Lady Be Good (2 page)

But the limo driver caught her by the elbow. “Whoa! Steady.”

“She didn’t mean it, Laser. Just—you better take her to the airport before the weather gets any worse.”

“Okay, okay,” said the driver, turning her loose. “But she’s going to have to get from the sidewalk to the car somehow. It’ll be tricky in those shoes.”

Both men took a second to look down at Grace’s footwear.

The four-inch heels were Nora’s idea of high fashion—Grace had purchased them on a pre-book-tour shopping trip Nora organized—and they were ideal for stylish on-camera interviews. But they were hardly suitable for bad winter weather. Grace’s freezing toes peeped from the small cut-out, revealing a pink pedicure—fast turning blue from the cold.

One step off the curb and she was going to be ankle-deep in gray slush.

Trying not to sound too plaintive, Grace asked, “Can’t you pull the car a little closer?”

“I can pull it up on the sidewalk, Princess, but you’re still going to have to take a step,” the amused driver said. “Too bad you can’t trade that hat for some warm boots.”

Mr. Sansone glanced at his watch again. “If you leave now, Laser--”

“Yeah, let’s quit stalling,” said the driver.

Before she could protest, he scooped Grace off her feet and into his arms. She swallowed a yelp as he carried her light as a feather down off the curb. Mr. Sansone beat him to the limo and opened the rear passenger door. Grace had just a moment to register the powerful embrace of the man who lifted her over the snow before she found herself unceremoniously dumped on the seat. Hastily, she tugged her skirt down over her bare knees.

The car door slammed, and Grace’s last glimpse of the officious Sansone was obliterated by another blast of snow. But she could hear him laughing. As they stowed her luggage in the trunk, she settled into the seat and reached to smooth her hat--and her dignity—back into place.

The limousine was immaculate inside, but Bruce Springsteen wailed at top volume from the radio and a set of Mardi Gras beads swung from the rearview mirror.

In another instant, the driver got in and whammed his own door shut. He tugged his cap off and shook his head hard to get rid of the clinging flakes of snow. He blew a noisy, “Whew!” and declared, “Some night!”

“Yes, quite.” Grace straightened her hat.

He turned down the radio with a flick of a finger, then threw one long arm across the back of the seat and craned around to look at her, eyes agleam. “Now, then. You’re not really headed for the airport, are you, pretty lady?”

He was older than Grace had first guessed by his boyish exuberance. Perhaps in his mid-thirties—a year or two older than she was. His curly brown hair was too long, with a widow’s peak in front and wild curls that tumbled from the crown of his head to his ears. He was blue-eyed, a fact that was unremarkable except for the clarity of that blueness and his impossibly thick lashes. The rest of his face could politely be called rugged. He had fresh burn of wind and winter sunshine on his skin, and he’d once broken his nose, judging by its angle. He looked like the type who might have been in a few fistfights before he learned to joke his way out of tough situations.

In general, he’d be a dangerous customer except for his broad smile.

He must have seen her startled reaction, because he laughed at her. “Whatsamatter? I thought all New York girls were used to obnoxious cabdrivers.”

Many quick retorts came to mind, of course. But now Grace was in the business of good manners, so she bit down on her natural quick comeback. The storm, the lateness of the hour, the tension of the day, and the upcoming white-knuckle flight to Philadelphia, however, were all shaking Grace’s carefully constructed Dear Miss Vanderbine persona.

So she asked, “Why do you imagine I’m from New York?”

His grin didn’t waver, and his blue gaze slid down the sleek lines of her borrowed Chanel suit. “It’s written all over you. Except you talk like you have a silver spoon stuck between your molars. Am I right?”

“Completely wrong,” Grace said, although she’d lived most of her adult life in Manhattan. “At the moment, I live in Connecticut.”

He threw back his head and laughed again, then spun around in his seat and reached for the ignition. “Close enough.”

“Could we please—”

“I know, I know. Airport, right?”

In exasperation, Grace gave up. “Right.”

He gunned the engine and whipped the wheel over, sending the big car around the circular drive and into the street. The back tires slid in the slush going out and bumped the curb, throwing Grace against the door. Swiftly, she fastened her seatbelt.

