Big Girls Don't Cry (2 page)

Had her career really taken off the way she’d told her sisters it had, why then things would have been different. Then she’d have had the confidence to stroll right up to Cole and kiss him silly, had she wanted to.

Her lack of confidence had to do with her empty bank account, not her body image.

Well, okay, maybe it did have something to do with her body image. After all, she wasn’t a saint . . . or a nun.

“You want to know what’s going on here?” Sister Mary repeated. “I was just telling your patients that I can’t give last rites to a hamster.”

“What about a special prayer?” the little girl asked.

“I told you that Harry is just fine,” Cole reminded the family. “You didn’t have to call in Sister Mary.”

“Well, since I’m here, I might as well say a prayer.” Sister Mary bent down and spoke quietly to the little girl and Harry the Hamster. So quietly that Leena couldn’t hear what she said, but it made the kid feel better, judging by the shy smile she gave the nun.

“Your next patient is in exam room one,” Leena efficiently announced.

“Really?” Cole pinned her with a stare. “And you are?”

“Your new receptionist.”

Cole raised an eyebrow. “You’re applying for the job?”

“No, you’re
hiring
me,” Leena stated confidently.

“Why is that?”

“Because you need me,” Leena told him. “I’m here to rescue you from utter chaos.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sister Mary declared. “It’s not like you’ve had people knocking down your door demanding to work here, Cole.”

“No, she’s the first,” Cole agreed. He studied Leena for a moment. “Have we met before?”

Leena hesitated, unsure how to answer that question. She’d beaten him up once when she was in the sixth grade and he’d hung out with a bunch of younger kids who’d called her fat. Now probably wasn’t the best time to admit that fact, however.

Too late. “Wait a second.” Cole snapped his fingers. “Aren’t you Sue Ellen’s sister Leena?”

Right. Like that’s how she wanted to be known for the rest of her life. As Sue Ellen’s sister.

That was one of the reasons she’d left. Because she was sick and tired of always being referred to as Sue Ellen’s sister. Or Sue Ellen’s fat sister. Or Sue Ellen’s chubb-o sister. “I’m Leena Riley.”

“I thought you were in Chicago doing modeling or something like that.”

He made it sound as if she were doing pole dancing on Rush Street. “That’s right. I was.”

“And now you want the job as my receptionist? Why?”

“Do you really care?” Leena retorted as another bunch of patients and animals entered the already overcrowded waiting room and the phone started to ring. Chaos was threatening to return.

“No. You’re hired. For the day. We’ll talk about the future after that.”

Oh yeah. How the mighty had fallen. All the way from cover model on the Sears spring layout to small-town vet receptionist. Not exactly a lateral career move by any stretch of the imagination.

But it would do in a crunch. And she was definitely in a crunch.

Leena Riley, rising star, reverting back to Leena the Loser.

No, she refused to think like that. She couldn’t afford to go down that road. It led nowhere.

Of course, some might think that Rock Creek qualified as nowhere.

But at least she had a job. For today. And that’s all she could handle for the moment. Today. Tomorrow would have to take a number.

After getting their names, Leena pulled the files on the patients waiting in the waiting room and then went outside to check on the two terriers and owners she’d banished out there. Luckily the spring weather was warm enough that they weren’t shivering in their boots, had they been wearing any. Leena was wearing a lovely pair of Italian leather Prada boots she’d gotten at a sample sale.

They looked good at a photo shoot and went great with her jeans and crisp white wrap shirt, but were perhaps not the best choice for a vet’s office. Not when one of the banished terriers decided to squat and pee on Leena’s leather-encased right foot.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the owner, a harried-looking woman in her forties, declared. “Oscar gets a nervous bladder whenever we come to the vet.”

The other terrier started gnawing on Leena’s left boot.

Suddenly the job at the graveyard shift of Gas4Less was looking a lot more appealing . . .

 
Cole finished with his last patient, a Siamese male named Si who needed his shots updated, and headed out toward the empty waiting room.

He was surprised to find Leena still there. He’d have thought she’d have taken off screaming when the Great Dane with anxiety issues had come in two hours ago. Or the depressed boa constrictor.

