She's Got Mail!: She's Got Mail! / Forget Me? Not. Darlene Gardner

the creaking stopped, Mr. Potter pushed the bridge of his frames up his nose. Placing his elbows on his desk, he steepled his fingers and looked at them. “Mr. Taylor said there’s some issue over a parking space?”

      “Yes,” Rosie answered matter-of-factly. “He stole mine.”

      She makes cutting to the chase seem like a detour, thought Ben. But he kept his mouth closed because Rosie was off and running, explaining the entire ILITIG8, rear-ending adventure to an astonished-looking Mr. Potter, who probably heard few such colorful stories in his beige life.

      Sitting close enough to rub elbows, Ben had his first real opportunity to look more closely at his parking-space nemesis. She had a clear, glowing complexion—the kind that looked as though it had been scrubbed with soap and water. Impossible. Didn’t all women buy expensive creams and bottles of gooey stuff to slather on their faces? It was a throwback to another era for a woman to simply wash her face and call it clean.

      Simple. Efficient. He liked that.

      Plus, the fresh pink of Rosie’s skin nicely set off the dark mound of curls that framed her face like a wiry halo. Halo? He almost laughed out loud at the thought of the parking space fanatic being an angel. Maybe a recent fall to earth accounted for all those muddy slosh marks he’d seen earlier.

      He tuned in to the Earth Angel’s animated monologue.

      “Then, after trudging eight long city blocks from the only other parking spot I could find, I visited Mr. Taylor in his office—”

      “Eight?” Ben interrupted. “I don’t recall your saying ‘eight’ before.” Earth Angel might simply wash her face with soap and water, but it appeared she got elaborate when it came to words.

      She smiled demurely. “You’re right. It was actually ten….”

      And she was off and running again. Quite the storyteller. But rather than correct her, Ben leaned back in his chair. He’d wait until she wound down—after all, he had a receipt.

      From behind his desk this morning, he’d have thought she wore makeup. This close, he saw the most she wore was a dab of lipstick. Her lashes, thick and dark, complemented her mink-brown hair and hazel eyes. And beneath that pug nose were lips that naturally puckered, as though ready for a kiss. Reminded him of his favorite Manet oil, Portrait of a Woman. A painting of an alluring, dark-haired woman with luscious lips poised for a smile…or a kiss.

      Amazing. Rosie’s lips kept their delicious shape even when she talked, which at this moment she was doing at quite a clip. He imagined how those lips would feel against his. Pliant, soft. She’d taste sweet and hot, like sugar and coffee….

      “Mr. Taylor?” Even through Mr. Potter’s thick lenses, Ben caught a beady-eyed look that was half confused, half annoyed. It reminded Ben of the innumerable times in school he’d been caught fantasizing about some girl, the teacher looking at him in much the same way as Mr. Potter was now. And Ben would have to rapidly piece together whatever the heck was under discussion—or simply wing it. Fortunately, he was brilliant at winging it. No wonder he ended up a lawyer.

      And considering his appreciation of women’s beauty, no wonder he ended up on Venus.

      “Mr. Taylor?” Mr. Potter was looking more and more confused. “Is that true? You stole her parking space?”

      Her parking space? She’d obviously done an outstanding job presenting her side of the argument. “My space,” Ben corrected. “I rented it yesterday and have the receipt with me.” He fished in his pants pocket, feeling mildly idiotic that he’d let a pair of lips sidetrack him from the topic under discussion. “Here it is,” he said, trying to sound extraordinarily professional as he handed over the slip of paper.

      Mr. Potter read it, nodded to himself, then gave that confused look to Rosie. “C1001. That’s the space we’re talking about…and it clearly says right here that it’s Mr. Taylor’s space.”

      Her face flushed. “That’s impossible.” She tapped her loafered foot against the floor. “Could you please look up my transaction from yesterday? I left my receipt at home.”

      Mr. Potter swiveled, typed something on his keyboard, then scrutinized the computer screen. He made a tuneless humming sound, probably one of his side effects from listening to Muzak all day long. “Well, well,” he finally said in a surprised tone. “Looks as though you were also rented C1001.”

      “The space next to the stairs in the back of the building,” Rosie clarified.

      “The same.” Mr. Potter leaned a little closer to the computer screen as though his eyeglasses couldn’t be trusted one hundred percent. “Yes, you were definitely rented C1001.” He leaned back and blinked at the two of them. “Appears my office assistant rented the same space to both of you.”

      “Isn’t that illegal?” Rosie shot a meaningful glance at Ben as though it were time for him to metamorphose into Super Lawyer. Interesting how she expected him to jump to her defense after trying to put him on the defensive.

      But he also liked her needing him. Had always liked it when an attractive woman needed him. He’d never leave Venus if he didn’t come to his senses. “Perhaps,” Ben said, “it should belong to whoever paid for it first.”

      Mr. Potter stuck out his bottom lip, thought for a moment, then shook his head no. “Sometimes my assistant will go into a file and add missing information, which changes its time stamp.”

      “Meaning, the time stamp on a file doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual time of transaction,” Ben said.

      “Yes, yes. Correct.” Mr. Potter typed something on his keyboard, after which the screen blipped to gray. “I am sorry. This is clearly our error. Unfortunately, there are no other available spaces to rent at this time.”

      “You need to fix this,” Rosie said, scooting forward to the edge of her seat.

      Mr. Potter steepled his fingers again. After a moment’s reflection, he said, “I’m not Judge Judy. I can’t just say one of you is right, the other wrong. Someone needs to back out of the space, so to speak.”

      “I think Mr. Taylor should back out,” Rosie suggested.

      Ben, still taken aback at the Judge Judy reference, gave her a belated double take. “Why?”

      “Because I need that space. It ensures that I’m on time.”

      “So if your car were parked in that space, you would have been on time to this meeting?”

      She huffed something unintelligible. “In the mornings it helps me get into work on time. You own your business, so you can come and go as you please. I, on the other hand, must be to work by a certain time, so I need to park close to my office.”

      This mumbo jumbo logic was rubbing him all the wrong way, reminding him of variations of every conversation he’d had with his exes, even before they were exes. Good ol’ reliable, dependable Ben should give or abstain or forgo so the woman could have whatever she needed—or thought she needed. Well, he was tired of being the caretaker for planet Venus, which now had a new member, a Miss Rosie Myers.

      “I also require that space, for both myself and my clients. Do you have clients?” She opened those luscious lips to say something, but Ben kept talking. “My clients get irritated if they can’t park nearby. And if I lose my clients, I lose my business. So if that space means either you’ll be on time for work or I lose my business, I should retain the space.” He folded his arms for effect.

      She did the same. They stared each other down. If Ben wasn’t so peeved at her bullheadedness, he would have found it amusing that they were both folding their arms while sitting in folding chairs. But he kept his mouth shut and calmly met her furious stare.

      Without breaking eye contact with Ben, Rosie said evenly, “Mr. Potter, you’re going to have to be Judge Judy. Make a choice.”

      With a weary sigh, Mr. Potter stood