How To Succeed At Love. Susan Connell

across his empty seat she took a white-knuckled grip on the armrest and scanned the scene outside.

      “I—I... Oh, no, it—it ca—Ohh, no.”

      He gently shook his head as she tried to force a coherent sentence. “Sorry,” he said, with a shrug. “If you think it would help, I’d be willing to buy a vowel.”

      “Move!” she said, frantically grabbing onto the leather sleeve of his jacket, and pulling herself past him to the seat across the aisle. Kneeling on the cushion, she bent low to the window, sending her short skirt up her thigh.

      Spencer indulged himself with an admiring glance lasting a full five seconds. He’d seen her at her health club wearing less, but this time those firm, sleek thighs were so close they were making his fingers itch.

      “What is it?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose as he leaned down. When she started speaking in broken syllables again, he moved in close, curving his large hand around her shoulder.

      “Is there someone out there you don’t want to see?” When she didn’t answer, he dipped his head lower and read from the banner outside. “Jade Macleod.” Turning his face toward her profile, he felt her hair brush his cheek. “Is that your name?”

      She nodded.

      “Jade, you look a little pale. You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?”

      She twisted around on her knees to stare blankly into his eyes. A second later the tuba player took advantage of a lull and blew an amazingly rude note. The sound sent Jade forward against Spencer’s chest.

      “Steady there, kiddo. What’s this all about?”

      “It’s about me,” she said, pushing away from him the instant, it seemed, she came to her senses and realized she’d been burrowing into his embrace.

      “Who are you?”

      “Nobody anymore. I swear,” she said just as the crowd outside began chanting her name.

      Spence looked out the window again then gave her a squinty-eyed look. “Well, you’re the most popular nobody I’ve ever met.”

      With her gaze darting nervously around them, she whipped down the window shade. The train car was empty except for the two of them. “It’s too complicated to explain right now.”

      Holding up his hand, he brought his thumb and index finger as close as he could without actually making contact with the other. “Could you give me just a tiny hint?” he asked, hoping his attempt at humor would break the tension and calm her down.

      She shook her head. Her desperate expression told him she wasn’t in the mood for joking. Truth was, she looked as if she was beginning to hyperventilate.

      For the first time since he’d started his investigation, he wondered if the pretty congressional aide might be more of a pawn than a perpetrator in the suspected travel fraud in her office. Stunned by his sentimental thought, he rolled his eyes. He knew nothing for certain yet. Except one thing. If anyone understood that hard-edged journalism had no place for sappy softies, it was Spencer Madison.

      He gave her a skeptical look.

      She pushed him into the aisle. “I need a favor.”

      “What kind of favor?”

      “Pretend we’re traveling together.”

      He stepped back and lowered his chin. “You want me to pretend we’re, uh...” Smiling, he moved his hand back and forth between them. “Together? As in... together?”

      “What?”

      “In the Biblical sense together?”

      “No! Not like that. I want you to pretend you’re my assistant,” Jade said, picking up a piece of her luggage and reaching for another. “And only if anyone asks.”

      “Oh,” he said, his voice flat with disappointment.

      She gave him a look to match the temperature and pointedness of the icicles hanging from the station’s overhang. “Why am I not surprised?” she murmured under her breath.

      Jade began silently counting to ten, hoping her composure would return by the time she finished. She made it to three before blurting out, “Well, can you help me?”

      A subtle, indefinable light came into his eyes at the same moment a slow smile began deepening his lengthy dimples. Later, when she was safely hiding in her old room, she would take the time to curse his ancestry. “Look, I know you must find this amusing but I just need to get through that crowd out there as quickly as I can. Will you help me?”

      “That depends.”

      “On what?”

      “Will we be having dinner together afterward?”

      “Dinner? Yes, yes, of course.” She was willing to promise him a new car and an all-expense-paid trip to the Bahamas. Hell, she’d throw in ten pounds of Smoochies, too, if that would get him to help her.

      Her heart began sinking when he glanced outside then gave her a dubious frown. Just when he had her convinced he was about to say no, he picked up his suitcases. “So, where are we going for dinner, Jade Macleod?”

      A rush of relief mixed with a generous amount of gratitude filled her heart. Behind all that exasperating behavior there was a decent man! “Anywhere you want, Spencer Madison. Just get me out of here.”

      She followed him up the aisle to the opposite end of the train, then hung back when he motioned for her to wait. He went down the steps, set down his luggage and reached back for hers. After setting everything on the platform, he looked around then motioned her down the steps. “Watch out for my computer case.”

      She didn’t have to. He lifted her off the bottom step and over the case before her high-heeled boots could touch the platform. The effortless, take-charge move took her breath away. An unfamiliar excitement shivered through her. He wasn’t the irritating stranger anymore and she was feeling anything but weary. With his hands still curved around her waist, he leaned his head close enough to hers so she felt his beard stubble brush her cheek.

      “Where to now?”

      “In that door, through the station and out to the taxi stand. Then—”

      “Jade! There you are,” her brother shouted from down the platform.

      Without missing a bone-jangling note, the members of the Follett River High School marching band promptly pivoted in her direction. Spencer took his hands away and a few seconds later the music stopped.

      “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Representative Bloomfield’s aide, valedictorian and president of her high school class and the girl voted Most Likely to Succeed—my sister, Jade Macleod.”

      As the small crowd whooped and clapped their hands, Neal Macleod said in a stage whisper, “I’m doing a feature for the Follett River Ledger. I’m calling it, ‘What Ever Happened To The Girl Most Likely To Succeed?’ I came up with the idea this morning over at the Chocolate Chip Café when I heard the band director say the band needed practice. Kinda nice how it all came together. What do you think?”

      She stared at him in silence.

      “Right. Okay,” he said, sticking a small tape recorder within an inch of her lips. “So how does it feel to be back home in Follett River for your ten-year high school reunion?”

      She opened her mouth. Nothing came out but a strangled rasp. Desperate, she looked up at Spencer.

      Without hesitation, Spencer leaned close to the recorder. “I know Jade would like to tell you how surprised and honored she is by all of this attention. Unfortunately she’s recovering from a bad case of laryngitis.”

      “And you are...?” Neal asked.

      “Her personal assistant, Spencer Madison,” he said, glancing down at her.