Instead, there she was. Standing behind the U-shaped desk of the receptionist area, looking totally out of place. But looking good. Her dark blond hair brushed her shoulders in what was no doubt an expensive cut. Her fingertips displayed a perfect manicure.

She’d always had a bossy streak, which was no doubt how she’d gotten that Great Dane to behave. It hadn’t made him behave when they’d been kids. He was ashamed to recall how he’d made fun of her weight and how she’d flattened him with a lucky sucker punch. He’d been two years younger than she—a cocky fourth-grader.

“You still pack a mean right hook?” Cole asked as he handed her the file on his last patient.

“If necessary, yes.” She stared him down, which gave him a good look at her gorgeous blue eyes. “I hope my actions that day taught you a valuable lesson.”

“Which was?”

“That if you say something cruel, it will come back to bite you in the ass.”

“I suppose I should be thankful you didn’t do that and only punched me.”

“Yes, you should. I was suspended from school for a week because of you.”

“And yet here you are, begging me for a job.”

“Wrong. Here I am, saving you from trouble yet again.”

“That’s why you came back to Rock Creek from Chicago? To save me?”

“Do you need saving?”

“Do you?” Cole countered.

Leena shrugged. “I gave up looking for a knight in shining armor to save me ages ago. These days, I save myself.”

“And you also save overworked vets.”

“That’s right.”

“Even though you have no experience working in a vet’s office.”

“I have experience booking appointments.” As a model she’d usually been on the other end of the booking arrangements, dealing with bookers to arrange for photo shoots. But how hard could this side of things be? Her organizational skills were very good. Everyone said so.

Even in kindergarten she’d organized the other kids’ cubbies. And in their mobile home, at age eight Leena had rearranged the entire contents of the kitchen cabinets for greater efficiency.

By the time Leena was a teenager, she’d perfected time management so that she knew exactly how long to study for a test to get a B or a C.

Emma was the A student in the family, so Leena hadn’t wasted her time on academic matters. Instead, after reading an article in a magazine about plus-size models, she’d focused on learning everything she could about the modeling industry. She’d gone to model shows and model talent searches at shopping malls all over the state.

And when she’d graduated from Rock Creek High, she’d packed her bags and headed to Chicago with her portfolio under her arm—consisting of several head-shots and one full-length shot.

She could still remember her excitement at driving her used Toyota down Chicago’s famous Lake Shore Drive, seeing all those tall buildings lining Lake Michigan. Someday, she’d promised herself, she’d live in one of those pricey condos along the Gold Coast.

Instead she’d ended up sharing a small apartment with two other girls on the outskirts of the Ukrainian Village area of Chicago.

“So you have experience booking appointments.” Cole’s voice brought her back to the present, refocusing her wandering attention on him. The man was hard to ignore. His light brown hair had a bit of a wave to it and was totally rumpled, giving him that I-just-got-out-of-bed look that worked very well for him. She wondered if he slept in the nude.

She probably should be paying attention to his questions instead of imagining him starkers. She’d known him when they’d been kids. Surely that should make her immune to his charming ways, right? Come on, she’d beat the guy up once.

So why were her hormones humming like queen bees zipping around a hive?

She should know better than to judge a person by their looks.

But then Cole’s charm went beyond his looks. It was also generated by the way he talked, that sexy drawl he’d mastered when his voice had deepened during adolescence.

“Hello?” He waved his big hands in front of her face. “Anyone home in there?”

“Sorry.” Leena blinked. “I was, uh . . . thinking about, uh . . . something else.”

“Your Prada boots?”

“How did you know they were Prada?”

“One of my patients told me. The terrier owner.”

“Ah, Oscar, the terrier with the nervous bladder.”

“You’ve got a good memory.”

“I never forget a bitch named Oscar who ruined my Pradas.”

“They named her Oscar before they realized the dog was a she not a he. And then they refused to rename her.”

“Which is probably why the dog has a nervous bladder. Gender identification issues.”

His laughter caught her by surprise.

“A sense of humor is a requirement for this job,” he said.

“So have I passed the audition?”

