EXCERPT FROM JUST THE WAY YOU ARE

Everyone asks me why I wrote JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, my first contemporary romance. Actually, this isn’t my first contemporary. My first contemporary was never published — because it was AWFUL! In fact, my first two books (an historical and a contemporary) were AWFUL! But book three was CANDLE IN THE WINDOW, another historical, and it was published and has never gone out of print. Once I started writing historicals, my publisher wanted me to establish my name there and so I gave up writing contemporary romance — but I always read them and always planned to write more. When I got the idea for a family ripped apart by tragedy and trying desperately to reunite, I knew the time had come. JUST THE WAY YOU ARE is book #1 of the Lost Texas Hearts series.

Present day Boston Massachusetts

Zack threw his coat into the back seat recesses of his Mercedes limousine. "Hello, Coldfell, how was your day?"

"Very good, sir." His chauffeur held the door. "Thank you, sir."

Coldfell, Zack noted, seemed stiff with him, as if she barely knew him, when in fact she’d been driving him for over ten years, and Jason’s words came back to haunt him. You’ve become a heartless bastard. Zack would have filed the sentiment under the mental heading of Irrelevant, except this was Jason. They’d known each other since college. So very well. Coldfell would be Zack's first proof that he was not heartless. As Zack climbed in, he caught a glimpse of the books in the front seat. "What are you reading, Coldfell?"

Coldfell looked at him as if he’d spoken a different language. "Sir?"

"What are you reading?"

"Real Men and Why They’re Afraid to Commit, sir." Coldfell walked to the driver’s seat. Forty-years-old, short and slender, Coldfell looked nothing like a chauffeur. Indeed, she looked nothing like a bodyguard, but that was exactly what she was, trained to drive, to protect her passenger and shoot to kill if necessary.

"I thought you were married. Didn’t I send a wedding gift?"

"I was married. Thank you, the gravy boat was lovely. That was eight years ago. I’m divorced."

"I’m sorry," he said. He was sorry. He liked Coldfell, when he noticed her. They drove onto the street. A soft wet snow was falling, splattering its big flakes on the windshield and covering the city with silence. "Have you learned anything from your book?"

"Yes." Coldfell sadly shook her head. "Men are a mess. Men won’t commit themselves to a relationship because they’re cowards."

"I am not a coward." He was cautious. There was a great deal of difference. He would be married for his money. He accepted that. But he wouldn’t wed until he had assured himself that the female he chose would be an accessory on his arm, a hostess of incomparable skill, and a suitable mother for his children. "Maybe you and I should have a relationship."

She drove across the intersection. "That’s just what I need. I got a divorce from an immature man who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Why would I get involved with a man who’s emotionally distant?"

Emotionally distant? Nonsense! He did connect with people. He’d just connected with Coldfell. And that was enough intimacy for one day. Pulling files from his briefcase, he worked all the way home. A stern and impressive Federal-style townhouse, his home stood fully four stories tall with a basement that housed the remodeled kitchen, a cook and an assistant. Coldfell drove beneath the portico.

Zack hurried into the house and said to his butler, "I need to call my answering service." Going to his office, he tossed his briefcase onto the brown leather sofa and poured himself a whisky on ice. He strolled to the phone on his cherrywood desk. Oddly enough, he’d wanted to be alone when he listened to that woman’s voice again.

Hope's voice. This afternoon, when he’d heard her, he had thought she sounded warm and passionate, like fragrant nights on a tropical island, like lustrous pearls against a smooth, pale throat … like a woman in the throes of arousal. When he had heard that voice, a shiver had worked down his spine, and … This was stupid. He was hallucinating about someone who worked at an answering service. Leaning over, he punched the number for the answering service.

"This is Hope. Are you calling for Mr. Givens’s messages?"

What a voice! Friendly, husky, and so sexy. He took a long breath to slow the sudden thump of his heart. Amused at this infatuation with an unknown woman, he built a picture of her in his mind. Hope probably sported broad, capable, child-bearing hips. Her hair was long and white, swept into a bun, and when she wasn’t answering the phone she was making spaghetti for her husband and her legion of grandchildren. Zack’s portrait of Hope added a measure of sanity to an obsession that was otherwise pure madness. "I am calling for Mr. Givens’s messages."

"Hold, please. I’m ringing Mrs. Monahan. I’m afraid she’s gone out to shovel the snow on her front walk."

In an instant, Hope was gone. He didn’t even get music, only the occasional beep that told him he was on hold. Picking up a pencil, he tapped it in beat of syncopated impatience. He wasn’t feeling so infatuated with her now.

Hope clicked back in. "She’s not there."

here," he announced in a significant tone.

"I’m

"Yes, but you don’t have any real problems. Mrs. Monahan needs an artificial hip and she can’t afford it."

He didn't care. He just didn’t care about some old lady whose only connection to him was a female with an overdeveloped sense of responsibility toward the elderly.

"Her arthritis, you know," Hope said. "She hobbles on a cane. She needs a walker, but she won’t let me get her one. I know I could track down a used one for almost nothing."

"Yes." He cleared his throat. What did he know about used walkers? "What about her family? Shouldn’t they be worried about this so you could give me my messages?"

"She doesn’t have a family. A lot of old people don’t."

