Cara Summers - Short, Sweet And Sexy

“We’d like to join them,” A.J. said. The real estate agent had warned her that there would be an auction, and she needed to size up her opponents.

He glanced quickly around, then leaned closer and spoke in a stage whisper. “You might try naming the actor who played the cowardly lion.”

“Bert Lahr.” A.J. and the suitcase woman spoke again at the same time.

A grin split his face. “Excellent.”

“Bert Lahr is the password, then?” A.J. asked.

“No. But I like the fact that you’re Wizard of Oz movie buffs, so you may pass.”

“Thanks,” A.J. said as she hurried toward the elevator. Oh, this was getting better and better. She definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

“The name’s Franco,” the man with the green nose called after them. “Franco Rossi. You’re going to see it in lights someday.”

A.J. pressed the elevator button and when the door slid open, she helped the suitcase woman muscle the biggest one in.

“Thanks. I’m Claire Dellafield,” the woman said.

“A. J. Potter.” She looked the woman up and down. “I guess we’re competitors.”

Claire nodded. “Do you think the apartment’s going to be expensive? If so, I don’t have enough money to be much competition.”

A.J. thought the apartment might be very expensive. She’d heard about it through a broker for whom she’d done a closing that morning. Tavish Mclain, an eccentric and thrifty Scot, had money to burn and just couldn’t miss an opportunity to make more. Rather than allow his apartment to sit empty for three months while he went off on holiday, he ran what the broker had described to her as a sort of auction-lottery to rent it for the summer. The moment she’d heard that it was a rental and that she could move in immediately, A.J. had taken it as a sign. And the fact that the address was Central Park West would stifle some of her family’s concern.

When her mother had left the family home she’d moved to a coldwater flat in the Village with the man who’d become A.J.’s father.

A.J. would never do that to her family. The address of the Willoughby would definitely reassure her aunt and uncle of that. And the money wouldn’t be a problem for her because of the trust fund her mother had left her. But Claire Dellafield looked as though it might be a problem for her. She also looked beat and a little lost. Manhattan could be a tough city for the uninitiated, and A.J.’s heart went out to her. “Want to join forces and bid together?”

“I don’t know. I—”

A.J. nodded as the door slid open. “Smart girl. Someone warned you about the big bad city.” Unzipping her purse, she pulled out a card. “I have a hunch that the bidding might be brutal and I intend to win. Think about it.”

The noise was coming from the apartment at the end of the hall, and dozens of people were jammed around the door of 6C. At barely five feet tall, she couldn’t see over them, so she wiggled and elbowed her way through. Reaching the door and finding Claire right behind her, A.J. helped her heave the suitcases into the foyer.

The room was packed with women, mostly blondes in various shapes and sizes. They ranged in age from…A.J. figured the one in the latex capris and midriff-baring tank top to be about twenty, and the one just entering with the bouffant hair and the poodle had to be in her seventies. That poodle lady might have money, she decided. The huge rock on her right hand looked very real.

Eyes narrowed, A.J. rose to her toes and peered around shoulders to scan the room again. She caught glimpses of a tacky Southwestern decor. Could that have been a longhorn cow over the fireplace? It was only by leaping up that she finally spotted the broker who’d tipped her off to the auction. Roger Whitfield, who was handling the sublet for Tavish, stood on the steps leading up to the loft.

When she landed back on her feet, her eyes collided briefly with a tall woman—not a blonde—who carried a package under her arm and had a determined look on her face. Very determined. Well, A.J. was determined too.

Someone waved a check high over her head. “Here it is, folks. Good faith money. Forty-five hundred dollars—three months—up front.”

“Hey!” someone shouted.

“That’s not fair!”

“I can’t go that high!”

“Tavish promised to rent this place to me for eight hundred.”

As pandemonium broke loose around her, A.J. pulled out her checkbook and cell phone. Women surged around her in waves, some heading toward the stairs, others toward the door. The tall brunette with the package was pushed up next to Claire’s biggest suitcase.

“This is ridiculous.” Tapping her foot, A.J. punched numbers into the cell phone, and waited. After counting ten rings, she decided that Roger, now besieged by blond ambition, was not going to take her call. Finally, she turned to the two women beside her. She’d overheard enough of their conversation to understand that the brunette had just offered Claire a free room at the hotel she worked at.

“Why would you do that?” Claire asked. “You don’t even know me.”

“Because I can. Because helping the sisterhood was something my mother drilled into me. And, hey, I get off on warm fuzzy feelings in my tummy.”

A.J. smiled. She was beginning to like the tall determined woman with the box. “So do I, but they don’t always come from giving away freebie hotel rooms.”

The woman returned her smile. “Samantha Baldwin.”

A.J. shook the offered hand. “A. J. Potter. You sounded a little like a madam gathering a poor waif into her house of ill repute. I already made the same first great impression on her. I think we scared her.”

“I’m not scared,” said Claire. “Just fascinated by abnormal human behavior. Abnormal for a New Yorker, that is.”

Making a sudden decision, A.J. pulled out her Palm Pilot and checked on the information Roger, the broker, had given her. Then she turned her attention back to the two women. “According to my information, this place has three bedrooms.”

“I don’t smoke. I can do eighteen hundred a month, but I don’t want to.”

A.J. couldn’t help but admire Samantha’s quick uptake and no-nonsense style. “Nonsmoker. I’m in for two grand.”

“You’d get the big bedroom then.”

Perfectly in sync, they both looked at Claire.

“What’s your name?” A.J. asked.

“Claire Dellafield. Why?”

“Get with the program,” Samantha said. “We’re forming a rental coalition. You want in?”

Claire stood. “You mean we’d room together?”

“Mental functions seem to be intact,” said A.J. “Do you smoke?”

Claire shook her head. “But I can learn.”

Samantha laughed. “She’s in for the entertainment value alone.”

A.J. nodded her agreement. Plus, she guessed Claire needed this apartment as much as they did. “How much can you contribute to the rent?”

Claire drew in a deep breath. “Eight hundred.”

“That’s forty-six hundred. Surely the rent won’t go any higher,” A.J. said.

Just then, the door to the apartment swung open and two men entered.

“Tavish!” several blondes squealed as they ran towards him, arms outstretched.

“Let this play out,” A.J. suggested. Getting a handle on the opposition always paid off in the courtroom.

Samantha and Claire took her advice, but it wasn’t a pretty sight. The women were fawning all over the man in a sage-green faux leather vest—with fringe. A.J. knew the type well. He might dress a little less conservatively, but Tavish Mclain reminded her of all the rich, middle-aged, self-absorbed Mr. Perfects that her aunt had been setting her up with for the past year.

The dates from hell were one of her prime motivations for getting out of her aunt and uncle’s home. Aunt Margery’s mission was to marry her off before she disgraced the family the way her mother had. With that whole scenario off her plate, she figured she could concentrate all her attention on making her uncle take her more seriously at the law firm. For the past year, her assignments at Hancock, Potter and King had consisted of real estate closings and research. She was the only Potter woman to join the firm since it had been founded, and she definitely didn’t fit into the good old boy network.