"I"ve driven this car one time," she watched him say before she looked up into his eyes staring down at her. "Three days before my accident, I drove it home from the dealers.h.i.+p." He might be a jerk, but he smelled wonderful. Like some sort of manly soap on clean manly skin. He held up the keys, then dropped them into her waiting palm. "I"m not kidding about killing you."
He looked serious. "I haven"t had a ticket in about five years," she said as she followed him around to the pa.s.senger side. "Well, maybe a parking ticket, but nonmoving violations don"t count."
He reached for the front pa.s.senger door as she reached for the back. "I"m not sitting back there." The hard splint surrounding his middle finger hit against the door, and he couldn"t grasp the handle with his other fingers. Chelsea pushed his hand aside and opened the door for him. "I can open my own freakin" door," he barked.
"I"m the chauffeur. Remember?" Really though, it was just easier and faster if she did it. She watched him slowly lower himself into the car, one corner of his mouth tightening as he pulled his legs inside. "Do you need help with your seat belt?"
"No." He reached for it with his left hand. "I"m not two years old. I can buckle my own seat belt. I can feed myself, tie my own shoes, and I don"t need help taking a p.i.s.s."
Chelsea closed the door and walked around to the side. "Ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars," she whispered.
The new-car smell filled her head as she climbed inside and dumped her purse in the back. Soft beige leather caressed her back and behind. She sighed and pressed the ignition b.u.t.ton. The motor purred like a content little kitten. "You have the premium package." She ran her hands over the leather-covered steering wheel. "Heated everything. GPS. A place to plug in your iPod. Nice."
"How do you know about my premium package?"
She ignored the innuendo. "I"m from L.A. We get heated seats and steering wheels even though it hardly ever drops below sixty degrees." She pushed the garage opener clipped to the visor, and one of the doors slid up. When she engaged the GPS system, it lit up and asked in a perky female voice, "h.e.l.lo Mark. Where to?" She glanced at his stony profile as she requested the medical center. Then she buckled her seat belt and looked behind her as she backed the Mercedes out of the shadowy garage and into the sunlight. "Whenever I drive an expensive car out of someone"s garage, I always feel like Ferris Bueller. I swear I can hear the music in my head." She lowered her voice and said as deep as possible, "Bow bow-oooohhh yeeeaah."
"Are you high?"
The garage door closed and she slid the car into drive.
"No. I don"t take drugs." There"d been a time when she"d toyed with drugs. Experimenting with this and that, but she"d seen firsthand the horrible waste of addiction and she"d chosen not to go down that road. "You"ll be happy to know that I pa.s.sed a drug test to get this job." She eased her foot off the brake, rolled past her Honda, and proceeded down the driveway. "Apparently they"re careful about whom they hire."
"Obviously." He leaned his head back and brushed his thumb along the handle of his cane. "They sent me a nurse who"d rather play chauffeur."
"Turn right," the GPS instructed, and Chelsea headed for the 520. "One mile north. 8.8 miles till destination."
"That"s annoying," Mark grumbled as he leaned forward, and messed around with the GPS screen until the voice command option was silenced.
The Mercedes rolled along the asphalt as if it owned the road. For a few seconds, she debated whether to tell him that she wasn"t a nurse. If he found out later, he might get mad. Then again, maybe if he found out later, he"d like her and it wouldn"t matter. She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes, sitting over there like the Grim Reaper. Yeah, right. "Listen, Mark-May I call you Mark?"
"Mr. Bressler is good."
She returned her attention to the road. "Listen, Mr. Bressler, I"m not a nurse. Not technically a health care worker either." Since he was probably going to get mad anyway, she went for broke. "You"ve been such a pain in the a.s.s-with all due respect-that no one in the Chinooks" organization bothered to fill me in on what I should do for you. I suspect that no one expects me to last more than ten minutes. I was just handed a schedule and told good luck."
For several tense moments, stunned silence filled the car. "You"re not "technically a health care worker." Do you have any sort of medical training?"
"I know CPR and I played a nurse on TV."
"You what?"
"I played a nurse on The Bold and the Beautiful."
"If you"re "not technically a health care worker," what are you?"
She glanced across the Mercedes at him. Morning sunlight penetrated the leafy pattern of the tree-lined street and poured in through the winds.h.i.+eld. The gray shadows brushed his face and slid across his blinding white T-s.h.i.+rt. "I"m an actress."
His mouth parted in shock. "They sent me an actress?"
"Yeah, evidently."
"Take the 520 West," he advised, even though the navigation system was showing her the same thing.
Behind her sungla.s.ses, she rolled her eyes and took the freeway ramp to Seattle. "I"ve been the personal a.s.sistant to various celebrities for more than seven years. I have a lot of experience putting up with bull c.r.a.p." Arrogant whiners, the lot of them. "An a.s.sistant is better than a nurse. I do all the work, you take all the credit. If something bad happens, I get the blame. There is no down side."
