself, and…I think this sudden urge to bake was my response to that.” Susannah suspected she wasn’t making much sense. “Believe me, after today, I know I’m never going to be worth a damn in the kitchen.”
“I don’t remember suggesting you ‘find yourself’ in the kitchen,” Nate said, looking confused.
“Actually that part was Emily’s idea,” she admitted. “She’s the one who gave me the recipe. My sister seems to believe a woman can coerce a man into giving up his heart and soul if she can bake chocolate chip cookies.”
“And you want my heart and soul?”
“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous.”
He hesitated for a moment and seemed to be considering her words. “Would it come as a surprise if I said I wanted yours?”
Susannah barely heard him; she wasn’t in the mood to talk about heart and soul right now. She’d just shown how worthless she was in the kitchen. Her lack in that area hadn’t particularly troubled her—until now. She’d made a genuine effort and fallen flat on her face. Not only that, having Nate witness her defeat had badly dented her pride. “When I was born something must’ve been missing from my genes,” she murmured thoughtfully. “Obviously. I can’t cook, and I don’t sew, and I can hardly tell one end of a knitting needle from the other. I can’t do any of the things that…normal people associate with the female gender.”
“Susannah.” He said her name on a disgruntled sigh. “Did you hear what I just said?”
She shook her head. She understood the situation perfectly. Some women had it and others didn’t. Unfortunately, she was in the latter group.
“I was telling you something important. But I can see you’re going to force me to say it without words.” Cupping her face, Nate directed her mouth to his. But he didn’t only kiss her. The hot moist tip of his tongue traced the sensitive line of her lips until she shivered with a whole new realm of unexplored sensations. All her disheartened thoughts dissolved instantly. She forgot to think, to breathe, to do anything but tremble in his arms. The fire in her oven was nothing compared to the one Nate had started in her body. Without conscious volition, she wrapped her arms around his neck and slanted her mouth over his, surrendering to the hot currents of excitement he’d created. She opened herself to him, granting him anything he wanted. His tongue found hers, and Susannah whimpered at the shock of pleasure she received. Her response was innocent and abandoned, unskilled and unknowing, yet eager.
“There,” he whispered, supporting his forehead against hers, while he drew in deep breaths. His husky voice was unsteady.
He seemed to think their kiss was enough to prove everything. Susannah slowly opened her eyes. She took a steadying breath herself, one that made her tremble all the way to her toes. If she was g
oing to say anything, it would be to whisper his name repeatedly and ask why he was doing this and then plead with him never to stop.
He threaded his fingers through her hair and kissed her again with a mastery that caused her to cling to him as if he were a life raft in a stormy sea. Unable to keep still, Susannah ran her palms along his neck and onto his shoulders and down the length of his arms. He must have liked her touch because he groaned and deepened the kiss even more.
“Unfortunately I don’t think you’re ready to hear it yet,” he said.
“Hear what?” she asked, when she could find her voice.
“What I was telling you.”
She puckered her brow. “What was that?”
“Forget the cookies. You’re more than enough woman for any man.”
She blinked, not understanding him. She barely understood herself.
“I never meant for you to test who you are. All I suggested was that you take care not to lose sight of your own personality. Goals are all well and good, even necessary, but you should always calculate the cost.”
“Oh.” Her mind was still too hazy to properly assimilate his meaning.
“Are you going to be all right?” he asked, as he grazed her cheek with his fingertips. He kissed Susannah’s eyelids, closing them.
All she could do was nod.
“John Hammer would like to see you right away,” Ms. Brooks told Susannah when she walked into her office Thursday morning.
Susannah’s heart flew into her throat and stayed there for an uncomfortable moment. This was it. The day for which she’d been waiting five long years.
“Did he say what he wanted?” she asked, making an effort to appear at least outwardly calm.
“No,” Ms. Brooks replied. “He just asked me to tell you he wanted to talk to you at your convenience.”
Susannah slumped into her high-backed office chair. She propped her elbows on the desk and hid her face in her hands, trying to put some order to her muddled thoughts. “At my convenience,” she repeated in a ragged whisper. “I didn’t get the promotion. I just know it.”
“Susannah,” her assistant said sternly, calling her by her first name—something she rarely did. “I think you might be jumping to conclusions.”
Susannah glared at her, annoyed by the woman’s obtuseness. “If he planned to appoint me vice president, he would’ve called me into his office late in the afternoon. That’s how it’s done. Then he’d go through this long spiel about me being a loyal employee and what an asset I am to the company and all that stuff. Wanting to talk to me now means…Well, you know what it means.”
“I can’t say I do,” Ms. Brooks said primly. “My suggestion is that you pull yourself together and get over to Mr. Hammer’s office before he changes his mind.”
Susannah got to her feet and stiffened her spine. But no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t seem to stop shaking.
“I’ll be waiting here when you get back,” Ms. Brooks told her on her way out the door. She smiled then, an encouraging gesture that softened her austere features. “Break a leg, kid.”
“I probably will, whatever happens,” she muttered. If she didn’t get this promotion, she was afraid she’d fall apart. Assuming a calm manner, she decided not to worry until she knew for sure.
John Hammer stood when she was announced. Susannah walked into his office, and the first thing she noticed was that the two men who were her competition hadn’t been called. The company president smiled benignly and motioned toward a chair. Susannah sat on the edge of the cushion, doing her best to disguise how nervous she was.
