Surprise Package

“Surprise Package”

By

Shirl Henke

Previously published by Leisure Books

Copyright 2000 by Shirl Henke

All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means without the written permission of the publisher.

Acknowledgement

The events and characters herein are fictional except for Kathryn Falk, and Carol Stacy from ROMANTIC TIMES. When I asked them if I could insert them in my story as characters playing themselves, they laughed and said, "Go for it!" My sincerest thanks to two of the best sports and smartest gals I've even met.

Other electronic works by Shirl Henke:

* * * *

A FIRE IN THE BLOOD

* * * *

“Billie Jo and the Valentine Crow”

* * * *

BROKEN VOWS

* * * *

McCRORY'S LADY

* * * *

The Blackthorne Trilogy:

LOVE A REBEL…LOVE A ROGUE

WICKED ANGEL

WANTON ANGEL

* * * *

House of Torres Books:

PARADISE & MORE

RETURN TO PARADISE

* * * *

The Cheyenne Books:

SUNDANCER

THE ENDLESS SKY

CAPTURE THE SUN

* * * *

The Texas Trilogy:

CACTUS FLOWER

MOON FLOWER

NIGHT FLOWER

Chapter One

      
“Someday my prince
will
come,” Gilly Newsom muttered fiercely. “If nothing else, he can rescue me from the five-twenty rat race.”

      
Her companion, also elbowing her way through the rush-hour crowds thronging the subway platform, grinned good-naturedly. “Romance is still alive in your cynic's heart, then?” Charis Lawrence asked.

      
“Not really. Look around you, girlfriend. Most people are toting bags of holiday goodies, while I'm lugging twenty pounds of manuscript—three of the mere two dozen I'm currently assigned.”

      
“Stop whining. Look at it this way—no need to go to the gym,” Charis said, patting her briefcase full of marketing reports. “Besides, it's called paying our dues in New York publishing.”

      
“Easy for you to say when you're going home to Bill, not a cold, empty flat in Yonkers. I don't even have a dog, for Pete's sake. You have William Channing Lawrence, Esquire.”

      
A dreamy look came over Charis' pert, pretty face. “True, Bill is very special, but someday there'll be a guy just as great waiting for you. Well, maybe not quite as great—nobody could be.”

      
“You wouldn't be just the least bit prejudiced in the matter, would you?” Gilly teased. Charis had always been able to lighten her mood, ever since they met back at Oberlin College nearly nine years earlier. They'd quickly become best friends as well as roommates in spite of the fact that they came from such diverse backgrounds. Charis' family was upstate New York old money, while Gilly's folks were rust-belt Ohio blue collar.

      
The subway car—already packed, as usual—pulled into the station, and both women shoved inside with the negligent ease of seasoned New Yorkers. “At least it's semi-warm in here, with all the bodies doing the ‘subway sandwich.’ The temp may be twenty-two degrees, but the wind chill makes it every bit as cold as northeast Ohio,” Gilly groused. “I could use this time to edit.”

      
“Oh, yeah. I know you're just dying to get back to Gwendolyn Gleeson's Spanish-American War opus,” Charis said, rolling her eyes as she held fast to a subway strap when the car started up with a lurch.

      
“God save me from first-book authors like her. That manuscript is filled with almost as many historical errors as it is with purple—no, fuchsia—prose,” Gilly replied, shuddering.

      
“Just because she had the hero going to Washington to consult with the Defense Department and the Pentagon in 1898? Picky, picky.”

      
“That one was easy. I just substituted War Department and let it go. But when I came to her description of the heroine's breasts as ‘a milky sea of white velvet topped with wild rosebuds,’ I wanted to write in the margin, ‘It sounds as if you're confusing a window display at Bloomingdale's with an ad for the Dairy Council.’ ”

      
Charis whooped with laughter. “Almost had you ripping
your
bodice with frustration, huh?”

      
Now, it was Gilly's turn to roll her eyes. “I suggested that the phrase was a mixed metaphor, that she'd be better off with something a bit less flowery, like ‘ivory with pale pink nipples.’ ”

      
“You're following sound editorial dictum—leave as much rewrite as possible to the author's discretion.”

      
“Frustrated writers make lousy editors; that's for sure,” Gilly agreed. “If only I could enjoy my job as much as you do yours.”

      
“You're the one who wanted to be an English major,” Charis reminded her.

      
“I still love to read, and I'm a darn good editor—”

      
“Just underemployed.” Charis had heard this lament before. While she loved her job as assistant director of marketing at a small paperback genre fiction publisher, Gilly was frustrated with hers as an assistant editor. She ached to be in the big leagues, to work for a prestige hardcover house editing literary fiction. “I know it's hard for a Phi Beta Kappa who graduated summa cum laude from Oberlin to edit historical romances, but this is just a stepping-stone for you.”

      
“More like I'm the stone. Honestly, Charis, I've had nearly five years of hearts and flowers. I want a real job.”

      
“What you want is a real hero. A man to bring some romance into your life, so you can believe in it again.”

      
“If I ever did.” Gilly had seen enough of men like her father, Whalen Newsom, even before her one time love Frank Blane delivered the final blow to her girlish dreams.

      
“Next month is Christmas, and you're thinking of Frank again, aren't you?”

      
“Frank was a loser. I'm much better off without him.” Gilly repeated the mantra.