Now that was a situation he couldn’t imagine. His family was always there for him … whether he wanted them or not. "My aunt had a hip replacement two months ago." Conversation. He was making conversation with the answering service lady. Jason would be so proud.

Hope's voice grew more concerned. "How is she?" So Hope felt compassion, not only the people she served, but for anyone she ever heard about.

This answering service was a disaster. If he had an answering machine, he’d already have retrieved his messages. "She still has trouble getting around."

"That’s miserable. I’ll bet she’s your favorite aunt."

"She’s my father’s youngest sister, and except for the arthritis, she’s a real live wire. So yes, she is my favorite." Why was he telling this woman, this stranger, these things? He made his tone stern. "I’ll take those messages now."

Hope responded as she should … finally. "Of course, sir — wait a minute! There she is."

He was back on hold again, listening to that obnoxious beep. This woman at the answering service was incredibly inefficient, operating without any sense of decorum or any understanding of his importance.

The line snapped back on. "Mrs. Monahan is fine, but she was shoveling her walk. I told her if she fell down she’d be freeze to death. For Pete’s sake, she’s eighty."

For Pete’s sake? He hadn’t heard anyone say that for years. So Hope really wasn’t the sensual young thing her voice suggested. He was relieved. He really was.

"Are you Mr. Griswald? You’re Mr. Givens’s butler, right?" Hope’s voice warmed with amusement. "You have to be. I can’t believe the old fart keeps a male secretary at home. Oops, there’s Mr. Cello. Hold, please."

Old fart? Mr. Cello? Old fart?

She came back on almost immediately. "He’s waiting for news on his student loans. If he doesn’t get scholarships, he has to wait tables again this semester."

Zack swore he only understood every other word she spoke. "His name is Cello?"

"No, that’s the instrument he plays." Hope sounded impossibly cheerful. "I have nicknames for my clients. There’s Ms. Siamese."

"Politically incorrect."

"Yes, if I was talking about her. It’s her cat, it yowls all the time she’s on the phone."

"Oh." Politically incorrect? This was appalling. Hope had no business knowing so much about her callers. She truly had no business telling him about them, although she hadn't told him any names. And she should never, ever care so much.

"There’s poor Mrs. Chess. She’s got a baby, her husband took off, and she’s living on welfare because if she gets a job she can’t pay for the child care and survive. She and I play chess over the phone. She’s lonely." Hope sounded wistful, as if she were lonely. "It keeps her entertained."

Zack was reeling. "How is she paying for the answering service?"

"We just charge people like your Mr. Givens more to make up for people like her."

"It’s illegal to charge one man more for the services he receives than anyone else."

"Mr. Givens is receiving more services. I’m keeping a permanent log of every call he receives, plus I’m to keep track of Mr. Givens’s appointments, plus I’m to send flowers and jewelry as instructed by Mr. Givens should he need to stage a seduction. Somebody has to take care of the big man’s seductions. You can’t expect him to stage them himself." Hope mocked him — Zack Givens — with words and tone.

"You don’t seem to have much of an opinion of Mr. Givens. What’s he done to you?"

"Nothing." She chuckled huskily. "He’s just rich. Born and bred to it. When it comes to the milk of human kindness, those kind of people are a dry cow."

He had never heard himself described as a dry cow before.

"Have you been a butler long?"

He hesitated. Should he tell her the truth? She’d be embarrassed. She’d be afraid of losing her job.

She’d learn a valuable lesson.

"Oh, dear. You’re going to be flayed alive by the big man for being so long at getting his messages, aren’t you, and you’re too polite to tell me to stop chattering. Hang on, I have all of them here. If Mr. Givens is nasty to you, you have him call, and I’ll make it clear it’s all my fault that you’re late."

"No. Really. He won’t mind. He’s really a grand employer."

"And you’re a loyal employee," she said warmly. "Now let me give you the messages."

He surrendered. If Hope insisted on thinking that he, Zack, was a dastardly old fart, who was he to correct her? "I’ve got a pen and paper."

In the first business-like tone he’d heard from her, Hope read, "Aunt Cecily reminds Mr. Givens that he’s an ungrateful whelp and wants him to come to dinner tomorrow night. His sister Janna called from Washington to say Congressman Nottingham had made a pass at her, which makes her officially part of the Senate."

"Did she say if she knocked him ass over tea kettle?"

Hope laughed, a long, low, breathy laugh that lifted the hairs on the back of his head and made him feel like the greatest wit in Boston. "No, she didn’t. Would she have?"

"Check the news tonight," he advised.

Hope read another half a dozen, none of them particularly important, but she appeared sure of all of her facts, and she did, after all, seem efficient. And the conversation, while exasperating him, hadn’t changed his mind about her voice. She really was the sexiest sounding woman he’d ever heard.

"That’s all the messages, Mr. Griswald." Hope drawled her words, wrapping her tongue around each syllable as if it were honey candy.

Closing his eyes, he listened, and imagined how that tongue would feel sliding along his cock … his eyes sprang open. That was it. He’d gone mad. He was imagining a blow-job with a female he’d never met and who was probably twice his age and three times his weight with four times the facial hair.

"Thank you for the messages. And Hope?" He cradled the receiver between his ear and his shoulder. "I’ll call you tomorrow."

Buy this book at: Amazon | BarnesandNoble.com | Borders

<< Previous Excerpt | Next Excerpt >>