Just One Look (3 page)

After she'd backed out and pulled onto the street, she turned the air conditioning on. The blast of cold air felt good on her burning cheeks. How could she have acted like such an idiot?

How could Dr. Penrose, Sylvia's new partner, have turned out to be the one man she'd never wanted to see again? How on earth had Matt gotten from Michigan to Texas? What were the odds of something completely freaky like that happening? Jennifer didn't know the answer to any of those questions and wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

Actually, his presence in Texas was no more surprising than hers. Dallas was one of the largest cities in the United States due in great part to all the refugees from cold country. Still, she'd have thought that the odds of becoming the next Texas Lotto millionaire would have been more easily surmounted than the odds of bumping into her first love again.

She drove erratically, earning the censure of other drivers who displayed their ire with their vehicles' horns. By some miracle, she managed to get herself onto Central Expressway without causing an accident. As usual, the north-south artery was choked with bumper to bumper traffic.

"You'd better get your mind off that debacle back there and on your driving or you'll end up wrapped around a light pole," she said aloud, forcing herself to ease off the accelerator and slow to the posted speed limit. That's all she would need today--an accident that would dent her new Lexus.

Good grief! Of all the things that could have happened today, running into Matt Penrose would never have been on the list. It seemed so surreal that he was here in her city. With any luck, and a couple of glasses of wine, she might be able to erase the embarrassment she felt from the morning. Alva would really get a kick out of the story, but Jennifer would never tell this tale. The cringe factor was too strong.

The incident kept replaying in her mind like a YouTube video stuck on repeat as she drove back to her office. With a sigh of relief, she parked behind the black mirrored building that contained her suite of offices.

Quickly grabbing her suit jacket from the passenger seat and her handbag, she popped the release on the trunk and retrieved her black calfskin briefcase then hurried across to the lobby, anxious for the security of her familiar office.

Crossing the marble-tiled floor, she noticed that the security guard and two men chatting by the revolving door stared at her. In fact, everyone she passed seemed to stop and look.

By the time she stepped out of the elevator, she had begun to think her humiliating experience was written in bold print across her face. She'd never been stared at so much. She could swear that muffled laughter erupted behind her every time she passed someone. What was wrong with everyone?

Maybe it was her hair, she thought. Automatically, her hand went up to smooth the short strands. I must look completely disheveled. There had been no time to comb her flyaway hair into the sedate, nearly severe style she wore. She'd been in too much of a hurry. She'd never realized how many steps it took to reach her office door from the elevator, but finally she crossed its threshold.

"Good morning, Cathy." She tried to smile at her secretary as if today were like any other day. She set her briefcase next to Cathy's desk.

The matronly woman who'd worked for her since Jennifer had established her practice smiled back. "Your mail's on your desk, and I just put a fresh pot of coffee on. Would you like," she broke off and frowned.

Cathy Zelig slid the half-frame reading glasses farther down her nose and looked Jennifer up and down. "Jen, honey, are you aware that your blouse is on wrong side out?"

"What?" Jennifer dropped her jacket and her handbag as she whirled to look at the ornate gold-framed mirror on the wall behind her. "Oh, no!" Her humiliation was complete.

The quiet buzz of the phone intruded. "Dr. Monroe's office." A worried frown marred Cathy's usually cheerful face. "Just a moment and let me see if she has come in yet." Cathy pushed the hold button. "It's Dr. Penrose. His office called once already. Now he's on the line himself."

"No. Oh, no!" Jennifer backed away from the proffered phone. "I'm not in." Shaking her head furiously she grabbed her purse and jacket and started to retreat.

"Jen, is something wrong? I've never seen you like this."

"No. Nothing. I'll be in my office the rest of the afternoon. Except to him. Tell him. . . tell him I had an emergency." She turned, nearly running for her private office.

"But, Jen, what kind of emergency?"

"I don't know. Any kind. A meeting. A house call. I don't care what you say. Make something up." She ignored Cathy's worried clucking and ducked through the heavy walnut door that led to her inner office.