“I still can’t figure out why you’d want to work for me when you’re a model. Something happen in Chicago?”

Leena shrugged. “Lots of things happen in Chicago.”

“And you don’t plan on telling me about them? You don’t think, as your prospective employer, that I’ve got a right to know?”

Leena was prevented from answering by the dramatic arrival of her sister Sue Ellen, who burst onto the scene as she always did, with maximum effect.

“It’s true! You’re really here! You’ve come back home!” Sue Ellen engulfed her in a mighty python hold that squeezed the air out of Leena’s lungs. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? We could have set up a special welcome celebration. A parade or something. And what on earth are you doing over here at the vet’s office? Did you get a pet while you were in Chicago? Is it one of those designer dogs? Don’t tell me, let me guess. Is it a schnoodle? A labradoodle? A yorkipoo? Is it sick? Is that why you’re here?”

“I don’t have a dog.”

“Some exotic pet then? A lynx maybe?”

“I don’t have any pets.”

Sue Ellen frowned and released her. “Then why are you in the vet’s office? Unless you came to see him?” She jabbed her thumb in Cole’s direction. “I thought you didn’t like him. Didn’t you beat him up once?”

Leena tried not to squirm. “That was a long time ago.”

“And you came here to apologize?” Sue Ellen beamed proudly. “Isn’t that just like you. Even though you’re a big star now, you still remember the little people you beat up along the way.”

“Hey, watch who you’re calling little,” Cole protested.

“Well, of course you’re taller now, Cole,” Sue Ellen said. “Leena probably couldn’t take you down with just one punch like she did then.”

“It was a sucker punch,” Cole growled.

Sue Ellen patted his arm. “Yeah, that’s what Luke claimed that time Julia hit him before they were married.”

“Who are they?” Leena asked, trying to follow her sister’s line of thought, which was never an easy task.

“My friend Skye’s sister and brother-in-law. I can’t wait to introduce them all to my famous sister,” Sue Ellen said, before admitting, “I never bragged about you before because Skye and her family are a little weird about makeup and stuff. But now that you’re here, they can see for themselves how great you are.” Sue Ellen paused to take a much needed breath. “But I still don’t know what you’re doing in the vet’s office.”

“She’s here about a job,” Cole replied.

Sue Ellen frowned. “What kind of job could a supermodel do for you? She knows Iman, you know.”

Which wasn’t a lie . . . exactly. Leena knew
of
Iman. Who didn’t? The famous supermodel was married to rock star David Bowie. She possessed a tall, graceful elegance that Leena could never even aspire to.

But Leena had aspired to the world of plus-size modeling and thought she’d made her mark.

“Then maybe Iman should give her a job,” Cole retorted.

“Don’t be silly.” Sue Ellen smacked Cole’s arm. “My sister doesn’t need a job. She’s one of the most successful models in Chicago. Tell him, Leena.”

Leena sighed and wished she could sink through the floor. But years of posing in front of a camera had given her the ability to mask her inner emotions. “I’m having a temporary reversal of fortune,” she said, “which requires my returning home for a short period of time.”

“How short?” Cole demanded suspiciously. “I don’t want to hire you as my receptionist only to have you take off a few days later.”

“What do you mean reversal of fortune?” Sue Ellen demanded. “Do you have a gambling problem?”

“No, of course not.” Leena answered her sister’s question first because it was the easiest. “I don’t gamble.”

“You taking off to Chicago was a gamble.”

Okay, so Sue Ellen had her there. Apparently her question wasn’t as easy as Leena first thought. Which left Cole’s question. “I wouldn’t leave without giving two weeks’ notice.”

“So you’d work two days and then give two weeks’ notice?” he countered.

“I anticipate being here through the summer.” Saying the words aloud made Leena feel ill. But the bottom line was that unfortunately, it would take her that long to get her act together financially to climb out of debt enough to start over.

She’d used her organizational skills to come up with a time line that charted out the least amount of time she’d have to spend in Rock Creek. And given the salary this position was offering, proudly displayed on that HELP WANTED sign she’d seen, it would take her a couple of months to regain control of her life.