Somehow, in the past few months, priorities had shifted.

Now when she looked in the mirror, she no longer saw a pampered woman, but one who lived, laughed, cared…

One who loved.


BY MONDAY CAITLIN WAS already out of money-again-and very tired of taking the bus.

To cheer herself up, she’d spent the last of her pocket change on doughnuts from Amy’s stand. And while this endeared her greatly to Tim and Andy, she didn’t imagine the scale in her bathroom was going to be so kind.

As she went into the small office kitchen, she glanced down at herself and rolled her eyes. Even wearing one of those bras that promised to control and contain-whatever the heck that meant-she still spilled out of whatever she wore. The flowered print dress she had on today dipped a little low in front, emphasizing the problem. And was it her fault her hips strained against the soft cotton? Nope, she decided, taking another bite of a huge chocolate-buttermilk roll. She might as well face it; she was never going to be a waif.

She studied her image in the front of the steel-door refrigerator. Wild blond bob. Red lips. Big eyes.

“You’re beautiful, you know.”

Jumping a little, she faced Vince. He shot her a little smile and gestured to the door she’d been using as a mirror. “You don’t have to check,” he said. “You are.”

“I’d rather be known for my brains.”

She said this with such disgust, he laughed. Then he sobered, stuck his hands into his trouser pockets and came closer. “I saw you and Joe on Friday. You know…in his office.”

So Vince had interrupted their kiss!

“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” he said carefully. He squared his shoulders. He didn’t have a single wrinkle. He was a man who appreciated fine clothes, a man with expensive tastes, a man after her own heart…and she didn’t feel anything but a sisterly sort of affection.

What was wrong with her?

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get involved with him.”

Her brain, protesting the early hour, went on full alert. “Vince, he’s your boss and your friend.”

“I know. And I care about him very much.” Vince met her gaze, and she knew he was genuinely sad. “But I care about you, too. Joseph’s not easy on women, Caitlin. They come in and out of his life in a heartbeat. He rarely looks back.”

Her unease grew. “We shouldn’t be discussing this. It’s not right.”

“I care about you.”

“But I’m a big girl,” she said gently. She reached for his hand and squeezed. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

Everything about him was tense, even as he let out a little laugh. “I can’t seem to help that.”

“Well, seeing as there’s little between me and your friend, except resentment and bad air, you don’t have much to worry about.”

“What I saw between the two of you was a lot more than bad air, Caitlin.”

The kiss again. Well, it had been quite a kiss. Quite a very good kiss. The mother of all kisses. But it had meant nothing to Joe, which was what Vince was trying so gallantly to make sure she understood.

What she really understood was that Joe didn’t want it to mean anything. That he wasn’t comfortable with the intimacy, and she could understand that, as well. Neither was she.

What, she wondered, would Joe say if he knew she’d never experienced any sort of intimacy at all? It wasn’t something she’d set out purposely to do, but she’d never found the right man. Somehow, it had been easy to resist the fast, rich, slick kind of guy her so-called friends had all hung out with. So now, despite her travels and exciting life-style, she was the oldest virgin in the Western Hemisphere. “I’m not going to get my heart broken over one kiss,” she said, more weakly than she would have liked.

“I’m not doing a good job of warning you off him, am I?” Vince asked wryly.

“It’s not your fault. I just never seem to learn what’s good for me.”

“I could be good for you,” he said seriously.

“Oh, Vince.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that so soon.” Softly, he touched her cheek, then walked away.

It didn’t take long to get distracted. She took a call from the mortgage company for the condo her father hadn’t left her. The by-the-book loan officer on the line was not impressed by her employment.

“Look, Ms. Taylor,” he said in a voice bordering on nasty. “I do realize you have a job now, and apparently, you should be commended for that.”

While Caitlin took his not so polite disdain, Joe walked by. He wore the customary faded jeans and T-shirt and was every bit as aloof and dangerously sexy as her dreams had assured her. With his heavily lidded eyes, that perpetual frown on his beautiful, scowling mouth and the rugged, muscled yet lean body, he looked every bit the hoodlum she imagined most mothers warned their daughters from.

But Caitlin didn’t have a mother, and she doubted she would have listened to a mother’s advice, anyway.