Jennifer sagged against the sturdy panel and closed her eyes. A sigh, more nearly a groan, escaped her compressed lips. Why was that man pursuing her? Couldn't he see she didn't want anything to do with him?

After a minute, she straightened. You're behaving like a child, she scolded herself silently. Get a grip, girl.

Spine stiff, she pushed away from the door and went to the small attached bathroom. She hung her jacket on a clothes hanger and placed it and her purse on the hook behind the door.

Staring into the mirror, she spoke to her reflection. "You acted like a jackass, Jennifer Louise Thornhill Monroe. What must that man think of you?"

Not that she cared what he thought. She'd been crazy in love with him. Puppy love her mother had diagnosed it. But Jennifer, surprisingly mature for her age, had known that it was deeper than that. Matt had talked to her as if she were a person, not a pair of breasts. That was why his betrayal the night of the Christmas dance had hurt so deeply.

Jennifer blinked hard at her reflection and willed the memory away. Seeing herself in the mirror as Cathy and the security guards, and Sylvia Haddad's receptionist had seen her, suddenly struck her as hilarious. The giggle that escaped her reminded her of Nurse Giggles. Where had Sylvia found the young woman? And why didn't she send her back?

One giggle led to another until soon Jennifer was laughing hysterically as she thought of the picture she must have made, clutching the paper gown and scooting away from the earnest Dr. Penrose. And he had seemed earnest, damn his gorgeous blue eyes.

She laughed so hard, she had to sit down on the lid of the toilet while she wiped tears from her eyes. Finally with a deep sigh, she removed the gray silk blouse and righted it.

A few moments later, her reflection showed her familiar studious self, she thought, brushing her straight hair back from her face that had recovered its normal color. She misted it lightly with hair spray.

Within minutes she had her professional manner in place. That was better, she thought. She felt back in control. She studied her reflection from both sides. She looked in control. Gone was the hysteria.

All she needed was a cup of coffee and a sandwich and she'd be just fine, she reassured herself. Hunger might have affected her judgment a little, she reasoned. She'd skipped breakfast since she knew she'd be eating an early lunch with Alva.

Alva! Oh my goodness! She'd completely forgotten about Alva.

Jennifer looked at her watch and groaned. It was an hour past the time she'd agreed to meet her friend. She fished her cell phone from her purse and tried to call Alva, but she got only voice mail. Her office phone buzzed quietly.

"Yes, Cathy?"

"Alva called earlier. I told her then that you must be running late from your doctor's appointment. She said she'd give you a raincheck and that you were picking up the tab as punishment for making her wait."

Jennifer grinned. "If that's the only penance I have to pay then I figure I've gotten off lightly."

Cathy laughed. "Are you okay now, Jen?"

"I will be as soon as I get something to eat. Would you order me a club sandwich from the grill downstairs? And a Coca Cola also please. I think a little icy cold caffeine and sugar is called for."

"What happened this morning?"

"Oh, nothing. I just got tired of waiting," Jennifer said. "Let me know as soon as the food gets here."

"I will. But, Jen, Dr. Penrose sounded very worried. Don't you think you should call him? He left all his phone numbers in case you wanted to reach him after hours."

"I don't think that's necessary, Cathy. Just throw the note away." She hung up and opened the case file on her afternoon appointment, determined not to think about the morning's events any longer.

With any luck, she'd manage to shove this latest incident with Matt Penrose into the dusty corner of her mind where she kept those memories of her awkward adolescence.

Before today, she hadn't laid eyes on him in over fifteen years. Dallas was a big place. There was no reason why she shouldn't go another fifteen years without seeing him again.

Two days later, Jennifer discovered one very good reason why Matt Penrose must have reappeared in her life. In a word, Fate. That was the only explanation, she thought, peeking out from behind a potted palm in a corner of the Michelangelo Ballroom at The Renaissance Hotel. Maybe some mysterious cosmic force thought she needed a little adversity in her life. What other reason could there be for running into Matt here, tonight?

For two days, she'd avoided his calls and tried to put him out of her mind--which was far from easy since he seemed to have specialized in persistence at medical school, she thought.

