Be My Valentine (17 page)

Bailey managed to smile at him. “Hello.” Then, when she noticed that he was waiting for her to continue, she added, “Mr. Parker Davidson's home, please,” her voice remarkably calm and impassive. They were going to settle this once and for all, and no one, not a doorman, not even a security guard, was going to stand in her way.

“May I ask who's calling?”

“Bailey York,” she answered confidently.

“If you'll kindly wait here,” He was gone only a moment. “Mr. Parker says to send you right up. He's in unit 204.”

“Thank you.” Bailey's determination hadn't dwindled by the time her elevator reached the second floor.

It took Parker a couple of minutes to answer his door. When he did, Bailey didn't wait for an invitation. She marched into his apartment, ignoring the spectacular view and the lush traditional furnishings of polished wood and rich fabric.

“Bailey.” He seemed surprised to see her.

Standing in the middle of the room, hands on her hips, she glared at him with a week's worth of indignation flashing from her eyes. “Don't Bailey me,” she raged. “I want to know who Lisa is and I want to know
now.
”

Parker gaped at her as though she'd taken leave of her senses.

“Don't give me that look.” She walked a complete circle around him; he swiveled slowly, still staring. “There's no need to stand there with your mouth hanging open. It's a simple question.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like?”

“Frankly I'm not sure.”

“I've come to find out exactly what kind of man you are.” That sounded good, and she said it in a mocking challenging way bound to get a response.

“What kind of man I am? Does this mean I have to run through a line of warriors waiting to flog me?”

Bailey was in no mood for jesting. “It just might.” She removed one hand from her hip and waved it under his nose. “I'll have you know Janice has been ruined and I blame you.”

“Who?”

“My character Janice,” she explained with exaggerated patience. “The one in my novel,
Forever Yours.
She's wishy-washy, submissive and docile. Reading about her is like…like vanilla pudding instead of chocolate.”

“I happen to be partial to vanilla pudding.”

Bailey sent him a furious look. “I'll do the talking here.”

Parker raised both hands. “Sorry.”

“You should be. So…exactly what kind of man
are
you?”

“I believe you've already asked that question.” Bailey spun around to scowl at him. “Sorry,” he muttered, his mouth twisting oddly. “I forgot you're doing the talking here.”

“One minute you claim you're in love with me. So much in love you want me to marry you.” Her voice faltered slightly. “And the next you're involved with some woman named Lisa and you want to put our relationship on hold. Well, I've got news for you, Mr. Unreliable. I refuse to allow you to play with my heart. You asked me to marry you…” Bailey paused at the smile that lifted the corners of his mouth. “Is this discussion amusing you?” she demanded.

“A little.”

“Feel free to share the joke,” she said, motioning with her hand.

“Lisa's my sister-in-law.”

The words didn't immediately sink in. “Your what?”

“She's my brother's wife.”

Bailey slumped into a chair. A confused moment passed while she tried to collect her scattered thoughts. “You're in love with your brother's wife?”

“No.” He sounded shocked that she'd even suggest such a thing. “I'm in love with you.”

“You're not making a lot of sense.”

“I figured as much, otherwise—”

“Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise you'd either be in my arms or finding ways to inflict physical damage on my person.”

“You'd better explain yourself,” she said, frowning, hardly daring to hope.

“I love you, Bailey, but I didn't know how long it would take you to discover you love me, too. You were so caught up in the past—”

“With reason,” she reminded him.

“With reason,” he agreed. “Anyway I asked you to marry me.”

“To be accurate, your father's the one who did the actual speaking,” Bailey muttered.

“True, he spoke out of turn, but it was a question I was ready to ask…”

“But…” she supplied for him. There was always a “but” when it came to men and love.

“But I didn't know if your feelings for me were genuine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Was it me you fell for or Michael?” he asked quietly.

“I don't think I understand.”

“The way I figure it, if you truly loved me you'd do everything in your power to win me back.”

“Win you back? I'm sorry, Parker, but I still don't get it.”

“All right, let's backtrack a bit. When Paul announced he'd found another woman and wanted to break your engagement, what did you do?”

“I dropped out of university and signed up for paralegal classes at the business college.”

“What about Tom?”

“I moved to San Francisco.”

“My point exactly.”

Bailey lost him somewhere between Paul and Tom. “
What
is your point exactly?”