“Ms. Taylor,” the mortgage officer said in her ear, “you can’t expect this company to believe that you’ll be able to make the payments, given your current salary. Not to mention how far behind you are already. I’m sorry, but the lock-out will take place on Friday evening, unless you come up with something else.”

Lock out.

As in a huge padlock on her front door. She would have no place to go. “You’re going to put me out on the street because you don’t like my job?”

Joe, already across the office and halfway out the door, froze. Mortified, Caitlin lowered her voice and her head. “You can’t do this,” she told the jerk on the line. “You can’t. My father-”

“Is dead,” the man said bluntly. “And hasn’t provided any means for paying the mortgage. You have no experience, no credits to your name and no viable means of providing us what is due, Ms. Taylor. You can’t possibly blame us for this situation.”

“What can I do to prove myself?” she asked, more than a little desperately. What had happened to her great life? To security? To a full stomach?

“Marry a rich man,” he advised. “Quickly.”

Floored, she hung up the phone and stared at it. She’d mistakenly thought her life was starting to be under control. But it wasn’t even close, she realized, and dropped her head down to her desk.

What could she do?

Hand still on the office door, Joe stared at Caitlin’s bowed head. Her full hair fell forward, exposing her pale, soft neck. She seemed small, vulnerable. Dammit, no. No, he told himself firmly.

You aren’t going to worry about her.

But he let go of the door. Of their own accord, his feet took him to her desk. Not his problem, absolutely not. Run, don’t walk, to the nearest exit. He perched a hip on the corner of her desk. This has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with his promise to Edmund. He’d gone over and above the call of duty so far. Anyone would think so.

Anyone.

Instead of running, he heard himself say, “Caitlin? What’s the matter?”

She jerked upright, flashed him a smile minus her usual megawattage and said with false cheer, “Nothing. Everything’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

“You’re out of money.”

“Nothing new.”

“You’re going to lose your place.”

Her shoulders sagged. Her smile faded, and in its place came a disturbing helplessness. “It’s not mine anyway.”

So many emotions attacked him then, he couldn’t think straight enough to sort them out from each other. But leading the way was guilt-guilt because Edmund had taken care of him, a punk kid with no future, yet he’d ignored his own daughter.

Despite how Joe felt about her, and how he didn’t want to feel about her, she didn’t deserve this. Anger bubbled. Anger at Edmund, anger for Caitlin and anger for himself at being left to deal with the mess.

He was distinctly uncomfortable cleaning up the messes other people made of their lives. He’d done it for his mother. He’d done it for his siblings. He’d done it for countless “friends” over the years who’d assumed that because of what he did for a living, he had an overabundance of money.

He didn’t want to do it anymore. “I can help.”

“No.” Abruptly, Caitlin got up. “I need to walk,” she said, slipping off her high-heeled sandals, replacing them with running shoes. Joe watched, fascinated and mesmerized, as her dress gaped and revealed soft, full, plump breasts rebelling against their constraints.

He was a jerk, he thought, staring down her dress when she was undergoing a crisis. He told himself this quite firmly. But he didn’t-couldn’t-stop looking.

When she grabbed her purse, he stopped her, pulled her back. Their thighs touched, but it no longer startled him to feel that inexplicable heat in his body. “Caitlin.”

“No,” she said quickly, trying to pull back. For once, her eyes didn’t give her away. “No pity, remember?”

“I already told you,” he said, lying only a little. “You’re too prickly to feel sorry for.”

“I’m prickly?” She laughed a little. “Right.”

“Let me help,” he said rashly, having no idea why the words popped out. “I want to.”

“Why?”

Because already I can’t stop thinking about you, and if I have to be worried on top of being distracted all to hell, I’ll never get any peace. “Because you need it, dammit. Because your life is out of control, and you need help. I can supply that help. It’s that simple.”

She stared at him for a long moment, and he could have sworn she was waiting for something, something more. Her lovely dark eyes searched his, but he was still befuddled by the view she’d just given him, and by touching her, and he didn’t know what else she could possibly want.

Finally, she turned away, but not before he saw her expression fall a little. “Thanks, but you’ve helped me enough. More than enough. Be back after lunch.” She ran out the door.