Kara Lennox - Tame An Older Man

But she looked forward to seeing Wyatt. Normally she didn't like it when an employer infringed on her personal time. But for some reason, she didn't begrudge Wyatt his request. She went straight to the phone and called him.

"Phoebe."

He sounded pleased to hear from her.

"You rushed away so quickly today I didn't have a chance to brief you about tomorrow's guests. You want to go out for coffee, and I can give you the rundown?"

Phoebe didn't want to be difficult, but going out didn't sound like much fun. She'd been gone all day, and more than anything she wanted to put on her fluffy robe and slippers, and curl into her beanbag chair with her books. "Why don't you come over here?" she said brightly. "I'll put a pot of coffee on." She would need it for the late night of studying she had planned.

"If you'd rather. See you in a few."

Phoebe put on the coffee, then quickly picked up her apartment, careful to stow her schoolbooks in the bedroom. She'd told almost no one about trying to get a college degree. Daisy and Elise knew, and Wyatt's grandparents, but they'd all been sworn to secrecy.

After moving to Phoenix, she'd gone to a career counselor and taken some tests to find out what, aside from acting and makeup, she might be good at. She'd been floored when she got her test results back. She'd made almost a perfect score on the SAT, and the IQ test had placed her at near-genius level.

"My mother would faint" was the first thing Phoebe told the counselor. Olga, who had immigrated to America from Denmark when she was a child, had never pressured Phoebe to make good grades. "God did not give you that gorgeous face and body so you could become a nuclear physicist," Olga had said more than once. "You've got everything you need to become a movie star or land a rich husband, or both."

Olga, despite looking very much like her daughter, had done neither. Phoebe's factory-worker father had disappeared when she was three, and Olga had never remarried, though she'd tried awfully hard and was still trying. As for show business, the pinnacle of Olga's career had been when she played a Swedish maid for two weekends at a dinner theater.

That didn't stop her from having sky-high hopes for her daughter-acting classes, dance classes, speech classes to get rid of that New Jersey accent, and beauty school, just in case.

For a while, Phoebe had bought into Olga's fantasy. She'd skated through high school with straight Cs because she figured she wouldn't need an education. Later, after Phoebe moved to L.A. and changed her name, all of Olga's dreams for her daughter seemed to be coming true.

But Phoebe's success had been fleeting, a lucky first break that didn't lead to much of anything. Olga had been crushed when Phoebe had announced she was leaving Hollywood and giving up show business. Her worst disappointment was that Phoebe hadn't married some rich movie producer or become Mrs. Brad Pitt.

Phoebe's feet were now more firmly planted than her mother's had ever been. But she still had a hard time believing she was smart. That was why she told very few people of her career aspirations. Because what if the test results were wrong? What if she flunked out? She would feel like a complete fool.

Wyatt was the last person she would tell. It was much easier if he continued to think of her as a blond beautician. Then she wouldn't have to live up to any unrealistic expectations.

When she let Wyatt in a few minutes later, she realized her apartment was clean but that she was a mess. She probably hadn't so much as glanced in a mirror since noon.

"Help yourself to some coffee," she said. "I'm going to change into more comfortable clothes."

Wyatt's soft chuckles followed her down the hallway toward her bedroom. She stepped inside the room, closed the door, then put her face in her hands. Had she actually just told Wyatt Madison she was going to slip into something more comfortable?

Wyatt took a few seconds to fantasize about what outfit Phoebe might change into. A negligee? A net cat suit? Yeah, right. He'd thumbed through one too many Victoria's Secret catalogs. He'd be lucky if she didn't return in a flannel granny gown. He'd learned over the years that was how most women defined comfortable .

When he'd visited her apartment before, he'd been too busy fighting back the flood waters to notice much about it. Now he paid attention.

The decor seemed a reflection of Phoebe, he decided. The colors were delicate-peach, yellow, pale aqua-but the white leather sofa was functional and sturdy-looking. Nothing about the apartment screamed professional decorator, yet Phoebe obviously had a feel for comfort and practicality. The oatmeal carpet was thick and soft, but it wouldn't soil easily. She didn't have a lot of cluttery knickknacks that would require dusting.

She did have books, a whole bookshelf full of them. Curious, he walked over to it and perused her titles.

They surprised him a little. He might have expected the romance novels and the few self-help gems. But a biography of Madame Curie, and Stephen Hawking's A Short History of the Universe were completely unexpected. He couldn't imagine Phoebe reading physics. Maybe they were just for show. He knew people who bought intelligent-sounding titles and stuck them on their coffee tables just to throw visitors off.

Then a title caught his eye. The book was sitting crossways on top of a row of magazines, so apparently she'd been reading it recently. And the title made his throat close up: 2001 Ways to Wed .

So, Phoebe was looking for a husband.

He might have guessed. She was that age when women, understandably, started thinking about having babies. He knew now, after reading her employment forms, that she was twenty-eight. But whatever advice she was getting out of that book, she wasn't acting obvious. In fact, he distinctly remembered her saying she didn't have time for a man.

Maybe that was part of the plan.

He couldn't resist flipping through the book. The chapter names were intriguing: "Dating and Mating in the Workplace"; "Don't Forget Your Neighbors"; "What Your Mother Never Told You"; "Bars and Why You Can't Find A Good Man At One"; "Work On Yourself Before You Work on Him."

Phoebe had actually written notes in the margin. She was serious about this, then.

He looked closer at the chapter on neighbors. Was that his name scribbled at the top of one page? He never found out for sure, because he heard her bedroom door open. He quickly closed the book and replaced it on the shelf, then sat down on the sofa and tried to look bored.

The moment Phoebe reentered the living room, Wyatt was forced to abandon any notions he had that Phoebe was out to snag him as a husband. She'd put on a worn pair of baggy gray sweats and slicked her hair into a no-frills ponytail. She'd also taken off her makeup.

Damn if she still didn't look sexy. She was the only woman he'd ever met who could make such a get-up look enticing. But she didn't seem to be doing it on purpose.

"Coffee?" she asked.

"I don't drink coffee. But please, go ahead." He followed her into the kitchen.

"How about juice?" she asked. "Orange? Cranapple?"

"Orange would be good."

Wyatt's mind was still on one question that begged to be answered: If Phoebe Lane was looking for a husband, why had she eliminated him from the running? It might be because he'd proved himself a grumpy recluse, but he didn't think that was it. He'd explained to her why he was working so hard, and she'd seemed to understand.

What, then? He was single-never married, in fact-so she wouldn't have to deal with any baggage. He was gainfully employed and financially sound. Of course, she hadn't asked to see last year's tax return, but she would know just from the kind of job he had and the car he drove that he had a bit of disposable income.