"Except that I have to put up with you. Hovering around, watching me. And you don"t even have the qualifications to take my pulse or wipe my a.s.s." He opened the console between the seats and pulled out a pair of silver-rimmed aviator sungla.s.ses.
"You seem to be a healthy guy. Do you need someone to wipe your a.s.s?"
"You offering?"
She shook her head and pa.s.sed a minivan with a my-kid"s-smarter-than-your-kid b.u.mper sticker. "No. I draw the line at any sort of personal contact with my employer." She glanced over her left shoulder and merged into the faster lane.
"You just cut off that van full of kids."
She glanced at him. "Plenty of room."
"You"re driving too fast," he said through a dark scowl that might have intimidated other people. Other people who weren"t used to dealing with difficult egomaniacs.
"I"m only going five miles over the speed limit. Everyone knows five miles doesn"t count." She returned her attention to the road. "If you"re going to be a backseat driver, I"m going to make you sit in the backseat like Miss Daisy." It was pretty much an empty threat and they both knew it. Her brain scrambled for a response if he called her on it. The key to a.s.sistant survival was to remain physically and mentally nimble and antic.i.p.ate your bigheaded employer"s next move.
"You must not be a very good actress if you"re in Seattle babysitting me."
Her nimble brain hadn"t antic.i.p.ated that from him. She told herself there were ten thousand reasons why she shouldn"t push him out of the car. "I"m a very good actress," she said instead. "I just haven"t had a big break. Most of my roles have been bit parts or have landed on the cutting room floor." She glanced at the GPS and turned on her blinker.
"What have you acted in?"
"A lot of different things." Chelsea was used to that question. She got it a lot. "Did you see Juno?"
"You were in Juno?"
"Yeah. I was up in Canada a.s.sisting one of my B stars, who was working on a movie for Lifetime, when I got the call that the production company needed background people so I showed up." She took the I5 South exit. "I was in the shopping mall scene. If you look past Ellen Page"s big belly, you can see me talking on a cell phone."
"That"s it?"
"For my part in Juno, yes. But I"ve done a lot of other films."
"Name something. Other than blink-and-you-miss-it parts."
"Slasher Camp, Killer Valentine, Prom Night 2, He Knows It"s You, and Motel on Lake h.e.l.l."
Silence filled the car, and then he started to laugh. A deep rumble that came from his chest. "You"re a scream queen. No s.h.i.+t?"
She didn"t know that she could be considered a scream queen. More like a scream s.l.u.t. Or the best friend of the scream queen. Her roles had never been big enough to be considered the queen. "I"ve done other things. Like walk-on parts on The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. And on CSI: Miami, I played one of a series of dead girls that kept was.h.i.+ng up on the beach. The makeup was really interesting." She looked over her left shoulder and pa.s.sed a delivery truck. "Most people a.s.sume CSI: Miami is filmed in Miami but it"s not. It"s actually filmed on Manhattan Beach and Long Beach," she continued. "I"ve done a ton of series pilots that never got picked up. Not to mention tons of commercials. The last commercial I did was for Hills.h.i.+re Farms. I wore a cheerleader"s outfit and yelled, "Go meat." That was about six months ago. When I was in-"
"Jesus!" he interrupted as he reached for the b.u.t.tons to the radio and filled the inside of the Mercedes with "Slither." The heavy ba.s.s vibrated the floor beneath her feet, and Chelsea bit the side of her lip to keep from laughing. He no doubt meant to be rude, but Velvet Revolver was one of her favorite bands. Scott Weiland was a skinny, hot rock G.o.d, and she"d rather listen to Scott than tax her brain in a futile effort to entertain a grumpy hockey player.
Too bad Scott was such a junkie, she thought as she tapped her fingers on the steering wheel along with the heavy beat. If she were alone, she"d bust out and sing along, but Mr. Bressler was already annoyed with her. And while Chelsea had near perfect recall of song lyrics and movie dialogue-kind of a hidden savant talent-she couldn"t carry a tune.
She glanced at the GPS and took exit 165A and merged onto James Street just as the trusty navigation system instructed. Within a few minutes, Chelsea pulled the Mercedes in front of the ma.s.sive medical center.
Mark turned off the radio and pointed the handle of his cane toward the winds.h.i.+eld. "Keep going. The clinic entrance is further down."
"I"ll find the parking garage, then I"ll come find you."
"I don"t need you to find me," he said as the car pulled to a stop beside the curb. "I"ll have one of the nurses call you when I"m ready to be picked up."
"Do you have my number?"
"No." He unbuckled his seat belt and opened the door with his good hand. "Write it on something."
