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She knew from experience with a zillion photos that sometimes it was difficult to recognize a real person from a camera shot. Other times, you knew immediately. Or, at least you knew as soon as you paid attention to the person’s face instead of his shapely butt.
Mary had a sinking feeling this was one of those latter times. She did recognize that face. She was sure of it. But this was the last moment in the world she’d choose to be staring up at that face. She needed to be wearing a power suit, not …
For a minute, she wondered whether Guinevere had engineered this meeting, knowing how much Marywantedit,neededit.No,ofcoursenot.Besides, Guinevere was too kind to have made Mary’s wish come true in this excruciating a fashion.
She needed her clown suit, or any of the other disguises she’d used to try to get past the guardian barringthewayintohisoffice.Sheneededclothesof any kind, and the more they covered up the better. Failing that, she needed to clutch her coat more tightly around her and gather whatever shattered wits she could.
“You’re — ” she croaked. She cleared her throat. “You’re — ” Her stupid throat still wasn’t clear enough to get out a single intelligible word.
Finally, though, practice took over, and her reporter hat settled onto her head, firmly enough to trump her attire, or lack of attire, which he couldn’t see under her coat anyway. Right?
“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m Francis Van Deventer. Now, if you’ll help me get our dogs under control, we’ll be on our — ”
Fully recovered, Mary interrupted him. “Your friends call you Van.” She beamed up at him. “I’ll call you Van.”
“Let’s just be on — ”
“Oh, but our dogs are becoming such good friends. Look at them. We could — ”
“ — our way. I want to get walking this dog over with.”
Mary zeroed in on the generous — cute! — curve of his lower lip. She’d bet he didn’t like letting the world see that curve. Sure enough, in the very next moment, he clamped his mouth so tightly closed she couldn’t spot the voluptuous lip any more.
Such secrets made him all the more appealing. Unknown to anyone who didn’t look closely enough, he was that utterly delicious thing: a man made to be mussed. She could have so much fun coaxing and teasing the start of a smile on those lips. They’d smooth and soften and move in for a killer of a kiss.
No, no. Never mind that. She had the great man right here, with nary an executive assistant in sight. Mary could ask him —
“Ma’am, control your dog.”
Huh? Oh, yeah. The dogs. And now he’d had to tell her twice about making Guinevere behave. He was addling her brain. “Yes, your dog is getting tangled up with mine.”
Mr. Van Deventer the Fifth glared down at her. “Don’t call this dog my dog. I wouldn’t have a dog. I don’t want a dog. He’s my aunt’s dog.”
Uh-oh. He sounded grumpy. Even the set of his lovely, broad, solid shoulders looked grumpy. This wasn’t in the script she wanted to ad lib. That called for a happy, cooperative Francis Van Deventer.
Mary tried to gather in her leash, but the Basset Hound snagged it as he darted between her legs, around and straight onward to sniff Guinevere at a better angle.
“So, Van, help me get untangled here.”
“You can call me Mr. Van Deventer. Let’s just take charge of these dogs, shall we?”
Mary found it difficult to pay much attention to his question, not that it really was a question anyway, but it was just as well if she didn’t pay any attention to the non-question either. She’d be too annoyed to butter the guy up.
Besides, she had all she could handle with Guinevere, who wasn’t in a mood to cooperate in straightening out this pickle. Her vast, lumbering enthusiasm carried her into a nose-quivering lunge toward her new love interest’s nether regions.
Guinevere’s giant muzzle couldn’t fit between the stubby-legged Basset Hound’s belly and the ground at the angle she was approaching him from. She half lifted him onto her nose in her attempts to accomplish a proper sniff.
“Guinevere, be careful!” Where was the dog’s leash in all this mess? Mary maneuvered around in a dance with Van and the dogs that would have been amusing if — no ifs. It was funny anyway.
Snapping at Guinevere to be careful might not have been the best idea, though.
The Saint Bernard, true to her nature, wanted to find out what she might have done wrong and apologize. She lifted her massive head to focus woeful eyes on her mistress. The Basset Hound, now splayed across Guinevere’s generous nose, rose into the air, looking more surprised — and idiotically pleased — than Mary had ever imagined a Basset Hound could look.
“Now look here, lady — ”
“I’m sure Guinevere won’t hurt — ”
“She’s a lot bigger than he is.”