Parker hesitated, then looked straight into her eyes. “I wanted you to love me enough to fight for me,” he told her simply. “Don't worry. Lisa and I are not, repeat not, in love.”

“You just wanted me to think so?”

“Yes,” he said with obvious embarrassment. “She reads romances, too. Quite a few women do apparently. I was telling her about our relationship, and she came up with the idea of using the ‘other woman' the way some romance novels do.”

“That's the most underhand unscrupulous thing I've ever heard.”

“Indulge me for a few more minutes, all right?”

“All right,” she agreed.

“When Paul and Tom broke off their engagements to you, you didn't say or do anything to convince them of your love. You calmly accepted that they'd met someone else and conveniently got out of their lives.”

“So?”

“So I needed you to want me so much, love me so much, that you wouldn't give me up. You'd put aside that damnable pride of yours and confront me.”

“Were you planning to arrange a mud-wrestling match between Lisa and me?” she asked wryly.

“No!” He looked horrified at the mere thought. “I wanted to provoke you—just enough to come to me. What took you so long?” He shook his head. “I was beginning to lose heart.”

“You're going to lose a whole lot more than your heart if you ever pull that stunt again, Parker Davidson.”

His face lit up with a smile potent enough to dissolve her pain and her doubts. He opened his arms then, and Bailey walked into his embrace.

“I should be furious with you,” she mumbled.

“Kiss me first, then be mad.”

His mouth captured hers in hungry exultation. In a single kiss Parker managed to make up for the long cheerless days, the long lonely nights. She was breathless when he finally released her.

“You really love me?” she whispered, needing to hear him say it. Her lower lip trembled and her hands tightened convulsively.

“I really love you,” he whispered back, smiling down at her. “Enough to last us two lifetimes.”

“Only two?”

His hand cradled the back of her head. “At least four.” His mouth claimed hers again, then he abruptly broke off the kiss. “Now, what was it you were saying about Janice? What's wrong with her?”

A slow thoughtful smile spread across Bailey's face. “Nothing that a wedding and a month-long honeymoon won't cure.”

B
ailey paused to read the sign in the bookstore window, announcing the autographing session for two local authors that afternoon.

“How does it feel to see your name in lights?” Jo Ann asked.

“You may be used to this, but I feel…I feel—” Bailey hesitated and flattened her palms on the smooth roundness of her stomach “—I feel almost the same as I did when I found out I was pregnant.”

“It does funny things to the nervous system, doesn't it?” Jo Ann teased. “And what's this comment about me being used to all this? I've only got two books published to your one.”

The bookseller, Caroline Dryer, recognized them when they entered the store and hurried forward to greet them, her smile welcoming. “I'm so pleased you could both come. We've had lots of interest.” She steered them toward the front where a table, draped in lace, and two chairs were waiting. Several women were already lined up patiently, looking forward to meeting Jo Ann and Bailey.

They did a brisk business for the next hour. Family, friends and other writers joined the romance readers who stopped by to wish them well.

Bailey was talking to an older woman, a retired schoolteacher, when Parker and Jo Ann's husband, Dan, casually strolled past the table. The four were going out for dinner following the autograph session. There was a lot to celebrate. Jo Ann had recently signed a two-book contract with her publisher and Bailey had just sold her second romance. After weeks of work, Parker had finished the plans for their new home. Construction was scheduled to begin the following month and with luck would be completed by the time the baby arrived.

“What I loved best about
Forever Yours
was Michael,” the older woman was saying to Bailey. “The scene where he takes her in his arms right in the middle of the merry-go-round and tells her he's tired of playing childish games and that he loves her was enough to steal my heart.”

“He stole mine, too,” Bailey said, her eyes linking with her husband's.

“Do you think there are any men like that left in this world?” the woman asked. “I've been divorced for years, and now that I'm retired, well, I wouldn't mind meeting someone.”

“You'd be surprised how many heroes there are all around us,” Bailey said, her gaze still holding Parker's. “They take the subway and eat peanut-butter sandwiches and fall in love—like you and me.”

“Well, there's hope for me, then,” the teacher said jauntily. “And I plan to have a good time looking.” She smiled. “That's why I enjoy romance novels so much. They give me encouragement, they're fun—and they tell me it's okay to believe in love,” she confided. “Even for the second time.”

“Or the third,” Parker inserted quietly.

Bailey grinned. She couldn't argue with that!

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