Chelsea reached into the backseat and grabbed her purse. She pulled out an old business card and a pen. She wrote her new cell phone number on the back, then looked through the car at Mark. "My new number"s on the back," she said as she handed it across to him.
The tips of his fingers b.u.mped into hers as he took the card and glanced over it. He slid his legs out of the car and grabbed his cane. "Don"t wreck the car," he said as he grabbed the top of the door frame and stood. He shoved the card into his back pocket and shut the door.
A taxi behind the Mercedes honked, and Chelsea eased her foot off the brake and headed toward the street. In her rearview mirror she caught a glimpse of Mark Bressler just before he entered the building. The bright morning sun shot glistening sparks off his aviators and shone in his dark hair. He paused to watch her-no doubt to make sure she didn"t "wreck the car"-before he moved within the deep shadows of the building.
She turned her attention to the road and figured she had a little over an hour to kill. She was in downtown Seattle. There had to be somewhere she could go to scrub her mind free of the past hour. She needed to find her happy place.
She touched the GPS screen and turned on the voice command mode. "Where to, Mark?" it asked. Clearly it didn"t know that it was supposed to ad-dress him as Mr. Bressler.
"Neiman Marcus," she said. "I need Neiman Marcus."
FOUR.
Mark glanced at the Neiman Marcus bags in the backseat of his car and buckled his seat belt. For her first day on the job, she sure was making herself comfortable.
"Where to, Chelsea?"
He looked at her, then at his navigation system. "What the h.e.l.l?"
His "a.s.sistant" gave the GPS an address in Belltown, then looked across at him and smiled. "I didn"t think you"d mind if I programmed my name into the voice recognition. It kept calling me Mark, which was just confusing because I am clearly not you."
"Turn right. 3.6 miles till destination."
He leaned forward, brought up the menu screen, and turned off the sound. "Confusing for who?"
"The GPS."
"The GPS doesn"t get confused." He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He"d been right about her. She was nuttier than squirrel s.h.i.+t, and she was driving his ninety-thousand-dollar car.
"How was your appointment?" she asked, all cheery.
"Great." Mark opened his eyes and looked out the pa.s.senger window at St. James Cathedral. But the appointment hadn"t been great. He hadn"t received the news he"d been wanting to hear. The doctor had seemed pleased, but the tendons weren"t healing as fast as Mark hoped and he had to wear the splint for at least another month. Which meant he couldn"t transfer his cane to his right side for better balance. It also meant he had to take the splint off to b.u.t.ton his s.h.i.+rt or pants, take a shower, or eat a meal. Although he"d always shot left, trying to sign his name left-handed was like writing with a pen stuck in his toes.
A dull ache radiated from deep in the marrow of his femur and spread to his hip. At the moment, it wasn"t bad. Nothing he couldn"t handle, but in a few hours it was likely to get worse. He hadn"t brought any medication with him because he didn"t like to be doped up in public. He didn"t want anyone to think he couldn"t handle a little pain. He was Mark Bressler. He"d played hockey with a fractured ankle and a broken thumb. He"d played through concussions and torn and bruised muscles. He could handle the pain. If he was lucky, it wouldn"t get real bad until he got back home, where he could park himself in front of his big TV and knock back a bottle of his favorite medication.
The car turned on Madison, and Mark glanced across at his a.s.sistant. Despite her big sungla.s.ses, two-tone hair, and hideous s.h.i.+rt, she was cute. Like a kitten was cute, but Mark didn"t like cats. Cats were sneaky. One second a cat looked all soft and harmless. All big blue eyes and innocence. One second you were just looking at it thinking, Huh, that"s kind of a cute kitten, then it sank its teeth into your hand and ran away. A sort of stealth blitz that left a guy stunned and wondering what the h.e.l.l just happened.
Behind the mirror lenses of his gla.s.ses, he lowered his gaze down the side of her neck and shoulder to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She sure wasn"t built like a little kitty cat, more like a p.o.r.n star. She"d said she was an actress. All p.o.r.n stars thought they were actresses too. He wondered how much she"d paid for her b.o.o.bs.
He closed his eyes and groaned. What had his life come to? Looking at a nice pair of t.i.ts and wondering how much she paid for them? Who gave a s.h.i.+t! In another life, his other life, he"d be thinking about how he was going to get face-deep in her cleavage. His only thought about kittens would begin and end with how he was going to get her little kitty cat naked and riding his lap.
For most of his life, Mark had been good at two things: hockey and s.e.x. He"d only set out to be good at shooting pucks, but a guy couldn"t exactly live his life hip-deep in rink bunnies and not get to know his way around a woman"s body. Now he couldn"t do one and didn"t have any interest in the other. He"d never been a guy whose d.i.c.k defined his life, but s.e.x sure had been a big part of his life. Except for when he"d been married. Christine had used s.e.x as a reward. When she got what she wanted, he got laid.
h.e.l.l, he"d always thought he should be rewarded because he"d been faithful, which, given the amount of time he"d spent on the road with women throwing themselves at him, had been d.a.m.n tough.