      
“You've got that right. Imagine having both a wife over in Jersey and a kid with his girlfriend here in Midtown. You were lucky to find out when you did.”

      
“Yeah. Almost as lucky as I was when Brian Schwin dumped me to marry that cheerleader our senior year at Oberlin. Let's face it, Charis; I'm just not cut out for happily ever after, which is probably why I dislike editing romance so much. Forget the heroes; I’ll settle for a brilliant career in publishing.”

      
“Now all we have to do is figure a way to get Farrar, Straus & Giroux to hire you,” Charis replied, tapping one well-manicured nail against her cheek.

      
“Wouldn't that be sweet?” Gilly said, swaying as the subway began to slow. A staticky voice announced, “Forty-Second Street,” and she gasped, “What was I thinking? This is my stop!”

      
Charis gave a puzzled look. “You live all the way up in Yonkers.”

      
Already working her way toward the opening doors, Gilly called over her shoulder, “The library won't have late hours again until next Monday, and I have to check that reference book on the Spanish-American War they're holding for me or it'll vanish into the abyss again! See ya tomorrow.”

      
Desperation lent strength to her slender five-foot, three-inch frame when she caught the door just as it started to close on her. Escaping its jaws unscathed, she scooted quickly through the crowd, slinging her heavy tote bag over her shoulder. She began climbing the steep stairway to the cold, windy corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street, near where two giant stone lions guarded the entrance to the New York Public Library.

      
Winter had come to the Big Apple early in November this year. The icy slush of midday had once again solidified into diamond-hard shards. Here and there the city snowplows had scraped paths as smooth as greased tinfoil; but lacking ice skates, Gilly opted to walk on the refrozen slush. Like most New Yorkers, she wore sensible shoes while commuting—in this case sturdy Eddie Bauer lace-up boots with rubber grip soles—and left her heels at the office, safely tucked in the bottom drawer of her desk.

      
A sudden gust of wind almost knocked her off her feet as she neared the daunting series of steps up to the library. Clutching her tote like a talisman, Gilly put her head down and walked into the gale, feeling the crunch of ice beneath her boots. Lord, it was cold! Her breath came out in burning white puffs, her lungs seared from the frigid air being forced into them. She would go back to working out at the gym—she would...just as soon as the holiday crush was over and Gwendolyn Gleeson's interminable manuscript went to copyediting!

      
Jeff Brandt did not see the small figure laboring up the steps directly in his path until it was too late. Like her, he'd had his head lowered against the wind, watching the treacherous steps beneath his feet. Then, a small booted foot somehow just appeared in the exact space where his big, sturdy Adidas was coming down. At the precise same instant that he was trying to rearrange his feet, a small woolen bundle smelling faintly of vanilla careened into his belly.

      
“Oomph!” was all he could manage before they went down together. The fact that the unguided missile in his path was female and much smaller than his six-foot, two-inch frame must have registered. He turned them in midair so that she fell on top of him rather than the other way around, the only chivalrous thing to do.

      
When they landed, he was no longer so certain chivalry had been the hot tip. She—or something attached to her person—landed on his gut like a Chuck Norris kick. Then, Jeff became a human bobsled, he and his “rider” rocketing down the steps, his head clunking on every stair.

      
By the time they reached the sidewalk, he couldn't even manage a strangled “umph,” just a low, feeble groan as he stared dumbly at the canvas tote gouging his ribs. Its contents were partially spilled, pages of something or other fluttering against the rubber bands holding them together. Above him, he could hear her voice, soft and breathless, concerned. A nice voice, he decided. Slowly, his eyes focused on her face, pale in the artificial lighting from the street. Wind-kissed pink cheekbones set high over softly plump lips, a small button nose, and wide eyes of some light color he could not discern—blue or green. Slim, delicately shaped eyebrows arched with chagrin.

      
“Oh, I'm so sorry! I ran right into you, practically knocked you down. This stuff is so heavy. I hope I didn't break your ribs or anything,” she babbled breathlessly as she crawled about, frantically scooping chunks of paper back into the tote.

      
To Jeff, this looked about as easy as stuffing cooked spaghetti into a long-neck bottle; but somehow she accomplished it, all the while talking in fast little spurts. His skull pounding, he raised himself up on his elbows, observing her until he had recovered enough wind and presence of mind to say something himself. He considered asking,
What the hell have you got in that bag, lady, an anvil?
But he refrained. She was obviously flustered enough, and he had been raised to be a gentleman...sort of.

      
Gilly tried to conceal her embarrassment. She could tell the tall stranger had deliberately twisted her around so that he took the full force of their fall—a fall she had caused by not watching where she was going. He was nice looking, too, drat the luck. Why did she always mess up at times like this? He had a square jaw and dark, serious eyes, magnified by wire-rimmed glasses, which were now perched catawampus on the end of his straight nose. His features were angular, striking in a scholarly way, offset by shoulder-length black hair that gave him a hippie sort of look. No, make that a university student sort of look. Double drat.
He’s probably younger than me
.

      
“The collision was as much my fault as yours,” he replied. “In this wind, everyone is looking down, trying to breathe without frosting their lungs. Besides”—he grinned—“I'm a lot bigger. A little thing like you couldn't hurt me—although the stairs may have flattened the back of my skull.”

      
He admired the view for another instant, trying to decide if her body was as shapely as he hoped beneath all the layers of winter clothing, then sat up and reached for her hand, helping her to her feet.