“Sorry,” he said happily. “I’m not used to this monster. My partner and I--we don’t get many calls for the limo unless it’s prom season or a Saturday wedding. But the hotel said they had a VIP, so here I am.”

In all his glory, Grace thought tartly.

“I didn’t mean to be late either,” he went on before she could respond. “But a little old lady got a flat tire on the Parkway. I had to change it for her or I’d be spending half of next Sunday saying my Hail Marys for Father Olaf. You must be somebody special, huh? You an opera singer, maybe? An actress? Maybe you play the fiddle in the symphony?”

“None of the above,” Grace answered. “I’m a writer.”

“Oh, yeah?” His vivid eyes immediately flashed in the rearview mirror. “You mean books?”

“Book,” Grace corrected. “One.”

“I get it.” He tugged at the zipper of his parka, getting comfortable as he steered the car around the next corner. “You’re going around the country, talking about your book on TV, right?”

“Yes, actually.”

“How’s it going so far?”

Rather than tell him she was having a hard time making the transition to a public persona, Grace decided to stick to travel talk. “Until today, everything has been relatively smooth.”

“Yeah,” he said sympathetically. “The winters around here can spoil the best laid plans. Two weeks ago, they had to cancel the hockey game for weather, and believe me, that
never
happens. Where are you headed now? If you’re going to the airport, I mean.”

There had to be a graceful way of terminating such a familiar conversation but none was coming to mind. Anyway, Grace found herself oddly remembering the way his arms felt about her. And changing a tire for an elderly storm victim was an act of kindness that hardly happened anymore except on a movie screen. Besides, in a blue collar, boy-next-door kind of way, he had some sex appeal.

He glanced into the mirror again and caught her staring.

Grace looked away quickly. Had Mama coped with such runaway thoughts when she was touring her book? She forced herself to remember the man’s question and said primly, “My next stop is Philadelphia. I have to get there tonight, or I’m in big trouble.”

“Philadelphia!” he objected with a hoot of laughter. “Princess, you’re never gonna get there. Not tonight. This storm stretches all the way from Chicago to the Atlantic Ocean.”

“I will get there. I have to,” Grace said firmly. “Don’t tell me otherwise, please. It’s taking all the courage I have to get on this airplane, so don’t talk me out of it.”

“Scared of flying?”

“Let’s just say I’ve had my confidence shaken,” Grace said, surprising herself for confiding in a perfect stranger. “But I have to be in Philadelphia tomorrow, or my sister-in-law will be very upset.” Not as upset as Mama, of course, and a television producer, too, but Grace skipped that part.

“Your sister-in-law’s some kind of battle ax?”

“No, that’s not it. She’s done a great deal of work on my behalf, setting up events for me to meet people, and I can’t ask her to reschedule it all. So I have to go. Besides, the hotel is fully booked for tonight, so I can’t go back there.”

“All the other hotels in the city are full, too. You couldn’t get a room if you bribed the mayor.” He grinned at her in the mirror again. “So you gotta go.”

“Perhaps I’d better have a cocktail before takeoff,” Grace said, more to herself than to him.

“Make it a double and maybe you won’t see Philadelphia. Trust me, you don’t
want
to see Philly, not even buried in three feet of snow. Of course, you can’t expect a Pittsburgher ever to say anything nice about Philadelphia. We’ve got a big rivalry, y’know.” He used the back of his glove to rub some of the fog off the car window, and then accelerated into traffic. The car nosed into another lane and headed for a tunnel. “So what’s it about? Your book, I mean. Is it a steamy romance novel? The latest diet? Maybe you got a theory about the next election?”

She was accustomed to cab drivers who ignored their passengers. It was easier to keep silent when being driven somewhere. But Grace had a funny feeling this one was trying to get her to talk so she wouldn’t think about flying. But his question stumped Grace. Not the question, precisely, but how to answer it. To a prince or a gentleman who owned his own evening clothes, she could say the title and be done with it. But
Miss Vanderbine’s Modern Manners
was going to baffle this character. Or cause him to laugh uproariously.

To play it safe, she said, “It’s a revised version of a nonfiction book my mother wrote several years ago.”

“Oh, yeah? Who’s your mother? Anyone I’d have heard of?”