Jennifer pushed the palm fronds farther apart in order to get a better look at him and the model-thin blonde who stared up at him with rapt attention. Thank goodness he'd been preoccupied with the blonde when Jennifer had caught sight of him only moments ago.

Somehow it wasn't fair, she thought, that she was hiding from him when he was the reason, in a roundabout way, that she had decided, with a little arm-twisting from Alva, to attend this society event. Alva, darn her, had half-convinced Jennifer that she'd have fun tonight.

"Now, Jen," she'd said over the lunch that they'd finally shared today, "you need something like this gala to make you forget your problems."

Jennifer had laid her fork down. "Alva, would you give it a rest? I don't have any problems. Honestly." She hadn't told Alva about Matt. And she wasn't going to. Matt was her little secret.

"Then you're stressed out, or burned out. Which is it? You're the psychologist."

Jennifer crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. "If you're going to keep ragging on me, I'm not going to have lunch with you anymore."

Alva dipped a grilled shrimp into a small crock of clarified butter. How could the woman eat like that and never gain an ounce, Jennifer wondered. Alva popped the shrimp into her mouth and chewed, her laughing brown eyes closing in pleasure. After she'd swallowed she said, "Jen, honey, have you looked in a mirror lately?"

"Sure. About thirty minutes ago when I freshened my lipstick."

"No. I mean, really looked? You look as if a smile would crack your face. You're way too serious. All you talk about is work. All you do is work. When was the last time you got laid?"

"Shhh!" Jennifer looked around. "That's none of your business."

"Maybe not," Alva lowered her voice, "but my point is that you hardly ever have fun any more. You haven't had a date in months. Getting you to have lunch with me almost requires an act of Congress."

"As usual, you're exaggerating." Jennifer squirmed in the bentwood chair.

"Oh, yeah? Well, tell me, Dr. Monroe, what do you plan to do tonight? It's Saturday. Date night for singles. Tell me about your plans for a wild evening."

Jennifer's lips compressed. She stared stonily at her friend.

"Oh, so you've clammed up, huh?" Alva blotted her lips with the pale blue napkin. "Let me guess. You're going to go home and clean your condo. Then take a shower and prepare dinner. Probably a salad or maybe just a bowl of cereal. Then you'll slip into something comfortable like those awful flannel pajamas your mother gave you for Christmas. Nuke a bag of popcorn and curl up on the couch in front of the television set to watch one of those old movies you're so fond of."

"What's wrong with that?" Jennifer asked, uncomfortable at Alva's correct assessment.

"Nothing if it's something you do every now and then, but every Saturday night? And Friday nights. In fact, you do practically the same thing every night of the week."

Jennifer remained silent. What could she say? Alva was right.

"What's the movie tonight, Jen? Let me guess.
It Happened One Night
? No, wait, don't tell me. You're going to cry along to
Casablanca
again. Or maybe something a little more contemporary like that old Christopher Reeve movie
Somewhere in Time
?

Jennifer pushed her plate away. She'd lost her appetite. "It's
Notorious
if you must know."

"Oh, I love that one, too. Cary Grant is too gorgeous for words. He could have jumped my bones any time."

"So if you like it then I've got your permission to watch it?" Jennifer asked sourly.

"No, you do not. Jen, you're letting life pass you by. You've resigned from the battle of the sexes before firing a shot. You need to get in there, mix, mingle, take no prisoners."

"Alva, I'm not you. Men don't bump into lamp posts when they see me walk down the street. You know I don't like the club scene. If that's where I have to go to meet eligible men then I'll pass. Besides, I'm too tired at the end of the day to play the dating game."

"But don't you ever feel the need for some guy in your life? Someone to hold your hand when you walk down the street or to rub your feet at the end of a long day?" She grinned wickedly. "Or some other part of your anatomy?"

"Sure I do."

"So what do you do when that need comes over you?"

"Well, I catch up on the professional journals I haven't read, or I rearrange the furniture. Something. Anything to take my mind off the situation."

"Come on, Jen. Join the human race. Have a little fun. Forget the medical journals. Read a sexy book. Kick up your heels a little."