A Pretend Proposal. Jackie Braun

going. Thank you again for your time.” She nibbled her bottom lip before adding, “I hope we will be able to count Waverly Enterprises among our contributors.”

      He pulled her business card from the folder she’d given him and held it up. “I’ll be in touch with you. I promise.”

      “Terrific.” She should have been relieved, happy. Why, Elizabeth wondered, did she feel apprehensive? No, what she was feeling wasn’t apprehension, but anticipation, an almost foreign sensation where a man was concerned. But then, Thomas Waverly wasn’t a man; he was a potential donor with pockets deep enough to push her cause much closer to its goal.

      Just as she made that determination, he rose from his seat—a little more than six feet worth of perfectly formed and proportioned male. The custom cut of his suit showcased a pair of broad shoulders and a body made up of lean muscle rather than the kind of soft bulk found on a lot of the desk-bound CEOs she’d called on. Not a man? Those words, unuttered though they’d been, taunted her. Oh, he was a man, all right. And every last inch of him was steeped in testosterone.

      The satchel slipped from Elizabeth’s hand and landed on the carpeted floor with a thud. Her fingers had gone as slack as her mouth. She snapped her lips closed as he came around his desk. He was bending to retrieve her case even before she managed to move. And here she’d been hoping to make her exit before she could make herself look foolish.

      “This thing is pretty heavy.” His smile, thank goodness, wasn’t awash in amusement.

      “Thank you.”

      Their fingers brushed in the handoff, and she experienced an unprecedented urge to sigh. Oh, it was definitely time to go. During the past month, she had managed to wrest precious little in the way of donations from the local business community, not sizable ones at any rate. Money continued to trickle in—a little here, a little there—but the well of largesse appeared to have run dry. Literacy Liaisons’s endowment fund campaign not only needed Waverly Enterprises’s support, but it was also desperate for it.

      So, without further hesitation, Elizabeth beat a retreat, mentally kicking herself all the way home.

      Howie greeted her at the front door of her small bungalow with an enthusiastic kiss after nearly knocking her off her feet. Whether she was gone an hour or all day, her golden retriever-slash-Labrador-slash-a-few-other-kinds-of-canine was always happy to see her.

      Ecstatic, in fact. If only every door she opened held such adoration on the other side, her life and her job would be just that much more enjoyable.

      “I missed you, too, boy.”

      She removed his big paws from her chest and stooped to pick up the scattering of envelopes that had been pushed through the door’s mail slot.

      Bill, bill, bill, junk, junk and a reminder that one of her magazine subscriptions was about to run out. The internet made communicating with friends, loved ones and business associates quick and easy, but Elizabeth missed receiving actual letters, even if the only person she really hoped to hear from was the one person who would never write. A person who couldn’t write. Or read.

      Her brother. She hadn’t seen him in more than a decade, though he occasionally called their parents. For all intents and purposes, though, Ross had disappeared.

      Howie’s whining pulled her from the past, reminding her that he needed to go outside and do his business.

      When she opened the door, the dog was out in a flash, a bullet of peaches-and-cream-colored fur that pulled up short just before the sidewalk. Elizabeth had installed an electronic fence to keep him within the boundaries of the yard. As she watched him take off after a squirrel in what had become a ritual game of chase, her cell phone rang.

      She retrieved it from her satchel. “Hello?”

      “Miss Morris?” The deep voice was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

      “Yes.”

      “It’s Thomas Waverly.”

      This was a surprise, so much so that the cell phone nearly fell to the floor, much as her bag had in his office. She bobbled it before managing to return it to her ear. The man had a way of making her uncharacteristically clumsy.

      “Are you there?” he was asking.

      “Yes, sorry. I just wasn’t expecting to hear from you.” She gave her forehead a slap. “So soon that is.”

      Cool, collected and confident—that was what she needed to be. Unfortunately, she sounded flustered and slightly breathless—reactions that someone as handsome as Thomas Waverly probably experienced on a regular basis when it came to women.

      He was saying, “I was wondering if we could meet to discuss … a donation.”

      Had she imagined that slight hesitation? Well, no matter. She would clear her calendar if need be to accommodate someone interested in helping her cause. “Certainly. Just name a time and I’ll be there.”

      “I was thinking tonight. Over dinner.”

      “Dinner. Tonight,” she repeated in surprise, and wanted to smack her forehead again.

      Put together like that, it sounded as if she thought he was asking her out on a date, which, of course, was ridiculous. Thomas Waverly was a busy man. His time was at a premium. More likely he preferred to get this out of the way so that he didn’t have to waste office hours on what, for him at least, amounted to an inconsequential matter. That explanation made sense until a little voice whispered in her head that he needn’t be bothered at all. A man of his stature had plenty of subordinates to take care of such things, including the efficient older woman who’d so kindly asked him to see Elizabeth in the first place earlier that day.

      As if he could read her mind, Thomas said, “I know it’s a little unorthodox, meeting over dinner, but I have something I’d like to discuss with you. An opportunity that is …” He paused again, just long enough to have Elizabeth holding her breath. “Well, in itself, rather unorthodox.”

      “Oh?” Color her intrigued. Before she could respond further, however, her dog sent up a booming howl of protest as the squirrel he’d been chasing perched on the lowest branch of the front yard’s big oak and chattered noisily down at him.

      “Howie!” she yelled.

      Even though she’d moved the phone away from her mouth, she heard Thomas say, “I apologize. You have company. I should have realized.”

      Elizabeth nearly laughed out loud at the statement. Did he think she was entertaining a man? More like man’s best friend. Sadly, no males of the two-legged variety had darkened her door in several months.

      “Not how you mean,” she told him, even though she found her dog to be excellent company. She’d rescued Howie from the local pound nearly two years earlier. He’d been on death row, though the pound didn’t actually call it that. Still, his fate had been determined, his date with a needle full of sleepy juice scheduled. His crime? Few people wanted a nearly three-year-old, seventy-five-pound pooch who could be every bit as stubborn as he was affectionate. “Howie’s my dog. He’s chasing a squirrel.”

      “A futile endeavor, I take it.” There was a smile in Thomas’s voice.

      A fellow dog person? That made him even more appealing in her book.

      “Very, which is why he’s barking loud enough to wake the dead.” She held the phone away from her and covered the mouthpiece long enough to holler the dog’s name a second time.

      Mrs. Hildabrand, her neighbor from across the street, would be on her front porch any minute to warn Elizabeth that the police would be on the way if Howie didn’t quiet down. The elderly woman already had called the authorities twice in the past month with noise complaints. The officers the department sent out had been kind and even understanding. But Elizabeth couldn’t afford to press her luck. Thankfully, this time Howie obeyed her command to cease and desist. He trotted to the porch and then through the door she’d opened for him,