Grace gave in cautiously. “My mother is Dear Miss Vanderbine.”

“Dear—? Hey, no kidding?” he demanded in delight. “You mean the good manners lady? The one who writes for the newspapers? Like Dear Abby?”

“Dear Abby,” Grace corrected, “deals with a totally different subject. Ours is exclusively an etiquette column.”

“Ours? Hey, you write for the newspapers, too? You must. You said you’re a writer.”

“My mother still writes the column for the moment,” Grace said, “but she wants to retire, so we collaborated on the new edition of her book.”

That was the easiest way to explain how Todd’s death had shaken both mother and daughter to make big changes. Grace had been working at a glossy magazine in New York, but she hadn’t realized how unfulfilling she found the job until Todd died so suddenly. Mama had needed support during the bad times, too. So when Mama suggested that Grace should start taking on part of the Miss Vanderbine franchise, Grace decided that despite her gut feeling that she didn’t quite fit the Dear Miss Vanderbine role, helping her mother was more important than editing articles about decorating your tiny apartment and cooking a family dinner for under ten dollars.

“And now you’re on the road instead of her, promoting it. You have the looks for it.” He complimented her with another wide smile.

It was an irresistible smile. Even though he looked scruffy, he used an occasional three syllable word and conveyed a certain grasp of the world beyond driving hired cars. Or maybe she was just looking for a way to keep her mind off the airplane ride, too.

“Thank you,” Grace said.

“So how are sales? Is your book a big success?”

“I’d need a crystal ball to tell you. It’s just been released, you understand.”

“Sure.” He nodded knowledgeably. “But your tour will be a big help. You’ll make millions, I bet. How many cities are you doing?”

“Twelve. Two down, ten to go.”

“Where you been so far?”

“Chicago and Pittsburgh.”

“Where else you going?”

“Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Charlotte, Atlanta. Then I take a short rest before going out west. My mother suggested I break up the tour a little.”

“Sure, makes sense. You want to get your beauty sleep before you hit L.A. How’d you like Pittsburgh?”

“I liked it,” she said with complete honesty. She liked the frank and friendly people. The television program had been a disaster, but her trips to two bookstores seemed successful, and a large library had welcomed her with many spritely senior citizens who asked good questions and bemoaned the loss of civility in today’s world. The hotel had turned out to be a venerable bastion of elegance and good service.

“Maybe you ought to stick around,” said her driver. “You might get to like it even better.”

Something in his voice gave Grace a nervous tingle inside. Alone in a car with a strange man in a snowstorm. One who was making pleasant small talk while driving her farther and farther from the safety of the city. He had already calculated her book sales into millions of dollars. Suddenly she thought he could be a stone cold killer behind the happy-go-lucky façade. He had already proved he was strong enough to overpower her.

Suddenly the drive had all the makings of a kidnapping.

2.

Grace needed time to come up with a plan. Keep him talking, she thought. While she figured out a way to get some help. She cleared her throat and asked idiotically, “Are you originally from Pittsburgh?”

“Hell, no, I just washed up here. I fell into a business, so I stayed.”

“A business?”

Maybe he’d heard something skeptical in her tone that Grace hadn’t intended.

“Oh, I get it
.
No, I don’t drive the limos very often—honest. Can’t you tell?” He pulled the car out of the tunnel and into the driving snow once more, explaining cheerfully, “I used to have a different career, after college, see. Now a friend and me, we own a string of car washes. We keep a couple of these limos around, and the hotels owe me some favors. They call when they need to run somebody special out to the airport. All our employees went home for the day. I live out this way, so it made sense for me to swing into town.”

Grace digested all that information. College, a “different” career, and owning a bunch of car washes. And why would the city’s hotels owe this character any favors?

“I’ll make it easy for you,” he said with another grin in the mirror. “Around this town, I’m a minor celebrity. Up until last year, I used to play football.”

“Football?” Grace repeated stupidly.

“Yeah. You know. The Pittsburgh Steelers. Ever heard of them?”

He was a former professional football player. That made perfect sense. No wonder he was the size of the Abominable Snowman. He wasn’t a kidnapper, after all. Her imagination had gone into overdrive. Grace felt foolish and relaxed. “Yes, of course.”