"This appointment shouldn"t take more than an hour," his a.s.sistant said as she turned onto First Avenue and headed north. "I should have you at the Spitfire and your interview with Sports Ill.u.s.trated right on time."
He couldn"t recall ever agreeing to the interview in the first place, but he must have. When he"d talked to his sports agent about it, he must have been high on morphine or he never would have agreed to be interviewed when he wasn"t one hundred percent. Normally his agent, Ron Dorcey, wouldn"t have pushed it either, but with Mark"s name fading from the sports pages, and endors.e.m.e.nt deals drying up faster than a puddle of water in the Mojave, Ron had arranged one of the last interviews likely to come Mark"s way.
He would have much preferred the interview take place next month or even next week when his head was a little clearer. When he"d had a chance to think about what he wanted to say in what would likely be one of the last articles written about him. He wasn"t prepared, and he wasn"t quite sure how he"d managed to get himself interviewed today. In person.
Wait-he did know. Somehow he"d let a little bit of a woman bully him into doing it. He didn"t care that getting the interview over and done was easiest in the long run, not to mention the right thing to do. He"d let her push him around like he didn"t outweigh her by a good hundred pounds. Now she was driving his car like her name was on the pink slip.
Earlier, when she"d offered herself as his a.s.sistant instead of a health care worker, for one brief moment he"d thought, Why the h.e.l.l not? No more waiting around for a car service might make him feel less dependent. But in reality he felt more dependent and less capable of taking care of himself. Health care workers wanted to manage his pain. Chelsea Ross clearly wanted to manage his life. He didn"t need her and he didn"t want her around.
Mark brushed his thumb along the cool metal cane. Back to the original plan. No more Mr. Nice Guy. By the time he returned home that afternoon, he"d have her ready to quit. The thought of her peeling out of his driveway brought a genuine smile to his face.
"I got a text from the Sports Ill.u.s.trated reporter a few minutes ago and she"s set up in the VIP room," Chelsea said as she and Mark moved toward the entrance of the Spitfire. The sounds of the city surrounded them, and the cool breeze blowing off the bay brushed her face as she glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. She"d done a good job. She"d had him in and out of the John Louis Salon in time for his Sports Ill.u.s.trated interview. That had to count for something. Had to show him that she was good at her job and that he needed her. "Her name is Donda Clark and she said the interview shouldn"t take more than an hour."
He looked good too. The back of his dark hair barely brushed the collar of his T-s.h.i.+rt and the tops of his ears. He looked clean-cut. Handsome. Manly.
She"d been worried.
The John Louis Salon catered to an alternative clientele. Edgy. Emo. And Chelsea had worried that Mark would come out with guyliner and Pete Wentz or Flock of Seagulls hair.
"After I get you settled with the reporter, I have to run over to the Chinooks" offices." She had to sign some insurance papers, and the offices were only about five blocks away. "Call me if you"re done early."
"The last time I saw my cell phone was the night of the accident." From behind his sungla.s.ses, he glanced at her, then returned his gaze to the side-walk. "I a.s.sume it"s in the mangled Hummer somewhere."
She knew he had a home phone, but how could anyone live without text messaging for six months? She"d been in Seattle less than two weeks and she"d already changed her number and her plan. "Who"s your carrier?"
"Verizon. Why?"
"I"ll get you a new phone," she said as she opened the door to the lounge and followed him inside. "And put you on my friends and family plan."
He pushed his gla.s.ses to the top of his head and said something about going ahead and killing himself. The scent and sizzle of carnitas and sliders. .h.i.t her nostrils and made her stomach growl. The dim interior was lit with track lighting, white globes, and chandeliers. Forty-two-inch flat-screen televisions hung among local artwork and flashed with major sports events. The bar"s clientele was an eclectic mix of upwardly mobile and laid-back grunge. Knit hats and business suits all mingled inside the sports lounge.
A decent lunch crowd filled the tables and booths as Chelsea followed Mark through the bar. Heads turned as they pa.s.sed, and she didn"t fool herself that all that attention was directed at her. Over the hum of voices, people called out his name. He lifted his bad hand in acknowledgment, the dim light s.h.i.+ning on the aluminum of his splint.
Chelsea was used to walking into a restaurant and seeing all eyes turn to her employers. A time or two, she"d purposely created attention for them by posing as a fan or faux paparazzi. This energy was different from anything she"d ever experienced. This wasn"t superficial celebrity adoration. This was real and bigger than any of the B, C, or D listers she"d ever worked for.