A smile eased over her boss’s face. “Good morning, Susannah…”
True to her word, Susannah’s assistant was waiting for her when she strolled back to her office.
“Well?”
Eleanor Brooks followed her to her desk and watched as Susannah carefully sat down.
“What happened?” she demanded a second time. “Don’t just sit there. Talk!”
Susannah’s gaze slowly moved from the phone to her assistant. Then she started to chuckle. The laughter came from deep within her and she had to cover her mouth with her palms. When she could talk, she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.
“The first thing he did was ask me if I wanted to trade offices while mine was being repainted.”
“What?”
Susannah thought Ms. Brooks’s expression probably reflected her own when Mr. Hammer had asked that question. “That was my reaction, too,” Susannah exclaimed. “I didn’t understand what he meant. Then he said he was going to have my office redone, because he felt it was only right that the vice president in charge of marketing have a brand-new office.”
“You got the promotion?” Eleanor Brooks clapped her hands in sheer delight, then pressed them over her lips.
“I got it,” Susannah breathed, squeezing her eyes shut. “I actually got it.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you, thank you.” Already she was reaching for the phone. She had to tell Nate. Only a few days before, he’d said she should go after her dreams, and now everything was neatly falling into place.
There was no answer at his apartment and, dejected, she replaced the receiver. But the need to talk to him consumed her, and she tried again every half hour until she thought she’d go crazy.
At noon, she was absorbed in her work when Ms. Brooks announced that her luncheon date had arrived.
“Send him in,” Susannah said automatically, irritated that her concentration had been broken.
Nate strolled casually into her office and plopped himself down in the chair opposite her desk.
“Nate,” she cried, leaping to her feet. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning. What are you doing here?”
“We’re going out to lunch, remember?”
Chapter
8
“Nate!” Susannah ran around her desk until she stood directly in front of him. “John Hammer called me into his office this morning,” she explained breathlessly. “I got the promotion! You’re looking at the vice president in charge of marketing for H&J Lima.”
For a moment Nate said nothing. Then he slowly repeated, “You got the promotion?”
“Yes,” she told him. “I got it.” In her enthusiasm, Susannah nodded several times, with a vigor that almost dislocated her neck. She was smiling so hard, her face ached.
Throwing back his head, Nate let out a shout that must have shaken the ceiling tile. Then he locked his arms around her waist, picked her up and swung her around, all the while howling with delight.
Susannah laughed with him. She’d never experienced joy more profoundly. The promotion hadn’t seemed real to her until she’d shared it with Nate. The first person she’d thought to tell had been him. He’d become the very center of her world, and it was time to admit she was in love with him.
Nate had stopped whirling her around, but he continued to clasp her middle so that her face was elevated above his own.
Breathless with happiness, Susannah smiled down on him and on impulse buried her fingers in his hair. She couldn’t resist him, not now, when she was filled with such exhilaration. Her mouth was trembling when she kissed him. She made a soft throaty sound of discovery and pleasure. Her gaze fell to the sensual lines of his mouth, and she remembered how she’d felt when he’d held and reassured her after the cookie disaster. She lowered her lips once more, lightly rocking her head back and forth, creating a friction that was so hot, she thought she’d catch fire.
In an unhurried movement, Nate lowered her to the ground and slid his arms around her. “Susannah,” he moaned, kissing the corner of her mouth with exquisite care.
With a shudder, she opened her mouth to him. She wanted him to kiss her the way he had in the past. Deep, slow, moist, kisses that made her forget to breathe. She yearned for the taste and scent of him. This was the happiest moment of her life, and only a small part of it could be attributed to the promotion
. Everything else was Nate and the growing love she felt for him each time they were together.
Someone coughed nervously in the background, and Nate broke off the kiss and glanced past her to the open door.
“Ms. Simmons,” her assistant said, smiling broadly.
“Yes?” Breaking away from Nate, Susannah smoothed the hair at the sides of her head and struggled to replace her business facade.
“I’ll be leaving now. Ms. Andrews will be answering your calls.”
“Thank you, Ms. Brooks,” Nate muttered, but there was little appreciation in his tone.
Susannah chastised him with a look. “We’ll…I’ll be leaving directly for my lunch appointment.”
“I’ll tell Ms. Andrews.”
“This afternoon, I’d like you to call a meeting of my staff,” Susannah said, “and I’ll announce the promotion.”
Eleanor Brooks nodded, but her smiling eyes landed heavily on Nate. “I believe everyone’s already guessed from the…commotion that came from here a few minutes ago.”
“I see.” Susannah couldn’t help smiling, too.
“There isn’t an employee here who isn’t happy about your news.”
“I can think of two,” Susannah said under her breath, considering the men she’d been competing against. Nate squeezed her hand, and she knew he’d heard her sardonic remark.
Her assistant closed the door on her way out, and the minute she did, Nate reached for Susannah to bring her back into the shelter of his arms. “Where were we?”
“About to leave for lunch, as I recall.”
Nate frowned. “That’s not the way I remember it.”
Susannah laughed and hugged him tightly. “We both forgot ourselves for a while there.” She broke away again and reached for her purse, hooking the long strap over her shoulder. “Are you ready?”
“Anytime you are.” But the eager look in his eyes told her he was talking about something other than lunch.
Susannah could feel the color working its way up her neck and suffusing her face. “Nate,” she whispered, “behave yourself. Please.”